Journey into the Void (34 page)

Looking into the flames, he saw the Children…

 

The Children of Dunner each took turns being the bearer of the Sovereign Stone. Every day, a different Child wore the stone. This night, Fenella was the bearer. A sickly child, Fenella had been abandoned in the city of Saumel. In leaving her behind, her parents were obeying the decree of the clan chief, who maintained that the weak child placed the entire clan in danger. Fenella had been given into the care of an elderly dwarf female. Her caretaker had just recently died. The ten-year-old girl was on her own.

By now, Fenella had outgrown the childhood illnesses. She was strong as any young dwarf. But that didn't mean she could go back to her clan. She had no idea where they were, and they probably wouldn't take her back anyway. Fenella took over the basket-weaving business of the dead woman and, though her life was hard, she was making do.

Weaving baskets all day left her only the nighttime hours to pay tribute to the Sovereign Stone. She never missed a night, however. She looked forward to the day when she would be called to go on the quest for Dunner's grave and ask his blessing to become a Dominion Lord. Fenella knew this was her destiny. Dunner himself had told her in a dream.

This night, Fenella lifted the Sovereign Stone from its place of honor in the tent that was a temple and watched it sparkle in the firelight. Every
time she touched the Stone, she was awed, humbled. She felt as if she could draw a straight line from herself to Dunner and from Dunner to King Tamaros. The hundreds of years intervening were as nothing, when she wore the Stone. The difference between a dwarven orphan child and a human king was nothing.

Fenella was a storyteller, and on those nights when she was the bearer of the Stone, she entertained the other Children with stories of the Stone and those whose fates were bound up in it. Although the stories were old, having been handed down from Dunner himself, Fenella breathed new life into them. The Children never tired of listening to her.

Fenella sat on the box that was an altar and made herself comfortable. Seven Children of varying ages ranged themselves around her. One, a boy named Rulff, was put in charge of guarding the entrance to the tent against intruders. The post was honorary. There had been only one intruder, in all the history of the dwarven Sovereign Stone, and that had been two hundred years ago, when a Dominion Lord, sent by King Helmos had invaded the sanctity of the temple-tent to ask for the Stone's return. Still, the Children were always on the lookout for someone to try to steal the Stone. Rulff took his place proudly, a sharpened stick in hand.

Fenella had been feeling sad all that day, and she chose for her story one that always made the Children laugh.

The tale had been a favorite of Dunner's. It dealt with a human child called Gareth, who was companion to Prince Dagnarus, and told of the first time Gareth had attempted to ride a horse. The tale was amusing to dwarven children, for, although some had never ridden a horse, they were all born to the saddle. They laughed heartily when Fenella came to the part where the horse bucked and the human boy Gareth went sailing out of the saddle, head over heels, to land in a hayrick.

Rulff turned his head. “Hush,” he said. “I think I heard something.”

He opened the tent flap, stared into the darkness.

“Someone's out there,” he reported, and he sounded puzzled, for few people ever came this way during the day and none at all after dark.

“Maybe it's another knight come to try to take the Stone from us,” said one of the Children hopefully.

“Maybe it's your mother, Rulff,” said another, and he snickered.

“You get up on the box, Fenella,” said a third. “We'll stand guard.”

Fenella, feeling proud and only a little nervous, took her place on top
of the box. The other Children lined up in front of her, sharpened sticks in their hands. Fenella rested her hand on the Sovereign Stone and found reassurance in the feel of the crystal that always seemed to her to be humming to itself, as though the jewel had an inner life of its own.

She was listening with her heart to the Stone's song, when Rulff gave a scream that was so horrible she froze up inside. The blade of a sword, smeared with blood, thrust out of Rulff's back. A beast-man tore open the tent flap, barged inside. As the beast-man entered, it kicked impatiently at Rulff, impaled on the sword. His body slid off the blade and landed in a heap on the ground.

Two more beast-men shoved into the tent. One of the older boys made a desperate lunge at the beast-men with his sharp stick. The beast-man made a kind of gurgling sound that might have been a laugh and brought his club down on the boy's head, smashing it open, spattering the tent wall with blood and gore.

Some of the other Children fought. Some screamed and tried to escape. Some stood staring, frozen in terror. The wicked swords of the beast-men flashed in the firelight. Bodies fell, some of them headless, others stabbed to the heart. The floor was red with blood.

Fenella was the only child left alive. She couldn't move. She stared at the slavering beast-men, their arms bloodied to the elbows, and she waited to die. One raised his sword, and Fenella shut her eyes.

A voice said something in a commanding tone, and Fenella did not die.

She opened her eyes to see the beast-men pointing at her and arguing. Their language was as horrible as they were.

The beast-men reached a decision. One walked toward her, his bloody sword in his hand. Fenella felt a hideous warmth wash over her, and she was afraid she was going to faint. She grasped hold of the Sovereign Stone, and the cold of the crystal helped brace her.

The beast-man knocked her hand aside. He grabbed hold of the Stone.

A flash of white light blinded Fenella. She could not see anything for long minutes except the blue afterimage of that flash. When that cleared, she saw the beast-man who had tried to take the Stone lying on his back on the ground, wringing a blackened hand.

Fenella was proud of the Stone for fighting the monsters, and her pride gave her courage. She stood straighter and stared at them defiantly.

Another of the beast-men tried to seize the Stone. Fenella was ready and she squinched her eyes tight shut. Even then, she could still see the blinding light.

The beast-man lay on the ground, shaking his head and groaning.

The beast-men glared at her and at the Stone, at a loss for what to do. One of them shouted something, and a fourth beast-man entered. This beast-man was apparently some sort of slave, for he walked with his head bowed and stood, cringing, before the other beast-men. This creature looked like one of the beast-men, and he didn't, for he didn't have the beast-man's snout. His nose was more like the nose of a human.

The beast-men and the newcomer held another conversation. Fenella knew that the conversation involved her, for they constantly pointed at her and pointed at the Stone. The beast-man pointed at her hand, then held up his own burnt hand.

The beast-man said something in a tone of finality. He kicked at the slave and pointed at Fenella.

The slave picked up one of the sharpened sticks and approached Fenella. She thought that he was going to kill her with the stick, and she braced herself to die. Instead, he used the tip of the stick to gingerly catch hold of the horsehair rope from which the Stone dangled and carefully slide the Stone around so that it now hung down Fenella's back.

Dropping the stick, the slave took hold of Fenella. He hoisted her onto his back, grasped her wrists around his neck, and, giving the nod to his companions, carried her piggyback out of the tent.

The slave's nails dug painfully into Fenella's arms. His strong grasp bruised her flesh. The smell of the beast-men, mingled with the smell of the blood of her friends, made her sick and dizzy. She felt the hideous warmth come over her again, and this time she let herself sink into it.

 

Wolfram watched the vision in the flames, and his rage burned hotter than the fire. Calming his fury, he paid close attention to all that was happening, listened closely to the beast-men's talk, in the futile hope of hearing anything that might be useful.

The three spoke briefly in a language that was as ugly as they were. Wolfram could make out only a couple of words amid the hoots and whistles. He found, though, that he could understand the slave, who spoke the beast-man's language, but the words came out clearer, not as
clotted. One word this slave repeated several times, always with a show of awe, was the word, “K'let.” The word was easy to understand, although Wolfram had no idea what it might mean.

As the slave carrying Fenella left the tent, one of the beast-men accompanied him, probably to keep an eye on him. The other beast-men stayed behind to ransack the tent, searching for more treasure. They smashed the box and even searched the small bodies. Finding nothing, they snarled their displeasure and departed. Wolfram tried to keep track of them, but once they passed out of the tent, he lost them in the darkness. The fire in the firebox dwindled and died. The spell ended.

Wolfram gave a deep sigh. Neither he nor Kolost said anything. The sight had been too awful for speech.

When Kolost finally spoke, his voice was harsh, almost unrecognizable. “What were those creatures?”

“They are called ‘taan,'” said Wolfram. “I heard about them at the monastery. These are the same creatures who sacked Dunkar, killed many hundreds, and enslaved hundreds more.”

“What was that other creature, the one that looked human.”

“He was a half-human. A gods-cursed mixed breed.”

“I have never heard of these ‘taan' before. Where do they come from?”

“No one knows. The Void, maybe. Dagnarus, Lord of the Void, brought them to this land, or so I have heard. They serve him.”

“Then this Dagnarus is the one who has stolen the Sovereign Stone, the one who is responsible for the deaths of the Children.”

“So it would seem,” said Wolfram.

“At least we have found out why there were only eight bodies. They carried off the ninth child. What will they do with her, do you think? Why didn't they kill her?”

“You saw what happened when they tried to take the Sovereign Stone,” said Wolfram. “The magic of the Stone prevented them from touching it. They could see that the girl touched it and that it wouldn't hurt her. My guess is that they think she has some power over the Stone, and that's why they took her. Hopefully, if they believe that, they'll do their best to keep her alive. And that gives us a chance,” added Wolfram, grimly determined.

“A chance for what?” asked Kolost.

“A chance to rescue her and recover the Stone.”

Kolost gestured to the embers that flickered in the firebox. “But this happened months ago. They could be anywhere—”

His words were cut off by a shrill shriek of anger and an all-too-familiar voice.

“I will go where I please! Keep your filthy hands off me. Wolfram! Come out here this minute! I said don't touch me, you dwarf, you. If you do, I'll swear you'll be sorry. You don't want to see me angry—”

“The Wolf save us. It's Ranessa!” Wolfram groaned, and raced out of the tent.

R
ANESSA! DON'T!” WOLFRAM SHOUTED, HAVING VISIONS OF
her shifting into a dragon right there in the middle of the plaza. “Ranessa?”

He looked around, bewildered. He heard her voice, but he couldn't see her. Then a dwarf female with long, untidy black hair came storming toward him, brandishing her fists at the other dwarves, who were attempting to stop her and pausing every now and then to kick at them or take a swing.

At the sight of Wolfram, she cried, “Thank goodness!” and shifted to her human form.

The sudden transformation of the dwarf female into a human female achieved one objective. The dwarves who had hold of her let loose and fell back, muttering among themselves. Several raised weapons, and those who were not armed picked up stones and sticks.

“Girl, you mustn't—” Wolfram began.

She brushed his words aside. “One of those things was here! I saw it.” She pointed. “It was standing right over there, near that tent you came out of.”

“One of what things?” Wolfram asked, thinking she might mean a beast-man.

“Like the thing that tried to carry you off,” she said, her eyes dark with anger. “Like the thing that killed Lord Gustav. What did you call it—”

“A Vrykyl?” Wolfram gasped, the hair pricking the back of his neck beneath his helm. He still wore his Dominion Lord armor, but armor hadn't helped Lord Gustav. The Vrykyl had stabbed him right through it. “Do you still see it?”

“No. I was going to go after it, but these nincompoops wouldn't let me pass. I tried to reason with them”—Ranessa rounded on the dwarves, who were slipping up on her from behind—“but the thing must have heard me shout, because when I looked for it again, it was gone.”

“Let her be,” Wolfram ordered, waving his arms at the approaching dwarves. “She's with me. I'll answer for her.”

The dwarves eyed him askance, none too certain of him either, this strange dwarf in his fancy armor. Kolost came to back up Wolfram, assured the dwarves that he had the situation well in control. The dwarves retreated, but they kept a suspicious watch on Ranessa and on Wolfram.

“What is she upset about?” Kolost asked.

“There was a Vrykyl here,” said Wolfram. “One of those Void knights I was telling you about. He was listening at the tent.”

“If Void creatures walk the streets of Saumel,” Kolost said grimly, “we will find them.”

“No you won't,” said Ranessa. “He was disguised as a dwarf. I could see through it, but that's because I'm a dragon.”

“Keep your voice down!” Wolfram said sharply. “We're in enough trouble already.”

“So how do we find this Void knight?” Kolost asked.

“You don't want to,” said Wolfram earnestly. “Trust me, Kolost. There's nothing you could do to harm it. Just hope it got what it came for and that it went away.”

“But what did it come for?” Kolost demanded. “The Sovereign Stone is gone.”

The unpleasant thought occurred to Wolfram that perhaps the Vrykyl had come for him.

“You didn't get a feeling that Vrykyl was following us, did you?” he asked Ranessa. “You know, the way you felt the last time the Vrykyl followed us?”

“No,” she said positively. “We were not followed. Besides, Vrykyl can't fly. Can they?”

Wolfram didn't think so, but he didn't know that much about their habits, and he didn't care to find out.

“What was it doing by the tent?”

“Eavesdropping,” Ranessa answered readily. “The Vrykyl had his head plastered against the side. He was listening to what you were saying.”

“Now that's damned odd,” Wolfram muttered.

What possible interest could a Vrykyl have in his fire-scry? Wolfram couldn't figure it out, and he decided he wasn't going to let it bother him. He had a task ahead of him. He would concentrate on that.

“It sticks in my craw to think of that child in the hands of those monsters,” Kolost stated, his dark eyes shadowed with anger.

“Mine, too,” said Wolfram. “Not to mention the Sovereign Stone.”

“Yes, the Sovereign Stone, of course,” Kolost agreed, almost as an afterthought. He looked back at the tent, his brow furrowed.

Wolfram regarded Kolost with amazement. The clan chief continued to astonish and impress him. Any other clan leader's first thought would have been of the valuable jewel, not the orphan child.

“Well, girl, we'd best be off, before you start a riot,” Wolfram stated. “We're
walking,”
he added with emphasis, thinking he detected by the gleam in her eye that she was planning to shift into her dragon form on the spot.

Ranessa looked sullen, and he knew he'd guessed right. “I don't like this place,” she said, casting a disparaging glance around through the tangles of untidy hair. “And I don't like these people. And I don't like being a dwarf,” she added accusingly, as if it was Wolfram's fault. “You are all so…so short.”

Kolost fell into step beside them. “You're going after the beast-men, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Wolfram said.

“The trail will be cold now. How will you even know where to start looking?”

Wolfram shrugged. He was busy keeping an eye on Ranessa.

“It seems hopeless,” said Kolost. “Still, the Wolf walks with you. The Wolf will show you the way.”

At the edge of the plaza, Kolost came to a halt. “I wish I could come with you, but I am needed here. In my absence, Sword Clan and Red Clan have started a war. I'm going to have to go knock a few heads together.”

“Good luck,” said Wolfram.

“You, too,” said Kolost.

As they separated, each man said silently to the other, “You're going to need it.”

 

The Vrykyl, Caladwar, had been an elf when he was alive. He would have agreed with Ranessa, in that he found wearing the guise of a dwarf to be tedious in the extreme. To an elf fond of licentious living, the self-denying lifestyle of the Unhorsed was incredibly dull. Caladwar came to hate the dwarves so much that he couldn't even take pleasure in killing one, for that meant he'd have to crawl into the dwarf's skin and be filled with a flood of depressing memories. Caladwar feared he was going to have to go on being a dwarf for the rest of his undead life, but, fortunately for him, the dwarven Dominion Lord turned up, and Caladwar was able to secure the information his master had been so desperate to acquire.

It was not the appearance of the dragon that had sent Caladwar running off. Caladwar had been a member of the Wyred before he turned to the Void. He held a high opinion of his own prowess in magic—an opinion that was not unjustified. Caladwar could have fought the young and inexperienced dragon, and probably defeated it. Caladwar wasn't interested in fighting dragons, however. He wanted only to get out of this horrible dwarf skin and back into his own. He left the plaza because he was eager to relay the information to his lord, and then leave this godsforsaken place.

Dagnarus had sent Caladwar to Saumel to secure the dwarven portion of the Sovereign Stone. Caladwar had arrived only to discover that someone had beaten him to it. He'd reported that to his lord, who had been furious and ordered Caladwar to remain in Saumel until he found out the identity of the thief.

Caladwar had tried casting his own fire-scry, hoping to use his magic to reveal the culprit. His plans were thwarted by the Void, which was supposed to be their ally, a fact that Caladwar found extremely perplexing. Someone out there was challenging Dagnarus for mastery of the Void. And now Caladwar knew who.

Reaching his dwelling place, Caladwar placed his hand on the Blood-knife and sent forth an urgent summons to Dagnarus.

The Lord of the Void was not quite as prompt to answer as he had
been before he became the ruler of Vinnengael, and Caladwar fumed in impatience. He reminded himself that Dagnarus was in the public eye, surrounded by people most of the day and well into the night.

“Be quick,” Dagnarus said, his voice coming suddenly and unexpectedly. “I don't have much time. What have you discovered?”

“I know who stole the dwarven Sovereign Stone, my lord,” said Caladwar smugly.

“You had better, or I would not thank you for bothering me,” Dagnarus returned coolly. “Dispense with the dramatics and tell me.”

“The thief is K'let, my lord.”

Silence as empty as the Void met his words. When the silence continued unbroken, Caladwar grew worried. He needed to obtain permission to leave the dwarven city, and he'd not yet received it.

“My lord?” he questioned. “Are you there?”

“Are you certain?” Dagnarus demanded.

“I am, my lord. A dwarven Dominion Lord performed a fire-scry in the tent where the dwarves kept the Stone. I could not see the vision, but he and another dwarf spoke of it afterward. The Stone was taken by three taan warriors and a half-taan slave. You would have found this amusing, my lord. The taan were not aware that the magic of the Stone would punish them for touching it, and so they—”

“I find none of this amusing.” Dagnarus cut him short. “Tell me this—do these taan have the Sovereign Stone?”

“They left with it in their possession,” said Caladwar.

“By K'let's command?”

“The taan spoke of K'let often. But how could K'let know the whereabouts of the Stone?”

“Side by side we fought many times,” said Dagnarus, quietly, remembering. “I saved his life. He saved my dream of conquest. We were different races, yet of one mind. Of all the Vrykyl I ever created, he alone understood me. I forgave his defiance, because it is what I would have done myself. I could not forgive his rebellion. I would have taken care of his people. He should have trusted me…”

In other words, Caladwar thought, Dagnarus himself had told K'let how to find the dwarven part of the Sovereign Stone. If Dagnarus had not told K'let directly, he'd been careless of his thoughts, and the cunning K'let had read them through the Blood-knife.

“Yes, Caladwar, this is my fault,” said Dagnarus, and Caladwar cringed.

“My lord, I did not mean—”

“Enough,” Dagnarus said. “This may yet work to my advantage. The Stone means nothing to K'let. He cannot make use of it. He cannot even touch it. He has taken the Stone because he knows I will come for it. And so I shall. And so I shall…”

“What are your orders for me, my lord?”

Please let them be far away from here, Caladwar pleaded silently.

“You will return to Tromek and assist Valura and the Shield in his war against the Divine.”

“Yes, my lord! Thank you, my lord. I will leave at once.”

Caladwar was halfway out the door, the Blood-knife still clutched in his hand, when his lord's parting thoughts came to the Vrykyl's mind. Caladwar tried not to hear, for he was fearful that Dagnarus might change his mind and order him to remain in Saumel. The Vrykyl could not very well help hearing, however. He realized, with a sigh of relief, that the Lord of the Void was not speaking to him, but to the rebel.

“You have made a mistake, K'let,” Dagnarus said, and his calm was more frightening than his rage. “I would have overlooked much from you, but not this.”

Hastily, Caladwar thrust the Blood-knife back into its sheath. He took care not to touch it again until he was safely out of dwarven lands and on his way back to Tromek.

 

Wolfram and Ranessa spent three days flying around and about the southern tip of the Dwarven Spine Mountains, searching for the trail left by the taan. Three months had passed and the trail was as cold as yesterday's porridge. But all Wolfram needed was a campsite or the remnants of a fire. Once he found that, he could determine by his scrying if the fire had been built by the taan, and from that he would know which direction they were headed. Find one fire and it would be easier, so he reasoned, to find the next.

He figured, logically, that the taan would travel to the west. They had come from the west, from Dunkarga. The taan were still fighting in the west, in Karnu. The taan would naturally head back in that direction with their prize. If Wolfram had known of the taan's fear of water,
he would have not wasted his time searching along the shores of the river. He did not know, however, and so he assumed that they had crossed over by boat. He and Ranessa spent several days gliding slowly up and down the riverbanks, searching for the remnants of a campfire. They found several, but each time he did the scrying, he saw only parties of dwarves.

Ranessa thought the search boring. She complained during the day, sulked through the night. She threatened every hour or so to return to the monastery, with or without Wolfram.

The third night, after another day of searching that turned up nothing, he and Ranessa sat around their own fire.

“I want to talk to you,” she said abruptly. “We've wasted another whole day flying up and down this blasted river, and I'm sick to death of it.”

“You didn't have to change out of your dragon form to tell me that,” said Wolfram, poking the fire. “Why do you bother?”

“Because we're going to have an argument,” said Ranessa, her dark eyes glinting.

Wolfram snorted. “We're always having arguments, girl! What's that got to do with shifting your form to a human?”

“Because,” Ranessa said loftily, “dragons don't argue with the likes of you. It's demeaning.”

Wolfram heaved a sigh. “I don't suppose I'll be able to get any sleep until you've had your say.”

“No,” said Ranessa.

“Very well, girl. Get on with it.”

“Two days ago, you'd never heard of this dwarf child,” stated Ranessa. “No one cared for her before this happened. I don't see why you should start caring about her now. No one cared about that blasted Stone, either, for that matter.”

“I'm doing this for that very reason,” said Wolfram.