The Unwilling Ambassador (Book 3) (12 page)

Ned opened his cloak. "Then you'll need to go into here."

Hywel shuddered. "Perhaps I'll risk it and say I'm your servant."

Ned laughed and closed his cloak. "A good plan." He spurred on his horse toward the town with Fred and Hywel on either side of him, and soon he turned to Fred with a curious expression. "How did you manage to escape the city and the Stars? It couldn't have been easy."

"We flew out of the city and into the bog. The trees were bothering me, so I shot fireballs at them, but that still didn't work because they kept catching so I flew up and surrounded them with barrier magic," Fred replied.

Ned raised an eyebrow. "A fireball? How very peculiar."

Fred froze. Ned saying something was peculiar was never a good sign. "What's peculiar about tossing out some fireballs?"

"Well, the fact that they're balls, and they're made of fire," Ned replied.

Fred blinked. "How's that special? Can't every castor do it?" he asked his master.

Ned leaned in and gave the young man a close scrutiny. "Each castor has their own unique ability. Any castor can create fire, but fireballs happen to be my specialty."

"Maybe I picked it up from being your apprentice?" Fred guessed.

Ned looked ahead and his mouth was set in a firm line. "Perhaps."

Ned quickened their speed and they raced toward the serene city. Inside the city was a different atmosphere.

CHAPTER 13

The other group was having their own troubles in Dirth. They passed through the farmland and arrived safely at one of the entrances to the city, where they found their way barred by a closed gate. Two dozen dwarves stood atop the defensive wall, and a tall one looked down at the newcomers with a sneer on his face. "Whadda ya be wanting here?" he called down to them.

"We want the gate up," Canto yelled back.

"Not until ya tell me what yer wanting here," the guard insisted.

Canto growled. "We've been through this already. If we were a threat we couldn't have been let through the pass."

The guard leader scowled and conferred with the others. After a moment he gave a signal and the gate was opened for them.

Pat sidled up beside Canto as they made their way under the archway. "What if we'd lied about getting through the pass?"

Canto glanced over his shoulder with a scowl. "Then the fools wouldn't have known the difference. The king's sent all the smart ones to the borders in the hopes of keeping threats as far from the stone as possible."

The city inside the walls was a mess of wooden houses with thatched roofs. Each building had been built at different angles than the one beside it so that no block was square and no corner was a simple crossroad. Every barely-definable street corner had a blacksmith's shop, and the market place was a mess of mud and foul-smelling food. Dwarves strolled to and fro, bartering, talking, and drinking until they couldn't stand. Then they would go back for another round of beers. They wore rough leather clothing sewn from animal skin with fur cuffs and necks. The men sported beards, the women sported beards, and Pat was surprised to see the children sported clean-shaven faces. The feet of the kids were covered in stretched hides, but most adults wore leather boots tied together with sinew from beasts. Pat wondered if they wasted any part of an animal.

The grandest part of the city was a giant stone that stuck out of the ground at the center of the city, and upon that the dwarves had built a castle for their king. The structure was circular like the large rock on which it sat, and the walls were made from smaller boulders carved from the top of the parent rock. There were battlements atop the walls, a large moat around the bottom made from diverted irrigation water harnessed from the swamps, and a wide drawbridge hewn from massive trees. There were five towers at equal intervals along the walls; one at the front, and four at each of the corners. Inside the courtyard living chambers rose up over the walls in another circular, stone structure.

Canto breathed deeply and sighed. "Ah, the manly smells of home."

Pat plugged her nose and her voice came out with a nasally accent. "Is that what that smell is?"

Canto quickly sidled up to her and whacked her hand down. "Are you trying to start another war with the entire city?" he asked her.

"No, I'm trying not to pass out," she shot back.

"Then figure out another way less conspicuous or they'll have our heads for insulting them," Canto told her. He glanced around and noticed dwarves peeping out from homes. "They're fearful enough as it is."

"It's probably the stone," Percy spoke up. "I believe Ned said it had strange effects on people."

Pat also noticed that many of the blacksmith shops had closed signs outside the open-front shops, and others were open but the fires in their forges were unlit. Some of the blacksmiths held small lanterns in their hands and swore at small glowing creatures inside the cages. Those were the Helpers, the Stars, and to her the captives. She turned her horse to approach one of the angered blacksmiths, but Canto turned his ass and blocked her path. He cast a warning glance at her and shook his head. "Won't do any good to get into other peoples' business," he warned her.

"But I can't just let them abuse those poor things," she insisted.

"We're ambassadors, and we're not supposed to cause trouble," he reminded her. Pat frowned, but forced herself to look away and back to the city.

"And those blasted bugs aren't improving our lot, so let 'em be shaking 'em," a voice spoke up. The group turned in their saddles to see a dwarf standing nearby with a frown on their face. Pat guessed it was a woman from her other assets sticking out of a very revealing, open-chested shirt. A crow stood on her shoulder and stared at them with its beady eyes. "They're calling for rights when all they are are fancy lighters," she told them.

Canto smiled. "Well, if it isn't Shilo. Yer brother told me ya were still here. He sends his greetings."

The dwarf woman narrowed her eyes and leaned in toward Canto. "Canto, is that you?" she wondered.

He straightened himself in the saddle and puffed out his chest. "Yep."

"You've gotten fat," Shilo quipped. That deflated Canto's ego and his stomach.

Canto sunk in his saddle and cast ugly looks at the dwarven woman. "Yer as blunt as ever," he grumbled.

"And yer no doubt bringing trouble with ya, aren't ya?" she guessed. The crow snapped at Canto, and he reached for his ax handle. She rolled her eyes, and gestured around at the brawling, bartering dwarves. "We've got enough trouble already without yer help. Just look at 'em. Miserable in their wanderings."

Pat looked over the crowds of amicable, if inebriated dwarves, and shrugged. "I don't see a problem," she spoke up.

Shilo frowned at the human girl. "That's just the problem. No ruckus or tussling. Men have all become worse than woman, and just when we need 'em to protect the city and that blasted stone from those damned glowing bugs." The whole group perked up their ears at mention of their objective.

"We've heard about a stone, and wish to see it," Percy told her.

Shilo scoffed. "Then yer going to have ta get in line because everyone else wants to see it, but the king won't let 'em get close. Thinks it's his by his holy right or some such assery, and sealed off the block it's on."

"Could you show us where that is?" Percy pleaded.

The dwarven woman glanced suspiciously among the companions, and her eyes rested on Sins. "Ah don't know about that. As much as I hate 'em right now I don't want any trouble with the king. He's mighty nervous nowadays with that stone sitting there and the best menfolk out on the borders protecting us from thieves. In my opinion he should have kept some to protect us from those damned bugs."

"Bugs?" Pat repeated.

"Those damned Helpers," Shilo rephrased.

"What are they doing?" Ruth spoke up.

"It's what they aren't doing that's the problem. Won't light the forges or our lamps. They just sit in their cages or worse, escape and cause trouble," Shilo told them. "Some escape most every night and break up homes and move furniture. Gets so one can't even walk the streets at night without killing yerself over a cart or crate."

Canto scoffed. "Are the dwarves laid low by a bunch of furniture?" he wondered.

Shilo scowled at him, and the crow snapped its beak. "You'll know their trouble if ya stay here long enough which Ah hope ya don't."

"We don't want to cause trouble. We're just curious to see where the stone is," Pat assured her.

Shilo looked to Pat, and after a moment more of deliberation nodded. "All right, but don't expect this to be free. It's a favor, and Ah expect one in turn."

Canto chuckled. "That's the Shilo I know."

She scowled at him. "The Shilo you knew died the day ya left her. Now git down off yer high-horses and follow me because Ah won't wait for any of ya."

"Why do we need to get down?" Percy asked her. He hesitated to set foot in the mud of questionable makeup.

"Because the king doesn't allow riders in the city, especially with yer human horses," Shilo explained to him. She turned and strode along on her short legs into the maze of streets. The companions hopped down into the mud and followed her along the filthy roads.

Pat sidled up to Canto and nodded at their guide. "Can we trust her?" she wondered.

He shrugged. "As much as anyone," he replied.

She glanced around at the muddy faces who watched them with suspicious eyes. "I hardly find that comforting," she returned.

"In case ya haven't noticed this isn't exactly a comfortable place," he pointed out. "Dwarves are a rough people who don't much care for yer trusting way."

"And clean ways," Pat grumbled. Her nose tingled with the smells of unknown but rancid substances that floated out of the windows of the houses.

"Unless ya got another option fer finding the stone than just looking for it in this maze Ah suggest ya keep yer trap shut and let me do the talking," Canto advised. Pat scowled at him, but ended her questioning.

CHAPTER 14

Shilo led the group close to the front of the castle atop the stone and stopped at a triple-road crossroad. There was the way they'd come behind them, a road in front of them, and one that led to the right that snaked its way up to the castle beyond. A clanging noise of metal on rock drifted down from the road in front of them. "This is as close as we can get without the guards bothering us," she told them. She waved her hand at the road in front of them. "It's up that away in a small square."

"Ah don't remember a rock being in a square," Canto spoke up.

"That's because it was hidden inside a statue someone put there about fifteen years ago. Honored Piako's father, but it's turned into our curse," she told him. "A few weeks ago the statue breaks apart and there's the rock standing there pretty as day and as hard as any substance we ever found."

"And the king hopes to use this metal to create what?" Percy asked her.

Shilo turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "We're dwarves, boy. What do ya think we're going to turn the stone into?"

He sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "Plows?"

"Axes, boy. We want ax heads out of the thing," she told him.

"And has the king been able to get any out of it?" Canto wondered.

"Nope. Been working all night and-" There was a particularly loud clang and they heard swearing.

"Not the sounds of success," Percy quipped.

"There's been plenty of those sounds since they've started working at it, but we can't even chip a splinter from its surface," Shilo finished. At that moment three dwarves walked down the road ahead of them. One was flanked by the other two who held axes with long handles in their hands. The middle dwarf held one of his hands in the other and scowled at the pair on either side of him.

"Ah told ya Ah just need more time at it!" he protested. "Just let me get my hand healed and-"

"The king gave ya until tomorrow to chip off a pebble, and ya haven't even nicked the thing," one of the guards argued. "So out with ya. We'll try somebody else." They stopped at the crossroad and pushed the dwarf toward the companions.

"Thino!" Shilo yelled. He stumbled forward, and Shilo rushed forward and caught him. "What in the world have ya done to yerself now?" The dwarf man raised his head and sheepishly smiled at her.

Thino stood and winced when he flexed his hand. There was a bad cut in the skin a few inches long. "Ah thought Ah'd try my hand at the stone, what with me being a good stone-smith, but Ah missed a swing of my hammer on the chisel and hit meself," Thino told her.

"Ya can't break those things with a chisel and hammer," Canto spoke up. "Ya need something special to do that."

Thino looked to Canto and frowned. "What're ya doing here, Canto?" he wondered.

"Telling ya yer a fool, like Ah've always done," Canto shot back.

"No loitering here!" one of the guards yelled.

Shilo whipped her head over to the guard. "We're not hurting anyone," she argued.