The Gates of Thorbardin h2-5

by Dan Parkinson

  "If he had, it seems like he'd have mentioned it."

  "Did he say anything about where he was going!"

  "Up on a mountain. Said he couldn't see down here. He didn't say which mountain, though." The kender shaded his eyes, gazing into the distance.

  "What do you suppose that is?"

  Chane looked up, saw where the kender was pointing, and gazed in that direction. "I don't see anything."

  "I don't either, now. But I thought I saw a big white bird." Chess squinted, then cocked his head. "There it is again. See? Way off there to the north. I wonder what that is."

  Chane saw it too, then — a white, winged shape gliding over the forest, miles away. It looked vaguely like a giant seagull. "I don't know," he said. "But whatever it is, it's not what I'm looking for." He stood, glanced around, then headed east again, toward a very large mound of ice some distance away from any others.

  Chess watched the distant white thing for a few minutes, then tired of that. He couldn't tell what it was, and it didn't show any sign of coming close enough for a better look. He climbed one of the mounds — beneath his feet, vague dwarf-shapes did perpetual, motionless battle — and looked around. "Now what?" he wondered.

  "Go west," something voiceless seemed to say.

  "I wasn't talking to you, Zap," Chess scolded. "I was talking to myself.

  Besides, the only reason you want me to go west is to get far enough from that Spellbinder thing the dwarf has so that you can happen. Right?"

  "Right," something mournful agreed.

  "I've been west, anyway," Chess added.

  "Woe," Zap grieved.

  "I wish that dwarf would find what he's looking for," the kender muttered. "I'm ready to go see something new." He started down from the ice-mound, then ducked as a huge shadow swept over him. Clinging to the ice, he looked up. The white thing was no longer far away. It was directly overhead now, spiraling downward, slanted wings carrying it in great descending circles as it came lower and lower. Fifty feet up it leveled out, seemed to stall, then crept toward him and hovered just overhead. A head appeared alongside one wing, and a voice floated down. "Hey! Are you from around here?"

  "Of course not!" Chess called back. "I'm just visiting. What is that thing?"

  "It's my soarwagon. It still needs a little design modification but I'm working on it. Right now, though, I'm looking for cats. Have you seen any cats?"

  "Not lately," the kender admitted. '"There were some dandies around here when I first got here, but they've all gone now. Are you going to come down?"

  "I can't." The flier shook his head. "Ground effect, I think. Do you have any foods"

  "A little. Dried meat and flatbread. Why?"

  "How about raisins? Do you have raisins?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Well, whatever you have will just have to do," the flier called. A rope began to descend from the white thing, with a small basket tied to its end. "How about sending some up?"

  Chess dug around in his pack. There were all sorts of things in it, mostly just odds and ends he had picked up, and in most cases he didn't recall where or why. The kender found dried meat and a few flatbreads he had picked up in the Irda's hut. The basket descended on its rope, and when he could reach it Chess deposited some of what he had in it. The food was hauled upward.

  "Why are you looking for cats?" Chess called.

  "Some people wanted to know about them. Man called Wingover. He's sure this valley is full of cats, so I came to see. I haven't found any."

  "They're the Irda's cats. She went away, and I guess they went with her.

  You're a gnome, aren't you?"

  "I am. Bobbin's the name."

  "I'm Chestal Thicketsway. Do you know anything about old gnomish engines? Like siege engines from ages back? There are several of those off that direction, but I couldn't tell much about them."

  "Neither can I," Bobbin said. "I'm insane."

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "Not your fault. Another thing that Wingover and his bunch asked about was a dwarf. Any dwarves around here?"

  "Hundreds," Chess waved his arms around him.

  "Everywhere you look, but they're frozen under the ice. Been there a long time."

  "No, the one I'm looking for is more recent. Dwarf named, er, Chain something — " The gnome pointed. 'Who's that?"

  Chane Feldstone had appeared from behind a distant mound, and was hurrying toward the kender and the soarwagon.

  "He's a dwarf," Chess said. "He might be the one. Name's Chane

  Feldstone. What do they want him for?"

  "I don't know. Does he always dress like that? What is that outfit? A bunny suit?"

  "Catskin," the kender explained.

  A vagrant wind whispered across the ice field and made the white bird dip and bobble. The gnome did something, and abruptly the flying thing shot high in the sky, so high that it was only a winged dot overhead.

  Slowly it seemed to steady, then started going in wide circles.

  Chane reached the mound where the kender stood. "Who is that?" he demanded. "What is he doing up there?"

  "His name is Bobbin. He's a gnome."

  "What is he doing?"

  "Looking for cats."

  "Up there?" Chane squinted upward, trying to follow the circling path of the flying thing. "What is he riding?"

  "Something unreliable, it seems to me," Chess said. "All he said was that some people sent him to look for cats and he hasn't seen any. Oh, and somebody named Wingover asked about you."

  "Me?"

  "Might be you. Do you know him?"

  Chane scratched his beard. The name did sound familiar, as though he might have heard someone mention it sometime. Then he remembered.

  "Wingover's a human. Rogar Goldbuckle thinks he's crazy."

  "No, it's the gnome who's crazy. He said so himself."

  "Why would Wingover ask about me? I don't even know him."

  "Maybe you're becoming famous," the kender suggested. "Look, the gnome is coming down again. Every time he goes in one of those circles he gets lower. Wow! That looks like fun."

  "Fun," something voiceless said.

  Chane jumped and looked around, then clenched his teeth. "I wish that spell would stop talking," he growled.

  "It makes me nervous."

  "Shut up, Zap," the kender said offhandedly. 'You just want to get away from the Spellbinder."

  "Need to," Zap whispered.

  "Oh, he's going away," Chess sighed.

  "Your spell?"

  "No, the flying gnome. See? He's heading south. Oh, well. Easy come, easy go."

  "It doesn't matter," Chane said. "I found something, finally." He walked away, back in the direction he had just come. The kender climbed off the mound and scampered after him.

  The large mound was east of all the rest, and well apart from them. It was a grotesquely shaped mound of ice more than a hundred feet long, stretching from north to south in a shallow curve. Even from a distance, the shadowy figures inside were visible as dark silhouettes a line of armed dwarves in defense position, fighting to hold off a force twice their strength.

  "It looks like a rear-guard action," Chess decided.

  "It does to me, too. But what I found is beyond it." Chane led the way around one end of the long mound, then part way back along its opposite side. He stopped and pointed. "See?"

  The kender looked, blinked and looked again, then shrugged. "See what?

  The end of the ice field? The slope beyond? That range of peaks?"

  "The path," Chane said. "Look. It looks like a faint green trail, heading east. Can't you see it?"

  "I don't see anything like that. Are you sure you — " He stopped and stared at Chane. "Do you realize that the red spot on your forehead turned green for a moment?"

  Chane raised a tentative hand to touch his forehead. His eyes widened, then he opened his belt pouch and took out the Spellbinder. He took a deep breath. "Well, the gem's still red. I thought for a minute
maybe it had turned green, too."

  The crystal was still red, but something seemed to pulse dimly, deep within the stone. With each pulse the faint green trace of an ancient trail renewed itself to Chane's eyes.

  "It's showing me where Grallen went from here," the dwarf said. "He went east."

  "Where Pathfinder went," something voiceless whined.

  Chane jumped. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that. What did it say?"

  "It said, 'where Pathfinder went,' " Chess repeated. "Zap, what are you talking about?"

  Where nothing was, something sighed. "Spellbinder's other," the unfired spell whispered.

  Chapter 14

  High on a Mountain slope, where biting winds came down from the snows,

  Glenshadow the Wanderer paused in his climbing to inspect the head of his sorcerer's staff. No longer chalky, it was again a cold, flawless stone of swirling transparencies. The wizard pulled his collar tighter against the chill and raised the staff a foot or so. He muttered a word, and the stone burst into cold, bright light. He nodded, doused it with a word, and looked around. Some distance away, a large, serrated stone lay against a jagged cliff, half-buried in wind-blown snow. He raised the staff, pointed it at the stone, and uttered other words. A tight beam of silver light shot from the gem and struck the boulder, which exploded into shards, some of them bounding away down the mountainside.

  Satisfied, Glenshadow climbed again until he came to a high place where patches of ice lay like white pools in the weathered stone.

  He gazed into a small ice-covered pool. "Master of the tower,"

  Glenshadow said in a voice as cold as winter's winds, "Grallen's descendant has the Spellbinder, and has begun his search for the helm. Is there word of the outlaw?"

  "The Black One lives," said the ice-image that formed on the frozen pool. "Though he was certainly put to death long ago, there is no doubt now that he lives. His magic is known. Other searchers have tasted it, just in recent days."

  "Can you tell me where he is, then, or must I continue to follow the dwarf?"

  "He is somewhere to the east," the hooded image said. "Nearer to you than you are to me, but though his magic is sensed he goes hidden… shielded somehow from our seekings. If you would find him, you must go with the dwarf."

  "Does the outlaw know yet of the dwarf and his quest?"

  "We think he knows that something is amiss." The iceimage told him. "The

  Black One is pledged to a quest against the dwarven realm of Thorbardin.

  This much we know, from those of our order in the Khalkist Mountains. Two died and a third was horribly burned just to bring us the information.

  Tell me, does the dwarf know his purpose?"

  "To go where the Hylar Grallen went." Glenshadow said and nodded. "To seek the helm of his ancestor, which alone might save Thorbardin from infiltration by its enemies. He has an artifact — an ancient god-stone, the twin of the one his ancestor wore on his helm. One stone will lead him to the other, and thus to the helm."

  "And should he find this helm… will he then know where Thorbardin's weakness lies?"

  "If his ancestor Grallen saw the secret gate, then the stone in the helm may also show it to its next wearer. Both are god-stones, as was suspected. Their magic is beyond sorcery."

  "Then the thread is not frail," the ice-pool said. "If the dwarf poses a threat, the Black One will know it. He sees more clearly now than when he was alive… before he was put to death. Follow the dwarf, Wanderer, if you would find the Black One; the Black One will surely seek him. Follow the dwarf toward shattered Zhaman, if you would seek again to destroy the outlaw mage." A pause, and then the faint voice asked, "Did you see the omen, the eclipse of the moons?"

  "I saw it. What does it mean?"

  '14one knows for sure," the voice said. "But all the omens point to a great darkness from the north. Evil has its pawns a'play, and moves across the gaming board. Beware."

  The pool darkened, cleared, and was simply a pool of ice. Glenshadow shivered, drew his bison cloak more tightly around his shoulders, and again touched the ice with his staff. This time the image that appeared was of the valley from which he had come. Chane Feldstone and the kender stood at the edge of a patterned ice-field and looked eastward.

  "Toward shattered Zhaman," the mage whispered. "He follows Grallen's path, toward the resting place of Grallen's helm."

  He started to turn away from the pool, then stopped. Another vision had formed there, coming without call. In inky blackness swirled indistinct shapes, coalescing at the center in a pattern that become a face… or not quite a face, just the ghostly outline of one; but one that Glenshadow had seen before, long years ago.

  And a voice as dry as dust — a voice that seemed shriveled with hatred and age — hissed from the image. "He seeks me, does he?" it said. "The puny red-robe would try again to do what he thought he had done before'

  Hee-hee. He asks the ice whether I know there is an obstacle in my way. A puny obstacle it is, too. A dwarf. Only a dwarf. Did I know before, he wonders? No matter. I know now." Giggling, the dry voice faded and the ice cleared. Long after the vision was gone, Glenshadow knelt by the ice, shaken and unsure.

  "Caliban," he muttered. "Caliban."

  Viewed from the south, the valley was a long, deep cut among towering mountains. Miles wide and many more miles long, deep enough that fall foliage still livened the forests below, it swept away to the north. The valley was straighter than most Wingover had explored, and interesting to his explorer's mind because, while its sides were crested by precipitous cliffs, its approach from due south was a long, fairly gentle slope.

  It seemed to almost offer itself as a route, and Wingover found that irritating. He had seen the great cats who lived in this valley, and he knew the valley was a trap. He wondered if any who had entered there had ever come out again.

  The man was moody and irritable as the hours passed, tired of waiting for a crazy gnome in a sailing contrivance, who probably would never return anyway. He brooded upon the fates that had brought him to be here, back out in the wilderness again, pursuing an impossible quest — to find one lost dwarf in ten thousand square miles of barely explored territory.

  It didn't help Wingover's attitude that Jilian Firestoke seemed to have decided that it was her responsibility to fill the idle hours with constant chatter. He had heard a dozen times now about Chane Feldstone's dream, and at least a half-dozen times about the perfidy and downright churlishness of Jilian's father, Slag Firestoke. He had been belabored by gossip — most of it meaningless to him — about the feud between the

  Tinturner and Ironstrike families, which had kept the fifth level downshaft neighborhood of Daewar in an uproar for months; about how

  Silicia Orebrand's sister was not on speaking terms with any of the

  Silverfest Society members; about the uncouth mannerisms of Daergar dwarves who seemed to think they owned the Fourteenth Road; and about the scandal that had risen when Furth Undermine accused the East Warren overseers of bribing the executor of the Council of Thanes.

  "Far stars, Button," Wingover finally erupted, "doesn't anybody get along with anybody in Thorbardin? To hear you talk, I'd think the intrigues and hostilities outnumber the population by five to one."

  She blinked in surprise. "Oh, it isn't like that at all," she said.

  "Thorbardin is the nicest place imaginable. Really. I've just been telling you the juicy stuff because that's what most people prefer to hear. But then, most people — at least most people I know — are dwarves. What do humans like to hear?"

  "Silence, occasionally," he snapped.

  For long minutes, he had his wish. Jilian sat facing away from him, her sturdy little back arrow-straight. She had tried to entertain him. Now she made a point of ignoring him, which, for his part, Wingover liked better.

  Soon, though, she asked, "Do you mind if I tell you one other thing?"

  "I knew it was too good to last," he said. "What?"

 
; She pointed. 'The gnome is coming back."

  He saw it, then — the gliding, erratic flight of the gnome's machine, coming toward them, low over the valley's forested floor.

  "It's about time," Wingover snorted.

  The white kite came closer, rising as it neared the climbing slope, seeming to shoot upward on wind currents until it was a tiny thing far overhead. Then it dipped its wing and began the wide circling that they had seen before. It seemed that, once up, the only way the gnome could come down again was by this tedious procedure.

  The soarwagon circled and descended, circled and descended, and finally crept to a halt hovering just a few yards up — but in the wrong place. It was a quarter of a mile from them, above a jagged cliff where the valley's west wall began.

  "What is he doing?" Wingover growled. "Why doesn't he come over here?"

  "He's probably trying to," Jilian said. "I don't think his machine really works all that well."

  "It's a wonder it works at all," Wingover pointed out.

  For a moment, the soarwagon hovered where it was. Then with a shudder it shot upward again, and the circling began all over. This time the gnome seemed to have corrected his navigation, and when next the thing hovered it was just above Wingover and Jilian.

  Bobbin leaned out, his face pinched with irritation. He looked from one to another of them, then settled on Wingover. "I'm back," he announced,

  "It's me… Bobbin. I'm here."

  "I know you're here," Wingover called back. "I can see you. Did you find anything?"

  "Quite a lot of valley, with various things in it. Several miles north, there's a ring of stones with a thing in the center that looks like a really big thermodynamic inflector, though I'm sure it isn't that. There's a sort of little, broken statue on top of it, and paving all around. Then there's a hut, though if anyone lives there he wasn't at home, and there is a winding black path that goes off in both directions from it. I saw a river and enough trees to make a woodnymph think she'd gone to paradise, and several nice meadows that I could have landed in… if I could land.

  And an ice field covered with lumpy shapes, and what's left of an old wall