“I did not deceive you,” Elodssa blurted out. “What happened between us was not a lie!”
“Of course not.” Another bitter smile. “It was all the fault of your father and stupid prejudice.”
“I cannot contravene the law, and you know it! It is not my fault that we cannot be together. The son of the head of a house cannot commit his life to . . .”
“Carry on, Elodssa,” she said in a gentle voice when the prince broke off. “To whom? To one who brandishes swords? To one who wanders round Zagraba in search of units of orcs who have invaded the territory of our house? To one who teaches young elves to hold the s’kash or fire a bow? Or simply to one who has no noble blood flowing in her veins?”
“This conversation will come to nothing, like all those that have preceded it.”
“You are right,” Midla agreed sadly.
“You may go back to my father and tell him that all is well with me.”
“Do I look like a messenger?” There was a glint of poorly concealed fury in the yellow, almond-shaped eyes.
He knew that expression well. When they were still seeing each other, he had seen similar rage in her eyes a few times. But now, for the first time, it was directed at him.
“I have enough guards,” Elodssa snapped.
“Your guards are up there,” said Midla, jabbing one finger toward the ceiling. “A league above us. Long before they could get down here, the heir of the House of the Black Flame would be lying dead and still.”
“Who is going to attack me here? The dwarves and the gnomes?”
“I am carrying out the orders of the head of the house,” she said with an indifferent shrug.
“And I order you to go back to Zagraba!” Elodssa declared furiously.
“You do not yet have your father’s authority,” she said with a triumphant smile.
The elf gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, then turned and walked away, cursing Midla’s obstinacy.
The young elfess watched Elodssa go, trying to hold back her tears. Her eyes were clouded with pain.
That week dragged on forever.
Elodssa changed his mind about going higher up. Midla would only follow him, and the elf did not want anyone talking about him behind his back. Everyone still remembered how close they had been and how Elodssa’s father had forbidden the marriage. And so the heir of the House of the Black Flame spent most of the time sitting in the accommodation allocated to him by the dwarves, only occasionally strolling through the nearby halls, admiring the beauty and magnificence of these subterranean places. At such moments he was accompanied by the silent Midla. Somehow or other she always knew that he had left his room, and immediately appeared beside him.
They both behaved with emphatically cool politeness. And they both felt awkward. Every stroll concluded with Elodssa losing his temper, mostly with himself, and returning to his quarters alone. And so the elf was relieved when the deadline he had set for the dwarf craftsman finally arrived.
This time he was lucky and managed to get away without disturbing Midla, although her room was opposite his own. But that was most probably because the elf had deliberately not warned his dwarf guide that he was planning to visit Frahel: Elodssa suspected that Midla knew about his strolls from this little informer.
He found his way to the lift with no difficulty, and there he came across several gnomes in armor, holding battle-mattocks. The bearded little folk were arguing heatedly about something.
“Good day, respected sirs,” Elodssa greeted them.
“What’s so good about it,” grumbled one of the gnomes. “You’ve heard what’s going on, I suppose?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“All the sentries at the hundred and fifteenth gate near Zagorie have been killed. Eight dwarves and the same number of gnomes have lost their lives.”
“Do you know who has done this?”
“No.” The gnomes’ faces were all darker than a storm cloud. “But there is a chance that the killers could have made their way into the kingdom.”
“Maybe that’s so, of course, but what in the name of a soused turnip are we hanging about here for?” a mattock-man in heavy armor asked angrily. “That’s a hundred and fifteen leagues away from here. No mortal being who doesn’t happen to be a gnome or a dwarf will ever get that far on his own! He’ll lose his way in the galleries!”
“Never mind, we’ve been posted here, so this is where we’ll stand,” the first gnome said calmly. “Where do you want to go?”
The question was addressed to Elodssa.
“To see Master Frahel.”
“The fifty-second gallery, isn’t it? Right, get onto the lift. Do you know the way?”
“Not very well.”
“Turn left at every second crossing and do that five times. Then straight on for six crossings and take the third corridor to the left. Will you find it?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Hey!” the gnome shouted upward. “Take the honorable gentleman to the fifty-second!”
“Right!” a voice called back down.
The lift shuddered and started downward.
Frahel heaved a sigh of relief and sat back in his chair. He had managed to do the impossible. This work was the finest thing he had ever created in all his long life.
The effort had completely absorbed the master craftsman, the challenge to his skill had required his absolute commitment—and now there was the key made out of the dragon’s tear, lying on the black velvet. The slim, elegant object already contained immense power, and after the dark elves endowed it with their magic, it would become a truly mighty artifact.
Frahel grinned. The orcs were in for a big surprise when the doors stopped opening for them. The elves were cunning and sly; they had decided to deprive the orcs of the memory of their ancestors by slamming the door in their face!
Now for the final, quickest, and most complicated stage—endowing his creation with life and memory. The master craftsman stood up, opened an old book, and raised his hand above the slumbering key.
And at that moment someone knocked on the door of his workshop. The dwarf swore furiously. That elf must be here already. Too early! Well, prince or not, he would have to wait until Frahel had done everything that was needed.
“Wait, honored sir!” Frahel shouted. “I haven’t finished yet!”
Another knock.
“Ah, damn you! It’s open!” Frahel called, preparing a couple of choice endearments for his client.
A man came into the workshop. “Master Frahel?” the man asked, looking carefully round the room.
“And who’s asking?” the craftsman replied rather impolitely.
“Oh! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Suovik.”
“Suovik?” The dwarf was quite certain that this Suovik had a title. If only because there was a gold nightingale embroidered on his tunic. He thought that someone in Valiostr wore that crest.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Master Frahel. Simply Suovik will do.”
“Simply Suovik” was about fifty years old. He was tall and as thin as a rake, with gray temples and streaks of gray in his tidy little beard. His brown eyes regarded the dwarf with friendly mockery.
“What can I do for you?” Frahel asked, attempting to conceal his irritation.
“Oh! I would like to buy a certain item. Or rather, not I, but the person who sent me. My Master . . .”
“But, by your leave,” said Frahel, interrupting his visitor with a shrug, “I am no shopkeeper. I do not have anything for sale. I carry out private and very well paid commissions. If you wish to buy something, talk to Master Smerhel, two levels higher, gallery three hundred and twenty-two.”
Frahel turned his back to Suovik to indicate that the conversation was at an end.
“Oh! You have misunderstood me, respected master.” The man showed no signs of wishing to leave the workshop.
He walked up rather presumptuously to the table and sat down, crossing his legs.<
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“My Master wishes to acquire an item created by your own hands.”
“And what exactly does he intend to buy from me?” the dwarf asked with unconcealed mockery, setting his hands on his hips.
Politeness was all well and good, but he would take great pleasure in throwing this man out of his workshop.
“That amusing little trinket,” said Suovik, half rising off his chair and pointing one finger at the sparkling key.
For a moment the master craftsman was struck dumb.
“Have you lost your mind, dear sir? The elfin key? I have a client for it! And what do you want it for?”
“Mmmm . . . My Master is a man”—for some reason Suovik hesitated slightly over the word “man”—“a man of very special tastes. Let us leave it at that. He is a collector, and this remarkable key would suit his collection very well.”
“No!” the dwarf snapped. “You wouldn’t have enough money to buy the work, and I will not break my word.”
“Oh! You need not be concerned about money, Master Frahel!”
Suovik got up off his chair, went across to the table on which the artifact was waiting for the final touch from its maker, and began taking stones out of his bag and setting them on the table. Frahel’s teeth began chattering and his eyes turned as big and round as saucers. The man put a dragon’s tear on the table—a stone in no way inferior to the one that the elf had brought. Then another one. And another. And another.
“My Master is very generous, you will have no cause for regret,” Suovik said with a smile.
The dwarf said nothing: he gazed wide-eyed at the stones, expecting them to disappear at any moment. This simply could not be! The dragon’s tears lying there were equal to the amount found by the dwarves and the gnomes in the last thousand years! Without waiting for an answer, Suovik placed another two specimens of the mineral on the table. The last one was simply enormous.
“You must agree, dear Master Frahel, that this price is enough to make you think. Let your client wait for one more week, and you can make him another key; you have more than enough material here.”
“But the key is not ready yet, it has not been endowed with life,” said the dwarf, trying to convince himself.
“No need for you to be concerned; I can manage that on my own.”
“Human wizardry is of no use here,” the dwarf said, shaking his head.
“There is other magic besides human wizardry,” the man said with a smile.
“Other magic?” Frahel screwed up his eyes suspiciously. “There is also the stone magic of my people, and shamanism. The magic of the gnomes and dwarves is not suitable for men, and your tribe can only study ogric shamanism . . .”
“And what if this is so?” Suovik asked with a shrug.
“Who are you?” the dwarf blurted out, looking round the workshop in search of his poleax.
“Is that really so important? Well then, have we a deal?” Suovik reached his hand out for the key.
“No,” the dwarf forced himself to say. “Take your junk and get out of here.”
“Is that your last word?”
“Yes!”
“What a shame,” the man sighed. “I wanted to do things in a friendly way.”
The door opened and five shadows slipped into the room. Frahel turned pale.
Despite everything, Elodssa still somehow managed to lose his way and turn off into the wrong corridor. For a moment the elf’s dark skin was covered in sweat at the sudden thought that he was lost. But after walking back and turning twice to the right, the elf found himself in a familiar corridor with a low ceiling.
Eventually he found himself outside Frahel’s workshop and pushed the door open.
The dwarf was lying on the floor as dead as dead could be. A man was frozen absolutely still over a key—his key—singing a song in the ogric language, and the artifact was responding with a poisonous purple glow, pulsating like a living heart in time to the words.
The singer cast a single swift glance at the elf and snapped: “Kill him!”
Five orcs with drawn yataghans came dashing at Elodssa.
Elodssa’s s’kash slid from its scabbard with a quiet rustle as his other hand grabbed the dagger from his belt and flung it at the shaman. The blade sank into the stranger’s neck below the Adam’s apple and he slumped over onto his side, wheezing and bleeding heavily. Now he could not say another word and he would not use any magic. The purple glow that had been spreading around the key began gradually fading. But the elf could not take the artifact yet—the first orc had drawn back his yataghan to strike. The s’kash and the yataghan clashed, parted, and clashed again. The orc jumped back, waiting for his fellows to move up.
“You’re finished, you scum!”
Elodssa did not bother to answer. Of course, five against one was very bad odds, but the elf was saved by the fact that he was standing in the doorway and only two of them could attack him at once.
“Duck!” a familiar sharp voice said behind him.
He did as he was told and the bow that appeared above his shoulder fired an arrow that buried itself in an orc’s eye. Another shot, and a second orc fell, shot through the heart. Midla fired her third arrow point-blank into the face of the enemy running at her. Elodssa joined in the fight, giving the elfess time to put her bow away and draw her two swords.
Dodging a blow from the right, he raised his s’kash over his head, offering the flat side of the blade to his opponent’s yataghan. The orc was caught out, his yataghan slid along the downward slope of Elodssa’s s’kash, and the force of his own blow carried him forward an extra step, exposing his flank. The elf’s curving blade sliced through his opponent’s left arm and deep into his side. The elf then raised his weapon, stepped to the side—and the s’kash severed his enemy’s neck, sending the head tumbling across the floor until it stopped somewhere under the table.
Elodssa hurried to assist Midla, but she had already dealt with the final orc herself. There were two curved blades protruding from the enemy’s dead body. Midla slumped back against the wall, hissing in pain as she squeezed shut the gaping yataghan wound in her leg.
“Are you all right?”
“No, by a thousand demons! How could you be so stupid as to come here alone? What if I hadn’t got here in time?”
“I’d have had to manage on my own,” he said, tearing up a cloth he had found in the dwarf’s workshop.
“On your own,” Midla muttered, tightening the knot. “That wolf’s spawn even managed to wound me.”
“Can you walk?”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for the next few months.”
“We have to get out of here. Who knows how many enemies entered the galleries.”
“Are these the ones who killed the guards on that distant gate?”
“Probably. I’ll carry you.”
Midla simply nodded. “Pull the swords out of the body—they mean too much to me.”
“Of course.” Elodssa pulled the twin blades out of the dead body, handed them to Midla, and set off toward the body of the man, intending to pull his own dagger out of it.
In defiance of all the laws of nature, the shaman was still alive, although there was bloody foam on his lips and it had dribbled down onto his chin and beard. Elodssa indifferently tugged the dagger out of the wound and listened to the man wheezing, gurgling, and whistling.
“You . . . ,” the man began, trying to say something. “The Ma . . . ster will po . . . ssess the key . . . any . . . way.”
“I don’t know who your master is, but elves don’t part with their property that easily.”
Elodssa finished off the wounded man, watching with satisfaction as the brown eyes turned glassy. Then he took the key off the table, thought for a moment, and raked all the dragon’s tears into the bag lying on the floor, reasoning quite soberly that the dead had no more need of them, while the gnomes and dwarves would be able to get along without them.
“Is he dead?” Midla asked
when he came across and lifted her up in his arms.
“Yes, he was working a spell when I got here. Doing something with the key.”
“That’s none of our business, let the shamans sort that out. Was he working for the orcs?”
“More likely the other way round,” Elodssa panted as he carried Midla out into the corridor. “They were working for him.”
“How is that possible? The orcs never obey anyone they consider inferior to themselves.”
Shadow Prowler Page 36