by Markus Heitz
“The spitting image of their father. And that’s meant as praise,” Tungdil replied with a laugh. “No, seriously: You can be proud of them. I’m sorry I can’t remember what they’re all called, but one of each seems to have inherited their mother’s magical gift. That’s quite something! And the two sturdily built boys will be fine warriors. I saw them using a combat style that’s a mixture of ubariu and dwarf fighting techniques. That makes them unique!”
He had the air of being uncomfortably affected as he continued. “Forgive me mentioning it, but the three others are not true to type… quite different…”
Ireheart was affronted. “What do you mean?”
Tungdil seemed to search for the right words. “I’m sorry to say so, but they’re all…” and he frowned, “… they’re all better craftsmen than you! Their stonework is excellent.” Then he exploded with a mischievous gale of laughter.
Boïndil joined in, mightily relieved. “Yes, have your little jokes, go ahead.” He looked happily at his friend. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are back with us. I nearly didn’t believe it was really you. You looked… so somber and dark, standing there in your armor at the head of the monsters’ army. As if you were… one of them.” He waited tensely to see how his friend would take that.
Tungdil looked down and touched his golden eye patch with his left hand. “A lot has happened, Ireheart,” he answered, his voice deep, and altered now. The mirth had disappeared and shadows returned to his countenance. “Much has happened to me, and it has changed me.” He regarded his one-time fighting companion. “I must ask you to make allowances for everything you may find strange in my behavior. You will have your doubts…”
“Me?” Boïndil laughed outright and called to one of the soldiers to bring a jug of beer. After a moment’s thought he changed the command: He asked for a small barrel of beer and a bottle of the best brandy. The dwarves have a saying: Memories and worries need beer. “How could I…”
“You will doubt me, Ireheart,” Tungdil whispered mysteriously. “And I was at the head of that army you saw me with.”
Boïndil did not know what to say, so he just stared back at his companion.
Tungdil took a deep breath as if the memories were causing him physical pain.
They waited in silence until the door opened and the drink was served to them. Wordlessly, they each drained their next tankard, then Tungdil forced himself to speak.
“I have done deeds, Ireheart, that no one would believe. No one who knew the Tungdil I once was. But to survive in the places I have been, searching for a way out of the demonic world, I had to do these things.” His voice was hoarse and he was staring straight through Boïndil, through to another world. “There are creatures, my friend, which can inflict the most terrible tortures on their victims. To get them subject to my will I had to be even worse.” He touched the runes on his tunic. “Believe me, I was worse than them.” He reached for the bottle.
Boïndil looked his friend over; he appeared strange, very strange. “Do you want to tell me about it?” he said finally, pouring himself a brandy. “Or…”
Tungdil shook his head. “In good time. I have lived too long in the darkness. Allow me to adjust to the light of your friendship.” He cleared his throat. They drank a toast to each other. “So, what’s new in Girdlegard?”
“Did you hear nothing on the other side?”
“No. There was no communication as long as the shield was in place.” Tungdil started to drink more quickly now, and when he emptied the tankard he refilled it more generously each time. “You spoke of Lot-Ionan. Walking through the corridors here in the fortress I’ve picked up the odd snippet. Sounds worrying.” He poured himself some more beer. “They spoke of a Dragon in the west, the kordrion in the north and the älfar taking over in the east. How much of this is true?”
“All of it, Scholar,” sighed Boïndil. “Girdlegard is no longer a safe haven.” He stood up and went over to a small table where more rolled-up maps lay. He selected one and spread it out in front of his friend. “Lot-Ionan has lost his reason. That’s what they all say. He has overrun my homeland, the Blue Mountain Range, taking it from the secondlings. He’s driven them out with his magic arts. Any refusing to leave were killed outright. He’s collected famuli around himself and, if you ask me, he’s preparing for war.”
Tungdil stared at the lines on the map. “Against the kordrion?”
“No. Against the Dragon Lohasbrand, who has taken over in the Red Mountains, after driving out the firstlings. As far as we know there’s only a handful of that tribe holding the pass in the west to fight off the monsters from outside.” Boïndil pointed to Tabaîn and Weyurn. “They have to pay tribute to the Dragon. The Scaly One has found humans willing to be vassal-rulers under him. They call themselves Lohasbranders. They rule as if they are noblemen and have regiments of orcs doing their fighting.” Boïndil pulled at his beard. “Yes, the pig-faces have got much smarter, or at least the ones the Dragon brought into Girdlegard. It doesn’t make life any easier.”
“By all that’s infamous!” Tungdil exclaimed, thumping his fist down onto the table so violently that the bottle and tankards jumped.
Ireheart’s eyes narrowed. “Infamous? How do you mean?”
Tungdil waved this aside. “Carry on,” he said grimly.
“In the east the älfar have erected their towns again…”
“The älfar are back?”
Boïndil nodded. “But they’re different ones. They came in through the High Pass after Lot-Ionan had banished the secondlings. They’re led by an old acquaintance of ours: Aiphatòn. Do you remember him?”
“I do. And I’d never have thought he would imperil Girdlegard.”
Ireheart nodded. “It took us all by surprise when he led the black-eyes back to their old haunts and waged war on the elves and the others who had helped the pointy-ears in the old days. Well, you can’t really call it waging war. There were only about forty of the pointy-ears left at that stage.”
“The Elves were wiped out…?”
“No. Most of them were slaughtered, but the rest disappeared. Nobody knows where they went. There are various rumors about their end. I don’t know all of the stories. But you won’t see any elves in Girdlegard.” Boïndil scratched his nose. “The thirdlings have made an alliance with Aiphatòn and they rule in the east over most of what used to be called Idoslane. The älfar hold sway in the former human kingdoms of Gauragar and Urgon in the north and east.” He noticed that Tungdil’s gaze seemed to go straight through the map. “Is this all too much for you?”
“Go on. I can take more pain than you think,” his friend replied angrily.
“So it’s just the north.” Ireheart tapped the map. “Here, the Gray Range. Queen Balyndis… You know who she is?”
Tungdil nodded absently as though she were a matter of no concern to him.
Ireheart was surprised there was not more of a reaction to the name Balyndis, but he carried on with his report. “She holds the Stone Gate with her remaining fifthlings and takes arms against the kordrion and his brood. It’s a long struggle, though, because the beast keeps reproducing. No one understands how that works, because there’s only this one adult.”
“Yes, well, that’s something you wouldn’t know: They don’t need a female,” Tungdil explained. “They can all lay eggs, so that makes them a real plague. On the other side, too. Unless you get them under your own control.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. His eye was focused on the ceiling. “It’s incredible. I come home after two hundred and fifty cycles, exhausted from the constant battles I’ve had to fight. I’m desperate to find a quiet corner. But there’s more turmoil here than there ever was on the other side of the magic shield.” He kicked the underside of the table and this time the tankards and bottle toppled over. Boïndil tried to stop the spilled brandy affecting the lines drawn on the map. “So there’s nobody in the whole of Girdlegard man enough? What about the long
-uns? Does it have to be me again? Have I got to raise in anger the weapon I heartily wished to chuck into the depths of Weyurn’s lakes?”
Ireheart gave an embarrassed little cough. “I forgot to mention that Weyurn isn’t a land of lakes and islands anymore. When Lohasbrand came to Girdlegard he dug a massive passage and all the water escaped through the tunnels. The Dragon must have caused other leaks as well…”
With a wild roar Tungdil sprang up from his chair, grabbed hold of the corner of the heavy table and flung it, one-handed, across the room to hit a wall seven paces away. The solid wood broke as easily as if it had been rotten timber.
Boïndil watched his friend open-mouthed. No normal dwarf, however strong, would have been capable of that feat.
Tungdil gave a groan and put his head in his hands, sinking back down onto his seat and cursing in a language that Boïndil did not understand. Runes on Tungdil’s tunic started to glow softly.
The guards came rushing in at the clamor and turned to their general. He waved them back out. There would be talk.
“D’you see?” groaned Tungdil through his hands. “That’s what I meant when I said there would be doubts. You’re wondering how I managed to chuck a heavy table around like a sack of feathers.”
“I suppose… you’re right there, Scholar!” the dwarf agreed. You did it with one hand! That’s quite something.” He made an effort to appear jolly. “You wouldn’t have been able to do that in the old days. That would have improved our chances with the pig-faces: Orc shot-put!”
Tungdil took his hands away from his face and looked at his friend. Round the golden eye patch thin black veins were disappearing into the skin. The word älfar came into Ireheart’s head. “I can’t explain,” said Tungdil tiredly. “Not yet. I need you to trust me.” He stretched out his hand. “Will you do that? I swear I will not abuse your trust and I shall not disappoint you; I swear it by all we have shared in the past!”
Boïndil took his hand after hesitating a moment. He assumed it would be the best way to help his one-time comrade-in-arms. If Tungdil could be sure he had a dwarf by his side whom he could trust he’d be certain to find his feet faster and soon be his old self again. What happened to you? “By all we have shared,” he repeated the formula. “Ah, I’m sure Boëndal would be delighted to see you again.”
“Boëndal?”
“My twin brother!” exclaimed Ireheart in surprise. First Balyndis, now Boëndal.
Tungdil hit himself on the forehead. “I’m sorry; my memory is still swimming in the dark.” He stood up, picking up the tankards that had survived their flight through the room. He filled them with black beer, handing one to Boïndil and keeping the other for himself. “When will I see him?”
“See who?” asked a baffled Ireheart.
“Boëndal, of course,” he replied, happily. “Now that you mention him I can picture his face.”
“Tungdil, my brother is long dead.” Ireheart’s lips narrowed. What horrors have you gone through that you could have forgotten all that? How much has your mind suffered? Is it to do with that scar on your head?
Tungdil stared at the floor. “Forgive me. It’s…” He sighed.
“What about Sirka? Have you forgotten her as well?” Ireheart could see by the expression on his face that Tungdil had no idea who he was talking about. He took him by the shoulders. “Scholar, she was one of the undergroundlings! She was your great love! You mean to say you could forget something like that?” He stared in his friend’s one eye, searching for an explanation, an excuse, an answer. The eyelid closed before the brown eye could divulge any secrets.
Tungdil turned his head away. “I am sorry,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. With a jerk he shook off his friend’s hands and walked over toward the door. “We’ll speak again in the morning, if that’s all right. I need more time…” His boots crushed the fragments of the shattered table.
Ireheart got the impression that he was about to say more, but he opened the door and left without saying another word. “By Vraccas, what has happened to him?” he repeated under his breath, as he searched in the mess of splintered wood for the map of Girdlegard.
The map was useless, the brandy having destroyed the painstaking work of the cartographer; names and contours were blurred and illegible.
Boïndil put his head on one side and looked at the heading: Girdlegard. The alcohol and the swelling of the paper had turned the word, with a bit of imagination, into Lostland.
“How true,” he muttered, casting the map to the floor again. An opaque turquoise jewel caught his eye. He’d noticed it on his friend’s belt buckle. It must have come off when he had pulled his table-throwing stunt.
Ireheart picked it up and started after Tungdil to hand it back. It was valuable. Gem cutting was not one of his strong points but he knew enough to be able to estimate the jewel’s value. Smoke diamonds were extremely rare.
“I’m getting forgetful, too. I didn’t tell him about the fourthlings. Or the freelings.” Two more reasons to disturb his friend again before he went to sleep.
It all still seemed like a joke on the part of Vraccas that the realm of the fourthlings, smallest of the dwarves and presumably least well versed in the arts of fighting, should have managed to repel all invaders. The thirdlings had waged campaign after campaign against them but had been unsuccessful. The freelings had been able to resist conquest, too.
“He’ll be surprised to hear that,” he told himself as he pushed open the door to Tungdil’s chamber after knocking several times. “Ho there, Scholar! I’ve got something of yours here. You’ve been throwing expensive diamonds around, did you know?”
Tungdil was standing with his back to the door and did not seem to have noticed him come in. He had removed his tunic, thus unintentionally giving Boïndil a full view of his bare back.
The skin was criss-crossed with scars.
Some were small puncture marks, others were long, reaching round to the front, narrow and broad, some of them jagged, some smooth, some caused by weapons, others made by teeth or claws. The scars had destroyed the tattooed runes and images.
Boïndil took a deep breath. His own body bore witness to sword fights and battles but what he saw here was uniquely terrible. He knew his friend to be a skilled fighter, so could not imagine what foe he must have faced to have these injuries. What would a warrior have to fear from combat with the kordrion?
Tungdil had still not noticed him. His head was bowed and he seemed to be staring down at his own chest. Then he threw a bloodied cloth into a bowl of water; he stifled a groan, and then a glow appeared before him.
Boïndil put the jewel soundlessly onto the chamber floor and withdrew swiftly from the scene.
He had disturbed his friend and witnessed something no one was intended to see. The dwarf left those quarters of the fortress and tried to combat the doubts in his mind by humming a tune. But he could not wave his qualms away, being particularly troubled by the appearance of those black veins around the missing eye. An insistent niggling suspicion made him want to lift that eye patch. What was it hiding?
Goda and Boïndil were sitting in the assembly room where the officers normally held their strategy meetings and discussed the guards’ patrol rotas. A scale model of the Black Abyss and the fortress was displayed on the table; every detail was repeated here in miniature, enabling exact inspection routes to be specified.
“We shan’t need that anymore.” Ireheart touched the glass globe that had represented the barrier. He lifted it off and placed it aside. Then he carefully removed the model of the artifact as well. He stared at the rocks, deep in thought.
“You waiting for the kordrion to show up?” Goda teased him. “The model still matches reality in that respect: No sign of the monsters so far.”
“I was wondering whether we can risk carrying out our old plan,” he replied, running his hand over the edges of the Black Abyss. “We break off the edges here and fill it all up with low-grade iron and other metals. Then n
othing else can get out to attack Girdlegard or the Outer Lands. A plug to keep in the evil.” He glanced over to his wife. “What do you think? Would it be possible with your magic to get the abyss to cave in? But I know your famuli aren’t ready yet to give the support you need.”
Goda stroked Boïndil’s back. “I might be able to do it, but it would take all the energy I have. I’d have no magic left. And the amount of molten metal we would need would be massive! Where would we get it all from?”
“The ubariu would supply it. They’d bring it from all the corners of their realm if it meant ridding themselves of the threat from the Black Abyss.” Boïndil went over to the small table and poured out a cup of water for them both. “I’m afraid the monsters would dig through stone. They’ve waited more than two hundred and fifty cycles and they’re confronting us with an army such as they had on the orbit when the barrier was first erected. Without the shield they would have overrun us.”
Goda sat down. “You don’t think your own fortress could withstand the hordes?”
“In the long run?” Boïndil shook his head. Tungdil’s hints had sent shivers down his spine. “It doesn’t bear thinking what will come crawling out of the abyss if we don’t act soon. The kordrion would not be the worst of our worries.”
“Who says the worst thing isn’t already here among us?” she said in a low voice. She had not intended to speak the thought out loud, but her tongue was too quick. She looked down at the cup in her hand.
Ireheart had heard her words, of course. “You have suspicions about Tungdil?”
“I don’t believe it’s the genuine Tungdil we’ve welcomed here inside our walls,” she responded firmly.
“It is him,” Boïndil insisted resolutely, but he avoided her eyes.
“How do you know that? How can you be sure? Because you drank together yesterday?” Goda sighed. “I wish for your sake that it is our Tungdil and not an illusion sent by some dark power to trick us. But I think his behavior is so different…”