Dark Thane

by Jeff Crook

  "Row on!" the helmsman roared, ignoring the king, and his rowers obeyed him. Tarn's demands fell on ears deafened by terror. The banshee wails seemed almost atop them now. The dwarves in the boat ducked their heads even as they pulled frantically at their oars.

  Then, the shrieks ended in a thunderous roar as a huge section of the mountain smashed into the island, utterly obliterating the shrine and the wharf. A concussion of hot air and blinding dust struck the boat broadside, nearly tipping it over. Tarn's fingers dug into the wood of the gunwale as he blinked the dust and stone splinters from his eyes and stared back at the island, desperately seeking any sign of the loyal, brave Mog.

  "We must go back and look for him," he said in a voice utterly bereft of hope.

  "It's too dangerous, my king," the helmsman said, not without sympathy. The rowers pulled their oars through the water, drawing the boat away from the Isle of the Dead. "He's probably dead by now. Even if he survived the stone that destroyed his boat, nothing could live through that last collapse."

  They pulled in grim silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the other boats, the soft calls of the helmsmen counting out the strokes. No one spoke. All were still too numb with horror to appreciate the nearness of their escape.

  Then, one of the rowers in Tarn's boat whispered to his benchmate, his voice pitched low so the king would not hear, "Jungor's warning saved our lives. He saved us all." But Tarn heard him, and as he heard the murmur of awe from the other dwarves in his boat, his heart grew cold with doubt. Such thoughts, such suspicions took root in his mind, so horrible that he dared not shine the light of reason upon them.

  For Jungor Stonesinger had indeed saved their lives with his warning vision. And wasn't that marvelously fortunate?

  22

  Mog had never been more comfortable in all his life. His bed was large enough that his entire family could have slept in it, its wooden frame exquisitely carved with elvish designs (probably an import from Qualinesti), its coverlets of an ancient weave, but sturdy and soft as the day they were made.

  Across the oddly-shaped chamber where his bed stood, a merry fire burned beneath a bubbling iron pot, from which the most delicious smells occasionally wafted. Mog found that he had acquired a substantial appetite during his absence, and whatever it was that was cooking in the pot was winning a decisive battle against the delightful languid peace that had heretofore kept him in this bed.

  Where had he been, he wondered absently, not really caring if he thought of the answer. Still, it was a pleasant diversion, to sit and think of his mortal life. For naturally, he was dead, and this must be the afterlife. Nothing else could explain it. He was certain that he was dead, because he could distinctly remember dying. His legs crushed, pinned beneath a boulder, he had at last succumbed to his fate after a valiant and vain struggle to free himself. And with only a passing regret for having failed his king, he had then taken his first and only breath of the bitter cold dark waters of the Urkhan Sea.

  What a way for a dwarf to die, he remembered thinking.

  But at least it didn't bar him from a pleasant afterlife, though he did wonder what had taken him so long to get here. He had the distinct impression that a substantial portion of time had passed since he first drank his death and when he awoke in this bed, only moments ago.

  He stretched out his legs beneath the cool sheets, closed his eyes and watched the flames of the fire dance upon the underside of his eyelids. He was so wonderfully hungry, he didn't want to ruin it all by actually eating, not just yet. In the back of his mind, he wondered what heavenly spirit had built the fire and prepared the meal that awaited him. At the same time, he wondered if the afterlife would bring other pleasures as well, ones he had denied himself out of duty and loyalty to his king. Mog was certain that he must have earned a wife in the afterlife, preferably one of celestial origin. No ordinary dwarf woman would do for him. He had had high standards in life, and didn't intend to surrender them now that he was dead. Perhaps it would be better to just lie here until his wife returned, to pretend sleep so that he could observe her at his leisure. And if he fell asleep again while waiting, then so be it. He had nothing else to do, and he was fairly certain that one didn't burn one's dinner in heaven, no matter how lazy one was.

  Perhaps he did doze off again. Mog couldn't be sure, nor did he care. His mind seemed to slip effortlessly between waking and dreaming, as though the two worlds were really one. But now he heard the sounds of someone moving about the chamber, stirring the pot, stoking the coals. Wood crackled with flame, and he heard the tinkle of crockery.

  He opened his eyes a slit, then shot bolt upright in bed. A grizzled, copper-bearded male dwarf of indeterminate age glanced up from the cookfire and smiled. "Ah, awake at last, Lazy Bones?" he cackled.

  Senses fully alert now, Mog took in his surroundings in one brief flashing glance. The "bedchamber," he realized, was really a cavern or cave scraped out of some huge jumble of ruins. One wall was covered in a brightly painted fresco of dwarves laboring at a forge, but the entire thing was upside down and half-buried in the uneven earthen floor. Statuary and broken pieces of columns and other architecture emerged like nightmares from the wall behind his bed. His bed, which he had imagined so luxurious, he now realized to be a creaking wreck, the headboard blackened by some ancient fire, one entire side of it propped up on unstable piles of stone. The cooking fire burned, not in a fireplace, but in an overturned marble privy, and the pot hanging above the flames bore the unmistakable silhouette of a chamber pot.

  Perhaps he was not in heaven, but in hell. Still, the food cooking over the fire did smell wonderfully inviting, and he felt alive, his legs whole and strong. He was pretty sure they didn't serve such good-smelling meals in the Abyss.

  "Now, I would stay in bed if I were you," the dwarf warned as Mog started to slide out from under the sheets. "You've only just begun to recover."

  "Who are you?" Mog asked. "And where is this place?"

  The dwarf strode up to the side of the bed and extended a paw-like hand, thick, rugged, and scarred. "Ogduan Bloodspike," he said with a broad, toothy grin that was just a bit more unsettling than friendly; the effect was a little like watching a lion yawn. "As for this place, I'm not sure what they call it nowadays. Used to be part of Hybardin." He waved a hand at the upside-down mural on the far wall.

  "The Isle of the Dead?" Mog exclaimed.

  "That's it," Ogduan said, snapping his big thorny fingers. He tapped the side of his head. "Memory's not so keen as it used to be."

  "Then I'm still alive," the Klar warrior sighed.

  "Looks that way, son," the older dwarf murmured.

  "But how did I survive? The last thing I remember… "

  "I pulled you out of the water," Ogduan said.

  Mog closed his eyes, trying to remember. "I do recall something tugging at me, and a face… a face!" He slapped his knee and pointed at the old dwarf. "I thought you were death come to take me."

  Smiling, Ogduan pulled a battered trunk from under the bed and flipped back its lid, revealing a carefully folded black robe, a leather-bound book, and a white skull mask. "Not death, just a death skald," he said.

  Mog shrank back from the skald in horror. " B u t… no one is allowed to know the identity of a death skald. Why are you telling me?"

  Ogduan shrugged, looking around innocently. "Who are you going to tell?"

  Mog stared at the strange dwarf, pondering. "I can't place your name, stranger, and you look like you could be just about any of the five clans," he said. "So what clan are you from?"

  "I'm not exactly of any clan," the dwarf said. "I'm a death skald, after all."

  "But who are the Bloodspikes? I've never heard the name before."

  The old dwarf shrugged as he returned to his place beside the cooking fire. "I'm not surprised," he said, lifting a battered pewter ladle from its hook and dipping it into the pot. He leaned closer, shielding his face from the heat of the fire as he stirred and stirred. />
  Resting his hands upon the coverlet, Mog waited for what the old dwarf would say next. "So you live here alone?" he finally asked.

  "Mostly," came the gruff reply. "I expect you are hungry."

  Mog nodded. "How long have I been here anyway?"

  The old dwarf shrugged. In the corner beside the fire, an old cabinet leaned upon three legs, one of its doors hanging from one hinge. Ogduan opened it, and removed a pair of pottery bowls. "One day runs into another out here," he said as he carefully ladled each bowl full of steaming stew. He crossed back to the bedside and set one bowl in Mog's lap. He produced a pair of wooden spoons from a pocket of his somewhat tattered garments, then sat down on a low stool beside the bed.

  Mog lifted his bowl and inhaled the aroma of the stew. He couldn't remember when he'd ever been so hungry, nor when he'd smelled anything so delicious. "I-I-I thought my legs were crushed by the stone," he managed to stammer. "They seem fine now, so I must have been mistaken."

  "Oh, they were badly crushed alright," Ogduan answered over a mouthful of stew.

  "Surely I didn't sleep through the entire healing process," Mog said in surprise. "It would have taken months for me to heal." Ogduan merely shrugged and continued to blithely shovel spoonfuls of stew between his copper-bearded lips.

  Mog tasted the stew and found it even more delicious than it smelled. Several different types of meat swam in a hearty thick brown broth. Some bits were so tender they fell apart in the mouth, while others had some bite to them, chewy but pleasant. "If I've been here for months, why didn't anyone come to look for me? Surely you told the people who bring your supplies to let someone in Norbardin know that I was here."

  "No one brings me supplies," the old dwarf explained. "No one comes here at all."

  Mog paused, the spoon lifted halfway to his lips. "Then where do you get your food?" he asked, somewhat alarmed.

  "There's food to be found just about anywhere, if you know where to look," Ogduan answered.

  Mog stared in horror at the bowl resting between his legs, at the strange little clumps of meat floating in it. Steeling himself, he asked, "What kind of meat is this, may I ask?"

  "Gully dwarf."

  Mog felt a solid column of gorge rise to the back of his mouth. A rank belch nearly gagged him. He set the bowl aside, biting back nausea.

  Ogduan bellowed with laughter. "By my bones, you must think me truly depraved if you think I'd serve you gully dwarf just when you are beginning to heal."

  Mog eyed the old dwarf suspiciously. "Well, what is it, then?" he asked.

  "Urkhan eel and feral mushrooms. Didn't anyone ever cook Underdark Stew when you were a boy? By my beard, I shudder to think of the poor quality of practical survival education young dwarves receive these days," Ogduan said, his cheeks stuffed with stew and rich brown gravy dribbling into his beard.

  "It's been a long time since I encountered Underdark Stew. I had forgotten," Mog chuckled as he resumed eating. Despite his hunger, he found that his appetite had been severely dampened by the old dwarfs joke. Though he knew well enough that he wasn't eating gully dwarf, a niggling doubt remained in the back of his mind.

  "Besides, I finished off the last of the gully dwarf weeks ago," Ogduan added with a wink.

  Mog set his bowl down. "I'd better take it easy," he said. "Too much rich food."

  The old dwarf nodded in agreement as he continued to wolf down his meal. Between mouthfuls, he said, "Out here in the perimeter there are no markets, just stone and water and darkness and earth. There's the ruins and what you can scrounge for and dig for. When you're starving, you're not above boiling bones. Dwarves these days don't really know what hard times are like."

  Mog snorted. "What about the Chaos War?" he asked.

  "Chaos War? And how long did that last?" Ogduan replied, pointing at him with a dripping spoon. "It's been forty years now and what have you all learned? It was nigh on to three hundred years of misery after the Cataclysm before things started to improve. Forty years? A mere twinkle in the eye of Reorx! I piss in the milk of your miserable forty years."

  "You talk like you've lived forever," Mog said, growing steadily irritated.

  "And what if I have! Who are you to question me?" the old dwarf shouted, his own temper rising.

  "You're crazy," Mog answered, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. "What are you, feral Klar? Bloodspike sounds like a Klar name."

  "Klar? Klar?" Ogduan practically shrieked. "I piss in the milk of the Klar."

  "Exile, then. A Hylar exile. Who exiled you?"

  "No one exiled me. I was deceived. I was robbed and did not know it! Oh, wicked deceiver, evil temptress!" Ogduan was busy railing to the heavens. Mog sighed, realizing that he'd been rescued by some half-mad untamed Klar who had cast off dwarven civilization. Known as feral Klar, these pitiful creatures preferred to live as the ancient Klar had done, wild and free barbarians of the deep earth. Mog was only lucky that Ogduan hadn't murdered him in some pique of rage, after having bothered to rescue and heal him.

  From now on, he'd have to be careful.

  His dinner forgotten now, Ogduan raged up and down the room, raining down curses upon the heads of enemies both real and imagined. "Oh, foul vermin that should invade my home!" he screeched, pointing at a dark empty corner of the chamber. "I shall feast upon thy flesh and spit thy bones into my fire!"

  Mog watched in growing curiosity as Ogduan crept to his makeshift fireplace and reached behind a pile of broken bits of wooden furniture (fuel for the fire). From some hiding place in the woodpile, he withdrew a gleaming silver warhammer. Hefting the massive weapon, he edged toward the dark empty corner in which he had spied his enemies.

  Mog was both surprised and awed by the beauty of the weapon. At the same time, he felt some old memory niggling at his consciousness, a feeling that he had seen this weapon before. Surely so magnificent a weapon had once been the property of a dwarf of great power and influence. To see this mad dwarf stalking the ghosts of his dementia with such a noble weapon filled him with dismay. Flinging back the bedsheets, he tried to stand and grab it away. The floor tilted beneath his bare feet, dumping him back in the bed.

  Meanwhile, Ogduan continued to silently stalk his unseen adversary. Lifting the hammer above his head, he brought it thundering down upon the shadows inhabiting the empty corner, bellowing a mighty war cry as he swung.

  Mog heard a squeak cut short by a sickening thud. "Ha, that got you!" the insane old dwarf shouted. "What, another?" A small dark form shot out of the corner and scurried toward the bed. Ogduan leapt after the large rat, his giant hammer already streaking down. It smacked the floor just behind the rat, shattering the floorstone into a spiderweb of cracks. He raised it again, staggering toward Mog's bed, under which the rat had fled.

  "Ai! Ai!" Mog shouted in alarm. "Do not crush me, fool. It's only a rat!"

  "Only a rat?" Ogduan shrieked, the hammer still lifted above his head. "Why, that's our breakfast!"

  "Give me the hammer, old one" Mog urged. "Please. Before you do me or yourself a harm." He held out his hands, palms upward, like a supplicant begging favor from a god.

  "Aye, you're right, lad," the old dwarf sighed, the light of lucidity momentarily returning to his gray eyes. He pressed the massive weapon into Mog's eager grasp. "A hammer's no weapon to be a-hunting rats from under beds. One needs an ax, or tongs! Aye, that's it! The tongs the thing!"

  Ogduan rushed out of the chamber, shouting for his tongs, his tongs, "My kingdom for a tongs!"

  Mog gaped in bafflement at the mad dwarfs caperings. Then he turned his attention to the splendid old weapon in his hands. Of marvelous balance, the heavy warhammer was too large for any ordinary dwarf to ever hope to wield. It needed tremendous strength and skill, but ah! what havoc it could wreak in the hands of a skilled warrior. Mog gazed at it lovingly, for this indeed was a weapon worthy of a thane. A king, even. To think it had been so ill used, for hunting rats; it filled his sold with shame.

  As he
examined the warhammer, Mog noticed a fine etching in the silvered surface of its weighty head. Here were dwarf runes of an ancient style. Mog's formal education had been less than complete. He could read and write well enough to get along, but only common runes. These ancient letters took some time to puzzle out. He mouthed the sounds, fitting them together like a dwarf child in school, until he was certain he'd got it right.

  He nearly dropped the weapon in his surprise. "Kharas!" he exclaimed.

  Ogduan rushed into the room, a rusted old spear in his hands, and dove under the bed. "Rats!" he swore, rising up in disappointment. "He got away. Did you see him?"

  "Where did you get this?" Mog demanded.

  "They're everywhere. Lucky for you. What do you think you've been eating for the last week?"

  "Not the rats, you old fool!" Mog shrieked. He grabbed the old dwarf by the tattered collar of his shirt. "The Hammer of Kharas! Where did you get the Hammer of Kharas?"

  Ogduan looked at the huge warhammer lying on the bed. "Oh, so that's what it is," he said, a smile bunching up the wrinkles around his eyes. "I found it lying around here somewhere."

  "But it wasn't… it was with… it was lost!" Mog stammered in bewilderment. "How did it even get here?"

  "That's a question I'm sure I can't answer," Ogduan said in sudden seriousness. "I'll thank you to let go of my shirt."

  Mog released his hold on the old dwarf and sank back on the bed. "The Hammer of Kharas!" he sighed longingly. "Returned, and just when it is most needed by the king. I must get to Norbardin. I have to take it to Tarn."

  "Come with me," Ogduan said, holding out one hand in assistance. As Mog slid from beneath the sheets, he felt a momentary dizziness, but the old dwarfs strong hand was sturdy as a rock. He leaned his weight upon him, still too weak in the legs to walk under his own power. Ogduan led him to the mouth of the chamber and outside onto a small landing high up the rubble-strewn slopes of the Isle of the Dead.