Instead of anchoring neutrality, the gem made the pendu lum of good and evil swing more rapidly than before. That is when Reorx knew He and Chislev had been tricked.
During many years of searching for the gem, the gnomes split into two armies. Both armies' searches led them to a barbarian prince named Gargath, who, seeing it.as a gift from his gods, had plucked the marvelous gem from the air and placed it in a high tower for safekeeping. Gargath refused the groups' demands for the gem, so they both de clared war on the barbarian prince.
After many abortive siege attempts, the gnomes finally penetrated Gargath's fortress. Both sides were amazed to see the gem's steel gray light suddenly fill the area with unbear able brightness. When anyone could see again, the two fac tions of gnomes were fighting each other. One side was filled with lust for the gem, the other side was curious about it.
Under the power of the gem, the gnomes changed. Those who coveted wealth became dwarves. Those who were curi ous became the first kender. These new races spread quickly throughout Ansalon.
As their mountain and hill dwarf cousins were always quick to point out, gully dwarves were the result of inter marriage between dwarves and gnomes. Unfortunately, the members of this new race lacked all the better qualities of their ancestors.
Seeing the result, dwarven and gnomish societies banned this sort of intermarriage, and members of the new race were driven out, most vehemently by dwarves. Forced to grub for existence among abandoned ruins and the refuse piles of cities abandoned after the Cataclysm, the gully dwarves were free to develop their own culture — or lack of it. Named Aghar, or "anguished," humans later nicknamed them "gully dwarves," noting their poor living conditions and the general disgust felt toward them by nearly every other race on Krynn.
Such was the lot of some three hundred Aghar living in
Mudhole. Before the Cataclysm, Mudhole had been a thriv ing, productive mine, supplying the forges of Thorbardin above with rich iron. But that continental catastrophe had sent sheets of rock crashing into the shafts, cutting off all but one long tunnel that led back into Thorbardin. Even that one was pitched so that it was now nearly vertical and impossible to climb: it was this that the derro called it the
Beast Pit.
But some good came of the Cataclysm, at least for the Aghar of Mudhole. Most of the dwarven-dug tunnels re mained intact, and in some places actually intersected with stunningly beautiful organic caverns cut by centuries of wa ter that ran through the mountains of Thorbardin.
The three hundred gully dwarves that inhabited Mudhole were broken down into family units; they lived in the ends of abandoned, dead-end shafts, but shared the four natural caverns as common space. They had "decorated" their homes with family heirlooms, such as petrified animals, and other bits of treasure garnered from the garbage piles of
Thorbardin above. Thus, Mudhole was at once a natural wonder and an appalling pigsty.
"They can't really expect us to sleep in here, can they?"
Perian moaned, pacing anxiously.
Nomscul, the gully dwarf who had rescued them from the Beast Pit, had led them here and left them, saying he would return shortly with food and some friends. Perian fingered the tattered edges of the filthy woolen blanket that was draped over a legless wooden chair. She disdainfully nudged an old bone on the dirty stone floor with a toe of her boot. Shivering, the mountain dwarf hugged herself and looked around in despair for someplace suitable to sit.
The perfectly square chamber had two doorways and was perhaps twenty feet square. It had been chipped out of solid granite, for the bites the pick-axes had taken could still be seen in the cold, gray-green stone walls. Thick, moldy old support beams crisscrossed the ceiling in no apparent pat tern, or perhaps a few had been removed by the gully dwarves for other purposes. Indeed, some chairs and small tables looked to be hastily constructed of the same stout beams. Small rugs; worn, hairless animal skins; and the oc casional piece of fine silk or rich but filthy lace, all but cov ered the floor.
Broken stoneware pots, sundry rodent skeletons, rusty weapons in various states of ill-repair, dozens of candles burned to an inch, bent utensils, one half of a hand-held fire bellows, a canoe filled with holes, a stringless lute, and a dwarf-high pile of unmatched shoes and boots rounded out the adornments.
Reclining on the big, soft bed of burlap-covered moss,
Flint picked at his teeth absently with a splinter of wood. He chuckled at Perian's discomfiture. "I've slept in worse."
He watched her flit about the room apprehensively, virtu ally tearing off the whites of her nails. "Can't you relax for one moment?" he asked, putting down his toothpick. "I'll admit the accommodations aren't the best, but they're only temporary. Not ten minutes ago I was carrying you and limping for our lives from — well, you know what from. At least we're safe until I can get someone to show us the way out of here."
The first thing Flint intended to do after that was to let his nephew, whom he'd left waiting outside Thorbardin, know he was all right. Basalt would be plenty worried by now.
Perian whirled about, perspiration alluringly curling the ends of her coppery hair. She fixed him with an icy glare.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" The mountain dwarf chewed the end of another nail off with her teeth, her eyes, like daggers, piercing his. "You think just because I suffered a little temporary fright paralysis I can't take care of my self?"
"A little paralysis? You were like a sack of flour!" Flint caught the embarrassed look in her eyes and held up his hands in mock surrender. He laughed. "Sorry if I assumed command. I forgot I was talking to a soldier. I'm used to or dering around youths and barmaids," he explained, thinking of his friends in Solace. He coughed uncomfortably when he saw her bemused face. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded! I have these friends — oh, never mind!" he ex claimed, unused to explaining himself. He rubbed his face, turned onto his side, curled up into the moss bed, and closed his eyes.
"You aren't going to sleep, are you?"
He opened one eye. "I thought I might until that Aghar brought some food, yes." He closed his eye again.
"But how can you sleep after what we've just been through?" she squealed, her fists clenched tight at her sides.
Flint sighed heavily, sat up, and looked at her through half-lidded eyes. "That's precisely why I need the sleep. I'm exhausted! In the last few days I've been pushed and punched and kicked and chased and dropped down a pit.
Every muscle and bone aches; the only thing holding me to gether is my skin! Do you think my face usually looks like this?" he asked, holding a cracked and swollen hand to his puffy lips, nose, and black eye. "Adventures always drag me out." He covered a yawn with the back of his thick, cal lused hand.
Perian looked astounded. "You mean you've had this sort of thing happen to you before?"
He blinked. "Sure, though the situation has become con siderably more complicated than your average dungeon crawl. Don't tell me you haven't?"
"I'm the captain of the thane's guard, for Reorx's sake!" she said despondently. "I train troops for parade maneuvers and theoretical fighting, and I live in the plushest barrack on the richest level of Thorbardin! I am not accustomed to this!" she said, indicating the cluttered room with a wave of her hand.
He scowled. "So that's all it is." Flint punched his fluffy moss pillow and dropped his bushy gray head onto it. "Lay down, take a load off your feet! Mark my words, this place won't look so bad after you've had a good rest."
Perian stopped her fidgeting long enough to run a hand through her damp hair. "That's just it! I can't rest here!" She frowned and looked away, then mumbled, "If you must know, I'm dying for a rolled mossweed!" She resumed pacing.