The War Of The Lance (10 page)

Mara fidgeted. “I didn't use it,” she said finally. “I was standing at the steel entrance
doors, trying to figure out how to climb up the mountain, while the doors were sliding
shut. But the triple-lock fell off and jammed them open so I was able to slip through - ”

“The doors.” Standback slapped his forehead, leaving a pen mark. “Of course. I knew I'd
forgotten something. Sensors on the doors. Still,” he said quickly, “it was very clever,
making a plan with a lot of rope and a winch. You're almost thinking like a gnome.”

Mara chose to take that as a compliment. “Have you shown the committee the evidence of
your research?”

“I can't.” Standback looked uncomfortable. “I was cleaning them - with a perfectly fine
solvent invented by a friend of mine - when they dissolved. Also, the table under them.
Wonderful stain remover, though.” Standback's shaggy eyebrows dropped low as he brooded.
“I can't re- apply until I've proven that I have a semi-working prototype.” He added
sadly, “If only you had been caught or killed.”

Mara sighed in her turn. “If only YOU were the master of the Weapons Guild.”

Standback shook his head. “If I were, Watchout and I would be married by now. And I would
be far above.” He looked upward wistfully, as though he could see through the ceiling. “Up
where there is honor, glory, and matching funding. Where draftsmen constantly draft bigger
drafting boards for bigger projects with larger cost overruns . . .”

Mara, disheartened, listened as he described the Schedule Rescheduling Department, the
Management Oversight Overseers, and the apparently all-powerful Expanding Contractors.
“Tell me,” she broke in finally, “have any of these projects ever been finished?”

Standback, shocked to the depth of his stubby little being, stared at her. “Young woman,
any project worthy of state funding should be perfected, never finished.”

“Well, if you're not the master of the Weapons Guild, then what ARE you?” she asked.

He lowered his eyes. "I'm a lower-level inventor whose future life work must be scrounged
from the debris

left by the failures of others - “ ”Have you invented ANYTHING?“ ”I've done more varied
work than most gnomes you

have met." Since Mara had met no other gnomes, she simply

nodded. “My Life Quest - ” Standback stopped, looked pained,

and said with careful stress, “my primary work just now is still sensor-related, since
that was my Life Quest. I invent security and safety equipment for home or fort, for the
detection and prevention of unwanted forcible spies, intruders, or weapons - ”

“Paladine's panties,” Mara said irreverently. “You make burglar alarms and traps.”

Standback said happily, “That's why I was so happy when you appeared. What luck, really -
a burglar, coming straight through the burglar alarms and lockouts. It will be a boon to
my data.”

“Not luck.” Mara was having trouble understanding. “I mean, Kalend ordered that I take
this dangerous mission.”

Standback looked dubious. “No offense and don't take this the wrong way, but you ARE
rather young and did he really order you?”

Mara nodded emphatically. “It was when I was walking with him on the ramparts, which I try
to do a lot - not that he minds or anything, even though I'm younger than he is, since I'm
remarkably mature, responsible, and exceptionally good-looking for my age - and we were
talking about the war. He said, 'If only there were one working gnome weapon, and we had
it. . .'” Mara stopped and chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Or maybe he said, 'If there was
only one gnome weapon that worked and we had it. . .'

“Anyway,” Mara went on, “I remember thinking that he'd better not talk like that where the
draconians could hear him, or they'd go get a weapon first, and then I thought about how
happy he'd be if I went first instead and found him a weapon and saved the village, and -
well, I left.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Under cover of darkness, like I said.
Through the draconian camps - ”

The gnome raised a bushy eyebrow. He was coming to know Mara. “THROUGH their camps?”

“Well, around. Under their very scaly noses.” “So you saw them?” “Not actually saw them,”
she admitted, but added

quickly, “BUT I knew they were there, and was too clever to be caught by them. Alone and
courageous, I came - ” 'To find weapons.“ Standback frowned, thinking. ”To

fight these draconians, whom you haven't really seen. Um."

He reached a conclusion and rubbed his stained and callused hands together. “Well, as long
as you're here, I don't see why we shouldn't strike a deal. Do you still want some gnome
weapons?”

“What?” It took Mara, caught up in dreams of her own heroism, a moment to remember what
she was doing here. Her thin young mouth set firmly. “More than ever.”

“I'll let you take one,” he said. “Any one you want. If you'll test my security device.”

She swallowed. Anti-burglar devices? “Do I have a choice?”

Standback was ecstatic. “And right afterward,” Stand- back burbled happily, “I'll write up
my test results and submit them to the Committee. And then if they approve my work - and I
have no doubt they will - I'll marry Watchout.”

They strode down the tunnel together, their footsteps setting off an uneasy rustling and
flapping in the invisible colony clinging to the walls and roof above them.

“They're only bats,” Standback said reassuringly. “I hope,” he added, less so.

They walked past a number of side tunnels, their entrances half hidden by debris and
hanging ropes and cables. Mara, like a good thief, took note of the turns and the fork
back to the exit. “Where does the money come from for weapons research?”

“I use only junk, spare parts. The main projects were started on a grant from the Knights
of Solamnia.”

“The knights?” Mara looked serious. “I hope you're not counting on them for support. They
aren't as rich as they used to be, you know - ”

“This was a while back. They aren't as frequent visitors as they used to be, either,”
Standback pointed out. He screwed up his forehead. “In fact,” he said thoughtfully, "I
haven't seen them since the last In-House

Weapons Test, several years ago. No, make that several decades ago."

“And you kept the project going?”

“It never lapsed, even before I took it over. A project,” Standback said stiffly, “is a
commitment. It's as important as a vow.”

“They paid in advance, didn't they?” Mara asked dryly.

“Well, yes. Quite a lot, in fact. Here we are.”

He pulled an elaborate key (four notches and a combination lock) from a ring at his waist.
He inserted the key with some difficulty in a lock attached to a thick beam door in the
tunnel wall. After three tries, it opened easily. “After you,” he said. “This room has my
first anti-spy device.”

Mara stepped in cautiously. “Shouldn't your alarms have sensed me?”

“It's a proximity alarm,” the gnome said. “Once testing is complete, I'll put hundreds of
them in any place that needs monitoring. You can't have too much redundancy, you know.” He
was scribbling another note on his shirt. “Would you mind standing on that large black X
on the floor?” The X had a small bump at the cross- point.

A gnome-size test dummy on wheels stood next to the X. Mara rolled it almost onto the X
and stood well off to one side. “Let's try it this way first.”

“I've done this many times,” Standback objected, “with that very dummy.”

Mara said firmly, “Well, I haven't seen it work yet.” She noted that the dummy hadn't a
mark on it, though the walls and floor of the room were dented and scraped.

Standback complained, with some justification, “You promised. Is there no honor among
thieves?”

“There was once,” Mara said. “Someone stole it.” Then she sighed and moved the dummy off
the X. “I warn you, I'm leaving at the first sign of danger. What is it we're testing?”

“It's called the Room Security Spybanger,” Standback said impatiently. “Now will you step
on the X?”

Mara tapped the X with her toe, leapt, tucked, and rolled easily away, preparing to watch
from a safe distance.

She heard a TWANG. A stone mallet - its head the size of her own - whistled above her
close enough to ruffle her hair. Mara ducked, heard a second TWANG and felt a sudden sharp
sting on her cheek as an elastic cord attached to the mallet handle snapped taut against
her skin.

The mallet struck the far wall. A trap door popped open beside it. The mallet whizzed
back. Mara's back flip carried her just out of range. She dropped flat as a second mallet
spun out of the trap door and careened past her, setting off a third mallet.

Soon six stone hammers were ricocheting and thudding around the room. Mara rolled, leapt,
ducked, twisted, and at one point slid down a thrumming elastic cord to keep out of the
way.

Eventually, in desperation, she crawled back to a section of floor that every last mallet
had failed to pass over. She glanced in all directions, poised to spring, until the
mallets gradually lost momentum and dangled limply from the tangled elastics.

In the far comer, Standback applauded. “A perfect test.” He wrote furiously on his
stomach. “Absolutely perfect, with the exception of a few trajectory defects.”

Mara looked down. She was crouched over the X. “You tried to kill me.”

Standback shook his head violently. “Never. The Spybanger is designed only for
self-protection; killing is purely accidental. Can you help me rig these back up?”

From a comer cabinet, Standback produced a large wooden crank. He inserted the crank into
a spring and ratchet arrangement in the first trap and turned it until the mechanism was
tight enough to leave room for the hammer in front of it. He lifted the mallet
laboriously, then stood back, panting.

“And so amazingly easy to reload,” he said, struggling to shut the trap before the hammer
flew out.

Mara helped crank and lift the other five. “What else have you been working on?”

In answer, he led her through a second door - which led through a short tunnel to another
room.

"This isn't for spies, and it's not an offensive weapon. It's a shock-lessening device, a
preventive measure for high-impact disasters. A pneumatically seismosensitive

counter-measure for offsetting combat-related upheavals.“ ”What does it do?“ ”I just told
you,“ Standback snapped. ”When we get

there, would you stand in the center of the room, right on the X?"

Mara started to agree readily, then stopped. “Is it supposed to be the safest place?”

Standback nodded.

“In that case,” Mara said politely, “why don't YOU stand on it, and I'll observe?”

The gnome's shaggy eyebrows shot up. “That's kind of you.” He stepped onto the X. “You
don't mind taking the extra risk?”

“Never.” Mara folded her arms. “Danger and I are well acquainted.”

“All right. Watch, then. The Thudbagger is designed to protect against impact.” He paused.
“You've seen the gnomeflingers in use, above?”

Mara shuddered. She. had flitted down from level to level in the shadows, watching as
gnomes sailed from level to level (and, usually, down again) from the bulky catapults that
were equipped with everything except accuracy and control.

“Well,” Standback continued, “this may surprise you, but several visiting knights thought
that the gnomeflingers might also be dangerous.”

“No!”

“Truly. They thought - now, to my mind, it takes a twisted mind to think this in the first
place - that someone could use the gnomeflingers to throw dead weight projectiles instead
of passengers. Well, we performed some experiments, but we never got reliable enough
results to suggest that this would work.”

“Why not?” Mara asked.

Standback sighed. “Mostly because the note-takers kept getting crushed by thrown rocks. At
any rate, the knights asked us to come up with a defense to protect getting hurt by flying
rocks. They talked about shields, and barriers, but our Hazard Analysis Committee
interviewed the gnomeflinger Impact Test Survivors and concluded that the problem went
beyond shields and walls. I brought their results down here with me.” He led her into the
next room.

The furniture, Mara noted with relief, did not look banged up at all. How dangerous could
this room be?

A closer look revealed the furniture to be brand new. The comers of the room contained
large piles of splinters.

“Are you sure you want ME to stand on the X?” Stand-back asked. “After all, I guarantee it
to be the safest place in the room.”

Mara bowed to him. “All the more reason to give it to you.”

He was flattered. “How kind you are, and how brave.”

“I am also called Mara the Courageous,” she said. Standback was not surprised. He stepped
onto the X and folded his arms

confidently. “This room has a broad-band sensor.” He pointed to a small round bump in the
floor. “Stamp anywhere. You don't need to do it very hard.”

The floor looked to be some kind of parquet, broken at regular intervals with circular
lids each the size of a melon.

Mara eyed Standback narrowly and slammed her foot against the bare floor. Nothing
happened. She stamped again, harder. Still nothing. She took a running start and stamped
with both feet, hard enough to hurt her ankles. Nothing. She gave up and leaned on the
wall.

Huge leather balloons popped out of the floor. Filling instantly with compressed air, the
balloons smashed the new furniture to kindling.

Mara sidled around the edge of the room, squeezing between the wall and the balloons.
“That's pretty impressive, Standback - hello?” She squeaked a balloon with her thumb.
“Standback?”

Mara heard an answering squeak. She leapt onto one of the balloons, poised there like a
cat, and saw a hand struggling upward in the crack where all the balloons met.

Mara rolled down to the hand and planted her feet against balloon, her right shoulder
against another. Gradually, the two moved apart. She heard a gasping inhale below her,
then a thump as something hit the floor.