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KALE

Kale swung down from one layer of the planking in Bedderman’s Bog and sat cross-legged on the next.

“What do you think, Pat?” she said to a small brown minor dragon no bigger than a kitten. “Can it be fixed?”

The little dragon chewed thoughtfully on some bug he had captured and eyed the portal. She listened with her mind to the dragon’s assessment of the damaged gateway. Her eyes widened. “Eight or nine thousand years old? Maybe Fenworth made it in his youth. Of course, he claims to be older than that, but I don’t believe it. I think it’s part of his confusion.” She leaned back against the thick trunk of a cygnot tree. “This is such a boring assignment.” She picked up a notebook and made an entry. First she marked the location of this gateway on a map of The Bogs, then numbered it. “Number fifty-six, approximate age eight to nine thousand years.” She tapped her pen on the page. “You know Fen isn’t going to accept such a broad estimation. Oh, I wish Reg were here. He would have this figured out in a trice.”

Kale scooted closer to the opening and studied the fibers with which the gateway had been woven. She didn’t touch them because they were actually made of a material similar to light. She preferred not to be shocked. And, she didn’t want to accidentally fall through.

The task assigned her was to locate and catalog every gateway in The Bogs. It was a tedious chore, and sadly, she saw the necessity.

Fenworth was dying. Not a painful or difficult death, but as he put it, the end of this life and the beginning of the new. Once he had quit this world and stepped into the presence of Wulder, he would no longer be able to assist Kale. And he was leaving The Bogs to Kale. She would be its mistress and must be familiar with all its properties.

“This looks like the pattern woven in the Pordactic Period, and the strength of the fibers backs that up. I’ll put down eight thousand, five hundred, twenty-five years. And as to the weaver of the gateway, it was not Fenworth. Fen believes in simplicity, unless it’s his stay-at-home robes. Those are elaborate and beautiful.”

She glanced down at her attire, black leggings, a smock shirt in a dull green, and, of course, her moonbeam cape. With a grin, she concentrated on the plain pants until they blossomed into loose-fitting silk trousers, shimmering in peacock colors. Her floppy blouse she changed into a fitted blue tunic embroidered with threads of gold. Under the tunic, she now wore a dazzling white long-sleeved shirt with sapphire snaps at the throat and wrists. Still not satisfied, she rearranged the embroidery on the tunic into a scene including a white palace, strutting peacocks, and dragons flying over her shoulder and across her back. She left the moonbeam cape alone.

A second minor dragon scampered out of the hanging moss. He chittered and flew to a branch of leaves above Kale’s head. She looked up and smiled. “Hello, Gymn. Your tummy full?”

The green dragon smacked his lips and stretched out in a patch of sun filtering through the dense leaves above.

Kale turned back to her examination of the weave. “Strot. I think it was Strot who made this gateway.” She tilted her head. “That’s peculiar, though. Why would Strot be here in The Bogs making a portal? This clearly is the initial entry.” She wrote her identification in the notebook and tapped the pen against her chin. “Now, where does it go? These broken strands would indicate north, and they were quite long, weren’t they, Pat? Now they’re so frayed and tangled, it’s hard to know what to think.” The brown dragon scrambled among the leaves. She put the pen and notebook down on the floor and faced the gateway squarely.

“Let’s fix this, Pat. Maybe while we’re weaving, we can determine the location of the other side.”

The little brown dragon dropped the collection of tiny beetles he had in his forefeet and flew to Kale’s shoulder. With the help of the fix-it dragon, she used her knowledge of wizardry to gather together the broken strands, form new matching strands, and work them into a smooth frame for the gateway.

“My,” she said as she finished and let out a heavy sigh. “That covered quite a distance. All the way up to the Northern Reach. And the exit at the other end was most peculiar. Where’s Filia?”

Almost immediately, a small, rosy pink dragon appeared from within the foliage. The creature looked far more delicate than Pat. Her pale wings, filigreed with silver and gold lines, were almost transparent. “Filia, do you remember anything about the Wizard Strot?…A mountain wizard. Yes, I remember that too…Murdered by Risto? Oh no, I don’t think I knew that.”

Kale again studied the gateway. “Two things I detect about this gateway, friends. The first is that it proceeds vertically instead of horizontally. Second, there is a device at the other side that literally pulls in anything that comes too close to the entrance.” She tapped her pen again on her chin. “To what purpose would that be?”

She closed the book, stuck the pen in a pocket along its spine, and shoved them into a hollow in her cape.

“Now, where is everybody? It’s time to go home. I’ll ask Librettowit what he knows of this gateway and Strot.”

Pat had again gathered a meal. He reluctantly released the drummerbug he’d been about to devour and followed Kale.

“Metta? Ardeo?” she called.

A purple and a gray dragon came through the planking from the cygnot floor below.

“Dibl? Dibl! Wouldn’t you know he’d be the last to come?” She walked to the tree trunk, gave a little jump, latched on to the hole in the flooring above, and pulled herself onto the next layer. Her stylish pants caught on a twig. Annoyed, she carefully unhooked the cloth so it would not tear, and stood up.

“Dibl, where are you?”

The yellow and orange dragon swooped down from the branches above and ruffled her short curly hair. “Oh, cease your antics, you naughty little beast.” She laughed but stopped short when she heard a thump from the landing below.

Dropping to her knees, she peered through the hole. In front of the gateway, a halfling stretched out on his stomach. She knew those pointed ears and coal black hair.

“Bardon, what are you doing here?”