Tales of Uncle Trapspringer ll-3

by Dixie Lee Mckeone

  Halmarain glared at them for a moment, sighed, and pushed away the book she had been studying.

  "You'll have to give me time to study something you would like." She sighed. "It can't be much, I need to put my time on more important matters."

  "We'll wait," Trap said, making a major concession. Waiting was the hardest chore a kender ever faced. The next hour seemed to last a month.

  Ripple, sitting at the other end of the room, near the sleeping merchesti, was playing with a small object. Trap wandered over to see what it was. She held a white rock that gave off a curious little glow when she rubbed it.

  "Touch it," she instructed her bother.

  "Quiet!" Halmarain shouted.

  "Touch it," Ripple whispered. "I found it when we were picking up the books."

  Trap fingered the rock. It felt so slick, at first he thought it was covered with a slimy substance, but his fingers were dry when he withdrew his hand.

  "Wonder what it is," he asked just loud enough for Ripple to hear. Then he had an idea, one so exciting he forgot to keep his voice down.

  "Do you think it's magic?" he asked Ripple. She shook her head indicating her ignorance and continued to play with it, but his question had caused Halmarain to raise her head.

  "Is what magic?" she asked. "Let me see what you're talking about."

  Ripple jumped up and skipped across the room, anxious to have the little wizard explain the stone.

  "I found it on the floor, and I was just keeping it until you had time to tell me what it is," she said, holding it out. "It's really interesting, the way it feels wet and slippery, but there's no water on it. Do you know what makes it so slippery? It's like the moss in the creek at home; when you put your foot on it, you slide. Doley Goforth once slipped on the moss and he went-"

  "It's one of the gate stones!" Halmarain cried out, staring at the strange little rock in her hand. "That's why Orander hasn't come back! He only has one stone!"

  "Then why don't we open the portal and give him the other one," Trap asked. "When he gets back we can-"

  "It doesn't work that way," Halmarain interrupted. She lowered her head over her reading, but the kender didn't understand that she was attempting to end the conversation.

  "Doors are doors," the sometimes practical Ripple announced. "My brother can open all sorts of doors. He is very good, you're just not giving him a chance." She gazed at Trap. "Remember that door to Longdown Walka-long's house?"

  "Sure, I got that open when even Uncle Skipout couldn't."

  Halmarain clenched her tiny hands into fists as she forced down her impatience. "Look," she said. "I'll try to explain so even you can see the difficulty."

  "To understand portals, you must think in terms of the multiverse. Think of an onion slice, the way the rings circle each other?"

  "I like onions in a stew." Trap informed her.

  "Planes circle each other like the rings of an onion," Halmarain continued, ignoring Trap's interruption. "There are many worlds on each plane, some are nice, some terrible. To reach them you must go through portals: doors created by magic."

  "They're not ordinary doors?" Trap asked, disappointed.

  "I've heard kender are good with locks, but you can't open a door that isn't there," the little wizard explained. "Portals have to be created. We can't make one and neither can Orander. At least, I don't think we can. Let me study these books."

  "No food," Grod suddenly complained.

  "Leave here, find food," Umpth announced, getting to his feet and picking up the wagon wheel.

  "You're not leaving here, not any of you." Halmarain glared at the dwarves. "You helped to make this mess and you'll stay and help settle it."

  "Done swept," Grod argued, thinking he had done his share.

  "That's not the mess I'm talking about," the wizard said. "Now I know what that monster is." She tapped the book in front of her and pointed to the corner of the room where Beglug slept. "It's an infant merchesti. Well, probably not an infant, but so young I doubt it can take care of itself."

  "A merchesti?" Trap asked. "What is a merchesti? Can it make magic too?"

  "It's a creature from the Plane of Vasmarg, and its evil. Apparently they have some innate magic, though this one is probably too young to take advantage of it. That's probably why it snarled at me," she said, her eyebrows rising in surprise. "It's sensitive to the power around it, and afraid."

  "It doesn't seem evil," Ripple said.

  "It is, but, according to Alchviem, the merchesti are normally not a problem to us, even if we opened a portal. Our world doesn't attract them, it's a bit too cold, he says."

  "The wind that came through the portal was hot," Ripple said. "Do you remember the hot wind that blew-"

  "And it was hot over there," Trap said, interrupting Ripple's story.

  Halmarain ducked her head over the book again and read for a bit.

  "Alchviem says here that he traveled on Vasmarg without trouble except for the time when he encountered a merchesti with a young one. Apparently they're vicious when protecting their young. As long as that thing"-she pointed to the corner again-"stays in our world, it's parent will be working to reach Krynn. Merchesti have been known to use portals, or so Alchviem writes."

  "So will she open the portal and take her baby back?" Trap asked. He hoped the wizard would return soon. Perhaps he could persuade Orander to take the kender with him on his travels.

  "That's what I'm trying to find out. In the meantime we need to keep the creature here, and you will look after it. I need to study, to see if there is any way I can protect us from it."

  "If Orander can't open the portal with one stone, how can the merchesti do it?" Ripple said, her sharp little mind still alert to fallacy.

  "They have been known to enter other planes by their own means," Halmarain said. "Not even Alchviem knew much about the merchesti."

  "You said the mother wasn't dangerous, and she didn't hurt Trap," Ripple reminded Halmarain.

  "No, I said it wasn't interested in Krynn. If it opened a portal, entered our world, and couldn't find its young, it could kill thousands in its search." She glared at the kender. "It didn't hurt your brother because it was too concerned with finding its offspring to bother with him. Merchesti are evil, they're from an evil world."

  Grod, who had been walking around the room, stared at Halmarain with wide blue eyes. The gully dwarf turned to look at the little fiend, then back to gaze at the wizard, and then turned toward Beglug again.

  "I don't see how you can be so sure of that," Trap argued. "Beglug doesn't look evil, and he hasn't done anything wrong. He's just little, and if he does things we don't like we can teach him to be good. Remember, Ripple, when little Ham Trotalong wanted to walk off the side of the bridge, his mother taught him not to?"

  Ripple agreed with her brother. "And if the merchesti mother loves her baby enough to search for it, she couldn't be evil either."

  "Caring for its young doesn't make it good," Halmarain retorted. "Every creature is born with a need to procreate. The need to protect the young usually varies with the number of offspring at one birth. A creature that lays hundreds, maybe thousands of eggs at one time may leave them to their fate, but those have few or single births actively protect their young.

  "Protection has nothing to do with good and evil, it's an instinct," the little wizard continued. "That thing is evil. It doesn't seem harmful right now, but if it's in our world very long, you'll soon see for yourselves."

  "What can we do?" Trap asked the little wizard.

  "I don't know," Halmarain admitted. Her face twisted as if she might cry, but she pulled herself together. "I don't know what I can do, I'm just an apprentice. I don't know enough magic to open the portal, even if we had both stones."

  "But you can read Orander's books," Ripple said, encouraging Halmarain.

  "Sure, you're a wizard, even if you're just a little one," Trap agreed. "You'll think of something, and we'll help you, if you want us to, particu
larly if you show us some magic."

  The tiny human drew herself up and took a deep breath. She formed her trembling lips into a firm line and narrowed her eyes, blinking away the tears on her lashes.

  "I have to try," she said. "If I keep studying the books, I might find an answer. Just keep that beast quiet and let me see what I can learn."

  "She's back to giving orders," Ripple said, her sympathy evaporating.

  "And you promised us some magic," Trap reminded her.

  "Got food?" Umpth asked.

  "The kitchen is along the passage, to the right, up five steps," Halmarain told Ripple. "You fix it the meal. Don't let those stinking creatures near the larder or they'll be wearing pig's heads on their shoulders. And don't try to leave. Orander wove protective spells over all the other doors."

  "If we try to go through the doors, what will the spells turn us into? It might be nice to be something different," Trap said.

  "You'd be burned to a crisp," Halmarain said, then returned to her studies.

  Trap decided that a crisp was not the most lively thing to be, since crisps didn't wander. He woke the little merch-esti and led him down the passage, following Ripple and the gully dwarves. They walked along the passage beyond the door where they had entered the wizard's lair. At the end, a second narrow hall led into a large scullery.

  A huge hearth filled the far wall. To the right, wide shelves held more than twenty large, overturned kettles of various sizes. More than half were too large for the ken-der to lift. In the center of the room four tables, twenty feet long and six wide, provided a work space for an army of cooks. The tables had been made for the comfort of standing human cooks and their surfaces were at eye level to the kender. Umpth and Grod, short for gully dwarves, were no better off.

  Ten tall stools stood around each table as if the workers had just stepped out. Fifty pottery jars bearing the names of spices, sat in a rack across from shelves of pots. Through an arch they could see huge earthen storage vessels standing rank on rank.

  A small fire burned in the big grate. The merchesti gave a gurgle of pleasure when he felt the heat and was soon curled up on one end of the hearth.

  "What a big place!" Ripple looked around.

  "Let's explore," Trap suggested. He followed Ripple into the larder where the torches lit by themselves as the two walked in. Most of the huge jars were empty, but in the smaller ones they found a good supply of staples. Before long Ripple had made a maize pudding while Trap sliced rashers of bacon and had them sizzling in a skillet.

  Just as Trap was taking up the bacon, Halmarain entered the chamber. She was still reading one of the red-bound books. She sniffed from time to time as if following her nose.

  "Have you found out how to open the portal to the other plane?" Trap asked. He was already bored with the underground caverns.

  "I may be coming to the answer," she said. "Let me read this and I'll tell you."

  She ordered the gully dwarves back to sit on stools and reached up over her head to put the book on the table. She climbed the rungs of a stool, perched on the seat and continued to read.

  The two kender brought the food to the table in bowls and trenchers. They brought spoons for the pudding, but the gully dwarves grabbed the bowls and shoved the pudding into their mouths with their dirty fingers.

  Disgusted by the Aghar's lack of table manners, Trap searched for a topic of conversation to help cover the slurping. As he glanced at the wizard, he thought of a question he had wanted to ask.

  "You're a dwarf," Trap observed. "What kind? Are you a Neidar or Klar?" His uncle had told him dwarves were suspicious of any magic that wasn't innate to their race. He doubted she could be from one of the Hylar clans, since they usually stayed in their deep caverns in the mountains, though they were sometimes seen on the surface if they were on a mission of some importance.

  "I'm not a dwarf," she answered, too absorbed in her reading to sound irritated. "I'm human, believe it or not."

  "A full grown human shorter than us?" Ripple was astonished. Halmarain was stouter, but shorter than a twelve-year-old kender.

  "Some humans don't grow very much. We're rare, perhaps one in a hundred thousand."

  "Big cook place," Umpth spoke up.

  "Wizards eat lot maybe," Grod suggested to his brother.

  Halmarain ignored the gully dwarves, but Trap was also curious about the huge, well appointed kitchen.

  "It's a wonderful place," he said. "Interesting. I liked exploring it. Does it have other rooms?" He was looking forward to exploring some of the large earthenware jars they had not had time to open.

  "No, this is it. Before the cataclysm these chambers were the scullery, larder, and storage for the keep," Halmarain said, pointing toward the ceiling. The earthquakes collapsed the upper passages. The people in the keep must have thought all the underground caverns were destroyed. They never tried to dig them out."

  Trap wanted to ask more questions, but the gully dwarves had emptied their bowls and were off their stools, heading for the hearth. Halmarain glanced up and threw the kender a hard, warning look. Trap hurried to head them off. He refilled their bowls and his own while he was at it. Ripple's maize pudding was delicious. It was famous in Hylo.

  Halmarain continued to study as she finished her meal. She was just closing her book, ready to leave the table, when she noticed the expectant look in the kender's eyes.

  "I'll do some magic for you, but afterward I'll expect you to clean the scullery and keep an eye on the merchesti and the dwarves."

  Halmarain reached into the salt cellar and carefully counted out twelve grains. She scattered them on the table, waved her hands and spoke an incantation. Twelve grains enlarged, broke apart, and from each stepped a glowing little man. They appeared to be made of small blocks and those at the hips, knees, shoulders, and elbows appeared hinged as the little men began to dance around the top of the table.

  The kender clapped their hands, the gully dwarves' grins nearly split their faces as they reached for the tiny cavorting figures, but their fingers passed through them and the little men kept dancing. They cavorted for nearly five minutes before disappearing.

  "Now remember your promise in return," Halmarain warned and returned to the wizard's work room. The kender stayed behind to clean up the kitchen. The dwarves emptied the pot of maize pudding and Beglug ate two of the trenchers.

  When the kitchen was clean, the dwarves sprawled out on the floor. Since the merchesti was shivering with cold, the kender built up the fire. He slept on the hearth and they wrapped themselves in their blankets and stretched out on the big kitchen tables.

  The next day Halmarain studied her books. The kender were bored. They could not induce Halmarain to do any more magic for them, though she promised she would after she found the answers to her questions about the portal. Trap and Ripple explored their own pouches, showing each other their possessions. Somehow, Ripple had regained possession of the single gate stone. An hour later they did the same job again. Trap regained his possessions that had somehow found their way into Ripple's pouches and she took back hers.

  Part of the morning passed pleasantly enough when in their third exploration of the underground caverns they found a chest pushed well back under Orander's bed.

  It had not occurred to either kender that as well as a lock, a wizard might put a spell on his personal belongings. The lock was child's play for a kender, but the spell blew them across the room and singed Trap's eyebrows and the knees of his leggings. Luckily, he had been slightly to the side of the chest and escaped the worst affects of the fireball. Halmarain had closed the heavy door of the laboratory and had not heard the noise.

  They spent another pleasant hour exclaiming over rings and vials and brooches. They examined small, carefully fastened pouches filled with powder, and two strange knives. They were fascinated by three golden rings. When they were finished with their explorations, Trap carefully re-locked the chest so no one could get into it and steal Orander's b
elongings. Neither noticed the chest was considerably emptier than it had been when they opened it, or that three rings, one of the knives, and several vials had not found their way back into the chest.

  Later the same afternoon they rearranged their pouches again, this time trading back and forth, so they both had new items. Trap inspected a knife his sister gave him in return for one he had found in his belongings after they left the ship.

  "This looks like one Orander has tucked away in his chest," he said, slipping it into his sheath.

  "Yes, it does," she replied. "When he comes back through the portal, you should compare them. If his were magic, maybe yours is too. Gee, that would be interesting, having a magic knife."

  The gully dwarves had spent the day making a new "This Place." They found an unused chamber with one collapsed wall and laid claim to it. Their first task had been to take one of the huge stone crocks from the larder and carefully chip down both sides until it fell neatly apart in two halves. Announcing they now had beds, they scavenged for anything useful to put in their new home.

  By the end of the day the kender, the gully dwarves, and the little magician had finished most of the food in the larder. Beglug, who seemed to be able to chew and digest anything but had a partiality for wood, had eaten one of the tall stools and part of a table.

  That evening, Ripple made another pot of her delicious maize pudding. Halmarain came to the kitchen to join them. She was still reading as she ate, but she sounded as if she were developing a stomach ache. She sighed, moaned, and groaned.

  "It couldn't be the pudding," Ripple said, frowning at her brother.

  "No, I've found the answer I was looking for," Halmarain said. "Not the answer I wanted-definitely not what I wanted. At least I know what we must do to get that thing back into its own world and rescue Orander… if he's still alive."

  Chapter 7

  "I thought you said the markesi-"

  "Merchesti," Halmarain corrected Trap.

  "I thought the merchesti could open the portal," he finished.