“You must.” Bard strode over and handed a piece of parchment to her.
“I’m sorry,”—she turned the page over, not sure which way was up—“I can’t read dwarven script.”
“No matter.” He pointed to a passage at the center of the page. A few lines were offset from the rest, made up of different symbols. “None of us have been able to read this bit. All we know is it’s old, but it’s come up in our research more than once.”
Elayne touched the lines of foreign words. Someone had copied them onto this parchment—somehow she knew—from another source, and they had done a good job. “Except this word is wrong,” she whispered.
“What was that?” Bard barked at her.
Elayne shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked at Neoma who was peering over her shoulder.
“Gramps might be able to read it,” she snorted, “He’s old too.”
“Keep it.” Bard pushed the page toward her gently. “May it help guide you.”
Elayne nodded, folding the parchment carefully. She gnawed on her lip then looked at him again. “In your research, have you come across the name Idris?”
Bard squinted, then shook his head.
Her shoulders fell, but only slightly. “The council,” she said, “What do you need from us in this meeting?”
“I need to convince them. You are my key to that.”
***
As they stood in the meeting room, Elayne was glad for Neoma’s work on her hair. Unlike the open forum they’d been in the day before, this space was completely closed off and located below the open market city. The walls were covered in woolen tapestries depicting battles and family trees, longer than any dwarf was tall. An oak table ran the chamber’s length and high-backed chairs were sat all around it. The three of the dwarven council were lined up on the table’s far side.
Gwuinar, Bard, and Lorky were standing at one end of the table as well. The blond dwarf’s leg was wrapped in thick, dark bandages, but he stood straight on it with arms folded. Lorky was grinning from ear to ear below his ginger mustache. Bard, conversely, was the only one who looked pained, his eyes flicking to the closed doorway at the back of the room over and over.
Elayne had opted to bring everyone with her this time, knowing from her short meeting with Bard that though the dwarves were small, their presence was considerable. They had no reason to fear violence, Bard assured them, but dwarves did enjoy a good squabble, and volume was often a deciding factor in the winner.
No one spoke upon their entry. Elayne was directed to the seat across from Dagen Gundar, but the chair was lower than she expected, and she fell the last few inches onto it. As she tried to compose herself, she noticed her companions doing the same, save for Bix who still had to hop up. With knees squished up to the height of the table, Elayne cleared her throat, and sat up straight, laying her hands in her lap and looking at the dagen expectantly.
“I’ve been told,” he began in a gruff voice with a glance at the younger sons who stood to the side, “there’s a wee bit of concern about the sickness we’ve seen in the mountain’s wildlife.”
“It’s not a sickness,” Bard was quick to cut in. “Dagen, council, we’ve discussed this before, I know, but I don’t believe the forge is out on the issue. Whatever’s infecting the herds, it’s not natural, and it’s coming from beyond the border of Heulux.”
Elayne’s eyes widened, and she squeezed her hands together in her lap.
“Nothing can cross the border.” The dwarf who had been drunk the day before, the one who Bard had noted was his uncle Scrog, was cradling his head on the table and blinked his good eye over at the boy. “It’s been proven by the humans, they can’t go one way, why could they come out another?”
“That’s not even—” Bard caught himself before he raised his voice again and sighed. “Perhaps nothing could cross the border from Heulux, but things change. Listen, the Heulux clanswoman is sitting right in front of you. You naught need believe me, believe her!”
They turned to Elayne, a number of bushy brows rising. She felt her face go red and hoped the glamour would conceal it. “Heulux has changed,” she began, taking a breath. “The usurpers have corrupted the nexus, and—”
“Tell us something we don’t know.” The dagen leaned back, his arms crossed tight over a wide chest.
“That list is too vast!” Gramps’s voice echoed from the pipe, and the council glared at Neoma. She placed the pipe on the table and pointed at it.
“Does your sprite have something to say?” The Forgebristle councilwoman, Dortuk, gestured to the container.
“I’m not a sprite, I’m an elf! Now, listen here. I don’t think highly of dwarves, but I know for a fact you’re not stupid. You’ve seen the animals you call sick. You know very well it’s something else. And you knew very well that leaving that duchy to rot under Alaion and his followers was going to lead to something awful. That something awful is already happening, and if you’re half as smart as I think you are, you’d do well to prepare yourselves.”
“Is that a threat?” Scrog stood, leaning toward the pipe with his hands splayed out on the table.
“Don’t you already feel threatened?” Gramps’s voice rose. “What happens when all the goats turn? The birds? The trees? The bloody mountain itself? Where will you go?”
The dagen’s face was turning red. “This mountain is the safest place in the whole of Maw. Of all the dwarven clans along this range, the three of the council have barely lost a single tribesman. There is nothing that can penetrate the mountain.”
“Maybe you’re as stupid as you look then,” Gramps’s voice sneered, “Your son was nearly gored to death before our eyes.”
The dagen got to his feet, and Elayne threw her hands up. “Wait, wait! Clearly it is very safe here—we’ve experienced your immeasurable hospitality and felt secure in your home.” She encouraged the others, and they nodded along with her. “But,” she began hesitantly, “Gwuinar was almost killed by—”
“And a human saved him,” Gramps cut in, “A human!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frederick turned to the pipe, and Neoma pinched her nose.
“I was holding my own!” Gwuinar shouted from the table’s other end.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lorky scoffed, leaning back with arms crossed. “That wound tells a different tale.”
“Regardless,” Elayne raised her voice, surprising even herself, “The nexus’s corruption is affecting the creatures outside of Heulux, and—”
“The nexus is the elves’ problem,” Scrog scoffed, gesturing to Neoma. “They wanted the responsibility, let them have it.”
“We had to take on the responsibility,” Gramps shouted tinnily.
“If the aether is corrupt, it doesn’t matter whose responsibility it is!” Bard slammed a hand down on the table, and the sound reverberated through the room.
“We’ve got our own,” Dortuk scoffed. “We’ll be fine!”
“The aether is all of ours,” Elayne said quickly. “We use the same you do; it all comes from the same place.”
“That’s rich!” Scrog had sat back and was frowning at her. “Coming from the daughter of Cressyda.”
“Stop this.” A voice from the back of the chamber spoke. At the doorway there, a dwarven woman stood, a small bundle in her arms. She had not raised her voice, but it commanded the others to look on her, surprised. Elayne was glad for her entrance, unsure how she would have responded to the jab at her family.
The dwarven woman adjusted the bundle she was holding, and Elayne saw the smallest dwarf she imagined she would ever see, pink and brand new, wrapped in soft, wool blankets. “We all know our kin are not to be held as proxy for our alleged doings.”
“Sorry, Mairah,” Scrog muttered quietly.
Mairah approached the table and stood beside Scrog. He stared at her, then vacated the chair, holding it out for her so she could be seated. Taking her time, she pushed her long, chestnut braid over her
shoulder, readjusted the baby in her arms, and finally looked up at Elayne. “Duchess, you have more to tell us, aye? We came together to hear it.” She glared at the council. “The Blackiron clan intends to listen. Go on then.”
Elayne took a staggered breath. “Well, there are a few things we know for sure: a sect of elves took over Heulux, and they’ve corrupted the nexus, and a border has been erected around the duchy that seems impenetrable. There are also a few things we’re pretty sure of: the corrupted aether is spreading beyond the border—that’s what was wrong with those goats and they’re not the only creatures to suffer—and there’s a greater risk to all of us now.”
“Well, Duchess of Heulux, Breaker of Curses, what will you do about it?” The dagen raised furry eyebrows and sat back.
“Um, well, I’m not exactly…” Elayne’s voice trailed off. She didn’t understand how she’d gotten to this point, seated with the Dwarven Council of the Three Clans, being expected to tell them some grand plan.
“She is the rightful Duchess of Heulux,” Mairah said, her eyes on the baby she cradled, “She intends to take back what is hers.”
Elayne gripped the thaumat stone, squeezing its corners into her palm so that it dug into her skin. “The Trizian elves told me I could purify the nexus and restore Heulux. That is what I intend to do.”
“With what army?” Lorky leaned against the table, his words critical, but his face excited.
She cast a nervous glance over her companions.
“Is that why you’re here?” The Forgebristle clanswoman raised her chin. “To recruit us?”
“No.” Elayne shook her head. “I didn’t—we didn’t mean to come here, and—”
“There is a small mountain range in Heulux.” The dagen narrowed beady eyes at her. “No dwarven clan has been allowed inside it. I’d trade our support for a chance to observe the mountain. When you’ve got this all sorted, of course.”
Elayne stared back at him. When had this become a negotiation? “I can’t—” Then she stopped. Couldn’t she though? She was the last Orraigh, and Heulux was hers if she could get it back. She crossed her arms and sat back. “Define support.”
The dagen’s mustache ruffled as he smiled beneath it. “We’re not marching out behind you, Duchess, I’m not saying that. We can’t cross that border while it’s up—”
“And even if it’s down!” Scrog shouted, then crumpled in on himself when Mairah eyed him.
“Will it come down?” Dagen Gundar never broke away from Elayne’s gaze.
The duchess stared back at him as the rest of the beings in the room melted away. He wasn’t promising help, she knew that, but he was challenging her. She leaned across the table, absolutely sure. “Yes.”
CHAPTER 22
Tavaris didn’t particularly like wearing boiled leather, or being in the hallowed chamber that housed the nexus, but he did enjoy spending time with his father when Alaion was in a good mood, and the three were typically mutually dependent. He pulled down on the chest plate that he was just growing out of, but now wasn’t the time to complain: he’d like things to go as well as possible for as long as possible, and he admitted quietly to himself that probably wasn’t for very long.
Wearily he glanced over to his father and gave him a smile as they strode down the long, dark hall of Heulux Castle. Forsyth was on his shoulder again, but Wren was not allowed, deemed a distraction. Alaion nodded back, and Tavaris took a breath that came more ragged than he would have liked. His heart was pounding, his stomach hadn’t been able to keep anything down that morning, and he wondered if this really were better than spending the day turning page after page of some five-hundred-year-old book about the five hundred years prior to that, or defending himself as Vulras went after him in the name of training and leaving him more black and blue than the veins that were slowly climbing around his temples.
He straightened as they passed the helmeted elves standing stiffly at the doors of the throne room. They always seemed much bigger when he was younger. One of them who he knew was called Kruvel shifted his eyes to Tavaris, and he could see the disdain there. He recognized all of the guards, in fact, especially as the pool of them had gotten smaller. Kruvel had been in training only a few years prior; Tavaris had sparred with him a few times, the matches always being called when he was ahead. He wasn’t much older than Tavaris, but he must have been exceptional if he was stationed outside the throne room. He’d been good with a wooden sword, that was certain.
Once inside, Tavaris shuddered, tasting the new wave of bile in his mouth when he saw them. Lined up on the far wall, beneath the alabaster banner embroidered with a black dragon, a line of them were waiting. They had names once too, but now they were simply known as krows, scouts for Heulux who had been altered to cross the border. Well, to cross the border and stay under Alaion’s orders—that was the most important part.
They fell to bent knees as Alaion swept into the room, their black cloaks spread out around them like a nest of iridescent feathers. Ravens had been the first creatures capable of passing through the miasma surrounding Heulux and not going mad, and so Melorya had looked tirelessly through her book to find a way to transfer that ability to others. They had been through what felt like hundreds of elves—volunteers from the troops, Alaion had called them—and now a proud brigade of nineteen knelt before their lord and maker.
Tavaris tried hard not to look directly at them; they were scary.
But one did not match. At the line’s end was an elf, Rearon. Though he wore the same black cloak as the rest and took the same posture, his features were not twisted, and his body moved with his breath.
Rearon stood when Alaion approached him. Forsyth took to the air and settled on the back of the throne, brooding there with piercing eyes looking out at the rest of them. Alaion clamped a hand down on Rearon’s shoulder and said a few words, none of which Tavaris heard, the blood rushing past his ears deafening as he glanced at the doors to the nexus behind the throne of skulls and the dragon perched on it. They were moving toward the nexus room, and Tavaris was following as if in a daze. He didn’t enjoy the feeling he got at the nexus. It nauseated him, as if he were standing on the edge of a very high cliff and could feel his stomach dropping into eternity beyond it. The sounds in the chamber were different as well, slightly muffled, farther away, and with his nerves on edge everything was that much worse.
It was the magic, his father had told him before with abject joy. Perhaps Alaion felt something different, perhaps he let it fill him with power, but Tavaris distinctly felt as though he was constantly on guard here, keeping the magic at bay.
“You are prepared?” Melorya’s voice was low in his ear as she stepped out of the shadows of the nexus’s chamber behind him.
He swallowed and nodded despite it sort of being a lie. He did know the spell, but he wasn’t ready to use it. He wasn’t sure how he was ever supposed to be.
Regardless, Rearon was instructed to kneel at the basin, his back to the swirling vortex inside the nexus. Alaion motioned to Tavaris, and the boy stepped up before the elven soldier like he’d seen his father do before. The cold metal of the dagger’s hilt bit into his hand, but he let his fingers curl around it to take it from Melorya. With an elf standing at each of his shoulders and one on his knees before him, Tavaris was fixed to the spot. There was only one way out of this, and that was straight through it. And that way was going to be messy.
With a hand set against Rearon’s forehead, the words came as if from some dark hidey-hole in his brain, like they’d always been there, falling out of his lips in someone else’s voice. Tavaris would have never said them, certainly not so perfectly, and never with this kind of vigor, but he let them come faster once they started. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought it was a song, Elder Elven was pretty like that, but the tune he’d remembered the spell to didn’t accompany the words.
Then he was raising the dagger. Tavaris watched himself do it. He could see Melorya behind him, the
urn in her hands. Her jaw was set, and she did not blink. His father stood beside her, peering over his shoulder hungrily. The smirk that rested on his face was the sincerest he’d perhaps ever seen. This would make him proud. Finally. Tavaris ripped the blade across Rearon’s throat.
As the elf’s blood poured out of his neck, Tavaris felt the searing pain of having his own gullet slit. It came with all the agony, fear, and pride Rearon had been holding onto, flooding into Tavaris through his palm, still connected with the soldier’s brow. They were both alive and dead in that moment, and it was that moment he could truly fail. If he really wanted to, Tavaris realized, he could escape, but what waited for him was worse than death.
Tavaris pulled his hand back, the connection broken, Rearon’s body falling limply to the ground. In his place was his essence, and Melorya caught it in her urn. He took a step back, feeling his father behind him, refusing to move. He would have to watch.
The nexus was fast, crawling all over Rearon’s body, blackening his corpse and setting it upright once again. Tavaris tightened the muscles of his arm to keep it from shaking as he raised the dagger once more and presented it to Rearon. The krow took it.
CHAPTER 23
There have been many gods amongst the many religions of Maw, but an argument has endured in favor of at least one true and constant celestial being. It has gone by many names including, but not limited to, Arezu, Krak, la’Renon, Shokunzite, and U’ah, but can always be refined to the moniker “god of war.” This is, of course, because conflict has existed for as long as sentient beings have, and if one is smart enough to come up with the concept of god, then one is smart enough to blame one’s short temper on him.
- from An Agnostic’s Guide to Maw’s Religions, S. G. Buxlie, pub. 139 AR
Elayne was afraid to open her eyes, even after they’d come to a stop. After their tense meeting with the council, Bard escorted them back up the winding walkway of their sunken city but did not take them to the entrance ledge. Instead, they traveled down a tunnel and then climbed narrow steps further into the mountain. At the top they came to a platform looking out over a drop off that went on into the darkness below. Jutting out from the edge was a track, suspended on spindly legs out over the chasm. “We won’t get all the way to the end of the ridge,”—Bard slapped the edge of a mining cart that sat on the platform—“but this can take us as far as Mount Sooth.”
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