Well of Darkness

by Margaret Weis

  “Ah!” The Honored Ancestor frowned and forgot her imaginary tea. The birdlike eyes glinted, narrowed. “That presents a difficulty. Is he then in such dire need? Does he truly think the demon prince can seize the crown?” She shook her ghostly head. “Even if the Lord of the Void were to lay siege to the city, Vinnengael is a mighty fortress. Their stockpiles of food could last for months. They have an unending supply of water. What has King Helmos to fear? It is not”—the ghost sniffed—“not like we elves were pitting our might against him. Then the human King might indeed have cause to worry.”

  “Yet we do not send our might against Vinnengael for those very reasons,” the Shield said, and poured himself another cup of tea. “That and the fact that we make far more money by trading with the humans than we ever could subjugating them. No, it seems to me that it would be best if we left the humans to slit each other’s throats and when they have drained each other of blood, we seize the borderlands we want and then grow rich by selling them the wood and other raw materials they will need in order to rebuild their lives.

  “That is my plan, and I think it is a good one. However”—the Shield set down his cup, looked concerned—“I did not anticipate that the King would ask for the return of the Sovereign Stone.”

  “And why is this a problem?” asked the Honored Ancestor. “Simply tell him that it is ours, and we intend to keep it.”

  “The matter is not that simple, Honored Mother. When I accepted the stone, I swore an oath to the gods. We all swore it. If one of the four who each holds a portion of the stone should ever be in dire need, the other three would return their portions of the Stone, so that it may be joined together.”

  “And what happens when the stone is joined together?” the ghostly lady asked, a shrewd gleam in her eyes.

  The Shield reflected. “I do not know,” he said at last. “Its magical power will be increased fourfold, I should imagine.”

  “And all that power in the hands of the human king.” The ghost pursed her lips.

  “True, Honored Mother,” said the Shield, nodding. “I had thought of that.”

  “You see his plan, of course, my son,” the Honored Ancestor said. “Helmos does not really need the power of the stone to fight a civil war with his brother. No! King Helmos is using this war as an excuse to regain the stone, which his father heedlessly gave away. I have heard it said that there were those among his own advisors who counseled King Tamaros that the stone should not be split at all. When King Helmos has the stone intact, he will use its power to defeat his brother. But he will not stop there. He will then turn his greedy gaze upon us. We would defeat him, of course,” the Honored Ancestor said with sublime unconcern. “But the battle would cost many elven lives.”

  “You are wise, Honored Mother,” said the Shield, bowing from the waist. “It is small wonder that I come to you for counsel.”

  The ghost smiled, well pleased.

  “But,” continued the Shield, “I swore an oath to the gods. I would not be foresworn. To do so would be to lose face and plunge our family into disgrace. The Divine would be certain to find out, and he would claim, and rightly so, that having broken one oath, I could not be trusted to keep any oath.”

  “When will Prince Dagnarus launch his attack?” the Honored Ancestor asked.

  “According to Silwyth, my spy in the prince’s household, the prince moves slowly. He has gathered his forces. He could be ready to advance with the rising of the new moon, although that is not certain. He enjoys seeing his brother sweat.”

  The ghostly lady smiled sweetly. “This is what you do, my son. You will tell this Dominion Lord that you must know the will of the Father and Mother in regard to the Sovereign Stone. This will require prayer, fasting, solemn ceremony, the gathering of all the priests in the realm, the intercession of the Divine…”

  “In this, I can guarantee that for once the Divine and I will be in agreement, Honored Mother,” the Shield interjected. “He is as loath to part with the Sovereign Stone as I.”

  “Excellent. It will take at least six months to bring together the priests, some of whom must travel from their holy shrines in the high mountaintops. After that, the ceremonial games to honor the gods and the offering of the proper sacrifices will take another two months and then there is the interpretation of the gods’ answer. That can sometimes take a full year or more…”

  The Shield rose respectfully to his feet and bowed deeply three times. “May this House always rely upon you for wisdom, Honored Mother,” he said earnestly. “And may you always be here to guide us.”

  Seating himself again, he moved on to discuss family matters, which took up some time. Then they played a game of mah-jongg.

  There was, after all, no need for haste.

  The Captain of Captains was happily ensconced in his favorite tavern in the coastal city of Quash’Gaat, enjoying his two favorite pastimes: drinking his favorite liquor and endeavoring to solve a tangram. The liquor’s orken name is “cha-gow” which roughly translates as “breast milk” or “mother’s milk.” Few humans can stand to smell cha-gow, much less stomach the stuff, which is reputed to be made from fish oil mixed with fermented pineapple.

  The tangram is a puzzle consisting of a square piece of wood divided into seven parts: five triangles, a square, and a rhomboid. These parts can be combined to form two equal squares—child’s play. The pieces can also be used to create hundreds of figures from boats to bottles, beasts to men. The Captain had been challenged to make the tangram into an albatross, a puzzle that might have been fairly simple for him had he not been under a time constraint of sixty-seven foot thumps.

  The time was being counted out loud with the enthusiastic and rhythmic stomping of many booted orken feet, for the tavern was filled to capacity that day. A storm had kept the fishing boats in port and prevented the ships from setting out to sea. The floor of the tavern shook with the stamping, as did the table on which the Captain was endeavoring to sort out the tangram, causing the puzzle to jiggle violently and throwing off his concentration.

  “Fifty-six, fifty-seven…” chanted the orken, now slamming the flats of their hands upon the tables or banging the tables with their mugs.

  The Captain had just about got it, was moving the rhomboid into position, when a commotion broke out in the vicinity of the tavern’s entrance.

  “In the King’s name!” called a human voice. “Let me pass!”

  “King of what?” the orken roared back. “What is his name?” “No kings around here, thanks, come back another day” and other witticisms greeted the speaker.

  The Captain shifted his head to see what was going on and inadvertently moved his hand from the pieces of the puzzle.

  “You lose!” shouted the shaman, seated at the table across from him.

  “Sixty-one, sixty-two.” Some voices were still counting, though most—on hearing the game had ended—had petered out.

  The Captain, swiveling, glared at the shaman with a baleful expression. “I still have time!”

  “You took your hand away,” the shaman pointed out. “That means you are finished and that”—she gazed with disdain at the puzzle pieces—“is no albatross that I ever saw!”

  “I haven’t put on the beak yet!” the Captain roared.

  “In the King’s name!” The human voice sounded angry. “I have a message for the Captain!”

  “You owe for this round,” said the shaman, gulping down her cha-gow with satisfaction.

  Glowering, the Captain paid up, then turned, in no very good humor, to confront the human who had been the cause of his losing.

  The human, who was wearing shining silver armor, had not been able to make his way around the doorway, where the orken were entertaining themselves by sticking out their feet when he tried to move past them, tripping him, or “accidentally” bumping him back out the door.

  “Let him come to me,” the Captain ordered, recognizing one of the Dominion Lords.

  The Captain’s commands w
ere always carried out with the utmost alacrity, for the Captain was known to demand a high order of discipline on his ship. The human was seized upon by several orken and hustled through the crowd so fast that the man’s feet never touched the floor until the orken plopped him down, with his dignity much affronted, in front of the Captain.

  “The human, as ordered, sir!” one of the orken reported, touching his forehead in salute.

  The Captain raised his hand for quiet. The tavern was immediately plunged into a silence so deep they might have all been on the ocean floor.

  “I have been sent by…King Helmos of Vinnengael,” said the lord, catching his breath. “I bear an urgent message to you, the Captain, from His Majesty the King.”

  The Dominion Lord paused, seeming to expect some sort of reply.

  “You wouldn’t be much of a messenger if you didn’t bear a message,” observed the Captain obligingly.

  His Lordship tried again. “The message is from King Helmos. It is very urgent.”

  “Then spit it out, man!” the Captain ordered irritably. “I know who it’s from. No need to keep repeating it.”

  Lowering his voice, the lord leaned forward. “The message is private, Captain. For you alone.”

  A murmur of displeasure rumbled through the bar, once again shaking the floor. The Captain snorted and waved his hand. “This concerns the orken people, does it not?”

  “Well, my lord…” The messenger hesitated.

  “Speak it out for all to hear,” the Captain insisted. “I have no secrets from my people.”

  The Dominion Lord couldn’t make himself heard for a few minutes because of the table thumping and thigh-slapping which marked the orken’s approval of their Captain’s words.

  When silence was once more restored, the lord said, “Reliable information leads King Helmos to believe that the city of Vinnengael will shortly come under attack from Dagnarus, the Lord of the Void. In order that the people of Vinnengael may fend off this unwarranted and most unjust attack, King Helmos requests that the orken return their portion of the Sovereign Stone to Vinnengael, thus fulfilling the oath the Captain made to King Tamaros and his heirs in perpetuity.”

  The Captain kept his gaze on the human throughout this recital. At the end, the Captain blinked once and asked him to repeat it. The messenger did so and proffered the request in writing, which the ork took out of politeness. He looked at the flowing script with some admiration and not a little distrust and dropped it onto the table, where it began to soak up spilled cha-gow.

  The Captain gave the matter due consideration and then said, with a dismissive gesture, “Tell King Helmos no.”

  Apparently this was not the answer the Dominion Lord expected. “But, Captain, you swore an oath before the gods to return the stone when it was needed! Surely you will not break your sacred vow?”

  The Captain looked to his shaman. “What was the day on which I swore that oath?”

  “Third day,” said the shaman. The orken name their days by the order of their appearance within an eleven-day span of time.

  “Third day,” the Captain repeated. “All know that third day is the most unlucky day of the week and that all vows sworn or all promises made on a third day are only good until the next third day.”

  The orken around him nodded sagely.

  “I doubt that King Tamaros knew that,” said the Dominion Lord, an angry flush starting to rise in his face.

  “That is his fault then,” said the Captain dourly. “Not mine.”

  “But to break your oath to the gods—”

  “The gods know that third day is unlucky,” the Captain said. “They will not be offended.”

  The Dominion Lord lowered his voice. “Sir, King Helmos’s need is dire. The Lord of the Void has many foul magicks at his hand that he will hurl against us. He has created more demons of the Void known as Vrykyl to lead his army. If you do not return the Sovereign Stone, there is a possibility that Vinnengael will fall!”

  “And if we send our part of the rock to Vinnengael and if Vinnengael falls and if Dagnarus wins, he will acquire our portion of the Sovereign Stone as well as the humans’ portion and the elven and the dwarven portion. And then what?” the Captain demanded.

  “I…I don’t…” The Dominion Lord was taken aback.

  “I’ll tell you. Dagnarus will then be powerful enough to rule the orken and the elves and the dwarves and the humans and possibly the gods themselves into the bargain,” the Captain stated succinctly. “The orken part of the Sovereign Stone remains with us to protect us should Vinnengael fall, which you say now seems likely.”

  “But, if you send the stone as you promised, Vinnengael will not fall!” The Dominion Lord pleaded his cause. “The elves and the dwarves are going to send theirs!”

  “Are you sure of that?” The Captain eyed the human with amusement. “Does your King have their stones now in his possession?”

  “Not when I left,” the Dominion Lord admitted. “Three of us set out at the same time, each bound for a different realm. It took me longer to find you than I had expected and thus—”

  “None will send them,” said the Captain, and turned back to his tangram.

  “I hope and pray and trust that you are wrong, sir,” said the lord.

  “I will make you a wager,” offered the Captain, not looking up from the puzzle pieces. “If the other two parts of the Sovereign Stone are returned, I will send mine. But not until then. Tell your King that.”

  “I doubt your stone would arrive in time,” said the Dominion Lord bitterly. “Dagnarus is forming his army even as we speak. But I thank you for that much at least.”

  Bowing, he left the tavern. The orken, at a glance and a raised eyebrow from their Captain, stood aside to let the King’s messenger pass by unmolested.

  “Give him an escort to the Portal,” said the Captain, looking after the human with a sad shake of his head. “Someone that feeble-minded shouldn’t be allowed to wander around loose.”

  The messenger to the dwarves had a difficult task finding Dunner, the sole dwarven Dominion Lord. The messenger located Dunner’s dwelling—a modest structure made of clay, built low to the ground. The Dominion Lord peered inside the house, even entered and wandered through it, searching for the dwarf. He found no sign of him, no sign that the dwelling was currently occupied. However, most dwellings of the Unhorsed do not look occupied to the casual observer. The dwarves do not adorn their dwellings with knickknacks. They own no cherished treasures. There are no comfortable chairs in which to take one’s ease, no carved bedsteads hung with velvet curtains, no chests filled with clothing or cabinets filled with crockery.

  The dwellings of the Unhorsed are furnished as sparsely as those of their nomadic kinsmen. Any one of the households in the City of the Unhorsed could be packed up and ready to transport on horseback in the space of a few moments. Since many of their occupants are housebound, unable to walk, much less ride, such impermanence gives the permanent dwellings a rather wistful air. The occupants will never depart until they leave behind their crippled bodies and enter the Wolf’s body to roam forever over grassy plains—a time most eagerly await.

  Dunner’s furnishing contained a bundle of blankets spread over a straw mattress; a plate, a dish, a spoon, and a mug; and a finely woven rug meant for sitting. The only difference between Dunner’s dwelling and those of the other Unhorsed was a great stack of books in a corner and sheaves of vellum, together with pen and ink, placed under the books to keep the vellum flat and clean. The walls of the dwelling were bare. The only chair was a chair on wheels, and this seemed to be more of a relic than useful, for it was covered with dust.

  The Dominion Lord asked a neighbor if Dunner had left the city, but the dwarven woman only shrugged her shoulders. She had no idea where Dunner was, did not want to know. Her own sorrows occupied all her time. She had no need of those that burdened her neighbors.

  “Where will I find the Sovereign Stone, then?” asked the Dominion Lord.
“I ask out of the greatest urgency, Madam.”

  The dwarven woman eyed him sullenly. “I never heard of any ‘sovering stone.’There is some sort of a rock that came from the human kingdom and that Dunner seems to fancy. If that is what you mean, you will find it in that tent, not far from here.”

  She snorted derisively and hobbled away before the Dominion Lord could recover from his shock at hearing the most precious and sacred Sovereign Stone referred to as “some sort of a rock.”

  The Dominion Lord set off in search of the “sovering stone.” He was in a bit of a quandary. By rights, Dunner was the stone’s official guardian, and his permission was required in order to transport the dwarven portion of the stone back to Vinnengael. But there was every possibility that Dunner had wandered off somewhere as dwarves were known to do. He might be a hundred, even a thousand miles from here. The Dominion Lord could search for years and not find the dwarf.

  Yet, here was the Sovereign Stone seemingly. Undoubtedly Dunner had left someone to guard the stone in his absence. The Dominion Lord decided that if he could gain the guardian’s permission, he would be free to honorably remove the Sovereign Stone without Dunner’s consent. The Dominion Lord was relieved to think that the stone might be in other hands, hands that had not shaken in friendship the hand of the Lord of the Void.

  The Dominion Lord touched his pendant, prayed to the gods to bless his errand. His magical armor flowed over him as cooling as water on a hot day. He did not plan to intimidate these dwarven guardians, but he did hope to impress them, as he hoped to impress upon them the urgency and importance of his cause. Stooping low to enter the doorway, which was built to dwarven height, the Dominion Lord halted in the shadows and stared.

  The Sovereign Stone was there, the diamond sparkling from atop a wooden box covered with a horse blanket. The blanket was finely woven and extremely beautiful but there was no doubting it was a horse blanket. And there were no guards around it. The only people in the building were six or seven dwarven children, who were—or so it seemed—using the sacred Sovereign Stone for a plaything!