it had done before, the contraption began to tilt, aligning itself to the slope of the mountain steeps above.
Closer it came, and closer, and the slender mastlike thing began to extend from its underside, toward the cove. Chess and the others could see what it was: Bobbin's rope. But somehow it was stiff, snaking toward the ledge at an angle.
'Hurry!' the gnome shouted. 'And don't forget the cider!'
Chess danced about the ledge, his eyes bright with excitement. 'Look at that! He's made the rope stiff. It's coming right to us.'
Bobbin worked his controls and continued feeding out the rope, doing all he could to settle the soarwagon in close to the ledge.
'How did you do that I' Chess shouted. 'That's really something! Come on! The raisins and cider are right here, all lashed together. All we have to do is hook them…oops!'
The rope had come within five feet of the ledge, almost within reach.
Then, abruptly, it sagged and went limp. The rope dangled from the flying craft, its hook swinging fifteen feet out from the cliff.
'Oh, breakdown!' the gnome cursed. 'It melted!'
'Melted?'
'Right. I used up the last of my water, soaking it, then spent the night at least ten thousand feet up, freezing it. I thought that would work.'
'Well, don't worry,' the kender called. 'Just try to hold still.'
Strutting with pride, Chess brought out his supply pole — twenty feet of slim sapling, with loops at its ends. He attached the narrow-end loop to the raisin-and-cider pack and lifted it, then began to feed out pole toward Bobbin's dangling hook.
Leaning over his wicker rail, the gnome watched with worried eyes. 'That isn't going to work,' he said. 'You can't lever that much weight that far out without a counterbalance.'
Chess braced himself, struggling to feed out the pole. The weight of the supplies seemed to double with each foot of extension. 'I may need some help,' he admitted. The others had gathered around him, watching with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
'You need more than help,' Wingover advised. 'There isn't enough pole there.'
'This just has to work,' the kender panted, beginning to stagger at the leveraged weight of the supply pole. 'It's the only idea I have.'
With the last of his strength, Chess hauled the supplies back to the ledge. He carried the pack twenty feet to the left and ran back. Lifting the butt-end of the pole, the kender put his shoulder to it.
'Don't!' Wingover started.
'Wait!' Chane shouted.
'Youcan'tdothat!' Bobbin called.
But the kender already had. With a tremendous heave, Chess swung the pack off the ledge, trying to hoist it out to the soarwagon's hook. Pack, pole, and kender disappeared over the edge. Jilian screamed.
Instantly Wingover loosed his sword, plunged its blade deep into a crack in the rock, and swung himself outward and down. Chane Feldstone jumped over him, cleared the ledge, and scrambled down the man's length. The dwarf hung from Wingover's ankle and grabbed Chess's free hand just as the kender lost his grip on a snag.
'Got him!' Chane called. 'Pull us back up!' Wingover pulled, but nothing happened. His grip on his sword held them suspended — man, dwarf, kender, pole and pack hanging over the misted gorge — but no amount of muscle- wrenching effort would lift them.
'I thought I was the one who was crazy,' Bobbin called from the hovering soarwagon.
Just at the cliff's edge, Jilian had her feet braced and both hands on
Wingover's forearm. Her nails bit into hi! skin as she pulled. 'Let go!' he shouted at her. 'You're making it worse!'
'Somebody get a rope!' Chane called from below.
'I have a rope,' Bobbin mentioned. 'A fat lot of good it does me, now that it's melted.'
Jilian scrambled back from the ledge, then turned and ran, returning with Wingover's horse and a length of rope from his packs. Working quickly, the girl secured the rope to the saddle, carried its free end to the ledge, and leaned over to tie it around Wingover's arm. With Jilian pulling on its headstall, the horse braced itself and hauled. Wingover appeared at the ledge and was dragged to safety, snatching up his sword as he came. Then came Chane and finally the kender. Chess had one hand firmly grasped in the dwarf's fingers; the other held the pole's loop.
'Remarkable,' Bobbin sighed, watching from the limit of ground effect.
When finally the pole and packs were safe, Chane Feldstone released his grips on the man's ankle and the kender's hand. The dwarf stood up, brushed himself off, and took the pole away from Chess. 'Get out of the way,' he growled.
Angrily, the dwarf reversed the pole and thrust its butt-loop out toward the gnome's dangling hook, hand over hand.
Chess watched for a moment, then shook his head.
'That won't work,' he said.
'Why not?' Chane kept feeding out the pole.
'Because then I'll lose my supply pole!'
'What do you want it for?'
'Well, it's for sending raisins and cider out to where Bobbin can get them.'
'And when he has the pole, he'll have the supplies, too,' the dwarf rumbled. 'Mercy!'
'Oh.' Chess backed off, considering the logic of it.
'Well, there is that.'
Using the supply pack as a counterweight, Chane fed the pole out and neatly dropped its loop over Bobbin's hook. The gnome began to winch in his line, and the pack slid off the ledge and fell. The heavy bundle of supplies swung at pole's end, making the soarwagon dance in its hover. The contraption held for a moment, then sensitive vanes reacted to the shifting currents and it soared away over the gorge, circling and climbing as Bobbin's angry voice trailed away.
'You're welcome!' Chess shouted, watching soarwagon, rope, supply pole, and raisin-and-cider pack diminish into the distance.
'At least he has provisions,' Jilian pointed out. 'I'm sure he was getting hungry.'
Chapter 28
Hiqh ox a chill slope, where whining winds drove scudding clouds below and whipped snow from peaks above, the wizard Glenshadow knelt beside a pool of ice. The hooded face looking up at him was grim.
'Only a few days ago you were within an arrow-shot of the Dark One,
Wanderer. Did you see him?'
'I saw something,' Glenshadow replied. 'The warriorwoman lifted something from beneath her breastplate. Something small and dark, it seemed, like an amulet.'
'It was the Dark One,' the face told him. 'You could have killed him then… or he you.' Glenshadow shook his head. 'His magic would no more work for him than mine for me,' he said. 'Not in the presence of
Spellbinder.'
'The dwarf still carries the stone, then,' the voice muttered. 'Has he seen where it directs him?'
'He sees the trail of Pathfinder, and thus the way to Grallen's helm. He may know soon where it lies, for he is on the east face of Sky's End now.
All of Dergoth is visible beyond the chasm.'
'All of Dergoth… and the woman, Darkmoor. The Dark One is with her.
They are ahead of you, Wanderer. They await you.'
'Then so it must be,' Glenshadow rasped, his voice as chill as the whining winds on the mountain. 'Tell me,
