a wall too high for her to see over, so Trap obligingly searched out another stool. She climbed up and raised her staff to get a better look at the newcomer.
The strange being that had only whimpered at the sight of the kender and gully dwarves, snarled at the little wizard and lashed out with a clawed hand.
Startled, Halmarain jumped from the bench and backed away.
'Don't do that!' Ripple ordered. 'You be nice!'
In answer, the creature whimpered again.
When the newcomer was quiet, the little wizard stared at the blank top of the overturned table that was its shelter, her eyes thoughtful.
'I've seen something like it before,' she said thoughtfully, gazing around the room. Her attention focused on the scattered books. She squared her shoulders and glared at the kender.
'Help me pick up these books and get them back on the shelf. I've seen a drawing of it in one of the books of magic. If I can find the reference, I can tell where Orander went. Maybe we can help him.'
'I'd love to look at magic books, do they have pictures?' Ripple was more than willing to help.
'You can pick them up, bring them to me and help put them on the shelf,' Halmarain said shortly. 'If you open one, you'll probably lose a hand. They're protected by spells.' She gave Trap a hard look. 'You helped to create this mess, so you'll help clean it up.'
'I said I was sorry,' Trap said. He had already apologized, and her repeated accusations were irritating. Still, he would like to talk to the wizard, which was impossible unless they could open the portal again. He was unfamiliar with books, but he liked handling them. A few had fallen open and he was fascinated by the pictures he could see.
'If there's a spell on these books, why are some open?' Ripple asked. She had always been quick to pick up a fallacy.
'Because they were already open, we were studying them,' the little wizard said. 'The ones that were on the shelves are still shut. Now get busy and pick them up!'
'I don't mind helping you, but not if you're going to yell at us,' Ripple announced. 'You haven't been very friendly, you know. You haven't offered to show us any nice magic or anything.'
Halmarain's face reddened with rage. 'You've come in here, messed up a spell, endangered Orander's life or-' she stopped. 'But then, you're kender. Typically kender, I guess.
'Oh good, we're going to see magic after all,' Trap said, hardly able to contain his enthusiasm. They cleared a spot in the middle of the floor and moved a table close to the row of shelves where the books had been. As he helped pick up the red-bound tomes, Trap spotted a small object on the floor and picked it up also. At first he thought it was just a small chip off the walls. On closer inspection, he discovered it was round, some sort of glass, gray-green and carved with a spiral of tiny figures. The surface had been carefully roughened to keep it from shining.
'Are we picking up the books or not?' Halmarain glared at him before turning her attention to Umpth. 'And you, you keep an eye on that monster in the corner.'
Trap slipped the little glass disk into his pouch so it would not get lost again in the clutter. He wanted to ask the wizard about it when she was in a better mood.
Chapter 5
Deep beneath the ruins of Pey, Draaddis Vulter and his god, Takhisis, watched the activity in Orander's laboratory. At least he supposed the Queen of Darkness still watched. By the power of the viewing disk on the mirror, he could not see the globe to know if she was still giving her attention to the activities of the kender, the gully dwarves, and the little wizard.
It was enough to know she had not turned her attention and her frustration back on him. Still, he doubted it would be long before she did. His god was his greatest joy and his greatest terror. For years he had been paying a price for having taken her gifts and misusing them.
Ambition had been his trap. In his youth he worked and studied until he became proficient enough to take his Test in the Tower of High Sorcery. His examination had been easier than he'd expected. His joy was short lived; he was sneeringly told he had nothing to brag about. All the orders needed minor wizards, those who could serve but would not have the talent to advance to the point where they challenged master wizards and the leadership of the order. For them the Test was not as strenuous.
His triumph had turned to dust. He chafed as he served Grenoten, one of the master wizards in the High Tower. Draaddis was a wizard and he refused to be held back, limited to spells that were good for nothing more than housekeeping chores. He studied, but he found he lacked the memory for the greater spells. He had to face the scorn of Grenoten as well as his own disappointment. Draaddis suffered his servitude and his thwarted ambition for two years before he turned to Takhisis.
He begged to be given the memory and the talent to grow beyond his natural gifts, and promised in return to serve the Dark Queen faithfully. Possessing a good mind and a quick tongue, his arguments and promises were convincing and she gave him the gifts he requested. The next day he found himself able to read and memorize spells with a speed and precision he had not dreamed possible.
For a year he made no show of his new talents. He continued to serve Grenoten, to study diligently, and to put up with the master wizard's sneers. Knowing he was learning faster every day robbed the scorn of its power to sting. Draaddis had a plan of his own and when he was ready, he put it into action.
Using a polymorph spell, he reduced three of the master wizard's minions, and then Grenoten himself, to two inches height. When he finished torturing them, he crushed them with his heel.
His revenge had been sweet, but he had not reckoned on the anger of his goddess. Grenoten and the more learned of his minions had been studying and searching for a portal that would allow the Dark Queen to return to the world of Ansalon. In her rage she had subjected Draaddis to two years of torture before she put him to work finishing Grenoten's work.
She had even increased his talents, but instead of the glory he craved, he had lived in the ruins of Pey for thirty years, struggling to find a way for his mistress to return to Krynn.
Only when he was studying was he free of her torture. He could walk the underground passages of his quarters unimpeded as long as he was traveling in the direction of the laboratory. When hunger and fatigue drove him to leave his work, vile arms and tentacles reached out of the walls, clutching at him, tearing his flesh.
The arms and the rending of flesh was an illusion, but his mind added pain to the tortures of his queen. She had promised his suffering would end when she returned to Ansalon. She could not want access to the stones any more than Draaddis.
The clutter of Orander's laboratory disappeared. Draaddis was again aware of his own, neater, but far more sinister workroom and his experiments. Around his viewing disk, still lying on the round mirror, a small black cloud hovered, indicating the magic of its mate was blocked on all sides.
'The little thief took the other viewing disk!' Draaddis was outraged. 'He put it in his pouch!'
'Shame on them and their evil natures,' Takhisis laughed. To the wizard's ears the sound was feminine, alluring, like the tinkling of bells. Still, the influence of her anger at being thwarted shriveled a basket of freshly picked hen's bane until it dried and crumbled to dust. The little winged rat squealed and retreated into a dark corner.
Draaddis was aware she had been mocking him. At least she had not used her powers of illusion to torture him again.
'We saw enough to know the stones worked,' Takhisis said, unconcerned about not being able to see more of the action in Orander Marlbenit's laboratory.
'But what good will that do if he took the gate stones to the Plane of Vasmarg…' He turned to look directly at
