Brandon glowered but kept his mouth shut. His eyes appealed to the Hylar thane, who seemed preoccupied with his own troubles. But the Kayolin dwarf was surprised to see the old general, Otaxx Shortbeard, looking at him with an expression unlike all the others-pensive, even curious.
The old, weary thane gestured to the load men, who immediately started the empty crate descending toward the floor of the great hall again.
“This is the true Hylar legacy,” Tarn Bellowgranite declared, waving his hand at the vast operation. “Restoring the great trap to operability. We are very close now; you see that the hall is nearly emptied, nearly done. These other matters are distractions.”
“Yes, my thane, I know, I know,” said Garn tersely. “You always preach patience.”
But Brandon got the impression the Klar captain was humoring his ruler; Bloodfist’s eyes narrowed in an expression very much like contempt as he scrutinized the older dwarf. “About the prisoner… I would like your authorization to lock him in the dungeon while his fate is determined.”
Tarn was leaning over the catwalk’s railing, looking at the dwarves who were busily filling the next lift. “You there! Watch that load; you’re overbalancing to the left!” he barked. After a second he turned back to the Klar, blinking as if surprised to find him still standing there. He didn’t spare a glance at Brandon. “Do what you must,” he muttered.
Just my luck, Brandon reflected morosely. His fate would remain in the hands of the erratic, excitable Klar.
Without another word, Garn gestured to his guards, and Brandon was hustled into another lift crate, just emptied of its rock cargo. With a wave to the load men, the captain started their smooth descent back down into the cavernous hall.
“They go into Big House?” questioned Gus. He was staring in awe at the great fortress.
The column of mountain dwarves they had followed for so long was marching in through the vast central gate. That gate had been standing open during the whole of their approach, and the dwarves could see right through it and a second gate beyond to the valley on the other side of the massive wall.
“Yes, they’re going into the Big House,” Gretchan replied, her thoughts preoccupied. She, Kondike, and the gully dwarf were crouched behind a clump of boulders beside the road that approached the huge gate carved into the Tharkadan wall. There were many sentries on the wall in clear view, and no doubt others watching from concealed vantages. For the ninth or tenth time, she pushed Gus’s head down. She didn’t care to take any chances on being discovered.
Kondike was also watching warily. The dog’s ears perked upward, nostrils flaring gently as they sampled the air and searched for any scent of danger. Gretchan kept a hand on the Aghar’s shoulder as he squirmed and craned to get a better look. She was ready, at a moment’s notice, to snatch the gully dwarf by the scruff of his neck and pull him back into concealment.
“We go into Big House too?” asked Gus hopefully.
“Well, yes and no,” the maid replied.
“Yes and no you always say. What mean you yes and no?” asked the gully dwarf with a scowl.
“Well, we’re both going to go inside,” she said, eliciting a happy grin from the Aghar, “but we won’t be using the front gate. I’m not sure the master of Pax Tharkas will be happy to see me. Anyway, I don’t want to have to talk my way past those officious guards.”
“Guards are fishes? We sneak?” Gus suggested brightly. “That fun. Aghar great sneakers!”
“I know,” Gretchan said. “I’m counting on it. And I know just the place for some sneaking.”
“Where that?” the Aghar asked eagerly.
“Well, it’s a place I’ve never seen, but it’s been well described in the histories. During the War of the Lance, some heroes used it to sneak in to Pax Tharkas so they could save many thousands of lives. It’s an old place, disused nowadays, but I think it might just work.”
“What old place this?”
“Come with me,” Gretchan said. “And I’ll show you the way called the Sla-Mori.”
TWENTY-TWO
“This is the place.” Gretchan pointed. She and Gus stood before the base of a tall cliff. For two hours she had been leading the gully dwarf and the dog along the rugged slope of the mountain valley, backtracking away from the great fortress, then moving off the road to follow a narrow, steeply climbing trail alongside a mountain stream.
Many times she had paused for rest, leaning on her staff, concentrating with her eyes closed. A few times, while she was thus engrossed, the Aghar had tried to offer helpful suggestions about what they might find to eat if they were to do some looking, or where they could go instead of that secret path that took forever to find, but he finally gave up, sulking, after she silenced him with increasingly short-tempered rebukes.
At last she had moved off the slope trail, pushing through tangling bushes and tree branches to climb up to that insignificant-looking spot of wilderness.
“What here?” demanded Gus. He squinted up the great cliff. “Golly. We not climb that!” he exclaimed.
“We don’t have to,” the dwarf maid explained patiently. “Just let me find what I am looking for…”
She spent several minutes probing the niches and cracks at the base of the cliff. Although she had spoken truly when she said she had never been in that place, she had studied many scholarly texts in which the Sla-Mori had been mentioned or played a prominent role, and her memory was very good for maps and history.
Soon she found what she was seeking. Reaching into a crack, straining upward as high as she could reach, she grasped a round knob of rock, an unusually long protuberance. Pulling it sharply downward, she stepped back and watched as a narrow panel of stone swung inward, revealing a wide, dark, musty corridor leading into the mountain.
The floor was covered with rubble, mostly dry rocks but in places there were pools of sticky mud, all coated with a layer of dust and grime. Gus started boldly ahead until, once again, her hand on his shoulder arrested his progress.
“We must tread carefully,” she said. “Let’s have Kondike lead the way.”
Almost as if he understood what was expected of him, the dog paced ahead, stiff legged, into the secret passageway. He stepped easily over the broken rocks, sniffing alertly, his short tail erect. Gus and Gretchan followed close behind him.
In a few seconds, the door slid soundlessly shut, sealing them in utter darkness. Even as their dwarf eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Gretchan raised her staff and whispered a word. The anvil on the head of the pole began to glow with a soft illumination that penetrated into far corners and crevasses, lighting up the tunnel so they could see for quite a distance.
The corridor, they saw, meandered somewhat on its path-for at one time it had been a natural passageway, not a tunnel excavated from solid stone. True, there were signs of dwarven stone craft-regular arches to support the ceiling and buttresses in many places lining the walls. Because of the rubble and the cracks and crumbles in the walls and ceilings, however, it still looked like a wild place, long neglected.
“This like tunnel to Thorbardin,” Gus whispered. “We going to Thorbardin?” He wasn’t all that enthused about the prospect of returning to his lifelong home.
“No. This is the Sla-Mori-the ‘secret way’ into Pax Tharkas. The elves used these halls for burial very, very long ago.” But she was interested in the fact, if Gus could be believed, that similar tunnels existed in Thorbardin. She would have to remember to write that down.
“Bury bodies here?” asked the gully dwarf with an audible gulp.
“Yes,” Gretchan said. Unlike her nervous companion, she was filled with reverence and awe to be in such a hallowed place. Her feet padded respectfully across the dusty stones, and in spite of the rubble and decay, she saw it as it once had been: a great hall, sacred to dwarves and elves alike, a symbol of alliance and peace as testified to by the name of the fortress itself.