Dragons of the Dwarven Depths

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Dragons of the Dwarven Depths Page 13

by Margaret Weis


  “What do you know of the Hammer?” he asked in a low voice.

  Raistlin made a hoarse, rasping sound that might have been a bitter chuckle, or else he was clearing his throat. “While you and my brother were smashing each other over the head with wooden swords, I pursued my studies, something for which you mocked me. Now you come running to me for answers.”

  “I never mocked you, Raistlin,” Sturm said quietly. “Whatever else you may think of me, you must at least give me credit for that. I often protected you, as in the time the mob was about to turn you into a burnt offering to that snake god. If you must know, my dislike of you stems from the miserable way you treat your brother.”

  “What is between my brother and me is between my brother and me, Sturm Brightblade,” Raistlin returned. “You cannot possibly understand.”

  “You are right. I do not understand,” Sturm replied coolly. “Caramon loves you. He would lay down his life for you, and you treat him like garbage. Now I must get some sleep, so I will bid you good-night—”

  “That which is now known as the Hammer of Kharas was originally known as the Hammer of Honor,” said Raistlin. “The hammer was made to honor the Hammer of Reorx, used by the god to forge the world. The Hammer of Honor was a symbol of peace between the humans of Ergoth, the elves of Qualinesti, and the dwarves of Thorbardin. During the Third Dragon War, the Hammer was given to the great knight, Huma Dragonbane, to be used along with the magical Silver Arm to forge the first dragonlances. They drove the Dark Queen back into the Abyss, where she has been ever since, or rather, up until now.

  “In the time of the High King Duncan and the Dwarf-gate Wars, the Hammer of Honor was given into the hands of the hero, Kharas, a dwarf so revered that the Hammer’s name was changed in his honor. The Hammer was last seen during the war being wielded by Kharas, but he departed the field of battle early, grieved at being forced to fight his own kind. He carried the Hammer with him back into Thorbardin, and there it has been lost to all knowledge, for the gates of the mountain kingdom were sealed shut and hidden from the world.”

  Raistlin paused to draw breath then added, “The one who recovers the Hammer and uses it to forge dragon-lances will be lauded a hero. He will find fame and fortune, honor, and glory.”

  Sturm cast Raistlin an uneasy glance. Was the mage speaking in generalities, or he had been prying into the knight’s innermost thoughts?

  “I must get some sleep,” Sturm said, and he walked over to wake up the loudly snoring Caramon.

  “The Hammer is not in Skullcap,” Raistlin told him. “If it still exists, it is in Thorbardin. If you are seeking the Hammer, you should have gone with Tanis and Flint.”

  “You said the key to Thorbardin lies in Skullcap,” said Sturm.

  “I did,” Raistlin replied, “but since when does anyone ever listen to me?”

  “Tanis listens,” said Sturm, “and that is why he sent me with you and your brother, to make sure that if you do find the key, you deliver it.”

  The mage had nothing to say to that, for which Sturm was grateful. Conversations with Raistlin always upset him, left him with feeling that all his sterling notions of the world were in reality blackened and tarnished.

  Sturm woke Caramon. The big man, yawning and stretching, took up the watch. Sturm was weary, and he sank almost immediately into a deep sleep. In his dreams, he used the Hammer of Kharas to batter down the bronze door of his family’s vault.

  The night passed without event for all those who wandered. Those who kept watch saw nothing and heard nothing. Those who did not keep watch—Tika and Tasslehoff—slept undisturbed. All-seeing eyes kept watch over them.

  Day dawned slowly and reluctantly. The sun struggled to pierce thick, gray clouds and ended up failing miserably and eventually went, sulking, into hiding. The sky threatened rain or snow, though it did neither.

  When a gray and feeble sun lit the tunnel entrance, Sturm, Caramon, and Raistlin resumed their journey. They discussed shutting the entrance behind them, shoving the stone door back in place.

  Upon examination, none of them, not even Raistlin, could determine how to operate the mechanism and open the door once it was shut. Even if they did finally figure it out, the mechanism had broken down once. It might do so again. Then they would be trapped, and they had no idea what they would find farther on. The tunnel might be blocked, in which case they would have to admit defeat and retrace their steps. They agreed to leave the door open.

  The three proceeded down the tunnel, the light of the crystal atop Raistlin’s staff illuminating their way. Sturm carried a lantern, for he disliked intensely the idea that Raistlin could suddenly, with a single word, plunge them into darkness.

  The tunnel, constructed by dwarven engineers, cut straight through the mountain. The walls were rough hewn, the floor relatively smooth. There were no signs that anyone had ever been inside it.

  “If the dwarves had been fleeing their besieged fortress, we’d find discarded armor, broken weapons, bodies,” said Caramon. “This was never used.”

  “Which proves the theory that Fistandantilus did not bring down Zhaman deliberately,” Raistlin stated. “The blast was accidental.”

  “Then what caused it?” Caramon asked, interested.

  “Foul magic,” Sturm stated.

  Raistlin shook his head. “I know of no magic, foul or otherwise, that has the power to level such a mighty fortress. According to Flint, the blast laid waste to the land for miles around Zhaman. The wise have long wondered what really happened in that fortress. Perhaps we will be the ones to discover the truth.”

  “You will write a treatise on the subject, no doubt,” said Sturm, “and read it aloud at the next Wizard’s Conclave.”

  “I might at that,” Raistlin said with a smile.

  The three walked on.

  Tasslehoff woke Tika by scolding her for having fallen asleep. She had undoubtedly missed any number of ghosts that could have visited them in the night.

  Tika scolded herself, flushing to think how Caramon would have berated her for sleeping on watch. Tika told Tas irritably to shut up and get a move on. They picked up the trail of the three ahead of them and set out in dogged pursuit.

  She and Tas also got an early start to their day, making up for lost time. Lack of sleep and the knowledge that she was far from home and help put Tika in a bad mood. She was grumpy with Tas and did not want to chat, even about such interesting tidbits of gossip as the fact that Tasslehoff had discovered Hederick the High Seeker had his own secret stash of food hidden away.

  Tika stalked along the trail, keeping her gaze on the ground, following the tracks in the snow and fighting the strong urge to turn around and run back to the settlement. If she’d been able to think of a way to sneak back without anyone knowing she’d been gone, she would have.

  Tika could have come up with a plausible tale, but she knew that Tasslehoff would never be able to keep from blurting out the truth, and she dreaded the idea that people would laugh at her and say she’d gone running after Caramon like some infatuated school girl.

  To give her credit, it wasn’t all fear of being ridiculed that kept her going. Tika’s heart was warm, her love for Caramon deep, and her fear for him very real. The idea that she might be able to save Caramon from Raistlin’s machinations kept her slogging along the trail.

  As for Tas, he was happy to be on the road to adventure once more.

  The two reached the edge of the forest about mid-morning and saw the trail snake across the barren, snow-covered field.

  “Look, Tika!” Tas pointed excitedly, as they drew near the mountain. “There’s a cave. Their trail leads into a cave!”

  Tas grabbed Tika’s hand and tugged at her, trying to hurry her along.

  “I’m very fond of caves. You never know what you’re going to find inside. Did I ever tell you about the time I went into this cave and there were two ogres and they were playing at mumblety-peg, and at first they were going to tear me limb from limb and
eat me, starting with my toes. I didn’t know this, but kender toes are considered a delicacy among ogres. Anyway, I told the ogres I was really good at mumblety-peg, better than either of them, and I wagered them that if I won, they wouldn’t eat me. Of course they had to play, because I had made a wager. The ogres handed me a knife, which I was supposed to throw, but instead I used the knife to stab the ogres in the knees. That way they couldn’t chase after me, and I escaped being eaten. Can you play mumblety-peg, Tika, in case ogres inside the cave want to eat us?”

  “No,” said Tika. She did not like caves at all, and her heart was beating fast at the thought of going into one.

  Tas was about to launch into more details about the ogres, but Tika ordered him to hush up and when he didn’t, she gave his topknot a yank and threatened to pull it out by the roots if he didn’t for mercy’s sake keep quiet and let her think.

  Tas wasn’t sure what it was she had to think about, but he was fond of his topknot, and while he didn’t really believe Tika would pull it out, he didn’t want to take any chances. She’d gone very pale and tight-lipped, and whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, she wiped away a tear.

  The footprints they were following led straight to the cave, which turned out to be a tunnel. There were muddy boot prints inside, large muddy boot prints. Tika knew Caramon and the others had come this way.

  “Light the lantern!” Tas said. “Let’s see what’s down here.”

  “I didn’t bring a lantern,” Tika said in dismay.

  “Never mind!” cried Tas, rooting around in the darkness. “I found a whole stack of torches.”

  “Oh, good,” said Tika. She stared into the darkness that stretched on and on ahead of them, and she felt her knees go weak and her stomach turn to jelly.

  Tas had managed to light one of the torches, and he was walking all around the cave, peering into the carts and stopping to scan the walls. “Hey, look, Tika! Come here! Look at this!”

  Tika didn’t want to look. She wanted to turn and run, run all the way back to camp. Then Tas would tell everyone that Tika had run away like a big scared baby. Gritting her teeth, Tika went to see what he’d found, hoping it wasn’t too horrible.

  Tas was pointing at the wall. There, scrawled in charcoal, was a heart. In the middle of the heart was the word “Tika”.

  “I’ll bet Caramon drew that,” said Tas, grinning.

  “I’ll bet he did, too,” said Tika softly. She reached out and took the flaring torch from the kender.

  “Follow me,” she said, and feeling her own heart soar to the heavens with happiness, she led the way along the tunnel, deeper into the darkness.

  11

  A Question of faith. End of the tunnel.

  The man-eating Stalig Mite.

  lint and Tanis edged their way through the pass that wasn’t so much as a pass as a large gap. Tanis envisioned the refugees trying to cross this rocky, narrow defile, their children in tow, and he hoped fervently it wouldn’t come to that. They spent most of the morning navigating among the boulders and scrambling over rock slides, finally emerging after hours of toil on the other side.

  Using his battle-axe, Flint pointed. “Well, there you are, Half-Elven,” he said. “Thorbardin.”

  Tanis looked down at the landscape spread beneath him. Ash-gray plains led into dark green foothills, thick with pine trees, from which soared the gray blank face of the tallest mountain peak in the Kharolis chain.

  Tanis regarded the mountain in bleak dismay. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Aye,” said Flint in gloomy satisfaction. “Just like I told you.”

  The dwarf had indeed told him, but Flint had a tendency to exaggerate and embellish his tales a mite now and then, particularly those tales having to do with the wrongs, perceived or otherwise, suffered by his people. Search as Tanis might, he could see no sign of anything resembling a gate on the mountain side or even a place where one might put a gate.

  “Are you sure Thorbardin is there?” Tanis asked.

  Flint rested his weight on the battle-axe and gazed steadily at the mountain.

  “I was born and raised hereabouts. The bones of my ancestors lie on the plains below us. They died because our cousins closed the gates of that mountain on them. Cloudseeker casts a shadow over us all. Each and every one of us hill dwarves sees it loom large in his dreams. I’m not likely to forget this place.”

  Flint spit on the ground. “That’s Thorbardin.”

  Tanis sighed deeply, scratched his beard and asked himself, “What in the Abyss do I do now?”

  He had no hope at all that he would be successful in his mission. Neither he nor Flint had any idea where to even start looking for the lost gate to the dwarven kingdom. They could spend years traipsing across the face of Cloudseeker. The greedy and the desperate had been searching for this gate for three hundred years and never found it. There was no reason to think he and Flint would be the ones to succeed where so many had failed.

  Tanis considered giving up. He went so far as to half-turn, look back the way they’d come, and even take a step in that direction, but he found he couldn’t do it. He could not admit defeat, not yet.

  Flint stood leaning on the battle-axe, watching his friend turn first one way and then the other. When Tanis turned around again, Flint nodded.

  “We’re to keep going then,” he said.

  “You know as well as I do that it’s only a matter of time before Verminaard attacks,” Tanis said, adding in frustration, “There must be a way inside Thorbardin! Just because no one else has discovered it …”

  “After all, the gods are with us,” Flint observed.

  Tanis eyed his friend to see if the dwarf had spoken sarcastically or if he was serious. Tanis couldn’t tell. The dwarf’s expression was unreadable, much of it hidden behind his full beard and shaggy eyebrows.

  “Do you believe the gods are with us?” Tanis asked. “Do you believe what Elistan and Goldmoon have been teaching?”

  “Hard to say,” said Flint, and he appeared uncomfortable talking about it. He cast Tanis a sidelong glance. “I take you don’t?”

  “I want to.” Tanis shook his head. “But I can’t.”

  “We’ve seen miracles,” Flint pointed out. “Riverwind was burnt to a crisp by a black dragon. Elistan was brought back from the brink of death.”

  “And Verminaard brought back from the dead, as well,” said Tanis dryly. “I’ve seen Raistlin scatter a few rose petals and cause goblins to fall sound asleep at his feet.”

  “That’s different,” Flint growled. “Why? Because it’s magic? Magic or no, one could call such things ‘miraculous’.”

  “I call them accursed,” Flint muttered.

  “All I know for certain,” Tanis said, smiling, “is that the only being who walks with me is you, my friend.” He clapped Flint on the shoulder. “I could not ask for a better companion. Gods included.”

  Flint flushed in pleasure, but he only said gruffly that Tanis was a silly ass and he shouldn’t talk in such a flippant manner about things beyond his understanding.

  “I think we should keep going,” Tanis said. “Raistlin may find the key to the gate in Skullcap.”

  “Do you think he’s planning to bring it to us if he does?” Flint snorted in derision. “And you claim you don’t believe in miracles.”

  The two started what Tanis feared would be a slow and laborious journey down the side of the mountain when Flint came to a sudden halt.

  “Would you look at this,” he said.

  Tanis looked and marveled. It wasn’t a miracle. It was a road. Built by dwarves, centuries old, the road had been carved out of the side of the mountain. Winding back and forth across the face of the mountain, the road led down and into the foothills then climbed back up the other side. All the refugees had to do was make it this far, and the way after that would be smooth.

  “Provided this road leads to the gate,” said Flint, reading Tanis’s thoughts.

  “It must,”
said Tanis. “Where else would it go?”

  “Just what people have been asking themselves these last three hundred years,” Flint remarked dryly.

  Sturm, Caramon, and Raistlin, traveling beneath the mountain, found their journey long, tedious and uneventful. The area was prone to earthquakes, but the dwarf-built tunnel had survived hundreds of these shocks almost unscathed. Occasionally they noticed places where the walls had cracks, and here and there a small rock slide impeded their path, but that was all.

  The tunnel ran straight, no twists or turns. It was neither haunted nor otherwise inhabited. They walked for several hours and made good time. Raistlin was again strangely energized. He set a swift pace, ranging ahead of his brother and Sturm, his staff thumping the tunnel floor, his red robes swirling about his ankles. When the other two called a halt to take a breather, Raistlin would caustically remind them that lives depended on their progress.

  Down here in the darkness, with no way to tell time, none of them had any idea how long they walked or how many miles they traveled. Every so often, they came upon marks on the wall that appeared to be some type of indicator of distance. The marks were in dwarven, however, and none of them knew what they meant.

  They traveled so long that Caramon began to secretly wonder if they might not have missed Skullcap altogether. Perhaps they had walked across the continent and would emerge to find themselves in some distant realm—the far southern reaches of Ice Wall, maybe. He was deep in his imaginings, dreaming of vast expanses of white wastes, when Sturm called their attention to the increased amount of debris and rubble in the passage.

  “We must be nearing the end,” said Raistlin. “The destruction we see is a result of the blast that leveled the fortress.”

  “What do we do if the blast destroyed the tunnel?” Sturm asked.

  “We must hope that it was protected,” Raistlin said. “As you can see, the beams shoring up the ceiling have not been damaged. That is a good sign.”

 

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