by Dan Willis
“I don’t know anything about motives, but I heard why they locked you up,” Much returned. “For you, a woman’s heart is some kind of plaything.”
“I won’t deny that I misused many women in my day,” Xurces said. “At my trial, the prosecutor insisted that he had proof that I had fathered over one hundred children.”
“My point exactly,” Much said.
“But I must assure you,” Xurces pleaded. “The desires that drove those actions are long gone. I have the scars to prove it.”
“What makes you so darn interested in Lyra all of a sudden, then?” Much demanded.
“I am merely exercising compassion,” Xurces said sincerely. “Lyra worked as a barmaid and fell prey to someone like me, several someones, if truth be told. Now she has a daughter and another child on the way and no one to take care of her.”
“And you think that’s your job?” Much said. “As some kind of penance?”
“Yes, maybe penance,” Xurces said. “But it goes deeper than that. They say I fathered one hundred children, but I’ve never seen even one of them, much less been there when they were born.
“Now,” he went on, “I have the chance to do good and help Lyra and experience what I was too selfish to participate in before.”
Much seemed to mull that over, the frown on his face stubborn. “All right, but I’m watching you,” he said after a long pause. “If I get even the hint of something going wrong with you, you’ll wish those prison guards had killed you instead.”
Xurces looked more relieved than offended. He simply smiled mildly and bowed his head.
Much turned and walked away muttering. Bradok started to follow, but Corin stopped him.
“He really is harmless, you know,” he said of Xurces.
“How do you know?”
“With a face like his, every woman in the penal caves wanted him for their man,” Corin said. “He could have had any of them, or all of them, but he never touched even one.”
“Is it because of …” Bradok started, not knowing exactly how to finish.
Corin shrugged. “I don’t know if he can’t or if he just won’t,” he said. “But either way, it means that Lyra is safer with him than with just about anyone.”
“I hope you’re right,” Bradok said.
“Bradok?” Thurl’s voice echoed across the space.
“Here,” Bradok said.
Thurl waved at him from the hole in the crystal wall then disappeared inside. Bradok pushed back through the crowd and followed slowly, waiting for his eyes to adjust. When at last he could see, he found Thurl waiting for him just up the passage. The scarred dwarf stood before what looked like a wall. As Bradok got closer, he could see that it was, in fact, a wall made of expertly baked bricks. A large hole opened in the middle of the wall, and several bricks were strewn on the floor in front of it, as if they’d been pushed through from the other side.
Bradok stuck his head through the hole and gasped. Inside was different. The path had been finished with flagstones on the ground and carved, shaped walls cut smooth. A bracket for a torch had been mounted on the wall, but there was no torch.
“What do you think?” Bradok asked Thurl. “Is this Daergar?”
“Daergar don’t build like this,” Thurl said. “Besides, the floor is covered in dirt. No one’s used this tunnel in a very long time.”
“That doesn’t mean no one lives in here.”
“I’d guess not,” Thurl said. “We should tread softly, just in case.”
Bradok pulled out his compass. Sure enough, the Seer’s spear pointed straight down the disused tunnel. Their luck was changing.
“Go get the others,” he said. “Tell them we have to be extra quiet.”
Thurl nodded and left. Bradok pulled a few more bricks from the semicollapsed wall, making the opening big enough for the others to pass through, then climbed over to the other side. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out any decoration or design to the stonework. It seemed plain and functional but well made.
When the lanterns arrived, they didn’t reveal anything new.
“What if these are Daergar tunnels?” Chisul hissed as he climbed through the wall.
“What if they’re Theiwar?” Bradok shot back.
“Either one would be a problem,” Corin said as he followed Chisul.
“I doubt there’ll be trouble,” Much said, coming next.
“Why do you say that?” Corin asked.
Much pointed at the dirt-covered ground. “I don’t know about your people,” he said, “but no self-respecting dwarf would let his tunnels get into this state. I’d say these were abandoned long ago.”
“You have a point,” Corin admitted.
“Abandoned or not, I want four armed dwarves leading the way, weapons in hand,” Bradok said. He drew his sword, and Chisul, Corin, and Much drew theirs as well. Corin had borrowed Tal’s sword since the doctor was always excused from guard duty.
They moved slowly down the passageway with their band of survivors trailing behind. The way ran straight and slightly down, turning only once, to the right. Finally, it ended in a set of carved double doors. Each heavy stone door had an intricate arch carved on its surface. Under the arch, a field of stars blazed around a single larger star that had been painted red. The impression was of eyes peering out from behind the doors, watching them.
“What do you think?” Bradok asked Kellik, running his hands over the carved arches. Each arch seemed to be made up of four separate vinelike strands that wound together into a single, unified strand at the top.
“If they used graphite on the hinges, they should still open fine,” Kellik said. “Grease would have dried up over time.”
“I don’t see a latch,” Bradok said, bracing himself and placing his hand against the wall.
“Wait!” Corin said, quickly stepping forward. Bradok edged aside as the Daergar got so close to the door his nose almost grazed the stone.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, running his hand reverently over the arches.
“Don’t believe what?” Kellik said. “It’s just a door, isn’t it?”
“Not the door,” Corin said, pointing at the red star. “It’s Starlight Hall.”
Jeni and Thurl had come up behind Corin, and they gasped at his words.
“It can’t be,” Thurl said. “Starlight Hall is just a fairy story, something to tell children when they go to bed.”
“What is he talking about?” Bradok asked Corin.
“It’s a myth,” Corin explained. “One of the oldest stories in Daergar legend.
“Nine hundred years ago, a dwarf named Galoka Starlight tried to convert the Daergar back to the worship of Reorx. He taught that the family of dwarves could never be reunited until we are all unified under one god.”
“I bet that went over well,” Kellik harrumphed.
Corin shrugged. “According to the legend, Galoka had great success in several Daergar cities, before the Underking took notice of him.”
“What happened then?” Bradok asked.
“The Underking put a price on Galoka’s head and ordered his followers killed.” Corin continued. “According to the legend, a dwarf named Ekin ran ahead to Galoka’s stronghold, before the Underking’s army got there. Ekin died from the exertion, but he did manage to warn Galoka of the approaching army. Galoka took his followers and fled into unexplored caverns, vowing to build a city where all dwarves would live together in peace.”
Bradok frowned. “It’s an interesting story,” he conceded. “So what makes you think this door has anything to do with Galoka?”
“There’s more to the legend, love,” Jeni said in her airy voice. She was listening intently even though she seemed to know the story.
Corin nodded. “Over the years there have been many dwarves who became lost in the deep caves, sometimes for years. When they finally returned, some told tales of a fantastic city called Starlight Hall. A city deep under the earth where live trees grew and fa
ntastical machines did all manner of work.”
“When was the last time someone came back and told such a thing?” Bradok asked skeptically.
“Well, not for a long time,” Corin admitted. “Though there was a dwarf who found a strange sword back in my grandfather’s time. The sword wasn’t really magical, but it wouldn’t rust.”
“That’s true,” Thurl said excitedly. “I saw that sword once. It looked as bright as the day it was forged.”
“So you think this city is close?” Bradok said. “That this is the symbol of Starlight Hall?”
Corin nodded. “My mother sang me the rhyme when I was just a child,” he said. “I never forgot the words: ‘Seek the eye of red, under branches twined. If the city of Starlight ye would find.’”
Kellik and Bradok exchanged glances.
“If he’s right, then the end of our journey could be no farther away than right behind this door,” Bradok said soberly.
“Well, what are we waiting for, then?” Kellik said. He put his shoulder against the stone door and pushed. It shuddered for a moment, then swung inward with a soft grinding noise.
A blast of stale air rushed into the hallway, stirring the dust on the floor and making some of them cough. A vast, dark space lay beyond. High above them, tiny lights flickered on the ceiling, like a field of stars in the black abyss.
As Bradok and the others moved out of the hall and into the cavern, their lanterns illuminated massive stone columns, carved with meticulous detail. A stone bench stood near them, richly detailed but lying on its side.
“The stars,” Rose gasped as she moved out of the tunnel. “The lights on the ceiling are laid out like the stars in the heavens.”
Bradok looked up. He hadn’t spent enough time on the surface to know much about the heavens above Krynn. But a single red star glowed off to one side of the display, and he knew instinctively that it represented Reorx’s Forge.
He took a lantern from Marl Anvil and moved deeper into the chamber. More columns rose up, like massive trees, reaching up to the hidden ceiling. Huge halls branched off to either side. Finally, the lantern lit up a massive building carved out of the living rock. In the center of the building stood an enormous clock, its hands stopped at 2:36. Above the clock, metal cables poked out of the building and stretched up into the darkness.
Bradok lowered the lantern and studied the base of the building. Enormous carved doors like the ones they’d just come through were lying broken and shattered on the ground.
“It looks like Starlight Hall is still a legend,” Bradok said to Corin. “A ruined legend. Nobody has been here for a long time.”
CHAPTER 18
Remnants
Bradok made his way toward the big building with the enormous clock. He hadn’t noticed at first, but the floor of the cavern was littered with all kinds of debris: everything from scraps of clothing and bits of metal to fragments of wood and bone.
He climbed over the broken door and stepped into the clock building. Inside there was once-ornate furniture that had been smashed to bits and murals on the walls that evinced aging and deep gouges. Each painting seemed to depict one of the dwarf clans making their way to a shining city in the distance.
A spiral staircase of metal ran up to a second level, and another shattered set of doors led deeper into the building. Bradok wanted to see the workings of the giant clock. He tested the stairs with his foot and, finding them sound, began to climb.
The room above stretched up well over two stories. It housed the massive gears, chains, and cams that kept the time and moved the hands. To Bradok, there seemed to be more machinery than was necessary for a clock. He traced several of the gears and shafts and found they led to other mechanisms unrelated to the clock. Each of them had a set of metal cables running from a giant spindle that ran out through a hole in the wall. Despate the thick layer of dust and debris, all the apparatus seemed to be intact.
“I wonder how long this place has been here,” Corin said, coming up the stairs gingerly, followed by Much.
“Judging by the dust, I’d say a long, long time,” Bradok said, wiping encrusted grime from a large metal pulley.
The pulley had been painted black, no doubt to resist corrosion, but as Bradok looked at the stripe he had wiped clean with his finger, he realized there was no rust or corrosion anywhere.
“I’d guess it’s all still in working order,” he pronounced.
“Why not try it, then?” Corin said, taking hold of one of the massive gears and putting his shoulder into it. Nothing happened.
“Stuck somehow, I’d say,” Corin said with a grunt. “Pretty big machinery. What were they using it for, power?”
“Water is my guess,” Much said.
Bradok turned to find the old dwarf examining a long horizontal bar with what looked like flat metal gears protruding from its center. Below the bar, a metal trap door covered a hole in the floor that was cut just large enough to allow the bar to be lowered through it, using a winch assembly mounted to the wall.
“Give me a hand,” he said, pulling on the trap door. After it scraped across the stone with a noisy screech, Bradok and the others could clearly hear the sound of running water below.
“Hey, not so fast. Fooling with this stuff might not be a good idea,” Corin said. “We don’t know what any of it does. Some of it might be simply broken; some of it might be dangerous. It wouldn’t do for a frozen gear to bring the whole works down on our heads.”
“He’s got a point,” Bradok agreed. He leaned close to one of the giant mechanisms and wiped it with his sleeve. Tiny letters had been etched into a plate, to which was attached a movable arm.
“Some of the mechanisms are labeled,” he pointed out. “This one’s got a lever to account for something between summer and winter.”
“This one has levers for five irrigation zones and two different fountains,” Much said. “Maybe it’s the master control for the city’s water.”
Corin whistled. “It’s hard to imagine something like this existing here underground.”
“I helped design air shafts for some of Ironroot’s newer caverns,” Much said, stroking the machinery reverently with his calloused hands. “But I’ve never seen anything like this craftsmanship; it’s incredible.”
Bradok opened his mouth to say much the same thing when he heard Rose calling his name. Her voice sounded urgent and frightened.
“Here,” he called, running to the stairs and starting down.
Rose rushed into the room over the broken door. “There’s trouble,” she said then led him back out into the square.
The second lantern hung suspended from a statue in the middle of an elaborate fountain that Bradok had missed on his way in. Dwarves were gathered around the slumped figure of one of their group.
“Is it Lyra?” Bradok asked worriedly.
Before Rose could answer, however, the crowd parted to reveal Tal standing over Perin. The human seemed paler than usual, and he breathed in great gasps. In a flash, Bradok remembered the blast of stale air he’d tasted when they’d entered the cavern.
“We need to find a vent or something,” Tal said as Bradok arrived. “He’s dizzy and incoherent. For some reason he can’t breathe right. If this lasts much longer, he is in danger of dying.”
“What is it?” Much asked, coming up behind Bradok.
“We’ve got to take a chance,” Bradok said after a long moment.
“What do you mean?” Rose asked.
“This city is too big not to have proper ventilation, and it’s too deep to rely on just an open shaft,” Bradok said. “They must have had some way to move the air around down here, and I’m betting it’s controlled by the machine in the clock tower.”
“Get going, then. Give it a try,” Tal said. “I don’t know how much longer Perin can survive breathing like this.”
Bradok turned and raced back to the tower. Corin had stayed behind, using a glowsac to investigate the machinery. He looked up excitedly
when Bradok and Much came pounding up the steps.
“You won’t believe what this machine does,” he said.
“Control the city’s ventilation system?” Bradok asked as he and Much moved to inspect the open slot in the floor.
“How did you know that?” Corin asked with wide eyes.
“Lucky guess.”
Bradok took hold of the chain that ran through a gear and controlled the height of the horizontal water wheel. He pulled hard, feeling the resistance, until finally it broke free. As Bradok hauled on the chain, the bar was lowered slowly into the water. When the flow hit the metal blades, the shaft began to turn. A moment later it shuddered and stopped as the gears on its end meshed with gears hidden below the turbulent surface of the water.
Slowly the shaft began to turn again, driven by the water. A second shaft, running vertically up to the ceiling of the chamber began turning as another gear transferred the water horizontally. A groan came from the machinery as it shook off the years of disuse. Amid creaks, clangs, and rattling, the gears began turning and the enormous clock started to tick.
Dust rained down with chunks of debris and cobwebs as the operation shuddered to life. Bradok coughed and covered his face with his cloak. In the midst of the din, he heard Much shouting something. He looked over just in time to duck a metal lever swinging straight at his head. As it passed over him, Bradok suddenly became very aware of all the dangerously moving gears and undulating cogs. One wrong step in that place could crush a limb or catch at the edge of a cloak, yanking or strangling a dwarf to death.
“We’ve got to watch ourselves,” he shouted at Corin, not entirely sure the Daergar leader could even hear him.
Much pointed. Bradok nodded, and the pair made their way carefully over to the ventilation controls. Above the moving gears and cogs, a brass plate read Main Ventilation. Below were six levers in a row, all of them frozen in the up position.
Bradok shrugged and reached for the closest one.
“Wait a minute,” Much yelled over the din. “Why that one?”
“We have to start somewhere,” he said. “Everything else is marked,” Much said. “These probably are too.”
