'Red wizards 'porting back their This Place, ' Grod informed them. Even if he didn't get the word right he understood Orander and Halmarain would be traveling by magic. 'We go find good us This Place now? Kender help?'
'We did promise them, ' Ripple reminded her brother. 'I'd bet they would like Solanthus, and I didn't get to see it at all. '
Bored since they had fingered everything in sight, the two kender and two gully dwarves took their leave late in the afternoon and strolled down the mountainside to find the ponies.
'Master Orander and Master Chalmis are nice wizards, ' Ripple said, pulling out the ring she had taken from Orander's chest. The red-robed wizard had been so grateful for the kender's help that he had given them the rings. Orander had been too weak to do more than make the gift. Chalmis had reinforced the magic in the rings.
'Master Chalmis added to the magic in mine too, ' Trap said, reaching into his pouch to pull them out. His eyebrows rose in surprise as out came the string of disks that made up the dwarf lore map.
'I thought we gave those back to the Neidar, ' Ripple said.
'Pretty for Pretty Kender, ' Grod said as he stumped along. He reached out to touch Ripple's shining blond curl that hung down her back and bounced as she walked.
'Grod, you mustn't take other people's things, ' Trap chided him. 'But having it is great! Think of what we can do. Big jiggies, we can visit all sorts of dwarves that never come to visit us. They make wonderful stuff, though some are as cross as Halmarain, but they'd probably enjoy meeting someone new after staying underground so long. '
''That would be fun, ' Ripple smiled at her brother. 'And we'll return it the next time we come this way, you know how dwarves are about people taking their things. '
'Trapspringer that steal, him dead, ' Umpth spoke up.
Grod nodded. 'Make good tale, that. Kender tell tale?' He glazed at Trap with such a hopeful look, Ripple urged her brother to give them a story.
'My poor Uncle Trapspringer, ' Trap said, his usual way of starting a story. 'I don't think he would have fought that strange creature if he had known it was a stone golem… '
Deep below the ruins of Pey, a black silk cloth, lavishly decorated in golden runes, covered the black orb. Within her realm the Dark Queen raged. She was aware of Draaddis's passage to the Plane of Vasmarg. She had lost her servant, and with the globe covered, she had no power to see into the world of Krynn.
Two hundred feet above the orb, the wolf woke and stretched. He had slept well. No dreams had tortured his sleep. He didn't know what had caused those terrible nightmares-it might have been someone he ate.
…
