The Gates of Thorbardin

Chapter 17

The dwarf and the kender rested that nigtt in the humans' camp. Despite

Fleece Ironhill's concession, a mountain dwarf still was more welcome among humans than among hill dwarves. What remained in their packs — a few pounds of dried cat, some rolls of goose, and a piece of flatbread — they shared. The humans in turn shared some of the meager provisions they had carried in their retreat from the goblin marauders. It was a sad and sorry camp, as was the dwarf camp just beyond. Everywhere, there were injured people. And everywhere there was grief. Chane sat apart for a time, talking with the human chief, Camber Meld. Then he curled up and went to sleep, wondering how he was to follow the path of the old warrior,

Grallen, if that path led right into a fresh nest of armed goblins and bloodthirsty ogres.

Chestal Thicketsway, still wide awake and excited by the rate at which new adventures were coming along, roamed about the two camps for a time, then climbed a hill and sat on top of it, watching the moons creep across the sky.

In the distance, he could see the hooded fires of the refugee camps, where Chane Feldstone slept. The kender felt at his side and frowned. He didn't have his pouch with him. He had left it with his pack, back there at the camp. And he had his hoopak, but no pebbles. Immediately Chess scouted around and found several good pebbles. He then felt much more comfortable.

It was oddly quiet, he noticed. Not so much as a whimper from Zap.

Chess's eyes widened, and he whirled to look again at the distant fires, abruptly realizing that he was a long way from Spellbinder. 'Whoops," he muttered. Turning full circle, slowly, speaking distinctly, he said, "Now, listen, Zap, I think we ought to talk about this. I'm sure we can find a civilized way to… Zap? Are you listening? I'd really just as soon you behave yourself for a while longer. There's no reason to go off half…

Zap? Zap! Where are you, anyway?"

Nothing responded. There was not the slightest hint of the old spell's presence.

"Zap, are you hiding from me?" The kender peered all about even though he knew that there would be nothing to see. "Look, if you're tired of following me around, that's all right with me. No problem at all. I never could figure out why you were tagging after me in the first place." He paused and listened again. "If you want to just head out on your own, I certainly won't hold a grudge. In fact, that might be the best thing you could do. Just go along by yourself — the farther the better, of course, and do your destiny, whatever that is. You might get a real bang out of that, don't you think?" The kender frowned at the absolute lack of response. "Zap! I know you're around somewhere. Where are you?"

Still there was no answer. The kender sat on a rock, deep in thought.

Maybe the spell had come up with a new tactic, he reasoned. Maybe it would try to convince him that it was gone, to lull him into taking it to where it could explode. On the other hand, maybe this was already far enough away for it to explode.

Then again, maybe it wasn't here at all. But if not, where was it? It had been attached to him since the day on the old battlefield where he had first met it. How could it be unattached now? Unless…

Chess snapped his fingers and grinned. He had left his pouch and his pack at the humans' camp. Maybe it wasn't him that Zap was attached to, but his belongings. Maybe it was attached to his pouch! That could explain the awful wailing the spell had been doing, up on the mountainside. If it was attached to his pouch and Spellbinder had been in his pouch… well, he could see how Zap might have been pretty unhappy about that.

With a grin, Chestal Thicketsway realized that he had found a solution to a problem. If Zap was attached to his pouch, all he needed to do was make a new pouch and go off and leave the old one. Then he'd be rid of the pesky spell once and for all. He began to think about the materials he would need for a pouch.

"Hellothere," a voice said. "Isthatyou?"

Chess jumped to his feet, spinning around.

"Up here," the voice said more slowly. "It's me, Bobbin. Do you have any raisins I"

Overhead, the wide-winged soarwagon floated, shadowy in the light of the two moons. Chess waved, and the gnome did something to his controls, bringing the machine lower still.

"I don't have any raisins," the kender said. "Sorry. What are you doing here?"

"Scouting," Bobbin explained. "I've sort of signed on as chief scout for the Wingover company… since I have nothing better to do. I'm looking for danger. Do you have any?"

"Not right now," Chess admitted. "I had an ogre a while back, though.

That's pretty dangerous. And from what I hear, there's plenty of danger beyond those peaks, over in the Vale of Respite. Goblins and ogres have taken the place over. Those people out there by the fires are refugees.

Why don't you talk to them?"

"I've been trying to," Bobbin snapped, "but my soarwagon needs some adjustment of its aerodynamic equivalences… which I will attend to if I ever get back on the ground. I've been trying since early evening to get to that camp, but I keep winding up somewhere else. I guess you'll have to give me my report. Goblins and ogres, you say? And you actually met one of the ogres? What's his side of the story?"

"I don't know. I didn't stop to chat."

"Well, where's the ogre now?"

"He's up on the mountain, buried under several tons of rock. Chane

Feldstone buried him."

"Chane Feldstone? I've heard that name."

"I wouldn't be surprised. He's famous, you know. Not rich, but well on his way to being famous. I'm helping him." The kender grinned proudly.

'You can help, too, if you'll spread the word. Just tell anybody you happen to see that Chane Feldstone is a famous warrior."

"I suppose I can do that," the gnome agreed. "Where is Chane Feldstone?"

"He's over there where those people are camped. He's asleep, though.

Burying ogres is tiring work."

"Well, Wingover wants to know what's going on. I wonder — " The gnome paused, thinking, then said, "Maybe we could offset the lateral drift ratio in this thing, if you'd help."

"What do you want me to do?" the kender asked doubtfully.

"I'll drop a line. You grab it, and maybe you can tow me over to where those people are."

A length of stout rope snaked downward from the underside of the soarwagon. Chess dutifully slung his hoopak on his back and grasped the rope in both hands. "Now what?" the kender called.

"Now just start walking, and I'll try to follow along."

Chess shrugged, hauled the rope tight, and started to walk. For a dozen steps, the gnome's craft crept along above him, obediently. Then it stalled in a draft and edged to one side. The kender took a tighter grip and hauled it back toward the proper course.

"This may work out," the gnome called down. "Just keep going and hold tight to that line, and… oh, crosscurrent! Hang on!"

Chess clung to the line as the soarwagon nosed up, and suddenly realized that his feet were no longer on the ground. He looked down. The hill where he had rested was falling away below, as was the rest of the world.

Moonlit landscapes widened beneath him, shrinking away to miniature forests, streams, trails, and ridges. Higher and higher the soarwagon soared, the bit in its teeth now and the winds of altitude under its wings.

"Would you look at that," the kender breathed. "Wow! What a view!"

Above him, the gnome muttered and swore, working at his controls.

"Linkjoint!" he said in obvious annoyance. "The zag and the zig have reversed again. I thought I had that fixed." He leaned out from his basket, squinting as he peered downward. "Are you still there?"

"I certainly hope so," Chess assured him. "Otherwise I'm in a lot of trouble."

"Well, don't just hang there gawking! Come up here and help me. You can hand me my tools."

"How do I get up there?" Chess asked.

"Just a minute. When I get my hands free, I'll winch you up. Don't go away."

"I wouldn't dream of it," the kender assured him.

Moments passed, then Chess felt the rope inching upward toward the belly of the gnome's invention. Winchteeth rattled above, and the great, shadowy wings seemed to close down on the kender like storm clouds descending. He rotated slowly as he rose, and suddenly there was a wickerwork surface before him.

"Climb in," Bobbin ordered. "Then hand me that wobble-wrench. I have to readjust the nose attitude."

Chess climbed into the basket, found and handed over a strange-looking tool, then resumed his sightseeing. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know," the gnome snapped. "How should I know? I never know where I'm going from one minute to the next. I spend all my time just trying to get from where I didn't want to go back to where I shouldn't have been in the first place. Hand me the washer-pull."

An hour passed, and then another, while the gnome did things to his controls and the kender passed tools. Rising mountainscapes crept by below, cliffs and crags, moonlit steeps and shadowy canyons. Then high peaks appeared to either side. Finally, another landscape, which fell away toward a distant wide valley where fires burned and smoke clung like fog in the lower reaches, spread below them.

"I'll bet that's where all those goblins are," Chess said.

"I'll bet that's the Vale of Respite."

The gnome paused to look. "Is there danger there?"

"From what I hear, there is."

"Then I'd better tell Wingover about it — ah! There, now. Here, Chess, you hold these two strings. Just hang on to them, and don't let them slip.

I think I can turn around now."

Bobbin drew a pair of strings and let several others slacken. The soarwagon tipped its wings and soared into a wide turn, spanning several miles of valley below in the process.

"Can we go down for a better look?" Chess wondered aloud.

"What do you want to look at?"

"Whatever's down there. Let's go see." In his excitement the kender eased his hold on the two strings, and the soarwagon's nose pitched downward. Abruptly they were in a screaming dive, straight down, with terrain rising to meet them.

"Oh, let me have those!" Bobbin leaned over, took the strings away from the kender, and pulled on them. The dive flattened out, and the flying machine raced over the tops of leafless trees toward a pall of smoke just ahead.

"This is a lot better," Chess observed, leaning far out from the basket for a better view.

The smoke was a thick darkness underlit by the flames of many fires — burning houses, burning sheds, huts ablaze, and haystacks smoldering. An entire village was burning, and in the distance another lay in ash and embers. As the flying machine swept over the fires, Chess saw dozens of goblins below, tending the fires and bringing things to throw upon them. A few slit-mouthed faces turned upward as the soarwagon passed, and gaped at the contrivance sailing through the smokes. Something struck the soarwagon's frame and glanced away. The basket twanged, and Chess glanced around to find a bronze dart protruding through the wicker, inches from his thigh.

"Do you suppose we've seen enough?" he asked Bobbin.

A flaming bolt arced upward ahead of them, and the gnome veered his machine to the right. "If those people set my wings afire — "

"Those aren't people. Those are goblins."

Another bolt whisked by. Without hesitation, Chess unslung his hoopak, dug a pebble from his tunic, and twisted around in the basket to send the stone zinging on its way. Below and behind them, a goblin howled in pain.

Bobbin glanced at the hoopak thoughtfully. "I wish I'd thought to mount something like that on the soarwagon," he said.

The kender shrugged. "It's just a hoopak."

They were past the burning village then, and closing on the second village, which was little more than glowing sparks wafting from piles of ash. Chess pointed ahead. "Aha!" he said. "Ogres."

"Where?" Bobbin leaned to look, and the soarwagon executed a barrel roll at treetop level. The kender clung to the basket as the gnome worked frantically to get the contrivance right side up again. When finally it was flying upright and level, Bobbin said, "Sorry about that."

Chess shook his head. "I have an idea… You tend to the navigation, and I'll do the sightseeing."

"How many ogres did you see?"

"Three, I think. Can you turn around and go over again? I'll count them."

"Never mind," the gnome said. "In certain circumstances an informed estimate is as acceptable as quantitative data. I'm going to try to — "

The soarwagon's nose lofted, and the Vale of Respite fell away behind them as the machine headed for the sky. Bobbin wrestled with his control strings and muttered to himself: "Don't know why it does that… only trying for a reasonable rate of ascent… something about the angle of trim on the horizontal vanes, I suppose."

When he succeeded in leveling the soarwagon out, it was approaching the peaks again, heading more or less west.

"Would you classify what we saw back there as danger?" Bobbin asked.

"It certainly looked dangerous to me," Chess said brightly.

"Then I expect I should tell Wingover about it. I agreed to do that, you know."

"Do you suppose you can drop me off on the way?"

"I'll try." The gnome manipulated strings, and the soarwagon sailed over moonlit ridgetops, then down toward the refugee camps a few miles beyond the slopes. "I think we can — "

A crosswind fluttered the box-kite nose of the contrivance, and it veered aside, then nosed up and headed for the sky again, straight up and gaining speed. "Oh, no. Link failure!" the gnome cursed.