“Yes, we owe him a great deal.” Limbeck turned away from her. “Now, Lof. Were there any elves around? If so, Haplo might be in danger—”
“No Welves, Yonor.” Lof shook his head. “I haven’t seen a Welf since the machine stopped running. I— Ouch!”
Jarre had kicked him hard in the shins.
“What’d you go and do that for?” Lof roared.
Jarre made no response, marched on past him and the rest of the dwarves without a glance at any of them.
Returning to the BOILER ROOM, she whipped around, pointed a quivering finger at Limbeck. “He’ll be the ruin of us! You’ll see!”
She slammed the door shut.
The dwarves stood perfectly still, afraid to move. Jarre had taken the torch with her.
Limbeck frowned, shook his head, shrugged, and continued the sentence that had been so violently interrupted. “Haplo might be in danger. We don’t want the elves to capture him.”
“Anyone got a light?” ventured one of Lof’s companions.
Limbeck ignored this question as unimportant. “We’ll have to go rescue him.”
“Go Outside?” The dwarves were aghast.
“I’ve been Outside,” Limbeck reminded them tersely.
“Good. You go Outside and get him. We’ll watch,” said Lof.
“Not without light we won’t,” muttered another.
Limbeck glared angrily at his compatriots, but the glare was rather ineffective since no one could see it.
Lof, who had apparently been giving the matter thought, piped up. “Isn’t this the Haplo who’s a god—”
“There are no gods,” Limbeck snapped.
“Well, then, Yonor”—Lof was not to be deterred—”the Haplo who battled that wizard you’re always talking about?”
“Sinistrad. Yes, that’s Haplo. Now you see—”
“Then he won’t need rescuing!” Lof concluded in triumph. “He can rescue himself!”
“Anyone who can fight a wizard can fight elves,” said another, speaking with the firm conviction of one who had never seen an elf up close. “They’re not so tough.”
Limbeck checked an impulse to strangle his Fellow Warriors in the Battle to End Tyranny. He took off his spectacles, polished them on the large white cloth. He was quite fond of his new spectacles. He could see through them with remarkable clarity. Unfortunateiy, the lenses were so thick that they slid down his nose, unless held on by strong wire bows wrapped tightly about his ears. The bows pinched him painfully, the strong lenses made his eyeballs ache, the nosepiece dug into his flesh, but he could see quite well.
At times like this, however, he wondered why he bothered. Somehow or other, the revolution, like a runaway flashraft, had veered off the track and been derailed. Limbeck had tried backing it up, had tried turning it around, but nothing had worked. Now, at last, he saw a glimmer of hope. He wasn’t derailed, after all. Merely sitting on a siding. And what he’d first considered a terrible disaster—the demise of the Kicksey-winsey—might well work to get the revolution going again. He put his spectacles back on.
“The reason we don’t have any light is because—”
“Jarre took the torch?” inserted Lof helpfully.
“No!” Limbeck sucked in a deep breath, clenched his hands to fists to keep his fingers from Lof’s throat. “The elves shut down the Kicksey-winsey.”
Silence. Then, “Are you sure?” Lof sounded dubious.
“What other explanation could there be? The elves have shut it down. They plan to starve us, freeze us out. Maybe use their magic to come on us in the dark and kill us all. Are we going to just sit here and take it or are we going to fight?”
“Fight!” shouted the dwarves, anger rumbling through the darkness like the storms that swept the land above.
“That’s why we need Haplo. Are you with me?”
“Yes, Yonor!” cried the Fellow Warriors.
Their enthusiasm was considerably dampened when two of them started to march off and ended up nose-first against a wall.
“How can we fight what we can’t see?” Lof grumbled.
“We can see,” said Limbeck, undaunted. “Haplo told me that once long ago dwarves like us lived all their lives underground, in dark places. And so they learned to see in the dark. We’ve been dependent on light. Now that the light is gone, we’ll have to do like our ancestors and learn to see and fight and live in darkness. Gegs couldn’t manage. Gegs couldn’t do it. But dwarves can. Now”—Limbeck drew a deep breath— “everyone forward. Follow me.”