even know existed. And they were good at finding things,
provided they managed to concentrate their attention on
the effort for any length of time.
Somewhere here, among the rubble of the destroyed
city of Chaldis, was her self-stone. In her sleep she had
sensed its presence. With her self-stone, she could heal
herself completely. Properly motivated, the gully dwarves
might find and deliver the self-stone.
Closing her eyes, she thought a spell, and her dragon-
senses heard the beginnings of tiny movements among the
rubble beyond the rock-fall cavern where the gully
dwarves were trapped. Tiny, scurrying sounds, hints of
movement carried more by vibration in the stones than by
any real noise. She concentrated on the spell, and the hints
of movement increased in number and volume. She added
a dimension of difference to the spell, and other
movements could be sensed; slithering, scuffing
movements seeming to come from the soil above her lair.
The vibrations became true sound, and things scuttled
in the deepest shadows within the chamber. From cracks
and crevices everywhere, small things emerged, coming
toward her. Rats and mice, here and there a squirrel, a
rabbit or a hare – they emerged by the dozens, answering
the call of her spell.
For a moment it seemed the place was filled with
rodents, darting around and over the tumbles of sleeping
gully dwarves, then they were all directly in front of her.
Moving carefully, ignoring the pain of her injuries, she
thrust out her right paw, and its talons sliced downward,
slaughtering great numbers of the rodents. Using her tail,
she scraped the ceiling of her lair, and brought forth the
herbs and roots that hung there, drawn downward from
above by her magic. These she pushed from tail to foot to
forepaw, and deposited them in front of her hole, beside
the dead rodents there. A final twist to the spell, and rocks
moved, somewhere above. Seconds later, water began to
drip from the roof of rubble, a small spring diverted to
flow through the chamber. And a small, crackling fire
appeared in mid-chamber.
“Wake up, you detestable creatures,” Verden Leafglow
rumbled. “Wake up and make stew. You are no good to
me if you starve.”
*****
“Sure. We find thing for you. No problem. What thing
is?” Glitch I stifled a belch and grinned a reassuring grin at
the monstrous face looking at him from its hole.
After the first shock of sharing a closed cave of
rubble with a dragon had worn off, and when it became
obvious that the dragon didn’t intend to kill them and eat
them – at least not right away – the Clans of Bulp had
gotten down to business. First things first. They were
hungry, and there was food.
Within minutes, savory stew was bubbling in their
best pot over what – to some of the ladies especially – was
the most remarkable cooking fire they had ever
encountered. The fire seemed to have no fuel, nor to need
any, and none of them had ever seen stew become stew so
quickly.
Then, when their bellies were full, the dragon
explained to them what she needed. She seemed, despite
her great size and horrendous appearance, to be a pleasant
enough dragon. Her voice was low and comforting, her
words simple enough for most of them to understand and
she even managed to seem to smile now and then. Quite a
few of them discovered – without ever considering that
there might be a touch of magic involved here – that they
were really quite fond of the unfortunate Verden Leaf
glow.
“The thing I need is a small thing,” she told the
Highbulp. “It is a sort of stone, about this big. …” A huge,
three-fingered “hand” with needle-sharp talons a foot long
appeared beside the green face, two talons indicating a
size. About an inch and a half.
“Lotta stones ’round here,” Glitch said dubiously,
looking around the cavern. “Whole lot more outside,
though. Oughtta look outside of here.”
“By all means,” Verden agreed. “Outside, of course.
And I am sure that, once you are outside, you wouldn’t for
a minute consider just going off and leaving me, would