The Gates of Thelgrim

by Robbie MacNiven

  Astarra looked at Raythen, who nodded in confirmation.

  “They’re used by the Miners’ Guild,” he explained. “The black firedust combusts when lit.”

  “It explodes?” Astarra asked, trying to picture just what the dwarfs were cooking up. “But won’t we be buried alive? What if it collapses the tunnels?”

  “Not with three charges it won’t, not if they’re placed against an upper subsidiary wall like this one,” Mavarin said, glancing up at Raythen. The thief had again pressed his head against the tunnel wall, as though listening to secrets being whispered by the rock.

  “I’d say you’re right,” he said. “But no more than three, and we should head down that rail tunnel while you light the fuse. That’ll offer us enough blast dispersal.”

  “Well, I only brought three anyway,” Mavarin said with a shrug, fitting what seemed to be a length of match cord into one of the orb’s holes.

  Astarra looked towards Shiver, hoping he was as confounded by the dwarf activity as she was. To her surprise, she found him ignoring all of them. He was standing directly in front of the wide rail tunnel, staring ahead, framed by the darkness beyond it.

  Astarra glanced back at Raythen and Mavarin, but they were both too busy fussing over the explosives. She took a step towards the elf.

  “Shiver?” she said softly. He didn’t move.

  She realized that the temperature in the tunnels had started to drop.

  •••

  It was down there, somewhere, waiting.

  The darkness in front of Shiver was absolute. It wasn’t merely the absence of light, the struggles of Raythen’s torch to penetrate the rail tunnel. The shadows in there were hungry, and they consumed anything they touched. Deep elf or not, Shiver’s eyes were unable to see more than a few feet. It was as though a thick, black shroud had been hung across the entranceway.

  And worse, there was something whispering behind it. It was right on the cusp of his delicate hearing, the faintest murmur. He was sure he could hear it one moment, then doubted himself the next. It was all at once frustrating and unnerving.

  He tried to turn away but found he could not. The darkness was all-consuming. Was it the darkness itself, and not those in it, that was whispering to him?

  “What are you waiting for?” murmured the voice in his ear. Her voice, always there, always goading, taunting and, worst of all, commanding.

  He shivered.

  A hand clutched his shoulder and he turned, an arcane word locked on the edge of his lips, a moment away from reaching into the Sphere of Dreams. But it wasn’t her. It was Astarra.

  The runewitch let go and took a sharp step back, her staff raised in a defensive grip. Shiver realized his hand was rimed with frost. He let out a slow, shuddering breath, clouding in the cold air, and closed his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Astarra demanded, her words shattering the stillness he was attempting to regain.

  “Nothing,” he snapped, feeling a sudden, vicious surge of anger as he opened his eyes once more. “It’s nothing!”

  She looked as though she’d been stung. Raythen and Mavarin both glanced up from their work. He felt an immediate stab of shame. His anger evaporated, gone as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking away from Astarra. “I… think I was having another memory.”

  “Of this place?” Astarra asked.

  “That’s not always how they work,” Shiver said. “I told you, I haven’t been here before.”

  She didn’t look like she believed him. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised – he wasn’t sure he believed himself, not anymore. He kept his expression stoic, not wanting to hint at his rising concerns. It would do no good to burden the others with them.

  “The deep elves, are they close?” Raythen asked from over by the wall. Shiver took a second to ensure his thoughts were steady and balanced once more before reaching out again into the Aenlong, sensing the other nearby souls touching it.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And getting closer?”

  “Perhaps. This is… not a good place. We should hurry.”

  “That’ll do,” Mavarin said to Raythen, indicating the spacing of the black orbs they’d planted at the base of the tunnel wall. “Get back with the other two, I’ll light the fuse.”

  Raythen handed Mavarin his torch and strode over to Astarra and Shiver.

  “We should take shelter,” he said. “Cover your ears with your hands, but leave your mouths open. You’ll lose your hearing otherwise.”

  He didn’t wait for a response but ushered them both towards the rail tunnel. Shiver froze.

  “What is it?” Raythen asked, noticing his refusal to move. He glanced towards the tunnel. “Is there something down there?”

  Shiver stared at it. He was looking for the hungry, whispering blackness, but it was gone. The tunnel lay before them, the rail track disappearing off into the shadows beyond the torchlight. He reached out into the Empyrean, carefully probing at it. There was nothing though. It was just an empty tunnel.

  “It’s fine,” he said, trying to sound convincing, trying to convince himself.

  “Well, come on then,” Raythen snapped, hauling the pair along the tracks. Shiver could sense a new, nervous energy about the Dunwarr, an excitement that had overcome the gloom and dismay which seemed to have beset him in Thelgrim. He was back on familiar ground, doing what he did best and liked most – hunting for the next payout.

  He hustled them into the rail tunnel and told them to stay back from the entrance. Shiver forced himself not to stare down into the darkness, looking back instead towards the junction. The wall where the blasting charges had been planted was now out of sight, as was Mavarin, but a serpentine hiss followed by the sound of running footsteps announced his return. He bolted in beside them, goggles down, as the others covered their ears.

  Shiver didn’t bother. He summoned up a frigid void, a sphere that encased him and momentarily dislocated him from the tunnel, shifting his essence into the Empyrean itself. He was aware of the blast in the same way that a sleeper, jolting upright, was aware of the dream that had awoken him. It was distant and ephemeral.

  The spell lasted only for a few heartbeats. He dropped it, the cold evaporating. He was back in the midst of a tunnel now choked with smoke and dirt. All three of his companions were coughing and cursing around him. He looked down and brushed dislodged earth from the front of his robes.

  “Did it work?” he asked.

  It took some time for anyone to respond. Mavarin, his goggles raised once more, stumbled out into what remained of the crossroads and waved them out after him. Dirt and shattered stone covered the floor, and a steaming gap had been blasted in the wall. The neighboring timber supports had bent and splintered, and the ceiling over the gap was sagging, but holding.

  Raythen approached the hole they had blown, still coughing, batting at the smoke and dust filling the space. Shiver glanced at Astarra. She was still clutching at one ear, her face creased with pain.

  “Are you alright?” he asked her, considering offering her what healing energies she could draw from the Empyrean. She hesitated, looking at his lips, and he realized her ears were probably still ringing from the blast. She shook her head.

  “There’s a cavern back here,” Raythen was saying, holding his hand out for Mavarin’s torch. “Air’s good enough. Come on.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Raythen stepped through the blast hole, torch aloft, peering through the settling dust.

  They’d breached into a natural rock chamber. It was a little larger than Mavarin’s workshop, its floor and ceiling uneven and jagged with geological disruption. At first Raythen thought it had been completely sealed off until the blast had opened it, but as he advanced, the light of the torch picked out a narrow passageway in the far wall, leading away int
o the dark.

  Mavarin pushed past him, the inventor’s eyes fixed on the center of the chamber, on a small plinth of natural rock. He strode up to it and bent over, staring.

  “By the ancestors,” Raythen heard him mutter. He hurried to the inventor’s side, heart racing. He couldn’t help himself – it was always the same on a big job. Being this close to success always left him jagged with excitement and nervousness. It was the sort of thing that, were it not for his experience, would’ve made him a bad thief, but it always kept him coming back for more. It was addictive.

  “Where’s the Star?” he demanded as Mavarin cast about the rock he’d pinpointed.

  “I d- don’t know,” the inventor hissed, his movements becoming more frantic. “I- it should be here.”

  “What does the tuner say?” Raythen asked, feeling a pang of desperation. “You said it was close!”

  “Hang the tuner,” Mavarin shouted abruptly, his voice echoing through the craggy chamber. “I’m telling you, it’s gone! It’s not here!”

  Raythen felt a sudden urge to draw his hand bow and point it at Mavarin. Anger and frustration burned inside him, the dark afterglow of the failure to land the score. He snatched Mavarin and pulled him eye-to-eye.

  “Is this another of your little tricks?” he snarled. “Because I’m warning you, you don’t double cross me. I’m the double crosser here, beardless one.”

  Mavarin roughly threw off Raythen’s hand, uncowed and seemingly just as furious as the thief.

  “I th- thought it was here,” he said. “But if it was, it’s gone now.”

  “Can’t you track it?” Astarra demanded as she walked into the chamber. She appeared to have recovered from the shock of the breaching blast. Her expression was as dark as Raythen’s. “Use that invention and follow where it went?”

  “It isn’t that simple,” Mavarin said, his voice riven with exasperation. “The tuner can only follow something like the Hydra so far.”

  “You didn’t tell us that before,” Raythen said incredulously, resisting the urge to grab the tinkerer by the scruff of the neck and shake him.

  “We’re about to have companions,” Shiver said before Astarra could respond. He was standing by the blast hole, looking back into the debris-littered junction. “Two separate daggerbands, closing fast. The explosion will have alerted more.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Astarra suggested. “We can sort this mess out when we aren’t trapped in a cavern surrounded by murderous elves.”

  Raythen wanted to argue, but he checked himself. He was in too deep, had been drawn on by the potential of one of the greatest finds of his career. Whatever was going on, the Hydra wasn’t here. Now wasn’t the time for desperate last stands in empty caverns.

  Ignoring Mavarin, he strode for the blast hole.

  •••

  No one spoke during the return to Thelgrim, and Astarra suspected it wasn’t just because they were enduring the juddering, claustrophobic intensity of the burrower’s interior. Her own frustration proved a powerful tonic to the discomfort generated by the strange mode of transport. Even the steady rhythms of the Turning being exuded by the Viridis couldn’t calm her seething thoughts.

  She was certain she’d been betrayed, though just how or by whom, she wasn’t yet sure.

  Mavarin hauled on his levers and brought the engine to an unsteady halt. He popped his side door as Astarra stood and opened the hatch. They were back in the workshop basement, the front half of the burrower extending through the entrance tunnel it re-ploughed whenever it left and returned. She dropped down, staff in hand, wincing at the cramp that had worked its way into her thighs while she’d been penned in the cursed machine.

  Raythen had already followed Mavarin out of his hatch and was interrogating him again. He seemed even angrier than Astarra, though a part of her wondered if it was just for show. What if he’d made some sort of pact with his fellow Dunwarr in exchange for the Star, or had slipped it in the cavern amidst the dust and smoke?

  “We’re going to go upstairs, and you’re going to tell me exactly what happened back there,” Raythen was growling.

  “You were with me, you saw exactly what happened,” Mavarin said, throwing his hands. “The Hydra was gone!”

  “Then why did you think it was there in the first place? Show me that cursed little box again.”

  “Now may not be the best time for this,” Shiver said, dropping down lithely next to Astarra from the back of the mud-caked burrower.

  “Why?” Raythen and Mavarin asked in unison, rounding on him.

  They’d barely spoken before a shuddering report rang down the stairs leading up to the workshop.

  “That’s why,” Shiver said.

  Astarra saw an unguarded look of fear pass over Mavarin’s face. Without another word, he turned and hurried up the stairs. Raythen followed, looking more like he was chasing the inventor than trying to gain the stairs himself.

  “What is it?” Astarra asked Shiver.

  “Dunwarr,” the elf said. They both began to follow.

  •••

  The main door out onto the street lay at the far end of the workshop. Its back was heavy with complex locking mechanisms, a fact Astarra was abruptly thankful for as the whole thing shuddered in its frame. Another booming impact rang through the room.

  Mavarin had approached the door and eased open a small metal covering. He peered through it, then leapt back with a yelp just before the door shook again.

  “They’ve found us,” he hissed. “They’ve tracked us down. I didn’t think they’d manage it so soon!”

  “Ragnarson?” Raythen asked. Astarra noticed how pale he’d gone. She felt her own pulse quicken, memories of the bitter Dunwarr king and his grim fortress returning. She had no wish to fall into his clutches again.

  “Even worse,” Mavarin said. Before he could go on, a muffled voice called out from beyond the door.

  “We know you’re in there. Open this door, in the name of the king!”

  Astarra recognized one of the twins that had accompanied Ragnarson in the citadel dungeon, his white-bearded advisors.

  “Korri,” Raythen growled, then looked at Mavarin. “There must be another way out.”

  “There’s a passage through the neighboring block,” the inventor said. “But what about my work? They’ll destroy it, or worse, take it! Do you know how many people want to steal my ideas? There’s a reason there are so many locks on that door! The Miners’ Guild, the Runescribers, the Brewers’ Guild–”

  Raythen cuffed the rambling inventor round the ear, cutting him short.

  “No one cares about your inventions,” he snapped. “Where’s the passage?” As though to underline his words, there was another booming impact against the door. One of the locks ruptured.

  “I- It’s behind the cooling block,” he stammered, pointing at a large metallic box that Astarra had assumed was a safe or strongbox.

  “The what?” Raythen asked, clearly confused. Mavarin had already dashed over to it and was straining at one corner.

  “Help me shift it,” he hissed. Astarra and Raythen hurried to his side. To her surprised, she found the box cold to the touch.

  Together they heaved the block to one side, scraping it across the stone floor. Behind it lay a split in the wall, a crack in the natural bedrock the workshop had been carved into. It was just wide enough for them to fit into sideways.

  “Where does it lead?” Raythen asked, urgency warring with suspicion.

  “The Gundafs, they live next door,” Mavarin said, glancing back as another blow shook the whole workshop, making the various piles of detritus rattle.

  “You surely knew they’d come here sooner rather than later?” Raythen demanded, waving Astarra back round the other side of the cold, metal block. She made sure Shiver was following. “Who else has the abili
ty to tunnel in under the Dunwol Kenn Karnin and break prisoners from the upper dungeon?”

  “The Miners’ Guild for a start,” Mavarin said, squeezing his way into the crack. “And every other guild they trade with, which is all of them.”

  “They’re going to know where we’ve gone when they break in,” Astarra pointed out as she followed the two Dunwarr into the gap, holding her staff close to her body and trying not to think about how narrow the space was. The cooling block was still off to one side, leaving the hole in the wall uncovered.

  “I knew I should have put it on runners,” Mavarin said, peering past Raythen and Astarra at Shiver as he joined them. “Can your magics put it back in place?

  “No,” Shiver said, his voice amazingly – almost annoyingly – calm despite what was unfolding around him. “But I can create a different, temporary barrier.”

  “That might help,” Mavarin said. Astarra could already see light at the end of the narrow passage – it was barely a dozen yards long.

  A crash shook that stone around her, coating them in dust and making her ears ring. She flinched instinctively, remembering the terrible detonation that had occurred in the tunnels. She suspected the very same devices Raythen and Mavarin had deployed had just been used by those attempting to gain access to the workshop.

  Shiver had raised both hands and was murmuring something under his breath. Astarra sensed the temperature drop just as she heard a banging sound from the opposite end of the passage. She shuffled along after Raythen and Mavarin as best she could, silently cursing herself for taking on a job that would obviously require a cool head in tight spaces. At the far end she found Mavarin kicking at a series of boardings covering the exit, light streaming through the cracks.

  “What’s Shiver doing?” Raythen demanded, trying to see past Astarra as she in turn tried to see past him at what Mavarin was contending with.

  “Blocking the way,” she answered, looking back. Shiver was covering the workshop end of the passage with a layer of ice, a heavy wedge of bristling shards that gleamed with the light refracting through it. She could hear voices beyond it, shouting, and abruptly the light was blocked out as a shape loomed at the opposite end. There was a cracking sound as a blow was struck against the conjured obstruction, splits running through the barrier.