She strode out onto the porch to order the gnomes to scatter. The sight of her was enough to inspire a mass shout from the crowd. She, in turn — thinking that an attack was imminent — brandished her sword. The gnomes surged forward, each intent on surrendering first. The startled outsider backed into the doorway, feinted at the crowd with her sword, then rapidly backed up again…
… And toppled backward over a cast iron boot-holder Kali kept by the door (for cast iron boots). Woman and sword went boots over boots with a resounding crash. She was soon resting comfortably on the floor again, with a small bruise on the top of her head.
Kali shooed his friends, family, and fellow inventors out of the entranceway and, with a sigh, returned to his healing craft (which he was quite good at… as gnomes go). Her weapons and armor he hid in a back room, since twice now the warrior had become most unwell after using them.
The warrior-woman would awake two days later, but in the meantime the other outsider, Outsider B, awoke, though with less spectacular effects. He merely wondered what was for breakfast, and, though it was noon, Kali set his clock back six hours in order to be accommodating.
Outsider B, who astounded the surrendering gnomes by informing them his name was Oster, seemed a bit befuddled, but less violent, when the herd of half-sized humans humbugged and mimed their absolute fealty to him. Then the assembled gnomes ran home to cross out "Outsider B" and write "Oster" in their journals. Oster went inside to have breakfast and dined pleasantly as the sound of erasers ripping through thin paper resounded through the village.
After breakfast, Kali shooed away the last few neighbors who had stopped by to surrender (and to see if any blueberry muffins were left). He returned to ask Oster about his travels and how he and the woman came to this place, but found his ambulatory charge missing from the main room. A sudden panic gripped Kali. He feared that this stranger had wandered off and, knowing humans, gotten himself into trouble.
A quick search revealed Oster in the second spare guest room, at the foot of the bed where the warriorwoman was resting. The human had an odd look on his face, that look that gnomes get when they realize an invention requires no more modification. Rapture would be a good word for it. So would golly-woggled-knockedoff-the-pins-in-love, but rapture is shorter and as such will be used henceforth.
Kali moved quietly into the room and stood there for several heartbeats, shifting his weight from foot to foot and not knowing if he should leave.
Finally the man sighed. A deep, room-filling sigh that would have driven the atmospheric pressure indicator in the bedroom up a few notches, had Kali thought well enough to install such a device. It was a human, rapturefilled sigh.
"She is beautiful," he said. "Healer, who is she?"
Kali was thunderstruck. He had assumed the two outsiders knew each other, since they were found near the same wreckage. Kali wondered if the man's mind had been damaged by the fall, as the woman's apparently had.
"She, ah…" began the gnome, "she was not with you?"
Oster snorted like he had inhaled a fish. "With me? Nay, Healer. I am a simple merchant, too bull-headed to live quietly under tyranny, but too old and fat to fight it well. My wagons were confiscated and I joined a small party that raided and ambushed the invaders, burning their supplies and freeing their slaves. For that crime we were hunted through hills and valleys by a greater force than we could have imagined. My comrades were soon dead and scattered, and I was left to face the fury of the Dragon Highlord on my own."
The human shook his head, but his eyes never left the slumbering form of the woman. "Damned fool that I was, I did not run, nor beg for mercy, nor even think to draw my weapon. By the time I had even conceived of such things, the hell-spawn commander of that force — the Dragon Highlord himself — was upon me, and knocked me out. Why the Highlord did not kill me there I do not know, Morgion rot his bones. Instead he trussed me and slung me dragonback like a sack of flour. When I awakened to my fate, we were in the air. Then a massive blow struck the beast in its flight, and we crashed. I awoke to find myself in your parlor, with all these odd, pleasant little people, and with this" — he leaned toward the woman — "vision of loveliness."
The woman-warrior was lean and stringy, her battlehardened muscles honed by war. But she was fair of face and, with her auburn hair spread out on the down pillows, looked almost angelic. It was easy for a human to think of her as beautiful when she was unconscious.
Kali, being a gnome, was thinking along other lines.
"This Highlord," he asked, "did you know him?"
"No," answered Oster, staring rapturously at the woman. "I never saw him without his mask."
It was then apparent to Kali that the "foul hell-spawn" and the radiant creature with whom the man was smitten (for even gnomes can recognize someone who is smitten) were one and the same. But more important at the time was the news that a massive blow hit the dragon they were riding and forced it to crash. Weapons that could deliver massive blows out of the sky and force dragons to crash sounded suspiciously gnomish to the gnome.
Of course, the outsider Oster would be disappointed to find out that his vision of loveliness and his Morgioncursed captor were one and the same. Were Kali a less honorable and more honest individual, he would have burst Oster's bubble at once. But Kali was a gentlegnome, and there were some things you just don't do in polite society: disappointing someone to whom you have surrendered was one of them.
Oster broke in on the gnome's reverie with another room-filling sigh. "Does she have a name?"
"Er… ummm," stuttered the gnome, thinking on his feet. "Did she give me a name when… ah… she brought you in? Something about fighting a dragon. Yes, that's it, something about a fight with a dragon. She hit it with some great magic, that must have… ah… been the massive blow you felt. And you fell off of it and… ah…" He scanned the room for inspiration, his eyes settling on his collection of ornamental spoons painted with wildflowers. He tried to think of a flower name. "She brought you here, but was… drained by the battle, and took ill herself soon after… something about the battle that wore her out. Columbine. Yes, THAT was the name. Columbine."
"Columbine," said Oster, sighing again, a deep sigh that made Kali think of a bellows in need of repair. "I owe my life to her. I feared that I would be held prisoner or slain by the Highlord, but now I have made good an escape to a magical land. Rescued by a beautiful and magical woman."
He turned to the gnome, transfixing Kali in an intense gaze. "I must help her recover, little healer. What can I do to help?"
Kali stammered and stuttered, but at last instructed the man Oster in some simple methods of healing, little more than the applying of cold compresses and the like. Then he left his two charges alone and fled the house. He needed to think about what had just transpired and, more importantly, to confirm his immediate fears concerning the dragon's demise.
Kali went from house to house, a long, tedious business that took most of the rest of the day. This is not because the gnomish community was large — it was not — but at every house, a visiting gnome must make pleasant conversation, have tea, report on any recent findings, have some more tea, look at the host's latest researches, make more pleasant conversations, and so forth, before pressing on. Kali hoped he was not offending others by refusing a third helping of tea, but after the sixth house he was beginning to slosh as he walked.