Ruberick's ruddy face turned ruddier still, and he spun about on his heel, clanging his milking can against the barn door's frame in his haste to leave. Sighing heavily, Flint stepped into the house and was thinking about grinding some chicory root to make a hot morning cup when Bertina scurried out from the depths of the house and set about the task herself.
She gave Flint an appraising glance, but kept her opinions to herself. "Out a bit late, weren't you?" She glanced down at his bare, red feet. "I'll bet Aylmar's old boots would fit you if you're needing a pair," she offered tactfully. She was unfazed. Without waiting for an answer, she fetched a pair of boots very like his own lost ones from the depths of the house.
Flint slipped them on gratefully. They were a little big, which was good now, considering his swollen feet. "Thanks Berti," he said softly, "for the boots… and for not asking."
His sister-in-law knew what he meant and nodded, beat ing some eggs in a bowl. They ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs, buttered bread with jam, and pungent chicory. Flint was about to offer to help clean up when the front door burst open and Tybalt stormed in, holding a pair of mud caked boots under his arm.
The young dwarf was clearly agitated as he approached Flint. 'You recognize these?" he asked, holding the muddy boots up. He looked at Flint's feet. "Those are Aylmar's old ones! I knew these were yours!"
"Good morning to you, too, Brother," Flint said, trying hard to sound nonchalant. He had not thought about being traced by his boots! He took a sip of hot chicory and tried to keep his hand from shaking.
"Don't 'good morning' me!" Tybalt cried, slamming his fist to the table. "What were you up to, anyway? And what possessed you to leave your boots behind?" Tybalt was working himself into a frenzy.
"What in heavens are you talking about, Tybalt?" asked Bertina, handing him a cup of the hot drink.
He waved it away in exasperation. "It seems our visiting brother took a trip through the mountain dwarves' wagon yard yesterday. They found his muddy boots by the barn."
Tybalt began to pace before Flint. "That's not the worst of it. When I showed up at the constabulary for work this morning, I was told a derro had been stabbed to death and that the murderer had left behind his boots! I began to laugh, but then I nearly choked when I saw them," he snarled, his hands clenching into fists.
Tybalt squinted at Flint. "They have a good description of you, too! The guards you jumped got a good look at your face before you fled. Of course, the description could match practically anyone — except for the boots."
He resumed pacing, his hands behind his uniformed back.
"And then there's Garth… he heard the description and began jabbering some nonsense about Aylmar being back from the dead to give him bad dreams. Fortunately, the der ro don't pay much attention to the village idiot, but there's some folk who know that he's got you all confused with our late eldest brother!"
"Tybalt! I won't have you calling that poor harrn such things in this house," Bertina scolded him. "Garth is per fectly pleasant. He just got caught between the hammer and the anvil once too often, is all," she finished softly.
"Bertina, who cares about Garth?" Tybalt shouted. "Flint murdered a derro in the wagon yard!"
"Aren't you convicting me without even asking if I did it?" asked Flint.
"Well, did you?" a hesitant Tybalt demanded.
"Would it matter?" Flint asked cagily.
"Of course it would!" Tybalt sank into a chair and tugged at his beard in agitation. "Don't you see the position you're putting me in — and me with my promotion coming up! I should hand you over to Mayor Holden. I should, and I just might!"
Flint looked at him squarely. "Do what you must, but you said yourself that the description could fit practically any dwarf in Hillhome. Why don't you just pretend you've never seen those particular boots before?"
Tybalt looked like he was being pulled in two pieces. "I can't do that! I know those boots are yours, and I'm sworn to uphold the law, no matter who breaks it!"
"Who says the killer wore those boots?" Flint suggested.
"Perhaps they were thrown into the wagon yard by some cruel young harrns playing a trick on an old dwarf sleeping off an excess of spirits."
"Is that what happened?" Tybalt asked eagerly, sitting up straight.
"Do you really want to know, Tybalt?"
Tybalt's eyes closed, and he shook his head quickly. He combed the fingers of both hands through his thinning dark hair. "I shouldn't even think of doing this," he began through gritted teeth, "but if you leave town, at least until this blows over, I'll forget about the boots." He frowned into Flint's face. "You don't seem to care about your own fate, but please consider that the rest of us chose to live in Hillhome, even if you don't think our lives are very interesting or worthwhile!"
"Stop it!" snapped Bertina to Tybalt, as the muscles in
Flint's jaw tightened. "Are you a human or a dwarf? I de clare, sometimes you and your ambitions embarrass me, Tybalt!"
"Thanks, Berti," Flint said faintly, a hand on her fleshy arm, "but Tybalt's right — I don't want to bring shame down on the family. I'll leave right away." He fetched his pack and axe from a small storage room behind the kitchen.
Smiling in relief, Tybalt stepped up to Flint as the old dwarf adjusted his backpack. "I'm sorry about this, really.
It's nothing personal. No hard feelings?" he said, thrusting his hand toward Flint.
His brother considered the beefy hand with its stubby fin gers, then turned away. "You're a hypocrite, Tybalt Fire forge, and the worst kind for asking me to help you pretend you're being saintly instead of selfish."
Tybalt leaped back as if struck. "But you said I was right about you leaving!"
Flint gave him a pitying smile. "You are, but not for the reasons you think." He shook his head and then turned to Bertina, anxious to be done with Tybalt. He could hear his brother rushing out of the house behind him.
Flint's sister-in-law stood mute, tears filling her eyes. Her face glowed a bright crimson that paled all her previous blushes. "You can tell me, Flint. Why would you do such a terrible thing?" she asked, but there was no harsh judgment in her voice.
Flint felt he owed her, wife of his murdered brother, as much of the truth as he dared. "It was self-defense," he said vaguely, measuring his words.
Bertina brightened through her tears. "Then why don't you stay and tell the mayor that? He'll take your word over those of the derro!"
"Do you think so, if it meant he would lose the mountain dwarves' trade?" Flint shook his head. "No, it's not that sim ple, Berti." He hugged her awkwardly and headed for the door.
"Were are you going?"
"I don't know," Flint said evasively. "But don't worry, Ber tina, I'll be back some day… Soon. Say good-bye to ev eryone for me." She slipped a sack full of food into his hands, brushed a kiss across his bristly cheek, then fled into her room at the back of the house.
Flint stood in the sorrowful silence a moment and looked around his family's home one last time. He wished he could have settled things with Basalt, said good-bye to Bernhard and his sisters — the saucy Fidelia, and naive Glynnis — but they were at work in the town. Ruberik was out in the barn, he knew, but he could not bring himself to offer an explana tion for his departure and face the inevitable tongue lashings. So, he tucked his shiny axe into his belt and walked out the door.
Flint did not notice the small shadow that cut across his path. Nor did he see that anyone was following him as he stomped through the hills to the southwest of Hillhome.
The hill dwarf was too preoccupied with finding his brother's murderer to notice anything, for he was on his way to the vast dwarven city of Thorbardin.
Chapter 7
A Kingdom Of Darkness
The Kharolis Mountains were not the tallest range upon the face of Krynn, nor the most extensive. They did not contain smoldering volcanoes such as the Lords of
Doom in Sanction to the north, or the great glaciers found in
the Icewall range. The ruggedness of the range's individ ual valleys and peaks, however, could be surpassed no where on the continent of Ansalon.
Sheer canyon walls dropped thousands of feet into nar row, twisting gorges. Streams poured with chaotic abandon from the heights, slashing their way deeper and deeper into jagged channels of rock, engraving their mark with each passing day. Trees survived only on the lower slopes and valleys; most of the Kharolis range was too rough or too high to support anything more than sparse patches of moss and lichen.
The crests of the range never lost their snowcaps, the hanging teeth of which descended as glaciers into the circu lar basins of the heights. These twisted and turned in every direction before finally coming to rest in the frigid blue green waters of the high lakes.
The landscape of the Kharolis Mountains, inhospitable in the extreme, was the home of a populous kingdom and thriving culture that dwelled there quite comfortably, since its members rarely saw the landscape above them.
They were the dwarves of Thorbardin.
Thorbardin was a powerful dwarven stronghold, con taining seven teeming cities and an extensive network of roads and subterranean farming warrens. The whole of
Thorbardin covered an area more than twenty miles long and fourteen miles wide.
Toiling in their vast underground domain, the dwarves paid little attention to occurrences on the surface world.
They had enough space and enough intrigue in their subter ranean lairs to last them many centuries.
At the heart of Thorbardin lay the Urkhan Sea. Not a sea at all, it was actually an underground lake some five miles long. Cable-drawn boats crisscrossed the lake in an intricate network, linking most of the cities of the dwarven realm. In the center of the sea was the most amazing city of all: the
Life Tree of the Hylar. Twenty-eight levels of dwarven city were carved within a huge stalactite that hung from the ca vern roof to dip below the surface of the sea.
Thorbardin drew its food supply from three great war rens. These massive caverns devoted to sunless agriculture were capable of producing huge crops of fungus and mold based food. Each warren was shared by several cities, but individual food plots were jealously guarded.
Despite its size, Thorbardin was historically connected to the surface world by only two gates, at the north and south boundaries of the kingdom. The Northgate had been de stroyed by the Cataclysm. The dwarves had withdrawn, into their underground domain, sealed the Southgate against every form of attack they could imagine, and turned their backs on the world.
Although considered one kingdom by outsiders, the mountain dwarves of Thorbardin actually consisted of no less than four identifiable clans, or nations: the Hylar, the
Theiwar, Daewar, and the Daergar. Each of these was ruled by a thane, and each had its own interests, goals, even racial tendencies.
Thorbardin's schisms were aggravated by the absence of one true monarch to rule the kingdom as a whole. Accord ing to ancient legend, Thorbardin would become truly united only when one thane obtained the Hammer of
Kharas. That ancient artifact, named for the greatest of dwarven heroes, had been missing for centuries. Untold ef fort, treasure, and lives had been expended, fruitlessly, in attempts to locate it.
Without the hammer to unite them, the nations of the dwarven kingdom struggled against each other. Spies were sent to observe the activities of rival thanes. Treasure stores were jealously watched, because riches — particularly steel and gems — were a traditional measure of dwarven status.
The Hylar, the eldest of the mountain dwarf races, were the traditional masters of Thorbardin. Their might had been severely taxed by the Dwarfgate Wars, however, allowing other nations to gain increased prominence. Most notable among these was the Theiwar clan, made up of derro dwarves and controlled by their magic-using savants.
The derro, paler complected and of slightly larger stature than their Hylar cousins, lived in the northern portion of
Thorbardin. They practiced dark magic and were regarded with superstitious awe by other dwarves. They had a well earned reputation for treachery, betrayal, and sorcerous manipulation. Other mountain dwarves regarded them with fear and extreme distrust.
It was the derro Theiwar who had excavated a new, secret exit from northern Thorbardin, allowing them to send their wagons of weapons to the sea without the knowledge of the other clans. Wealth was power, and the Theiwar intended to be very powerful, indeed.
The great throne room gave an impression of unlimited space, like a wide clearing beneath a silent, nighttime sky.
Tall columns stood around the periphery of the chamber, rising into the darkness like massive tree trunks. Low torches flickered in a hundred locations, cloaking the cham ber in a warm, yellow light.
The vast chamber, nevertheless, lay more than a thou sand feet below the surface of Krynn. Great halls, shielded by massive steel-and-gold doors, led from the throne room to all parts of Theiwar City. A hundred dwarves stood alert at the various doors, clad in gleaming plate mail and armed with axes or crossbows.
Now one of these doors swung slowly open, and a hunch backed dwarf entered the chamber. His long, bronze colored robe rustled along the floor behind him. He hastened toward the center of the room.
There, Thane Realgar rested quite comfortably in the massive throne, his boots extended and crossed before him.
The ruler was an old dwarf, with white streaking his yellow beard and long, loose-flowing hair. He had ruled the Theiwar clan for many decades. Most of the routine matters of the clan were handled by his chief adviser, so that Realgar could devote his own energies to the search for the Hammer of Kharas. He regarded any business not relating to that hammer as bothersome.
Realgar's personal bodyguards stood to either side of him: a pair of hideous gargoyles poised like watching statues. They perched, absolutely motionless except for their eyes, which followed the hunchbacked derro as he advanced. The gargoyles' skin was a rough-hewn gray, in distinguishable from stone. Their leathery wings, of the same color, spread like menacing, clawed hands behind the throne. Their faces were vaguely human, accented with sharp fangs, tiny, wicked eyes, and a pair of twisted horns growing from their foreheads.
The hunchback reached the throne, and the gargoyles suddenly hissed. They flapped their wings once and sprang forward to stand to the left and right of the thane. Extending clawed fingers before them and noiselessly working their jaws, they stood in mute warning as the hunchbacked dwarf bowed obsequiously.
"Ah, Pitrick, it is good of you to return to my city," said the thane of the Theiwar.
"How did you fare at the council of thanes?" inquired the adviser.
"Bah!" The thane clapped his fist into his palm. "It was one Hylar treachery after another! They seek to entangle the Daewar in an alliance, and always to cut us out!" Realgar leaned forward then, a conspiratorial smile upon his lips.
He lowered his voice. "But, my dear adviser, I think they are beginning to fear us!" The leader of the Theiwar placed a stubby finger to his bearded lips. "Now, tell me how things fared in my short absence?"
"You will be pleased," Pitrick offered eagerly. "Production has nearly doubled and promises to further improve. So it is, too, with the number of wagons running. We have very nearly reached the desired levels of transport."
"Splendid." The thane turned his attention to a scroll in his lap, signaling Pitrick's dismissal.
The adviser coughed slightly. "There is one other matter,
Excellency." The thane looked up in surprise and gestured for him to continue.
Pitrick shifted uncomfortably, nagged by the pain in his crippled foot. "It seems that one of our drivers was slain in Hillhome. The murderer, a hill dwarf, escaped." Pitrick took a breath. "We have reason to believe that this dwarf broke into the wagons and discovered the nature of our ship ments."
"When did this happen?" The thane's voice was quiet, al most bored.
"Several days ago. I received word from one of the driv
ers not two hours past."
Gold chains clinked slightly, their heavy links sliding as the thane leaned forward. Realgar's sacklike robe of deep blue ponderously swathed the throne around him. Indeed, whenever he chose to walk he required several attendants to carry the massive train.
"Solve the problem quickly," said the thane, his voice still lazy and bored. "You have opened the route for us, and it is your responsibility to keep it both open, and secret."
"Of course, Excellency," Pitrick bowed deeply, using the gesture to hide the smile that creased his thin lips. By the time he straightened, his expression was again a featureless mask. "I shall see to the task at once. I have but one favor to ask of Your-Greatness."
"And what is that?" Realgar asked absently.
"We must strengthen the guard at the tunnel," explained
Pitrick. "Increase both the number and the quality of the troops we have there."
"Specifically?"
"The Thane's Guard," Pitrick supplied quickly. "They are the most reliable of your troops, and they will perform the task alertly. I'll need two dozen of your guard and a good captain…"
The thane squinted. "You would have a captain in mind, of course?"
Pitrick smiled thinly. "Indeed, Excellency. I believe Perian
Cyprium is just the officer for the task."
"There wouldn't be another reason you have selected her?" asked the thane.
Pitrick coughed again, bowing his head modestly. Staring at his adviser's bristling yellow hair, the thane pondered for a moment. Perian was a good, loyal captain, one of his best.
Both of her parents had served him well before their deaths.
She would not be happy with the assignment — her disgust for the adviser was as well known as Pitrick's lust for her.
The thane himself found Pitrick distasteful, but he keenly appreciated the savant's power and insight.
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