“It be a problem, the matter o’ yer mixed heritage, but it can be dealt with,” Thorn said stubbornly. The king had not expressed any particular distaste for humans as a rule, but he stopped well short of saying that it was time to open a human colony within dwarven-held lands.
“Can it?” Kinsey asked, pursuing the point. He had no desire to let the old dwarf down, but his first goal in Mozil had become understanding and mastering the changes in himself. Sargon had tempted him with the idea that there were roots to discover as well, but he was not interested in continuing some dynasty that had not even existed for him mere months ago. As preposterous a notion as kingship might seem to Kinsey, the others had no doubt that it was not only a matter of blood and right but a matter of destiny. “Do you think the heads of the families that are circling your throne like carrion birds will be willing to ‘deal’ with it?”
“They may,” Thorn said with a distasteful grimace and a half shrug. “But ya be Dakayga, lad. That cannot be gainsaid once ya have mastered the change.” The king shook his head. “And the power that ya wield, that ya be gifted with, is amazin’ indeed. Even ma own son—” Sudden pain washed over Thorn’s features as he invoked the memory of Kinsey’s mysterious father.
Kinsey seized on this opportunity to steer the conversation away from the uncomfortable notion that Thorn, Sargon, and the others were apparently looking at him to assume the throne. Every time they alluded to his birthright or spoke of it outright, Kinsey felt his dreams of fishing with Erik on the Tanglevine slip further away.
“Tell me about him,” Kinsey said. “I’ve never known a father other than Erik. I think I’d like to know who he was.”
Thorn’s gray beard twitched up in a smile, and a small glimmer entered his eye. “Come, I would share something with ya.”
Thorn turned before receiving an answer and began striding quickly to the sheltered alcove that housed the exit from this most singular of rooms. Silvery, delicate runes around the entry began to glow as the king approached.
Curious, Kinsey padded after his grandfather quickly enough that his robes fluttered around his legs.
The Ointa Dagdarhem was connected to the rest of Mozil in a way that Kinsey didn’t rightly understand. The glowing portal was always connected to a hallway. The hallway itself was radically different each time Kinsey had been allowed to travel its length.
The night of Kinsey’s arrival, more than two months ago, had marked his first time to set foot in the mysterious passage as well as the mountain kingdom of Mozil itself. He and most of the group that had quested to find him had traveled a tortuous and circuitous route from the Lowlands into the peaks of the Dales after leaving Dak and the ponies with a sparsely populated village.
That night, Kinsey had seen depictions of dwarven history and what he could only assume to be the Dakayga. Multiple iterations of the dwarven spirit warrior were shown. In some, the beast was two and three times the height of the dwarven warriors that gathered around it. In others, it was crouched or on all fours, obscuring its form, but the bulk of the thing was still far beyond that of any dwarf Kinsey had seen or could imagine. A single theme pervaded every representation, and that was savage power. Whether cat-faced or wolven, bear-formed or some other monstrous visage, all were locked in combat with creatures just as nightmarish as the Dakayga itself.
“Was all of this real?” Kinsey had asked in horrified fascination.
“Hard ta say, lad,” Sargon had replied.
“Do I look like that when I change?”
Sargon sighed. “I find it easier ta chip away at the stone in front of me,” he had said piously, pressing his hands together and pausing to genuflect. “Dagda will reveal the truth of all matters in due course.”
The brief memory reminded Kinsey that he dearly wanted to smack the priest at least once before the end of this training.
Despite the fact that one end of the mystical passage was always connected to the Ointa Dagdarhem, the other always led to a different and fascinating place Kinsey had never seen before. Familiarity with Mozil and some sense of need or right was apparently required to activate the magic that must drive the passage’s operation, for Kinsey had been unable to make the hallway appear as more than a short and plain stone box. Most of the others appeared to be able to make it work, though Sanderlin and Neal had joined Kinsey in the inability to escape the Dakayga hall without an escort. Sargon claimed that the process was divine and that Kinsey and the others would be granted the gift when the time was right.
“It be a long time since I thought on Duhann without regret,” Thorn said as he walked through the softly luminescent archway. There was a tremor in his grainy voice.
Kinsey snapped back to the present at the sound of his grandfather’s voice.
The mystical hallway had a more formal air today than on previous travels. The floor was patterned in herringbone that made use of black and tan strains of granite. The stones had been fitted together so tightly that his bare feet could barely discern the joins between tile faces. The bas-relief carvings on the walls were still present, but they had been constrained to the space above a wainscot of smooth, tan granite. The carvings themselves, while still primarily depicting chaotic battle scenes, contained a singular consistency. At the center of each, an identical Dakayga had been placed. This Dakayga was more wolf or bear than anything else. In the last relief before Kinsey reached the paneled door that Thorn was currently passing through, the Dakayga had been placed on a throne that was much too small for its immense body, and a crown hovered over its head. There was no doubt as to the intent of the piece, and Kinsey looked away from it quickly.
The door Thorn had pushed open swung quietly and easily on hinges that belied the bulk of the three-inch-thick oaken timber. “Dagda be praised,” said the king. “Every time, just where I intend ta be.”
The room that Kinsey and his grandfather walked into was straightforward but obviously the private study of the king. The herringbone pattern from the hallway was repeated throughout the room but could only be seen peeking from beneath the edges of thick woven carpets. One wall of the chamber had a massive built-in shelf that housed more books than Kinsey had seen in any one place except the Athaneum, the grand library of Waterfall Citadel. The walls were chiseled stone in the main room, though here and there, finely carved winewood timbers provided a vaulting architecture from which oil lanterns had been suspended on chain hoists. The decorations were obviously well loved and thought out in placement. Each piece, whether art or armor, was showcased on a pedestal or hung on the wall and lit with one of the hanging lanterns. Kinsey’s eyes worked around the chamber, touching each piece until his gaze settled on a portrait hanging on the black granite hearth that dominated a corner of the room.
“Great Eos,” Kinsey breathed.
“Aye, lad. Now you see what those of us who knew Duhann see.”
The artist had pictured two dwarves grinning broadly, each draping an arm over the other’s shoulder. The setting was outside, most likely early spring. Lying behind them was the head of a great bear whose skull was so large that their heads scarcely crested its heavy brow. One of the two was obviously Thorn. He was just as obviously a king in this picture, though he seemed years younger. His head was held high and regally borne, with a simple circlet of gold holding back a raging torrent of gray-white hair, and in one hand he bore an axe that could only be Mordekki, the ancestral weapon that Neal had whispered of so often. The artist had depicted the ancient axe with runic script glowing strongly enough to cast its own shadows in the daylight scene.
As impressive as the display was, though, Kinsey had been taken aback by the dwarf next to his grandfather. There, with the same ruddy hair and fiery brown eyes, was a mirror image of himself. “I can’t believe it,” Kinsey said, shaken by the similarity.
Thorn stroked his thick, gray beard. “It be more than passin’ strange how much ya take after ’im, despite your size and parentage.”
Kinsey stepped c
loser to the picture, looking for the differences that would set him apart from this dwarf who was his father. Subtle cues made Duhann more dwarfish than Kinsey himself was, but they were slight indeed. Here was a broadness to the nose, there, a thickening of cheekbone. The fingers that were threaded into the coarse black fur of the bear were somewhat thicker than his own, but aside from his height, Kinsey could easily have stepped into that picture with no one able to tell the difference.
Kinsey swallowed audibly and lowered the slightly shaking hand that he had raised toward the painting without realizing it. “Well, I suppose that more or less puts an end to my own doubts.”
Thorn laughed. “Aye, I suppose it might at that.” The king turned away to a sideboard and pulled a cut-crystal decanter, banded by shining copper, from its resting place. “Join me in a drink to toast the memory of ma son, yer father.” He gestured vaguely at a leather-bound armchair at one side of the fire with one hand while the other collected two glasses.
Kinsey sat, tearing his gaze away from the picture.
“I had that made the year before Dagda’s blessing settled on Duhann,” Thorn said, pouring a measure of golden liquid into the cups and setting the decanter back in its place. The firelight glinted through the glass and liquid like a thing alive as he walked to a matching armchair.
Kinsey gestured to the painting. “Hunting trip?”
“Nay,” Thorn said as he passed over a glass. “We don’t hunt the Ursus if at all possible.”
“I see,” Kinsey replied, without really understanding. “Then what were you two doing?”
Thorn took a steady drink and then sat. “Every so often an Ursus goes mad. It’ll come down off the mountain on a killin’ spree. That one there”—he pointed to the image—“ended up in Timberdale. Killed four o’ our people before we heard o’ it. Usually a huntin’ party would deal with the matter, but I wanted Duhann ta see it. I wanted ’im ta know the Ursus were our allies despite the atrocities they sometimes caused.”
Kinsey’s brow rose. “Allies?”
His grandfather chuckled. “Aye. Fer centuries now, the Ursus have been friends ta the dwarves”—one eyebrow twitched—“more or less.”
Kinsey shook his head in amazement. “So tell me, what happened?”
A genuine smile touched Thorn’s features and he leaned forward. “Yer da there, well, he was not always as wise as I would’ve wished. He and Gideon had this pair o’ red hounds, ya see. They caught the scent quick as a brushfire, but yer da and Gideon didn’t tell the rest o’ the party. Gideon convinced your da that it was just ‘a small one’ and that they could handle it easily.” Thorn barked a laugh. “Damn fool boys, they were. By the time we caught up, that crazed behemoth had ’em both cornered. Gideon be on the ground half senseless, and yer da standin’ over ’im, swingin’ his axe. No matter the Ursus be near thirteen feet tall and madder ‘n Mot’s fires!” The amber liquid in Thorn’s glass swirled the firelight as the memory took him. “We came barrelin’ in, blowin’ horns and screamin’ loud enough ta be heard all the way ta Pelos. When the mad thing turned ta howl at us, Duhann dashed in without hesitation. I thought ’im as crazed as the Ursus, but his strike be true. Yer da chopped it right in the knee, clean as partin’ silk.” Thorn laughed, but pride shone through fierce as lightning. “Damn thing swatted Duhann as it fell. Threw his body almost twenty feet, knocked ’im clean out, and broke most o’ the ribs on his left side.” Thorn pointed at the portrait once more. “He woke up not long after we put the beast down, and d’ya know what that damn fool boy said ta me?”
Kinsey smiled at the old dwarf’s mirth. “Haven’t a clue, but I’m thinking that whole situation could have gone better, for sure.”
Thorn doubled over, deep wheezing sounds issuing from his gaping mouth. One hand clutched convulsively at the armrest and the other waved the crystal glass violently, endangering the carpet with the contents.
Kinsey started forward in alarm.
“I’ll be damned!” Thorn finally managed to say as he threw himself back in the chair, laughing so hard he was almost choking. “That be exactly what he said.” Tears streamed from his eyes and flowed through the deep age lines to lose themselves in his gray beard. “‘That coulda gone better.’ I’ll be damned!”
Relieved, Kinsey joined him in laughter and looked again at the painting, wondering at the similarities between himself and his father.
The king wiped the tears from his face. He shook his head and muttered to himself, “Coulda gone better.”
Eventually Thorn looked up and caught Kinsey’s eyes. He raised his glass and said, “Ta the past, ta the future, and ta family.”
Kinsey raised his own glass and echoed the king, thinking of Erik and hoping he was in good health. The alcohol passed his tongue smoothly and burned a mellow fire down his throat before beginning to build a merry blaze in his belly. As the soporific effects began to spread to the rest of his body, he felt his shoulders begin to relax. He cast his mind back, thinking about the last time he had been able to relax, and found himself pondering the bedazzling form of Marcella, the princess’s cousin, who had come to him in the bath the night Sacha had been taken. Thinking about the rest of that night began to draw his muscles tight again. He stood to refill his drink. “Another?” he asked, while waggling his empty glass.
The king grunted his assent with a nod.
“So, did Duhann like to fish?”
Thorn finished the remainder of his drink and settled back into the depths of the armchair. The laughter had taken its toll, and the king looked pleasantly tired. “Aye, that he did.” His eyes drifted to the portrait. “If ever I was lookin’ fer the lad, ’twas a sure thing that he’d be on the banks o’ the Daelscharak, plying the waters with all manner o’ lures.”
Kinsey had been shown the chasm of the Daelscharak, and it made his own fingers twitch for a pole. The mountain home of the dwarves was almost entirely below the stone peaks of the Dales but for the hidden cleft of this unlikely fishing hole. A piece of the river that was formed from the melting snows twisted through a hidden valley within the mountains that was completely inaccessible from the outside world. In this sheltered place, light fell on a twisting rush that supported a robust variety of vividly speckled trout and a well-tended herd of mountain sheep. Kinsey wondered idly how the fish had gotten to this part of the river. He had no idea how far the underground waters traveled, but it seemed an unlikely swim, even for a fish. “Well, that’s one other thing we have in common.”
Thorn turned his gaze back to Kinsey, and the characteristic pain touched his smile once more. “Ya take after ’im in more than looks. He was a good lad. The ‘gift’ was more of a curse fer ’im than a blessin’, though.” The king frowned. “His first change brought harm ta many o’ his friends and death ta others.”
The pit of Kinsey’s stomach dropped. One of his greatest fears was doing harm to those he cared for. More than any other reason, protecting his friends and family made the struggle of training worthwhile. “There were no signs?”
The king shook his head. “It’d been so long—not a single livin’ dwarf had ever seen a Dakayga, much less be knowin’ what ta look fer.”
“Surely there was some sort of history or documentation?” Kinsey thought of the giant tome resting on its podium in the depths of the mountain.
The old dwarf shook his head and took a drink from his freshly refilled glass. “Time distorts things, lad, especially when priests meddle.” Thorn gritted his teeth after the last word. “Some things should just be left alone.”
“I don’t follow.”
Thorn took a deep breath. “Tradition. We broke it.”
Kinsey scratched his beard in thought. “Honestly, I’m less than clear how that came about. Sargon had mentioned that mistakes were made, but how or why, he never explained. He believed it was your place to tell me.”
“Aye, he be right on that account,” Thorn said but didn’t continue.
Kinsey waited pati
ently for his grandfather, but with each passing moment his curiosity was stirred to greater intensity.
“We put great stock in the gifts from Dagda,” Thorn spoke abruptly. “As a people, I mean.”
“I gathered that,” Kinsey replied.
Thorn raised a brow at the candid remark but pressed on. “As fer why we stepped away from tradition, well, it also be steeped in the dealings of our god, or so we thought.”
“Are you saying Dagda told you to send your son away?” Kinsey asked, incredulously.
“Nay, lad.” Thorn stared into space balefully for long moments, but then the anger seemed to drain out of him. “Dagda be central ta much o’ life here. No, he be central ta all life here.” Thorn took another deep breath and blew through his mustache before continuing. “The reasonin’ fer Duhann’s leavin’ can be knapped away ta prophecy, really.”
“That sounds no different than being told to do so.”
“There be other factors involved. Interpretations by ‘experts’ on the matter.” Thorn shook his head and threw a hand up. “Bah... the blame falls ta me. I let ’im go, against ma better judgment.”
“Yes, but why?” Kinsey persisted. “I don’t see you as the type of man that would have released Duhann so easily.”
“The priests. The damn priests, and that thing that be plaguin’ our people fer eons. They kept badgerin’ and sayin’ ma boy would be better off goin’ with that creature, the Dark Advisor,” Thorn said bitterly. “And Duhann wanted ta go...fer freedom or duty or guilt... I don’t know.”
Kinsey looked down at his hands to avoid watching the tears that were rolling down his grandfather’s face. He thought he understood, and to himself he murmured, “Probably for all those reasons.”
Thorn gave no sign of hearing Kinsey’s spoken thoughts. “I put ’im down. With these hands, I put ma own son down.”
Kinsey looked up to see Thorn holding his scarred and wrinkled fists in the air. The proclamation did not surprise Kinsey as much it should have. Thorn carried so much grief and had done so for such a long time, at some level, Kinsey found that he had suspected this or at least had some inkling that Thorn had played a key role in his own son’s death.
Book of Kinsey: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 2) Page 10
