among the maze of timbers – and looked up. “What Clout
doin’?” Plit asked.
“Dunno,” Gandy shrugged, frowning. “Not gettin’
stones, though.”
The hammering went on, and then its ringing took on
a new sound. After each thud, something creaked, and far
above – though those below didn’t notice it – the great
braced arm began to tremble.
“Almos’ got it,” Clout’s voice came from the timbers.
He banged again, and again, and abruptly the whole
world went crazy. The entire maze of timbers groaned,
crackled and heaved upward, seeming to dance. And the
tall, heavy arm above shot downward, with such force that
the air sang around it. It arched toward the ground,
impelled by the released windlass, and smashed into the
soil only yards from where the other gully dwarves were
stacking their rocks.
The impact was enormous. Gully dwarves, rocks and
surrounding rubble flew upward. Partial walls that still
stood among the rubble teetered and fell, and a cloud of
dust rose to blank out everything from sight. Below the
dancing rubble, a deep, cavernous rumble sounded, and in
its echoes came a muted roar of surprise and outrage. The
very ground seemed to fall, resettling several feet lower
than it had been.
For a time there was silence, then the dust blanketing
the ground shifted and a small head came up. “Wha’
happen?” Tagg asked.
Around him, others arose from the dust, wide-eyed
and shaken. Plit and Gogy appeared first, then old Gandy,
coughing and spitting dust.
“Wha’ happen?” someone echoed Tagg’s question.
Gandy looked around, bewildered. Then he looked up
and blinked. “Fling-thing fall down,” he said.
Not far away, the maze of timbers that had been a
discobel was now an entirely different maze. It had rolled
over, its timbers realigning in the process. At first the
gully dwarves could see no movement there, then there
were scuffing sounds and Clout appeared, crawling from a
gap between broken spars. He got out, dusted himself off
and blinked at the rest of them.
“Where Clout been?” Gandy demanded.
Clout held up a sturdy cylinder of polished wood. “Got
new bashin’ tool,” he explained. “Wha’ happen out here?”
The carefully-collected pile of rocks was gone –
scattered all over the clearing. Gandy sighed and began
again to pick up stones. The others watched for a moment,
then joined him. And as other gully dwarves appeared,
chattering, Gandy silenced them with a glare. “No talk,”
he snapped. “Get rocks.”
Soon there were dozens of them there, all busily
picking up stones. And then more, and then still more.
Suddenly, Tagg glanced around and saw Minna
beside him, gathering rocks. He blinked, frowned and
remembered. “What Minna doin’ out here?” he asked.
“Gettin’ little rocks,” she explained. “Somebody say
to.”
“Where dragon? Let everybody go?”
“Hole fall down,” she said. “Dragon can’t move. Foun’
new gully, though, for come out.”
“Oh.” He looked around. There were gully dwarves
everywhere, all collecting stones. But to Tagg, that didn’t
seem quite as important as it had before. He went and
found Gandy, and explained the situation to him. “Dragon
don’ got everybody anymore.” he said. “Look.”
It took a lot longer for Gandy to get everyone to stop
collecting rocks than it had taken to get them to start.
Inertia is a powerful force among gully dwarves. But
finally they were all gathered around Gandy and someone
asked, “What we do now?”
“Dunno,” he said. “Ask Highbulp.” He turned full
circle, searching. “Where what’s-‘is-name?”
“Who?”
“Th’ Highbulp! Ol’ Glitch. Where th’ Highbulp?”
None of them knew, so they went looking for Glitch I.
They found him, eventually, right where they had left
him.
Glitch had slept through the “earthquake,” only to
wake up and find everyone gone. He sat up, rubbed his
eyes and noticed that the stones had shifted and a new
tunnel had opened. So he headed that way, grumbling. It
was just like his subjects to wander off and leave their
leader to catch up when he got around to it.
He was just ducking to step through the opening when
a voice behind him said, “Oh, all right! Let’s make a
deal!”
At first he couldn’t see who had spoken. Sometime