Douglas Niles - The Heir of Kayolin

“Yep, Pax Tharkas nice place!” Berta retorted. “Not like stoopie burnrock Thorbardin, alla time hot and hungry!”

“Girls be quiet!” snapped Gus. “Highbulp gotta think!”

Gus reflected. Berta and Slooshy had a point. Pax Tharkas was a rather nice place, especially compared to the terrible mess that Thorbardin seemed to be in. It was reasonably safe and very quiet. Sure, it was small and didn’t have a lake. But what was so great about the lake, anyway?

Then there was the other thing, he abruptly remembered, as he almost stumbled because of the heavy red rock he was carrying. That rock matched the blue and green rocks in Pax Tharkas. Gus could take the red one there and make the king pretty happy. A happy king meant, at the very least, some good food for Gus. Suddenly he wanted to go back there very much.

And just as suddenly, he knew how to do that!

“Come on!” he said. “Girls follow highbulp, plenty fast!”

“Hey! You no highbulp!” Berta reminded him.

“Yeah! No boss me neither!” Slooshy declared.

“Stay, then, bluphsplunging wenches!” he shouted, startling them both. “Gus go Pax Tharkas by himself!”

Carrying the Redstone, he started running from the plaza, back toward the street where they had arrived in Norbardin.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Berta called.

“You no go so fast!” Slooshy objected. Two sets of feet pounded behind him, and he felt surprisingly happy that they were coming along with him. Sure, they could be disobedient and argumentative pests, but all in all, he was glad to have their company.

Finding the right street was not easy in the midst of all the chaos and destruction that had marred so much of the city, but he finally picked it out and started down the way, leaving the dragon-wracked plaza behind. After running for two minutes, he guessed he was getting close and slowed down. He paused, thinking and looking around, and he finally recognized the shop where he and Berta had arrived there via the magic blue hole in the wall. It looked different because the front door was standing wide open.

He darted through the open doorway with the two females in close pursuit. He strode through the shop, barely noticing the wreckage of tables and shelves. The back door was closed, but it opened when he turned the latch.

Immediately he saw what he was searching for: the blue magic door, swirling on the wall. The same two old Theiwar were there also, but fortunately their backs were turned away from him; he well remembered the old crone’s skillful aim when she was shooting her magic missiles at him. Then he froze to notice there was a third person in the room-the eyeless wizard!

Panic nearly choked Gus, and he wanted to run away. But then he saw that the frightening figure was glaring at the elderly Theiwar, and the two of them looked so terrified at the wizard’s presence that they didn’t even notice the gully dwarves creeping into their back room. The opportunity was there, and Gus wasted no time.

“This way!” he whispered as best he could, leading his girlfriends in a sudden forward rush.

But the old Theiwar crone must have heard him; her eyes turned toward him, and she opened her mouth to scream, which was when the wizard slapped her before the scream could come out. And the wizard didn’t even turn around or glance over his shoulder.

Gus reacted instinctively, breaking into a sprint. He dived through the blue door as her scream echoed after him. Gus tumbled onto a hard stone surface and looked up to see, with relief, that Berta and Slooshy had followed him through, sprawling beside him on the other side of the magic door.

Even as he watched, the blue circle shimmered and faded and disappeared.

Kondike paced down a quiet street in Garnet Thax. The dog had been roaming through the dwarf city for a long time, and though he’d never forgotten his mistress, nor his new master, he had not been able to locate any scent of them. He’d drawn significant attention from the city’s dwarves, most of whom had never seen a dog anywhere near his size, and thus, considered him a wild and dangerous animal. After a few unpleasant encounters, such as being hit by clubs and rocks and narrowly avoiding a hurled spear, the dog had learned to stick to the less inhabited byways of the vast, labyrinthine city.

For the first few days of his wanderings, he had gone back to the house where Gretchan had taken him when they first arrived in the city. But there had been no sign of her there, and the crowded streets of that neighborhood had been too dangerous for the dog to find a safe hiding place. So he had wandered off and not gone back there for quite a few days.

He was prowling the alley behind a flourishing food market. He’d had success stealing cheese and even some cuts of meat from several of the vendors, and his gnawing, empty belly had compelled him to go back there. But the food-sellers seemed to be watching for him, and he was met with a barrage of well-aimed stones, missiles that bruised his flesh and forced him to flee back into the shadows.

He whimpered quietly and limped into a shadowy alcove where he had found some discarded burlap to serve as a slightly-softer-than-stone bed. He lapped up some stagnant water from a pool in the floor. His stomach growled, but there was nothing to be done about that at the moment.

Instead, he lay down and went to sleep.

Abruptly he started awake, sniffed, and raised his head. A deep growl emanated from his chest as he stood, ears upraised, looking around. He couldn’t see anyone and didn’t smell anything. But some unknown sense prickled his awareness. The alley was empty; there was nobody in the alcove with him. Yet he felt certain that someone was approaching.

The dog’s attention was drawn to the nearby wall. He growled more loudly, staring, as the stone surface began to shimmer. In another second he saw a raggedy-dressed gully dwarf there, stepping right out of the shimmering place on the wall. The big dog barked, startling the gully dwarf, who yelped and leaped to the side. Then a second and a third gully dwarf materialized, tumbling through to sprawl onto the floor, startling the dog so much that he jumped backward, barking again.

Kondike barked once more, but something in the little dwarf’s scent was vaguely familiar. He wagged his tail tentatively.

The little dwarf, whose nose was bleeding from the impact of the fall, looked up and grinned.

“Kondike?” he said cheerfully. “Is that you?”

Brandon awakened with a start, instinctively reaching for his axe before he realized it was his mother who had nudged his shoulder and was urgently speaking to him.

“I’m awake,” he said, sitting up in bed and shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. “What is it?”

“Rona Darkwater is here, and she says she needs to speak to you right away!”

“Rona Darkwater?” asked Brandon, quickly rising and donning a light tunic. “What does she want?”

“Ask her yourself,” came the reply over her shoulder as Karine bustled back to the front room.

Brandon followed after his mother quickly and nodded politely to the glamorous dwarf maid who was sitting in the lamp-lit chamber. He noted that Gretchan wasn’t there; she was probably still whispering her way through the city’s neighborhoods, reminding people that “the throne is in Thorbardin.”

“Hi, Rona,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Only then did he notice that Rona’s face was drawn and taut, and she glanced nervously at the door as if half afraid they’d be interrupted. Karine brought her a mug of steaming tea, and the young female clutched it as though it were the nectar of life itself.