Margaret Weis - Heroes And Fools

“It’s okay!” Halivar said. “I already know.”

“How did you find out, Halivar?” asked Cedwick.

“My Aunt Fern told me,” said the kender, “only she’s not my aunt. She’s really a second cousin once removed. Or is it a first cousin twice removed?”

“Please, Halivar. Just the explanation.”

“Anyway, she heard it from Glider Snapdragon, who got it from Miriam Redrash, who overheard a drunken wizard talking about it in jail.”

“How coincidental!” said Jobin. “We too heard of the Conclave meeting from a drunken wizard. Only he wasn’t in jail. He was sitting on a fence.”

“Really? I wonder if it was the same wizard.”

“It doesn’t matter! I understand now, thank you,” said Cedwick with irritation.

“Don’t be alarmed,” the kender whispered loudly. “He gets a little cranky.”

Cedwick turned to the kender to argue that he was not even a little cranky when a sharp wailing-similar, but distinctly different from the warning siren-erupted a few meters away. Spinning to face the new noise, the young man noticed a bulky gnomish contraption bearing down on him at a frightening pace. Just when he thought the thing would crush him and continue straight on into the tower, the loud wail sounded again, and the front of the beast suddenly belched a cloud of white steam. The lumbering thing came to a sudden stop.

Cedwick stared at the gnomish aberration. In most respects, it resembled a wooden cart. The front of it, however, supported what might have been an old iron stove. From the front of the stove jutted a large metal cylinder out of which steam was pouring. Connected to the bottom of the cylinder were two smaller cylinders. These, in turn, connected via a metal shaft to the wheels. They were called spitspins, Jobin announced proudly, presumably because they spun the wheels around, all the while spitting hot steam.

“You may not know it, Master Cedwick,” the gnome added confidentially, “but the Guild of Safely and Efficiently Getting from Point A to Point B is not the most reliable of guilds. The Veryveryhot broke down three times this morning,” he added in despair. “I honestly wouldn’t use it, but my second cousin Smidge designed it, and she’s very enthusiastic about the thing.”

As if on cue, a female gnome popped her soot-stained head out from behind one of the Spitspins, smiling and waving a well-bandaged hand. She very nearly fell off the cart. Balance restored, she went back to tinkering with the machine. There came a sound like bacon sizzling, and the little gnome gave out a yelp of pain.

Cedwick had a sudden inkling as to why they called it the Veryveryhot.

“Of course,” the gnome said, “without it, we never would have been able to bring the signal cannon, much less the God Trap.”

“Excuse me?” was all the young man could think to say.

Hah’var, however, thought of quite a lot to say.

“Really? A God Trap?” he said. “Can I see? How does it work? Will it really trap a god? I doubt if it could trap me!”

“We based it on the Graygem,” Jobin said proudly, “and we were going to use it on Chaos, except we had a slight problem with a new weapon we were testing. It delayed our arrival.” He paused, as if unsure how to go on. “I really should be explaining this to Master Laudus.”

“You’re in luck!” cried the kender as he climbed on top of the God Trap. “Master Cedwick is the man in charge of deciding who speaks to Master Laudus.”

Cedwick sighed. What had he gotten himself into?

The gnome perked up considerably. “In that case. .” he straightened his workman’s leather and cleared his throat. “Master Cedwick, it is my sad duty to inform you that the Guild of Magic Analysis and Prestidigital Improvements has accidentally trapped magic.”

Something inside the young man made a noise not unlike gears popping loose. He assumed it was his sanity becoming unhinged.

The gnome droned on. “The Subcommittee for Accidents and Mishaps has further determined that the magic of Krynn is located inside the complex and wonderful device inadequately named the God Trap Machine. We are therefore here with said machine in order to assist the wizards in the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth in removing the magic from the God Trap Machine and restoring it to Krynn proper.”

“That can’t be true!” said the kender. “I myself personally destroyed magic!”

“I’m afraid you’re wrong,” replied Jobin. “In actuality, we gnomes trapped magic in our machine.”

“Impossible,” said the kender. “Even gnomes couldn’t build something that traps magic.”

“Well, magic certainly wasn’t destroyed by a kender!” Jobin said, his face flushing, and his speech steadily increasing in speed. “Akendercouldn’tdestroymagicifhetried. Ithadtobegnomishingenuity.”

“Ridiculous,” the kender retorted. “Kender ingenuity can destroy anything! It’s vastly superior to gnome ingenuity!”

At this, Jobin did a very un-executive-vice-director-like thing and punched Halivar in the stomach. The kender tumbled over in a jangling mass of jewelry, but not before swinging his staff, tripping the gnome. Jobin also went down, and upon impact, nuts, bolts, and screws flew everywhere.

In reaction to this assault on their leader, half a dozen gnomes in Jobin’s party hefted wrenches and hammers and glared hostile gnomish glares at the winded kender. The small group of gnomes who had been so diligently modifying the signal cannon to point in a harmless direction suddenly resolved to point it directly at Halivar. Several other gnomes quickly ran to assist Jobin, who flailed miserably under the weight of his workman’s leather.

A moment later-just when both the kender and the gnome had risen to their feet and decided to hit each other again-Cedwick stood between them.

“Stop!” he shouted, a strange fire burning in his eyes.

“But-” both the gnome and the kender began.

“You will not have a fist fight on the Tower grounds!”

Both the kender and the gnome shrank away from him, and Cedwick suddenly realized he must be more intimidating than he thought. He kept up his vicious stare, wondering idly if it might work just as well against other people. The gnomes and kender continued to back away, holding their noses as they went and shifting farther and farther upwind. Cedwick thought about this idly as well, until he realized that intimidated people don’t generally travel upwind as they back away.

Suddenly he smelled it.

For a moment he thought the gnomes might have been using more than wood to power the Veryveryhot. Then, quite unexpectedly, something tugged meaningfully at his robe. Glancing down, he discovered a large clod of dirt smiling up at him.

Two beady, piglike black eyes squinted at him. Meaty, filth-encrusted hands soiled his robe. Something that resembled hair grew out of the top of the clod of dirt and spilled out across the rest of it.

“Hello!” it said through rotting teeth.

Cedwick drew in a sharp breath of surprise, then rather wished he hadn’t.

“Does Master Laudus always allow gully dwarves to come to his Tower?” the kender asked, still holding his nose tightly.

“Never,” Cedwick answered, although today apparently everyone was allowed on the Tower grounds.

“Helg come for High Robe. Looking for High Robe,” the grimy little creature said. “You High Robe?”

The Conclave was not doing a very good job of keeping its plans a secret.

“I-” began the apprentice mage.

“High Robe!” the female gully dwarf said delightedly. “Me come far! Bring message from great gully dwarf shaman.”

“If this has anything to do with lost magic-”

Helg stared at him a moment in awe. “You smart High Robe!” she said. “You know secret shaman message!”