The Gates of Thorbardin h2-5 Page 7

  "Another gnome machine?" Chess wondered. "What do you suppose it was for."

  "Old," the wizard nodded.

  "Very old," something unseen seemed to agree.

  "A siege engine," Glenshadow said. "They kept building them until they got through the wall."

  "Who did?"

  "Gnomes. Who else?"

  "What did they want?"

  "What Gargath had. The source of all magic."

  "I never heard of a gnome using magic," the kender pointed out.

  The wizard frowned and seemed to shudder. "We had better go on," he said.

  Beyond the wall the path pitched steeply downward and entered a forest so dense that the light of the moons was only a patchwork through interwoven branches.

  "I'd just as soon make camp here," Chane said, then went silent as the singing voice came again, this time much nearer. Someone just ahead was singing in a language none of them knew. The singer's tonal range was tremendous, the voice so utterly lovely that it caught their breaths and tugged at their hearts.

  A siren? Chane thought and realized it didn't matter. The voice held him in thrall, and he couldn't have turned away if he had wanted to.

  Beyond the trees ahead was a glow of firelight, and the voice seemed to be coming from there. They hurried on. The slope lessened to level ground, and the trees ended abruptly at a circular clearing. The black gravel of the path ended at a clean-swept expanse of black flagstone paving — a circular band of ebony stone nearly one hundred yards across. Thick, short pillars of red granite stood like sentinels around the circle at brief intervals, and within the circle of black was a circle of white, then another of black. The concentric pavings narrowed toward the center, where stood a tall, cone-shaped monolith with a small, dim object at its apex.

  The firelight came from wood fires set in wide sconces at the four points of the compass, on the inside faces of the surrounding short pillars. The travelers stood where they had stopped, peering around, trying to see detail in the erratic light. In the semi-darkness around the circle, shadows moved. "Cats," the dwarf noted. "Dozens of them. They must live here."

  The kender peered into the gloom, then straightened and pointed. "Wow!

  Look at that one!" Chane looked. A breeze flared one of the flames, and his eyes widened. Beyond the paved clearing, cats were everywhere. And among them was one, huge even by comparison with the others. Half again the size of the rest, it stood staring directly at the dwarf, great golden eyes thoughtful in a massive indigo head capped by a flowing, snow-white mane.

  The wizard seemed to pay no attention. He gazed instead at the monolith, his eyes ranging upward toward its top. The crystal device on his staff no longer looked like a crystal. Its luster was gone, and it was a dull, opaque gray in color. "The temple of Gargath," he muttered. "Where the graygem was entrapped."

  "What?" Chane glanced around.

  "This is where it happened," Glenshadow said, as though talking to himself. "Up there… is the Spellbinder."

  "Woe," something voiceless mourned.

  The impatient kender had scampered away, out toward the edge of the paving for a better look at the huge, white-maned cat. When it noticed him, he backpedaled, reversed his course, and went to have a closer look at the obelisk. He disappeared beyond it.

  "There's somebody here," Chane decided. "Somebody keeps these fires, and somebody made that song." He looked toward the hut beyond the obelisk.

  "Maybe…" Then he turned again, alerted by movement close by. A creature like nothing he had ever seen had stepped onto the pavement. She was far taller than Chane, taller even than the wizard.

  Her skin was the color of midnight and caught the light in patterns of indigo and ebony that flowed sensuously over a face and form beautiful almost beyond beauty. Her hair was silver-white, long and flowing, and the single garment she wore — a brief tunic caught at one shoulder and falling to her sleek thighs — seemed to be woven of spider silk.

  Chane stared, open-mouthed, stunned by her beauty as he was stunned by her song. Never had he heard such a voice — the power of thunder and the gentleness of summer clouds resonated in perfect balance as she seemed to sing to each of them separately, yet all at once. Never had he heard such a voice, and never had he seen a creature so hauntingly lovely, or radiating such intense, patient power. The dwarf had the feeling that she could crush him with a touch if she chose… or could touch as softly as a butterfly landing on a petal.

  Behind and above Chane, the wizard whispered, "Irda."

  Almost without changing, her song became speech. "Welcome again, man of magic," she crooned, "to the place where magic fails. Is this the one? The

  Derkindescendant? Holder of the destiny?" Great eyes in an ebony face turned to Chane, perusing him with a gaze very like the gaze of the great cat moments before.

  The dwarf's heart thumped as he realized they were the same eyes.

  "Shapechanger," he breathed.

  "Of course she is a shapechanger," the wizard said. "I told you, she is the Irda. She can take many forms."

  "Welcome, small warrior," the Irda crooned. "The moons have promised that you would come, following the path of your — "

  Another voice, far less enchanting, shattered the spell: "Come look at the back of this thing!" Chestal Thicketsway called. "There's something like a stairway, and…hello? Who is this?" The kender scampered toward them, then stopped and blinked as the Irda turned to regard him. "Wow!" he finished lamely.

  "This one is no Hylar kin," the Irda chuckled.

  Chess blinked again and gave the tall, stunning creature a slow gaze from top to toe and back. His lips pursed in a low whistle. "Wow," he said again. Then, "Chestal Thicketsway's the name. I'm a kender, from Hylo.

  What on Krynn are you?"

  "Inquisitive," the Irda murmured. "I am Irda, little one."

  "I wondered what you'd look like," Chess nodded. "My great-uncle,

  Tauntry Rimrunner, used to talk about the Irda. I must say, you don't look anything like an ogre."

  Chane whirled on the kender, offended and astounded. "What a thing to say!" But a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

  "Ogres and the Irda," Glenshadow whispered, leaning close, "a long time ago, they were the same people… before ogres became ogrelike and ugly.

  They aren't at all the same any more."

  "The cats are gone," Chess noted suddenly, turning to look all around the clearing.

  'They won't bother you again," the Irda said. "They have seen you with me, and I've assured them. They've gone now to patrol the valley. Waykeep likes its privacy."

  "Those cats are a pretty effective way of discouraging visitors," Chane noted.

  "Come to my home," the Irda beckoned, turning away. "There is sweetnog for refreshment, and we can talk in comfort." She headed for the hut among the trees, and they followed.

  Chane paused for a moment as he passed the monolith, and looked up toward its top. A strange feeling gripped him, an intuition that raised the hackles on his neck and sent a shiver down his spine. Just for an instant, he felt as if something atop the monolith had spoken to him… something that awaited him, that called out to him. He felt as if he had been here before, though he knew he had not. And the feeling of the place was like the feeling of his dreams.

  "Is this the place?" he muttered, to himself. "Is this where I find the helm?"

  A large, gentle hand rested on his shoulder, and he jumped, then looked up at the Irda, standing beside him. 'What you seek is not here, Chane

  Feldstone," she crooned. "But here is where you will begin your search."

  Again she led the dwarf away, and he noticed that her movements — the sense of great strength in her easy, graceful stride; the lithe, sensuous ripple of smooth muscle beneath shining ebon skin — reminded him of the flowing grace of the great cats that were her companions.

  "In ancient times, in the Age of Dreams, this was a place of men," the

  Irda told them. "And magic was un
known on Krynn. So say the oldest legends. Then, from the realm of gods, came the graystone gem, and with it magic… and chaos. Some say the god Reorx gave to King Gargath the means to trap and hold the graystone. Whether or not that is so, Garath did capture it with a device of two crystals — one to find and hold it, the other to counter its magic."

  "That's what the wizard said," Chestal Thicketsway interrupted, sipping from a goblet of warm, sweetnog the 'Irda had provided. "Only he said there was one crystal — "

  "Hush," Glenshadow snapped. "Just listen."

  "Gargath held it for a time," the Irda continued. "Then it was lost when the city was besieged by gnomes, with great siege engines."

  "So that is what those junkheaps are," the kender commented.

  This time it was Chane who hushed him. The dwarf reached across the table, grasped the kender's tunic, and lifted him off his stool. "Just shut up and listen!" he demanded.

  The Irda continued undaunted. "One legend has it that when the graystone was freed, its magic caused some of the gnomes to become dwarves and kender, thus originating the two races."

  "Rubbish," Chess snapped. "No kender's akin to dwarves, and we sure didn't come from gnomes."

  "Rust and corruption! Chane chimed. "Dwarves were here first. Everybody knows that."

  "Will the two of you shut up!" Glenshadow rasped, his voice the stuff of blizzards. "Just… shut up!"

  "But I've been slandered," Chess said.

  The wizard's eyes glinted like ice. He pointed his staff at the kender and muttered, "Thranthalus eghom dit — " and suddenly went silent. Though

  Glenshadow's lips continued to move, no sound came out.

  'That was a mistake," the Irda said, sympathetically. "The anti-magic in this place is very strong."

  "Very strong," something unseen echoed.

  The kender stared at the wizard. "What's the matter with him?"

  Chane leaned close, seeing the stricken look in the man's eyes. "I think he tried to cast a spell," he suggested. "It must have backfired. He's hushed himself."

  The kender cocked his head. "I wonder how long he'll be like this."

  "I don't know." Chane shrugged. "It's his spell. Speaking of which, I wish you'd find a way to hush yours."

  "My what?"

  "Your spell. The one that's following you around. It's spooky to hear something complaining all the time when there's nothing there."

  "Be wary of that spell," the Irda said. "Its power is so great that it must happen, eventually."

  "You've met my spell?" The kender grinned. "Actually, I guess it isn't mine, but it has become attached to me."

  "I know of it," the Irda nodded. "It has been in this valley, waiting to happen, for two hundred years. Ever since dwarves fought near here in the

  Dwarfgate Wars."

  "111 bet that's where all those frozen dwarves came from," Chess noted.

  "This was where Fistandantilus first interceded," the Irda told them.

  Chane shuddered. "Fistandantilus? The archmage? He was here?"

  "Here first, then at the final battle, two ranges west of here, on the

  Plains of Dergoth," the Irda told the dwarf.

  "That's where Grallen's army was wiped out," Chane noted. "I've heard that story all my life."

  "Both armies were wiped out by the fourth and greatest of the elemental spells Fistandantilus cast," the Irda said. "The first three spells were cast in the preliminary battle, here in the Valley of Waykeep. Elemental spells. The first was fire, the second ice…"

  "Burned forests under ice," the kender breathed. "I saw that. What was the third one?"

  "No one knows," the Irda shrugged. "It became entrapped in the anti-magic of this place, and hasn't happened yet."

  "Woe and misery," something voiceless said.

  "You mean him?" Chess looked around, needlessly. "I mean, it?"

  "Your unexploded spell," she said calmly.

  "Wow," was all that Chess could say.

  Chane tapped the tabletop with his goblet, growing impatient. 'What does all this have to do with me and my dreams?"

  The Irda studied him, her eyes luminous. "I told you that there were two crystals in Gargath's device. Only one remains up there now. It is called

  Spellbinder. Its presence is the reason that magic often fails in this valley.

  The other crystal, Pathfinder, was found by Prince Grallen of the Hylar

  — "

  "Grallen? But he died in the Dwarfgate War."

  "Grallen, son of Duncan, King — the last king — of Thorbardin. The wizard knows of your dreams, Chane Feldstone. What is the thing that you have dreamed of finding?"

  "An old helm," the dwarf said. "A battle helmet, with horns and a crown-spire."

  "And a crystal at its brow?"

  "Well, yes. A sort of green gem."

  "That green gem is Pathfinder, Chane. The helm is Grallen's, and your dreams have been more than dreams. Grallen learned something about

  Thorbardin on his way from here to his last battle, at Zhamen — what is now called Skullcap Peak. He learned that there is a lost entrance to

  Thorbardin, and had he lived he would have found it and sealed it. But he died. At present, armies are amassing in the north… their forward units already invest key areas in many of the nearer lands."

  The Irda paused and a shadow crossed her face. "There will be war. The ogres know, and what they know I also know. Very soon, Thorbardin will be surrounded by devastation. That is why you have dreamed, Chane Feldstone.

  Your dreams are Grallen's spirit, calling to you, trying to tell you what must be done. You are to find Grallen's helm and take up Grallen's quest.

  You are to seal Thorbardin's lost gate."

  The kender smiled, his bright eyes gleaming with excitement. "Wow," he breathed. "I'm really glad I came along."

  Chane simply stared at the Irda, at a loss for words. Finally he asked the only question he could think to ask: "Why me?"

  Glenshadow tried to speak, rubbed his throat and tried again. "You…" the wizard croaked. He coughed, scowled, and tried to clear his throat. In a hoarse voice just above a whisper he said, "Because you are Grallen's kin, Chane Feldstone. You are the last of the line of Duncan, King of

  Thorbardin."

  Chapter 8

  "Zap," said Chestal Thicketsway, as much to break the silence as for any other reason. Almost a minute had passed since Glenshadow's pronouncement, and nobody had said or done anything since. The three creatures around the kender seemed frozen in place — the dwarf standing stunned, trying to understand what he had just been told; the Irda remote and infinitely patient, waiting; the wizard bleak-eyed and gloomy as though he had spoken the prophecy of his own doom.

  When none of them reacted to his word, Chess shrugged and prowled about the little building's interior, looking for anything that might be interesting. "Zap," he said again, to himself. "I'll call him Zap. Good a name as any for a spell that hasn't happened."

  "Need to happen," something grieved.

  "Well, I'd just as soon you detach yourself from me before you do," the kender said. "I don't even know what kind of spell you are."

  "Old," something mourned.

  "You've made that clear." Chess peered into a shallow cabinet containing many pigeonhole shelves. Shadows made it hard to see what the shelves contained, and he reached toward them, then withdrew his hand when he felt the Irda's eyes on him. He turned. "Just looking," he grinned. "Maybe I should go outside and look around." Kenderlike, the thought immediately became the action. Chess strode to the door of the hut, pushed it open, and darted out, closing it behind him. From his first glimpse of this place, the place of the Irda, Chess had been fascinated by the tall obelisk in the stone-paved clearing. Now he went to it again, directly to its north face where he had found handholds and toeholds leading upward.

  He had intended to see where they went, but seeing the Irda had made him forget that, momentarily.

  The marks in th
e north face of the monolith weren't really a stairway, only a series of shallow indentations set at regular intervals up the precipitous stone face. For a curious kender, however, they were ladder enough. Chess slung his hoopak on his back and started climbing.

  In the distance, in moon-shadowed forest beyond the Irda's clearing, he could hear the rumbling purr of cats on patrol. And somewhere far away, a hint of sound carried back on errant breezes, a raucous bird-voice cawed,

  "Go away!"

  The hand-and toeholds went up and up, and Chess clung and climbed. Near the top, he could look out and see the moon-bathed tops of the forest, the dark walls of the valley beyond to east and west. Then, abruptly, there were no more indentations in the face of the cone. With the top of the monument almost within reach — no more than ten feet above — there was only sheer, smooth stone and nothing to cling to. Chess hunted around for something that his fingers could grasp, his toes brace into, or his hoopak reach. There was nothing. In frustration he clung there for long minutes, then sighed and accepted defeat.

  "Isn't that just how things go?" he muttered, beginning a reluctant descent. "Probably the most interesting thing in this whole place is right there on top of this spire, just sitting there waiting to be looked at.

  Naturally the stairs don't go quite far enough. I wonder what it is, up there…might be something valuable, if a person could just reach it.

  What kind of ladder heads for the top of something and then just stops, just that much short? What kind of sense does that make?"

  "All things have reason, little one." The voice was the Irda's voice, low and incredibly sweet. Chess nearly lost his hold, turning to look. She stood just below, watching his descent.