In the catacombs beneath Tarmish it was noticed, though only fleetingly, that there was a sudden shortage of Talls. Scrib the Ponderer became aware of their absence when he looked around from his study of runes and didn’t see any humans. It was evident that they had all gone away, just as the dragon had gone away, and to the gully dwarf the departures were equally mysterious.
But then, who knew what humans, or dragons, either, for that matter, were likely to do next?
Anyway, Scrib had more important things to think about. The squiggles on the plaque were more than just random symbols, he realized. Both a dragon and a human had told him so. The symbols actually
“If you don’t want to remember things,” somebody had said sometime, “then you write them down.”
Squiggles were writing, and writing was remembering. Somehow, to Scrib, that seemed to be an important notion. He wished he knew how to write it down.
Bron the Hero was aware, also, that where there had been humans, now there were none. But he had little time to think about it. Little Pert, having diverted the services of the hero from the human girl to herself, was busy consolidating her victory. It seemed to Bron that everywhere he turned, Pert was there, gazing up at him with wide, loving eyes and giving him orders. Her manner toward him reminded him vaguely of his mother’s manner toward his father, and Bron found himself responding to each suggestion and request with a resigned, “Yes, dear.”
He had a respite when the Lady Lidda and several other females accosted him to relieve him of his shield. They had a fire going, and needed the iron bowl to make stew. When they trooped away, carrying his shield among them, little Pert looked after them for a moment, then turned back to Bron. She patted him fondly on his lightly- bearded cheek, and took his broadsword from his hand. “This good for stir stew,” she said, and followed the other ladies, trailing the heavy sword behind her.
“Yes, dear,” Bron muttered.
“That’n got you wrapped up real good,” a voice said, beside him. He glanced around. Scrib stood there, nodding sympathetically.
“Guess so,” Bron said. “Keep meanin’ to tell her scat, but then I forget.”
“Write it down,” Scrib suggested, sagely.
Old Gandy, the Grand Notioner, noticed that the Talls had gone away, and he sighed with relief, leaning on his mop handle staff. Many times in his long career, he had been in the company of humans for one reason or another. He didn’t remember much about any of those times, but of one thing he was certain, no good ever came of associating with the tall people. They were best forgotten, so Gandy promptly forgot them.
There were always more interesting things than humans, anyway. Even here, in this place that was as unlikely and mysterious as most places were, there were things to think about. The bustling, clinging, wrangling people of his tribe were mostly up a wall now, clambering here and there on the vertiginous surface of the vast cavern’s upper reaches. Every few seconds two or three of them would lose their holds and drop to the floor, but they scrambled right back up. The Highbulp had said to search for shiny rocks, and it was the habit of most gully dwarves to do what their Highbulp told them to do.
High above, almost at the curve where the cavern veered inward toward the great central pillar, they had uncovered a veritable treasure of shiny pyrite imbedded in the stone of the cavern wall, and now they were chipping away at it. Below them the floor was alive with falling, bouncing stones, deluges of gravel and occasional dislocated miners, and the Highbulp stood in the midst of the cascade, shouting orders and dodging debris.
“Highbulp a numbskull,” Gandy muttered.
Nearby, several of the ladies had a concoction of rats, weeds, mushrooms and bits of pollywog beginning to steam in the legendary Great Stew Bowl, which had been Bron’s noble shield until they confiscated it for better use.
At the fire, the Lady Lidda glanced around. “What?”
“Said, ‘Highbulp a numbskull,’ ” Gandy repeated.
“Sure is,” Lidda agreed.
Gandy pointed with his mop handle. A short distance away, it was raining debris. Old Glitch stood in the downpour, ducking this way and that, oblivious to everything except the gleam of pyrite far above. “Hasn’t got sense enough come in out of th’ rocks,” the Grand Notioner explained.
Lidda glanced around. “Glitch!” she shouted. “Get out of way!”
If the Highbulp heard her, he ignored her. Gravel clattered around him, accompanied by flailing, bouncing Aghar, but he kept his eyes on the work above. “More that way!” he shouted to the clinging miners. “Lot more left right there!”
At the stew bowl, the Lady Lidda shook her head in disgust. “Bron!” she shouted. “Go get Highbulp!”
“What?” Bron blinked.
Pert looked up from stirring the stew. The broadsword was bigger than she was, but with the help of several other ladies she was managing. “Lady Lidda wants Highbulp!” she ordered. “Bron go get him!”
“Yes, dear,” Bron said. Single-mindedly he waded into the confusion of the drop zone below the overhead pyrite mines.
Gandy watched him go, and shook his ancient head. “Like daddy, like kid,” he muttered. “Couple real twits. Both of ’em nuisances an’ numbskulls. Born for be Highbulps.”
As the sturdy Bron dragged his struggling, complaining father toward them, towing the old Highbulp by his ankle, Gandy studied the pair with rheumy old eyes. Glitch’s matted beard, once curly and wiry, was streaked with gray now, and his bald dome shone through his crown. It seemed a long time since he had shown any force of leadership. He still whined and complained when he didn’t get his way, but the old quality of Highbulpery-the ability to get everybody to do whatever he wanted simply by making a nuisance of himself-was less evident than in the past.
Bron, on the other hand, seemed to have no trouble getting people’s attention. Right now, for instance, he was a designated hero-whatever that meant-and very recently he seemed to have had himself a dragon. Of course, nobody had any idea how a Highbulp might be selected, but Gandy decided it was time to think about such things.
“Time for change,” the Grand Notioner decided. He hobbled over to where the ladies were cooking stew. “What Lady Lidda think?” he asked.
Lidda glanced around at him. “Not much,” she confided. “Too busy for think.”
Crouching beside the cooking shield, Gandy dipped a grimy hand into its simmering contents to test it. Things wriggled between his fingers. Some of the stew’s contents weren’t quite dead yet. “Cook a little longer,” he suggested. “How ’bout Glitch quit bein’ Highbulp?”
“Good idea,” Lidda nodded. “Get a little rest.”
“Glitch gettin’ tired?”
“I gettin’ tired,” Lidda said. “No easy job, tendin’ to Highbulp.”
At her side, the Lady Bruze chirped, “ ’bout time that twit Glitch retire. Let somebody else have chance to be big cheese. Let Clout be Highbulp.”
“Go sit on tack, Lady Bruze,” the Lady Lidda suggested. “Clout good Chief Basher. Make terrible Highbulp, though.”
“Would not!” Bruze snapped.
“Would too,” Lidda countered. “Where Clout now?”
“Dunno,” the Chief Basher’s wife admitted. “Gone off someplace.”
“Fine,” Lidda said. “Highbulp can’t go off someplace alla time. Gotta stay with clan. Like Glitch does.”
“Highbulp doesn’ stay with clan,” someone nearby corrected her. “Clan stays with Highbulp.”
“So there!” Bruze gloated. “Clout oughtta be Highbulp.”
Behind them, Bron deposited his father unceremoniously beside the fire and glanced at the pot. “Stew ’bout ready?” he asked. “I’m hungry.”
Glitch the Most, Highbulp by persuasion and Lord Protector of This Place and More Other Places Than Anybody Could Count, sat up and twisted around to rub his sore rump. “Some kin’ way to treat Highbulp,” he whined. “What Lady Lidda want now?”
“Don’ remember,” Lidda admitted.
Behind them, the cavern reverberated as a huge chunk of broken stone crashed to the floor, shattering into a
