The caves and shallow warrens of the Theiwar stronghold, called Theibardin or “Theiwar-Home,” occupied only a small area below its crest. Above, the three great crags of the Windweavers jutted skyward, surrounding an immense sinkhole lake that was frozen over in most seasons but which provided constant seepage of moisture into the very heart of the mountain. Few, if any, Theiwar had ever ventured into the resulting deep caverns, but Daewar explorer-spies, far more venturesome than the dour, single-minded Theiwar, had crept into them by various routes, charted portions of them, and returned to Daebardin with wondrous tales.
Beneath the crags, they said, were deep caverns that ran for miles, converging into an enormous chamber dominated above by a giant stalactite a thousand yards high and even wider at its top, standing like a giant pillar above a subterranean lake big enough to be called a sea. The great stalactite was of living stone, and on the charts they called the sea Urkhan, in honor of a Daewar explorer who had died there on the expedition.
The Urkhan Sea was at least seven miles across, north to south, and was surrounded by dozens of square miles of natural caverns eroded into shale layers surmounted by harder stone. Throughout these, fresh air flowed from natural vents around the base of the peak and wafted upward to numerous open seeps around the Windweavers that served as exhausts. And many of the deep warrens were lighted by quartz strata, admitting daylight from miles above.
Only a bit of the marvel had been explored, but it was these reports and these charts that had enchanted the old Daewar regent, Bole Diamondcuff, and after him the prince, Olim Goldbuckle. Visions of an impregnable fortress, of a subterranean realm which might one day be a kingdom, blossomed for them both. Long before the spread of chaos from the east became obvious, it was Goldbuckle’s decision to drive a road right through the heart of Sky’s End, into the deeps of Cloudseeker, and relocate Daebardin into the subterranean heart of the mountain that the surly Theiwar thought of as their own.
To the ambitious and energetic Daewar dwarves, the golden people of Kal-Thax, the only valid claim the Theiwar had was to the part of the mountain they actually occupied and used, which was almost none of it. “Use it or lose it,” was the Daewar philosophy where territory was concerned.
So the great secret road went forward, a level tunnel twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, driven through the granite heart of Sky’s End from Daebardin on the north, into the porous underlayers of Cloudseeker. As it neared its end, the Daewar made preparation to move to new quarters.
The hidden opening beneath Galefang, where Olim Goldbuckle led his expedition after the defense of the eastern border and the punishing of the Theiwar chieftain, was only a little, wind-scoured tunnel in the face of a cliff. But set into its back wall were iron doors, and beyond the doors was a wide, spiral shaft leading downward to the roadhead far below.
Hundreds of Daewar worked there, in gloom illuminated by oil wicks, forge glows, and torches. Expert delvers, the Daewar had averaged nearly thirty yards a day for almost ten years, digging away at the solid stone while winch-driven cable carts strung with dozens of almost inaudible bat-bells hauled the rubble back along the lengthening tunnel to dump it below Daebardin’s slopes. The resulting skirt of broken stone now was a slope in itself, extending almost to the great chasm which separated the base of Sky’s End from the foothills and the breaks and plains of the wastelands beyond.
Sealing the high doors behind them, Olim Goldbuckle and his legion descended into the depths of Cloudseeker, where delvemasters studied their charts while picks and drills chipped away at stone that was softer than most they had encountered before and different in color.
Emerging into the roadway, Olim Goldbuckle climbed atop a laden cable-cart and picked up a piece of the stone rubble. He looked at it, sniffed it, and tasted it, then tossed it back and swung down. Above him, bat-bells tinkled merrily. The bells were tiny silver devices which the Daewar had invented long ago to drive away the flocks of blood bats which sometimes invaded digs. But now they had another use as well. Although most people — even dwarves — could hardly hear the bells, they had found that echoes in stone could resonate them. By “thumping” stone in a delve, and counting the times the bells responded, they could tell how far it was from one side of the stone to the other.
Olim ignored the tiny sounds now, brushing his hands. “Gypsum,” he said to Gem Bluesleeve. “We are near the caverns.”
“Very near, Sire,” a delvemaster looked up from his spread chart. “Nearer than we thought. We could break through at any moment.”
“Into what?” Olim squinted at the chart.
“According to Urkhan’s calculations,” the delvemaster said, “there is a great natural cavern ahead. The one he called the first warren. It connects to other caverns beyond, and eventually to the subterranean sea.”
“I hope we break through above sea level,” Olim noted.
The delvemaster drew himself up, as one deeply offended. “Would you like to calculate the elevations yourself, Sire?”
“Of course not.” Olim smiled. “I trust your calculations above all others, Slate Coldsheet. Just keep doing the wonderful job you do.” He turned away, muttering to Gem Bluesleeve. “That’s the problem with delvers, Gem. By the time they are wise enough to chart a bore, their sense of humor has been drowned out by the ringing in their ears.”
Followed by some of his guard, Olim went forward to where the boring was in progress. The ring of hammers on iron drills, the splitting of stone as foot-wide slabs were broken away with prybars, and the clank of picks and mauls as the rubble was broken filled the wide tunnel with a chorus of sound. Beneath its tempo was the crunch of shovels, the low thunder of rubble raining into high-sided carts, and the ever-present, rhythmic tapping of mallets as spikes were set to steady the cart rails that followed along behind the dig.
The carts were wide, low-wheeled vehicles chained together by threes and fives, and a constant parade of them had been rolling back to the far side of Sky’s End for the past ten years to dump rubble. At intervals, where the tunnel was wider, empty returning carts were diverted to side-rails to make way for the full ones.
Working in shifts, with hammer drills and prybars, the Daewar delvers could extend their tunnel as much as fifty feet in a day’s time, even in the toughest rock. Now that the substance was softer, they were moving faster than that, though some additional effort was required for occasional shoring as they went. The first vertical fault they had encountered, a seep in soft, porous stone, had cost them a dozen lives and three days’ delay because of a cave-in. Now they took no such chances.
A lantern-bearer going before him, Olim Goldbuckle went all the way to the front, where a fresh layer of stone had just been levered away, adding another foot to the tunnel’s almost fifty miles of length. Drillers and drivers, cutters and prisers stepped back as the prince approached, and a sweating young Daewar with bulging forearms and whiskers of spun gold pointed at the new-cut face of the tunnel. “Softer by the minute, Sire. And we have sound.”
“We are that close?” Olim’s brow creased. “Let me hear.” He knelt at the sheer wall of the fresh cut and sniffed the stone, then pressed his ear against its surface. The young driver stepped forward, attached a string of bat-bells to the surface, raised his hammer, and delivered a smashing blow to the stone inches from his prince’s head. The bat-bells quivered and tinkled, and Olim counted his heartbeats, then grinned as a muted echo came back to him, ringing through the stone itself.