“Such as?” Teldin asked, his curiosity piqued. He was starting to get the hang of gnome speech, the breakneck way they approached the Common tongue and their constant desire to keep talking.
“Oh, well, first, the sponges all died, so we have to get new ones,” Snowball explained as he led them around the perimeter of the main floor, “but we do have a few working gnomeflingers for cargo, and the sponges are only the emergency emergency backup safety system,” the gnome offered hopefully, ‘so it is perfectly safe, unless the new gears in the timing system are not right, which we have not tested yet, but you could be the first and- “No, thank you, Snowball,” Teldin politely refused.
“Besides, I think Gomja might be too heavy for your machines.” He laid a hand on the giffs bulky arm, eager to make his point.
Snowball rolled his eyes up as he made some quick mental calculations. “It might take a few shots, level one to level four, then level four to the big catapult on level seven, then-”
“Nobody is shooting me anywhere, little gnome,” Gomja boomed emphatically as he stepped forward, his ears perked with alarm. Legs set and arms crossed, the giff towered over Snowball.
“Well, then, I guess we will have to use the slow method,” Snowball answered in another peevish huff. “Not that we would ever hurt anyone-gnomes have such a bad repuration with you outsiders, but, really, everything is perfectly safe and I have only been hurt once-seriously.” Watching closely for the expected look of alarm, which did cross his guests’ face, the doorkeeper snickered at his own joke. He led them to a metal disk suspended by chains, like the pan of giant scale. “If you will step on there, we can get you ready…" The gnome tugged on Teldin’s sleeve, impatiently hustling the human onto the disk, talking all the while. The farmer did not hear any more, for his attention was caught suddenly by a creaking overhead. Above he saw a small gondola swinging precariously over open space and being furiously pulled along by a small gnome in a basket. As Teldin gawked upward, Snowball leaned over and scrutinized a needle and a team of gnomes loaded bags onto a similar disk. The gondola passed out of sight, and the farmer looked down and realized he was standing on a giant scale.
After both Teldin and Gomja were weighed and given disks denoting their tonnage, Snowball struck out for another section of the shaft. Here baskets and barrels shot into and out of the darkness above at alarming speeds. Those descending came rushing down with a blare of horns and bells. Teldin jumped involuntarily when one crashed onto a giant pile of pads beside him. The barrel tumbled over, rope raining down on it, and a pair of gnomes spilled onto the cushions and across the floor. They quickly got to their feet and wobbled away with all the dignity they could muster.
“Quickly, now. That is your car, and I will be in the next one,” urged Snowball, pointing to the empty barrel. Teldin went pale at the thought and Gomja planted his feet, one hand reaching for a pistol. “It is the only way up,” the gnome assured as the pair resisted, “because the vertical engineers are redesigning the stairs to make them faster, so come on and get in the car or you will not get to the examiners, besides other people are waiting and you do not want to be rude.” All the while, Snowball, far stronger than he looked, was tugging Teldin toward the hastily righted barrel. Perhaps desperate to be relieved of the cloak, the human finally gave in, steeled his courage, and climbed aboard. Gomja, not one to seem cowardly, followed suit.
Snowball stepped back with a smile and waved to the operators. “Level fifteen-eighty-nine dramnars! That is how much you weigh, see,” the gnome explained, “and up above-oh, up there somewhere-the vertical engineers will load twice your weight to lift you and the barrel, then pull the lever to ring the bell down here, and when that happens, you just hang on and-”
Before Snowball could finish, Teldin’s knees gave out as the barrel was forcefully jerked into the air. The farmer had a sickening feeling of hurtling through dizzying space as the gnome’s upturned face dwindled. One, two, three levels soared past, the number of each terrace disappearing in a brilliant flash. Teldin’s fingers dug into the barrel’s wooden sides. From somewhere below the human heard a clanging bell.
“-still a problem with stopping!” were Snowball’s last shouted words.
The levels whizzed past faster and faster, but Teldin took no notice-of that or of anything, including the pale blue giff frozen beside him. The terrified human was still trying to puzzle out the method of stopping when he looked up. Hurtling toward them was a giant wheel over which ran the rope affixed to their barrel. The yeoman suddenly had an awful guess just what the “problem with stopping” was. “Hang on, Gomja!” he howled over the din. Teldin closed his eyes and braced for the crash.
“I am, sir,” the giff answered in a barely audible voice.
All at once the rope stopped its upward flight, but the barrel, moving of its own momentum, continued upward until the giffs ears barely brushed the flywheel. Barrel, giff, and human hung weightless for an instant, then the wooden gondola plummeted. The shift from meteoric rise to uncontrolled fall was worst of all. The barrel dropped only a short distance before it snapped to a halt, almost throwing Teldin and Gomja over the low sides. As the barrel swung back and forth on the end of its rope, gnomes scrambled to pull the passengers onto a projecting landing. A big, black “15,” painted on the wall, announced the level. Teldin looked up and guessed that the flywheel was mounted on level sixteen.
Once their feet were back on solid ground, Gomja sagged against the wall in a weak-boned heap; Teldin managed to stagger a few steps before he collapsed. “Sir,” the giff announced, his voice trembling with finality, “I’d sooner go down on the blazing Penumbra again than ride one of those gnome things another time!” The farmer, his heart thumping wildly, could do little more than nod.
By the time the pair had regained their wits and their breath, Snowball had rejoined them, unruffled by his own harrowing ride. “It is good to see that everything went well and nothing went wrong this time, though it would be interesting to test the safety systems on people as large as you, because we have only had gnomes…" the wild-haired gnome said by way of greeting. Again, the doorkeeper could not suppress a smile at their panicked faces.
“Now what?” Teldin demanded, eager to get moving, get the cloak off, and get out of this madhouse. He weakly struggled to his feet, bracing himself against a wall. Gomja very slowly followed suit.
Snowball plunged down a gloomy corridor. “Well, we go to the Magical Artificer’s Guild examination rooms, and they will do tests on you, which will be fascinating, because I have never seen the kinds of tests-are you coming?- they do…" Sharing a look of dread, Teldin and Gomja followed the prattling Snowball.
The magical artificers received Teldin with great interest and listened to his explanation of the cloak’s discovery. As usual, Teldin adjusted his story a bit, though this time he included the spelljammer and the captain in his tale. It seemed best to mention the cloak’s otherworldly source. What the farmer did not say related to the neogi, especially their deadly interest in the artifact. As he both hoped and now somewhat feared, the gnomes were fascinated by the tale. The human wound up repeating it at least six times as gnomes of greater and greater importance were brought in for consultation. Finally he showed them how the cloak grew and shrank on command.
“Self-fitting fabric!” exclaimed Niggil, a particularly excited onlooker. “Think of the possibilities for the Tailor’s Guild!”
“Can you take it off?” Teldin demanded of the oldest and most pompous observer of the lot, a dark-haired gnome named-for Teldin’s convenience-Ilwar. The fellow’s beard was curly, full, and squarely cut, each stray hair long since having been excised. The beard made the gnome’s chin look like of block of ebon stone.