Douglas Niles: The Last Thane

These senses extended beyond the natural, and she suddenly felt a presence in the next room, knew that her husband's house-servant Vale was moving about in the dining chamber. Though that loyal dwarf made no sound, the helm allowed her to picture his exact position. A thick wall of solid stone separated them, and still it was like she stood right behind Vale, watching as he went about his cleaning.

The servant reached high with a feather duster, sweeping the top of a cabinet, and Garimeth was seized by a capricious impulse. The power of the helm augmented her thoughts. With her mind she reached out, grasped him by the wrist, and pushed. The feather duster hooked around the base of a delicate candelabra, moved sharply, and the glass object fell to the floor.

The shattering of crystal, and Vale's gasp of dismay, were audible even through the closed door. Under other circumstances the dwarfwoman would have hastened into the dining chamber and relished the chance to rebuke the clumsy servant, but now she merely shrugged. Her husband's possessions were no longer any concern of hers.

At least, his mundane possessions. Removing the helmet, she looked at it again, and made a sudden decision. With a barely concealed smile of pleasure, she tossed the object into her traveling trunk and continued to prepare for her departure.

Perhaps Baker wouldn't miss her, but by Reorx he would certainly notice that she was gone.

Amid eggs of gold and bronze, of silver, brass, and copper, there was an orb of purest platinum, a spherical treasure blessed by Paladine himself.

Thai the Graygem came to the Grotto as it came to the rest of Krynn, as a harbinger of Chaos that reached into the substance of the world, and planted its wild seed. And the platinum egg was changed by the essence of Chaos, and changed it would remain.

While the other eggs hatched, and the dragons were born, the egg of platinum had been changed, altered by the chaotic force of the Graygem. And so it remained in the nest and so it would stay, until a true ruler of the dwarves would raise it, and release the power from within.

— From the Early Chronicles of Chisel Loremaster

I like those words as much today as I did when I wrote them, more than three thousand years ago. I know Baker Whitegranite gave them careful thought when he translated them just a fortnight past, though it is true that at that time he did not ascribe to them their proper worth.

In another few weeks, of course, he will number them among the most important phrases he has ever read.

But that time lies still in the future, and I think it would be good, now, to consider the Kingdom of Thorbardin as it is, at the height of its glory, shaded from the brutal sky during these hot summer days. The Storms of Chaos loom on the horizon, and over the world, but the bitter winds have yet to commence their sweep across Krynn.

The "house" of Baker Whitegranite and Garimeth Bellowsmoke lay in many ways at the very heart and the ultimate height of this great dwarven kingdom. Situated on Level Twenty-eight of the Life-Tree, its balcony commanded a vista of the great sea nearly three thousand feet below, while the pulse of the kingdom's greatest city measured its beat at the house's doorstep and beyond. And in its garden were the cool, brilliant waters that gave such pleasure to the acting thane of the Hylar.

Hybardin, called the Life-Tree, was a place unique in the world of Krynn, and among all the planes for that matter. It existed in a massive stalactite, a half-mile in height and that same distance in width, at least at its widest diameter, which, naturally, was at the very top. The great shaft of living stone tapered as it plummeted downward, passing through the many levels of the Hylar city, each layer somewhat smaller and more compact than the levels above.

Water flowed everywhere in Hybardin. The dwarves had channeled countless natural springs to form fountains, pools, gardens, canals, and small, trilling brooks. These served a practical function in keeping the city clean, but they were cherished for their beauty, for the cool mists that soothed the lower levels where the forges smoked and roared, and for the splashing vitality they brought to neighborhoods and homes.

As well as water, Hybardin was a city of light, for more than any other clan of mountain dwarves the Hylar loved to behold the world with their eyes. They had keen hearing and acute smell and they could discern some shapes even in nearly complete darkness, but they maintained a network of constantly burning lanterns, torches, and fires so that each of their streets was illuminated, and within every inhabited house could be found the friendly glow of candle, lamp, or coal hearth.

As an observer reached the middle strata of the Life-Tree, he would notice that the streets and byways of the city moved from regions of noble manors to the crowded houses of hard working dwarves. Finally, descending into the lower levels he would find smithies clanging, bellows roaring, and furnaces baking as they flamed and seared the metals dwarven crafters could meld like no other artisans. Yet even here the pragmatic Hylar retained their love of beauty, and thus there were gardens, fountains, and streams even in the midst of their soot-stained work and the fiery heat.

The tapered column of stone did not extend all the way into the lake. Rather, it reached a blunt terminus some distance beneath the floor of the city's Level Three. Through a span of forty feet of space, the bottom of the stalactite was joined to the rocky islet below by a multitude of metal stairways and no less than five transport shafts. Four of the latter provided service only to Level Three, but the greatest of the transports occupied a long, hollow cylinder in the very center of the Life-Tree. This, the Great Lift, was a transport that extended all the way from Level Twenty-eight down through the base of the stalactite to a platform in the center of Level Two, which was a raised plaza above the encircling ring of the city's waterfront docks that formed Level One. Twin cars, one going up while the other descended, could carry more than a hundred dwarves each.

In its extent and beauty and populace, Hybardin was a true wonder of the world, yet it was not the only remarkable place in Thorbardin-which, after all, is a realm boasting no less than seven great cities. Still, the Life-Tree serves the chronicler as a useful center, a focal point and a commencement for any look at the kingdom of the mountain dwarves.

Hybardin was linked to the rest of the underground realm in many ways. Dwarves were ever delving, and through the centuries they had bored tunnels through the rock at the top of the stalactite. Some of these had been pressed forward to such extent that they linked with similar tunnel networks outlying the other dwarven cities. In this way was the whole mountain a honeycomb of passages. It is safe to presume that the total network of such tunnels was too vast for any single dwarf's comprehension.

The bustling docks and wharves of the city's Level One served as the prime location for commerce in the realm, for from these berths goods came and went from across the Urkhan Sea. Four great chain ferries connected the Life-Tree to cities and roads around the shore of the lake. Several teeming cities-Daebardin, Theibardin, and Daerforge-pressed close upon the shoreline. Other cities such as Daerbardin, Theiwarin, and Klarbardin dwelled deeper under the mountain or along a sinuous fjord of the subterranean sea. And all of this great kingdom-cities, sea, tunnels, roads and vast warrens-was an underground domain roofed by the massif of Cloudseeker Peak and the lofty crest of the High Kharolis.

But Thorbardin was more than a kingdom of cities. It was an amalgamation of dwarven clans so different as to make a casual visitor wonder how they could share a common heritage. The mountain dwarves dwelled in five clans, each of which was centered in one or two cities.