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  “Take a bite,” said Dar. He dipped a chunk of bread in the broth and popped it in his mouth.

  Kale swallowed hard. She would not insult her hostess. She dipped her spoon in the soup and only half filled it. Closing her eyes, she lifted it to her mouth. It did smell good. She tasted it. Her eyes popped open.

  “Onions!”

  Dar laughed.

  Leetu’s voice entered Kale’s thoughts. “I told you he’s just like a big brother. He teases even when he’s worn out and too tired to sit at the table.”

  Kale grinned across the room, answering Leetu’s friendly smile with a wink.

  Just like a brother. I’ll have to learn to tease him back.

  “I might be willing to help you with that project.”

  Kale sighed and dipped her spoon in the onion soup. She would like to stay here. But tomorrow they would go on.

  Deep into the mountain.

  Looking for the meech egg.

  Walking straight into Risto’s lair.

  42

  THE BARRIER

  Blue sky, white clouds, green grass.

  After half a day of trudging down gray granite tunnels toward the center of Mount Tourbanaut, Kale wanted sky above her head and grass beneath her feet. She tried to remember that outside the mountain was a frenzied blizzard and walking was certainly easier within.

  I don’t really want to go questing on the icy slopes of a mountain with a furious wind trying to push me off and hard pellets of snow pounding against me.

  She looked at the grim walls revealed by the lanterns they carried. I’m certainly not cut out to be a tumanhofer.

  Librettowit walked up front with their guide, Tilkertineebo Rapjackaport. Kale found it hard to remember even part of the tumanhofers’ names. The names for places in the tumanhofer mountain were short. They had passed through small towns, Glep, Tras, and Burr. Soon they would reach Fiph, and then a stretch of tunnels where no tumanhofers cared to roam.

  Fenworth trundled along in a wooden cart pulled by a burro. No danger threatened them for this part of their journey, and the old wizard slept most of the time. Dar sang his hiking songs. The kimens and Metta joined in. Kale sang too, but her heart couldn’t keep up with the happy beat.

  I’m not really afraid, just realistically cautious. After all, we’re going into Risto’s territory. Someone should be worried about the things we may have to face.

  They ate noonmeal at a tavern in Fiph.

  The long tunnels of Penn stretched for miles in a mazelike structure. Rapjackaport explained that hundreds of years ago the tumanhofers had mined this region. Now only druddums careened through the passageways.

  Mile after mile, Rapjackaport led them deeper into the mountain. Shades of gray mottled the walls of the large tunnels. The floors had been leveled of all bumps and ridges. The walls were hewn smooth by tumanhofer tools. So far, this final approach into Risto’s stronghold was exceedingly dull. The only breaks from monotony were old miner signs at each corner, telling directions. They indicated the four points of a compass with an arrow showing which direction the tunnel followed.

  Kale resisted the urge to ask how much farther they had to go.

  I’ll be glad when we get to where we are going, retrieve the egg, and hurry out of here.

  “The Cavern of Rainbows,” said Rapjackaport. “This is where I leave you.”

  Kale’s head jerked up at the sound of the tumanhofer’s voice. His hearty words bounced off the walls. They’d entered a gigantic cavern.

  Huge, glistening crystals hung from the ceiling in the brilliant hues of a rainbow. The floor was a rippled rock substance that looked as if it was once a thick porridge of pastel shades. Kale imagined someone pouring it out and watching it harden. Round craters dotted the area. They reminded Kale of the dents made by bubbles in the top of porridge cooking in a kettle, only these were quite large. Kale could have put both feet in the one nearest her. Another was wide enough Dar could have lain in it. Three walls were solid lightrock but not the blue she’d seen most often underground. These walls glowed with a clear, silvery light.

  “I’ll take the cart and burro back with me,” said Rapjackaport. “If you get through the barrier, you’ll find miles of natural tunnels. Some of these passages are not big enough for a wagon of any sort.”

  Brunstetter looked uncomfortable at this. He eyed the small wagon and his own bulk as if comparing sizes.

  Leetu and Librettowit helped Fenworth climb out of the cart. He sat down on a boulder that glowed a soft pink. Having just awakened from another nap, the old wizard gazed at the vast underground cavern with sleepy eyes, yawned, and stroked his beard.

  “Thank you, dear Rapjackaport, for guiding us.” Fenworth’s quiet voice echoed faintly around them. “We understand your eagerness to return. We won’t detain you.”

  The tumanhofer bowed with more precision than elegance and turned to his cousin. “Take care, Librettowit. This is an odd job for a librarian.”

  “I’m aware of that, Port. But we do what we must do.”

  They embraced. Lee Ark and Dar unloaded a few supplies from the cart and helped turn the burro. Kale remembered to say her thanks as the tumanhofer left them, but her eyes were on the magnificent cave. The glitter and vivid colors had almost blinded her to a mar of ugliness seeping out of a crevice on the opposite side. In contrast to the beauty of the great stone hall, a mound of black coarse sand, rocks, and boulders spilled out of this one wide crack.

  Fenworth, leaning heavily on his walking stick, crossed the uneven floor with his eyes trained on the deplorable deformity. A few yards from its base he sat down again, this time on a lavender boulder. The others started setting up camp, but Kale went to stand by the old man.

  After a moment he sighed. He propped his walking stick against his shoulder and placed both hands upon his knees. He leaned forward and squinted at the black, ragged pebbles as if reading written lines amid the pile. Eventually he reached to take Kale’s hand in his without looking away from the crumbly-looking mass in front of them.

  “Crim Copper. That’s who made this atrocity, Kale. Crim Copper.” He patted her hand. A mouse fell out of his sleeve and scampered away, ignored by both of them. “Risto, Burner Stox, and Crim Copper working together. Can’t be good. Oh dear, oh dear. Can’t be good.”

  Dar fixed an especially good supper and played soothing “digestion music” afterward. Metta sat on his shoulder and sang her syllable-song. Kale listened patiently as Librettowit explained again that the little purple dragon’s snout wasn’t formed for making words like the seven high races used, but the minor dragons had a language of their own. Therefore the gifted creatures could communicate mentally in the common language, but voiced their thoughts with what sounded to us like a string of nonsense syllables. Kale thought the music Metta made without words was lovelier than any ballads she had heard sung by minstrels at the tavern.

  The kimens joined the singing and danced. Their beautiful clothing changed with each movement. With the pastel lava rock beneath their feet and the vibrant jewel tones dripping as crystals from the ceiling, the spectacular performance kept Kale’s attention—except for the few times her eyes wandered over to the old wizard.

  Fenworth had scarcely touched his meal, and anything Dar cooked usually had his admiration, or at least his attention. The wizard often complained about Librettowit’s lack of culinary skill, to which the tumanhofer replied, “I’m a librarian.” Fenworth also enjoyed music. It was peculiar for him to ignore Metta, Dar, and the kimens.

  This night Fenworth ate a few spoonfuls and put the bowl of green stew aside. He sat contemplating the barrier.

  Kale worried every time she noticed how totally occupied the wizard was with Crim Copper’s black blight on the beautiful cavern. Fenworth grew leaves and didn’t bother to shake them off. He drifted into the appearance of a massive trunk that dissipated any time he moved. Occasionally he stood and paced. Kale tried once to reach into his mind, but as she’d foun
d from earlier experiences, his thoughts were guarded.

  A disturbed wizard is not a comforting sight. Why do the others ignore him?

  The music drew her back to the activities in the camp, and she began to ask herself questions. All the songs are about friendship…Is it coincidence? No, they’re celebrating our brotherhood in the quest…On purpose?…Probably…Why?

  She quit trying to figure it out. The next song had many verses, and she had heard it often. She called Metta to fly to her shoulder. Kale wanted help in remembering the words. Turning her back on Fenworth’s brooding figure, she gave herself over to enjoying this evening with her comrades.

  In the morning Fenworth still sat on his lavender boulder, keeping vigil over the black barrier.

  Kale sat next to the tumanhofer with a platter of fried mullins to share for breakfast. She nodded over at the wizard, who was mostly tree this morning. “What is he doing, Librettowit?”

  The librarian picked up a hot stick from the platter, took a bite, and looked over at his longtime friend. “Thinking.”

  “Could you help him? I mean, with some fact from your research.”

  “Humph! A librarian needs books in order to do research.” He chewed for a moment and then swallowed. “I have remembered several incidents in history when a wizard was called upon to break down walls. I even remembered one where a wizard moved a mountain. But he was on the outside of the mountain, not within it. There’s a difference.”

  “What will he do?”

  “Think some more.”

  The others sat around and let Fenworth think. Sometimes he paced while he thought. He carried his hat in his hand and wadded it into an unrecognizable clump. He often muttered. But Kale couldn’t see that he made any great discovery with all the thinking and pacing and wadding and muttering.

  Night came, and the music was about Wulder and the many wonders He had performed.

  Kale watched the pondering wizard. We need Wulder here now.

  The next morning brought no better results. Fenworth trailed a long, bushy vine off his robes whenever he paced. The little dragons kept close to the old wizard. An abundance of insects scattered out of his leaves every time he moved.

  Around the campfire that night they sang of Paladin’s mighty deeds. Kale sang along, but her heart yearned for some kind of action. We need Paladin here now.

  The next morning she could no longer stand the patience of everyone but her. She wanted nothing more than to go pummel the wizard with a thousand questions and maybe stir his old bones into doing something. She climbed up the wall that sloped toward the black barrier and found her own lavender boulder to sit on. Her moonbeam cape flowed from her shoulders but gave her no sense of being part of a great quest. Gymn and Metta nestled in their pocket-dens and offered no companionship. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin on her fists, and her face turned toward Wizard Fenworth as he sat on his rock, starting to look like a bush.

  She glared at him, then glared at the black barrier.

  He should do something. This is a waste of time. Why can’t he just say, ‘Move!’?

  Fenworth sprang to his feet and looked straight at Kale. His alarmed expression told her before the rumbling in the ground that she had done something terrible.

  Kale reached down to balance herself on the shuddering boulder. The black mass beside her began to shift. Down in the campsite, her friends scrambled for cover. Leetu and Lee Ark sprinted to the wizard and dragged him, protesting, away from the cascading black gravel. The barrier was coming apart.

  Thick dust filled the air. Kale fell backward and tumbled down the rocky incline. She heard shouts but couldn’t look. Her main concern was to keep from whacking her head as she turned over and over, faster and faster down the slanted wall. She coughed and sputtered and tried to keep her arms wrapped over her head.

  When she hit bottom and the tiny black rocks kept sliding down around her, she curled up in a ball and tried to breathe through the cape.

  Finally the mountain quit trembling. Kale sat up, starting another tiny landslide as the mound of gravel covering her fell away. The air was full of thick black dust, so she kept the edge of her cape over her nose and mouth. She blinked dirt from her eyes.

  The natural light of the magnificent cavern glowed dimly through fine black powder as it settled. The gravel and dust lay over everything, blanketing the former brilliance. Only a half-light showed Kale the small cave surrounding her.

  When she stopped coughing against the gritty air, she reached into the cape and pulled out Metta and Gymn, one in each hand. Metta raced to perch on Kale’s shoulder as close to her neck and under her chin as she could get. Gymn lay limply in the palm of her hand. She stroked his backbone and let out a sigh of relief when his tail twitched.

  “Fainted again,” she said to Metta. “He’ll be all right.”

  Kale said it more to reassure herself. She felt battered. Her arms and legs ached. Gymn would heal her bruises. She examined herself and found only scratches under a black coating of dust.

  I’ll be all right. Nothing is broken. I just have to find the others.

  I hope no one is hurt.

  Looking around, she examined the small, separate cave created by the landslide. The rocks formed a new barrier almost completely surrounding her. She spied a small tunnel yawning open to the rear. Disoriented from her tumble down the slope, she could not think where it might lead.

  To the others, I hope.

  Kale tucked Gymn away in the cape. She crawled on hands and knees through the opening. Metta hummed an encouraging tune in her ear. Long and straight, the tunnel took them to another, larger cave.

  Kale stood and stretched, feeling her aching muscles.

  This stone room looked much like the one they had camped in for several days. Great clouds of black dust had blown through the tight tunnel.

  Kale took stock of her situation. She had the moonbeam cape and her two dragons. She had food, among other things, tucked in the cape’s hollows. She wasn’t badly hurt, nothing Gymn couldn’t fix.

  Not too bad. She swallowed the lump in her throat. I wonder where the others are.

  43

  THE MAZE

  Leetu? Kale reached for the emerlindian with her mind.

  Gymn peeked out of the cape, then darted to her shoulder to sit next to Metta.

  Leetu?

  “Are you safe? Metta and Gymn?”

  Yes, we’re fine, and you? The others?

  “Wizard Fenworth is unconscious. Librettowit has a nasty cut on his forehead. Lee Ark has a broken arm. A boulder hit Brunstetter on the head, and he’s dizzy. Otherwise he’s all right except for cuts and bruises. Shimeran and Seezle are dirty but whole. Dar is too dirty to speak intelligibly. He’s limping around. And he favors one side as if he has some broken ribs. He’s muttering about his soiled clothing, not his injuries.”

  Kale almost smiled, imagining the doneel’s disgust at the sooty dust on everything. But she pictured the old wizard, pale and still. Fenworth?

  “Librettowit thinks he tried to stem the landslide, and it was too much for him. I can’t find any broken bones. He seems all right from what I can see. Gymn could tell us more.”

  Kale remembered the horror on Fenworth’s face as he looked up at her. She shivered at the memory.

  The black barrier had collapsed, and somehow Kale had made it happen. Now her comrades were hurt.

  But if Fenworth had not been able to move the mass in three days, how could she have been responsible? She shook aside the unsettling feeling that her thoughts had sent the black rocks and gravel cascading down upon them all.

  Where are you?

  “Still in The Cavern of Rainbows. But when the black barrier collapsed, the walls shifted. Several tunnels out of here appeared.”

  Should I try to come to you?

  “Yes, if you can. We need Gymn to help with the injuries.”

  Kale knew exactly which direction to go to find the others now. She could feel
Leetu’s presence. However, choosing the right tunnel proved difficult. There were so many.

  Blue lightrocks studded the walls of some of the tunnels. Other tunnels were pitch black. Some were twice as high as Kale was tall. Some were barely big enough for her to squeeze into. A sickly sweet smell poured out of one. Others stank of damp and decay. Two smelled like cabbage boiling. Kale dreaded going into any of them.

  Crawling through yet another tunnel that seemed to lead nowhere, she muttered, “At least you two are with me.” She stroked each of the dragons, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  Reaching into one of the cape’s hollows, she pulled out the lightrock and handed it to the little dragons. Then they went through the opening closest to where Kale could feel Leetu’s presence. Metta and Gymn sat on her shoulder, holding the soft glowing lightrock between them.

  Sometimes Kale walked.

  Sometimes she crawled.

  Hours later Kale had discovered how futile was her search. None of the tunnels they explored took them to her injured comrades. Some tunnels veered off in the wrong direction after she had crawled for what seemed miles. Others came to dead ends, and Kale had to inch backward to a spot where another tunnel converged with the one that went noplace.

  All of the tunnels were filled with bugs and druddums. The insects crunched under her feet or crawled over her hands. They fell from the ceiling and slipped under the collar of her blouse.

  The druddums tore through the stone corridors as if being chased, their normal speed accelerated by a frenzy, probably set off by the landslide. Kale never saw one slow down for anything. They slammed into her at irregular intervals. Sometimes she’d be hit and knocked over, then trodden upon by others following the first.

  She grew weary and disheartened and more convinced than ever that all of this was the result of some rash act on her part. “I thought, Move! and the barrier fell apart. But it’s ridiculous to think I could cause such devastation. I am just a slave girl.”