“Is that the dwarves’ way of telling us we’re not welcome?”
“No,” Lakanta said, alarmed. “It’s a tremor, but it feels like none I’ve ever experienced.”
An hour or more passed after the earthquake ceased. Once she had gotten over being frightened by the thraiks, Tildi felt sleepy. She sat huddled against the wall while the others chatted in low tones near her. A crunching, creaky sound woke her out of her doze. A bright wedge of light made her blink. The door was open.
A man had appeared in the doorway with a glowing lantern in his hand.
“Hail, cousin!” Lakanta said, going to meet him. Tildi studied him curiously. He was a stocky blond male a quarter the height of the door, with his long hair and beard in braids, just like the kindly peddler who had given her sweets and discussed matters so solemnly with Gosto, yet with a twinkle in his eye. This dwarf had no twinkle for them. He seemed angry to see them, and especially Lakanta.
“You cannot enter here,” he said, waving a hand sharply. “Go away. Find another road.”
“Now, cousin,” Lakanta said smoothly, moving closer so that he couldn’t shut the door without catching her in it. “Let us speak privately with each other.”
“We have nothing to say,
towa-chira
.” Tildi perked up her ears at the unknown word, and stored it up to ask about later. Lakanta seemed taken aback by it, but perservered.
“We can help one another. You don’t want our people to suffer because you were too stubborn to listen. Just a few moments of your time.”
“Well?” the dwarf asked peevishly. He set the lantern down at his feet. She leaned toward him, and they fell into conference. They resembled
each other so closely that Tildi couldn’t understand why the man didn’t acknowledge Lakanta as his kin.
Even Tildi’s sensitive hearing was not keen enough to pick up more than a few words as the peddler bent all her skills of persuasion upon the door warden. More than once they glanced over in her direction as she heard Lakanta say something about “ … only guide who can follow … .”
“Doesn’t matter,” the dwarf declared aloud, folding his arms. He leaned forward so Lakanta was pushed back into the cave.
“Please,” Edynn said, coming forward to appeal to the little man. She crouched so she was at eye level with him. “Our path above is cut off by the thraik. They cannot follow us here.”
“That’s right,” Lakanta said. “That’s why you must help us.”
The dwarf glared at both of them, and had an extra glare leftover for Tildi. “I don’t see the connection it has to us. We like our privacy, and you are interfering with it.”
Lakanta shook a finger under his nose. “Fool! If we don’t live to catch up with this wizard, then we can’t stop the trouble he’s causing! That was no ordinary earthquake, and you know it.”
The dwarf rocked back on his heels for a moment and stroked his braided beard. “We’ve been discussing it. You may be right. The timing’s all wrong.”
“I know I am. When’s the next earth tremor due in these parts?”
“Not for a year, and nothing of this magnitude for at least five.”
“You know when earthquakes come?” Serafina asked, surprised. “Without magic?”
“We are kin to the earth,” the dwarf said with dignity. “I have no need of your wizard tricks. I can feel the pulses in my bones. Very well. You may go through. Show me where you’re going. I will arrange a path. You will stick to it, you understand? One deviation, and you can discuss your nosiness with the thraik.”
“We will obey your strictures,” Edynn said, bowing humbly. “We will need water. I apologize for asking this further favor. And fodder for our horses. You gave me hospitality once, long ago. I regret troubling you now, but so much is at stake. I hope you will understand.”
The dwarf turned a speculative blue eye upon her, and studied her for some time. His tone was much mollified when he spoke again.
“There will be provisions. You will want for nothing. Wait here. I must make arrangements.”
He took the map from Teryn and shooed Lakanta back. Edynn stood up. The dwarf pulled the door to. It boomed shut.
“Darkness!” Morag exclaimed. He started casting about. “The light is gone! It’s gone!”
He turned about. The small spot of light that was the cave entrance caught his eye, and he sprinted toward it.
“You can’t go out there!” Teryn said, springing after him at once. “Morag! Attention! That’s an order! The thraiks will come back! Morag!”
Tildi looked after him sadly. Edynn came and rested her hand on Tildi’s shoulder. “It is a great pity. Serafina and I have tried many means to cure him, but it is beyond us.”
Teryn finally got the man to calm down and return to his place by the horses, and lit a lantern to give him something to concentrate upon. He was still wild-eyed by the time the door swung open again. Tildi could see the blue-eyed madness was on him.
“Don’t anger our hosts,” Lakanta warned him.
“I’m doing all I can with him,” Teryn snapped, then recovered herself. Her look was now one of open appeal. “He is harmless to others, peddler. He is only a threat to himself. I, we, beg for your understanding.”
“All right,” Lakanta said, “but mind you keep a close tether on him. I’ve no wish to expose Tildi to those bat-winged monstrosities again. I told you she was in love with him,” she said in a low voice to Tildi. Teryn’s spine stiffened at the over-loud whisper. As they led their steeds over the threshold into darkness, they could both hear the soldier whimpering quietly to himself.
The lack of sight only lasted a short distance as the party felt their way down a smooth stone ramp. Lamps bloomed into a golden glow, first near to them, then more and more of them reaching out to light an infinity of darkness.
Tildi caught her breath as she realized that what she thought was a corridor was a vast hall. Silvertree was a small stick of wood compared with this endless gallery of carved pillars. Mansions and temples large enough to cover a city block in Overhill were hundreds of feet lower the height than the ceiling. There were no small buildings at all. Every dwarf must live in a palace. The masons and stonecarvers had to have hollowed out the entire hill, and more beside. Fanciful towers had been carved according to the markings in the stone itself, so that there were soaring turrets, with each floor a different hue. What looked like lace on
the ceiling was a network of paths and roadways so far above their heads they did not look wide enough for a person to walk upon, but in proportion must be suitable for a cart and horses. A complicated and beautiful fountain of smooth red stone burbled gently in the square below where the company stood, its leaping waters catching and tossing the white lights around it.
The scratchings on the bronze door had only implied the skill of artists who had been allowed free rein of their imagination and skill within the doors that only dwarves would ever see. On the walls of these vast buildings were carved murals, ten times life-size, depicted dwarves engaged in their daily life: mining, carving, gem-cutting, cooking, caring for children, defeating elves and humans in war, administering law. The colors used to paint them were those that could be produced by stone pigments, but those included brilliant blues and greens, rusty reds, ochre of every shade, as well as pure white and black, and all ornamented by precious metals and stones. Tildi was enchanted by it all. The odd thing was that she couldn’t see a single living person or animal anywhere. Even the door warden was nowhere in sight. At their feet was the discarded map, the single golden dot glowing almost as brightly as the dwarf lights. Teryn gathered it up.
“This dwarf hollow is more magnificent than I dared dream,” Rin said. “It is bigger than some of the kingdoms in the open air! Happy is the day that gave us this opportunity. What a beautiful home your cousins have, Lakanta.”
Glittering red lights winked into view, beginning at their right and left.
“We must not linger,” Lakanta said hastily. “That’s our guide. Follow me.”
She swung up into Melune’s saddle and guided the stout little horse down the ramp into the city. They were halfway down when the land began to shake again. The horses staggered from side to side. Tildi grabbed hold of Rin’s shoulders in alarm.
“Mother and Father!” Lakanta exclaimed. “What is he
doing
up there?”
A
hustle and bustle at the rear of the temple told Magpie that Inbecca and her family had arrived. The assembled guests let out coos and exclamations of pleasure. He did not turn around. He was supposed to glimpse her for the first time as she came up to join him. The delicate strains of harp music began, accompanied by the rustle of several hundred people in their finest clothes sitting down. He held himself still, hardly daring to breathe, as he felt Inbecca approach him on silent feet and tuck her hand into his arm. At that moment he turned to behold her, and his heart pounded loud enough to deafen him.
She was as beautiful as Mother Nature herself must have been on that first day of Creation. Her deeply cut dress of purest emerald-green made her sea-colored eyes the color of beech leaves. Her cheeks were slightly flushed under her rouge, but she needed no cosmetics to enhance her
beauty. Her skin was as pure and soft as silk. He had the urge to stroke her cheek and feel her press it against his hand. All her jewelery was of living materials. She had earrings and a necklace of pearl and amber, as well as ivory and amber bangles around her slender wrists. The silken belt around her waist gleamed with more pearls sewn into patterns for the Mother and for the country of Levrenn. Magpie was overwhelmed by longing and caring. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, and how beautiful she was, but he was all too aware that the entire temple was waiting for them to begin.
Folding her hand into his, he guided her forward a few steps, to the end of the carpet of flowers laid down for them. On his right were her parents, and on her left, his. His mother was smiling with tears standing in her eyes. His father looked, well, not disapproving, which was all Magpie could wish under the circumstances. Inbecca’s magnificent mother, Queen Kaythira, sat at the end of the row. She was an older, more dignified version of Inbecca, with a touch of white just beginning at the temples of her coiffed chestnut hair. The train of her ochre-and-white dress was sewn with her royal device, the tiger. She gave him a warm, loving look, but with a warning in it, as fierce as her kingdom’s guardian. He knew what it meant:
Take care of my daughter.
Magpie intended that with all his heart. Her father, a tall, craggy-faced man with crisp black hair shot with white, held his mouth pursed, trying not to let it be seen that he was crying.
The couple stopped short of the great wooden altar. It was not stone, for it was meant to be made from an element of nature that showed the passage of time to the poor, short-lived human beings who worshiped here. He felt the timelessness of the moment, with everything perfect. He looked across the altar and out over the valley through the crystal window.
“Beloved of Nature and Time, Ahmah and Abbah,” the male priest began, as the female priest carried the urn of fire around them, “bless this couple who take the first steps toward thy perfect union.” He intoned words so ancient and familiar Magpie didn’t have to think about them. The priestess put down the urn and picked up the crystal box of air. Each of the elements was passed around them in turn.
He stared out at the mountains. He stood with Inbecca and said the words, but his mind was suddenly not on his love. The mountains—the Scapes—appeared to be shifting. He felt, rather than heard a rumble of the earth moving. How could that be? Mountains didn’t move. Did they?
“Did you see that?” he whispered to Inbecca.
“See what?” she asked impatiently. Magpie looked up and realized everyone, especially his father, was looking at him. He had interrupted the ritual. Magpie offered an apologetic smile to the priests. He must keep his mind on what he was doing. The honor of the kingdom depended upon him there and then.
“Do you, Inbecca, lady of Levrenn, plight your troth to this man, Eremilandur of Orontae, completing the sacred circle of creation with him and him alone, to the continuation of Nature throughout Time?”
Inbecca blushed. “That I do.”
“Do you, Eremilandur of Orontae, plight your troth to this woman, Inbecca, lady of Levrenn, completing the sacred circle of creation with her and her alone, to the continuation of Nature throughout Time?”
“That I do.”
“Take these rings and hold them in your palm, with her palm covering yours,” the female priest began. Magpie felt the weight of the two small circles, gold and silver. “Promise that you will learn to love each another, being true until the day shall come when you will be joined eternally and inseparably as Time and Nature were joined at the beginning of creation. None can exist without the other, and are made complete by the other. Take this time between now and the wedding to contemplate your future together, for you are promised now in the presence of Ahmah and Abbah. As it is written.”
The assembled all answered in response, “As it is written.”
Magpie stumbled slightly over the words. He smiled down at Inbecca, who gave him a worried look. He squinted over her head at the window. A cloud, or something like one, brown-gray, like dust, rose from the Scapes. Like pulverized stone. In fact, two peaks that were the sentinels guarding the rear of the ancient castle seemed to have moved closer together.
That was not possible—except through the power of the Great Book!
From what Olen had said it was virtually limitless, as the rune changed the object. The thief was playing with the land, doing something unimaginable to it, probably one of the experiments that Olen had told them about. After ten thousand years of having it being out of his reach, the Shining One must have been aching to try out his magical muscles once again. Magpie shivered at the thought of being transformed for the amusement and edification of an inquiring wizard.
They had all been warned to look out for anything strange going on in
the area, and to report it at once. This was more than merely strange. He must send a message to Olen. If only the kingdom had engaged another magician, the communication could have been instantaneous! But more important, he must find a way to warn Edynn. He thought of little Tildi. If this was the kind of alteration that could be wrought by the book, then she was in greater danger than he had dreamed.
He continued to make responses automatically according to the rite. Inbecca kept shooting him warnings, her green eyes sharp with annoyance. After the priest reproved him with a sharp “Hem!” that made the children in the second row of seats giggle, Magpie brought himself forcibly back to the temple and the moment. He was ashamed of ruining a day he had promised for Inbecca’s happiness with what was mere speculation, and gave himself fully to the final parts of the ceremony. They exchanged the rings, hers of silver and his of gold, and he bestowed on her the necklace he had had made for her. She would wear it, except to sleep and bathe, from now until the wedding. He shared the traditional cup of wine with her, smiling at her with all the love in his heart. It was a special summer vintage that tasted of fresh strawberries and raspberries, a gift brought by Ganidur from Persham. Handfuls of grain and rosebuds were sprinkled upon them by the priestess, and the priest tied their hands together with a long scarf of green and white. As the priests chanted their final prayers to the Mother and the Father, Magpie offered the ritual kiss humbly, and Inbecca leaned forward to press her soft lips against his. The assembled guests cheered. The priests ended their chants with voices and arms upraised, bringing the rite to a joyful conclusion.
Crowds of people clustered around the couple, laughing and patting them on the back. Magpie was kissed by so many relatives that he lost count. He held tight to Inbecca’s hands, trying to keep her from being swept away by the press of well-wishers.
“I love the box,” she shouted at him over the happy din. “Is it truly from Silvertree?”
“It is,” he said. “You like it?”
“I am doubly honored,” she said, her smile making her cheeks dimple, as her father tucked her into a pale green cloak that enveloped her like a cocoon. “See you later!”
“Are you reconciled to me, then?” he asked suddenly, as if the last few weeks had not happened.
“Why must you ask stupid questions?” she replied. Then she was
gone, surrounded by her parents and family, leaving him only with the scarf in his hands. Sharhava gave him a sour look as she departed. Magpie restrained himself from making a face at her retreating back.
“Congratulations, Eremi,” the female priest said, coming around him to embrace him in her big, soft arms.
“You’re a man at last,” the elderly celebrant said, with a more playful smile than Magpie had thought the old man could muster.
“Perhaps,” Magpie said, equally impish. “But all I can think is that now I can shed this ridiculous robe!”
He had the satisfaction of leaving the priest shaking his head. Impatiently, Benarelidur pressed in between Magpie and the priest, who retired at once to make way for the crown prince. He wore the slate-gray cloak of the heir, fastened with an enormous silver eagle brooch. “Congratulations, Brother.”
“Thank you.” They shook hands, Bena less than enthusiastically. His sister-in-law, Eliset, a slim girl whose thin brown hair looked prematurely gray, stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.
“I wish you both happiness,” Eliset said.
“Thank you, my dear sister,” he said. “I need all the blessings I can get.”
Bena turned her away hurriedly, pulling Eliset with him. Their brother Ganidur breasted his way through the crowd with an eager six-year-old boy on his shoulders.
“He wanted to congratulate his uncle in person!” Gan boomed, swinging Elimar down. Magpie offered him a very grown-up embrace. “I hear you will carry my sword at the wedding.”
“Yes, Uncle!” Elimar beamed. “I’ve been practicing. See how hard my arm is getting!”
Magpie felt the small arm held out to him. At that moment he caught a glimpse over the heads of the crowd of another gout of stone dust flying into the air in between the mountain ranges. He caught Gan’s shoulder and turned him to see.
“Do you see that?”
Gan squinted “Clouds over the Scapes. So what?”
Magpie shook his head. He could be imagining it—but he was equally certain that he was not. In the past he had been accused of being fanciful, but now he was not. He had seen storms, and he had seen eruptions. This was neither. Someone was moving the geography around. The thief must have gone into the mountains with the book. This was
only the beginning of what destruction could take place. He must tell someone.
“Oh, you looked so handsome!” cooed an ancient aunt, pulling his head down to her for a kiss. “That girl of yours is a fine one. You’ll have many pretty babies together.”
“Thank you …”
“Congratulations, my lord.”
“Best wishes for the future. I bet you wish the wedding was tomorrow!”
“I cried. That’s a good omen, is it not?”
Magpie thanked everyone, accepted hugs and kisses and slaps on the back, all the time trying to get closer to the huge window, but it was like fighting his way upstream.
Soliandur and Lottcheva came from the crowd on the left to embrace him with dignity. “You did well,” Lottcheva said.
“What was all the stumbling about?” Soliandur demanded. “You’ve known that rite all your adult life!”
“Father, I saw—” Magpie began to explain, then realized he was the worst person to tell.
“Now, my lord, he was nervous,” Lottcheva said playfully. “Weren’t you, on that day?”
“Well …” The king gave his son a sharp look. “You will be better practiced for the wedding.”
“Yes, my lord,” Magpie said, bowing. He was grateful as his father turned away. A stroke of luck, he was making way for Lord Halcot! He would understand. “Sir!”
The Rabantavian king came over to clap him on the shoulder. “You looked well, at any rate. Must learn to speak up. Those of us only a few rows back could hardly hear your responses.”
Magpie moved close to him, and kept his voice low. “My lord, can you send a message to Master Wizard Olen? I must go along with the arrangements for the rest of the day, but you are at leisure. As my ally, sir, can you do it?”
“What? A message to Olen? Why?”
“The mountains moved, sir. The book must be there.”
A roar of laughter burst out behind them, drowning out Magpie’s words. Halcot strained to listen. Magpie repeated himself, but Halcot just raised his eyebrows.
“What? Of course the mountains moved! It’s a betrothal! The Creators are pleased to see you joined, boy. Congratulations!” He slapped
him on the back. “Here come your friends. Father knows what they’ve got in mind for you. Best of luck.”
“My lord, won’t you arrange for a messenger?”
Halcot was already moving away, allowing the next well-wisher to make his compliments. He had not understood. Magpie realized he was the only one who comprehended the threat in what he had seen. The cluster of young lordlings who had dressed him that morning gathered him up and bustled him out of the temple door toward where the horses were waiting.
A grim-looking rider in long boots and a mud-stained cloak swung into the courtyard as Magpie went to mount his white stallion. The rider scanned the crowd, and his eyes rounded with recognition as he spotted Magpie. He slid off the splattered horse’s back and slid to his knees at Magpie’s feet.