Behind them, a chorus of howls rose up from the Gnomes. The game was up. The two broke for the fortress walls in a mad dash, calling to the Dwarves within. They dashed up against the iron–bound gates, casting desperate glances back as they ran. An entire line of Gnome Hunters swept toward them, torches bobbing wildly, cries of rage breaking from their throats. Spears and arrows launched through the dark.
«Oh, shades, open up in there, you… !» Slanter bawled.
Abruptly the gates swung open and hands reached out to yank them through. An instant later they were within the fortress, the gates slamming shut behind them as renewed howls of fury filled the night. They were thrown to the ground, and iron–tipped spears ringed them tightly.
Slanter shook his head in disgust and glanced over at Helt. «You explain it to them, Borderman,” he muttered. «Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could.»
Jair Ohmsford fell a long way into the Cillidellan. Downward he plunged, a tiny speck of darkness against the deep blue–gray of the night sky, the pit of his stomach dropping away, the rush of the wind filling his ears with its sound. Far below him the waters of the lake shimmered with bits of crimson light as the watchfires of the Gnomes reflected against their rippling surface, and all about him the vast sweep of the mountains and cliffs encircling Capaal rose up through the blur of his vision. Time seemed to come to a sudden standstill, and it felt as if he would never come to rest.
Then he struck with jarring force, breaking through the surface of the lake and plunging deep into the cold, dark waters. The breath left his lungs with stunning suddenness, and his whole body went numb with shock. Frantically, he clawed his way through the chill blackness that had closed about him, barely conscious of anything beyond his need to reach the surface once more so that he could breathe. The heat from his body dissipated in seconds, and he felt a crushing force pressing in against him, so terrible that it threatened to break him in two. He struggled upward, desperate with need. Lights danced before his eyes and his arms and legs seemed suddenly turned to lead. Weakly, he thrashed against their pull, lost in a maze of dark turns.
A moment later, everything slipped away from him.
He dreamed, a long, endless dream of disconnected feelings and sensations and of times and places both remembered and yet somehow new. Waves of sound and motion carried him through landscapes of nightmare and haunts of the familiar, through oft–traveled forest trails of the Vale, and through sweeps of black, cold water where life passed in tangled disarray in faces and shapes not fixed one to the other, but disjointed and free. Brin was there, come and gone in brief glimpses, a distorted form that combined reality with falsehood and begged for understanding. Words came at him from things misshapen and lifeless, yet her voice seemed to speak the words, calling to him, calling…
Then Garet Jax was holding him, arms wrapped tightly about his body, his voice a whisper of life in a dark place. Jair floated, the waters buoying him, and his face turned skyward into the clouded night. Gasping, he sought to talk and could not manage. He was awake again, come back from where he had slipped away, yet not fully conscious of what had befallen him or what he was about. He drifted in and out of darkness, reaching back each time he began to slide too far so that he might be grasped anew by the sound and color and feeling that meant life.
Then there were hands grasping him as well, pulling him up from the waters and the blackness, easing him down onto solid ground once more. Rough voices muttered vaguely, the fragmented words slipping through his mind like stray leaves blown by the wind. His eyes flickered, and Garet Jax was bending over him, lean brown face damp and drawn with the chill, fair hair plastered back against his head.
«Valeman, can you hear me? It’s all right. You’re all right now.»
Other faces pushed into view — blocky Dwarf faces, resolute and grave as they studied his. He swallowed, choked and mumbled something incoherent.
«Don’t try to talk,” one said gruffly. «Just rest.»
He nodded. Hands wrapped him in blankets, then lifted him up and began to carry him away.
«Sure has been a night for strays.» Another voice chuckled.
Jair tried to look back to where the voice had come from, but he could not seem to focus his sense of direction. He let himself sink downward into the warmth of the blankets, eased by the gentle rocking of the hands that bore him. A moment later, he was asleep.
Chapter Ninteen
It was midday of the next day when Jair awoke again. He might not have come awake even then were it not for the hands that shook him none too gently from his slumber and the rough voice that whispered in his ear, «Wake up, boy! You’ve slept long enough! Come on, wake up!»
Grudgingly, he stirred within the blankets that covered him, rolled onto his back and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Gray sunlight filtered through a narrow window next to his head, causing him to squint against its brightness.
«Come on, the day’s almost gone! Been shut away the whole of it, thanks to you!»
Jail’s eyes shifted to find the speaker, a stoutly familiar figure positioned at the side of his bed. «Slanter?» he whispered in disbelief.
«Now who else would it be?» the other snapped.
Jail blinked. «Slanter?»
Abruptly the events of the previous night recalled themselves to his mind in a flood of images: the flight from the Gnomes in the mountains about Capaal; the separation of the company; the long drop into the Cillidellan with Garet Jax; and their subsequent rescue from its waters by the Dwarves. You’re all right now, the Weapons Master had whispered to him. He blinked again. But Slanter and the others…
«Slanter!» he exclaimed, now fully awake. Hastily, he pushed himself upright. «Slanter, you’re alive!»
«Of course I’m alive! What does it look like?»
«But how did… ?» Jair left the question hanging and grasped the Gnome’s arm anxiously. «What about the others? What’s happened to them? Are they all right?»
«Slow down, will you?» The Gnome freed his arm irritably. «They’re all fine and they’re all here, so stop worrying. The Elf took a dart in the shoulder, but he’ll live. Only one who’s in danger at the moment is me. And that’s because I’m shut up in this room with you, dying of boredom! Now will you climb out of that bed so we can get out of here?»
Jair didn’t hear all of what the Gnome was saying. Everyone’s all right, he was repeating to himself. Everyone made it. No one was lost, even though it had seemed certain that some of them must be. He breathed deeply in relief. Something the King of the Silver River had said recalled itself suddenly to his mind. A touch of magic for each who journey with you, the old man had told him. Strength for the body, given to others. Perhaps that strength, that touch of the magic, had seen each of them safely through last night.
«Get up, get up, get up!» Slanter was practically hopping up and down with impatience. «What are you doing just sitting there?»
Jair swung his legs out of the bed and glanced about the room in which he found himself. It was a small; stone block chamber, sparsely furnished with bed, sitting table, and chairs, its walls bare save for a broad heraldic tapestry hung from the far supports of its sloped ceiling. A second window opened out at the other end of the wall against which Jair’s bed rested, and a single wooden door stood closed, opposite where he sat. In one corner, a small fireplace cradled an iron gate and a stack of burning logs.
He glanced at Slanter. «Where are we?»
Slanter looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. «Now where do you think we are? We’re inside the Dwarf fortress!»