"Taste it," Ursault suggested.
Uncertainty flooded the small face, but the mixture of encouragement and taunting from his friends decided the matter. He took a tentative lick, and his eyes rounded with delight.
"Mazganut cream," the boy announced grandly.
He dodged several grasping hands and darted off, his prize clutched possessively. Two of the boys started to give chase, but abandoned the notion after their first few steps. There was a bigger game to be played, and their faces were smug with anticipation.
Dammet pushed a smaller boy forward-an ungainly lad with an intense but unfocused stare. Dammet flipped a lock of wet black hair off his face and draped an arm around the boy's tensely-hunched shoulders.
"Here's my man Tad," he announced. He leaned down to scoop up more mud, which he slapped into the boy's hand. "You might say he's skittish. If he kept his mind stuck to one idea for more'n a heartbeat, the shock of it would likely kill him. And he can't throw worth goat dung. There ain't no way you could know where this mud ball's gonna hit."
Indeed, the wizard's face furrowed as he contemplated the possibilities. An expression of near panic seeped into his pale eyes.
"Maybe not, but you can figure out where I'll hit sure enough," announced a rumbling voice. A short, stout man stepped out from behind the stall's tumble-down wall, brandishing a vangi switch. "Now git."
The boys got, scampering off with scant regard for their less agile champion. Tad stumbled after them, howling protests against his abandonment.
Ursault glanced at his rescuer. Though the wizard was seated upon a low stool, he was eye to eye with the newcomer, a man whose barrel-chested torso was supported by uncommonly short, bandy legs. He was about the height of a dwarf, but was most definitely not of that race. His face was as beardless as a boy's though he was well into adulthood. There was no hint of any other race about him to explain his stature-he lacked the small frame and hairy feet of Luiren's halflings, and the bulbous nose and blue eyes common to gnomes. Yet some wag had called him a Gnarfling-an unlikely combination of all three races-and the name had stuck.
Something that for lack of a better name could be called friendship had grown between the two village misfits. Gnarfling was the only person who regularly sought out Ursault's company, and who actually seemed to enjoy the old wizard's tales. He leaned in and regarded the tangle of thread on the wizard's loom.
"What do you make of this?"
"Melody Sibar's peacock chicks," Ursault said, pointing to a matted blob of gray thread. "They'll hatch today. Or perhaps tomorrow. At least, those that intend to hatch at all."
"That ought to cover it."
Gnarfling uncorked a flask, which they passed back and forth a couple of times. He belched companionably and settled down, preparing to enjoy the morning's storytelling. His look of contentment faded when he noted a stout woman bustling purposefully toward them.
"Landbound skyship a'coming under full sail," he muttered.
The description was not far off. Vilma was Dammet's mother, a cheery, chatty woman who frequently-and justifiably-looked a bit flustered and windblown. Wisps of black hair escaped her single braid and her round face was rosy-cheeked from her morning's work. Like her son, she was always busy, never still. But unlike many of the villagers, she made time to chat with Ursault now and again, mostly because he was one of the few people in Ashtarahh who tolerated Dammet's pranks.
With a grateful sigh, the woman shouldered off the straps that held a basket of newly-harvested brissberries. The fruit was heavy, covered with a thick rind and a nutlike shell, and extracting the juice was a long process. She unhooked a small cleaver from her belt-a needed tool for the task ahead-and began to smooth a whet stone over it.
"What's coming to this little corner of Zalathorm's realm, lord wizard?"
"A white dog," Ursault said mildly.
"Fearful doings," she said with a grin.
He nodded somberly. "That dog will be the death of more than half the people in a neighboring village."
A small brindle pup ambled by, not far from the wizard's stall. Vilma gave a good-natured chuckle. "That's Dammet's mongrel pup, and the closest thing we got to a white dog hereabouts. Not much of a threat there."
"Not for several seasons, no, but then the dog will wander far from the village and mate with a renegade wolfwere. Their offspring will have pure white fur and look more dog than wolf. In human form, she will be a comely maid."
Vilma responded with a thin smile. "My man Tomas will enjoy this tale, that's for sure and certain! His eye for a pretty girl will be the death of him." She shook her cleaver, an unconsciously lethal gesture.
"True enough, but his death will not come at your hands," Ursault replied.
The woman's smile faded, and fear crept into her eyes. When a wizard-even a mad wizard-spoke of death, it was time to start kindling the funeral pyres.
"Of course, if your boy Dammet remembers to tie the brindle dog when the harvest moon blooms full, the white maid will never be. A lot of trouble that will save." Ursault cocked his head, as if listening to unseen voices. "But on the other hand, a lot of trouble that will cause. This same wolfwere maid could bring doom to the floating city. A lot of trouble that will save. On the other hand-" He broke off with a grunt, momentarily silenced by a sharp, warning nudge from Gnarfling's elbow.
The woman's smile returned, edged with both relief and pity. "Floating cities now, is it? Here in Halruaa?"
Ursault shrugged. "Sometimes yes, and sometimes no."
"That ought to cover it," Gnarfling said meaningfully.
Vilma's gaze darted toward the short man and moved quickly away. Her tolerance did not quite embrace the odd little man. Everyone in Ashtarahh knew most everything about everyone else, and found comfort in this universal lack of privacy. But not even the most imaginative gossip among them could invent a story that could in satisfactory fashion explain Gnarfling, or define his purpose in coming to Ashtarahh. Vilma had a limited imagination and a healthy suspicion of anything than lay beyond its bounds. She gave Ursault a tentative smile, then hauled up her basket and took off at a brisk pace.
Gnarfling reached for his flask and gestured with it toward the loom. "What else you see in there?"
A forlorn expression touched the wizard's face. "Everything," he said softly, his voice sad and infinitely weary. "Everything."
The small man cleared his throat, uneasy with his friend's pain. "Well, how about you start a new weaving, and let's see where it goes."
Ursault obligingly drew a small knife and cut the tangle from his loom. He made a complicated arcane gesture, and a new set of vertical threads appeared on the crooked frame. For a long moment he studied the warp threads, as if examining and discarding many possibilities. Finally he took up a shuttle and began to layer in the weft.
His hands flashed with a wizard's exquisite dexterity, adding a thread here and a new color there. Before long a pattern began to emerge. Glowing, silvery threads connected in a fine web. The fabric between this web, however, remained a dark and indeterminate color, deep as moon-cast shadows. Gnarfling frowned in puzzlement as he noted that Ursault was threading in some mud-splattered crimson. Even this bright color disappeared into the shadowy gloom.
"What do you make of that?" he demanded.
"That's the Weave," Ursault replied, naming the web of magic that surrounded and sustained all of Halruaa and, for all Gnarfling knew, the rest of the world as well. "At least, it's Ashtarahh's place in the Weave."
Gnarfling leaned in and squinted. Sure enough, he could make out the faint outline of the village, as it might appear to a soaring hawk, carved out of the tightly packed web that represented the jungle. Fainter, thinner silver threads connected the fields and buildings, and tiny glowing dots seemed to mill about the open area-an uncanny representation of the market square and the people who readied it.