“But enough of this. Would you like to see them in action?” Tarn asked suddenly.
“I would, sir,” Gilthas said, “but perhaps some other time. As I mentioned earlier, I must return to Qualinost by morning light-”
“You shall, lad, you shall,” the dwarf replied, grinning hugely. “Watch this.” He stomped his booted foot twice on the floor.
A momentary pause and then two thumps resonated loudly, coming from the ground.
Gilthas looked at Kerian, who was looking angered and alarmed. Angry that she had not thought to investigate the strange rumblings, alarmed because, if this was a trap, they had just fallen neatly into it.
Tarn laughed loudly at their discomfiture.
“The Urkhan!” he said by way of explanation. “They’re right beneath us!”
“Here? Is that true?” Gilthas gasped. “They have come so far? I know that I felt the ground shake—”
Tarn was nodding his head, his beard wagging. “And we have gone farther. Would you come below?”
Gilthas looked at his wife. “In all the rest of Qualinesti I am king, but the Lioness is in charge here,” he said, smiling. “What do you say, madam? Shall we go see these wonderful worms?”
Kerian made no objection, although this unforeseen turn of events had made her wary. She said nothing outright that might offend the dwarves, but Gilthas noted that every time she encountered one of her Wilder elves, she gave him a signal with either a look, a tilt of the head, or a slight gesture of her hand. The elves disappeared, but Gilthas guessed that they had not gone far, were watching and waiting, their hands on their weapons.
They left the Gulp and Belch, some of Tarn’s escort departing with every show of reluctance, wiping their lips and heaving sighs laced with the pungent smell of dwarf spirits. Tarn walked no trail but shouldered and trampled his way through the brush, thrusting or pushing aside anything that happened to be in his path. Gilthas, looking back, saw the dwarves had cut a large swath through the woods, a trail of broken limbs, trampled grass, dangling vines, and crushed grass.
Kerian cast a glance at Gilthas and rolled her eyes. He knew exactly what she was thinking. No need to worry about the dwarves hearing some trace of sound from shadowing elves. The dwarves would have been hard put to hear a thunderclap over their stomping and crashing. Tarn slowed his pace. He appeared to be searching for something. He said something in Dwarvish to his companions, who also began to search.
“He’s looking for the tunnel entrance,” Gilthas said softly to Kerian. “He says that his people were supposed to have left one here, but he can’t find it.
“He won’t, either,” Kerian stated grimly. She was still irritated over being hoodwinked by the dwarves. “I know this land. Every inch of it. If there had been any sort of—”
She stopped, stared.
“Tunnel entrance,” Gilthas finished, teasing. “You would have discovered it?”
They had come to a large outcropping of granite some thirty feet high jutting up through the forest floor. The striations on the rock ran sideways. Small trees and patches of wild flowers and grass grew between the layers. A large mass of boulders, parts of the outcropping that had broken off and tumbled down the side, lay at the foot of the outcropping. The boulders were huge, some came to Gilthas’s waist, many were larger than the dwarves. He watched in astonishment as Tarn walked up to one of these boulders, placed his hand on it, and give it a shove. The boulder rolled aside as if it were hollow.
Which, in fact, it was.
Tarn and his fellows cleared the boulder fall, revealing a large and gaping hole in the outcropping.
“This way!” Tarn bellowed, waving his hand.
Gilthas looked at Kerian, who simply shook her head and gave a wry smile. She stopped to investigate the boulder, the inside of which had been hollowed out like a melon at a feast.
“The worms did this?” she asked, awed.
“The Urkhan,” said Tarn proudly, gesturing with his hand. “The little ones,” he added. “They nibble. The bigger ones would have gulped down the boulder whole. They’re not very bright, I’m afraid. And they’re always very hungry.”
“Look at it this way, my dear,” said Gilthas to Kerian as the passed from the moonlit night into the coolness of the dwarf-made cavern. “If the dwarves managed to hide the tunnel entrance from you and your people, they will have no trouble at all hiding it from the cursed Knights.”
“True,” Kerian admitted.
Inside the cavern, Tarn stomped twice again on what appeared to be nothing but a dirt floor. Two knocks greeted him from below. Cracks formed in the dirt, and a trapdoor, cunningly hidden, popped open. The head of dwarf poked out. Light streamed upward.
“Visitors,” said Tarn in Dwarvish.
The dwarf nodded, and his head vanished. They could hear his thick boots clumping down the rungs of a ladder.
“Your Majesty,” said Tarn, gesturing politely.
Gilthas went immediately. To hesitate would imply that he did not trust the high thane and Gilthas had no intention of alienating this new ally. He climbed nimbly down the sturdy ladder, descending about fifteen feet and coming to rest on a smooth surface. The tunnel was well-lit by what Gilthas first took to be lanterns.
Strange lanterns, though, he thought, drawing close to one. They gave off no heat. He looked closer and saw to his amazement that the light came not from burning oil but from the body of what appeared to be a large insect larvae. The larva lay curled up in a ball at the bottom of an iron cage that hung from a hook on the tunnel wall. A cage hung every few feet. The glow from the body of the slumbering larva lit the tunnels as bright as day.
“Even the offspring of the Urkhan work for us,” Tarn said, arriving at the bottom of the ladder. “The larva glow like this for a month, and then they go dark. By that time, they are too big to fit into the cages anyway, and so we replace them. Fortunately, there is always a new crop of Urkhan to be harvested. But you must see them. This way. This way.”
He led them along the tunnels. Rounding a bend, they came upon an astonishing sight. An enormous, undulating, slime-covered body, reddish brown in color, took up about half the tunnel. Dwarven handlers walked alongside the worm, guiding it by reins attached to straps wrapped around its body, slapping it with their hands or with sticks if the body of the worm started to veer off course or perhaps roll over and crush the handlers. Half the tunnel had been cleared already by a worm up ahead, so Tarn told them. This second worm came behind, widening what had already been built.
The huge worm moved incredibly fast. Gilthas and Kerian marveled at its size. The worm’s body was as big around as Gilthas was tall and, according to Tarn, this worm was thirty feet in length. Piles of chewed and half-digested rock littered the floor behind the worm. Dwarves came along to shovel it to one side, keeping a sharp eye out for gold nuggets or unrefined gemstones as they cleared the rubble.
Gilthas walked the worm’s length, finally reaching its head. It had no eyes, for it had no need of eyes, spending its life burrowing beneath the ground. Two horns protruded from the top of its head. The dwarves had placed a leather harness over these horns. Reins extended from the harness back to a dwarf who sat in a large basket strapped to the worm’s body. The dwarf guided the worm from the basket, pulling the head in the direction he wanted to go.
The worm seemed not to even know the dwarf was there. Its one thought was to eat. It spewed liquid onto the solid rock in front of it, liquid that must have been some sort of acid, for it hissed when it hit the rock, which immediately started to bubble and sizzle. Several large chunks of rock split apart. The worm’s maw opened, seized a chunk, and gulped it down.
“Most impressive!” Gilthas said with such utter sincerity that the high thane was immensely pleased, while the other dwarves looked gratified.
There was only one drawback. As the worm gnawed its way through the rock, its body heaved and undulated, causing the ground to shake. Being accustomed to it, the dwarves paid
no attention to the motion but walked with the ease of sailors on a canting deck. Gilthas and Kerian had slightly more difficulty, stumbling into each other or falling against the wall.
“The Dark Knights will notice this!” Kerian observed, shouting to be heard over the worm’s rending of the rock and the dwarven handlers’ yelling and cursing. “When Medan’s bed starts to bounce across the room and he hears shouts coming from beneath his floor, he’s going to be suspicious.”
“Tarn, this shaking and rumbling,” Gilthas said, speaking directly into the dwarf’s ear. “Can anything be done to quiet it? The Dark Knights are sure to hear it or at least feel it.”
Tarn shook his head. “Impossible!” he bellowed. “Look at it this way, lad, the worms are far quieter than a work force of dwarves going at it with hammer and pick.”
Gilthas looked dubious. Tarn motioned, and they followed him back down the tunnel, leaving the worms and the worst of the commotion behind. Climbing the ladder, they emerged out into a night that was far less dark than it had been when they went underground. Dawn was coming. Gilthas would have to leave soon.
“My thought was that we would not tunnel under Qualinost itself,” Tarn explained, as they walked back to the Gulp and Belch. “We’re about forty miles away now. We will run our tunnels to within five miles of the city limits. That should be far enough so that the Neraka Knights have no idea what we are about. Also they’ll be less likely to discover the entrances.”
“What would happen if they did discover it?” Gilthas asked. “They could use the tunnels to invade Thorbardin.”
“We’d collapse it first,” Tarn said bluntly. “Bring it down on top of them and, likely, on top of a few of us, too.”
“More and more I understand the risks you run for us,” Gilthas said. “There is no way to thank you.”
Tarn Bellowgranite waved aside the words, looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. Gilthas thought it best to change the subject.
“How many tunnels will there be altogether, sir?”
“Given time enough, we can build three fine ones,” the dwarf replied. “As it is, we have one this far. You can begin to evacuate some of your people soon. Not many, for the walls are not completely shored up yet, but we can manage a few. As for the other two tunnels, we will need at least two months.”
“Let us hope we have that long,” Gilthas said quietly. “In the meanwhile, there are people in Qualinost who have run afoul of the Neraka Knights. The punishment of the Knights for lawbreakers is swift and cruel. The smallest infraction of one of their many laws can result in imprisonment or death. With this tunnel, we will be able to save some who otherwise would have perished.
“Tell me, Thane,” Gilthas asked, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it for himself, “would it be possible to evacuate the entire city of Qualinost through that one tunnel?”
“Yes, I think so,” said the High Thane, “given a fortnight to do it.”
A fortnight. If the dragon and the Neraka Knights attacked, they would have hours at most to evacuate the people. At the end of a fortnight, there would be no one left alive to evacuate. Gilthas sighed deeply.
Kerian drew closer, put her hand on his arm. Her fingers were strong and cool, and their touch reassured him. He had been granted more than he had ever expected. He was not a baby, to cry for the stars when he had been given the moon.
He looked meaningfully at Kerian. “We will have to lay low and not antagonize the dragon for at least a month.”
“My warriors will not roll over and play dead!” Kerian returned sharply, “if that is what you have in mind. Besides, if we suddenly ceased all our attacks, the Knights would grow suspicious that we were up to something, and they would start searching for it. This way, we will keep them distracted.”
“A month,” Gilthas said softly, silently, praying to whatever was out there, if anything was out there. “Just give me a month. Give my people a month.”
18
Dawn in a Time of Darkness
orning came to Ansalon, too fast for some, too slow for others. The sun was a red slit in the sky, as if someone had drawn a knife across the throat of the darkness. Gilthas slipped hurriedly through the shadowy garden that surrounded his prison palace, returning somewhat late to take up the dangerous role he must continue to play.
Planchet was lurking upon the balcony, watching anxiously for the young king, when a knock on the door announced Prefect Palthainon, come for his morning string-jerking. Planchet could not plead His Majesty’s indisposition this day as he had the last. Palthainon, an early riser, was here to bully the king, exercise his power over the young man, make a show of his puppeteering to the rest of the court.
“Just a moment, Prefect!” Planchet shouted. “His Majesty is using the chamber pot.” The elf caught sight of movement in the garden. “Your Majesty!” he hissed as loudly as he dared. “Make haste!”
Gilthas stood under the balcony. Planchet lowered the rope. The king grasped it, climbed up nimbly, hand over hand.
The knocking resumed, louder and more impatient.
“I insist upon seeing His Majesty!” Palthainon demanded.
Gilthas clambered over the balcony. He made a dive for his bed, climbed in between the sheets fully dressed. Planchet tossed the blankets over the king’s head and answered the door with his finger on his lips.
“His Majesty was ill all night. This morning he is unable to keep down so much as a bit of dry toast,” Planchet whispered. “I had to help him back to bed.”
The prefect peered over Planchet’s shoulder. He saw the king raise his head, peering at the senator with bleary eyes.
“I am sorry His Majesty has been ill,” said the prefect, frowning, “but he would be better up and doing instead of lying about feeling sorry himself. I will be back in an hour. I trust His Majesty will be dressed to receive me.”
Palthainon departed. Planchet closed the door. Gilthas smiled, stretched his arms over his head, and sighed. His parting from Kerian had been wrenching. He could still smell the scent of the wood smoke that clung to her clothing, the rose oil she rubbed on her skin. He could smell the crushed grass on which they had lain, wrapped in each others arms, loathe to say good-bye. He sighed again and then climbed out of bed, going to his bath, reluctantly washing away all traces of his clandestine meeting with his wife.
When the prefect entered an hour later, he found the king busy writing a poem, a poem—if one could believe it—about a dwarf. Palthainon sniffed and told the young man to leave off such foolishness and return to business.
Clouds rolled in over Qualinesti, blotting out the sun. A light drizzle began to fall.
The same morning sunshine that had gleamed down upon Gilthas shone on his cousin, Silvanoshei, who had also been awake all night. He was not dreading the morning, as was Gilthas. Silvanoshei waited for the morning with an impatience and a joy that still left him dazed and disbelieving.
This day, Silvanoshei was to be crowned Speaker of the Stars. This day, beyond all hope, beyond all expectation, he was to be proclaimed ruler of his people. He would succeed in doing what his mother and his father had tried to do and failed.
Events had happened so fast, Silvanoshei was still dazed by it all. Closing his eyes, he relived it all again.
He and Rolan, arriving yesterday on the outskirts of Silvanost, were confronted by a group of elf soldiers.
“So much for my kingship,” Silvanoshei thought, more disappointed than afraid. When the elf soldiers drew their swords, Silvan expected to die. He waited, braced, weaponless. At least he would meet his end with dignity. He would not fight his people. He would be true to what his mother wanted from him.
To Silvan’s amazement, the elf soldiers lifted their swords to the sunlight and began to cheer, proclaiming him Speaker of the Stars, proclaiming him king. This was not an execution squad, Silvan realized. It was an honor guard.
They brought him a horse to ride, a beautiful white stallion. He mounted and rode into
Silvanost in triumph. Elves lined the streets, cheering and throwing flowers so that the street was covered with them. Their perfume scented the air.
The soldiers marched on either side, keeping the crowd back. Silvan waved graciously. He thought of his mother and father. Alhana had wanted this more than anything in the world. She had been willing to give her life to attain it. Perhaps she was watching from wherever the dead go, perhaps she was smiling to see her son fulfill her dearest dream. He hoped so. He was no longer angry at his mother. He had forgiven her, and he hoped that she had forgiven him.
The parade ended at the Tower of the Stars. Here a tall and stern-looking elf with graying hair met them. He introduced himself as General Konnal. He introduced his nephew, Kiryn, who—Silvan was delighted to discover—was a cousin. Konnal then introduced the Heads of House, who would have to determine if Silvanoshei was indeed the grandson of Lorac Caladon (his mother’s name was not mentioned) and therefore rightful heir to the Silvanesti throne. This, Konnal assured Silvanoshei in an aside, was a mere formality.
“The people want a king,” Konnal said. “The Heads of House are quite ready to believe you are a Caladon, as you claim to be.”
“I am a Caladon,” Silvanoshei said, offended by the implication that whether he was or he wasn’t, the Heads would approve him anyhow. “I am the grandson of Lorac Caladon and the son of Alhana Starbreeze.” He spoke her name loudly, knowing quite well that he wasn’t supposed to speak the name of one deemed a dark elf.
And then an elf had walked up to him, one of the most beautiful of his people that Silvanoshei had ever seen. This elf, who was dressed in white robes, stood looking at him intently.
“I knew Lorac,” the elf said at last. His voice was gentle and musical. “This is indeed his grandson. There can be no doubt.” Leaning forward, he kissed Silvanoshei on both cheeks. He looked at General Konnal and said again, “There can be no doubt.”
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