10th Day of Harvester, 565 CY

King Belvor's Arms

Ironstead, Furyondy

Elrohir slammed his fist down on the bar and jumped to his feet.

"What?" he yelled.

Few people had ever seen the half-orc known as Laertes cower in fear, but all the patrons of the Ironstead inn saw just that now as the youth cringed at the bigger human's rage.

"Hilda- thee's gone! Juth now! Thee wath there only a few minuth ago when I came to meet you! I think thee… thee-

"She what?" roared Elrohir. "Spit it out, man!"

"I think he just did," remarked Argo dryly, wiping his face with a bar towel.

"Laertes," Lady Bigfellow said gently, "Please. If you're hiding Hilda, you can tell her she has nothing to fear from us."

"Oh, no?" The party leader whirled on Caroline. "I'd say she has quite a bit to fear from me!"

"Then why are you so surprised she's scampered?' asked Garoidil. "You think she wasn't on the alert for when we showed up? Your friend Cygnus told her we were coming!"

"I'm not hiding her!" Laertes protested. "I'm telling you the truth!"

"Elrohir," Aslan reminded his friend. "You promised that-"

But the ranger cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"I don't have to hurt Talat to make her afraid of me, Aslan."

"And I'm sure she knows that, Elrohir," responded the paladin. "Thus, her flight."

"And does she think any agreement she and Cygnus might have made is still going to be valid if I have to hunt her down?" Elrohir shook his head in disgust. "I still can't believe Cygnus would have entered into any kind of bargain with Talat! She kidnapped his son, for Asgard's sake!"

"Nodyath did that, Elrohir." Aslan's voice was steady. "Not Talat. We are seeking justice, not vengeance."

The paladin got to his feet and eyed his team leader and friend steadily.

"I will not have it any other way."

Elrohir bit his lip and seemed literally trying to swallow his rage. After several seconds, he broke his gaze at Aslan and turned back to the half-orc.

"Laertes," he said. "Take me to her cabin." He then looked back at Aslan. "I assume it's morally acceptable if I try to find her, Aslan? A lone pregnant female, after all! If she's left Ironstead and run off into the woods at night, she could be in grave danger."

"I suspect the Vesve is not Talat's greatest peril at the moment, Elrohir," the paladin said, his eyes narrowing. "However, your point is sound. We'll all go together, though."

Clouds covered the stars overhead. Only the scattered torches gave light, and the hour was late enough that lantern boys were beginning to put all the non-essential ones out for the night. Still, there was enough illumination for Elrohir and the others to follow the running half-orc back to the cabin of Talat/Hilda, where he stood just outside and waited nervously.

Caroline, unencumbered by plate mail, reached the open door of the cabin first. The young woman stuck her inside, and then looked back at her arriving companions.

"Fire still going. Meal on the table. She left in a hurry, all right."

"You can say that again, love," Argo Bigfellow Junior added, laboriously getting down on his knees to examine the packed earth outside the cabin. He pointed. "It's very faint, but see? Here and here. The outline of bare feet. She didn't even wait to put on shoes."

Elrohir swallowed hard again. A dream. Bare feet in the forest.

"The tracks lead that way," said Argo, rising back to his feet and pointing to the west. "Let's go!"

Leaving Laertes at the cabin with instructions to notify them immediately if Talat returned, Elrohir and his companions followed the tracks about two hundred feet, passing to the rear of the carpentry workshops, now all closed down for the night, and were approaching the western outpost wall.

"She couldn't have climbed it," Garoidil said, looking up in disbelief at the giant logs that composed the stockade wall.

"No, she didn't," Elrohir answered him. "Look at this."

On the ground, Talat's tracks had been intercepted by another set of tracks.

Tracks that were, even to Garoidil's untrained eye, clearly that of an animal of some kind.

A large one.

"Look at the stride," Argo said, pointing out the procession of prints. "Both right feet in synch, and then both left feet."

Elrohir nodded. "Feline. A giant cat of some sort."

Bigfellow frowned. "Manticore, maybe? Could have flown in for a midnight snack."

His wife covered her hands with her mouth. "That's horrible! You mean- you mean," her eyes were wide, "that Talat was eaten?"

Elrohir shook his head. "I don't think so."

"But her tracks stop where they intercept these," Garoidil pointed at the giant cat's footprints.

"No blood, no sign of a struggle," Elrohir responded. "Besides, someone would have heard her screams."

Bigfellow looked chagrined. "Didn't think of that. One for you, Elrohir."

"But what did happen?" the party leader mused, looking around for he wasn't sure what.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Could she have ridden away on the cat?" asked Caroline tentatively, as if she thought the idea was a foolish one.

Argo got down on one knee again and examined the tracks closely.

"Hard to tell," he eventually said. "There should be a deepening of the prints from this point on, due to the increased weight the cat would be carrying. I don't see any sign of that, but the ground here is pretty hard. I could just be missing-"

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen."

Four men and one woman pivoted to stare at the gnome addressing them.

Clad completely in brown leather, including a wide-brimmed hat which he now swept off his head and pressed to his chest, the small demi-human standing at about twenty yards distance addressed his human audience. A light clearly magical in nature emanated from a feather stuck into the brim of his hat.

"Fenlun Barlun Urlan Effigist Zimbalist Herlendal, at your service!" he stated officiously. "Welcome to Ironstead. May I be of service this evening?"

"Possibly," Elrohir said at length. "Have you seen the human woman Hilda?"

"Oh, I have indeed, good sir," replied Fenlun, replacing his hat on his head and smiling merrily at all of them.

Elrohir waited.

And waited.

"Well?" he finally blurted out. "Where is she?"

The gnome pointed in the direction of Talat's cabin, his face serious again. "Just entering her residence that way."

"Wait a minute." Aslan said, suspicion in his voice. "When was this?"

Herlendal considered. "Oh, about two days ago, I think it was."

"I mean, have you seen her recently?" Elrohir exploded.

Fenlun tilted his head up at the ranger.

"You really should say what you mean right at the start, longshanks. It'd save you an awful lot of frustration."

The corner of the gnome's mouth turned upwards in a smile.

His own face a mixture of astonishment and fury, Elrohir turned to his friends.

"I'm going to get down on my knees and punch him in the nose!"

"How rude," sniffed Herlendal.

Argo laid a hand on Elrohir's shoulder. The big ranger looked as if he was trying hard not to smile in deference to his friend's anger.

"Let me handle this, Elrohir."

The party leader looked over to Aslan, who merely shook his head.

"Don't look at me," the paladin grimaced. "I have no interest in taking on a pint-sized Unru."

"Fine," groused Elrohir.

"Be careful, love," Caroline warned her husband, indicating the gnome's light. "He's clearly a wizard of some sort."

"That's all right. I'm clearly a wise-ass of some sort. That's gotta be worth something."

As Argo stepped forward, Elrohir nudged Aslan.

"Come on. While they're talking, I want to follow those cat tracks."

Bigfellow saw the gnome's dark eyes follow Elrohir, Aslan and Garoidil as the three warriors slowly moved on past. A quick glance behind Argo showed Caroline watching him, her hands wringing together, her face tense.

Argo put on his best pained smile, approached Herlendal and squatted down on his haunches. Fenlun regarded him with a quizzical look but said nothing.

The ranger spoke first, his voice quiet.

"What do you want in exchange for telling us where Hilda is?"

"Oh, ho," the gnome replied in an equally soft voice. "The human has a brain, after all. Tell me, why are you flying solo here?"

"My friend Elrohir is a bit touchy these days where Hilda is concerned," Argo said. "The last thing we want here is needless violence."

"Too true," Fenlun nodded sagely. "That would leave no room for all the necessary violence."

A mechanical flapping noise sounded behind Bigfellow. He looked over his shoulder to see a metallic hawk land on the corner of the nearest building and peer down at him. Its beak opened, and a pale red glow came from within.

So much for the myth of the Harmless Gnome, thought Argo to himself. Caroline was frantically motioning for him to retreat, but her shook his head at her and returned his attention to Herlendal.

"I'm no threat to you."

"Trust me, longshanks. I already knew that."

Arrogant little prick, isn't he?

"You haven't answered my first question," the ranger persisted.

"Hmm." Fenlun stroked his beard and spoke, seemingly to himself. "What would I want in exchange for giving up Hilda?" He shook his head. "I don't know now. Poor woman was frantic when I found her. Seemed to think her life was in danger, so, being the gnomemanitarian that I am, I had a friend give her a lift. She was so grateful; she didn't mind answering a few trifling questions."

"About what?" Bigfellow asked. He felt like a lead weight was slowly being lowered into his stomach.

"Oh, this and that," the gnome replied airily. "Just some general questions about the world we live in."

His eyes slyly darted over to meet Argo's.

"And some others," he finished.

Bigfellow felt he was stepping through a field of caltrops.

"The steelsphere is no big secret."

"On the contrary, longshanks," Herlendal said. "I think it's holding some tremendous secrets. Some of which lie across my particular field of study. Your friends Cygnus, Zantac Aelfbi, Sir Corvis and that samurai fellow came to see me three nights ago, and we all had a most delightful chat about that serene lady of the astral plane, the Mary Celestial."

Argo tried to keep his voice casual. "Really?"

"Oh, yes. Of course, all that really did was to whet my appetite for more. And then, by the grace of Garl Glittergold, who do I happen across not more than thirty minutes ago, running across the compound in mortal terror? Yet another planar traveler and former passenger on the Celestial."

"Hilda told you that?"

"Hilda most certainly did not," replied Fenlun, his expression settling into a grin that Bigfellow found unnerving, "but Talat did."

Argo took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This damn gnome was holding all the cards.

When he opened them again, Herlendal was still looking right at him.

All right, Argo thought. All right.

"You're a wizard, and you want this information for the sake of your craft, correct?" he asked.

"Correct." The gnome was peering at him suspiciously now. "Why do you ask?"

The ranger answered Fenlun's question with another of his own. "Who would you tell anything that I confide to you in these matters?"

"No one here, if that's what's worrying you," Herlendal replied. "The study of effigies is my life's work, and I'm not about to part with what might be the greatest effilogical discovery since the invention of the automaton."

Argo had little idea of the specifics the gnome was talking about, but he knew how jealously some wizards; especially those not connected with a guild, like Cygnus, guarded their arcane knowledge.

"All right, Shorty," he said, smiling and standing up. "Let's talk."

Elrohir cursed again, looking at the windswept dirt before him.

"How could a breeze that strong have hit this particular area where the tracks were?"

"I don't think you really need to ask that, Elrohir," Aslan said, laying a hand on the ranger's shoulder.

Elrohir took a deep breath, but it wasn't one designed to calm. It was intended to get his body ready for combat.

"No," he admitted. "I guess I don't."

His hand went to Gokasillion's hilt.

"When I'm done with that blasted gnome, they'll need to sop up what's left of his body with a sponge!" he seethed, turning back the way they had come.

"Elrohir, wait!" said Aslan. "Look!"

The ranger followed the paladin's pointing hand and saw Argo and Caroline Bigfellow walking towards them.

"Argo?" Elrohir said as he jogged up to the pair and halted, Aslan and Garoidil right behind him. "What happened? Did you find out anything?"

Bigfellow nodded. "Fenlun- the gnome- is hiding Talat in a secret cache-hole he has here," he explained. "He says he'll take us to her as long as both sides agree beforehand there'll be no violence."

"That's fine," Elrohir said brusquely. "I've already agreed to that a dozen times over." He then peered at his fellow ranger, his eyes narrowing. "How did you convince him to tell you where she was?"

Argos' auburn eyes were shining as the big ranger gave his friend a magnificently fake smile.

"Nothing at all to worry about, Elrohir," he said. "You know how tight-fisted wizards are with knowledge. He was on the right path, anyway. I just told him where the caravan was."

There was a long silence. Then Elrohir slowly shook his friend.

"I've gotta tell you, Argo," he said. "I've gone to bed with happier thoughts."