The dwarf took a bucket from a stack of others and held it under one of the taps. He filled it until suds slopped over the side and spilled on the floor. “Grab yourself a bucket,” he said to the elf.
“A skin of wine would suit me better,” Cael said.
“Fill her up then. Hurry. I have a place on the stage for the unveiling of the stone. You shall stand with me, my old friend.”
Cael filled a large goatskin with wine and slung it over his shoulder. Then together, they ascended a stair of rough wooden planks to a door that opened into a low roofed smithy. The dwarf locked the door behind them and, taking the elf by the elbow, led him quickly through the close, hot darkness, winding amongst a wilderness of anvils and bellows, piles of scrap iron, and stacks of finished products ranging from horseshoes to delicately wrought railings destined to grace the balcony of some noblewoman’s sitting room. A fire roared somewhere deep within the smithy, visible only as a wan red glow reflecting off the gently sloping ceiling. An intermittent hammer clanged out an awkward rhythm.
“Who is that?” the elf asked. “You’ve someone working today?”
“That’s just Gimzig,” the dwarf answered with annoyed scowl. “Gimzig!” he shouted. The hammer continued its weird cadence.
“Gimzig!” the dwarf roared.
The hammer ceased, and a few moments later a squat figure shuffled out of the shadows. Cael staggered back, covering his nose with his sleeve and coughing.
The figure was shorter even than the dwarf, lighter boned, his movements quick and deerlike. The lower half of his face was covered with a thick mat of beard that was once white, as evidenced by the snowy fringe around the lips, but was now black with soot and the gods only knew what else. The upper half of his face was nearly hidden by a pair of billowing eyebrows, colored much like his beard, but tending towards gray rather than black, which hung sheepdog-like over his face. His eyes, twinkling with merriment, appeared and disappeared behind them with each movement of his head. The top of his head was quite bald, with only a thin halo of hair standing straight up from his scalp, as though he had been frightened as a baby and never recovered.
As he appeared from the shadows, he wiped his grimy hands across the breast of the filthy apron dangling around from his neck. His beard split into a wide toothy grin at the sight of the dwarf and his companion.
“Reorx’s bones, Gimzig!” the dwarf exclaimed as he covered his nose with a handkerchief. “You smell like a hive of gully dwarves. Don’t you ever bathe?”
“OfcourseldowhentheneedarisesalthoughlatelythethoughthasescapedmeIadmit,” the gnome answered in one breath.
Hammerfell rolled his eyes and gestured for the gnome to slow down.
“Oh. I have been working,” the gnome enunciated as carefully as he could, “on some improvements to various time-saving devices. Would you like to see them?”
As a race, the gnomes of Krynn were a curious lot. First and foremost, they were inventors-of machines, devices, appliances, and bureaucracies, none of which ever worked as originally designed. They lived furiously busy lives, always planning, devising, creating, inventing, repairing, and reinventing their (more often than not) faulty first, second, third, ad infinitum, designs. Even their speech was rapid. To the unfamiliar, it sounded like a different language, but they simply spoke the common tongue at eight or nine times the rate of human speech. What was more, two or more gnomes could talk at once and understand each other perfectly. Gimzig had been a resident of Palanthas for approximately eighty-five years (like dwarves and elves, the gnomes were a long-lived race), and because of his more frequent dealings with humans, he had learned to slow his speech to a more intelligible rate. Because of this, whenever he met gnomes from his homeland of Mount Nevermind, they thought him slow and dull-witted.
The gnome continued, “Of course you are one to talk, being a dwarf after all. Dwarves are notorious for their bathing habits or lack thereof. I have often considered conducting a study to determine exactly how often… oh! say, Cael tell me how did the self-extending portable pocket curtain rod work?”
“Perfectly,” the elf answered through his sleeve. “I am so glad. I had some concerns about it, because the last three versions displayed some rather remarkable projectile tendencies.”
“What’s this?” the dwarf asked, looking from one to the other. “You’ve been using his gnomish contraptions? For what? Certainly not to hang your clothes.”
“My inventions have multiple uses that-” the gnome began to protest.
Kharzog cut him off. “Enough! I don’t want to hear it. Are you or are you not coming to the Spring Dawning festival? I have a place on the stage. I don’t want to be late.”
“Yesofcoursejustamomentletmegetmythings,” Gimzig said as he hurried away.
“You aren’t coming with me smelling like that!” the dwarf shouted after him.
The gnome’s voice floated back to them from the darkness. “Of course not. Just let me step into my newest invention, a speed-washing bathtub. The water is superheated and pushed through nozzles at a high velocity in order to yeeeeoooowwwwwwwww!”
A cloud of steam boiled from the back of the smithy, carrying with it an odor of boiled meat. Cael staggered away, gorge rising in his throat. The dwarf swore a string of curses.
“Gimzig, you dolt, are you still alive?” he shouted.
After a few moments, a voice answered him from the darkness. “Yes… um… maybe you had better go without me.”
“Do you need aid?”
“No I think not. Perhaps a little butter.”
“I haven’t got any butter, you doorknob!” the dwarf cursed. He grabbed the elf and led him through a door that brought them under a low shed. Cael ducked under the eaves and followed his companion into the narrow alley beyond.
“Why must Gimzig always smell like a dung heap?” Cael asked.
“He spends most of his time in the sewers.”
“But why?”
“You’re asking me?” Kharzog snorted. “Why does a gnome do anything? Whole books have been written about it, mostly by other gnomes. Hurry up. We’ll miss everything.”
They turned a corner, entering an alley slightly wider than the one they’d just left. A few people hurried along ahead of them, one bearing a picnic basket, another a jug of wine big enough to souse a small army.
Despite his greater stride, the elf began to fall behind his dwarven companion. “How is your limp?” Kharzog asked sarcastically of his struggling companion.
“Better. I hardly think about it now,” Cael answered. His staff beat a rapid pace on the slick stones of the alley.
The dwarf scowled. “You know how I feel about that,” he said.
“It keeps the fingers in my rings,” the elf said with a laugh.
“And how does your shalifi, Master Verrocchio, feel about it?” Kharzog asked angrily. Without waiting for a response, he continued, “You know how I feel about such deception, not to mention your profession. Your master would be ashamed if he were alive.”
“He is alive, somewhere,” Cael answered grimly. It was obvious that he had no desire to continue the conversation. Wagging his beard in frustration, the dwarf continued on his way.