As the Dominion Lord watched, too shocked to be able to speak, one of the children—a girl with a withered arm—took hold of the Sovereign Stone and removed it from its place upon the horse blanket. The stone was attached to a thong made of braided horsehair. The girl placed the sacred Sovereign Stone around her neck.
The other children bowed to the girl and reached out to touch her, as if for luck. They seemed to be serious about their play—the Dominion Lord had to credit them with that much. They weren’t giggling. They weren’t making a mockery of the stone. But the Sovereign Stone was not a toy!
The Dominion Lord now felt no qualms at all about removing the stone from dwarven hands. It would not be returned until the dwarves could assure the Council that the stone would be honored and treated with respect.
He stepped out of the shadows and into a pool of sunlight streaming through an opening in the tent roof.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, speaking dwarven, his voice quite stern.
The children were startled, both at the unexpected voice and the amazing appearance of the silver-clad lord, who had to stand with bowed head and shoulders else his helm would have punched through the canvas. But the children weren’t awed or frightened. Standing their ground, they regarded him suspiciously. Four of them placed themselves between him and the girl wearing the stone. He considered that part of the game, and as such it irritated him.
“Hand that to me!” he ordered the children. “The Sovereign Stone is not a toy! It is a holy artifact, given to us by the gods.”
“Who are you, human?” asked the girl wearing the stone around her neck. Dwarves with their deep, gruff voices, would have considered her child’s voice shrill, but she sounded like a human adult to the Dominion Lord. “And what right do you have to enter our holy temple?”
“Temple,” he murmured. It had not occurred to him before now that this tent could be a temple, the wooden box and the horse blanket a dwarven notion of an altar.
If that was true, he had committed a grave error. The children were right, and he was in the wrong. He had entered their “temple” without permission, and he had not introduced himself as would any true chivalrous lord.
“I am Gregor,” he said. “A Dominion Lord of Vinnengael. My allegiance is to King Helmos. I apologize for my rudeness. I was deeply offended to see the Sovereign Stone being used as a toy, however.”
“We, too, would be offended by such a sight,” the dwarven child said gravely. “But you need not worry. We are the Guardians of the Sovereign Stone, and we would not permit anyone to make sport of it.”
The guardians! Lord Gregor stared, aghast. These children, the stone’s guardians! Dunner had much to answer for, and the dwarf would do so. Lord Gregor would bring him up before the Council.
“I do not mean to offend you, but you are children. Children should not be guarding the Sovereign Stone. Great warriors should be guarding it. And you should not be wearing it as a frivolous adornment,” Lord Gregor added, gesturing.
“Indeed I do not!” The girl was indignant.
“The stone sat here for many cycles of the moon,” said a boy. He had assumed what Lord Gregor now saw to be a defensive posture to protect the stone. “It was alone. No one came to see it. No one came to do it honor. It was neglected, abandoned.”
Like these children, Lord Gregor thought. Orphans all of them. Abandoned by their parents, neglected by those forced to care for them.
“We came here to see the stone one day,” said the girl. “It shone brightly in the sun and sent rainbows dancing all around. It was the most beautiful thing we’d ever seen.”
“We dusted it and swept the floor and made its dwelling clean and neat,” said another boy.
“And every day one of us takes it up and wears it against our heart”—the girl placed her hand upon her small chest—“to do it honor and to make the stone know that it belongs here. That it is one of us.”
The Dominion Lord knelt on one knee. He did so in part because he was growing stiff from the continued stooping but mostly because he felt that these children had earned his respect.
“I most humbly beg your pardon,” he said. “I did not understand and was quick to judge. Accept my apology, Guardians of the Sovereign Stone.”
“We accept it, Lord Gregor,” said the girl with a quaint gravity that might have suited King Helmos himself. “And now tell us why you have come to the City of the Unhorsed.”
“I came seeking Lord Dunner,” Lord Gregor replied. “He accepted the Sovereign Stone from my King to hold in trust for your people. When he did so, Lord Dunner swore an oath that if my King required the stone to aid us in battle, the dwarves would return the stone. My King’s need is great,” the Lord continued simply, “and he sent me to ask for its return in fulfillment of the oath. I had hoped to speak to Lord Dunner.”
The children looked at each other. They seemed to reach some sort of consensus in that look. “We know Lord Dunner,” said the girl. “He is the only one besides us who comes to pay honor to the stone. But we do not know where he is.”
“If he had word of your coming,” added the boy, “he would be here to meet you.”
“I sent no word,” Lord Gregor said, feeling more and more that he had completely bungled this matter. “I traveled in haste. Our kingdom is in dire peril.”
“Who started this war?” the girl asked.
Lord Gregor explained as best he could, telling them how Prince Dagnarus had turned to evil; how he sought to be King when, by rights, he had no claim to the throne.
“A war between human brothers,” the girl said, clarifying the situation in her mind.
“Yes, that is true,” Lord Gregor confirmed.
“My father is the leader of his clan,” said the girl. “If he and my uncle were to fight, would the humans send us their part of the Sovereign Stone to help one win over the other?”
“I…well…” The Dominion Lord could not lie. The very idea was ludicrous, of course. He fumbled for a way to make these children understand that a family feud among the dwarves was far different from a war between the King of Vinnengael and his demon-brother.
“And how would the humans know which brother was in the right?” asked a boy. “Perhaps the clan chief is a bad leader. Perhaps his brother would be a better leader. Perhaps the brother deserves to be the leader. You humans would not know this. You might send the stone to the wrong one.”
“You humans would not send the stone at all,” another boy said, regarding Lord Gregor with a penetrating gaze. “Would you?”
“There is a vast difference,” Lord Gregor tried to explain. “Vinnengael is an immense kingdom; the most powerful kingdom on the continent. What happens in Vinnengael will affect everyone—dwarves included. Whereas what happens in a single dwarven clan is…is…not as important,” he finished lamely.
“It is to us,” said the girl. “For those in the clan, that clan is their continent. It is the most powerful force in their world. This realm of Vinnengael of which you speak is far away from us.”
“Just as one clan will not meddle in the affairs of another,” said the boy, “so we dwarves should not meddle in the affairs of you humans.”
“We will keep our part of the Sovereign Stone with us,” the girl concluded. “Where we know it is safe and that someone will come every day to do it honor.”
Removing the stone from around her neck, the girl placed the stone with much reverence back upon its place on the horse blanket. The dwarven children gathered around the stone and bowed before it. Then, forming a line around the stone with their small bodies, they turned and looked steadily at Lord Gregor.
He could seize the stone. He could snatch it from its place, take it by force. These children could not stop him, though probably they would attempt to do so, and he would have no choice but to hurt them.
Lord Gregor guessed that if he did that, the stone would cease to make rainbows in the sunshine. Its luster would dim. As a Dominion Lor
d, he had sworn an oath to protect the innocent and the weak, to protect children like these. He could argue that the dwarves were breaking their sworn oath and that thus they had forfeited the right to the stone, but he had the feeling the gods would not accept that argument. If Lord Dunner had been here, that would have been different. Dunner had sworn the oath, and Dunner would have to take responsibility for breaking it. But Dunner was not here and the Dominion Lord would not steal the stone from children.
Lord Gregor pondered what to do. He eventually decided that the only option was to return immediately to Vinnengael, explain the situation, and ask for counsel. If King Helmos demanded that he come back and seize the Sovereign Stone by force, Lord Gregor would do so. But only if his King and fellow Dominion Lords demanded it.
And Lord Gregor did not think King Helmos would.
Bowing to the children and to the Sovereign Stone, Lord Gregor left the temple.
The children bid farewell to the stone, promising to return tomorrow, and then they left the temple to take up their dreary lives. Lives that for a moment or two every day were filled with rainbows.
Not until that night, long after Lord Gregor had entered the Portal and was safely on his way back to Vinnengael did Dunner enter the tent. The temple was dark, except for the Sovereign Stone, which seemed to shine with a faint radiance. The radiance might have been conjured up by wishful thinking, or perhaps the stone really did have its own inner light. Dunner could never make up his mind.
He knelt before the stone, but he did not touch it tonight, as he did sometimes, delighting in the warmth that entered his body and eased his spirit. He was there to bid farewell to it, for he would never see it again. He had broken his oath, for he had been a secretive, silent witness to the proceedings in the tent. He would be punished for oath-breaking; he knew that. He would take his curse as far from the stone as possible.
Far from the stone and its guardians.
Dunner left the city on foot, walking into the desolate plains.
He did not ride, for he was one of the Unhorsed.
The Keepers of Time
North of Vinnengael, cloud height in the Dragon Mountain, stands the great monastery of the Keepers of Time. The distance from Vinnengael to the monastery does not seem far if one looks at a map, but in actuality a journey to the monastery takes many, many days. There is a trail, but it is little more than a donkey path, and it is twisted and torturous as it winds its way back and forth like a lazy old snake basking in the sun on the side of the mountain.
The monastery is an immense structure, made of huge blocks of granite, its walls seeming to rise up out of the bones of the mountain. It is old, its origins mysterious. Not even the Keepers know how their monastery came to be built or who built it, for, according to legend, the monastery was already there when they were brought to the mountain at the beginning of time.
The Keepers themselves believe that the monastery was built by the Ancients, a race said to have existed on Loerem long before elves or man or dwarves or orken; a race that presumably died out, but not before they had left intriguing traces of their existence. The monastery was perhaps the greatest and most extensive of their works, though there are some who say that the Ancients were responsible for diverting the flow of the river, carving out cliffs, and creating the seven waterfalls that were later to surround the palace of Vinnengael.
Paintings of extraordinary beauty, which are often found in odd places—on the side of a sheer rock face or the ceiling of a grotto—are said to be the work of the Ancients. Why a society that had the capability of producing such monumental architectural wonders as the great monastery, creating such scientific wonders as waterfalls, and such artistic wonders as these exquisite paintings should have disappeared was inexplicable. Many legends are told of the Ancients, who are universally agreed to be a tall people—taller than the orken, of slender build—more slender than the elves, of wondrous beauty—more beautiful than the most beautiful human, and skilled at riding—more skilled than any dwarf. Indeed, the dwarves have a legend telling how the Ancients captured and tamed the first wild horses.
There was once a shipload of orken, blown off course by a terrible storm, who made landfall on an unknown continent and who claimed to have there met the Ancients, whom they described as small, wizened, timid folk who lived in mud huts. This story was generally discounted, since orken are known to be notorious liars. Those who have heard it maintain that the orken had run across dwarves, who might seem small and wizened to those who had been subsisting for weeks on a diet of the intoxicating cha-gow.
The monastery is simple in design, with large square columns, smooth walls, and spacious rooms that are open to the sun and wind, rain and snow. There are many windows but no panes of glass, no iron bars to repel invaders, no arrow slits in the walls. The monastery is a house of peace, tranquillity, and serenity. It is not a fortress. Admittedly by the time any invading army made its way up the mountainside, those who had not tumbled over the edge of the cliffs would have been too exhausted from the climb to do more than lie down and gasp for breath in the thin air.
The monastery is entirely self-subsistent; the monks live on what they raise in their gardens and the food offerings made by those who make the torturous journey up the mountain to seek counsel. The monks drink nothing but the water from the mountain springs, the taste of which is said to rival the finest wine, and the rare and special tea that only grows there. The tea not only extends their lives, but preserves their bodies after death. The preservation of the bodies is most important, since the history of time is recorded on the monk’s skin. The monks’ corpses are saved and cataloged, much like the books in the Royal Library. To take a walk in the tombs of the monastery—and they are not referred to as tombs, but as the Catalog—is to take a walk back into the past.
Though people often make the long trek up the mountain seeking counsel, the monks never give advice. They never say a man should do yay or nay. They do not have the art of divination. They cannot see into the future. But they see all of the past and thus they have come to know much about the workings of the hearts and minds of mankind, which also includes elvenkind, dwarvenkind, and orkenkind. The monks will tell a supplicant how his problem relates to the very same problem faced by a man seventy years earlier and how he had solved it using X or how he had discovered that he could not solve it at all, but that another man thirty years after had run across something similar and succeeded by trying Y. Since most people are convinced that their problems are unique to themselves, such information is often not welcome nor considered particularly helpful. For this reason and because of the rigors of the trip up the mountain, the number of people who seek advice of the monks is small.
As for the monks, they are constantly coming and going up and down the side of the mountain, riding their stalwart, sure-footed donkeys, who are not very fast, but who can guarantee that their riders will arrive safely at their destination. Accompanying the monks on their journeys into the world to record history as it occurs are their bodyguards.
These guards come from a tribe of people known as the Omarah, who have long lived in the mountains and worship and revere the monks. No greater honor may be accorded to a member of the Omarah than to be chosen by the monks as one of the select few who travel the world with them and whose responsibility it is to guard the monk’s person both in life and in death. For should a monk die upon the road, it is the sacred duty of the Omarah bodyguard to return the body to the monastery, where it may take its proper place in the Catalog. The Omarah are human in origin, but as tall and as strong as orken. Indeed, if it were not impossible to crossbreed among the races, one might think that the Omarah are a cross of orken and humans.
The bodyguards are the tallest and strongest of their kind, men and women. Each serves ten years, starting from age twenty to age thirty, when they retire. Upon retirement the bodyguards are rewarded by a gift of a plot of land, a small flock of sheep or goats, and a house. The guards are ever af
ter honored by members of their tribe and often sit upon tribal councils or became tribal leaders.
It is odd indeed to see a procession as it wends its way out of the mountains—the monk, small and shrunken, his skin turned a rich brown color from the tea and covered all over with intricate tattoo marks, trotting along on his sedate donkey, surrounded by gigantic men and women over seven feet tall, clad in leather armor and armed with massive spears that seem the size of oak trees.
The persons of the monks are sacred. Any who assault one of the monks or one of the bodyguard are said to be cursed not only by the gods but by the Void, as well. The monastery itself is ruled by five dragons, who are rarely seen. The five dragons will exact awful vengeance upon any city or village, group or individual responsible for the untimely death of one of the monks.
Such is their knowledge of and insight into the past that the monks can predict events with an uncanny regularity that often makes it seem as if they can see into the future. Whenever any event of historical importance is about to happen, one of the monks will almost certainly arrive to record it. The same is true of events that at the time seem to be of no importance, but that will later turn out to play a pivotal role in history.
Almost a year had passed since Dagnarus became Lord of the Void, and its events had been recorded in the monastery. Almost six months of that year had passed since Helmos had sent out the Dominion Lords to retrieve the three missing parts of the Sovereign Stone. Two of the requests had been flatly denied. The elves were still in prayer, still making offerings, still holding games to honor the gods over the matter, but Helmos knew a denial when he smelled one.
At that time, four monks who were the leaders of the Order of the Keepers of Time summoned one of their number into their presence. There were in reality five monks who headed the Order, for the fifth was seen only on rare occasions and only when there was dire trouble in the world. In fact, the four monks had expected the arrival of the fifth to this meeting. When the fifth did not show, they delayed the start of their proceedings for as long as they possibly could, looked continually at the fifth chair in the chamber, expecting that at any moment it might be filled. The fifth monk did not make an appearance, however, and his absence was duly noted with a tattoo mark on the arm of the monk summoned into the exalted presence.
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