Nerdraaage and Ashlyn slept and slumbered their way through most of the day and the next night. Dangalf and Doppelganger played goat with the sailors, and Dangalf no longer felt guilty about the paltry sum he had paid for the journey after being the big loser and losing most of that to the ugly sailor, whom he no longer liked most among the sailors.
On the final day, they packed up bedding and food stores and other things that had been unpacked during the trip. Nerdraaage and Ashlyn awoke, but both were lethargic. Neither had eaten during the journey, but they would be back on solid ground soon.
About a mile before Gorm Falls, the river took a steep bend for the sole purpose of running flatboats aground. They were all told to brace themselves, but the grounding on a bed of sand was rather anticlimactic. The passengers unloaded first, and then the sailors unloaded their cargo quickly. Billy only had time for a quick “farewell” with Ashlyn, and he was summoned back to the boat as the sailors began their energetic demolition of the flatboat before the next one would arrive.
The Keepers stopped to admire the Ten Thousand Steps (technically 10,002 steps) going straight up for about a mile inside of the cliff. But as only Doppelganger was eager to make the celebrated climb, they instead paid to have themselves lifted by basket with the rest of the cargo to the road above.
They exited the basket and began again on the road to Bran Keep, of which only the peak was visible on the winding mountain road. Smoke could be seen coming from vents in the mountain. It was chilly now, and it would get colder as they climbed. They didn’t have winter clothes per se, but they all wore layers, and the physical exertion of the climb upward kept them all warm enough. Nerdraaage was actually sweating as he had the thickest blood and wore two layers of leather.
The other travelers were mostly dwarves now, and their glances revealed that they regarded the Keepers as a motley and suspicious group, but they responded politely when any of the Keepers greeted them. It began snowing, and that was a concern for all. The road obliterated, they feared that, even at walking speed, snow blindness would lead them off one of the sheer drops that were occasionally exposed by the winding road. Doppelganger fearlessly pressed on in the lead.
Dangalf saw Dusty jumping through the snow, picked her up, and placed her in what had become her usual pocket. She poked her head out to watch their progress up the mountain. Ashlyn morphed into tyger form with a noticeably thicker coat than the others had seen before.
Still a few hours from Bran Keep, they enjoyed the most spectacular view of the marvel that could be had. As with a skyscraper of the other world, they would lose perspective on its immensity as they got closer. The mountain had windows carved into it on lower levels. Immense banners hung over the carved front of the mountain, one for each of the royal clans.
“That’s my banner!” Nerdraaage said excitedly. “Clan Stonefist!” They all nodded in appreciation as Nerdraaage fastened his tartan scarf into a hood.
The Clan Bluebeard banner was elevated one-third above the others to signify that the current king was of their clan. They were similar to human banners in their shield design, but human banners were of Iberian shape, and these were heater shaped.
Below the founding clan banners were other large banners, including the Blue School (though school banners were unmarked by default, they were typically adorned with special markings, and this banner was adorned with hammer and anvil); another banner was for the Red School, adorned with the dwarven bloodrune (it was male), and still another was a red, white, and blue banner of the Acadian Alliance of Righteous Races.
Two stout guards in Bran Keep tabards and kilts of Stonefist tartan met the Keepers coming the opposite way. “And who might you be to wear those colors?” asked one of the guards of Nerdraaage.
“Nerdraaage,” he answered.
“Oh, Morna’s husband!” said the second guard, who promptly gave Nerdraaage a dwarven hug, which involved clasping each other’s arms.
“Welcome. I am Odhran and this is Cormag.” And Cormag also hugged him. “What brings you to the keep?”
“We have orders from Vinland,” said Dangalf, and Nerdraaage introduced the other Keepers to the guards.
“Well, we won’t keep you,” said Odhran. They bid farewell, and each group went opposite directions. Dangalf looked back to see the guards release a pigeon that flew over their heads toward the keep.
As they neared, the marvel only inspired more awe. There were grand staircases, columns and doorways, watchtowers, and giant dwarves in relief, recreating great moments in dwarven history, all carved out of the face of the mountain.
The wonder of the computer game faded each time they made a new discovery like this. Though knowledge of Cronica was better than being thrust into this world with no knowledge, the game was a poor substitute for the real thing.
They found more guards stationed in towers at the great drawbridge before the keep entrance. The drawbridge was massive with inversely impressive railings. An inattentive sapien could trip over or slip under them. It was dwarven Darwinism at its most precarious. It tested their nerves to even cross the bridge when they saw the gaping chasm below. Of the four, Dangalf kept most perfectly to the exact center of the bridge.
And still they walked and walked. As their perspective changed, some great things vanished from sight while other great things appeared. Statues that had looked ordinary from a distance now towered overhead. Each held torches of real flame to light the way, literally and metaphorically, for other dwarves.
“The Path of Giants,” said Nerdraaage reverently.
“Giant dwarves,” laughed Ashlyn.
They approached a hole in the side of the mountain. They might well have missed it had it not been for the dozen heavily armed guards standing around it. So incongruous was the sight that Dangalf had to detour his friends from the road to the guards of the hole. “Excuse me,” he said to the guard who seemed the least annoyed by their arrival. “What is this place?”
“Why, this is the Profundity!” boasted the guard.
“The Profundity!” echoed Dangalf. And then to his friends, “According to legend, this dwarven tunnel goes to the center of the world.”
“It is no legend!”
“Of course,” bowed Dangalf slightly and then said to his friends, “I meant to say it is absolutely a tunnel to the center of the world,” and then back to the guard, “Are we not allowed to enter?”
The guards found that amusing. “Heroes are you!” said the guard. “We are not here to keep heroes out! Only to keep in things from the deep!” They bid the guards farewell and returned to the road and kept walking and walking. Finally they reached the great staircase that would, in only about five more minutes of walking, take them into Bran Keep.
Wagons came and went from ground-level entrances on either side of the massive staircase, but they took the majestic route up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, there were three great arches at least sixty feet in the air with open doors of iron. As they entered they passed blue pyres, and the embers from those danced around the Keepers, outlining them each in uncountable tiny lights that burned out without harm. It was Nerdraaage who recognized it: “Dragonsbreath. Antiblackguard fires.”
They entered the keep and were awestruck again. An entire city spread out before them. Great pillars reached up to the top in support of the hollowed-out mountain. At the misty top was the inn, accessible by mining cars on a twisting track of metal. They watched a train of mining cars click click click up the track.
More banners and carvings decorated the interior walls. Directly across from the entrance on the far side of the keep and built up to tower over the rest of the city was the façade of the royal palace, with great columns and statues and Clan Stonefist guards decked out in dress regalia of fur and precious metals. On the right side were great skylights that lit the city with daylight. Opposite of that was a crashing waterfall from vents in the ceiling.
The engineering feat was unimaginable. Each building, f
rom the merchants that lined main street to the private residences built up along the walls to the grand palace at the back, were all carved into the original stone. A perfect execution of a master plan from twenty thousand years ago. (And work was well underway hollowing out an adjoining peak.) Nerdraaage was the first to speak. “Have you ever seen anything so awesome before!”
“Never,” said Ashlyn. “I bet we have to exit through the gift shop.” They walked down the main street, and it bustled with hundreds of she-dwarves. Half the dwarven population lived in the keep or just outside its gates. This was a much higher than the percentage of humans or elves that lived in their respective capitals.
The Keepers grew hungry as they passed a variety of the fresh foods being offered for sale on carts. Even Ashlyn marveled at the fruits and vegetables available for purchase in the dwarven capital. After all, her people regarded dwarves as carnivores. And though it was hard to imagine a dwarf eating raw fruits and vegetables, they did have a love for pies and jellies and stews.
They passed the butcher, the baker, and the chandler and dozens of other merchants offering every conceivable service. “Beard washing!” said Nerdraaage. “I want to do that before we leave!”
“Me too,” said Dangalf scratching his beard.
“Do you supposed I could get a shave?” asked Doppelganger.
“No,” scoffed Nerdraaage. They stopped at a tattoo parlor and browsed the hundreds of runic designs displayed on squares of red, blue, and green skin. In front of the shop was a well-inked dwarf who looked like he had personally harvested each of those squares of RGB skin. He was only slightly less terrifying because he bobbed slowly in a rocking chair. “You sell magic runes?” asked Nerdraaage.
“I create skin runes,” said the dwarf. “You must supply your own magic.” He told them some prices, and the Keepers started to realize that the big city was full of luxury that they could ill afford.
They walked all the way to the stairs of the royal palace. There was no great gate around this palace as the entire city was considered impenetrable. Either way, there were plenty of guards and more dragonsbreath. Nerdraaage approached one of his royally garbed clan-kin, and after some pleasantries, he returned to his friends with directions to the White School and Loremaster Fearghas.
They left Bran Keep and journeyed through a torchlit tunnel to the second hollowed-out mountain peak. It was full of industrious dwarves carving and lifting and shouting. And dust everywhere. But even as work continued, some of the grand buildings were already occupied. “Leave it to the dwarves to put the White School in the ghetto,” remarked Ashlyn.
“And there’s the elven embassy,” added Dangalf. They found the White School and had to admit that whatever bias the dwarves had against the White School, their Blue School vanity would not allow it to be housed in anything but a grand complex of elegantly carved buildings. They took stairs up to a columned entrance. An arched door with a dwarf-high peephole stopped their progress. Nerdraaage knocked on the door. “Yes?” asked the dwarf behind the great nose that filled the peephole.
“I would like to see Loremaster Fearghas,” said Nerdraaage.
“I’m sorry,” said the nose. “Only those of the White School may enter.”
“I am of the White School,” said Dangalf, and the nose cocked in his direction.
“So am I,” said Ashlyn, and the nose cocked in her direction.
The door opened, and a yellow-haired dwarf stepped out. He seemed nervous. “Your commissions please,” he said. Dangalf carried both their commissions and handed them over for inspection. “I am Lorekeeper Camran. I will take you to the Loremaster.” He ushered them into the White School and closed the door.
“I’m glad I walked all the way here,” said Doppelganger, dropping heavily on the stairs before stretching out.
“He has a cat in his pocket!” Nerdraaage shouted after them through the still-ajar peephole. And then, dropping down next to Doppelganger, said, “Oh, well. They’ll be back.”
“How do you know?” asked Doppelganger.
“’Cause I have the ring.”
The Lorekeeper led Dangalf and Ashlyn through a series of hallways past aspects of famous magical people. The most prominent of those was Ozymandias, looking especially heroic as his aspect depicted him freezing the bay at Vinland. “Forgive me,” said Dangalf. “But I notice your beard is unbraided, in the human fashion.”
“Oh,” said Camran playing with his beard. “It was braided, but I unbraided it. Nervous habit.” Dangalf and Ashlyn smiled. They liked this nervous dwarf. They were led to a well-appointed library, where Camran motioned for them to sit. I’m sorry,” said Camran. “You’ll have to wait here. I would give you a tour of our school here, but I am so close!”
“Close to what?” asked Dangalf.
“Only the greatest ambition of every alchemist since time immemorial.”
“Turning lead into gold?” Dangalf asked excitedly.
“Oh,” said Camran. “Perhaps I should have qualified that. The greatest ambition of every dwarven alchemist.” He looked back and forth between the human and elf. “Powdered beer,” he said excitedly.
“Powdered beer?” said Dangalf less excitedly.
“Oh yes,” insisted Camran. “Why, the greatest burden borne by dwarven troops is beer weight. That and the perishable nature of liquid beer significantly impacts on the duration and range of our forces.” Camran excused himself, and Dangalf couldn’t help but wonder what powdered beer would do to that great body of dwarven wisdom, beer no longer being wet.
“I like yours better,” said Ashlyn looking about.
“My what?”
“Your library,” she said smiling.
Ashlyn sat while Dangalf perused the library. It was so quiet, so well insulated from the work outside that he wondered if Camran and Fearghas were the only two in the complex of buildings. Fearghas appeared, and he was as sturdy and confident as any dwarf and would have seemed of the Red or Blue School but for his fine robes. “You have something to show me?” Ashlyn and Dangalf looked at each other dumbly.
The front door of the school opened, and Fearghas charged out, followed by Ashlyn and Dangalf. “Would you mind if we went to the inn?” Fearghas asked between Doppelganger and Nerdraaage.
“Mind?” asked Doppelganger. “We insist.”
Fearghas led them through the hollow mountain toward Bran Keep. “No pillars,” said Fearghas motioning about.
“That’s right,” said Dangalf. “No wonder why it’s so much more open.”
“See those ribs upon the walls?” asked Fearghas. There were great ribs of stone around the inside of the mountain that extended all the way up to the top. “That was my idea. Instead of pillars. It caused the builders some consternation, to be outcrafted by a satin wearer, but they couldn’t argue with the advantages. Still some said it wouldn’t work, so I told them to relocate my school underneath my design. And in the arrangement, I secured a new White School three times the size of the last.” Fearghas laughed. “Of course if it all comes tumbling down on me, I suppose that they will have the last laugh.” And off the apprehensive look of the Keepers, he added, “That was a joke. It will never come down.”
They came to signage for The Wee Hours Inn with an arrow pointing straight up. There was a line to take the mining cars up to the inn in the sky, but the operators ushered Fearghas and his party to the front of the line. There the Keepers saw their first gnome and stared and whispered to each other excitedly about him. They knew he was a gnome because he wore a red cap. He was so small as to be dwarfed by dwarves. “I hope he’s tall enough to get on the ride,” Ashlyn gushed to Dangalf.
Doppelganger said he wouldn’t fit in the small seats of the mining car, and the operators told him he’d have to take the stairs. He looked at the stairs curving all the way up around the inside of the mountain and forced his frame into a mining car after all. He was too thirsty to make that long walk. It was a magnificent view of the keep in all d
irections as they click click clicked up the track. “Look,” said Nerdraaage, waving at a mist with his hand. “A cloud inside!”
“Sometimes it even snows,” said Fearghas.
Nerdraaage leaned back toward Ashlyn. “The Wee Hours,” he said pointing to the inn still above them. “That’s not a fart joke.”
“No, that’s a pee pee joke,” she answered. They reached the landing, and Fearghas spoke to the innkeeper, who ushered them to a table against the wall. Dangalf told the innkeeper they would need a room, and the innkeeper asked if they wanted an outside view or an inside view. “Outside,” said Dangalf without much thought.
Dangalf placed his rucksack on the ledge of the window before realizing that there were no glass or bars to prevent his belongings from crashing down to the floor of Bran Keep below, so he relocated his bag to the floor. The view was terrific with all the grandness of the keep now in miniature below.
A she-dwarf approached and took their orders. The gnome they had seen below entered. “Gnome!” cried the inn regulars.
“Many a sprite and gnome and other creatures came to the keep seeking protection with the fall of Nemetia,” explained Fearghas. The she-dwarf returned with a cart and placed a firkin of beer on the table and then a cooked chicken next to that. She pulled a blue privacy curtain across the table as she departed.
Fearghas tore off a leg and began eating. When the others hesitated, he said, “Eat. It’s The Wee Hours. A chicken with every firkin.” When only Ashlyn still hadn’t touched the chicken, he assured her, “Concordance compliant.”
“I love this place,” said Nerdraaage, pulling off the other leg. And they all ate chicken, even Ashlyn, who was mostly vegetarian now. But this was their first chicken since arriving in the new universe, and it looked and smelled delicious. And apparently the dwarves had figured out how to farm the domesticated bird without violating the Lonelywood Concordance.
Done eating and after varying degrees of beer intake, Fearghas signaled it was time to smoke by taking out his pipe and lighting up. The others joined him. Fearghas inhaled deeply and then exhaled until he seemed to melt into the upholstered bench back. “Theodore is a wise and serious human,” said Fearghas. “Perhaps you should show me what you have brought.” Nerdraaage slid the silver ring to him. Theodore turned pale. “I do not think I want to touch it,” he said.
Cronica Acadia Page 36
