"Like the accommodations?"

"Cut the crap, will you. Hop? How long have we been out?"

The mountebank shrugged his naked shoulders. "You've as good a guess at that as I, Gord. I came around to blissful awareness just a few minutes before you did."

"I see. Where are we?"

"In a clay cave, I'd say."

"How'd we get here? Who stripped us?"

"Person or persons unknown."

Gord sighed and stood up. He began a routine of stretching and flexing. Soon the young thief was lost in the exercise, leaping, bending, straining one set of muscles against the other so that tension would build both.

"All that jumping and bending is making me tired." the mountebank drawled as Gord paused a moment in a weird, contorted position.

"You should work out a bit yourself," Gord chided. "It's healthy, makes one vigorous, and aids in all sorts of physical endeavors."

"I’ve done all I need," said Hop haughtily, "for I follow Western principles of meditation and exercise — the mind does more than the muscles, as Rhumsung Lampba P. says."

"Perhaps that worthy one will come to rescue us now." Gord said sarcastically.

"The most renowned of guru mystics? That notion is offensive, even when uttered in jest or jape," Hop said with a sniff. "Rhumsung— "

"Can be blasted!" the young thief interrupted rudely. "Stand in the center of this chamber, Hop, and stop blabbering about the redoubtable guru! If you can make a stirrup with your hands and boost me. I think I can get up high enough to grab the chain holding that cageful of gigantic glowworms." Gord pointed up. "Where do you suppose those monsters come from, anyway? Do such things inhabit this region?"

Hop stood where he'd been told to and cupped his hands with fingers interlaced. They grow pretty big here in Gnarlvergia. Gord, but these are ten times bigger than any glowworms I’ve ever seen, before," he said in reply as he spread his legs and worked his shoulders to warm the muscles.

"Here goes, then! Heave me upward with all your might when my foot lands in your hands!"

The young man hurtled forward, springing from his left foot so the right came into the stirrup Hop made with his hands. Grunting with the effort, the mountebank heaved up, and Gord's momentum was translated to an upward arc. He didn't quite make the heavy chain, but his grasping fingers managed to clutch the upper portion of the wire cage. The metal strands sagged but held. He clawed upward and found the chain, hauled himself up some more, and quickly came to the uppermost part where the chain was fastened to the timber roof with a huge staple.

"Now what?" asked the mountebank, watching with concern as his companion dangled froIII one arm while thrusting against the trap door with the other.

"We . . , ugh! . . . shove . . . oof! . . . this out!"

"Never mind! I get the picture. But how about using your feet to kick it out?"

Even from where he stood. Hop could detect the realization dawning in the mind of the acrobatic adventurer. Gord was being stupid trying to open the trap door with one arm. "I was just about to try that," he called lamely down to his companion. Then, after grabbing onto the huge staple with both hands, he swung back and forth a couple of times to gain momentum. The impact of his bare soles upon the wood made a loud, snapping sound, and the force nearly made Gord lose his grip, but he managed to recover and hold on.

"Great going!" Hop called up enthusiastically. The circular trap door had moved upward about a cubit. "Is that enough for you to crawl through?"

"Easily, Hop. I'll find a rope or something and have you up and out in jig time!" So saying, the young thief swung himself again, this time by one arm, launched his body into the opening, and pulled himself through and out.

A minute later, the end of a thick rope dropped into the chamber where Hop waited, falling until it swung about a foot above the earthen floor of the prison. The rope even had knots spaced at short intervals to facilitate climbing. Gord didn't call any instructions and it was dark above, but the plug was now sitting a full yard above the hole it had stopped, so Hop had no difficulty clambering into the chamber above. As he cleared the opening, a reedy voice sounded from behind him.

"Thank you for saving us the trouble of fetching you."

"Huh?" Hop whirled and peered in vain into the darkness.

"Come this way. Your fellow criminal has already been taken to the Arch of judgement."

Soft light sprang forth from the Up of a slender wand. Hop saw a trio of creatures that looked very much like sprites, but these slender, sharp-featured beings were far more beautiful than sprites — and they were larger than he was! One held an unsheathed sword of needlelike shape casually, and the other two had small bows with arrows nocked and pointed at him.

"This is, of course, an honor I cannot refuse," the mountebank said with a courteous bow. "But could I borrow a bit of clothing first?"

"Get going!" the swordbearer said.

Hop did just that.

"There is no great evil within them." intoned the aged male clad in priestly garments.

"None?" inquired the beautiful, spritelike being seated on a throne of carved and polished wood.

"Tinges of peccadillo, a touch here and there of larcenous desire, and a wisp of dishonesty, yes. But true evil? None of that, your glorious majesty."

"Truespeech is to be laid upon them, then." the queen said in a commanding manner.

Two pairs of armed males advanced on Gord and Hop. Both of the prisoners stood naked and feeling exposed in more ways than one. Worse still, there were many other lovely females present in addition to the queen, and they all seemed to be staring.

"Eat this now!" one of each pair of guards ordered the two prisoners. Each man was offered a wedge of steel-blue fungus about the size of a small piece of pie. Gord and Hop opened their mouths, for their hands were tied behind their backs, so they could do nothing else. The guards crammed the fungus wedges in. "Chew and swallow."

"Ulp!" Gord managed to get it all down, bitter as it tasted. He and the mountebank stood in a large, weirdly arched hall. At least two score of the man-sized sprites were here, not counting the queen, her half-score of attendants, and a dozen armed soldiers.

The place wasn't exactly large enough to accommodate the entire throng, even though it was evidently the throne room, audience chamber and hall of justice all in one. There were shafts and galleries and balconies, with more of the spritelike people crowding every available place. These areas, like the walls, floors and almost everything else in the place, were hewn from living wood!

Where they could be, what tree could be so vast. Gord could not imagine. He had heard of roanwoods that grew nearly ninety feet thick, but this was not roanwood, and their surroundings measured more than ninety feet from end to end. Gord knew this, for after being brought up from the storage cellars above the cell he and Hop had been in. he had been led up curving stairs and through a series of oddly shaped and interconnecting rooms, chambers and corridors. All were on one level — and it was the same level that held this weirdly arched chamber.

"Answer her glorious majesty!"

"A ... a thousand pardons, glorious majesty," Gord stammered. "I was bemused. . . ."

"Her glory asked if you had meant to deprive the Poochauns of their treasure." the officer told him in a hard voice.

"Poochauns? Treasure? I was simply gathering wild mushrooms. Of these Poochauns and their treasure I cannot say, for I do not know them or it."

"You!" another official said to Hop. "Did you know to whom the 'mushrooms' belonged?"

Hop opened his mouth, seemed to inhale and swallow, then said, "I knew that the little folk — sprites, grigs, atomies, pixies, and brownies — favor such places. I knew that tales told indicate that these folk relish the dweomerdots. I have crept into the glen aforetimes, though, and picked some small amount. Never did I see anyone to contest my right to do so. The produce of the wild wood is surety the property of the one who takes it first"