Dan Parkinson - Hammer and Axe

All seven of them knew transport spells, so, gazing up at the big open gate in the mountain’s face, they said their incantations, more or less in unison.

As Porcirin materialized in a wide, high-ceilinged tunnel that was surprisingly well lighted, he heard screams behind him. He turned quickly, fighting down the brief nausea of transport. Three of his followers were with him, but the other three were some distance behind in the midst of a huge vaulted area traversed from end to end by a narrow catwalk. Two of the laggards were on the catwalk, clinging in terror. The third was dangling from its rail, screaming and flailing. Even as Porcirin and the three wizards with him glanced back, hundreds of missiles of various kinds flew from holes in the walls of the vaulted chamber, striking the other three with deadly accuracy.

It was over in a second. The clinging wizard fell screaming from sight, pierced through by a javelin. The other two stood for an instant, then were toppled by whistling balls of gray iron. They fell from the precarious walkway and disappeared into unseen depths below.

And all around Porcirin and the other survivors, armed dwarves were closing in. “Second spell,” Porcirin commanded, then muttered it, ducking as a thrown hammer flashed past his head.

In an instant, the three were shielded by invisibility and hurried forward, to escape before the advancing dwarves closed around them.

“There they go,” a dwarf shouted. “It’s true, you can still see their eyes. Look for their eyes!”

There seemed to be hundreds of dwarves on all sides, and one of them—a short, wide-shouldered creature—pointed directly at Porcirin. “Here’s one!” the dwarf shouted and lunged at the wizard, lashing out with a dark-steel sword. In panic, Porcirin shut his eyes, ducked, dived to the side, and rolled. He heard the dwarf’s sword ring against stone just behind him. He rolled again and opened his eyes for an instant as someone very short and very solid fell over him.

“I found one!” a voice called. “Oh, rust. Now where did he go?”

Not far away, drums sounded a complex tattoo, and several dwarves shouted. “That’s the signal. Everybody back. Hurry!” Running feet sounded, echoing through the big tunnel, and Porcirin opened his eyes just a crack to see what was going on. Dwarves were streaming past him on both sides, running along the tunnel, deeper into the mountain. A pair of them ran into him, flipped over him and rolled. One of them turned back, raising a hammer. But the second grabbed him and pulled him away. “No time for that!” he shouted. “You heard the orders as well as I did. Come on!”

They ran, and others swarmed after them. Within moments the corridor around the wizards was empty. Porcirin sat up, looked around, and said, “Saritius? Kryxan? Lonex?”

“Here,” three voices answered.

“What was that all about?” one continued.

“They could see our eyes,” another growled. “Why didn’t somebody tell me that an invisibility spell doesn’t hide a person’s eyes?”

“I meant, why did they all run away?” the first explained.

“I don’t like this,” a third voice grumbled. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Shut up!” Porcirin snapped. “It doesn’t matter why they ran. We’re inside their fortress now. Let’s look for our. . .”

A short distance away, steel clanged against stone as a heavy, barred portcullis dropped across the tunnel, blocking the route toward the catwalk and the gateway beyond. In the distance, the light from the gateway dimmed as creaking sounds erupted, like a great screw turning in steel collars. Dropping their invisibility spells, the wizards got to their feet and sprinted back the way they had come, as far as the barred portcullis. Just beyond was the huge, vaulted chamber with the catwalk through its center and the murder holes in the walls. Now those murder holes were disappearing with a staccato series of clangs and clicks as covers were sealed over them from beyond the walls. In the distance, past the outer end of the vaulted cavern, the glare of light from outside diminished and then vanished as a monstrous gate closed, sealing the exit of the fortress.

“What is this?” Kryxan snarled. “A trap?”

“Well, if it is, it has only one side,” Porcirin pointed out, turning. Northward, into the depths of the mountain, the wide tunnel ran with no sign of blockades. “Come on,” he said. “We were going in that direction, anyway.”

The four hurried along the tunnel, gaping around them at the sheer immensity of the undermountain excavation with its high ceilings and, at intervals, circles of bright light that flooded the area below. Beneath one of these, Saritius stopped for a moment, staring upward. “It’s the sky,” he said. “I can see the sky through that thing.”

They went a hundred yards, then another hundred, and ahead of them they saw a place where the tunnel widened, a sort of great hall with a low, circular wall of set stones in the middle of it. Beyond, in the distance, the tunnel resumed its usual size and continued onward. It looked as though it ran for miles.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lonex marveled. “It’s unbelievable that simple dwarves could build something like this.”

“Shut up and pay attention,” Porcirin snapped. “We’re here to find the Stone of Threes. Do any of you sense its presence?”

They shook their heads. “Not a thing, yet,” Saritius said.

As they approached the wide cavern with its walled circle, the air seemed to grow warmer with each step. “They have some kind of stove in here,” Porcirin decided. Curiously, he approached the low, circular wall and peered over it, then froze, staring downward. Within the wall was a sheer-sided pit of immense proportions, a huge round hole that went straight down . . . and down, and down into dizzying depths as though it pierced right through the world itself. Far away, down there, was a tiny glow of intense brightness. And from the pit rose air so hot that it seemed to come from an oven.

“What. . . what is it?” Saritius wondered.

“This hole is deep! ” Kryxan marveled.

Porcirin started to respond, then stopped as sounds brought his head up. Beyond the walled pit, beyond the wide cavern, there were dwarves in the northward tunnel—busy, bustling dwarves drawing great, fabric curtains across the opening.

Olim Goldbuckle had staked his reputation as Prince of the Daewar on the ability of his best delvers to complete a tunnel under water. Slide Tolec had, in turn, staked the honor of the thane of Theiwar on his boatmen overcoming their natural tendency to drown a few “gold-molders” if they had the chance, and instead to submerge and retrieve the Daewar delvers unharmed. Vog Ironface had promised the new regent of Thorbardin—the chief of chiefs—that his Daergar mine workers could install a hinged plug over the abandoned Hylar heat-exchange vent in the Shaft of Reorx, and have it done before it was needed. And Pakka Trune had given his word that his Klar craftsmen could produce and weave enough rock wool, or “spunstone,” in their fiber-lofts adjoining the worm warren, to seal the width and height of the Southgate tunnel with a thick curtain of heavy woven stone.

The chiefs had given their pledges, and Willen Ironmaul had given Gem Bluesleeve permission to proceed with his plan.

Now all the pledges had been fulfilled, except one. The Daewar diving delvers had done their job, and a new tunnel now connected the bottom of the Urkhan Sea to the abandoned shaft leading to the Shaft of Reorx. True, there were now new grudges to be resolved. Daewar delvers angrily accused Theiwar boatmen of trying to drown them and, even worse, of laughing at them when they were finally pulled up from the sea, coughing, spitting, and soaked. And Theiwar boatmen in turn accused the delvers of endangering their crafts by attacking their “saviors” as soon as they had their breath. Daergar lid-setters, scorched and blistered from their exposure to the Shaft of Reorx, accused the Klar of providing inadequate insulation in their spunstone garments, and a committee of Klar weavers was petitioning the Council of Thanes for new looms, to replace those crushed by tractor worms attracted to the spunstone fibers.