Darkness & Light

by Paul B. Thompson

  The caverns gave no sign of ending, and after penetrating a hundred yards or so into them, Sturm called a halt. The place they stopped was thick with Micones, and the giant ants swept past the explorers without any heed. Cupelix had told the ants to ignore them, and the ants obeyed, in their precise, unswerving way.

  "We'd best go back before we get trampled," Sturm said, dodging a flurry of Micone legs.

  Rainspot drifted away from the others to where the ants were engaged in cleaning the dragon eggs. As they chipped and anointed and turned the blockish eggs, the ants exposed the undersides of the eggs to the air. Some of the shells had a scabrous layer peeling off, and the ants scrupulously removed this dead layer. It was this cast-off shell that made the parchmentlike skin they'd found in the first chamber.

  Rainspot picked up a sheaf of cast-offs below the lowest egg shelf. A Micone turned sharply toward him and snatched the leathery shell fragment with its mandibles.

  "No!" said Rainspot stubbornly. "It's mine, you threw it away!" The gnome dug in his toes and pulled. The shell wouldn't yield and neither would the ant. Rainspot got angry. His enveloping cloud thickened and lightning flashed within it.

  "Rainspot, leave it. We'll take samples from the outer cave," said Wingover. But the Micone's implacable resistance made the usually mild gnome madder and madder. A cyclone four feet wide lashed at the ant, and miniature claps of thunder reverberated through the cave.

  Sturm entered Rainspot's tiny tempest. To his surprise, the whirling rain was hot. "Rainspot!" he said, grabbing the little fellow by the shoulders. "Let go!"

  A bolt of lightning, diminutive by nature's standards, yet still five feet long, struck the Micone in the center of its head. The strike knocked Sturm and Rainspot backward at least six feet. The gnome landed on Sturm, shook his head, and found that he was holding the scrap of eggshell.

  "I have it!" he said triumphantly.

  Sturm, flat on his back and not happy, said, "Do you mind?" Rainspot blushed and rolled off the man's stomach.

  "Look at that," Cutwood said in awe. The gnomes ringed the lightning-struck ant.

  The bolt had split the createature's head in half with the precision of a diamond cutter. The Micone's headless body collapsed, the thorax sagging to the floor. Immediately, two more Micones appeared and began to clean up. They nipped the shattered ant's carcass apart and carried each bit away.

  "At least we know they can be killed," said Roperig.

  "And our Rainspot did it!" said Fitter. The gentle weather seer was mortified.

  "I've never lost my temper like that," he said. "I'm sorry. It was unforgivable. The poor myrmidon was only doing its appointed task, and I killed it."

  "You very thoroughly killed it," Sturm said, impressed.

  "Remind me not to make you angry, Rainspot."

  "I hope Cupelix won't be angry," Rainspot said worriedly.

  "It wasn't intentional," said Roperig consolingly.

  "I doubt any single ant is that important to him," Sturm said. "Now can we go back l"

  The lamp failed before they were all up the ramp to the steam chamber. Wingover took the lead and each one held the hand of the person in front and behind him. They avoided the budding giants in the birthing cave - though Flash cast a longing look at his jacket, still dangling from the Micone's jaws - and soon they were back in the rubbish-filled grand cavern. The six Micones who had brought them were just as they'd left them, unmoved by as much as an inch. Sturm and the gnomes mounted, and without a word or gesture needed, the giant ants lurched into motion.

  Chapter 24

  Little Fitter's Pants

  The drnagon, with Kitiara clinging to his neck, dropped like a stone from his lair, flaring out his wings to ease his landing. Kitiara discarded her cloak and reached the notch-shaped doorway just as the Micones bearing Sturm and the gnomes appeared.

  "It's about time you got back!" she yelled. "Stand to arms, all of you - the Lunitarians are forming to attack!"

  A barrage of glass javelins arced through the doorway to shatter on the marble floor. The gnomes, though curious, retreated under a shower of red glass splinters. The Lunitarians were hooting wildly.

  "They mean to have you," Cupelix said. "They're calling for your blood."

  "Surely they can't get in?" Rainspot said.

  "The tree-men are beyond reason," the dragon replied.

  "So they're coming," Sturm said grimly."He shucked off his outer garb and made ready his armor and helmet. Kitiara marched recklessly back and forth before the door, drawing the tree-men's attention.

  "Shall we sting them a little?" she said to Sturm.

  "It does seem necessary to discourage them," he admitted.

  To the dragon, he said, "Can you lend us some Micones?

  They would even the odds for us."

  "They would be of little use," said Cupelix. A glass hatchet whistled in and thumped against his scaly belly. It bounced off harmlessly and broke on the floor. Cupelix regarded the ruined weapon idly. "The Micones are almost totally blind in daylight," he said. "If I unleashed them, they would as likely cut you two to pieces as any tree-man."

  "Enough talk," Kitiara barked. She hitched her shield up on her forearm. "I'm going to swing some steel!"

  Sturm cinched his sword belt tighter. "Kit, wait for me!"

  He was shieldless, but his mail was heavier than Kit's. He drew his sword and ran to the door.

  The tree-men had scaled the earthen rampart turned up by the Micones and were using its height to gain velocity for their spear casts. Kitiara held her shield to her face as missile after missile crashed against it. "C'mon, you bark-covered devils!" she shouted. "Throw on! Kitiara Uth Matar is coming for you!"

  She started up the slope. It was hard going, what with the steep angle and the loose soil. Sturm, more circumspect, worked his way around the obelisk to where the rampart was not so steep. He gained the top at nearly the same time Kitiara did, though there were forty yards and twenty-odd tree-men between them.

  Sturm had to fence with the Lunitarians on the mound and dodge spears hurled from the ground below. The Lunitarians were hooting at the top of their voices, and it didn't take much imagination to see the anger distorting their simple faces.

  Kitiara plowed into a trio of tree-men, all of whom towered over her. She did little more than inflict deep chips on them with her sword. She did catch one tree-man with his arm down, and lopped it off with a single stroke. The severed limb hit the ground and crawled about, seeking its former owner. It got tangled up in Kitiara's legs, and she tripped, falling backward amid a flurry of spear thrusts.

  The tree-men converged on the fallen woman, and Sturm could only think that she'd been wounded. He roared at the foe and cut at their backs. Unable to strike through a heart and kill them, he concentrated on their stumpy legs. A glass blade swept over his face. The hot line it left dripped blood.

  He ignored it. Lunitarians toppled off the dirt wall, rolling down to bowl over their fellows on the ground.

  There was a terrible tearing sensation in Sturm's right leg.

  He looked back and saw a spear embedded in the back of his thigh, blood welling around the already crimson shaft. He swung his sword back, snapping the spear shaft off and leaving the head in his leg. He couldn't see Kitiara at all. He went down, weak from the pain and loss of blood. He slid down the rampart on the side nearest the obelisk. Whoop-ing tree-men skidded after him, shouting their version of his name.

  Finished, he thought. This is how it ends -

  The expected spear points did not descend on his unar-mored face and neck. The sounds of battle raged over him, though he fancied that he heard high-pitched cries of delight and triumph. The gnomes? Surely they hadn't ventured forth. They'd be slaughtered!

  The hooting of the berserk Lunitarians receded. Sturm lifted his head with great effort and tried to see what was happening. A tree-man stood atop the rampart, waving his sword before him, trying to ward off some unseen foe. A dark object
whipped into view and hit the tree-man in the face, thunk! The Lunitarian disappeared over the rampart amid shouts of gnomish laughter.

  Someone turned Sturm over. The red dirt was dusted from his eyes. Kitiara.

  "Looks like you caught one," she said in a friendly way.

  Her face was scratched and her hands cut up, but she was otherwise unhurt.

  "Are you well?" he asked weakly. Kitiara nodded and put the neck of her water bottle to his lips. The trickle of rainwater was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted.

  "Ho, Master Sturm! Mistress Kitiara! We have won!"

  Stutts declared. He stuck his thumbs under his suspenders and threw out his chest. "The Improvised Trouser Flail Mark I was a success!"

  "The what?"

  "Never mind," Kitiara said. "Let's get you inside." She scooped him up as easily as Sturm would pick up an infant and carried him into the obelisk.

  The gnomes were pounding each other on the back and talking as fast and as loudly as they could. Sturm saw a weird contraption to one side of the passage: an upright collection of posts and gears, from which dangled three pairs of gnome-sized pants, stuffed tightly with something heavy, probably dirt. Cupelix was on his lowest perch, watching intently. When he saw that Sturm was wounded, he offered to help treat the injury.

  "No magic," Sturm said stubbornly. His whole leg was achingly numb. It was cold, very cold. The dragon's broad brass face swooped down close to his.

  "No magic, even if it means your life?" said the polished reptilian voice.

  "No magic," Sturm insisted.

  Rainspot turned Sturm's face away and put a bitter-tasting root in his mouth. The gnome said, "Chew, please."

  Confident that he was in the thoroughly non-magical care of the gnomes, Sturm did as he was told. Numbness spread through his body.

  He didn't fall asleep. Sturm quite distinctly heard the gnomes consulting over his wound, heard rather than felt the glass spear tip being removed from his flesh, heard the dragon offering advice on how best to close the gaping hole.

  Then he was lying on his stomach, the numbness gone.

  Sturm's leg throbbed unmercifully. He lifted himself up on his hands.

  "If you say 'where am I?' I'll hit you," said Kitiara genially.

  "What happened?" he said.

  "You were injured," said Sighter, who was squatting near Sturm's head.

  "That I recall well. Who repelled the tree-folk?"

  "I wish I could say that I did," Kitiara said.

  "We did it," Stutts declared, coming up behind Sighter.

  Cupelix rumbled something that Sturm couldn't make out.

  Stutts blanched and said, "With help from the dragon, that is."

  "We adapted a gnomeflinger design," Wingover said. He knelt alongside Stutts and peeked over Sighter's shoulder.

  "We used Cutwood's pants, filled with dirt, as a test subject for flinging. Birdcall suggested hurling the pants at the Lunitarians, but that would have sufficed for only one shot -"

  "So me and Roperig gave up ours," said Fitter, who squirmed into view. His striped long johns were eloquent proof of the truth of his statement. "We filled 'em with dirt and tied 'em to the throwing arms -"

  "- and used the gear system to pummel the enemy off the wall," Roperig finished for his apprentice.

  "Very clever," Sturm admitted. "But why should fiercely angry tree-folk flee when thumped with a few pairs of pants? Why didn't they swarm all over you?"

  "That was my doing," said Cupelix modestly. "I wove a spell of illusion over the gnomes and their machine. The Lunitarians saw a huge, flame-breathing red dragon attacking them, its terrible claws snatching them one by one from the rampart. The physical effect, combined with the vivid illusion, was quite effective. The tree-men have fled."

  "What's to prevent them from recovering their nerve and coming back?" said Kitiara.

  "At sunset, I shall send the Micones to harry them back to their village once and for all."

  Their story told, the gnomes dispersed. Sturm called Stutts back to him.

  "Yes?" said the senior gnome.

  "Have you inspected the repairs on the Cloudmaster?"

  "Not yet."

  "Urge your colleagues forward, my friend. We must be off this world soon," said Sturm.

  Stutts stroked his short, silky beard. "What's the hurry?

  The new engine components ought to be tested first."

  Sturm lowered his voice. "The dragon may believe the tree-men will not come back, but I don't want to take the chance of being besieged in here again. Besides Cupelix will -" He closed his mouth when he saw Kitiara coming.

  "We'll speak later," Sturm finished. Stutts nodded and strolled back to the Cloudmaster, his thumbs hooked in his vest pockets. Kitiara paid no attention to his exaggerated nonchalance.

  Kitiara dropped down beside Sturm. "Does it hurt much'"

  "Only when I dance," he said uncharacteristically.

  She snorted. 'You'll live," she said. She poked around the bandaged area and added, "Probably won't even have a limp. What made you charge into those tree-men? You weren't carrying a shield or wearing leg armor."

  "I saw you go down," he said. "I was going to help you."

  Kitiara was silent for a moment. "Thank you."

  Sturm gingerly eased himself onto his good side and sat up. "That's better! I was getting a headache lying like that."

  'You know what the most unforgivable thing is, don't you? That you and I, two fighters soundly trained in the warrior arts, should fall to a bunch of savages and be saved by a band of nutty gnomes using pants full of dirt as flails!"

  Kitiara started to laugh. All the tensions and suspicions surfaced and flew away in her laughter. Tears welled in her eyes, and she couldn't stop.

  "Little Fitter's pants," Sturm said, feeling the guffaws building deep inside. "Little Fitter's pants disguised as the claws of a red dragon!" Kitiara nodded helplessly, her face contorted with hysterical mirth. Great rolling laughs boomed out of Sturm. His shaking jounced painfully his tightly wrapped wound, but he couldn't stop. When he tried to speak, all he could gasp was "Trouser Flail!" before erupt-ing into fresh gales.

  Kitiara leaned against him, forcing herself to breathe in the too-short intervals between new merry convulsions.

  Her head rested on Sturm's shoulder; she draped an arm around his neck.

  Above them, Cupelix perched in a shadowed corner of the tower, a shaft of amber sunlight falling across the enfolding tips of his leathery wings. Illuminated from behind, the brass dragon's skin shone like gold.

  * * * * *

  Despite his earlier protests, when Kitiara had brought Sturm a bowl of venison stew that Cupelix had made, he ate without a second glance. There was something more; he accepted her offer to make a backres out of her fur cloak and blanket. Ordinarily, Sturm would have stoically rejected such treatment.

  The gnomes ate heartily, as usual, under the gentle glow of the four Micones who remained behind when the bulk of them went out to chase the Lunitarians away. The ants hung overhead by their forelegs like grotesque paper lanterns, the ominous barbed stingers the only threatening aspect of their otherwise benign posture.

  "The new parts showed no sign of cracking or fatigue,"

  Flash said, ladling gravy over his roast. "If we can get a decent charge of lightning, I don't see why we couldn't fly home right away." He tried to set the metal ladle back in its bowl, but it clung to his magnetic hands. Cutwood plucked it off for him.

  "You know," Sighter said, stirring his pudding idly, "with the proper angle of flight, we could very likely fly from here to one of the other moons." This option was greeted with thunderous silence. "Solinari or the dark moon. What do you think?"

  Birdcall answered for all of them. He put two fingers to his lips and made a very rude noise.

  Sighter grumbled, "No need to be insulting."

  "The important thing is to return to Mt. Nevermind and announce our success," said Stutts. "Aerial
navigation is now a fact, and the gnomish people must not delay in exploring all the possibilities it presents."

  Sturm, reclining on the floor by the dinner table, spoke up: "What possibilities do you foresee?"

  "Exploring and mapping can be done easily from the air.

  These would be a boon to navigation. All the heavy work of transport now done by ships could be more efficiently done in the skies. I can see a time when great aerial galleons, with six or eight pairs of wings, ply trade routes in the clouds, bringing goods to and from every corner of Krynn...."

  Stutts got quite lost in the grandness of his conception.

  "Then there's war," said Sighter ominously.

  "What war?" asked Kitiara.

  "Any war. There's always a war someplace, isn't there?

  Can you see the cavalry of the clouds, swooping down to destroy field and farm, town, temple, and castle alike? It would be easy, yes, very easy to fling down fire and stone on the heads of the foe. In the workshops of Mt. Nevermind there are stranger things still. Weapons that require no magic power to destroy the entire world."

  His morose vision quelled all conversation. Then, from above, Cupelix said, "It sounds as though you gnomes are planning to create your own race of dragons - mechanical dragons, completely obedient to their master's hand. All those things Master Sighter describes happened a thousand or more years ago, when dragons served in the great wars."

  "Perhaps we shouldn't share the secret of aerial navigation," Fitter said hesitantly.

  "Knowledge must be shared," Stutts declared. "There is no evil in pure knowledge. It's how it's put to use that determines what good or ill comes of it."

  "Knowledge is power," said the dragon, catching Kitiara's eye. She buried her nose in her cup. When it was empty, she set it down on the table with a loud thump.

  "We're forgetting one important thing," she said, wiping her lips on the back of her hand. "We owe a debt here. We oughtn't leave without paying it."

  "Debt?" said Cutwood. "To whom?"

  "Our host," Kitiara replied. "The excellent dragon, Cupelix." The gnomes broke into polite applause.

  "Thank you, you're very kind," said the dragon.