"Your magic doesn't work at all?" Wingover asked.

"It might or might not. And if it did, it would be unreliable."

"A little invisibility might come in handy," the kender said. "I saw a lot of invisibility at Hylo the time the bird came from… well, I didn't see it, exactly. What I did was not see it. That's what invisibility does."

"I wish we had the gnome here now," Wingover said.

"I wonder where he is."

"Right here," a voice came from aloft. Wingover stared up at the flying contraption, barely ten feet overhead.

"It's me," the gnome said. "Bobbin. Do you remember?"

"Of course I remember! Where have you been?"

"I'm not quite sure. Somewhere northwest, I think.

Where are you going?"

"Across that valley," Wingover shouted. "I'd like for you to scout for us."

"All right, if that's what you want. But I don't think it's such a good idea to go across there. There are surly people all over the place. Look here." He tossed something over the side of the basket. It rang against stone, and Chane picked it up. It was a bronze dart.

"Somebody shot me in the hub with that thing," Bobbin griped. "Would have cost me a wheel, if I still had my wheels."

Wingover blinked, realizing for the first time that the flying craft no longer had its delicate silver-wire wheels.

"What did you do with your wheels?"

"While I was in the northwest, I found some people -elves, I think – with raisins. I traded them my wheels for a half-bushel of raisins. Fat lot of good wheels do me up here, anyway."

"Take a look at this," Chane handed the goblin-dart to Wingover.

The man looked at the object closely. It was a slim bolt, about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp head and airfoils of shaved wood. Darts were a favorite weapon of goblins, and they often fired them from short, stiff crossbows. Wingover started to shrug, then looked more closely.

"This isn't sand-cast," he said. "It looks as though it has been forged, or turned on a wheel." He handed the dart to Glenshadow.

"Not goblin work," the wizard judged.

"Well, it was a goblin that flung it at me," Bobbin called down.

"I'd like to see a few more of these," Chane said. "If I could compare some of them, I'd know whether they were forge-turned or ground on a cold lathe." Chestal Thicketsway snapped his fingers and opened his large pack.

"Like these?" He drew out two more goblin-bolts.

"Where did you get those?"

"The other night, when I was flying with Bobbin, these came along. I'd forgotten that I had them." He dug deeper into his pack, lifting out various other things one by one, to look at them. "I have some pretty good stuff in here. I should check it more often."

"Lathe-turned," Chane Feldstone pronounced, comparing the darts. "No goblin ever made these. I wonder who did."

"Somebody whose purpose was to turn out a lot of them in a hurry,"

Wingover said.

"Somebody equipping an army?" Chane asked.

"Somebody who isn't a goblin, outfitting goblins? That's crazy,"

Wingover scoffed.

Chane shook his head. "No crazier than the idea of a human – a human female – being in command of a goblin force."

"Speaking of females," Wingover said as he looked around, "where's

Jilian?"

Jilian was tired and cold. Wtile the others discussed plans and situations, she wandered about the area, looking for a place to rest out of the wind. The pass here was a snow-dusted trough between rising peaks, with little cover from the wind's biting teeth. Not far away, though, an outcropping had sheared away in some bygone age, forming a mazelike rockfall where slabs of stone lay against one another and dark crevices beckoned.

She stooped to peer into one of these, a shadowy cave where slate walls broke the wind. The cave was deeper than it appeared, and another, darker opening, offset and aslant, lay beyond it. The wind gusted again as Jilian stepped into the shelter, leaning down to avoid the rock above. It was cold within, but not as sharply so as outside, where the relentless wind played. Her back to the deeper cave, she crouched there, watching the rest of the group. She hoped they would make up their minds soon. It would be a relief to get off this cold mountain pass, to be moving downward for a time, instead of toiling and climbing.

Mountain winds sang around the opening in the rocks, then died abruptly.

In the silence Jilian heard a furtive sound. As she started to turn, the dwarven girl was seized by massive hard hands. She tried to struggle, but the strength of whatever held her was immense. She tried to scream… and could not. She was hauled backward, beyond the crevice and into the dark cave. A huge, leering face appeared directly above Jilian – a face twice the size of any she had ever seen, with a wide, grinning mouth and little glittering eyes set close beside a great snout of a nose.

"Pretty toy," the thing whispered, a low rumble of sound at her ear.

"Nice for Cleft. Maybe Loam can have what's left." Crouching, the thing turned and headed down into darkness, carrying Jilian as a child would carry a doll.

Jilian's dwarven eyes adjusted quickly to darkness. Even in her shock and panic, she noted that the tunnel along which she was carried was of dwarven design. Like the load-shafts in Thorbardin that led from one level to another, it was a long, delved curve, spiraling downward, turn after turn.

She tried to struggle against the hands that held her, but it was no use. The monster's hands completely encircled her, binding her arms to her sides so that all she could move was her head and her feet. The pressure of the thing's grip was crushing. Jilian fought desperately just to breathe, and her spinning mind registered spiral after spiral of descending tunnel, its walls echoing to the thud of the creature's feet.

After a time, the girl twisted her head around, trying to get her teeth into a huge thumb. The thing glanced down at her, saw what she was trying to do, and chuckled, a deep, evil rumble of mirth. It shifted its grip slightly and increased the pressure. Jilian felt as though her ribs were breaking. Ogre, she thought. This is an ogre! Maybe the same ogre that has a grudge against Chane. Maybe it's doing this to get even with him… or maybe to lure him into a trap!

Jilian made herself hold very still. After she pretended to go limp, the creature's grip eased slightly. There was a little more light now, and she could see that the tunnel widened out, then widened again, becoming a vaulted cavern twenty or thirty feet across.

A staging area, she thought. Whatever dwarves had delved this place, in some bygone time, had crafted a cavern here – a place to store and sort things to be carried up or down the spiral shaft. A resting place. She had seen such places in Thorbardin. Dim marks on the floor might even have been the bases of ancient cable-track, though there was no hardware in the place now. All this she noticed in an instant, as the ogre slowed its pace and raised her higher in the dim light.

"Far enough," the creature rumbled. A mouth like a yawning slit revealed spike teeth. "Well underground. Let's see what pretty thing I have found."

Jilian lay limp in its grasp, and let her head loll to one side, feigning unconsciousness. Higher she was lifted as the ogre peered at her in the dim shaft-light, turning her this way and that. It relaxed its grip, holding her now with one hand while the other poked her with large fingers. Finally, the ogre took hold of her tunic and started to tear it away. Close enough, Jilian decided. With a heave, she freed herself from some of the fingers, twisted around, and delivered a solid kick, directly into a leering eye.

The ogre roared as it staggered back and dropped Jilian. She hit the cavern floor and scooted away on hands and knees. Suddenly, though, she remembered that her borrowed sword was still slung on her back. Ignoring the monster's roars, she got to her feet and loosed the sword, then ducked as the ogre's hand whisked past her. She turned and ran into the descending tunnel beyond the staging cavern.