“The giant smells our foundries,” Karn said contemptuously. “They displease his delicate nose.”
“Do you have many foundries?”
“Indeed, yes. We make everything we need of metal or minerals,” the sorcerer said.
The grassland ended. On each side of the road, dwarfing wagon, elves, and men alike, were great conical piles of broken rock and cinders. These were mine tailings, Vvelz explained. This was the unusable residue that remained after the ores were fired to give up their metal.
“So much of it,” Catchflea marveled. The tailings rose one hundred feet and more, and were over twice as wide at the base. Hundreds of piles crowded alongside the road, sometimes spilling over onto the granite pavement. The diggers tramped on, even when the glassy cinders cut through their flimsy copper mesh sandals. Riverwind saw the bloody footprints and said nothing. He ached to up-end the wagon and its haughty occupants. His hands clenched into fists. But no, Catchflea was right. Prudence demanded he keep his temper in check.
The tailings went on for miles. Hour after hour they traveled, and Riverwind felt oppressed by the dismal scene. It was so poisoned, so lifeless. While the soldiers and Vvelz sipped from silver bottles, the diggers’ feet churned up a cloud of thick gray dust. It powdered their black garments. Where sweat ran down their skin, dust collected, streaking their arms and faces with noxious, gritty paste. Legs aching, Riverwind longed for the clear blue sky and fresh breezes of the upper world.
Around a bend they came upon a gang of diggers adding to the mine rubbish. A slab-sided hopper on iron wheels was being tipped forward by a dozen elves equipped with long metal rods. They braced their rods against the top lip of the hopper and pushed. The car swung up, axles screeching. A shower of blackened clinker poured out on the side of a mound, which was already fifty feet tall. Other diggers swarmed over the half-emptied hopper. Riverwind and Catchflea stared at the filthy laborers as they walked past. The diggers returned the gaze with blank, humorless faces. To his dismay, Riverwind noted that there were at least twelve more hoppers brimming with dirt and ash lined up behind the first one. The diggers had many hours of sweaty, back-breaking labor ahead of them.
The region of tailings abruptly ended with a high stone wall. There was no gate to block the road, only a wide opening in the wall. The wall itself was easily sixty feet high, and ten feet thick at the base. All sorts of stones had been used in its construction.
“A strange rampart,” Riverwind said. “What does it defend?”
“Nothing,” Karn said. “The Hall of Arms protects Hest with sword, not with stone walls.”
Vvelz cleared his throat. “The giant asks a legitimate question. Tell him what the wall is for.”
“I see no reason to tell our business to any overgrown foreigner who asks,” Karn snapped.
“It isn’t a state secret,” Vvelz said dryly.
“It’s to hold back the dirt, yes?” said Catchflea. “The remains of your mining?”
Vvelz nodded. “Precisely. In times past, the tailings crept too close to the city. Our springs were poisoned and our crops endangered. Then the wise master of the Hall of Light, the venerated Kosti, decreed that a wall be built to hold back the debris.”
“And when was this?” asked Riverwind, looking back to survey the piles of tailings.
“One thousand, six hundred and forty-two years ago.”
Catchflea tripped in the wheel rut, he was so astonished. Riverwind steadied the old soothsayer. “I had no idea this place was so long settled,” he said.
“Ah, we are a very ancient people,” Vvelz said. Karn folded his arms and made growling noises.
Inside the wall, the scenery was brighter. They were almost directly under the great bronze lantern that lighted the entire cavern. Another wall loomed ahead, lower and thinner. This wall was dotted with nasty spikes along the top. As the wagon drew abreast of the gap in the second wall, Vvelz halted the diggers. They shuffled to a stop and lay over the wagon handles, gasping for breath.
“Vartoom,” said Vvelz, lifting his hand in a graceful gesture.
The city merged with the cavern wall to the left, but the panorama Riverwind and Catchflea beheld was astonishing. The rising ground was sculpted into broad terraces, and on these level platforms the dwellings of the Hestites were built. The lowest terrace was a crowded warren of rough limestone and basalt, with small, round windows and smudgy, smoking chimneys. The intermediate levels—of which Riverwind counted seven—were more orderly arrangements of white-veined granite. These houses were carved on the outside with graceful fluting, whorls, and bas-reliefs. The doors were of brightly burnished copper.
But it was the topmost terraces that caused the Que-Shu men to gape in awe. Two hundred feet above the basest dwellings rose spires of translucent alabaster and marble. The spires joined together in complexly carved facades, designed to look like knotted cords or the roots of a gigantic tree. The massive columns climbed upwards many hundred feet to the roof of the cavern, there growing into the ancient, vibrant stalactites.
“Amazing,” said Catchflea at last.
“There is no other city that can rival it,” Vvelz said proudly. “As diamonds and precious metals are found underground, so the crown jewel of Krynn is found in this cavern.”
He turned back to the panting diggers and once more called to them in his telepathic voice: Attend and be quick! Push! Though Riverwind heard Vvelz’s command, it seemed less intense than before. Perhaps he was getting used to it. The wagon creaked along with Riverwind and Catchflea in its wake.
Ramps led from the cavern floor up to the first terrace level. The tired diggers faltered on the slope. None of the soldiers stepped out to lighten the load.
“Can’t you do better?” Karn said impatiently to Vvelz. “Spur them on.” The sorcerer clenched his upraised fists.
Push! Ignore the strain—sweet rest awaits you in the city. Push! Push! He lashed at them psychically. The diggers buried their cut and bleeding feet in the dry cinders of the roadbed. They churned and writhed at the handles, but the grade was too much for them. Finally, Vvelz relented and summoned other diggers to assist.
Listen who can
Come hither and bend
Your backs to our task.
The vassals of Her Highness
Are needed with haste.
Thirty elves, all clad in digger black, filed down the ramp. Some got behind the wagon to push, others packed in around the crowded trace poles to help pull.
Riverwind dug an elbow in Catchflea’s side. “I’m going to help,” he said. The old man unhesitatingly followed the tall warrior. They leaned over the backs of the shorter diggers and planted their hands against the rear of the wagon. The diggers paid them no mind, but the soldiers snickered and made rude comments.
“Ugh—pay them no mind,” Catchflea said. “Oof!”
Riverwind narrowed his eyes at the soldiers. “No proper warrior despises hard labor,” he grunted. “No man is better than the work he does with his own hands.”
The slope eventually vanished, and the wagon rolled forward in a rush. Vvelz dispersed the diggers and stepped down from his place. Karn and the soldiers followed.
“Why have we stopped?” Karn asked.
“I thought it would be instructive for the giants to see the city in a more leisurely fashion,” Vvelz replied smoothly. “We can always get more drudges if we need them.”
The broad street that fronted the terrace was thick with diggers. They paid little attention to Riverwind and Catchflea, but moved about their tasks with heads downcast and shoulders drooping. Catchflea watched them intently, his wizened face a mix of pity and thoughtful speculation.
“They have no wills of their own,” Riverwind said. To Vvelz, he added, “Is it magic that keeps them docile?”
“Certainly not! The common folk of Hest are diligent and loyal to their masters. No magic compunction is necessary. Oh, we do use the Call and the Summons on them, but only to give them directio
n and purpose. The diggers are docile because they are content.”
Riverwind could not believe it. He recalled Di An’s frantic scramble to resume her place pulling the wagon. Fear made people act that way, not loyalty.
“Enough idle wagging,” Karn said. He raised his sword an inch out of its scabbard and slammed it back down. “Her Highness awaits!”
The soldiers formed around the Que-Shu men, two behind and one on each side. Vvelz and Karn led the way. They had not gone half a dozen steps before one of the trailing soldiers called out to Karn.
“What about this one, sir?”
Riverwind and Catchflea looked back. Di An still lingered by the wagon. She leaned over the trace pole, panting in exhaustion, but her eyes were bright upon them.
“Come here, girl,” said Karn. Di An moved quickly to him, but stopped just out of his reach. “Since you’re responsible for bringing these outlanders here, you must face Her Highness’s judgment.”
Di An paled. “It was a mistake, noble warrior! I—I did not bring them here! They chased me—”
“Don’t talk back, digger. Get over there.” He gestured to Riverwind. “And don’t lag!” Karn barked.
Karn and Vvelz moved away. The soldiers prodded the plainsmen and Di An into motion.
Riverwind touched the elf girl’s shoulder. She was trembling violently. “Who is this ‘Highness’?” he said in a low voice.
She raised large, terror-filled eyes to him. “Li El, First Light of Hest. A terrible mistress! She will have my head!”
“Not with us here,” Catchflea said soothingly. “After all, Riverwind is experienced at saving your head.”
Di An lowered her eyes. “Thank you, giant.”
He lifted her pointed chin until their eyes met once more. “Riverwind is my name.”
“Why was Karn trying to shorten you?” asked Catchflea. “What was your crime?”
“Warriors do not need a crime to slay diggers,” she said grimly. “But what I did was disobey the oldest law in Hest, not to go to the Empty World above.”
Riverwind asked, “Why did you?”
Di An glanced at Karn and Vvelz. They were involved in their own conversation ahead. The soldiers lagged behind several paces. Softly, she said, “It is what I do. I am a barren child, so my life is of no value. I am sent up the slow passage to the Empty World to find things we do not have in Hest.”
The light of recognition dawned on Riverwind. “I see. So all the ordinary goods in that chamber—wood, leather, cloth—you collected because you don’t have such things underground?”
“I did not collect them all. There are other barren children.”
“If it is forbidden to go above, then who sent you?” Catchflea asked.
Before she could reply, Vvelz spoke. “See, giants, the foundries and workshops that produce all the marvels you see in Vartoom,” he said proudly.
The left side of the avenue was lined with low, oval doors and round windows, the sills of which were stained with soot. Inside, sparks danced and fire flared as diggers toiled over crucibles of molten metal. Vvelz gave leave for the humans to have a closer look. Riverwind and Catchflea hunched down and peered in an open window.
It was stiflingly hot inside. Against a background of flickering flames and acrid smoke, dim figures moved with the stiff motions of clockwork puppets. A bar of red-hot metal was drawn from a furnace by two elves with tongs. A gang of four diggers fell to beating it with hammers. Fire splashed around the cramped room like errant raindrops.
Catchflea backed away quickly. His face was red and sweat had trickled into his beard. “By the gods, I’m baked!” he exclaimed.
Riverwind blotted his face with his leather wristbands. “Not even the dwarf smiths of Thorbardin live and work in such an inferno.”
Vvelz entwined his fingers and regarded them beneficently. “Here in Hest we wrest the finest metals from the ground. We make everything we require in these foundries.”
Ramps and stairs of stone led from the Avenue of Foundries, as Vvelz called it, to the next, higher terrace, the Avenue of Artificers. The diggers were just as numerous here, but instead of smoke and fire, the street resounded with hammer strikes and the clatter of machinery. Again, the sorcerer bade the Que-Shu men look in any window. They saw elves making chain, drawing wire, and hammering bronze and copper into thin plates.
“Do you notice,” Catchflea said in the barest whisper, “there are few children about?”
“There’s Di An.”
“She’s no child, whatever she says. I mean little ones.”
Riverwind knew the old soothsayer was right. He asked Vvelz about the lack of children.
“There have not been many children born these past years,” the sorcerer said thoughtfully. “I believe it’s due to—”
“Mind your tongue,” Karn said, tersely. “Her Highness will tell the outlanders what she wants them to know.”
The third terrace was the Avenue of Weavers. There, fine wire was woven into copper or tin “cloth.” By brushing on certain chemicals, the metal cloth could be colored. Riverwind saw mounds of black-dyed copper, the universal wear of the diggers.
Soldiers became more numerous as they ascended the city levels. The common soldiers showed great deference to the officers. Karn was evidently a high personage, as ranks parted for him and armed elves stood at attention while he passed.
The sixth terrace was called the Place of Swords. Here there were no diggers at all, only soldiers in bright steel or burnished brass. Vvelz explained that the differences they saw in armor and helmets was due to the different regiments in the army, or Host.
“I don’t like this,” Riverwind muttered. “All these swords, and us with only our bare hands.”
“Be easy, tall man. There’s no obvious threat yet,” said Catchflea.
“Tell that to Di An.”
The girl was trembling so badly now that Riverwind had to brace her with his arm. Vvelz and Karn led the little band to the center of the street of the sixth terrace. There, guards with drawn swords stood on each side of a monumental gate, its supporting columns made from naturally formed, gigantic quartz crystals. They raised their short-bladed swords in salute as Karn approached.
“Inform Her Highness that I have returned, with prisoners,” Karn announced.
“Guests,” Vvelz corrected.
Karn glared. “We shall see.”
One guard departed with Karn’s message. He returned a few minutes later with a single-word answer: “Come.”
“I am afraid!” Di An declared, trying to pull back.
Catchflea ruffled her short, stiff hair with one hand. “The gods are merciful,” he said, looking down into her frightened eyes.
“So men say,” Riverwind said. “I hope it’s true.”
Through the gate was a long colonnade of quartz crystals, open to the air. Honor guards lined the way, their closed visors embossed to resemble the faces of lions. The elves’ metal shoes clanked loudly on the brilliant mosaic floor, which was made up of millions of tiny garnets, peridots, and amethysts. A second gate, twenty feet tall and made of riveted iron plates, swung inward as they came near.
Within, the palace was dim, as a heavy vaulted stone ceiling blotted out the brazen “sun.” Statues of Hestite warriors filled the entry hall, all larger than life and wearing complete suits of armor. Each statue bore the name of a dead warrior: Ro Drest, Teln the Great, Karz the Terrible, Ro Welx. All looked stern and soldierly. None looked sympathetic.
The entry hall ended with a vaulted passage that led into the next hall. A blazing hearth, ten feet in diameter, dominated the far end of the room. More curious were the scores of blue globes mounted on carved stone pedestals on each side of the walkway. The tallest pedestals were nearer the walls, the shortest close to the center path. The display was solemn and arresting.
“What are these things?” Riverwind said. “I thought they were lamps.”
“Perhaps they are, and this is some kind of
shrine,” Catchflea said. Di An was too frightened to say anything.
“What are you mumbling about there?” Karn asked.
“These globes, they are lamps, yes?”
Karn laughed unpleasantly. “This is just a collection of old relics,” he said. He laughed scornfully.
Vvelz frowned. “They are lights indeed,” he remarked, not looking at Karn. “Very old, some of them.”
“Why are some dark?” asked the plainsman.
The sorcerer’s gaze slanted at him. “In time, all lights go out,” was all he said.
At the hearth Riverwind noticed that, while the fire blazed as high as his chest, it did not crackle, spark, or hiss like all the fires he’d ever seen. Moving closer still, he discovered it gave off no heat. In the midst of the flames were bright, glowing piles of coals.
“What sort of fire burns without heat or smoke?” Riverwind queried.
“This is the Hall of Light,” Vvelz said. “The sorcerers of Hest created this magic fire centuries ago. In all that time it has not diminished.”
“What does it burn?” Catchflea wondered aloud.
“I do not know,” Vvelz confessed. “The parchments upon which the secret was written decayed long ago. Only the fire remains, silent and cold.” An expression like sadness or pain passed quickly over his face, vanishing when Karn called after them.
“Come along,” the soldier said impatiently. “Her Highness awaits.”
They circled the hearth, and behind it was another huge door. Lion-faced guards opened the door for them. The room beyond was circular, thirty paces wide, and the ceiling was domed. The surface of the dome was a vast mosaic, showing a heroic figure leading a haggard group of elves from a shattered town to a hole in the ground.
“Karn? Is that you? Come forward.” It was a light voice, female, that came from no certain direction, yet filled the domed room. Karn replied with great courtesy, and preceded the others into the room.
They entered to the sound of chimes and splashing water. Neither chimes nor water was visible. A delicate aroma drifted in the air, not like flowers exactly, more like the freshness that sunlight imparted to morning air. The center of the room was screened from view by a circular wall of golden drapes, hanging from linked brass posts. Riverwind could just see over the top of the curtains. Something glittering and golden moved inside the screened area.
Riverwind the Plainsman Page 7
