Douglas Niles - Fate of Thorbardin

Bardic himself responded to her instructions, lifting the Greenstone with a pair of long-handled tongs and placing the emerald-colored wedge of rock onto a shelf within the blazing oven. Even standing a dozen feet away from the oven, Gretchan wanted to raise her hands to block the heat from her face, and she wondered at the endurance-and the tolerance for pain-of the smith who stood right at the furnace door and calmly manipulated his precious component.

One by one he placed the other two wedges of colored stone into the furnace, finally closing the door and stepping back. Only then did he give sign that the heat had affected him in even the slightest; he took a towel and wiped the sheen of sweat that had seeped from his skin to cover his face. Gretchan, blinking in surprise, saw that his beard was smoking slightly, and when she inhaled, she caught the acrid scent of burned hair.

“Do you have the trough of ice water handy?” she asked, remembering another key feature of her dream. She had described it in detail to the smith in advance, but even so she was relieved to see several assistants appear, carrying the chilly bath. Blocks of glacial frost, brought down from the mountains in winter and stored in deep icehouses, floated in the liquid.

“Chill the handle,” she ordered, and again her instructions were carried out, one apprentice holding the far end of the steel shaft while most of the rod was immersed in the water.

For several minutes they waited, Bardic watching her expectantly, until there came a moment when she just knew the time was right. “Remove the Greenstone,” she said. “You should be able to see where to insert the handle.”

Quickly the master smith unlatched the furnace door and pulled it open, releasing a blast of heat into the already sweltering smithy. Once again he took up his tongs and reached in to pull out the superheated emerald wedge. Gretchan was relieved to see that a hole had appeared, penetrating the wedge side to side, just a little closer to the narrow end than the wider.

“Now take the shaft directly out of the ice bath and plunge it in the hole- hard,” she informed them.

Bardic lowered the stone onto a rack just above the floor, with the hole oriented horizontally and several feet of space underneath to allow the shaft to poke through the top. A burly assistant took the handle in both of his hands, raised it over his head, and plunged it down as though he were trying to spear a fish in the water. The icy cold metal steamed and shivered as it penetrated the hole, emerging through the top of the wedge and driving all the way to the floor.

“Put it back into the ice water now,” the priestess instructed. “Quickly!”

The assistant smith gave her a look of questioning, no doubt expecting the hot stone to shatter from such a shocking, temperature-changing immersion.

“Do it!” Bardic snapped, and his instruction was followed. Steam foamed and sizzled upward from the trough, but within seconds the stone and the metal shaft had been chilled to freezing again. When the assistant pulled up the wedge of green stone, it was intact and seemed to be permanently fused to the shaft.

“Again!” Gretchan said urgently. “Now with the Bluestone!”

The master smith pulled the second wedge of rock from the oven, and out of nowhere Gretchan thought, fleetingly, of Brandon Bluestone. How proud he had been of his family’s cherished heirloom, even before he had learned of its mighty purpose. If only he could be there to witness its transformation. At least, she told herself with a quick, silent prayer, he would be with them soon, when the artifact was used.

Even as those thoughts flitted through her head, the smiths were repeating the process, driving the head of the shaft through the hole in the Bluestone then chilling the device once more in the cold water. In short order, the third wedge of stone, the red one, was removed and affixed to the shaft.

Bardic Stonehammer pulled the artifact from the water. Gretchan could see that not only had the stones melded themselves tightly to the rock, but the lines of color where one wedge met the next had blurred slightly, as if the three stones had truly become one.

“Behold!” cried Stonehammer with all the pride of a master who had just crafted the work of his life. “I give you the Tricolor Hammerhead!”

“And behold,” Gretchan added, quietly and reverently. “We are all witness to the greatness of Reorx.”

“Gus ride ship?” demanded the little gully dwarf female who was clinging to Gus’s right arm. She glared at the subject of her query. “Then Slooshy go too!” she declared.

“No!” declared the little gully dwarf female who was clinging to Gus’s left arm. “Take Berta!”

Gus was too astonished even to complain. Instead, his eyes practically popped out of his skull as he stared at the vast array of naval might gathered in the harbor of Solamnia’s great southern port, Caergoth.

One of those ships lay tethered to the dock right before him, and a rather flimsy-looking gangplank led steeply upward to the crowded, teeming deck. Other ships, at least two and two more of them, their holds crowded with equipment and their decks crowded with nervous-looking dwarves, had already raised sail and moved away from the wharf. For nearly a full day, Gus had watched them cast off, knowing that there would always be another vessel taking on cargo and passengers. Two more, in fact.

And really, what was the hurry?

“Gus ride ship?” Slooshy repeated. “Me go too!”

“Alla girls go ship!” he retorted in exasperation. “But why so hurry? Alla time hurry!”

He looked around the dock anxiously. Nearby was a long file of Kayolin dwarves, each carrying a backpack bundling weapons and armor. They looked dour and surly, which was not surprising considering the dwarves’ universal dislike of water, oceans, and ships.

Maybe, if he waited long enough, another magical blue door would appear, and he could just step through it and arrive at Pax Tharkas, where Gretchan-beautiful, kind, generous Gretchan! — would be waiting for him. After all, he had departed Pax Tharkas through just such a portal.

Though that journey, he remembered, had taken him to Thorbardin, where he and his girlfriends had spent their time running for their lives. On the bright side, of course, he had found the Redstone and located the magic blue door again. The second time he passed through the magical portal, he had stepped into Kayolin, where he had found Gretchan and basked in the glow of her appreciation for his cleverness in bringing the blood-red wedge of stone.

But then she had gone south without him, leaving him to the increasingly aggravating company of his girlfriends. Furthermore, the priestess had departed without so much as a good-bye, and Gus had had to eavesdrop in many different parts of Garnet Thax before he learned where she had gone. Fortunately, his spying had also revealed to him that Brandon-who the dwarves were calling “General Bluestone”-intended to lead a great army southward to rendezvous with the beautiful priestess. Gus had decided on the spot that he would follow along, and he reasoned that his frank discussion with the general, centered around the misunderstanding about the purloined steaks, ensured that Gus, too, could travel across the sea on one of the ships.

In fact, the general approached, striding down the line of soldiers, clapping men on their shoulders, and encouraging those who looked hesitant. “Just think of it as a wooden cave,” he said breezily, gesturing to the nearby ship. “Why, you hardly even feel it moving!”

Something in Brandon’s eyes made Gus think he was, at the very least, exaggerating the case. Still, most of the fleet was sailing out of the harbor, and the little Aghar sensed that his chances to accompany the army-and to find Gretchan-were rapidly diminishing. There were only a few ships, barely more than two, still left to board.