The War of the Lance

Clockwork Hero

This is a Gnome Story. Such stories turn up now and again, around hearths and over cups of mulled wine. The talespinner of a proper Gnome Story should always state at the outset that his is a story of the gnomish type, so that the listeners are not surprised by that which follows. The Lower Planes hold no fury compared to that of an intent and dutiful audience that suddenly discovers they are trapped in a Gnome Story, with no escape other than the bodily expulsion of the talespinner. Heads have been broken, families split asunder, empires uprooted, and all because of an unannounced Gnome Story.

This is a Gnome Story then, and that in itself is considered fair and proper warning. And it is a Gnome Story because it deals with, to a great degree, gnomes.

Gnomes, you see, have the boundless curiosity of men, but lack the limitation of sense, the directness of thought, or the wisdom to control this curiosity. This disposition makes gnomes a vital part of talespinning, as much as the country fool who proves to be the wisest person of the party, or the holy man who arrives at the last minute to resolve all the characters' problems. In a similar fashion, gnomes — with their insatiable curiosity, their gleeful cleverness, and their perseverance through frequent (and dramatic) failure — serve as a guiding light, a beacon for other races. In holding up their failings, their ramshackle inventions and plots, we see more than a little of ourselves, and consider ourselves cautioned against their excesses. So gnomes have an important place in the universe (at least fictionally), such that if gnomes did not exist, they would demand to be invented, and nothing short of another gnome could invent such a concept.

Fortunately for all, they do exist.

This, then, is a Gnome Story, with all of its vantages, AD and DIS. It is an odd tale, in that it tells the story of a gnome who succeeds, a gnome who creates a most wondrous thing. But that is getting ahead of the tale.

Gnome Stories usually begin with the talespinner speaking of some outsider stumbling onto the hidden land of the gnomes. The idea of a hidden land of the gnomes is usually an artistic "cheat," a stretching of the imagination, since there are very few places more noisy, smoky, smelly, and downright noticeable than a gnome community. Incontinent volcanos or a week-long reunion of gully dwarves would run a close second or third, and, like a cluster of volcanoes or gaggle of gully dwarves, a gnome community is generally well-noted by its neighbors and left alone. It is, therefore, remote from the rest of civilization, but at civilization's behest.

This particular gnome community — this talespinner must assure you — was an extremely noisy place, resounding with the clang of hammers, the hiss of escaping steam, and the occasional explosion. The louder the gnomes, the more remote their home, and this was a most remote location indeed. So remote that the events of the outside world — the return of dragons, the coming of the Highlords and heroes, the war and all manner of destruction — passed this place by. In short, it was the perfect place to be an outsider, since there was much more outside than inside.

The outsider in question was not the standard singular found in most Gnome Stories, but rather two, a doubleton of strangers, a windfall in terms of Gnome Stories. These strangers had two things in common: they were from outside this village of gnomes — yes, that's true — but more important, they were first found sprawled in awkward but comfortable-looking positions on the ground, next to a large, formerly leather-winged form. Said form had earlier been a dragon, but was now little more than an open buffet for the local scavengers.

The outsiders were both alive, however. One was a warrior wrapped head to toe in dark armor, while the other was softer, plumper, unarmored, dressed in tattered finery and bound firmly at the wrists and ankles. The warrior was a woman, though this was not immediately apparent from her armor; the one in ragged finery was a man. For gnomes, gender is as unimportant as eye color or taste in music, but since these are HUMAN outsiders, it will become important. More on that later, because the gnome had finally arrived on the scene to survey the damage. And this is a Gnome Story.

It was a gnome named Kalifirkinshibirin who discovered the comfortably sprawled outsiders outside (of course) his village. Kalifirkinshibirin (or Kali, shortening further a name already truncated due to space) was a smallish gnome, whose hobbies included spoon-collecting and putting dried flowers under glass. He also had what passed for healing skill, being versed in some natural poultices and potions that had the unique advantage (among gnomes) of not killing his patients outright.

Kali was gathering ingredients for said potions and poultices in that particular field on that particular morning, and so, it fell to him to discover those particular remains of that particular dragon, and the outsiders resting comfortably nearby. He was definitely not in the field because he was looking for new discoveries to be made, new revelations to be revealed, or new objects to muck about with. Kali was, to put it delicately, different from his fellows.

No, better to strip away the kindness of language and face this straight out. Kali was a queer duck among his people. Most gnomes live to invent. They have fives, even tens of projects in the works at the same time, one often spilling into another at random. Gnomes see the world as inherently wrong (not an unpopular sentiment), but gnomes differ from the rest of the universe in that they believe it is their job to set matters right. That's why they invent — continually, relentlessly, and explosively — all manner of gimcracks and snapperdoodles and thingamabobs. It's the thing that gnomes just naturally do, like breathing or taking tea.

But Kali didn't have that same sort of drive as his fellows. He was pretty content in doing what he was doing with potions and plants and poultices to relieve the occasional outbreak of flu or bad colds. He had his spoons/of course; inscribed with wildflowers, legendary heroes, and mythical animals (which was how he recognized the dragon, by the by), but none of them were mechanical in the least. He kept plans for a solar-powered lighthouse about his parlor — for appearances — but he hadn't added to them in years.

In short, Kali was an underachiever. (This was not a criminal offense to Kali's fellow gnomes — they tended to be understanding about it. Indeed, the fact that Kali's healing methods would not vary from week to week did something for his reputation as a healer).

In any event, it was Kali who found the outsiders. He determined they were within the bounds of "still breathing," and dragged the armored and unarmored forms back to his house in the village. (This is important, for it would make these outsiders — by custom — Kali's salvage and Kali's responsibility.) By the time he brought the second one (the unarmored, plumper, male one) back, a small crowd of his fellow gnomes had gathered about his front porch. They were armed with all manner of fearfullooking devices, and a sharp gleam shone in each and every eye.

To an outsider (particularly a human outsider), these gnomes would appear to be a horde of evil torturers prepared to initiate a cruel inquisition, but Kali recognized that these were merely his fellow inventors. The devices were hastily-assembled inventions that would straighten a leg, lance an infection, or immobilize a thrashing patient (the last invention was a necessity for experimental surgery). The gleam that seemed so evil was only the heartfelt and honest lust that every gnome feels when one of his inventions might prove useful.

To an outsider, though, the gleam would look undoubtedly and understandably malicious, and the size and number of sharp edges on the devices would tend to intensify said doubt. Were the two outsiders healthy, they would not walk into this apparently dangerous realm without at least a dozen more of their kind, and with a healthy reward promised on the other side.

Kali was dragging the large, plumper figure onto his porch when he found his way blocked. The first outsider, the armored one, had awakened and now stood tottering in the doorway. She looked dangerous and tall, and while the last word could be attributed to all humans by all gnomes, this one looked taller still, swaying in her blood-colored leather boots like an improperly planted pine in the first windstorm of spring. The impressive nature of this outsider was further enhanced by the mass of her armor, and the great horns that rose from her helm like the misplaced pincers of some irate beetle.

The gathered gnomes set up a sigh of disappointment. Apparently, her injuries were not serious.

The woman unlatched the toggles on her helmet and removed it, revealing a sharp, angry face cradled in a scarf of blood-red hair. Swaying as though the ground were on unsteady terms with her, she scowled, then bellowed in a wavering voice, "You are all to surrender or — "

She did not provide another option, for the weight of her words unbalanced her and she crumbled neatly in the doorway. It was obvious to all that she had suffered greater damage than initially thought. She needed help.

The gathered gnomes were ecstatic.

The pair of humans — armored and unarmored, female and male, soldier and well… the male was dressed like a merchant, mage, or alchemist — rested in Kali's house for five feverish days. Neither was strong enough to wake, take food, or make demands. The man-merchant slept the dreamless sleep of the dead, while the woman-warrior shuddered with fits that brought her half-waking into the pain of this world. During this time, Kali was forced to convince more than one of his gnomish compatriots that a newly invented device — such as the one to bore a small hole in the forehead to witness their dreams — was unnecessary, and proceeded to work his own craft upon them. Kali's craft was healing, and he was quite good at it… as gnomes go.

On the morning of the sixth day, Kali awoke to find the tip of a sword at his throat. This was a surprise because he normally kept such things as swords in a large glass case marked "SWORDS" in the other room. Not surprisingly, given the location of the sword, the womanwarrior was at the opposite end. Kali had restrained the pair in their sleep, so they would not hurt themselves in a violent dream, but he had made their shackles of loose cloth.

Too loose.

"Surrender or die," she hissed.

Kali gave careful (and rapid) thought to his options, and asked her what she wanted for breakfast.

The news of Kali's surrender to the awakened outsider moved through the village like the fiery results of a failed chemical experiment.

(In Gnome Stories the outsider always declares [himor] herself master of the land, and the gnomes always agree. Some uncharitable souls say this is because the gnomes are stalling while they gleefully plan their revenge. In reality, gnome tribes are truly interested in learning as much as possible from newcomers, and will try to make them happy. If surrendering is what the outsider wants, it is a small price to pay as long as the outsider remains. So it was in this case.)

Soon, a horde of short but passionate individuals queued up outside Kali's house, each seeking to surrender to the awakened woman-warrior, who was breakfasting within on blueberry muffins and sausage. Some gnomes wrote long poems, others recited longer declarations of allegiance, while still others attempted to surrender by mime, juggling sparklers so they would not be ignored in favor of those declaring and rhyming. Some few brought swords to beat into plowshares, though these arrived last, since they had to beat the plowshares into swords in the first place (and indeed, many of the swords had a distinct plowsharish look to them).

Rather than being pleased, the woman-warrior (the gnomes were already calling her Outsider A and her companion Outsider B in their journals) seemed threatened by this outpouring of mass poetry, oratory, and mime. Indeed, a huge collection of small people shouting and waving, with others coming up behind bearing large plowsharish-looking swords would unnerve any stern general unschooled in gnomecraft. Unfortunately the woman-warrior reacted like a typical human, and charged into a disaster of her own making.

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.

At the seventh house, the one belonging to Archimedorastimor the Lesser, son of Archimedorastimor the Greater (and the Later), Kali found the answer he feared. The Archimedorastimors (father and son) had both been involved with astronomy and had long been wondering what to do with their time when it was overcast or daylight. While most gnomes in the field simply attempted to build large towers to get above the clouds and beyond the sun, the Archimedorastimors (Archies for short) instead came up with the novel idea of firing their telescopes from large catapults to get above the clouds and the sun. Other gnomes scoffed at the foolishness of the theory and went back to building towers. But Archie father and son went on experimenting until the time, three years ago, when Archie father built an explosive catapult and launched his entire laboratory into the air, from whence it never came down. Archie, son of Archie, had since continued his father's research, but (save for creating a combination parachute and pillow) had added little to the science. Occasionally, however, he managed to launch a large rock that would fall down on a building or three.

In any event, it was at the seventh house that Kali found the answer he was dreading. Yes, five days back Archie had been out in the field experimenting with a new astronomical catapult, and from that testing he had just returned. The experiment had been a failure because something large and lumbering had gotten in the way at the last moment. The large and lumbering something sounded to Kali suspiciously dragonlike. When he proposed this theory, Archie did admit that the lumbering something was more than a little reptilian in appearance. Further, it made a sudden and steep dive after it flew into his rock. Kali took tea and made small conversation for the rest of the afternoon, adjuring Archie not to mention the details of this experiment to the new outsiders — Oster and the warrior-woman. Archie promised and also said he would be by later to surrender when he had finished his journal.

Kali, having resolved the first problem, now turned to the second. The warrior-woman was a Dragon Highlord (whatever that was), and had taken Oster as a prisoner — in a mean fashion at that. The Highlord's armor, which Kali had hidden in a back room, apparently had concealed the fact that she was a woman. Oster was now smitten (as only humans can be smitten) with her in her true appearance. When the woman awakened again, Kali figured, she would probably be mean to Oster again. Oster would be hurt that this radiant creature was not only not named Columbine, but was also the individual that was so mean to him before.

That would make TWO people that the gnomes had surrendered to unhappy.

That would not do at all.

When Kali returned to his house, he found that the man Oster had gathered some wildflowers and placed them in a vase by the woman's sickbed. Kali decided the man had not been addled by the fall after all. From the Human Stories he'd heard beside hearths and over cups of mulled wine, Kali knew such behavior was typical. Humans were always engaging in activity that seemed fruitless, pointless, and overly emotional, making use of grand gestures and mighty oaths.

The first step, thought Kali, is to make sure the man Oster is not around when the warrior-woman comes to. Her last two outings among the living had proved to be less than peaceful, and based on that sort of previous behavior, the next occasion boded no better. At least he should get the man away and talk to the woman, explain the situation, and calm her down. If she were half as reasonable as Oster, all would work out for the best. Perhaps she had imprisoned him because she liked his appearance as well as he liked hers, Kali reasoned. Human Stories made much of the fact that humans were very poor at expressing themselves, particularly to those they liked.

When Kali walked into the room, he noticed Oster holding the woman's wrist, as though that would indicate anything more than that the body in question had a pulse. Steeling himself for deception, the gnome walked up to the foot of the bed and grabbed the woman's exposed big toe. Scowling as he imagined wise humans would scowl, Kali gave a grumbling sigh.

Oster looked up at the gnome at the foot of the bed.

"Not good," said Kali.

"Not good?" said Oster.

"Complications," said Kali. "Straining of the impervious maximus. Omar's syndrome. Liberal contusions. It may be a while."

Oster rose to his full height and stamped his foot. "Then I shall remain and help!"

Kali was prepared for the human to issue a mighty oath on the matter, but when none was forthcoming, he scowled deeper and thought quickly. "I'm… ah… going to need some supplies. You may help best — if you are up to it — by going to fetch them."

"Anything to aid, little healer."

Kali went to his desk and drew out a parchment and pen. He listed five things at random: hen's teeth, black roses, rubbing alcohol, toad eyes, and feldspar chips. He gave the list to Oster. "These will aid," said the gnome. "You can gather some gear from the storage area and set off. You may need several days to gather the items, but take your time."

"Can I have a guide to help?"

Kali thought of Archie. "I can arrange something. Now come. The woman… er, Columbine… needs peace and quiet as well as those items."

The man went back to rummage in the storage area and Kali wrote a note to Archie, explaining the situation and the need to take the man on the longest possible course to get these items. He was going to post it normally, but checked himself, noting that the gnomish postal service would just as likely deliver it to Oster or back to himself, since their names were mentioned. He ended up delivering it himself.

Archie and Oster left the next morning, and the woman-warrior awoke that evening, feverish and angry. Kali was entertaining another colleague, Etonamemdosari (Eton), a weaponsmith, who was working on a sword that could be used directly as a plowshare, when the woman stumbled into the room. The pair of gnomes looked up from their mulled wine. (They were trading Human Stories).

Awake, the woman was less lovely than asleep, for her waking thoughts and memories pinched her face into a tightly-muscled scowl that would scare the cat, had Kali had any cats. (He did not, for they made him sneeze, but HAD he a cat, said cat would be considering changing his lodgings after looking at the woman).

"My weapons," she said in a voice that would frighten a watchdog. (See the above note on cats, for they apply in this case to dogs as well).

"Er… Have some wine?" asked Kali.

"Roast the wine!" bellowed the woman, crossing the room in a single stride and thumping the table with both fists. "Where are my weapons? Where is my armor? Where is my dragon?"

"Dragon?" said Kali, hoping to sound much more innocent than he felt.

The woman made a noise like a machine caught between gears and pitched the table over, mulled wine and all. Kali could see this was not going to work out as well as he had hoped.

"Try again," she said, an evil glint in her eye, "or I'll twist your head off."

"Ahem… Well. Ah…" Kali's mind raced for a moment, trying to remember how much of the tale he told Oster applied here. "We, ah, I, ah… that is… You were brought here by a hero who slew the beast you were riding. He thought it a wild creature, but, when he found you and realized it was yours, he… ah… brought you here to recover and, ah… left to gather some healing herbs to aid you. He says he's terribly sorry."

Kali's words struck the angry woman like a blow. She visibly sagged for a moment, her shoulders drooping. Kali could see that the deceased dragon meant as much to her as a cat or dog would to him, except it would probably not make her sneeze. She slumped into a chair, and after taking a few breaths to steady herself, said in a wavering voice. "The prisoner?"

"He, ammm" — Kali's mind jumped its track for a moment — "didn't make it, I'm afraid." Perhaps she would show sympathy, and that would let him comfort her by revealing that Oster was alive and well. Or maybe even returned to life by a passing holy man.

"And his body?" she continued. Something in her tone, her tight smile, the way her fingers dug into the wood of the table told Kali that sympathy was riot a current priority for the woman.

"Well," Kali said, "We ah, tend to burn such things. Had we known you wanted it, we would have kept it for you. I didn't know he meant that much to you."

The woman laughed — a throaty, deep-seated laugh that started in orbit around her stony heart and, by the time it escaped her lips, held the cruelty of a creature who would throttle birds before breakfast. (See above notes on cats and dogs. Kali's case: no birds were endangered by the laugh.)

"Meant much? I wanted to take him apart in pieces, cracking each bone, and hang him by his living entrails on a hook in the village to show how I deal with traitors and rebels. His kind cost me a treasure train, and now he has cost me my dragon as well. May Morgion rot his body and Chemosh stir his bones!"

Kali was struck by the coldness of her oaths, which carried none of the nobility and passion of Oster's oaths, though they invoked the same beings. This human did not seem to have much difficulty in expressing herself at all. It now dawned on him that if he brought her together with Oster, she would be irate — not only at Oster, but at Kali as well. Best to backtrack, he thought, and try to make the situation turn out right.

"Well, he seemed a nice sort before he, ah… well…" Kali looked at Eton for support in the conversation. His fellow gnome had backed up next to the hearth and was trying to blend in with the fireplace furnishings.

"Did he suffer?" asked the woman. "Were his bones snapped?

Kali said yes and answered in the affirmative to a long list of horrible things that she described, just about filling the dance card with all the things that can happen to an individual who has fallen from a high place to a low one. Snapped bones, shattered skull, inner workings scattered over sharp rocks, just enough breath left in the crushed body to plead for mercy and deliver a parting rattle. Kali wondered if this passed for polite conversation where the woman came from. His answers seemed to get the woman more agitated and excited, until he would swear her eyes became like twin pilot lights, glowing and sparking in a malevolent fashion.

Having exhausted that interesting subject, the woman demanded, "My weapons? My helm? My armor?"

"The hero, ah, the one who brought you in… ah… hid them," said the gnome.

"Hid them?" she shrieked, rising from the table.

"Ah, yes. To keep away burglars, you know. He said he would return them when he got back…"

Kali intended to say that the hero would not return for more than a few days and why didn't the woman rest, but things started to happen very quickly then. Making that gear-grinding noise again, the warrior pushed both hands up under the gnome's beard and, taking a firm hold of his neck, lifted him off the ground. Kali found that the grip closed off his breathing pipes. Small sparks danced between the woman's face and his. She enlivened this by screaming at him that he and his rat-faced friends would find her weapons if they had to eat their way through the mountains with their teeth, punctuating her remarks by banging Kali's head and shoulders against the back wall. The impact with the wall caused Kali to miss some of her words, but he caught the gist.

How long this fit went on Kali did not know. He was aware, finally, that he could breathe again, and save for a sore neck and a ringing headache, was still alive. He saw before him the form of the warrior-woman, resting less than comfortably in a heap of broken furniture, facedown. Across from him, Eton was holding a wide-mouthed shovel used to clean the hearth.

Kali gave a breathy, hoarse thanks, but he could see how Eton was already trying to figure out how to turn the hearth shovel into a combination sword/plowshare.

Kali put the woman back to bed and arranged for the delivery of new furniture by the time Oster and Archie returned with the material the next day. In that time, Kali had a long time to rub his sore head and think things through.

Now, despite a lot of stories, gnomes are not by nature violent. Nor, despite similar stories, are they stupid. Kali could see that this warrior was going to become enraged every time she awoke, and that telling her the truth would result in a rampage that would end up destroying a goodly amount of gnomish property and perhaps gnomish bodies. This would not be a good occurrence, given the fact that gnomes had surrendered to the woman and everything. Further, she would likely harm Oster if she knew he was alive. In the brief time Kali had known Oster, the gnome had decided that the man was one of the good humans, even given his terrible choice in creatures to fall smitten with. It would crush his heart if he found out she so cruel and mean. It would also likely crush his windpipe if the two were left in the same room together.

The problem was, Kali decided, that he was trying to work in an area he was unfamiliar with. He knew humans only from stories and wild tales, and his current personal encounters indicated something was lacking from his store of knowledge. Human emotions were even farther removed. Like most gnomes, Kali was most familiar with things he could touch, grip, twist, break, and repair. If only this situation had such "a simple, physical solution.

Looking at the blanket-covered woman, peaceful as the dead and lovely as the morning, Kali realized that perhaps there WAS a simple, physical solution.

By the time Oster and Archie had returned, Kali had not only laid out a plan, but he had made a list of materials: a closed wagon with oxen, two hundred pounds of plaster, a similar amount of wax, a stone mausoleum with an iron fence around it, seven tins of pastels and other shades of paint, the aid of Organathoran the painter, and sufficient medication to keep a horse in slumberland for a week.

He was just drawing up the last of it and was about to check on the woman (to make sure she had not woken up again), when Oster and Archie returned. A crowd of other gnomes clustered around them as Archie described something in glowing detail, making swing-of-a-sword gestures with his hands.

Kali met the pair at the door and Oster presented the gnome with a small package containing the herbs and other items they had gathered from the wild. At his side he had another, larger bundle. The human gave Kali a small, almost embarrassed smile, but all eyes were on Archie, who was gesticulating wildly.

"It was wonderful," cried Archie, noticing Kali for the first time. "The lad, er, the human Oster was magnificent 1 We were in the Smoking Vale two miles from here when suddenly we startled a wyrm of some type. A true monster, straight from the pits, with the legs of a pill-bug and the hunger of a bear and fangs twice as long as my arm."

"It was a behir," Oster said softly, his ears tinged with red, "and a small one at that."

Archie hurtled on without stopping to note the interruption. "I would have been dinner on a plate, but Oster — Oster the Brave — mind you, threw me out of the way of certain death."

"I, ah, knocked him over when I turned to run," Oster corrected, the glow spreading to his cheeks and increasing in intensity with each moment.

"Then brave Oster, armed with only with a sharpened rock, caught the beast's attention. It lunged at him" And here Archie did his best imitation of a serpent lunging forward, such that some of the gathered gnomes backed up a few paces. "And he pulled the side of the mountain down on the beast, killing it!"

"I tried to scramble up the cliff out of its path, and brought down an avalanche. Nearly buried us all." Oster's voice had grown quiet now as he saw that most of the gnomes liked Archie's recollection of events better than his.

Archie rolled on like a perpetual motion machine. "The beast was mortally wounded, and tried to turn on us. Oster took a mighty boulder and smashed it until it was no more."

"Well, I… It wasn't that big of a… well… I guess…" Oster shrugged his shoulders. Had he known that in gnomish discussions silence meant agreement, he would probably have protested his innocence of heroism a while longer. But he did not know, so he did not protest — which was as good as admitting it.

Archie motioned for the sack. "And we found all manner of gems and magic in the creature's lair."

The gnomes naturally demanded to see the treasure, and so Oster pulled from the larger bag one item after another. Fistfuls of gems, long strings of pearls, and a set of plate mail of a golden hue, topped by a wondrous helm of similar color, ringed with gems. Finally he drew forth a scabbard and a copper-colored blade from the bag.

News of Oster's prowess (and his treasure) spread about the community quickly, and a number of gnomes came to surrender all over again to Oster (or rather, the Hero Oster, as he was now known). Archie had to tell his tale a second and a third time, and the hero's mighty attacks became mightier with every telling. Oster soon gave up trying to correct all the minor differences between Archie's version and his, and seemed to enjoy the attention.

Oster gave the bulk of the jewels to Archie, and the gem-stones to Kali. The mail, copper sword, and helm he kept for himself, as they were all man-size, and Oster was the only being currently awake in the community who matched the description.

At the insistence of the gnomes, he put on the armor, though he had to let out the chains on the side plates to their maximum length. With the helm down over his face, he looked like a clockwork figure or automaton, and the name Oster the Clockwork Hero went down in many journals that night.

It was only when Oster had finished displaying and giving away his booty and Archie had finished describing (for the fifth time) the masterful strokes that the Clockwork Hero has delivered against the hordes of serpent creatures that the trio went back into the house. Oster let out a gasp of shock when he saw the drawing room in shambles.

"What happened?" he demanded, looking at the broken table, the shattered chairs, and the crushed crockery.

"Well, that is…" Kali stammered, thinking that he had best use this time to tell Oster the truth — that his lady fair had woken and destroyed the room, all the while gleefully describing the tortures she would heap upon him, Oster.

"It looks like a fiend hit this place," continued Oster.

"Ah… yes. A fiend." Kali shoved the truth to the back of his mind. Oster had been a hero only moments before, and the truth would only hurt him.

Kali had no fiends illustrated on his spoon collection and wondered what one truly looked like, but taking a deep breath he plunged on. "Ah… A fiend was here. Tall he was, so that his horns scraped the ceiling, and with plates of red, hardened chitin jutting from his shoulders, and a weave of black wires where his mouth was."

"Was he large? Did he carry a sword in a mailed glove? And armor?" asked Oster, his brow furrowed.

"Yes, yes, he was, and armored all over." Suddenly Kali clamped a hand over his own mouth. In seeking to describe the "fiend" who had leveled the place, he had described the Highlord's dragonarmor.

"So," said Oster sternly, drawing himself up to his full height. "He lived through the death of his dragon. Why would he come here.. unless… the Lady Columbine? Is she safe?"

"She… ah… rests comfortably in her room. The fiend made no attempt to get to her." Kali hoped that when Oster checked on her condition, he was not knowledgeable enough to spot an additional bump where Eton had clobbered her with a shovel.

"He was looking for me, wasn't he?" asked Oster grimly.

"No. I mean yes. I mean…" Kali said, trying to avoid tripping over his own tongue. Other gnomes, such as Archie, could spin tall tales until morning, but Kali always feared that one word would fall against another and leave him revealed as a liar. "He was here, and looking for you, and was most angry when I told him you were dead. He wanted your body, but I said we had burned it. I didn't mean to lie, but it seemed to be a good idea at the time." And I mean that in all possible ways, he added to himself.

"You did well, little healer," said Oster. "But you risked much to deceive one such as that. He will probably be back. When he does return, we must be ready for him. Tell me, what is the condition of the lady?"

"She… rests," said Kali, still choosing his words carefully. "I have given much thought to her injuries, and fear she might not recover." He was going to add that it would be in everyone's best interest if she NOT recover, but he made the error of looking into Oster's face, and saw the pain in his eyes. The human had stopped being a hero and became once more a middle-aged merchant. So Kali said instead, "I have a list of further medications that may cure her illness. But it will take time."

Oster immediately volunteered to go fetch them, and Archie chimed in his aid as well. Only Eton and Kali would know that the lady was no lady, and the ingredients the Clockwork Hero gathered were mixed to form a smoky concoction, the fumes of which would keep the woman in her blissful sleep until Kali could work his own solution.

The next few weeks — the time through high summer — passed with as few incidents as could be expected for a community of gnomes. Oster the Clockwork Hero's prestige in the community increased as he slew a few of the creatures that had plagued the area, including a large hydra that ruled the Steaming Stream and a beholder that had set up shop in an ancient dwarven mine.

The fact that in the former case he was accompanied by a party of gnomes armed with Eton's automatic lassoprojectors and in the latter the sword he found had been forged specifically to slay beholders did nothing to diminish his prestige. Oster was well-loved by the gnomes, never more so than when he rescued the Kastonopolintar sisters when their alchemy shop decided to blow up on Solstice Eve.

Yet most of the time when he was not out adventuring or attending this dinner or that test in his honor, Oster sat by the bedside of the lady, now known in the community as Oster's Lady, waiting for her to recover, watching her passive, quiet face in the moonlight as her coverlets rose and fell with each breath. The gnomes respected Oster, and in turn respected his sleeping lady, so none of them mentioned her erratic behavior when she had first arrived, or that Kali seemed less effective than normal in working a cure. They did not want to worry the human needlessly.

Kali was miserable, of course. He knew the truth, more than any of his comrades, and it hurt him to see that he himself was responsible for Oster's heartache. It was clear that the human had built up an imagined image for his lady, a lady who, once awake, would undoubtedly shred Oster limb from limb. On more than one occasion, Kali screwed up his courage to the point where he decided to confront Oster with the truth. The gnome mentally rehearsed his lines and thought of every reason or argument why he should tell the human the truth. And each time he attempted the truth, the following would happen:

Kali would say, "Oster, we must talk."

Oster would sigh, clutching the hand of his beloved, and say, "Yes, I know I spend all my time here when I am not elsewhere. You think it unhealthy."

Kali would say, "Well yes, but…"

And Oster would break in with, "I just worry that some time when I am not here, the thrice-damned Highlord will return and hurt you and my friends and my lady." And here would be another room-filling sigh as he would add, "Is she not beautiful?"

At this point, Kali, hating himself every step of the way, would always remember a project that was half finished and leave the sighing Oster with his lady. The plate mail of the Clockwork Hero fit better as he got more exercise, and old skills he thought long-forgotten returned to him. He gathered many weapons and strange items in his travels around the valley, keeping for himself a clutch of silver daggers worn at the belt and a magical cape, but giving the rest to friends. Kali sent the hero out on nonesuch missions for unneeded materials, while he and Organathoran the painter — whom Kali had bonded to silence — set about their craft.

Each day, when Oster was gone, they would mix plaster and make a mold of some part of the lady — her hand or her arm or foot. The molds would then be filled with hot wax. It took several weeks of work to finally get adequate casts of the hands, and longer for the legs, torso, and face. The poor castings were melted in the hearth, as were a few good molds that had to be jettisoned when Oster returned in triumph too early.

Once, when taking the mold of the woman's head, Kali thought for a moment of covering her fully with plaster, of letting her perish. It would solve the problem, and make everything so much easier. Even if it did break Oster's heart.

But as the thoughts crossed his mind, Kali's hands began to shake, and he had to step outside to compose himself. They were unworthy thoughts, for both a healer and a gnome. Humans may take the easy route, but a little complexity never stopped a gnome. He would proceed as he had planned.

When the model was finished, Kali stored it in a hidden back room next to the Highlord armor. Using the hair of a long-haired fox, Kali fashioned a suitable wig, and Or ganathoran worked on duplicating the looks of a sick but living human being.

As the work completed, Kali placed an order with his fellow gnomes for a stonework mausoleum and a sepulchre. In true gnome fashion, the work took several tries, and resulted in a building whose design would drive mad the best human architects, complete with a long span of glossy black stone leading up to its foot-thick doors. The sepulchre itself was carved of crystal.

Kali's final plan was simple (for a gnome). The mannequin would be placed beneath the crystal in the tomb. Oster would be told that the crystal sepulchre would keep his lady alive in sleep for the rest of her days, for there was no way even Kali could cure her. Oster would be hurt, but it would be a hurt with hope for the future, a lesser hurt than losing one you love (at least, this was Kali's reasoning). The hell-spawn who wanted to throttle him would, at the same time, be placed in the ox-cart, unconscious, and set out without a driver on the road. By the time she awoke, she would be miles from the gnomes' remote home, with a few months missing from her life, and Kali would not be a murderer.

That was the plan, at least, and the leaves were just being to rum their fall colors when all was ready. Kali and Eton lugged the finished mannequin from its secret hiding place one day when Oster had been sent on some quest for Archie. They laid the figure to rest in the tomb and closed the fasteners. Beneath its glass now lay a beautiful princess suitable for use in a Human Story. Her lips were cold and red, and her eyes coated with bluish-tinged blush, never to open.

The entire task took them about two hours. When they returned, they were shocked to discover Oster there waiting for them.

Oster the Clockwork Hero was still in his plate armor, helmet tucked under his arm, pacing in the drawing room. He warmly welcomed Kali and Eton with a broad grin.

Kali coughed and launched into what he hoped was to be his last lie. "Oster, I must tell you terrible news. The condition of Lady Columbine has not remained constant while you were gone. Rather, it has worsened, such that we found it necessary to place her in a magical bier in a stone building on the hill. I'm sorry, but I'd.. " His voice trailed off as he looked into Oster's puzzled eyes.

"What are you talking about?" asked Oster. "She is still resting within." He motioned toward the bedroom door and Kali, for the first time, realized they left the secret closet open in that room. "I have glorious news. While traveling through the hill looking for ingredients, I chanced to rescue a priest — a true priest — one with the skills to heal the sick and cure the diseased. I brought him here to cure Lady Columbine. No slur on your abilities, Kali, my dear friend, but all your potions have been for nought. He's been in there for half an hour, ever since — "

Oster's words were cut short. The door to the bedroom snapped off its gnome-built, reinforced hinges. Through it came hurtling the broken body of the priest. The Dragon Highlord, dressed in full armor, strode into the room. Even with her features masked, Kali could sense that she was smiling. A dog-frightening, bird-throttling, cat-killing smile.

Kali's heart sank. The figurative jig was up, and Kali realized for the first time that he had built his invention of fiction without tightening the smallest bolt, building one lie upon another until he created an edifice of falsehoods, a structure that now swayed in the harsh wind of truth. He thought of the old Human Stories, and wished fervently for an easy fix — a wise old holy man to wander onto the scene and provide the solution to all problems.

And with another start, he realized that this was precisely what HAD almost happened. The holy man lay in a pool of his own blood, paying the price for wandering into the wrong tale.

But, while Kali's mind was stopping and starting, rushing from one revelation to another like a frightened child in an old house, the humans thundered on in the manner that all humans do. The Highlord laughed and leapt forward, lunging with a straight sword blow toward Oster's chest. The Clockwork Hero brought his own blade up quickly and parried the lunge, tossing his helmet at the Highlord. She dodged, but the bronze helm grazed her head, disorienting her for a moment. Oster used the moment to draw back into the room, waving to Kali and Eton to move away.

Kali and Eton scurried to the fireplace, which was graced by a number of Eton's new plow-share-shovels. These fireplace tools had a graceful sweep of metal welded to the base, making them useless for scooping ashes, but excellent for small gardening tasks and fair for bashing. The pair edged around the perimeter of the battle. Kali had heard that kender could merge into the stone itself and move without leaving a shadow. He desperately wished for that ability now.

Oster's attention was riveted on the dark-armored form before him. Kali expected the Highlord to taunt, laugh, snarl, and behave in the way of all good bad people when confronted with virtue, but the Highlord kept her input to a few growls of the mid-gear type. She lunged forward in a flurry of blows, lunges, and backswings. Oster parried them easily, and drove her back with a swing to the mid-section, a swipe to the head. What he lacked in form, he made up in force, and the Highlord was staggered when one of Oster's strong lunges caught her in the left arm.

They fought for a minute, two minutes, an eternity of three. The Highlord never lost track of the two gnomes (learning from her experience), and avoided all their attempts to get behind her. The two main combatants made quick work of most of Kali's living room furniture — every breakable was introduced to the dangers of being inadvertently close to clashing steel. The Highlord would charge, locking steel with Oster. The pair would stagger against each other in a few deadly dance steps, then one or the other would be flung backward, usually just far enough to reduce some other furnishing to its component parts. Lunge, the clash of locked blades, the stagger, the destruction of a chair. Lunge, lock, stagger, writing desk. Lunge, lock, stagger, spoon collection.

Sweat was now running down Oster's face in rivulets, but his eyes burned with fury. The battle had run long now, and Kali knew that all their deaths were long overdue. A bud of insight blossomed within his skull, and he suddenly understood why the Highlord had not made quick work of all of them. While Oster had been in training as the local hero of the gnomes, the Highlord had been under an enforced and extended rest for six months. While the Highlord was sufficiently powerful to make short work of a pair of gnomes, or a surprised cleric expecting a demure young lady, she was having more trouble with someone trained for combat.

The length of the battle was telling on the Highlord. Blood leaked between the epaulets of her wounded upper arm, forming a deadly calligraphy on her armor. Even Kali could see she was favoring that arm, and Oster pressed his advantage, driving her back, step by step, to the bedroom door.

Kali's eyes took in the battle, but his mind whirled with options, all of them bad. At first it seemed to him that Oster would surely perish under the attack, which was good in that at least he would die without finding out his ladylove was his murderer, but bad considering that said murderer would probably avenge herself on the rest of the community. Now it looked like Oster would be victorious, which would be equally disastrous, for once he discovered the Highlord was his Columbine, he would perish just as surely of a broken heart, if not busted ribs.

Kali chewed on his beard, fidgeted, raised his weapon, fidgeted again. Eton was a statue next to him, working out his own thoughts, or perhaps preparing himself for the afterlife. The pair were enraptured by the deadly ballet played out before them.

Oster was now beating the Highlord's attacks easily, reducing her to weak parries and dodges. The two locked blades again (Kali made a mental check to see if there was any surviving furniture). This time, when they broke, the Highlord's sword separated from its owner, burying its point in the china cabinet (shattering the last of the unbroken teapots). Oster brought his sword around in a mighty blow, aimed at his opponents' throat, as smooth and as level as carpenter's beam.

Kali stepped forward and, in a loud voice, shouted, "Oster, don't do it! It's your Columbine!" Or rather, he fully intended to. A great, soft explosion blossomed at the base of his own skull and he toppled forward. The room pitched and the floor rose up to meet the gnome. He was dimly aware of two other forms striking the floor before he reached it, one the shape of a full human helmet, the other resembling a human sans both helmet and head. A part of Kali's mind paused to calculate how long it would take a plummeting gnome, a falling severed head, and a crumbled body to all hit the ground at the same time. Then the void closed up over him.

Kali awoke to find himself in his own bed, looking up at a grim Oster and a worried-looking Eton. The expression on his fellow gnome's face told the story — that shamed-dog look of gnomish responsibility when an invention goes slightly awry, combined with a mild sense of pride that the idea proved feasible. He still had his combination plowshare-shovel in his hands.

Oster's face was human and therefore unreadable. Gray. It looked like that of a gnome who has realized his invention is unworkable, and nothing could change that fact. A look of defeat, tinged with worry.

"She's dead," Kali croaked. Not a question, but a notation, a footnote.

"They both are," said Oster, putting a hand on the reclining gnome's shoulder. "And the priest, too, I'm afraid."

"Both?" Kali's brow clouded.

"The Highlord, and… and…" Oster shook his head. "Eton showed me the tomb you made for her. It is very sweet. Almost as if she were alive. When I pointed the priest toward the bedroom, the Highlord was waiting. If you hadn't come home, he would have caught us both."

Kali looked hard at Eton, hoping to elicit from his fellow gnome an explanation that would at least bring him up to date.

Eton avoided his eyes, and instead grabbed Kali's big toe and looked at his wrist. "Hmmm, confused from a lateral conclusion. He'll need his rest. If you don't mind, Oster?"

The human nodded and saw himself out. The bedroom door had been replaced with a roughly-hung carpet, and Kali could hear the human busying himself outside.

Eton leaned over to check the dressing wrapped at the base of Kali's skull. The small healer grabbed his caretaker's beard and pulled him close, hissing so Oster could not hear.

"How did you keep him from finding out?"

"Quick presence of mind," whispered Eton. "Before he could examine the body, I told him that if the Highlord was near, other enemies may be around as well. Oster scouted. I gathered up the pieces. By the time he had returned, I had placed the body, still in its armor, on the pyre."

"And Columbine?"

"Still in her crypt. The Clockwork Hero made up his own story, and did a better job than we did. He's broken up about it, but he'll get over it. I think. Humans are so difficult-to figure out."

"Why the…?" Kali glowered at the destructive weapon Eton held.

The other gnome sighed and said, "Because you created something that worked, and I did not want you to throw it away."

Kali's head hurt, perhaps just from the shovel blow, but he wasn't sure. He frowned, but remained silent. And silence for gnomes means agreement.

"You created a hero, Kali," Eton said quietly, gently. "Oster arrived as a prisoner, a failure as a merchant and a rebel. But because of all the lies you spun — the tale of Columbine, the errands to fetch useless items — he found a purpose in life. I knew you had decided to tell him the truth, and I had to stop you. If you had told him, he might have pulled his blow, and she would have killed us all."

"But he believes a lie!" groaned Kali, still keeping his voice down.

Eton shrugged. "From what I know of humans, that is a standard state of affairs. They excel at self-deception. Sometimes the lie is the unity of a nation, or the perfection of a cause. Or the love of a good woman — "

" — who doesn't really exist," muttered Kali.

"Exactly." Eton nodded. "It might even be preferred that way. Less fuss and bother. I might create one for myself…"

Kali hrumphed weakly and drifted off to sleep. After a few days he came around to seeing things as Eton did. And Oster did heal over time and come to conquer the wound in his heart made by Columbine's death at the hands of the Highlord. And after a time it became less and less important for Kali to tell Oster the truth of the matter. Even so, he himself pledged to tell no more lies. No more dangerous ones, at least.

And so it has been from that day to this. There still is a gnome village so remote that other gnomes refer to it when talking about remote villages, a noisy place of clanging hammers and the occasional explosion. And it has as its protector a champion in bronze armor, a human in clock-work attire. And its healer is a gnome who has an air of satisfaction because he made something that works, though, even if pressed, he won't reveal the nature of his discovery.

Now, if you ever encounter this Clockwork Hero, you can ask him the tale, and he will tell, as best he is able with his human tongue and direct manner, of the story of his reluctant heroism, of finding himself entrusted to protect a group of small, foolish gnomes. He will speak of encountering a beauty wrapped in slumber, a fair maiden who never spoke to him, yet captured his heart. And he will tell of the fell creature who killed her and threatened his newfound people, such that they called upon him for salvation. And he will speak of sacrifices made and mighty oaths sworn and horrible battles fought and how justice and valor prevailed at the end, though at terrible cost.

But that, of course, is a Human Story, and as such we shall not worry about it.

The village of Dimmin lay snugly in a fold of the Kharolis Mountains, tucked between the elves' Qualinesti and Thorbardin of the dwarves. On the outskirts of that little village, beyond the bend of the brook where willows overhung the water on both sides, stood a small stone house. It was the mage's house, and Thorne had lived there for twenty years. To the eye, he was a man just come into his prime, but he'd been looking like that for all these twenty years past, never a hair turned gray, and so folk reckoned that he had an elf lurking in his ancestry somewhere.

Mages enjoyed no good reputation in those days just after the Cataclysm, but the villagers liked Thorne. From the headman to the lowliest dairy maid, they knew him as "our mage." Even Guarinn Hammerfell — the dwarf who did the blacksmithing — couldn't hide a grudging fondness for Thorne, and that was saying something. Until the mage's arrival, Guarinn could name only one friend — Tam the potter. But for Tam the potter, Guarinn had always kept to himself, a grim fellow, without much warmth of feeling. Yet, when Thorne arrived, Guarinn made room in his lean heart for another friend. Long-lived dwarf and long-lived mage… the villagers joked that Guarinn must have reckoned Thorne would be around for a while, so he might as well get used to him.

The people in Dimmin didn't know the half of what was to be known about Guarinn and Tam and Thorne, though they did consider it natural that Roulant Potter, grown to manhood tagging at the heels of Tam and his friends, stepped into his father's place after the potter's death — and became just as friendly with Guarinn and Thorne.

Likely, they predicted, when young Roulant married Una the miller's girl they'd get themselves a son who'd inherit his grand-da's friends. No one thought it would be a bad inheritance, mage and all. People had gotten used to Guarinn the blacksmith. And Thorne was helpful in the way mages can be, for he was able to charm a fretful child to sleep or bring water springing up from a dry well — always willing to turn his mysterious skills to good use.

No one blamed Thorne that he was never able to do anything about the Night of the Wolf.

Anyone with eyes in Dimmin could see that it was a great source of frustration and sorrow to their mage that he could offer them no protection against the wolf that terrorized the countryside one night each year. For thirty years it had avoided traps and hunters, and that was enough to make people understand that this was no ordinary wolf. What natural beast could live so long?

Yet Thorne could offer no better wisdom than that everyone keep within-doors; for life's sake, never venture out into the dark when the two moons rose full on the first night of autumn. And so, on this one day each year, all around Dimmin, small children were shooed early into cottages, cached behind bolted doors. And if a child's bed should be near a window, this night the little one would sleep in the loft with his parents.

Most often a stray sheep or roaming dog, sometimes a luckless traveler benighted in the forest, satisfied the hunger of the great beast. But only three years ago on the Night of the Wolf, a farmer who lived but a morning's walk from Dimmin had wakened at moonset to hear one of his children wailing. Fast as he ran to the youngster's bed, he'd found only an empty pallet, and the broad, deep tracks of a large wolf outside the window. No one questioned Thorne's advice to keep close to home on the Night.

It must be a curse, they muttered as they bolted their doors. What else could it be?

It was exactly that. Thorne had always known how to end the curse, and no one wanted that ending more than he.

On the first day of autumn, Thorne sat before a banked hearth-fire. Outside the stone house, cold wind hissed around the eaves, but he didn't hear it. Eyes wide, he dreamed as though he were deep asleep. In his dreams the two moons, the red and the silver, filled up the sky, showered their light upon the jagged back teeth of a ruin's broken walls while cold, hungry howling ran down the sky. In his dreams Thorne cried out for mercy, and got none.

He sat so all morning, sat unmoving all afternoon. When the light deepened toward the day's end, he heard his name urgently whispered, and he came away from his dreaming slowly, like a man swimming up from dark, deep waters. Guarinn Hammerfell stood at his shoulder, waiting. The dwarf's face was white, drawn in haggard lines; his dark, blue-flecked eyes were sunk into deep hollows carved by weariness. Thorne hadn't stirred even once during the long day, but he knew that Guarinn had kept watch beside him and never took a step away.

"It's time, my friend," Thorne said.

Guarinn nodded, wordlessly agreeing that it was. He said nothing as he and the mage dressed warmly in thick woolen cloaks and stout climbing boots, spoke no word as he slung a coil of heavy rope over his shoulder and thrust a short-hafted throwing axe into his belt.

They crossed the brook by the old footbridge and entered the darkening forest. At the top of the first low hill, Thorne stopped to look down upon Dimmin as lights sprang up in the windows of the cottages, little gleams of gold to console in the coming night. He watched the last cottage, the one that stood alone at the far end of the village where the street became a narrow footpath winding down toward the potter's kiln at the edge of the brook. When that light sighed to life he knew that Roulant Potter was taking up his bow and quiver, making ready to leave.

"And so the Night comes," Thorne whispered. "And we'll try again to kill the wolf, to end the curse."

His words fell heavily into silence. Guarinn turned his back on the lights of Dimmin and began the climb to the tall hill in the forest, the bald place where the ruin lay. Thorne followed, and didn't trespass into the dwarf's silence.

Their friendship was older than people in Dimmin realized. Guarinn knew that the mage was once called Thorne Shape-shifter. And he knew that Thorne Shapeshifter was the wolf. With Tam Potter, Guarinn had been present twenty years ago when Thorne had bared his wrists and taken up a keen-edged dagger, blindly seeking to end the curse by killing himself.

"There IS no hope but this blade," Thorne had cried that day, sickened by the taste of what the wolf had killed. "I will change every year, unless one of you kills the wolf. Neither of you has been able to do that."

He'd meant no reproof, for he knew why his friends had failed each year. That, too, was part of the curse. Still, they reproached themselves, and he knew that, as well.

He found no hope anywhere, not even among the wise at the Tower of Wayreth. He'd fled there, after the curse had been spoken, but he'd been driven from that haven by the dark magic of the curse itself, compelled to return to the broken ruin in the mountains at the rising of the full autumn moons. Ten years he'd hidden there. The efforts of the most skillful mages at Wayreth had not been able to blunt that compulsion. The wisest had sadly counselled Thorne that he must accept that there was only one way to end the curse. The wolf must die, and only Guarinn or Tam Potter could kill it. So said the curse. But they had failed him.

It was twenty years ago that Thorne decided there might be another way to end the curse. And so, with careful precision, he'd set a dagger's glinting edge against the blue veins in his wrist. In the end, whether by some agency of the curse itself, or an innate will to survive that was stronger than he'd guessed, he'd not been able to draw the steel across his wrist.

Guarinn had wept for both joy and rue over his friend's inability to end his life. And Tam Potter, taking the dagger gently from the mage's hand, said: "Thorne, come back and live in Dimmin with Guarinn and me. We'll find a way to kill the wolf. We'll keep trying."

In the summer when Tam died, Roulant Potter learned that he'd inherited his father's part in a curse that was older than he. Thorne had told Roulant just what he knew his father had believed — what Guarinn yet believed: when the wolf was dead, the curse would end. "What will happen to you?" young Roulant had asked. "I will not be hurt," Thorne had replied. "I will be free."

Some of that was true, and some of it wasn't. Thorne never told his friends all he'd learned during the time at Wayreth.

Shrouded in shadow, hidden beneath a stone outcropping at the forest's edge, Una wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees, hugged herself to muffle the drumming of her heart. She was outside after sunset on the Night of the Wolf. Una had not lived in Dimmin but five years, come to stay with her cousin, the miller's wife, after her parents died. She'd been thirteen then, and it hadn't taken her very long to learn that no one in the village ventured outdoors on the first night of autumn.

No one, that is, except — lately — Roulant Potter. He would stealthily enter the forest here soon. Una had seen him do this each year on the Night for two years, and there had never been a question in her mind that she'd keep Roulant's secret faithfully. She'd loved him as long as she'd known him, and he'd never been shy about letting her know that he felt the same way. They would marry soon. Maybe.

And maybe not. Una's faithful silence on the subject of Roulant's Night-walk extended to Roulant himself, for she didn't know how to ask the question

that would sound like an accusation: What do you know about the Night of the Wolf that even our mage doesn't?

And so the secret cast a shadow between them. Day by day, a little at a time, the shadow was changing them, as if by a malicious magic, into uneasy strangers.

As darkness gathered beneath the forest's thin eaves, old dead leaves ran scrabbling before the wind. In the luminous sky, one early, eager star shone out. A dark shape stood atop the hill, a young man with a great breadth of shoulder and a long, loping stride. Roulant stopped at the crest and stood silhouetted against the sky, the last light shining on his brown-gold hair. Still as stone, he hung there, between the village and the wildwood — stood a long time before he at last vanished into the twilight beneath the trees.

The wind moaned round the rocks, and Una shivered as she checked the draw of the dagger at her belt. She was afraid: of the Night, and of what she might discover, and of what she might lose. But she hugged her courage close. She would follow Roulant tonight, and she wouldn't turn back. She had to know what part he played in this yearly night of dread.

Soft on the cold air, Roulant heard a whisper, the dry rattling of brush behind him. He turned quickly, saw a flash of red in the tangled thickets on the slope below: some padding fox or vixen on the trail of prey. Roulant went on climbing. He must reach the ruin before moonrise.

The tumbled stone walls atop the bald hill in the forest had been his destination each Night for the past two, as it had been his father's every year since Roulant could remember. When he was a boy, after his mother's death, Roulant used to think he knew why his father went out into the forest on the Night of the Wolf. He believed that Tam was a brave champion upon a secret quest to help save the people of Dimmin. Roulant'd never told anyone what he believed, nor did he mention it to his father. A secret is a secret, and Tam need not carry the burden of knowing his had been discovered.

The year the wolf had killed the farmer's child was the last Tam went up to the ruin. The summer after, he died. Roulant was seventeen then, and that was when he learned that Thorne was the wolf.

It was a hard thing to learn. Roulant had known Thorne since childhood, had felt for him the magical awe and affection that is hero-worship. Even knowing that the mage became the wolf, once every annum, could not break their bond. From that year to this, enmeshed in the web of an old curse, Roulant had been drawn out into the forest on the Night to stand with Guarinn Hammerfell and promise Thorne they would kill the wolf, swear they would free their friend from the curse.

This, on the face of it, was a difficult promise to keep, for wolves are hard to hunt and kill. But Roulant, in youthful zeal, had never truly thought it would be impossible. He was a good hunter. His father had taught him to be a faultless shot with bow and arrow. Guarinn had taught him to track, and made the lessons easy, companionable rambles in the forest. As he'd stood faithfully with Tam, Guarinn was always with Roulant. Yet, just as Tam had failed his own promise, Roulant had, too — so far.

There were reasons for that, the kind Roulant dared not think about here and alone in the dark forest.

Wind soughed low, herding fallen leaves. All around, the night drew in close, dark and sighing. Roulant stopped for breath before he began to climb the last stony path, the barely seen trace that would lead him to the ruin. Watching his breath plume in the frosty air, he thought that the pale mist was just like the promises he'd made to Thorne — easily blown away.

And Roulant knew that if he failed again tonight, he'd be forced to break a different promise, one that had nothing to do with wolves and curses. If he didn't kill the wolf tonight, in the morning he would go to Una and tell her that he couldn't marry her. He would do that, though both their hearts would break.

A dear and pretty girl, his Una, with her earnest green eyes and her red-gold hair. He was no poet, but late at night Roulant liked to watch the fire in the hearth and think that the rosy flames, so lovely and generous with their warmth, reminded him of Una. Whatever joy would come on their wedding day would be swiftly overshadowed by his terrible obligation to go up to the ruin year after year, trying, as his father had tried, to bring an end to the Night of the Wolf. How could Roulant come back to Una every year, with blood on his hands as surely as it was on Thorne's?

And yet… how could he bear to look down the long years of a life without her?

Roulant put his back into the last climb and soon left the dark fastness of the forest to see Thorne and Guarinn waiting in the paler light of the clearing. The moons were rising, mere suggestions of light above the mountain. Soon they would spill red and silver light on the bald hill crowned by frost-whitened, shattered walls. Roulant left the forest, trying to shut out the grim sense that the events of this Night were fated.

From the obscuring dark at the forest's edge, Una watched him join his friends. Once Roulant and Thorne and Guarinn climbed the hill to the ruin, Una went noiselessly around the base, up the slope as silently as a shadow, and entered at the opposite side to hide in the small shelter of blackened beams and piled stone that once had shaped a bridal chamber.

Thorne stood in the center of the ruin, surrounded by the broken stone, his back to the rising moons. He lifted his head, sniffed the air. Guarinn tied a slipknot around one end of the rope he'd carried. Roulant strung his bow and placed three arrows in easy reach on the flat of a broken stone.

"Time, my friend," the dwarf said, his forge-scarred hands shaking a little, though he gripped the rope hard. They'd tried to hold Thorne with rope before, five years ago. It was Tam who had stood readying bow and bolt then, not Roulant. Guarinn thought it might be different this time with a younger eye, a steadier hand to take a well-timed shot at the instant of changing. Thorne closed his eyes, shut out the sight of the rope that would hold him, of Roulant readying a long, steel-headed shaft for flight, and nodded to Guarinn.

"Do it, and hurry."

When the noose passed over his head and settled on his neck, Thorne heard himself panting hoarsely, like an anxious beast mindlessly straining for release. The rope stank of hemp and tar and the dark scent of smoke, fire's ghost. In moments, like the return of an unhealed malady, he'd feel the bonds of humanity fall away from him: compassion replaced by hunger, an imperative that knew no mercy. Reason and skill changed by fast, fevered degrees to instinct, which existed only to serve the needs of survival. Even now, his senses filled with the complex richness of scent only an animal knows. Even now the scents aroused hunger.

The man knew the fear he smelled on Guarinn as welljustified, not to be scorned. The wolf would only smell the fear and know instinctively that this was a victim to feed hunger. Thorne wished that Guarinn would hurry, for very soon Thorne Shape-shifter, once known for his mastery of this most difficult of the magic arts, would not be able to hold back the changing.

Crouched in her cold dark shelter, Una stared in amazed alarm to see Guarinn place the noose round Thorne's neck. Like most people in Dimmin, she felt like an intruder in Guarinn's company, his glum silences made her a stranger to be kept at arm's length, mistrusted. But she knew that Roulant loved Guarinn as truly as he loved Thorne and had loved his own father. Though she'd heard Thorne invite the binding, saw Roulant standing by in silence, Una watched the dwarf with narrowed eyes.

Each knot he tied was strong, and as he worked, Guarinn's face was like a stark, bleak landscape, scoured by sorrow, forsaken of all but the thinnest hope. Yet he did the rough work carefully and, were it anyone else, Una would have said tenderly. He took great care to cause no hurt, and watching, unable to find any reason for what she was seeing, Una swallowed hard against an ache of tears. Tears for Thorne, bound; for Roulant, who stood as still as the mage, watching. And for Guarinn Hammerfell who, of them all, looked as if he alone hated what was being done.

And she wondered, what WAS being done? And why? From the forest Una heard the clap of an owl's wings; hard on that, the faint, dying scream of a small creature caught in dagger-sharp talons. The wind stirred, cold from behind her as a long, low moaning slid across the night. An uncanny sound, a grievous pleading.

Trembling, with cold fear, she saw Roulant pick up an arrow, nock it to the bowstring, his stance the broad one of a man preparing to put an arrow right through a straw-butt at the bull's-eye. Guarinn moved to the side, moonlight running on the bitter edge of the throwing axe in his hand.

The mage, alone, wearing the light of the moons like a shimmering cloak of red and silver, sank to his knees. Guarinn took two more quick paces to the side, careful not to get between the mage and the wall. Roulant stood where he was, and, after he'd marked Guarinn's position, he never looked away from Thorne.

The night began to shimmer around Thorne, waver like the air above a banked fire. Una, who'd been still as stock, made a sound then, a whisper of boot-heel against stone as she crept closer to the opening of her small shelter to see.

Faint though the sound had been, it was heard.

Thorne jerked his head up, looked directly at her.

Cold fear skittered along Una's skin, cramped her belly painfully. She wanted to reach for her dagger, but she could only sit motionless, caught and stilled by Thorne's eyes — the eyes of an animal lurking beyond the campfire's pale. And the shape of him, she thought, the shape of him is somehow wrong. Something about his face, the length of his arms. But surely that was a trick of moonlight and shimmering air? And crouching there, he didn't hold himself like a man, on his knees. He had hands and feet flat to the ground, as an animal would.

Una pressed her hands hard to her mouth, trying to muffle her cry of horror and pity when she saw Thorne look away, turn all his attention to a feverish gnawing at the rope that bound him.

The rope wasn't doing a good job of holding him now, for his shape was changing rapidly, and in some places the coil was slipping away from what had once been a man's wrist or ankle… and were now the smaller joints of an animal, a broad-chested wolf, its gray pelt silver in the light of two moons, its dripping fangs glistening.

Guarinn cried "Now, Roulant! DO IT!" and instinctively Una shoved herself far back against the broken wall behind her, flinching as rubble slithered down the hill, the clatter of stone loud in the night.

The sound did not distract Guarinn, his axe hit the wolf in the shoulder, biting hard, though not lodging in either muscle or bone. But Roulant hesitated, if only the space of a heart's beat, and so when the wolf leaped at him, it was well beneath the arrow's flight. Roaring, the wolf hit him hard, sent him crashing to the stony ground, pinned him there with its weight.

And then Una bolted out of her shelter, ran across the moon-lighted ruin, her own dagger in hand, before she knew exactly what she meant to do.

They were upon him, the smaller male and the young female, with daggers that would bite deeper than his fangs could. The wolf, who knew nothing about rage or vengeance or any purpose other than survival, heaved up from the one sprawled helpless beneath him, abandoned the enticing scent of blood and meat for immediate survival.

On the wings of pain, like wings of fire, the wolf won its freedom at the price of another agonizing bound over the broken wall. It left blood on the stones of the hillside, all along the path into the forest, and it carried away with it the noose still clinging round its neck.

Guarinn had made a bright, high campfire in the center of the ruin, but Roulant didn't think it was doing much to warm or comfort Una. Nor did it seem to help Una that Roulant held her tightly in his arms — he wondered if she would ever stop weeping. Somewhere to the north the wolf howled, a long and lonely cry. Una shuddered, and Roulant held her closer.

"Una," he said, turning away from the reminder of failure. "Why did you follow me here?"

She sat straighter, her fists clenched on her knees, her eyes still wet but no longer pouring tears. "I've known for two years that you went out into the forest on the Night. And I've known…"

She looked at Guarinn sitting hunched over the fire. The dwarf turned a little away, seemingly disinterested in whatever they discussed. Roulant, who knew him, understood that he was offering privacy.

"You've known what?" he asked, gently.

"That something's come between us. Something — a secret. Roulant, I've been afraid, and I had to know why you went into the forest on the Night, when no one else — "

"Someone else," Guarinn amended. "Thorne and me. And now that you're here, I suppose you think you should know the secret you've spied out?"

Una bristled, and Roulant shook his head. "Guarinn, she's here and that gives her a right to know what she saw."

"Not as far as I'm concerned."

"Maybe not," Roulant said. "But she has rights where I'm concerned. I should have honored them before now."

Guarinn eyed them both, quietly judging. "All right, then. Listen well, Una, and I'll give you the answer you've come looking for.

"This ruin you see around us used to be Thorne's house," he said. "A quiet place and peaceful. No more though. It's only a pile of stone now, a cairn to mark the place where three dooms were doled out this night thirty years ago. Three dooms, twined one round the other to make a single fate."

The wind blew, tangling the smoke and flame of the small campfire. Roulant wrapped his arms around Una again and held her close for warmth.

"Girl," the dwarf said. "Your hiding place tonight was once a bridal chamber. It never saw the joy it was fitted out for…"

"Thorne asked but two guests to come witness and celebrate his marriage. One of them was me, and I was glad to stand with him as he pledged his wedding vows. The other was Tam Potter, and his was a double joy that night, for he was Thorne's friend and the bride's cousin. She was from away south, and I don't think her closest kin liked the idea of her wedding a mage. But Tam was fair pleased, and so he was the kinsman who bestowed her hand.

"Mariel, the girl's name; and she was pretty enough, but no rare beauty. Yet that night she glowed brightly, put the stars to shame; for so girls will do when they are soon to have what they want and need. She needed Thorne Shape-shifter and had flouted most of her kin to have him. No less did Thorne need her.

"The first night of autumn, it was, and the bright stars shone down on us as we stood outside the cottage. Old legends have it that wedding vows taken in the twined light of the red moon and the silver will make a marriage strong in love and faith. Perhaps those legends would have been proven that night. Perhaps. We did never learn that, for another guest came to the wedding — uninvited, unwelcome, and the first we knew of his coming was when he stood in our midst, dark and cold as death.

"A mage, that uninvited guest, black-robed and with a heart like hoar-frost — and you must remember that this is no tale of rival suitors, one come in the very nick of time to rapt away the maiden he loves. This is a tale of two young men, one so poisonously jealous of the other that he must — for hate — spoil whatever his rival in power had.

"The name of the Spoiler? I will not speak it. Let it never be remembered. This is how dwarves reward murderers, and I know no other way as good.

"He laid hands on the girl, that dark mage, in a way no man should touch another's wife; magicked her from sight before any one of us could move to prevent. Aye, but he didn't take her far, in hatred and arrogance took her only within the cottage. In the very instant we knew her gone, we heard her voice raised in terror and rage. Close as she was, the evil mage's wizard ways kept us from coming to her aid until it was too late. The spell lifted. Thorne found her quickly in the bridal chamber. And he saw the mage defile her… and worse.

"Mariel lay cold and still on the ground, like a fragile pretty doll flung aside and broken, Thorne's dear love stricken for spite by the Spoiler.

"Seeing her dead, Thorne Shape-shifter showed the Spoiler how he'd earned his name.

"You have seen the wolf, and so you know what the Spoiler saw in the moments before his death. But you have never heard such screaming as I heard that night: never heard such piteous pleading, nor heard anyone wail for mercy as the Spoiler did, him torn by the fangs of the great gray wolf.

"Tam Potter and I could have tried to stop Thorne, but we did not. We stood by, watched the wolf at his ravening work. We should have granted mercy."

Despite the hot, high fire, Una sat shivering, her hand a small fist in Roulant's.

"Tam died wishing we'd granted that mercy," Guarinn said softly. "And I sit here now wishing no less, for the Spoiler died with a curse on his lips. It was a hard one, as the curses of dying mages tend to be, and it marked us all with the fate of hunter and hunted."

Stiff and cold from sitting, Una got to her feet; she did not answer when Roulant called to her. She needed a place to be private with what she'd learned. The night was crisp and bright, as lovely as it must have been this time thirty years ago. As she walked, Una discovered the shape of the ruin, saw that it was very like the little stone house near the bend of the brook in Dimmin. It lacked only one room to be exactly the same. In the Dimmin house, Thorne kept only a stark sleeping loft under the eaves.

Una stood for a long time before the dark mouth of the little cave of fire-blacked beam and broken stone that had sheltered her tonight; all that was left of a fouled bridal chamber.

She returned to stand by the fire. "Tell me," she said.

"Thorne must surrender his very self one night each year and hope that Roulant or I will end the curse by killing the wolf. This," Guarinn said, "is an inherited obligation."

Una stood quietly, her eyes on the fire, the flames and the embers. "If you kill the wolf, what will happen to Thorne?"

It was Roulant — silent till then — who answered.

"The curse will be over. He'll begin to age, grow old again, like the rest of us. Thorne hasn't got any elven blood, Una, though everyone thinks so. It's the curse that's held him in time."

"Guarinn," she said softly. "Why haven't you killed the wolf in all these thirty years?"

"You'd think it would be easy, aye? Take the first shot as he was changing and end the matter. It isn't so easy. Once before, binding him slowed the change, and we tried that again tonight. But sometimes

…" The dwarf shuddered. "Sometimes he's changed between one breath and the next. Sometimes faster than that, and the wolf is gone before either one of us can pick up a weapon. He doesn't just look like a wolf. He IS one! He'll tear at you, running, and he's too canny to stay around fighting losing battles.

"So," she said. "You have to go out and hunt the wolf?"

Neither answered. A glance passed between them and Roulant got to his feet. He took her hand, his own very cold as he led her into the shadow of a low broken wall.

"Una," he said. "We can kill the wolf if we can find it — "

"That won't be hard tonight. You could track him by the blood."

"We could. Except…" His face shone white in the moonlight, his eyes dark with dread. "Except that we dare not set foot out there!"

She frowned, leaned on the wall to look out. All she saw was night and stars and the moons hanging over the clearing. She heard night noise, owls wondering and hares scampering, a stream laughing over stones.

"I know," Roulant said. "I see everything that you see, just as you see it. When I'm standing here." He turned his back on the forest. "When I set foot outside the ruin — even hold my hand out beyond the wall… It's terrible out there. The Spoiler laid a curse on us too, one we've never found a way past. In here, we're safe. Out there

… they'll kill us."

Una heard this, but she was staring out at the forest and the night, thinking about what he'd said about things being very different beyond the wall. She looked down and saw her loosely clasped hands just beyond the wall. Unlike the others, she neither saw nor felt any curse in the forest or the night.

Una turned away from the wall and walked past Roulant and Guarinn without a word. She picked up Roulant's bow and quiver on the way. She'd not gotten but a few yards when she heard Roulant shout something, heard Guarinn scrambling to his feet, echoing the warning cry. Una ran, heeding no warning. She vaulted the wall where the wolf had fled.

As she bounded down the hill, Una hoped that whatever kept Roulant and Guarinn helpless in the ruin would not affect her. It was frightening enough to go hunting a wounded wolf in the night, and her only a middling shot with a bow. Still, the beast was wounded, and if she could once get a good aim, she'd be able to kill it.

Roulant jumped the wall, chased heedlessly after Una. And he thought: Idiot girl! Guarinn was a long reach behind. He prayed that Roulant would be able to snatch her back to safety in time, that he wouldn't have to follow.

Una was too fast. She vanished into the shadows at the foot of the hill. Roulant stood where he'd landed.

Guarinn eyed the darkness, and Roulant standing outside the wall, straining like a leashed hound. The night would spring alive at any moment, suddenly boiling with horror. The wall would be on them.

Guarinn nervously fingered the haft of his axe. "Roulant, what do you think?"

"I'm going to fetch Una back, that's what I think!"

Guarinn heard Roulant's answer only faintly, for the young man was already at the foot of the hill. Alone in the ruin, Guarinn shifted from foot to foot, indecisively. "This is insane," he muttered. "I know what's going to happen to me if I leave here…"

He took a breath, fueling courage and a suddenly rising hope. Maybe nothing would happen.

Roulant can chase after his girl if that's what he wants to do, Guarinn thought. But I still have my axe and good strong arm, and I'm going for the wolf.

Guarinn hopped the wall. But when his feet hit the ground he found himself on the wrong side of the border between reason and nightmare, caught in the trap the Spoiler had laid for any wolfhunter who ventured out of the ruin.

The wall walked. And the dead with him.

They crawled, and shambled, and dragged themselves staggering through a foul and freezing fog, each trying desperately to reach Guarinn as the damned would grasp at one last hope. He could not move, stood rooted like an oak in the ice-toothed mist, helpless as decaying hands plucked at him, clung to him, shoulder and wrist and arm. And this was no silent place, this nightmare-realm. It was filled up with the mad shrieking and frenzied grieving of people he'd known in life, and some he'd never seen until they were dead.

A hunter who'd died to feed the wolf's hunger.

An old peddler night-caught in the forest, hardly recognizable as human when he'd been found.

A child, a little boy screaming now as it had when, three years ago, the wolf had torn him from his bed. Or was that Guarinn's own voice screaming, his own throat torn with the violence of terror as the child's had been by the wolf's fangs?

Then came a howling, a long, aching sound of abandonment. The wolf. Or a friend forsaken. Or an innocent dying.

Guarinn,you've failed me, failed them all! Hands clawed at his face, dug and tore at his throat, leaving bits of their own flesh and grave-mold behind to foul his beard and hair.

Faithless friend! You stink of their blood, Guarinn Hammerfell!

Guarinn cried out in terror, couldn't tell his own voice from theirs, no longer knew who accused — they or him. The ice-mist filled up his lungs, stopped his breath, suffocating him.

Murderer! Guarinn child-killer! Guarinn -

"Guarinn! Breathe! Come on, breathe!"

Roulant shook his friend till his teeth rattled, shook him harder still, but to no effect. Roulant'd heard but one choking gasp of terror, just as he was entering the forest, and he'd known that whatever chance-found charm was keeping him safe and sane outside the ruin wasn't working for Guarinn. The dwarf was trapped, unable to move, even to breathe, while mind and soul were adrift in the cold country of nightmare.

"Guarinn," Roulant shouted, fearful. Perhaps Una was safe because the Spoiler's trap was meant to harm no one but those who bound by the curse. Perhaps Roulant was safe because he left the ruin to find Una, not to end the curse. But Guarinn must have left the ruin with plans to kill the wolf. That's what sprung the Spoiler's trap, Roulant thought.

"Guarinn!" he cried again, gathering his friend close, holding him. "We've got to find Una! I need you to help me. Please, Guarinn! Come back and help me…"

A breath, just a small one.

"Guarinn — help me find Una. We must find Una!"

The dwarf drew another breath, no steadier, but deeper. Roulant held him hard, forced him to look nowhere but into his eyes. "Listen — LISTEN! Don't think about anything else but this: We have to find Una. Don't even think about why. We're here for no reason but to find Una. Do you understand?"

Guarinn swallowed hard.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes," Guarinn said hoarsely. "What next?"

Roulant thought as he helped his friend to his feet.

The wolf woke to pain and hunger. He was not frightened by the pain, knowing he could transcend it. He was afraid of hunger. Wolves worship only one god, and the god's name is Hunger.

He'd found shelter quickly after he'd fled his attackers, a soft nest of old leaves beneath a rock outcropping. There, downwind of his enemies so he could smell them if they pursued, he'd licked clean the shallow cuts on his belly and legs, the deeper one on his shoulder. He'd gnawed off the trailing end of the rope, for that frightened him nearly as much as hunger. It had more than once snagged in bushes to choke him as he'd fled. He'd gotten most of it, wearing only the noose now, a foul-smelling collar. Free and safe, he'd curled tight against the cold — sleeping lightly, dreaming of thirst and hunger as a thin veil of clouds came from the east to hide the stars.

Now the shadows had softer edges and the darkness was deeper. The wind told him that water was no great distance away — clean and cold by the smell; by the sound, no more than a streamlet. It would be enough to provide thirst's ease. And there was another scent, not close yet, only faintly woven into night, but the wolf knew it — human-scent, burnt meat and smoke and old skins; sweat and the light, sweet odor of flesh; running beneath that, the warm smell of blood; over it all, the tang of fear, sharp and enticing on the cold night air. He'd seen this young female not long ago, and he had the mark of her steel fang on him. Hers was the least of his wounds, for she'd been distracted by fear and not very strong.

With his lean god for company, the wolf rose stiffly from his warm nest.

Una knelt to examine the dark blot marking the faded earth of the deer trail, and by the thin light of the moons saw that it was no more than shadow. Cold wind blew steadily from the east, carried the smell of a morning snow. Una shivered and got to her feet. She'd not seen a blood-mark or the imprints of the wolf's limping passage for some time now, but the last real sign had been along this game-trail, a path no more than a faint, wandering line to show where deer passed between high-reaching trees in their foraging. Lacking a better choice, Una continued along the path.

The wolf had not proven as easy to track as she'd thought, and now she wondered whether she'd ever find him. She wondered, too, whether it would turn out that the beast found her, or was even now stalking behind. She tried not to think about that. All she needed was a clear shot. She'd put plenty of arrows through the straw-butt, she could put an arrow through a wolf. She could free Thorne. She could free them all. But she had little confidence ruling her thoughts, and so, her attention was focused behind her rather than in front when the deer trail ended abruptly at the muddy verge of a shallow stream.

Una and the wolf saw each other at the same moment, and she knew — as prey knows in its bones — that she might have time to nock an arrow to string, but she wasn't going to have time to let the bolt fly.

Guarinn tried to maintain a narrow focus, to shut down all thinking and track like an animal, using only sight and scent and hearing. He measured his success by the nearness of dead voices. At best, the haunting dead were never wholly gone, only banished to a distance he could endure. The protection Roulant had shown him was working, but only just. How fast would the Spoiler's trap catch them if they came upon the wolf?

Soft — a whisper shivering across the night — Guarinn heard the rattle of brush. He stopped, keeping his hands fisted and well away from the axe in his belt while he waited to hear the sound again.

"The wind," Roulant said, low.

Guarinn didn't think so. That one soft rattle had been a discordant note. When the sound came again, Guarinn knew it wasn't wind-crafted. Nor was it soft now. Something was running through the brush.

"It's Una!" Roulant cried and bolted past Guarinn.

She wasn't alone. Like a dark echo, something else came crashing through the brush behind her.

Fleet, eyes huge as a hunted doe's, Una burst through the brush, frantically trying to nock arrow to bow as she ran. She was having little luck, and even at a distance Guarinn saw her hands shaking, fumbling uselessly at shaft and string.

"Una," Roulant shouted. "Here!"

Seeing them for the first time, she redoubled her speed. Relief and joy and — last — panic marked her face when her foot turned on a stone and she fell hard to the ground, the breath blasted from her, and the bow flung from her hand.

Guarinn saw the wolf first. The sight of it — eyes redly blazing, fangs gleaming — triggered instinct. In the very moment the wolf leaped, the dwarf snatched his throwing axe from his belt — and tumbled over the edge of nightmare.

The wolf smelled fear and loved it — the scent of easy prey. He sensed no threat in the smaller male, standing motionless; nor was the young female — struggling for breath, fighting to rise from the ground — any danger. These he could ignore for now. But the third, the bigger male… from him came the fiery scent of a packdefender. He was the danger and the threat.

The wolf hurtled past Una. Choking on the sudden, cold rush of air, she heard the impact of bodies — the wolf snarling and Roulant's grunt of shock and pain.

And she saw Guarinn standing still as stone, his throwing axe gripped in a nerveless hand.

"Guarinn!" she cried, clawing at the ground in desperate search of the bow. "Help him!"

Guarinn never moved… and she found the bow, string-broken, useless. Roulant screamed, a raging curse turned to pain as the wolf's fangs tore at his shoulder. The cry of pain became a chant — her name, gasped over and over in the staggering rhythm of his ragged breathing as he struggled with the beast.

Una gained her feet, running. She flung herself at the wolf's back, dagger in hand. Clinging to the writhing beast's neck, choking on the smell of blood, she struck wildly. Poorly. Hurting, but not killing.

The wolf heaved up.

"Guarinn! Help me! The wolf is killing him!"

The beast twisted sharply, and threw her off. Its fangs dripped frothy red, and behind it, Roulant lurched to his feet, gasping his terrible chant. The wolf turned, leaped at him. Una didn't know which of them screamed, man or wolf. The sound of it tore through the night, a wild howling.

Guarinn Hammerfell stood at the center of a maelstrom of wild moaning and screaming. Guarinn! Help him! Hands clawed at him, shreds of livid flesh falling away to expose bones as white and brittle as ice. The wolf is killing him! Hollow voices accused him, and the foul names — child-killer! murderer! faithless friend! — turned the ice-mist filling his lungs to poison.

A wind rose to pound at him, tear at him, with such violence that even the dead hands, shedding tattered flesh, rattling bones, fell away before it. Howling, screaming, deafening wind.

Roulant! Familiar with everyone who haunted this nightmare realm, Guarinn knew that name had no business being spoken here. He snatched at it, clutched it tight for a lifeline. He was choking, fighting for air, falling… and staggering on the deer trail, his axe clenched tight in his fist.

The wolf lunged again at Roulant, leaping for his throat. In the only instant of sanity he might get before the dead snatched him back into the Spoiler's trap, Guarinn sighted, threw, and didn't miss.

The wolf fell to the ground, its spine severed. Hard and dark, the beast's eyes held Guarinn for a long moment. Then they softened, and the night filled up with silence.

The dying wolf became man. A moment, the man had, and he used it to speak. Only whispered words, barely heard.

"Roulant… are you hurt?"

Roulant ignored the question. "Thorne! You're… dying! No, Thorne. This isn't how it's supposed to be! You said…"

Thorne smiled, shifting his gaze to Guarinn.

"You," Thorne said. "Old friend, you knew I wouldn't survive, didn't you?"

Guarinn heard grieving, Una and Roulant, one sobbing softly in shock and the aftermath of terror, the other offering comfort in the face of his own astonished grief.

"And you killed the wolf. Knowing." Thorne closed his eyes. "Thank you."

Guarinn lifted his friend's hand and held it, very gently, close against his heart until he felt the last pulse, and some time longer after that.

Limping, leaning on Una for support, Roulant knelt beside his friends, the living and the dead.

He and Guarinn and Una knelt together as snow began to fall, listened to dawn-wind singing. It held no echo of wolfish howling. The Night of the Wolf was over, and Roulant saw the peace of it in Guarinn's smile.