The leader paused to look back to where his comrade had died. Sturm saw his face.

"Father!"

He returned to Lunitari with that scream. Sturm was lying on his stomach, his bedroll in knots. Wearily, he sat up to find Kitiara watching him.

"I had a nightmare," he said, ashamed.

"No," she said. "You were awake. I saw you. You've been thrashing about and moaning for a long time. Your eyes were wide open. What did you see?

"I was – I was on Krynn again. I don't know where, but there were trackers. They were after some men, one of whom was my father."

"Leereach Trackers? Sturm nodded. Sweat stood out on his lip, though the air was cold enough for his breath to show.

"It was real, wasn't it? he said.

"I think it was. This may be your gift, Sturm. Visions.

Like my strength, this is what Lunitari has given you."

He shuddered. "Visions of what? The past? The future?

Or am I seeing the present in far-away places? How can I tell, Kit? How can I know?"

"I don't know." She combed through her black curls with her fingers. "It hurts, doesn't it? Not knowing."

"I think I shall go mad!"

"No, you won't. You're too strong for that." She rose and came around the dying fire to sit by him. Sturm refolded his blanket and lay down. These visions which had been thrust upon him were maddening. They smacked of magic and tor mented him without warning. However, Sturm found him self trying to fix every detail in his mind, going over and over the terrible scene; there could be a clue to his father's fate hidden in these specters. Kitiara laid a hand on his chest and felt the rapid beating of his heart.

Chapter 12

Some of Our Gnomes

Are Missing

The gnomes recovered from their post-prandial lethargy and bounced around the camp, shouting and toss ing tools to each other. Bellcrank found a long dowel and scratched a mark on the side of a hill. "There's where we dig," he announced.

"Why there?" asked Cutwood.

"Why not?"

"Wouldn't it be better to go to the top and drive a shaft straight down?" suggested Wingover.

"If we wanted to dig a well, maybe, but not when we're prospecting for iron," Bellcrank said. After lengthy discus sion about such esoteric matters as geological strata, sedi mentation, and the proper diet of miners, the gnomes discovered that all they had to dig with was two short handled wooden scoops.

"Whose are these?" asked Sighter.

"Mine," Fitter spoke up. "One for beans, one for raisins."

"Isn't there a proper shovel or spade in the cart?"

"No," said Roperig. "Of course, if we had some iron, we could make our own shovels -" Cutwood and Wingover pelted him with dirty socks for his suggestion.

"If scoops are what we have, scoops it'll have to be," said

Bellcrank. He offered them to Cutwood and Wingover.

"Why us?" said Cutwood.

"Why not?"

"I wish he'd stop saying that," Wingover said. He shoved his sleeves above his elbows and knelt by the circle that Bell crank had scratched in the turf. "Oh, rocks," he sighed.

"You'd better hope to Reorx we strike rocks," said Cut wood, "else we'll be digging all day."

The gnomes gathered around as their two colleagues fell to. The upper layers of flaky red fluff were easily scraped away. The diggers flung scoopfuls over their shoulders, hit ting Sighter and Rainspot in the face. The gnomes withdrew to a cleaner observation point.

Bellcrank bent down and grabbed a handful of the soil that Wingover had tossed back. No longer dry and spongy, this dirt was hard, grainy, and damp. "Hello," he said. "Look at this. Sand."

Sturm and Kitiara examined the ball of damp sand that

Bellcrank had squeezed in his small fist. It was quite ordi nary sand, tinged pale red.

"Ugh! Ow, here's something," Cutwood grunted. He kicked a large chunk of something out of the tunnel. The thing wobbled down the slope a little way and stopped. Fit ter picked it up.

"Feels like glass," he said. Sighter took it from him.

"It is glass. Crude glass," Sighter said.

More bits of glass came out of the hole, along with sand, sand, and more sand. Wingover and Cutwood had tunneled headfirst into the hillside and now only their feet showed in the opening. Sturm told them to stop digging.

"It's no use," he said. "There's no ore here."

"I must agree with Master Brightblade," said Bellcrank.

"The whole hill is likely one big pile of sand."

"Where does the glass come from?" Kitiara asked.

"Any source of heat can melt sand into glass. Lightning, forest fire, volcano."

"That's not important," Sturm said. "We dug for iron and found glass. The question is, what do we do now?"

"Go on looking?" said Fitter timidly.

"What about Stutts and the others?" Kitiara asked.

"Strip my gears, I forgot about our colleagues," said

Roperig. "What shall we do?"

Sturm said, "We'll go back. It'll be daylight again before we reach the flying ship, and we can harvest some spear plants for Stutts, Birdcall, and Flash to eat. Once we're all together, we can repair the engine -" He regarded Kit grave ly. "- 'with the iron that Kitiara and I wear on us. You gnomes can forge our arms and armor into the parts you need." Murmurs of approval rippled through the gnomes.

"Do you think I'd allow my sword, my mail, to be ham mered into machine parts? With what will we defend our selves? Scoops and beans?" Kitiara said furiously.

"All we've used our weapons for so far is chopping weeds," Sturm countered. "This could be our only way home."

Kitiara crossed her arms. "I don't like it."

"Nor do I, but what choice do we have? We can be well armed and marooned, or unarmed and on our way home."

"Not a handsome choice," she had to admit.

"You needn't make up your mind right now. Whatever you decide, we should return to the ship first," said Sturm.

No one disputed his decision. The gnomes prepared to break camp. Like their unpacking, this was a brisk proce dure. Each gnome tossed an item into the righted cart.

Sometimes they wrestled over the same item, and Rainspot and Cutwood even got carried away and threw Fitter in.

Sturm pulled the littlest gnome out before he was buried.

With a clear sky and plenty of stars, the explorers were able to plot their way back to the plain of stones. Once they left the chain of hills, they beheld a lovely sight. On the southwestern horizon, a blue-white glow lit the sky. Within a few hundred yards' walk, the source of the glow was revealed to be the world of Krynn, rising into sight for the first.time since their arrival on the red moon.

The party stopped to admire the great azure orb. "What are the fuzzy white parts?" asked Kitiara.

"Clouds," said Rainspot.

"And the blue is ocean, the brown, land?"

"Exactly right, lady."

Sturm stood apart from the rest, contemplating his home world. Kitiara peered through the gnome's spyglass, squint ing one eye closed and bending far down to Sighter's level.

When she was done, she went to where Sturm stood.

"Don't you want to take a look?" she asked.

Sturm rubbed his newly bearded chin. "I can see it fine."

The bright white light of Krynn caught on his ring and glim mered. The emblem of the Knights of Solamnia's Order of the Rose caught his eye.

He inhaled smoke and coughed.

Not again! The vision was upon him without any warn ing." Sturm fought to stay calm. Something always hap pened to trigger the experience – first the moon's chill air, then the feel of his wolf fur cloak, and now the light reflect ing off his ring, the only real relic of his Solamnic heritage. It wasn't his father's ring, but his mother's; Sturm wore it on his little finger.

A high, dark wall loomed over his back. Sturm was standing in the shadow of the wall, and it was night. Twenty yards away, a fire burned. He seemed to be in the courtyard of a castle. Two men in ragged cloaks stood hunched over the fire. A third lay on the ground, unmoving.