"I can't swim!" the crone gurgled. The little boy flung both arms around her neck. She struggled in vain to loosen his hold.

"You can't die, either," Tanis called back.

'Tve never been so filthy in my life," Brandella said after they'd walked about a mile.

"Is this what they mean when they say, 'Here's mud in your eye'?" Tanis said, a crooked grin creasing his worn face. She gazed at him, eyebrows raised. She'd tried to wipe away the vestiges of their stint in the tunnel but had succeeded only in spreading the mud more evenly around her face. Some of it had dried to a thin film. "Scowarr would be proud of you, Half-Elven. You've almost developed a funny bone." He snorted. "You're certainly amusing-looking, too," she taunted, "with those streaks of mud in your hair." Tanis countered, "You've changed a bit, as well, since I first saw you that evening in Reehsha's shack." She giggled. "Reehsha's cabin. Wasn't that a palace?" He joined her laughter. "It looked like it hadn't been scrubbed since the Cataclysm." "Well, so do we," she rejoined. They laughed again. Then they sobered as both realized that their companions back at Ankatavaka had vanished with Kishpa's death. They trudged on for some time through the unvarying glare of the sun. The landscape was flat, dry, and dull. Only a few weeds broke through the crust of the ground. After a while, they didn't bother to look up, merely plodding along in silence, heads down. "Maybe we'll find a pond or stream we can wash up in," Tanis finally said. She nodded, scuffing her wet shoes, which she'd fished from the pit with a stick as Tanis warded off the two ghouls with a board from the old woman's wagon. "I wouldn't mind drinking some nice clean water for a change, either. I still have the taste of mud in my mouth." "At least it was something to eat," joked Tanis, his stomach grumbling. The woman met his quip with a smile. Then she looked up and stood stock-still. Tanis took a few extra steps and looked back at her, eyes questioning. "Tanis…" she whispered, indicating the route ahead. He looked up. The mountain of Fistandantilus loomed ahead of them. Suddenly, it was as if the sunshine gave no warmth. He shivered despite the glare. "What's that at the base?" Brandella asked, her voice still quiet. He looked. It was a village.

33

"I wonder who lives there," Tanis marveled, looking down upon a small village nestled in a shaft of light below Fistandantilus's towering, dark mountain.

"Let's hope they're friendly," ventured Brandella.

They trudged, hungry and thirsty, down the path to the outskirts of a brightly colored, bustling little town. Tanis took note of the humans, dwarves, elves, and gnomes, all of whom were dashing into and out of warm and inviting-looking buildings that lined the main road through the village. He smiled suddenly and laughed.

Brandella gave him a questioning look. A flake of dried mud dropped from her chin to the soiled shirt that used to be green. She said, "You seem to be in surprisingly good spirits, considering where we are."

He had to admit he was. "I always thought of dying as some sort of eternal sleep. But here the sun is always at high noon. It's never dark-except around the bleak, evil mountains-it doesn't rain, the wind doesn't blow… it's like a perfect summer day, every day."

Brandella made a wry face. "Monotonous, isn't it?"

"I hope that we're here just long enough that it doesn't become so," he said.

"STOP!" The new voice came from behind a fence. They stopped and watched in amazement as the owner of the voice, quivering with fear, slid out in front of them. "STOP!"

"We've stopped," Tanis explained patiently.

The creature, which barely came up to Tanis's waist, cringed. "Not hurt me!" It fairly imploded with fear.

"A gully dwarf!" Brandella exclaimed. "What do you suppose it wants?"

In reply, the pudgy little creature pulled a leather pouch from over its shoulder and thrust its hand into the bag. It drew out a squashed piece of fried dough. "Magic!" the gully dwarf squeaked. "Stop!"

Tanis sighed. Brandella kneeled and stretched out one hand, palm up. "What's your name?" she asked softly. "May I see what you have?" She half-turned to Tanis and said, "Look. He's found food around here!"

Tanis cleared his throat. "Brandella, I think…"

The gully dwarf curled into a quivering ball on the hard-packed dirt street. Only one arm remained free, waving the moldy dough in a semicircle. An algae-green eye peered over a filthy sleeve. Brandella took it as an invitation. "Look," she said. "He's offering…"

Tanis shook his head. "I don't think…" Suddenly, the dwarf leaped into the air, shrieked, "MAGIC!" at the top of its lungs, flung the fried dough onto the ground, and dove for the shelter of a nearby stairway. The dough hit the ground with a crack-and split open. Its insides had turned to dust. Brandella poked at it with a tentative finger and grimaced.

The half-elf tried to look sympathetic. "My guess is that the gully dwarf died with that in its pack," Tanis said.

The gully dwarf had reappeared and was venturing back into the street. "Strong magic, you!" it proclaimed, and pointed at the weaver and Tanis. "You still here!" Its dull eyes were wide.

"Magic?" Brandella asked. "Who is he, anyway?"

Her question was answered, not by the half-elf, but by a creature slightly shorter than the gully dwarf. This one resembled a muscular human child, except tor the pointed ears, olive eyes, and orange-red hair swept into a long braid at the top of her head.

"That's the town guardian. Isn't that interesting? Where are you two from? You're alive, aren't you? I used to be alive. I'm dead now, though. That's pretty interesting, too, but not as interesting as being alive," the creature rattled on.

"A kender," Tanis said with a groan. "I'm trapped in Death with a kender and a gully dwarf."

Brandella remained kneeling, but she kept a wary eye on the newest creature. Kender are notorious for their curiosity, which usually involves "finding" numerous shiny, often expensive objects that "just happen" to fall out of strangers' pouches, purses, and packs. All Brandella had left that could be easily filched were her muddy shoes, but the shoes had shiny buckles and the kender had been giving them appreciative glances.

"Where are we?" the weaver asked the kender.

"Yagom. It's just packed with dead people," the Kender said, reaching over and dragging the filthy gully dwarf toward her. The kender seemed used to the dwarf's odor, but Brandella winced.

"He smells like a dead rat," she complained.

'Thanks for the compliment," the kender observed.

The gully dwarf beamed, picked up the fragment of dough, and reached around the Kender to present it to Brandella. "Strong magic. You take," it said. She put out a reluctant hand. "Thank you," she said. Tanis shifted impatiently beside the trio. "An odd town, with a gully dwarf as its main guard. What does he guard against?" The kender, who had shifted his gaze to Tanis's scabbard, gave the half-elf a bright-eyed look. "Nobody grubbier than Clym here gets inside the village. Of course, until now we haven't seen anybody filthier than Jard. But the town council says we must keep up the image, living in the shadow of Fistandantilus's mountain, and all." "Do many people come to climb it?" Brandella asked. The kender looked surprised and interested, which was typical for one of her race. "Why would someone want to do that? Not that it's not a good idea, of course. In fact, I'd like to try it. What do you think might be up there?" The kender stopped to examine a silver buckle that had suddenly materialized in her hand. Brandella exclaimed and snatched the bauble away from the creature. She refastened it to her shoe. Tanis squelched a smile. "Sayl Is that yours?" the kender asked innocently. "Lucky thing I found it, huh? Are you here to climb the mountain?" "We're looking for the portal to Life on the other side, of course," Tanis explained. The kender laughed. So did the gully dwarf. "You seem to be funnier than you realize," Brandella said darkly to the half-elf. "Portal?" the gully dwarf queried. The kender patted him on the shoulder, then faced Tanis and Brandella. "Who told you about a portal?" "Huma of the Lance," Tanis said. The gully dwarf laughed again. 'The man with the flower garden?" the kender asked. 'That's him," Brandella replied.