"I have my own reasons," the wizard said.
"That's not good enough," Wingover growled. "If I'm to face danger with someone, I want to know why he is there."
Chane Feldstone rubbed his whiskers. "That sounds like a fair question to me," he noted. Wide-set dwarven eyes studied the wizard. "What's in it for you, anyway?" Glenshadow sighed and slumped, leaning on his staff.
"A long time ago," he said slowly, "there was a renegade mage. A wizard of the black who rejected the robes and the order. Three of us went in search of him. One of each order. We went to find him, to… deal with him."
"Deal with him?" Jilian raised a pert brow. "What does that mean?"
"A rogue mage cannot be tolerated," Glenshadow said.
"He must be persuaded to return to one of the orders… or he must be eliminated. We tried to persuade him." He paused, staring off into the distance. "We tried. And of the three who went out, only I came back.
Caliban's powers were greater than we had known."
Glenshadow paused again, then added, "Caliban died in the conflict, as well. And yet, somehow Caliban still lives. I have set myself the task of completing what I thought was through back then. Caliban lives, and he is with those who oppose Chane Feldstone and his quest. I seek Caliban."
Wingover looked at the mage with hooded eyes. "To kill him I"
"If I can."
Sunlight lingered on the peaks when the group came down through a meandering pass and looked out across the Vale of Respite. In the distance, smoke trailed above two burned-out villages – no longer the smoke of destruction, but now the smoke of cookfires where an army rested, occupying what had been a peaceful valley. Chane stepped into the lead, raised a hand to halt the column, and gazed into the distance. His hand closed around the pulsing crystal in his pack. For a time he simply stood there, the high-mountain wind ruffling his beard. Then he turned away, and the others gathered around him. "Grallen's path leads east," he said. "On and on… through the valley, and up the mountains beyond. I had hoped it
– wherever I have to go – would be closer."
"Toward Skullcap," Wingover said. "I thought as much."
Chane gasped. 'You know where Grallen went?
"I've heard the stories," the man said. "From Rogar Goldbuckle, and others. Grallen died at Shaman, or somewhere nearby. It's called Skullcap, now. That would be roughly northeast from here." He turned to see the last of sunlight above the peaks to the west, then turned back. "Point where it goes, this green trail of yours."
Chane pointed, due east across the valley.
"Well, that doesn't tell us much," Wingover sighed.
"There's an easy path through the mountains over there.
But it's farther north. Where you're pointing – that highest peak off there, that's called Sky's End. My map doesn't show a trail there."
"I can only see what the stone shows me," Chane admitted. "We'll have to cross over, and look from there."
"Easy enough to say," Wingover snorted. "Just cross over. Of course, there's a little matter of several hundred goblins and some ogres between here and there. Do you have any ideas on that score?"
"We have the element of surprise," Chane suggested uncertainly.
"That's the ticket," Chess said. "We'll slip up on them and catch them off guard."
"That seems like a lot of goblins for us to attack," Jilian pointed out.
"Maybe it would be better if we just went around them."
"If we can figure out where 'around them' is,"
Wingover noted. He turned to the wizard. "Don't you have powers that might help us out?"
"Not here," Glenshadow said. "Not in the presence of Spellbinder. Here I have only my eyes."
"Your magic doesn't work at all?" Wingover asked.
"It might or might not. And if it did, it would be unreliable."
"A little invisibility might come in handy," the kender said. "I saw a lot of invisibility at Hylo the time the bird came from… well, I didn't see it, exactly. What I did was not see it. That's what invisibility does."
"I wish we had the gnome here now," Wingover said.
"I wonder where he is."
"Right here," a voice came from aloft. Wingover stared up at the flying contraption, barely ten feet overhead.
"It's me," the gnome said. "Bobbin. Do you remember?"
"Of course I remember! Where have you been?"
"I'm not quite sure. Somewhere northwest, I think.
Where are you going?"
"Across that valley," Wingover shouted. "I'd like for you to scout for us."
"All right, if that's what you want. But I don't think it's such a good idea to go across there. There are surly people all over the place. Look here." He tossed something over the side of the basket. It rang against stone, and Chane picked it up. It was a bronze dart.
"Somebody shot me in the hub with that thing," Bobbin griped. "Would have cost me a wheel, if I still had my wheels."
Wingover blinked, realizing for the first time that the flying craft no longer had its delicate silver-wire wheels.
"What did you do with your wheels?"
"While I was in the northwest, I found some people -elves, I think – with raisins. I traded them my wheels for a half-bushel of raisins. Fat lot of good wheels do me up here, anyway."
"Take a look at this," Chane handed the goblin-dart to Wingover.
The man looked at the object closely. It was a slim bolt, about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp head and airfoils of shaved wood. Darts were a favorite weapon of goblins, and they often fired them from short, stiff crossbows. Wingover started to shrug, then looked more closely.
"This isn't sand-cast," he said. "It looks as though it has been forged, or turned on a wheel." He handed the dart to Glenshadow.
"Not goblin work," the wizard judged.
"Well, it was a goblin that flung it at me," Bobbin called down.
"I'd like to see a few more of these," Chane said. "If I could compare some of them, I'd know whether they were forge-turned or ground on a cold lathe." Chestal Thicketsway snapped his fingers and opened his large pack.
"Like these?" He drew out two more goblin-bolts.
"Where did you get those?"
"The other night, when I was flying with Bobbin, these came along. I'd forgotten that I had them." He dug deeper into his pack, lifting out various other things one by one, to look at them. "I have some pretty good stuff in here. I should check it more often."
"Lathe-turned," Chane Feldstone pronounced, comparing the darts. "No goblin ever made these. I wonder who did."
"Somebody whose purpose was to turn out a lot of them in a hurry,"
Wingover said.
"Somebody equipping an army?" Chane asked.
"Somebody who isn't a goblin, outfitting goblins? That's crazy,"
Wingover scoffed.
Chane shook his head. "No crazier than the idea of a human – a human female – being in command of a goblin force."
"Speaking of females," Wingover said as he looked around, "where's
Jilian?"
Chapter 20
Jilian was tired and cold. Wtile the others discussed plans and situations, she wandered about the area, looking for a place to rest out of the wind. The pass here was a snow-dusted trough between rising peaks, with little cover from the wind's biting teeth. Not far away, though, an outcropping had sheared away in some bygone age, forming a mazelike rockfall where slabs of stone lay against one another and dark crevices beckoned.