the lock. Soundlessly the door swung open and blinding daylight flooded
into the tunnel.
Hard on each others heels the dwarves tumbled out onto the mountain top.
They were standing on a broad, flat expanse of dark gray stone. Squinting
off in the distance they could see the other peaks of the Southern Forest
Range, most of them lower than they were now. Beyond the mountains in
every direction stretched the dark green of the Wild Wood, cut here and
there with the meandering silver thread of a river.
None of them had ever been this high on the mountain and most of them had
been outside their home tunnels perhaps a half-dozen times in their lives.
It was an intoxicating sight and they peered in every direction, jabbering
excitedly as they pointed out features to one another.
Glandurg ignored his unsophisticated comrades and strode toward the edge
of the open space. He reached into his pouch and produced a polished bone
whistle, elaborately carved in dwarvish fashion. Placing it to his lips he
blew loud and hard, but no sound came from it. He scanned the skies and
then blew again.
The response came not from the air as he expected, but from behind him.
There was a scrabbling sound and a griffin leapt lightly down into the
center of the ledge.
There was a gasp from Glandurg’s followers and they shrank away from the
apparition which had appeared in front of them. Glandurg gulped, terribly
aware that the griffin was between him and the door to safety. But he put
on his best leader’s manner and strode toward the beast in what he hoped
was a good imitation of fearlessness.
The other dwarves were under no such burden. They moved back against the
doorway, ready to vanish down their tunnel to safety at the first sign of
a hostile move.
The griffin managed to look smug, amused and dangerous all at the same
time. The dwarves were on her turf and they all knew it.
Dwarves and griffins shared the mountains in an uneasy truce. The griffins
nested on the uppermost crags and the dwarves tunneled through the rock.
Dwarf mothers frightened their children into obedience with tales of dwarf
children who had wandered away and been seized and eaten by griffins. By
the same token dwarves were known to enjoy the occasional griffin egg
surreptitiously taken from the nest.
“I told you we would ride,” Glandurg said as he strode to the griffin.
The griffin hissed loudly and backed away.
“But you agreed to take us to the human wizard,” Glandurg protested.
The griffin nodded.
“Well,” said an exasperated Glandurg, “if we don’t ride how will you get
us there?”
The griffin smiled-as much as a creature with the beak of an eagle can
smile-and flexed its claws.
Craig scowled as he riffled through the papers spread out on Mikey’s
coffee table. The clock display in the upper-right corner of the
television set showed it was after midnight, but he paid no more attention
to that than he did to the old movie on the screen. He took another pull
on the can of grape soda and slammed it down, slopping sticky purple fluid
on Judith’s notes.
“We got a problem.”
Mikey looked up from the recliner where he was curled up with Judith’s
notebook. “Like what?”
“How are we going to get to this other world?”
“Judith got over there, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, but someone took her.”
Mikey considered for a moment. “What about that first guy, the one she
called Wiz? He got there on his own, didn’t he?”
“No, he was taken over too. By one of their wizards.” Craig drained the
last of the soda and threw the empty can in the general direction of the
wastebasket. “Great! So we’ve got all this magic and stuff and we can’t do
anything with it.”
Mikey laughed and shook his head.
“What’s so goddamn funny?”
“You. You’re talking like a system administrator. If it’s not obvious or
it’s not in the manual, it can’t be done. What you need to do is chill out
and keep working on this stuff.”
“What good does that do?” Craig asked, half-sullen.