The tunnel narrowed further. Ragh pictured the dwarves squeezing through. It would be a tight fit for the one called Churt—he had wide shoulders for a dwarf. It was sure tight for him. The sivak bumped his head on the low ceiling. A long string of curse words came out and faintly echoed back at him.
“Tunnel turns ahead, or maybe there’s a chamber,” the draconian said, feeling how strange it was to be talking to himself and to keep hearing his own words echo back at him. “Let’s see what we’ve got ahead, then we’ll go right back the other way and find Feril. Let’s see what’s making that smell.”
A dozen steps later the tunnel opened into a chamber so small that he imagined that all four dwarves would be hard pressed to fit. He spotted earthen jars stacked three high against one curving wall. He edged forward, crouching under the lowering ceiling. At the far side of the chamber was a small pool of liquid.
“That’s what smells.” He dropped to his knees and shuffled closer, scraping the satchel on his back and realizing that only the youngest dwarf would be able to stand up in here. Ragh inhaled deep and held his light globe over the surface.
At first he thought he recognized a trace of sulfur coming from the liquid. No, but there was the suggestion of steel or something like steel. It was nothing he was familiar with. It was at the same time a pleasant and disturbing odor, subtle and cloying, rare but memorable. It nagged at his curiosity.
His light revealed that it was a small but deep pool. Welling up from somewhere far below was a liquid metal, glistening brighter than pure silver. He tentatively reached out one finger, finding the liquid cool as a mountain stream and thick as pudding.
The liquid metal clung to his talon, and as minutes passed, he watched it harden.
“By the memory of the Dark Queen, what in all the levels of the Abyss is this?” He scratched on the stone at the rim of the pool, trying to scratch the metal off, but instead digging a line in the rock with its hard edge. “By all of the Dark Queen’s glorious heads!” He proceeded to dip each talon of his free hand in the substance, then worked on his other talons. The claws of his feet were next.
“Dragonmetal, Dhamon! This is a pool of dragonmetal.” He said these words softly, so softly he wasn’t sure that Dhamon even heard. He waited a few minutes as the metal dried. “Dragonmetal is the only thing this could be,” he said louder, excitedly. “No wonder they wanted us to stay out of their mountain. People would kill for this. Go to war over this.” He glanced at the clay jugs. “They’ve figured out a way to store it without it hardening up on them. The earth, clay, that’s it. Encased in earth it stays liquid. Wonder who they’re going to sell it to?”
Ragh was so preoccupied with his discovery that he didn’t notice another tremor racing through the stone nor the approaching footfalls of the young red-haired dwarf who had followed him all the way through the tunnel.
“Dragonmetal,” the sivak repeated, mesmerized by his discovery. The draconian had lived a very long time and had traveled most of Krynn. He’d never seen dragonmetal, but he’d heard of it from fellow draconians who had witnessed the pool beneath the great Stone Dragon in Foghaven Vale. That was believed to be the only place on Krynn where dragonmetal existed.
“A gift from the gods,” Ragh recalled from the legend.
It was said the gods of light bestowed the pool in the Vale, along with the secret of working the metal, to the master armorers of Ansalon. A skilled smith, using the artifacts known as the Silver Arm of Ergoth and the Hammer of Kharan, had forged the dragon-lances from this innately magical metal. It was called dragonmetal because of the dragon statue that loomed over the pool and because of the deadly lances made from it that could slay evil dragons. Solamnic Knights had used it for forging other weapons and armor, but these pieces were generally reserved for members of the order who were particularly distinguished.
“There was said to be only the one pool,” Ragh said to his shadow. “That one was under the huge Stone Dragon in Foghaven Vale, but this is also dragonmetal, I’d bet my teeth on it. That makes this absolutely priceless.”
“That makes you dead.” The young red-haired dwarf stood at the entrance of the small chamber, lantern in one hand and a pick in the other. The pick was tipped with the silvery metal. He hung the lantern from a stone peg on the wall and shook his fist at Ragh. “You sealed your fate when you came down here! I’m going to have to kill you and the meddling elf, too, when I find her.”
“Wonderful,” Ragh grumbled, turning on his knees to face the fresh menace. With a thought, the globe in his hand grew bright, then he let it fall to the edge of the pool. He crept closer to the dwarf, then stood, stoop-shouldered, his clawed hands held to his sides but at the ready. “Look, I’ve really no desire to kill you…Campfire, right? That’s what’s going to happen if you press this fight.”
The dwarf chuckled. “Funny, I’ve every desire to end your pathetic life.”
Feril had no trouble keeping up with Feldspar, but she marveled at his deftness and at the speed with which he could travel through the winding tunnel. He was surefooted on the ascending stone, sidestepping patches of loose rock and ducking nimbly under the low support beams. He stopped only once, and this was when the mountain shook and one of the beams shifted and ominously cracked.
“Fool, fool elf…and more fool me,” he said. Feldspar let out a string of Dwarvish curse words as he shifted the lantern to his other hand. “We’re almost there. You better get that scale quick as a rabbit—if you can. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Then you and the sivak are going to pay us something for it. That scale’s got to be worth a lot to you, to risk coming here with the world rumblin’ so.”
At last the tunnel widened considerably, with the ceiling reaching high above them. Feril found herself in a natural cavern, the floor of which was slick in places with guano. There was no sign of any bats, however, and Feril suspected that when the first quake hit they flew out through a crevice above, opening to the sky.
“Is that the crevice you mentioned?” Feril pointed to it.
“Yeah. You’re thin enough to slip through it, ain’t you? I ain’t going to work to make it bigger, don’t want to weaken the ceiling anyway.” The dwarf held the lantern high, the light barely stretching above, but it was enough to show a black strip wedged near the top of the cavern. “That’s the tip of your dragon scale. Looks like it’s in there pretty tight, Dawnspringer. Think you’ve got a way to…”
“To get it out of there? You said you planned on watching me, Feldspar. Well, just watch.” She crouched and stooped to enter the crevice, then managed to hold the satchel behind her as she found finger- and toeholds. Awkwardly, but making surprisingly easy progress, she climbed the wall. “Obelia, I’m so very close,” Feril whispered, hoping the specter could hear her through the flask.
The wall trembled slightly, but she held on and climbed higher, finally reaching the slash in the rocks where the scale was lodged. Only part of it was visible in the faint light provided by Feldspar’s upstretched lantern. Feril ran her fingers over the edge of the scale, finding it nearly as sharp as a blade and as hard as metal.
She offered a silent prayer to Habbakuk for guiding them to these dwarves, the basin, and to this tunnel. Then she thrust her arm into the tight gap, trying to feel for the scale. At the same time she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing and forced herself to relax. A tingle raced from her chest and down her arm to her fingers, which were exploring the shield-sized scale and which were somehow molding the stone, cradling it as though the granite were malleable clay.
“I’ll get you loose,” she vowed. “Might take a few minutes.” She pressed and smoothed the stone, while continuing to explore the edges of the scale with her fingers. Her body ached from being wedged so tight, but she pushed the pain aside and focused on the granite and the scale. “That’s better. A little more.” The rock flowed around her hand and arm as if trying to accommodate her.