“I am Duganaaga. Dug will do.” Dwarfs, unlike the Fay, are entirely willing to impart their real names. Neither Im nor Na knew anything of this.

  “Call me Xit,” Xido told him. “Our companion, mmm, you might simply name it Red.”

  “That would do,” came Qu’orthseth’s rumble.

  The group followed the rising pathway eastward. Na leaned in close to Im and whispered, “Are we guests or prisoners?”

  “Guests, since I accepted an invitation.” The boy chuckled. “Had I not, we might be the other.”

  “What did you do back there? To that demon.”

  She hadn’t seen Xido deal with the demon cops. Did she even know about what happened in that incident? “They seem to be filled up with some sort of, um, vapor? Or ether. That’s a better word, maybe. Not like a bag but like many tiny bags inside that skin.” He was trying to recall exactly what he had seen. It had all been a bit confusing and he had been in a very great rush! “I attempted to remove some of it and, ah, defte the demon some.”

  “Oh.” Na thought on this. “Is that maybe how Qu’orthseth made itself smaller?”

  “Maybe,” said Im. He wondered about that himself.

  He wondered about something else as well. “I think maybe they saw Xido coming and that is why they left. That demon could certainly have overwhelmed me before I did any real damage to it.”

  “But you will know what to do if there is another attack.” Na nodded in agreement to her own statement. “Now I shall too.”

  He would probably be able to do it better, Im thought, now that he understood it. Sort of understood it. But would he ever have enough strength to be effective? He was no god, after all.

  And there might be better ways to deal with demon visitors. That he should not forget.

  The pines on either side had grown less numerous, their spindly trunks thrusting up here and there from slopes of loose rock. They were still far from the high mountains when Dug called a halt. “I’d be inclined to blindfold you,” he told them, “but I don’t think it would work on Big Red. Guess we’ll have to trust you.”

  “Or kill us,” whispered Na.

  “We’re just a small mining community,” the dwarf continued. “Nothing really to hide.” They turned right on a well-marked path and, perhaps ten minutes ter, came to a timber-braced opening set into the slope.

  “This group includes just about all the males who live here,” admitted Dug, leading them in. “We saw the big red fellow down below and thought we should investigate. But we’re miners, not fighters, you understand.” They followed a low passage into a rger, open room. There were a number of female dwarfs, and children of many ages, most gathered around a communal fire. The smoke rose toward a roof hidden in darkness.

  The women were as squat and barrel-bodied as the men and, as the women of Hirstel, did not feel a need to cover their breasts. Attire had always been a matter of personal preference and mood there, for both genders — there was always the occasional individual who, for whatever reason, would choose to go nude one day or another.

  A hush and then a cacophony of voices, many fearful. A child cried. “Don’t worry, it’s harmless,” Dug assured his people. “I should’ve warned them about the demon,” he said as an aside to Xido.

  The god gestured to Qu’orthseth to go and it inclined its head in assent, turned, and returned to the outside air. “It’s better off out there anyway,” said Xido.

  Duganaaga turned his head toward the tunnel down which the demon had just disappeared. “How do you think it would do against a dragon? We sometimes have dragon problems.”

  “Honestly, my friend, it would not care about your problems and would gdly allow a dragon to gulp down your entire tribe. Demons of its sort will do nothing unless coerced in some fashion.”

  The dwarf cocked his out-sized head at the god. “I assume you have coerced it in, um, some fashion.”

  “It’s more a matter of mutual benefit,” Xido told him, and spent a few moments surveying the room. “Which of the dwarfish tongues do you speak here?” He addressed Dug in something that sounded like complete gibberish to Im. The dwarf replied in what was certainly a different dialect of gibberish.

  “Pretty much all of us can use the Ildin nguage,” Duganaaga said, returning to Zikem. “Some know the tongue of Tesra. I am the only one who can speak the Old Zikem.”

  “Then we must use Ildin, when we can,” decided Xido. “These two need to learn it.”

  Na had already thrown off her parasol-turned-poncho and was seated by the fire, attempting to use her minimal Ildin on the dwarf women. Most of the men had put aside their weapons and were rexing as well. What did these people eat? wondered Im. He was ready to tackle about anything put in front of him in this world, well acclimated now to its food.

  It was dark in here, wasn’t it? A few torches along the walls, the central fire. The dwarfs were probably used to it. Pale people, they were, lighter than the Ildin folk he had met so far, but some had hair practically the color of his own! He was about to join Na when Xido pced a hand on his shoulder. “Women and men do not sit together among these people,” said the deity. “Come join the other circle.”

  The males were sitting practically in the dark, near the entrance. As a sort of symbolic protection of their home? They were using that same harsh incomprehensible nguage Duganaaga had spoken to Xido. The god greeted them in it. Was there any tongue he did not know?

  Im became bored. He let his eyes wander about the mine. Or was it a cave? Maybe a cave originally, he decided. He also let his eyes wander to the group of women and children near the fire. The girls weren’t so bad to look at, really — oh, all girls were good to look at, Im told himself. But none of that. That got him in trouble the st time.

  “I’m going to check on, um, Red,” he whispered to Xido and rose. There were a few curious gnces but no one stopped him from going to the entrance.

  Qu’orthseth was right outside. And it was floating a little above the ground. “Practicing?” asked the boy.

  “Testing myself is more like it.” The demon returned to the support of feet and legs. “I need to know my capabilities here if there is more trouble.”

  Im sat down on a rock and regarded the great creature for a few seconds. “You seemed more than a match for those cops.”

  “Neither they nor I are operating at full capacity in this world. But I’ve had more time to get used to it. I think I can fly further now,” Qu’orthseth told him, and gave out one of its subterranean chuckles. “Not enough to carry you across the sea!”

  “I’m not sure I want to go,” was Im’s reply. “I just left one city of sorcerers. Why hurry off to another?”

  “No reason at all. As long as we are stuck with each other, I would prefer to explore this world.”

  “So would I,” agreed the young wizard Im. “So would I.”