by Markus Heitz
“Your troupe, eh?” he said with emphasis, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m back now, my girl, and I’ll have you know that I am in charge of the Curiosum again. Or have you been inciting the troupe to revolution with your pretty eyes and your charming mouth?”
She placed a forefinger under his chin. “That is the way of it, my love. I’ve slept with every man in the theater company and made them all my slaves. The women never liked me in the first place. You may be the emperor of the acting fraternity, but there’s a new queen in the realm.” Tassia was only half speaking in jest.
Rodario had certainly noticed that his instructions were only carried out when Tassia gave the nod. He thought it was a joke at first. “No, you don’t mean it,” he said uncertainly.
“Have another look at your play. I’ve changed it a bit. It’s better now.” She spoke confidently and pressed the papers into his hand, grinning at him. She planted a passionate kiss on his lips, then hurried off to help Gesa with the meal.
Rodario watched her go and scratched his head. “That woman has a demon in her blood,” he muttered. “If I’d known that before, I’d never have agreed to the deal back in Storm Valley.” He went round to the back door of the caravan and let down the ladder to sit on, while the crew took the horses out of the shafts and led them off to be fed and watered.
In the light of the setting sun he skimmed through what Tassia had changed on his playscript.
He was annoyed to find himself laughing out loud at several of the new ideas she had added. She had certainly shown her talents here. Rodario had come across many works by experienced playwrights that were nowhere as good as this.
He surfaced eventually as thirst and concern for Furgas made themselves felt. He got up and went up the narrow steps. “Furgas?”
While he waited for an answer he turned his head to watch Tassia. She was laughing with Gesa. The women were having a potato-peeling race. Anyone in the troupe who was not busy with other work had gathered at the fireside to be near the warmth of this delightful girl. Rodario realized that she had been telling the truth. The Curiosum was now securely in Tassia’s strong and capable hands. He had trained her. She had been his muse.
“By Palandiell, I can’t have that!” murmured the dethroned emperor. “I must have a quiet word with the young lady.”
He was starting back down the steps when he heard a moan coming from the caravan.
“Furgas?” He opened the door without further ado. His friend was lying on the floor covered in blood. Furgas had slashed his own wrists with deep lengthwise cuts and had fainted from the blood loss.
“What the…?” Rodario rushed in, grabbed a sheet and tore it into strips to bind the gashes. “What were you thinking of?” he yelled at Furgas, pulling him upright. “I didn’t rescue you just so’s you could kill yourself.”
“It’s the guilt,” whispered Furgas. “I built machines designed to bring death to the dwarves.” He was struggling to regain control. He swayed again, but Rodario had him fast.
“Go easy on yourself, my friend. They forced you to do it…”
“I could have killed myself instead of doing what they demanded, but…” He looked the actor in the eyes. “First they sent drilling rigs through the old blocked mine galleries trying to get through. Then the death machines followed.” He wiped his eyes. “The machines…”
Rodario gave him a cup of water. “Take it easy.”
“I can’t take it easy. Have you heard what the people are saying? Those monsters of flesh and steel?” He swallowed, his hands gripping the cup convulsively. “They are all my work. The thirdlings are in league with the immortal siblings,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.
Rodario felt icy fingers up and down his spine. “No.” He saw Tassia’s face at the door, not moving lest she intrude. She stood in the doorway listening.
“Yes.” Furgas gave a bitter laugh. “Bandilor came to me and showed me some weird sketches of disgusting hybrid creatures to be made partly of iron. He had the formula for the alloy that can conduct magic, and had stolen some of the embers from the fifthlings’ dragon-forge. He used that to make the alloy and I made the machines from it following his instructions. I built them, not knowing what he wanted to do with them.” He turned pale.
“Then they came. I remember exactly… We came to the surface and they were brought to us. Ugly little bastard-hybrids of orc and älf—the biggest no older than four cycles. Bandilor took the island to a secret location somewhere in the lake and sank it to the bottom. Then we put the bastards in the machines, screwed and hammered them all up tight, cut off their limbs and attached in their place the things Bandilor brought. Glass or crystals, I don’t know which. He pushed the rods of magic-conducting metal through the small bodies and threw the little bastards into a hole he had dug. They screamed. Oh, how they screamed.”
He shuddered with the horror of the images he was bringing to mind. “Green lightning shot up out of the hole and into the iron. Älfar runes flamed and flared and these hybrids… they grew and they screeched. Their bodies became fused with the contraptions. With my contraptions.” He emptied the cup. “I don’t know how long it took. Then Bandilor had the island brought up to the surface and I never saw the creatures again. Till we heard about them on the journey.”
He fell silent. All about them was quiet for some time.
Tassia had goosebumps all over as her imagination conjured up these horrific beings, filling her with terror. “Ye gods!” she breathed. “How awful!”
Rodario, too, needed some time to recover from what he had heard. His own technical theater-genius had created his masterpieces. Masterpieces of destruction and cruelty, driven by evil and suffused with the will to wreak havoc and death. “You are not the guilty one,” he breathed finally, helping Furgas over to the bed to sit down. He poured out wine, which his friend gulped down.
Furgas was shaking all over. “I don’t deserve to live, Rodario,” he said, despairingly. “Of course the thirdlings forced me to do these things but I carried out my tasks with precision. I did my work only too well.” He clenched his fists. “All the time I was thinking about Narmora and my children. I served the thirdlings well in order to avenge myself on the dwarves and on Girdlegard for what happened when they took my family. Only toward the end did I realize what harm I was causing to humans, elves and dwarves.” He emptied the wineglass and closed his eyes. “I… feel giddy,” he whispered and fell sideways onto the pillows. Wine and blood loss were taking their toll.
“Sleep as long as you can,” Rodario told his friend kindly. He covered him with a blanket and wiped the blood from the floor. He would scrub the floorboards later. “And don’t touch the knives.” He left the caravan, pulling the door to behind him.
He sat himself on the steps with the bottle of wine and watched the last rays of the setting sun. He took a swig of wine and passed the bottle to Tassia.
“What did he mean about his family being taken?” she asked hesitatingly. “I thought it had happened at the battle of Porista?”
He put his arm around her and pulled her to him, looking her deep in the eyes; imagining all of a sudden what it would be like to lose her forever, he felt a wave of fear surge through his being. He kissed her tenderly.
Tassia was aware of the difference between this and his usual passionate embraces: a kiss now not of desire but of such deep emotion that not even a poet would have been able to describe it. She smiled at him and put a hand to his face. “What was that for?”
Rodario sighed. “His life’s companion, Narmora, was a half-älf. She fought with us on the side of good against Nôd’onn and then was apprenticed to the last of the magae, Andôkai the Tempestuous. She took the maga’s place and protected Girdlegard from avatars and the eoîl. But in return for her efforts, the älf part of her was burnt to ashes. The Star of Judgment knew no mercy. Not for her…”
“… or her children?” Tassia continued, shocked and saddened. “How terrible. Poor
Furgas.”
“After the battle he blamed dwarves and humans alike for their deaths. If they had let the avatars have their way, he used to say in his utter despair, there would have been fewer victims in Girdlegard. They would have destroyed the evil in the form of the älfar and then they would have withdrawn. Without letting the Star of Judgment rise. And he could have been a contented father.” He looked past her to the red of the dying sun. “Sometimes I wonder if perhaps he was right.”
She was silent, took a mouthful of wine and passed the bottle back to him.
“I’d be lying if I said I’d understood him at the time. Now I’m able to imagine what it must have been like for him.” He stretched out a hand to stroke her hair. “I pray to the gods I’ll never be put in that situation. Like him I should hate—hate and hunt down—to the end of my days, anyone who caused me such pain.”
She took his hand and laid it on her cheek.
So they sat until darkness fell. Rodario looked in on the patient, now sleeping soundly, then he and Tassia moved over to the campfire to join the rest of the troupe, where they sat, arms around each other, listening to Gesa sing.
Girdlegard,
Kingdom of Gauragar,
Fortress Cowburg,
Summer, 6241st Solar Cycle
Balba Chiselstrike from the secondling clan of the Stone Teasers was feeling a little out of place amongst all these humans.
Queen Isaka’s direction that no dwarf be allowed inside the walls of the castle she found ridiculous. She could not understand the ruler’s fear. The humans, it was clear to Balba, would be completely lost without the fighting power of the dwarf peoples.
In spite of her resentment she intended to carry out her task conscientiously. Supervising the completion of defense works with the foreman, she was checking every stone in Paland’s bastion walls.
“It’s a wonderful fort, isn’t it?” the man said admiringly.
“No, it isn’t,” Balba smashed his complacency. “It’s ugly. The whole construction lacks grace and has been thrown uncaringly at the landscape. The old builders always planned meticulously but they never considered aesthetics.”
Her condemnation wiped the foreman’s good mood straight off his face. As a descendant of Paland’s original builders he felt this was a personal attack. “You dwarves all think you can do everything better.”
“I never said we would have done it better.” Balba knew her people would indeed have done it better but refrained from saying so. “I miss here the soul that every dwarf building has. The humans who built Paland hewed the stones into shape without paying attention to the strata and structure of the rock. Instead of listening to the grain and fitting the stones so that they last forever, an artificial mountain, the builders have forced the stone, violated it. That is why our buildings last longer than yours.” Balba and all dwarf masons knew the characteristics of every type of rock, from granite to slate, from basalt to marble or sandstone.
By the light of the setting sun she promptly discovered a damaged stone. “Hey, you there!” She called over one of the workmen the king had supplied her with. She pointed out a finial on the passageway arch to the main building. “I told you to take that one out and replace it.”
“We haven’t had time, Balba. We had to—”
“Right, I’ll explain to King Bruron when that stone starts to shake and the arch falls around his ears at the first fanfare.”
She put her hands on her hips—she was not going to be changing her mind.
The foreman sprang to the defense of his worker. “I’ll get a couple of people over and start work at once, Balba,” he said, lowering his head so she would not see the scowl. He hurried off, glad to escape her harsh tongue.
The dwarf-woman shook her brown hair back and adjusted her leather apron. “Humans,” she muttered and walked off.
When she thought how many cycles the fortress had stood, and the neglect it had been subject to—the dilapidated condition she and King Bruron had found it in—then she could really be quite pleased with the work they had done here. The outer walls, laid out in a star shape, were twenty paces high and had been repaired and topped out with sturdy new battlements. It had been a masterwork to replace the crumbling stones without any walls collapsing. The humans had not thought it would be possible. She, the dwarf, had shown them what was what.
She had decided to pull down the ruined towers, with the weathered stone broken up for use as missiles, piled now on the top walkways and in heaps next to the catapults. The walls were high enough to serve without towers, but she had put up ramps to use for the spear-throwers.
She was surprised how easily the humans were satisfied with the work. The critical eye of a dwarf would have been much more demanding about standards. She was determined to get Paland into a state that made even the elves praise the speed at which the work had been completed. Not its beauty but the speed and thoroughness of the work.
So far only one of the remaining diamonds had arrived safely in the fortress. Queen Wey and her soldiers were already here. The messengers sent out from the other groups heading for the fortress were keeping the commanders informed of their progress.
It looked as if Sangpûr’s jewel would be the next to arrive. It would be placed in a room with walls many paces thick. Balba had had the roof reinforced and had put in extra supporting pillars.
Even the comet that had once hit the Outer Lands would not destroy this granite armor.
The dwarf directed her steps to the walkway that faced south. She wanted to see the size of Queen Umilante’s force approaching from the hot desert lands, the army protecting her diamond.
As she stood on the battlement walkway taking a drink of water from her flask, an armored elf came up to her. “Greetings,” he said.
“Greetings.” She knew that he had arrived with the two-hundred-strong contingent sent as an advance party from landur; other soldiers would follow.
Apart from them there were a thousand fighting men from Weyurn in the fortress. The rest, a further fifteen thousand infantry and two thousand mounted troops led by Prince Mallen, were advancing swiftly toward Idoslane to storm Toboribor and to destroy the unslayables and the monsters in those caves. Now that they had shown themselves, there was finally something to attack.
“Sitalia has sent us a fine day,” the elf addressed the air as he looked down toward the wall beneath them. “The goddess looks after her own.” He took off his helmet, letting his pale gold hair shine on his shoulders.
Balba took another gulp of water and put the flask down. “Sitalia looks after the elves, so she’ll only send the fine day for you guys. The humans are giving thanks to Palandiell and we praise Vraccas. That’s the way of it,” she said amicably. She pointed over to the right where the sun was going down. “The day’s not over yet.” She looked at the white metal armor. She had never seen it before. The elves were all in new clothing, all two hundred of them, in white and pale colors, a dazzling sight in the sunshine. Their new appearance reminded her of something, but she couldn’t think what.
“You are right there, Balba Chiselstrike of the Stone Teasers,” responded the elf apologetically. “I wanted to praise the work you have done here. It is excellent. The diamonds will be safe here.”
She nodded in acknowledgment and gave a shy smile. “Would you like some?” She offered her flask.
The elf stretched out his armored hand and took the bottle. “Thank you.” He sniffed at the contents first to find out what he would be drinking, then placed the opening to his lips—and froze. “By Sitalia!” he whispered, pointing south. “Do you see what I see?”
Balba looked where he was pointing.
The escort force for the diamond had appeared between two hills and was passing a wood whence an attack was being launched. The girl saw a huge black monster capering around amongst the tiny forms of the soldiers, swinging a scythe-like weapon; from time to time green lightning bolts shot out, and where they hit home men fizzled to steam w
here they lay.
“The unslayables have tricked us! They aren’t in Toboribor. They have sent their evil misshapen devils here to steal the diamonds before we can place them in safety.” The elf dropped the flask, ran down the steps and put on his helmet as he went, calling out in a language Balba did not understand.
The elf troops rushed to their white horses and thundered out through the southern gate to support Umilante’s soldiers. A handful of their messengers were setting off in other directions to warn approaching groups of dwarves and humans of the acute danger.
The fortress commander had the gates shut and called everyone to arms.
“I said the day wasn’t over yet.” Balba was faced with the prospect of a battle. She was not bad with a cudgel, but didn’t really consider herself a fighting champion. Now, under cover of the uproar, she left the battlements and went off to hurry her workforce through the remaining tasks while there was still light.
Unexpectedly there was a commotion at the eastern side of the fortress but Balba remained at the construction site until the humans had completed their work to her satisfaction. Any faulty workmanship would reflect badly on her family and her clan. When all was done she hurried back up to the battlements, shield in hand.
A cloud of dust was making for the eastern gate.
And whatever was creating the dust was moving extremely fast. Too fast to be a human, an elf, a dwarf, a beast or an animal.
“What happened to Umilante’s troops?” she asked a soldier nearby.
The man had gone pale and was clinging to the shaft of his spear. “They’re all lying out there by the hills and they’re not moving.”
“And the elves?”
“Gone. Swallowed by the monster,” he whispered and gulped with horror.
The sun had gone down and Gauragar was plunged into the half light preceding the dark of true night with its stars.
Torches blazed all round the fortress, chasing away the frightening shadows. Men ran out to bring up the wooden drawbridges and to set alight tar and brushwood piled in the moats. The first line of defense was in place.
