All things considered, though, this place was a pretty good This Place, and it was Scrib’s inadvertence that had led them to find it.
From that day, Scrib had been a changed gully dwarf. Life is like a bridge, he felt. Those who cross it without stopping to look wind up living somewhere else. He wasn’t at all sure what that meant, but it sounded very wise. And where an idea that good and that persistent dwelt, there might be a clue as to how ideas can be leashed.
It was up to him, he decided, to expose his people to the wonders around them, and maybe to show some others how to do the same thing so he could take a nap now and then. Thus it was Scrib who, to the best of his ability, was leading the tribe of Bulp toward the light of reason.
Scrib had been spired.
“Somebody make everything,” he continued now, ignoring Pert’s low opinion of the grand maker. “Bound to be a reason. Somebody got somethin’ in mind. Somebody make us, too, so must be a reason for us. Maybe that somebody our leader.”
“Highbulp our leader,” Bron pointed out.
“Highbulp really dumb,” Pert said. “Nuisance most times, an’ other times he snores. Highbulp nothin’ but a worthless twit.”
“Yep,” Bron agreed cheerfully, “that Glitch alright. Glitch th’ Most. Glitch Dragonbasher, my dear ol’ Dad. Pretty good leader.”
“Only when Lady Lidda runnin’ things,” Pert snapped.
Unperturbed, Scrib spread his hands, holding them before him about three inches apart. “Highbulp great leader like this,” he explained. “But Highbulp never make anything ’cept noise an’ messes. Maybe somebody leader like this.” He spread his hands to arm’s length. “Big leader, maybe.”
One of the students shook his head. “If we got leader that big, how come I never notice him aroun’?”
“You got me, there,” Scrib admitted. The strain of thinking was beginning to wear him down. He decided they had accomplished enough for today. “That about it,” he said. “Any questions?”
“Yeah,” said Pook, raising his hand. “When we gonna eat?”
At that moment an alarmed voice somewhere near shouted, “Incomin’! Run like crazy!”
Scrib bounded from his boulder and headed for shelter with his assembly at his heels. In a moment the clearing was deserted except for a little cloud of dust and three gully dwarves-one whom had tripped on a root and two others who had tripped over him. They righted themselves and scrambled for safety.
From a hole in a clay bank, Bron peeped out. From the canyon walls above the ruined town came a low, rolling thunder, then Talls on horses appeared-a solid mass of armored humans astride great beasts, charging down on the rickety old bridge. There were dozens of them.
Just behind Bron, Pert crawled forward, trying to see for herself what was going on. But she was blocked from the entrance by his stocky shoulders. “Talls again?” she asked. Bron nodded, a gesture that was lost on her because she couldn’t see his head. She found a stiff twig and poked him in the ribs with it. “Talls again?” she repeated.
“Yeah, Talls,” he grunted. “Same as usual.”
“How many?” Pert demanded.
“Two,” he said. “Quit that!”
The armored charge across the old bridge was a drumroll of harsh sound, echoing down the canyon. But it didn’t last long. Within moments the humans and their horses had passed, and were gone beyond the south rim. By ones, threes and fives, gully dwarves crept from hiding all along the canyon’s floor, and went back to what they had been doing.
The occasional charge of mounted, armored men across the bridge above them had become an accepted occurrence in This Place. Nobody had any idea of who these Talls were, or why they kept galloping over This Place, but it had become just another mystery in a world full of mysteries. When it happened, everybody panicked instantly and dived for cover. But when it was over they stopped worrying about it.
Out of sight, out of mind-it was the way of gully dwarves.
It was something that Scrib had pondered on occasion, though. He accepted that armed hordes of formidable creatures might go thundering by above him now and then. But when it began happening every day or so, he couldn’t help but wonder. And now he had an inspiration: maybe someone should go and see who those people were and what they were doing. Squaring his shoulders with determination, Scrib went in search of Gandy. Maybe the Grand Notioner would have a notion about how to solve this mystery.
His trek up the canyon was interrupted almost before it began. The third building on the row facing the little stream still had a roof of sorts, and Glitch the Most, great Highbulp and Lord Protector of everybody who mattered, had made it his headquarters. Usually, that just meant that he slept there. But now the building was the scene of bustling activity.
Someone, it seemed, had found a crack in the rear foundation, and squeezed through looking for rats. Instead of rats, though, the explorer had found an old runnel, barely a foot wide, which led deep into the mountainside and emerged somewhere beyond at the bottom of a sinkhole.
It was a great discovery, and not to be ignored. Now at least half the tribe was gathered around, and there was some serious mining going on in there. Gully dwarves trooped in and out of the building, carrying out loads of broken stone and delved clay, while others within delved the fissure, widening it so that the pudgy Highbulp could get through to see what was beyond.
While supervising the project, Glitch the Most had gone to sleep and now lay curled up and snoring, right in the old doorway. The lines of miners going in and out bobbled there as each miner either jumped over their glorious leader or simply climbed him and stepped down on the other side.
But just as Scrib passed, Glitch turned over in his sleep. Two or three miners in transit tumbled through the portal and bumped into those immediately beyond. These in turned collided with others around them, and a moment later Scrib lay facedown in front of the house with a large number of gully dwarves piled on top of him.
“Rats,” he muttered, finally getting to his feet after the pileup was cleared. He had been on his way to see the Grand Notioner, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what he wanted to see him about. So, having nothing better to do, he followed his nose into headquarters. Stew was being prepared, stew so fresh that some of its contents were still squirming.
Someone working in the tunnel had discovered a vein of pyrite, and the miners now were veering off into a new shaft in pursuit of shiny rocks. In honor of the occasion, the Lady Lidda had ordered the legendary Great Stew Bowl brought out.
The Great Stew Bowl was rarely used, because it was more than two feet wide, and made of solid iron. Just moving it from place to place required two or three ordinary Aghar, though a few among them-notably Bron-could carry the thing rather easily. For that reason, Bron was usually in charge of the Great Stew Bowl, and the reason Bron was as strong as he was may have been that he routinely carried the Great Stew Bowl when the tribe migrated from one This Place to another This Place.
But the discovery of pyrite was a special occasion, and the big, shallow bowl had been wrestled to a cook fire, where it brimmed now with bubbling, squirming delicacies.
It was two days later, when another thundering horde of humans rattled across the old bridge, that Scrib remembered his idea. Someone should go and find out what that was all about. Again he went in search of the Grand Notioner.
Chapter 10
The Thousand Years War, so called because a former ruler of Gelnians-King Systole-had vowed that his people would fight for a thousand years rather than submit to the rule of the Grand Megak of Tarmish, was in its ninth year when the War of the Lance superseded it.