Circle at center

5
A Crumbling Cornerstone

Karkald’s lungs strained for air and he could feel the weakness seeping into his legs and arms. The long, terrified run from the battery, the sight of Darann clutched by that hideous, silver-mawed Delver, now propelled him into a monstrous rage. Four of the Unmirrored already lay dead and bleeding on the floor.

But now he was nearly finished, and as more of the Dark Ones spilled into the den, he staggered backward, pulling Darann and himself against the wall. They faced a tight circle of attackers, and the sightless dwarves now stood shoulder to shoulder, presenting a solid front of whirling blades.

“I love you,” Darann said, touching Karkald on the arm.

He looked at her miserably, saw scratches and smudges on her face, fear and despair in her eyes. He knew that she was here on the watch station because of him-and he saw how that devotion would, in mere moments, get her killed.

“I’m sorry!” he cried. The wall of the den was behind them now, blocking further retreat, and the Delvers continued to close in.

“No!” she retorted furiously. “Don’t say that!” She picked up a coal poker from beside the burner and flailed the steel shaft at the nearest Delvers. “We’re going to fight!” The blackened spike clattered against dagger blades while Karkald stabbed with his spear, once more driving the tip through enemy armor, then twisting and pulling back to wrench the weapon free.

“Kill him! Bring the wench to me!” The leader, the one called Zystyl, shrieked his orders, and the ring of Unmirrored pressed closer.

Frantically Karkald looked around the den. Flames smoldered in the direction of the bedchamber, and in any event he knew there was no escape that way. The steel-jawed captain still shouted from the kitchen, while the main room was full of Delvers blocking the passage out to the portico.

Still, the latter seemed like the only chance.

Momentarily he missed his hatchet, which was still buried in the skull of a dead Delver. But he still had his knife and his spear. He tapped Darann on the shoulder, nodded his head once toward the door, and then hurled himself against the front line of Delvers.

Leading with his spear, he stabbed one of the attackers through the throat. That Delver fell and Karkald rushed into the gap in the line, thrusting with his long knife, driving the blade into the next of the Unmirrored. At the same time he felt a burning pain in his back as another of the Blind Ones turned to slash at the space that had been created. Hearing the clash, the rest of the Delvers closed in.

Karkald gasped as another whirling knife ripped through his thigh. He flailed and stabbed at the enemy all around, until he felt a firm push against his back. Darann was there, shoving hard, and then the two of them were through the ring of Delvers. Limping, clenching his teeth against the pain, the Seer now followed his wife into the entry passageway. He remembered the dozens of boats at the base of the pillar, knew that the island must be swarming with the Unmirrored-yet all he wanted now was to get out of the den.

Abruptly he smashed, face first, onto the floor. His initial thought was that his wounded leg had collapsed-but then the ground jolted under his feet with a violence that lifted him into the air. Darann screamed and tumbled beside him, and vaguely he understood that somehow the bedrock itself was moving, shaking and rolling in supernatural convulsion.

A shrill cry emanated from the den, followed by a thunderous crash and a cloud of dust that billowed and rolled across the two Seers lying on the floor of the tunnel. Darann was crying, and Karkald felt numbed by shock. He could see and feel the trembling of the ground, but his mind, all his experience and his learning, told him that such an occurrence was impossible.

Yet there was no denying the reality of the violence, the thunder of collapsing stone as rock spilled into the den, choking and crushing. A rock thudded onto the floor beside him, and a clatter of gravel spilled down the nearby wall. Terror clutched Karkald’s heart as he pictured them trapped in this narrow passage, buried beneath a thousand tons of rubble.

“Come on!” he urged, dropping his knife into the sheath at his hip, reaching for Darann. Together they scrambled toward the portico over the pitching, heaving floor. Twice, large rocks smashed onto Karkald, one banging his skull hard enough to stun him. But finally they tumbled from the den’s front door to sprawl on the flat portico jutting out from the side of the island’s cliff.

Even here rubble was scattered across the stones, and Karkald was stunned to see great waves rising and surging across the surface of the dark sea. Landslides spilled down the sides of the watch station, and several of the great beacons had been destroyed. At least two of the beams still swept across the dark water, highlighting the tortured expanse.

Karkald heard a crash from within the den. The sound was followed by a groan, and then a very foul-and lively-curse, proving that Delvers were still alive and active inside. Silently the Seer tugged at Darann’s hand, placing a finger on his lips to caution her as they made their way across the portico to the steep wall of the pillar. Fortunately the stairway to the nearest beacon remained intact, and only a few steps were obstructed by rubble that had fallen from above. He took care to step only upon solid rock so as not to make a sound as he led his wife upward, climbing toward the lantern that still blazed through the darkness.

Finally they reached a perch nearly a hundred feet above the portico. Here the two of them huddled on a narrow ledge beside the beacon of coolfyre, still too numbed and horrified to speak. Below them several Delvers were visible, crawling from the collapse within the den or gathering on the portico from other parts of the island. More and more emerged from various niches and ledges, until a hundred or more had gathered before the ruins of the Seers’ den.

The two Seers pressed back against the cliff, silent and afraid. Karkald knew they could not be seen by the Blind Ones, but even so he was reluctant to expose himself any more than necessary. Beside him, Darann was watching the lights of Axial, a bright swath across the sea. They could even make out some of the great pillars, outlined by coolfyre, that rose from the city to merge with the stone sky of the Underworld.

Neither of them was prepared for the next pulse of the earthquake, a jolt that rocked the pillar of the watch station harder than any of the previous shocks. They shouted in alarm and clung to each other, pitching perilously close to the precipice. Karkald snatched out his pick and curled the hook over the bar of the beacon’s frame. Once more the bedrock shivered, and they tumbled and twisted over the hundred-foot drop. Only his grip on the tool, and the half-circle of metal curled over the rod, kept them from a fatal plummet.

Below, the Delvers were shrieking in terror, and Karkald hoped the sounds of their panic had drowned out the sharp cries he and his wife had made. He had good reason to believe this, for it seemed as though the whole of the First Circle reverberated with sound. Waves crashed on stony shores, or pitched against each other in chaotic surges. Massive pieces of the ceiling plunged downward, and great chunks of the watch station broke away to tumble into the sea.

“Look!” moaned Darann, rising to her knees and pointing through the vast dark of the First Circle. He looked to where she pointed and saw the lights of Axial pitching and lurching in the distance. A great swath of the city abruptly disappeared, as if ten thousand lights had been extinguished at once. The rest of Axial flared with a supernatural brightness, until another part was blinked out in the space of a few seconds. Still more of the city vanished next, blotted out in an instant.

More convulsions followed, and Karkald held his woman with all his strength, waiting for the boulder that at any instant would crush them or sweep them to their deaths. But instead, they somehow survived. Gradually this quake settled, and the rock beneath them ceased to move. Waves still pitched across the lake, and they could see many new islands, masses of rubble that jutted upward from the waves. The base of their own watch station had expanded because of falling debris, in places becoming a wide fan of loose rock that extended far out across the water.

Already there were Delvers making their way down this slope. It seemed to Karkald, in the light of the one beacon remaining, that quite a few of the Blind Ones had survived the quake. He heard words of harsh command, and recognized Zystyl’s voice.

Darann uttered a strangled sob and at first Karkald thought she was reacting to that horrific dwarf’s survival. But when he raised his eyes, he followed the direction of her horrified stare.

“No!” he whispered, as his wife clung to his arm and stared wordlessly through the darkness.

Across the sea, along the great swath where Axial had once brightened the First Circle, they saw only darkness.

Z ystyl’s nostrils were clogged by dust, his flesh bruised by the rocks that had dropped from overhead. Still, he was alive, and finally these unnatural quakes seemed to be over. Furthermore, he could tell by the clicks and shouts made by his warriors that many of them had survived, and were now fanning out to discern the layout of the new shoreline. He absorbed their senses as they moved, drawing a map in his mind as he heard the echoes return from Delver cries, sensed the presence of water and dust in the midst of new formations of ground.

He, meanwhile, stood on the slope high above the water, which had now settled to lap placidly against the multiple shores. Already he had discerned, by sound and echo, that there were many more obstacles on the water than there had been before. Rock jutted here and there, large islands pushed violently up from the sea. Furthermore, he had deduced that this was not necessarily a bad thing. After all, most if not all of his boats had undoubtedly been destroyed or sunk by falling debris, and it would be very useful to find a way that his warriors could get off this island by foot.

Or, even more tempting, what if they could get all the way to Axial by foot? Like all Delver arcanes, he knew that the Seer city had survived through the years for two reasons: One, the light of coolfyre gave the Seers a significant advantage over the Blind Ones, and second, their homeland was an island, reachable to the Unmirrored only by boat. As a result, the two great invasions his people had launched during Zystyl’s lifetime had both been defeated in furious battle as soon as the Delvers tried to come ashore.

This last time, it should have been different. He, himself, had planned the attack, and it was to begin with the destruction of each of these watch stations posted on Axial’s approaches. The greatest army ever assembled had departed Nightrock in more than a thousand boats, with the advance elements quickly, silently, landing on the isolated watch stations. That part of the operation, in fact, had been proceeding appropriately, until the utterly unprecedented rocking of their world had changed everything.

The Delver didn’t know whether or not the Seer watchman and his woman had escaped the earthquake. He would have liked to take time to search for them-something about the woman, in particular, had touched him on a deep and visceral level. Not just her scent and her sound, but that taste of her cheek he had stolen, the tartness of sweat and fear, now tingled in his memory like a living thing.

“I seek you, lord.” The words came from a dozen paces away, and he recognized the voice of his chief lieutenant.

“Porutt-what have you found?”

The other Delver made his way over the rough ground to Zystyl, where he could speak in a pale whisper, and only his listener could discern the sound.

“We have identified a ridge of rock extending a long way from the island, negotiable by foot. My dwarves advanced more than a mile, and echoed another similar distance.”

“Very well. How many of our regiment survived?”

“More than two hundred here. There has been no word from any of the other regiments.”

“Of course not-but we shall not assume they have perished. Use the horns, and we will commence the march.”

“Yes, lord!”

“And Porutt, one more thing.”

“Lord?”

“Let the men know I’m in the mood to toy with a captive… female, preferably. There will be a reward for anyone who can provide me with a little entertainment.”

“Of course, my lord.”

Zystyl heard the sly smile in Porutt’s reply, and knew that his lieutenant would claim a portion of that reward. No matter… a good commander knew how to see to the morale of all his troops.

He started after Porutt, anxious to explore the dry route that would lead them away from here, and perhaps bring them closer to a successful attack against the Seers. At the same time, a part of his memory lingered above, remembering the taste and the terror of a victim who had escaped.

K arkald watched the Delvers march away, a long file snaking into the darkness of the Underworld. They followed the crest of a newly formed ridge that rose like a serpent’s spine from the swirling water. The Seer had pivoted the lone surviving beacon, and now used the illumination to observe the column moving in the general direction of Axial.

Except that, to all appearances, that city no longer existed.

Numerous cuts and bruises wrapped his body in a cocoon of pain, but Karkald forced himself to move. He climbed down from the lens of the beacon to find Darann still staring into the distance, as if she willed some glimmer of light to sparkle on the dark horizon. But, as it had been since they observed the city’s destruction, there was not a single glint of illumination, or hope.

The watchman turned away, fearing that the heaviness of his heart would reflect in his eyes. Some instinct told him that he had to be very strong now, that he and Darann would need all of his abilities, every ounce of his confidence, in order to have any chance at survival. Despite the agony that ripped his back, that burned in his legs, he could not yield to his weakness.

Even with the departure of so many invaders, Zystyl had left several dozen of his warriors on the island of the watch station, including many waiting on the portico or hiding in the nooks and crannies nearby. Clearly, whatever part of the den hadn’t been destroyed remained unattainable to the two Seers.

Again Karkald found himself looking at the departing Delvers, amazed that so many of them had survived such rampant destruction. Several of the Blind Ones bore long, golden trumpets, and periodically raised them to broadcast a blast of sound through the First Circle. This time, a few seconds after they brayed another call, an answering blast rang through from the distant darkness. Moments later still another sounded, making it clear that the Delvers were all around them.

“Is there something strange about the water?” Darann asked softly. She had turned her attention to the Darksea below them. “Should it be so far away?”

Karkald was about to answer that the island’s shoreline had expanded, but when he looked again he saw that she was right-the water level was very low. It seemed that a patch of the surface farther out spiraled like a whirlpool. He limped up to realign the beacon, and there was the proof, clear in the light of coolfyre.

“The Darksea,” he whispered, awe and caution combining to mute his voice. “It’s draining away!”

Over the next half hour more and more of the sea bottom came into view. He passed the beam back and forth, and though the light reflected from many pools and lakes, it was obvious that most of what had once been the Darksea was now dry land. Even more alarming, his beacon had picked up numerous companies of Delvers, all using the trumpets to coordinate a gathering on a low rise a few miles away.

“It’s an army,” he breathed softly. “This was the start of a full-scale invasion!”

“What are we going to do?” Darann asked. The dwarfwoman’s voice was calm, but he supposed that she was still numb from the shock. At least she remembered to speak in a whisper, since many Delvers remained only a hundred feet below them.

“We can’t go down there.” Karkald stated the obvious.

“Then we go up, right?” she replied.

He nodded. It was, of course, the only option, but at the same time it made for a daunting prospect.

“We’ll have to climb for a mile or more,” he warned. “But with luck, we’ll find some caves overhead, some means of getting”-he realized with a stab of grief that he didn’t even know where they were going-“away from here,” he concluded, knowing from the pain in her eyes that Darann had experienced the same realization.

“How far?” she asked, her voice even more hushed than her usual whisper.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, panicked at this failure of knowledge. He tried to think quickly. “The beacons have a range of a few miles, and when they’re tilted upward they can illuminate the ceiling… That puts it two miles away, perhaps.”

“Can you climb that high?”

“It’s been done before,” Karkald replied, knowing that he was avoiding her question.

“And then what?” Darann asked, her bright eyes shining in the nearly pitch darkness.

He felt rising exasperation and worked hard to stay calm. “There are lots of caves up there, cracks in the ceiling leading up, into the midrock. There’ll be fungus there, and bats… maybe even pools of fish!” Karkald’s mind veered away from the dangers, the savage wyslets that prowled in the darkness and preyed on isolated dwarves, the vast stretches of bare rock with no food or water. Or the most horrible prospect of all: that they would be blocked by a thousand feet of bare, seamless rock. Such a barrier would end their hopes as certainly as any Delver blade or wyslet fang.

“The midrock.” Darann blinked, whispering slowly. “How thick is it?”

Karkald almost snorted his irritation. “How should I know?”

By the sight of her eyes he knew she was shaking her head. “You don’t understand… to Nayve. How far is it to the Fourth Circle?”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever measured it,” he replied, amazed at the audacity implied by her question. “Dwarves have made it that far in the past-though not, perhaps, since we got the coolfyre.”

“Well, maybe it’s time some dwarves tried to go there again!”

“All the way to Nayve? What makes you think we could do it?”

“What choice do we have?” Darann spat back at him. “Stay here, and starve? Go down there, and get killed by Delvers?”

“We-we won’t starve, at least not right away,” Karkald said, even as his mind, unwillingly, started to grapple with her suggestion. He gestured along a narrow ledge leading away from their perch, a path toward a barely visible crack in the rocky face. “I stored some supplies in there a half dozen intervals ago, in case I got involved in a project up on the cliff and had to spend a few cycles up here.”

“Supplies?” His wife looked hopeful. “Like what?”

In a few minutes he had retrieved the cache, a small backpack that he dropped to the ground between them. “Spare boots-they should fit you,” he announced, remembering Darann’s bare feet. “A few sacks filled with water, an empty pouch or two. Not much.” Karkald felt apologetic as he looked at the meager stash.

“That’s good!” The dwarfwoman was already pulling on the boots. “At least enough for us to get started. I can carry this, and you can carry your tools.” She stood, lifting the backpack, nodding in satisfaction as she tested the feel of the supple boots.

Karkald, meanwhile, had stopped thinking of objections. He was heartened by his wife’s enthusiasm, determined to do what he could to maintain her rising spirits. “Let’s go to Nayve, then,” he declared. “Are you ready to climb?”

With a resolute motion, she nodded, cinched the straps of the backpack, and looked up the steep cliff overhead. “Can you brighten the first stretch for a minute, so that we can see the best way to go?” she wondered.

“Yes… and we can take some flamestone along with us, enough to light our immediate surroundings for a few intervals.”

“Good. Then let’s go.”

Karkald too looked up, running his hands over his tools out of long-trained instinct. “Hammer, chisel… I don’t have a hatchet!” He almost raised his voice when he encountered the empty loop on his belt.

“It’s planted in a Delver’s forehead, remember?” Darann said wryly. She pulled something from her own waistline, and he saw that she had one of the cleavers from the kitchen. “Will this do instead?”

“I… I guess it will have to,” he replied. The cooking implement was neither as heavy nor as well-balanced as his own hatchet, but it had a similar shape and, in the back of his mind, he admitted that it would perform many of the same functions.

“Hammer, chisel, hatchet, file.” These were now in order, arrayed in leather loops around his belt. “Knife, pick, rope, spear.” And his final tools were also in place, knife and pick in chest pouches, rope around his shoulders, and spear in its tube on his back.

“One more thing,” Karkald said, as he led Darann up the ladder beside the beacon. He scooped up some of the flamestone in his hands, then trickled as much of it as he could into the loose pouches of his tunic. His wife held out a watertight sack, and he filled that as well. Then he turned the gauge on the feeder down to its tightest setting. The beacon faded to to a pale spark, barely brighter than a candle flame.

“It will last for years at this setting,” Karkald informed her. “It might let some other Seers know, sometime, that we were here.”

She nodded mutely, and he knew she was remembering her family. Could they be alive? Given the utter extinction of Axial’s lights, he knew there was very little hope.

But then Darann put her hand on his arm. “Shouldn’t we leave a message… some kind of note, to let people know what happened-to us, and with the Delvers?”

“You’re right,” he agreed immediately. “I know where to write it.”

He reached into the door of the feeder and pulled out the upper hatch, which was a thin sheet of pure gold. Removing his file, he poised it over the surface. “What should I say?”

“Give the date.”

“Year six hundred and seventy of the Tenth Millennium, interval three, cycle thirty-two, right?”

She nodded-Darann had always been better than Karkald at keeping track of dates.

“Attacked by Delvers… World rocked by tremors… saw Axial darken…” He murmured as he wrote, painstakingly engraving each letter into the soft gold.

“We are climbing away from here. Signed, Karkald and Darann, Clan Watcher.”

“And Clan Silkmaker,” added Darann, stating her family’s clan. “Put that there, too.”

Karkald stifled his urge to object. She had joined his clan with the marriage… but still, it was only practical to put as much information here as they could.

“Very well… Clan Silkmaker.”

He placed the sheaf of gold against the hopper, and stood. “There are stairs leading partway up from here-they’ll take us some way toward the roof,” he said, indicating the narrow stone steps.

Darann started up, while Karkald’s hands moved through the routine.

“Hammer, chisel, hatchet, file. Knife pick rope spear.”

And then he, too, started toward the highest reaches of the only world he had ever known.