Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

Irritable at the disruption, he sat up and saw Majida standing by his cot. His exasperation disappeared. He couldn’t imagine the elder dwarf disturbing him for something trivial. The room was dark, but the door was ajar and the torches lit in the corridor outside. In the shadows, he could see her motion for him to follow her. Kitto and Boult were snoring, but Verran stirred restlessly as Harp pulled on his boots and shouldered his pack.

So far, Harp hadn’t seen much of the layout of the Domain except the common room, which was like the hub on a wheel with a series of tunnels rotating off it like spokes. With multiple fire pits and clay ovens, the toasty, cedar-scented room was where most of the day-to-day living took place. Harp had met a handful of the other residents the night before, but hadn’t gotten a sense of how many dwarves actually called the Domain home. Apparently, the dwarves kept goats on the open passes between mountains, and it was the time of year that many dwarves were away tending the herds. They crossed through the common room where small fires still smoldered in the fire pits. In the dim light, Harp could see wisps of smoke rising into slits cut in the rock ceiling. When he passed under one, he could see a slice of the starry night sky high above him. Harp couldn’t imagine how the dwarves could have carved such long narrow shafts in the rock.

“Are those shafts natural?” he whispered to Majida.

“We have built everything you see,” she replied, pausing to light a torch in the fire pit. “Everything except the chamber of the captive.”

At the end of the tunnels, Majida stopped at a plain wooden door, which she unlocked with a key from the chain that hung from her belt.

“So much for communal living,” Harp remarked, nodding at the key.

“My kin think books should be used for kindling,” Majida said, pushing open the door with her hip. “And the only use for metal is for swords.”

They stepped into a cramped chamber at the bottom of a tall, narrow shaft with spiral stairs leading up through the rock. As Harp followed Majida up the stairs, his head brushed the bottom of the steps above him. At the top, Harp climbed into a dome that was built on the top of a rocky peak. The walls of the mountaintop observatory were almost translucent—Harp could see the ridges and formations of rocks on the outside. The color and sheen reminded him of an ivory plate that was so delicate it seemed his breath alone could sunder it.

“What is that?” Harp asked, brushing his fingertips against the smooth walls, which felt cool under his touch.

“Actually, it’s metal,” Majida said. “I made some adjustments to it.”

Majida turned a crank and half of the domed ceiling opened with a squeak that sounded very metallic. The little room was open to the air, and Harp had an unhindered view of the night sky. The observatory was the closest he’d ever been to the stars, and their vastness made him feel light-headed.

“Are we on top of the Crown?” Harp asked, staring out at the moonlight.

“Yes. I built my observatory on a drake nesting site. But they leave the mountains at night to hunt, so they shouldn’t trouble us. Although a young bull tried to stick his snout in here once.”

“What happened?”

“I left a scar, and he never came back.”

Harp turned his attention to a brass contraption on the far side of the room. Almost as tall as Harp and twice as wide, it had a circular bronze base that held a series of concentric brass rings attached on the same axis inside a metal skeleton. Harp had seen similar devices—although on a much smaller scale—used for navigation on ships. Their purpose had something to do with shadows and angles—Boult had explained it once, but Harp had forgotten the extensive equations and numerology necessary to understand how it worked. Harp preferred to navigate with his own eyes and the polar stars. Of course, as Boult pointed out, that didn’t work so well when there was cloud cover.

A low cabinet housed hand-held navigational devices, such as a metal quadrant and a handful of hourglasses, each with different colored sand. Shells and fossils were neatly labeled and ordered in a glass box with many small compartments, and there was a half-empty potion chest open against the wall.

“Your observatory is impressive,” Harp told Majida. “Have you learned all there is to know about the stars?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Majida replied. “I am coming to believe that the answers I seek are found inside the body rather than the vast planes.”

Harp shuddered. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Have you?” Majida said, not sounding surprised at all. She lit a stick of incense in a wooden bowl on the table, and the scent of flowers floated through the air. Majida sat cross-legged on the green threadbare rug in the center of the floor and waited until Harp sat down across from her.

“When the sun rises, we’ll go back down. Zo will show you a hidden tunnel that will take you to the entrance of the ruins. There’s a magical barrier around the ruins, but Verran will be able to get you inside. I don’t know whether you’ll find Liel or not, but I can tell you that the Torque is below the entrance hall of the golden dome. It won’t be easy to get.”

“If we get the Torque, should we bring it to you?” Harp asked.

Majida was quiet for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “If you get the Torque, drop it in the deepest ocean you can find.”

“I can do that. I just happen to have a ship.”

“I know.”

“Liel told you about my ship? When we were together on Gwynneth Isle, we talked about getting one. But I didn’t think she knew that it happened.”

“She knew.”

“Why did she never contact me? I know her father helped get me out of Vankila, and I was grateful for that. But I don’t even know if that was his sense of honor or hers.”

“She asked him to help you. He didn’t stop until it was done.”

“Still …”

“Cardew threatened your life if she tried to see you.”

“The Husk—Liel said some things. Things that only Liel knew, but they were twisted.”

“Seeds of truth, Harp, but the fruit of manipulation,” Majida said quietly. “Did you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she know that?”

“I hope so,” Harp said emphatically.

“I hope you get another chance to tell her.”

The sun was inching over the horizon, casting the sky in deep purple and rose. A salt-scented breeze swept in from the opening in the roof, and Harp wished he were on the Crane listening to the crack of the sails and feeling the swell of the water rock the boat under him.

“I can rid you of your scars,” Majida told him.

Harp shook his head. “Like I told you before, I’ve tried everything. I’ve been to casters up and down the coast. No one can get rid of them.”

“Then I have something they don’t.”

Harp closed his eyes. Majida waited a long time for him to speak.

“I’m not offering because they are horrifying, Harp,” she finally said. “I am offering because they were inflicted on you, like a brand. If you want to keep them—”

Harp’s eyes flew open. “I want you to take them off. I want you to make me what I was before.”

“Then what gives you pause?” Majida asked.

“I wonder when Liel saw me. I wonder what kind of man she saw.”

It was four against one, and Harp was too drunk to defend himself.

“Ghoul,” the biggest one said, slamming his fist into Harp’s face. Harp fell back into another man, who held his arms behind his back while the big one punched him in the stomach. “So ugly they had to sew you back together.”

When they had dragged Harp out of the pub into the back alley just minutes before, Liel had lost of them in the crowd. She caught sight of them from the street and strode down the alley to them. By the time they saw her approaching, a blast of fire had shot from her hand and singed the big man’s shoulder. He stumbled back against the wall, clutching his arm and moaning while his friends backed away. They dropped Harp to the cobblestones. The four men bolted down the alley leaving Liel alone with Harp.