After Bobbin finished his breakfast and washed it down with rainwater collected during the previous night's storm, he looked over the side of his wicker cab to see if he could identify where he was. He frowned and shook his head in disgust. A half-mile below was that same valley he had been trying to leave when his raisins shifted: the long, wooded valley between ridges, the one those people had called Waykeep. The place with the winding black road.

Off to Bobbin's left was the smoke of the refugee camps, the people who had come across from the next valley, fleeing an invasion of goblins.

Ahead, just a few miles, was the textured ice-field where he had first met the kender, Chestal Thicketsway. An old battleground, the creature had said. The lumps of ice on the field contained fighting dwarves, frozen in place. Bobbin saw no reason to doubt it, though why it mattered was beyond him.

There were people out there now, on the ice. People moving around. He squinted. Dwarves… and either humans or elves. From such a distance, it was hard to tell, except that some of them seemed to have beards.

Humans, then, he decided. Elves don't have beards. Other movement caught the gnome's attention then, far off to his right, to the south. He squinted, trying to see details. A large group of… something… crossing a clearing between stands of forest, coming north. Sunlight glinted on metal. Armor?

The soarwagon's lazy circle brought it over the edge of the ice field, and Bobbin leaned out to wave. "Somebody'scomingyourway!" he shouted excitedly, waving his arms and pointing. But he was ton high. The people down there, dwarves and humans, obviously from the refugee camps, were intent on the ice itself, and what was under it. No one looked up, and within moments the soarwagon was past them, continuing its descending spiral.

Long minutes passed, then the other group was in sight again below, now dead ahead. The gnome leaned out to squint at them. He saw them clearly now. Armored goblins, a company of them marching in rough phalanx order, with a slightly larger figure in the lead – a waddling, greenish-colored thing in bright misfitting armor. Bobbin had never seen a hobgoblin before, though he knew what they were. If anything, he decided, hobgoblins were even uglier than ordinary goblins. Without its bright garb, the thing would have resembled a big, misshapen frog.

The soarwagon closed on the marching company below, lower now, only a few hundred yards up. Well, Bobbin told himself, I'll circle over those other people again pretty soon. I can tell them then that there are goblins coming. None of my business, I suppose, but then nobody needs goblins.

As he sailed over the marching goblins, Bobbin heard their shouts and leaned out to look down at them. Crossbows and blades were brandished at him, and guttural taunts drifted upward. On impulse, the gnome looked around for something unpleasant that he could drop on them. The only thing that came to hand was an empty line-spool wedged between the raisin basket and the lateral courses. He gripped it, pulled it loose… then grabbed the rails of his cab and hung on for dear life as the snagged tilt controls of the soarwagon suddenly broke free and the vehicle responded.

The left wing dipped sharply, the nose went up, and Bobbin's contrivance came around in a hard turn, climbing. Righting itself, the soarwagon pointed its nose at the sky and shot straight up, then completed a perfect roll and reversed itself in a blistering dive, directly at the goblins below. They stared, shouted, and began to run in all directions. Bobbin cursed as he fought his lines and eased the dive. But the craft had a mind of its own and responded with a neat half-roll.

Upside down and frantic, Bobbin shot over the heads of the goblin troops, raining raisins down upon them. By the time he managed to turn the soarwagon right side up, he was four miles south and climbing, again coming about in a wide right-hand turn.

Bobbin clung to his lines, pounded his wicker rail with a frustrated fist. "Gearslip!" he cursed. "Threadbind and metal fatigue! You misassembled piece of junk, can't you behave yourself just once? Stress analysis and critical path i If I ever get my feet on solid ground again,

I'm going to take you apart and make camel davits out of you!" At a half-mile relative altitude, the soarwagon soared serenly over the scattered force of goblins, over the intervening forests, over the ice field where humans and dwarves worked to gather old weapons. Finally, it passed over the huddled encampment beyond, where refugees tended their children and wounded companions, then raised its nose and climbed. Bobbin closed his eyes and shook his head. Things were bad before. Now he was out of raisins. High above the ridge that separated two wilderness valleys, and miles north of the pass, the gnome repaired and rerouted his control lines and prepared to come about one more time. At least now he had controls again, after a fashion. He could turn east, then south, and possibly find the people he had lost at the mountain crossing.

Then movement of an entirely different sort caught Bobbin's eye, and he raised himself high in his wicker to peer dead ahead. Something was coming from the north, coming toward him, a speck against the horizon but definitely coming his way… and flying. Where exasperation had been, hope surged forward, brightening the gnome's gaze.

Flying! Someone else is up here in another flying machine, Bobbin thought gleefully. I'm not alone. Grinning eagerly, he settled into his wicker seat and lowered the nose of the soarwagon gently, aiming for the approaching flier. Someone to compare notes with! Someone who might have an answer to my dilemma! Someone else in the sky!

At a mile's distance, the gnome studied the stranger. Red in color – bright, crimson red – with movable wings that flapped rhythmically, and a long, trailing appendage of some sort. And legs? Yes, definitely legs. Not wheels or runners, but jointed legs, like an animal's. And who was flying it? Bobbin could not see a cockpit or basket, not even someone mounted on a bench.

Closer still, Bobbin moved. Then his eyes began to widen in incredulous astonishment. The thing looked -he would have sworn it – like a flying dragon. Ridiculous, he told himself. There are no dragons on Krynn. There were dragons once, they said. Ages ago. But not now. Not in the memory of anyone living had there been reports of dragons.

Closer and closer the two fliers came, and more and more Bobbin had to admit that it did look like a dragon. A huge, red, flying dragon, coming along the line of peaks, coming directly toward him.

Fear washed up and down the gnome's spine, a compelling, sweating fear that was like cold fingers gripped him. Then a voice spoke to him. "Who are you?" it asked, seeming to be right there beside him. Bobbin gasped and looked around, this way and that, trying to see who had spoken. The dragon was a halfmile away now, and there was no doubt in the gnome's mind that it was, indeed, a dragon. Again the voice at the gnome's shoulder asked, "Who are you?"

"Who are you?" the gnome shouted. "Where are you?"

"You're looking at me," the voice said. "Yes. Me. And yes, little creature, I am what you think I am. Now, calm down and tell me who you are?"

"Bobbin," Bobbin said. "I… I'm a gnome. Are you really a… But of course you are. You wouldn't say so if you weren't, would you?"

"Bobbin," the voice seemed to purr in his ear. "Just keep coming,

Bobbin. You will have no further doubts, in a moment or so."

Whether it was Bobbin's own numb hands trembling at the control strings, or some vagrant current of air, the soarwagon chose that instant to slip to the right, stall, and go into a nosedive. Suddenly the gnome saw spinning mountaintops straight ahead, and somewhere behind him the air crackled with fire.