Wyvern, likewise burdened with a pair of barrels, lingered to sniff curiously at the pair of quivering animals. This was the last straw. They turned tail and ran, making horseish noises of great distress, and Wyvern watched them with an air of slight surprise.

"Idiot," said Merrin affectionately, a laugh in her voice.

"People ride those?" he inquired incredulously as she climbed into the saddle, maneuvering around the slightly grape-scented kegs of brandy.

Merrin just grinned, and wondered vaguely at herself for being so optimistically cheerful. They had the brandy, yes, but there was no guarantee that their portal would be successfully reassembled. The thought was slightly sobering and Merrin attempted to banish it as they rose, Wyvern angling after Gyre ahead of them.

_________________

They received a most amicable welcome upon their arrival that morning at Baste. The impressive gates to the Mages Guild swung open, revealing a familiar brown-robed scribe, bald head gleaming in the runes' blue flames. "You're back," he noted in mild surprise. His surprise multiplied threefold when he looked past them, to the newly rented horse behind them. And the barrels of brandy. He groaned. "Do I want to know?"

"Where's the Blunderer?" Kendath asked with perfectly diabolical intentions.

The scribe scribbled something on a worn sheet of vellum and beckoned them inside. He led them down the same corridors as last time and stopped outside the same door. He seemed about to knock before relegating the notion. "Master Elkor, may I come in?" he deferred politely. From the laboratory within, something exploded with a none too reassuring bang. A primal inhuman roar ensued, followed by a yelp that may or may not have been the dwarf's beard catching on fire. The scribe winced. "Master Elkor?"

"Getteraway 'fore I blast the darn door down an' ye with it!" A myriad display of colors flashed around the door's edges. The eldritch creature on the other side roared once more.

The scribe sighed. "Master Elkor, did you slight the demon mistress of Xel'zathori again?"

A heavy object slammed against the door. Kendath heard the dwarf's gravelly voice barking out a spell, then a noise like chains sliding across a stone floor. The door wrenched open, revealing Elkor the Blundering in all his glorious splendor. The dwarven wizard stomped to clear the flames licking under his boots. A jet of water issuing from his stout finger extinguished more flames in his beard. He haughtily thumped his gnarled staff, which promptly broke in half. Dismayed, he stared at the pieces of his staff in hurt denial.

The creature roared for the third time.

"Master Elkor..." the scribe ventured, peering apprehensively over the dwarf's shoulder.

Elkor the Blundering shifted to the side, allowing a full view of a chained fiery monstrosity. Its canine maw bared, it shrieked and spewed forth fire. Elkor only shook his head and shrugged in apology. "They need t'teach better manners in Xel'zathori is all I'm sayin'."

_________________

Merrin peered past the dwarf (who was smoldering slightly), her eyes wide in astonished disbelief. Needless to explain that she'd never beheld quite the flaming - thing - that now glowered, making threatening noises, behind the likewise glowering dwarf.

Tearing her astonished gaze from this new sight, Merrin hastily stepped back beside Kendath. What with an angry dwarf and an already hostile Kendath, she could imagine with no little effort another scuffle on the passage's polished stone floor. If at all possible, she really would prefer to prevent that.

Quite unsure whether or not to ignore, acknowledge, or attempt to brush off the presence of the demonic creature behind Elkor, Merrin groped for words and after a moment offered hesitantly, "We've - er - brought what you requested."

_________________

Elkor's smoldering face instantly brightened. Utterly comfortable with leaving the demon mistress alone in his laboratory, he stomped out into the corridor and shut the door behind him. "Ye have? Let's see it, then!"

Muttering an incoherent imprecation, Kendath stepped aside and seized the horse's reins. Its hooves clattered on the stone floor as it stepped forward to curiously sniff at the dwarf's singed beard. The barrels strapped to its flanks bumped against each other.

Elkor the Blundering moved around to inspect the casks. He stuck his nose against one and inhaled a long whiff. At length he gave ground, his face screwing in distaste. He whirled to glower at all three humans. "Brandy? Whaddya take me for, some bloody idiot?"

Kendath's falchion was already out as he stalked rapidly forward, death written in his eyes. Suddenly he halted in his tracks, for the dwarf made a very peculiar move.

Elkor the Blundering began laughing.

His bellow resounded off the smooth stone, multiplying right back as he doubled over, slapping his knees in maniacal mirth. Still howling in strange glee, he straightened and slapped the horse's hindquarters. The less than impressed animal snorted and danced sideways. Not deterred in the least, Elkor hugged the brandy barrels. Moisture gathered at his eyes. "Grapewing Brandy," he sighed with wistful nostalgia.

Neglecting to sheathe his falchion, Kendath could only stop and stare.

_________________

Merrin's expression changed so rapidly from alarm to dismay to confused incomprehension that even she wasn't sure what to think. However, Kendath seemed like he decidedly was, and she took an uncertain step forward to put a hand on his arm, not yet quite convinced of this unpredictable mage's cooperation. "Kendath - "

But Elkor was still embracing the brandy like a long-lost friend and Merrin felt justified in relaxing slightly. "It meets - er - your approval, then?" she queried, rather coolly, after a moment of rapturous barrel-hugging had elapsed. Why, why, could they not have happened upon a scholarly wizard who would wave a hand and put their problems to rest?

_________________

The trip back to Baste had been a silent one, Adanil mulling over what Kendath and Merrin had told him, while they presumably thought about other things. It was an incredible idea, that they were from the future. It fascinated him. And who could have made something that would send someone back in time? And interesting question.

And then there was the matter of their ridiculous story at the gates. Kendath's ridiculous story, to be exact. Those guards certainly shouldn't be there--who in their right minds would have believed that he was a peasant, when he was wearing a jeweled scimitar? The guards must have been blind, and Kendath certainly needed to learn how to come up with a story. Adanil doubted that he could come up with a good one, at least this early on, but it was just as unlikely that he could come up with something that unbelievable, either.

When they got to Baste, the mage they had chosen took him by surprise. Kendath and Merrin had told him that it was a bumbling dwarf, but he had never seen a dwarf before, let alone someone that clumsy. Gods, the flaming beard had to hurt! It was all he could do to keep from gaping at the fiery little mage.

Adanil smiled. He had seen others react similarly to particular drinks. He himself didn't drink much--he had just been starting to drink ale before he left with the Dragonriders. Perhaps he should try Grapewing Brandy some day--drinks certainly livened a person up in the morning, after all.

_________________

Truth be told, Kendath was in no temperament to sheathe his falchion anytime soon. His insubstantial patience was on breaking point. The peachy adage about "feeling someone's eyes" didn't seem to be functioning either, as his withering glare had been boring into the side of Elkor's thick skull for the past five minutes. All those five minutes, Elkor had experienced nothing but blissful ignorance.

He shifted his look to Merrin's hand on his forearm. A lesser man would have found opportunity to remark on his incomprehension of the opposite gender - which wasn't far from Kendath's own sentiments. He simply wasn't expressive enough to voice it in so many words. At that moment he wanted nothing more than to run his falchion through Elkor the Blundering's thick skull and stick his entrails on a pike.

The dwarf's first words upon escaping his euphoria didn't help in the least.

"Approval?" he roared. "Drinkin' party tonight!" Melodramatic pause. "And yer not invited!" Laughing like a lunatic, he doubled over and slapped his stout thighs.

"He's almost as amusing as Gyre," Kendath commented.

When he recovered at last, Elkor summoned servants and ordered the barrels to be hauled immediately to his private quarters. He trailed anxiously behind the irritated horse. Once the brandy was safely stashed inside, a mediocre lock would not suffice. An adamantine chain and twenty enchantments later, he examined his handiwork and declared his private quarters safe from threatening presences. The magically glowing door, laden with forbidding adamantine, rivaled any Midsummer's Eve pyrotechnics.

Kendath wondered if the demon mistress of Xel'zathori had eaten anyone yet.

_________________

Merrin, meanwhile, was standing with her arms folded over the Renegade insignia on her tunic, and an expression on her face that had morphed, over each enchantment and tightening of said adamantine chain, into a very expressive indicator of her impatience. "All right, you have your brandy!" she finally burst out, gesturing wildly at the ridiculous display. "What about your end of the deal?"

Her voice could be described as vaguely petulant, no matter how she tried to disguise it - and she wasn't trying very hard. Back in time two thousand years was all very well, but with the dwarf's neverending delays, professions of undying devotion to a keg of brandy, and completely pointless displays of concern for said precious barrels, Merrin could feel their gateway back to Vryngard ever just beyond her grasp. Fighting down a desire to stamp her foot - that was childish, no way around it - Merrin satisfied herself with clenching her fists, and rigidly held her arms crossed across her silver-grey tunic. And why did Kendath persist in looking detached and apathetic as her impatience grew more pronounced? Gods above, he was unfathomable! Why did she even care?

_________________

"All right, all right!" Elkor the Blundering exploded in return. "No need to get yer beard tangled in yer toes, woman!" Grumbling to no one in particular, he stomped down the corridor back towards his laboratory.

The laboratory door swung from one hinge. The stone doorframe around it appeared charred. Within, the chamber was ominously silent. The scribe, who'd been anxiously trailing their footsteps the entire time, gawked. His mouth worked to stutter something incoherent.

Kendath sniggered.

Scarlet-faced, the scribe frenetically scribbled on his parchment.

The dwarf shrugged.

Elkor moved forward to inspect the dangling door. He experimentally jabbed it. The entire portion of that wall - doorframe, door, and all - collapsed in a smoldering pile of rubble. Resignation written on his weathered visage, he glanced back at the others and shrugged again.

"The demon mistress did say she's a vegetarian."

-----------

"A portal. Whaddya take me fer, some great and mighty wizard?"

Kendath crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. He regarded the spirited dwarf before him with an openly trenchant air. His hand happened to drop within two inches of the pointy object on his belt. He strained to recall Gyre's words. "The portal's magic is scattered but not destroyed," he elucidated blandly, with no tenacious idea of the meaning of "scattered but not destroyed."

Behind his desk, Elkor the Blundering raised a bushy eyebrow and leaned back in his seat, which decided to creak under the added weight. After much altercation, he'd decided to allow his guests to share a room with a his precious brandy after all. The scribe threatening to alert the archmages about a rampant demon did help somewhat. The dwarf screwed his face up in confusion. "Scattered? What in bloody ale mugs is that s'pposed t'mean?"

"We were hoping a great and mighty wizard would know. Apparently we thought wrong."

Elkor scowled. "I do be knowin'. I need some time to think is all." He assumed a pensive posture. "Where is this... portal?"

"Plains of Despair. Cheerful place. You know it?"

The dwarven wizard didn't blink. "'Course I know it. Who doesn't?" A tremulous pause. "So, lad. Where is it?"

Kendath resisted the urge to bang his head on the wall - though this could result to distaster, as his skull wasn't very thick at all. "South of here. Near the River Amren."

Elkor voiced a silent ah. He grinned in utter omniscience, then ensued it with, "The River - what?"

The poor assassin sighed and rubbed his temples. They had a long way to go yet.

_________________

When Wyvern landed neatly in a small space between trees - these had been getting more numerous, and the trees smaller, as the lands beneath the dragons' wings grew more barren - the next evening, Merrin slithered off him with a speed approaching desperation. "No, there wasn't room!" she turned to reiterate, not pausing to assist the dwarf off her dragon. Wyvern was rumbling faintly in amusement. Elkor had complained incessantly about the fact that there was no practical way to bring his brandy along - complained, in fact, since dawn that morning, when they'd left Baste. It was now dusk, and poor Merrin was almost incoherent with a fervent desire to remove herself from the diminutive mage's presence.

He had logically ridden with her, as Kendath and Adanil already rode Gyre, and Merrin had come to appreciate like never before the pleasant silence that embodied the bond of a dragon and rider. She closed her eyes momentarily - Gods, grant me patience! - and turned with a rather set expression to make a fire. It was a testament to her irritation that Wyvern depositing Elkor on the ground none too gently (his arrival groundwards was, in fact, accompanied by a loud thud) bothered Merrin very little.

_________________

"Lose some weight, girl, and mayhap ye wouldn't be feelin' guilty right now!" Elkor the Blundering roared in retaliation. He fell off Wyvern's saddle to land with an even more profound thump on his buttocks. He straightened his dusty spectacles, leaped to his feet, and planted both fists on his hips. "Look at ye!" he ranted. "Ye likely weigh a darn hundred pounds is my thinkin."

Gyre cocked her head. She looked at her rider. He smells funny.

Really... Kendath dismounted and trudged off to forage what meager firewood that existed among the scraggly scrub. Pale starlight illuminated a desolation devoid of life. No howls in the night. Not even scorpians to ease their pains. The few branches he found were brittle and dry. One puff from Gyre caught them aflame, but they burned with a vengeance that wouldn't last half an hour. Tonight they'd have to settle against their dragons for warmth.

Suddenly Kendath realized something. And that something sent cold surges of dread more compelling than any terror he'd ever known. A single scan of their small campsite confirmed his suspicions. He didn't even try to stifle his groan. "We're missing someone," he told Merrin.

_________________

Tired Merrin, who had almost been nodding off against Wyvern's warm flank already, started to wakefulness with an unpleasant shock. She was startled to find a vivid curse spring to her lips, and caught herself with some alarm before it had quite gotten out. A glance akin to Kendath's about their small camp only told her what she already knew.

One more attempt at suppressing her violent dislike and Merrin had given in.

"That absolutely idiotic dwarf!" she exploded, expression bordering on murderous as she hauled herself upright. "Of all wizards, we had to get this one! He did nothing but complain all day, and now - !"

Merrin found her fists clenched at her sides, and could have conceivably kicked at any floor-level object in convenient proximity. Ashamed of her outburst, furious at the disappearance of the dwarf, and already conscious of her nerves stretched to the breaking point by the irritation of riding with him for a good twelve hours, Merrin attempted for a few silent moments to get herself under control.

"I'm going to throttle him!" she said, voice rather strangled.

_________________

If anything, Kendath jumped a foot in the air at Merrin's outburst. He couldn't remember Merrin displaying anger since the last time he'd unwisely insulted the gods. But Elkor the Blundering did advertise himself as a convenient stress reliever. Perhaps now she'd aid him in his personal endeavor to stick the dwarf's head on a pike.

Gyre snapped her head up and glanced about, faintly amused. "He went that way," she informed, lashing her tail in a general easterly direction.

Kendath glowered. "You didn't stop him?"

She evinced the equivalent of a sweet-tempered smirk. "On the contrary, I find him entertaining. He smells funny," she repeated as though that explained it all.

"And he'll smell dead before daybreak," Kendath promised, a bare second before the darkness swallowed him. He hadn't gone far when he heard a feral snarl somewhere to his left. He pivoted, dagger leaping to his hand. A hundred paces before him was a small mesa, jutting up from the flat wasteland. And silhouetted against the steep cliff...

"Nice pups," Elkor grunted tentatively, stumbling over his robes in his haste to give ground. The lean coyotes deliberately circling him, on the other hand, didn't appear nearly as amiable. Coyotes. In a land formerly known as barren and devoid of life.

If anyone in the world could find life in a desert such as this, it'd be Elkor the Blundering.

_________________

A simultaneously disgusted, incredulous and anxious intake of breath from Merrin, following a few steps behind, indicated the fact that she felt obligated to come to Elkor's rescue. The thought of leaving him to the less than well-meaning coyotes never would have crossed her mind, even if they hadn't needed his magical skill.

Wyvern sent a questioning tendril of thought at her where she stood in the shadows, watching the coyotes advance. Merrin couldn't see why not to call her silver dragon, but after a moment of hesitation she slipped through the brush as quietly as she could and laid a hand on Kendath's arm, whispering, "Call Wyvern?"

_________________

Throughout the last few days, Adanil had stayed mostly silent, not talking to Kendath or Merrin. Somehow, though he knew it wasn't true, they seemed different, now that he knew they were not from this time. It was more than a little thought-provoking. It filled his thoughts as much as his desire to destroy the Shadowers did.

How can they save Dragonkind? he wondered, mystified. So far, it didn't seem as though they had accomplished anything really beneficial. Certainly, they had gotten him out of village life, but the cost was high. His village had been destroyed as a consequence.

There was another thing that worried him. Were they still willing to take him to the Renegade headquarters, now that he knew about their past--well, future? It was a measure of their trust that they let him know their secret, not that he had given them much choice about it, but would they reconsider? Would they decide that perhaps it was too dangerous for him to know such things? His head hurt from all the questions that their simple answer had raised.

And then, to top things off, their mage disappeared from their camp. When Kendath pointed that out, Adanil scrambled up from where he had been making the fire, his eyes darting around as though to confirm the dwarf's absence. When the two dragonriders ran in the direction Gyre gestured to--gods, was he getting so used to being around them that a dragon giving directions was commonplace? He followed the Renegades, his sword-hand hovering near the hilt of his weapon just in case.

When he caught up to Merrin and Kendath, he gaped in surprise. Elkor was surrounded by large coyotes, ones that would give have given him pause before he had his sword, but he did not understand why the Dragonriders did nothing. "They are only coyotes," he said, drawing his sword. "Why don't you attack?" Surely coyotes would not be able to stand up to the bite of their swords. Surely not.

_________________

Kendath acknowledged Adanil with a slight shifting of his position. Making no move for his falchion, he crossed his arms over his chest and gazed on with the most profound expression of contentment he'd worn in days. "I could attack," he conceded thoughtfully. He sat down on a boulder and shrugged. "But if the blunderer can't kill off a few dogs, I hardly think him capable of opening a portal."

"I heard that!" bellowed Elkor the Blundering, who apparently had better hearing than he did common sense. A fireball tickled his palm and exploded in the nearest coyote's face. Yelping, the predator leaped back to lick its scorched nose. The other coyotes fell back as well and resumed their maddeningly patient circling. The dwarven mage raised his arms, roaring, "Hold onto yer toes, laddies. Yer 'bout to be figurin' out too late not to mess with Elkor the Belcher!" His declaration escalated to an arcane chant.

Recalling all too vividly the demon mistress of Xel'zathori, Kendath prepared to take cover. He heard an ominous bang, ensued by Elkor's exultant whoop. Something hit the ground next to him. Something with a wet splat. Bracing himself, he looked down to see...

A coconut?

Then he looked up. Up, as in skyward, that is. "I can't believe this," he groaned. Vehemently cursing whichever asinine god popped in with the world's first dwarf, he dove for cover behind the boulder he'd formerly been sitting on.

Just then, the sky began raining coconuts.

Two coyotes went down with communal yelps, knocked out by plummeting missiles. Squirts of milky coconut juice sprayed in every conceivable direction. Howling and barking, the coyotes fled.

_________________