Song of the Serpent

by Hugh Matthews

  The woman raised her eyebrows, but the dwarves were in no mind for a protracted discussion. The horses were led off and the three travelers were pressed by spear shafts toward the stairs. Krunzle thought the dwarves would have been just as happy to use spear points as encouragement. They started climbing, step upon step, and soon the daylight was gone and their way was lit by dim lights set at long intervals in the upper walls of the sloping tunnel.

  His eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and after a hundred steps or so it registered with him that the steps were precisely cut, perfectly even in height and width. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel, too, were smooth. The lights, now that he looked at one in passing, were not the low, flickering flames he had assumed them to be, but some kind of luminescent substance set in polished crystal and fitted into niches in the rock.

  Dwarven construction of such quality almost always meant it was the work of hands long since turned to dust. The skills that had allowed dwarves to erect Highhelm and the other Sky Citadels, and their descendants to build the original cities and towns of the Five Kingdoms, had since declined. Dwarves still set many of the standards by which Golarion measured excellence in the mechanic's arts, but great chasm-spanning arched bridges, counterweighted fortress gates that opened to a finger's pressure, aqueducts that fed a myriad of fonts and fountains, palaces and mansions whose marble walls looked as light as if they were made from spun confectioner's sugar, war engines that could throw a hundredweight stone a thousand paces with the accuracy of a marksman—those were the products of a bygone age.

  Yet this work—this tunnel, these steps, these lights—was no more than a year or two old. Every edge was sharp, undulled by time. The crystal of the lights had not clouded. A millennium of footsteps had not worn shallow grooves down the middle of the steps.

  "Raimeau," Krunzle said, speaking softly so that the dwarves ahead and behind them would not hear, "you know your history. Does this look like dwarven work to you?"

  But before the lanky man could answer, Glyff said, over his shoulder, "I heard that."

  "He means no offense," Raimeau said.

  The dwarf blew out an expressive breath. "What you're seeing is what dwarves are capable of, now that the Regulate has come. For thousands of years we have slipped below the bar our ancestors set. Now we have stood up."

  Who would notice? Krunzle was tempted to say, but was wise enough not to. "What is this Regulate?" he asked.

  "You'll see, soon enough," said the dwarf. "And you'll mind your manners."

  "I believe," the thief said to Raimeau, "that I just might."

  By then, Krunzle's calves and thighs were already beginning to complain. Ten minutes later, as the stairs went ever upward, the complaints became silent shrieks and moans of agony. He was both curious and chagrined to note that neither the gray-haired man nor the Kalistocrat's daughter showed signs of anything more than grim discomfort. He supposed Raimeau had spent years carrying backbreaking loads up and down the endless steps of the iron mines; for him, to climb unburdened must be like skip-tra-la-la through the park. The woman, too, was lighter than the thief, and had probably enjoyed a lifetime of strength-building exercise kicking undesirables from her path.

  Chirk, he said inwardly, can you not activate the boots?

  The snake's voice came back after a moment, like that of a man called away from a pressing involvement: What is the problem?

  You can rummage through my mind. Listen to what my legs say.

  The voice made a wordless sound indicative of a failure to be impressed. But a moment later, Krunzle felt the boots come to life. They lifted and set down his feet without further contributions from his pain-racked leg muscles.

  Thank you, he said. There was no response. He felt the snake withdrawing from their connection. Wait, he called after it, what are you up to, that keeps you so occupied? And, more important, what does if portend for me?

  I am thinking, said Chirk. Thinking and remembering. As for what it means to you, why should that mean anything to me?

  Because our destinies are, at least for a time, wedded together. My fate may have some bearing on your own.

  The thief had never heard a snake laugh, and now that he did—a dry chuckle deep in his mind—he knew he wouldn't mind never having to hear it again. For a time, indeed, said the thing around his neck. You have no idea how little a time it would be to me, even if I hugged your neck until you were the oldest of your kind.

  You're a long-lived snake, then? asked Krunzle.

  I am only now beginning to remember what I was, Chirk said, and I have not even begun to recall how I came to be as I am. But, yes, I am long-lived, because the memories that now come to me, thin and weak as the ghosts of ghosts, are glimpses of a world far gone.

  I am less interested in your past than in our mutual present and future, thought Krunzle. I still have Berbackian to catch, along with whatever he has stolen from the Kalistocrat. And before that, I have to deal with whomever runs the show at the top of these endless stairs. I may need your help.

  You will do fine, said the snake. Only those of strong spirit are called.

  Called? Krunzle couldn't find a way to laugh scornfully in his mind. He contented himself with a sarcastic Ha, ha! and added, Eponion didn't choose me. He stumbled over me in Kalistrade Square and seized the opportunity.

  I was not referring to Ippolite Eponion, Chirk said.

  No? Then to whom did you refer?

  If I knew that, the voice in his mind said, I would know much more besides. Like why, and where, not to mention several significant whats. But I do know that there has been calling, and there have been responses to the call.

  This was not the kind of thing Krunzle wanted to hear from a creature that had been set over him as whip-master on an already unwelcome quest. He told the snake so, and was advised that his preferences had been duly noted. Unsaid was the implication that they had been just as duly discarded.

  The thief said, I just want to find this Blackjacket, recover whatever it was he took, and bring it and Gyllana back to Kerse. There might even be a reward. Either way, that's all I ever agreed to do.

  I don't recall you agreeing to anything, said the voice in his mind. I was myself only half-awake, but I clearly remember that your side of the discussion mostly involved choking and some silent cursing. In any case, though you may demand of life that it offer you only simple and uncomplicated challenges, life is not obligated to comply.

  Listen—

  No. I am otherwise and more gainfully occupied.

  But—

  You would have more immediate and pressing concerns, Chirk said, if I deactivated your boots.

  I am not happy about this, Krunzle said.

  Join the legion. And that was the last he heard from Chirk for a while.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Krunzle had been climbing for quite some time with his head down, seeing only the heels of the dwarf's boots in front of him. He became aware of a change in the quality of the light and looked up, over Glyff's head, to see an oblong of daylight not too far ahead. The light grew brighter as they ascended, and now came sounds other than the monotony of their own steps: voices, male and female; a clanging as of blacksmithery; a creaking that the thief ascribed to pulleys and lifting tackle; the rattle of iron-shod hooves and cartwheels over cobbles.

  The sounds and the light grew in intensity until suddenly their party emerged from the tunnel into full daylight. Krunzle's first impression was that he had never seen so many dwarves. There must have been at least a thousand, of both sexes—he was certain he had never seen a dwarven woman before—and of all ages. And every one of them was busy.

  The tunnel had fed them into a huge circular space cut out of the same black rock the tunnel had traversed. It might have been called an amphitheater, except that its sides were sheer all around, not sloped, and the walls were pierced everywhere with windows and doorways. The impression was of a vast apartment building built around a huge central courtyard.<
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  But this was more than just a dwelling space; it was at least a village, perhaps even a small town, compacted and closed in. Along the bottom of the curved wall, archways bigger than the tunnel's exit had been carved out. Inside were sizable rooms dedicated to a range of essential activities. In one, Krunzle saw flour-smeared dwarves kneading lumps of dough and loading them into iron-doored ovens set into the back wall; next door, a heavily muscled fellow with soot on his face was hammering glowing iron on an anvil—he looked to be making hinges; beyond the smithy, a dwarf with a pencil behind his ear was carefully chiseling a complex, interwoven design into a long, wide slab of dark hardwood.

  Across the courtyard, behind closed doors but audible through the open windows, dwarf children were chanting a multiplication table. Dwarf women, presumably their mothers, were washing clothing in a multispouted fountain; others were hanging clean linen to dry on a rotating frame made of wood and rope. They were laughing about something, then one of them made a gesture with two hands that redoubled the mirth. Other dwarf women, leaning out of windows and balconies two and three stories above the laundry, joined in the banter as they worked ropes and pulleys to haul up baskets full of clothes.

  When Krunzle looked up, he saw four tiers of windows and doorways cut into the cliffs all around, and glimpsed movement within many of them. Above those, dwarves with hammers and chisels, standing on platforms suspended from the cliff top, were carving out new accommodations.

  Glyff and their escorts marched the three travelers straight across this hive of activity, dodging a train of dog-pulled carts carrying mounds of vegetables and hanging sides of beef and mutton to a multi-arched refectory next to the schoolrooms. Then they had to stop as a platoon of at least forty armed and armored dwarves marched across their path, reversed and marched back the other way, all of them chanting an alliterative verse about a young female dwarf named Agna who seemed to be renowned for her stamina and liberal nature.

  So many were the sights and sounds around them that it took a few moments for the most remarkable aspect of the scene to register with Krunzle: not only had he never seen so many dwarves in one place—or cumulatively throughout his entire life, for that matter—but he had never seen them so happy.

  Normally, the sweetest mood he would have expected to find in any member of their race would have been mild grumpiness. When a dwarf said things were "not bad," it was the equivalent of a human bounding about, wreathed in smiles and shouting, "Great day in the morning!" He would no more expect to find a smile on a dwarf's face than hair on an egg.

  Yet here were cheerful, smiling, joke-telling dwarves. It was disconcerting. When the thief looked to see how Raimeau was taking it, he saw that the gray-haired man's eyes were wide and constantly moving; his legs shook like those of a man who has to pick his way across a shelf of stone on which a hundred rattlesnakes have coiled themselves to sleep in the sun. Krunzle doubted the trembling was solely a result of the long stair climb.

  Past the platoon of marching dwarves, they encountered a squad practicing close-arm drills with spear and shield, then another seated cross-legged in a semicircle while a junior officer—to judge by the small brass crown on the front of his helmet—directed their attention to an easel that supported a blackboard on which squares and circles were drawn in chalk, with curving arrows connecting them. The officer paused at the sight of Glyff's party and gave the three travelers an unwelcoming gaze as he smartly returned the escort's salute.

  And then they had crossed the great courtyard and were being marched through a wide archway flanked by two spear-dwarves in armor. Beyond was a long corridor, lit by more luminescent globes—though these were brighter—and with more arches on either side, all filled with closed wooden doors on which numbers and letters were neatly painted. Glyff took them to one that bore the legend Torphyr, Senior Crown. The red-bearded dwarf knocked, and when he heard an answer, told the three travelers to stay where they were while he went in. The order was accompanied by a meaningful glance at the armed dwarves who had come with them.

  Glyff closed the door behind him. Krunzle could hear voices within, although not clearly enough to make out words. But, moments later, he did hear the scrape of chair legs across a stone floor—the sound of someone getting to his feet in a hurry. The door opened, and he found himself looking down at another grizzle-bearded dwarf in a mail shirt whose links had been gilded and which bore several impressive decorations. The officer ran his eyes over the three humans, and it was clear that the sight of them did not elevate his mood. He had been carrying a helmet and now put it on—the headgear, the thief noted, bore a larger crown than that of the junior officer outside, and it was gold, not brass.

  Torphyr spoke to Glyff: "Go to Operations and report your news to Squadron Commander Glamwyn. Tell him I'll join him when I can. Meanwhile, I'll take these to the Head." He turned to the travelers and made a come-along gesture. "You three, with me."

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and strode down the corridor, his steel-cleated bootheels beating out a rapid tattoo. Their escorts, who had stood to attention while the crown had been speaking, made it clear that they had no option about obeying. Krunzle shrugged and complied.

  They went deeper into the dwarven complex, turned a corner at an intersecting corridor, and came to a pair of wide wooden doors. The crown pulled a rope that came out of a hole in the wall and ended in a wooden handle. At once, one of the doors slid open, revealing a small wooden room. The officer stepped in and the dwarves behind the travelers made sure their three charges did likewise.

  When they were all crammed into the small space—Raimeau had to stoop—one of the dwarves slid the door closed and pulled on another rope that came out of the ceiling. A moment later, the floor pushed against their feet.

  "We're going up," Krunzle said.

  Torphyr rolled his eyes. "Primitives," he said.

  "Not all of us," said Gyllana. "We have ascenders in Kerse." She looked around at the walls and ceiling. "Though I must say I'm surprised to see one here in the upriver wilds. Who built it for you?"

  The dwarven officer seemed to swell. Krunzle thought it must be through a combination of pride and indignation. "We built it!" he said. "Under the inspired leadership of the great Brond, we are restoring the glory of the Five Kingdoms. And, you of Kerse may take note, we are reclaiming dwarven lands that have been..."—here he seemed to search a moment for just the right term—"irregularly alienated from our rightful sovereignty."

  The Kalistocrat's daughter afforded him a look that could have chilled boiling cabbage. "I trust you do not refer to the territory of the Kalistocracy. The land was fairly and justly ceded, after free and open bargaining."

  The senior crown muttered something. The words "sharp practice" may have put in a brief appearance.

  "I beg your pardon," said Gyllana. "I would not have expected that the Kalistocracy would have to remind a dwarf of the Five Kingdoms that without our mediation you would still be savaging each other in your pointless civil war."

  "Just as I would not have expected," said Torphyr, "that a Kalistocrat would ever pass up a chance to remind us of it."

  The woman drew in a long breath through her nose and was about to deliver an eviscerating reply when the ascender's upward progress came smoothly to a halt. A chime sounded from somewhere and the door slid open. The party exited into another hallway, this one wider and walled in glossy black stone, with a floor of gray granite that was polished to an equivalent sheen. The travelers followed the crown a distance along the passageway, which was decorated at intervals with large paintings featuring famous events from the history of dwarfdom—though Krunzle saw no representations of incidents, such as the fall of Koldukar, that had won dwarves no compliments for their valor. Between the paintings were niches that held statues of dwarves in heroic poses.

  They came to a pair of tall doors of the same dark, polished wood the dwarf cabinetmaker had been working on in his shop off the courtyard
. Each of the portals bore a circular cartouche in which something was written in an ornate form of the dwarven script that was too complex for Krunzle to read—at least in the short time he had to examine it. The time was short because, as they arrived, the doors opened inward—silently, and without any apparent agency—and the crown led them through and into an enormous room.

  Like the corridor, it was walled and floored in black and gray rock burnished to a high gleam, except where vast carpets of black wool covered portions of what seemed to the thief to be a good half-acre of space. From the ceiling, which was far higher than any dwarf would ever need, depended ten great chandeliers of black iron and faceted crystal. The wall that faced the courtyard was pierced by a row of windows, each as wide as Krunzle could have reached with arms outspread, that started at that ceiling and, glazed in flawlessly transparent panes, went all the way down to the floor. Through these, the sun threw a series of parallel bars of light from one end of the huge chamber to the other.

  At that distant other end, three broad steps led up to a wide dais. On this platform, a desk fashioned from more of the dark wood stood on legs made of fluted columns of the black stone, both substances gleamingly polished. The desk's working surface was so large that Skanderbrog would have seemed too small for its dimensions, if ever a troll could have been induced to sit behind a piece of furniture. On the wall behind the dais hung a grand tapestry of closely woven wool that featured a design formed from crossed pairs of edged and pointed weapons surrounding a central cartouche like the pair on the doors.

  Krunzle now had time to work out the extravagantly curled and entwined script because it took almost a hundred paces to travel from the doors to the steps of the dais—and the dwarf officer who led them made it clear that they were to cross the distance at a ceremonial pace: slow and stately, with a pause between the placing of one foot and the lifting of the other.

  The logo turned out to be a dwarven name: Brond. But most of the lettering formed a rendering of two dwarven words: "noble" and "head." Krunzle found himself puzzling at the meaning of the words—he could recall nothing from his smattering of dwarven lore to account for it. He would have liked to have asked Raimeau, but he had a strong sense that aimless chatter would not go well with the formality that the crown had imposed on the occasion. There were still two dwarves behind them with spears and axes, and the officer was probably still fuming from his passage of verbal arms with Gyllana. In such circumstances, Krunzle could easily imagine an innocent error in manners earning someone a beating. He would rather that someone not be him.