"What is it you want from us? From me?"

"I told you," said Cupelix, twisting his neck from side to side. "I want to leave this tower and go to Krynn. I'm sick of being cooped up in here, with no one to talk to and nothing to eat but the leavings the Micones can scrounge for me."

'You feed us quite well," Kitiara objected.

"You do not understand the essential formula of magic. A'

small amount of matter can be changed by a large amount of energy - that is how it is done. What you consider a large meal would not be a snack for me."

'You're big and strong," she said. "Why don't you claw your way out?"

"And bring the stones down upon my head?" Cupelix preened his purplish cheeks. "That would hardly accom- plish my purpose. Besides," his eyes narrowed vertically, "there is geas, a magical prohibition against my damaging the structure. I have tried many times, using many formu- lae, to convince the Micones to demolish the tower, but they would not. There is a higher power at work here, which requires the attention of a third force to overcome. Your ingenious little friends are that third force, my dear. Their fertile little brains can conceive a hundred schemes for every one you or I may devise."

"And none of them practical."

"Really? You surprise me again, dear mortal girl. Did these same gnomes not get you to Lunitari in the first place?"

She objected that that had been an accident.

"Accidents are only unexpected probabilities," said the dragon. "They can be encouraged."

When Cupelix said that, Kitiara looked over her left shoulder and saw the Dark Queen glaring down haughtily from her tapestry. "What," she began before taking her eyes off the mesmerizing visage, "will you do if we can get you out of here?"

"Fly to Krynn and take up residence there, of course. I am very keen to sample the mortal world with all its gaudy and vigorous life." She gave a derisive snort. "Why do you do that?" asked Cupelix.

"You think life on Krynn is strange! What do you call the creatures who dwell around you?" she said.

"To me, they are normal. They are all I have known, you see, and they bore me. Have you ever tried to talk philoso- phy with a tree-man? One might as well talk to a stone. Did you know that the vegetable life that grows on Lunitari is so feeble and transient it has no magical aura of its own? It is only because of the pervasive force of my egg-bound com- patriots that there is life here at all." Cupelix mustered a massive sigh. "I want to see oceans and forests and moun- tains. I want to converse with wise mortals of every race, and so increase my knowledge beyond the boundaries set by these ancient books."

Now she understood. "You want power," said Kitiara.

Cupelix clenched his foreclaw into a fist. "If knowledge is power, then the answer is yes. I ache to be free of this perfect prison. When my Micone scouts discovered the gnomes' fly- ing ship, for the first time I hoped that I might escape."

Kitiara was silent for a moment. Choosing her words care- fully, she said, "Do you fear retribution, should you escape?"

The dragon's head pulled back in surprise, "Retribution from whom?"

"Those who made the obelisk. If a prison stands, then there likely is a warden somewhere."

"The gods sleep. Gilean the Gray Voyager, Sirrion, and Reorx have laid down the reins of destiny. The way is clear for action. The very fact of your voyage to Lunitari bears this out. In the days of Huma, such a thing would not have been tolerated," Cupelix said.

The gods sleep, Kitiara mused. The way is clear for action! These thoughts stirred deep within her. It must be true; a dragon would know.

"Tell me your thoughts," Cupelix said. "I grow uneasy when you are so quiet."

A daring notion began to form in her head. "Have you considered what you will do once you reach Krynn?" she asked. "Your books are old. You could use a guide."

"Do you have anyone in mind, my dear?"

"Few know Ansalon as I do," Kitiara replied."My travels have taken me far. Together we could tour the world and reap what benefits would come to us." She looked the dragon in the eye. "As partners."

Cupelix wheezed and whistled like a boiling teapot. He clapped his forearms against his sides. He really was quite good at parodying human gestures.

"Oh, my dear woman! You wound me with mirth! I am killed!" he exclaimed.

Kitiara frowned. "Why do you laugh?"

"You speak of partnership with a dragon as casually as I speak of my servants, the Micones. Do you imagine that you and I are equals? That is a rich jest indeed!" Cupelix rocked so hard with merriment that he banged his head sharply on the wall behind him. That calmed him, but Kiti- ara was already offended. She sprang to her feet.

"I wish to leave!" she exclaimed. "I see no reason to sit here and be laughed at!"

"Sit down," Cupelix said genially. When she struck a defi- ant pose, the dragon swept his tail in behind her, and down she went to the marble floor.

"Let us be clear about one thing, my dear girl: On the scale of life, I sit far higher than you. And I will have good manners from my guests, yes?" Kitiara rubbed her bruised posterior and said nothing. "Face-to-face with one of the greatest creatures that ever existed, you are insolent. What makes you so proud?

"I am what I have made myself," Kitiara said tersely. "In a world where most are ignorant peasants, I made myself a warrior. I take what I can and give when I like. I don't need you, dragon. I don't need anyone!"

"Not even Tanis?" Kitiara's face darkened dramatically.

"Be at ease. Even your mortal friend Sturm could have heard your heart cry out his name just then. Who is this man, and why do you love him?"

"He's half-elf, not human, if you must know." Kitiara took a deep breath. "And I don't love him!"

"Indeed? Can my sense for such things be so wrong? I would hear the tale of Tanis," Cupelix said. He curled back his lips in a waggish imitation of a human smile. "Please?"

"You only want to hear so you can mock me."

"No, no! Human relationships fascinate me. I need to understand."

Kitiara slipped back onto the overturned cauldron. She gazed into space, marshaling images of her past. "I'd like to understand Tanis myself," she said. "Being a woman in a man's game - war - throws you in with all sorts of men.

Most of them are a scurvy lot of bullies and cutthroats. In my younger days, I must have fought a hundred duels with men who tried to push me around, take advantage of me, until I became as hard and cold as the blade I carried." Kiti- ara fingered the hilt of her sword. "Then came Tanis.

"I was on my way back to Solace one autumn a few years back. The summer campaigning season was done, and I'd been paid off by my most recent commander. With a pocket full of silver, I rode south. In the forest, I was ambushed by a pack of goblins. An arrow took out my horse, and I was thrown down. The goblins came out of the brush with axes and clubs to finish me off, but I lay in wait for them. When they got close, I was on them before they could blink. I killed two right away and settled down to toy with the last pair. Goblins are startlingly bad thieves and even worse in stand-up combat. One of them tripped and managed to impale itself on its own weapon. I carved my mark on the last one, and it screamed its bloody head off. I was ready to finish the pest, when out of the bushes bounded this beauti- ful fellow with a bow. He scared me for a second. I thought he was with the goblins. Before I could move, he'd put a gray-goose shaft into the last goblin. It was then I realized he thought he was rescuing me."

She paused, and the ghost of a smile played about her lips. "It's funny, but at the time I was mad. That goblin was mine to kill, you see, and Tanis had taken that away from me. I went after him, but he stood me off long enough for the blood-anger to leave me. How we laughed after that! He made me feel good, Tanis did. No one had done that for a long, long time. Sure, we were lovers soon enough, but we were more than that. We rode and hunted and played pranks together. We lived, you understand? We lived."

"Why did this love not continue?" asked Cupelix quietly.

"He wanted me to stay in Solace. I couldn't do that. I tried to get him to go on the road with me, but he wouldn't fight for pay. He's half-elf, as I said; some rogue mercenary molested his elf mother to conceive him, and he's ever had a cold place in his heart for soldiers." Kitiara made a fist. "If Tanis had fought by my side, I would never have left him till the last drop of blood spilled from my body." She slapped her knee. "Tanis was great fun, and in that he was far better as a companion than Sturm, who's always serious, but the time came when I had to choose between his way of living and mine. I chose, and here I am."

"I'm glad," said Cupelix. "Will you help liberate me?"

"Back to that, are we? What is it worth to you?"

Cupelix raised his ears, making the veined webbing behind them stand up. "Don't you worry about your own safety?" he asked in a rumbling voice.

"Don't bluff me, dragon. If you were going to use threats, you'd have threatened Stutts, Birdcall, and Flash before we got here. You can't force us to help. You're not the sort of dragon to do it."

The dragon's threatening posture collapsed, and the the- atrical menace left his voice. "True, true," Cupelix said. "You are a razor, Kit. You cut deep with little effort."

Kitiara flipped a hand in salute, mockingly. "I'm not new to the game of threat and bluff," she said, standing. A slim band of new light fell across her shoulder from a slit window in the obelisk wall. "Consider what I said about partnership, dragon. It needn't be for life, just a year or two. Do that for me, and I'll speak for you."

Sunlight brightened the room. The magic globe at the ceiling's apex dimmed and went out. By the natural light, Kitiara could see that the dragon's books and scrolls were more decayed than she thought. The tapestries were rotten, too. In the midst of this decay, the dragon's predicament was more obvious. Someday, Cupelix would have nothing to read or study but a heap of mildewed pulp.

"How many more centuries will you live?" Kitiara asked.

The dragon's eyes narrowed. "A great many."

"Well, maybe someone else will show up and help you escape. But think how lonely it will be. Soon no more books, no tapestries, no company."

"Partnership... one year?" said Cupelix.

"Two years," Kitiara said firmly. "A very short span in the life of a dragon."

"True, true." Cupelix gave his word that he would travel with Kitiara for two years upon their return to Krynn.

She stretched, smiling expansively. Kitiara felt good. She would come out of this crazy voyage to the red moon with more than increased muscle power. A dragon, a living dragon, as her companion for two whole years!

"It'll be a great adventure," she said to him.

Cupelix snapped his jaws. "Indubitably."

Kitiara went to the window to take in the fresh air. Light- ning crackled from the obelisk peak as the magic essence dis- charged into the red moon's sky. When the flashes ended, Kitiara looked down at the valley below.

"The Lunitarians are moving!" she exclaimed.

"Of course; it's day, their time to move," said Cupelix.

"But they're forming ranks! I think they're going to attack!"

The Micones showed no signs of moving, so Sturm announced that they'd best proceed on foot. The gnomes were already untied and sliding off the backs of their mounts. Sturm got down and patted the Micone on the head, a habit he'd always had since owning his first horse.

The giant ant cocked its wedge-shaped head and clacked its mandibles together. A response of pleasure? Sturm wonder- ed. It was hard to tell.

The rubbish around them was knee-deep to Sturm and chest-deep to the gnomes. Sturm found Sighter examining a piece of the red leather with his magnifying glass.

"Hm, doesn't look like vegetable material," said Sighter.

Cutwood tried writing on the soft brown parchment-stuff, but it wouldn't take a pencil mark; it was too soft and supple.

Sturm tried to tear a sheet of it in two, but couldn't do it.

"This would make admirable boot tops," he said. "I won- der what it is?"

"I would say it's some form of animal hide," said Sighter, snapping his glass back into its case.

"We haven't found any animals on Lunitari, except the dragon," Stutts objected. "Even the Micones are more min- eral than animal."

"Maybe," Wingover said slowly, "there are other kinds of animals in these caves. Animals we haven't seen before."

Rainspot swallowed audibly. "Gnome-eating animals?"

" "Bosh," said Sighter. "The Micones wouldn't allow any- thing dangerous to live near the dragon eggs. Stop scaring yourselves."

Flash was off a little ways, touching the white crust on the walls. He plucked a tack hammer from his tool-laden belt and butted a cold steel chisel against the wall. Back swung the hammer.

Bong! The little hammer hit the chisel, and the whole cavern reverberated with the sound. So powerful were the vibrations, that the gnomes lost their footing and fell in the thick rubbish. Sturm braced himself against a squat stalag- mite until the ringing ceased.

"Don't do that!" Cutwood said plaintively. With his aug- mented hearing, the tone had been enough to start his nose bleeding. All the Micones were clicking their mandibles and shaking their heads.

"Fascinating," said Stutts. "A perfect resonant chamber!

Ah! It makes sense!"

"What does?" asked Roperig.

"This extraneous jetsam. It's padding, to deaden the ants'

footsteps on the floor."

They waded though the rubbish toward the end of the oblong chamber. The ceiling level fell and the floor rose to form a tight circular opening. The rim of the opening had been notched with jagged spikes of quartz, probably by the Micones. Anything softer than a giant ant would be cut to pieces if it tried to walk or crawl over the spikes. The gnomes held back and proposed many solutions to the problem of the entrance. Sturm planted his fists on his hips and sighed. He turned back and gathered up an armful of the tough parchmentlike shreds, then laid them across the spikes. He put his hands on the parchment and pushed. The spikes poked through three or four layers, but the top layers remained unpierced.

"Allow me," said Sturm. He lifted Stutts and sat him on the padding. Stutts slid through the opening to the chamber beyond. One by one, the other gnomes followed. Sturm went last. The gnomes plunged ahead in their bumbling, fearless way, and he had to catch up with them.

Sturm hurried down the narrow slit in the rock and into another large chamber. Here veins of wine red crystal oozed out of fissures in the rock. When the soft crystal touched the warmer, moister air of the cavern, it lightened to clear crim- son and began to take more exact form. Around them were dozens of half-formed Micones; some only heads, some whole bodies but without legs, and some so complete that their antennae wiggled.

"So this is the ant hatchery," said Wingover.

"'Hatchery' isn't the right word for it," said Roperig.

"Living rock crystal," said Stutts breathlessly. "I wonder what influences it to take on an ant shape?"

"The dragon, I would think," said Sighter, turning a com- plete circle to see all the budding Micones. "Remember, he said he tried to make the tree-folk into servants but failed.

He must have uncovered this living crystal and decided to use it to make perfectly obedient and hard-working slaves."

They walked in single file down the center of the high, narrow cavern. As before, bluish stalactites on the ceiling shed a weak light on the scene. Flash approached one of the nearly finished Micones and tried to measure the width of its head. The ant moved like lightning and clamped its power- ful jaws on the gnome's arm. Flash let out a yell.

"Get back!" Sturm cried, drawing his sword. He tried to lever the jaws open, but the creature's grip was too strong.

The cruel saw-toothed jaws could easily cut through flesh and bone - Sturm noticed that Flash's arm wasn't bleeding. The gnome struggled, beating the stone-hard ant on the head with his flimsy folding rule.

"Has he got you by the arm?" Sturm asked.

"Uh! Agh! Yes! What do you think this is, my foot?"