by Simon Morden
There was nothing to tie the horse to. He had to use the only material to hand – stone – and devised a wedge that would hold a tether. When he’d managed to convince himself that it wasn’t going to slip, he dragged the saddle from the horse’s back and threw a blanket over it.
They were both going to get cold, no matter what. There was nothing to burn. Dwarves might have their black rock, but Büber had none, nor any wood. He wrapped his cloak around himself and tried to find somewhere out of the wind, finally making camp in the angle of an overhanging outcrop, surrounded on two sides by hard grey walls.
He made sure he had his sword, bow and bolts to hand. Giants weren’t going to be the problem they might have been, but there could be other monsters abroad. There was always Heavyhammer’s possible return, too.
Büber wondered what he was up to. An oath was an oath, but if it was made to a human, did it still count? If the dwarves wanted to talk among themselves for a while, he wouldn’t have minded waiting inside somewhere, instead of halfway up an exposed rockface.
He pulled his knees in and rested his chin on them, trying to make himself small. It was almost completely dark, with clouds skittering in from the east and racing away across the valley. The flashes of stars in the breaks were the only light, until, just as Büber’s eyelids were sinking closed, a flickering orange flame caught his attention.
Another fire appeared behind it, and another, until a line of wind-torn torches stretched out across the high ground. They wound towards him, and Büber assumed that the dwarves must know where he was: he could hear them as they came closer, muttering and clattering.
“Come out, human.” It was Heavyhammer’s voice, or at least it carried the right note of regret and weariness.
“You could have just told me you needed to go on ahead,” said Büber, scooping up his sword and holding it in its scabbard.
“It was necessary. No human sees the way into Farduzes unbidden.”
“Even though you’re going to abandon it soon? That makes sense.”
One of the torches closed on Büber’s resting place, and the shadows that fell down Heavyhammer’s face made it look like he was melting. “These are our laws. You will not mock us.”
The wind tugged at Büber’s cloak and the flames from the torches stretched and roared. It wasn’t a good night to be out, so he curbed his tongue.
“So what’s your decision?”
“The king of Farduzes will hear your petition.”
“Good.” Büber got to his feet. “Now, or in the morning?”
“The halls of Farduzes are timeless, and the king is waiting.” Heavyhammer turned his back, and the torches started to move away.
Büber called after them. “I need to get my saddle and my horse – unless dwarvish hospitality doesn’t extend to bed and board for both me and the animal?”
It might not have been something they’d considered, but Büber was going to make them consider it now.
The dwarves seemed to be dithering. The question was straightforward, as was the answer: he was a messenger from a neighbouring prince. It was common custom to treat them well.
Büber decided for them. He picked up the saddle and heaved the tack on loosely. He tied on his sword and bow, and slipped the tether from the rock.
“I’ll see the king now,” he said.
Rather than argue or fight, they acquiesced. The line of lights moved off again, with Büber and the horse trailing after them.
There didn’t seem to be a path, just a wasteland of jumbled rock from giant-sized boulders down to pea-sized grit. They were following a trail he couldn’t see that wound around a pinnacle so tall it blotted out even the night.
Then a door appeared, its shape – tall and broad, like the opening of the fortress gatehouse – shown by the light coming from inside. The lead torch swung from side to side and the line of warm light split and grew. The doors were levered apart soundlessly to reveal a high-ceilinged space beyond.
The torches were extinguished, one by one, and the dark shapes that carried them resolved into the same odd-shaped, ill-clothed man-things that he’d seen the like of beside the river.
He crossed the threshold, and the huge doors closed behind him with an inappropriately soft shush. He steadied the horse and peered around at the smooth, carved stonework. Even high up on the vaulted ceiling, the work was immaculate, the joints all but invisible.
“Leave the beast here. Only your presence is required.” Heavyhammer pointed way down the hall to another equally impressive doorway. Oil lamps flickered in niches along both walls. Their wavering light made the dragons carved up the pillars appear to shift in an unnerving way, especially to someone who’d seen them in the flesh.
Büber once again dragged the saddle from the horse’s back and, wanting for anything else to tie the reins to, fixed them to the pommel. One more thing: inside his saddlebags was a small leather satchel, in which was Felix’s letter. He fetched it out and slung it over his shoulder.
“I’m ready.”
At first, it was possible to convince himself that he was in some kind of building. But after the second set of doors opened to reveal a pit of impossible depth, around which ran a wide road spiralling downwards, the illusion was lost.
There was, at least, a high stone banister to guard against accidents, but he stuck to the wall side, avoided looking down after that first glance, and certainly didn’t think about how far underground he was going. The bottom of the staircase was lost below him, and the central well deep enough to have its own weather.
If they meant to impress him, it was working.
And if the dwarves were growing wary of the weight of rock above them, he understood. It worried him, too.
“How … far?” he asked.
“The secrets of Farduzes are just that: secrets. You are the first man to have walked this way in a thousand years.” Heavyhammer had dispensed with the poetry, but was still as doom-haunted as ever. “You will not be the last. There is a time coming when every thief and robber in Midgard will tread this way, looking for plunder, and there will be nothing to stop them. Our memories, our achievements, our history, despoiled and stolen by those who will ill-use them in their own bitter service.”
“Don’t you have a way of sealing the doors, or closing off passages?”
“Farduzes was not designed to be our tomb, but a living monument to our glory. Why would we build in mechanisms to destroy it, that could be triggered by some madman?” Heavyhammer pulled at his beard, and muttered: “There were enchantments we could have used – they are useless now and we are defenceless.”
They were in the heart of the mountain: galleries led off the main staircase, wide enough to suggest whole towns complete with smelters and forges, farms and gardens. All now were plunged, if not into darkness, into the twilight gloom of smoky orange flame. No wonder they were dying.
Büber looked up at the way they’d come. There were pin-pricks of light from the entrance hall, then long curves of lamps like beads on a necklace. If this place had been lit by magical light, he’d have been able to see all of it, all at once. It would have been terrifying.
They were nowhere near the bottom. Büber finally moved from the wall to a position where he could glance into the abyss again, and their were faint lights at the limit of his vision – or was he simply imagining things? There was no opportunity to check. The lead dwarf headed along one of the galleries, and the procession followed. Runes were carved in letters a foot high above the arch, as they had been above every arch, but it wasn’t just German that the huntmaster couldn’t read.
“The king is old and irascible,” said Heavyhammer. “I doubt if there is anything you can say that will persuade him from his chosen path.”
“I’m here to deliver the prince’s letter. I’m not here to persuade anyone to do anything.” How far below the mountain was he now? Did the world have a beating heart, and how close was he to it?
“You will try, human. It�
��s in your nature. You live like birds, all movement and noise, building your nests and always fearful of the next storm. Even when your labour has been dashed on the ground, your eggs broken, what do you do?” The dwarf glowered at the uselessness of it all. “You build it all again, in the hope that it’ll be different next time. It’s not hope that propels you, but vanity. And foolishness. Nothing ever changes.”
“Everything has changed, Heavyhammer. None of us can escape that.”
“It’s brought the moment of our destruction closer, that’s all.” He looked up at Büber. “If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, then things will go badly for you.”
“I don’t intend to say anything at all.” Büber patted the satchel. “I’m the delivery boy, and there’s no reason for kings to listen to the likes of me.”
The dwarf bristled indignantly. It might have worked had he been in his pomp, but his appearance now reminded Büber too much of the petulant child from Ennsbruck.
“If the king questions you, you will answer.”
“I’m not an idiot, Master Dwarf. I know how to conduct myself.”
“Good,” said Heavyhammer, “because we’re here.”
If the mere corridor had been impressive, the space beyond was vast. Pillars sprang from the floor with such energy that they lost themselves in the space above, and Büber’s footsteps, far from echoing, simply fled in fear and never returned.
In the distance was a dais, and on that dais was a throne.
Büber thought of the time when Gerhard had sought him out in the fortress’s mess room. There had been something – no, a lot – to be said for his ability to speak to other men on an equal footing, while maintaining the gulf in authority that existed between them. For all his faults, the late prince had been approachable, and not only from one end of a stupidly long hall.
“This king of yours: if I’m to greet him properly, I’ll need to know his name.”
Heavyhammer grunted. “His name is Lord Tol Ironmaker, Master of Farduzes, King of all the Dwarves, Mountain Hewer, Spark Quencher, Doom Monger.”
“My Lord Ironmaker has an impressive set of titles.”
“You mean for one so short?” Heavyhammer’s voice rose from a whisper to a shout.
“Not at all,” said Büber mildly. Perhaps, he decided, it would be better if he did say nothing after all, given how touchy they all were. “Just that human lords tend to style themselves more simply.”
Tol Ironmaker had a sizeable ceremonial guard, but their numbers simply proved to Büber the hopelessness of the dwarf king’s situation. All their armour was too small, their pikes strangely foreshortened, their demeanour less than splendid.
Büber’s own escort halted well before the throne, leaving him to make the trip to the foot of the dais with only Heavyhammer by his side.
Ironmaker glowered down from his throne. It was high-backed, high-sided, and the grey-bearded king looked squashed in. His legs were too long to rest easily, and he moved his arms from his lap to his thighs, then folded them in front of him. His sceptre was still impressive, containing the largest gemstone Büber had ever seen, set within a golden cage: never normally one to look for symbolism, the huntmaster thought it quite apt.
Something of a staring contest ensued, until Heavyhammer glanced up from his almost-supine position. “Bend your knee to the King of the Dwarves, human.”
Büber knew how to bow, so he did that instead. Honour seemed to be satisfied, and while Heavyhammer told his lord of the messenger’s credentials, Büber opened the satchel and retrieved the letter.
He proffered it to Ironmaker, and the king gestured for Heavyhammer to take it.
“What language is this written in, human?” Heavyhammer asked him.
“German, I assume. Unless Felix managed to find a dwarvish speaker in the library. Which he might have done, I don’t know.”
“What sort of messenger—”
“One that can’t read, Master Dwarf.” Büber pursed his lips. “I never had the reason to learn, though you’ll find me skilled in other ways. Like lighting fires.”
Heavyhammer approached the king with the letter, and Ironmaker took it from him with about as much joy as he would have received a dead stoat a week after its passing.
The king gave his sceptre to a waiting servant, and cracked the seal on the letter. Still scowling, he opened it and scanned the first few lines. He raised one of his bushy brows and looked over the top of the piece of parchment at its deliverer.
Büber wondered if he should be afraid. The thought of the mountain hanging over him certainly concerned him. The thought of never seeing the sky again likewise. But afraid of these tragic figures? It was difficult to think of them as anything but lost children, abandoned in a world where nothing made sense any more: much like the hexmasters, although at least the dwarves had managed not to turn on each other in bloody revenge.
He gazed evenly back, trying not to show what he was thinking.
King Ironmaker turned his attention back to the letter. It was presumably written in Dwarvish, thought Büber; either that or German-speaking was more common than he’d realised.
It took a while for the king to look up again.
When he did, he let the parchment hang from his hand, allowing Büber to catch sight of a forest of little runes as spiky as pine needles. Ironmaker leant forward to examine the human, then said something to Heavyhammer.
“The king wants to know why you are so scarred. He thought all humans were smooth-skinned.”
“Tell the king I’m huntmaster of Carinthia. Tell him I’ve never been healed because spells would have left a taint on me and left me unable to carry out my duties.”
Heavyhammer translated, and the king listened. He spoke again.
“The king wants to know if your Felix can be trusted to keep his word.”
Büber looked askance. “I’m not the Oracle,” he snorted, “and it ill fits the Master of Farduzes to expect me to judge my own lord’s honesty.”
Rather than passing Büber’s words back, Heavyhammer explained further. “Carinthia’s offer is to the dwarves. Will he honour his offer now we are changed? Will he reject us or enslave us instead?”
“Ah,” said Büber, and he froze. The king had sent him to ask for help in operating the machines below Juvavum, expecting no more than a few dozen dwarves to make the journey. King Ironmaker now seemed to be suggesting the entire dwarvish kingdom decamp for Carinthia. How many of them were there? He’d seen, in all, no more than … well, less than half a century for sure.
But he’d passed numerous galleries on the way down. There could be legions more dwarves, more of them even than Carinthians. He had no way of telling.
What he ought to do was go back to Felix and explain. He was the prince. It was up to him to decide. That was why they had princes, after all, so that people like Büber didn’t have to make decisions of this magnitude.
All the dwarves were looking at him, waiting for him. He didn’t know whether a wrong word now might mean death. He’d no idea, even, what the wrong word might be.
He’d always believed himself a capable enough man – he knew his areas of expertise, and understood also when he was out of his depth, as with the unicorn horns – but here was a decision that might decide the fate of whole peoples and nations.
He remembered how Felix had ordered him to kill the Teuton prisoners, and his later mumbled regret. He remembered his banishment with Nikoleta, and the apology that had followed. He remembered standing on the bridge, and defending the library, and how the boy had matched him blow for blow, afterwards marking every man who’d taken up arms against him. He remembered his insistence that Eckhardt had to die. The boy had steel in him, for sure. And he was man enough to recognise his mistakes.
What would Felix have done if he was standing in front of King Ironmaker? Büber knew what he’d have said: that he was a twelve-year-old prince whose fledgling sense of honour had just been questioned by a once-mighty dw
arf-lord.
Büber cleared his throat: “The Prince of Carinthia’s word is always trustworthy,” he said. More than that, he found himself believing it.
Heavyhammer translated, and the king’s expression didn’t change a jot. Perhaps something was lost in the interplay of words, from German to Dwarvish and back. Büber felt he’d played his part as best he could: let them do what they will.
Ironmaker swapped Felix’s letter for his sceptre. He spoke briefly.
“The king says Carinthia will have his answer soon.”
They weren’t going to kill him yet, then. One corner of Büber’s mouth curled up.
“It is time to go, human.”
Büber turned to see that his escort had already reformed behind him.
“Thank the king for his time,” he said, and he walked away, not knowing whether protocol demanded that he should reverse out, bowing all the time.
Behind him, Heavyhammer, approached the throne on his own, and spoke with his lord.
The climb was long, and without rest. It seemed that one thing the dwarves hadn’t lost was their ability to simply keep on going. Büber had descended perhaps half the height of the peak in one go, and it was a struggle to keep breathing on the journey back. By the time they led him back into the hallway, he was exhausted.
And now what? Were they simply going to push him back out into the night?
Apparently not. The horse had already been fed, and there was food and drink and blankets set out for him.
The stone was hard and cold, even with the odd-smelling rugs, and the food tasted, not poisonous, but off – mushroomy. The drink was beer with dwarvish character, bitter and heavy and dark. It sent his head reeling, and if he hadn’t been tired before, he was now unable to stay awake a moment longer.
He all but fell down the wall he’d propped himself against, and he barely had time to rearrange the blankets around himself before he was gone.
63
Ullmann turned over, and realised there was an arm across his chest. Not his arm, either. Light fractured the curtain, and gave him enough to see the back of a crown of golden hair.