didn’t stop there. Down, down he fell, leaves and twigs and a spatter of loosened soil pouring down around him, and it was some moments before he realized he was sliding on his belly down a long stony slide that led deep underground.
Of course, what Razmous saw was Conundrum fall headfirst into nothingness, disappearing without even an accompanying pop. Instinctively, the kender leaped up and caught hold of a low-hanging limb. Looking down between his kicking feet, he found himself dangling over an ever-widening hole, a forest trap door with a honest- to-goodness stone slide leading downward to who knew what awful kind of awful doom.
So, naturally, he had to explore further. Obviously, Conundrum had gone that way, and if the doom was particularly awful, the little gnome would need help. With a shrill squeal of delight, the kender let go of the branch and fell with a thud down the hole.
As he slid down the sloping tunnel on his rear end, Razmous noticed a blue light glowing somewhere below, and moments later a dark squat figure lurking in the middle of the slide. He slid smack into Conundrum, who, being lighter and falling from a lesser height, had less momentum to carry him all the way to the slide’s bottom. The scale and construction of the trap bespoke of a design for much larger creatures and not light-boned peoples like gnomes or kender. Conundrum had slid to a stop many feet yet from the slide’s end-wherever it was that it ended-but now Razmous, being a little bigger and with the added momentum of plunging from the higher height of the tree, swept into him with a loud
Slowly, they ground to a halt a few feet from the end of the slide. Razmous pushed Conundrum out of his lap and leaped up, swatting at his behind and hopping around on one foot. Spotting a trickle of water running down one of the walls, he backed against the wall and stood there sighing, his eyelids fluttering.
Meanwhile, Conundrum investigated their surroundings. The slide came to an end at the edge of a deep, dank pit, from the sides of which protruded numerous old rusty sword blades and spear heads, all set into the stone at a downward angle as though to prevent those falling into the pit from climbing out. The strange blue glow they had noticed earlier had turned red as blood, but even as Conundrum looked round and Razmous cooled his stone-chafed hindquarters, it began to change to a cool dim violet. The glow originated from a multitude of tiny worms feeding on moss growing on the walls and stony roof overhead. Each worm glowed with blue or red phosphorescence, but as Conundrum examined them, more and more of the red ones turned blue.
Razmous joined him in peering at the curious little worms, then very gently allowed several to crawl onto his outstretched fingers. He giggled at the feel of the tiny creatures nosing about the creases of his palm.
“I wonder what happened to Sir Grumdish and Doctor Bothy,” he whispered, glancing around and dropping the worms into one of his pouches, “And I wonder what this place is.”
Conundrum stood at the edge of the slide, looking up. He shrugged. “A trap of some kind,” he answered.
Razmous peered over the side and into the pit. “Yes, but who built it, and for what? You don’t suppose there is anything down there in that dark, fearsome-looking hole, do you?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out,” Conundrum declared.
“But what if it is some sort of horrible monster that fell in long ages ago and has been down there ever since, languishing in the dark, unable to escape, with hunger ever gnawing at its reason? Poor blighter. I almost feel sorry for it, don’t you?”
“Not particularly! I’d rather go back to the ship and get help,” Conundrum said. “We’ve got to rescue Sir Grumdish and Doctor Bothy somehow-assuming they need rescuing. '
Searching the floor and walls of the slide for cracks and fingerholds, Conundrum started up the slide. With a sigh of disappointment, Razmous followed.
The stones were mossgrown and slimy, and the slope steep and treacherous. Before they had gone very far, even the nimble kender found himself unable to progress farther without climbing aids of some sort, and without the glow of the worms, the passage was dark as a goblin den. He brushed back a few loose topknot hairs with one begrimed hand, then stepped back and glanced up the slope. High above, at what distance he could not begin to guess, he thought he saw a light like a star winking. He blinked, but then it was gone.
“We’re stuck,” Razmous sighed. “There’s no way out, not unless you can invent something.”
“What do you mean?” Conundrum asked.
Razmous shrugged. “You’re the gnome! I thought you might invent some machine to get us out of here.”
“I can’t make machines out of air. I can’t even see in this…” his words trailed off, then he muttered, “Machines made of air? Hmmm.”
“Shhh!” the kender hissed like a broken steam pipe. “I hear voices!”
“What are they telling you to do?” Conundrum asked, suddenly filled with concern.
The kender slapped him in the dark. “Not that kind!
They held their breaths and listened with straining ears. Conundrum pressed his ear to the wall. At first, there was nothing, but then he heard, muffled at first by unguessable thicknesses of stone and earth, now growing more distinct as they approached closer, two voices as alike as the chirping of two crickets. Or it might have been one voice carrying on a conversation with itself.
“I tell you I heard a noise, and the beetlespriggins reported that the hole has opened and the glowworms were red,” said one. “That can only mean something is in the trap.”
“Beetlespriggins! I’d sooner trust our own mother than trust beetlespriggins. You’re dreaming!” the other admonished. “Let’s go back and watch them torture the prisoners.”
Conundrum’s breath caught in his throat. Razmous clapped a hand over his mouth.
Suddenly, a tiny door appeared in the wall almost between Conundrum’s feet. Out popped a creature about the size of a beaver, only it was covered from head to head with short bristling spines, like a hedgehog. Razmous checked again. It was true-covered
It crept out between Conundrum’s legs, seemingly without noticing them, and peered with its leading head down the pit.
“There. It’s like I said. The worms are blue. There’s nothing in the pit, or if it is, then it’s dead!” the first head cackled.
“Good! I’m hungry,” the rearward head said.
“Nar! It’ll wait. I wants to watch the interrogation. Back us up, now.”
“But what if it’s a troll?” the second head argued. “Hole won’t hold trolls.”
' “Tweren’t no troll,” the first head said. “You’d of known if it was a troll. Here, if you won’t back us up, turn round and let me go first, then.”
“I can do it. You’re always wanting to go first. I get tired of being backwards.” Without turning, the creature started back into the hole.
Suddenly, the now-rearward head-formerly the leading head-hissed, “Don’t look now, Bern, but it
The creature stopped, half in and half out of its hole.
“What is it, Stang?” the forward head asked with a trembling voice.
“Some kind of… of… dwarf! And a long-haired elf, I think,” the rearward head answered. Its voice then sank to a whisper. “And what’s more, the dwarf is standing right above us!”
“I’m not an elf, I’m a kender,” Razmous declared, extending his small, slime-smeared hand. “And this is a gnome!”
“Run, Bern!” the rearward head screeched, its tiny ratlike eyes opening wide in fear at the kender’s reaching paw.
“You run, too, Stang!” the forward head shouted, while all four of its tiny legs began to spin, claws scrabbling on the slick stones.
“There’s no need to run. I won’t hurt you,” Razmous said, reaching down and catching the creature by one of its legs before it could get away, “very much.”
He lifted it off the ground, but the strange little creature responded by rolling itself up into a small, spiky ball. The spines dug painfully into Razmous’s knuckles, and he dropped it.
The creature bounced once, twice, three times and then it was gone, rolling away at a tremendous speed
