"Yeah, the Great Betrayal is a testament to the charity of the blue-blooded Hylar and mountain dwarves in general!"
Flint sneered, kicking at a broken pottery shard, sending shattered pieces into the air.
Perian sat up and chuckled without humor. "You think the mountain dwarves were all snug and warm after the
Cataclysm? Thousands of dwarves starved to death in
Thorbardin, including my grandparents! At least the hill dwarves, used to being above-ground, could forage for food!" She gave a patronizing laugh. "You hill dwarves are such ignorant bigots!"
"At least our people have something in common," said Flint evenly. The chamber fell uncomfortably silent.
Perian broke the silence at last, standing up, looking van quished. "None of that matters anyway, since I can't go back there."
"Don't worry, Perian." Flint clapped her on the back, then felt awkward. He cleared his throat. 'You'll probably fit in above-ground better than you think. You aren't like the other Theiwar I've met."
"You don't know the first thing about Theiwar," Perian ac cused, her eyes blazing with fire again.
"I know one thing — you're a half-derro. You don't look like a derro, or even other Theiwar," he shot back. He crossed his arms smugly. "And I know that no one who thought like a Theiwar would have defended a hill dwarf at the Beast Pit." His eyes narrowed. "Why did you do that, anyway?"
Perian squirmed under his scrutiny. "I don't know. For years I've stood by and watched Pitrick abuse everything from Aghar to… to me, all for his own twisted amuse ment. I guess something inside me just snapped today, when
I heard what he did to your brother, when I saw that fright ened Aghar go over the edge… I just couldn't stand by and let something happen one more time."
She snorted. "Frankly, it never occurred to me that he would push me in." Her hands clenched into fists. "Pitrick deserves a long, slow, torturous death."
"He'll get it, the black-hearted bast — " Red-faced, Flint glanced up at Perian. "He'll pay for what he's done to all of us, but especially for Aylmar." Flint snapped a piece of pot tery between his thumb and forefinger.
"Who's Aylmar?" Perian asked.
Bitterly, Flint told the tale of his brother's murder. His an ger flared, fueled by the frustration of their forced inaction.
"Where is that Bonehead fellow?" he roared impatiently.
"Nomscul," Perian reminded him.
"Whatever!" Flint marched to the door and poked his head out.
The little imp abruptly sprang from a corridor to the left, staggering under the weight of a large wooden box. Noms cul elbowed his way past the barrel-chested dwarf and dropped his heavy load unceremoniously onto the dirt floor.
Flint looked in disgust at the box. "What in the Abyss is that?" he bellowed, nearly bowling the smaller dwarf over.
"That two leafs king and queen want!" Nomscul pro nounced, happily waving a dirt-caked hand toward the box. Flint and Perian squinted at the container and saw that it did, indeed, contain a sloppy pile of dirty, wet, decompos ing leaves. "King find good grubs in there for queen to eat!"
Nomscul winked conspiratorially at the hill dwarf.
Flint could see Perian gulp down her disgust. It was with the greatest drain on his limited patience that Flint managed to growl, "We don't want leaves. We want to go away, to get out of here. Please lead us — or if you're too busy collect ing leaves — get an escort to take us to the surface."
"King want a skirt for queen now?" Nomscul was obvi ously puzzled by this new request. His queen looked dirty enough. Shrugging, he spread his hands wide to measure her thick waist, resolving to find one of the skirts that helped differentiate Aghar frawls from harrns.
"Of course, we don't want a skirt, you ridiculous little worm!" the hill dwarf exploded.
Perian put a hand on Flint's shoulder. "He doesn't under stand." Turning to Nomscul, she asked, "How many ways out of Mudhole are there?"
The Aghar wiped his nose with his sleeve. "There one way — " He held up three fingers "- to get out of Mudhole.
Beast Pit, garbage run, and big crackingrotto," he said.
"Garbage run?" Perian asked, with a sinking feeling.
"Up in warrens," Nomscul told her. "Get good food from weird-eyed dwarves." The Aghar forced his eyelids open wide with his fingers, then crossed them and giggled.
Seeing Flint's puzzled look, Perian explained. "The gully dwarves raid Theiwar City's dumps and warehouses in the north warrens all the time."
Flint nodded in understanding. "What is the 'big crackin grotto,' and where does it lead, Nomscul'!"
"There big crack in wall of grotto, and it go out," the gully dwarf said simply. Nomscul picked a bug from his scalp, in spected it closely, then popped it into his mouth.
"Where is the grotto?" Flint demanded.
"That way." Nomscul chucked a thumb toward the corri dor beyond the room. "Past bedrooms of Aghar — lots of
Aghar in Mudhole!"
"That's good enough for me," Flint said, taking Perian's arm and pulling her toward the door. "We'll just explore around until we find something that looks like a grotto;
Mudhole can't be that big. Come on, Perian."
"Where we go?" Nomscul asked, bouncing at their sides.
Flint did not stop to look at him. "I don't know where you're going, but Perian and I are gonna look for the crack ing grotto."
Nomscul looked crushed. He fumbled in a pocket on his right side and pulled out a carved wooden whistle. Placing it between his thick lips, the gully dwarf blew so hard on it that his face turned red. Both Perian and Flint jumped at the unexpected shrill noise. Before either could turn or ques tion, though, they were stampeded from both doorways by running, screaming, jumping Aghar, all talking at once.
"You can tell he king. He got big nose!"
"That your real hair, Queen? Hair not usually come that color!"
"Two chairs for king and queen! Hip-hop hurry! Hip-hop hurry!"
The teeming masses of Aghar flooded in endlessly from the corridors, tearing the astonished Flint from Perian's side. Where were they all coming from? the hill dwarf won dered as he tried to make his way to the door again. On every grubby face was an adoring smile, and each one he squeezed past reached up to touch his hair, her hem. What on Krynn did they all want?
"King getting away!" Nomscul shouted. Suddenly every gully dwarf within ten feet launched himself into the air and onto Flint's back and head, hugging him, squeezing his arms and cheeks as he was crushed to the floor. Someone poked him in his black eye, but the right side of his face was pressed into the cold stone floor and he couldn't even move his mouth to swear at the perpetrator.
"What is going on here?" Perian screamed over the din.
Though she had not been knocked to the ground, ten gully dwarves clung to her legs and arms.
The Aghar atop Flint rolled off into a mound of wiggling, flailing limbs, as the hill dwarf struggled to his feet, shaking his head. His face was hot with anger, and he swung about in a wide circle, his fists raised and ready.
"King and queen must stay in Mudhole!" Nomscul an nounced, standing on top one of the tables to be seen. "The property say so!"
"Pro-per-ty! Pro-per-ty! Pro-per-ty!" The gully dwarves chanted, dancing and whooping and gibbering around their stunned dwarven visitors.
"What are you talking about?" Perian demanded. "What 'property?' "
That all-too-familiar puzzled look crossed Nomscul's face again. Suddenly his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You test ing Shaman Nomscul to see if he know!" The gully dwarf squinted in concentration, his eyes sinking into his skull as if he would find the answers there. At last he began to recite in an irritating, singsong falsetto.
King and Queen descend from mud,
Land in Beast Pit with a thud.
Aghar crown them, dance and sing,
And they be king and queen forever.
Nomscul began to hop up and down happily at having passed the test. "T
hat what property say!" The gaggle of gully dwarves once again whooped, gibbered, and bounced around its newly acclaimed monarchs.
"That's terrible!" moaned Perian. "It doesn't even rhyme!
And he must mean prophecy, not property."
Flint cast her a stony glance.
"We touch king! We touch queen!" the Aghar chanted, drawing a sloppy circle around the two.
Flint batted away their groping hands. "Stay back!" he growled. "Keep your disgusting paws off of me!" He made one last lunge for the door, but the press of bodies was too thick, and they brought him down again.
"Tie king up!" Nomscul commanded. Dozens of hands lifted Flint from the floor and stuffed him into a rickety chair made of beams. Eight dwarves sat on his thrashing form while Nomscul and a frawl the shaman called Fester ran circles around the chair with two lengths of thick rope.
"Untie me this minute, you miserable dirt-eaters!" Flint flung himself from side to side, sending the chair pitching and making the gully dwarves who clung to him hoot with glee. But the chair did not break, the Aghar did not lose their grips, and Flint remained tied up.
Arms behind his back, Nomscul leaned toward Flint and smiled right into the hill dwarf's scowling face. "Queen not running away," he said. Perian stood at the far corner of the room, relatively ignored by the Aghar since she offered no resistance. Her arms were crossed and her hazel eyes re garded Flint expectantly, a small smile about her lips.
"Promise to be king, and we cut you loose," Nomscul of fered affably in a singsong voice.
Flint hung his head over the arm of the chair and spat on the ground. "Me? King of the gully dwarves? I'd sooner drown!"
Chapter 12
A Cold Domain
Pitrick's twisted foot ailed him mightily; he had been on it far too long today, without the benefit of numbing goldroot salve. The day's events had piled up unexpectedly, leaving him with no time to perform a preventative spell or even to think to use his teleportation ring.
Dragging the clubbed foot behind him even more than usual, the adviser to Thane Realgar was relieved to see the iron door to his apartments, with its gleaming brass hinges and its embossed image of a huge, leering face, looming ahead in the dim torchlight. He hated all torchlight — hated the policy of low-burning flares on all of the public roads and levels in Theiwar City. Through meditation and height ened magic, he was able to see even better without it than most derro. On impulse, he mumbled a single word,
"shival!" and waved his arm impatiently. For as far as he could see — more than one hundred feet — torches were in stantly extinguished, trailing smoke and hissing.
Pitrick's eyes quickly adjusted to the comfortable total darkness. His soft, callus-free, blue-white hand came upon the multifaceted diamond doorknob and, as always, its cool, perfect surface gave him a feeling of tremendous secu rity. A magical blast of lightning struck dead anyone but himself or of his choice who touched the knob. Pitrick had many enemies in Theiwar City and in the neighboring clans who would pay great sums to bring about the savant's de mise. A number of them had already died hideous deaths at that very juncture.
But even those fond memories could not lift his foul mood. He stepped into his lightless antechamber and bel lowed for his harrnservant.
"Legaer? Damn you, why aren't you waiting at the door for me?" The hunchback shifted his weight to his good foot and counted the seconds before his servant's shadow scur ried up to him.
Pitrick backhanded Legaer's face, the points of his tele port ring leaving a bloody trail on the other mountain dwarf's already scarred cheek. "Five seconds delay! I must think of a punishment for such a lazy servant!" Pitrick paused to peer closely at Legaer. "I thought I told you to keep that veil on — it makes me sick to see your deformed face!" The savant wrenched his cape off and tossed it at the servant. "You are lucky to have such a tolerant master, for no one else would suffer your hideous presence!" Pitrick stormed past the dwarf and into his apartment.
Legaer had Pitrick to thank for his repulsiveness. Re cruited shortly after the untimely suicide of Pitrick's twenty third harrnservant, Legaer had felt honored to be asked to serve as important a person as the thane's savant. It was no coincidence that Pitrick always chose as his new servant the most physically appealing of the forgeworkers. Pitrick kept them prisoner in his apartments, using them as slaves and subjects in his magical experiments. If his experiments did not succeed in "accidentally" destroying their appearance, eventually they would be killed or maimed as punishment for some misdeed. They never lasted long; Pitrick grew bored with them once he'd broken their spirit.
"Fetch me a mug of mulled mushale," he ordered the cowed servant who dogged his heels. "And it had better be exactly room temperature this time, or you know the pen alty!" Legaer bolted into the darkness. Pitrick made a men tal note to think of a new torture, since there was little left to destroy of Legaer's face, and his ears had already been sliced from his head.
Pitrick threw himself onto a stone bench before the unlit hearth in the center of the main chamber. In the peace and total darkness, he began to relax.
He loved his home. It came as near to meeting his high standards as anything in his life ever had, though it had not been without cost. Two decades before, when he had come into 'power, he had chosen the location of its construction for its seclusion — the third level had not been so popular then — and for the charcoal-gray hue of the granite in that part of Thorbardin. For five years a crew of fifty craftsharrn had chipped and carved the granite to Pitrick's exact specifi cations; a sleeping chamber, a small galley, an antechamber leading into the main room, and several steps above that an efficient study and laboratory. All furniture — the circular hearth, his bed, the benches in the central chamber, the desk and chair in the study, even the support pillars — were pains takingly carved from the bedrock left intact, so there were no lines or joints to mar the fluidity of the space.
Another crew of fifty had spent ten years working their fingers to the bone, sanding and polishing every inch of granite so that it looked like marble and felt like glass.
Pitrick reminded himself that there was one occasion where he liked light: when the hearth was lit for heat, the orange-yellow flames sent eerie shadows dancing across every shiny surface in his home. Pitrick snapped his fingers and flames instantly licked at the charcoal in the hearth; he kept the blaze just low enough to cast phantom shapes on the walls.
Legaer crept in at last with the mulled drink, his head bent as he held the mushale out to his master. Pitrick snatched it from his servant's hands and then dismissed him with a wave. He was not in a mood to enjoy terrifying the pathetic dwarf today.
Pitrick absently sipped the tepid brew made from distilled balick mushrooms, waiting for its slight hallucinogenic af fects to begin. The hunchback believed mushale heightened his senses and allowed him to focus beyond petty distrac tions and achieve a level of true meditation. Legaer had to be summoned to bring three mugs of the tasteless brew be fore Pitrick reached the ethereal state that just one usually accomplished.
Pitrick reflected on the possible reasons for this. He knew that it had little to do with his physical exhaustion. If any thing, he should require less in his weakened condition. No, he realized, the cause was depression. The spark had some how gone out of his life, his quest for power suddenly seemed less vital. With a start, he pinpointed the cause.
He had been goaded into pushing Perian Cyprium into the Beast Pit. Everyone else — including the thane, it seemed — bent his will to Pitrick's own so easily. He had clawed his way from his lowly heritage in the bowels of
Theiwar City to the exalted position of the thane's adviser.
No one had ever liked him, but he was feared and respected for his power, and he found fear and power to be the best tools. Except on Perian.
She alone had resisted him, had, in a sense, bested him.
The hunchback had tried everything he could think of to conquer her — physical abuse, magic, blackmail. B
ut the frawl soldier was stronger than he, and she told him repeat edly that she would rather die than suffer his touch. She was heavily resistant to magic, perhaps because of her Hylar blood; to have her by sorcery would have been a shallow victory anyway.
He had been certain she would succumb to his threats to reveal her half-derro heritage to the thane, for she cherished her position as captain of the guard. But she had called Pit rick's bluff time and again; she sensed her value to him, and knew that he would not seek her banishment from the clan, because it would take her from his grasp. The secret of her power over him only fanned the flames of his desire to mas ter her.
Pitrick had never doubted he would win her, nor realized how much he had lived only for that day. The derro's mushale-laden mind was overcome by an unfamiliar sensa tion. He had heard others speak of it as regret. He had never lamented a single action in his life, but he was astounded to admit to himself that he actually regretted being forced to push Perian into the pit and out of his life.
The responsibility lay entirely with the odious hill dwarf, and with Perian herself for going too far and being foolish enough to defend him. The look of admiration she'd given the other dwarf, when she'd never viewed Pitrick with any thing but thinly disguised loathing, had driven the savant to the brink of insanity. Surely it was all her fault. But for once blame seemed less important to Pitrick than the fact that
Perian was dead, beyond his sphere of domination. He would never possess her, never see her shivering at his feet as Legaer did. And never was a long, long time.
Just then the servant stole into the room with another mug of spirits. The disfigured dwarf treasured these times of meditation, strove to lengthen them with drink, because only then did the persecution of logic cease. Afterward… the old pleasures always returned with vigor.
Legaer quickly placed the mug under his master's hand, careful not to disturb the trance nor to signal his activity in any way.
But Pitrick did sense his loathsome harrnservant's pres ence, and it gave him an idea. A brilliantly heinous idea. His hand flew out to grab the petrified servant by the throat.
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