"Just so," she nodded, correctly reading his thought. "Still, I divine from the evidence that the red-robed wizard is dead, and that the adult merchesti has the stone and is trying to get into this world to find its young one."

Though his queen often scorned his mortal intelligence, Draaddis was not stupid, far from it. The god herself had expanded his mind, and he saw a flaw in her reasoning. If the gate stones were mated and the adult merchesti on the Plane of Vasmarg had used one of them, the portal would have opened near the kender who had the second stone. The little thieves were still somewhere near the southern tip of the Vingaard Mountain chain, still a long way from Palanthus. His queen's reasoning on that point was faulty, but he dared not tell her so. Instead, he would play the stupid mortal, stay with the subject as long as he dared, and hope she saw her mistake.

"The adult merchesti," Draaddis murmured. "But it couldn't get through the portal when it was open-"

"Do not attempt to appear even more stupid than you are," Takhisis snapped. "Orander opened the portal. He opened it for himself. When he used the stones, he held them no more than three feet apart and the opening formed between them."

"But if the merchesti held one of the gate stones, then the rent in the fabric between worlds would be large enough for the monster to enter our world?" Since necromancy was his primary study, he had given little thought to planes and the subtleties of portals. Like many other wizards he used portals when he needed them, but he knew just enough about them to serve his purpose.

"Is the merchesti intelligent enough to use the stone?" the wizard asked.

"In time," Takhisis replied. "Also, adult merchesti have an innate magic. It sensed the power of the stone, and when it killed Orander, I suspect it took and kept it. Their intelligence is not on the plane with humans, but while their thinking is slow, they are capable of working out problems. And remember, they have been known to open their own portals, though its rare for them to do so."

"How long would it take for the merchesti to learn to use the stone?" Draaddis was as impatient as his queen.

"Years, your lifetime, if we left it totally to the fiend on the plane of Vasmarg," Takhisis replied. "Still, it will come after its young. When Orander opened that portal, he set a course of destruction that is inevitable. If we can get the other stone, we can help the monster through to this world in time to help our cause."

"Help it through-bring that monster here?"

"Yes!" Takhisis gave a hiss of impatience and two of the jars on the shelves cracked with the power of her mood.

Two hundred feet above the ceiling of the work room, the old lobo wolf awoke from a terrible dream. He leaped to his feet, snarling at the evil that surrounded him. Fully awake, he saw only moonlight through the vines that covered his lair.

He wondered why he had been having such terrible dreams.

My Uncle Trapspringer, like all kender, was a light sleeper…

Trap awoke when he heard an irregular tapping. He sat up on the pallet to see the sun coming through the window. Beglug sat in the corner, holding one of Grod's boots. The young fiend was chewing up the last of the only chair that had been in the room and started eyeing the wood floor. When an ant crawled out between two floor boards, Beglug mashed it with the boot and gave an evil chuckle.

"Little monster," Halmarain said as she climbed down from the bed and went to the corner, searching her pack for her comb.

"Beglug find new game," Grod said. "Can use own boot." The gully dwarf grabbed his boot from the merchesti and put it on. "Lava Belly evil." "I don't believe it," Ripple snapped.

"If killing and eating the innkeeper's dog isn't evil, I don't know what is," Halmarain spoke up.

"I don't know that," Trap insisted. "The innkeeper said his dog was mean, so Beglug might have killed it because it attacked him. You know he'll eat anything."

"Lava Belly evil," Grod announced, again echoing the little wizard.

"No! He's not!" Trap was growing irritated with the gully dwarf for echoing Halmarain's warnings.

"Maybe not so bad," Umpth said. His real complaint with the little fiend was its occasional desire to munch on his wagon wheel. Otherwise Grod's brother didn't seem to mind Beglug.

The celebration had lasted well into the night. Even though the travelers had turned in at an early hour, they had not slept well because of the noisy party in the square. They packed their belongings and covered Beglug's dark skin with the makeup and adjusted his false wig and beard. The sun was high when they carried their gear down the stairs and entered the common room of the inn. The innkeeper came into the room and glared at the group while they were eating their breakfast.

"Where's the chair that was in your room?" he demanded of Grod, who was closest to the end of the table.

"Lava Belly eat chair," Umpth said, pointing at Beglug. He continued to scoop porridge into his mouth, spilling it on his beard in the process.

"I want to know what happened to the chair in your room," the innkeeper said again, dismissing the truth as a joke.

"I wanted to know too." Halmarain snapped at their host. She squeaked out the comment before remembering to imitate the deep tones of a dwarf. "We paid a lot for that room and we had nothing to sit on except the bed. I didn't bother you with my complaint when you were so busy last night, but now you have time to apologize for the inconvenience to us."

"There were a lot of chairs and benches in the square," Ripple said. "Someone probably took that one out for the celebration and forgot to bring it back, or maybe they didn't… maybe they put it in another room, you never know what some people will-"

"Do you want to search our packs to see if we're taking it away with us?" Halmarain asked with a laugh as she interrupted Ripple's chatter. Since the chair had been a large one with a high back and thick arms, it clearly would not have fitted in their bundles, even if they had taken it apart. Their armor was stacked with their belongings. They had decided not to wear it that day. The warm morning promised even hotter weather later in the day.

The innkeeper shook his head and walked away. "Lost a chair and I can't find the dog. I wonder if these celebrations are worth the trouble," he muttered as he disappeared into the back room of the inn.

"We should do something about Beglug's diet," the little wizard said as they gathered their belongings and left the inn, heading for the stable. Halmarain staggered under the load of her armor and the axe at her belt. The others carried the rest of their gear. The square was deserted, not surprising, since the celebration had continued until almost dawn. The little wizard took advantage of the empty street to make the gully dwarves wash at a horse trough.

According to the talk in the inn the night before, a good trail led north from Deepdel to Ironrock. Since their alternative was to travel through goblin infested mountains, they had decided to risk meeting travelers on the road.

"Knowing we have kender with us will probably keep most strangers at a distance," Halmarain said as they rode out of the village.

"Wizard more talk bad," Umpth announced, shaking his head until his dark beard waggled. "No like kender, no like mighty Aglest clan."

"Of course she likes us, she asked us to come with her, didn't she?" Ripple objected. "She'll be sorry when she realizes how she sounds. Just think. If you were as little as she is, you'd be worried about everything too, so don't pay any attention if she complains, though I must say, she really does a lot of-"