Clout whirled and gawked at the man, blinking in terror. “Wh-what?”
“That.” Clonogh pointed. “It’s mine!”
“This thing?” Clout raised the Fang, peering at it as though he had never seen it before.
“Yes,” Clonogh said. “It’s mine.”
Clout stared at the man a moment longer, then backed away, frightened but stubborn. He had grown to cherish the implement he carried. “This thing my bashin’ tool,” he said. “Not yours.”
“Give it to me!” Clonogh snarled, lunging forward. “That is no ‘bashing tool,’ you little twit!”
Clout dodged aside, ducked into a broken cabinet and peered out. “Is, too,” he quavered. “Good for bashin’ rats. Talls don’ bash rats.”
“I’ll turn you into a rat!” Clonogh said. “My powers are restored. I command magic now!”
“Do?” Clout squinted, not understanding a word of it. The old Tall seemed to be as crazy as a loon, even crazier than old what’s-’is-name, the Highbulp. The gully dwarf’s sullen stubbornness dissolved, replaced by confusion. “How come?” he asked, hoping for a clue to what the human was talking about.
“There was a dragon here,” Clonogh said, easing toward the broken cabinet. “It cast a spell, and I was within its range. It … it resonated me. I am finally complete!”
“Sorry ’bout that,” Clout said, baffled.
“Why in the names of the gods am I trying to explain anything to a gully dwarf?” Clonogh asked himself, sneering. Another step, and he would be able to trap the gully dwarf at the cabinet. If he could just keep the creature distracted for a moment more … “It certainly did,” he said. “I am no longer as I was.”
“Poor Tall!” The gully dwarf’s voice within the cabinet was full of real sympathy “Wish you were.”
Clonogh’s shriek of anguish echoed from the broken tower walls as he felt his newfound powers, all his wonderful, dragon-induced powers, slip away. In an instant the dragon magic was gone. He couldn’t for the life of him remember how to phrase the spells that had contained it. With a wail, he collapsed on the stone floor, and from the stairwell came the tread of hard boots, climbing toward him. He didn’t know which was coming first, Lord Vulpin or Chatara Kral, but whichever it was, the other would be close behind.
“Please,” he wheezed in an ancient voice, rheumy eyes trying to focus on the dull, confused face of the gully dwarf, “Please, reverse that wish.”
“Do what?” Clout sidled from the cabinet, staring at the suddenly-collapsed human on the floor.
“Wish!” Clonogh pleaded. “You pathetic little twit! Why must you be so dense? Please, before my enemies find me like this. Make a wish!”
Clout scratched his head, deep in thought. “Wish? Okay. Bet ladies makin’ stew ’bout now. Wish I had some stew.”
In a realm far away as distances are measured, but very near as they are not, the great one-fanged serpent called Orm raised its evil head, slitted nostrils twitching, forked tongue tasting the air as resonances long awaited touched its senses. There! Just there, only a strike away for one whose plane was not bounded by the sensory dimensions, the creature’s lost fang called-twice! Gigantic muscles tensed. But once again, the resonance was just too brief, just too uncertain for a clear target. The Fang had been used, its magic awakened, but its user’s concentration had lapsed almost before the magic had occurred.
Hissing in frustration, Orm coiled and writhed, clinging to the tenuous sense of target, desperately seeking just one more “sending.” The next time he would be ready. At the next emanation, no matter how slight, he would strike.
In the catacombs beneath Tarmish it was noticed, though only fleetingly, that there was a sudden shortage of Talls. Scrib the Ponderer became aware of their absence when he looked around from his study of runes and didn’t see any humans. It was evident that they had all gone away, just as the dragon had gone away, and to the gully dwarf the departures were equally mysterious.
But then, who knew what humans, or dragons, either, for that matter, were likely to do next?
Anyway, Scrib had more important things to think about. The squiggles on the plaque were more than just random symbols, he realized. Both a dragon and a human had told him so. The symbols actually meant something.
“If you don’t want to remember things,” somebody had said sometime, “then you write them down.”
Squiggles were writing, and writing was remembering. Somehow, to Scrib, that seemed to be an important notion. He wished he knew how to write it down.
Bron the Hero was aware, also, that where there had been humans, now there were none. But he had little time to think about it. Little Pert, having diverted the services of the hero from the human girl to herself, was busy consolidating her victory. It seemed to Bron that everywhere he turned, Pert was there, gazing up at him with wide, loving eyes and giving him orders. Her manner toward him reminded him vaguely of his mother’s manner toward his father, and Bron found himself responding to each suggestion and request with a resigned, “Yes, dear.”
He had a respite when the Lady Lidda and several other females accosted him to relieve him of his shield. They had a fire going, and needed the iron bowl to make stew. When they trooped away, carrying his shield among them, little Pert looked after them for a moment, then turned back to Bron. She patted him fondly on his lightly-bearded cheek, and took his broadsword from his hand. “This good for stir stew,” she said, and followed the other ladies, trailing the heavy sword behind her.
“Yes, dear,” Bron muttered.
“That’n got you wrapped up real good,” a voice said, beside him. He glanced around. Scrib stood there, nodding sympathetically.
“Guess so,” Bron said. “Keep meanin’ to tell her scat, but then I forget.”
“Write it down,” Scrib suggested, sagely.
Old Gandy, the Grand Notioner, noticed that the Talls had gone away, and he sighed with relief, leaning on his mop handle staff. Many times in his long career, he had been in the company of humans for one reason or another. He didn’t remember much about any of those times, but of one thing he was certain, no good ever came of associating with the tall people. They were best forgotten, so Gandy promptly forgot them.
There were always more interesting things than humans, anyway. Even here, in this place that was as unlikely and mysterious as most places were, there were things to think about. The bustling, clinging, wrangling people of his tribe were mostly up a wall now, clambering here and there on the vertiginous surface of the vast cavern’s upper reaches. Every few seconds two or three of them would lose their holds and drop to the floor, but they scrambled right back up. The Highbulp had said to search for shiny rocks, and it was the habit of most gully dwarves to do what their Highbulp told them to do.
High above, almost at the curve where the cavern veered inward toward the great central pillar, they had uncovered a veritable treasure of shiny pyrite imbedded in the stone of the cavern wall, and now they were chipping away at it. Below them the floor was alive with falling, bouncing stones, deluges of gravel and occasional dislocated miners, and the Highbulp stood in the midst of the cascade, shouting orders and dodging debris.
“Highbulp a numbskull,” Gandy muttered.
Nearby, several of the ladies had a concoction of rats, weeds, mushrooms and bits of pollywog beginning to steam in the legendary Great Stew Bowl, which had been Bron’s noble shield until they confiscated it for better use.
At the fire, the Lady Lidda glanced around. “What?”
“Said, ‘Highbulp a numbskull,’ ” Gandy repeated.
“Sure is,” Lidda agreed.
Gandy pointed with his mop handle. A short distance away, it was raining debris. Old Glitch stood in the downpour, ducking this way and that, oblivious to everything except the gleam of pyrite far above. “Hasn’t got sense enough come in out of th’ rocks,” the Grand Notioner explained.