"Cupelix! Don't leave me! Our bargain!" Kitiara cried desperately. "My strength is fading, do you hear? I need you – our plans -" Sturm took hold of her shoulders and pulled her firmly away from the rail. Her fingers clutched at the smooth wood.

Farewell, dear Kit, was all they heard, and the tickling touch of the dragon's telepathic voice was gone. Sighter climbed up on the rail and scanned the moon with his spy glass. He could see nothing. "Good-bye, dragon!" he said.

Sighter snapped his telescope shut and slipped back to the deck. The little men quietly dispersed.

Kitiara sobbed against Sturm's chest "I'm sorry," he said.

Her tears unsettled him more than Cupelix's tragic failure.

She pushed him away suddenly and snapped, "Stupid beast! He and I had a deal! Our plans, our great plans!" Sud denly ashamed, Kitiara scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and sniffed loudly. "Everyone leaves me. There's no one I can rely on."

Sturm felt his sympathy for Kit drain away. "No one you can rely on?" he said coldly. "No one at all?" When she didn't answer, Sturm turned his back and left Kitiara alone.

Cupelix, defeated by the heights he had hoped to con quer, glided down in a wide spiral to the moon that had been, and always would be, his home. His flying muscles burned with fatigue, and the invidious cold of the upper air numbed his heart and soul. He skimmed over familiar land scapes, now cloaked in night, until the cliffs of his valley dropped away beneath his hanging feet. Striking heavily,

Cupelix's horned head plowed into the red dust.

He raised his head and sneezed. A voice said, "Bless you!"

"Thank you," replied the dragon weakly. "Wait – who said that?"

A diminutive figure appeared from behind a pile of goods left behind by the gnomes. It resembled a gnome itself, except that it was as hairless as an egg and colored red – skin, eyes, clothes, everything.

"I said it," said the little red creature. "It's a common wish to express when someone sneezes."

"I know that," said the dragon peevishly. He was far too tired to play gnomish games. "Who are you?"

"I was hoping you might know," said the little red fellow.

"I woke up a day ago, and I've been wandering since."

Cupelix raised himself on his hind legs and carefully furled his wings. The bending of his joints caused him con siderable pain, and he hissed louder than a hundred snakes.

"Does it hurt?" asked the red man.

"Very much!"

"I saw a bottle of liniment over there. Perhaps that would help." A small red hand went to the dark red lips. "Though

I'm not sure what liniment is."

"Never mind, Little Red Man," said Cupelix. "Fetch it, if you would."

"Is that my name?"

"If you like it, it is."

"Seems to fit, doesn't it?" The Little Red Man trotted off to find the bottle of Dr. Finger's Efficacious Ointment. He stopped and called back, "What's your name?"

"Cupelix," said the dragon. He was here to stay, all right, but at least he had someone to talk to. All things considered, it wasn't too bad a state of affairs.

"Little Red Man," Cupelix called across the valley, "would you like something to eat?"

Chapter 31

Highgold

The second voyage of the Cloudmaster was very different from the first. The engine's incessant turning, and the great wings' wafting had given those on board a sense of passage, of activity. The silent drift of the ship, now sup ported only by the ethereal air, was not like that. A perva sive lethargy invaded everyone on board. There was little to do in the way of managing the ship, and the less there was to do, the less anyone cared to do.

The gnomes quarreled, too. In the past, they had traded scoffing remarks and mild blows with equanimity; ten sec onds afterward, no one remembered or cared. But now, cooped up in the bare hull of the Cloudmaster, the gnomes lost their generous natures. Roperig and Fitter squabbled over the correct way to store the small supply of rope they had left. Cutwood grew deafer and deafer as he adjusted to his normal level of hearing. Flash yelled at him all the time, and Sighter yelled at Flash for yelling. Wingover had a slap ping match with Birdcall that left red welts on both their faces for hours. And Rainspot, poor gentle Rainspot, sat in the 'tween decks and wept.

Stutts sought out Sturm. "Things are s-seriously wrong," he said. "My c-colleagues are behaving like a band of gully dwarves. They are b-bored. Now there's no great task to bc accomplished, l-like toppling the obelisk."

"What can I do about it?" asked Sturm.

"We m-must give them a task, something that will t-take their minds off the slowness of our p-passage."

"What sort of task?"

Stutts said, "P-Perhaps Sighter could enlist their help in n-naming all the stars?"

"They would only argue," Sturm replied.

"Hmm, we c-could make a batch of m-muffins."

"No flour," Sturm reminded him. "Try again."

"Well, you c-could get seriously ill."

"Oh, no, your good colleagues would want to cut me open and find out what was wrong. Try again."

The gnome's shoulders sagged in defeat. "That was m-my last idea."

This is serious, Sturm thought. Who ever heard of a gnome out of ideas? "You know," he said, smoothing out his mustache, "perhaps there is some way to make this ship move faster."

"Without an en-engine?"

"Ships girdle the world without engines," Sturm observed. "How do they do it?"

"Let's s-see." Stutts twined his fingers together and thought hard. "Oars, s-sails, draft animals on shore, magic -" Here he traded a disapproving look with Sturm.

"- muscle-turned p-paddle wheels, towing by whales or sea s-serpents -" A light kindled in his pale blue eyes. "Excuse me. I m-must confer with my colleagues."

"Good man," said Sturm. He watched the gnome hurry away, almost skipping with delight.

A cheer penetrated the deck from below as Stutts explained his notion to the other gnomes. Thumps and squeaks told only too well that the gnomes' idleness had vanished. Sturm smiled.

He went looking for Kitiara. She was not in the dining room, so he went below. The gnomes were gathered in the berth deck's aft cabin. He peeked in the doorless doorway, to see Flash and Wingover sketching madly on the deck planks with lumps of charcoal.

'No, no," Sighter was saying, "you must increase the degree of camber, relative to the angle of incidence."

"What a lot of goat cheese! Any fool knows you have to decrease the planar surface," argued as, rapping his fist on the deck.

"Yes, any fool!"

Sturm withdrew. The gnomes were happy again.

He descended the short ladder to the hold. It was bitterly cold down there, since the flimsy patch in the hull scarcely kept out the wind, much less the cold. It was there that

Sturm found Kitiara, perched on one of the stout hull ribs, sipping from her water bottle.

"You look comfortable," he said.

"Oh, I am. Care for some?" said Kitiara. She handed

Sturm the bottle. He raised it to his lips, but before taking a swallow smelled the sweet tang of wine.

He lowered the bottle. "Where did you get this?"

"Cupelix made it for me. Wine of Ergoth."

Sturm took the smallest sip. It was extremely sweet, and as the few drops flowed down his throat, they burned strongly. His face must have reddened, for Kitiara chuckled at him.

"Deceptive, isn't it? Tastes like syrup at first, then it kicks like a bee-stung mule."

He gave the bottle back to her. "I thought you preferred ale," he said.

Kitiara drank. "Ale is for good times, good meals, and good company. Sweet wine of Ergoth is for melancholy hours, loneliness, and funerals."