“The spigot slows the flow of ale and makes it manageable, right?”
Hobart nodded again. “Sure,” he said. “It can even shut it off completely.”
Angus tilted his head again, as if what Hobart had just said meant something different from what he meant it to mean. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “The spigot can stop the flow altogether.”
Angus seemed to be about to lose himself in his thoughts again, so Hobart interrupted them by asking, “What of it?”
“Right,” Angus said. “Each nexus that we know about has a spigot of sorts. It doesn’t stop the flow of magic, though; it only weakens and controls it. It also breaks the stream into pieces—little streamlets, if you will—and redirects them in a way that makes them manageable. That spigot is what makes it possible for us to tie the knots we use to build our spells. It isn’t quite the same as when a barkeep fills a mug of ale, since the nexus is never shut off, but the principle is similar.”
Hobart thought for a moment, and then said, “The spigot is missing, isn’t it?”
Angus nodded. “Yes,” he agreed.
“That’s what we’re looking for?” Hobart asked. “The spigot?”
Angus nodded again. “Someone has taken it away from the nexus. We need to find it and put it back. If we don’t, it will be devastating.” He turned to the west and pointed. “See those mountains?”
Hobart glanced at them, but they looked normal to him. He shrugged and said, “They look like they always do.”
Angus shook his head and said, “Not quite. There is smoke in the distance.”
Hobart laughed. “There’s always smoke around here,” he said. “They’re volcanoes.”
Angus turned back to him, and there was a sense of sadness in his eyes. Then he glanced behind them and shook his head. “No, Hobart,” he said without looking at him. “They are volcanoes on the verge of erupting.”
That’s what Commander Garret is worried about, Hobart thought, looking at them again. But he couldn’t see anything different from their normal puffs of smoke. “Are you saying the nexus is going to cause them to erupt?” he asked. “How could it do that?”
Angus turned back to him and nodded. “The nexus I found there,” he said, “was one of flame magic. As it spreads outward, it will affect flames of all sorts. Remember what happened to the Lamplight spell I cast? When it got too close to the nexus, it burned itself out.”
Hobart nodded. He could hear the horses and the muffled sound of voices. “You said that spell burns out more quickly when there is a stronger strand of flame magic,” he said. Whatever that is supposed to mean.
“Right,” Angus said, “and being close to the nexus increased the potency of the strand of flame magic that I was using. It did the same thing with the torch.” He paused and then added, his eyes intense, distant, “And that was when the nexus was tamed, when the spigot was still in place. Without it?” he shrugged and finished, “The last time that happened, it ended the Dwarf Wars.”
Hobart frowned. The Dwarf Wars had ended because the dwarves had ceded the land and retreated from the king’s superior forces. It didn’t have anything to do with the nexus. “I’m not following you,” he said.
Angus sighed. “The volcanic activity in this region started when the spigot was removed, Hobart, and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”
Hobart looked at the mountains again, trying to see if he could tell a difference in the amount of smoke they were belching forth, but he couldn’t. “All right,” he said. “What’s this spigot look like? Who has it? Where did they take it?”
Angus tilted his head in thought for a long moment, then turned and studied the others who had just joined them. “You already know what the spigot is,” he said. “It’s The Tiger’s Eye.”
Hobart scowled at Angus. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “You told us it wasn’t there.”
Angus shrugged. “I lied,” he said without turning back toward him. “If I hadn’t,” he continued, meeting Hobart’s steady glare, “one of you might have taken it.”
It was true. Hobart knew it was true. Even if Angus had told them what would happen if they took it, they would have done it anyway. Giorge would have done it. Hobart might have done it. And now someone else had stumbled upon it. Or had they? The way Angus was acting…. His voice was almost soft as he asked, “Who took it, Angus?”
Angus turned to face the west again and his voice was soft as he answered, “When we left to get the fletching eggs, I told only one person about the location of The Tiger’s Eye. In the event that I was unable to do so, I asked her to go with the patrol Commander Garret sent to the Angst temple. I thought I could trust her.”
Hobart studied Angus for a long moment, and then shook his head. The betrayal of a woman once loved was never easy to accept, and Angus had only talked about one woman. “Embril?” he asked.
Angus nodded. “She must have been tempted by the power, just as I was,” he said. He turned back to Hobart with a look that he had sometimes seen in the eyes of a warrior on the verge of battle lust, one who wasn’t going to let a single fishmen get past him. “Now can we ride?” he demanded.
Hobart looked to the others and then to the west. “Not just yet,” he said. “You’re sure the volcanoes are going to erupt?”
Angus nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I have no doubt that it is already starting.”
“All right,” Hobart said, turning to Ortis. “We will need extra waterskins. A lot of them.”
One of Ortis nodded and turned back to Hellsbreath. As he left, Hobart turned to Angus and said, “You should have told us last night,” he said. He kneed his horse to a steady walk and Angus fell in beside him.
“We need to ride quickly,” he said.
Hobart shook his head. “We need to ride far,” he said. “Riding like you did will tire the horse out, and you’ll cover less ground than you will with a brisk walk.”
“This isn’t a brisk walk,” Angus accused.
“No,” Hobart agreed. “We need to talk to Jagra, first. If those mountains start spitting up ash and smoke and cinders, I want to be ready for it. We’re going to buy some sheets from Jagra before we leave. That will give Ortis time to catch up to us with the waterskins, and we’re going to use Jagra’s bucket to fill them. Then we’ll ride.”
9
“What do you mean?” Embril asked Sludge Hammerhead. “Hardnose Ironbutt assured me that you would help me reach the mines of Wyrmwood.”
“It cannot be done,” Sludge said, shaking his head. “The road is blocked.” He was a young, robust, barrel-chested dwarf whose beard only reached halfway to his belt, but there was no doubting the authority he held in his bulging arms and sturdy legs.
“Blocked?” Embril frowned. He had used an unusual word, and she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. Normally, if there was a cave-in or some other obstruction, a dwarf would say the road was hindered while it was under repair. They only used blocked when they were constructing new roads and had to dig around stone that was too unstable to build through. But the road she was taking had been built long ago.
Sludge nodded. “The mountain is angry,” he said. “She bleeds.”
“Lava?” she asked, and he nodded. “Is there a way around it?”
“No,” he said. “A river of blood flows between us and Wyrmwood. All roads between are blocked.” Then he shook his head. “We may have to leave.”
Embril’s eyes widened. All of the roads are blocked? she thought. In two days? “But I have to get there,” she said.
“There is a way,” Sludge replied. “It is a difficult one. You must go topside.”
“Topside?” Embril repeated. “There is a way to reach it from here?”
Sludge nodded. “It is not one we share with others,” he warned.
“I understand,” Embril said. If she could reach the surface, she wouldn’t have to go to Wyrmwood. She could run around the mountain—or better yet, fly around it. “Where would it lea
ve me?” she asked.
Sludge frowned and said, “Topside.”
Embril shook her head, “No, where on topside?”
Sludge shrugged. “By the mountain.”
“Which mountain?” she asked.
Sludge tugged on his rustic brown beard and offered, “This one?”
Embril closed her eyes and tried to find a way to phrase her question in the dwarf tongue, but there were so few words related to “topside.” Perhaps if she used the map Hardnose Ironbutt had given her? She took it out and spread it on the table where Sludge Hammerhead could see it. She pointed to a spot and tapped it. “This is your mountain, yes?”
Sludge nodded.
“Good,” Embril said, tracing the path she had taken to get there. “This,” she tapped her starting point, “is Hardnose Ironbutt’s mountain.”
Sludge nodded again.
“Are they two different mountains? Or are they the same mountain?”
Sludge looked at the map and tugged on his beard again. He tapped it and said, “My mountain,” then tapped it again and said, “Hardnose Ironbutt’s mountain.”
Embril almost smiled. If they were two different mountains, then the one she was inside was the one with the ledge they had crossed over to reach the plateau. If so, she might have already caught up with Giorge and the patrol. If they were two sides of the same mountain, which could easily be the case, then she would still be next to the plateau but much closer to the end of it. Either way, it was better than going all the way to Wyrmwood and backtracking to find the patrol. Unless the bleeding mountains stopped her.
“Will you take me topside?” she asked.
Sludge frowned and looked at the letter again. “Ironbutt has a hole in his head,” he muttered. “He should have left you topside.”
She nodded. “Then take me there,” she suggested.
His thick fingers slowly tightened around the letter, crumpling it between them until it was a scrunched up ball. He kept squeezing until the knuckles were white around his fist, and then pounded the table. “If we were not bound to help you,” he said, “I would not consider it.” Then he walked over to the small fire burning in an alcove and threw the ball of crumpled parchment into it. When he returned, he rubbed his palms on the thick hide of his jerkin as if he were cleansing them of soot or grease. “Very well, Friend Embril,” he said. “I will take you there.”
“Thank you, Friend Hammerhead,” she said.
“Come with me,” he said, walking briskly—for a dwarf—toward one of the tunnels leading out of the huge meeting hall. “The road is long.”
Embril loped up to him and frowned. Her Swiftness spell was still active, but the dwarf was far too slow to keep up. “Friend Hammerhead,” she began. “Perhaps you can give me a map? Like your cousin, Friend Ironbutt?”
“I will not,” Sludge said. “The entrance is one we do not share. It exists on no map, and you must not speak of it to those who dwell above.”
Embril frowned. She needed to move quickly, and the dwarf couldn’t. Would he be receptive to the spell? She had cast it well enough on herself, despite trusting only in her memory to do it, and she could do it again, couldn’t she? If he were running with her… But what if she made a mistake? She was more than willing to risk her own life, but what right did she have to risk his? What would he—and the other dwarves—do if her spell malfunctioned? If it hurt or killed him? Perhaps it would be better to plod along, instead?
No. She needed to make up ground on Giorge, and she couldn’t do it if she was traveling at a dwarf’s pace. “Friend Hammerhead,” she began, “I must make haste to return topside. I know what has injured the mountain and why it bleeds. I may be able to heal her, but it must be done quickly.” She paused and sprinted down the tunnel several dozen paces and then returned just as quickly.
His eyes were wide as she came to a stop. “I did not know how swift topsiders were!” he said in astonishment. “Never have I seen one move so.”
“It is a spell,” she admitted. “While I am under its influence, I can run like that without tiring. It is how I travelled from Friend Ironbutt’s mountain to your own in but two days.”
Sludge shook his head. “It is a five day journey,” he protested. “If I had not seen how swift of foot you are, I would not believe it possible.”
“With a map,” Embril urged, “I could reach topside much sooner than if you were to show me the way.”
Sludge’s beard waggled as he shook his head. “I cannot,” he said. “I must go with you. The way out is hindered. If you do not know the secret places to step, it will become blocked.”
Embril frowned. She had hoped her plea would be successful, but Hammerhead was being obstinate. Didn’t he understand that she wouldn’t tell anyone about their secret way to topside? Why would she? It didn’t matter, did it? If she didn’t stop Giorge, their mountain would bleed them out of it anyway. She wanted to tell him this, but she didn’t. It would lead to too many questions that she didn’t want to answer. Besides, there was another option, one that might partially satisfy both of them. “Then will you allow me to cast the spell on you?” she asked. “Then we can both run together.”
He looked hard at her for several seconds, and then asked, “You can end the mountain’s pain?”
Embril slowly nodded as she said, “I can try, but I must do so quickly. The wound must be closed before it festers.”
He looked down the tunnel where she had run and when he looked back, he asked in an almost child-like tone, “Will I be able to run as swiftly as you?”
Embril smiled and brought the magic into sharp focus. The flame strands were disturbingly volatile and there were too many of them. “No, Friend Hammerhead,” she said, “but it will make it possible for you to run as fast as you are able to run, without tiring, until the spell unravels.”
“We dwarves are not built for running,” he admitted. “But I shall do my best. You have my permission.”
He watched her hands as she wove the spell and didn’t flinch as she attached it to him. When she finished, he frowned and said, “I feel different. My feet are not heavy enough for my boots.”
Embril smiled again and said, “Run with me.” She started loping forward at a fairly slow pace, and when Sludge had joined her, she picked up the pace until he was unable to catch up and then slowed down again. They ran in silence for some time, and then she asked, “How do you feel?”
“As if I were taking an easy walk,” he said. “I am not even winded.”
“Good,” Embril said. “Run as fast as you can and see how it feels.”
Sludge increased his speed a little bit and smiled. “Never have I run so fast!” he exclaimed.
Embril forced herself to smile at him, but inside she was quietly fuming over their sluggish pace—which was little more than a fast jog—and wondered how long it would take them to reach topside. Then she pushed aside those feelings and focused on what she would do when she caught up with Giorge. If he resisted…
10
As they neared the south wall of Hellsbreath, Abner said in a muffled tone, “It’s big, Master Taro.”
Taro nodded in agreement. The size of it was astonishing. It was like looking up a mountain cliff—and with good reason. The wall merged with the mountains on either side of it. They were still a goodly distance away from it, and Taro tapped Abner on the knee and pointed at a large wooden box climbing up the wall. “That’s the way up,” he said. “They don’t have any doors on account of the lava.”
“We have to go up in that thing?” Abner asked. There was a slight tremor in his voice, and Taro glanced over at him.
“If we want to get into Hellsbreath, we do,” he said. “Otherwise we’ve been traveling over a month for nothing.” It wasn’t for nothing, though, was it? He had met Hobart and told him about his visions. That was at least something. Too bad Hobart had rushed off so quickly afterward. It would have been good to have had another traveling companion, especially one that was inte
rested in what he had seen in his visions. Abner listened well enough, but he didn’t ask questions the way Hobart had done, and those questions had helped Taro make more sense of the visions. They had talked about the visions, rather than Taro telling him about them. Of course, the visions still didn’t make much sense, but maybe if more people asked him questions like Hobart’s, they would. And Dagremon’s. But she was only interested in the one about the rising island and green serpent thing—and he didn’t like to talk about that vision. It was creepy.
The lift reached the top of the wall and stopped. They were close enough now for him to pick out blurry specks on top of the wall and others at its base. They moved a lot like ants, and that told him they were people. He was still looking at them when Abner eased the mule cart over to the edge of the road and looked behind them.
“What is it?” Taro asked as he tried to twist around and gave up. His body just didn’t bend that way anymore, and with his bum leg sticking out like that, there wasn’t any point to it anyway.
“Riders from the south, Master Taro,” Abner said. “They’re riding hard. It seems prudent to give them room.”
So that’s what it was, Master Taro thought, dismissing the image he had concocted. It isn’t a dozen distant drummers trying to out-tap each other. As they approached, the sound grew louder and began to clear up.
Abner looked back again and said, “I think it’s a patrol. They’re all dressed in brown. Isn’t that King Tyr’s colors?”
Taro shrugged. What did he know about colors? He had never been out of The Western Kingdoms, and until a month ago, he hadn’t even left the village by the shrine for over thirty years. Besides, none of his visions had men dressed in brown, so what did it matter to him?
It was now clear to Taro that they were galloping horses. If it was a patrol, it was almost upon them, and Abner slowed the mule cart down.
“Why are you stopping?” Taro asked him.
“To let them past, Master Taro,” Abner replied. “They must have something urgent to report.”
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