Angus stopped, turned, and tilted his head. “For what purpose?” he asked. “It will be a clear night with a full moon, and I’m far from tired.”
The workman rubbed his chest, grinding the dusting of rock into his tunic. “Well,” he hedged, “I—that is, we would be glad for your presence, Fair Wizard. The Tween,” he looked back at the boulder, the men, and the tent. When he turned back, he shook his head and shrugged. “There’s things in The Tween,” he finished. “Things that come at night. They don’t come this far often, but it isn’t unheard of.”
Angus half-smiled. “Surely you are prepared for them.”
The workman nodded. “Yes,” he admitted. “But a wizard…” He paused, shrugged again, and added, “It’s the men, see. They would sleep more easily if they knew your magic was with them.”
Angus sighed. Perhaps he would be better off not wearing the robe? But then, he was certain at least one or two of his encounters would have gone badly if he hadn’t been wearing it. There was something mysterious about wizards; they could see things others couldn’t, and draw upon powers that were a complete mystery to the rest of humanity. But for those who could see the magical strands, who could manipulate them, wizards were no different than the workmen chipping away at the rocks: craftsmen plying a skill. It just happened that the skills they plied could be far more powerful than a mallet and chisel.
“A meal would be most welcome,” Angus said, “but I will stay the night only on two conditions.”
The workman grinned and looked as if he wanted to clamp onto Angus’s shoulder with his huge hand. He stopped himself, and asked, “What might they be, Fair Wizard?”
Angus smiled. “First, call me Angus,” he said.
The workman nodded. “Angus it is, then,” he said. “The second?”
“Tell me more about this Tween. It is new to me, and I would be grateful for any information you have on it.”
His grin broadened and the cave in his mouth deepened as he gestured to the tent and said, “Done!” Then he turned to his crew and shouted, “Stow the gear and clean up!”
“What shall I call you?” Angus asked as the workers began to tie down their pulleys and gather up their equipment.
“Billigan,” he said, smiling.
“That’s an unusual name,” Angus asked.
Billigan nodded. “The Tween is an unusual place,” he said.
“Oh?” Angus asked. “Were you born there?”
Billigan nodded again, then hurried away to supervise the other workers as they prepared for the evening.
Angus continued to watch for a minute, and then turned away from the worksite to examine the worker’s camp. It was a fairly basic temporary encampment a short distance south of the boulder, far enough away to avoid the rock dust and chips but close enough to be useful. It consisted mainly of a large tent anchored to the cobblestones of the road on one side and to the hillside on the other. There were no horses in sight, nor could he hear any, but here could be some behind or inside the tent; it was large enough to house a couple dozen men.
The workmen gathered together on the road and made their way noisily toward the tent, laughing and joking with each other. Billigan hurried up, and they quieted somewhat as he pointed at Angus. Then they resumed their good humor with an even more strident tone. What do they expect to happen? Angus wondered, not sure what he could do if something did happen. The best spells take time to weave….
“Angus!” Billigan shouted, gesturing for him to join them on their way to the tent. “These are my men,” he continued, pointed to each one and rattling off a list of names that Angus promptly forgot. He greeted them as a group, and they moved into the tent. He followed after them, Billigan at his side.
“We don’t have much,” Billigan said. “But you’re welcome to share in it.”
“Thank you,” Angus said. “I require very little, other than information.”
“Of course!” Billigan said, holding the tent flap open until Angus moved past him.
The tent was lit by a pair of lanterns hung on the tent poles, and it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The workers moved quickly to the left, where the boy with the water jug was standing next to a barrel of water. They stripped off their tunics and trousers, throwing them into a pile next to the boy or, laughingly, onto him. He waited until the last one had finished, then picked up the first tunic. He shook it vigorously, sending out a small cloud of sweat-drenched rock chips and dust, and then tossed it in a new pile next to the barrel. He picked up a second one and did the same thing.
The workers left him and the settling cloud behind them and walked across the tent to gather around an overturned barrel with a stack of water basins and a cluster of ewers on it. Next to it was a second barrel of water, and they began washing off the worst of the grit still clinging to their near-naked flesh.
“If you need washing,” Billigan said. “You’ll have to wait for them to finish.”
Angus turned toward Billigan and nodded. “They need bathing more than I do.”
“So do I!” Billigan laughed and gestured toward a wagon in the center of the tent. Its sides had been removed and reassembled as benches, and its bed served as a table on which several loaves of bread and a large, half-eaten wheel of yellow-green cheese were waiting for them. “Help yourself,” Billigan finished, turning to the boy and working the ties of his tunic.
As Angus approached the table, the faint smell of honey mixed with maple smoke greeted him. A smoldering brazier was on the cobblestones on the other side of the wagon-table, and strips of meat were draped on a spit over the coals.
“If you want one,” Billigan called as he went to join his crew at the wash barrel, “now’s the time to get it. There won’t be any left once they get their hands on it.”
Angus shook his head. “I’m not all that hungry,” he said. “A bit of bread and cheese will do for me.”
“And beer to wash it down,” Billigan added, gesturing to another barrel near the wagon.
Angus broke off a bit of bread and cheese, and half-filled one of the mugs. The beer was a dark, heavy brew and had a bit of a tart flavor and smoky aftertaste. But it helped him swallow the not-quite-stale bread and clingy, rough-textured cheese. He was nearly finished by the time Billigan sat down opposite Angus and cut off a piece of meat. He began gnawing on it, his left cheek puffing out as he jostled it around over what few teeth he had left.
“How’d you lose them?” Angus asked. “The teeth?”
Billigan shrugged and waited until he swallowed before he answered. “I had just started out,” he said. “It was a new crew, and most of us were inexperienced. I was holding on to the chisel at the wrong angle. The supervisor didn’t notice, and neither did the mallet man. When the mallet hit the chisel, it shot up off the granite and knocked most of them out. The rest just rotted away.”
“It must have been painful,” Angus said, trying to sound sympathetic but not really caring.
Billigan nodded vigorously. “It still hurts once in a while,” he said. “The teeth broke off and left the roots behind. Sometimes they ache.”
Angus finished the last of his beer, stood up, and removed his backpack. “Would you mind if I bring a lantern over?”
“What for?” Billigan asked around the half-mauled chunk of cheese flopping around in his mouth.
“I have a map,” Angus said. “I’d like to know where The Tween is on it.”
Billigan swallowed, shrugged, and ripped off another mouthful of bread.
Angus went to the water barrel and rinsed the crumbs from his fingers and splashed water on his face. There were towels draped over the lip of the barrel, and he rubbed one over his face. It was too damp to dry his face effectively; it only pushed around the wetness into more convenient places. Then he moved to the nearest lantern, glanced at the simple knots in the leather strap securing it to the pole, and quickly untied them. He adjusted the wick to make a brighter light and moved back to t
he table. He opened the flap of his backpack and took out his map. As he began to unroll it, Billigan swallowed, licked the grease on his fingers, and reached for it. “No,” Angus said, waving him off. “I’d rather not get it greasy. He set one corner under the lamp and took the dagger from his belt to hold down the opposite corner. Then he peeled it open and pointed to a spot on the road.
“Here is about where we are,” he said. “Based on how long I’ve traveled from Apple Vale.”
Billigan nodded. “Apple Vale is the last town south of Wyrmwood until Hellsbreath.”
“Good,” Angus said. “Where’s The Tween?”
Billigan studied the map without touching it. After a few seconds, he gestured at the mountains north and west of Wyrmwood. “Them’s the mountain dwarves place,” he said. “Stout folk, them dwarves. I got a good crew, but if I had half as many dwarves, they’d have turned that stone to dust by now.” He traced the road heading west of Wyrmwood and added, “That’s the trade route King Tyr uses when he trades with them. It’s a safe enough route for caravans, but I wouldn’t risk going there alone.”
“Why not?”
“There’s things there that eat people, and other things that eat them.”
“Such as?”
Billigan shrugged. “Nobody knows but the ones who got eaten.”
“Go on,” Angus said.
“The Tween runs along this way,” he said, making a sweeping gesture that began south of the east-west road through Wyrmwood and looped around until it passed by where they were and nearly reached Hellsbreath. He hovered close to Hellsbreath for a moment and then made a gesture that started west before curving a short distance north into the mountains. When he finished, he nodded and said, “That’s The Tween, too.”
“All right,” Angus said. It was a large area covering several mountains. “These mountains are The Tween, the disputed lands?”
“I wouldn’t call them mountains. Them dwarves lay claim to all the mountains. Them’s the volcanoes. Neither man nor dwarf can tame them. Excepting Hellsbreath, of course, and this road.”
“Volcanoes,” Angus began. “They’re the reason for the smoke?”
Billigan nodded. “They spew it out all the time. That and fire and ash and rock.”
Angus frowned. Why would Voltari send him into a volcanic region? It could easily kill him with very little warning.
“According to legend, it wasn’t always volcanic,” Billigan continued. “But that was before the Dwarf Wars. King Urm—he founded King Tyr’s line—had built up his kingdom by subduing the plains folk. They weren’t human, by the way, so nobody complained much. Some say there are still a few of them wandering around, but I don’t believe ’em. They say you can see it in their eyes when you look at them. Anyway, King Urm pacified them and secured the plains for his own people.” He picked up a piece of bread. “Those grasslands are worth their weight in gold; we wouldn’t have this bread without them. Their seeds are ground up into flour, and this bread is made from it.” To emphasize his point, he tore off a small bite and began chewing it, a bit of slobber dripping from the gap in his mouth.
“The Dwarf Wars,” Angus muttered. “They were about a thousand years ago, weren’t they?”
Billigan nodded and drank from his flagon. “King Urm’s son started them,” he said after he swallowed. “King Vir, they called him. He was an ambitious, despised king. He wasn’t happy with the riches of the plains; he wanted the riches of the mountains, too. He tried to take them from the dwarves, and they met in battle here,” he said, pointing at the volcanic region, “in The Tween. But it wasn’t The Tween then; it was normal mountains. The dwarves were living there. They fought fiercely until winter, and then the armies retreated from each other. The next spring, King Vir sent his army back, but the dwarves weren’t there anymore. He waited of course, but they never came out of their holes to fight. Nobody knows why.”
“No one?” Angus asked, frowning. “The dwarves do, don’t they?”
Billigan grinned. “Sure they do, but they ain’t talking.” He laughed and drank more beer.
“Maybe the wrong people are asking them,” Angus mused.
“Now who would want to talk to one of them dwarves?” one of the workmen offered. “All they ever do is dig holes and make metal.”
“Yeah,” one of his fellows agreed. “But it’s ten times better than the metal we make.”
“Now that just ain’t true,” the first one said. “Hellsbreath’s forges are almost as good as theirs, aren’t they?”
“Oh, sure,” the second worker said. “But we can’t work the metal the way they do, and everybody knows it.”
The first one glared and half-stood before Billigan intervened.
“Now boys,” he said. “We have a guest. There’ll be no rough-housing tonight. Besides, the dwarves are better at metalwork than we are—and masonry for that matter—and there’s no shame in admittin’ it. After all, they aren’t worth squat as farmers.”
There were a few chuckles, but the tension did seem to ease up a bit.
“What did King Vir do?” Angus asked.
“Oh, he assumed the dwarves had fled from his army and took control of the land. He built strongholds, villages, temples—all the things you would do if you were expanding your kingdom and wanted to fortify its new boundaries. And it worked well until the first volcano destroyed half the settlements. They say you could hear the eruption all the way to Virag—that’s Tyrag, now.”
“Ah,” Angus said, half-smiling. “That’s why the dwarves left, then.”
Billigan’s brow creased into a curious rippling of wave-like wrinkles. “What is?” he asked.
“Mountain dwarves live deep underground in tunnel complexes carved from the mountain’s heart,” Angus said. “They had to have heard the rumblings and felt the rising temperatures long before they reached the surface. They may even have breached a few magma pockets, for all we know. I’m sure they knew what the increased volcanic activity foretold, and they left for more stable mountains.”
Billigan’s wrinkles flattened out somewhat and he nodded. “You may be right,” he admitted. “It was less than ten years after the Dwarf Wars that the first volcano spat out its innards, and not long after that, the other volcanoes were erupting. They’ve been at it ever since.”
“There’s another possibility,” Angus mused. “The dwarves could have caused the eruptions.”
“Them dwarves?” Billigan scoffed. “Ha!”
Angus frowned and met his gaze. “Some dwarves have magic.”
“Well,” Billigan said. “I wouldn’t know about that. All I know is that King Vir had to admit defeat. He wasn’t at all happy about it; he lost a lot of treasure when that mountain blew. His lineage tried again and again to tame the region, but it wasn’t until King Lar, Tyr’s grandfather, that they managed to do it.”
“Oh? How did he do it?” Angus asked.
Billigan shrugged. “Magic.”
Angus tilted his head. “Magic tamed the volcanoes?” he asked. Flame magic, no doubt, and Voltari taught me quite a few spells from that sphere. Almost all of his spells involved flame magic in some way or another. But volcanoes? They have far too much violent energy for my—or anyone else’s—spells to control!
Billigan nodded. “You’ll see it for yourself when you get to Hellsbreath,” he continued. “King Lar is the one who rebuilt this road. It goes through Hellsbreath pass and into the western lands. A great deal of trade passes along it, and that’s why we have to keep it clean. If this were the time for caravans, they would have sent wizards out to move this stone instead of us, but this time of year we get to cut the rockfalls up into cobblestones. That’s how the road has grown so much since Lar’s day.”
“Do a lot of rocks fall?” Angus asked.
Billigan nodded. “Not many this big, of course,” he said. “They’re usually about a third this size, maybe less.”
“Is all of The Tween volcanic?” Angus asked. “Or just the
part near Hellsbreath?”
“Just Hellsbreath,” Billigan said, “It comes north to about here, and south and west through the mountains. But most of the activity is around Hellsbreath.”
“What about the rest of The Tween? You indicated it goes almost as far north as the east-west road.”
“It isn’t volcanic now,” Billigan said. “But in Vir’s day, it was. Nobody’s been willing to risk living there since then, what with the dwarves, the things that eat people, the things that eat the things that eat people, and the threat of volcanoes erupting all around them.”
“Elhouit Achnut,” Angus muttered, looking at the mysterious phrase Ulrich had written in the middle of the northern portion of The Tween and wondering what the words meant.
“Eh?” Billigan asked.
“Just thinking aloud,” Angus said. “It isn’t important.”
“Well,” Billigan said. “That’s what The Tween is, too. Not important. Almost no one ever goes there, and those that do almost never come back—and you can’t trust what the ones who do come back say about it.”
“All right,” Angus said. “What else do I need to know about it?”
Billigan sighed and said, “It’s late, Angus.”
Angus glanced around and noticed for the first time that almost all of the workers were asleep. Some were snoring softly, and he, Billigan, and the young boy were the only ones still awake. “You’re right,” he said, nodding. “I’ve kept you long enough.”
“You’re more than welcome to stay with us tomorrow,” Billigan offered.
Angus shook his head. “No,” he said. “I need to get to Hellsbreath before the caravans arrive.”
“Of course,” Billigan said, clearly disappointed. “Some rest, then. You can grab a blanket and find an empty spot.”
Angus nodded and watched as Billigan went to a pile of blankets, picked one up, shook it, moved a little away from the cluster of workmen, and lay down. Angus rolled up his map, returned it to his backpack, and hung the lantern back up. He dimmed its light to little more than a weak candle’s brightness, picked up a blanket, and found a shadowy corner. He lay down, his head against his backpack, and draped the blanket over him. He closed his eyes.
The Tiger's Eye (Book 1) Page 7
