Hop turned and grimaced at his young companion. "You have more questions than a kid! City boys, bah! Dots are tiny fungi that come in various colors. The color determines the magic it possesses when eaten, and the ingestlon empowers the person eating the dot to have the dweomer it possesses for the space of several hours."

Gord was suddenly excited. "If the powers are of potent sort, these little mushrooms could be worth a fortune! Which colors go with which dweomer?"

"All mushrooms appear pale in the night, Gord! We just pick as fast as we can and hope a lot. Not a few bestow powers such as being able to sing like a nightingale, become transparent, or grow a thick coat of fur — not highly salable, those last sort."

The young thief could make out a clearing ahead, the thinning forest allowing moonbeams to show the place clearly. Hop recognized that they had finally reached the glen, too, and both men ceased their whispering. Should the little folk hear them, these small ones would rush to prevent the looting of what they considered theirs by right. Gord and Hop would then be in deep difficulty.

Just as the mountebank had said, the hidden glen had a huge, ancient, many-trunked ipt This conglomeration of vegetation turned and bent so as to make it impossible for the eye to determine which trunk or limb went where. The gentle hollow of the glade seemed to form a near-perfect circle around the one remaining giant tree. Surrounding the ipt at regular intervals were ring after ring of fungi. The giant, flat-capped ones ringed by smaller versions of the same ilk were evidently sprites’ tables, Gord assumed, while the tall stalks with slightly wider heads might be atomies' cups. All around these bizarre fungi grew a host of other sorts — morels, shaggymanes, puflballs. and more kinds that the young adventurer didn't recognize. There was no living thing visible, no sounds audible save the chirruping and singing of insects and other occasional sounds of the forest.

"I see the azure orb just there," Hop said softly, pointing up to where Celene was moving to meet Luna. "Let's get into the middle of the nearest ring now, so when the dweomerdots appear we can grab them fast if we can clear one ring and get out of the glen, we'll be rich for a month of high-spending nights and lazy days!"

Needing no further prompting, Gord sprang into the glade and was into the nearby ring of fungi with a bound. Hop followed on his heels, crouching down to peer at the sward where the small mushrooms would soon appear. Both of them got out the bags they would use to contain their quarry. A few minutes later, as if by magic, one grew into existence before the young thiefs startled eyes. Gord took a moment to grasp the hilt of his enchanted sword, for it gave him special visual powers. Then he could see a faint hue of pale fuchsia haloing the plump little disc.

"Pssst Hop! I can see color. This one is fuchsia!"

"Put it in your sack with haste, then, and tell me what other hues you detect — how can you see colors, anyway?"

"My ... I ... I just can." Gord stammered, reluctant to give away his secret and not eager to spend their precious time explaining anyway. He reached down, plucked the thumb-sized growth, and thrust it into his bag. Then he turned to observe his companion and the fungi that had suddenly sprung up all around them. Alternately touching his sword hilt and grabbing out for mushrooms, he called out a litany of colors. "There, that one is amber, that puce, there citrine."

Soon Gord had handed his bag over to Hop and was doing little more than calling out the hues he detected, save for the occasional plucking of a few mushrooms that he secreted in the small pouch that dangled from his belt. He figured that if these things were truly as valuable as Hop said they were, it wouldn't hurt for him to stash some away for his own private use. Hop was so busy selectively plucking the more colorful of the dweomerdots and putting them into the bags — while slipping more than a few in the pocket of his cloak — that he didn't notice that Gord was also sneaking some on the side. Scarlet, purple, puce, cerise, mauve, carmine, tangerine, maroon, azure, indigo — a rapidly growing spectrum of colors popped into existence before the two temporary mushroom harvesters faster than Gord would have thought possible.

"Some of these colors are unknown to me, " Hop murmured as he frantically snatched up mushroom after mushroom. "I'm passing those whose hue is of known undesirabillty, but there will be some surprises. Nevertheless, this will be far better than I could have hoped!"

They were at the far edge of the circle. "Opalescent white," the young thief told Hop.

"That's one we should bypass, I think. No matter! On to the next ring as fast as we can go!"'

"Shouldn't we get out of here?"

"And leave a fortune behind for unappreclative little folk? Not on your life, Gord! It's still quiet, and we can fill both sacks to overflowing with the best of the dots in another few minutes. Then we can slip away rich! None'll be the wiser."

The excitement of their work, the prospect of riches, and the possibility of retaining a few especially powerful types of these magical fungi for himself overcame Gord's concern. Perhaps it was a case of good sense being lost to greed, but .... He hurried after Hop and was soon again pointing and advising the mountebank as to which fleshy body of fungus to pluck. Those in this circle were not as varicolored as had been the others, and only a few were taken. "What now?" the young thief inquired.

"There's room in the sacks still. Over there is the largest remaining faerie ring I can see. We'll work that one and leave."

This one was indeed a choice picking ground. New, unknown hues were in profusion, so Hop took first the known colors for surety, then the unique hues for good measure. "Where are the saffron ones?" said Hop, rattling off colors almost as fast as Gord could locate them. "How about the olive color you noted? The russet? Mustard? Salmon? Pearly pink?"

Gord kept calling and pointing, and his friend plucked eagerly. Fifteen minutes after they had entered this last ring Hop announced, "I've filled both bags now, Gord. Off we go!"

Gord restrained him. The sharp-eared adventurer thought he had heard some new sound that was different "Be quiet and let me look and listen for a moment," he hissed.

After a tense few seconds Hop whispered back. "I hear and see nothing. How about you?"

Uneasy but unable to find anything out of the ordinary, Gord gave the glen one more careful sweep with his eyes and ears at peak. "It was either some forest creature passing or my imagination, I guess," the young thief said slowly. "Let's make a dash for the trees now, for I am growing nervous. I think-our luck is running out"

"That never happens to Hop!" the mountebank said with a sure and certain tone. "It is high time for us to leave, though. Last one into the forest is a rot—"

"A wha—" Gord managed to get out before he, too, slumped to the ground. Tiny shafts protruded from their bodies, each one quill-sized, and so numerous that the pair of unmoving bodies looked somewhat like pincushions.

Gord awoke feeling lethargic, chilled, and weak. His mouth tasted as if an offal-bird would have found it a pleasant nesting place. He managed to blink and open his eyes, even though the undersides of the lids felt grainy. And there was Hop, looking like hell's bottom tier, smirking at him.

"Top o' the morning to ya."

"Sod off!"

"Did ye rest well, me lad?" Hop continued his banter, albeit in a rather hoarse and croaking voice.

The young thief managed to prop himself up on one elbow and peer around. Greenish light from monstrous glowworms in a suspended cage of thick wire hung overhead, and this radiance allowed him to survey the scene. He was nudel No wonder he felt chilled, for he was reclining on hard-packed clay. In fact, the whole domed chamber he and the mountebank were in was made of clay. Here and there a boulder protruded. Roots thrust and twined everywhere, some merely arm-thick, others bigger than Gord's torso. There were no doors, no openings. At the topmost portion of the dome the ceiling appeared to be formed of a single slab of timber of odd sort This wood revealed a knotty, roughly circular plug or trap door. That was certainly how they'd come to be in this pit.