"Where are the others?" she gasped.
Even as she said this, three more gates crackled into existence. Each spat out a single figure before vanishing. Corin and Guss groggily picked themselves up, while Muragh rolled in a dizzy circle.
The young nobleman blinked in bewilderment. "I don't understand. I was plummeting to my death. Then a gray square appeared below me and I fell into it and… and here I am."
"I was about to be melted into slag when the same thing happened to me," Guss said with a shudder. Wisps of smoke still wafted from his scaly hide.
"And I was on the verge of being dissolved into skull soup,” Muragh said in a quavering voice.
"What is going on?" Artek wondered. "Where are we?"
"We're in Undermountain," Beckla said in awe.
"I can see that," Artek replied dryly.
"No, not the real Undermountain," Beckla countered. Her forehead crinkled in a frown. "Though I suppose we are there, too."
"Make up your mind," Artek said.
"Don't you see?" Beckla circled the chamber, studying the clay trolls, the painted walls, the wooden floor. "We're inside the miniature." She waited for the others to absorb this fact and then went on.
"It was the Horned Ring," the wizard explained. "I thought that if each of us still had a ruby from the ring, there was a chance it might be able to gate us all to the same place. So I concentrated on Halaster's cavern as I invoked the ring. And it worked. It brought us all here." She ran a hand through her short hair, gazing around. "Only something went wrong. The magic that binds Halaster's model of Undermountain must permeate the entire cavern. I think there must have been some strange interaction between the Horned Ring and that magic."
In shock, Artek stared at the clay trolls. He had thought them to be statues, but now he knew that wasn't so. They were figurines-the kind with which Halaster populated his model of Undermountain. This entire room was no more than a few inches long.
"By all the bloodiest gods!" he shouted, whirling to look at Beckla. "Do you mean to tell me that each of us is now the size of one of Halaster's figurines?"
The wizard nodded grimly. "In a word, yes. And I imagine that, somewhere in Undermountain, there are now five life-sized clay replicas of us, falling off cliffs and getting dissolved by acid. Somehow the interference between the model and the ring has caused us to switch places with our figurines."
Artek staggered, leaning against a painted paper column for support-this was too much. "At least it won't be much work to bury me," he said in a slightly manic voice. "No need to dig six feet. Six inches will do fine."
"Wait a minute," Corin said. The nobleman paced quickly back and forth, his face lined in thought. This might not be as bad as it seems."
"Apparently, you have a better imagination than I do," Beckla noted dubiously.
"Actually, my idea is really rather simple," Corin went on. "Halaster seems to have taken great care in making this miniature an exact working replica of Undermountain. Don't you see?" He paused meaningfully. "It's perfect in every way."
"Spit it out, Corin!" Muragh griped. "What are you getting at?"
Artek looked at the young man in astonishment. "I see what Corin means," he said. "Wish Gate!"
"Indubitably!" Corin cried.
"Of course!" Beckla exclaimed. "Halaster has taken almost pathological care in recreating every detail in this model-there's no reason to believe that the miniature Wish Gate won't act just like the real one."
Artek glanced up. Hadn't each of the models been roofless? All he saw above them was a hazy, red-gold glow. He turned to the gargoyle. "Guss, do you think you can fly up and see if you can spot Wish Gate?" Guss nodded enthusiastically. Stubby wings flapping, he rose into the air.
Crimson magic crackled. The gargoyle let out a yelp of pain and dropped back to the floor.
"The magical barrier," Beckla groaned. "It must work from the inside as well as out. Only Halaster can move something in and out of the model."
Artek was not about to give up so easily. "Well, we'll just have to find our way out of this level the hard way, like mice in a maze. Come on!" Forcing himself not to look at the tattoo on his arm, he kicked open the door and dashed into the painted hallway beyond. The others were right on his heels.
They ran down corridors painted in imitation of damp, moldy stone, passing countless figurines: monsters with glass splinter fangs, wizards gripping toothpick staves, and heroes wielding sewing-needle swords. Artek let his orcish instincts guide him as he tried to home in on their target. Finally, he came to a halt, and the others stopped, panting.
"We've been making steady headway in one direction this whole time," he said between breaths. "We've got to be near the edge of the maze by now."
Guss walked up to the wall before them, eyed it critically, then lashed out with a clawed fist. His hand punched through paint and wood. Ruddy light poured through the opening. "Looks like you're right, Artek," the gargoyle said with a grin.
Artek peered through the opening. Guss had punched through an outer wall and they were indeed on one edge of the maze. Just beneath was the edge of the table upon which this level sat. Beyond that, the drop to the floor below seemed hundreds of feet, not the three or four he knew it to be.
"Help me widen this," he said, tearing away a chunk of wood.
The others lent their hands to the task, and in moments the opening was wide enough for them to crawl through. Once on the other side, they balanced precariously on the edge of the table.
"Hey, how come we haven't turned big again now that we're outside the model?" Muragh asked in annoyance.
Beckla answered his question. "I don't think we'll return to our normal size until we're finally out of Undermountain-that should break the connection between us and our figurines."
"There!" Corin said, pointing across what seemed a vast gap to the next nearest table. "I think that's the table that holds the model of the Wish Gate level."
Artek shook his head doubtfully. "I suppose it's no more than three feet to that table, but it might as well be a mile. How are we ever going to get across?"
"Guss the gargoyle, at your service," Guss announced cheerfully. He hovered over them, leathery wings flapping. "I hope you don't mind, but I’ll have to take you one at a time."
Their laughter fell short as a gigantic shadow loomed over them, blotting out the light. A great craggy moon rose over the model, two smaller pale spheres embedded in its surface. Only after a second did Artek realize that it was not a moon at all but Halaster's wrinkled face. The wizard was bending over his model. A gigantic, wrinkled hand stretched in their direction. They cowered against the wall of the maze as the hand loomed nearer. One careless swipe, and they would be flattened like bugs. Artek clenched his jaw, trying not to scream.
The hand hovered directly above them, then continued on, reaching to manipulate some objects elsewhere in the maze. Artek forced himself to breathe again. Halaster had not seen them. But they might not be so lucky next time-they had to hurry.
Artek tried not to think about the seconds slipping away as Guss valiantly ferried each of the others across the gap to the other table. Finally, it was Artek's turn. Though Guss was clearly growing; tired, he did not complain, and at last set Artek down gently on the table's edge. They shrank into the corner between wall and tabletop for a moment, but no shadow loomed above. Apparently, Halaster had not noticed their little adventure.
The magical barrier had prevented Guss from setting them down within the maze, so Beckla blasted a hole in the wall of the model with a spell. They crawled through the smoking gap, into the labyrinth beyond.