Dragonlance: The Chaos War Series, Book 05 - The Siege of Mt. Nevermind by Fergus Ryan

Author:Fergus Ryan [Ryan, Fergus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-1381-7
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2015-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The grand process of reforming Mount Nevermind was like the movement of the machines that reformed it. It was constant, quick, and dramatic, and for a while, even given the horrible rumors of what was afoot in Incline Barium's Necropolis below, the gnomes appreciated its efficiency.

For after all, who would not enjoy a walk on the Thirtieth Level, free from fear that an improvised building would collapse on your head or that a gnomeflinger would rocket you seven levels down to an untimely end somewhere in the depths of the crater?

The carts ran on time, most of the lighting worked, and the complex and often-malfunctioning plumbing system bubbled and drained and flushed like a pipefitter's dream.

Even the little-known Publishers' Guild was back to work, its bookmills running for the first and only time. Now, all you had to do was push the log into one side of the long, grinding tube, insert the leather for the cover, and breathe the spoken words over the megaphone in midprocess, and the fully bound copy of Song of Huma would emerge from the other side, free of misprint and typographical error.

It was all competent. It was all reliable.

It was all boring.

For something paled in the act of invention, in design and in engineering, when there was no prospect of failure. It diminished the joy of hurtling by gnomeflinger into the receiving nets when you knew that there was no prospect of hitting the wall or of missing everything altogether.

The excitement of receiving mail diminished when it came reliably and on time, and getting from one place to another by steam cart was no longer an adventure.

More idealistic souls saw the trouble early. Within two days after the Knights had seized the Thirtieth Level, the perfectly functioning metavox echoed with the news of an attempted sabotage. A handful of gnomes—stragglers, it was said, from Glorius Peterloo's dismantled army, took axes and light explosives to one of the dipping devices.

They were amazed when, in a matter of moments, the thing began to reassemble. The Paradise Machine, it seemed, housed the secret not only of perpetual motion but of perpetual renewal.

The saboteurs, on their way under guard to the notorious Twenty-Sixth Level, set aside most of their fears in typical gnomish speculation.

What is this machine? they asked themselves, as the Knights of Takhisis tightened the shackles.

And how, in the name of great hammering Reorx, does the blasted thing work?

It was enough distraction. Gradually, the more rebellious citizens of Mount Nevermind were brought to the place of torture, while the whole city brooded on speculative mechanics. Faced with the new technology, the astonishment of a dozen guilds changed quickly into acceptance.

And acceptance changed back to boredom.

So, that part of the gnomish character that delights in surprise and intrigue flared into new, uneasy life when a message from the Geometers' Guild was blazoned over the metavox into all awaiting gnome ears.

Halion Khargos, Commander in the Knights of Takhisis, Occupying General, and Sovereign of the Provisional Government of

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