center.
'Molten rock,' Cutwood explained. 'That's why the cave is so warm.'
Sturm had an almost irresistible urge to touch the bub bling stuff, but the glare of heat on his face told him quite plainly how hot the magma was. Another gnome,
Wingover, appeared in the swirling steam.
'This way!' he cried.
They wended their way through a garden of seething cauldrons, each one emitting gurgles as the molten rock boiled. The air around them became sulfurous and hard to take in. Sturm coughed and held a kerchief to his face.
The vapors abated somewhat near the cavern wall. The remaining gnomes were clustered by a small hole in the wall. Sturm raised his head and saw that the hole was dark.
'Is that it?' Sturm wondered aloud.
'Must be,' said Sighter. 'Seems to be no other way out.'
'Perhaps one of the other tunnels we missed,' Roperig suggested. The black circle was not very inviting.
'The established path clearly leads here,' said Stutts. 'As senior colleague, it is up to me to go first — '
'No, you don't,' Sturm said. 'I'm armed. 111 go first to make sure it's safe.'
'Oh, excellent idea!' said Rainspot.
'Well, if you insist — ' said Stutts.
'You will need a light,' said Flash. He unbuttoned one of the capacious pockets on the front of his trouser legs. 'Give me a moment and I'll lend you my Collapsing Self-Igniting
Pocket Lamp Mark XVI.' Flash unfolded a flattish box of tin and set it on the floor. From a separate wooden case he extracted a bit of gooey stuff that resembled axle grease. He put a dollop of this in the lamp. From a different pocket,
Flash produced a slender glass vial, tightly stoppered. He broke the wax seal and popped the cork. A sharp, volatile aroma filled the cavern. Flash crouched down and extended his arm cautiously to the lamp. One eye clenched shut as a single drop of the fluid fell from the vial.
The droplet hit the plug of grease and went poof! The flash lit up the whole area, and the grease burned merrily.
Sturm reached for it, and the lamp popped and sputtered, sending bits of flaming grease in all directions.
'Are you sure this is safe?' he asked.
'Well, after a few minutes, the tin will melt,' Flash said.
'But it should be all right until then.'
'Wonderful.' He picked up the violent little lamp by its slim metal ring and started through the hole. The gnomes clustered around the opening, their pink faces and white beards facing upward like so many daisies seeking the sun.
Sturm walked up a curving ramp and soon entered a chamber of profound silence. Even the lamp's sputtering declined to a fitful flicker. He stepped off the ramp and onto the roughly cleared stone floor and beheld a sight that no mortal had seen in millennia.
Dragon eggs. Row upon row of carved niches, each hold ing a single melon-sized egg. Row after row, tier upon tier, stretching far beyond the feeble range of light from the Col lapsing Self-Igniting Pocket Lamp Mark XVI. The lips of each niche glittered with dew, formed when the steamy air below met the cooler air of this chamber.
A gnomish voice drifted to Sturm. 'What do you see?'
'This is it,' he called back, hand cupped to his mouth.
'The great egg chamber!'
The gnomes scrambled up the ramp and spilled into the cavern, jostling past Sturm for a better view. They oohed and aahed and uttered fervent exclamations to their holy trio: Reorx, gears, and hydrodynamics.
'How many eggs do you suppose there are?' breathed Fit ter. Sturm shot a glance at Sighter.
'In view, there are eight tiers,' said Sighter. 'And sixty two per tier.'
'For a total of — ' Cutwood figured frantically.
'— 496, said Sturm, recalling the figure that Cupelix had given him.
'That's right,' said Stutts, totting up his numbers.
They walked forward with Sturm leading. Wingover hovered at the rear, since the lamp dazzled his piercing eye sight. He could see through the velvet darkness, so he was able to keep their entry hole in sight.
'Ow,' Sturm muttered, shifting the lamp to his other hand. The ring was getting very hot.
'This way! Turn this way!' said Roperig suddenly. Sturm turned to his left.
'What was it?' he asked.
'Something moved over there. I didn't see it very clearly.'
A jet black thing scuttled out of the niche behind the eggs and leaped into the air toward Sturm's light. He recoiled clumsily and dropped the lamp. Something small and furry feeling brushed over his foot and was gone. The gnomes were all yelling and stamping their feet.
'Silence! Silence, I say!' Sturm roared. He found the lost lamp. Its fuel was almost extinguished. Only a faint corona of blue flame circled the lump of grease. Sturm sheltered the tiny fire with his hands and it grew brighter. He picked up the lamp and faced the gnomes.
They were not scared in the least. Wingover had bounded forward from his place in line and planted his foot on the thing that had burst from the egg niche. It squirmed under his toes, trying to get away. At first sight, it resembled a fat, hairy spider, but as Sturm brought the lamp nearer, they all recognized it.
'It's a glove!' said Stutts.
'One of Kit's gloves,' said Sturm, recognizing the pattern of stitching on the back. 'It's one of a pair she left behind on the Cloudmaster when we went off on our ore expedition.'
'How'd it get here?' asked Rainspot. Birdcall twittered a question of his own.
'He says, 'Why is it alive?'' Stutts added.
Rainspot grasped the glove by its 'fingers' and told
Wingover to lift his foot. The weather seer brought the wriggling thing to eye level and grunted. 'Strong little thing!'
Sighter glared through his ever-present lens. 'This glove is made of cowhide and rabbit fur, but the seams have disap peared.' He pressed a finger into the soft leather side. 'It has a heartbeat.'
'Ridiculous,' Flash said. 'Gloves don't come to life.'
'On Lunitari?' said Stutts. 'Why not?'
Sturm remembered Cupelix's remark about the cumula tive life force of all the dragon eggs being responsible for the intense aura of magical power on Lunitari. He offered this bit of information to the gnomes.
'Ah,' said Sighter with a sage expression. 'The level of magical force must be particularly high in these caverns. ' dare say, any animal or vegetable product left down here long enough might develop a life of its own.'
Roperig looked down at his own pigskin boots. 'You mean my shoes might take on life and run away with me?'
'We shan't be down here long enough for that to happen,'
Stutts assured him.
Rainspot put the glove down on its back and pinned it with his foot. Cutwood suggested that they dissect it to see what internal organs it had.
'Let it go. It's harmless,' said Sturm. 'We don't have time to fool around with it.'
Rainspot raised his foot and the glove flipped over. It scampered into the recesses of the egg niches.
'I wonder,' said Flash, 'what a living glove eats?'
'Finger food,' said Fitter. Roperig cuffed him lightly on the head and his hand promptly stuck there.
'Are you finished?' Sturm said impatiently. 'There's more of the cave to see, and I don't think the lamp will last much longer.' Indeed, even as he spoke, silver drops of mol ten tin dripped off the lamp's front end.
They hurried down the tunnel. Sounds of movement came to them and they halted. The rear legs and
