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. Whatever came to hand, he picked
up. Whatever appealed to him - if there was space for
it - went into his pouch. It was the way of all the kender,
and Chestal Thicketsway was no exception.
In evening shadows, somewhere near where he ex-
pected to find the black road, he came across another
gnomish artifact - an ancient, fallen construct that might
once have been a catapult, except that no one could con-
ceivably have operated a catapult so huge and complex.
He walked around and through the overgrown wreck-
age, trying to imagine how the thing might once have
looked - a huge, impossibly complex machine standing
at least a hundred feet tall on four gigantic wheels with
spiked iron rims... endlessly intricate systems of pul-
leys and gears, levers and winding mechanisms, steam
boilers and windvanes... and probably half a hundred
whistles, bells, and ratchet-rattles.
Little was left of it now. What had been wood was en-
tirely gone. What had been stone was rubble. What had
been iron was designs of rust imbedded in the ground.
But he traced it out, and could surmise what had hap-
pened. Here an army of gnomes had built a siege engine
and had set it off. Possibly it had thrown a missile, but
definitely it had thrown itself
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