Appearance, however, was not the main trait the Finders had in common. Had Bolg life been less treacherous, less prone to early demise, it might have been noted that the Finders had a tendency toward longevity, at least by Firbolg standards. But since the day-to-day reality of Ylorc was a harsh one, there was often such early mortality that this trait never grew into a trend, either. Even the new warlord’s party of four, which had arrived and taken the mountain the previous winter, had been reduced by one; the Second Woman, the yellow-haired teenager called Jo that the Bolg believed to be King Achmed’s less favored courtesan, had died as the leaves had begun to fall, less than one turn of the seasons after they had come.
So, though the Finders did not recognize a common physical similarity among themselves, nor notice their disposition for a somewhat longer life span, they did observe one very specific ability to be unique among the members of their unspoken fellowship—they had a sense of the whereabouts of Willum objects, especially those marked with the Sign.
The Bolg as a race were not given to storytelling, and so the tales of their history were inconsistent as well as few and far between. But one piece of history was more or less common knowledge among all the clans of the Bolg: the Eyes, the mountaintop-dwelling spies; the Claws, those Bolg that inhabited the western areas of Ylorc that ended with the vast, dry canyon and the Blasted Heath above it; and the Guts, the fierce, warprone clans of the Hidden Realm, the deep lands beyond the canyon.
Regardless of clan, all the Bolg knew the story of their taking of the mountain from the Willum king.
Before they inhabited Canrif, once one of the wonders of the world, ruined for centuries and now, slowly, undergoing reconstruction, the Bolg had been cave dwellers, a subhuman population barely more manlike than the cave bears and subterranean wolves that preyed upon them, and that they in turn preyed upon. They had lived in endless darkness, and bred with whatever small enclaves of outsiders they could subdue. Firbolg as a race lived all over the world, but the individual members would never have known that, because their concept of the world was limited to the caverns and hillsides in which they scratched out a hard and sometimes brutal living.
At least, that is, until the Willums came. The Firbolg had made note of the Cymrians almost from the moment the wayfarers from Serendair arrived in the Teeth; the ragtag caravan of storm-tossed survivors of the Third Fleet’s tumultuous crossing had at first looked like prime targets for attack—vulnerable, exhausted, utterly without hope, or so it seemed; Bolg could smell such a thing. When, however, their numbers became clear—there were more than fifty thousand of them—the Bolg slunk back to the shadow of their caves. They watched as the newcomers transformed the mountains into towering cities, sprawling farmlands, well-tended forests, and deep labyrinths, the empire Gwylliam named Canrif, the Cymrian word for century, because he had vowed that within a hundred years’ time it would be the marvel of the world.
And so, as the Cymrian empire grew and expanded, the Bolg disappeared deeper and deeper into the earth, moved farther back into the wastelands to the east, until the War came.
Gwylliam’s battle with his wife and queen, Anwyn, the half-dragon daughter of the wyrm Elynsynos, had started as the result of what the Cymrians called the Grievous Blow, a strike across her face resulting from a marital spat of unknown cause. The resulting war decimated both the continent and the Cymrian population, which had split in twain, some choosing to follow Anwyn, others remaining loyal to Gwylliam. It was a bloody conflict that tore families asunder, even pitting Anwyn and Gwylliam’s own sons, Llauron and Anborn, against one another, and causing the eldest son, Edwyn Griffyth, to abandon the family altogether.
The Bolg knew none of the details. They did know, however, that the once impenetrable fortress in the Teeth was crumbling at the edges; the border patrols that had held an iron grip on the mountains were scarcely seen at all after the first two centuries of the seven-hundred-years-long war. Five hundred years into the conflict, the Bolg finally worked up the courage to begin to take advantage of the situation.
Slowly at first, and then, encouraged by their success, with a bolder outlook, a few clans began to establish small enclaves at the outskirts of Gwylliam’s vast realm. The Lord Cymrian had been too engaged to care that a ratty population of cave dwellers found its way across the eastern steppes and into some of the older sections of his vast labyrinth. Minor reports of lost Cymrian patrols or stores unaccounted for were hidden in the greater and bloodier balance sheets of the battles against Anwyn. His indifference proved to be his kingdom’s undoing in the end.
As Anwyn’s army was approaching, preparing to launch their last in a series of unsuccessful assaults on the mountain, the Bolg took the opportunity to overrun Canrif. Gwylliam had disappeared, and Anborn, Gwylliam’s youngest son and his general, was faced with the grim decision to evacuate while he could, or try and fight the battle on two fronts, from within the mountain as well as from without. He calculated wisely that he could not hold both, and that, in fact, the mountain was already lost to the Firbolg. Canrif, the crown jewel of the Cymrian empire, which had stretched from the mountains to the western seacoast, encompassed great provincial cities, built and maintained thousands of leagues of roadways and aqueducts, basilicas of visionary architecture, and harbors sheltering a thousand ships at a time, crumbled like sand and fell forever into the eagerly outstretched hands of a populace the humans considered to be monsters.
With the overrunning of Canrif came looting, of course, and all the treasures left behind—at least those things not hidden within the library’s vaults, because the library had been fitted with a musical lock that the Bolg had never been able to open—were gathered, split, battled over, or destroyed. So much of what the Cymrians valued—writings, art, maps and artifacts of the old world, museum pieces and items of technological invention—were of little or no use to the Bolg, and ended up as spurned booty. An entire private library of ancient manuscripts became fuel for a celebratory bonfire.
What the Cymrians left behind that the Bolg did value was joyfully divided or viciously fought over, sometimes again and again. Livestock, textiles, weapons and armor, and food stores were seized and carried off. Jewelry was prized as well. Even now, five centuries later, it was not uncommon to see the most ragged of Bolg women or even men, their bodies hard and leathery from lack of clothing and exposure to the elements, walking the corridors of Canrif wearing ornate necklaces on their heads like circlets or earrings clipped in their hair.
Gold coins, while initially interesting because of their shine, quickly were discarded by most of the Bolg. The culture had no concept of currency, though they did grasp the idea of barter, but only in that they knew how to trade useful goods for other useful goods. Shiny, heavy metal, while pretty, but too soft to make a reasonable weapon, had no real value, and thus was left, discarded, when the Bolg scavenged the abandoned hallways and chambers where the Cymrian populace had once lived.
But these coins did have value to the Finders, because they bore the Sign.
The sign was common in the Willum city. It was a symbol that meant nothing to the Bolg, and, in fact, contained pictures of things they had never seen before. In the foreground of the image was a star shining over the heads of a rampant lion and a griffin, beasts the Bolg had never seen nor even could have imagined. Behind those beasts was an image of the Earth, an oak tree growing on it, with roots that pierced through the bottom; again, nothing recognizable to such a primitive culture.
The Finders valued anything Willum they could find, but in order to have a place in this secret brotherhood, a man or woman had to prove himself or herself to be a true recipient of the call by finding something that bore the Sign.
In the early days after the Willums had been driven from the mountain this had been a relatively easy thing to do. But as the centuries wore on, anything that had been lost in the melee had most likely been found, or had fallen so deep into the ruin of the underground city that discovering it wa
s sheer luck. Each new discovery was cause for great excitement, because perhaps it was the item the Voice had demanded be brought to it. Over the centuries a vast hoard of items had been found, but none had proven to be the right one. Eventually, it seemed that everything that could be found within the mountain, or across the Heath in the Hidden Realm, had been found.
Still, the late-generation Finders did feel the presence of a few trinkets here and there in distant places. Most were within the realm of Roland, and therefore “finding” them would be out of the question. A few items, however, had been sensed by many generations to be in Sorbold, but until the trade agreements and the great caravans made it possible, there was no way to broach the mountains to get them.
Until now.
The coming of the Dark Man, one who called himself the Snake King, to the mountain had provided the means for the Finders to finally obtain their treasure.
And his leaving had provided the opportunity for them to do so.
Hagraith waited in the shadows of the barracks fire, the stew in his battered metal plate growing cold, untouched. As the soldiers of his regiment, selected from the heartier of Eye and Claw clans of the Inner Teeth, chortled and ate greedily in the flickering light, he was watching, listening for the sign only he knew was coming.
At first he almost didn’t hear it. It was muffled by the clanging of metal plates, the grunting and scuffling. But deep and distinct, repeated twice, he heard the tones, five together, chanted twice. He lowered his eyes into his mug.
Tonight the meeting place would be at the Hand.
In the darkest corridors of the part of the labyrinth known as Sigreed, the Crypt, or more literally the Village of the Dead, four men met in secret. In the distance they could hear the ringing of the ancient forges pounding out new weapons, new armor, new steel for the Rebuilding, a hollow, clanging sound that was more than a little unnerving. If the Bolg had been literate they might also have found it unnerving to be hiding among row upon row of burial plaques that lined the walls of the corridors, marking the tombs of viceroys and chancellors, confessors and advisors of the Cymrian Age long gone, their wisdom now buried deep.
Hagraith crouched nervously in the Thumb of the Hand, the eastern tunnel that led to the central area known as the Palm, where four other tunnels also met. Tucked beneath his jerkin was a bundle wrapped in tanned leather, his prize for admission to the brotherhood. He had discovered it quite by accident when on maneuvers deep within the Hidden Realm, and had felt its call intensely. Buried within a rotten crate in a peat bog that had once been the ruins of a Lirin city, the porcelain plate he was hiding in his jerkin was a miracle for many reasons; it not only bore the Sign quite clearly, but it was as yet unbroken, unmarred by Time. If he could will himself to stop shaking, it might remain that way long enough to be presented.
Krinsel, one of the most powerful of the Finders, and one of the First Woman’s favored midwives, nodded to him in the dark. She was holding a wick of candle tallow at the end of which a tiny spark burned, the only light in the consuming darkness. Krinsel sat cross-legged in the Palm, where she could see the other Finders who cowered in the other Finger tunnels which fed into the central area. Near her left foot were the ropes that would seal each tunnel if any sound came near other than the clanging of the forges in the distance above them.
When Hagraith did not move Krinsel’s eyes narrowed, becoming slits in the darkness.
“Give.”
Trying to keep his hands from shaking, Hagraith crept to the opening where the Thumb joined the Palm and carefully pulled the leather package from beneath his jerkin. He held it out to Krinsel, who took it with steady hands, the hands that had caught a generation of infants and more than a few treasures that bore the Sign. He skittered back to the recesses of the Thumb, panting.
With great delicacy Krinsel unwrapped the plate, holding it in one hand as she held the low-burning tallow up to examine it. Her eyes widened, and her face relaxed into a slight smile.
“It is the Sign,” she said reverently. After a moment she turned her dark gaze on Hagraith. “Finder you are.”
Hagraith bowed his head in relief, feeling the tightness in his abdomen abate. Sweat that had been held back by fear now poured from his brow.
He could keep his testicle, the price of misinterpreting the Sign or presenting a false find.
Krinsel held the plate aloft in both hands and closed her eyes.
“This one it is, Voice?” she asked quietly. The other Bolg crouched in the Fingers closed their eyes, listening intently, but they heard nothing but the noise of the smithy, the hammers ringing steadily, slowly.
After a moment she opened her eyes and shook her head stoically. “For the hoard this is. Good, Hagraith. Finder you are.” She turned to the tunnel that lay in the place of the Smallest Finger. “Give.”
One by one she examined the objects—a coin like the thousands of others in the hoard, the badly scarred lid to a box made of wood with a blue undertone to it, and finally a pot that had been brought all the way from Sorbold with the Sign inscribed inside. Each item Krinsel pronounced as genuine, and held high for the Voice to recognize.
As always, there was no answer.
Smoothly Krinsel rose and nodded to the empty tunnel in the place of the Pointing Finger that led down an endless corridor to the hoard. The Finders followed her, bearing their treasures to the place such things were housed.
22
The Cauldron, Ylorc
Night had fallen when Achmed returned to the Cauldron. The lamps had been lighted, filling the brightening hallways with thick smoke and the rancid smell of burning fat, which seeped quickly into his sensitive sinuses and nasal cavities. It made his bad mood even blacker.
The chandeliers in the Great Hall had been lighted as well; the renovations were almost finished. He took a moment, even in his fury, to stop and look around at the awesome sight of the polished marble columns, the newly restored symbols of the star Seren, the Earth, the moon, and the sun meticulously inlaid in the floor. Above him the domed ceiling was a dark cerulean blue, studded with tiny crystals that reflected the light of a mirrored device in the center of the floor, making it look like the firmament of the sky sprinkled with stars.
The illumination from the firepit in the floor that lighted those mock stars was the only light in the vast room, leaving many corners of it dark. Achmed stepped into a shadow, breathing evenly to slow his wrath.
Grunthor was sitting in one of the ancient marble thrones on the dais, one enormous leg slung over the arm of the stone chair. He was singing one of his favorite chanteys, fueled, no doubt, by the contents of the large flask that sat in a place of honor on the other throne.
When the sounds o’ grim battle
Have long stopped their rattle
And the sweet smell of entrails and gore
Pass away on the wind
Salute me, my friend,
For Oi’ll go a-rovin’ no more.
I’ll no longer tarry on
And leave to the carrion
The glory of well-wa-ged war,
When the killin’s all done
What’s the point? Where’s the fun?
Oh, Oi shall go rovin’ no more.
On that bittersweet day
With no more foes to slay
Our martial life naught but a bore,
We’ll make us some thrones
Of their skulls and their bones,
And we’ll go a-rovin’ no more.
The fury exploded behind Achmed’s eyes. Angrily he strode down the long aisle leading up to the dais.
Grunthor heard him coming at the beginning of the next song he was preparing to sing. He stopped, stood quickly to attention, and broke into a wide grin, which disappeared as the king came to a halt before the dais, slamming down his bundle of weapons on the floor. The crash of steel and the clang of metal jangled harshly.
Grunthor looked at him in amazement. “What’s all this, then?” he asked. br />
Achmed crossed his arms.
“When I asked you to watch over the throne, I had not meant that you should be warming it with your considerable arse while someone sells the kingdom out from under me.”
Grunthor, still standing at attention, went even more rigid. The muscles in his tree-trunk arms began to tremble with anger, and his face solidified into a mask of blind fury. Achmed waved at him dispassionately.
“At ease, Sergeant. I’d rather snarl at you as my friend than berate you as my Supreme Commander.”
Grunthor assumed parade rest, his face now a stoic mask within which two eyes filled with fire burned.
“What’s all this, then?” he repeated steadily. “Sir.”
“A cache of weapons I found among the bodies of a quarter-column of dead Sorbold soldiers,” Achmed said, pushing the weapons around with the toe of his boot. “They’re culls, fortunately—the Sorbolds are such mindless imbeciles that they cannot even see the flaws, the lack of balance. But they had them—any thoughts as to how that might have happened?”
“No, sir,” the Sergeant replied rigidly.
Achmed watched Grunthor for a moment, then turned his back to him. It was time for the longtime ritual.
“Permission to speak freely?” said Grunthor rotely.
“Granted.”
“I proffer my resignation, sir.”
“Refused.”
“Permission to speak freely?” the Sergeant repeated.
“Granted.”
He listened, his back still turned, for the great relaxation of military discipline, for the enormous inhalation that came whenever Grunthor crossed from the realm of loyal soldier into the one of enraged equal. He braced himself as the great rush of air surged in through Grunthor’s huge, flat nose.