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hide.
"Good morning, little gnomes," the troll greeted in his rough, guttural language.
Fillip and Sot shrank back, and trolls all about them laughed with delight.
"Can't you talk?" the speaker asked, feigning sadness.
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"Let us go!" pleaded the gnomes in unison.
"But we just found you!" the other said, aggrieved now. "Must you run off so quickly? Have you
somewhere to go?" A meaningful pause. "Might you be running from someone, perhaps?"
Fillip and Sot both shook their heads vigorously.
"From someone looking for this?" the troll asked slyly.
He held forth one massive hand. In that hand was their precious bottle, unstoppered once more, the
Darkling dancing along its rim, withered child's hands clapping merrily.
"The bottle is ours!" cried Fillip angrily.
"Give it back to us!" wailed Sot.
"Give it back?" the troll said in disbelief. "A thing as wonderful as this? Oh, I think not!"
Fillip and Sot kicked and fought like trapped animals, but the trolls holding them just tightened their grip.
The speaker was bigger than the others and obviously in charge. He reached out suddenly with his free
hand and thumped them hard on their heads to quiet them down. The force of the blows knocked them
to their knees.
"It appears to me that you've been thieving again," the troll continued thoughtfully. "Stealing what doesn't
belong to you." The gnomes managed to shake their heads once more in denial, but the troll ignored
them. "I think this bottle cannot belong to you. I think it must belong to someone else, and whoever that
someone is, he has clearly suffered a great misfortune because of you." He brightened. "Still, another's
misfortune need not necessarily be passed on. One man's loss is another man's gain, as the old saying
goes. We cannot be certain whom the bottle formerly belonged to. So it seems best that it now belong to
me!"
Fillip and Sot looked at each other. These trolls were scavengers, common thieves! They looked quickly
to the Darkling where it danced along the neck of their precious bottle.
"Don't let them do this!" pleaded Fillip desperately.
"Make them give you back to us!" begged Sot.
"Stop them, stop them!" they cried together.
The demon did handstands and backflips and watched them through slitted eyes that glittered redly in the
haze. A bit of multicolored fire spurted to life at the end of the fingers of one hand, and it blew the fire
toward them in a shower of sparks that flared, died, and turned to ashes that caused them to choke and
cough and go silent again.
The troll who held the bottle looked down at the Darkling. "Do you belong to these gnomes, tiny
fellow?" he asked solicitously.
The Darkling went still. "No, master. I belong only to the holder of the bottle. I belong only to you!"
"No, no!" wailed Fillip and Sot. "You belong to us!"
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The other trolls laughed with glee, the sound as chill as the rain that fell all about them.
The speaker bent close. "Nothing belongs to a G'home Gnome, foolish ones! Nothing ever has and
nothing ever will! You haven't learned how to keep your possessions safe! How do you think we found
you? Who do you think brought us here? Why, gnomes, it was this very creature you now call upon for
help! It showered the skies with its brightly colored fire! Itasked that we take it from you! Itasked that it
not be left your prisoner!"
The G'home Gnomes stared wordlessly, their last shred of hope gone. The Darkling their friend, their
maker of wondrous magic had deliberately betrayed them. It had given them over to their worst
enemies.
"Ho, hum," the speaker said with a yawn. "Time to dispose of you, I think."
The other trolls growled their assent and stamped their feet impatiently. They were growing bored with
this game. Fillip and Sot struggled anew.
"What shall we do with them?" the speaker mused. He glanced about at the others. "Cut their throats
and spike their heads? Pull off their fingers and toes? Bury them alive?"
Roars of approval sounded from all about, and the G'home Gnomes cringed down into small puddles of
despair.
The troll leader shook his head. "No, no, I think we can do better than that!" He looked down at the
cavorting demon. "Little fellow, what do you say should be done with these gnomes?"
The Darkling danced and balanced on fingers and toes, a wicked spider like shape clinging to the
bottle's slick surface. "They might make good feeding for the animals of the forest," it teased.
"Ah!" the troll leader exclaimed. The others joined in a chorus of raucous approval, and the early
morning stillness was filled with the sound.
So it was that Fillip and Sot were thrown to the ground, bound hand and foot with cord, hoisted feet first
from a line slung over a low branch of a nearby hickory, and left to dangle with their down-turned heads
some four feet above the ground.
"Not so close as to drown you in a rain wash and not so far as to prevent the scavengers from reaching
you," the speaker advised as the trolls turned away north. "Farewell, little gnomes. Keep your chins up!"
The pack laughed and shoved playfully at one another as they departed. The Darkling sat upon the
speaker's broad shoulder and looked back, eyes a blood-red glitter of satisfaction.
In moments, Fillip and Sot were left alone, hanging upside down from the hickory. They swayed gently
in the wind and rain and cried.
One-Way Ticket
It was raining and blowing on Ben Holiday as well as he began his day some twenty miles south of
where the G'home Gnomes had been strung up by their heels. He unwrapped himself from the warmth of
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Willow and his sleeping gear and shivered with the early morning chill as he dressed. They were
encamped within a sheltering stand of giant fir that sat back against a rocky bluff, but the damp seemed to
penetrate even there. The kobolds were already up and moving about, Bunion making ready to begin
scouting ahead for the fleeing gnomes. Questor staggered about sleepily, attempted to make breakfast
with his magic, and succeeded in producing five live chickens that flapped about madly and a cow that
scattered Parsnip's cooking gear. Within minutes, wizard and kobold were yelling at each other irritably,
and Ben was wishing he were back at Sterling Silver in the comfort and seclusion of his own
bedchamber.
But there wasn't much point in wishing for what he couldn't have, so he consumed a stalk of Bonnie Blue
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