Kitiara went on. "Now we're safe, the flying ship is repaired, and we have a debt to pay. How shall we do it?"
"Would you care for some fresh water?" asked Rainspot.
"Kind, but unnecessary," said the dragon. "The Micones bring me water from the cavern depths."
"Do you have any machines to be repaired?" asked Flash thoughtfully.
"None whatsoever."
The remaining gnomes all tried suggestions, which the dragon politely dismissed as unneeded or inapplicable.
"What can we do?" said Wingover, frustrated.
Cupelix launched into a compressed description of his sit uation inside the obelisk, and how he very much wanted to escape it. The gnomes just looked up at him and blinked.
"Is that all?" said Roperig.
"Nothing else?" added Birdcall by translation.
"Just this one simple task," answered the dragon.
Sturm pushed himself up to a seated position, mindful of the pressure this put on his injured leg. "Have you consid ered, dragon, that a higher power intended for you to live out your life within these walls? Would we be committing an act of impiety by releasing you?"
"The gods raised these walls and brought these many eggs here, but in all the thousands of years I've been resident in the obelisk, no god, demigod, or spirit has deigned to reveal any such divine plan to me," said Cupelix. He shifted from one massive foot to the other. "You seem to think my being kept here like a rooster in a coop is a good thing; can you not see it as I do, that I am in fact a prisoner? Is it an evil deed to free an innocent captive?"
"What will happen to all the dragon eggs if you leave?" asked Roperig.
"The Micones will tend them and guard the caverns for ever. No egg will hatch without deliberate inducement. At this point, I am totally superfluous."
"I say we help him," said Kitiara with conviction. She leaned forward to the table and gave each gnome a piercing look. "Who can honestly say the dragon hasn't earned our help?"
All was silent until Sturm said, "I will agree if the dragon answers one question: What will he do once he is free?"
"Revel in my liberty, of course. I shall travel thereafter, wherever the winds of heaven carry me."
Sturm folded his arms. "To Krynn?" he said sharply.
"Why not? Is there a fairer land betwixt here and the stars?"
"Dragons were driven out of Krynn long ago because their power was used to scheme and control the affairs of mortals. You cannot return to Krynn," Sturm said.
"Cupelix is not an evil dragon," Kitiara argued. "Do you think he could live so long on the moon of neutral magic and not be moderated by its influence?"
"And what if," Sturm said slowly, "Cupelix is no danger to
Krynn. He is still a dragon. My ancestors fought and died to rid our world of dragons. How can I dishonor them by aid ing a dragon — even a benign one — to return?"
Kitiara stood so suddenly that her chair fell over. "Suffer ing gods! Who do you think you are, Sturm Brightblade?
My ancestors fought in the Dragon Wars, too. It was a dif ferent time and different circumstances." She turned to the gnomes. "I put it to you. Shall we repay the dragon's hospi tality with indifference? Will we fill our bellies with his food and drink, fix the ship with his help, and depart without so much as attempting to help him be free?"
She had them now. All nine little faces, paler in the short, faint days of Lunitari, were rapt with attention. Kitiara raised her hand to the silent Cupelix, who contrived to look forlorn and desolate atop his marble perch. "Put yourself in his place," she said grandly.
"Which one of us?" asked Cutwood.
"It doesn't matter — any or all of you. Think of how you'd feel, spending all your life inside this tower, unable to even walk outdoors. And consider that a dragon's life is not fifty years, or two hundred years, but twenty times two hun dred! How would you feel, imprisoned in a lonely tower, with no one to talk to and no tools either?"
Roperig and Fitter gasped. "No tools?"
'Yes, and no wood or metal to work with. No gears or valves or pulleys."
"Horrible!" said Flash. Birdcall seconded him with a steady descending note.
"And we — you — have the chance to correct this wrong.
You have the inventive powers to devise some way to allow
Cupelix to fly free. Will you do it?" she asked.
Wingover leaped to his feet. "We will! We will!" Rainspot and Fitter wept for the injustice inflicted on the dragon, while Stutts and Sighter were already bombarding each oth er with first schemes to open the obelisk. Wingover got up on his chair and then on the table, pointing dramatically to the wingless hull of the Cloudmaster.
"To the ship!" he cried. "We must make plans!"
"Yes, yes, the tools are there," said Cutwood.
"And parchment and pencils!"
"Chemicals and crucibles!"
"Rope and rigging!"
"Raisins!"
The gnomes surged away from the table, a tiny tide of boisterous idealism and ramshackle ingenuity. When the last gnome had disappeared up the ramp, Kitiara turned, smiling, to Sturm.
"Very clever," he said at last. "You did that well."
"Did what?" she replied guilelessly.
"We both know how impulsive the gnomes are. Between your passionate call for freedom and the prospect of a major engineering project, the obelisk hasn't got a chance."
"I hope you're right," said Cupelix. It was uncanny how easy it was to forget him when he stayed quiet above their line of sight. Sturm frowned. "Don't be so suspicious!" chid ed the dragon. "If my intentions were black, do you think I would have resorted to banquets and cajoling? My Micones could have held the ship indefinitely until you agreed to help, or I could have left you to the tree-men."
"No one ever said you were evil, Cupelix," Sturm persist ed. "Subtle, you are, and very much concerned with getting your way. If you could have gotten out of your prison by sacrificing Kit, myself, or the gnomes, I don't think you would have dallied long in giving us up."
Cupelix spread his wings and coiled his legs to spring into the air. "Be at ease, Master Brightblade. No one need be sac rificed. We shall all see Krynn again, I promise."
Chapter 25
The gnomes divied into two groups. The first group, which consisted of Stutts, Flash, Wingover, Sighter, and Birdcall, was to study the problem of breaching the walls of the obelisk. The other four gnomes had as their task the safe removal of the contents of the tower, including
Cupelix himself, the Cloudmaster, Sturm, and Kitiara.
The Micones returned with the night half gone, and on the dragon's orders, leveled out the dirt rampart they'd piled up some days before. Because there were more than fifty of the powerful giants at work, the land around the base of the obelisk was soon smooth and passable again. Kitiara and the Breaching Group (as they called themselves) went out side to survey the structure.
"The walls at ground level are marble no less than eleven feet thick," Stutts reported, reading off his calculations.
"With the best steel picks and mattocks, it would take a dig ging gang days and days to hack through all that rock."
"And furthermore," said Sighter, "my analysis of the stone shows it to be extremely hard, much harder, in fact, than regular marble. It's glazed."
"Glazed? Hmm." Kitiara looked to the obelisk's high pin nacle. A flickering red aura wavered about the top. She reminded the gnomes of the violent discharges they'd seen when the sun came up. "All that energy, must have hard ened the stone," she said.
Stutts reached to touch the cold stone. Between the wide courses was a band of shiny black, colder even than the scarlet marble. "Metal," he mused. "Metal for mortar."
"Really?" said Flash. "What sort of metal is it?"