Therian strode around the cairn, examining it from all angles. At the same time, Gruum retreated to the cliff edge, wanting nothing to do with ghostly hand, nor the voice from the grave.
“Egred, I am the living King who sits in court in Corium. I would speak with you,” Therian said.
“State your lineage,” answered the voice within the tomb.
“I am Therian, son of Euvoran, son of Vulga, daughter of Thane—”
“Stop your words! You are not of legitimate heritage. You besmirch me with your presence. I will speak with you no further.”
After that, Egred fell silent. Therian entreated the spirit and rapped upon the copper door until it rang like a bell, but it would not answer.
“Very well,” Therian said at last, “Gruum, call up the servants. Get out the pry bars, we shall have this tomb open and burn out the contents. The stones will be scattered afterward, so that no memory will remain of Corium’s most embarrassing ruler.”
Gruum dug out a swollen bladder of fresh oil.
“Sacrilege!” said the voice, speaking again. “Have you no respect for your ancestors?”
“You are not my direct ancestor, as you have made so abundantly clear,” Therian said.
“Why do you disturb my rest so determinedly?”
“Your tomb is unlike all the others upon this mount,” Therian said. “I have read your secret memoires. I believe there is an exit downward into the depths.”
“It will do you no good. You will not be able to pass below. I failed myself long ago, as is self-evident.”
“We shall see,” Therian said. “All I ask is passage through your grave. I will make you a wager.”
“A wager? What would be the stakes?”
“The only currency that might interest the dead. I offer a small blood-payment.”
The copper door creaked and opened a few inches. Gruum tensed, but nothing loomed up from the depths, other than a foul, dusty stench. Therian stepped forward and gazed within.
They gambled there, the King of the present and the bastard King of the past. Gruum did not attempt to listen nor to partake. He wished only that this shelf of freezing rock was wider, so he might be able to get even farther away. Scraps of conversation came to him upon the wind.
“Double, or none at all,” said Therian.
The ghost assented. The dice rattled and rolled again. The wind shifted and Gruum was not able to discern the result, but he did see Therian raise his arm and place it over the open tomb. He made a line of small cuts. Blood dribbled down into the yawning doorway.
“Double, or none at all,” Therian said again.
Three times did they gamble. Three times did Therian lose, and then double the stakes. A line of cuts now striped his pale forearm. Working with his thumbs, Therian kept the small wounds open. Blood oozed from all four together.
Finally, Therian beckoned to Gruum. Chewing his lower lip nervously, Gruum stepped forward. He halted a dozen paces away. Impatiently, Therian waved him closer. Gruum could hear dice rattle.
“Ha, you’ve lost again, false King,” said the voice in the tomb. “That is eight cuts now, I would have you feed me my bounty forthwith.”
“And my servant is here to pay the debt,” Therian said calmly. “Your arm please, Gruum.”
Gruum stammered and shuffled a pace closer. He looked at Therian with wide eyes. “How is it that the ghost wins with every toss?” Gruum demanded.
Therian looked at him with eyebrows raised high. “What is it you are suggesting, Gruum?”
“Four for four? He’s cheating. I know of these things, milord.”
“Pay me!” demanded the voice. “I ask another cut be added to the first eight, as compensation for the servant’s base slander.”
“A moment, please,” Therian said. He took the dice and handed them to Gruum. “Could you pass judgment upon these?”
The dice were fashioned from silver. A tiny black chip of onyx formed each of the pips on every face. Gruum weighed the dice in his hand and tossed them three times upon the steps leading up to the copper door.
“I tire of this game,” Egred said.
The ghost’s voice sounded stronger than it had previously. Gruum wondered with a shudder if the King’s blood had strengthened it.
“A moment, please,” Therian said.
“The dice are weighted, milord,” Gruum said. “Do you see the pips?” He took his knife and used the point to pop out one of the onyx dots from the silver cube. Behind it was a bead of dull, gray metal. “The cube has been injected with lead. The faces are thus uneven in weight and will flip to the side desired when cast.”
“Ah, I see,” Therian said, taking the dice into his hand and rolling them together in his gloved hand. They clattered and clinked. “What say you, Egred?”
“Return my dice, make your payment and begone. The wagering is at an end. You have lost, false King.”
“I believe it is you who have played me falsely,” Therian answered. “There is nothing for it. Honor must be recouped.”
“You cannot violate a royal tomb.”
“I am within my rights, as I have been violated by the occupant. Give me the soul flask, Gruum.”
Dubiously, Gruum found and handed over a container fashioned of the purest amber. It was all of a piece, having been drilled and carefully scraped hollow inside from a single block of amber. The space inside was small, but no spirit could exit it freely, once captured.
“Wait!” Egred cried. “I demand the respect due the dead!”
“As I demanded the respect due the living monarch,” replied Therian, his tone harsh. “You have done naught but obstruct me, and I will have my vengeance.”
Therian stepped up to the copper door and wrenched it open fully. He did so with little effort, overcoming the spirit’s tug. He chanted words of Dragon Speech. The vapors from his mouth were colored yellow, white and magenta. The words twisted as they fell into the yawning tomb. Therian held the soul flask high, then shoved it down into the darkness.
A struggled ensued that Gruum did not wish to see. In moments, it was over. Therian stood tall and capped the amber flask. The soul flask was full, and the creature within made the clear amber container shimmer, as if it was filled with a dancing candle flame or liquid sunlight.
“I’m glad we can no longer hear his voice,” Gruum said.
“As am I.”
“Milord?” Gruum asked hesitantly. “Did you do all this—perform this wagering and banter with Egred—just so you could legitimately imprison his soul?”
Therian pursed his lips. “You think so little of me, Gruum.”
Together, they entered the tomb and climbed down the narrow, carven steps into darkness. The shaft that led down from the tomb was narrow and crumbling. Each handhold shifted and ran with grit which fell from the steps above. Before they had gone a hundred paces down, the light from the pale sun outside was no longer able to penetrate the gloom. Gruum felt he had truly been buried alive.
The way downward into the dark was longer and steeper than Gruum had imagined possible. He felt they must have passed through the entirety of the mountain and far beneath, under the very roots of the Dragon’s Breath peaks themselves. The sun and the wind seemed impossibly distant. He doubted his strength would hold out long enough to allow him to climb back out of this place using the same route.
When he began wondering if they would have to sleep upon this vertical stair, the shaft changed into a spiraling tube. The tube widened and the angle flattened so they were able to walk upright. Gruum breathed a sigh of relief.
“Might we not rest here a moment, milord?” he asked. He held the sole lantern between the two of them and bore the greater of the two packs.
“No,” Therian said. “We must proceed now with caution. We shall not eat, nor drink, nor rest quiet. We must keep moving.”
Gruum heaved a sigh and did not bother to ask his master’s reasons. He was certain he did not want to hear them.
They came out of the spiraling tunnel into a warren of caverns that seemed at once both strange and familiar to Gruum. The walls were made of dark basalt. They descended farther, and the caverns became unclean and ran with steamy liquids.
“Have we journeyed this way before, milord?” Gruum asked.
“Most certainly—but I’m not certain if I did so while awake or within a dream.”
Finding the answer did nothing to ease his spirit, Gruum asked no more questions. They came in time to a place Gruum definitely recognized.
There was a crack in the ceiling a dozen feet above their heads. It tore a hole up through the roof of what seemed to be a temple, not unlike the ones far above in Corium. The crevice split through a grand fresco depicting a black dragon in the act of devouring the Moon and the stars. Directly below the crack lay the still pool Gruum had once fallen into, years earlier during his first foray underground with the King. The pool was a blasted crater filled with dank water, Gruum knew.
“This place!” he said aloud, and his voice echoed.
Therian shushed him, and Gruum lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. “Milord, this is where you summoned the vortex. This is where we first met Vosh.”
“Obviously,” Therian said. “Did you not know where we journeyed?”
“No, you did not tell me our destination.”
Therian gave him a half-smile. “Would you have been more keen to come if you had known?”
“No,” Gruum admitted.
Therian shrugged and moved toward the blasted altar, examining it. “Then I gave you peace of mind through my omission.”
“But what of our circuitous route? Could we not have just come down through the dungeons as we did last time?”
Therian shook his head. “The Bane and the invasion of dead destroyed that region. The way was blocked.”
Gruum thought that over. “Well, why are we here, then?”
Therian looked surprised. “I would have thought that was abundantly clear. We must commune with the Dragons.”
Gruum sighed. In retrospect, he realized there was little other reason to come down here. He set the lantern upon a chunk of black stone with a flat surface. He dug out a wineskin and placed it beside the lantern. Next he arranged his pack against the stones. He tried in vain to shape it into a comfortable pillow.
“What are you doing, man?” Therian inquired.
“I figured if we have to fall asleep here, I’d make the best of it,” Gruum sighed, sitting down and further adjusting the pack behind his back. It still felt quite lumpy. “Not really the best spot for a nap, but I suppose we can try.”
“There will be no wine, nor napping today,” Therian said. “Get up. I will open a direct path to those with whom I wish to speak. Give me the soul flask.”
Gruum scrambled to his feet and dug for the strange container of carven amber. He handled it with great delicacy, as he knew the angry spirit inside would like nothing better than for him to drop it.
Therian worked a spell. A thunderclap boomed in the chamber. Gruum was staggered by the force of it, but was not knocked down. He had braced his feet against the tumbled stones, having expected this development.
A vortex shimmered and twisted above the blasted altar. The swirling mass resembled a colorful typhoon. The conical shape was striped with blue, silver, crimson and honey-gold. As Gruum watched, the vortex loomed up like flame to lick the ceiling. He saw the crack in the roof of the cavern, the same one he had fallen through the last time he’d entered this frightening place.
Conversation was all but impossible as the vortex grew in power. Soon, Gruum had to scream to be heard. “Is it ready, milord?”
Therian reached out a finger and touched the swirling mass. There was a silent flash of power upon contact. He nodded.
“You first this time,” Gruum shouted, grinning.
Therian sheathed his blades and leapt into the mass of color and sound. Gruum stared at the anomaly. He knew fear, despite having traveled through it before. He did not admonish himself. How could he not fear this rip between two worlds, one familiar and one alien?
As he hesitated a moment longer, he felt a sense of foreboding. He considered abandoning this quest and this doomed island altogether. Perhaps he could find a more conventional exit from these caverns….
Gruum shook himself. Now was not the time to turn tail and run. He would see the matter through to the finish. He reached out to the vortex. A loop of lime gushed out where his hand touched the Dragon’s Maw and consumed him.
Gruum jerked awake. He slid a fraction, but immediately spread his arms and legs out, halting the motion. Carefully, he sat up upon the glass-slick, carven rocks. The nighttime world around him was cold, bitterly cold. In the sky overhead hung the roiling, flashing vortex. It was distant and quite impossible to reach.
“Milord?” Gruum called.
“This way,” Therian called back from some distance away.
Gruum struggled to stand without slipping. The rock was slanted and treacherous. A cliff edge seemed ready to devour him in every direction. He stood warily, and took steps in the direction of his master’s voice.
“Gruum?” whispered someone behind him.
He whirled and gasped, reaching for his saber. He wondered what strange thing might be reaching for him. He found it was Nadja. He paused to stare. She was a woman now, full-grown and lovely to behold. It had to be her, he knew, for no one else could possibly walk here freely.
“Nadja?” he asked in a hissing whisper. “What are you doing here?”
She gave a tiny squeal of happiness. “It’s true! It
is
you! I’ve tried so hard, for so long, to share your dreams. You don’t know how hard it has been. A score—perhaps a
hundred
times I’ve shared dreams with others…but never you.”
“In truth, I’m not sure if I dream here—or if I am awake,” Gruum said. He briefly explained they had used the Dragon’s Maw to bring themselves to this place.
“Oh,” Nadja said disappointedly. “So I may not be sharing your dreams. But how can you
not
know if this is your dream?”
“Because I’m no sorcerer.”
“Ah, but I think you are, Gruum!” Nadja said. “Or at least, you could be.” She stepped close and placed a cold hand upon his shoulder.
He tried not to flinch away. He feared she might form a void at his feet and send him to somewhere more wicked than this place.
“Gruum, will you please not tell anyone I’m here?” she asked.
“The King does not know?”
She shook her head. “No…be a dear. Forget you saw me.”
Gruum eyed her and nodded slowly. He was not sure what he thought of this girl. Did he owe her loyalty, steel or blood? He did not trust her. She was a dangerous sorceress and a Hyborean princess. She had driven Gawina mad and slain her. But he felt obliged to follow her wishes in this matter. Had he not slain her mother? He owed her a debt as surely as she owed him one. The situation between them was complex and uncertain. For both his safety and his honor, he felt it best to pretend all their differences were forgotten.
“All right,” he said, “you are only a dream.”
She smiled. “Silly Gruum!” she said.
He left her standing there upon the slanted surface of black glass and walked to where Therian called him again.
“Coming, milord!” he said.
He found Therian standing at the edge of a precipice. Rather than gazing down into it, the King stared upward at the stair they must climb to reach Anduin’s perch.
Gruum cast a final glance behind, but Nadja was nowhere to be seen. “Do we dream now, milord?” he asked. “Or are we awake?”
“Difficult to say. These terms you use do not mean quite the same thing here.”
Gruum decided that he dreamed. It was easier for his mind to accept this place using that assumption. He stood beside Therian for a moment, but he stared down, rather than up. He stared into an abyss, and he wondered if the Dragon were hiding down below—and if she were staring back into him.
An hour later they reached the last step of the upward climb. It led out upon a glassy plain of black rock that topped the crag. In the midst of the plain where there was once an ancient Inn of hewn and fitted basalt boulders, there was a curled mass of piled stone. Gruum realized he gazed upon Anduin in slumber.
The Dragon was not in her human form this day. Today she was looming and vast. Black scales as big as kite shields covered her flanks. Gruum had only seen her once before in her true shape. She was terrifying to gaze upon.
They crossed the glassy plain. Soon, Therian and Gruum stood before the Black Dragon known as Anduin. She was irritable upon awakening. She did not welcome their unannounced visit. Gruum wondered if this had been Therian’s intention—to force the Dragon to greet him.
“Why do you disturb my rest, little King?” the Dragon asked. “I’ll not share my bed with you again until you’ve completed your portion of our bargain.”
Anduin’s wings loomed high over her back and blocked that which was called sky in this strange place. They snapped and threw sulfurous gusts into their faces. Her head was tremendous—not quite so big as Yserth’s had been, but big enough to devour a man without chewing. Smoke and other less identifiable liquids and vapors dribbled from her maw as she spoke. Incongruously, her voice was still feminine to their ears, but deeper and louder than any woman’s voice could be.
“I’ve reclaimed that which Gruum took from me,” Therian said.
“Agreed,” said the Dragon.
“As well, I’ve removed your child Humusi from my world,” said the King.
“You were charged with the task of removing
all
my children from this world.”
“I’ve done auguries and read the portents repeatedly. There are no more to be found. These two acts complete my quest.”
“Blind you are to the obvious,” she boomed.
“What are you saying?”
“Ask your jackal,” she suggested, extending a curved claw the size of a plowshare in Gruum’s direction. “He knows the truth.”
Both of them turned their eyes to Gruum, who did not welcome the scrutiny.
“Well?” Therian demanded.
“I’m most likely wrong, sire,” Gruum began. His eyes flicked from one of them to the other. Why was he always the one chosen to bear bad news?
“Out with it, man.”
“I believe she means Nadja,” Gruum said. “She is your daughter, but is she not also the—the offspring of our dark lady?”
Therian stared at him for a long moment. At last, he inclined his head in understanding. He returned his attention to Anduin. “But when you charged me with this task, Nadja was not yet conceived.”
“Time is not as linear for me as it is for you, young King. Possibly, our unborn daughter was not yet in your thoughts upon the moment of our agreement…but she was very much in mine.”
Therian took a deep breath. He stood tall. He did not move while he pondered what had been asked of him. Gruum wondered if he could be so cold as to kill his own daughter—even a girl as strange as Nadja.
“If I do this thing, you will care for her here?” Therian asked.
Hearing his lord’s words, Gruum felt deflated. His master was not adverse to the idea. There was truly no boundary which he would not cross in pursuit of his goal. Gruum had hoped—but no.
“Her death in your world will bind her to me, as you know. She will join her many siblings in my court. We will hold festival! And you will be my living Champion upon your cold Earth.”
“And thus I will be able to warm it again,” Therian added.
“Of course, should that be your desire. You will be the sole wielder of all the sorcerous power I can provide.”
“Why would you wish to gather your children here to you?” asked Therian, tilting his head to one side. “To commit all their souls to your domain…does this not represent a diminishment of your power and reach?”
Anduin’s claws stretched as might a cat’s. The black talons were shiny and finely pointed. “My designs are my own. Suffice it to say, I will be greater for having their power in my court. You will be the only tendril of my strength to walk your Earth. Is that not enough? Is that not what you wanted from the beginning?”
“I hear you,” Therian said. “I will do what is needed.”
Anduin stood up. She had been crouching before, but now she rose to her full height and took a step toward them. “Very well. This intrusion is at an end.”
Gruum, wide-eyed, thought to hear footsteps rush by him while he watched the Dragon uncoil itself. He turned toward the sound and saw Therian sprint to the nearest cliff. The King ran over the edge and vanished.
Gruum heard no shout, nor impact. “Where did he go?” he asked.
“He is still falling,” rumbled the Dragon, her voice sounding very near.
Gruum whirled his head around. Anduin loomed over him. Her mouth formed an unlikely smile. He crouched to run, but before he could take a step, her massive clawed foot stomped down. Gruum was smashed flat.