“Let him be, Lady of Lazzlette, let him be.” King Rallik shook his head.
“What have I missed?” Shinayne stretched, stood, and bowed to both kings as she yawned. “Where are the men?”
“Azenairk has gone off angry tis’ all. He don’t want to be facin’ the truth that what he has is not what he and his father thought. Ye’ need to talk to him, calm him down, and turn him from this deadly course. There is nothin’ to find, Lady T’Sarrin. Whatever was there is long gone, or long cursed, whichever is worse. Speak some sense to him for us, would ye’?” King Therrak pleaded with the elven woman.
“Well, we are going to find it, whatever is there, regardless of who says what. I gave my word, as did we all, and Zen gave his to his father. This sworn journey goes beyond books and scary stories I am afraid.” Shinayne bowed once more.
“Ahhh, dammit! Ye’ be just as stubborn n’ foolish as Thalanaxe then! No use talkin’ to an elf for common sense, I shoulda’ seen that one on the horizon.” Therrak barked at Shinayne, not happy with not getting his point through to her.
“Yes, you should have, your majesty. He is my friend, he is alone on the Agarian continent, just like myself. I can only imagine what rests on his mind and shoulders, what burden he takes with his morning meal, and what would happen were any of us to leave his side. So, say all you wish, we will listen humbly, but we will head west.” Shinayne motioned for Gwenneth to follow her, bowed one last time, and left the halls of Castle Vairrek.
“Head o’ rock she has between those pointed ears. Gwenneth, ye’ be educated n’ all. Talk some sense into yer’ friends, don’t let them go where nothin’ but death be waiting for them. For me.” Rallik spoke softly to the lovely human lady with the dark hair and green eyes, he too, had grown a bit fond of them all.
“And for me.”
“Me as well, for Vundren’s sake.”
Gwenenth looked to the two kings of this magnificent city, and to the high priest of their God.
“I will see what I can do.”
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“Gardik ust vun Attorhek, domthik uturri, the Pub o’ the Bearded Hammer, rooms available. First tavern and inn once ye’ step over the Greenbridge. How would I be guessin’ to find ye’ here, Saberrak Agrannar o’ the Grays and Sir James Andellis?” Zen sat at their table.
The place was well lit, for a city underground anyway. There were pipes and musicians with stringed ivory fiddles blaring merriment, stocky wenches with stockier bearded men, and dwarven soldiers and women danced and drank to a tumbling degree. Greens and swaths of red hung from bronzed rafters, hammers, picks, and axes hung on walls, and coins tossed in every direction as the ales flowed from the bartops. The mugs were piled up, some flasks lay dripping on the stone table, and James groped for yet another with his head down and resting in the spills.
Saberrak had two chairs, elbows resting on the table, watching this festival of little men drink happily and talk loudly to one another. He was not understanding but a few words, yet it seemed so simply fascinating that he could not do much more than stare. He had sipped his mead twice, waiting for a fight or some bloodshed, but it looked as if that would not happen here. Everyone that came up to him patted a horn, or both, and bought him a mug or just spoke to him as if he were the greatest thing they had ever seen. They all smelled of mead and whiskey, but he lowered his edge just a little and allowed a smile in every once in awhile.
“Ye’ let him drink then, did ye’?” Zen looked to the gray gladiator, his friend, with disapproving eyes.
“Hardly. I got stuck trying to piss in that little room in the back, couldn’t get out. They need to make this place bigger.When I did escape, he had polished off three mugs and two flasks already. Kept saying he let you down and would not listen.” Saberrak huffed, flaring his nostrils at Zen.
“Aye, and now he’s piss drunk. Why didn’t ye’ stop him?”
“I did.”
“Don’t look like it to me.”
Saberrak lifted James’ head up by the hair, revealing a swollen eyebrow and a small trace of blood in his left nostril. He lowered his head back down, nicely.
“I did.”
“I see.” Zen shook his head.
“You know how he gets, sobbing, the anger, the slurring of his words. He reached for his blade again, talking of, well you know, so...I helped him sleep.”
“Good man, good man. Don’t tell the ladies, I can’t be tolerating their criticisms right now.”
“It didn’t go well, did it?” Saberrak lowered his head, eyes to the table, he knew the moment he had seen his friend come through the doors to the pub.
“No.” Zen lowered his head as well.
“They found nothing?” He sighed, looking around the room of joyous drunken dwarves, wishing he could have that feeling, for Zen anyway.
“Nothing.”
“What will you do then?”
“What would you do, if you were me? Cuz’ right now, I am at the point o’ losin’ faith on the whole matter.” Zen slid his mug of mead aside.
“Let’s see. You have no family, correct?”
“None.”
“You swore on your father’s dying words to find this place?” Saberrak let James fall onto his shoulder, drool trickling down onto his gray hide.
“Yes, yes I did.”
“We have a trail of enemies behind us, looking for us. Assassins, dragons, corrupt kings, a whole mess trying to stop us, right?”
“Vundren’s certaintly on that, yes.”
“You have four of us willing to die with you if you choose to go. We obviously have nothing better to do.” Saberrak grinned.
“Ha! Ye’ all must be crazy indeed, or desperate for me’ company then!” Zen smiled and laughed.
“We must be. Seriously though, and don’t get all sentimental here like the elf would, I do not care one bit who says it exists or not. The point is that the five of us are going to find out, for ourselves, for you.” Saberrak lifted James over his shoulder and went to take him upstairs.
“Are ye’ worried its not there, or if it is, what in all the hells is down there this long?” Zen smiled up to Saberrak.
“No. I do not worry, and fear is afraid of me, remember? You get us there, and I will let you know if I get worried about anything that my axes can’t handle. I am with you, regardless. I have nowhere else to go.” Saberrak huffed out his chest, the dead weight of the drunken knight was taxing him on so little sleep.
“Having nowhere else to go is not a good reason to go and die for this, ye’ know that?” Zen watched for Shinayne and Gwenneth, kept his eyes to the door.
“It’s good enough for me. Defying the odds, proving others false and wrong, and doing what they say cannot be done, that is a journey I will take any day.”
“Baah, besides all that then, what if we are wasting our time? I’m not sure of it, no one believes in it.”
“I believe in you, and you are going to Kakisteele. So there is one, and I would guess you have a few others.”
“Speakin’ o’ them, I see em’ walking the street outside. Best get him up there, I’ll go and fetch em’ once ye’ve gone.”
“Get some sleep, priest. We need to be moving on soon.” Saberrak ducked his horns and head under the cramped dwarven ceiling, up the small stairs, James in his care and carry.
“Aye.” Zen nodded, feeling the slightest bit better about their predicament.
He sat alone, in a dwarven pub of another city, another expanse of mountains, far from where home used to be. His people would be arguing over mines, the laws of this or that, drunk and fighting in a city of families and clans. Here in a city of war, they drank and danced, he smiled at the irony. Red beards in place of black, deep brown eyes instead of lighter and rounder ones, and darker steel and rock made everything different to him. Yet, for all its darkness, Marlennak seemed brighter somehow, there were no painful memories, no loss here, and Azenairk did not feel chained to failure. His mind wandered
the past.
“Are you waiting for two beautiful women, all by yourself here father?” A chuckling golden haired elven noble, followed by a raven black haired southern woman sat at his table. The dwarven women raised their chins and puffed out their chests as all their men took second and third glances and stares.
“Aye, maybe. But you two are not me’ type. Need em’ a little thicker, little shorter, some meat on the bones ye’ know.” Zen smiled, drank some mead, and rested back in his chair.
“The beast and our knight, are they here?” Gwenne waved her hand to attain some service, she was hungry.
“Aye. Asleep upstairs. We all have rooms, nice ones I’m sure. Saberrak picked the place.” He chuckled at his own sarcasm.
“That is less than hopeful. What do we eat here, I mean, in a dwarven city? I need tea.” Shinayne asked the dark eyed young serving girl for a hot tea as she passed.
“Nuthek, marz vunth.”
The look of shock was momentarily horrifying from the girl and Zen, who once again spit his mead out and began coughing.
“What did you want, tea, elf?” Zen spoke through his wet beard and red strained face.
“Yes, why? What did I say?”
He leaned to the curly haired young girl. “Nathuk, marrth vun etha.” The server girl looked relieved, smiled, and went to get some hot water from the back.
“That’s what I said!”
“No, you told her you wanted her hot blood in a jar. I corrected and asked for a cup of hot water for tea.” Zen laughed, tears in his eyes, his face hurt.
“Close enough. Your language is difficult.”
“Let me order the food. Mostly eggs, goat, cave cabbage, breads, and turnips. You would likely order something from the crypts were I to let ye’.”
“Zen, about heading west. I think we all need to sit and talk, the five of us. What if there is no---“ Gwenneth was cut off.
“We are going. There is no discussion. Do not let kings and high priests sow the seeds of doubt here, we have enough of our own.” Shinayne snapped back.
“I realize that, but there is nothing, no trace. Only words of a dragon that---“
“A dragon that saved our lives on the mountain, gifted us with many a rare enchanted token of her graces, and is nearly two thousand years old. Books are written, rewritten and read by those that were not there. Ansharr would not lie to us, and I would believe here over a book, in any tongue. Why are you taking their side, Gwenneth, it is as if---“
“I am not taking sides, I am using logic in place of emotion. I am looking at all the facts to the contrary, all the opinions, and surmising that we are going on myth here, not the truth. I like to know what I am walking in to, if there is anything at all. It does not look like there---“
“Look? What do you see? Are we there? No, we are not, therefore nothing to see. Do not tell me you can envision what is there or isn’t, you are not that powerful Gwenneth.”
“Putting our lives on the line for fairy tales and old stories does not make us heroic, it may make us dead or lost. Even Zen said that---“
“Zen took an oath, as did we all, to each other and him. I support him, even when others, kings, wizards, priests, or anyone else, would tell him otherwise. I have lost my appetite.” Shinayne left the table and went through the Bearded Hammer Pub to her room above.
“Well, next time maybe I should be in the conversation. Naah, twas’ more amusing to listen to the two o’ ye’ fight over it.” Azenairk drank his mead down.
“I am merely stating that further research could be done. The place is not going anywhere, if it is there. We could check records in Acelinne, Fazurand, perhaps Armondeen. I am sure that the kingdoms closer to this Kakisteele and ruined Mooncrest, if they are true at all, would hold more information. I think we are ill prepared is all.” Gwenneth smiled at the serving girl, then to her dwarven friend. She took one of the mugs that were set down, knowing Shinayne would not be enjoying the tea.
“Gwenneth ye’---“
“I know, I know. I am too reliant on fact, my upbringing I suppose. Books hold such power where I was raised, such absolute power. But not all books are the same, this is a spiritual matter, a matter of faith, and I have no experience in such things.” Gwenne lifted the cup of tea.
“Gwenneth stop, ye’---“
“Perhaps that is why I am so frustrated, besides the dry and hot mountains, the long walks, well I do not actually walk much in truth.” She closed her eyes, blowing a little to the surely hot water, and took a drink.
Her face soured. She gulped, for a lady would never spit at a table in front of people, not a noblewoman.
“Ye’ have my mead.”
“Yes, yes I do. I would like the elf’s tea please. Thank you.” Gwenne slid the mug over to Zen, reached for the one he handed her, and drank the tea this time.
“Better?”
“Not much.”
“Hard to find what ye’ want with yer’ eyes closed and mouth flappin’, ain’t it?” Zen smiled.
“Point well taken dwarf, point indeed.” She smiled, quietly enjoying the tea and early morning raucus of the little dwarven pub.
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His body was shaking, someone grabbing him in his sleep, a dream, then a hand went over his mouth. He jolted, reaching for his axe by his bed. The assailant held tight in the dark, Drodunn struggled, failing to reach his weapon, whispers, many whispers in the early morning hours in his room.
“Drodunn…Ssshhhh…wake up. Father Drodunn, it is me, Brunnwik.”
“What? Hells, this is a dream then, the High Hammer would never be comin’ to me room in the dead o’ night. Die demon o’ me’ foul dreams and---“
“Shut up. I need ye’, now. No armor, no axe, be quiet and follow me.” High Hammer Brunnwik put his hand back over Drodunn’s mouth.
His eyes adjusted, he saw his brother Tannek in the dark, the High Hammer, and no one else. He blinked twice, rested his posture, and sat up.
“Hello High Hammer, little brother. What be the meanin’ o’ this then?”
“No questions, just need another set o’ eyes, another man o’ the cloth, and someone who will keep quiet.” Brunnwik pulled Drodunn to his feet.
“Come on brother, quickly now.” Tannek stepped out of his room in the Temple o’ the Cracked Wall, crept out the passages, down the stairs and out into the silent streets of Marlennak. Brunnwik and Drodunn followed.
An hour later, through cavernous passages seldom used, down stairs of the oldest stones, into the crevice they walked. Castle Vairrek and the temple were now a mile and a half up above them, iron pillars and sharp rock greeted them as they traveled the dark. The gate of iron in the rock face was decorated with the hammer and moons of Vundren, locked with a skull of unpolished bronze.
“What we doin’ in the old crypts then? To open that will get our beards taken off, heads included.” Drodunn knew that ancient nobles were supposedly buried here, sealed off when it filled up, nine generations past or so. It was surrounded by granite smattered iron mostly, too difficult to expand.
Crack, crack
“Guess ye’ will be the taller o’ the two of us then.” Tannek did as the High Hammer had asked him, get him into the sealed tombs. He had told the Marshall he had been having nightmares of the darkest sort, the name Sheldathain kept ringing in his head.
“Open it.”
Creak
“It’s open your holiness, now what?”
“We go inside.” Brunnwik knew if they were found out by the kings, he would be stripped of title, sent before the Moon Hammer, and likely exiled. Vundren had strict edicts about disturbing the dead, no matter the reason.
“You first.” Drodunn pointed to his elder of the cloth, and to his younger brother.
Tannek Anduvann strode in, there was no smell, rows upon rows of bronze placards faced him, built flush with the gray stone. The writing was old, covered in dust and ash from the city above, and every step he took told hi
m he was not supposed to be here. The cavern was high, twenty dwarves or so, and every five feet across or up, there was another marker of a dead dwarf’s permanent resting spot. Thousands were entombed before him, an iron ladder and scaffold lay silent, yet he kept walking ahead in the dark.
“How much further, there be a wall up ahead.”
Brunnwik tried to remember his dreams, they had been vivid all night, but with his age they were but foggy now. “Right side, I know that much. Uuhhh, second tier, near the back I think.”
“Ye’ been here before High Hammer?” Drodunn was trembling, holding his hammer and moons tight in his hands.
“No need to whisper now I s’pose. Aye, when I was young, bout say hundred twenty years past now. I remember somethin’, or somethin’ wants me to remember it. Not sure.” Brunnwik began wiping the dust from bronze plates, reading the inscriptions.
“Very reassuring then.” Tannek grimaced and shook his head.
“No, no, no, no, dammit! This could take days with all the dead around us.” Kings of Marlennak, noble lords, great warriors, rich dead dwarves was all he saw.
“What name ye’ looking for then?” Tannek did not like being here, it was far too quiet and still. He started wiping his hand across markers as well.
“Sheldathain.” Brunnwik kept looking, now moving to the other side of the passage in the tomb.
“Mudren Sheldathain, first and only King of Kakisteele?” Drodunn stated.
“That would be the one, let me knows if ye’ find it.”
“I just read it to ye’, High Hammer.” Drodunn looked again, the years of birth and death were not listed like the others, but the name was right there next to him.
“By Vundren’s armor, so ye’ did! Now, we open it.” Brunnwik pulled an iron bar and some steel wedges from his robes.
“Oh no, no, no , naye and no. We cannot open that, we be sent to the hells by Vundren for this.” Drodunn prayed, closed his eyes, and heard the sound of the metal popping metal.
“Well…ye’ found it for me, so…ye’ are just as to blame already. Might as well help…and get it…over…faster…father Drodunn.” Brunnwik grunted, pulling the bronze plate off with Tannek.
The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains Page 33