Douglas Niles: The Last Thane

"No," said the second dark dwarf, eyes swinging upward to regard the ceiling grate. There was no sign of the assassin, but the Daergar pointed upward with certainty.

"Slickblade," he said.

At the word all the Daergar in the room gasped in horror and, in unison, backed away from Khark Huntrack's lifeless body.

The young dwarf swaggered along the waterfront of Hybardin, gratified as the thronging Hylar parted before him. Let them stand aside, he thought with private scorn. Let them wonder who I am.

The reaction was welcome and not unfamiliar. As always, it provoked a sense of his own uniqueness, a powerful and arrogant awareness. If a burly Hylar dockman had failed to step out of the way, Tarn Bellowgranite would have been quite ready to move the fellow with his fist. He found himself glaring at the crowd, looking for someone who might give him the satisfaction of a fight. But these Hylar seemed to have other matters on their minds, for no one took the trouble even to return his stare with a similar expression of belligerence. Instead, each dwarf lowered his — eyes as Tarn looked his way, or shifted himself to quickly study the dark waters of the lake. Some bent to inspect some particularly tempting bit of mushroom, bread, or meat offered by one of the dockside vendors.

Tarn should have been used to this by now, but on some deep and hidden level the attitude of the Hylar bothered him. Yet he was still one of them, in more ways than he was ready to count. His head was crowned with the golden hair, considered a mark of beauty among the Hylar, and even his beard was a straw yellow, unusually light. But his eyes were his mother's: large whites surrounding pupils of an abiding violet that darkened to purple when his thoughts were grim, as they were now. Those were eyes that could never be found in a Hylar's face, and Tarn knew that his habit of staring frankly at strangers was cause for great unease among the dwarves around him.

Let them be uneasy then.

He reached the chain ferry on time, and his mother arrived soon after, accompanied by several servants and a great cargo of crates, satchels, and bags. She nodded as she saw him, then turned to the business of ordering her luggage stowed. Only when that was arranged to her satisfaction did she turn back to her son.

"You're really going?" he asked her, still somehow surprised despite her message to that effect this morning.

"Of course, and I'll expect to see you soon," she replied. "There's room for you in the house, so plan to stay for a long time."

"Yes, I'll come. I don't know when, just now, but I will."

"Don't let your father bully you into staying away," she warned, scowling so he knew she was serious.

"I won't," Tarn responded, though privately he doubted that Baker Whitegranite could bully anyone-and certainly not his son.

"Good. Remember, you are half Daergar. Don't let this place of lights and gardens drive you mad. It just about did that to me."

Tarn had been to his mother's homeland enough to know what she meant. Where the Hylar preferred flowing water, graceful architecture, and at least the minimal light provided by the sunshafts and their many small, smokeless lamps, Daerforge and its great sister city, Daerbardin were places of unrelieved darkness. Where the Hylar built for beauty, the Daergar built for strength. Great, blocky bulwarks marked the ends of the wharves there, and the buildings were ugly but practical, square of edge and thick of wall. The wide streets of the Daergar city were straight, unadorned by gardens or fountains; such amenities were recognized as a waste of space by the ever practical dark dwarves. Instead, they had avenues along which entire armies could quickly be moved from one side of the city to another.

"I'll be careful," he assured her. "And I'll come as soon as I can."

He helped his mother load her things and watched as she sailed away. Her mood had been brisk and cool, though she sharply chided the boatmen, Hylar and Daergar alike, whom she deemed overly careless in loading her crates on the large craft. No damage was done, and Tarn watched his mother's spirits brighten once she'd had the chance to utter a few choice insults.

Her farewell to her only son had been formal, though her wish that he come to visit was undoubtedly sincere. Still, she clearly had other matters on her mind, so Tarn's presence at her departure seemed a mere afterthought. He doubted that she felt any of the emptiness, the sense of alienation, that now overwhelmed Tarn as the boat lurched away and he turned to amble along the crowded wharf.

Above, the overhang of the Life-Tree swept outward and up, lofting the great city of the Hylar into the cavernous heights of Thorbardin's vast, central chamber. Though he had grown up in this city, Tarn was still able to feel a sense of amazement. Hybardin had been carved over the course of twenty five centuries, one room or passageway at a time, into this great pillar of rock. The island at the base of the pillar was completely encircled by docks, wharves, warehouses, and the machinery buildings anchoring the great pulleys and gears that ran the ferries. He could clearly hear the clanking of steel mechanisms as the chain linking Hybardin to the great manufacturing center of Daerforge lurched in constant motion, pulling the broad ferry over the still waters of the Urkhan Sea. He watched until the flatboat had almost disappeared into the distance.

A great barge had just tied up to the wharf, the cargo vessel having been hauled to Hybardin by the same chain that was now carrying his mother's ferry back to the east. Loud crashes sounded as dockworkers lifted out bars of Daergar steel and stacked them to the side. The raw metal shafts would be sent to Hylar craftsmen, who would form the strong metal into blades and spearheads valued across Krynn. Now the air echoed with harsh curses as the Daergar foreman, no doubt irritated by the light from an overhead lantern, berated his team of workers.

The actual dockside laborers were Klar, Tarn saw, hardy dwarves of the tribe that, according to legend, had been maddened by their experiences during the Cataclysm. The entire clan had been trapped in lightless tunnels with insufficient air, food, and water. Those of the Klar who eventually clawed their way to freedom had proven the strongest of the band, but they-and all their ancestors-had dwelled at the brink of madness ever since. Tarn felt a twinge of sympathy as he saw a Klar worker, towering a head taller than his Daergar overseer, confront his brutal and belligerent superior with a look of dark, glowering hatred. The Daergar raised his whip and shouted an unintelligible insult, and the sullen Klar went quickly back to work.

Now, as he wrestled through the crowds mingling in a narrow lane that encircled a decorative fountain, Tarn found himself scorning the Hylar propensity for frivolous waste. Surely the waterfront would be better served by removing that fountain and widening the road.

Determined not to yield his space, Tarn angrily shouldered aside a plump Hylar merchant. That dwarf, his fingers bright with gem-studded rings and his neck ringed by heavy gold chains, turned to rebuke the insolent youngster, but something in the look of the half-breed's violet eyes caused the merchant to hold his tongue.

Again the roadway widened as Tarn reached the next section of docks, where another heavy chain extended across the water to the south, connecting the Life-Tree to the Sixth Road, one of the main avenues of food supply, not only to Hybardin but to all the dwarven cities on the Urkhan Sea.

Tarn watched a crew of working Daewar, dwarves who preferred bright illumination for their activities, and soon his eyes adjusted to the glare of their lanterns. He reflected that his sight was probably the one advantage he had inherited from the cursed match that had brought his parents together. While he was not bothered by light, and unlike the Daergar and Theiwar he could even walk the surface of Krynn in relative comfort under bright sunlight, his vision in full darkness was as adept as any dark dwarf's.