Dennis McKiernan - City of Jade

At last they came to a small underground community, where the starsilver miners were quartered. As they arrived at the stable, two young Dwarves-no more than teens, for their beards were not yet in evidence-took the animals back into the stalls to care for them. Balor then guided Aylis to a mess hall, where they took a meal along with Dwarven miners, after which to the gathering therein, Aylis told of the taking of the Black Fortress, this time speaking fluent Chakur.

The next morning Balor guided her along a pathway and over a bridge under which water flowed, and thence they went along a shelf toward where starsilver lay. Just ahead was a breach in the stone, and beyond that stood a chamber, one whose floor and walls and ceiling were crisscrossed with jagged silveron veins. As Aylis entered she noted a faint foul odor on the air, which seemed to emanate from a huge stone slab centered in the room. Rectangular it was and with a flat top, rather like a dais, and it held carvings along the sides. And along the sides as well were runes smeared in dark ichor. Aylis frowned and then said a word, then translated aloud, “Tuuth Uthor.”

“That was the name of the Ghath,” said Balor.

“This then is the Gargon’s Lair?”

“Aye.”

“And you did not remove his name?”

“It reminds us of our shame,” said Balor. “We fled.”

“It is no shame to flee a Gargon,” said Aylis. “They are Fearcasters.”

“Nevertheless,” said Balor.

At the far end along one side a wide stone doorway gaped, and from beyond came the sounds of hammers striking chisels and the chanking and clanging of a working mine.

Balor led Aylis through the opening, and there she saw Dwarves cutting silveron-laden rock from the walls.

“Here lies that which is more precious than diamond,” said Balor, gesturing widely.

“And you are giving a pound to Aravan,” said Aylis.

Balor merely nodded.

After a moment, Aylis looked back toward the Gargon’s Lair. “Yet you do not mine the starsilver in that place?”

Balor shook his head. “As I said, it serves to remind us of our shame. Mayhap if such a thing happens again, we will not flee.”

And perhaps you will die needlessly, thought Aylis; she did not say it aloud.

At a gesture from Balor, one of the miners brought a small sample of the stone to the DelfLord, who handed it to Aylis. She looked at the rock with its scintillant glitter, then handed it back.

Balor said, “We find it five ways: veins, sheets, flakes, nuggets, and as an ore. The veins, flakes, sheets, and nuggets take little or no refinement, but this”-he held up the stone-“is the hardest to separate from the rock. We crush it to a fine dust and wash it down a very long sluiceway, and the heavier starsilver sinks to the bottom and is trapped by retaining bars, while the lighter stone powder is carried away.”

“I see,” said Aylis, and again she looked back at the Lair.

“Would you like to examine the Lost Prison?” asked Balor.

“Indeed. In fact, if you don’t mind, I would use my powers to ‹see›.”

Balor turned up a hand and inclined his head in assent.

As Aylis stepped back into the Lair, Balor followed and stood silently by.

Aylis laid a hand on the upraised block, and then muttered an arcane word and after a moment said, “Four. There are four events of significance here.”

She fell silent and closed her eyes. Heartbeats passed, and then she smiled and said, “Ah, that’s how it was made.”

More moments passed, and she gasped. “It comes, the Gargon.” Her heart raced, for once before she had faced such a Demon, in a dreamwalk with the Pysk Jinnarin. “It is but a vision of things long past,” Aylis murmured a time or two, the mantra settling her fast-beating pulse. Then she smiled and said, “The trap is sprung.”

After still another moment she gasped and with unseeing eyes looked toward the gaping hole and cried, “Oh, Adon, it’s loose! It’s loose! No-no-no-no, the slaughter, the terrible slaughter.” Aylis, weeping, broke free of the vision and turned to Balor and, sobbing, leaned into him.

At a loss, Balor stood rigid for a heartbeat or two, but then embraced the Seeress and silently held her till the weeping subsided.

Finally, Aylis took a deep breath and Balor released her. She stepped away and said, “Forgive me, DelfLord, but it was a terrible thing I ‹saw›.”

“The Chakka, they could do nought?” he asked.

“Nothing,” replied Aylis. “The Fearcaster’s gaze froze them.”

“As we thought,” said Balor.

Long moments passed in silence, but at last Aylis said, “There is one more event I would ‹see›, the fourth and most recent one of those I detected.”

But Balor held up a hand of caution. “My lady, are you certain you would see this thing? I would not have you suffer again.”

Aylis’s heart went out to the stalwart Dwarf who sought to protect her from perhaps a vision of sorrow. “Lord Balor, I thank you, yet whether it is a revelation of distress or joy, it is one which I must ‹see›.”

Balor sighed and inclined his head in acquiescence.

Aylis braced herself and laid a hand on the slab and whispered an arcane word. Once more she wept, this time softly, at the ‹sight› of seven allies who were trapped herein, only to escape Foul Folk and fire, though not all made it out alive.

The following day, Aylis and Balor returned to the eastern end of the Dwarvenholt. But Aylis was not finished with her ‹seeing›. She paid a visit to the Hall of the Gravenarch, where she witnessed two more events, the first one again leaving her in tears, for she ‹saw› Braggi and his raiders go down to defeat. The second event concerned the Deevewalkers and the destruction of the hall, this latter leading to her third place of ‹seeing ›: the bridge over the Great Deep. And there she ‹witnessed› the demise of the Gargon, though it was a close thing, and it took all four Deevewalkers to do the Demon in, more by accident than design.

In all, Aravan and Brekk needed three days to choose the thirty-nine other Dwarven members of the warband, and they had just begun making preparations for the journey south to the Eroean .

That night Aravan said, “Thou didst vanish, Chier. I slept alone yesternight and the night before.”

“I was learning about starsilver, love, and winnowing out signal events. Perhaps one day I will tell you what I gathered. Besides, you were busy, and what better way for me to while away the time? And as for sleeping alone, well, so did I.”

“Thou art not yet ready to tell me what thou didst glean from thy study?”

Aylis smiled and said, “Not yet,” but Aravan noted her eyes were glistening, as of tears unshed. He said nought, but simply took her in his arms and held her close.

That night they made tender love, and the next morning Aravan left the holt and took to wing as a falcon and flew toward Darda Erynian, the Great Greenhall, that forest lying eastward nigh fifty leagues and across the River Argon. It was therein where Aravan hoped to recruit a special scout.

The next morning as well Aylis closeted herself with DelfLord Balor and the holt’s Loremasters and she related to them what she had learned concerning the Gargon’s Lair and the relevant events thereafter. Even then her eyes filled with tears, as did those of the Chakka listening, and they cast their hoods over their heads at the telling of when the Gargon broke free and slew the miners who had inadvertently set it loose. They wept as well when she spoke of how Braggi and his raiders were slaughtered by that dreadful monster. Yet they cast back their hoods and shouted, “Chakka shok! Chakka cor!” and “Brega, Bekki’s Son!” and “Hal, Deevewalkers!” when she told how that Fearcaster had met its doom.