“Except we know now that someone has a fancy for orc flesh,” Manon chipped in. “I’m sticking to my dragon theory. We’re in the Outer Lands here…”
“No. There are no more dragons. Or they’re never seen nowadays.” Tungdil sat down, too, and ordered the troops to take a rest; they all relaxed and had something to eat. “No dragon would take the trouble to collect its prey together in this way.” His clothing stuck to him; he was dripping with sweat. He was not used to the exertion of a long march any more.
“Those beasts are clever. They would never put orc-snout flesh in their mouths,” laughed Boïndil, as he bit into his bread and stinking cheese. All of a sudden his gaze fastened on the heap of stones behind Tungdil. “What’s that? Isn’t there something catching the light?” Boïndil jumped to his feet and began to pull away the rubble. He called five of the warriors over and got them to dig. He was too tired.
It took quite some time before the hidden object was revealed. Rubble kept slipping back down over where they were working whenever they removed a sizeable boulder, and there was dust everywhere by now. Finally Tungdil was handed a flattened helmet. A helmet with a golden moon on the front; black bloodied hairs stuck still to the rim.
“So that will be her son we have found,” said Ireheart under his breath.
Tungdil put the helmet in his pack. “It’s his helmet we’ve found. Not him. Don’t make the same mistake as the search party the king sent out. They might have placed the helmet there on purpose, so it gets found and it’s assumed that he’s dead.”
“Why on earth would anyone do that?”
“Exactly. Why? Orcs would never have taken the trouble. It must have been something with a brain,” insisted Tungdil.
Ireheart leaned back and looked at the stone barricade. “Are you thinking of dismantling it to find out?”
Tungdil shook his head. “No. I’m sure that would be a waste of effort. We—”
They all heard the clinking noise that traveled out along the tunnel toward them from the cave; metal had come into contact with stone.
“So we are not alone,” whispered Boïndil, stuffing his food back into his knapsack.
“Let’s go and see,” agreed Tungdil, getting the troop to assemble.
While they crept silently back through the tunnel to the cave they picked up that same sound again. It was nearer now.
Tungdil, Boïndil and Manon took a cautious look out of the tunnel mouth. At first glance there was little to see. The cave was empty and abandoned. Dust circulated in the air, and there in the center of the cave was a pile of rubble that had not been there before.
“A ghost?” Ireheart mouthed to Tungdil.
“Well, we are in the Outer Lands, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions like that,” he said thoughtfully. “Whatever it is, it’s—”
“Up there!” called Manon, pointing out a dwarf-sized form up by the roof.
“Who can that be?” Tungdil asked him.
Ireheart looked up. “What, by all the gods, is he doing up there?”
To all intents and purposes the dwarf seemed to have hauled himself up on a pulley hoist attached by chain to the top of the rocks. Now he was settled in a leather bucket-seat arrangement, working away with a long iron chisel.
Manon shook his head. “He’s not one of ours. I’ve heard nothing about any other missions, and I haven’t got the faintest idea what he’s up to up there. Or how on earth he got there.”
The stranger positioned the iron bar, pulled a hammer out of his belt and whacked it on the end, pushing the tip of the chisel into the rock. Large chunks of rock splintered off, falling noisily to the ground, with granite dust clouding after. Now they knew what had caused the new pile of rubble they had seen.
Boïndil cursed. “Look at the roof,” he called out in alarm. “There are cracks everywhere.”
“Can you do all that with an iron bar?” laughed Manon in disbelief.
“False granite,” explained Ireheart. “I’m a secondling, and even if I was never much good at handling stone, I know my minerals better than a thirdling.” He indicated the place where the clumps of stone had collected. “See how the chunks break open when they fall? Looks like granite, but it’s nowhere near as hard. The older the stone the more porous it gets.”
“That fellow is trying to bring down the whole cave!” Tungdil turned. “Let’s get out of here, or we’ll have no way back!” The others followed him at speed.
The dwarf working overhead had noticed the approach of the uninvited newcomers and was redoubling his efforts. One last mighty blow with the hammer and a boulder the size of a house broke free. It crashed to the floor and sent a great cloud of dust right up to the roof of the cave.
Immediately, the unknown dwarf shimmied down the chain and disappeared in the dry cloud of powdered stone. Only visible as a vague shape, he ran off in front of Tungdil and his troop as they coughed their way through the dust cloud to reach the safety of the side tunnel.
Above them the work of destruction continued. Perhaps the best comparison is with a vaulted roof whose keystone has been kicked out by the actions of a madman. There was no support left in place to take the immense weight of the massive ceiling and to transfer the pressure to the side walls.
More huge stones fell; two of the warriors were buried, crushed under the stone slabs as if they had been soft kashti mushrooms. Their helmets rolled between the legs of the remaining soldiers, tripping one of them up. His comrade was just in time to pull him back onto his feet. Not even the largest monster could have withstood this rockfall; perhaps even a full-grown dragon would have been brought to its knees.
The fine granite dust got into the dwarves’ airways and lungs and made it impossible for them to breathe properly. The cliff shook under them, cracking and roaring. The mountain screamed its distress out loud, outraged at the destruction.
“The bastard,” spluttered Manon as he rushed past Tungdil and Boïndil to try to catch the dwarf who had brought the roof of the cave thundering down. “I’ll kill the bastard!”
Tungdil did not doubt the earnestness of Manon’s words. The thirdling had lost two of his men for no good reason.
“No, Manon!” he wanted to call out, but from his dust-stopped throat he could only produce a croak in protest. The only way to stop a murder now was to run after the two of them himself.
In the tunnel they ran into the air was clear; no clouds of dirt obscured their view. They hastened after one another as if they were threaded like pearls on a string: the dwarf first, then Manon and last of all, Tungdil, losing ground all the time. He was out of condition and had no energy left.
“Stop,” he groaned, spitting out saliva that could well have served as mortar. “Manon, wait for me! He could be leading you into a trap.” He set off again in pursuit, with the rest of the troop and Boïndil following behind. “What a hothead!”
As they reached the cave where they had first seen the orc bones they caught sight of Manon disappearing down another tunnel they had not noticed before.
The chase continued.
Tungdil had a terrible stitch in his side. He gasped and his breath whistled like an old kettle; even the older Ireheart, who had bidden farewell to battles and other exertions now at his advanced age, had more stamina than he did. “Run on ahead,” he panted, falling back to a walking pace. “I’ll be along shortly. I don’t want to hold you up.”
“No need, Scholar,” said Boïndil, pointing to a fork in the tunnel.
There Manon lay, his drawn sword in his left hand. He sported a bad cut just below the eye. Ireheart and Tungdil bent down to help him while the warriors provided cover. Of the dwarf they had been chasing there was no trace.
Tungdil checked the jugular vein. “He’s not dead,” he reported with a huge sigh of relief.
Boïndil was holding up a stone the size of a small egg that had the thirdling’s blood dripping from it. “They got him with a slingshot!”
“Begone!” A voice echoed
round the tunnel. “There is nothing here for you to find.” They could make out something the size of a dwarf, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a chain mail shirt. In its right hand the figure held a large hammer aloft. The smoke from its torch made it hard to distinguish facial features.
Tungdil stood up and made his way to the front of the band, while two of the warriors saw to Manon. “Who are you? And why did you bring down the cave—?”
Behind the figure a huge shadow filled the entire cave. Cogwheels grated and whirred loudly, mechanical parts screeched. The thing was getting closer.
“Get away from here!” the figure called to them, dropping the torch and hurling the hammer at them.
One of the warriors fielded the missile, catching it on his shield, which deflected it to crash against the low stone roof.
The events of the cave were repeated: great fragments of false granite fell onto the rock floor, and the passageway split open with a gaping hole several paces wide.
“Back! It’s too dangerous to try anything here.” In frustration, Tungdil clenched his fists. This time he stood no chance of discovering the secret of the Outer Lands.
Boïndil and three warriors grabbed the unconscious Manon and ran for their lives. Not all of them escaped the fatal rain of stones. Two more were buried under the false granite and the rest managed by the skin of their teeth, coughing and gasping, to reach the cave of bones. Behind them the tunnel collapsed and belched out a fountain of deadly dust that covered the dwarves.
And that was not all.
The mountain shook in rage as if angry at what was happening within; it seemed to want to punish those who were inside it. Above their heads they could hear cracking and twisting noises, as splinters of rock started to fall.
“What have we done to make Vraccas so angry? This chamber won’t hold much longer,” guessed Ireheart, worried about his friend. “Can you go on?” he asked the gasping Tungdil.
“I’ll have to,” he groaned, fighting for breath as he struggled to his feet. “I never wanted to die like this.” He thought about the strange shape he had seen behind the figure of the dwarf. “What was that thing he had with him?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was, he would have set it on us if the tunnel hadn’t collapsed.” Boïndil shook the dust out of his beard, which had turned gray. “You’re the scholar, Tungdil. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
On the opposite side of the cave, parts of the walls were starting to burst, with stone shrapnel flying hundreds of feet through the air. One of the warriors was hit in the face. Blood shot out of the wound on his cheek.
Tungdil did not answer, but gave the signal for them to set off. Things were no longer clear at all.
They hurried back through the fog-filled tunnel, while the stone under their feet shook and would not come to rest. Tungdil was convinced that the rock was furious at the intrusion: the insides of the mountain had been vandalized, and its caves destroyed.
But they escaped the anger of the mountain, finally reached the Northern Pass and made their way home through the frost and fog. Hoar frost formed on their helmets, their chain mail, their shields, and their beards, turning the dwarfs completely white.
When they arrived back at the gate, they were expected.
II
Girdlegard,
Kingdom of Gauragar,
Spring, 6241st Solar Cycle
Make way! Make way for the King of the Players!” shouted the herald in his multi-colored garb, one hand beating the drum he carried on a strap round his neck. Then he raised the trumpet to blow the fanfare, a tune vaguely reminiscent of Gauragar’s royal anthem. He strode noisily through the crowd; eager to see what the approaching high-born personage might look like, people fell back to let the herald pass.
Following the herald came an arrogant figure wearing what were surely priceless robes; he wore a conspicuous blue hat sporting three feathers and held a silver-headed cane in his hand. A goatee beard suited his aristocratic visage well and the long dark brown hair rested on the collar of his mantle. He waved to all sides majestically; to emphasize the royal gesture he had fastened a white silk cloth to the ring on his middle finger and it fluttered like a miniature standard.
“May the gods love you and protect you, people of Storm Valley!” He walked to this side and that, and even risked a smile to a young woman. “Especially you, my lovely child. If the gods do not comply, call for me and I will gladly take on the duty myself.” The girl blushed and some in the crowd around her laughed out loud.
Arriving at the center of the marketplace, he jumped up onto the rim of the fountain.
“Now, come, honored spectators! Come and see for yourselves in my traveling collection of curiosities the most wonderful adventures ever witnessed in Girdlegard. It will be as if you had been there in person,” he enticed them. He ran round the low circular wall of the fountain, the buckles on his shoes clinking as he did so. “The battle with the orcs, the fight against the eoîl and the avatars, the cruelty of the unslayable siblings that governed Dsôn Balsur—you will see it all with your very own eyes. Heroes, villains, Death and Love. I, the renowned Rodario, whom once they called Rodario the Incredible and Lover of the Maga Andôkai, shall tell you of grand deeds. I have tales to tell of why Andôkai was also known as the Tempestuous One.” A few laughed at this innuendo. “And I fought side by side with Tungdil Goldhand in combat with the eoîl,” and here he swished his cane through the air in imitation, “until the mist-shape lay dead at our feet!” He stood up at his full height and stretched out his arms. “For I, myself, cherished spectators, have lived through these very events. Can there be another such who could recount in more detail, with more verisimilitude? Who could report to you with greater honesty than I?” Blue and gray flames shot from his fingertips, to the shock and surprise of the bystanders. “This was merely a foretaste,” he promised, looking at a young boy. “You will have to cover your eyes during the show, little man, to stop them jumping out of your skull,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone.
The boy went pale and crept closer to his mother, who laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. Rodario fired off another batch of flames against a darkening sky which was indicating the approach of a spring storm. A few thunderclaps and some lightning would not harm the atmosphere in the great marquee one little bit. “Listen! The first twenty spectators to arrive will receive a free cup of wine, and also a glass jar with a breath of eoîl fog. Watch it and wonder! But never dare to remove the cork, else otherwise…” He left the threat hanging unspoken in the air, and restricted himself to displaying a mysterious warning expression.
His brown-eyed gaze swept over the throng, who were hanging on his every word. As always, he had been able to win over the crowd by a mixture of personal charm and free offers. In every place he visited he would look around for a familiar face; but as always in these last five cycles that face was still missing.
Finally he noticed a beautiful woman in the second row watching him. This cheered his mood considerably and combatted his disappointment.
She looked to be about twenty, tall and attractive. Everything was in the right place for a woman, though a little more substance in the décolleté would not have come amiss. She wore her long blond hair down; her face was narrow and full of expression; her green eyes were following him intently. He would have judged her to be of noble birth, had she not been so simply attired and had it not been for the laundry bundle in her arms.
Her visage showed a strange longing; it was less a matter of desire for himself as a man, more a question of sharp interest in what he was doing. Rodario was well acquainted with this effect. He had stood at the doors of a theater four cycles earlier with the same expression on his face, with no other thought in his mind than the need to appear on stage. And he had achieved his dream.
He took it as a sign from the gods. Following his instincts, he jumped down from the fountain edge and landed directly in front of her. Then he made he
r a deep bow and, thanks to amazing dexterity and meticulous preparation, conjured up a black paper flower as if from nowhere.
“Bring this flower this evening and you shall see the show for free,” he told her with a smile, raising one eyebrow and treating her to his famous stare no female yet had been able to withstand. “Tell me your name, my Storm Valley beauty.”
After a moment’s hesitation she accepted the paper flower. Then a young man pushed his way through in front of her, tore the gift from her hand and trampled it underfoot. “Keep your flattery to yourself,” he threatened.
“Sir, it is not courteous to interrupt the entertainment in this way,” Rodario responded smoothly.
“It’s not entertainment, you clown! You were flirting with my wife,” the man retorted angrily, shoving his balled fist into Rodario’s face. “Try that again and it’ll be a black eye you get, and not a black paper flower.”
“No?” Rodario bent forward swiftly, pretending to pull something out of the young man’s ear. To the delight of the watching crowd he extracted a second paper flower. “You see? You already had one.” He handed the flower to the young woman. “Here, madam, with your husband’s compliments. He is a lucky man to have such flowers growing in his head. It must be the futility, I mean the fertility, of his earwax that does it, methinks.”
Furiously the man snatched at the flower before his wife could grasp the stem. He hurled it into the dirt. “Enough!” he shouted. “You will pay for this!”
Rodario even pretended to extract something out of the man’s open mouth. He waved a coin in the air. “But why? You are so rich already. There is gold in your gullet.”
Now the crowd was laughing heartily at the performance: they shouted and whistled. The young man was the focus of their ridicule. For his honor’s sake he had to put a stop to this mockery.