I’m gonna stop this prick, even if I have to wear a tree costume and hide in the freakin’ forest.
We were quiet for quite some time. I was deep in deliberation and assumed the others were, as well, but for all I knew, they were daydreaming about pancakes. I was stumped. Even at my most stealthy, there was no way to sneak on a train that would be that heavily guarded while underway, let alone while housed at a special train station built because the guy was so paranoid about such things happening.
The Hanner Brid had the easy part—there was no reason he would be covert when he hit the train. He needed a spectacle the world would see. Otherwise, what would be the point of an attack like this in such an isolated country?
“Dvalinn,” Duma said.
“Huh?” I replied, initially caught off guard. “Oh, you mean the Dvergar smith?”
“Dvergar, Svartálfars, freaky underground metalheads, whatever you want to call them,” Duma said with a shiver and an expression as though he’d eaten a sour apple. “Yeah. I remember hearing something a very long time ago that he created something that could make you disappear. Some stories say it was a helmet, others a cloak. But if anybody could pull it off…”
“I know him,” I said. “And I know where he is. He made my knives and greaves. And some of his people work for Athena.”
Sarah’s vacant and mildly stunned expression suggested our conversation was beyond her.
“Dvalinn is the leader of what was left of the Dvergar, sometimes called Svartálfars or Dökkálfars, but are best known to humans as dwarves,” I explained. “I don’t know why, except that there are some archaic Germanic words for ‘dwarf’ that sound similar to ‘dvergar.’ They are also mistakenly called black or dark elves, too, though they are not elves and not even fae, for that matter. And they are no shorter than the average human. While they all don’t have beards, they all share a love of smithing and technology, they live exclusively underground—to an individual— and they’re creepy and very greedy. Including Dvalinn, who is probably the finest smith ever to walk this planet and makes metal items of such fine quality that some think they are magical in nature. Some of the objects he created thousands of years ago with his kinsman Durinn are even coveted by the Old Ones.”
“Wow. Dvalinn, Durinn, sounds like the Hobbit,” Sarah replied.
“They were definitely the inspiration for those dwarves,” I said, smiling. “I don’t know about the helm-cloak thing, but if something like this exists, then he’d be the one who made it.”
Sarah’s eyes grew larger, and she sat down heavily as if overwhelmed.
Maybe Duma was on to something. “You think he’s still in Iceland?” I asked Duma.
“I’ve never met the guy, but probably,” he replied, sucking at his teeth dismissively. “Just like that freak Goibniu, where the hell else is a smith gonna build his forge but in a volcano?”
“Then we need to get to Iceland right now,” I said. “The southern coastline near Vik. And Sarah, no offense”—I pointed at her—“but I’m not dragging you into this one any farther. Until this gets cleared up, I’m still a fugitive, and that could cause you serious professional problems.”
She opened her mouth as if to protest, but then I could see her thinking it through as her brow knitted heavily at first then relaxed. She pursed her lips and barely nodded a single time.
“Great, another damned volcano,” Duma grumbled.
The last place I’d met with Dvalinn some two hundred forty years ago was at his forge located under a massive ice sheet with a name that sounded like “Vatnayokel” and covered one of the most active volcano fields in the world. A quick check with Athena via text message confirmed that according to the Svartálfars who worked with her, that was still his primary location.
Despite my desire to get moving fast, Duma moaned and groaned for another half an hour about how long it would take him to set things up to get us around Iceland. Apparently, the only gateway through the Telluric Pathways into Iceland was near another volcano named Askja, practically in the dead center of the country. And because it was the end of October, the conditions would be cold and icy.
The highway system in Iceland was limited to say the least, and the snow and ice of near winter would make some roads altogether impassable. It wasn’t going to be a picnic, but Duma had resources I didn’t, at least not at the drop of a hat—and especially since Athena needed to stay out of this beyond providing some intel.
Duma disappeared into another guest room down the hall, leaving Sarah and me alone. I tried to gather my gear, but it was all lying in the same pile it had been for the last few days. After that brilliant maneuver, I stood there, trying to think of what to do next to avoid having to explain the excited kiss or talk about our awkward relationship.
“Um—” I cleared my throat, staring at the floor.
“Oh, for the love of…” In one surreal moment, Sarah closed the distance between us, grabbed my face with both hands, and kissed me. Hard.
My first reaction was total surprise, but I acquiesced quickly and kissed her back. Feelings I had locked up for decades began pouring out in the form of passion. And then Duma walked back in, and Sarah and I quickly and clumsily tried to part and act as if nothing was happening. His gaping mouth and wide eyes said otherwise.
“Now!” he screamed. “Now! You two idiots choose now! I give you guys time before, even encourage it, but you’d rather wait until two minutes before we’re supposed to leave. And you damn well better believe we’re leaving in two minutes after all the crap I just went through.”
He walked in and closed the door behind him, shaking his head, mumbling to himself while Sarah and I tried to act casual. I’m sure our performance came off more like a couple of teenagers trying to deny everything after being caught making out behind the library. As Duma went by, he smacked me in the back of my head.
“Get your fucking gear together, would you?” he said, trying to feign irritation, but I could see the smile creeping into his stern expression.
I hopped into motion. I smiled at Sarah as I grabbed my vest, then clumsily dropped my gun. I could feel my face flush.
“Uh, we need to go. I guess we’ll… talk later,” I said.
“Yeah, later,” she replied, smiling back, pushing her hair behind her ear.
She appeared to be a hell of a lot less uncomfortable than I was at that moment. I was lucky I didn’t trip over a chair. I followed Duma out of the room and watched as Sarah closed the door behind us. I waved like a toddler when his mom leaves. As soon as the door closed, I realized I must have come off like a freaking idiot, and I bumped into Duma. He was standing with his hands on his hips, meeting my gaze intently with consternation.
“What?” I replied weakly. I was out of my depth. Duma knew it, too.
“After what I walked in on, that’s how you leave her?” he said through clenched teeth, keeping his voice low. “Are you serious?”
I stared at him, feeling stupid and confused.
“Your idiocy is not endearing, D.” Lightening up a bit, he pushed my shoulder to turn me around and then pointed at the door. “Go, show her you’re not a complete dork, you dork. Give her a proper good-bye. But make it fast, Romeo.”
I dropped my vest with a muffled clunk, walked back down to the door, and knocked. Sarah answered, and her eyes suddenly widened. I grabbed her around the waist and kissed her—not softly but not urgently, either. I kept it brief.
“I, uh, wanted to say bye properly,” I said without letting her go.
“That was better than just letting me close the door,” she replied, smiling and touching my face. “Now you can go.”
Chapter 33
We made our way down South Beach in the early evening, passed through the Ways, and emerged into a moonscape. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any snow or ice, only a b
arren, rocky, alien terrain. The freezing but humid wind cut into me like a knife, howling through the frigid night air. Next to me, Duma was searching for something on the horizon, using his hand to shield his eyes from the blistering wind. He was entirely unfazed by the temperature. Just once, I’d like to see him shiver or complain about sweating. I was cursing his fae blood under my breath when he suddenly smiled and pointed at something behind me.
I huddled up and stomped my feet, trying to maintain my warmth, but failed miserably. Shivering, I saw a few blinking lights in the black sky, accompanied by the familiar roar of helicopter blades beating the air. Then a sunflower-yellow chopper that resembled a bulky pollywog came into view. I didn’t exactly feel warmer, but the sight buoyed my spirits—until the rotor wash hit me. I didn’t think I could get any colder.
The chopper set down on a flat area about fifty yards downwind of us, and we ducked and ran toward it. Once inside, Duma showed our destination to the copilot, who said something then began fiddling with the helicopter’s navigational instruments.
“He said that they may not be able to land exactly where we want them to on the glacier, but that they’d get us as close as they could,” Duma said, leaning forward in his seat, elbows on knees. “And they’ll only wait around an hour because we don’t have the permits to legally land on the ice sheet. I had to offer them an extra six hundred and fifty thousand kronurs for that.”
“Six hundred and fifty thousand?”
“Relax, it’s only five grand US,” he replied, sitting back and closing his eyes again.
“Five grand?”
“That’s what bothers you?” Duma asked. “Money? You should be more concerned about what Dvalinn might want in return for a magic cloak if he even has one.”
I hadn’t gotten beyond the possibility that Dvalinn might have something that would cloak me, but Dvalinn was a greedy bastard. At least he was up front with his greed and straightforward with his prices, unlike the Fae.
For my knives and greaves, he’d required that I kill and bring him the dragon of Wawel Hill outside Krakow in Poland. Even though I’d accomplished the task, Dvalinn almost reneged because he wasn’t thrilled with the condition of the dragon. Fortunately, my connection to an Old One and Dvalinn’s fear of losing some of his best customers held him to the bargain. I could not even imagine what the Lord of the Forge would want for something that could cloak me, but I was prepared to pay whatever he wanted to stop the Hanner Brid.
The rest of the flight to the glacier took less than an hour, and we touched down a little after midnight local time. The lights of the chopper turned the snow into a blindingly brilliant field of white in the stark black night. The pilot told Duma that he’d brought us within a kilometer of the spot I’d pointed out. They said they couldn’t get closer because the instruments start behaving oddly closer to the exact position. Figures.
Duma and I scrambled out then pillaged the gear bags in the cargo bay before heading off. I hadn’t been there in nearly two and a half centuries, but I recalled the entrance would be along a line that transected the peak of Esjufjöll and the highest peak on the Skaftafell Glacier to the southeast. The peak’s name was unpronounceable, but even in the dark, both summits were visible as the waning moon reflected off the massive ice sheet.
We traveled fast, trying to get into position between the two peaks, then headed toward the top of Esjufjöll. At our speed, even over the ice, I managed to locate the lava tube entrance I hoped would lead us to Dvalinn in less than fifteen minutes. I kicked off the crampons at the tunnel mouth, cracked a chemical light stick, and headed in at a steady jog. The lava tube was small—I could actually touch the walls on either side without stretching—but its diameter remained consistent.
We kept jogging along for at least ten minutes before I began to feel heat radiating up the tube. “You need to go back and hold that chopper here. It’s going to take me longer than an hour, and it’s nearly thirty miles to the nearest town,” I said, stopping to grab Duma’s shoulder. “If you have to, take off, and I’ll pop a flare when I’m ready to go.”
Duma slapped me on the shoulder and headed noiselessly back up the lava tube.
I continued down for another ten minutes until I ran into a sophisticated glamour that was supposed to make it appear as if the tube had collapsed. To me, it looked like a vaporous illusion, so I simply stepped past it, much to the surprise of five dvergar on the other side. Beyond the veil, the pale but persistent greenish glow from my light stick barely illuminated a small portion of what was a sizable open grotto that branched off into a dozen tunnels.
The dvergar that I could see wore heavy gloves and boots, as well as long, heavy blacksmith-like aprons made from some kind of skin. Their stout upper bodies were naked under the aprons, and while they were all shorter than me, it wasn’t by much. None of them wore a beard. Their pale skin glowed in the illumination of my light stick, and several held up their hands to block the light while others pulled on dark goggles. The excited, insect-like chittering of their language quickly filled the chamber, though the conversations didn’t sound particularly alarmed. After a minute, one of the begoggled dvergars approached me without apparent concern and in a gravelly voice said something I didn’t understand. He repeated it twice.
I held up my hands. “I don’t understand you.”
“Who are you?” the dvergar asked slowly in a voice that sounded as if he were chewing on rocks.
“My name is Diomedes, Son of Tydeus, and Pallas Athena’s champion. I wish to speak with Lord Dvalinn.” I bowed my head out of respect then presented one of my knives to him. “He should recognize this.”
The dvergar examined the knife then bowed his head sharply. “Wait here.”
He walked over to one of the others, handed him the knife, and said something in their language. The dvergar with the knife disappeared down one of the tunnels. Then, one by one, all but the individual I’d spoken with left, leaving only the two of us in the cavern. I smiled politely and clasped my hands behind my back, and he returned the smile with a tilt of his head, never taking his eyes off me. Truthfully, I had no idea if the individual was male or female. It had no facial hair, but in the light of my glow stick, I could see the creature’s build was substantial, no doubt from decades of smithing. If it was female, human women bodybuilders would scream for drug tests. If it was male, he was a wiry, well-toned athlete. As he watched me, he kept rapidly jerking around and twitching as if he were a small monkey eyeing a bug. Male or female, staring at me with those goggles glowing in the light of my cyalume stick with the spasmodic head movements creeped me out.
To get my mind off the creepiness, I began pacing and humming, smiling occasionally at the freaky androgynous creature, who simply smiled back. Ten minutes passed before another dvergar emerged from the darkness and spoke to my goggled companion before disappearing back into the inky blackness.
“Very well,” my companion said. “The Lord of the Forge will see you. Please follow me.”
Elated, I fell in step behind him, thankful that he did have pants on as he clomped down the tunnel in his heavy boots. The way dvergar walked always fascinated me. They moved as though they might fall over at any time, almost as if they would be more comfortable walking on all fours.
We passed through several chambers weakly lit only by bioluminescent growth along the walls, floors, and ceiling. After the initial cavern, none of the tunnels or chambers we passed were more than a few inches higher than my head, but every surface visible in the pale blue-green glow and the light from my chemical stick was unnaturally smooth. In fact, even the intersections between tunnels were crisp and clean.
The longer we walked, the noisier it became and warmer the air grew until, finally, I could see the faint orange flickering glow of fire down side passages. A sulfurous smell began stinging my nose, as well, bringing tears to my eyes. A
cacophony of metallic clanks, occasional loud cracks, and heavy thuds and thunks mixed with the insect-like language. Eventually, we headed down a passageway, lit by an increasingly brighter glow, that funneled the noise, now augmented by a distinct roaring bellow that rumbled through the surrounding rock.
We emerged into a round firelit cavern bustling with movement of dozens of dvergar and blanketed by the nearly oppressive smell of molten metal, burning sulfur, and steam. And it’s freakin’ hot.
The clamor stopped almost instantly upon my entry into the room. There had to be thirty dvergar working at a variety of stations around the room, each dressed like my guide. All of them watched me through dark goggles. In the center of the room, an impressive masked figure stood over a massive anvil next to a blazing white-hot fire. He wasn’t tall, but he was broad, and something about him made him appear bigger than his actual size. He tossed his hammer down on the anvil, pulled the welder-like mask up to the top of his head, and growled something to one of the creatures next to him. He grabbed the molten-hot piece of metal he was working with his bare hand, examined it, and tossed it back into the fire. Then he picked my knife up off a worktable to his left.
“Diomedes, the human champion of Pallas,” he grumbled in a deep, resonant voice that sounded as though it came from a rock crusher. “Why do you wish to see me after all these years?”
He squinted at me, his mouth hidden by a massive and bushy ruddy beard, some of which was smoldering and smoking. The gleam in his eyes suggested he knew why I was there.
“Lord Dvalinn, it’s good to see you after so many years. Lady Athena sends her regards, as well. As for my presence, I won’t insult you, so I will simply tell you that I need your help.”
“My help, say you,” he replied, a warm, toothy smile appearing from within his beard. “Come, let us talk somewhere more comfortable.” He motioned with one thick arm toward the only other exit from the cavern. His heavily calloused fingers resembled sausages, and I had visions of him crushing bowling balls like walnuts. He was exactly as I remembered.
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