The Heir of Kayolin

TWENTY-THREE

I need to find out where they’re keeping Father,” Brandon declared, pounding his fist into his palm. “The king was lying; that much is for sure.”

“Yes, certainly,” his mother agreed, wringing her hands.

“How can you find out?” Gretchan asked.

The three of them were sitting in the kitchen of Brandon’s home, discussing what they had learned and what they needed to do.

“What can you tell me about the League of Enforcers’ headquarters?” he asked his mother.

“There are guards at the front door, of course. When I was taken there by a pair of Enforcers, the guards didn’t ask questions; they just opened the door as my captors marched up with me.” She went on to describe a ward room in the front of the building with multiple corridors leading deeper into the complex. “They took me through the first door to the left. There were a number of rooms down there, and your father was in one of them with Baracan Heelspur. The corridor turned deeper into the headquarters after that, and from the look of the heavy door down there, that’s where the dungeon cells are likely to be.”

“But you can’t just go charging in there,” Gretchan warned.

“No, of course not. I need to make a plan. But I do think it’s likely that’s where they’re keeping him.”

“All right, that’s a start,” the priestess agreed. “We know where he probably is, but you have to be careful. This is not the time to get yourself in trouble with Regar Smashfingers. Meanwhile we’ve got people all over the city who are telling the truth about Regar and the horax-and what happened to your brother and your father. You need to stay above the fray while the word continues to spread. I’ll keep moving around, meeting people, get people thinking. We’re already making progress.”

“All right, good.”

Brandon had told the women about his meeting with General Watchler and the Garnet Guards. They had taken comfort from the fact that there were other influential citizens in Kayolin who viewed Regar Smashfingers suspiciously. Though events were moving too slowly for Brandon, he had to admit that at least they were moving.

Gretchan had spent the past two days walking around Garnet Thax, mingling with dwarves in the inns and public places of the city, chatting with them, helping to spread the story of the Horax Hero. She had explained to anyone who would listen that she was collecting notes for a comprehensive history of the dwarves, and that it was the first time she had visited the great city, known as the jewel in Kayolin’s crown.

Because of the infamous horax attack, the people were shaken and much concerned with the campaign being waged by the king’s troops against the bug monsters. She added to those concerns by mentioning, at every opportunity, the fact that the stone barricades that had long protected Kayolin from the horax had been mysteriously destroyed, and that the Garnet Guards-the city’s traditional first line of defense-had been disbanded upon Smashfingers’s orders. She let her listeners reach their own conclusions, and public opinion was growing in support of the notion that the king had ordered the destruction to heighten the sense of emergency and justify his imminent coronation.

Some people had mentioned the Bluestone Faction to her, asking about the alleged conspiracy, wondering if there really was a movement afoot that would cause Regar Smashfingers some discomfort. She did nothing to disabuse them of that notion.

The cleric also did what she could to plant doubts about the authenticity of the Torc of the Forge that Smashfingers claimed to have found. It turned out no one had given the matter much thought, but that issue, too, began to percolate through the restive population. The fact that the ruler had not publicly displayed the torc further aroused suspicions.

At the same time, Karine, Bondall, and the other dwarves who had met at the Cracked Mug were speaking to their friends and acquaintances, talking about what they’d learned about the legacy of their people south of the Newsea. Many people were not aware that the kingship claimed by Regar was a relatively new concept to Kayolin.

Soon “The throne is in Thorbardin” was being whispered through all the streets of Garnet Thax and became a whispered greeting on all levels of the great city of Kayolin.

And thus the Bluestone Faction was born and grew.

Regar Smashfingers sat upon his small throne, the seat in his private council chambers, and glowered at his chief ally and supporter. “I saw another one of those slogans marked on the wall, right outside the palace gate! Who is writing them?” he demanded testily. “Surely your agents can spot these miscreants in action?”

“Begging your majesty’s pardon,” Lord Alakar Heelspur said. “But the perpetrators are devilishly clever. The phrases are clearly seditious, but the dwarves who write them are careful not to be discovered.”

His son, Baracan, stood behind him, listening silently.

The king snorted. “First it was ‘Our Throne is in Thorbardin!’ ” he quoted. “Now they’re writing ‘Who killed Nailer?’ Clearly it’s the work of the Bluestone Faction!”

“That would seem logical, sire,” replied the lord with a deep bow. “We’ve had the son and the wife watched carefully and discreetly. It’s quite clear they’re not the ones writing the slogans all over the city. But we haven’t been able to find out who is doing it.”

“You overreached with the Nailer Bluestone affair,” the ruler declared bluntly. “You were too greedy!”

“Sire, I must remind you that the vein of gold discovered by the Bluestone brothers was the wealthiest find in recent memory. If they had retained control of that wealth, you would have found one of your staunchest foes among the city’s powerful merchant clans.”

“Perhaps they would not be my staunch enemies if their son had not been murdered by your own family,” Regar declared sternly.

Heelspur waved away the objection with a look of irritation. “Why do you insist on rehashing old arguments? Simply know that the Bluestones are now your most dangerous enemy.”

Smashfingers hunched in his seat, glowering, and did not reply.

Lord Heelspur glanced up slyly. “You do recall we have the patriarch of the Bluestone clan prisoner in the royal dungeon?”

“Yes, yes. I haven’t made up my mind what to do about him,” snapped the king.

“May I suggest … perhaps you do not need to do anything,” the lord said. “Perhaps the prisoner could try to escape … there might be an accident. A fatal accident?”

“I don’t like the sound of that!” Regar said. Still, he stroked his beard, eyes narrowed in thought. “What would be the point?”

Only then did the king notice the female, a dwarf maid wearing a shimmering gown with a jeweled necklace around her neck. She stood just to the side of and behind Baracan Heelspur.

“Who are you?” Smashfingers demanded, startled.

“Ah, forgive me, Majesty,” said Lord Heelspur. “I invited my son here with his betrothed. This is Rona Darkwater, of House Darkwater. I had hoped you would do us the honor of announcing their engagement to the rest of the city.”

“Ah, of course,” said the beaming king, all too willing to set aside the previous disagreeable discussion. The Darkwaters were one of the wealthiest and most influential clans in the city, and a marriage alliance between them and the Heelspurs would only help to solidify Regar Smashfingers’s hold upon the throne. “Please, my dear. Come forward. Tell me, when may we look forward to the happy event?”

Peat had been too grateful for his and Sadie’s miraculous escape to think much about the strange events that were transpiring in the kingdom. The more he thought about it, however, the more worried he became. Fire raging in the stone-walled palace! Destruction raining down upon the city! What was going on? And more important, would it prevent the two Guilders from making their escape from Thorbardin?

While Sadie busied herself in the back of the shop, finishing the last markings on the scroll that would allow the two of them to escape Thorbardin once and for all, Peat went to the front door of the shop and cracked it open. He could still see the glow of massive fires burning in the great plaza, which began a quarter mile down the street. Screams and cries, more sporadic than when they had escaped from the palace, still rang out. Several dwarves, gasping and out of breath, came running down the road from that direction.

“What is it?” demanded the shopkeeper, accosting a terrified Theiwar whose beard and hair had been badly singed. “What’s going on?”

“A fire dragon!” the man gasped. “It’s like the Chaos War is starting all over again! It burst up from the ground, burning a tunnel right up through the rock. It flew through Norbardin and then returned to the square. Now it’s attacking the king’s palace again.”

Feeling sick to his stomach, Peat released the dwarf’s arm and let him resume his escape. The Chaos War! He and Sadie had been much younger during that awful time, just starting out in business, in fact, tending a small shop in Theibardin, right on the shore of the Urkhan Sea. Already they had started to prosper with a loyal and steadily growing group of customers when the creatures of Chaos had exploded into the kingdom of Thorbardin. Peat well remembered the shadow wights sweeping across whole neighborhoods, wiping out not just the residents, but any memories of those dwarves in the minds of the survivors. He had seen the powerful daemon warrior, striding like an avenging giant, smiting buildings, boats, and dwarf soldiers with his crushing fists.

But worst of all had been the fire dragons. Driven purely by rage and the lust to destroy, they had flown through the city, gouging tunnels in the rock that seemed no more substantial than smoke to their flaming advance. It was the fire dragons that had destroyed the great cities of Thorbardin, carving away at the supporting bedrock, gouging through palaces, manors, and slums with equal callousness. When the forces of Chaos had finally withdrawn-they had not been defeated by dwarves, but rather compelled to depart because of factors in the greater war between the gods-they had left Theibardin and the other great cities of the underground nation so badly damaged that the surviving population had migrated, excavating the new city of Norbardin, to begin life anew.

And he watched as that new city was being terrorized by the same menace. Peat could hardly bear the fear, the anguish, that threatened to overwhelm him. He was quaking and on the verge of tears as he closed the door, feeling a fresh sense of urgency. Hastening into the back room, he saw that Sadie was still scratching symbols on the scroll.

“Hurry!” he whispered, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hear him. He had to do something to occupy his mind, so Peat went to the strongbox wherein the two Guilders had stored their treasures, the vast wealth they had amassed from those dwarves who had used the dimension door to escape Thorbardin. He was so nervous, he fumbled with the lock twice before he finally inserted the tiny key and pulled it open.

He found a bag of holding on a nearby shelf and carried it back to the chest. With one trembling hand, he scooped out diamonds, rubies, platinum coins, emeralds, and all the other trinkets they had collected. The treasures tumbled into the sack, ten or twenty pounds worth of them. But because of the enchantment on the bag of holding, the little sack weighed only a few ounces and took up only the space of a small belt purse.

“Where are we going to go?” he asked Sadie.

So intent was her concentration-and her deafness-that he had to repeat the question three times, each more loudly than the last, before she answered.

“The same place as I was going to send that last dwarf,” she finally replied. “Kayolin. I don’t want to take the time to work out a new destination.” She gestured to the empty strongbox. “And now, at least, we’ll have enough wealth to be comfortable.”

“Hurry!” he pressed.

“Well, if you wouldn’t keep chattering …” she replied ominously.

Finally she jotted down the last symbol and capped the ink bottle. “Do you have everything?” she demanded. “I’m ready to cast the spell.”

“Yes, right here,” he said, holding up the bag. “This should be all we need.”

She nodded curtly and turned toward the lone blank spot on the shelf-lined walls. Reading carefully, she chanted the words to the powerful spell. Peat watched anxiously, almost fearing to breathe, as the enchantment slowly took form.

First the blue circle began to glow on the wall. Gradually, the hole in the middle of the circle-the dark wormhole that was the actual pathway of the spell-took shape. With each word, more of the scroll on the desk before her burned away until there remained nothing but ashes.

Finally Sadie finished, sighing with exhaustion, but quickly pushing back her stool and standing up. The blue circle glowed firmly, the dark tunnel of the magical passage beckoning to them, promising escape, freedom, riches-and safety.

Peat finally began to relax. He wondered about Kayolin. One thing he knew was that it lay hundreds of miles away from their shop, far to the north. It seemed highly unlikely that the king of Thorbardin, or their wizardly Master, would be able to track them down there. And they would be fabulously wealthy; they would have every comfort that their nearly bottomless hoard of treasure would be able to purchase.

Sadie looked at her husband and started to speak. “Time to-”

She halted with an audible gasp. Peat blinked, perceiving that she was looking at something beyond him, just over his shoulder.

In a panic, the elderly Theiwar turned around, eyes bulging as he spotted a black-robed figure that had silently, suddenly, come through the door into the back room of the two Guilders’ shop.

In that same instant, Peat recognized their master.

It was the wizard Willim the Black, standing there calmly, his scarred, eyeless face expressionless as he gestured toward the blue circle on the wall. Finally, a small smile parted his beard and creased his ghastly lips.

“Going somewhere?” asked the most powerful magic-user in all Thorbardin.

“I wanna go Pax Tharkas!” Slooshy whined as soon as the three gully dwarves made their way through the palace wall and back into the tangled, debris-filled cover of the plaza. “No big mess there alla time!” She had no firsthand experience with the city, but she imagined it from what Berta had said to her.

“Yep, Pax Tharkas nice place!” Berta retorted. “Not like stoopie burnrock Thorbardin, alla time hot and hungry!”

“Girls be quiet!” snapped Gus. “Highbulp gotta think!”

Gus reflected. Berta and Slooshy had a point. Pax Tharkas was a rather nice place, especially compared to the terrible mess that Thorbardin seemed to be in. It was reasonably safe and very quiet. Sure, it was small and didn’t have a lake. But what was so great about the lake, anyway?

Then there was the other thing, he abruptly remembered, as he almost stumbled because of the heavy red rock he was carrying. That rock matched the blue and green rocks in Pax Tharkas. Gus could take the red one there and make the king pretty happy. A happy king meant, at the very least, some good food for Gus. Suddenly he wanted to go back there very much.

And just as suddenly, he knew how to do that!

“Come on!” he said. “Girls follow highbulp, plenty fast!”

“Hey! You no highbulp!” Berta reminded him.

“Yeah! No boss me neither!” Slooshy declared.

“Stay, then, bluphsplunging wenches!” he shouted, startling them both. “Gus go Pax Tharkas by himself!”

Carrying the Redstone, he started running from the plaza, back toward the street where they had arrived in Norbardin.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Berta called.

“You no go so fast!” Slooshy objected. Two sets of feet pounded behind him, and he felt surprisingly happy that they were coming along with him. Sure, they could be disobedient and argumentative pests, but all in all, he was glad to have their company.

Finding the right street was not easy in the midst of all the chaos and destruction that had marred so much of the city, but he finally picked it out and started down the way, leaving the dragon-wracked plaza behind. After running for two minutes, he guessed he was getting close and slowed down. He paused, thinking and looking around, and he finally recognized the shop where he and Berta had arrived there via the magic blue hole in the wall. It looked different because the front door was standing wide open.

He darted through the open doorway with the two females in close pursuit. He strode through the shop, barely noticing the wreckage of tables and shelves. The back door was closed, but it opened when he turned the latch.

Immediately he saw what he was searching for: the blue magic door, swirling on the wall. The same two old Theiwar were there also, but fortunately their backs were turned away from him; he well remembered the old crone’s skillful aim when she was shooting her magic missiles at him. Then he froze to notice there was a third person in the room-the eyeless wizard!

Panic nearly choked Gus, and he wanted to run away. But then he saw that the frightening figure was glaring at the elderly Theiwar, and the two of them looked so terrified at the wizard’s presence that they didn’t even notice the gully dwarves creeping into their back room. The opportunity was there, and Gus wasted no time.

“This way!” he whispered as best he could, leading his girlfriends in a sudden forward rush.

But the old Theiwar crone must have heard him; her eyes turned toward him, and she opened her mouth to scream, which was when the wizard slapped her before the scream could come out. And the wizard didn’t even turn around or glance over his shoulder.

Gus reacted instinctively, breaking into a sprint. He dived through the blue door as her scream echoed after him. Gus tumbled onto a hard stone surface and looked up to see, with relief, that Berta and Slooshy had followed him through, sprawling beside him on the other side of the magic door.

Even as he watched, the blue circle shimmered and faded and disappeared.

Kondike paced down a quiet street in Garnet Thax. The dog had been roaming through the dwarf city for a long time, and though he’d never forgotten his mistress, nor his new master, he had not been able to locate any scent of them. He’d drawn significant attention from the city’s dwarves, most of whom had never seen a dog anywhere near his size, and thus, considered him a wild and dangerous animal. After a few unpleasant encounters, such as being hit by clubs and rocks and narrowly avoiding a hurled spear, the dog had learned to stick to the less inhabited byways of the vast, labyrinthine city.

For the first few days of his wanderings, he had gone back to the house where Gretchan had taken him when they first arrived in the city. But there had been no sign of her there, and the crowded streets of that neighborhood had been too dangerous for the dog to find a safe hiding place. So he had wandered off and not gone back there for quite a few days.

He was prowling the alley behind a flourishing food market. He’d had success stealing cheese and even some cuts of meat from several of the vendors, and his gnawing, empty belly had compelled him to go back there. But the food-sellers seemed to be watching for him, and he was met with a barrage of well-aimed stones, missiles that bruised his flesh and forced him to flee back into the shadows.

He whimpered quietly and limped into a shadowy alcove where he had found some discarded burlap to serve as a slightly-softer-than-stone bed. He lapped up some stagnant water from a pool in the floor. His stomach growled, but there was nothing to be done about that at the moment.

Instead, he lay down and went to sleep.

Abruptly he started awake, sniffed, and raised his head. A deep growl emanated from his chest as he stood, ears upraised, looking around. He couldn’t see anyone and didn’t smell anything. But some unknown sense prickled his awareness. The alley was empty; there was nobody in the alcove with him. Yet he felt certain that someone was approaching.

The dog’s attention was drawn to the nearby wall. He growled more loudly, staring, as the stone surface began to shimmer. In another second he saw a raggedy-dressed gully dwarf there, stepping right out of the shimmering place on the wall. The big dog barked, startling the gully dwarf, who yelped and leaped to the side. Then a second and a third gully dwarf materialized, tumbling through to sprawl onto the floor, startling the dog so much that he jumped backward, barking again.

Kondike barked once more, but something in the little dwarf’s scent was vaguely familiar. He wagged his tail tentatively.

The little dwarf, whose nose was bleeding from the impact of the fall, looked up and grinned.

“Kondike?” he said cheerfully. “Is that you?”