'I see nothing out of the ordinary,' he said.
'You needn't shout,' Cutwood said, wincing.
Rainspot raised his wispy white eyebrows in surprise.
'Who's shouting?' he asked mildly.
Sighter dropped back behind Cutwood, and when he was out of his sight, snapped his fingers. Cutwood ducked his head and put his hands up to ward off some unseen blow.
'Did you hear that crack of lightning?' he said, his voice wavering.
'Most interesting. Cutwood's hearing has intensified, just as Wingover's vision has,' said Sighter.
'Does this mean we're getting more of the power?' won dered Rainspot.
'It would seem so,' Sighter said gravely.
'Stop screaming!' begged Cutwood in a whisper.
Roperig quickly made a crude pair of earmuffs for Cut wood out of strips of rattan from his water bottle and a wad of old socks. Ears muffled, Cutwood smiled.
'The pounding is much less now, thank you!'
'Don't mention it,' Roperig said in a slightly lower than normal voice. Cutwood beamed and clapped his colleague on the back.
'Do you feel any different?' Sturm asked Kitiara.
'My shoulder still hurts.'
'You don't feel any new access of strength?'
She shook her head. 'All I feel is a crying need for a mug of Otik's best ale.'
Sturm had to smile. It seemed eons since they'd all sat at the inn and enjoyed Otik's brew. It felt as if it would be eons before they could do so again.
At the twelve-mile mark, the gnomes were trailing out in a long line behind Kitiara and Sturm. Their short legs sim ply couldn't maintain the humans' rapid pace. Reluctantly,
Sturm called for a break. The gnomes dropped where they stood, as though felled by a shower of arrows.
The air stirred. Glimmers of roseate light showed in the east — the direction they'd decided was east. 'Sunrise,' Kiti ara said flatly.
Westward, toward the center of the valley, an answering flicker of light greeted the sunrise. Sighter tried to get his spyglass trained on the source of this second dawn.
Wingover moved over to him.
'It's the obelisk,' he said. He squinted into the far dis tance. 'I can see a glow surrounding the peak.'
Brilliant white streaks — more shooting stars — sprayed across the heavens. A bright, steady glow in the east was soon mimicked in the west. The sun was coming up over the cliffs, yellow and warm; the glow from the obelisk was a stubborn and muddy scarlet.
The rim of the sun broke over the cliffs. There was a clap of thunder, and bolts of red fire snapped from the far-off obelisk toward the surrounding chain of hills. The explorers put their faces to the ground, and all felt a blast of burning as the red beams crackled overhead. Five times the scarlet lightning lashed out, and the resulting thunder pounded the sky with ringing blows. When the sun was fully above the valley walls, the strange storm ceased.
Sturm sat up. The ground around them steamed lightly.
Kitiara struggled to her feet and surveyed the valley by day light. Plants were beginning to emerge from the flaky soil.
Wingover dusted himself off and looked back at the cliff they had sledded down.
'Now I understand how the sides got to be as hard and smooth as glass,' he said. 'The lightning must hit them ev ery morning.'
The gentlest gnome said shakily, 'Those were not pluvial discharges.' He tried to stand and failed. 'The atmosphere is charged with another power.'
'Magic.' Sturm felt his face harden with distaste as he practically spat the word. Though hardly unexpected, the sudden onset of such enormous magical power left him feel ing vulnerable, exposed — and tainted.
Chapter 19
The vegetation in the valley was much the same as elsewhere on Lunitari, but it grew less thickly and to greater size. The pink spears topped twelve feet in an hour's growth, and the toadstools towered twenty and thirty feet.
One new species the explorers found was a five-foot-wide puffball. After seeing one such puffball explode, sending a shower of javelin-sharp spikes in all directions, the marchers gave them a very wide berth.
The sky seemed brighter, too, and a steady hum filled their ears. Cutwood complained constantly of a loud buzz ing, despite his makeshift earmuffs. Wingover took to shielding his eyes with his hands, just to cut down on the intense glare he saw everywhere. The other gnomes found their special attributes becoming more and more onerous.
Roperig couldn't touch anything without his hands sticking.
He once accidentally scratched his nose, and it took an hour to free his fingers. Fitter fidgeted about like a hovering hum mingbird, moving with such speed that he seemed little more than a blur. He fell down a lot and continually bumped into other members of the party. Rainspot walked in a perpetual haze — a real fog that clung to his head and shoulders — his own private cloud. Moisture condensed on his face, and his ears and beard dripped nonstop.
Of all the gnomes, only Sighter exhibited no obvious ill effects. But Sturm noticed a subtle change in his expression;
Sighter's usually incisive gaze had given way to a hard smirk, as if he were listening to some lurid tale being whis pered in his ear. Sturm wasn't certain that the world was ready for a logical gnome.
Sturm worried about Kitiara, too. She kept ahead of the others, walking purposefully toward the waiting obelisk.
Her right arm was still slung across her chest, but her left hand, firmly clenched in a fist, rose and fell with each deter mined step. Each strike of her heels left a deep notch in the ground. Sturm wondered how much power she could bear.
He lost sight of Kitiara for a time among the pink spears and spidersticks. 'Hello?' he called. 'Kit, wait for us.' There was no answer but the hive-hum that surrounded them.
Sturm spied Kitiara standing under an enormous toad stool. Pink spores rained lightly over her. Her hand was at her throat, and she was looking at something.
'Kit?' he said, touching her shoulder.
She flinched. 'Sturm! I just noticed this.' It was Tirolan's gem, the amethyst arrowhead that had turned clear after Kit had used it to free herself from the spell of the goblin rob bers. She held the crystal out for Sturm to see. It was blood red, like a heartsfire ruby.
'When did that happen?' he asked.
'At Rapaldo's palace, I saw that the gem was turning pale pink. The color has deepened since sunrise.'
'Get rid of it, Kit. It's a receptacle of magic. It too may be affected by the atmosphere of Lunitari. Nothing good can come of it.'
'No!' she said, slipping the gem back under her mail shirt. I intend to keep it. Have you so soon forgotten how
Tirolan helped us?'
'No, I haven't forgotten. But the gem may be filled with a different power now, a power you know nothing about.
Drop it on the ground, Kit, please! If you don't, the conse quences may be horrible.'
