Then the whiteness swallowed him again, and he could see nothing. The sense of movement rumbled and grew into an implacable force, gaining momentum, carrying the little Aghar along in its irresistible sweep. Once Gus smacked into something that felt like a real rock, not the soft, white, wet kind, and that blow stunned him. Still he kept falling.
Gradually, the momentum of the avalanche faded away. He was sliding a little; then he was still. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they were immobile, trapped by the white stuff packed tightly all around him. Gus’s head throbbed, but he couldn’t see the flying monster-he couldn’t see anything, truth be told-and that, at least, was a relief.
In fact, his recent adventures had drained him more than he had realized. It felt strangely safe there in his icy prison, and he was very, very tired.
It seemed only natural to simply go to sleep.
Gus could feel the talons reaching, scratching for him. It was that terrible sensation that woke him up, at which time he quickly realized he was still imprisoned in the icy pack of white stuff. He felt numb from the cold and utterly helpless. He heard terrible clawing, relentlessly scraping away at the surface above his face, the sounds of the talons coming closer, increasingly closer. He struggled, gasped, groaned, and kicked, but he might as well have been encased in stone for all the movement he could manage.
Still the noise came closer. He saw a burning brightness-he was lying on his back-and he presumed he was experiencing the fiery fury of the winged monster’s eyes. Even so, those eyes seemed impossibly brilliant, as if the creature’s eyes were a mighty bonfire, the kind of pyre that could light up the whole of the Urkhan Sea.
Then one talon penetrated all the way through the white slush, scraping painfully across Gus’s face, and the light swelled to a truly excruciating brightness. It was as though a huge fire had surged right in front of the Aghar’s eyes, and he was virtually blinded. In that, Gus actually found some comfort since he was utterly helpless to escape, at least his blindness would spare him the horror of watching the monster devour him. Again, those talons clawed across his face, and he shuddered at the thought that his flesh was being ripped away, perhaps his eyes torn out, his bulbous nose severed.
Yet those claws did not seem so sharp as before-nor did the monster seem intent on savagely rending his flesh. No, it seemed more like it was merely tormenting him.
The blindness began to ease slightly as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. He could make out a few details-most prominent, a set of white, curving fangs, drooling eagerly between widespread jaws. Again those talons raked at him, but he realized they were clawing at the icy stuff imprisoning Gus, not at the Aghar himself. Probably, he thought, the monster wanted to have a snack of white stuff before getting down to the main meal.
The mouth above him gaped wide, and Gus tried to recoil, deciding that the creature had unleashed some form of foul breath weapon. He held his breath as long as he could; then he had no choice but to inhale the stench of its fetid exhalation, and he almost snorted in derision. As a gully dwarf, he had smelled many vile odors; it would take more than the creature’s stale breath to choke and kill him.
But his elation was short lived. The jaws spread wide again, fangs yawning to either side of his face as that horrible maw, still panting its tainted breath, lowered to his face.
Yet what he felt wasn’t sharp teeth, but a long, coarse, and surprisingly warm tongue. He felt the tongue slurp across his face, clearing away the icy bits that coated his skin, bringing a sweet tingling back to the flesh that had been all but frozen. Gus coughed and sputtered and tried to move, and the creature set to work digging again, raking those powerful paws around the Aghar’s arms. When one arm finally jerked free, Gus reached up to ward off the horrible attacker, but instead of a skeletal, chill minion of darkness, his hand came into contact with a shaggy coat of hair.
Gradually, Gus understood that, despite the talons and fangs and fetid breath, it was not the creature that had chased him on the mountaintop. Nor was it the source of that blinding brightness, the intense light that had all but robbed him of vision. Blinking, the gully dwarf saw that the fiery brilliance came from much farther away, from a yellow spot somewhere high above on the lofty ceiling of that place. Somehow, that ceiling, which previously had been a black expanse speckled with tiny lights, had turned a pale blue in color. One single, incredibly brilliant, orange-yellow light shined down upon him.
“Kondike? What did you find there?”
Gus heard the words, spoken in a female voice that didn’t sound terribly menacing, and he wondered how the monster had learned to speak such expert Dwarvish. Only when the fanged head, with its drooping jowls and incredible tongue, lifted away and the creature uttered a deep, guttural “woof,” did he realize that the speaker was not the shaggy beast, but some other individual off in the near distance that he couldn’t see.
Realizing that even melodious and gentle female dwarves had been known to pound the stuffing out of hapless Aghar, he struggled to rise and flee. Turning his head, Gus saw the female dwarf, approaching through the snow, carrying a stout staff in one hand, marching straight toward him with a curious expression on her face.
She looked like a dwarf, but Gus knew he was-he must be-in the presence of a goddess.
Her hair was as bright yellow as spun gold and cascaded around a full-cheeked, wide-mouthed face. She wore a fur cape, open in the front to reveal a blue tunic flowing over a pair of perfect, swelling breasts. Her leggings were blue as well, tight-fitting like the tunic, and her boots were white fur and came as high as her knees. When she looked down at Gus, he saw that her eyes were as blue as the ceiling of that place, and when she smiled her lovely smile, he knew that he was in the presence of immortal grace.
“Well, what happened to you, little fellow?” she asked cheerily. She raised her face, looking up the mountainside toward the lofty ridge, and she whistled as her eyes followed the path of the thunderous avalanche. “Looks like, whatever your problems, Reorx was looking out for you. And Kondike, of course.”
“G-G-Gus!” he croaked worshipfully. “I’m Gus!”
“What a nice name,” she said sweetly. “I am called Gretchan Pax, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. Now let’s see about getting you out of there. Then perhaps you’d like a bowl of hot soup?”
She knelt down beside him and, with the monster Kondike energetically assisting, quickly freed him from the white stuff. Gus, however, did not even realize when he was free.
In fact, he had completely swooned away.
The soup was the most exquisite food Gus had ever tasted, up to and including cave grubs. There were bits of red things and green things and white things in it, and the liquid itself was a pleasant brown color, aromatic and comforting. Gretchan had led Gus to the edge of the white ground-she called it “snow”-and effortlessly kindled a fire from some sticks and twigs she scooped up right off the ground. Now the Aghar’s teeth had finally stopped chattering, and he slurped down a second bowl as soon as he finished the first.
“Good!” he declared, licking out the metal dish. “What kind food?”
The brightness was still painfully intense, but his eyes had become accustomed to the constant glare enough that his headache was waning. She had explained to him that the blue ceiling was called the “sky,” and the fiery orb was the “sun.” Gretchan leaned back, puffing on a small pipe she had loaded with some kind of dried plant. The smoke that emerged from her nose was pleasantly aromatic, though when Gus leaned in to take a big sniff, he had been unable to suppress a wet sneeze that spattered her pretty thoroughly. With a grimace of distaste, she blotted off her face and bodice.
“Stay away from my pipe… and my face,” she chided him. “This stuff isn’t good for you.”
She was a genius besides a beauty, Gus thought. When she frowned, he wanted to do whatever he could to obey her, to cheer her up. And when she laughed, that jolly sound made his heart pound with delight. “I take it you’ve never been on the surface before,” she said. “Those are vegetables-carrots, peppers, onions. They’re fairly common up here. Did you come from under the mountain?”
“No!” Gus declared. “I come from Thorbardin!”
With his words, he was assaulted by memories of that sunless place: the terrifying wizard and his cave, the drain-plunge where Slooshy had lost her life, the Theiwar bunty hunters who cut off gully dwarf heads, his prisoner cage, all that. He sniffled miserably. “Not go back, though. Not ever!”
“Well, I don’t think they grow vegetables in Thorbardin.” She grew serious for a moment, looking into the distance. “Someday, I’d like to find out for myself,” she admitted.
“Thorbardin? I can tell you all about Thorbardin!” Gus boasted, eager to impress his rescuer. “It’s big!”
She laughed again. “So I’ve heard,” Gretchan replied. “And how does a little fellow like you get out of Thorbardin? Surely you know that the gates have long been sealed?”
