Dragondoom: A Novel of Mithgar

by Dennis L McKiernan

  And far to the north in the frozen realm, the whelming wind thundered down upon the frigid wastes.

  CHAPTER 43

  Utruni

  Spring, 3E1603

  [The Present]

  Thork wept even as he awakened, great uncontrollable sobs racking his frame, tears streaming down his face . . .

  Beloved.

  . . . an image of copper hair and green eyes . . .

  Great hands gently cradled him, and a huge face gazed down upon his own, sapphires peering . . .

  Again he awakened and still he wept, yet now he was in total blackness, massive arms about him, rock splitting in twain to the fore and sealing shut behind, as he was borne down through cloven stone.

  As before, it was pitch dark when next Thork came to his senses. He could hear water running nearby, and the earth trembled, and he had a vague memory of a pounding, a hammering, a signalling deep within the stone. His face was in pain, as if from burns, as well as his right forearm and the calves of both legs. Gingerly he touched his cheek, finding agony and sear. Crawling toward the sound of water, he moved but a few feet, coming to a shallow stream. The bourne was icy, and he plunged his face into the rush, gritting his teeth against the shock and pain, letting the cold remove the fire. Too, he held his right arm under, feeling the char ebb.

  Twice he did this, thrice, then again; each time puffing and blowing as he came up for gasps of air.

  Again he felt his seared face. Cautiously. Gently probing. His beard was burned to the flesh up the right side. His hair, too was partially burnt away. The sleeve on his right arm was charred, the skin below in pain. Too, his breeks were burned, at his calves, the flesh there raw. He swung about and sat with his legs submerged, water rushing o’er.

  When he had been afire, he could not recall.

  Still the earth trembled, juddering with shocks tremoring through the stone.

  When his legs felt better, slowly he stood. “Where am I?” he asked the shuddering darkness, his voice hoarse and harsh . . .

  Where am I, am I, am . . .

  . . . echoes casting back from an unseen cavern.

  “Thou art with thy friends, Friend.” The voice was deep, resonate, and came from the blackness behind.

  Thork whirled, hands groping for axe or hammer, finding nought.

  “Who speaks?”

  “Thou mayest hight me Orth,” came the voice, the words in a form of Common, yet ancient, archaic.

  “I cannot see you, Orth.”

  At these words, there murmured a low rumble, as of several deep voices.

  “The manner of thine orbs didst we forget,” responded the voice. And there came the sound of splitting stone, and in but moments a dim light shone within the cavern, a giant form moving back from a freshly cloven crevice leading horizontally unto a gloom-cast day.

  In wonder, Thork saw that he was in the company of Giants, great gemstone eyes peering at him. Four there were, each with skin hued like stone: buff, dark, grey, rudden. He could not tell if he looked upon male or female, or if that was even a factor among these Folk, for they wore no clothes that he could see, nor carried any equipment about them, and still he could not say.

  The grey Utrun stepped forward upon the shuddering cavern floor. “Ae be Orth, Friend.”

  “I am called Thork,” said the Dwarf, bowing, gasping in pain, the rush of blood to his seared face bringing agony.

  “Ae be honored to be with thee, Friend Thork,” said Orth, “for thou bore the Kammerling forth from the holt of our enemy, thou and thy companion.”

  Beloved.

  Thork turned away, his eyes glistering with the rush of sudden memory, his chest feeling hollow, empty, as if his heart were gone.

  Oh, my Elyn, thou art dead.

  Long moments passed in the trembling earth, yet at last he spoke: “My companion. I would see that she is . . .”

  Again he could say nought, tears streaming down his face. Yet at last: “Stone or fire. She must be laid to rest in stone, or placed upon a fitting pyre.”

  Orth gazed north and downward, as if looking through the very stone itself, then turned back to the Dwarf. “Soon, Friend Thork, but not now.” The great sapphirine eyes cast blue glints. “Come. Ae wilt let thee see thyself just why.”

  Orth spoke to the other three Utruni, then turned and began stepping through stone at a swift pace, great hands reaching out, spatulate fingers inserting into the rock, arms and shoulders pulling, stone cleaving, and a passageway forming as Orth went.

  Thork followed, and within a matter of minutes, the passage opened into air, light streaming inward.

  Orth stepped aside, beckoning the Dwarf forward, and he gazed out upon a desolate landscape: mountains: grey, blasted, devastated, dead. Pumice covered all, for as far as the eye could see, a thick smothering of volcanic ash suffocating the land below. No trees, no animals, no birds, no streams. Only death and destruction.

  The sky itself was roiling black, filled not with ordinary clouds, but with choking dust instead. And lightning stroked down from the dark churn above, flash upon flash crashing among the peaks, as if the very vault above was charged with endless bolts.

  In the near distance before him, thick black smoke boiled upward from the remnants of Dragonslair, and fiery magma ran red down its flanks. Great rocks were blasted upward, out from the gut of the firemountain, the booming explosions slapping and shocking throughout the Grimwall.

  And the earth tremored.

  And Thork knew that he looked out at Hèl upon Mithgar.

  He scanned what was left of Dragonslair, his searching eyes seeing that the vertical face he and Elyn had climbed yet stood, as well as the ledge and slope just above it.

  Orth’s voice came gently: “We will bear thy comrade back unto thee when we do go to claim our own slain.”

  Weeping for Elyn, Thork turned and went back the way they had come. Orth followed, sealing the passage shut behind.

  The other three Utruni were named Hundar, Brelk, and Chale, and when introduced to Thork, spoke in a tongue most peculiar, like rocks sliding one upon the other. Brelk was the largest, towering some sixteen feet, Chale and Hundar standing twelve and fifteen feet respectively, Orth’s height falling in between these two. It was at this time Thork was told that these three be male Utruni, whereas Orth was female, yet this but barely registered upon Thork’s consciousness, for he was deep within his grief. Even had he been interested, Thork still could not have told the distinction; in shape, the Utruni were but little different from one to another, except for height, and there seemed to be no sex about them. Yet that is not to say that they were alike in all particulars, for there were the differences in skin color and in the set of their bodies, and the casting of their eye gems also set them apart—sapphire for Orth, ruby for Hundar and Chale, emerald for Brelk.

  Orth was the only one who spoke Common, saying, “Ae wast one of mine Folk taught by Wizard Farrin, long apast, for there wast great need in that hindward time. And when the signals camest of the rescue of the Kammerling, ae wast called forth for ae couldst yet putteth tongue to the ancient speech.”

  At these words, Thork spoke for the first time since his return from the surface: “Aye, we rescued the Kammerling,” said Thork. “But from what you have told me, I deem it be now destroyed, plunged into the deep fire below Dragonslair where nought may survive but melted stone.”

  “Nay, Friend Thork,” responded Orth, her gaze again turning north and downward, and Thork knew that she was peering through solid stone at something far below in the belly of the firemountain. “Nay, the Kammerling yet existeth, and lieth deep within the melt. It be safe, for not even the fire of Dragonslair couldst melt away Adon’s Hammer. We wilt retrieveth it upon a time, when the stone doth cool sommat. Till then, it be protected from all, better than wert it within our very halls.”

  The Utruni conferred among themselves. Orth at last speaking to Thork: “Thou art injured, that much canst we say, and thou must be taken to a heal
er among thy surface dwellers and be tended unto.”

  “Not until Elyn . . .” Thork could say no more, but Orth understood.

  Hours passed, and the spasms of the shuddering earth changed in a subtle fashion noted by the Giants. Brelk and Chale and Hundar disappeared into the stone, leaving Orth behind with the sleeping Dwarf, tossing and moaning in his dark dreams.

  When they awakened him, they led him up through the stone, fissuring it as they went, up to the very peak of the mountain. It was night when they emerged from the scissured rock, yet no Moon or stars could be seen, for Dragonslair lay off to the north, belching fire and fumes and thundering in anger, flowing incandescent magma coloring the roiling underbelly of the black smoke-laden dust-filled sky a bloody red. And sheet lightning stuttered in the distance, ruddy light chattering across the boiling reek.

  On the summit where they had emerged, the crest was flat, made level by the Stone Giants. And thereupon lay wood for a great funeral pyre, pine gathered from below the pumice by the Utruni. Among the slain trees they had searched diligently, and had stripped limbs that were yet laden with needles, and they had washed them and had made of them a bed. And in the midst of the soft boughs lay Elyn, her weapons arrayed beside her, her black-oxen horn as well.

  Thork approached and climbed up unto her side and knelt, and he took her hand and held it to his cheek, seeing past the burnt thing before him, seeing instead a copper-haired, green-eyed Warrior Maiden of infinite grace and beauty. Long did he kneel and whisper to her, but what he said is not known.

  At last he clambered down from the stack, and behind him, Chale clasped burning brands in his great hands. The Utrun held a torch out to the Dwarf, and Thork took it and placed it among the kindling at the base of the pyre. Another and another were thrust into the wood, Thork and Chale stepping about the pile, the Giant handing the warrior each torch until there were no more. And the fire blazed up into the night, flames roaring skyward. The Utruni withdrew to a respectful distance—north, south, east, and west: each of the cardinal points—sapphire, ruby, and emerald eyes warding both the Dwarf and the one he mourned. And Thork cast his hood o’er his head, and the mountains rang with his cries, a grief so deep and desolate that not even the roar of Dragonslair could still.

  And there upon a crest deep within the Grimwalls, midst stone and fire and thunder, was held the deathwatch of Elyn of Jord, while the earth below shuddered and the skies above ran red.

  “Brelk wilt remain to watcheth the Kammerling and be on hand shouldst something unexpected befall, though ae deem none couldst steal it from the caldera—not even Folk such as we of the deep—for at this time the melt wardeth better than aught else.

  “Hundar and Chale wilt go with us, for within the stone, travel be faster in doublets and trines. Ae wilt beareth thee, else we be slowed.”

  “I have ponies—” Thork started to say . . .

  —Nay! My ponies be dead.

  As is Elyn.

  “Friend, we must beareth thee,” said Orth, “for nought surviveth above; there be no water, no food, nought alive, only death and destruction, only ash too deep for thy stature.”

  Again, images of Hèl arose in Thork’s mind, and visions of the victims of Dragonslair; and he broke into tears at the vision of one.

  And so, with Hundar in the lead, splitting open the way before them, and Chale following, sealing it after, Orth bearing Thork in her arms, his shield upon her back, the four set off southwesterly, travelling through the deep stone below the Grimwall Mountains, below the lifeless land above, aiming for a place where Thork could get aid from a healer to treat his burns.

  While behind, Brelk, watching over the Kammerling, hammered upon root stone, signalling out to others afar, speaking of the events that had passed that day.

  Swiftly they went, travelling in total darkness, moving through solid rock, splitting it before then healing it after, the way made possible by the strange power the Utruni held over stone.

  At times they stopped and took sustenance, feeding upon great mushrooms found deep within phosphorescent caverns below. Too, the moss that glowed was nourishing as well, and water was plentiful. These things Thork had seen before, for Dwarves often cultivated such as food.

  It was during rest within one of these glowing caves that Thork at last began to converse with Orth: “How is it Utruni see through stone, Lady Orth?”

  In the spectral light she gazed upon the Dwarf, her look baffled, her sapphire eyes slowly blinking. Long she considered, then asked: “How doth thou see, Friend Thork?”

  “Why, why . . . I just do,” answered Thork, nonplussed. “Except this I know: without light, vision is baffled. And except for rare places such as this, there be no light within living stone, only pitch black.”

  “Why, Friend, there be what thee namest ‘light’ all about us,” she answered, gesturing widely. “Not only this pallid glowing from the moss within, but from the bright orb without, called ‘Sun’ by thee and thine, named ‘Ar’ by me and mine. And the ‘light’ that we see by cometh from Ar, and shineth through air and stone alike.

  “Know this, Friend Thork: The light that giveth us vision be different from that captured by thine eyes. Ar’s light shineth through all, all things living or dead, shining through Utrun or stone or surface life, it mattereth not; and even though nought reflecteth much of Ar’s radiance, it passing straight through, still we see, some things better than others. Thyself art but an insubstantial shadow in mine sight, as be other dwellers above, some moreso, some less; Drakes be easily seen—’twas thy Dragonhide shield we saw plummeting, else we wouldst not have known thou wert falling.

  “Too, we see ores and metals well: it wast the Kammerling that we didst track from Wizard Andrak’s holt—that and thine shield.

  “Were it not for the light of Ar, we couldst not do that which Adon gave us to do: shaping the land, building mountains, easing the great tensions within the mighty rifts, aiding the living stone in its slow, steady, eternal march across the face of the world.

  “Aye, ’tis Ar’s light that letteth us see what we do.

  “Even when Ar be on the opposite side, still the radiance shineth through.”

  “You mean, when the Sun sets and it is nighttime above, still there shines a light that you see by?” In Thork’s mind, for reasons he did not comprehend, there rose up a vision of the Wizard’s strange map in Black Mountain, the great globe slowly turning, the lamp on the wall shining upon it.

  Orth nodded, and the Dwarf sat pondering, wondering at what he had heard, knowing that Elyn would . . .

  Beloved.

  Tears clouded his eyes, and he ate no more, and soon it was time to go onward.

  Over the next several days Thork’s burns became worse, blistering, festering, even though he washed in chill water at every opportunity.

  Yet the Giants carried him on, seeking a far-off town where dwelled a healer of the surface Folk. And while the Utruni strode through darkness, Thork and Orth spoke of many things:

  “There be a fable amongst mine Folk,” murmured Thork, “that deep within the world the greatest Giant of all sleeps, waiting for the end of time when all things will cease to be. At times he rolls over in his sleep, and then does the earth rattle and quake.”

  Orth laughed, and bore him onward. “Nay, Friend, such a one doth not dwell within, for though many a strange thing doth sleep within the stone, ’tis nary a monstrous Giant that causeth the world to rattle. ’Stead it be the groaning along the great rifts, as land slides ’gainst land, jerking, halting, breaking free. Ae and mine Folk try to stop the worst from happening, easing the land along.

  “ ’Twas such that caused us to lose the Kammerling in the first place: There camest a time of a monstrous quake, along a fault long believed well rooted. Yet, ’twas not, and a great destruction shattered forth. All nearby rushed to aid, including Lithon, guardian of the Kammerling, for without his aid we couldst not succeed. And whilst we fought ’gainst disaster, easing the great
flanks of stone past one another, someone or something camest unto our halls and stole the hammer, bearing it to Wizard Andrak’s holt.”

  “Black Kalgalath bore it thus,” said Thork, “though I know not whether it was the Drake that took it from your dwellings; Andrak the Mage told me such as I stood frozen before his power, ere I was saved by my . . .”

  Beloved.

  Thork’s voice jerked to a halt, and he could not speak.

  After a while, Orth took up the tale once more: “Lithon felt responsible, for Adon’s Hammer wast in our keep, to be used when the Greatest Dragon of all cometh forth.”

  “Kalgalath,” said Thork.

  “Nay, not Black Kalgalath, Friend Thork, but something or someone else.”

  Thork’s eyes widened at this news. “If not Kalgalath, then who, what, be the greatest Dragon of all?”

  “Ae know not, Friend Thork. Ae know not, but list to the prophecy.” Orth’s voice took on the chant of a litany: “In the final days, in the apocalyptic confrontation, death and great destruction shalt sweep o’er the surface of the land, and it shalt be in a time of the gathering of all Drakes. Then shalt the world know the greatest Dragon of all.”

  After sleeping, again the Utruni strode forth deep within the stone, and Orth took up the tale of the Kammerling once more: “Lithon set off on a quest to find the hammer. Long didst he search, many times didst Ar circle the world: more than four years as measured by the calendars of the surface Folk. But at last he discovered it, hammering out the joyful news, giving its location. It wast his final signal, for no more didst we hear from him.