by David Weber
She led the way through an arched doorway between spotless glass shop windows that seemed to glitter and dance in the lantern light. It took Bahzell a moment to realize that the sparkling radiance came from the neat rows of gems laid out on a background of black velvet like fire-hearted stars, and his ears twitched in surprise when he did realize it, for there were no protective iron bars. Nothing lay between those jewels and any potential thief but a fragile layer of glass, which suggested the shop's owner had a far stronger faith in the goodness and honesty of his fellow men than Bahzell did.
But perhaps the shop owner wasn't quite that foolish after all, he reflected. Large as Tunnel's End seemed after so long in the wilderness, the shopkeeper probably knew all of his neighbors by name. Worse, any stranger who tried a smash-and-grab would have only two ways to run-east, or west-and the Dwarvenhame Tunnel offered no convenient side roads or places to lie hidden while the pursuit thundered by.
The shop had been designed to accommodate humans as well as dwarves, and even Vaijon found it a comfortable fit. Bahzell, of course, did not, but then he'd found very few buildings which were a 'comfortable fit' for him since leaving Navahk, and he'd become almost accustomed to it. What he had not grown accustomed to was the sudden ticking sound which surrounded him-a quiet sound, almost hushed, that still managed to be somehow thunderous in the sheer multiplicity of its sources.
Clocks. Scores of clocks, of all shapes and sizes, ticked and tocked about him. Pendulums swung, ornate hands inched around illuminated faces, biting off precise intervals, and cuckoos hovered behind closed doors, poised to burst out and proclaim the hour. Nor were clocks all that ticked, for watches lay on their own beds of velvet in glass cases, and each produced its own tiny part of the all-encompassing harmony.
Bahzell and Brandark stared at all the moving hands, then grinned at one another in delight. They'd known what clocks and watches were long before leaving their homelands, and they'd seen several of each, since, but they'd never imagined seeing so many in one place. Nor had they been prepared for the artistry which had been invested in them or for the sheer fascination of watching the intricacy of their function in action, and Bahzell chuckled as he realized every one of them was set to precisely the same time. Despite his own lack of exposure to them, he doubted that even dwarves could make this many timepieces all keep exactly the same time, and his grin grew as he pictured the proprietor running around his premises every morning resetting his inventory.
"Yes? How can I hel- Kaeritha!"
The deep, pleasant voice pulled Bahzell back from his thoughts, and he turned as quickly as his cramped surroundings allowed. A dwarf, shorter even than Kilthan but with the full head of hair Kilthan lacked, came bustling from someplace in the back. The newcomer stood for a moment, beaming at Kaeritha, and then hurried forward and hopped up onto a footstool to throw his arms about her.
"Kerry! By the Stone, it's wonderful to see you again! Where have you been, girl? And what have you been eating? Not enough, whatever it was, I see! You're thin as a rail! Haynath will skin us both if you don't come home with me for supper!"
"It's good to see you again, Uthmar," Kaeritha replied, hugging him back, "and I'd love to have supper with you-if there's time. But I'm traveling with friends, this time, and our business is fairly urgent."
"Is it, now?" Uthmar leaned back to look up at her, eyes glinting golden in the lamplight as he smiled. "So urgent that you want to explain to Haynath that you didn't have time to join her for even one meal? Have you gotten that brave since last year?"
"No, but I have gotten cowardly enough to hide and let you explain it!" she said impishly, and he laughed a deep, booming laugh. He let her turn him, still laughing, to view the others, and his laughter stopped suddenly as he saw Bahzell and Brandark.
"My word!" he gasped. He stared at them for several seconds, then hopped down from the stool and walked over to them. He stood with his hands on his hips, leaning well back to peer up at them, then walked around Bahzell in a complete circle, muttering under his breath.
Bahzell shot a glance at Kaeritha and cocked his ears in question, but she only smiled in reply and shrugged, then folded her arms and watched Uthmar patiently. The dwarf came closer to Bahzell and reached up to stroke a mail sleeve, shook his head, and made a small clucking sound.
"Axeman work," he said. "Karamon of Belhadan, wasn't it?" He darted a sharp look up at Bahzell. "I'm right, aren't I? It is Karamon's work, isn't it?"
"Aye, I'm thinking Karamon was his name," Bahzell agreed. "A wee short fellow, like yourself, but with hair red as fire."
"Ha! I knew I was right!" Uthmar crowed, and tapped his prowlike nose. "I've one of the best eyes in Dwarvenhame, if I do say it myself, and Karamon does good work. Very good work. Not but that we couldn't've done better for you, Milord!"
"No doubt," Bahzell rumbled. He looked back across at Kaeritha, eyes twinkling with amusement, and she stepped forward to rest a hand on the dwarf's shoulder.
"Bahzell Bahnakson, be known to Uthmardanharknar, the proprietor of this shop, senior partner of the firm Uthmar and Sons, and husband to Haynathshirkan're'harknar, who happens to be the senior alderwoman of Tunnel's End… and an excellent cook. Uthmar, this is Bahzell Bahnakson, Prince of Hurgrum, and the newest champion of Tomanāk , and these are our companions, Brandark Brandarkson of Navahk, and Sir Vaijon of Almerhas."
"You!" Uthmar was pointing at Bahzell with a huge grin. "You! You're the one in the song, aren't you?"
"I-" Bahzell began, but the dwarf was already humming, and the Horse Stealer heard choking sounds from Vaijon and Kaeritha. The two humans glanced hurriedly away, looking anywhere but at the Horse Stealer, but Brandark only cocked his head, ears pitched forward in innocent attentiveness, as he listened to the melody of The Lay of Bahzell Bloody Hand. The glare Bahzell shot him should have reduced him to cinders on the spot, but he returned it with the bland smile of a man in whose mouth butter would refuse to melt.
"It is you, isn't it?" Uthmar demanded happily at last, and Bahzell gritted his teeth. But then he made himself smile and nodded.
"Aye, in a manner of speaking. Not but what you'd not want to be believing all you hear." He shot another glance at Brandark. "Like as not the sot who wrote it all down was drunk as a lord," he added.
"Oh, I don't care about that," Uthmar assured him, waving one hand airily. "Heavens, it's actually a pretty silly song, don't you think?" He sniffed. "The lines of the third stanza don't scan at all well, and that forced rhyme in the fifth-!"
He rolled his eyes, and Bahzell's ears flicked straight upright. His lips twitched for an instant, and then he laughed out loud.
"Oh, aye, a very silly song," he agreed enthusiastically, grinning wickedly at a Brandark whose studied innocence had just become a thing of the past.
"Yes, well, but the point was," Uthmar said, "that Silver Cavern sent word you'd likely be coming this way, and Clan Harkanath specifically said you've a line of credit."
"Did they now?" Bahzell watched the dwarf cautiously. He was only slightly surprised to hear Kilthan had sent word up the tunnel that he and Brandark were on the way, for Master Kresco had promised to pass that information on to the Silver Cavern dwarves via the relays. But he was a little surprised Kilthan had mentioned anything about lines of credit.
"Oh, they didn't tell just anyone," Uthmar assured him, "but my sanitharlahnahk-" He paused and frowned. "Um, that would be my wife's sister-in-law's second cousin on her father's side the way you'd say it, I think. Is that right, Kerry?" He looked questioningly at Kaeritha, and she shrugged.
"Uthmar, you know no one but a dwarf can possibly keep your clan and family relationships straight. If you say it's your wife's sister-in-law's second cousin, then that's what it is."
"Oh dear." Uthmar frowned for another moment, then shrugged. "At any rate, my sanitharlahnahk is married to Kilthandahknarthas' sanhanikmah." He looked at Bahzell as if that should mean something to him. The Horse Stealer glanced at Kae
ritha, who shrugged again-helplessly-and then looked back down at Uthmar.
"And?" he said encouragingly.
"Why, that makes us almost brothers!" Uthmar exclaimed, waving both hands in the air. "That's why he asked me to take special care of you-and your friends, of course-if you should happen to stop off in Tunnel's End."
"Take care of us, is it? And just what were you having in mind in that regard?" Bahzell asked politely.
"Well, it's plain enough you're not in need of armor. Not-" Uthmar sniffed "-that I couldn't have fixed you up with some much superior to old Kara- But that's neither here nor there! You've adequate armor, and I'll assume you have weapons as well?" He looked expectantly up at the towering hradani, who nodded in confirmation. "I thought so. I thought so! But I'll wager there's one thing you don't have, Milord Champion, and that's a first-rate watch!"
"A watch?" Bahzell blinked. "And what in Tomanāk's name would such as I be needing with a watch?"
"Everyone needs a good watch, Milord!" Uthmar asserted. "If you've never had one, you can't begin to imagine how much more efficiently it lets you organize your day! Anyone who works to a schedule needs one, and especially mariners!"
"Mariners?" Brandark's ears cocked sharply. "Why do mariners need watches?"
"For navigation, Milord-for navigation!" Uthmar shook his head. "A seaman must know precisely the right time to take his position sightings. That requires the finest chronometer he can get, and with all due modesty, there's not a finer timepiece in all Norfressa than the ones in this shop."
He waved an arm to indicate his ticking wares, and Brandark followed the gesture with intent eyes.
"Really?" he murmured.
"Assuredly, Milord. Most assuredly. And, of course, he'll need a good sextant, as well, and it just happens that Uthmar and Sons markets the finest Crystal Water Cavern optical instruments and sextants."
"I see."
Bahzell could almost feel his companion's palms beginning to itch, and he gave the Bloody Sword a stern glance, then looked back to Uthmar.
"It's honored I am that you should be thinking of us, but I'm thinking we'll do well enough without such, and it wouldn't do for us to be spending Duke Jashân's credit for aught we don't need, so-"
"Oh, but it isn't Duke Jashân's credit," Uthmar broke in. "It's Kilthan's."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said it's Kilthan's. He set up a credit line for you himself."
"Did he, now?" Bahzell murmured, and his eyes began to twinkle.
"My, my. Wasn't that kind of old Kilthan," Brandark said.
"Now, now, lad. Let's not go coming all over grasping. I'm thinking Kilthan had more in mind than to be turning two greedy little boys loose in a candy store."
"Then he should have said so," Brandark argued. "I mean, he does know us, Bahzell. Do you think for one minute he doesn't know how telling us that would affect any self-respecting hradani?"
"Aye, like as not he does-or should. But that's not so much the point as-"
"Oh, come now, Bahzell," Kaeritha interrupted. "Brandark's completely correct. Anyone who's ever met the two of you-well, him, at least!-must have known what he'd be letting himself in for."
"Anyone who met me?" Brandark demanded in injured tones, and she laughed.
"Unless all those books we're lugging around belong to someone else named Brandark Brandarkson!" she shot back, and Brandark made a fencing master's gesture to indicate a touch.
"Now just the both of you be holding on-" Bahzell began, only to be interrupted yet again, this time by Uthmar.
"I really could make you a very nice price on one of my finest watches, Milord Champion. And perhaps one for your illustrious father? And a clock for your mother?"
Bahzell paused, mouth open, then closed it with a click. As Brandark had said, he was a hradani, and the hradani habit of returning home from uninvited visits with odds and ends which had somehow gotten into their pockets was a strong one. Of course, it went against all tradition to actually pay anyone for those odds and ends, but under the circumstances…
His eyes strayed back to the beautifully illuminated faces of the gold- and silver-cased watches, and he felt that centuries old acquisitiveness tingling in his bones.
"You were saying as how old Kilthan set up a credit line?" Uthmar nodded. "And what sort of limit was he after putting on it?"
"He didn't," Uthmar said with a wicked little smile of his own. "I can't imagine how he came to be so forgetful. But, there-he is getting on a bit in years, you know. Still, he's also a kinsman. Don't you think I owe it to him to teach him not to be guilty of such oversights in the future?"
"No doubt you do, no doubt you do," Bahzell murmured. He looked back up at Kaeritha, then glanced across at Brandark and grinned. "Now, then, Uthmar," he said, "just exactly how much were you saying these watches of yours were costing?"
Chapter Sixteen
A courier from Kilthandahknarthas was waiting late the next day when Bahzell and his companions finally emerged from the tunnel into the city of Mountain Heart.
Actually, they emerged not so much into as through Mountain Heart, for the city burrowed for over eight miles into the base of White Horn Mountain. Despite its size, Mountain Heart was one of Dwarvenhame's younger cities, having come into existence only after work began on the tunnel. The tunnel's construction had been a joint effort of all the other cities-each of which had, for all intents and purposes, been a totally independent city-state at the time-and Mountain Heart had been intended from the beginning to serve as Dwarvenhame's interface with the Empire of the Axe. Legally, the dwarvish province had actually been a part of the Empire for a little less than a century, but its cities had been an integral part of the Empire's economy for several hundred years, and its people had realized eventual union was inevitable. Still, dwarves seldom rushed into anything, especially when it involved formal relationships with nondwarves, and so they had eased into the new affiliation, and Mountain Heart had been part of that process.
The fact that all the older cities had cooperated in its founding had also led to a degree of interclan mixing which was virtually unheard of among dwarves outside the old Royal and Imperial borders. Dwarves were the most clannish of all the Races of Man. Although few of them shared the sort of arrogant belief in their own inevitable superiority which distinguished the Purple Lords, they did keep very much to themselves, and that held true even in dealings with their own kind. Traditionally, a dwarf's city was also his kingdom, even more independent of one another than the half-elvish city-states of the south, and most dwarvish cities were populated almost exclusively by-or certainly completely dominated by-an alliance of no more than two or three great clans. Their familial structures were so extended and so intricately defined that nondwarves might have been excused from noticing that, but the dwarves knew, and each of their great clans tended to evolve its own distinct, often insular personality over the centuries.
Because of the peculiar alloy of its citizens, Mountain Heart had less of that insularity. It was also closer to the rest of the Empire physically, as well as in outlook, as part of its role as a buffer for the rest of Dwarvenhame. As such, it had a sizable year-round human population and routinely welcomed a far larger seasonal influx of human labor during the winter months than did Dwarvenhame's other cities, and it showed. The travelers had encountered a substantial leavening of humans throughout their trip through the tunnel; once they reached Mountain Heart, the proportion of humans to dwarves increased radically, and, like Belhadan, the fusion of more than one Race of Man had produced a distinct impact on the city's character and architecture.
Unlike its sister cities, Mountain Heart spilled well out beyond the mountain into which it was cut. Its permanent human population was more addicted to seeing the sky, and sturdy stone houses extended for several miles in all directions from the half-dozen entryways cut into the base of the White Horn. Yet as Bahzell emerged from the tunnel and started down the ramp which led up to it, he noti
ced something very odd about the open-air portion of the city. The first oddity was almost instantly obvious, for Mountain Heart's outer fortifications were almost rudimentary. No doubt they were adequate for routine security, and they could probably be held for at least a short time even against a serious attack, yet they offered far too little depth to permit any long-term defense against an enemy who meant business.
But the logic behind their design was apparent once he thought about it, especially after he noticed the second oddity. The outside portion of Mountain Heart contained only homes, with market squares, parks, and a few shops scattered here and there among them. There were none of the workshops and warehouses which were the heart of the city's economy, for all of those-along with at least three-quarters of its population-were buried deep inside the White Horn. And unlike the light fortifications covering the aboveground portion of the city, the gates and towers and bastions, the portcullises, dry moats, and loopholed galleries protecting any of the entries to that part of Mountain Heart were all but impenetrable. Only a desperate man would even consider voluntarily fighting dwarves underground, and assuming anyone were mad enough to try it here, he would pay a dreadful price just to break the outer defenses. Bahzell still didn't much care for the notion of living underground himself, but there certainly were some advantages to it.
Kilthandahknarthas' courier was (inevitably) a kinsman of his, although not even Kaeritha could figure out exactly how he and the young man, who introduced himself as Tharanalalknarthas, were related. It had something to do with three marriages, a stepson, and a pair of uncles, as nearly as Bahzell could sort it out, but it didn't really matter. Dwarves were used to foreigners' inability to grasp those fine distinctions, and the term "kinsman" was considered a perfectly polite alternative.
