Markus Heitz - The Revenge of the Dwarves

“Are you a friend of the blacksmith?” the man asked, coming to his senses. “If so, by the grace of Palandiell, don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen. Tell them Lambus is off on his travels. Get rid of the boy’s body. That’s the only way your friend will ever be able to come back.”

“Is Furgas in the power of whoever’s got Lambus?” asked Rodario, guessing wildly. “He’s about my size, black hair and…”

The man’s face changed suddenly. He looked surprised. “You know the magister?”

“He’s my best friend.”

The man spat in his face. “May all the demons…”

Rodario heard a faint swishing noise, one he knew well from his adventures outside the world of theater. A jolt-and the man fell slack in his grip. An arrow shaft stuck out from the man’s back. Death had been instantaneous.

“Get down, Tassia. Get under cover,” called Rodario, going to one side to crouch down behind a heap of coal, and wiping the bloody spittle out of his face. There had been many times in his life when things had happened beyond his understanding, but so far, this was the height of not-understanding.

Quiet steps could be heard approaching; Rodario could hear the creak of leather armor straps, and iron rings clanked. There was the sound of a sword being drawn. When he saw a boot next to him he took hold of the tongs and dropped the red-hot metal down inside.

There was a hissing. The man yelled fit to bust and ran out of the shed, smoke streaming after him. Immediately after that they heard a splash. The man had jumped into the water to cool the burned leg.

“Ha!” Grabbing a smaller hammer from the forge, Rodario ran out in pursuit. But the man had disappeared. Rings on the surface of the water showed where someone had dived in.

Tassia came over to his side. “Drowned?” she asked in surprise. “Must have hurt so bad he forgot he can’t swim.” Out of the corner of his eye Rodario caught sight of a boat that was pulling away from Mifurdania. It was a squat little barge, heavily laden and so low in the water that any small wave would have swamped it. The broad sail was letting it pick up speed as it headed north.

At the stern of the barge stood a brunette in a simple brown dress. She was looking over toward them through a long tube, the sunlight glinting off glass. Then she put it down behind her.

“Tassia. We’re off.” Rodario kept his eye on the brown-haired woman. She reminded him of someone, but it couldn’t be…

Tassia was staring at the circles on the water. “Perhaps he’ll come up again for air?”

The other woman took out an arrow and fitted it to a bow.

“Tassia. Come with me.”

The bowstring was drawn back, the arrow pointing straight at him and at his self-appointed “wife.”

“What is it, O Fabulous One? Look over there on the left. That could be him. I can see something dark. Perhaps…?”

Rodario had just enough time to throw himself at Tassia and tumble them both into the water to avoid the arrow. The waters surrounded him in a cold embrace. Spluttering, he came up to the surface again under the shelter of one of the walkways. Tassia came up cursing loudly and tried to hit him. “What on earth are you doing? To get me soaked twice in one day, Rodario; it’s the limit!”

“Slow down, mermaid.” He pointed over to the barge.

The woman was still at her post and fitting another arrow to her bow, waiting for a target.

When someone’s head popped suddenly out of the water like a cork, she did not hesitate-the movement was fluid, steady and sure. The arrow flew and entered the side of the skull over the right temple. The scream turned to bubbling sound as water gushed into the mouth. Without realizing it she had killed one of her own henchman.

“Thanks be to Palandiell!” mouthed Tassia, not taking her eyes from the dead body that drifted past them, face down. An arrow stuck out like a dead branch. “And thanks be to you, too, Rodario. You’ve saved my life,” she said in a serious voice and kissed him long and hard on the lips. In spite of the cold this was starting to give him a warm feeling.

When they looked for the barge again it had disappeared behind a row of houses. They clambered out onto dry land and made their way, soaked through as they were, to the Curiosum ’s site.

What they left behind were three dead bodies and a whole lot of things that didn’t make any sense. Most of the uncanny things that had happened that day seemed to be connected to his friend Furgas, and he was utterly determined to work out what was going on. He was going to write a play about it.

Girdlegard,

Kingdom of Gauragar,

Porista,

Late Spring, 6241st Solar Cycle

Y oung Lia was sitting, a boyish figure, with the other workers. She gazed out over the pancake-flat plain in the middle of Porista, drank her cold tea and took an occasional mouthful of the stew they gave her. Her task was dangerous, but it was well paid: she was to gather information, scouting in a particular area.

In recent cycles Porista had undergone difficult changes.

Once it had been the center of Nudin’s realm-Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty, one of Girdlegard’s magi. But when he had turned into Nod’onn the Treacherous it had become the field of a terrible battle, and had to a great extent been destroyed by a conflagration. People had only gradually been returning, salvaging what they could from the smoking ruins to build anew, when an army of avatars swept through the land, determined to secure for themselves the magic wellspring that lay underneath the palace of the magus. The rest of Girdlegard could not sit back and let that happen and so had hastened to its defense; the resulting fighting had left fresh scars on the new Porista. Even the grounds of the palace had become just an ugly heap of stones.

Then peace had arrived.

About five cycles earlier, after the defeat of all the great magae and magi, and after the resultant collapse of the magic fields, King Bruron had laid claim to the land and annexed the territory.

Since then the city had been growing steadily.

A friendly army of casual laborers had been sent out by the monarch to remove, stone by stone, the debris of the flattened palace to make way for his own new residence. They had just completed the work. Now all that remained were the foundations and the rubble-filled cellar entrances. This was all that told of the extent of the gigantic building that had previously stood on the site.

Lia’s slim build had an advantage: it allowed her to slip down past the fallen stones into the interior of the cellars to reconnoiter. Once back in the daylight she would report to the king’s construction masters so they could decide how work on the chambers should progress: fill them in with shale or excavate carefully by hand.

None of the overseers on the site had any idea that Lia was conducting her own research at the same time.

Franek, one of her friends, came over and offered her some flatbread. Like her he wore simple clothing, the material looking the worse for wear in places. His mop of dark blond hair was covered with a leather cap. “Have you found anything?” he whispered. He was one of the scouts, too, and was working in another part of the site. He also was on a higher mission.

The girl took the bread, placing it on the bowl of stew, and then rearranged the headscarf that protected her brown hair from the dust below ground. “No,” she answered quietly, making gestures with her hands to imply that she was complaining about the quality of the baking.

Franek sighed. “Then I don’t know how long we should carry on looking. There aren’t many cellars still to search.”

“I said straightaway that it must be broken. Have you seen how even the largest blocks of stone are split right through? That’s how great the pressure was.” Lia always looked on the black side. “There’s nothing left of some walls but brick dust.” She held the bread out to him again and he stuck it under his jacket.