The Last Thane cw-1

by Douglas Niles

  "Just keep climbing if you want to see anything left of your conquest. We have to get above Zarak Thuul to meet him before he destroys everything."

  "As if there's any chance of that!" muttered Darkend.

  She agonized over the deeper questions that she dared not voice aloud, questions that nevertheless were constantly whispering in her mind. Would the daemon warrior want her, even speak to her now that she did not wear the artifact of House Whitegranite?

  In their wake came Slickblade and dozens of armored Daergar warriors, the elite cadre of Darkend's palace guard. The assassin muttered something to the thane, and Garimeth whirled under an onslaught of fresh suspicion.

  "What is it?" she demanded.

  "Slickblade suggests again that you betrayed me, and that you now betray us all," Darkend said coolly. " am wondering if he is right."

  "He's a fool who's afraid for his own life," Garimeth retorted sharply. She allowed herself a hint of a smile, pleased with the self control that allowed her to mask her deepest doubts. The assassin was terrifyingly vague behind his mask, and she wanted nothing more than to kill him right now. "Remember, it was he who lied to you in Daerforge."

  "Don't listen to her!" barked the assassin. "I tell you, lord, she is not to be trusted!"

  "Thus speaks the failed killer, failed bodyguard!" she spat back, turning her back contemptuously to resume the climb.

  After a few more steps she stopped and whirled back accusingly. "How could you let your master be attacked by a half-breed and a mob of Aghar?" She demanded scornfully, then fixed her purple eyes on Darkend. "And even then he let my son escape. I ask you, Brother: who is the traitor?"

  "Enough! Keep going!" commanded the thane.

  On one level they emerged from the stairs to seek water and rest their weary muscles. Here they found a whole rank of Daergar armor and weapons. The clutter of black metal had been cast across the street where the shadow-wights had claimed the flesh of the dark dwarf warriors. They saw movement, black and soundless forms slinking toward them from the alleys and streets of this level. The thane's party hastened back to the stairwell, preferring the interminable climb to battle with an apparently unstoppable foe.

  "They've been everywhere. This is no conquest I am leading; we are merely the caretakers of disaster," Darkend moaned, utterly despairing.

  Garimeth only kept climbing, step after endless step. Where was Zarak Thuul? Would he come? She didn't know, but understood that if he didn't, she would have no reason to continue living.

  "This is it," she finally announced after an interminable interval.

  The dark dwarves' legs were numb. The exhausted party all but stumbled as they emerged onto the wide avenue of Hybardin's Level Twenty-eight. Everywhere was silence and death.

  "We're too late!" cried the female, looking up and down the street with a groan of despair. Where was he? Would he come to her? He must!

  "My city! My splendid conquest! It's a ruin!" wailed Darkend, miserable at the knowledge of the lost riches, the treasures, the secrets, the potential slaves, all of it had vanished with the tide of Chaos.

  Everywhere smoke swirled and broken rock littered the roadways and gardens. Dead dwarves-Hylar and Klar in equal numbers-were all over. An eerie silence filled the air with a sense of impending disaster. More and more frequently they found no bodies-only clothes, or armor and weapons scattered on the street where the owners had been sucked into nothingness. The shadows seemed to display no preference, sucking the lives of Hylar and dark dwarves with indiscriminate hunger.

  "Follow me!" Garimeth somehow found the strength to run. She lurched weakly through the littered streets, turning down a side lane after she paused for a moment as if to make certain of where she was.

  "Where is he? Zarak Thuul?" she cried.

  Darkend stumbled along behind as they emerged into a large square where two wide streets came together.

  "I used to live down there." Garimeth pointed down the street and frowned as she saw the front of Baker White-granite's house still standing.

  "Never mind that. Where are we going? Where is Zarak Thuul?"

  The Daergar gathered around the murky waters of a half-filled basin, looking, questioning, waiting for a decision.

  "This was once a reflector pool," Garimeth said scornfully, though Darkend found it hard to imagine anything mirrored in the dark, sludgy liquid. "A watery trinket, kept for mere ornament."

  "An utter waste!" declared the dark dwarf thane.

  "And now it seems my husband hasn't tended to his city in my absence," she added with a twisted grin. "He has failed without me. He needed me in ways that I never needed him!"

  "Forget that! We have to find Zarak Thuul!" demanded Darkend.

  "Sire, could it be that she doesn't want you find him?" suggested Slickblade.

  "That's ridiculous!" Garimeth was strangely terrified of the notion that she would never see the daemon warrior again. "I-we have to find him!"

  "Do we?" the assassin questioned, his eyes shining through the slit of his black cloak. "I say to you, my lord, that you have trusted her too much."

  "Aye, perhaps I have let myself be fooled," Darkend Bellowsmoke declared, swinging his mace free from his belt. "Kneel, Sister."

  "Allow me to strike the blow, my lord," declared Slick-blade eagerly.

  "No, she is my sister," the thane said solemnly. "I will do the killing!"

  "But I did not betray you!" Garimeth moaned, sinking to her knees, looking up, pleading. "You saw with your own eyes. Zarak Thuul worked my will. I know he will help us again!"

  Darkend raised his mace, his tusked helm stark and frightening as he stared down at his sister. With a sudden gesture, he whirled and brought the weapon down on Slickblade's head.

  The assassin fell, killed instantly. The rest of the Daergar warriors gasped softly, astonished by the dire turnabout.

  "Let that be the end of his whispering," the thane observed coolly. "He forgot that whispered words, like a snake held by the tail, can turn on the whisperer."

  The dwarfwoman didn't pause to reflect on her miraculous survival. Instead, she rose and gestured to the house. "You have made the right decision as always, brother. I am grateful. Come with me."

  In her mind was a thought. Perhaps Tarn had brought the helm here and delivered it to Baker. She could try to reason with her son. Surely Tarn would understand why she needed it so badly!

  She went to the large wooden door, but found it locked. No one answered in response to her violent pounding, so Darkend ordered several of his warriors to smash in the portal. Soon the party entered the house, kicking through the debris left by the broken door and stalking through the hallways and rooms beyond.

  "There's no one here," Garimeth said anxiously.

  She started down a hallway but halted abruptly as they heard a deep growling outside the house. They hastened back to the doorway, looking out to see a haze of fire roaring through the street.

  "Primus!" she cried, as the fire dragon halted before them, furling his flaming wings.

  A tall, dark form stalked forward, emerging from the bright background to loom before the two Daergar. The daemon warrior's eyes glowed, sparks of impersonal fire that flickered from one dark dwarf to the other.

  "Zarak Thuul! We have found you!" cried Darkend triumphantly. He turned importantly to his sister. "Tell our great servant-our friend-that the attack is finished and we are very grateful for his help. But tell him he must wait, must hold any further attack until my dwarves have had a chance to consolidate our occupation."

  "Please accept our humble gratitude," she began, looking into those feral eyes of fire, seeking some hint of the previous pleasures that had flickered there before. "And please know me, remember me, hear me, all-powerful one."

  "Of course I hear you. I have always heard you. But I see you now with different eyes, and I think that you no longer entertain me." The daemon warrior's reply had come in perfect mountain dwarven, right down to the tone of insol
ent contempt.

  "Zarak Thuul, look at me, know me!" Garimeth protested, throwing herself on the ground before the monstrous black being and reaching out her hands. She dared to touch the massive, taloned feet. "Please, grant me your favor once more."

  "I shall do one thing for you, dwarfwoman. Rise."

  Slowly, tremulously, she lifted herself to her knees, then stood staring upward at the immaculate beauty of his dark form. She thrilled as those fiery eyes dropped to regard her, shivered as that consuming gaze once again washed over her flesh.

  "I am yours, mighty lord!" she cried, throwing her arms wide, offering herself willingly to this creature of Chaos.

  "It pleases me to touch you again, to give you the stroke of my greatness." Zarak Thuul flicked a great claw, slicing into Garimeth's neck.

  "I don't understand!" she cried, stumbling back, recoiling more from disappointment than from the force of the blow. Her vision blurred, light swam before her eyes, and she looked down in disbelief, watching as her lifeblood spilled into the street before Baker Whitegranite's house.

  Interlude of Chaos

  What did 1 ever see in that insect? Zarak Thuul was angry at the dwarfwoman and angry at himself for allowing himself to be deceived, to think that she was something mightier than she really had been. Without that strange helmet, she was pathetic-a silly mortal like all the rest.

  Then Zarak Thuul threw back his head and laughed, knowing the deception didn't matter, that nothing mattered. And now it was time to finish this dwarven city and proceed to all the other cities of Thorbardin, to reduce them to rubble.

  In truth, the female had been an interesting diversion, nothing more. She had intrigued him for a time, and it had pleased him to do the work that she desired. Something about her had touched him briefly, but that was gone. Instead, she had been proved feeble, just as utterly useless as any other mortal.

  And now his power would be truly unleashed. This realm of dwarves would suffer as it had never suffered before. There was much for him to do, and he would continue until all this realm of shadow was reduced to a place of death, horror, chaos.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The Grotto

  "It feels like solid rock." Tarn said, stepping back from the wall with the hilt of his sword still humming in his hand. "There's no hollow sound."

  "Get a hammer," his father said without hesitation. "This is the place where the waters of the light garden are born. I ought to know that well enough!"

  "What does that mean?" asked the son, still unsure of Baker Whitegranite's intentions.

  "The words on the scroll told me to seek the Grotto where the waters of light were born! It's the fountain in my own garden! Don't you see?"

  Tarn saw the connection, though he still wondered how they could break through such a thick wall of stone. Still, the half-breed went down to the cellar hallway and into his father's small smithy-a standard fixture in most dwarf homes. In seconds he returned with a large hammer.

  A solid swing smashed into the stone wall and Tarn-who had braced himself for the recoil-nearly tumbled forward as the hammer punched right through. Pulling it back, he pounded several more times, quickly opening a hole big enough for a dwarf's head.

  "Keep going," Baker urged quietly. "Make it big enough that we can crawl through and get in there."

  In another minute Tarn had worked up a sheen of sweat and the hole leading into darkness was roughly three feet in diameter. Stale air wafted out, and he speculated that this was a chamber that hadn't been opened to the outside for many thousands of years.

  Baker was eager to advance, ducking and pushing his way through the opening to land with an "oof." In moments Tarn, Belica, and Regal had followed. They found themselves perched atop a slope of rubble at the base of the wall in a surprisingly large chamber. They scrambled down to join the thane on the floor. Tarn looked up to see a ceiling, studded with jagged stalactites, that arched high over their heads.

  "It was here that it began thousands and thousands of years ago."

  Baker spoke softly, his eyes bright with emotion. The thane of the Hylar looked around slowly, reverently, as he paced the circumference of the circular cavern. Tarn was vaguely aware of soft light, and he realized that a glow was emanating from the top of a mound near the chamber's center.

  "The good dragons were here in the Age of Dreams. Here they hatched and grew and learned from Chisel Loremaster."

  "Wait," Tarn interrupted. "Chisel was a dwarf, you said. And there were no dwarves during the Age of Dreams, were there?"

  But his father wasn't listening. Instead, he bustled around exclaiming about this, whistling in amazement as he searched the chamber.

  To Tarn, except for the gentle illumination, the cave looked unremarkable, an ordinary hollow in the limestone rock that probably had been forged by water. Once it had been slick with moisture. Perhaps this dusty rock had once been crystalline and bright, but now it was old and mummified-dead.

  "It's odd to think that it was under your house all along," Belicia observed.

  "Not really," Baker replied. "In fact, I've long deduced that it was somewhere around here. That's one reason I chose to live in this quarter of Level Twenty-eight. And yet we never would have suspected where exactly I believe there is a reason Reorx has revealed this to me now."

  "Why didn't the wall sound hollow?" Tarn wondered.

  "I assume that's part of the ancient protection of this place: a magical enchantment. This was once the lair of wondrous dragons, you know-great beasts of powerful magic and even a scion. It was sealed so that it wouldn't be discovered until the right time-until now."

  Tarn looked skeptical. He still wondered what use this place could be now, but his father was too moved for him to interrupt. For Baker Whitegranite, this was the culmination of a lifetime's searching.

  Instead, it was Regal who spoke up. "What's this stuff about a scion?"

  Baker smiled. "All wise, he was, the recorder of our dwarven lore. The records call him Chisel Loremaster. He wrote the greatest histories of our race. But I have a theory: I don't think he was a dwarf. No. I believe he was one of the ageless wise ones of the sort that have ever lurked around the fringes of Krynn's history."

  "Uh-huh. No doubt," Regal replied modestly. "Though I prefer to think of him as 'Ever Wise.'"

  "Wait. Regal?" Tarn asked, alerted to a sudden change in the gully dwarf's manner. All of a sudden the Aghar didn't look so filthy, so plump, nor so ill-mannered. All of a sudden, he looked solemn, and maybe even wise. "Hey, what's happening?"

  "Huh?" Regal asked, picking his nose. "To me?"

  "It's you! The chronicler of the dwarves!" gasped Baker. "You're Chisel Loremaster!"

  "Again, correct," replied the diminutive Regal, who suddenly transformed into clothes that, if not fine, were at least well cut, nicely adorned, and neatly maintained.

  "The honor of this moment… I can't explain." The thane tried to speak, but Regal made a deprecating gesture with his hand. Tarn looked on with mouth agape.

  "However, there is a job to do, if you are ready," the gully dwarf scion said.

  "Yes, of course. The egg. Now, let's see. This was the nest-it must have been," Baker said, suddenly animated as he moved toward the large mound in the center of the large cavern. The white light was rising from an unseen source atop this domed shape. Tarn and Belicia followed, a little dazed.

  "The young dragons were born in there?" asked Tarn, his head still whirling. Scions were beings of legend. In fact, most inhabitants of Krynn had never heard of the ancient race.

  "Yes. Darlantan, Aurican-all their nestmates," Regal-or Chisel-explained. "And I happen to know that they left behind a single, significant artifact."

  Tarn, Baker, and Belicia scrambled up the sides of the nest. Tarn saw that, despite the coating of dust and dirt, the nest was actually woven of metal wire. He cut himself on a sharp rock that was embedded in the metallic surface and was startled to see the facets of a huge ruby. All over the nes
t was studded with these fine jewels. But he didn't stop to explore, instead he climbed higher until he could join the others in looking into the bowl-shaped basket from the top.

  The object inside was spherical, larger than a dragon egg. It glowed and was covered with a sheen of pale silver-platinum.

  "The Platinum Egg," said Regal solemnly. "Or The Silver Dragon Sphere. Whichever. Very powerful. Very dangerous."

  "Father, what do we do now?" Tarn asked nervously.

  Baker turned to his son and there were tears in the elder dwarf's eyes, a curious mixture of elation and sadness pouring from his face.

  "Now that we have located the Grotto, found the Platinum Egg? And now that you have seen it too? My son, it's time for you and Belicia to go. I will stay here, for there remains only one thing for me to do."

  "We've all got to go!" Tarn insisted.

  "No. I'm afraid there's no time to explain. Now, you and Belicia must find your way into the ceiling above Level Twenty-eight, find one of the tunnels the Klar used when they attacked us here."

  "Yes, but you-"

  "No!" The thane spoke sternly. "This is one time you must obey me!"

  Helplessly, Tarn looked at Regal.

  "Your father is right," declared his diminutive companion. "It is written: the power of the Grotto will awaken when a true ruler of the dwarves takes the Platinum Egg in hand. And Baker understands-he has proven himself a fine leader and warrior, but he is also a great scholar. This is the power of the Graygem, the power that gave birth to Chaos."

  "The true ruler of dwarves is me!" declared Darkend Bellowsmoke as he emerged from the hole in the wall. Several Daergar followed close behind him. The thane wore his black armor with the tusks jutting from his face plate and held a wickedly spiked mace in his gloved hands. Fierce and warlike, he glared around the sacred chamber. "You made a lot of racket with your pounding," he sneered. "Don't you know there are enemies nearby?"