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“This is it. We’re inside the fortress.” Gilthanas said, grimly victorious. “We stand in the cellar of Pax Tharkas.”

“Thank the true gods!” Tanis sighed and sank onto the floor, the others slumping down beside him. It was then they noticed that Fizban and Tasslehoff were missing.

11

Lost. The plan. Betrayed!

Tasslehoff could never afterward clearly recall those last, few, panicked moments in the Chain Room. He remembered saying, “A dark elf? Where?” and standing on his tiptoes, trying desperately to see, when suddenly the glowing staff fell on the floor. He heard Tanis shouting, and—above that—a kind of a moaning sound that made the kender lose all sense of where he was or what he was doing. Then strong hands grabbed him around the waist, lifting him up into the air.

“Climb!” shouted a voice beneath him.

Tasslehoff stretched out his hands, felt the cool metal of the chain, and began to climb. He heard a door boom, far below, and the chilling wail of the dark elf again. It didn’t sound deadly this time, more like a cry of rage and anger. Tas hoped this meant his friends had escaped.

“I wonder how I’ll find them again,” he asked himself softly, feeling discouraged for a moment. Then he heard Fizban muttering to himself and cheered up. He wasn’t alone.

Thick, heavy darkness wrapped around the kender. Climbing by feel alone, he was growing extremely tired when he felt cool air brush his right cheek. He sensed, rather than saw, that he must be coming to the place where the chain and the mechanism linked up (Tas was rather proud of that pun). If only he could see! Then he remembered. He was, after all, with a magician.

“We could use a light,” Tas called out.

“A fight? Where?” Fizban nearly lost his grip on the chain.

“Not fight! Light!” Tas said patiently, clinging to a link. “I think we’re near the top of this thing and we really ought to have a look around.”

“Oh, certainly. Let’s see, light …” Tas heard the magician fumbling in his pouches. Apparently he found what he was searching for, because he soon gave a little crow of triumph, spoke a few words, and a small puffball of bluish-yellow flame appeared, hovering near the magician’s hat.

The glowing puffball whizzed up, danced around Tasslehoff as if to inspect the kender, then returned to the proud magician. Tas was enchanted. He had all sorts of questions regarding the wonderful flaming puffball, but his arms were getting shaky and the old magician was nearly done in. He knew they had better find some way to get off this chain.

Looking up, he saw that they were, as he had guessed, at the top part of the fortress. The chain ran up over a huge wooden cogwheel mounted on an iron axle anchored in solid stone. The links of the chain fit over teeth big as tree trunks, then the chain stretched out across the wide shaft, disappearing into a tunnel to the kender’s right.

“We can climb onto that gear and crawl along the chain into the tunnel,” the kender said, pointing. “Can you send the light up here?”

“Light, to the wheel,” Fizban instructed.

The light wavered in the air for a moment, then danced back and forth in a decidedly nay-saying manner.

Fizban frowned. “Light—to the wheel!” he repeated firmly.

The puffball flame darted around to hide behind the magician’s hat. Fizban, making a wild grab for it, nearly fell, and flung both arms around the chain. The puffball light danced in the air behind him as if enjoying the game.

“Uh, I guess we’ve got enough light, after all,” Tas said.

“No discipline in the younger generation,” Fizban grumbled. “His father—now there was a puffball …” The old magician’s voice died away as he began to climb again, the puffball flame hovering near the tip of his battered hat.

Tas soon reached the first tooth on the wheel. Discovering the teeth were rough hewn and easy to climb, Tas crawled from one to another until he reached the top. Fizban, his robes hiked up around his thighs, followed with amazing agility.

“Could you ask the