Tyler's Dream by Matthew Butler Page B

a scattering of traps, and at night they would check on them. He glanced upwards; the sun had slipped out of sight, and his hole was now plunged into shadow.
    But why would the ghatu spend vast amounts of time digging holes on the off chance that Varkon or Tyler would fall into one? What were the chances that both he and his companion would fall into different holes so that they had no chance of helping one another?
    “Varkon?” he cried out again, hopefully. Nothing.
    Well, he’d be damned if he was going to sit about idly. His hole could have been dug years ago and forgotten for some reason. Tyler wasn’t sure which was worse: being captured by the Dhimori or starving slowly to death.
    There was a scuffle from above, but before he could turn to look, something cracked against his head, and he knew no more.

CHAPTER SEVEN
THE PIT

    Tyler groaned and opened his eyes. For a time nothing registered. He stared blankly up at the rustling branches above him, and the sky. The sky … That meant he was on his back. Good, his brain was still working – although it appeared somebody had carefully replaced it with a brick. He groaned again, louder this time, and put up a tentative hand to touch the back of his head. Pain blasted through his skull. He could feel an impressive lump there as big as a finger knuckle. Gurgling with shock, he managed to sit up and look around with cross-eyed bliss.
    He was in a small cage clamped around the trunk of a tree around thirty or so feet from the ground. His heart leapt at a familiar silhouette.
    “Varkon!”
    The ghatu was lying in his own separate cage, in an adjacent tree a stone’s throw away. His face was turned to the side so that only his powerful back was visible, pressed up against his bars, but it was undoubtedly his companion.
    “Varkon, wake up! I’m over here!” Tyler shouted happily.
    He was poked hard in the ribs. He yelled and jarred his head, and then he yelled again at the pain of moving his skull too quickly.
    A little man was standing outside his cage, holding a long blunt stick. The tip of his head was barely three feet high, and his face hung low with loose skin and wizened features. Stranger still, with his spine severely bent, this oddity’s neck was forced to hook violently upwards to keep his eyes level.
    So this was the mysterious architect of the trap.
    “Hello,” said Tyler gently. “My name—”
    The little man jabbed him in the ribs. “Dino umo gun,” it explained viciously.
    “That hurt. What—”
    The midget whacked his stick into Tyler again. That last jab was especially painful. He crouched over and raised a hand to acknowledge he would not speak out of turn again. The little beast smiled with victory, revealing two rows of tiny teeth. “Ano duno ora,” he called loudly, his pinched lips leaping widely across his cheeks.
    “Hut ti gon no wi,” came the voice of another dwarf-like creature as it galloped onto the platform from the crooked ladder. He was similar to the first little man except that he had an indelible air of authority.
    “Dis rio!” exclaimed the first man, in greeting.
    The newcomer nodded his head in what Tyler supposed must pass for severity.
    “Tu far wah tuk,” the first continued, obviously referring to Tyler.
    “I mean no harm,” Tyler breathed as soothingly as possible, holding up both his palms.
    The man with the stick screeched and thumped Tyler’s stomach much harder than his first two blows. Both impish creatures let out a long cackle of laugher as they watched Tyler roll on the floor in agony.
    Nobody could hear him – he was trapped. Only a few more moments until his fate was assured. The money in his pocket felt suddenly meaningless. He would die here, and no one was going to care.
    “Tik Tik,” chirped a loud voice. “Yu wha!”
    Tyler blinked open his eyes. So his dreams had not ended. They still filled his sleep like endless voices whispering into his ear.
    “Yu wha!”
    He groaned as he rose to his