Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

The group of dwarves chatted with some of the people working there, then crouched to work their way through the narrow housings alongside the great screw, to the gate itself, beyond which lay the outside world.

Little light came through the gate. It was complete, but not open. Temporary stone pillars had been set across its outer rim, leaving only a small door. When the gate was in place, the pillars would be used as supports for sentinel towers on the walled ledge beyond.

The plug itself stood against a wall, just beyond the screw, and the dwarves spread out to wander around it, peeking and peering. Thirty feet high, sixty feet wide, and almost eight feet thick, the thing was cut and shaped from solid stone, drill-reinforced, and was entirely sheathed in metal. The inside face of it was of bronze, the serrated rims and the ring-socket for the great drive screw were filed iron, and the outside face was of thick, polished steel.

It was exactly like the plug at Southgate.

Very soon, it would be in place and usable. Then, Thorbardin would be impregnable. Willen Ironmaul strode along the length of the huge device, followed closely by the Ten, his personal escort. He paused now and then to measure a seam or taste the metal, nodding. “Perfect,” he muttered. “And the drive reservoirs?”

“Filled,” Talc Bendiron said. The tapwarden pointed upward, indicating the sheathed stone pipes that descended like great columns from the ceiling to the cut stone housing of the waterwheel. Above, two hundred feet away, was a separate, enclosed cavern filled with water from the sinkhole lake atop Cloudseeker. Valves were in place to release the water when required, and when the water flowed the great screw would turn, riding forward in its rings with tremendous, implacable force. Once begun, nothing short of the plug sealing itself into its socket would stop it.

Beyond the temporary gate, distant trumpets sounded, and a few moments later an armored dwarf hurried down a ladder nearby, saluted the visiting dignitaries, and turned to his watch captain. “Outside parties coming in,” he said. “The sentinels say the nearest group is Mace Hammerstand and his guards, returning from the west. A second party is just rounding Sky’s End, still too far away to identify, though the sentinel believes they are Neidar.”

Quill Runebrand turned to Willen Ironmaul. “It was Mace Hammerstand that your son Damon went out with, Sire?”

“It was.” The Hylar chieftain nodded. “And I’ll be . . . his mother will be glad when he is back. She tends to worry.”

“I’ll be glad to hear Mace’s report,” Cable Graypath noted.

Beyond the screw housing, there was a clatter and the sound of angry voices. A high, quavering cry rose above them. “Stand back!” that voice demanded. “Rust and corrosion! If you people would watch where you’re going, there’d be fewer accidents around here!”

“You old menace!” another voice roared. “Look what you’ve done to my load! By Reorx’s red rust, it’ll take me an hour to pick up all these pins!”

“Menace?” the first voice shouted, then sank to an angry growl. “Menace, he calls me. Menace! Fool who can’t even stand aside for buckets coming through, and he calls me a menace! Moondust!” The voices died to grumblings and a guard—one of the Ten—scurried past the screw housing, then returned, grinning through his beard.

“What happened?” Willen asked.

“Nothing much,” the guard said. “It’s just some oldster. He and a pinsetter had a collision back there.”

Behind him, the quavery voice rose again. “You, metal-hide! Stand aside! You’re blocking the way!”

The guard stepped aside, and an ancient dwarf backed through the narrow opening, hauling a cartload of buckets with a rope. Well into the gateway he turned a silvermaned head and leveled an angry glare at all and sundry. “Well, the least somebody could do is open that door for me!” he grumbled. “You can see I have my hands full.”

A gateman started toward the little temporary door, but Willen Ironmaul was nearest it and waved the workman aside. “I agree, grandfather,” he said. “A person with his hands full deserves to have doors opened for him. What do you have there?”

The old dwarf glared at the chieftain of the Hylar, then shrugged. “Buckets of stuff,” he said at last. “I intend to mix them all together to see what happens. But, of course, I can’t do it inside Thorbardin. It’s getting so a person can’t do anything around here without somebody objecting.”

“What kind of stuff?” Willen wondered, raising his head to look into the buckets. They were filled with various substances, some black, some green, some yellow, and some of no describable color.

“Elements,” the ancient growled. “Brimstone, soot, leavened ash . . . What business is it of yours, what kind of stuff? It’s my experiment, not yours! Who are you, anyway?”

“Mind your manners, old one!” someone reprimanded. “This is Willen Ironmaul, the chieftain of the Hylar.”

“Oh,” the oldster growled. “One of those. I don’t deal with Hylar. I live in Daebardin . . . though I may move out if Olim Goldbuckle doesn’t apologize soon.” He turned back to his rope. “Well, if you intend to open the door for me, do it! I don’t have all day!”

Hiding a grin, the high chieftain of the Hylar bowed, stepped back, and pushed the door between the pillars open. Grumbling and puffing, the old dwarf backed through it, pulling his cartload of buckets after him. Out on the wide parapet he turned east and disappeared toward the canted slopes beyond the sentinel towers.

Willen closed the door. “Who was that?” he asked.

Several of those around him shrugged and shook their heads. Bardion Ledge frowned thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers. “Pack Lodestone,” he said. “I knew he looked familiar. He’s the one the Daewar prince ordered out of Thorbardin.”

“Ordered out?” Willen raised a brow.

“Oh, not permanently,” Bardion amended. “It’s just that he can’t experiment with his elements inside anymore. The prince has ordered that he has to go outside to make his mixtures.”

“I remember.” Talc Bendiron nodded. “Pack Lode-stone. He’s the one who made the awful smell a month or so ago.”

“That’s him,” Bardion said. “Olim told me about that. The old fellow mixed up some noxious potions and set fire to them in the concourse in Daebardin. Half the city stank of rotten eggs for a week.”

“Why did he do that?” Willen wondered.

Bardion shrugged again. “Olim said he just wanted to see if his mixture would burn. Something about trying to invent a controllable fuel for the tinsmith forges, so he can get rich.”

“A tinkerer.” Barek Stone grinned. “Does he think he’s a gnome?”

“Olim said Pack Lodestone is nearly three hundred years old,” Bardion said. “At that age, there’s no telling what he thinks he is.”

Willen Ironmaul shook his head and returned to business. “I’ll stamp my seal on this project,” he told those around him. “I’m sure the rest of the council will, too. This is excellent work.” He turned to the tower guard. “When will the Roving Guard arrive?”

“A few hours, Sire,” the guard said. “They are on the climb-path now, coming toward this gate.”

“Mace will want to report to the council,” Willen said. “We had better get back to the cities and send runners to notify the chieftains.”

He was just heading for the screw housing when a tremendous roar came from beyond the portal, rattling the little door in its pillars. He and the rest turned, hurried to the door, and crowded out onto the ledge, the Ten drawing their blades.

To the east, on the slope beyond the sentinel tower where the approach to Northgate ended, a huge cloud of white smoke roiled upward, just beginning to spread on the winds. And out of the cloud stalked a black creature pulling a scorched cart on a rope. Pack Lodestone was covered with soot from head to toe. His disheveled, snowy hair and beard were black with it, and even at this distance they could hear his irate voice quavering. “Rust and corruption! That will never do! No tinsmith would put that in his forge! Now I’ll have to start all over again.”