The Heir of Kayolin dh-2

by Douglas Niles

  The Heir of Kayolin

  ( Dwarf Home - 2 )

  Douglas Niles

  Douglas Niles

  The Heir of Kayolin

  PROLOGUE

  The Journal of Gretchan Pax: Being the Complete History of the Dwarf Peoples of Krynn, Entailing the Rise and Fall of Great Nations, the Legacy of the God Reorx-He Who Is Master of Every Forge-and the Future that Still Awaits Our Indefatigable People .

  The following is an excerpt therefrom:

  The dwarves of Krynn, my people, have endured thousands of years of violence, strife, brutality, treachery, and cruelty. Sadly, much of this torment has been self-inflicted. Too often one clan, city, or band of dwarves has wreaked villainy upon another for shortsighted reasons of avarice, vengeance, or simple blockheaded intransigence. After long and thoughtful consideration, I have come to realize there is a single explanation, a sole source to this eternal problem:

  Men!

  I refer, of course, to the impossibly stubborn, pin-headed, narrow-minded, eternally complaining male members of the dwarf race. In a broader sense, my assessment perhaps might be expanded to extend to the masculine gender of other peoples, such as humans, ogres, or elves, but, given the scope of my writing, it is my intent to focus upon my own race.

  So, I write again: Men!

  They are impossible to reason with, to understand, to inspire, or to motivate. As evidence, I have my own experience to serve as solid proof. I have been exposed to an array of male stubborn mulishness during the past year, a year during which I have had the rare opportunity to dwell in the fabled fortress of Pax Tharkas. Here I saw and even influenced great events and witnessed the beginning and end of a potentially disastrous internecine war, one of so many in our history. I have come to understand that our people stand perpetually at the brink of great opportunities, a grand future, and yet at every turn our destiny is thwarted by the shortsighted, timid, and just plain stubborn men whom Reorx, for reasons beyond my understanding, has chosen to lead us.

  My arrival in this hallowed place preceded only by a short time the violent clash between two very different factions of dwarves, groups separated by more than a thousand years of deep-seated antipathy. The Neidar hill dwarves inhabit the many towns scattered across the rugged countryside surrounding this fortress. The ancient rivals of the Neidar are the mountain dwarves who now hold Pax Tharkas. These mountain dwarves, now dwelling on the surface of the world, are refugees from the great underground nation of Thorbardin, a place currently controlled by a violent cult of religious fanatics, I am told by credible sources. The mountain dwarves of Thorbardin have sealed that vast and ancient kingdom against the outside world, but a small portion of the population escaped to claim this ancient home on the surface.

  A year ago the hill dwarves, deceived into serving a minion of dark magic, attacked Pax Tharkas in a frenzy, and it was only the intervention of Reorx-through the humble person of myself, his loyal priestess-that unmasked the black fiend. He was vanquished, and the shamed hill dwarves hastened back to their homes.

  I remained here, in the fortress, and saw the victorious mountain dwarves stand at the brink of greatness. It was here that I met my father, General Otaxx Shortbeard, a venerable warrior whom I had never known. He is the strong right arm of the exiled monarch, Tarn Bellowgranite. It was my good fortune to come to know King Bellowgranite, former ruler of Thorbardin, now the leader of the refugees who fled that kingdom for Pax Tharkas. And I felt my affection grow for a heroic warrior, Brandon Bluestone-the fighter who wielded his Reorx-blessed axe and played a crucial role in the mountain dwarf victory. In the daze of triumph, I envisioned an even greater potential before us, a historic opportunity to change the dwarf race forever.

  Yet in the end, each of these males has balked at any of my suggestions, any move to consolidate our victory, and to move toward a golden future. Sad to say, I have had more encouraging conversations with the wretched gully dwarf, Gus Fishbiter, than with my father, with the king, or with Brandon. My dog and I are proud to have helped Gus following his magical escape from Thorbardin. I consider him to be “less male” than the others, yet now, even Gus languishes without purpose, dwelling among the others of his kind in the filthy, lightless tunnels beneath this fortress.

  My goal, my life’s work, remains as it has ever been: to study, to witness, to observe the varied dwarves of Krynn. As my mother’s daughter, I was raised among the Daewar refugees who followed Severus Stonehand to the east, seeking the original dwarf home. As an adult, a sturdy dwarf maid and priestess of Reorx, I set out to return to the modern lands of my people, visiting and observing and writing about my travels. I was determined to visit fabled Thorbardin and, eventually, the northern nation of Kayolin.

  Naturally, a number of men conspired to keep me from achieving that goal. To be sure, Thorbardin remains closed against any approach, sealed by its fanatical king to ensure it remains “pure,” untainted by external forces. Tarn and Otaxx seemed uninterested in even trying to change this state of affairs. I have told them of the legendary artifact, the Tricolor Hammerhead, a tool capable of smashing any fortification. The hammer consists of three wedges of magical stone. Though fate has placed two of the three stones-the blue and green-into Tarn Bellowgranite’s hands, he remains utterly, pigheadedly unwilling to pursue any kind of search for the third, the Redstone. It is as if, even if he had the means to breach Thorbardin’s gates, he would not attempt to do so.

  With Thorbardin beyond my reach, at least for the time being, I have repeatedly, although gently, expressed my desire to visit the other great dwarf nation, Kayolin. Brandon Bluestone calls that fair place home and could take me there; it lies but a month or two’s travel to the north. But he left there as a fugitive, apparently-unjustly accused of a crime-and remains unwilling to return. In Brandon I have seen flashes of greatness, and in fact, he has roused in my heart passions I have never before known. But his obsession over his family’s bad fortune-the Bluestone Luck, they call it-prevents him from acting decisively to improve his circumstances. Though his family was once rich, powerful, and influential in Kayolin, his father’s position is now tenuous because of the hostility of the ruler and his powerful minions, and Brandon dares not challenge the status quo.

  Until now I despaired of him, believing he would simply remain here, allowing another year to slip past without any forceful action. For all the previous months here, there has been no word from his home-until today. A package, long on the trail, dispatched from Kayolin to the Neidar town of Hillhome, then begrudgingly forwarded by the hill dwarves to the lofty fortress where he has been temporarily residing, finally reached him here in Pax Tharkas. Even as I write these pages, he is reading an extensive missive dispatched by his father.

  Whether the news therein will spur him to some sort of decision, only time will tell.

  PART I

  THORBARDIN

  ONE

  TWO GUILDERS

  The old dwarf muttered to himself and stomped his cane against the stones of First Street, in the great city of Norbardin. It was a relatively new city, excavated under the mountains following the Chaos War, and the road was wide and straight. The stones underfoot were set so smoothly that there was barely a crack between them to be seen or felt, and that was a good thing for the elderly pedestrian, since he could barely see.

  Still, using his cane to probe before him, he hobbled along at a fair clip, despite the wear and tear of a life that had bent his backbone and forced a permanent stoop onto his once-broad shoulders. He was a Theiwar, with the distinguishing pale skin and light, almost fawn-colored, irises in his sensitive eyes that mark so many of that breed. His beard was long, but thin, the wispy hairs a universal slate gray in col
or, and his balding pate was fringed by only a meager few strands of the same colorless gray.

  He glanced around and squinted nervously as other dwarves, hustling and bustling, stepped around him and hurried on their way. The old dwarf veered to the other side of the street so he didn’t have to meet approaching pedestrians face-to-face. At one point he paused to glare at the outside of a shuttered shop, the little store displaying the Abercrumb’s Fine Silverwerks sign. Satisfied that the interior was dark, devoid of customers, he continued on another dozen paces and turned in at a door on the other side of the street. He entered the little shop and slammed the door hard enough to start the overhead sign, Two Guilders Novelty and Pharmology Emporium, swinging violently.

  He stood in front of the counter of a small store. Every bit of the wall space, except for the front door and another door leading into the interior, was lined by shelving-smooth stones of slate that rested in precise grooves cut into the rock walls. Those shelves, in turn, were covered almost to overflowing with bottles and tins, small boxes and casks, ceramic mortars and glass beakers, and an array of even-harder-to-identify materials. One jar held preserved eyeballs, which seemed to stare nosily in every direction. Other containers held more mysterious objects, such as worms or entrails coiling in viscous liquid. Something that looked like a pile of dead, dry bats-which, in fact, it was-rose in moldy chaos in one dark corner.

  Other rows of merchandise were more practical and immediately useful in nature, such as the cabinets of clothing that included exotic items like boots that made the wearer tread utterly silently and cloaks that camouflaged one into matching almost perfectly the surroundings of stone or water. All the goods were for sale, at prices that could be negotiated but that were invariably high. The products were many and varied; customers, however, were few.

  Peat and Sadie Guilder were both accomplished Theiwar magic-users, belonging to the order of the red robes, and for decades they had made a decent living sharing the fruits of their magical skills with those dwarves who could overcome their inherent distrust of magic enough to spend hard-earned steel on one or another of the unique products that the Two Guilders Emporium offered. Unfortunately, such dwarves had proved to be very rare indeed.

  “I’m here!” the old Theiwar called loudly. “I’m home!”

  “Who’s there?” came the query from the back room. “Is someone there?” The voice was female, raspy with age, and tart with determined curiosity.

  “It’s your husband!” the Theiwar snapped. “Who else would it be? You didn’t exactly expect a customer, did you?”

  The crone of a dwarf woman who emerged through the interior door gave no response to his question. She was stooped and aged like her husband, with a wrinkled face and tiny, glittering eyes. Her white hair was tied in a thin braid that trailed down her back. She wore a shapeless dress, and when she momentarily glared at Peat, she smacked her lips to reveal a precious few yellowed teeth standing sentinel on her gums. She stepped past him and went to the front door. Pulling it open, she glared up and down the street before she flipped the sign on the outside of the door from Open to Closed. Shutting the door, she carefully made sure it was locked. Only then did she turn and look at the dwarf who was her husband of more than one hundred years.

  “You could at least tell me you’re home!” she declared querulously. “And what took you so long?” she demanded. “I’ve been about stewing in my lizard broth waiting for you!”

  “Well, Sadie, I don’t exactly move like I used to,” Peat replied patiently. “But I circled the whole square, stopped to get the gossip, and even had a beer with a sergeant of the palace guard. All in all, a good day’s work-though I could use another beer, now that I think of it.”

  “There’ll be time for that later!” Sadie snapped, still glaring. “Didn’t you think of me back here worrying about you?”

  Peat shrugged, squinting nearsightedly at the blurry features of his wife’s face. Doggedly he continued his report. “Then old Abercrumb caught up with me in the middle of the square-there was no way I could dodge him. I had to listen to him go on for an hour about the state of business along First Street. Couldn’t hardly disagree with him, but I just wanted to be out of there. He finally left, told me he had to get back to his shop.”

  “Well, at least you didn’t meet old Abercrumb,” she muttered vaguely. “That nosy Hylar would have wasted even more of your time! Did you get to the square?”

  “I told you-ah, never mind,” Peat said, rolling his eyes. He held up a small piece of parchment that was marked with some arcane symbols, hastily scratched with the piece of graphite Peat carried in his belt pocket.

  Sadie smacked her lips around her few remaining teeth and studied the sheet. She huffed and muttered indecipherably, but her anger had passed. “Well, come in the back, then,” she said at last. “And tell me what you learned.”

  The back room of the Two Guilders shop was as crowded and messy as the front. The notable difference was that the rear chamber was larger. Two very big desks occupied one wall, while a hard sleeping pallet took up the far corner. A magical light, feeble and flickering as the power of the incantation waned, glowed from an unburned candle mounted on the wall. The desktops were strewn with parchments, and an array of quills and inkwells were scattered around the papers.

  “What are you working on?” Peat asked, glancing at the fresh ink on one of the parchments.

  “I was doing some work to pass the time,” Sadie admitted, waving at the desk.

  “I can see that much!” Peat replied. “Answer me straight for once. What were you doing?”

  “Yes-I was stewing!” she barked. “I told you that! Don’t tell me you’re going deaf as well as blind!”

  Peat merely sighed and followed her past the desk.

  She shook her head impatiently. “So what’s going on in the city? Did you get the information the Master requested?”

  Peat instinctively ducked and glanced over his shoulder, though the two elderly dwarves were alone in the shop’s workroom. Even so, he lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “The king is going to cancel the Festival of the Forge-claims it’s heretical and obscene, of course, just like everything else he doesn’t like. And when he makes the announcement, he wants his troops in position to squelch any uprising in the city. So he’ll keep most of his men-at-arms in the palace garrison and the Midfort to keep order. All four of the city gates will be lightly manned, so that Jungor Stonespringer can divert the number of soldiers he needs to watch his own people in the heart of Norbardin.”

  “As if he doesn’t have the city cowed like a whipped rat,” Sadie said scornfully. “He’ll never be overthrown from within anyway!”

  Peat continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I spoke to some of the gatehouse captains-bribed them with a bottle of dwarf spirits. Enhanced, of course.” He glanced nervously at one of the potion bottles on a nearby shelf. “The officers were quite specific in their deployments. I wrote the numbers down as soon as I could get away.”

  Sadie nodded. She knew that a tiny dose of charm potion, mixed with potent alcohol, was the method preferred by both of them when their master needed information about the royal garrison-or about anything else happening within Norbardin. She hadn’t heard the details of Peat’s report, but her husband’s notes were precise, inscribed in a code that only the two Guilders-and their master-could unravel.

  “It took you long enough. I’m still surprised you got any information before the potion wore off!” she snapped.

  He bit his tongue, staring at her irritably. Rather than reply directly, he put down the scrap of parchment upon which he had made his notes. They consisted of some abstract symbols, with a number beside each symbol. The note marked the locations of Norbardin’s key defensive positions, including the main gate, the two side gates, and the large ramp, currently raised, which blocked direct access to the city from the Urkhan Sea.

  Sadie looked over the notes and nodded, satisfied. “They’ll be
at half strength during the festival, then, the fools!”

  “Do you think the Master will make his move then?”

  She shrugged but then nodded thoughtfully. “I’d say the signs are right.” She handed the note back to her husband, and nodded to a bell jar on a corner table. “You send the message. I want to keep working on that scroll.”

  “What scroll is it anyway?” he repeated, but her back was already turned and she either didn’t hear him or chose again to ignore his question.

  Peat sighed long-sufferingly and went over the jar, using his cane to tap through the many obstacles littering the shadowy floor of the workshop. He sidestepped a pile of dusty books and, with a snap of his fingers, kindled a fire on the burner nearby. Gingerly he set the bottle and its stone base on top of the burner.

  Sadie returned to her desk. The soft blue glow of magic surrounded her, and Peat watched her, still entranced after all those years, until finally the odor of baking stone reminded him that the Sender was ready.

  He wheeled around to face the table and put a heavy leather glove on his left hand. Holding the note in his right, he lifted the hot bell jar and smoothly placed the note on the stone beneath it. That circle of slate was already glowing red from the steady heat. He murmured a single word of magic as he set the jar down then blinked-surprised in spite of himself-as the spell of sending took the missive and bore it away.

  In an enclosed cavern, deep beneath Norbardin, a similar bell jar flashed a blue glow. The stone base, empty moments before, held a sheet of shimmering parchment-or, at least, a magical approximation of such a page. A short, black-robed wizard had been working at a nearby table. Though the jar was behind him, he immediately sensed the message’s arrival and turned to raise the glass with a gloved hand. With the other hand he picked up the illusionary sheet. He read it quickly and nodded in satisfaction as the magical missive dissolved into a shower of tiny sparks, embers drifting gently to the smooth stone floor.