Free Deltora Quest #5: Dread Mountain by Emily Rodda Page B

was fixed to the wall. It was burning air they could not afford to lose.
    “There must be a way out,” Lief insisted. “There must!” He was swaying with weariness.
    “The gnomes will come, surely,” muttered Barda. “To jeer at us, if for no other reason. For what is the point of a joke no one laughs at? That will be our chance, for if they can get in, we can certainly get out.”
    Jasmine nodded. “We must be ready for them. We must have a plan. But when will they come? And how? If only we knew!”
    “If we were at home, we could dream them,” said a small voice behind them.
    They all turned. They had almost forgotten about Prin. She crouched in a corner, her eyes enormous with fear, her paws clasped tightly in front of her.
    “If we were at home with my tribe, we could drink the spring water, and remember the gnomes, and dream of them, wherever they are,” she repeated softly. “We have seen them. Seen their faces …” Her voice trailed away and she began shivering all over. She heard Lief exclaim, and covered her face in shame.
    “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I have never been in walls before. I do not like it.”
    Filli chattered anxiously. Jasmine moved to Prin’s side and put her arm around her. “Do not be ashamed,” she murmured. “I too fear being locked up. I fear it more than anything.”
    “You are very tired, little Kin,” said Barda, with rough gentleness. “Lie down and sleep now. You can dream even without the spring water.”
    “But with it, how much more useful the dreams will be!” Lief burst out. As they all glanced at himcuriously he grinned and held up his water bottle. “Do you not remember? I confess that I did not, until Prin reminded me just now. We have drunk from streams ever since we left the Kin. Our bottles are still full — with water from the Dreaming Spring!”

    Out of the mists of Lief’s sleep, the dream slowly came into focus. Flickering light, dancing colors, a dull murmuring, the shuffling of many feet, clinking, chinking sounds … And one huge voice, terrifyingly loud, shockingly harsh, echoing, echoing … “MORE! GIVE ME MORE!”
    Lief opened his eyes fully, stared, revolted, at the nightmare before him, and staggered back to press himself against the rocky wall. I am dreaming, he reminded himself wildly. Dreaming! I am here only in spirit. It cannot see me!
    But still his heart thudded and his stomach churned. Whatever he had expected when he lay down to sleep, it was not this!
    He had expected to see a cavern, though not so huge. The roof of this enormous space soared, surely, to the top of the Mountain.
    He had expected to see treasure, though not in such great quantities. Great, glittering mounds of gold and jewels filled the cavern from wall to wall, rising into hills and dropping into valleys like the dunes of the Shifting Sands.
    He had expected to see the gnomes he had seen onthe mountaintop, though he had not thought to see them crawling, scuttling, shrinking, and afraid.
    But the giant mass of lumpy, oozing flesh that squatted in the center of the cavern, its wicked eyes glazed with greed, its slimy clawed feet spread carelessly over tumbled gems and heaps of gold — this was something he had not expected. Not in his wildest imaginings.
    It was a vast, toadlike beast. The hidden horror of Dread Mountain.

G nomes crawled around the giant, collecting in great glass jars the slime that dripped from its skin like thick, oily drops of sweat. They all wore gloves and kept well away from the oozing drops, handling the jars with care.
    The slime must be poisonous, thought Lief. Then, with a jolt, he realized that here must be the source of the venom that made the gnomes’ arrows deadly.
    As he watched, two other gnomes scuttled forward, bent under the weight of a huge golden bowl heaped high with what looked like black, glistening berries.
    They knelt before the toad, heads bowed. Its long red tongue snaked out and curled in the black mass,