Walking in the mountains in the springtime took Marchan's breath away. It was so invigorating to see new leaves, to breathe the cold air and hear the water flowing after being cooped up in a little cabin with too many people. The trips into the cave had been fun, but it wasn't warm enough to live there, and there was nothing to burn there to warm it. With all of them, and the firewood, the cabin had been warm enough, but monotonous.

Young Trevor had looked decidedly sad to leave. He had spent considerable time with the girl Joanna and had developed a rapport with her, helping her grind wheat into flour and helping her with the fire. The son of a Duke he had been, but he was learning that humble people were worth attention as well.

Canod, however, was glad to be on the move again. He, like Marchan, felt stifled in the little cabin. Worse, the underground caves scared him much more than thrilled him, so there was no help for him there. He had sulked the last month in the cabin, eating little and growing annoyed by Sam's antics as he explored his surroundings. Sam had taken a bit of a shine to Canod and often crawled over to him when he could, only to be left behind when Canod sighed and moved somewhere else to grow even more annoyed seeing Trevor with Joanna.

Once they had left the valley behind, Canod had picked up, and Marchon felt better knowing they could not be much farther from the city of the Dwarves that lay beyond the bay below them. He got a glimpse of it one day between two lower mountains ahead as they crested a pass. He felt that he could sense the presence of Dwarves even across the bay. He had no idea how big the bay was, nor even where on the other side to find them, but he was glad to be reaching somewhere he could call home.

They followed a river down out of the mountains. Sometimes, a solid track appeared on the bank. Other times the track disappeared completely and they had to pick their own way over the rocks and brambles until they found another track.

This climb down from the mountains went quickly in Marchan's mind. He was happy; spring was in the air; and, best of all, he was approaching somewhere he could call home.

One morning they got to a point where they could look out over the Bay of Chitay and see the sun reflecting back at them. Across the Bay lay a large mountain that Canod described as a volcano. He claimed that under it Marchan would find the city of the Dwarves that he sought. He had heard rumours to that effect during his travels in these regions.

They reached the mouth of the river late one afternoon as the sun was setting early behind the mountains. They could see across a sea arm, lights of a town twinkling. They turned to follow the coastline around the sea arm, but discovered that in the quickly gather gloom, they would quickly lose the coast, or not see it and fall in. They camped where they stood.

The next morning, they packed up and were starting out again to follow the coast when they saw boats coming out of the town. They watched as the boats crossed the arm and soldiers got out of the boats and approached, pikes held out in front ready to hurt anyone who opposed them.

"Halt!" called out the leader of the pikemen. His hat was a little taller than the rest. "Identify yourselves."

"We are travellers," said Canod. "I, at least, you may have seen before. I know I have been here before. I am Canod who stayed here some three years ago. This is Marchan, a dwarf from far away looking for the Dwarf kingdom across the bay and this is Trevor his companion."

Marchan listened to the speech and realized how much he had learned in Pedro's house. The speech that men used here on this side of the mountains was different again from the speech in Roger's domains. Pedro had been kind enough to teach the language patiently over the winter months. Canod had helped. Marchan was also struck by how out of place their names were in the language. It sounded wrong somehow to end a name with 'an' or 'or'. It sounded odd.

The pikemen all stood in their pose, ready to take on anyone who might attack them. Marchan noticed archers stringing their bows and preparing to shoot.

"Are you afraid of three people?" He asked. "That is all we are. We know of no one else here and we certainly haven't been waylaid since we crossed the mountains."

"You came over the mountains? We have heard there are lots of criminal bands there, roving the country side doing whatever they wish," said the leader of the pikemen. He cocked his head. "I think you are some of them. Your spy has told you that we are rich and easy prey."

"We're three people. We pose you no harm. We are merely passing through," said Canod. "We would like to hire a boat to cross the Bay, if that could be arranged. I'm sure we can come to some agreement on payment."

"Oh, so you have gold? Well, you can just give it to me, and I'll allow you to go."

"He said nothing about gold," spoke up Trevor for the first time. "He said we could come to an agreement on payment. Our friend Marchan is a master craftsman, as you no doubt can guess since he's a Dwarf. I am trained as a record keeper, but I'm sure I can be of use in many ways."

"What about him," asked the leader. "Is he useless?"

"We hired him to be our guide," said Trevor. "Beyond that I would not want to speak for him."

Canod looked up. "The last time I was here, your people had me tending babies. Your silly babies think I'm fun to be around. I can do almost anything else than that."

"Canod the Sitter? Of course!" spoke up one of the other pikemen. "Sarge, he was great with my cousin's kid. The kid would come home every day smiling and laughing. We had never seen him so happy before, nor since."

"Mmmm, so you were here," said Sarge. "And now you come crawling back after abandoning the children here."

Canod took a step back. A short scuffle ensued which ended with the three travellers prisoners of the pikemen. They were hauled into a boat and rowed back across to the town. As they came up from the crumbling quay, Marchan noticed the town was quite large. The woodwork was well done and atop stone foundations which were old and needed maintenance. The quay itself had looked well used. He turned to Sarge.

"I see you do need some work done on the stone foundations. I could do the work and earn freedom for myself and my companions."

"Silence!" said Sarge. "You are going before the Master."

The Master of the Town was a rotund man who looked like he could barely stand. He sat on a chair behind a large table in the Town Hall, which really was just one large room. The floor was exquisitely done with fish swimming in water and grass growing in fields, all coloured into the marble floor. The walls of the Hall were similarily sea scenes and woodland and mountain scenes and above a sky that Marchan would think was the actual sky, were it not the wrong time of day.

The Master looked up as they approached. "What do you want now, Sergeant? Where they leaving an oxcart in the zone for mule carts?"

"They are spies for invasion from beyond the Mountains!" said Sarge.

"Oh, do they have an appointment?"

"Well, no," Sarge looked abashed.

"Do you have an appointment?" the Master asked, this time directly at Sarge.

"No, sir," said Sarge.

"Well, until you have an appointment to bring in prisoners or the people you're bringing in have an appointment themselves, I don't see how we can follow your rule about appointments. Let them go free until one of you can set up an appointment to have them here. In the meantime, I will say 'Welcome to the city!' and 'Have a pleasant stay!'"

Sarge hung his head. He turned to his men and signed them to release Marchan and his companions and then left the Hall followed by his men.

Marchan looked up at the Master seated behind his table. "How does one go about making an appointment?" he asked.

"Why you just ask me when I can fit you in," was the reply

"Can you fit us in now?"

"Certainly I can fit you in," smiled the Master. "It is not often we receive guests from across the mountains. Welcome to our fair city. We hope you will stay a little while and that we can bless you on your journey when it is time to leave. Speaking of which, what is your destination?"

"I'm sorry, the experience with your Sergeant has me a little shaken," said Marchan.

"Oh, I must apologize for him. He has read old books on military training and meeting procedures and rules of order and all kinds of odd things. If we let him, he would run this city like a military base. He is very good at protecting us, but if we let him, he would make life very difficult for us."

"Well, thank you for getting him to release us," said Trevor.

"That's the thing about following rules of order, if you know how, you can always get what you want. Anyway, how can we help you?"

"I'm attempting to travel to the Dwarf City across the Bay of Chitay," said Marchan. "I was hoping we could hire a boat."

"I'm certain you could hire a boat, if you have some gold or something else valuable to pay for it."

"Ah, that, I don't," said Marchan. "I do have some skill that could make your floor here look less worn and refresh the rest of the room. I'm sure that could be valuable to you?"

"Yes, it would. I don't know if it would be enough to hire a boat to take you to th Enchanted Mountain though. I guess you don't know. Our older men, such as myself, remember a time when Dwarves were known to live across the Bay. Indeed, I'm sure you've guessed that this Hall was built an ddecorated by them. We have not, however, heard anything from them for many years, proabably 20 years or more. They generally kept to themselves, what with all the work they were doing in their own city, and we had little enough reason to go see them. Year by year we saw them less and less, and then one year we realized we had not seen them over a year. One of our boats went over to look for them, but found nothing. Since then stories have grown up of what's over there. Some say a great magician has come and enslaved the Dwarves. Others that they are all dead. Not many are willing to row over there."

"I'm sure we can work something out," said Trevor. "Marchan has quite amazing skill."