face to the other. “Where are we anyway?”
“Storiock,” Morgan announced. One eyebrow arched.
“Walker Boh brought you here.”
“Walker?”
Morgan grinned with satisfaction. “Thought you’d be sur-
prised to learn that-Walker Boh coming out of the Wilderun,
Walker Boh appearing in the first place for that matter.” He
sighed. “Well, it’s a long story, so I guess we’d better start at
the beginning.”
He did, telling the story with considerable help from Coil,
the two of them stepping on each other’s words in their eagerness
to make certain that nothing was overlooked. Par listened in
growing surprise as the tale unfolded.
Coil, it seemed, had been felled by a Gnome sling when the
Spider Gnomes attacked them in that clearing at the eastern end
of the valley at Hearthstone. He had only been stunned, but, by
the time he had recovered consciousness. Par and their attackers
were gone. It was raining buckets by then, the trail disappearing
back into the earth as quickly as it was made, and Coil was too
weak to give chase in any case. So he stumbled back to the
cottage where he found the others and told them what had oc-
curred. It was already dark by then and still raining, but Coil
demanded they go back out anyway and search for his brother.
They did, Morgan, Steif, Teel, and himself, groping about
blindly for hours and finding nothing. When it became impos-
sible to see anything, Steff insisted they give it up for the night,
get some rest and start out again fresh in the morning. That was
what they did, and that was how Coil encountered Walker Boh.
“We split up, trying to cover as much ground as possible,
working the north valley, because I knew from the stories of
Brin and Jair Ohmsford that the Spider Gnomes made their
homes on Toner Ridge and it was likely they had come from
there. At least, I hoped so, because that was all we had to go
on. We agreed that if we didn’t find you right away we would
just keep on going until we reached the Ridge.” He shook his
head. “We were pretty desperate.”
“We were,” Morgan agreed.
“Anyway, I was all the way to the northeast edge of the valley
when, all of a sudden, there was Walker and that giant cat, big
as a house! He said that he’d sensed something. He asked me
what had happened, what was wrong. I was so surprised to see
him that I didn’t even think to ask what he was doing there or
why he had decided to appear after hiding all that time. I just
told him what he wanted to know.”
‘ ‘Do you know what he said then?” Morgan interrupted, gray
eyes finding Par’s, a hint of the mischievousness in them.
“He said,” Coil took control again of the conversation,
” ‘Wait here, this is no task for you; I will bring him back – as
if we were children playing at a grown-up’s game!”
“But he was as good as his word,” Morgan noted.
Coil sighed. “Well, true enough,” he admitted grudgingly.
Walker Boh was gone a full day and night, but when he re-
turned to Hearthstone, where Coil and his companions were
indeed waiting, he had Par with him. Par had been infected by
the touch of the Werebeasts and was near death. The only hope
for him. Walker insisted, lay at Stodock, the community of
Gnome healers. The Stors had experience in dealing with afflic-
tions of the mind and spirit and could combat the Werebeasts’
poison.
They set out at once, the six of them less the cat, who had
been left behind. They pushed west out of Hearthstone and the
Wilderun, following the Chard Rush upriver to the Wolfsktaag,
crossing through the Pass of Jade, and finally reaching the vil-
lage of the Stors. It had taken them two days, traveling almost
constantly. Par would have died if not for Walker, who had used
an odd sort of magic that none of them had understood to pre-
vent the poison from spreading and to keep Par sleeping and
calm. At times, Par had thrashed and cried out, waking feverish