Sapphire of Souls

by M. R. Mathias

  He decided that they were probably eating fresh deer meat and picking through the ruins, looking for the sapphire. Thinking about Nixy, and what she must be feeling, caused a tear to trail down his cheek. She and the others probably figured he was dead.

  Emerald carried them north along the eastern side of the Dragon Teeth Mountains. Braxton wished they were on the western side, because if they were, he might be able to catch a glimpse of Uppervale. He laughed to himself as the thought of landing in the middle of the festival grounds on the back of a sparkling green dragon came to him.

  As big as it was, if they were flying down the western side, they might also be able to see the mighty statue of the ancestor's dream. Instead, all he could see were mountains and forest. Mountains as far as he could see to his left and forest as far as he could see to the right. It wasn't until later that evening that the vast expanse of whiteness came into view. First the tips of the mountains were white. Here, all traces of the yellow, orange, and brown leaves of autumn gave way to nothing but gray rocks, snow, and prickly looking fields of pine trees. In the distance, the mountains gradually shrank into a flat expanse that was nothing but featureless ice and snow. Braxton was glad beyond measure for the warmth of the fur-lined cloak Vinston-Fret had picked out for him.

  As the sun went down, Emerald found a cavern on the northern side of the mountains, and like he did on the island, he curled his bulk to block the weather from the opening. He extended his big green head into the cavern to join them around the fire Braxton and Chureal built and told them they would find the vein of blood crystal early on the morrow, and he would have them back to the Wilderkind before dark fall.

  Though Braxton was happy to be this close to his companions, and feeling great relief at being near his homeland, sleep did not come easy. He had a strange, persistent feeling that tomorrow was going to be an eventful day. An impending sense of danger and doom wouldn't leave him.

  As he lay there tossing and turning throughout the long cold night, he was sure that something bad was going to happen, not only to himself, but to Chureal and his companions as well.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "Go brave, Dowgen," Pranty Gemfinder said to the dwarf before her. He was the love of her life. She couldn’t stop it when her eyes welled over.

  "I love ye, me dear," Dowgen said, holding her head in his hands. He wiped away her tears with his stubby thumbs. "I'll be coming back for ye soon enough."

  She hugged him tight, and then kissed him. She then turned and ran to her sister at the far side of the cage. Dowgen had to fight hard to keep from breaking into tears himself, not only of sadness, but at the pitiful sight of the thin, ragged dwarves all huddled in the cage with them.

  "Come on now," Bangler Stonecrusher, Dowgen's uncle, said sternly. "Not much time for romance. That blasted troll won't sleep forever." He put his arm around his nephew's shoulders and led him to the escape hole they'd dug. "You will come out over yon ridge." Bangler pointed vaguely into the darkness. "Just like we talked about. Go due south, and on the northern face of the third valley, ye'll find the Midway Hole. It's hidden— "

  "I know, Uncle," Dowgen said. "Between a granite slab with pink quartz crystals and an out of place black granite boulder with marble striations."

  "Good." His uncle squeezed him. "Ye've Stonecrusher blood in ye, for sure. Yeer father would be proud of ye. Just remember to stay out of sight, stay warm, and no matter what, don't be getting caught. We don't know why the trolls went every which way, all of a sudden, but they may be coming back anytime."

  Dowgen faced his uncle and looked at him eye to eye. "I won't fail ye, Uncle Bangler. I won't fail me girl nor me people. Now give me the letter and the pack and quit yeer prattlin’."

  Bangler smiled proudly and made a gesture to the crowd of dirty dwarves that were standing to the side to give the two dwarves room to speak privately. A young male dwarf, taller than most, named Hooper Hammerhead, came forth with a small bundle of clothes, food, and a letter written to the royal family of Rockheart. It contained tactical information about the slave camp where the dwarves were being forced to make weapons for the trolls. It also contained a list of the dead, for many dwarves had been killed in the initial battle that landed them here, and as many more were worked to death, starved, or outright killed by the unforgiving slave masters. Little H, as Hooper was sometimes called, handled the bundle to Dowgen with a look of reverence and envy. He wanted to be the one to make this most important journey, but it had been decided he was too young. Dowgen had been chosen because of his physical condition and his expertise as a thirty-fourth generation Stonecrusher. Little H wasn't angry or jealous, but he was envious, and he showed it as he handed Dowgen the pack and gave him a big reassuring hug.

  "Hurry back," Little H joked, "or I'll have to come get ye."

  Dowgen held Little H by the shoulders at arm's length. "Take care of Pranty for me. I'm counting on you."

  Little H grinned devilishly. "With pleasure."

  "Not too much pleasure," Dowgen joked back, "or I'll have to show ye how I whopped your big brother back in the gravel pit."

  "That blasted troll won't be sleeping forever," Bangler said and shooed Little H away. "Now keep ye wits about ye and save that brandy skin I put in your pack for if ye get too cold at night." Bangler wiped a tear from his cheek. "Ye father’d be so proud." He took a deep breath and sniffled. "Now get gone before yon troll wakes up and all is lost."

  Dowgen dropped down into the hole and with only his head sticking out of it searched the cage for Pranty. When he found her, and could see into her teary eyes, he blew her a kiss. Just as soon as she returned it, he was off.

  The dwarves in the cage stretched a blanket quickly over the hole and kicked dirt, straw, and dust over it to conceal it from their guards. They then went back to bed to get what little rest they could before morning came and their shift of forging under the whip began again.

  Dowgen couldn't see anything, but that didn't slow him. He knew his eyes would adjust to the tunnel's blackness soon, and he'd been down its length half a dozen times while they were digging it, so seeing at this point wasn't even necessary. The image of Pranty Gemfinder returning his kiss stayed fresh in his mind's eye, and he held it there, cherishing it, burning it into his memory. Not only because her big brown eyes and sweet pretty face lifted his heart, the sight of her standing there starving thin, in torn and dirty clothes, fueled his focus. He had to get through this dwarf hole, then travel in the overground to another hole in hopes of making it to some part of their kingdom so that a rescue could be organized and revenge planned.

  Even if King Rockheart didn't condone it, Dowgen could easily rally enough of the younger dwarves to finish what the trolls started, especially if Prince Darblin was back from his journey to Jolin. The first prince was feisty, and always eager, Dowgen knew, to exact revenge on any creature bold enough to impose itself on dwarven kind.

  The list in the pack had the names of one hundred forty-seven dead dwarves in it. How the trolls figured out where the main southern tunnel was, and caused the cave in that forced them all into the open, no one could figure. There had been much discussion as to how the stupid vermin managed this, but only after the shock of watching helplessly while the feral beasts ate many of their kindred wore off.

  The slave work wasn't even hard, for the trolls had no idea that the dwarves, even without the crack of a whip at their back, were naturally the most diligent workers. If it came from under the ground, then the dwarves had mastered it. Working ore into metals, gem cutting, and rock breaking was what they did. More detailed labor, like carving, tunneling, and cavern shaping is what they were used to. Hammering molten iron into sharp points was easy. The trolls were unknowingly only getting a portion of the labor the dwarves were capable of, and the weapons they were producing were poor of quality, either too soft to hold an edge, or too brittle to sustain an impact. The dwarves did this cleverly by adding or taking away elements at the forge while the
metals they worked were still in liquid form. They used every kind of shoddy technique they could think of while shaping those weapons and the trolls were none the wiser.

  They carried armloads of defective blades, spearheads, and axes to bigger piles and went about their business while the trolls barked orders they could barely understand. The trolls still punished them, though, simply for the enjoyment of hearing the snap of the whip on their skin.

  It had taken a long while of serious forge work to make the quality tools the dwarves needed to dig their tunnel, and another turn of the moon to complete it. The work had to be done slowly and meticulously in order to keep the trolls from finding out. They'd been forced to chip their way through stones that they would have normally pounded to gravel, and the loose dirt and rock they removed from the shaft had to be carried up in blanket bundles and scattered around the cages a little at a time.

  There were five cages in all, with about twenty dwarves in each, and everyone helped construct the tunnel in one way or another. At shift changes, the dwarves leaving the forge sometimes switched with those going so that the tunnel labor would be fresh and rested while the trolls would get tired, double-shifted forge workers.

  Other dwarves made good tools and weapons that were cached in pockets they dug into the tunnel walls. Others fought and argued and made unbelievable amounts of noise to distract the trolls from all the sneaking about. The dwarven women worked just as hard as the men. At night, they sewed hidden pockets in the men's clothes, to sneak dirt and rock from the tunnel out of the cages, and to sneak tools and weapons back in. They'd also braided a good length of rope and made extra warm clothes for Dowgen to wear and a double thick blanket to keep him warm at night when he was in the mountains. They'd also saved up bits of meat and bread from the slop they were fed. His success, after all, was their success. His failure would be theirs as well.

  There was more than that in each stitch and morsel, though. There was deep love and hope, as well as pride and respect, in everything each dwarf contributed. It was with that knowledge that Dowgen committed himself to his journey.

  Each day since he'd been chosen, and on top of his forge and tunnel duty, he rigorously exercised with Little H and some of the others. He pushed himself by going days without food or drink, and he spent hours climbing the braided rope up and down one of the shafts in the tunnel. He'd read and reread the letter to the royal family of Rockheart until he had it memorized. He knew the camp layout and the habits of the trolls by heart.

  He let the image of Pranty slip away so he could concentrate on climbing the rope up the shaft that would take him out of the valley into the southern mountain ridge where the final part of the tunnel would lead him out into the overground.

  The vertical shaft was actually a natural fissure that saved the dwarves at least a turn of the moon in tunneling time. As Dowgen began his climb, he both cursed and blessed it for being there. Unlike when they worked in the tunnel, there weren’t any other dwarves up top to heave him to the next level, but this is what he trained for, and he soon gained the shaft on his own.

  Once he was there, he pulled up the rope, coiled it neatly, and put it away in his bundle. He didn't know, but he might need it to negotiate the mountains. On top of the things in his pack, he found a note from Pranty. He put it in his pocket so that he could read it when he had enough light, which he figured would be soon, since there was only a short length of tunnel remaining between he and the overground.

  According to their calculations, dawn would be breaking when he emerged, and he was supposed to spend a good bit of time studying the terrain and searching for signs of trolls before leaving the protection of the tunnel. He figured he could take a moment to read the note when that was done.

  It turned out that he made such good time that after he emerged, dawn's light didn't fracture the darkness for a while. When it did, he took a moment to read what Pranty had written.

  Dowgen, me dearest heart. I wanted ye to know that with every step ye take, with every day and every passing night, that me heart is with ye. Thoughts of ye will be on me mind, and when all of this is over, I want to grow old with ye, so keep yerself safe and stay warm. If you get lonely, read me letter and know that yeer not alone. If something should happen to either of us, always remember the love we shared and that, at least, we've been lucky enough to have that. I could go on forever, but I'll let ye get back to yeer journey. Hurry back to me arms. All me love is yeers.

  Pranty Gemfinder

  Dowgen put the letter carefully back into the pack and wiped away his tears. He blinked away the image of her blowing him a kiss, then stood and stretched the stiffness from his bones. He searched for signs of trolls and surveyed the valley before him. He knew if he ever wanted to see Pranty smiling back at him again, he had to hold her love close but separate it from his duty. He had much to do and far to go just to get to the safety of the Midway Hole.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Sorcerious fell so easily that the necromancer Reaton-Stav felt a certain amount of disappointment. The hardest part of the whole ordeal was keeping his ghouls from damaging the bodies of the young students while they killed them. Reaton-Stav wanted them in the best physical condition possible because he learned through practice that a fresh healthy corpse made a far more effective servant. Besides that, they simply lasted longer. Graveyard corpses had a bit of longevity if they were embalmed correctly, but they stank. The dead students of Magus also retained some of their ability to use magic, though not as much as Reaton-Stav would have liked.

  The commander of his living forces, Baragon, was leading his mercenaries, along with a few undead students, to level the town of Stell and bring back more bodies, living or dead. At this point, Reaton-Stav didn't care if they were breathing or not. Pharark wanted him to beat the gothicans to Antole and somehow cause the guards at the old palace to be distracted when they arrived so that Lord Ulrich, the gothican battle lord, would find little or no resistance when his warriors marched into the city.

  The reinforcements Baragon and his mercenaries were currently collecting were to keep the Sorcerious under control while Reaton-Stav went and attended to Antole personally. He wasn't so pressed for time that he had to rush, because the gothicans had just started marching through Nepram and wouldn't make it to Antole for at least a few more days, especially if they took the time to destroy the hundreds of farms and ranches that lay between.

  How Pharark had managed to walk the gothicans up to the Nepram's border and start across the little kingdom without King Barden, or anyone else for that matter, finding out was a feat that Reaton-Stav considered a work of genius. Pharark truly was the master of all things evil, and Reaton-Stav served him with pride.

  While waiting on Baragon, Reaton-Stav found the door to Debain's study. It was well warded, and because he couldn’t get in, his anger grew faster than the pile of rotting bodies next to him. He was trying to send his undead minions through the unlocked, wide open door into the chamber, but every time they crossed the threshold, they were affected by some force that sucked the magic right out of them and left them in a heap.

  One thing he wasn't angry about was that he had almost been the first one through the door, but a feeling reminded him that Debain was clever and resourceful, and that the inviting entrance had to be bound and protected by spells that would keep the unwanted from just walking in.

  Reaton-Stav was obsessed with what might be in the room. When he was a student at the Sorcerious, there were rumors that the old man had several objects of great power, and possibly a spell book from the Old World. He had always dismissed these ideas as silly student talk, but had taken up with Suclair in hopes of finding out if the rumors were true. After using her for everything he could think of, for as long as he could stand it, he learned there was a book of great importance to the old man, but the idiot girl didn't know, or even care if it was a spell book or not. It wasn't until Reaton-Stav recently ransacked Suclair's room and read her diary that he
realized how much the foolish girl had truly loved him. Her soupy, love sick words made him want to retch. She was pretty enough, but she was so ignorant of what was going on around her that he almost pitied her.

  Almost.

  While reading her diary, he found a passage about a book of chants. No doubt it was a book of spells, and she didn’t understand. Debain's stupid daughter wasn't perceptive enough to know that chanting incantations was a big part of spell casting. The fact that she was this ignorant, and the daughter of one of the masters of the arcane, was unbelievable. Her world, according to her diary, consisted of rainbows, butterflies, and him. It was sickening.

  "You," Reaton-Stav yelled at one of the recently animated students who was just standing there staring blankly. "Get a running start and jump through this doorway." If it weren't for his pale complexion the boy might have looked alive. He took a few steps backwards and loped stiffly up and into the opening.

  A sharp flash of pale blue light, followed by a sizzling crack, came as the student was held in the threshold for a moment. The old stone hallway flared with stark illumination, and then the phenomenon subsided. A black smoldering corpse fell back into the hall, filling it once again with acrid smoke and the smell of scorched meat.

  "Put him with the others," the necromancer barked in disgust at the zombie beside him. "Better yet, take them all out to the flesh pile to feed my growing flock of ravens."

  Shaking his head, he walked down the torchlit passage wondering if he could ask Pharark for help in this matter. He also wondered just what kind of ward it was that outlasted its maker, and allowed some to pass freely while denying others. He'd watch Suclair and some of the Old Ones go in and out when he was a student, and he'd seen an unknowing servant nearly killed for accidentally trying to enter. With Debain dead, he wondered if anyone would ever be able to enter. No, he knew Suclair would.