Margaret Weis - Dragons of The Dwarven Depths

“The helm’s enchantment was undoubtedly searching for a warrior, and when Sturm picked it up, the spell took hold of him. The magic is not evil. It will do him no harm, beyond borrowing his body for a short time. When we reach Thorbardin, the prince’s soul will be home. The magic will probably release the knight, and he will go back to being the same grim and dour Sturm Brightblade we have always known.”

Tanis looked back at Sturm, who still had his sword drawn, still keeping a baleful eye on Flint.

“You say the magic will ‘probably’ release him,” he said to Raistlin.

“I did not cast the spell, Tanis. I have no way of knowing for certain.” He coughed again, paused, then said, “Perhaps you don’t understand the significance of this. Prince Grallen knows where to find the gates of Thorbardin.”

“Great Reorx’s beard!” Flint exclaimed. “The mage is right!”

“I told you the key to Thorbardin lay in Skullcap.”

“I never doubted you,” said Tanis, “though I have to admit I was thinking more along the lines of a map.” He scratched his beard. “The problem as I see it is how we keep the prince from killing Flint before we get there.”

“The prince thinks we’re mercenaries. We could tell the prince that Flint is our prisoner,” Caramon suggested.

“You will do no such thing!” Flint roared.

“What about an emissary coming to talk peace terms?” Raistlin said. Tanis looked at Flint, who felt called upon to argue, saying that no one in his right mind would believe it. At last, however, he gave a grudging nod. “Tell him I’m a prince too, a prince of the Neidar.”

Tanis hid a smile and went to explain matters to Prince Grallen, who apparently found this acceptable, for Sturm slid his sword back into its sheathe and gave Flint a stiff bow.

“Now that that’s settled,” said Caramon, “do you two have anything to eat? We ran out of everything we brought.”

“I don’t see how you can be hungry,” said Raistlin. He pressed his sleeve over his nose and mouth. “The stench is appalling! We should at least move up wind.” Tanis looked again around the ruined village, the pathetic, crumpled, and smoldering little bodies. “Why would draconians do this? Why go to the trouble to slaughter gully dwarves?”

“To silence them, of course,” said Raistlin. “They stumbled across something they should not have—some secret of the draconians or some secret the draconians were charged with protecting. Thus they had to die.”

“I wonder what that secret is,” Tanis mused, troubled.

“I doubt we will ever know,” Raistlin said, shrugging.

They left the village, returning to the road that led up the mountain to Thorbardin.

“I spoke a prayer over the poor gully dwarves,” said Tasslehoff solemnly, coming up to walk beside Tanis. “A prayer Elistan taught me. I commenced their souls to Paladine.”

“Commended,” Tanis corrected. “Commended their souls.”

“That too,” said Tas, sighing.

“It was good of you to think of that,” said Tanis. “None of the rest of us did.”

“You’re busy thinking big things,” said Tas. “I keep track of the small stuff.”

“By the way,” said Tanis, a sudden thought striking him, “I left you back in camp! How did you come to be with Raistlin, Sturm and Caramon? I thought I told you to keep watch over Tika.”

“Oh, I did!” said Tas. “Wait until you hear!”

He launched into the tale, to which Tanis listened with increasing grimness.

“Where’s Tika? Why isn’t she with you?”

“She went back to warn Riverwind,” said Tasslehoff cheerfully.

“Alone?” Tanis turned to look at Caramon, who was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide his big body behind that of his twin.

“She sneaked off in the night, Tanis,” Caramon said defensively. “Didn’t she, Raist? We didn’t know she left.”

“You could have gone after her,” Tanis said sternly.

“Yes, we could have,” said Raistlin smoothly, “and then where would you be, Half-Elven? Wandering about the mountain searching for the way inside Thorbardin. Tika was in no danger. The route we traveled was one known only to us.”

“I hope so,” said Tanis grimly.

He walked on ahead, biting back the angry words that would have done no good. He had known Raistlin and Caramon for many years, and he knew the twins had a bond that could not be broken. An unhealthy bond, or so he had always considered it, but it was not his place to say anything. He had been hoping that the romance blossoming between Tika and Caramon would give the big man strength enough to break free of his brother’s death grip. Apparently not. Tanis had no idea of what had happened back in Skullcap, but he guessed from the unhappy look Caramon had given his twin that Tika had tried to persuade Caramon to go with her and Raistlin had prevented it.

“If anything happens to her, I will take it out of Raistlin’s hide,” Tanis muttered to himself. At least Tika’d had sense enough to carry the warning to Riverwind. He hoped she had reached the refugees in time and that they would heed the warning and escape. He could not go back there now, much as he would have liked to. His mission to Thorbardin had just become eight hundred times more urgent.

Flint marched along at the rear, following after Sturm, unable to take his eyes from the knight and the marvelous helm he wore—or rather, according to Raistlin, the helm that wore him. The dwarf did not trust magic of any kind, especially magic that had anything to do with Raistlin, and no one would ever persuade him that this was not somehow Raistlin’s doing.

Flint was forced to admit that something had happened to change Sturm. The knight could speak a few words of dwarven learned from Flint over time but not many. He certainly could not speak the language of Thorbardin, that was slightly different from the language of the hill dwarves. After they made camp, Tanis asked the prince to describe the route to Thorbardin. Prince Grallen readily did so, speaking of a ridge line they would follow up the mountain. He told them how far they would travel and how to locate the secret gate, though he would not tell them what to do to open it when they found it.

Tanis looked to Flint for verification. Flint did not know specifically which ridge the prince meant, but it did sound plausible, though he didn’t say as much.

All the dwarf would say, grumbling, was that he supposed they’d find out the truth of the matter tomorrow and he wished Tanis would let them get some rest.

As Flint lay down, he looked into the sky, searching the heavens until he found the red star that was the fire of Reorx, Forger of the World.

Flint found he liked the idea of being an emissary. He had protested, of course, when Raistlin first proposed it, simply because it was Raistlin, but the dwarf had not protested too strongly. He’d given in without much of a fuss.

The thought came to him: What if I am truly an emissary? What if I am the dwarf to bring the warring clans together at last?

He lay awake a long time, watching the sparks fly across the sky as the god went about his eternal task of forging creation, and he saw himself as one of those sparks, only his light would shine forever.

The first day’s travel for the refugees had been relatively easy.

They had not gone far on the second day before traveling grew more difficult. The trail wended its way upward, and as it did so, it grew steeper, more narrow, until at last it devolved into a ribbon-thin path with sheer wall on one side and a terrifying drop of hundreds of feet onto the rocks on the other. Beyond lay the pass. They were almost there, but they had to cross this first. They would have to walk this perilous part of the trail single-file, and Riverwind called a halt. Many were already terrified at just the sight of the precipice and the fall so close to their feet. Among these, as Tanis had foreseen, was Goldmoon.