The Hand of Chaos by Weis, Margaret

Sighing, Limbeck put his spectacles back on. His gaze went to the archway, to the sigil that had once shone brightly but now was hardly more than a pale ghost of itself.

“I could leave a trail, like Haplo did,” murmured Limbeck, frowning in deep thought. “But with what? I don’t have anything to write with. I don’t”—he felt hastily in his pockets —”even have a single wing nut on me.” He had been thinking of a story he’d heard as a child, in which two young Gegs, before entering the tunnels of the great machine, had marked their route by leaving behind a trail of nuts and bolts.

A thought came to him, then—a thought whose brilliance nearly took his breath away.

“My socks!”

Limbeck plunked himself down on the floor. One eye on the sigil, whose glow was growing dimmer by the minute, and one on what he was doing, he hauled off his boots, stood them neatly by the door. Pulling off one of his long, thick woolen socks, which he had knit himself,* he fumbled about at the top of the sock, searching for the knot that marked the end of the thread. He found it without much trouble, not having bothered to try to incorporate it into the fabric. Giving the knot a good swift wrench with his teeth, he tugged it loose.

*Since the lives of the dwarves on Drevlin revolve solely around the Kicksey-winsey, male and female dwarves divide household chores such as child rearing, cooking, sewing, and cleaning. Thus all dwarves are adept at knitting, crocheting, darning, and, in fact, consider such skills a form of recreation. All dwarves must have something to do with their hands; to sit idle, dreaming (such as Limbeck did as a youth), is considered a terrible sin.

Limbeck knew how to knit, but he evidently wasn’t much good at it, as is evidenced by the fact that his socks unravel with such ease.

His next problem was: how to anchor the end of the thread? The walls were smooth, as was the door. Limbeck groped about in the dark, hoping to find some protrusion, but discovered nothing. At length, he wrapped the thread around the buckle on his boot, then stuffed the top of the heavy boot beneath the door until only the sole could be seen, sticking out.

“Just leave that alone, will you?” he called to the metal man within the room, thinking that perhaps the automaton might take it into its steel head to either shove the boot back out or (if it took a fancy to the boot) pull it the rest of the way inside.

The boot remained in place. Nothing disturbed it.

Hastily, Limbeck took hold of his sock, began to unravel it. He started down the hall, leaving a trail of woolen thread behind.

He had gone under about three sigil-marked archways and unraveled about half his sock when the flaw in his plan occurred to him.

“Bother,” said Limbeck, irritated.

For, of course, if he could find his way back, following the trail of the sock, then so could the elves. But there was no help for that now. He could only hope he came across Haplo and Bane quickly, then he could take them back to the Heart Room before the elves discovered it.

The sigla over the archways continued to give off their faint glow. Limbeck followed their lead, used up one sock. Taking off the other, he tied the end of its thread to the end of the thread of the first and continued on. He was trying to figure out what he would do when he ran out of socks. He was considering starting on his sweater and even thinking that he must be somewhere near the stairs that led to the statue, when he rounded a corner and almost ran smack into Haplo.

The Patryn was no help to Limbeck, however, for two reasons: Haplo wasn’t alone and he didn’t look at all well. An elf was half-carrying the Patryn.

Startled, Limbeck ducked back into a recessed doorway. Pattering about on his bare feet, the dwarf made hardly a sound. The elf, who had slung Haplo’s limp arm across his shoulders, was talking to Haplo and did not hear Limbeck’s approach or his retreat. The elf and Haplo continued without pause on down a hallway that branched off from Limbeck’s.