Dan Parkinson: The Gates of Thorbardin

"Another load and we'll have wiped out the original path back there,"

Chane pointed out.

"Oh, come on. Where's your spirit of adventure? Just one more haul."

They started back, and Chane was almost at the clearing when he stopped.

"Now see what we've done," he grunted. Ahead, black cats were crossing the main road freely. Whatever the black gravel did to stop them, there wasn't enough left on the skidded section to work.

The kender studied the problem solemnly, pursing his lips as his pointed ears twitched slightly in thought. Then he shrugged. "It's all right. We weren't going that way, anyway."

"We can't go back, either," the dwarf pointed out. "We might want to, you know. We…" He paused, then caught the kender by the shoulder.."That business you did before, leading the cats off… can you do that again?"

"I suppose so. Won't be as much fun the second time, though. Things like that get to be routine after a while."

"I don't care," the dwarf said. "Just do it."

The kender shrugged. "I guess one more time won't hurt. Come along, kitties. Time for another run." Poking and prodding at snarling predators,

Chess circled the stump of the road, gathering more than a dozen cats on the far side. With a final swat of his staff, he took off around the curve, great cats bounding after him. Left alone, Chane wrapped his harness over his shoulders and set about replacing gravel on the main road. Some time passed before the kender returned, a long line of irritated cats slinking along abreast of him. When he saw what the dwarf was doing, Chess shouted and ran toward him. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "We need that gravel. Why are you putting it back?"

Panting, Chane slipped out of his vine harness and inspected his work.

The road here was not as neatly graded as it had been, but it was black again and hemmed in the cats. "Because we don't need it any longer," the dwarf said. Picking up his pack, he strode to the east verge of the road and walked off into the forest. Behind him, across the road, the cat pack snarled and rumbled, unable to cross.

"Well, come on," Chane glanced back. "Let's see what it was that you wanted to look at."

It might once have been a machine, in some incredibly ancient time. Or it might have been a building. Perhaps even both. Now it was a great heap of rubble and broken metal things, slowly surrendering to the landscape.

Trees hundreds of years old grew from its crest, vines and brush obscured its slopes, and a carpeting of forest leaves and grassy loam was well along toward burying it.

Chane and Chess wandered over and around it, peering, poking, and prying.

"This looks like part of a wheel," the kender chattered. "But why would anybody make a wheel fifteen feet across? Wow! Look at those things sticking out of the mess. What are they, drills? They're as big around as and here's some old, rusty chain. Must have weighed a ton per link when it was still good iron. I wonder what this was, over here. A furnace of some kind? Did you notice that all these stones scattered over here are square?

They might have been paving blocks. What do you suppose this thing was when it was something?"

"I haven't the vaguest idea." Chane was digging through a reddish heap of vaguely-shaped rust tumbles, raising a cloud of thin red dust that settled on his black furs like rust-colored snow. After several minutes he straightened, holding up a long, slim object to have a better look at it.

It was a rod, nearly six feet long, gnarly and misshapen from centuries of rust. He knew by its heft, though, that there was good metal within it. He set it aside and began digging again.

For some time the kender explored the ancient heap, his bright eyes shining in wonder at each new mystery. He moved things here and there, on the thought that whatever all this was the outside of might also have an inside, and somewhere there might be an entrance. Finding none, he scampered here and there over the surface of the thing, tugging and pushing at everything that protruded, seeing what would move. Where a broken shaft of heavily corroded metal angled upward, he cleared away broken stone, then braced his feet and pulled at the stub. Deep beneath him, something groaned and large parts of the mound shifted slightly.

Beyond the crest, the dwarf shouted, then appeared at the top.

"Sorry about that." Chess waved at him. "I guess whatever this was, it doesn't work any more."

With a warning scowl, the dwarf went back to what he was doing. Chess continued his exploration. Near one edge of the mound, tugging away a rock, he found a thick, ragged sheet of green-black stuff that might once have been bronze. Wiping it with his tunic, he saw letters on its surface and sat down to read them aloud. Most were corroded beyond recognition, but here and there a few words could be partially deciphered:

"… velous Wallbreacher, equipped with secondary ar… iple-geared self-propel… ba… not included…"

And elsewhere, "… Model one of — "

"Gnomes," Chess said, nodding at the revelation. He climbed to the top of the mound. Beyond, Chane was moving stones around, arranging them in a circle. Chess cupped his hands and shouted, "Gnomes!"

The dwarf raised his head. "What?"

"Gnomes!" the kender repeated. "This was a gnomish machine of some kind.

I found its label."

"What was it supposed to do?"

"I don't know. But gnomes built it, so it probably didn't do anything right."

Chane turned away and resumed the moving of stones.

For a bit longer, Chess explored the ancient wreckage, then he brushed down his tunic, shouldered his pouch, picked up his staff, and went to find the dwarf. "This was interesting," he said. "Now let's go on, and see what else there is to find."

"I'm busy," Chess grunted, setting a block of stone atop another.

"What are you doing?"

"I found some usable metal. I'm setting up a forge to work it."

"Oh." The kender walked all the way around the circle of stone, wide-eyed. "What do you want to make?"

"A hammer, of course. The only thing I know of that can be made without a hammer is a hammer, though it won't be a very good one, without a hammer to work with."

"A hammer," Chess nodded, taken with the logic of it.

"Then what?"

"What?"

"What are you going to make once you've made your hammer?"

"Another hammer. Once I have a rough hammer to use, I can make a perfectly good hammer with it. Then, if that rod there will stew out and take a temper, I'll make a sword."

"Is this part of your plan for becoming rich and famous?"

"I don't have any such plan," the dwarf growled. "I don't have a hammer or sword, either, so first things first."

"I have a feeling this is going to take a while."

"It will take as long as it takes."

For the rest of the day, Chestal Thicketsway prowled about, exploring the silent forest, becoming more and more impatient. At nightfall he returned to the wreckage heap, took fire from Chane's now-operating forge and made a meal of cured cat meat and bark tea, then went to sleep to the sound of dwarven craft echoing in the night.

At first light of morning, the kender awakened, stretched, and strolled over to watch the dwarf again. Chane now had a serviceable — if crude — hammer, and was using it to make a better hammer from a chunk of iron he had found.

Finally the kender had seen enough. "I'm going on ahead," he said. "I want to see what else is interesting around here."

"Have a nice trip," Chane said without looking up.

"Yourself, as well," Chess replied. He started off, northward, then turned back and made several trips back and forth between the mound and the black road where great cats prowled the far border.

Chane was thoroughly engrossed in what he was doing. The good hammer was taking shape nicely, and he had scraped away enough age from the long rod to see the metal beneath, and to taste it. It was good steel. It would make a blade… maybe more than one.