Douglas Niles - The Heir of Kayolin

He reflected on his wonderful fortune as he leaned back on his mattress-packed with real straw! — and watched Berta massage his large and exceptionally filthy feet.

“You miss that one,” he said, wiggling the large toe on his left foot. “Needs a good rub.”

“All right, Highbulp,” Berta said with a sigh. “But how ’bout then you rub my feet?” she asked hopefully.

Gus snorted and chortled. That was one thing he really liked about her: how funny she was. In truth, he was a pretty lucky gully dwarf.

“Finish two feet; then get highbulp some food,” he declared, stretching out and loudly cracking his joints. He yawned, smacked his lips, and indulged in a long, slow, luxurious excavation of his left nostril. His efforts were so productive that he was about to repeat the procedure on the other side when he was distracted by something.

“What that?” he said, his sparsely whiskered chin dropping in astonishment. Something was happening to his wall!

He stared at the side of his throne room-the throne room that was, in fact, merely an unused cellar chamber in the great fortress of Pax Tharkas. Many Aghar-more, even, than two, which was the highest he could count-lived in that cellar and the surrounding, moldy dungeons. They grubbed and rooted and scavenged, as did gully dwarves everywhere on Krynn, surviving on garbage, bugs, rats, blindfish, and whatever scraps they could steal from the other clans of dwarves who occupied the higher reaches of their ancient fortress. They stayed out of Gus’s way, and he, in turn, didn’t try to give them any orders since that would have tested his authority.

It was a nice, quiet, stinky place to live, lacking the hostile Klar and Theiwar that had made Gus’s former life, in Thorbardin, such a trial. In Agharhome, he had lived with his family, each member of which was larger and meaner than Gus and regularly tried to steal his food. Whenever he had ventured out of the den, he had to worry about feral Klar hunters and Theiwar bunty hunters.

Of course, he would have lived his whole life in that great underground nation except for the unfortunate encounter that had led him into the clutches of a nasty Theiwar black-robed wizard. He never failed to shudder when he remembered that mage’s eyeless face as his captor had studied the hapless gully dwarf in his steel-barred cage. Gus still didn’t understand how he had escaped from that horrible wizard’s lair, but he knew that it had something to do with a strange drink he’d snatched off the wizard’s table. He could still remember the mad dwarf’s rage as Gus had swilled the liquid and suddenly found himself outside of Thorbardin, on a mountaintop, standing in a deep drift of what he had later learned was called “snow.”

And Gus had benefited from more than few lucky breaks since then.

He’d met the most beautiful dwarf maid in the world, the priestess of Reorx called Gretchan, and accompanied her to that wonderful place. He’d eaten fabulous and tasty foods, witnessed majestic objects-most notably the sun-that he would have never seen in Thorbardin, and he’d even learned to value the smell of clean, fresh air.

In his earlier life, Gus could never have imagined an existence as pleasant, as luxurious, as comfortable as the one he had created for himself there in the Agharhome of Pax Tharkas. Berta-it was she who had recognized his greatness and proclaimed him highbulp-was a wonderful consort and saw to his needs with selfless devotion. The other Aghar around there more or less left him alone, which is all any oft-persecuted gully dwarf could ask for. If they didn’t seem to recognize him as their lord and master, neither did they try to beat him up or kill him. There was usually enough food to eat and never any Theiwar bunty hunters trying to cut his head off.

Still, in a quiet corner of his mind (actually, all the corners were pretty quiet, but anyway, when he stopped to think about it) Gus had to admit that, sometimes, it was kind of boring in Pax Tharkas. Yes, boring. Things were getting boring.

A fellow could eat only so often and get so many foot rubs or back rubs or whatever else rubbed without feeling like he needed to go and do something else. Sometimes he missed Thorbardin’s fabulous lake, the miles and miles of tunnels that he could explore, the massive caves of the food warrens that he could enter if he could manage to sneak past the jealous guards. Pax Tharkas, in contrast, was just, well, there.

So when the wall of his throne room started to glow with a blue light that was almost certainly magical, Gus was not so much frightened as intrigued and yes, thrilled-though he did take the altogether sensible precaution of pulling Berta in front of him so, if something horrible emerged from the blue light, it would have to eat through her before it got to him. He gaped at the swirling azure image, saw a dark spot, like a deep hole, appear in the middle of the bizarre light, and yelped out loud when he saw something moving around in there.

A big, fat dwarf appeared in the midst of the swirling blue image, lunging from the wall directly into the highbulp’s throne room with a wild-eyed stare. He was pulling a smaller dwarf by the hand, and almost immediately after that came a dwarf maid, also holding the hand of a child. She looked at Gus and screamed.

Gus and Berta screamed too.

Four new dwarves stood in the Aghar throne room, huddled together in a knot, gaping in shock at their surroundings.

“Where are we?” demanded the fat dwarf, reaching out a hand to try and calm the still screaming dwarf maid.

“Who you?” demanded Gus, clutching the quivering Berta to his chest as he stared over her shoulder.

“Agharhome!” Berta screamed, apparently deciding to answer the fat dwarf’s question in a selfish attempt to preserve her own life.

“Agharhome Pax Tharkas!” Gus shot back. “Where from, you?”

“Why, we come from Thorbardin,” said the fat traveler smoothly, apparently calmed by the information. “So this is Pax Tharkas, eh? The old crone was telling the truth, it would appear. Where are the other dwarves? The Hylar and such?”

“Up there,” Gus replied, pointing at the ceiling. Deciding that he was in no immediate danger of assassination, he released Berta, who scrambled away and, for some reason, shot him a hurt look. “Up those steps,” the highbulp added, helpfully pointing to the throne room door and the stairwell leading up to the fortress proper. “This way.”

“Er, yes,” said the traveler, clearing his throat. “Um, thank you, and sorry to startle you.”

Gus simply shrugged. He was watching the wall where the blue circle with its black hole-a dark passage that looked like a tunnel-was slowly disappearing. The four surprise visitors, who appeared to be normal, if affluent, Hylar, quickly departed through the door, starting up the stairs. It was a minute later that Gus made the connection.

“Huh,” he said to the still-sulking Berta. He pointed at the place where the magic blue portal had faded.

“That wall go to Thorbardin!”

“What is that thing?” demanded King Stonespringer. He and General Ragat stood atop the wall of the royal palace, staring across the wreckage of what had once been the great market plaza of Norbardin. The rebel force, nearly a mile away, had started to advance. At first, it looked as though only the left flank was moving, while the right flank remained in place; there seemed to be a big gap in the center of Willim the Black’s formation, with something unusual filling the gap.

“I don’t know, sire,” Ragat Kingsaver replied, hoisting his silver shield. He set his feet and braced himself. “It’s certainly no dwarf. I suspect the wizard’s power at work.”

Indeed, as the enemy swept closer, the unnatural shape that strode at the head of the rebel army came into all too clear a view. It was three or four times taller than any dwarf, twice as tall as a large man. But no part of it was humanoid.