Bartholomew and Clickic, who Sam had named Gina, had been traveling on horse since the last time he had been summoned to Pramsu’s throne room. If there was a power signature, then he couldn’t be tracked. If he couldn’t be tracked he couldn’t be called back to answer questions that he couldn’t. While that was all good, the rain for the past week hadn’t been.

Gina asked, “My god when will we arrive? Being under this sky is no place for one of my kind.”

Barth sighed and shook his head. “I told you that you could stay behind when I left but you said you had to come.”

“My liege, I could not let you travel alone for my mother commands. She made a deal with you and there is no way for her to know if she is needed without me being by your side.”

Barth sighed again and looked up at the sky. The clouds were no less dark this day than they had been for the past few. If he had been anywhere near Arn, he would have been worried that the Hanish, the god of storms, was watching him. However, this storm seemed more natural than he could muster.

“My liege, you didn’t answer my question. How long till we arrive?”

Barth turned in his saddle and looked at the Darkweaver. While he had been able to get her to dress when following him, he hadn’t yet been able to teach her modesty. Or perhaps that was the game of hers. The outfit she had chosen to wear in the rain was her thinnest one and so left nothing to his imagination.

He mumbled to himself, “gods and godesses, If only I didn’t know what you were.”

Then he smiled a tight smile, “Gina what happened to the cloak I got for you?”

The darkweaver smiled, “It was so heavy so I took it off.”

“It was heavy because it was meant to keep you dry and warm. Didn’t you complain that you were cold just a few days before the rain started?”

“I was cold but the cloak was heavy. Why don’t you just sing a song to keep the rain away?”

The god sighed and turned back to the front. He kept his horse moving forward while scanning the world around him. It was just a few moments later that the spider spoke up again.

“I am hungry. I haven’t had anything big to eat in a few weeks. I thought with the way you fought through our nest you were going to be in battles all the time.”

Barth took a deep breath, “I might have been known in the past as the Bard of War but that was long ago. Now I am the god of bards and summer beer. I also don’t want to be found right now.”

“This body is odd it would be much easier if I just returned to my normal body.”

“While, I am sure you would be more comfortable in your natural form you would scare the horses who can keep going my longer than you can. So it is best for you to stay as you are. It would be even better if you kept yourself under the cloak so that you stayed dry and were less likely to be seen.”

“My god why does it matter if I am seen?” She asked with confusion.

Barth looked behind and said, “Keep up we need to move quickly there are bandits close by that we don’t want to deal with.”

Then he moved his walking horse to trot. Gina attempted to move her horse faster but went from a fast walk to a full run and passed the god. Barth shook his head. It had been an odd few months with the spider tagging along. She was either shameless or clueless. He sighed and kicked his speed up to keep her in sight.

The road for a few minutes with her in the led. It took her just a few minutes to get the horse under control and slowed down. By that time, they had reached the edge of the great forest.

Barth muttered to himself as he passed into the forest. “Great, the flow of mana has changed.”

The rain passing through the trees had dropped from the heavy storm they had been in for days down to a light drizzle, up above the trees of the great forest extended over two hundred feet with several other plants living in the canopy.

“Gina, keep with me now, while not dangerous to me this place could prove to be an inconvenience. We only have two days left to get to Boulderhall. Whatever you do don’t leave the path.”

Right as Barth was finishing speaking, they came to a sharp turn in the road where a branch from one of the trees was blocking the road. The two pulled up their mounts and looked around.

“My liege do we go around?” The spider asked.

Barth sighed yet again and turned to face the woman. “If I just told you that we shouldn’t leave the path what is that the first thing you ask?”

She smiled and stretched back, “It seemed like the easy way to go around. You know that I like things easy.”

“No Gina, there is no easy way about this. If we leave the path we lose the power of the enchantment that keep us moving quickly. If we stay on the path we must dismount and face those who are here now.”

As the god finished speaking to his companion, a group of bandits popped out from around them. A few dropped down from the trees behind them, drawing bows or clubs. One climbed up and over the huge branch from close to the middle and sat down on it. He was now just a little above eye level with the two mounted travelers.

The sitting bandit smiled, “I see that we have a beautiful lady and her escort? Here to pay the road tax?”

Right as Barth was about to speak, Gina spoke up, “He is not my escort and I am not Lady! My mother is a queen!”

Barth sighed and muttered, “Why couldn’t she be with someone else. The songs would be great.”

“Oh a princess then! Well we must take you to our home and let the queen know that we are hosting you for a time!” The bandit said while laughing.

One jumped down and grabbed the reigns of Gina’s horse and pulled its head down to pet it. As that one moved, the bandits on both sides of the chatty one leveled crossbows at Barth.

Barth smiled, “By chance what was the amount for the road tax?”

The smiling bandit answered, “We the normal is a silver per person and 6 per horse.”

Barth nodded, “That sounds reasonable could we perhaps pay that and be on our way?”

The bandit shook his head and then pointed back to the man standing next to him. “If she wasn’t the daughter of a queen we would let you pass. She is a fine looking women so she might have had to give a few kisses. But my truth speaker here said she was telling the truth. So now we have to host her for a while.”

Barth nodded, “Any chance I can pay an go while you host her? After all I’m not her escort.”

The bandit laughed and smiled. “Don’t want to wait around for a while? She is pretty to look at I figured that you would try to fight us all.”

“Oh no, I have places to be and things to do. I can’t wait around for her mother to pay you back for hosting her. Can I give you a the 7 silver and have you move the log so I can pass?”

The bandit got a very greedy smile, “The road tax is the 7 silver for you to move the log is another gold.”

Barth nodded and looked back at Gina, “Well girl it has been fun traveling with you but it appears they want to feed you for a while. I don’t expect you will need that horse I loaned you so off you go.”

Gina looked at Barth with confusion for just a moment, “You are going to take the horse?”

“Yes, and since you don’t wear it I am taking the cloak too! These men will watch out for you for a while.”

Then Barth turned towards the led bandit, “6 silver per horse and an gold to have the log moved. Three gold and you don’t tell anyone I was here?”

The bandits all around laughed, and the bandit said, “Sure, sure! Move to the right of the road. We will roll out a section of the tree.”

Barth passed over three gold and led his spare horse over to the right of the road. The bandits used large poles to push a chunk of wood out of the way. When they did, Barth started to move through the opening. He paused and looked back over his shoulder at Gina.

“Gina, I know you have been running on about being hungry but I am sure your mother would be mad if you over ate.”

With that, Barth spurred his horse through the gap and down the road. Not a moment after he passed through the branch, the screaming started. He slowed the horses down about a quarter mile up the road and then brought them to a stop.

He pulled his lute off his back and started to strum a few notes. He mumbled, “don’t know whats worse listening to her whine about food or letting her feed. Would be so much easier if I could ditch her in the mortal world, but sadly deals even as distasteful as this one must be kept.”

About five minutes later, a line of webbing fell down from branches above him. Barth looked up and swore and moved the horses down the road a bit.

“Make sure to shift! You will spook the horse if they see you and then I will either leave you or we will be late.”

“Yes my god. Thank you for the fresh food.” Clickic said from above.

Barth looked up and winced a little. “Well good, now change back and we will be on our way.”

From above the bard, there was a sound of twisting and crunching as the darkweaver changed back from her natural form of a giant spider into that of a young lady. Soon the line of web started to move up off the ground. Barth slowly watched the silk webbing rise up into the tree. Around a hundred feet in the air, Gina was wrapped up in the silk hanging upside down.

She waved and spun. Her body plummeted as the silk line fluttered around her. As she came down, she spun like a top and flipped over again and again. Her whole fall took around a minute to complete, unwinding from the silk the whole way down. When she got to the bottom, she smiled again and strutted over to the horse.

Barth had problems tearing his eyes off of her as she landed. “I guess, we need to do something about your clothing not making it out of your shift.”

“No need my god, I don’t mind.”

Barth sighed, “Gina, put something on from the saddle bags and lets get going. We have someone to meet and a deadline to keep.”

The darkweaver smiled up at the god, “Yes my liege.”

Two days later, Barth and Gina crested the last hill before their destination. In front of them was a vast crater that had turned into fertile land once pumped out. In the middle of the crater, another 15 miles away, was a giant boulder almost the size of a small mountain. Smoke wafted up from several spots on the outside, and a dozen roads all led to it.

Gina gasped, “My god what is that place?”

“That is Boulderhall, one of the oddest places in the world. It’s the city of the gnorves. To fill both their dwarven and gnomish natures the founders of the race settled here. It is enough of a rock that they feel secure and high enough that they have room to experiment.”

“Experiment my lord?”

“I take it you have never met a gnome?”

“No I haven’t.” She replied.

The bard laughed. “Ahh, well gnomes have a passion to build things with magic and clock work. Some of the things they have made have been truly marvelous. Most however, tend to explode in colored smoke and pain.”

“What makes the place so odd?”

“Well its name give some of it away. It is a boulder which means no caves into the ground. That’s one of the things that they gnorves love about it. Every year they have a festival where they get drunk and try to move the whole thing.”

Bartholomew laughed as they headed toward the city. “If they were dwarves they would have just muscled it to move I am sure of it. But no at the festival those who wish to try to move their home must first drink for an hour and then show how they will move it. The idea is that whatever is used to move the hall has to be stable enough to do when drunk. There have been a few close tries in the past hundred years or so.”

Gina whispered as she looked at the huge rock, “Has anyone done it?”

Barth smiled and with his right hand waved around them. “Let me tell you a story about where the crater came from.”

He pulled his lute around and started to strum. “A tiny man by the name of Snidnaruss Caskpike was he...”

They journeyed quickly into the stone city. As they got closer, they could see the number of people that had come for the spectacle. Many travelers of all races had come for the party. It wasn’t often that people could buy green fairy, and this was the one time you could get it right from the source.

There were odd machines and structures everywhere they looked. Gnomish flying ships moored to the top of the city were visible only a while till they got too close. The road they came in on brought them right through the festival camp, where there were musicians and dancers. People were selling beer from tents and odd buildings that had open walls and roofs.

Barth slowed down and pulled Gina’s horse over to him. “Remember, call me Barth while we are here. But, do not call me lord or liege. And no matter what don’t call me your god.”

“Yes my god.” She replied.

Barth sighed and brought them to the edge of the festival. Gina’s head was on a swivel as they came in. Sounds and smells all around her had her bouncing around. Then she yelled and pointed about two hundred yards off to their right.

“See they don’t all wear clothing!”

Barth looked over briefly to see a group of dancing gnorves drunk off their rockers shooting fireworks into the noonday sun. He sighed and looked over his shoulder at Gina to see her taking off her cloak.

“Do not be like them, they started with little sense and have lost what they had to the green fairy. We have have the craziest of them to see before the night is over.”

Three hours later, the pair had moved into the true city and up to near the center. Barth had to pull Gina along as she was dumb-stuck with many of the sites that she saw. From manaless flameless lights to moving stairs. There were even little tubes big enough for the smaller races to sit in that would shoot them through from one part to the next.

“Do not eat anyone here. You don’t want to get the gnorves mad at you.”

“Why? What will they do?”

“They have some of the worst song writers around. Your name and that of your mother will be sung in their off key voices for the next hundred years. Each year they will add another insufferable verse making fun of you. If they did this in common it would be fine. However, they do it in their language and then sing it in common. None of it works. So behave!”

“Yes my… Barth.”

A few more twists and turns and they came to a dark hallway. As they walked down the hall, Barth was dragging his fingers across the left wall. Till he stopped with his hand resting on a knob. He smiled and twisted it.

There was a rumbling sound, and the hall they were in was closed off by a wall. A few moments later and a door popped open in front of them to another stone wall. Low-powered lights flickered on as inscriptions slowly started up. Then gears moved, and a set of steps showed up in the door.

A very thin dwarfish-looking man with a scraggly and patchy beard came up the steps. He was wearing a leather jumpsuit with gear on all the joints. He made a buzzing sound as he moved up the steps.

Barth smiled and bowed low, “Master Caskpike, a pleasure to see you again and in such fine health!”

The gnorve huffed. “What do you want bard?”

“Can’t a guy visit a friend?”

The gnorve pulled a small device from a pocket and waved it around in front of himself. “You and I both know that you are no friend of mine. What is it you want? Be quick about it or off you go right out the boulder!”

Barth smiled with a tight smile and, “Max wanted me to make up with you and ask for a favor. If you refuse the favor I am to go to your daughter and give her the token.”

The gnorve lowered his gadget down and looked at Barth in the eyes, “You’ll change that song?”

“I have a new one ready to go out to the bards of the world tomorrow. We just need your help on a small project.”

* * *