by Markus Heitz
As the water mounted so did the fear that he might not survive this unexpected adventure. Finally, well hidden between the rocks he found an iron grating emitting foul gases. Before common sense could prevent him, he had opened the grating and forced himself inside, climbing up the chimney-like shaft.
Up and up, as if the flue would open at the very top of the mountain. The all-pervasive smell of rotten eggs made Rodario gag, cough and splutter, but, using hands and feet, he continued to work his way upwards, until finally he slipped through an opening into a large chamber.
Water was bubbling into a huge pool below him, filling more and more of the hollow space. If the iron door ten paces in front of him stayed shut he would be done for.
Rodario hurried to the door and prayed that no sentry would be standing guard. Pushing on the bolt, which miraculously moved in his hands, he found and turned a small wheel above it. It clicked several times in succession as he continued to turn it; then the door opened and he was able to escape to safety.
No one was expecting him, spear at the ready.
He found himself at the end of a twisting passage with rounded walls polished like marble. Moss glimmered and spread a faint brownish light.
Carefully he moved forwards, listening out for suspicious noises that might warn of a possible encounter with an älf. He remembered how silently Narmora, the partner of his friend Furgas, had moved. She was part älf. Presumably, then, he wouldn’t notice an älf coming until after it had cut his throat.
Soon he found himself in front of a door similar to the last; this one was secured with several bolts and a wheel-lock. Rodario opened it a little way, halting when he felt heat from the other side, and heard noises—dull thuds at regular intervals: the stamp and hiss of machinery, the clunk of forge hammers, the sounds of workmen calling to each other. The air smelled of hot metal, of slack, of coal fire and of oil. Going by his ears and nostrils alone he would have said he was in a forge in the fifthling realm.
To avoid immediate discovery, he crouched down on all fours, pulled the door open and crawled inside. Underneath him was an iron platform attached to a metal ladder.
Rodario’s heart stood still. On the ladder were two älfar! They wore black armor, held spears in their hands and were looking down.
“That was worth the wait,” said the blond one. “A nice fat sailing boat with lots of crew and passengers to set to work for the master.”
“Then we can stop work at last,” laughed his friend, scratching his ear; the tip had come away in his hand. “Oh, damn, the resin’s gone soft again. Wretched heat!”
Rodario had already started to wonder why the älfar were talking in human language. Now he understood. They were acting. These “älfar” were just men, dressed up as älfar; they gained their height from special shoes they were wearing. The disguise might have deceived a simple peasant or a fisherman, but not him.
“It’s a shame we had to kill so many of the injured,” said the blond one, helping the other to mend his ear.
“Looking after them just takes too much time.” He laughed. “And the prisoners enjoyed the goulash.”
Rodario peered over the edge of the platform. Below was a workshop two hundred paces in size, with machine floors on several levels. Forges had been set up in niches in the rock face, and platforms like the one he was on had been fastened together and fixed into the stone with strengthening beams. These too served as smithies.
Humans, chained hand and foot, were working to produce various metal shapes, including wheels and iron rods. Each worker had a set number of repeated movements to carry out, and finished items were thrown into the wire cages that traveled up and down at speed on a chain. At the bottom of the workstation these were unloaded and carried out by yet more prisoners.
Several machines were as big as a house, moving by means of cog wheels, pulleys and pistons, with belts and chains traveling over the cogs toward other devices that they powered. In places, some of the belts passed through the walls to other chambers.
The machines emitted hissing clouds of steam. People ran around, shoveling coal or pouring water into huge containers for the boilers. The noise close to them must have been unbearable.
Rodario had no idea what was going on. But this island had nothing to do with älfar, that much was clear. It was what the inhabitants of Weyurn were expected to believe, however, meaning that they would stay away at all costs and never talk about it. The best form of concealment.
Feet came stomping up the stairway. “Hey, you two! You’re supposed to be standing guard, not playing with your ears!” Next to the men there appeared a dark-haired dwarf in leather breeches, boots and a leather apron. His naked torso, decorated with tattoos, shone with sweat. In his hand he swung a smith’s hammer as if it were made of tin and balsa wood.
From his voice Rodario recognized him as the man who had attacked him outside his caravan. He was sure now that the barge he’d been following had not broken up on the island, but it had disappeared inside it. The island must have sunk down again causing Rodario’s nutshell-boat to capsize.
“It’s the heat, Master Bandilor,” protested the one who’d been told off. “It makes the resin go soft.”
“Then sew it on properly,” growled the dwarf. “I don’t want to see this sort of thing again, you fingering each other’s ears, right? If one of the prisoners sees it, the masquerade is over.” He turned his head and Rodario saw the thick beard, dyed blood red. “Did either of you leave that bulkhead open?”
“No,” said the blond one. “I’ve no desire to burn up.”
Bandilor’s eyebrows crinkled. “Did Mistress Veltaga come past you on her way to check the second chamber?” He walked past them, his hammer held at the ready.
“No, Master Bandilor. Nobody.”
From what he had heard and seen Rodario worked out that he had found a secret headquarters of the thirdlings. No one would ever think of dwarves voluntarily living on an island, let alone one that could sink down to the bottom of Weyurn’s lake. And their captives had no chance to escape.
To Rodario’s horror, Bandilor started up the steps. No matter where he looked, he could see no way to avoid being seen. He got half upright, ready to crawl back into the passage, but Bandilor spotted him.
“Unbelievable! It’s that crummy actor, isn’t it?” The dwarf took a step forward and made to grab him by the leg.
Rodario launched himself off the platform, holding fast to its edge so that he could do a forward roll. His lower body swung freely over the abyss, but he landed with his feet on the solid iron steps, quite near to the two false älfar. He opened his fingers, his heart beating wildly.
“More respect, please, for my art,” he called up to the dwarf, who had flung his hammer at him in fury, but missed. The metal tool clunked down the stairs into the depths.
The guards lowered their spears and attacked.
“Forgive me, I don’t feel like fighting you.” Rodario certainly was not going to involve himself in combat. Without a second’s hesitation he leaped into a passing wire basket and let himself be carried down in it. “I’m looking for a happy ending!” he called, waving up. “We’ll meet again, Master Bandilor. And I’ll be back with an armada of Weyurn’s warships.”
He went past the astonished prisoners, who were not daring to move a muscle. They didn’t help him, or join him. Their fear of the älfar and the punishment they could expect should they do so held them back. He couldn’t hold it against them. After all, he had no idea whether it was possible to escape.
A spear missed him narrowly and got stuck in the grating. “Thank you for the weapon, älf,” he called, only to see a second missile on its way. This missed him, too, the angle for the throw being a difficult one, but now archers were dispersing round the upper galleries; they would have no trouble hitting him.
Rodario jumped up out of the cage at an intersecting passage and ran through the corridor bent double. Somewhere in the middle of the mountain he suspected
he would find his friend Furgas, held in chains. Tungdil and all the rulers had underestimated the malice of the thirdlings. Perhaps he could find out what their intentions were. They had to be doing more than simply forging strange devices. They would surely have a grand plan.
He arrived in a second cavern, which was somewhat smaller than the first but similar in its arrangement. Here it was hotter still, because of the many furnaces at work on the platforms, with molten metal streaming out of them.
There was a dwarf-woman standing among the workers on the cavern floor. She was issuing instructions while sparks flew about her. Close by, white-hot metal was just being released; molten streams of alloy ran along the sand channels to the molds, where they would cool into shape.
That was all Rodario could see. He reached a door and found himself in one of the twisting polished stone corridors again, worming its way through the center of the mountain.
He met another guard keeping watch at one of the side doors, a false älf who attacked him with a ridiculous hiss.
“No grasp of character or motivation, but you want to be center stage,” laughed Rodario critically. He wasn’t afraid of a human in disguise. If it had been a real älf his reaction would have been different, no doubt. As it was, he could rely on considerable experience in fighting, even if he were a trifle rusty.
He walloped the guard’s spear aside and thrust the blunt end of his own weapon into his assailant’s groin, making him fall back in agony, “The älfar, you know, don’t hiss when they attack. Get it right next time. They are as silent as the night and as deadly as…” He searched for an appropriate simile. “… as… Oh what the hell.” He hit the man on the forehead with the blade of his spear and sent him unconscious to the floor of the passage.
“If you were standing guard in front of a door, there’s probably something valuable on the other side,” he addressed the man lying on the ground. He put one hand on the handle. “Let’s have a look.”
He pushed the handle down and rammed his shoulder against the wood, whirling into the room.
Clothes were strewn all over the place, the air was stuffy, smelling of stale food and there were papers everywhere, covering any flat surface and stuck up on the walls, each bearing sketches of eccentric-looking machines and strange apparatus.
Furgas was sitting on the bed, his legs crossed. His gray-green eyes stared straight through his old friend. He looked neglected, with a long beard, filthy clothes, and badly matted hair that reached down to his chest.
“Furgas! My dear Furgas!” called Rodario, hurrying over to him. “It’s me, the Incredible One.” He shook him by the shoulder, keeping on eye out for any more älfar approaching. “Get up. On your feet. This is the dramatic escape scene where the hero gets away and finally vanquishes evil forever. Well, that would be neat, anyway.” He dragged the lethargic figure of his friend to his feet. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
Furgas followed him like a reluctant child. “Rodario? What are you doing here? How did you find the island?” he murmured in a daze.
“It’s a long story,” Rodario answered as they stepped out into the corridor. “Prologue, then three or four acts, I reckon. It’s got the makings of a terrific series. Any idea how we get out of here?”
Furgas started to come round. “Depends whether we’ve dived yet.”
“Yes, we have.” The smell from Furgas took Rodario’s breath away. Sixty orbits without a bath was the minimum he must have had to produce body odor like that.
“Then there is no way out.”
“Furgas! Pull yourself together.” Rodario stared intently into his friend’s eyes. “If I managed to get onto this damned island, we will find a way to get off it.”
“But there are guards everywhere…”
“Nôd’onn had orcs everywhere, the avatars had soldiers,” he retorted, playing down the dangers. “We beat them. It is our duty to return to Tungdil and the others to tell them about the thirdlings. Come along, for goodness’ sake!”
Now Furgas looked at him properly. “Rodario,” he smiled. “The Incredible Rodario. You’ve earned your name again.” He pointed to the left. “And you’re right. There’s a shaft that the hover-gas goes out through. We could escape through there and swim up to the surface. If we survive.”
“Are you sure?”
Furgas grinned at him, showing corn-yellow teeth that had not received any attention from a cleaning-root for a very long time. “I built the island. I should know its weaknesses.”
The door on their right flew open and five älfar stormed in; two of them carried bows. Bandilor pushed his way to the front with a two-handed ax at the ready.
“There he is, the play-actor,” he roared.
“Threaten me,” whispered Furgas to his friend, standing in front of him. “I’m too valuable to them—they won’t hurt me.”
Rodario couldn’t come up with a better solution, so he broke a spear from the wall in half and pushed the blade against his friend’s throat. “Get back, you rejects from a third-rate theater,” he called with disdain. “If you try and follow us I’ll kill him and you’ll have no one who can work your accursed island.”
And Bandilor actually stopped in his tracks. “Halt,” he ordered the guards. “We’ll get them later.”
“Get the island back up to the surface,” demanded Rodario.
But the thirdling shook his head. “We can’t do that. We’d have to collect enough hover-gas again. The ballast chambers are full.” He grinned maliciously. “You’ll have to give up.”
“We’ll do it the way I said,” Furgas mouthed to Rodario and started to walk backwards. “Through the bulkhead door, then we’ll bolt it from inside and disappear.”
It seemed like a mile to Rodario before they reached the opening. At last they got through to the next passage, closing the heavy iron door behind them and wedging the catch shut.
Furgas took the lead and steered them through the narrow tubes, climbing natural and artificial ladders until he forced himself through an opening. There he waited and held out his hand to Rodario. “Thank you for never giving up on me,” he said, emotion in his voice. “Without you I’d never have had the courage to escape. I’d lost the spirit ages ago.”
“What are friends for?” beamed Rodario. “And between ourselves, you’re the best props man any theater could have. The Curiosum can’t function without you.” He stepped into the shaft. “After you.”
Furgas moved aside. “No, you first. I’ve forgotten to release the flood-hatch safety mechanism.”
He crawled out again while Rodario started the ascent. It was quite a while before Furgas followed—but it was less of an effort for him to do so. Rodario was horrified to see how water rushed up in the tube, with Furgas on top, bobbing like a cork.
“There we are, that’s the easy way,” he said, spluttering proudly.
“Do you want to drown us?” Rodario exclaimed.
“No.” Furgas pointed up. “I can’t open the hatch until the passage is flooded. Otherwise the body of water surging in would hurl us back down again.” He smiled at the actor. “You still have no idea about technical matters, do you?”
“I always had you for the technical stuff,” laughed the showman, high on excitement. He was about to do the impossible: he had found his friend and was going to rescue him. “What are the thirdlings up to here?”
“They’re making machines. Death machines.” Furgas’s countenance grew dark. “Tell you later, Rodario. We need to save our breath.”
They reached the hatch, and as soon as the rest of the cavity was full of water, Furgas opened it to make the connection between the shaft and the waters of the lake.
Far above them the sunlight glittered with promise. They struggled to the surface with vigorous arm movements, but it was a tortuously slow process.
Rodario was running out of air. He took a breath against his will and swallowed water, but at that moment broke through above the waves and paddled around, cou
ghing his lungs free. Furgas was also coughing up water. When they had got their breath back they looked around.
They were drifting in the middle of Weyurn’s lake and there was no sight of land.
“Some great escape that was,” Rodario said, blinking at the sun. He reckoned the island would shoot up next to them at any moment. But then to his relief he remembered what Bandilor had said: even if they wanted to, they couldn’t surface. Not yet.
“Well, we won’t die of thirst. There’s plenty to drink.”
“The gods are with us.” Furgas pointed over to the horizon. “There’s a boat!” He lifted his arms to wave, shouting and calling to get their attention. Rodario helped out to the best of his ability and soon the barge was heading over their way.
They were heaved on board and after Rodario told the mariners the story of Nightmare Island and how the sloop had foundered, the terrified captain steered an urgent course to Mifurdania, all sails set.
The two friends sat on deck exhausted, wrapped in the blankets the sailors had supplied.
“There’s a lot to tell,” said Furgas, his face serious. “I pray to Vraccas that the dwarf tribes can forgive me for my part in what has happened to them.”
“You? What do you mean…?”
He lowered his head. “Bandilor forced me to make vehicles. Vehicles to be run on the tunnel rails to bring death and destruction to the dwarf realms.” He wiped the water from his face and Rodario wasn’t sure whether there were tears there, too. “He’s planning something worse than that. The apparatus is ready,” he said quietly. “It will cost the lives of hundreds of dwarves.”
Rodario slapped him on the shoulder. “Only if we can’t prevent it, my friend. And we shall prevent it.” He smiled. “This diving, by the way, has one big advantage—apart from freedom, of course. Do you know what?” His smile became a wide grin. “You don’t stink anymore.”
Girdlegard,
Kingdom of Idoslane,