The Golden Orb

by Doug Niles

  Kerrick broke into the man’s reverie. “Say, when the boatmen come down for work, could you ask some of the lads to get the chest out of Cutter’s hold? There’s a lot of gold in there, payment from the Thane of Bearhearth, and most of it goes into Moreen’s treasure room.”

  “Sure will,” Mouse agreed.

  The elf felt strangely restless as he left the harbor, walking steadily but slowly up the long road that cut its way back and forth across the steep slope above the little anchorage. Yes, it had been a long time since he had thought of Coraltop Netfisher. Mouse’s remark had startled him into old memories, which he had decided were best left in the past where they belonged.

  Such memories made him feel all the more out of place, sometimes jarringly so. An elf among humans! They were appealing companions, of course, but could they ever truly be his people? Once again he found himself thinking of what Coraltop had said in the dream. His father, Dimorian Fallabrine, had sailed off from Silvanesti, never to return. Now he seemed destined never to return. It didn’t seem right that the son should share the father’s fate.

  Finally he crested the ridge, and Brackenrock loomed before him. The twin towers of the gatehouse stood tall and proud, smooth-seamed with fresh mortar. The gate itself was open, deployed downward as a ramp across the shallow ditch before the curtain wall. As Kerrick made his way up the road toward the gates, the terraces came into view on the oceanside of Brackenrock, opposite the shore of the White Bear Sea. The soon-to-be-verdant fields descended the long slope below the great citadel. They curved along an incline. The broad hillside faced north and so caught every precious ray of the sun that would soon shine for a nightless season lasting for three uninterrupted months.

  He encountered Bruni near the gate as she ambled outward carrying a large, iron pry bar. The big woman’s moonlike face beamed in greeting.

  “You have that look in your eye—you must have taken your boat out for a whirl,” she said with a hearty chuckle.

  “It shows in my eyes?” Kerrick asked, surprised and amused.

  “Well, actually you got a little windburned, and that looks like salt on your tunic, so no, I guess it’s not really your eyes. Still, it’s nice to see you happy.”

  The elf grinned sheepishly. “I guess I was kind of a gruff bear toward the last month of winter there. I hope I didn’t bite you too hard.”

  “I’m a big girl, in case you haven’t noticed. No, nothing where I couldn’t just bite right back if I’d wanted to.” Bruni’s gaze shifted back toward the castle. “At least you cheer up when the sun comes out again. I wish she would get out of the citadel for a little while, let herself go for a ride on your boat, a bear hunt … anything! Which reminds me: She’s looking for you.” There was no need to specify who “she” was.

  Kerrick nodded. “About the harbor boom, right?”

  Bruni nodded.

  “We’ll need about fifty strong men—excuse me, strong people,” Kerrick explained, with a nod toward this woman who could lift him clear of the ground with one hand. “As soon as we have a work party, we can finish the job in one day, but I assumed she’d want to wait until the fields were planted.”

  “You don’t have to explain it all to me,” the big woman said. “I’m off to see about the lumberyard. The feeder track into the sawmill is out of alignment again.”

  “Good luck,” the elf offered, knowing that, if anyone could align the heavy rails leading up to the iron blade, Bruni would be able to do the job. Everything he taught her she had learned to do, often improving on his own methods.

  Passing through the gates, Kerrick started toward the great hall, where Moreen had her planning table and where the chiefwoman would most likely be found. An impulse moved him, and instead of going directly to the keep he turned to a side door. Following a long passage illuminated only sporadically by the light spilling from slits in the wall, he came to a stairwell. Here he took the time to strike a spark and ignite the torch that was kept here for just this purpose.

  Descending the steep steps into chill darkness, he ducked low and made his way along a narrow corridor until he came to a locked door in the wall. The corridor continued on into the dark distance, but past this place the floor was lined with a thick layer of undisturbed dust.

  Kerrick was one of four people who had a key to this door. He turned it, released the latch, and went inside.

  The treasure room of Brackenrock was a very large chamber, especially considering that now it contained only a dozen barrels of whale oil, a few pallets of golden ingots, and a stack of small casks filled with potent, intoxicating warqat. In one corner, set apart from those possessions, were three small chests.

  The elf held the torch up high as he lifted the lid, in turn, of each unlocked strongbox. He beheld the piles of gold coins, each a mass of many hundreds of coins, and he reflected on what that treasure could buy for him in the city of the elven king. Most importantly, far more significant than the wealth, the gold represented the restoration of his family’s reputation, the successful conclusion to an exile issued by his king.

  Kerrick knew that King Nethas had issued the challenge to find gold more as mockery than as an attainable, true goal. He chuckled dryly. Here in the Icereach he had found more gold than the king could dream of.

  A few minutes later he entered the great hall. This was the largest chamber in the entire citadel, a vaulting cavern of space that dwarfed the small knot of people huddled around a table at the far end. The great shutters aligning the north and east walls had been opened, and rays of bright sunlight angled, still more horizontal than vertical, through clouds of dust mites dancing in the room.

  Several large fireplaces gaped in the walls around the room, none of them as large as the mighty hearth spreading beyond the work table. Atop that hearth, bright in the illumination of reflected sunlight, the Axe of Gonnas hung in its place of honor. The golden blade was cold now, but the immaculate metal seemed deep and sinister, suggestive of the magical fire lurking there. Kerrick felt the familiar flush of pride as he saw the axe. The artifact had been an ogre treasure, and now it was the trophy of Brackenrock. It had been the elven Messenger who had wrested that prize from the hands of the ogre queen herself.

  Inevitably, as he crossed the room, the sense of space diminished, and he found his attention focusing on the slight, black-haired woman looking down at plans and drawings on the table. Moreen was poring over the sketches for the third terrace, detailing which fields would be planted with barley, which with wheat. As Kerrick drew near she looked at him and blinked for a moment, as if she couldn’t remember why she had asked to see him. He stared into her face, that image of pure beauty coupled with a remote, imperious sense of command.

  “You’re back from Bearhearth,” she observed dryly.

  “Yes, I have the gold.” He thought of telling Moreen the tale of that place’s naming but quickly decided she wouldn’t be interested. More accurately, she wouldn’t want to take the time to listen to him talk about something so irrelevant to all the hard work that needed to be done.

  “The harbor boom,” he offered. “We can finish it tomorrow, but I need fifty workers to haul the chain across the water. Do you want to spare the Highlanders from work on the terrace or wait till after you’ve planted?”

  She grimaced at the quandary and shook her head in exasperation. “They both need to be done as soon as possible!” she snapped. “Pull the men from the field. Nothing is more important than our defense.”

  “All right,” the elf agreed, content with her decision. Like the king in his homeland, she had the power and decisiveness to make such commands. Men like him existed merely to enact her decrees. He half turned away before he paused and looked at her. He could sense her impatience and knew that she wanted to get back to work. It was only then that he knew what he was going to say, what he had to say.

  “After the boom is done I’ll have some of the boys help me load my gold from the treasure room,” he said off-handedly.

>   “Onto Cutter?” she asked, frowning. “Why?”

  “Because,” Kerrick said, drawing out the words, surprised at what he was saying, as his notion suddenly crystallized, “I’ve decided to sail north this summer, to Silvanesti. I’m going home.”

  he Alchemist sat in the chair beside his fire, the embers piled high, radiating heat through the chamber. It was after sunset, late spring, and he cherished the encompassing darkness. He was weary but not—yet—mired in that sinking despair that would clutch at him when the magic at last wore off.

  In this hazy daydream his mind began to wander, into the past now, for he had no desire to anticipate his future. How long had it been since he had first succumbed to that sweet thrill of magical bliss, the enchantment that brought pleasure beyond compare? A century perhaps? Even longer? He could not recall.

  The first taste of that sweet, magical nectar had changed his life forever. His days of peace, of contentment, had vanished, replaced by a constant longing that was never totally fulfilled. Indeed, for those periods when his desire was slaked, life was a dizzying thrill, darkened only by the fear that someday the magic would be gone.

  Early on he had sensed the connection. Gold purchased magic, and magic gave him life. So he had devoted his life to the acquisition of gold. He had been successful enough that magic was plentiful, and that combination had fueled and driven him, and at last brought him here.

  To Dracoheim.

  His room had been repaired since the accidental explosion. Now he had new furnishings, surroundings appointed as well as any lord’s manor in his homeland. It was a chamber of opulence, filled with treasures of gold and jade that meant nothing to him, not now, not when his need was once again beginning to grow.

  The Dowager Queen had rewarded him well after his discovery. First, she had used her power to heal his burned and blistered flesh. Then she had brewed him an entire small barrel full of magical potion and had given it to him to consume as he desired.

  That cask was half empty now, but still more than a hundred swallows of clear liquid remained. This particular batch was a liquid that rendered his flesh into amorphous, gaseous form. Previous batches had rendered him invisible each time he drank it, but he didn’t care whether or not the magic dissolved his flesh into sentient gas or caused him to disappear from sight These were purely secondary effects. To the Alchemist, the magic was the whole thing,

  Now his need was too great to ignore. He reached into the alcove and filled the dipper to overflowing, swilling down the wonderful draught, choking reflexively even as he began to take gaseous form. He floated back in the direction of his bed, but in the end he remained as an amorphous cloud in the middle of the room. The magic suffused his veins, relieved his pain, soothed his need …

  Again he felt alive, alive!

  He drifted to the window, looked into the late spring night, and saw the brightness above the horizon. It gave him some pleasure to watch the white moon rise, the full and silvery circle. This was one month before the solstice, he knew, and for his own amusement he made a few calculations, considering the converging paths of the sun and moons. The results were clear, and the news might be of use.

  When, a short time later, he materialized, he wrote his findings down for the Dowager Queen. Then he went to work, laboring as if in a trance but a trance that increased his speed, sharpened his acuity, and reinforced his memory and judgment. His hands flew through the motions, mixing powders and liquids, maintaining a low simmer for a bluish solution, fanning the coals on a small forge so that a little kettle of gold nuggets gradually melted into a pool of molten treasure.

  Acid simmered in the large vat, spuming acrid vapors into the air. The Alchemist coughed, ignored the discomfort as he turned the valve to draw off the noxious liquid. For long minutes it trickled away until all that was left was the powder, the stuff that was so valuable to his ogre masters. Innocuous, simple in the end, but so very, very dangerous to create. The amalgam of finely powdered gold, pure salt, black cinder, and ash, when exposed to the touch of a magic potion, would yield violence and destruction on a scale the world of Krynn had never known.

  Carefully he scraped the amalgam from the sides and from the bottom of the glass container, wiping the residue into an ivory tube. Somehow he controlled the trembling that normally tormented him.

  When it had all been gathered, he sealed the tube—which was nothing more than a walrus tusk that had been hollowed out and fitted with a watertight cap.

  His work was done, and he was weary. With shaking fingers he reached for the dipper, removed the top of the keg to release a cloud of sweet vapor. With a quiver of anticipation, he put the ladle to his lips, tilted back his head … and drank his reward.

  “Begging Your Majesty’s pardon, but it’s a thanoi. He stinks too bad to come into the upper portions of the city, so I’ve got him cooling his flippers down at the harbor. He says he’s got a message from the Dowager Queen.”

  Grimwar Bane blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear away the fog of an interrupted sleep. He had just been awakened and was irritated with the messenger—once again it was Broadnose ber Glacierheim who had chosen an inconvenient time to come to the royal apartments. He stifled his displeasure as he digested the import of the ogre’s tidings.

  “A walrus-man? He claims that he comes from Dracoheim?”

  “Indeed, Majesty, and he wears the royal collar around his neck. He bears a tusk-tube with the symbol of the Dowager Queen, your mother. I did not open it, of course, but I inspected the sigil. It seems to be genuine.”

  Grimwar was surprised and puzzled. The tusked, blubbery thanoi were crude and treacherous wretches, and he did not consider them friends. However, they had their uses, not the least of which was the ability to swim long distances. Although he had two stout galleys in his fleet, Dracoheim was so far away, and so remote from the rest of his kingdom, that it was only visited by ship once every few years. If one of the walrus-men brought a message from that remote island, it would likely be a missive of no little significance.

  “What is it?” Stariz emerged from her own chamber, a cloud of ritual incense wafting into the hall behind her. “Who has come?”

  Grimwar was annoyed when the guard, instead of deferring to the king, stepped forward to bow to his wife. “I bring news of a message from the Dowager Queen, Your Majesty. She sends a tube from Dracoheim, arriving just tonight in the hands of a thanoi messenger.”

  “I have been expecting this,” Stariz said, which surprised the king even more than Broadnose’s temerity. “Where is the message?”

  “The thanoi is harbor-side, Your Majesty. I will bring him up, if that is the royal wish—though you should know that he gives off by a most pungent and unpleasant odor.”

  “I know what a thanoi smells like,” snapped Stariz. “Bring him to us at once—”

  “No,” countermanded the king, drawing a sharp look from his wife. He, too, knew what a thanoi smelled like. “We will descend and interview him on the harbor level. Have the royal accounting house made ready.”

  He glared at his wife, who—for once—bit her tongue. Broadnose bowed deeply. “It shall be done at once, Sire!” he declared, before hastening back to the lift.

  The king expected Stariz to complain as soon as they were alone, but she surprised him by bustling back to her chambers, calling for her slaves to bring a deerskin robe. Irrationally pleased at this minor victory, the king made his own preparations, draping his prized robe—the unique black bearskin claimed in a raid on the Arktos eight years earlier—around his shoulders. His slave helped him slip his feet into heavy whaleskin boots, and he waited impatiently for no more than a minute before Stariz, too, was ready.

  “How did you know this messenger was coming?” he asked his wife, as they rode down through the city together.

  “Several times I have spoken to the Dowager Queen in the Ice Chamber … about many things,” she said, with a pointed look.

  The king was silent, anticipat
ing his wife’s next remarks. “She repeats her request,” Stariz said, “asking you to punish the harlot, Thraid Dimmarkull, for the shame she brought to your mother. I tell you, the Dowager Queen is right, my lord. Have the wench put to death, and bring your mother home!”

  “I have spoken on this matter,” growled the king. “I will not put an innocent ogress to death for a dalliance that was my father’s fault, more than any other’s.” He squirmed, wanting to talk about something, anything, else. “Now, tell me, what is so important about this thanoi’s message?”

  “Be patient, my king, and you will find out,” Stariz replied curtly.

  He pressed further, but for her part the queen would provide no details, even though it was an hour or more before they finally reached the harbor level. Here Grimwar paused to regard his two sleek warships, Goldwing and Hornet, moored side by side in the great vault of the enclosed harbor. Both were polished and sleek after a long winter inside the mountain, and he allowed himself a moment of expectation. Soon he would take them out, crossing the White Bear Sea, perhaps even venturing onto the blessed ocean itself. He could almost smell the sea air, feel the salt spray against his skin … “Husband,” Stariz muttered, firmly grabbing his arm, “must I remind you that this is a matter of no little urgency?”

  “Of course not,” he growled, following her to the accounting office.

  This sumptuous chamber was a large room located a short distance from the harbor. It was accessed by a pair of wide doors, now closed, through which cargo passed after it was off-loaded. There was a smaller door leading into the elegantly appointed anteroom, which was open, and as they approached the king detected a strong stench of oily fish.

  They entered to find the walrus-man standing between a pair of ogre guards. Stariz peremptorily dismissed the men at arms, while Grimwar studied the emissary with distaste. The thanoi was bigger than a human, though not so tall as an ogre. His most distinctive characteristics were the twin tusks jutting from beneath his blubbery upper lip. Unlike true walrus tusks, which curved downward against the animal’s breast, the thanoi’s tusks had an outward, more elephantine bend. The king knew they made formidable weapons.