Chane glanced around at him again. "Safety?"
"Thorbardin," Wingover said. "If we make good time and stay to the high ground, it should be no more than three days until we run into a border patrol. From there, it's an easy trip home for you two, and I can head for
Barter and start spending Rogar Goldbuckle's money."
"I'm not going to Thorbardin," Chane said levelly. "I told you, I have something I have to do first."
"Then I'll just take Jilian home." Wingover shrugged.
"Either way, I'll have kept my pledge."
"You won't do anything of the kind," the girl snapped.
"I'm going where Chane goes, and you're supposed to go along with us."
"Now look, Button, all I agreed to do was to escort you into the wilderness to look for Chane Feldstone, then to get you home safely. All right. We've been to the wilderness. We found Chane Feldstone. Now it's time to go home. It's as simple as that." Nearby, the wizard Glenshadow sat on a rock, listening. At Wingover's statement, he shook his head slowly, but said nothing.
Jilian glared at the man. 'You made a debt of service. Do you intend to break your pledge?"
Wingover frowned. "I intend to keep it. I just told you that."
"Well, then, you'll have to wait a while longer because Chane has to find Grallen's helm. It's his destiny." The man stared at the dwarven girl, then at the bearded young dwarf behind her. Two of a kind, he thought. Each one more stubborn than the other. He turned to Glenshadow, sitting on his rock. 'You talk to them," he said.
"What about?" the wizard asked, his voice hardly more than a whisper.
"She's right. Chane does have a destiny. And as I said, you have no choice in the matter."
"%fell, as I said, I make my own choices," Wingover growled. "East across this ridge is a valley swarming with hostiles. A person would have to be crazy to go there." Jilian stepped back and took Chane's hand in hers.
"Then I release you from your pledge," she told the man.
"We will go on without you, and you owe us nothing more. Good-bye."
Geekay tossed his head, broke his reins free from Wingover's grip, and pranced a few steps up the path, past the glowering dwarves. He stood there, facing upward and away, snorting and pawing at the rock path. "You, too?" Wingover snapped. He pointed a stern finger at Chane. "You're going to get everyone killed," he warned. "And for what? A dream."
"The dream was real," Chane said, his voice level.
"Grallen called me to go and find his helm. Thorbardin is at stake, and the power to protect the kingdom is in that helm. But you heard Jilian.
You're free to go wherever you want to go. We don't need you."
"And where do you intend to go from here?"
"Where Grallen went. I have the Spellbinder. It shows me the way."
Wingover took a deep breath, then released it in a sigh. "That's how it is, then." He strode past them, recovered Geekay's lead, and started on without looking back, though he could hear them following.
After a time, the old trail wound to the right along a shoulder of the ridge, then switched back, climbing. At the turn, a faint trail parted from it, leading southward. The goat-trail. Wingover turned south, leading a reluctant Geekay, and walked a hundred yards before turning to see the others going away, following the climbing trail upward. At that distance, they looked very small. Two dwarves, a robed mage, and a kender. Of them all, only the kender turned to look back at Wingover; Chess gave him a sad wave of the hand.
"Crazy," Wingover muttered. "They're all crazy." He shrugged, put a toe in a stirrup, and swung into his saddle. Ahead lay three days of wilderness, then the relative security of the dwarven realm and the road back to Barter. And he was free now of the debt of service. He had been released. It would be good to get back to Barter, to rest a bit, carouse a bit and spend Rogar Goldbuckle's wager money…
Wingover turned in his saddle for another look back.
Far off on the climbing slope, Chane Feldstone and Jilian Firestoke were just disappearing around a shoulder of rockfall, the wizard plodding along behind them. Higher up on the slope, the kender was scampering off ahead, looking for whatever kender looked for.
"By all the moons," Wingover muttered, "I must be as crazy as they are."
He reined Geekay around, touched heels to the animal, and went to catch up to the others. When he finally came up to them, near the crest of the ridge, he reined in. Dismounting, Wingover pointed a demanding finger at
Glenshadow. "There's just one thing I want to know," he said. "What is your interest in all this? Why are you with these people?"
"I have my own reasons," the wizard said.
"That's not good enough," Wingover growled. "If I'm to face danger with someone, I want to know why he is there."
Chane Feldstone rubbed his whiskers. "That sounds like a fair question to me," he noted. Wide-set dwarven eyes studied the wizard. "What's in it for you, anyway?" Glenshadow sighed and slumped, leaning on his staff.
"A long time ago," he said slowly, "there was a renegade mage. A wizard of the black who rejected the robes and the order. Three of us went in search of him. One of each order. We went to find him, to… deal with him."
"Deal with him?" Jilian raised a pert brow. "What does that mean?"
"A rogue mage cannot be tolerated," Glenshadow said.
"He must be persuaded to return to one of the orders… or he must be eliminated. We tried to persuade him." He paused, staring off into the distance. "We tried. And of the three who went out, only I came back.
Caliban's powers were greater than we had known."
Glenshadow paused again, then added, "Caliban died in the conflict, as well. And yet, somehow Caliban still lives. I have set myself the task of completing what I thought was through back then. Caliban lives, and he is with those who oppose Chane Feldstone and his quest. I seek Caliban."
Wingover looked at the mage with hooded eyes. "To kill him I"
"If I can."
Sunlight lingered on the peaks when the group came down through a meandering pass and looked out across the Vale of Respite. In the distance, smoke trailed above two burned-out villages — no longer the smoke of destruction, but now the smoke of cookfires where an army rested, occupying what had been a peaceful valley. Chane stepped into the lead, raised a hand to halt the column, and gazed into the distance. His hand closed around the pulsing crystal in his pack. For a time he simply stood there, the high-mountain wind ruffling his beard. Then he turned away, and the others gathered around him. "Grallen's path leads east," he said. "On and on… through the valley, and up the mountains beyond. I had hoped it
— wherever I have to go — would be closer."
"Toward Skullcap," Wingover said. "I thought as much."
Chane gasped. 'You know where Grallen went?
"I've heard the stories," the man said. "From Rogar Goldbuckle, and others. Grallen died at Shaman, or somewhere nearby. It's called Skullcap, now. That would be roughly northeast from here." He turned to see the last of sunlight above the peaks to the west, then turned back. "Point where it goes, this green trail of yours."
Chane pointed, due east across the valley.
"Well, that doesn't tell us much," Wingover sighed.
"There's an easy path through the mountains over there.
But it's farther north. Where you're pointing — that highest peak off there, that's called Sky's End. My map doesn't show a trail there."
"I can only see what the stone shows me," Chane admitted. "We'll have to cross over, and look from there."
"Easy enough to say," Wingover snorted. "Just cross over. Of course, there's a little matter of several hundred goblins and some ogres between here and there. Do you have any ideas on that score?"
"We have the element of surprise," Chane suggested uncertainly.
"That's the ticket," Chess said. "We'll slip up on them and catch them off guard."
"That seems like a lot of goblins for us to attack," Jilian point
ed out.
"Maybe it would be better if we just went around them."
"If we can figure out where 'around them' is,"
Wingover noted. He turned to the wizard. "Don't you have powers that might help us out?"
"Not here," Glenshadow said. "Not in the presence of Spellbinder. Here I have only my eyes."
"Your magic doesn't work at all?" Wingover asked.
"It might or might not. And if it did, it would be unreliable."
"A little invisibility might come in handy," the kender said. "I saw a lot of invisibility at Hylo the time the bird came from… well, I didn't see it, exactly. What I did was not see it. That's what invisibility does."
"I wish we had the gnome here now," Wingover said.
"I wonder where he is."
"Right here," a voice came from aloft. Wingover stared up at the flying contraption, barely ten feet overhead.
"It's me," the gnome said. "Bobbin. Do you remember?"
"Of course I remember! Where have you been?"
"I'm not quite sure. Somewhere northwest, I think.
Where are you going?"
"Across that valley," Wingover shouted. "I'd like for you to scout for us."
"All right, if that's what you want. But I don't think it's such a good idea to go across there. There are surly people all over the place. Look here." He tossed something over the side of the basket. It rang against stone, and Chane picked it up. It was a bronze dart.
"Somebody shot me in the hub with that thing," Bobbin griped. "Would have cost me a wheel, if I still had my wheels."
Wingover blinked, realizing for the first time that the flying craft no longer had its delicate silver-wire wheels.
"What did you do with your wheels?"
"While I was in the northwest, I found some people — elves, I think — with raisins. I traded them my wheels for a half-bushel of raisins. Fat lot of good wheels do me up here, anyway."
"Take a look at this," Chane handed the goblin-dart to Wingover.
The man looked at the object closely. It was a slim bolt, about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp head and airfoils of shaved wood. Darts were a favorite weapon of goblins, and they often fired them from short, stiff crossbows. Wingover started to shrug, then looked more closely.
"This isn't sand-cast," he said. "It looks as though it has been forged, or turned on a wheel." He handed the dart to Glenshadow.
"Not goblin work," the wizard judged.
"Well, it was a goblin that flung it at me," Bobbin called down.
"I'd like to see a few more of these," Chane said. "If I could compare some of them, I'd know whether they were forge-turned or ground on a cold lathe." Chestal Thicketsway snapped his fingers and opened his large pack.
"Like these?" He drew out two more goblin-bolts.
"Where did you get those?"
"The other night, when I was flying with Bobbin, these came along. I'd forgotten that I had them." He dug deeper into his pack, lifting out various other things one by one, to look at them. "I have some pretty good stuff in here. I should check it more often."
"Lathe-turned," Chane Feldstone pronounced, comparing the darts. "No goblin ever made these. I wonder who did."
"Somebody whose purpose was to turn out a lot of them in a hurry,"
Wingover said.
"Somebody equipping an army?" Chane asked.
"Somebody who isn't a goblin, outfitting goblins? That's crazy,"
Wingover scoffed.
Chane shook his head. "No crazier than the idea of a human — a human female — being in command of a goblin force."
"Speaking of females," Wingover said as he looked around, "where's
Jilian?"
Chapter 20
Jilian was tired and cold. Wtile the others discussed plans and situations, she wandered about the area, looking for a place to rest out of the wind. The pass here was a snow-dusted trough between rising peaks, with little cover from the wind's biting teeth. Not far away, though, an outcropping had sheared away in some bygone age, forming a mazelike rockfall where slabs of stone lay against one another and dark crevices beckoned.
She stooped to peer into one of these, a shadowy cave where slate walls broke the wind. The cave was deeper than it appeared, and another, darker opening, offset and aslant, lay beyond it. The wind gusted again as Jilian stepped into the shelter, leaning down to avoid the rock above. It was cold within, but not as sharply so as outside, where the relentless wind played. Her back to the deeper cave, she crouched there, watching the rest of the group. She hoped they would make up their minds soon. It would be a relief to get off this cold mountain pass, to be moving downward for a time, instead of toiling and climbing.
Mountain winds sang around the opening in the rocks, then died abruptly.
In the silence Jilian heard a furtive sound. As she started to turn, the dwarven girl was seized by massive hard hands. She tried to struggle, but the strength of whatever held her was immense. She tried to scream… and could not. She was hauled backward, beyond the crevice and into the dark cave. A huge, leering face appeared directly above Jilian — a face twice the size of any she had ever seen, with a wide, grinning mouth and little glittering eyes set close beside a great snout of a nose.
"Pretty toy," the thing whispered, a low rumble of sound at her ear.
"Nice for Cleft. Maybe Loam can have what's left." Crouching, the thing turned and headed down into darkness, carrying Jilian as a child would carry a doll.
Jilian's dwarven eyes adjusted quickly to darkness. Even in her shock and panic, she noted that the tunnel along which she was carried was of dwarven design. Like the load-shafts in Thorbardin that led from one level to another, it was a long, delved curve, spiraling downward, turn after turn.
She tried to struggle against the hands that held her, but it was no use. The monster's hands completely encircled her, binding her arms to her sides so that all she could move was her head and her feet. The pressure of the thing's grip was crushing. Jilian fought desperately just to breathe, and her spinning mind registered spiral after spiral of descending tunnel, its walls echoing to the thud of the creature's feet.
After a time, the girl twisted her head around, trying to get her teeth into a huge thumb. The thing glanced down at her, saw what she was trying to do, and chuckled, a deep, evil rumble of mirth. It shifted its grip slightly and increased the pressure. Jilian felt as though her ribs were breaking. Ogre, she thought. This is an ogre! Maybe the same ogre that has a grudge against Chane. Maybe it's doing this to get even with him… or maybe to lure him into a trap!
Jilian made herself hold very still. After she pretended to go limp, the creature's grip eased slightly. There was a little more light now, and she could see that the tunnel widened out, then widened again, becoming a vaulted cavern twenty or thirty feet across.
A staging area, she thought. Whatever dwarves had delved this place, in some bygone time, had crafted a cavern here — a place to store and sort things to be carried up or down the spiral shaft. A resting place. She had seen such places in Thorbardin. Dim marks on the floor might even have been the bases of ancient cable-track, though there was no hardware in the place now. All this she noticed in an instant, as the ogre slowed its pace and raised her higher in the dim light.
"Far enough," the creature rumbled. A mouth like a yawning slit revealed spike teeth. "Well underground. Let's see what pretty thing I have found."
Jilian lay limp in its grasp, and let her head loll to one side, feigning unconsciousness. Higher she was lifted as the ogre peered at her in the dim shaft-light, turning her this way and that. It relaxed its grip, holding her now with one hand while the other poked her with large fingers. Finally, the ogre took hold of her tunic and started to tear it away. Close enough, Jilian decided. With a heave, she freed herself from some of the fingers, twisted around, and delivered a solid kick, directly into a leering eye.
The ogre roared as it staggered back and dropped Jilian. She hit the ca
vern floor and scooted away on hands and knees. Suddenly, though, she remembered that her borrowed sword was still slung on her back. Ignoring the monster's roars, she got to her feet and loosed the sword, then ducked as the ogre's hand whisked past her. She turned and ran into the descending tunnel beyond the staging cavern.
In this lower spiral there was no light at all.
Surrounded by complete darkness, Jilian ran as she had never run before, counting her steps, trusting her dwarven instincts and the skills of the tunnelers who had built this place long ago. The lower spiral would be a twin of the upper… she hoped. She put her faith in the dwarven passion for symmetry and ran. The thudding footfalls of the ogre echoed off walls around her, and its rumbling curses were thunder in her ears. The monster was no more than a half-turn behind, and she wondered for a moment how something that big could move so quickly in a black tunnel. Then she recalled something Wingover had said about ogres. Ogres are at home underground. It's their natural element.
Well, it's mine, too, Jilian thought fiercely. And no ogre built this place. Dwarves did. "You don't belong here, you ugly rust-heap!" she shouted. "You aren't fit to use a good delving!"
Behind her the ogre roared again and quickened its pace.
Again counting her steps, and putting blind faith in the good judgment of dwarven delvers, she sprinted another dozen paces, then stopped, turned to her right, and scurried forward. In the upper spiral there had been a small cubicle opening to the left. In the lower tunnel, midway, there should be one to the right.
It was there. Jilian found the opening and scurried through, holding her breath as the ogre raced past… and stopped. For a long moment there was silence, then she heard its rasping breath, returning. It knew she had eluded it, and it was coming back to search. Quickly, Jilian felt around on the floor. Her hand closed on a small, flat stone. She eased herself to the portal, edged partway into the tunnel, and threw the stone upshaft, toward the staging room. The stone rang against rock wall, and the ogre chuckled in the darkness. Jilian ducked into the cubicle again as it charged past, heading back up the tunnel. Then the girl darted out into the tunnel and ran.
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