robes, then he slapped me on the back and said to brace
myself and keep a stiff upper torso. He was going to offer
me his handkerchief to wipe my nose only he couldn’t find
it. Fortunately, I found it and so I used it and felt some
better. Funny, the way getting those snuffles and wails out
of your insides makes you feel better.
And I was so much better that I had an Idea.
“Fizban,” I said, after giving the matter thought, “if
the Dark Queen has put us under an enchantment, it must
mean she’s watching us – right?”
“You betcha!” he said, and he looked around quite
fierce again.
It occurred to me then that maybe I shouldn’t talk so
loud because if she was watching us she might be listening
to us, too. So I crept over to Fizban and, once I found his
ear under all that hair, I whispered into it, “If she’s
watching the front door, why don’t we sneak out the
back?”
He looked sort of stunned, then he blinked and said,
“By George! I have an idea. If the Dark Queen’s watching
the front door, why don’t we sneak out the back?!”
“That was my idea,” I pointed out.
“Don’t be a ninny!” he said, miffed. “Are you a great
and powerful wizard?”
“No,” I was forced to admit.
“Then it was my idea,” he said. “Hang on.”
He grabbed hold of my topknot and I grabbed hold of
his robes and he spoke some more of those spider-leg
words. The Tomb got blurry and wind rushed around me
and I was dizzy and turned every which way. All in all
quite a delightful sensation. And then everything settled
down and I heard Fizban say “oops” in a kind of way that I
didn’t like much, having said it myself a time or two on
occasion and knowing what it meant.
I opened my eyes kind of cautiously, thinking that if I
saw Huma’s Tomb again I’d be upset. But I didn’t. See
Huma’s Tomb, that is. I opened my eyes wide and my
mouth opened at the same time to ask where we were,
when suddenly a hand clapped over my mouth.
“Shush!” said Fizban.
His whiskers tickled my cheek, and, before I knew
what was happening, he’d lifted me clean off my feet and
was dragging me backward into a really dark part of
wherever it was we were.
“Mish, muckgup, whursh blimp,” I said. What I meant
to say was, “But, Fizban, that’s Flint!” only it sounded like
the other since he had his hand over my mouth.
“Quiet! We’re not supposed to be here!” he hissed
back at me, and he looked incredibly angry and not at all
pleased with either me or himself and probably the Dark
Queen, too. So I kept quiet.
Though of course what I really wanted to do was to
shout, “Hey, Flint! It’s me, Tas!” ’cause I knew the
dwarf’d be really glad to see me.
He always is, though he pretends he isn’t, because
that’s the way dwarves are. And Theros Ironfeld was with
Flint, too, and I knew Theros would be glad to see me
because just a while back up in Huma’s Tomb he’d saved
me from falling into a hole and ending up on the other
side of the world.
With Fizban’s hand clapped tight over my mouth and
his whiskers tickling me I didn’t have much else to do
except look. So I looked. We were in what appeared to be
a blacksmith’s shop, only it was the largest and finest
blacksmith’s shop I’d ever seen in my entire life. And I
guessed then that this blacksmith’s shop must be making
Theros happy because he is the finest blacksmith I’d ever
known in my life. He and this shop just seemed to go
together.
There was an anvil bigger than me and a forge with a
bellows and a lake of cold water that you put the hot
metal in to hear it hiss and see steam rise up and when the
metal comes out it’s not hot anymore.
But the most wonderful thing was a huge pool of what