Dan Parkinson - The Gates of Thorbardin

The crystal was still red, but something seemed to pulse dimly, deep within the stone. With each pulse the faint green trace of an ancient trail renewed itself to Chane's eyes.

"It's showing me where Grallen went from here," the dwarf said. "He went east."

"Where Pathfinder went," something voiceless whined.

Chane jumped. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that. What did it say?"

"It said, 'where Pathfinder went,' " Chess repeated. "Zap, what are you talking about?"

Where nothing was, something sighed. "Spellbinder's other," the unfired spell whispered.

High on a Mountain slope, where biting winds came down from the snows,

Glenshadow the Wanderer paused in his climbing to inspect the head of his sorcerer's staff. No longer chalky, it was again a cold, flawless stone of swirling transparencies. The wizard pulled his collar tighter against the chill and raised the staff a foot or so. He muttered a word, and the stone burst into cold, bright light. He nodded, doused it with a word, and looked around. Some distance away, a large, serrated stone lay against a jagged cliff, half-buried in wind-blown snow. He raised the staff, pointed it at the stone, and uttered other words. A tight beam of silver light shot from the gem and struck the boulder, which exploded into shards, some of them bounding away down the mountainside.

Satisfied, Glenshadow climbed again until he came to a high place where patches of ice lay like white pools in the weathered stone.

He gazed into a small ice-covered pool. "Master of the tower,"

Glenshadow said in a voice as cold as winter's winds, "Grallen's descendant has the Spellbinder, and has begun his search for the helm. Is there word of the outlaw?"

"The Black One lives," said the ice-image that formed on the frozen pool. "Though he was certainly put to death long ago, there is no doubt now that he lives. His magic is known. Other searchers have tasted it, just in recent days."

"Can you tell me where he is, then, or must I continue to follow the dwarf?"

"He is somewhere to the east," the hooded image said. "Nearer to you than you are to me, but though his magic is sensed he goes hidden… shielded somehow from our seekings. If you would find him, you must go with the dwarf."

"Does the outlaw know yet of the dwarf and his quest?"

"We think he knows that something is amiss." The iceimage told him. "The

Black One is pledged to a quest against the dwarven realm of Thorbardin.

This much we know, from those of our order in the Khalkist Mountains. Two died and a third was horribly burned just to bring us the information.

Tell me, does the dwarf know his purpose?"

"To go where the Hylar Grallen went." Glenshadow said and nodded. "To seek the helm of his ancestor, which alone might save Thorbardin from infiltration by its enemies. He has an artifact — an ancient god-stone, the twin of the one his ancestor wore on his helm. One stone will lead him to the other, and thus to the helm."

"And should he find this helm… will he then know where Thorbardin's weakness lies?"

"If his ancestor Grallen saw the secret gate, then the stone in the helm may also show it to its next wearer. Both are god-stones, as was suspected. Their magic is beyond sorcery."

"Then the thread is not frail," the ice-pool said. "If the dwarf poses a threat, the Black One will know it. He sees more clearly now than when he was alive… before he was put to death. Follow the dwarf, Wanderer, if you would find the Black One; the Black One will surely seek him. Follow the dwarf toward shattered Zhaman, if you would seek again to destroy the outlaw mage." A pause, and then the faint voice asked, "Did you see the omen, the eclipse of the moons?"

"I saw it. What does it mean?"

'14one knows for sure," the voice said. "But all the omens point to a great darkness from the north. Evil has its pawns a'play, and moves across the gaming board. Beware."

The pool darkened, cleared, and was simply a pool of ice. Glenshadow shivered, drew his bison cloak more tightly around his shoulders, and again touched the ice with his staff. This time the image that appeared was of the valley from which he had come. Chane Feldstone and the kender stood at the edge of a patterned ice-field and looked eastward.

"Toward shattered Zhaman," the mage whispered. "He follows Grallen's path, toward the resting place of Grallen's helm."

He started to turn away from the pool, then stopped. Another vision had formed there, coming without call. In inky blackness swirled indistinct shapes, coalescing at the center in a pattern that become a face… or not quite a face, just the ghostly outline of one; but one that Glenshadow had seen before, long years ago.

And a voice as dry as dust — a voice that seemed shriveled with hatred and age — hissed from the image. "He seeks me, does he?" it said. "The puny red-robe would try again to do what he thought he had done before'

Hee-hee. He asks the ice whether I know there is an obstacle in my way. A puny obstacle it is, too. A dwarf. Only a dwarf. Did I know before, he wonders? No matter. I know now." Giggling, the dry voice faded and the ice cleared. Long after the vision was gone, Glenshadow knelt by the ice, shaken and unsure.

"Caliban," he muttered. "Caliban."

Viewed from the south, the valley was a long, deep cut among towering mountains. Miles wide and many more miles long, deep enough that fall foliage still livened the forests below, it swept away to the north. The valley was straighter than most Wingover had explored, and interesting to his explorer's mind because, while its sides were crested by precipitous cliffs, its approach from due south was a long, fairly gentle slope.

It seemed to almost offer itself as a route, and Wingover found that irritating. He had seen the great cats who lived in this valley, and he knew the valley was a trap. He wondered if any who had entered there had ever come out again.

The man was moody and irritable as the hours passed, tired of waiting for a crazy gnome in a sailing contrivance, who probably would never return anyway. He brooded upon the fates that had brought him to be here, back out in the wilderness again, pursuing an impossible quest — to find one lost dwarf in ten thousand square miles of barely explored territory.

It didn't help Wingover's attitude that Jilian Firestoke seemed to have decided that it was her responsibility to fill the idle hours with constant chatter. He had heard a dozen times now about Chane Feldstone's dream, and at least a half-dozen times about the perfidy and downright churlishness of Jilian's father, Slag Firestoke. He had been belabored by gossip — most of it meaningless to him — about the feud between the

Tinturner and Ironstrike families, which had kept the fifth level downshaft neighborhood of Daewar in an uproar for months; about how

Silicia Orebrand's sister was not on speaking terms with any of the

Silverfest Society members; about the uncouth mannerisms of Daergar dwarves who seemed to think they owned the Fourteenth Road; and about the scandal that had risen when Furth Undermine accused the East Warren overseers of bribing the executor of the Council of Thanes.

"Far stars, Button," Wingover finally erupted, "doesn't anybody get along with anybody in Thorbardin? To hear you talk, I'd think the intrigues and hostilities outnumber the population by five to one."

She blinked in surprise. "Oh, it isn't like that at all," she said.

"Thorbardin is the nicest place imaginable. Really. I've just been telling you the juicy stuff because that's what most people prefer to hear. But then, most people — at least most people I know — are dwarves. What do humans like to hear?"

"Silence, occasionally," he snapped.