Fistanadantilus Reborn

CHAPTER 7

251 AC

Third Adamachtis, Dry-Anvil

"There-didn't I tell you that it looked like a skull?" asked Emilo Haversack. "And doesn't it make you wonder how it got to be this way?"

Gantor leaned back, allowing his pale, luminous eyes to trace upward across the pocked face of the mountain, past the eye sockets and mouth that gaped as vast, dark caves. The visage did indeed look ghastly, and so realistic that it might have been the work of some giant demented sculptor.

"It might," the Theiwar said agreeably, "except I've heard a lot about this place, and I know how it was made. It serves as a monument to ten thousand dwarves who died here and an emblem of blame for the mad wizard who brought them to their doom!"

"Really? That sounds like a great story! Won't you tell me? Please?"

The kender all but hopped up and down beside the Theiwar, but Gantor brushed him away with a burly hand. "Time for stories later. I think we should head inside before the sun comes up."

They had plodded steadily through the remaining hours of darkness, with the kender claiming that he could see the pale massif of the garish mountain rising against the dark sky. This had been the first clue to Gantor that creatures on the outside world had much farther-ranging vision than did the Theiwar dwarves. Of course, even under the moonless skies, the under-mountain dweller had been able to make out every detail of his companion's features, and he had realized that his own eyes seemed to have a greater affinity for the darkness.

In fact, to Gantor, the ground underfoot had been clearly revealed. The dwarf had once pointed out a shadowy gully that the kender had almost rambled right into. Without missing a beat in his conversation, which consisted for several uninterrupted hours of preposterous stories of wandering and adventure, Emilo had hopped down into the ravine and scrambled up the other side. Still overcoming his stiffness and fatigue, Gantor had followed, pondering the difference between Theiwar and kender, not only in perceptions but in balance and movement as well.

Now, however, they stood at the base of the white stone massif, and Gantor did not need the slowly growing light of dawn to reveal the skeletal features, nor the gaping black hole-the "mouth" of the skull-that offered protection from the imminent daylight.

"Well, this is it," Emilo announced, drawing a slightly ragged breath. "Though I'm not sure that we have to go in. In fact, I'm pretty certain we can find water around here somewhere else, if we look hard enough. Now that I mention it, it might even be better water. I don't know if you noticed, being so thirsty and all, but the stuff I got in there was kind of bitter."

"I'm going in," Gantor announced, with a shrug of his shoulders. Faced with the nearby prospect of shade and water, he didn't care whether the kender came with him or not.

But then his thoughts progressed a little further. No doubt the kender knew his way around in there. And the place was certainly big, there was no denying that. Who knew how long it might take him to find the water once he started looking?

Furthermore, though the dwarf wouldn't consciously acknowledge the fact, there was another reason he desired Emilo Haversack's company. Perhaps it was just the grotesque appearance of the mountain, but there was something undeniably spooky and unpleasant about the place. Gantor didn't want to go in there alone because, in all utter, naked truth, he was afraid.

"Why don't you come along?" he asked. "You can show me where the water is and finish telling me that story about your cousin Whippersink and that big ruby he found in… what was that place again?"

"Sanction was the place." Emilo sighed in exasperation. "But you're not getting any of it right. First of all, he was my uncle! Uncle Sipperwink! I told you-his mother was my grandmother's older sister! Or younger sister, I'm not sure which. But it was an emerald, not a ruby, that he found in Sanction. And it was in a temple of the Dark Queen. You know, like in the days when there were still gods, before the Cataclysm."

"I'm afraid you lost me again," Gantor declared. "But why don't we find that water and make ourselves comfortable? Then you can tell me all about it."

"I'm not even sure you want to hear it!" snapped Emilo, a trifle peevishly.

"Well, what about my story, then? I can tell you about Skullcap."

The kender brightened immediately. "Well, that's something to look forward to. All right. It's this way."

Emilo stepped up the sloping approach to the vast cavern, the gap that, even at this close perspective, looked so very much like a sinister maw waiting to devour an unwitting meal. A smooth pathway, like a great, curving ramp, allowed them to easily approach the dark, sinister cave.

The dwarf clumped heavily along beneath the lofty overhang, instantly relishing the coolness of the eternally shadowed corridor within. The air was drier here than in Thorbardin, but for the first time since his banishment, Cantor Blacksword had the sense of a place that was fully, irrevocably underground. Each breath tasted pure and good, and the Theiwar's wide, pale eyes had no difficulty seeing into the darkest corners of the vast rubble-strewn cave.

Overhead, tall stalactites jutted sharply downward, like great fangs extending from the upper jaw of a preternatural mouth. Cantor saw piles of great rocks heaped across the floor, many of them showing jagged cracks and sharp edges, establishing that this was a cavern of violent creation. And that, of course, matched well with the stories he had always heard.

"Let's try this way. I think the path was around here somewhere," the kender suggested.

"You-you don't remember?" growled the dwarf, spluttering in suspicious indignation. "How can you forget something like that?"

"I remember." Emilo's tone showed that his feelings were hurt. "It was this way, I'm sure. Pretty sure, anyway."

He led the way before the Theiwar could make a further protest. It took perhaps an hour of wandering, of guessing between this passage and that, before Emilo had rediscovered the small circular chamber enclosing a pool of still water. The two explorers had descended a steep passage of stone, where a few steps remained visible through the wreckage of boulders and gravel that had tumbled onto the floor. Cantor Blacksword wondered idly how the kender had managed to make his way through the impenetrable gloom, for he noticed that Emilo was likely to stumble over rocks and other obstacles that stood clearly revealed-to Theiwar eyes, at least-in their path.

Perhaps it was by sound. There was, in fact, a faint trickling that penetrated the deep chamber, suggesting that the water in this pool was subject to some sort of flowage. Still, the surface was utterly still, free of ripples or waves, as if it had been waiting here for a century and a half for no other purpose than to quench the thirst of these weary travelers.

"Why did you say a century and a half?" asked Emilo when Cantor, his thirst quenched, had belched, leaned back, and voiced his supposition.

"'Cause that's how long this place has been here-as Skullcap, I mean." The dwarf, feeling sated and expansive, decided to grant the kender the privilege of the story that was the birthright of every dwarf born beneath Thorbardin's doming cap of mountain. The Theiwar exile gestured vaguely to the massif rising far over their heads. He was in a fine mood, and he decided he would let the kender live for now.

"What was it before?" Emilo had settled nearby. Chin on his hand, he listened intently.

"This wasn't a mountain. It was a huge tower, a complete fortress, Zhaman by name. A place of mages, it was. We dwarves left it pretty much alone. Even the elves"-Cantor said the word as if it were a curse- "were content to halt at Pax Tharkas. They, like us dwarves and the humans, gave the fortress of Zhaman to the wizards and their ilk."

"Why would anyone want to come here, into the middle of a desert. I mean, anyone except a kender who really had to see what it was like?" asked Emilo seriously.

"Well, this much I know: It wasn't a desert back then. That parched wasteland out there was one of the most fertile parts of the kingdom of Thorbardin. Farmed by the hill dwarves, it was. They brought the food in barter to the mountain dwarves for the goods-steel, mostly- that they was too lazy or ignorant to make for themselves."

Emilo nodded seriously. He pulled the end of his topknot over his shoulder and chewed on the tip, his eyes far away, and Cantor knew that he was visualizing the scene as the Theiwar described it.

"And just like that it would have stayed, too, 'cept for there came one of the greatest banes of Ansalon since Paladine and the Dark Queen themselves." The Theiwar spat to emphasize the truth of his words.

And as he cursed and growled over the gods, Cantor spoke with utter sincerity. Indeed, the dark dwarves differed from many of their clan mates in scorning both of the mighty deities. To the subjects of Thane Realgar, any god except Reorx himself was viewed to be a meddling scoundrel, and no self-respecting member of the clan would allow himself to be persuaded otherwise.

"Fistandantilus, it was, who goaded the hill dwarves into thinking that we of the mountain had cheated them. Now, I've got no love lost for the Hylar-self-righteous, prissy little martinets, for the most part-but they had the right idea when they closed and barred the gates. We had no choice but to leave the hill dwarves to fend for themselves. Not room under the mountain for 'em all. Never was and never will be," Cantor stated with finality.

"And then the Cataclysm came?" asked Emilo, trying to follow along.

"No! That was a hundred years before! It was after the Cataclysm, when flood and famine scarred all the land, that the hill dwarves came begging for help. They forgot that they had turned their backs on the mountain years before, when they wanted to mix with the folk of the world." Cantor shuddered at the very idea; his time in exile had convinced him that the ancestral rift was a true and fundamental parting of the ways.

"But then they wanted to come back inside the mountain?" the kender prodded.

"Aye. And when the Hylar and the rest of us turned 'em away, we kicked them as far as Pax Tharkas and told them not to come back. But that's when they went and got that wizard and a whole lot of hill dwarf and human warriors."

"And the wizard… that was Fistandantilus?"

"And who'd 'a' thought he'd put together an army like that? Coming onto the plains around Zhaman, ready to move against the North Gate. That was when the North Gate was still there, of course. So we came out, and dwarven blood was shed across the whole valley. The Theiwar stood on the left flank, and their attack was sending the hill dwarves reeling back toward the elven-home."

"And the wizard? Did he do magic? Did he fly?" Emilo pressed excitedly.

"Well, that was one of the strange things at the time. It seems he wasn't there… didn't take part in the battle. Instead, he came here-or rather to Zhaman, the tower that used to stand here."

"So did you mountain dwarves win the battle?"

"We would have!" declared Cantor with a snort. '"Cept for the damn wizard. Like I was trying to tell you, he came here, worked some kind of spell, and the whole place was blown to pieces. Including my father, with the other Theiwar on the front lines."

"That's too bad." Emilo sounded sincerely regretful.

"Bah! The blackguard was a scoundrel and a thief! Besides, I got his sleeping chamber, and first pick of the family treasures." Cantor chuckled grimly at the kender's shocked expression, then leaned over to noisily slurp some water from the pool.

"Was Fistandantilus killed, too?" Emilo asked, studying the walls of this round grotto.

"Yup. Everybody knows that."

"It looks like some parts of this place weren't damaged too bad," observed the kender.

"Whaddaya mean?" argued the dark dwarf. He pointed across the chamber to a series of stone columns, now broken and splintered, cast casually along the far end of the large chamber. A deep crack, as jagged as a lightning bolt, scarred the wall all the way to the ceiling. "Surely you can see that. Right?"

"Well, of course," Emilo agreed breezily. "But down below here, I found a whole bunch of tunnels. Even a place where there's a jewel…" The kender's voice trailed away with a shiver.

"Jewel?" Cantor froze, his luminous eyes staring at the pensive kender.

"What? Oh, yes. It was kind of pretty. I might even have taken it, except-"

"Where?" The dwarf had no ears for the rest of Emilo's story. His mind was alive again, sending a cascade of pictures through his imagination. Vividly he expanded the vista of his desires, imagining mounds of glittering stones, gems of red and green and turquoise and every other color under the rainbow. His fatigue and despair were forgotten, swept away by a tide of avarice.

His next instinct was as natural as it was swift: This kender was a danger, a threat to the treasure that was rightfully Cantor's! He must be killed!

Only after the dwarf had already begun to calculate the most expeditious means of accomplishing his companion's demise did further reality again intrude. Faced once again with the inexorable truth that you couldn't wring information from a lifeless witness, Cantor was forced to acknowledge that Emilo Haversack continued to be more useful to him alive than dead.

He forced his trembling voice to grow calm. "Where was this jewel? Far from here?" He cleared his throat and spat to the side in an elaborate display of casual interest.

"Well, quite a bit below here, actually." Once again Emilo displayed that strange sense of disquiet. "It wasn't really much to look at, kind of scuffed up and all that. Besides, there was something else… something I didn't like very much."

Cantor didn't want to hear about it. "Take me there!"

"Well, if you really want to. But don't you really think we should rest for a-"

"Now!" snarled the Theiwar, instantly suspicious of the delay. "You'll just wait for me to fall asleep so you can get the treasure for yourself!"

"What? No, I won't! I don't even want it-not anymore, at least. But all right, then, if you're so worried about it, I'll show you. But don't say I didn't warn you."

Muttering about bad manners and pushy people, the kender rose to his feet and plodded out of the chamber where he had discovered the pool of water. They passed through a maze of broken walls and tumbled ceilings, but the dwarf could clearly discern that this had once been a structure of large hallways and broad, sweeping stairways.

Now the shadows were thick through the corners, and a stairway was as likely to be lying on its side as standing upright. They picked their way through the ruins with care, Emilo apparently guessing which path to take at several junctures. Eventually the kender came to a large circular pit, a black hole with a depth extending beyond the limits of the dwarf's darkness-piercing vision.

"This must have been a central shaft," Emilo said. If he still begrudged the dwarf's peremptory commands, his voice revealed no trace of the resentment. Instead, he was as chatty and conversational as ever. "You can see that it goes up through the ceiling as well as down."

Indeed, Cantor observed a matching circle of blackness in the arched surface over his head. A spindly network of strands dangled through space, connecting the upper reach of the shaft to the pit on the floor level. When he clumped over for a closer look, the Theiwar saw that these were the rusted remnants of a steel stairway that had once spiraled through the central atrium of the great tower of Zhaman.

And now those same stairs offered a route into the deep heart of Skullcap.

"That's how I went down before," Emilo said, joining the dwarf. "You have to hold on a little bit carefully, and in some places the metal sways back and forth. But it's strong enough to get you down."

Cantor blinked, glowering at the kender. "How do I know you're not trying to get me killed?"

Emilo shrugged. "Do you want me to go first?" He reached for the rusty remnant of a railing, only to be slapped away by the suspicious dwarf.

"Don't you try it!" Cantor seized the railing and stepped onto the top step, which was a small web of iron bars anchored solidly into the bedrock of the fortress.

Immediately the bars creaked, and there was a distant clatter of some scrap tumbling downward, clanging off the jutting wreckage of the stairway. The Theiwar yelped and clung to the railing with both hands as the frail support leaned outward, the vast gulf yawning like an unquenchable, eternally hungry mouth. As Cantor clung to his precariously dangling perch, more bits of metal broke away, the sharp sounds fading into the depths, banging, jangling, continuing to fall for a very long time.

"Here," said Emilo, extending a hand. He, too, stepped onto the bending bars of the platform, casually swinging into space with a grasp of the railing, then hopping to rest on the next intact stretch of stairs several feet below. "Just do it like that."

"I'll do it my own way!" snorted Cantor, gingerly inching along the railing, grunting as his feet swung free. He clumped to a rest beside the kender, and this time he didn't slap away the supporting hands that wrapped around his waist and helped pull him to safety.

"Come on," Emilo said cheerfully, scampering farther along the rapidly descending framework.

"Wait!" The Theiwar followed as quickly as he could, his temper growing more foul with each swinging traverse, each heart-stopping leap through the darkness. Quickly the hole in the floor disappeared overhead as they continued to descend steadily down the inside of the cylinder of stone. And always the kender proceeded jauntily, spanning long gaps with the same lack of concern with which he stepped over easy, solid footholds.

Abruptly the dwarf halted, seized by a new suspicion. Cantor clasped a shaft of metal and glowered at the kender, who was quite a few feet below him. "How come you're not scared going down here? Don't you know you could break your neck with one little slip?"

"Oh, we kender don't worry about much of anything." Emilo made a breezy gesture with one hand, ignoring the darkness yawning below. "The way I look at it, if it's going to get me, it will. Doesn't make much difference if I waste my time being afraid."

"That's crazy!" With renewed muttering, the dwarf started after the kender, trying to conjure up those images of treasures that had once flitted so seductively through his mind. But another, deeper thought intruded.

"What was that you were talking about, that thing that had you worried?" He remembered Emilo's nervousness, even fear, when they had first talked of the gem. "I thought you said you kender didn't get afraid of stuff?"

"What do-oh." Emilo's voice fell. "You mean down by the jewel?"

Cantor nodded silently.

"Well, there-there was a skull on the floor right beside the jewel. It kind of gave me the creeps. Just when I was thinking of taking that pretty stone along, I got the feeling that the skull was watching me with those shadowy eyes. I decided I would leave the gem and get out of there."

The Theiwar snorted in quiet contempt. Here was a person who didn't have the sense to worry about a bone-crushing fall into a yawning abyss, yet he let himself get alarmed by a mere piece of skeleton!

With a renewed sense of smugness, the dwarf struggled to follow along. He still cursed at frequent intervals, and his fury at the kender's seeming ease of movement grew into a cold determination, fueled by his instinctive antipathy for one who was not Theiwar, was not even mountain dwarf. His resolve was clear: As soon as Emilo showed him where the jewel was, the kender would die.

Finally a lower platform emerged from the darkness, and Cantor sighed, relieved that the interminable descent was almost over. Yet he soon saw that there remained one more challenging section to traverse, for the tangled wreckage of the spiraling steel stairs dangled from the ceiling of a high passageway. Suspended in space, it formed a tenuous connection to the stone floor far below.

Emilo scampered like a monkey down the network of girders, railings, and steps. Even the slight weight of the kender was enough to set the whole mass to spinning slowly, and the dwarf grimaced at the sight of a single bolt, a stud of steel anchored into the bedrock of the cylindrical passage that seemed to support the entire remaining mass of metal. A shrill creak wailed through the air, and Gantor imagined the bolt giving way, carrying the kender into a tangled mass of killing metal.

Of course, the death of his companion would be inconvenient to the exiled Theiwar, since the kender knew where the jewel was. Still, if he were to be left here alone, the Theiwar felt little doubt that he could eventually locate the stone. More significantly, such a collapse would remove Cantor's route down to the treasure that he coveted now with even more fervor than before.

"It's easy!" cried Emilo, and the high-pitched echo- easy, easy, easy-seemed to mock the dwarf's hesitation. "Just jump over there and slide down the pole."

"Wait!" growled Gantor. He removed his small axe and reversed the weapon in his hand. With a few sharp blows, he drove the bolt back into its socket, secure in the knowledge that the deep pit in the stone was solid and the metal of the support uncorroded and strong.

Only then did he swing onto the framework, feeling his stomach lurch sickeningly as the beams and girders shifted. Again the creak of metal assaulted his ears, but the movement of the mass was less extreme than it had been when Emilo descended. Gritting his teeth, the dwarf scrambled down the rest of the way. When his feet were firmly planted on solid rock, he shifted his weight back and forth, glowering fiercely. His pale eyes were wide, absorbing the darkness, then settling upon the agitated figure of the kender.

"Well, that took a while," said Emilo, a trifle sourly. "It's over this way."

Once again Gantor suppressed his murderous urges, seeing that the wreckage of chambers and corridors around them still created a fairly extensive maze. Yet here the kender seemed to know where he was going with some degree of certainty, for Emilo started along one of the passages, winding easily between great pieces of stone that had fallen from the ceiling. Judging by the coat of dust over the scattered rubble, the Theiwar assumed that the place had been pretty much undisturbed since the convulsive explosion that had rendered Zhaman into Skullcap.

Again he found himself descending, following the kender down a series of stairways, but these were honest, stone-carved steps, cutting through squared passages that had been gouged into the living bedrock of the fortress's foundation. Gantor recognized dwarven work and admitted to a measure of racial pride when he saw that most of these stairways remained relatively undamaged.

Finally they emerged into a maze of small rooms. Despite the dust and rubble, Gantor discerned that these chambers were furnished with far more attention to detail than were any of the bare stone passages that had marked the rest of the catacombs. Woven carpets had once lined the floor, though most of these had rotted into a layer of moldy paste. The smell of decay was pungent here, and doorframes and beams of punky dried wood were visible in each of the four directions where the Theiwar could see corridors.

"It's this way," said the kender. "If you're sure you want to-"

"Don't try to back out now!" Cantor's heart pounded at the notion of the treasure that he sensed must be very near. He sniffed, and the spoor of riches was an almost tangible scent in the air. Unconsciously his fingers closed around the hilt of his knife.

They passed through several more chambers, and the Theiwar was vaguely aware of tables, of the wreckage of bottles and vials, of leathery tomes that, though layered in dust, had somehow escaped the rot and mold that had claimed the wooden and fabric objects within the deep cell.

"It's right there," Emilo said, halting abruptly and pointing to a shadowy archway. "Y-You go in if you want. I think I'll just wait here for-"

"Oh, no, you don't!" Cantor's suspicions, always bubbling near the surface, burst into full boil. He gave the kender a hard shove, ignoring the sharp yell of protest, and then clumped after Emilo into a small room.

Only it wasn't a room at all. Instead, the corridor seemed to continue until it ended in a blank stone wall. At first the dwarf was convinced he had been tricked, but when he glared downward at the kender, he saw that Emilo was paying him no attention. Instead, the little fellow's eyes were fixed upon an object at the base of the featureless wall.

Cantor shifted his gaze and then gasped as he beheld the eyeless skull, lying on the stone floor, gaping up at him from those empty sockets. It was just a piece of white bone, identical in appearance to any of a hundred other skulls that the dwarf had seen. Yet there was something disquieting, undeniably menacing, about the morbid object. The skull did not move, nor was there any visible trace of illumination around it; neither did it emit any kind of noise that the dwarf could hear.

But he could still not banish the sense that it was glaring, waiting, watching him. Shivering, he took a step back, his pale Theiwar eyes still fixed upon the piece of bone.

In fact, the fleshless visage was so distracting that it was several moments before the dwarf even thought to look at the other object lying on the otherwise featureless floor.

"The jewel!" he declared, suddenly wrenching his gaze to the side. Trembling, he approached and knelt, though as yet he did not reach out to touch the gem.

A golden chain, still bright amid the dust of the floor, indicated that the thing had once been worn around a person's neck. A filigree of fine gold wire enwrapped a single large stone, a gem of pale green that was unlike anything else Cantor had ever seen.

He didn't need to identify the piece to know that it was tremendously valuable. This was an object unique in his experience, and that experience included very many encounters with precious gems of numerous varieties. And then he knew, his memory triggered by thoughts of a few odd stones of a type he had not seen for many decades.

"It's a bloodstone," he said gruffly, greed thickening his voice. He reached out, touched the chain, then looped it over his wrist to lift the gem up to his eye level. "You can see traces of red fire-the same color as fresh blood-there, right below the surface."

Avarice welled within the Theiwar's cruel heart, and he knew that he was holding the most precious object he had ever seen.

"Maybe you want to look at it outside," said Emilo, edging toward the door. "Right this way."

But Cantor wasn't listening. He stared at the stone, convinced that he was seeing flickers of light-hot, crimson bursts of illumination-deep within the gem. The pulses were faint, but visible to his keen eyes.

"Uh, Cantor?" asked Emilo. "Can we get going now?"

The dwarf snapped his head around to see that the kender had his back turned as he looked longingly up the corridor. With a snort of contempt, the dwarf realized that the little fellow was still nervous, unaccountably distressed by their presence here.

And finally the dark dwarf remembered his other intent, the determination that he would leave no witnesses, none who knew where he had found this treasure, or even who knew of its existence, its possession by the rogue Theiwar.

Cantor's face was distorted into a leer as, grinning, he lifted his knife. But then his eyes lighted upon the skull, the object that the kender found so discomforting. Enjoying the irony, the Theiwar sheathed his knife and reached down to pick up the bony artifact.

"What are you doing?" demanded Emilo, whirling back to stare, wide-eyed, as the dwarf raised the skull over his head.

"It's called murder," replied Cantor Blacksword, bringing the piece of bone down hard, feeling the satisfying crunch of the blow as the skull struck Emilo square between the eyes. Soundlessly the kender fell, rolled over, and lay still. The dwarf dropped the skull on the kender's motionless back. Then, clutching his treasure to his breast, Cantor scuttled from the room and started to make his way back to the world above.