"Grod, help Ripple!" he shouted, but the gully dwarf, spinning to locate the kender in the melee, spotted another figure. Draaddis Vulter was raising his hand to throw another spell at the white-robed wizard.
"No like ice!" Grod said and slung his blanket at the wizard. The heavy, wet covering fell over the wizard's face and head and caused the human to stagger. As Draaddis Vulter tried to keep his balance his feet carried him backward a few steps. With the blanket over his head he staggered too close to Ripple for the gully dwarves' peace.
"Leave Pretty Kender alone!" Umpth shouted and used his most powerful weapon. He threw the wheel. It struck Draaddis in the middle of his back and stumbled toward Halmarain.
At just that moment the little wizard raised her eyes and saw the blanket-shrouded figure hurtling toward her. The tone she had been holding rose in terror.
A glow rose from the gate stone and formed half an arc in the air. Suddenly a void formed right beside her. A searing hot wind blew into the chamber and extinguished all the light.
Chapter 37
In the darkness Trap heard a roar he recognized. A human voice cried out in surprise and alarm. A hot wind blew through the chamber, and he jumped back as he felt the touch of a giant clawed hand. It passed him by and a bugbear gave a scream of terror. Two other howls of fear and pain followed as the kender pressed himself against the wall.
Beglug suddenly gave a gurgling, delighted cry. After Beglug's outburst, several seconds of quiet followed when all they could hear was the sound of the hot wind blowing in the passage. Then the wind stopped. Moments later the dark chamber was dimly illuminated by the light from three wizard's staves. The smallest light, Halmarain's, was barely an inch off the floor. She lay sprawled on her stomach, hardly daring to raise her head.
The second belonged to Chalmis, and the third to a red-robed wizard who had disappeared weeks before. He looked thin and tired.
Trap recognized Orander, noticed the wizard's weakened condition, and hurried forward to pick up an overturned stool that lay next to a broken table. He placed the stool so the wizard could rest.
"You're Orander, and we've been searching for you. Well, not really for you, but for a wizard that could help get you back because Halmarain said you would give us some magic if we helped, and even if she does say it was my fault you went through the wrong door, I do think-"
"Master Orander!" Halmarain rose to a sitting position and stared up at her teacher with tears streaming down her face. "You're alive! I didn't dare hope, " she sobbed. "We tried to get to you before-"
"Time must not be the same over there, " Chalmis said to the new arrival, ignoring the outbursts of his visitors.
"If it had been I would not have survived, " Orander said weakly when he learned he had been absent from Krynn for weeks. "Since I had one of the stones, I could follow Halmarain's progress, though the distance wasn't the same either, I suppose. I was constantly followed by the merch-esti. What it wanted, I do not know… " He frowned as he watched his student. "Girl, what's the matter?"
Halmarain had been twisting as if to work out a cramp, and massaging her shoulder.
"It's nothing now that you're back, " she said. "In the darkness someone knocked me down and stepped on me. Draaddis Vulter! He was staggering toward me when the portal opened. "
"He went through to Vasmarg, " Trap said, awed. He looked around. The black-robed wizard had disappeared along with the battling stone golems. The surviving humanoids were backing away toward the entrance to the wizard's workroom. They fled with the dwarves urging them on.
The two gully dwarves eyed the chatting wizards and walked over to Ripple.
"Eat now?" Grod asked as if the battle between the dwarves, kender, and goblins, the test of magic between wizards, and the opening of a portal to another plane had only been an interruption of more important matters.
Halmarain turned to gaze at the two gully dwarves and took a reluctant leave of her master. She suggested they finish preparing a meal, sure her mentor could use the nourishment.
By the time Ripple and Halmarain were ready to ladle out the pudding, the six Neidar were back, their axes bloody, but they reported they had chased the few remaining bugbears down the side of the mountain. None of the smaller goblins had survived.
By noon of the next day, the wizards were deep in conversation again, examining the gate stones and discussing them. The dwarves had set out to explore the deep caverns of Digondamaar. The kender had fingered everything in sight and no one, not even Trap and Ripple, realized their pouches were heavier than when they entered the dwarf caverns.
They had just finished exploring all the chambers Chalmis had lit when the two gully dwarves joined them.
"Red wizards 'porting back their This Place, " Grod informed them. Even if he didn't get the word right he understood Orander and Halmarain would be traveling by magic. "We go find good us This Place now? Kender help?"
"We did promise them, " Ripple reminded her brother. "I'd bet they would like Solanthus, and I didn't get to see it at all. "
Bored since they had fingered everything in sight, the two kender and two gully dwarves took their leave late in the afternoon and strolled down the mountainside to find the ponies.
"Master Orander and Master Chalmis are nice wizards, " Ripple said, pulling out the ring she had taken from Orander's chest. The red-robed wizard had been so grateful for the kender's help that he had given them the rings. Orander had been too weak to do more than make the gift. Chalmis had reinforced the magic in the rings.
"Master Chalmis added to the magic in mine too, " Trap said, reaching into his pouch to pull them out. His eyebrows rose in surprise as out came the string of disks that made up the dwarf lore map.
"I thought we gave those back to the Neidar, " Ripple said.
"Pretty for Pretty Kender, " Grod said as he stumped along. He reached out to touch Ripple's shining blond curl that hung down her back and bounced as she walked.
"Grod, you mustn't take other people's things, " Trap chided him. "But having it is great! Think of what we can do. Big jiggies, we can visit all sorts of dwarves that never come to visit us. They make wonderful stuff, though some are as cross as Halmarain, but they'd probably enjoy meeting someone new after staying underground so long. "
''That would be fun, " Ripple smiled at her brother. "And we'll return it the next time we come this way, you know how dwarves are about people taking their things. "
"Trapspringer that steal, him dead, " Umpth spoke up.
Grod nodded. "Make good tale, that. Kender tell tale?" He glazed at Trap with such a hopeful look, Ripple urged her brother to give them a story.
"My poor Uncle Trapspringer, " Trap said, his usual way of starting a story. "I don't think he would have fought that strange creature if he had known it was a stone golem… "
Astinus of Palanthus allowed himself a small smile as he wrote…
Deep below the ruins of Pey, a black silk cloth, lavishly decorated in golden runes, covered the black orb. Within her realm the Dark Queen raged. She was aware of Draaddis's passage to the Plane of Vasmarg. She had lost her servant, and with the globe covered, she had no power to see into the world of Krynn.
Two hundred feet above the orb, the wolf woke and stretched. He had slept well. No dreams had tortured his sleep. He didn't know what had caused those terrible nightmares-it might have been someone he ate.
… and that's the tale of my Uncle Trapspringer.