The soarwagon climbed higher and higher, flashing bright in the slanting sunlight. At some distance it dipped a wing, circled gracefully to the left, came about, and circled above the village, high and tiny in the sun.

It looped and soared, dived and turned, as gracefully as a giant eagle riding the air currents of a mountain range.

With his mouth hanging open in disbelief, Wingover walked his horse back to where the others waited, and dismounted. Jilian Firestoke was jumping up and down, clapping with glee as she watched the beautiful machine perform high overhead. Garon Wendesthalas stood in brooding thought.

"I can't believe it," Wingover said, shaking his head. "That thing actually works! It flies!"

"I'm not that surprised," the elf said. "I heard what Bobbin told you, about being insane."

'What does that have to do with it?"

"It's the whole point. He really is insane. An insane gnome. What he invents works."

"But they drove him out."

"Well, of course they did. They had to. Can you imagine what might happen if some great, monstrous gnomish engine were to have one part in it that works perfectly, among all those other parts that don't? A thing like that could be devastating. It could wipe out a colony."

Wingover thought about it, staring at the Hying machine in the sky. "I see what you mean," he said at last.

For a time the soarwagon cavorted over Barter, then it began to descend and headed back toward the meadow. It slowed, came to within ten feet of the ground, then suddenly shot upward again, climbing away, regaining speed.

Again it approached, and again, and each time it whisked away aloft. On the fourth pass, as it crept by directly overhead, seeming almost to hang in the evening air, Wingover cupped his hands and shouted, 'You've proved your point, Bobbin! You can come down now!"

"Ican't!" the gnome's exasperated voice came back, growing fainter as the soarwagon once again gained speed and began to climb.

"Itgoesupallright,butIcan'tgetittogodown!"

"He may be insane," Wingover told the elf, "but he's still a gnome."

In evening dusk, after giving up on ever seeing the gnome land, the three went back into the village. Jilian had lodgings at Rogar

Goldbuckle's camp, and Wingover would sleep in the stable loft.

"You're leaving in the morning?" Garon asked.

"Apparently so," the human said. "On a blamed fool's errand."

"111 go part way with you," the elf offered. "There's nothing more to learn here, and I've sold my goods."

"Glad to have you along," Wingover told him. "Any special reason?"

"There might be more goblins," the elf said darkly.

Jilian Firestoke's map – obtained under duress from a ruffian in a

Thorbardin tunnel – was not so much a map as a sketch of landmarks with a wavy line meandering among them. When she finally persuaded Wingover to look at it, on their second day of travel northeastward from Barter, he squinted at it, turned it this way and that, then scratched his head.

"Is this all you have to go on?" He turned it again. "You can't find anybody with this. It has no coordinates. Nothing to trace from… what is it supposed to be a map of?"

They had stopped to rest on a small meadow that was little more than a wide shelf on the side of a mountain, but a place where Wingover's horse could graze and the travelers could drink from a tiny spring that flowed from porous stone to trickle down the rocky slope where it fed a shallow pool. As usual when they halted, the man and the elf spread along the trail, Wingover going ahead to where he could see for a distance, Garon falling back to keep an eye on the trail behind them. It was an unspoken agreement, simply a thing that two travelers, wise in the ways of wilderness country, would do.

Wingover squatted on his heels and spread Jilian's map on the ground.

"It doesn't even have an orientation," he said. 'Which way is which?"

She stood behind him, to see over his shoulder. 'You can tell that from where the X's are." She pointed. "One of them is the Southgate of

Thorbardin, and the other is where those ruffians last saw Chane

Feldstone."

"That doesn't tell me anything," Wingover sighed. "Even if we knew which

X was which – and we don't all that would tell us is that this edge of the map – or this opposite one – should face north. But how far apart are the

X's?"

"About six inches," Jilian shrugged. "We can measure it if you -"

"I don't mean that. I mean how far is this supposed to represent in real distance?"

"The distance from Southgate to the northern wilderness," she explained, wondering again at the man's inability to remember simple things. "However far that is."

He sighed again, shaking his head. 'That might be twenty miles, or it might be fifty. Gods, girl, there isn't a boundary, you know. There isn't some kind of line drawn across the mountains with signs that say, 'This is

Thorbardin's realm and that side is wilderness.' The wilderness is anywhere beyond where the latest patrol perimeter happens to be, and that changes all the time. Didn't the person who drew this give you any idea of what to look for… or where?"

"He wasn't very happy with me," she admitted. "He had a bump on his head and was shackled to a wagontrack at the time. All he said was, 'This is

Southgate and that's where he got away from us. We supposed the cats would get him.' "

"Cats?" Wingover looked up sharply. "What kind of cats?"

"I don't know. He just said cats. Oh, and he said a bird told them to go away, so they went. Does that help7"

"Cats." Wingover opened his pouch and withdrew his own maps, found the one he wanted and studied it. 'There is a valley, north of here, that seems to go almost due north and south." He paused and considered the map.

"I wandered into it, but I didn't get a chance to explore it. There were cats there. Big, black cats half as high as my horse. If your young dwarf has gone there, I don't expect you'll find him." The human laid the maps side by side, looked at them together, then turned Jilian's map around.

"That could be it, I suppose. I saw the valley at the other end, but it would have come out about -" He pointed at his own map "- about here."

"Then that's where we must go," Jilian said. "Is it very far?"

"Not far," the man said. "A day from here, maybe. But that isn't where we're going."

"Why not?"

"Because of the cats. Look, Button, I said I'd help you find that X. But if your dwarf went there, we might as well just turn back."

"But if that's where Chane went, then that's where we must go. You promised, you know."

"How many times do I have to tell you, I promised no such thing?" He stood and put his map away, handing Jilian's back to her. "You know, your father probably has people out looking for you by now… or does he even know you're gone?"

"He knows I've gone to look for Chane," Jilian snapped. "I told him I was going to."

"And he didn't stop you? Somehow I can't imagine that, unless -" He looked down at the wide, pretty face, a suspicion dawning. "Where does he think you are looking?"

Jilian looked at her feet. "All over Thorbardin, I suppose. I didn't tell him I had talked to his ruffian."

"Ye gods," Wingover breathed. "And Rogar Goldbuckle?" "Well… I told him that I had told my father I was going to look for Chane Feldstone, and that my father said, 'Go right ahead. Look all you want to.' I suppose he might have taken that to mean that it was all right for me go to outside.

But what difference does that make? Now that we know where Chane is, all we have to do is go and find him. That valley might be where Chane is, but how will you know for sure if we don't have a good look at it?"