Through the air I tumbled, rolling and spinning, helpless to stop myself. Winds screamed above and below me. They would cease, I knew, only when they had finally run their course: This spell had a life of its own. How, I wondered, could Slayer have known the incantation? His own magic was strong indeed. Far too strong to be used for such evil! Yet how could I possibly stop him when his powers so fully rivaled my own?
Turning over and over, I sailed through the air, unable even to grasp my wounded leg. I whirled past the edge of the village, then over trees bare of leaves, and fields whitened from snow. Weak and disoriented, I didn’t notice the winds starting to fade. Nor did I notice the rocky plateau drawing closer and closer beneath me.
With a resounding thud, I hit the ground. Over the flat stones I rolled, at last coming to a halt. Yet the world continued spinning, as it grew steadily darker. Before I lost consciousness, though, I felt something hard and pointed jab my ribs. It might have been a rock—or the head of a spear.
16:
T
HE
Q
UESTION
I awoke.
Darkness shrouded me, though not the darkness of night. Cold, hard stone pressed against my back. Was this the rocky plateau where I’d landed? No, no. The air smelled . . . different somehow. Dank and stale, with the slightest hint of something I knew I’d smelled before. What, though?
Fingers spread wide, I touched the flat stone beneath me. To my surprise, I felt the subtle grooves and ridges made by stone chisels, expertly wielded. So this was a tunnel, or a room underground! Reaching out with my second sight, I detected a wall rising steeply beside me. And another, on the opposite side. On each, a clasp of wrought iron had been placed to hold a torch, now extinguished—but at a height too low for a man or a woman.
All at once, I knew the smell: beard hairs, dense and tangled. And I knew this place, this underground realm, and those who had made it. Dwarves!
I sat up, half dazed. Suddenly I realized my leg didn’t hurt anymore. How could that be? My hand kneaded the muscles of my thigh. No pain whatsoever. And no scar! My leggings were no longer torn, having been mended with heavy, rough thread.
At that instant, the torches sizzled, sputtered, and flared into bright light, illuminating the entire room. Alas, I saw no sign of my missing staff or sword. Like my gaze, my shadow swept around the room searching for any sign of them. But the surrounding walls were utterly bare, broken only by a single, cast-iron door opposite me. It had been etched with intricate designs of dwarves laboring to carve stone, set jewels, and shape metal. Just then I heard the sound of boots clomping toward the door’s other side.
The heavy latch lifted. As the door swung open, a pair of stout dwarves marched in. Each of them stood to one side of the passage, crossing their burly arms that had been painted with strange symbols. Although they stood only as high as the middle of my chest, they would prove more than a match for most men. They stared at me with eyes like molten iron. Behind their beards, thick and black, their jaws clenched firmly. An assortment of weapons dangled from their bodies, including jeweled daggers, double-sided axes, and sturdy, oaken bows with quivers full of arrows. With their feet firmly planted, they seemed as solid as the stone floor beneath me.
Then through the doorway strode a bizarre, yet regal, figure, wearing a purple robe adorned with silver runes and geometric designs. In one hand she held a wooden staff, weathered and blackened with age. In her other, she bore the remains of some sort of fruit pastry, which she crammed into her mouth and chewed avidly. Her brow glistened with a finely wrought band of jewels, mostly sapphires, though her unruly red hair sat like a thornbush on her head. Urnalda, enchantress of the dwarves, stood before me, her earrings of dangling shells clinking as she chewed.
Seeing her again made my stomach churn. I tried to disguise my dread, standing on the stone floor to greet her. But as I started to bow, she cuffed my ear with the tip of her staff.
Swallowing her pastry, she declared, “You be unhappy to see me.” Her sharp voice echoed among the walls of the chamber.
I rubbed my tender ear, striving to remain polite. “I am grateful to you for healing my leg.”
“That be true.” She shook her head, clinking her shell earrings. “Yet still you be unhappy to see me.”
I glared at her. “We didn’t part on the happiest terms, last time we met.”
She snorted angrily, and the two dwarves at the door reached for their axe handles. My shadow, sensing trouble, shrank down on the floor by my feet. But Urnalda raised her hand, saying, “Not yet. I still be feeling gracious toward our guest, the renowned wizard Merlin.”
“You mean you want something from me,” I snapped.
The guards, who had released their weapons, reached for them again. They turned their bearded faces to the enchantress, awaiting her command. Urnalda, though, seemed unperturbed. She nodded her adorned head, jostling her earrings.
“You be wiser, Merlin, at least a little.” A crooked grin creased the pale skin of her face. “But be you wise enough to win back your wizard’s staff? And your precious sword? That be not so clear.”
“My staff and sword?” I thundered. “You have them?”
“Mayhaps, wizard, mayhaps. Yet before Urnalda decides whether to help you, it be up to you to help Urnalda.”
Behind her, one of the guards grunted in approval. The enchantress whirled around instantly, jabbing a stubby finger at him. “I not be asking your opinion!” she spat.
His red eyes opened wide. “M-m-my apologies, Urnalda.”
“Good.” She shook her finger at him menacingly. “Be certain it does not happen again.”
“Yes, Urnalda,” he replied, standing rigidly at attention. As soon as she turned around again to face me, though, the guard glanced at his companion and gave him a sly wink.
Immediately, the enchantress spun around, her purple robe swishing on the stones. She took a step toward the dwarf, who backed up against the iron door. “So now! You mock me, do you?”
“N-n-no, Urnalda,” he replied. This time, judging from the beads of perspiration on his brow, he was truly afraid. “By-m-m-my beard, I wasn’t.”
She hunched forward, her wild red hairs quivering with rage. “Then by your beard, you be a liar.”
Before he could object, she raised her hand and snapped her fingers. A scarlet flash lit the underground chamber, obscuring everything, even the torches. As the red light faded, a change in the dwarf’s appearance was clear: His tangled black beard had vanished. In its place sprouted a mass of bright pink feathers, delicately curling like the plumes of an exotic bird.
The guard, still unaware of the change, stood motionless. His companion, however, started to guffaw—until Urnalda silenced him with a glare. Anxiously, the transformed dwarf reached up to stroke his beard. Feeling feathers instead of hair, he released a terrible howl. He plucked a long pink feather, took one look at it, and bolted out the door. He ran down the passageway, his wailing cries reverberating among the stone walls.
With a sidelong look at the other guard, who was shivering to hold back his laughter, Urnalda turned her squat frame around to face me. Her cheeks, normally pale gray, were still flush with anger. As she studied me, her eyes narrowed. “Be you wanting your precious sword and staff?”
“I need them, yes. And now! For we have much work to do, you and I.”
The crooked grin returned to her face. “We? Now it be you who wants something.”
“That’s right,” I declared. “All Fincayra is in trouble.”
“Fincayra?” She sniffed, adjusting the jeweled band on her brow. “And why be that any concern for the dwarves, the people of Urnalda?”
I started to speak, when she raised her stout hand. “I be uninterested in your tales of woe, Merlin. I only be interested in my people.”
“But—”
“Hush!” she commanded. “And be not so foolish as to try any of your enchantments on me.” Her voice lowered a notch. “You be faring poorly enough against your sword-armed adversary. And you be faring far worse against Urnalda. Besides,” she added with a throaty chuckle, “I still be holding my staff.”
I started. “You know about Slayer?”
“Hush!”
“He could be part of the plot against—”
“Hush, young wizard!” She leaned forward, her earrings vibrating as she stared up at me. “Here be my terms. Answer my question, and I return your possessions. Fail, and . . . well, that be my decision.”
“You must listen,” I protested.
She jammed the base of her staff onto the stone underfoot, sending up a spray of dust and pebbles. “No! You be mistaken. I shall speak, and you shall listen.”
With effort, I held my tongue.
“Good, then. Here be my question.” She drew in her breath to say whatever it was, then suddenly caught herself. Turning to the guard, she waved her hand at him. “Stand outside the door. And be not eavesdropping, or I be changing your beard hairs into slithery worms!”
The dwarf anxiously touched his beard. He bustled out the doorway and into the tunnel, marching at least a dozen paces before coming to a halt. Apparently satisfied, the enchantress faced me once more. She cleared her throat, then began speaking in a raspy whisper.
“My question be this: For several weeks now, my visions of the future be strangely clouded. That never be happening before, not to Urnalda, so brave, so wise.” She paused, choosing her words. “I be unable to see anything—anything at all—past the night we call Dundealgal’s Eve, the longest night of the year.”
Her pale brow contorted. “Except . . . snakes. Ghostly snakes, who be hissing and spitting at each other. They be coming often in my visions.” Disdainfully, she spat on her hands and rubbed them together briskly. “But Urnalda cares not about the snakes. Urnalda cares about seeing nothing else!” She grimaced, trembling with rage. “This be unacceptable. An enchantress without visions!”
I nodded grimly. “And your question is why it’s happened?”
She ground her staff into the stone floor. “That be my question.”
“And if I answer it, you will return my staff and sword?”
“Those be my terms.”
“The answer,” I said flatly, “has nothing to do with you or your powers. You are still as strong as ever. It has to do, instead, with the future.”
Unmistakably, a look of relief washed over her face. Then her expression darkened. She asked, her voice no longer a whisper, “What be this future?”
“I only know what I learned from a vision, several nights ago. Dagda came to me, spoke to me.”
Urnalda’s back straightened. “The greatest of the spirits spoke to you? A wizard so young he is yet to grow a beard?”
“Yes. About the future.”
She scrutinized me, and I could tell she was trying to judge the truth of what I’d said. After a few seconds, she gave a nod. “Go on.”
“He said that, on winter’s longest night, the Otherworld of the spirits and the world of Fincayra will come perilously close. A passageway of some sort will open between them, at the stone circle, the Dance of the Giants.” I drew a ragged breath. “And through that passageway, Rhita Gawr and all his forces will come pouring out, bent on crushing every mortal life in their path—unless you and I and the rest of Fincayra are there to stop them.”
For a long period, she gazed at one of the torches, hissing and sputtering in its clasp on the wall. “Did he say anything more?”
“Some things I didn’t understand, yes, about lost wings and other notions. But the point of it all was a warning, not just to me or the race of men and women, but to all the people of this land.” Hopefully, I reached out my hands to her. “Won’t you join me, Urnalda? Help save the world we share?”
Swinging her staff, she slapped away my hands. “Join you and the race of men? Fight alongside the very same warriors who be trying not long ago to destroy my people?” Her voice grew shrill. “Have you no memory of what your ruler Stangmar, whose blood be running through your own veins, did to the dwarves?”
“It’s our only hope,” I pleaded.
“
Your
only hope! The people of Urnalda be surviving now very well indeed.”
Her face relaxed for a moment, and took on a look of deep longing. “One day, our people will be truly free from harm, enough to stop building more tunnels and defenses. Then we be constructing a great stone amphitheater, open to the air and sky. The amphitheater of Urnalda’s people! I be wanting this for more years than you be living, Merlin! A place where I be able to view all my people at once, a place for my weekly addresses, and dramatic plays in my honor.”
Suddenly she snapped out of her reverie. She stamped angrily on the floor, sending a rumble through the stones of the chamber. It seemed to shake the very bedrock, vibrating for several seconds before fading away. “Go talk to the giants, those hairy-footed dunces, about fighting alongside you! They be dangerous, and almost as terrible to the dwarves as men. But they be stupid, very stupid, so mayhaps you be more successful.”
Scowling, I struck the flat of my hand against the stone wall. “It’s you, Urnalda, who are stupid! And stubborn—as immovable as these very stones. Do you really think you can evade Rhita Gawr after he’s taken the lands above? Why, your underground realm will be as easily broken as a butterfly’s wing in his hand.”
The eyes of the enchantress blazed as bright as the torches. “I never be joining forces with the race of men. Never.”
Holding back my wrath, I decided to try one last time. “Please. I know you care deeply about your people’s wellbeing. I’ve heard many stories about how much you have done for them in your rule. For their sake, you must reconsider.”
“You flatter me, wizard,” she spat back. “You be knowing nothing about my rule. My dwarves be forbidden to speak of such things to your race.”
“No, I speak honestly. My friend Shim, a true giant who lived for a time among your people, has told me many stories. And he—”
“Is a traitor and a spy!” She squeezed her staff so hard that thin trails of smoke started rising from the runes on the shaft. “Of all the giants, he be the worst. Masquerading as one of Urnalda’s people! If he ever sets foot again in my realm, he will be killed immediately.” She grimaced at me. “We be ready for him, oh yes, if he be so foolish to return.”