They tried it, and bored through the twenty-inch-thick floor in thirty minutes. Flushed with success, they bored more holes, connecting the first Micone hole with the Sec ond, about twelve feet away. Using this line as the base Of a triangle, Sturm and Kitiara angled Out into the main floor
Space. They were well into the triangle's Second arm, When the sun Went down and the gnomes came Streaming in. Flash announced that the scaffold was done.
"Then find a bit and join in," Kitiara said. "More Water,
Sturm! The handle feels hot!"
It was well past midnight when they finished, thirty-Six holes in all. Cupelix worked up an especially bracing repast with thick soup and lots Of bread. They had mined four bits, and Kitiara's hands were blistered.
Rainspot Offered her Some soothing Salve, but She declined. "Let's get On With it," She Said. "Get the pegs."
The gnomes did the peg work. They cut lengths from the remaining Scrap Wood, and Sturm banged these home with the sledge. Everyone cleared Out Of the triangle area formed by the bored holes. Kitiara filled a canvas bucket With Water and handed it to Sturm.
"Your honor," she Said. "Your idea."
He took the handle. "This is for the good yeoman Of Cas tle Brightblade," he answered, dousing each peg in turn, refilling the bucket, and dousing them all again.
Nothing happened.
"Well?" Said Kitiara, bracing One hand On her hip.
"It takes a while," said Sturm. "The pegs have to swell.
We'd better have some more water."
Sturm poured water On the pegs three more times. The tops Of the pegs clearly Swelled above the level Of the floor, but little else appeared to happen.
"wonderful," Kitiara said Sarcastically. She loped Out,
Snorting With ill-concealed contempt. One by One, the gnomes gave up, and went Outside. Sturm Shook his head.
"It Worked for my father's masons," he Said.
"Masonry is an arcane art," Cupelix said. "Its secrets are not easily adapted by the untrained."
Then the floor went crack.
Near the hole that Sturm and Kitiara had So laboriously enlarged, a hairline crack reached from the first peg, across the marble, to the peg On the Other Side Of the hole. Sturm laid the sledge On his shoulder and hurried to the scene. He
Was about to smite the Splitting Stone, When he heard another crack, and a fissure slowly zigzagged from the tri angle's far point to its base; Sturm raised the hammer.
"No, wait," Said the fascinated dragon.
The line between the Micone holes jumped apart, and
Sturm started backward. A section Of stone, larger than any they'd released by hand, broke free and plunged into the cavern below. That Opened the floodgates, and the entire triangle collapsed into the cavern with a rush. The Obelisk rang with the concussion as a ton Of marble hit the resonant floor a hundred feet down.
Kitiara burst in, the gnomes at her heels. "Great suffering gods! What was that?" She cried.
Sturm dusted his hands and pointed dramatically to the gaping hole in the floor. "The way is clear for Cupelix to descend!" he Said.
The gnomes were all for going On and bringing the Obelisk down that very night, but Sturm and Kitiara were both exhausted and begged Off. Cupelix supported them, saying that he had many items he Wished to Save from destruction before the tower Was demolished. He flew up to his private aerie and left the mortals to take their ease.
The gnomes quieted after the initial rush Of Success wore
Off. They burrowed into the Cloudmaster's jetsam and
Slept, their tinny Snores Sounding like an Operatic war between bullfrogs and crickets. Sturm Stretched Out On a blanket surrounded by Stacked crates. The Sky Was bril liantly clear as usual, and he counted Stars to make himself drowsy.
Kitiara sauntered around the crates. "Asleep?" she asked.
"Huh? No, not yet."
She slipped down opposite him, her back braced by a box.,"This may be our last night On Lunitari."
"Sounds good to me."
"You know, I've been trying to figure out how, long We've been here. In local terms, We've seen about forty-four days and forty-five nights. How long does that make it back home?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Suppose We get back to Krynn and find that years have passed?"
He almost laughed at the idea, but stopped himself.
Sturm couldn't prove that years hadn't elapsed while they were On the red moon.
"There are so many Old tales about humans who Went Off to elf realms and returned in What they thought were a few months to find their children grown and their friends dead
Of Old age," Kitiara said. Sturm thought She was just musing
Over possibilities, but then he realized that she Was seriously concerned.
"What are you afraid of, Kit?" he asked gently.
"The five-year reunion. It's important that I not miss it."
"And Tanis?"
"Yes."
"Do you intend to go back to him?"
Kitiara shifted uncomfortably. "No, that's not it. We didn't part on the best of terms, and I want to patch things up, before — " She started to say Something but stopped.
"Before what?" Sturm prompted.
"Before I begin my travels with Cupelix."
So, she was Owning up to it. "Are you giving up trying to find your father and his people?"
"My father always said his family had disowned him and his forever," she said. "Much as I'd love to ride up to their front door and spit in their faces, partnership With a dragon promises to be more exciting." She Shrugged. "I say, to the
Abyss with the Uth Matars."
The quiet interval grew long, and Sturm felt his eyelids droop With Sleep. He was about to nod Off When Kitiara said, "Sturm, if you see Tanis before I do, will you tell him
I'm sorry, and that he Was right?" Sturm was too much Of a gentleman to inquire What she had to be sorry about. He promised upon his honor as a Brightblade to bear her mes sage back to Tanis Half-Elven.
Chapter 29
The Obelisk Falls
The dragon cal1ed to them, rousing them from their slumber. The gnomes bounced up, eager to be about their business. Sturm rubbed his eyes and looked about. Kitiara was not in sight.
He stretched and hunted around for a drink of water. As he was gulping a cool drink, Kitiara appeared. She tossed aside a handsaw and said, "What's the beast yelling about? I couldn't quite make it out."
"He wants us to get on with the demolition," said Sturm.
"Fine. I'm ready."
All the glass and porcelain jars and cups they had were to be used to pour vitriol on the lead mortar seams. The gnomes lined up like soldiers, mugs and cream pitchers in hand like swords. Kitiara gave them a mocking salute and told them to bide their time.
Inside, Cupelix was nervously hopping from one massive leg to the other. "All my books and manuscripts are safe," he said. "The Micones have transferred everything to a safe place in the cave." There was no longer reason to delay.
Cupelix put his three-toed feet into the hole and curled his tail up close to his chest. It would be a tight fit.
"Get your wings in," Sturm said. "Closer. That's it."
"Good thing I am a svelte example of my race," Cupelix said. His massive body was in the hole. Only his head showed inside the obelisk.
"I believe I shall miss this place," he said.
"Go on!" Kitiara shouted. Cupelix's head disappeared. He fell forty feet before getting his wings open. He hit the cavern floor with enough force to rock the tower on its foundations, but to the dragon it was a minor tumble. He telepathed his good health and told the mortals to proceed.
"Cupelix is safely in the cavern," Sturm said to Stutts when they were outside.
Stutts put two fingers to his mouth and blew a shrieking whistle. "Begin pouring!" he cried.
The gnomes, spaced around the three sides of the obelisk, applied vitriol to the lead. Wisps of noxious va
por coiled off the walls, choking all the gnomes but Roperig and Fitter, who had invented Caustic Smoke Filters for Noses and
Mouths (Mark II). Keen observers would have recognized the filters as being made of old bandannas and suspenders.
"Right! Now clear off the top level and pour on the sec ond!" Stutts called. Convenient beakers of vitriol were posi tioned on the lower platforms of the scaffold.
Flash climbed down the spindly collection of poles and planks. He swung to the second level and promptly kicked over his beaker. Oil of vitriol streamed down the scaffold, eating away the wood and rope lashing with as much vigor as it consumed the lead.
"Look out!" said Sturm. The poles under Flash sagged and came apart. The gnome wavered back and forth on his toes and toppled from the planking.
Kitiara gauged his fall and stepped below him. She held up her arms and caught the plummeting gnome.
"Thank you so much," he said.
"Certainly," she asked.
The walls of the obelisk steamed with vitriol vapor.
Streaks of black showed on the flawless red marble where the liquified lead ran down. The corrosive fluid ate into the joints between the courses of stone with alacrity, and half an hour after starting, the gnomes were down to the fourth level of their scaffold.
"It looks like it's weeping," Sturm observed of the struc ture. "But I don't think it's suffering much damage."
"The effect should be cumulative," said Stutts. "Without the lead support, each course will sag under the weight of the upper blocks. By the time we get down to ground level, the whole structure may be leaning as much as three feet out of plumb. The remaining fourth wall cannot support such an imbalance, and the obelisk will collapse."
The wine-purple sky segued into claret red. Sturm frowned. "Sunrise," he said. 'Will the discharges affect the process?"
"How can they not?" Kitiara replied. "They may bring the whole thing down on our heads." She went to the foot of the scaffold and yelled, "Get a move on! Dawn is coming!"
There were accidents, gnomes being gnomes, with the imminent sunrise pressing on them. Vitriol burns, falls, and sprained ankles multiplied. The stars faded from view as the heavens changed from claret to rose. The usual streak of meteors ricocheted from one horizon to another, and the intense stillness was broken by a stirring in the air that Kiti ara felt, though Sturm could not.
"Hurry!"
The gnomes tumbled off the scaffold like mice from a burning building. The platform groaned and curled up wherever the vitriol dropped on it, and the lower third of the obelisk was coated with sickly gray steam.
"Run!" Sturm said. "Run as far and as fast as you can!"
He grabbed Cutwood, who was slow, and dragged him off his feet. Kitiara scooped up Roperig and Flash, the last ones off the scaffold. And they ran, past the point at which they'd left Cloudmaster, on the unscarred side of the tower, as far as where the valley began to rise in elevation. A hor rendous grinding noise filled the valley, overpowering even the first crackle of the morning discharge.
From under Kitiara's arm, Flash twisted around to see.
"The blocks are giving way!" he cheered.
The grinding sound arrested their mad flight. Everyone stopped, turned, and stared.
Bolts of blue lightning sizzled from the obelisk's peak, not to the distant cliffs that defined the valley, but into the dry red soil a hundred yards from the monument's base. The obelisk leaned appreciably, and whole courses of stained marble tumbled to the ground. It seemed for a moment that the tower might withstand the loss of those blocks, but the weight of the upper reaches was too much for the under mined base. The five-hundred-foot obelisk slowly, grace fully, leaned over. Stones shattered under the unbearable pressure. The top broke apart in midfall, the stones separat ing with the tumult of a hundred thunderstorms"."Blocks twelve feet long, six feet high, and three feet thick hurtled to the ground, gouging out deep craters in the soft turf. The obelisk lay down like a falling tree, pieces weighing several tons bounced off each other, breaking, crushing, and com ing to rest at last, as though too tired to leap any farther.
The great pyramid capstone crashed with blue and white sparkles dancing around it. Will-o'-the-wisps rose above the swelling cloud of dust and vanished, silent witnesses to the mighty structure's fall.
There was silence. The rumble died away.
"My," said Stutts solemnly.
"It worked," said Wingover.
"Did it ever work," said Rainspot.
Suddenly, Kitiara gave out a loud, long whoop of tri umph. "Yaaahaaah!" she cried, leaping up into the air. "We did it! We did it!"
Sturm found himself grinning from ear to ear, but as the members of the little party moved slowly toward the fallen giant, an awed silence settled over them. Large blocks stood upright, buried to a third of their length. Sturm looked on and marveled. The shape of the obelisk proper could still be recognized as a heavier concentration of broken masonry.
Sturm climbed to a pile of blocks near the erstwhile base of the obelisk. The dust thrown up by the collapse had risen, making a dull red ring in the sky. He had an odd thought:
Would stargazers on Krynn be able to see the ring of dust? It was miles and miles across, and darker than the surface soil.
Would the astronomers see it, theorize about it, make learned discourses on the cause and meaning of it?
Everyone gathered at the base. A dome of blocks had fallen over the hole in the obelisk floor, and only a very small person could wriggle through the resulting gap. Kiti ara called for Fitter.
"Go in and call to the dragon," she said. "See if he's all right. I can't get him to answer."
"Yes, ma'am." Fitter scampered into the arch of stone. In answer to his call, they all heard a telepathic Success!
"He's alive," Stutts said.
"We'll have to clear these stones away," Sturm said.
Get clear, little Fitter; I'm coming out!
Fitter crawled out, and the mortals drew back. The mass of blocks flew apart, and Cupelix emerged. His massive face was split by a wide smile. Huge teeth gleamed dully in the light as he flung back his head and expanded his chest.
"Rejoice, mortal friends! I am free!" he cried.
"You had no trouble shifting those blocks," Kitiara said.
"None at all, my dear Kit. When the structure was bro ken, so was its protective spell." Cupelix inhaled deeply, sucking in the tepid air in dragon-sized gulps. "It is sweet is it not, the first breath of freedom?
No one was sure what to do next. "I suppose," said Stutts reflectively, "we ought to prepare to depart ourselves." He folded his hands over his round belly. "That is, assuming the
Cloudmaster can rise on its ethereal air alone."
"I'm confident," Kitiara said. Sturm shot her a question ing look. She winked and smiled just like the old Kit, then moved away, toward the top end of the wreckage.
Without warning, Cupelix unfurled his wings to their fullest extent. Never in the close confines of the obelisk had he been able to spread his wings in all their glory. Now he groaned with pleasure at the stretching of his leathery wings. Cupelix launched himself in the air with one spring, and flapped leisurely, luxuriously, gaining height with each pass over the site of his deliverance. He rolled, stalled, hov ered, wings bellying full and emptying in rapid sweeps. He climbed so high that he was a golden dot in the sky, and dived with such wild abandon that it seemed certain he would crash into the obelisk's ruins.
Sturm turned his gaze from the joyous dragon and real ized that everyone had left him. Kitiara had nearly reached the top of the ruins and the gnomes were scattered through out the debris, measuring, arguing, and enjoying their tri umph immensely.
Kitiara found, amidst the rubble, the wonderful tapes tries she had seen in Cupelix's private aerie. They were tom to shreds, but here and there whole portions were identifi able. Cupelix hadn't bothered to save the moldering tapes tries, and she wondered why. She found a patch from the
Assembly
of the Gods tapestry, the patch with the face of the Dark Queen on it. The woven face was nearly as wide as
Kitiara was tall, but she rolled the fragment up and tied it around her waist as a belt. She felt she had to save it.
"Care for a ride?" said Cupelix.
Kitiara looked up. The dragon hovered above her, the sweep of his wings sending dust swirling around the ruins.
Kitiara thought a brief moment, then said warily, "Yes.
But no acrobatics."
"Certainly not." Cupelix's mouth was wide in one of his unnerving grins.
He landed and Kitiara mounted his neck. She took hold of the brass plates and said, "Ready."
He launched them straight up, and Kitiara felt the breath snatched from her body. With slow, lazy sweeps of his wings, Cupelix circled the ruins and the flying ship. Kitiara again felt the exhilaration she'd experienced those first few minutes on the Cloudmaster, when the whole of Krynn had been spread out below her. With the wind whipping her short hair, Kitiara grinned down at Sturm's astonished face.
"Hai, Sturm Brightblade! Hai-yah!" She waved one hand at him. "You should try this!"
The gnomes set up a cheer as Cupelix banked into a steep climb. Sturm watched the dragon soar away with Kitiara.
He felt a strange uneasiness. He wasn't afraid for Kit. There was something about the image of a human riding on the back of a dragon that chilled him deep inside.
"Well, I'm glad they're enjoying themselves," Sighter said sourly. "But can we get underway, ourselves?"
Sturm waved to Kitiara and called for her to come down.
After several mock diving attacks at the rubble, the gnomes, and Sturm, Cupelix landed and Kitiara jumped to the ground.
"Thank you, dragon," she said. Her face was flushed. She pounded Sturm on the shoulder and said, "Well, let's get going. No need to stand around here all day."
The humans and the gnomes trekked to the tethered fly ing ship. In a moment of creative vandalism, Flash and Bird call had agreed to sever the useless wings and tail, so the ship presented an austere, clipped appearance. Kitiara was smiling and humming a marching song.
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