"There's that kender," the dwarf told the wizard, then turned.

Glenshadow had stopped. The man stood now, holding his staff before him as though to protect himself. Chane cocked his head, the tilting ears on his cat-cape cap giving a quizzical look to his scowl. "What's the matter?

It's only a kender."

"There's more," the wizard said. "But I can't see…"

"More? I don't see anybody except a kender. And of course a bunch of cats, but that's no surprise."

"Not a person," the wizard said slowly, looking one way and then another, peering into the gloom. "No, not a person, but an… an event."

The dwarf growled, deep in his chest. Kender and wizards… birds and hunting cats… Chane was beginning to miss the sensible, logical life of

Thorbardin. Out here, it seemed, no one ever really made sense. "What event? I don't see any event."

"It hasn't happened yet," Glenshadow said softly. "But it wants to."

"Needs to," something seemed to say in a voice that was not a voice.

Chane felt a chill crawl up his spine as he whirled around, looking for the source of the sound. He felt as though he had heard a voice, but his ears had not. The mage behind him had raised his staff higher, but he didn't seem to see anything, either.

The kender trotted up to them, grinning. "I see you've met whatsit," he said. "I think he comes with the sword." He lifted a dwarven broadsword from his shoulder and extended it, hilt first. "Here. I found this for you. Now you can stop complaining about not having a sword."

Surprised, Chane took the sword and held it in both hands, turning it over, squinting in the poor light.

"Of course, there's a ghost or something attached to it," Chess said brightly. "But I can't see how that would matter. Who's that with you? He looks like a wizard."

"He is, I guess," the dwarf said. "Haven't seen him do any magic, but

I'd just as soon he didn't, anyway." He lifted the sword to his mouth and tasted its blade. "Old," he muttered. "Good steel, though. And it doesn't look old. "It's been on ice," the kender explained. "Wthat's wrong with your wizard? He looks like he's seen a ghost."

"I don't know what's wrong with him." Chane busied himself, slicing a strip of cathide from his cape to make a belt for the sword. "He said he saw an event."

"Well, I've seen a few of those." The kender nodded. "But I try not to let them bother me. Pretty good sword, huh?"

"A fine sword," the dwarf agreed. 'Thank you. Where did you get it?"

"I found an old battlefield, over east of here. There's a lot of good stuff just lying around. And frozen dwarves all over the place, too.

Probably nobody you know, though. They've been there a long time. Maybe the ghost is a dwarven ghost. I've never met any sort of ghost before, so

I don't know. But if he bothers you, just ignore him."

As one coming out of a trance, the wizard Glenshadow shook himself and lowered his staff. He stepped close to them, leaned down, and squinted at

Chane's sword, then turned to the kender. "Not a ghost," he said, in a voice that was like winter. "And not fixed to the sword, either. It follows you, Chestal Thicketsway."

The kender blinked. "What does?"

'You picked up more than a sword on that battlefield, kender. You picked up an unexploded spell."

Before Chess could respond, Chane pointed down the path. "The cats are gone," he said.

Then on an errant breeze, coming from somewhere ahead, all three of them heard a sound that seemed to float among the treetops and drift down like crystal snow. The mage seemed to stiffen, the kender's eyes went huge, and even the stolid, pragmatic dwarf felt the sound take hold of his heart and tug at it.

Somewhere off there, to the north, someone was singing. The voice was more lovely than anything Chane Feldstone had ever heard.

Though it had no king – no regent had acceded to the throne since the death of King Duncan two centuries before – the fortified realm of

Thorbardin, deep beneath the surface of the central Kharolis Mountains, considered itself a kingdom. And without a king, it fell upon the Council of Thanes to sit as a Board of Regents, deciding such matters as were not governed within the separate cities and warrens that made up the undermountain realm. Seven cities lay within the bedrock of the mountains, each a major community in its own right, as well as three farming warrens, two Halls of Justice, and a massive fortification at each of the realm's two main gates.

In the more than three centuries since the great Cataclysm that had forever changed the continent of Ansalon, the dwarves of Thorbardin had mostly abandoned the manning of Northgate. The Cataclysm had left the northern approaches virtually inaccessible, providing better security to the north than even the massive gate that plugged the mountainside there ever had.

For a century, rumors had persisted about a secret way to Thorbardin from the north, and the dwarves had kept the fortifications there operational. Chaos and pestilence had followed the Cataclysm, and for most of that century the threats to Thorbardin from outside were frighteningly real. Plague and famine had spread across the known world, migrations were under way across the continent, and no unfortified place could long survive.

But then the gates of Thorbardin had faced their hardest test… and held firm. The bloody Dwarfgate War raged through the Kharolis Mountains, hill dwarf armies pitted against those of the mountain dwarves – cousin against cousin, like against like. Those outside were determined to break through to the inside of Thorbardin, incited, some said, by the evil archmage Fistandantilus, whom many held to be the most powerful magician the world of Krynn had ever known.

Against these forces, Thorbardin had fought a defensive action. Then, under King Duncan and his sons with Prince Grallen leading the Hylar dwarves – the armies of Thorbardin went out to carry the fight to their enemies, right to the mountain called Skullcap, lair of the great wizard himself.

What came to pass then – the tragic end of both armies in one last, terrible act of magic by Fistandantilus – was now old history. Of those who might be old enough to remember, few cared to.

But through it all, the shattered north portal had held, as had all of

Thorbardin's defenses. More than two centuries later, the undermountain kingdom still stood. Concerns about threats from outside were no longer acute. In very recent times there had been unsettling rumors, of course – rumors the traders brought, about migrations of goblins and ogres to the north, about whole villages disappearing in distant places beyond the northern wilderness. Some suspected that, far off somewhere, armies were being amassed, and there were whispered comments about "Highlords" and infamous plots. Someone had even claimed to have seen a dragon, but no one believed that. There were no dragons, not anywhere on the entire world of

Krynn. It was common knowledge.

There were rumors, and a few were concerned, but life went on in

Thorbardin as it had for two hundred years. Some trade had been restored – not as in the fabled past, before the War of the Gates, when open trade roads had linked Thorbardin with Pax Tharkas and other realms but some trade with other places and other races outside. Time had passed, and the old legends of a secret gate somewhere passed also into oblivion. The old tales of untold evils that might yet lurk about the blasted and glazed grotesqueries of Skullcap Mountain to the north – the legends of the glory of King Duncan and the noble Prince Grallen – grew dim.

It was not in the nature of mountain dwarves to dwell upon the past. And certainly, in the teeming cities of Thorbardin, few cared to reflect upon such antiquities.