by Dan Willis
“I assumed that is why you were here, Mister Axeblade,” Perin said in an even voice.
Just then a squat, solid-looking dwarf in a clean apron came around the back end of the boat. He had bristly brown hair and a beard that had been braided and thrust under his apron for safekeeping. His eyes were blue, and he had a long, beaklike nose.
“Who have we here?” he said to Perin.
Bradok stuck out his arm before the human could answer. “Bradok Axeblade,” he said. “I assume you are Silas?”
“Silas Weatherstone,” the dwarf said, clasping his arm firmly. “Welcome to my shop.” He gestured around at the work stations that weren’t obscured by the half-completed ship. “Are you here from the council in some official capacity?”
That last bit caught Bradok unawares. As far as he knew, he’d never met Silas nor done any business with him. How did he recognize him as a council member?
“Gossip gets around quickly in the Artisans’ Cavern,” Silas said with a smile. “Everyone’s heard of Ironroot’s new councilman.”
“Harrumph,” Bradok replied, not very sensibly. “No, I’m not here on behalf of the council.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the brass device. “Someone told me you might know what this is?”
Silas took the engraved device, turning it over in his hands. He pressed the hidden catch, but the lid of the device refused to open for him as well. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, bending close to examine the engraving. “It’s exquisite, though.”
Looking up, Silas handed the device back to Bradok. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It might be a watch with a stuck lid or one of a hundred other things. I just don’t know. Who told you I would know anything about it?”
“Who? Oh, that doesn’t matter.” Somewhat disappointed, Bradok took the device and returned it to his pocket.
“I noticed the inscription,” Silas said. “There’s something very familiar about it. I’ve heard something like that before.” A strange look passed over the cooper’s face, and he smiled. “I think, whatever it is, it might be very important, Bradok,” he said. “Be sure to keep it safe until you figure it out.”
“Thank you anyway,” Bradok said, frustrated. “So tell me,” he went on, waving at the partially completed ship, “what is this all about?”
Silas smiled and led Bradok over to the side of the landlocked vessel. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he said, gesturing grandly. “There isn’t anything like her anywhere.”
“What is it, uh, she?” Bradok corrected himself.
“It’s a ship, of course,” Silas replied, as if building a ship in the middle of a mountain were the most natural thing in the world.
“I can see that,” Bradok said. “But why are you building it here?”
“I believe they call it senility,” a sarcastic voice cut in.
Bradok turned to find a young, well-dressed dwarf coming up behind them. He had a short beard, like Bradok’s, only light blond, and he had golden eyes. His clothes were of the finest cut and the latest fashion, and the dwarf wore them well. He had a handsome face, and though his smile bore mockery, there was just enough mischief in it to beg forgiveness.
“This is my son, Chisul,” Silas said, his eyes twinkling. “He believes me to be mad.”
“Why is that?” Bradok asked with a smile.
“You mean you haven’t heard the story?” Chisul interjected, a note of awe in his voice. He looked at his father, shaking his head, as if the cooper had committed some personal offense.
“Sit down, then, stranger,” Chisul said. “And I’ll tell you the most fanciful tale you ever heard. It all started one day when my father was down in the deep caves looking for good polishing stones—”
“Give it a rest, Chisul,” Silas said in a weary, admonishing tone.
“Aw, Dad,” Chisul said with mock sincerity. “If there’s someone in the city who hasn’t heard your tale of magic and mystery, then I am duty-bound to tell them.”
At that, Silas seemed to resign himself, and Chisul launched into the story.
“You see, when my dad was down in the deep tunnels looking for polishing stones, he thinks he hears this voice telling him to go lower. So he does, going down and down, deeper than he’s ever been. And when he gets to the very bottom, the voice tells him that he’s been called to perform a great work. And what do you suppose that is?”
Chisul winked conspiratorially at Bradok then swept his arm upward, indicating the ship. “Why to build this whopper of a vessel, of course! He comes back up from the deep tunnels covered in rubble and dirt, carrying a flat stone with the design of this boat carved on it. Says that it just appeared in the wall, right in front of him.”
“So … the voice told your dad to perform a great work and the design showed him to build this boat,” Bradok said, in his best unamused voice. He decided that he rather disliked Silas’s son.
“The voice told him he had to build this boat,” Chisul said cheerfully, “or everyone he cared about would die.”
Bradok suddenly remembered another dwarf who had encountered a godly voice: Argus Deephammer. Then there was the dwarf with the red-painted sign warning of repentance and doom. And the strange red-bearded one who called himself Erus who had given him the mysterious engraved device, warning him to choose sides.
He scratched his head, thinking. So many dwarves seemed to be saying the same thing, that some great disaster was coming and the people of Ironroot had to choose the path of salvation.
“So why are you here?” Chisul asked, breaking into Bradok’s thoughts. “Reorx send you here too?”
“What are you talking about?” Bradok demanded.
Chisul barked a short, derisive laugh. “Ever since Dad started building this thing, they’ve been coming around. Religious nuts who claim they’ve heard voices, like Dad, or seen visions, or been sent here by mysterious strangers that always turn out to be Reorx in disguise.”
Bradok felt the hairs on his neck stand up. He hadn’t given much thought to Erus’s resemblance to Reorx, but since Chisul brought it up, Erus did uncannily evoke the god of the dwarves.
“So what happens when you finish it, uh, her … the boat? What are you supposed to do then?” Bradok asked, turning to Silas.
Silas smiled and shrugged sheepishly. “Reorx didn’t say.” He put his hand on one of the naked ribs and stroked it reverently. “My job is to finish her. What happens after that is out of my hands.”
Bradok opened his mouth to ask another question, but a sudden disturbance erupted outside. He could hear raised voices and the sounds of a scuffle. With unexpected suddenness, the front door to the shop broke inward, smashed with some heavy object. A moment later five armed members of the city guard were standing in Silas’s workshop.
“What is the meaning of this?” Bradok demanded.
The leader of the guards recognized him after a moment, a surprised look passing over his countenance.
“I’m sorry, Councilman, but I have my orders.” He turned to Silas. “Silas Weatherstone, I’m directed by the city council to place you under arrest. Please come with me.”
Bradok’s mind raced. How could Mayor Arbuckle have heard about Silas so quickly?
“Sapphire,” he whispered.
She must have gone to Arbuckle when Bradok didn’t return home and warned him that her son might expose his plans. Arbuckle hadn’t taken any chances; he must have had Bradok followed and ordered the arrest of Silas.
“Of course I will come with you, Guardsman,” Silas said, putting a restraining hand on Chisul. He took off his apron and handed it to his son then turned to the lone human. “If anyone comes to help with the boat while I’m gone, Perin, please let them in and continue with the work,” he said.
Perin nodded forlornly but said nothing.
Silas bade Chisul good-bye. The guardsmen had formed up around Silas, as if they expected him to attempt to make a run for it. But Silas walked easily behind the guard captain, with his he
ad held high, trying neither to outpace him nor fall behind.
Bradok followed to the door and watched as the soldiers marched out of sight. He wanted to do something to help, but if Arbuckle were behind Silas’s arrest, there wasn’t much he could do at the moment. He put his hand in his pocket and felt the etched metal of Erus’s strange device. Silas hadn’t been any help in determining what it was. On impulse, Bradok pulled it out of his pocket. The tiny words that appeared from the intricate etching were still plainly visible in the soft glow given off by the purple gem.
A person’s destination depends more on his choices than his direction.
Bradok looked off, up the passage where the soldiers had taken Silas. The whole council might be against him, but he resolved to follow after Silas and speak on the cooper’s behalf; that, at least, was a choice he could make.
He slipped the device back into his pocket and started off through the milling crowd. As he made his way along the tunnel that led back to the main cavern, Bradok tried to come up with a plan, but he had no idea what he would say to the council. Arbuckle’s course seemed set, and Bradok doubted he had any power to change it. Still, maybe he could bribe Arbuckle or some of the councilors to obtain Silas’s freedom. Fortunately he had plenty of money and other goods to bribe the council with.
When Bradok emerged from the side tunnel into Ironroot proper, he could tell something was sorely amiss. An eerie stillness hung over the cavern. Nobody was strolling among the grass and flowers of the central square, and the sidewalks were conspicuously empty. At each street corner, however, a city guardsman stood with hammer and shield at the ready.
“Halt,” the nearest one called, catching sight of Bradok.
“What’s this all about?” Bradok demanded as the guard approached him.
“The council has enacted a curfew,” the guard said. “No one is permitted on the streets in the upper city after ten.”
“I’m Bradok Axeblade and I’m a member of the city council,” Bradok countered. “I wasn’t informed of this. When did the council meet to decide this new curfew?”
“It is my understanding that they are meeting now, Councilman,” the guard said. “They sent word to all they could find. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
Bradok wasn’t so sure. “Thank you,” he said as the guard turned to resume his post.
Bradok turned toward the upper end of the cavern. The guards seemed to be posted at the entrances to the side tunnels, so he wasn’t challenged again, though several of the guards looked at him uncertainly as he passed by.
The main cavern of Ironroot followed a natural curve, making it impossible for Bradok to see city hall until he reached the central square. Before he reached the square, he heard a low, rumbling noise. When he came around the facade of the dry goods store, he immediately knew why—city hall had been besieged.
The building itself stood at the top of a raised platform of stone with a brick courtyard in front. All around the base of the stairs gathered a mob of some twenty or thirty dwarves. Among the crowd, Bradok occasionally caught the glimpse of a weapon. At that sight, Bradok understood the curfew; it was intended to keep the mob from growing and the protest from spreading.
A dozen armed guardsmen stood atop the steps leading up to the main entrance, shoulder to shoulder, with their hands on their weapons. Even from more than a block away, Bradok could feel the tension in the air. All it would take would be one spark, one ill-chosen word or deed, and violence would erupt.
Bradok took a deep breath and pressed on. To reach the council building, he would have to pass through the angry crowd. No one seemed to notice when at first he began pressing his way to the front. He had almost broken free of the mob when a big, burly dwarf with squinty eyes and a bulbous round nose stepped squarely in front of him. He wore the leathers of a blacksmith and carried a broad, heavy warhammer as if he’d held it all his life.
“You’re that new councilman, Braden something-or-other?” he said in a voice reminiscent of a stone being dragged over a sand-strewn floor.
“Uh,” Bradok said, not sure he should answer that.
“Why is the council arresting people all of a sudden?” the dwarf demanded in an uncomfortably loud voice. “Did they say ‘Reorx bless you’ when someone sneezed? Or maybe they’ve got the symbol of Paladine embroidered on their underwear?”
“I don’t know,” Bradok said, conscious of the eyes of many nearby dwarves turning to him. “I just got here.”
“It’s that new councilman,” someone in the crowd yelled.
“He’s the one behind that street-preacher law,” someone else called.
Bradok heard the stone before he saw it. Over the rumble of the mob came the whistling noise of air moving against an uneven surface. Before he could move, a stone struck him on the cheek. Bradok stifled a curse and clasped his hand to his bleeding face.
From behind him, Bradok heard the guards on the stairs come clattering down. Time seemed to freeze in that moment. But Bradok knew with exquisite clarity what was about to happen.
“Stop!” Bradok shouted commandingly, putting out a blocking hand to the oncoming guards. “If I need your help, I’ll call,” he said. “Till then, stay at your posts.”
The words seemed to hang in the air a long time, like smoke in an unvented room. Finally, all citizens and guardsmen seemed to take a breath at once. The soldiers loosened their grips on their weapons and backed up the stairs, never taking their eyes off the crowd.
Bradok looked back at the burly smith. “I don’t know what has happened here or why anyone has been arrested,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I intend to find out.”
“What good does that do us?” the smith asked.
Bradok put his hand on the man’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.
“I give you my word,” he said earnestly, “that I will find out and I will come back out here and tell you everything. Is that good enough?”
The tension still lingered in the air as Bradok’s words died away. Finally the smith spoke. “I’ll tell you what’s happened here,” he said in his gravelly voice. “The council’s arresting citizens whose only crime is trying to remind us of our values, of the old ways.”
A murmur of assent came from the crowd.
“Now I don’t know you, mister new councilman,” the smith said, “but I know that we won’t stand for this persecution.” The smith hefted his hammer off his shoulder and pointed it at city hall. “Now you go in there, and you tell them cowards that they can’t go around arresting people at their own will and pleasure. You tell them we won’t stand for it.” His coal black eyes narrowed as he leaned in so Bradok would have no trouble hearing his next words. “You tell them there’ll be blood if they keep this up.”
The smith reached out one burly hand and shoved Bradok hard. Bradok had seen it coming, but the force of the smith’s arm was not to be resisted and he staggered back.
“You tell them that, from me,” he said, pounding his chest, “Kellik Felhammer.”
Bradok recognized the name. Though he’d never met the dwarf, he bought all the brass he used for jewelry from the Felhammer Smithy.
“I’ll tell them,” he promised then turned and grimly climbed the steps up to the gates of city hall. The guards on the steps parted as he passed then closed ranks behind him.
Inside the building, scribes and clerks were running everywhere, carrying sheaves of paper and rolls of parchment. Discarded notes and what appeared to be pages torn from books littered the hallways. At every intersection, two city guardsmen stood with javelins in hand, their eyes watching for any menace.
At the corner of the main hall, Bradok turned to the back hallway reserved for councilmen.
“There you are, lad.” Much’s voice slammed into him with a near physical force. Rough hands grabbed him and pulled him along the corridor. “When I couldn’t find you at the tavern, I feared for you, boy, and that’s a fact.”
Much paused, straighte
ning Bradok’s coat and brushing bits of dust from the rich fabric.
“Things have gone a bit ‘round the bend here,” he said with a nervous laugh. “How about that Arbuckle? He used that list of believers you made to round up what he’s calling ‘religious troublemakers.’”
“How dare he!” Bradok responded, though he was hardly shocked to have his suspicions confirmed.
“Oh, he dares, he dares,” said Much, all too lightly for Bradok’s taste.
“How does he think he’ll get away with it?” Bradok demanded.
“Well, that’s why he’s doing it all at once, tonight,” Much explained. “If they’re all in jail by morning, he can tell the people it’s all over. Only a few will protest at that point.”
Bradok thought of the mob out front. “There’s more than a few gathering outside already,” he said.
“You don’t understand the kind of power he wields,” Much said, looking around to make sure they weren’t overheard. “Most of the council is with him—”
“Are you with him?” Bradok said, seizing Much’s arm in a vicelike grip.
“Don’t be getting ideas,” Much said, a deadly serious note in his voice. “The peace of Ironroot stands on a blade’s edge, and anything could set it off. Just keep your head down in there. You can try to rein in some of the more enthusiastic members of the council, but don’t make a target out of yourself. If they think you’re against them, they’ll turn on you like a pack of wild dogs.”
Bradok wanted to protest, but something in his gut told him Much had the right of it. He’d have to just bide his time until he could figure out how to tamp it down and help Silas. Much led him around the outer walkway to where their tables stood side by side.
The council chamber was in an uproar. All around the room, councilmen were yelling to be heard while Mayor Arbuckle pounded his gavel on the lectern for order. In the galleries above, a few citizens who had political pull and others who had eluded the curfew filled the seats. They shouted to one another and to the councilmen below, some of them leaning precariously over the carved railings in an effort to have their opinions heard. In the center of the chamber, a lone dwarf stood, silent and unbent against the cacophony.
