Two hundred feet above, the wolf woke from a nap. He sneezed and choked until he staggered out of his lair and into the surrounding woods. Would he have to find a new home? He wondered as his nostrils cleared and he began his night's hunt.

Dinner that night consisted of a wounded goblin. The wolf ate an arm and a leg and buried the rest of the body so it would season.

He returned to his lair in the ruins, dreading what he would smell. Still, the safe haven drew him back. He approached cautiously, but picked up no hint of the terrible odor that had driven him out.

He curled up on his bed, dozed, sniffed, dozed, sniffed, and repeated the exercise several times before he decided it was safe to sleep again.

Trap stepped over the precipice, but he had not fallen far before a clump of bushes broke his fall and he rolled down a steep slope.

A few scratches from the bushes and a few bruises from rolling down the hill made him uncomfortable, but he was not injured. Since he still wore the ring, he confidently bent his knees and jumped. His feet rose a foot off the ground. He tried again, using all his strength, and jumped two feet.

"I must remember to talk to Orander about this ring," he muttered. "Have I said that before?" He decided he had probably used those very words.

Unable to jump out of the gorge, he put the ring back in his pouch and tried climbing. In the growing darkness he could not see his way and lost his footing. After sliding down the steep slope three times he gave up and found a dry place to sleep. He'd be able to see to climb out in the morning.

"Maybe Orander made a lot of little magic jars, filled them with power and put them all in the ring and I can only use one jarful at a time," he muttered sleepily before he dozed off.

The next morning he stood up, twisted to ease his sore muscles, found the ring again, and jumped. The magic worked! He sailed to the top of the gorge, landed on a rock that tilted with him and he went sprawling again.

"So much for you," he told the ring, taking it off again. "You can wait until I get out of these mountains."

He still had the problem of finding the kobolds' trail, so he trotted along the mountainside, his face to the sun. They had been traveling east when he had lost their tracks.

After traversing a rocky slope he came to another area of thickly clustered high brush. He was trotting through it when he heard a shout.

"Wheel! Come back!"

"Umpth? Oomph!" Trap's second cry sounded like an echo, a combination of being startled and having the wind knocked out of him. The wagon wheel had hurtled out of the bushes, caught the kender's right arm and flipped him head over heels. He hit the ground with a thud, one arm and one leg through the spokes of the wheel. In seconds Umpth and then Grod appeared from behind a large clump of brush.

"Jiggy biggies! Wheel find kender!" Umpth triumphantly shouted.

"I don't believe it!" Halmarain's voice, saturated with irritation, reached Trap as he struggled to extricate himself from his strange captor.

Before he was on his feet the little wizard arrived on the trail of the gully dwarves. Her face was red with exertion and her eyes snapped with anger. She hauled on the reins of her pony. Behind her the entire string of animals appeared. Trap saw Ripple's whippik tied to a bundle on the pack pony.

"I don't believe it!" she snapped as the two gully dwarves grinned at her.

She glared at them and turned on Trap. "You didn't get very far," she said. Her attempt at a smug I-told-you-so was heavily tinged with relief.

"I'm going to talk to Orander about that ring," Trap told her. "He needs to put a second spell on it, so it doesn't carry a person over a cliff." He gave them an account of his bad luck.

"I'm really glad we found you," the wizard admitted, frowning at the gully dwarves. "I can't get these idiots on their ponies."

"Need ride ponies," Grod said, pulling at his red-blond beard in his impatience. "Kobolds run fast. Goblin run fast. Ponies run fast. Wizard run slow."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Grod's right," the small human female agreed.

"Beans! I want to go! I'll help them onto their ponies, but I'm going on ahead," Trap said obstinately. "I'll come back for you when I've found Ripple and Beglug."

"You can go faster on a pony than on foot," Halmarain said.

"Then I'll take mine-"

"No you won't. I bought them, they're all mine and they'll all stay together. To ride, you'll have to stay with us." "I could use the magic ring-"

"For how long before the limiter takes over or you go off another cliff?"

Trap frowned at the wizard. He didn't have an answer.

"And you need us to help you rescue the merchesti and Ripple," Halmarain added. "I know you want to find your sister, but no more than I want to rescue that little fiend. If we can't send him back, his parent may come to Krynn looking for him."

"Waste time," Grod said. "No more talk."

"Ride pony now." Umpth nodded at his brother.

Trap stopped arguing and helped the gully dwarves mount. Halmarain volunteered to lead all the beasts with the exception of Trap's pony on one string while Trap rode ahead to search for the easiest path through the mountains. He was not to go too far ahead, she warned him.

"But what about finding the trail of the kobolds?" Trap demanded.

"We can find it on the other side of the mountains," the little wizard said. "They're traveling east. Directly east, even though they are taking the roughest paths. They won't be hard to locate on the plain."

"Found trail once," Umpth said.

"Did-did you find any sign…" Trap stopped, not wanting to voice his niggling fears over Ripple.

"Yes, and we know they were both alive this morning." The little wizard nodded. "Where they crossed a stream, we could see the marks where Beglug struggled to keep from stepping into the water. Off to the side were footprints Grod insisted were Ripple's. This was looped over the branch of a bush." She held out a blue feather with two green beads sewn to the quill. Around it was a thin blue leather thong.

"It's Ripple's," Trap crowed with delight. Occasionally she wove feathers into her topknot, and he had often seen her wear that particular decoration.

"If Beglug can fight and she can leave signs for us, they are both alive and uninjured," Halmarain said. "They are being taken east."

"Then let's hurry," Trap said, leading the way again. "And on the way we'll make a plan."

Trap found a low saddle between the mountains. Since they were not seeking a trail, Trap paced Halmarain. He was busy with his plans to rescue the captives.

"Here's what I think we should do," he said. "When we catch up with the kobolds, you, Grod, and Umpth will climb up in a tree where a limb juts out over-"

"How do you know there will be a tree?" the little wizard asked. "And if the gully dwarves can't mount a pony without help, how can you get them up a tree?"

Trap frowned. "Then we'll do this: we'll take a wagon-"

"Where are we going to get the wagon?" Halmarain asked.

"Thorns! Thistles! You don't like anything. Do you want to help rescue Ripple and Beglug or not?" Trap demanded.

"Yes!" the wizard spat out the word. "But you can't make a plan until we find them."

"Lava Belly eat kobolds, maybe," Grod suggested.

"He wouldn't do that," Trap objected, conveniently forgetting the innkeeper's dog in Deepdel.

"Oh, you never know, and it would be a fitting revenge," Halmarain smiled. "They may wish they had never taken him."

"Why take Beglug?" Grod asked. "Kender pretty, but Beglug mean."