there, to help find him.'
'Don't talk to anybody outside!' Goldbuckle snapped. 'Don't trust anybody or anything out there! Rust and corruption, girl, you have no idea
— '
'I have a map,' she said. 'But it will only show me where he was last seen. He may not be there any more, so I might need to ask about him.' A new thought occurred to her. 'I don't suppose you have any trading parties going northward, do you? I might just go along with them, as far as the wilderness. That's where I'll start looking.'
Goldbuckle eased himself back to a bench and sat down with a thump. The girl before him was as lovely a young dwarf-maiden as he had ever seen, and he had always thought of her as very practical and sensible, the times she had come to shop his bazaar or to deliver purchase orders for her father. But now…
'I don't have any parties going that way,' he said weakly. 'Nobody goes to that wilderness. There hasn't been a trade route through there since before the Cataclysm, and even then it was chancy. Of course, that crazy
Wingover has been up that way. He wagered he'd go to Pax Tharkas and back, if I'd give him a commission. Plan of a fool. But, of course, he is a fool, to begin with.'
'Wingover? What an odd name.' Jilian pursed pretty lips. 'Maybe that's who I should talk to. Where can I find him?'
'Well, not anywhere in Thorbardin, certainly. He'd never be allowed within twenty miles of the gate.'
'Why on Krynn not? What did he do?'
'You don't understand, girl,' Goldbuckle shook his head. 'Wingover isn't a dwarf. He's… well. I've traded with him a bit and learned to trust him. But he's… well. He's a human.'
Jilian stared at him, amazed. 'What would you trade from humans? I mean,
I know there used to be some trade, but aren't humans — ?'
'Unreliable, yes. As a rule. Also unstable and generally unpleasant. Of course, one can make some allowances, considering how short-lived they usually are… Girl, have you ever seen a human?'
'Of course not. I've never been outside of Thorbardin. But I've heard about them. Chane has seen several, when he's gone out to carry reports or messages for you, and he talks about them. He even saw an elf once.'
'Yes, I know,' Goldbuckle sighed. 'All sorts show up at barter camps, but such places are no place for a girl like you. I swear! Why, I shudder to think of — '
'Chane is out there, somewhere. And he's visited these barter camps before, at your employ, after all.'
'That's different! Chane can take care of himself. You — '
'That's the other thing I wanted to talk about. He may need the money he earned from you. If you'll give it to me, I'll give it to him… when I find him.'
Chapter 7
For miles, the black path would and curved through dense forest. Then, past one final, long curve, it broke out of the forest and extended arrow-straight across a mounded plain where little vegetation grew only mosses and spindly, scattered shrubs. The light of the moons Lunitari and
Solinari — the first nearly overhead, the second just above the crags of
Westwall bathed the scene in eerie red and white highlights beneath a spangled sky. 'More ruins,' Chestal Thicketsway declared, pointing about.
'There might have been a city here once. Maybe the Cataclysm — ' 'Much older than that,' Glenshadow the Wanderer said. 'Oh, far older than that.
Ages old. The legends say it was a city in the Age of Dreams.'
'Legends say?' Chane Feldstone growled. 'You're a wizard. Don't you know?'
'Not without a powerful spell for time-seeing,' the winter voice rasped.
'And I'll cast no spells in this place. Strange things happen to magic here.'
Near them, somewhere close, something seemed to agree… something that lamented the fact.
'It's said there was a city in this valley,' the wizard continued. 'And in the city was a king, who captured and held in bond the source of all magic. The king's name was Gargath.'
'How could he capture the source of magic?' Chess asked, excitedly. 'Do you suppose it is still here?'
'No. Only the place where it was once held, and the device that held it.
A god-wrought thing called Spellbinder. It still has power, though. Power enough to confuse and bind even the highest orders of spell.'
'Misery,' something voiceless seemed to say.
'Is that what's wrong with my spell?' Chess asked, looking around. 'He's bound?'
The wizard nodded. 'Most likely.'
'He certainly doesn't seem to be very happy about it,' the kender noted.
'He?' the dwarf grumped, 'What do spells know? They aren't people.' He looked up at the wizard. 'How much farther do we have to go?'
'Not far,' Glenshadow said. 'Are you tired so soon?'
'Of course I'm not tired! But I have things to do and I don't see how all this is — '
'It is,' Glenshadow assured him. 'You want to find the helm, as you dreamed. This is how you must begin.'
The dwarf scowled. 'What does this have to do with you, though I It's my dream. What makes it important to you?'
'It might be important to a great many people,' the wizard sighed. 'In ominous times, significances take on new meanings. I have my own reasons for helping you fulfill your destiny, Chane Feldstone… if you can fulfill it.'
'If it's important to you, then why don't you just go and find the helm, and let me get back to Thorbardin? I'm not fond of having no roof over my head.'
'Of course you aren't. You're a mountain dwarf. But it's your dream,
Chane Feldstone. Not mine.'
'Corrosion,' the dwarf muttered. 'It's like trying to get a sensible answer from that kender. What do you mean 'ominous times?' '
'There have been omens. Some have interpreted them, and some believe them. Some think that devastation is about to fall on these lands. Some say it has already begun. Invasion. War. The worst of imaginings.'
Chane stopped, staring up at the man. 'When?'
'Soon,' the wizard said. 'Some say within five years. Some say within the year.'
'But… why?'
'I think there will be further omens,' Glenshadow said softly, his voice as chill as a winter's night. 'Then, perhaps, we will know.'
Ahead of them, the path approached what might have been a huge, open gate in a great wall, except that whatever gate might once have been there was long since gone. All that remained was a ragged cleft in a long, high structure of broken stone which ran off to left and right into moon-shadowed distance. An ancient wall, sundered here and there to rubble. Near the wall, just off the dark path, was a separate mound of rubble that looked familiar. It was like the mound they had found back in the forest — a clutter of what might once have been various things all connected together, with stumps and odd shapes protruding from it.
'Another gnome machine?' Chess wondered. 'What do you suppose it was for.'
'Old,' the wizard nodded.
'Very old,' something unseen seemed to agree.
'A siege engine,' Glenshadow said. 'They kept building them until they got through the wall.'
'Who did?'
'Gnomes. Who else?'
'What did they want?'
