The dwarf turned to glare at the kender, but Chess was already heading off to look at more lumps.
Chane growled, and the growl became a sigh. I don't want to be here, he told himself. I don't want to look at this. And yet, he went on, from mound to mound in the field of frozen death, peering here, kneeling there for a better view within the ice, searching. And through it all he felt the faint tingling of the little red spot on his forehead – the mark of the red moon – driving him on.
None who were on this field when those spells were cast ever left here,
Chane thought glumly. They're here still. Yet, according to the old stories, Grallen did not die in this place. The son of King Duncan died in this ancient war, but not here. Somewhere else, sometime later. Another battlefield, somewhere. The place where Fistandantilus cast his last and greatest spell, they said. Chane tried to remember all he had heard of the old legends. Where had that final battle been? He wasn't sure… except that it was somewhere other than here. East of here, he seemed to recall.
A place called Skullcap.
Grallen, warrior prince of the Hylar, who had learned a secret in his final hours, had learned of a secret way into Thorbardin, too late to find and defend it.
Had Grallen been here, then?
The red spot on Chane's forehead tingled. Yes, he felt, Grallen had been here… and gone on. But to where?
Again in his mind he saw the image, of a face not unlike his own, the face that the dream – or the red moon had shown him. Grallen, son of
Duncan. Chane's own ancestor. Could that be true?
Everywhere, ice. Ice whose convoluted shapes contained dwarves frozen in combat. In some of them, the frozen shapes struggled amid dark swirls of smoke that were kept as still as they were. What kind of mage had he been, this Fistandantilus? What kind of sorcery had availed him, that he could have done this? Yet, the legends said, what he had done later was far worse.
The kender skipped past again, as happy as a child with a roomful of new toys. "See anybody you know?" he asked Chane. "Wonder what they were fighting about…" He hurried on, toward a new mound that he hadn't yet explored. Then he paused, thoughtfully, and turned back. "Have you thought about taking that hammer and breaking some of them out of the ice? I mean, just to see if they'd go on fighting?"
Chane rounded on him, furious. "I wish you'd just shut up! You might at least show a little respect."
"Then don't break them out." The kender shrugged. "It was just a thought, anyway." He went on his way.
"That kender would rob a graveyard and not think twice about it," the dwarf muttered. Still, the question was intriguing. Were they really dead in there? Or were they only suspended? He thought about it and decided he didn't want to know.
Chane went on, searching this way and that, not sure what he was looking for except that the tingle on his forehead became more pronounced as he worked his way eastward. Something here, it suggested, would tell him where Grallen had gone all those long years ago.
As he knelt beside another clustered mound – inside, dwarves with pikes held their ground against dwarves with swords and axes – the kender appeared again from somewhere and stopped beside him. "Find anything yet?"
Chess asked.
"More of the same. I don't know what I'm supposed to find. I almost wish that wizard had stayed around. Maybe he would have had an idea."
"If he had, it seems like he'd have mentioned it."
"Did he say anything about where he was going!"
"Up on a mountain. Said he couldn't see down here. He didn't say which mountain, though." The kender shaded his eyes, gazing into the distance.
"What do you suppose that is?"
Chane looked up, saw where the kender was pointing, and gazed in that direction. "I don't see anything."
"I don't either, now. But I thought I saw a big white bird." Chess squinted, then cocked his head. "There it is again. See? Way off there to the north. I wonder what that is."
Chane saw it too, then – a white, winged shape gliding over the forest, miles away. It looked vaguely like a giant seagull. "I don't know," he said. "But whatever it is, it's not what I'm looking for." He stood, glanced around, then headed east again, toward a very large mound of ice some distance away from any others.
Chess watched the distant white thing for a few minutes, then tired of that. He couldn't tell what it was, and it didn't show any sign of coming close enough for a better look. He climbed one of the mounds – beneath his feet, vague dwarf-shapes did perpetual, motionless battle – and looked around. "Now what?" he wondered.
"Go west," something voiceless seemed to say.
"I wasn't talking to you, Zap," Chess scolded. "I was talking to myself.
Besides, the only reason you want me to go west is to get far enough from that Spellbinder thing the dwarf has so that you can happen. Right?"
"Right," something mournful agreed.
"I've been west, anyway," Chess added.
"Woe," Zap grieved.
"I wish that dwarf would find what he's looking for," the kender muttered. "I'm ready to go see something new." He started down from the ice-mound, then ducked as a huge shadow swept over him. Clinging to the ice, he looked up. The white thing was no longer far away. It was directly overhead now, spiraling downward, slanted wings carrying it in great descending circles as it came lower and lower. Fifty feet up it leveled out, seemed to stall, then crept toward him and hovered just overhead. A head appeared alongside one wing, and a voice floated down. "Hey! Are you from around here?"
"Of course not!" Chess called back. "I'm just visiting. What is that thing?"
"It's my soarwagon. It still needs a little design modification but I'm working on it. Right now, though, I'm looking for cats. Have you seen any cats?"
"Not lately," the kender admitted. '"There were some dandies around here when I first got here, but they've all gone now. Are you going to come down?"
"I can't." The flier shook his head. "Ground effect, I think. Do you have any foods"
"A little. Dried meat and flatbread. Why?"
"How about raisins? Do you have raisins?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, whatever you have will just have to do," the flier called. A rope began to descend from the white thing, with a small basket tied to its end. "How about sending some up?"
Chess dug around in his pack. There were all sorts of things in it, mostly just odds and ends he had picked up, and in most cases he didn't recall where or why. The kender found dried meat and a few flatbreads he had picked up in the Irda's hut. The basket descended on its rope, and when he could reach it Chess deposited some of what he had in it. The food was hauled upward.
"Why are you looking for cats?" Chess called.
"Some people wanted to know about them. Man called Wingover. He's sure this valley is full of cats, so I came to see. I haven't found any."
"They're the Irda's cats. She went away, and I guess they went with her.
You're a gnome, aren't you?"
"I am. Bobbin's the name."
"I'm Chestal Thicketsway. Do you know anything about old gnomish engines? Like siege engines from ages back? There are several of those off that direction, but I couldn't tell much about them."
"Neither can I," Bobbin said. "I'm insane."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Not your fault. Another thing that Wingover and his bunch asked about was a dwarf. Any dwarves around here?"
"Hundreds," Chess waved his arms around him.