by Jean Rabe
Dhamon too found himself at an uncustomary loss for words. The stoical mask fell away and his face glowed with childlike wonder. He nudged the half-elf awake.
"Forget what I said earlier, Mai," Rikali said in a hushed voice. She shielded her eyes with her hand. "This was a glorious idea. Glad I followed you here."
Crystals of every imaginable color dotted the steep canyon walls, catching the light of the rising sun and reflecting it in near-blinding patterns. The valley was an immense dazzling kaleidoscope of shifting colors-shades of amethyst; a riot of peridots and olivines; mesmerizing quartz spires that sparkled rosy pink one moment, sky blue the next; diamonds that twinkled like ice; gems nobody could ever put a name to. The rocky mountains down which they had picked their way last night were laced with rubies and opals and tourmaline, and topaz shards and garnet and… all kinds of gems that wouldn't normally be found together but somehow were together. All in this Vale of Chaos.
The wind picked up as the sun inched higher. The breeze sounded like windchimes as it wound around the rocks, slipped down one side of the vale, and then up the other to warm the ground. It was a warmth that, as the day went on, would become miserable heat.
Dhamon found himself caught up in the pure beauty of the place. He shaded his eyes, then blinking and turning, he looked all around at the mesmerizing display of colors. Rare, priceless, bountiful, unending colors.
"By my breath. Paradise," said Rikali. She reached out toward a large green crystal and managed to close her fingers around it, just as Maldred grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back.
"An emerald," Rikali said, turning it over in front of her wide eyes, oblivious to her scraped and bleeding knees. The rough gem was a few shades darker than the paint she had applied to her eyelids yesterday. "By my breath, I'm gonna have a jeweler cut it for me." She thrust it in her pocket and whirled on Maldred. The big man stopped her with a finger pressed to her lips.
"I've been here before, Riki," he began, "a few times- alone. Always before it was only my own neck I risked. There are patrols. I've seen them. They mainly cover the top of the vale, catching people who come down while the sun is out and they're readily visible. That's why we hid the wagon and horses."
"So that's why we came in at night," Fetch mused. His tiny eyes were flitting about, lighting on one patch of gems, then moving on to the next. His gaze was like a bee, never resting one place for any length and his breath was coming ragged from excitement.
"We can avoid the patrols," Maldred continued, "And the miners. But we have to be careful-very careful, and alert. Rikali's right. They will kill trespassers."
Rikali's fingers were in her pocket, the clawlike nails clicking against the edges of the emerald. "I can be careful," she whispered. "And I can be rich. Very."
Maldred nodded. "I don't care if some of these gems find their way into your pockets. Take whatever you can stuff in your pouches and clothes. But we're here first for Dhamon."
She shot Dhamon a curious look, turned back and raised her eyebrows questioningly.
"We'll explain later," Maldred said.
"You'll explain now," she returned, her voice a little louder than she had intended.
"We need to harvest as much as we can from the vale," Maldred continued.
"And I will use our treasure trove to buy us something very old and even more valuable. Something that will tremendously profit all of us," Dhamon added.
"I can't imagine more profit than this."
Maldred softly chuckled. "Then Riki, you don't have much of an imagination."
She scowled and looked again at Dhamon, who was preoccupied by the shimmering beauty of this place. Her expression softened as she smiled wistfully. "For Dhamon, then. Anything for Dhamon."
"And ultimately for us," Maldred added. "We load up our sacks with the finest gemstones, hide behind boulders until it's dark, then carry everything back to the wagon. Two days of this, we don't want to press our luck for longer, and the wagon will be reasonably full and we'll be on our way to Bloten."
"Blode's lovely capital, in the heart of ogre land," Rikali hissed, her sarcastic voice less caustic than usual. She edged closer to Dhamon. "What could the ogres possibly have that you want, lover? And why haven't you told me about it?"
"Because you can't keep secrets, dear Riki."
"Now let's get to work," Maldred advised. "And remember, be careful." He crept out from behind the boulder and headed farther down into the valley, trying to hide behind outcroppings and large spires as he went.
He stopped to squat between a pair of natural granite columns which were flecked with chunks of aquamarine. Glancing about, he dug the tips of his fingers into a patch of loose soil between them. A hum came from deep in his throat, high in pitch, the sound resonating musically off the columns and accompanying the wind. His fingers stirred the dirt, then suddenly his right hand started clawing, digging a hole and uncovering a chunk of rare pink topaz as big as his fist. Nudging it aside, he continued to hum and dig, finding more and more, keeping up his enchantment until he was fatigued. Leaning against a column to regain his energy, he took a deep pull from his waterskin, practically draining it. Then he opened a canvas sack and carefully filled it with the precious crystals he had unearthed.
Fetch went in another direction, making sure he could keep the big man in sight for a sense of security. The kobold was small enough to easily hide behind jutting rocks, and he picked up pieces of crystal as he went, turning them over to check for imperfections. He quickly discarded the ones that didn't meet his considerably high standards. The pockets of his sky blue pants were bulging before long, and well before he started filling up his canvas sacks.
Rikali motioned Dhamon to follow her. "I know what's valuable, lover. ‘Course so do Mai and Fetch. By my breath, but this is all so wonderful." She took his hand, her clawlike nails softly raking his palm, and tugged him southward. "All of this has worth. But some crystals are superior." She pointed at a crevice, and they quickly made their way there. Partially hidden by the shadows, she inhaled deep, thinking the air much sweeter in this place, and leaned her back against Dhamon's chest, her head turning from right to left to watch the colors dance. "Good thing Mai hadn't told me we were comin' here," she confessed. "I truly wouldn't have gone along with it. I wasn't foolin' him. I wouldn't have followed even you here, Dhamon Grimwulf." She grinned at Dhamon. "But I am glad we're here. Amazin'. I don't believe the dwarves should have this all for themselves, don't believe the ogres need it either. Can't none of them ugly lookin' folks truly appreciate this beauty. They're warlike and mean-tempered people, they are, and they don't deserve anything this exquisite."
Dhamon hadn't spoken since the sun came up. He was still mesmerized by what his eyes beheld.
Rikali nudged him hard with her elbow to break the spell. "And what's this about usin' all of this wealth, well, most of it anyway, to buy somethin' special for you? What could you possibly want more than this?" She gestured with her hand. "Tell me, lover. You shouldn't be keepin' no secrets from me."
"A sword."
She paused, clearly surprised at the answer. "A sword's gonna make us all rich?" She spat at the ground and shook her head. "You've got a sword. A pretty one that you picked up in that hospital. And worth a very pretty steel piece, it is."
"A better sword."
"Ain't no sword worth giving up these gems for."
Dhamon cut her a sharp look.
"Well, where is this sword? I could help you steal it. We'd slip into whatever ogre camp it's in, slip away with not a one of them the wiser. And then you'd have your old sword and we'd keep all these gemstones for ourselves."
"Stealing it would be too risky."
Riskier than this? her face asked. She poked out her bottom lip. "Must be a very big ogre camp. And you couldn't've told me about all of this? I truly don't like you keepin' secrets from me. I don't keep a thing from you, Dhamon Grimwulf. I never have." She turned to stare fully up into his face. "But th
en, you're nothin' but secrets, are you, lover?"
His eyes were unblinking. So dark, she could hardly discern the pupils in his eyes. Mysterious and brimming with secrets upon secrets, she decided, and certainly worth losing herself in. His eyes could catch hers as fast as any manacle, holding them until he wanted to break the moment. She wished he would look at her now.
Rikali also wished he was as taken with her as he was by all these crystals. Finally his eyes met hers, and he began to ask her a dozen questions-not about her, but about this place. He was trying to keep his mind off his leg, Rikali thought with a sigh.
"A product of the Chaos War," she told him, "or so the tavern tales say." The half-elf nodded to indicate some gems that protruded from the ground, which she stopped to pick up and examine and thrust in her pocket. She discarded only a few. "During the war they claim this vale burst with priceless crystals. Oh, dwarves and ogres had been minin' it before then, findin' some opals and silver now and again and fightin' over them more because they were fightin' to expand their home territories. But there was no real reason for all o' these gemstones comin' to the surface when they did. I guess the gods must have did it before they left, wanted to really give the dwarves and ogres somethin' to tussle about." She waved her hand and sighed. "So beautiful."
"And…" Dhamon's voice cracked as his throat was going dry. Rikali was right. The scale on his leg had started to tingle, and he fought against the sensation, concentrated on the shimmering crystals to keep his mind occupied, tried to focus on her voice.
"The dwarves claimed the vale, of course, and the ogres claimed it, too-just like Maldred said. But this rocky hole is in Thoradin, dwarf country. Now, Blode wraps around Thoradin like a glove. And the ogres run all of Blode. So who knows-or cares-who it really belongs to." She cupped her hand around a chunk of topaz. "But, like Mai will tell you, there're plenty more dwarves than ogres, and the ogres have the black dragon and her spreadin' swamp to worry about, too. So the runty dwarves're winnin' this particular turf war. And accordin' to every tale I ever heard, the dwarves do indeed have an army guardin' this place. Greedy little hairy men." She spat at the ground. "I've had my fill of dwarves, I have."
"What do they do with all these gems?" Dhamon forced the words out, then he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.
"The dwarves export gems and minerals to Sanction and Neraka and are gettin' steadily richer. Miserly little toughs, they are. But they're careful not to take out too much at a time, keepin' the price for gems and such still horribly high. They put too many on the market, and the gems're just not worth as much-supply and demand and all, you understand."
Dhamon nodded. He was sincerely interested in Rikali's story, but it was getting more difficult to hear her. His leg was burning. The pounding of his heart was filling his ears.
"Regular folks stay far away from here-and for good reason. I had friends tell me about corpses of trespassers staked out around the vale entrance. Some twisted and mutilated, barely recognizable to their kin. Heads on poles." She shuddered and made a face. "I don't want to die, lover, but if I'd have known the tales didn't do this hole in the ground justice, I would have risked my life a dozen times over before now. This is worth the risk."
She stooped again, her clawlike fingers digging into the scree at her feet. Giggling, she tugged free a rose quartz crystal the size of an apricot. Rikali held it up so the sun would catch its natural facets, held her breath and stared at it a moment, then exhaled with a soft whistle and quickly put it in her pocket. "Not especially valuable, that one, a little too milky. But it's a very pretty shade, and I fancy it cut just right and polished and hangin' on a gold chain around my neck. Follow me, lover, and I'll show you how to spot the good pieces, the ones that'll cut the best. I'll teach you how to picture ‘em all finished and more beautiful than they are now. Teach you how to look for flaws."
Dhamon didn't move. He had wedged himself into the crevice and slammed his eyes shut. "I'll catch up with you, Riki," he managed to gasp. "You go on ahead and find the best crystals."
The half-elf stopped chattering, her shoulders sagged, and she moved closer, wrapping her arms around his waist. "You made it nearly five days, lover, without one of these spells. Some day you'll beat it." She held him tight and felt his body tremble, a sympathetic tear sliding down her face. "You will beat it," she told him. "I just know it. Everything will be all right. Here, concentrate on this."
She held the rosy gem in front of his face, turning it this way and that as if to hypnotize him. He tried to fixate on it, staring unblinking, telling himself how beautiful it and Rikali were, how beautiful this vale was. But the heat on his leg, increasing now, was concentrated on the scale, and it was somehow worse, different from the times before.
He tried to swallow, but found his throat had gone utterly dry. He tried to move and found himself paralyzed, the strength vanishing from his legs.
"Lover?" the half-elf asked.
Dhamon reached for his thigh, where the scale was covered by the expensive black trousers gained from the merchant robbery. "Ow!" He pulled his fingers back. It was hot, practically scalding! He doubled over from the pain. "Riki…" was all he managed.
"I'm here." She forgot the gems and threw her arms around his shoulders, brushed his cheek with her lips. "Ride it out. Just ride it out."
Dhamon sucked in his lower lip, cursing himself for acting like a wounded child. There was an acrid taste in his mouth he couldn't get rid of, and his lungs burned. He looked up so he could see over the half-elf's shoulder, trying to find something to concentrate on-anything to occupy his mind and diminish the pain.
Then, suddenly, his mind was flooded with an image, and as if in a dream he saw in front of him a wall of gleaming copper plates that reflected his face back at him. Hundreds upon hundreds of Dhamon Grimwulfs. And all of those faces contorted in pain. "Riki…" he repeated, reaching up with his hand and turning her face and pointing. "Do you see it? The scales? The dragon?"
The half-elf looked up with a shudder, her eyes spotting something not in the air in front of her, where Dhamon's eyes remained fixed, but in the sky far overhead. "Pigs, lover! There is a dragon! So high up in the sky. Hard to see it. Wouldn't've noticed it if you didn't…"
She pointed and Dhamon saw it, the image in his mind melting away. Dhamon squinted up into the bright summer sky and saw the form arcing over the valley, dipping lower, then climbing higher and higher and higher, finally disappearing altogether from view.
A heartbeat later, the agony in his leg dissipated.
"It was a copper dragon, Riki."
She cocked her head. "It was too high to see what kind, the sun too bright."
"It was a copper dragon," he repeated.
"How do you…"
"I just know, that's all."
A moment later they emerged from the crevice, Dhamon a little shaky but intent on doing his share of harvesting the crystals.
Determined to keep his mind off the strange episode, Rikali pulled a wavy dagger from her belt, one taken from the slain Ergothian, and used it to pry free chunks of green peridot. She held one of the precious gems up to the light and began explaining to Dhamon, with a gemolo-gist's expertise, about imperfections and coloration in rough material.
* * * * * * *
Late the second morning Fetch sat in front of a piece of pale yellow quartz shaped like a rounded tombstone. Its large, flat facet reflected his doglike visage as if the kobold were staring into a tinted mirror.
He craned his neck this way and that, admiring his diminutive, craggy features, then he scowled when he saw the embroidered birds and mushrooms on his clothes reflected back at him. "Baby clothes," he hissed. "I'm wearing human baby clothes." After a moment, his scowl turned into a wide smile, revealing his uneven yellowed, pointy teeth. "A baby," he whispered. "Goochie goochie goo."
Fetch started humming, a scratchy, off-key tune mingled with occasional gargling sounds. His scale-covered fingers started dancing in the
air, as if he were conducting an invisible orchestra. The air shimmered around him, the heat rising from the ground. The shimmering closed around him like a cocoon, until flashing and sparkling motes frolicked over his cheeks, growing and winking ever brighter. He swallowed a snicker, the sensation of the enchantment tickled him, and then he increased the tempo of his strange melody. Finally the music stopped and the motes disappeared, and the only sound was the wind playing against the crystals like distant chimes. Staring back from the mirrorlike quartz was the cherubic face of a young human boy with wispy blond hair and rosy cheeks. He opened his mouth to reveal two upper teeth cutting their way through petal-pink gums. "Goochie goochie goo!" Fetch stuck his thumb in his mouth, winked, and wriggled happily.
"Getting good at this," Fetch congratulated himself. "Wish Maldred could see me." The kobold twisted his neck around to make sure the big man was still in sight. "Good indeed!" Soon he was humming again, his crystal-gathering chores forgotten for a moment in favor of the magic. A few minutes later, a vacant-looking gully dwarf was reflected in the crystal. "Dwell, dwat do you dknow," he said, imitating the nasally sound of gully talk. Next, an ancient kender with deep wrinkles and an impressive gray topknot appeared. "Most unfortunate I left my hoopak in the wagon. It would complete the image." Try as he might, the kobold could not change the appearance of the clothes. He worked to see how long he could hold a face, guessing that almost ten minutes had passed before his own craggy countenance reappeared. "I am indeed getting much, much better," he pronounced. "What next? Hmm. I know."
He concentrated again, humming something now that sounded like a funeral dirge as his fingers twitched in the air along his jaw line. The motes sparkled with a darker light this time, concentrating around his brow, which was broadening, and his jaw, which appeared to melt in upon itself and widen. The scraggly clumps of reddish hair that dangled from his chin multiplied and thickened, growing longer and forming a dense, auburn beard. Heavy brows developed over eyes that were becoming larger and as blue as the sapphires he had stuffed in his canvas sack an hour ago. Fetch's nose was swelling, taking on the bulbous shape of a large onion, and his scaly skin was turning a ruddy flesh color that made his blunt white teeth stand out. When the metamorphosis was complete, a stunted dwarf was reflected in the crystal.