Jean Rabe - The Lake of Death

“What are you so bent on looking for?”

At first she tried to ignore his question. “I don’t intend to wander in your mine for very long, Feldspar.” Then she spun around, looking long at him. “I’m looking for something, not gold or silver, nothing like that, but I need to travel through your tunnels in order to find it.”

His hairy eyebrows rose. His face was red from the exertion of keeping up with her, climbing the stone wall. “What is it exactly?”

He didn’t seem a bad sort; better to trust him. “I’m searching for a lost dragon scale, and I think this tunnel will lead me to one.”

He scratched his head with his free hand. “Seen some scales in the mountains before, years back. We were talkin’ about that earlier, weren’t we?” He trundled closer until he was inches away, setting the lantern on the ground where the tunnel forked. He gestured toward the lantern. “You can do what you want I guess, Dawnspringer. We claim these tunnels for mining, but we don’t own the mountains. Reorx gave the mountains to all of us. Take that lantern so you can see better, though, and I’ll accept your word that you won’t take nothin’ that’s ours.”

Feril turned back to the ascending path. “I won’t need your lantern. I see better in the dark than in the sunlight, but thank you, Feldspar.”

The dwarf gave a noncommittal grunt. “Me, I wouldn’t be wanderin’ around just now, Dawnspringer, not until I knew for certain the mountains weren’t going to shake any more. And I wouldn’t…” Feldspar was talking to the air. Feril had disappeared from view. “Daft elf. Gods didn’t give ’em any sense.” He shuffled to the tunnel opening and shouted down to his companions, “The elf’s takin’ a walk in our tunnels, looking for something. Couldn’t talk her out of it.”

The young dwarf gave an angry exclamation and shook his fist. “Feldspar, you get her out of there! She don’t need to be poking around our hidden finds!”

Grannaluured was busy putting out her spices, preparing to cook. She tried to calm her companions as she oiled her skillet, scowling as Feldspar retreated back into the crevice. “Churt, Campfire, let’s eat first. I had a good talk with that elf. I trust her. I don’t know what would interest her in our mine, but…”

“Is this some kind of female trick? Bad enough we let you join us and we cut you in for a share. We’re not dividing our find again with an elf,” Churt said.

“Calm down, everyone. I’ll go get her,” Ragh said, walking purposefully around the pool as the three remaining dwarves watched him warily. The hill dwarves were making him uncomfortable with all their questions, even before Feril took it in her head to disappear. He glanced over his shoulder, making certain that Dhamon—still a shadow trailing him stealthily—was sticking close.

He froze as the ground rumbled under his feet. A minute later he was swiftly climbing the stone wall then heading into the tunnel opening.

The young dwarf shook his fist at Grannaluured. “Now we got an elf and a sivak trespassing on our property, poking around in our tunnel and mine!”

Ragh’s keen hearing guaranteed that he could hear everything they said as he climbed higher.

The dwarf woman tried to quiet her companions, but Campfire and Churt were adamant that the newcomers had to be corralled and sent on their way.

“Greedy dwarves, the lot of them.” The sivak took a deep breath and entered the tunnel, stooping to keep from hitting his head on the low ceiling.

“Dhamon, your elf friend’s pretty headstrong,” Ragh said. No reply, and his shadow had vanished in the darkness, but the sivak knew that Dhamon would be listening. “She’s too emotional, letting her heart lead her around all the time. I don’t like this at all, coming inside the mountain when the earth’s still shaking. This could’ve waited for tomorrow, waited for the dwarves to move on to another part of the foothills. Could’ve waited for tonight when they were sleeping. No need to alarm and annoy everyone. Could’ve taken our sweet time and waited to do this.”

The draconian stopped where the tunnel forked and stared at the ground. There was dirt, and dwarven prints heading down both passages. “Wonderful,” he grumbled. He stooped and looked closer, not seeing Feril’s slender footprints obliterated by the heavier dwarven tracks. Then he cocked his head, listening. All he heard was the soft groan of the earth and the continued argument of Grannaluured and the other dwarves below. He sniffed the air for traces of Feril. He could smell dust and the mustiness of the place, and of course the dwarves who had toiled here, but the lighter scent of the elf was difficult to separate.

“Dhamon, in all the levels of the Abyss, this is just marvelous.”

With a deep sigh, Ragh stretched out his right hand, silently rehearsing the words to one of the more practical spells he knew. Within moments, a pale blue globe of light appeared to rest on his palm. Thrusting it ahead, still stoop-shouldered, he took the northern passage that sloped down into the darkness.

In the back of her mind Feril held the scrying image of the black’s scale. She knew she couldn’t be too far away now. She prayed to Habbakuk that the scale was not damaged. It had to be intact to be of any use to Dhamon.

A slight tremor raced through the ground. She gripped a wooden brace to keep her balance. The tremor persisted for a while, then stopped. She released a nervous breath she’d been holding and continued her ascent. Even without the mountain shaking, mines were dangerous—with their narrow tunnels and vulnerable beams and supports, crevices that threatened to spill the unwary into the bowels of the earth, and musty air that made breathing an unpleasant task.

“Getting closer now, but it’s as though the mountain is trying to stop me.”

The tunnel widened as she climbed, and she barely squeezed through a niche that had been mined. The soles of her bare feet were thick, but she still felt the sharp shards which littered the ground here. Should slow down, she ordered herself. No, she should hurry up. “Find it and get out,” she told herself.

She wished now she had taken the dwarf’s lantern. This darkness was unnatural, the gray-brown of rock and earth melding with the thick air.

Light intruded suddenly, a low beam from behind. Feldspar was plodding toward her, holding the lantern so that it highlighted his features from below, throwing shadows against the walls and giving him an eerie appearance.

“Did you feel that big tickle a minute ago?” Feldspar asked. “Told you it’s not safe here, not with the mountain still dancin’. C’mon back with me, hear? Don’t need you dyin’ in our mine, rottin’ and stinkin’ it up.”

Feril shook her head, turning to press on. “It’s not much farther.”

“This scale you’re looking for…”

She nodded and coughed. The air was filling with dirt and stone dust.

“Why is it so important, this scale?”

“I need the scale for a spell,” she said, before continuing onward, hoping the dwarf would turn back. Though he grunted in surprise, he still followed her, the light from his lantern swaying behind her back. But he was keeping his distance and making a tsk-tsking sound, mumbling, “Fool elf…and fool me.”

“It’s terribly important to me and my friend,” she explained as she climbed.

The tsk-tsking was louder. “The sivak?”

Feril opened her mouth to say “no,” but said nothing. The dwarves didn’t know about Dhamon, who was attached to the sivak as a shadow. Being in the sivak’s company was odd enough, they kept saying; best not start explaining about a dragon who used to be a man who was now taking the form of the sivak’s shadow.