Nomscul winked conspiratorially at the hill dwarf.
Flint could see Perian gulp down her disgust. It was with the greatest drain on his limited patience that Flint managed to growl, "We don't want leaves. We want to go away, to get out of here. Please lead us — or if you're too busy collect ing leaves — get an escort to take us to the surface."
"King want a skirt for queen now?" Nomscul was obvi ously puzzled by this new request. His queen looked dirty enough. Shrugging, he spread his hands wide to measure her thick waist, resolving to find one of the skirts that helped differentiate Aghar frawls from harrns.
"Of course, we don't want a skirt, you ridiculous little worm!" the hill dwarf exploded.
Perian put a hand on Flint's shoulder. "He doesn't under stand." Turning to Nomscul, she asked, "How many ways out of Mudhole are there?"
The Aghar wiped his nose with his sleeve. "There one way — " He held up three fingers "- to get out of Mudhole.
Beast Pit, garbage run, and big crackingrotto," he said.
"Garbage run?" Perian asked, with a sinking feeling.
"Up in warrens," Nomscul told her. "Get good food from weird-eyed dwarves." The Aghar forced his eyelids open wide with his fingers, then crossed them and giggled.
Seeing Flint's puzzled look, Perian explained. "The gully dwarves raid Theiwar City's dumps and warehouses in the north warrens all the time."
Flint nodded in understanding. "What is the 'big crackin grotto,' and where does it lead, Nomscul'!"
"There big crack in wall of grotto, and it go out," the gully dwarf said simply. Nomscul picked a bug from his scalp, in spected it closely, then popped it into his mouth.
"Where is the grotto?" Flint demanded.
"That way." Nomscul chucked a thumb toward the corri dor beyond the room. "Past bedrooms of Aghar — lots of
Aghar in Mudhole!"
"That's good enough for me," Flint said, taking Perian's arm and pulling her toward the door. "We'll just explore around until we find something that looks like a grotto;
Mudhole can't be that big. Come on, Perian."
"Where we go?" Nomscul asked, bouncing at their sides.
Flint did not stop to look at him. "I don't know where you're going, but Perian and I are gonna look for the crack ing grotto."
Nomscul looked crushed. He fumbled in a pocket on his right side and pulled out a carved wooden whistle. Placing it between his thick lips, the gully dwarf blew so hard on it that his face turned red. Both Perian and Flint jumped at the unexpected shrill noise. Before either could turn or ques tion, though, they were stampeded from both doorways by running, screaming, jumping Aghar, all talking at once.
"You can tell he king. He got big nose!"
"That your real hair, Queen? Hair not usually come that color!"
"Two chairs for king and queen! Hip-hop hurry! Hip-hop hurry!"
The teeming masses of Aghar flooded in endlessly from the corridors, tearing the astonished Flint from Perian's side. Where were they all coming from? the hill dwarf won dered as he tried to make his way to the door again. On every grubby face was an adoring smile, and each one he squeezed past reached up to touch his hair, her hem. What on Krynn did they all want?
"King getting away!" Nomscul shouted. Suddenly every gully dwarf within ten feet launched himself into the air and onto Flint's back and head, hugging him, squeezing his arms and cheeks as he was crushed to the floor. Someone poked him in his black eye, but the right side of his face was pressed into the cold stone floor and he couldn't even move his mouth to swear at the perpetrator.
"What is going on here?" Perian screamed over the din.
Though she had not been knocked to the ground, ten gully dwarves clung to her legs and arms.
The Aghar atop Flint rolled off into a mound of wiggling, flailing limbs, as the hill dwarf struggled to his feet, shaking his head. His face was hot with anger, and he swung about in a wide circle, his fists raised and ready.
"King and queen must stay in Mudhole!" Nomscul an nounced, standing on top one of the tables to be seen. "The property say so!"
"Pro-per-ty! Pro-per-ty! Pro-per-ty!" The gully dwarves chanted, dancing and whooping and gibbering around their stunned dwarven visitors.
"What are you talking about?" Perian demanded. "What 'property?' "
That all-too-familiar puzzled look crossed Nomscul's face again. Suddenly his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You test ing Shaman Nomscul to see if he know!" The gully dwarf squinted in concentration, his eyes sinking into his skull as if he would find the answers there. At last he began to recite in an irritating, singsong falsetto.
King and Queen descend from mud,
Land in Beast Pit with a thud.
Aghar crown them, dance and sing,
And they be king and queen forever.
Nomscul began to hop up and down happily at having passed the test. "That what property say!" The gaggle of gully dwarves once again whooped, gibbered, and bounced around its newly acclaimed monarchs.
"That's terrible!" moaned Perian. "It doesn't even rhyme!
And he must mean prophecy, not property."
Flint cast her a stony glance.
"We touch king! We touch queen!" the Aghar chanted, drawing a sloppy circle around the two.
Flint batted away their groping hands. "Stay back!" he growled. "Keep your disgusting paws off of me!" He made one last lunge for the door, but the press of bodies was too thick, and they brought him down again.
"Tie king up!" Nomscul commanded. Dozens of hands lifted Flint from the floor and stuffed him into a rickety chair made of beams. Eight dwarves sat on his thrashing form while Nomscul and a frawl the shaman called Fester ran circles around the chair with two lengths of thick rope.
"Untie me this minute, you miserable dirt-eaters!" Flint flung himself from side to side, sending the chair pitching and making the gully dwarves who clung to him hoot with glee. But the chair did not break, the Aghar did not lose their grips, and Flint remained tied up.
Arms behind his back, Nomscul leaned toward Flint and smiled right into the hill dwarf's scowling face. "Queen not running away," he said. Perian stood at the far corner of the room, relatively ignored by the Aghar since she offered no resistance. Her arms were crossed and her hazel eyes re garded Flint expectantly, a small smile about her lips.
"Promise to be king, and we cut you loose," Nomscul of fered affably in a singsong voice.
Flint hung his head over the arm of the chair and spat on the ground. "Me? King of the gully dwarves? I'd sooner drown!"
Chapter 12
Pitrick's twisted foot ailed him mightily; he had been on it far too long today, without the benefit of numbing goldroot salve. The day's events had piled up unexpectedly, leaving him with no time to perform a preventative spell or even to think to use his teleportation ring.
Dragging the clubbed foot behind him even more than usual, the adviser to Thane Realgar was relieved to see the iron door to his apartments, with its gleaming brass hinges and its embossed image of a huge, leering face, looming ahead in the dim torchlight. He hated all torchlight — hated the policy of low-burning flares on all of the public roads and levels in Theiwar City. Through meditation and height ened magic, he was able to see even better without it than most derro. On impulse, he mumbled a single word,
"shival!" and waved his arm impatiently. For as far as he could see — more than one hundred feet — torches were in stantly extinguished, trailing smoke and hissing.
Pitrick's eyes quickly adjusted to the comfortable total darkness. His soft, callus-free, blue-white hand came upon the multifaceted diamond doorknob and, as always, its cool, perfect surface gave him a feeling of tremendous secu rity. A magical blast of lightning struck dead anyone but himself or of his choice who touched the knob. Pitrick had many enemies in Theiwar City and in the neighboring clans who would pay great sums to bring about the savant's de mise. A number of them had already died hideous deaths at that very juncture.