“Oh?” Abercrumb said, raising his eyebrows. “I thought I saw a rather prosperous-looking fellow-Hylar, if I guess correctly-coming in here just yesterday. Looked like he brought his whole family with him. Had the look of real wealth about him too. So he wasn’t a customer?”
“No!” Peat said, feeling a knot grow in his stomach. “He was-was lost! Very lost. Was looking for directions to-to-”
“He couldn’t remember where, that’s where,” Sadie interjected. “And he left a few minutes later. I hope the poor fellow found his way.”
“Oh, I see. Well, thank you,” said Abercrumb, shifting his penetrating glance from one Guilder to the other. “Though, funny thing. I was sitting by my front window all night, yesterday. Nothing else to do, you know. And I could swear I never saw that Hylar leave. Never saw any of ’em leave.”
“Oh,” Sadie said quickly. “Most likely, you drifted off to sleep and didn’t see him leave. Let me guess-did you have a bottle of dwarf spirits near at hand?”
Abercrumb flushed. “Well, there’s no call for that sort of remark!” he huffed before stiffly turning and stomping out the door. Peat noticed that the crowd in the street had thinned to a few stragglers, though sounds of battle still rang from the direction of the square.
Sadie wasted no time in slamming the door shut behind him, while Peat swiftly refastened the lock. “So the Master’s forces are storming the palace!” he croaked.
“Good,” she said. “He’ll have other things on his mind until the battle is through.”
Still, the elderly Theiwar were trembling as they made their way into the back room, looking at each other’s wide eyes and ashen faces.
“Do you think Abercrumb suspects anything?” asked Peat, his voice tremulous.
“Of course not!” Sadie snapped. “How could he have the slightest idea what we are up to? I don’t think there’s a Hylar in Thorbardin who even imagines that a dimension door is possible, much less than I am able to cast one. Still, I don’t like him visiting all the time. I think he has friends in the court. He’s too nosy-and too close-for comfort.”
“What are we going to do about this? About him? About everything?” moaned Peat, sitting on a work stool and wringing his hands.
“Well, we’re not going to panic, for one thing,” Sadie said firmly. “Now, stop groaning and let’s talk this over.”
Peat drew a ragged breath, and they began to talk. Had anyone else seen the refugees coming through the shop? They hoped not. Did anyone else suspect they had a fortune in gems in a secret lockbox? They really hoped not. Had they attracted the attention of the king or, even more terrifying, Willim the Black? They really, really hoped not. Sadie reassured Peat, and Peat reassured Sadie, and they started to make a plan.
All the same, they were both startled when, a few hours later, another knock sounded from the front door. It was much quieter than Abercrumb’s, but both Guilders just about jumped out of their skin when they heard the tapping. Still, Peat made his way to the door, opened it, and found another dwarf standing there. He was dressed in a fine silk cloak, and he looked surreptitiously up and down the street, which was at last empty and quiet.
“Hurry-come in!” said Sadie, following her husband closely and all but yanking the dwarf into the shop. “What do you want?”
“Well, I … it’s kind of a secret,” the dwarf said. He appeared to be a swarthy Daergar, but the gold chains adorning his neck and the sparkling buttons and cufflinks on his tunic suggested a personage who was very well off financially. “I have, that is, I had a neighbor, Horth Dunstone. A Hylar merchant. Perhaps you know him?”
The two Theiwar looked at each other, eyes wide. “You had a neighbor, you said,” Sadie repeated. “What happened to him?”
“Well, I know he was anxious, desperate even, to get himself and his family out of Thorbardin. He told me, in the strictest confidence, that you were going to help him.” The Daergar looked at them imploringly, but neither of the Guilders made any reply.
“So now, well, I was wondering … do you think you could do the same thing for me?”
EIGHT
Jungor Stonespringer stood on the highest rampart of his palace’s prayer tower-the same platform where the Theiwar assassin had tried to kill him, and where the assassin had paid for the treacherous attack with his own life. It was while examining the body of the foiled murderer that the king had first realized the truth about his enemy. Not just the fact that the assassin had been a Theiwar, but that he wore the garment of a black-robed mage.
The king knew beyond any doubt that it was Willim the Black who had created, who led the rebellion. Beyond the identity of his slain agent, the proof could be found in the spells used against the royal troops, including the violent explosions of fire and lightning, the lethal blasts of thunderous meteor showers, and the searing magic missiles that had scourged the ranks of his loyal soldiers. No other but the eyeless Theiwar wizard was capable of such powerful enchantments, of dispatching such magically skilled agents.
Not to mention the foul black minion.
The king had been driven to his lofty redoubt, a platform carved around the circumference of a stout stone pillar that extended all the way to the ceiling dome over Norbardin. Indeed, the elevation was such that he was poised more than a hundred feet above the level of the great plaza, while the ceiling of the top of the cavernous chamber was only twenty or thirty feet higher than his head. The pillar itself was hollow, with the prayer platform and other ramparts lower on the shaft accessible by a wide, spiraling stairway. Firing platforms stood at many levels within the tower walls. Narrow slits in the thick stone walls allowed defenders to shoot from those platforms in all directions, while offering good protection to any return fire from attackers below.
It was clear to Jungor that his forces were losing the battle, even though fighting still raged around all of the palace environs. The royal troops were trying to enter the palace, but many-perhaps a thousand-remained trapped outside the main gate, where they fought with the desperation of cornered animals against the rebels that closed in from three sides. With commendable courage, General Ragat was trying to organize the defenders, brandishing his own silver shield as a proud badge of his status, his courage.
“Shields out!” he barked to those on the left. “Raise your pikes!” he commanded the spear-carrying dwarves on the right. “Stand fast there,” he encouraged the swordsmen in the middle.
For some minutes, it looked as if they might be able to hold the gate. While the line was stabilized, General Ragat came through a portal and scrambled up a stairway to a higher platform, where he could benefit from a better view of the frenzied fighting. Even more of the king’s troops surged across the courtyard and out the gates, reinforcing the brave pocket of defenders and blocking the retreat of those with faltering courage.
Then: butchery and disaster! Willim the Black was there, standing on a broken cart behind the rank of his troops. The Black Robe pointed at the knot of defenders and cast a terrible spell. Even from on high, the king could see the tiny pebble of brightness, like a marble of pure, hot flame, that floated in almost leisurely fashion toward the heart of the battle, past the rebel troops and into the middle of the defending ranks.
The king could only watch with horror as a searing, brilliant fireball exploded in the middle of that tightly packed mass of his loyalists. He heard the screams and, in moments, smelled the seared flesh as the powerful wizard urged his rebels forward into the charred and blackened swath where so many of Stonespringer’s soldiers had died.
Led by the few survivors of the Black Cross company, the attackers pushed through the gate, carrying the battle into the courtyards directly below the prayer tower. A desultory volley of crossbow bolts flew from the arrow slits on the walls of that tower, the missiles plunging haphazardly into the throng of dwarves fighting their way through the palace gates. More of the king’s troops lined the outer walls, but there, too, the rebels scrambled upward. Magical fireballs-not so terrible as Willim the Black’s apocalyptic incineration, but still deadly-blossomed here and there as nimble Klar and Hylar climbed ropes and lifted ladders, allowing them to seize the positions scoured by fire.