Rapaldo was pinned to the floor, the dagger through his heart. His legs and arms floated above aimlessly. Drops of blood flowed up the dagger's hilt and detached, drifting up into the air.

Sturm found the axe in the debris. Stolidly ignoring the fact that the trees would be living beings again by morning, he chopped Kitiara and Sighter free. The other gnomes descended from the wall and helped get Bellcrank out of the wooden bonds. They laid the stout gnome gently on the floor and covered his face with their kerchiefs. Fitter began to sob.

"What shall we do?" asked Wingover tearfully.

Kitiara said, "Bellcrank is avenged. What more is there to do?"

"Oughtn't we to bury him?" said Roperig heavily.

"Yes, of course," said Sturm. He gathered Bellcrank in his arms and led the sorrowing band outside.

The gnomes stood together. The only sounds were sniffles and the scuffing of small shoes. Sighter brushed the wood chips from his clothes and strode off. The others fell in behind him. He went to the middle of the mushroom garden and stopped. Pointing to the red fluff, he declared that this was the spot.

The gnomes began to dig. Kitiara offered to help, but

Cutwood politely declined. The gnomes knelt in a circle and dug the grave with their hands. When they were satisfied,

Sturm stepped in and, with great feeling, laid the heroic

Bellcrank in his final resting place.

Sighter spoke first. "Bellcrank was a fine technician and a good chemist. Now he is dead. The engine has ceased to run, the gears have seized and stopped." Sighter tossed a handful of pale crimson soil over his friend. "Farewell, fare well."

Wingover said, "He was a skilled metallurgist," and added another handful of dirt.

"An excellent arguer," noted Cutwood, choking back emotion.

"A dedicated experimenter," Rainspot said, sprinkling his portion.

"The finest of gear makers," said Roperig sorrowfully.

When Fitter's turn came, he was too upset to think of any thing to say. "He-he was a hearty eater," the littlest gnome murmured at last. Roperig managed a fond smile and patted his apprentice on the back.

They mounded the dirt over their fallen friend. Wingover went back into the keep and returned with a piece of iron work from Rapaldo's wrecked ship. It was a gear, part of the

Tarvolina's capstan. The gnomes set this on the grave, as a monument to their colleague.

Kitiara turned her back and headed for the keep. After a moment of respectful silence, Sturm hurried after her. 'You might have found something to say to the gnomes," he chid ed.

"We have much to do before the sun rises again. We've got to gather our belongings and get as far from here as the night will let us," she said.

"Why the haste? Rapaldo is dead."

Kitiara swept an arm around. "His subjects are very much alive! How do you think they'll feel when they awaken and find their god-king dead?"

Sturm pondered this a moment, then said, "We can hide the body."

"No good," she said, crossing the outer wall. "The tree men will assume the worst if we're gone and Rapaldo's miss ing." Kitiara paused at the door to the throne room. "All the more reason to get out of here and find the Cloudmaster."

She was right. Sturm found his dented helmet and put it on. Kitiara replaced her sword and wrenched the dagger out of the dead man's chest. Seeing Rapaldo bobbing like a cork gave her a macabre idea. She knelt on one knee and unwound the remaining chain from Rapaldo's waist. They could use it when they found the flying ship.

Kitiara gripped Rapaldo's bloody shirt and guided the body toward Sturm. "Here's my idea of a quick and easy funeral," she said, letting go. The lifeless body of Rapaldo the First rose slowly, turning slightly as it went. Within min utes, it was lost from sight in the violet vault of the sky.

Sturm was aghast.

"It could just as easily have been me he killed, you know," she said flatly. "My only regret is that you got to him instead of me."

"He was a demented wretch. There was no honor in slay ing such a person."

"Honor! One day you'll face a foe without your concept of honor, and that will be the end of Sturm Brightblade."

They went back to the mushroom garden. The gnomes were waiting. Their tall expedition packs were weighed down even further with bits of metal salvaged from

Rapaldo's cache. Kitiara announced her intention to follow the path that the Micones had been on before their tracks were lost in the rocks. Sighter looked to Sturm.

"What do you say, Master Brightblade?"

"I have no better plan," he replied simply. A chill was growing in his heart. The woman who dealt so harshly with a dead foe was more and more like a stranger to him.

This was their darkest hour since leaving Krynn. One of their own was dead, buried in the cold moon soil, and a poor, insane king spiraled ever upward, a weightless corpse with no place to land. It would be a long, unhappy night.

And yet, when the sun next shone over Rapaldo's garden, a giant mushroom grew out of the grave of Bellcrank.

Unlike the scarlet fungi around it, this one was pure and shining white.

Sturm had another vision. It came to him while he walked, yet his step never faltered.

A horse neighed. Sturm saw four bony beasts tied' to a charred post. It was day, but heavy shadows lay over every thing. Sturm looked up and recognized the ruined battle ments of his father's castle. Across the courtyard he saw a broken wagon lying with one wheel off. A man was lashed to the remaining wheel, his wrists cruelly bound to its rim.

Sturm closed on this desperate figure. He prayed to Pala dine that it was not his father.

The man lifted his eyes. Through the wild growth of beard and the bruises of a brutal beating Sturm recognized

Bren, his father's companion in exile. As in Sturm's last vision, Bren looked right through Sturm. The younger

Brightblade was a phantom, a thing of no substance.

Four men shuffled out of the shadows on Sturm's right.

They were lean, rough-looking men of a type Sturm had often seen on the road. Vagabonds. Brigands. Killers.

"When is we moving on, Touk?" said one of the men.

"This here castle is haunted, I tell you."

"You afraid of ghosts'" said the dirty-faced fellow with the brass earring.

"I'm afraid of anything I can't stick my billhook through."

"When are we leavin'?" asked the last brigand in line.

Dirty-Face laughed, showing yellow teeth. "When I'm sure there ain't no more swag here'bout, that's when." Touk spat in the dirt. "Let's have a word wi' our honored guest."

The bandit and two of his men stood over the prisoner.

Touk grabbed Bren by his matted hair and lifted his head.

Sturm ached to help him, but he could do nothing.

"Where's the treasure, old man?" asked Touk, flashing a wicked knife under the old soldier's chin.

"There's no treasure," Bren gasped. "The castle was sacked years ago."

"Come on! Do you take us for fools? There's always a few coins tucked away somewhere, eh? So where are they?" He pressed the tip of the blade into Bren's throat.

"I-I'll tell," he said weakly. "Below the great hall – a secret room. I can show you."

Touk removed the knife. "This better be a straight story."

"No tricks. I'll take you right to it."

They cut him loose and dragged him along. Sturm fol lowed on their heels, close enough to smell the mingled stench of sweat, grime, fear, and greed.

Bren guided them to the cellar beneath the great hall.

There, in a long corridor, he counted the torch sconces on the right side. At number eight, he said, "That's it, that's the one." One of the brigands lit the stump in the sconce with the brand he carried.