Xomhyrk raises his eyebrows. “Ah!” he says. “You are from Thanerzak's realm, then?”

“Indeed I am,” I say. “Most of our guild is.”

“Sit down, Zathar!” Voltost shouts at me. “You don't speak for our guild!”

“And might you be the guildmaster?” Xomhyrk asks him.

“No. Our guildmaster is at the forge. But I am the most senior member present.”

“I take it you faced the black dragon too, then.”

“I did. I was there when it burned our guildhall, and also when we chased it through the stalagmite forest. It tore my friends apart.”

When Xomhyrk hears this, he falls to one knee and bows low. I frown. I can't tell if he's being geniune or if this is just a show.

“A terrible sight it must have been. I have witnessed the same myself, many times.” He looks back up. His eyes are filled with sorrow—and I think it's real sorrow. “My own guild fell afoul of a dragon when I was younger,” he continues. “Not one so ferocious as the black dragon, but it was a terror in its own right. From that day forth, my life's quest was decided.”

“You slew that dragon then?” asks Voltost.

“I plunged my frozen spear through its molten heart and turned its blood to stone. Yes, I slew it.”

“And you will kill the black dragon the same way?”

“Either I will or one of you will.”

“And if it comes from above?” someone high up at the back shouts.

“You do not fight dragons out in the open. You find a way to lure them into a cave. Usually by means of stealing from their hoard.”

“Suicide!” someone shouts.

“If you think so, then there's no need for you to come with us.” The friendliness in his voice has now gone completely. “I'll be blunt—this will be a difficult hunt. All dragonhunts end with at least a few dead runeknights, and this hunt will likely involve more death than most. But the glory and the riches will be worth it. And, for those of you who've lost friends, family, and homes to the black dragon, your revenge will be worth even more than those.”

He looks at me as he says that. I nod, just a touch, then sit back down.

I'm shocked. I came here expecting a fraud. A dwarf in gilt armor boasting about the dozens of dragons he's slain, regaling us with over-wrought tales of glorious combat. Maybe he'd unroll a section of dragonhide for us, or have dragons' teeth displayed in his beard. Yet he seems sincere. The pain in his eyes—I can believe he's lost friends to dragons.

Maybe he's just good at acting. But his armor makes me doubt that: it's above first degree in quality. The power flowing from it is cold and solid. It gives me the impression that a wall of perfectly transparent yet nigh impregnable ice is filling the air between us.

And his spear! Perhaps I'm biased, since the spear is still my favorite weapon, despite my recent success with Gutspiercer. But Icemite is a terrible weapon and no doubt about it. It's not hard to imagine that tip freezing the blood in a dragon's veins.

“A question!” someone shouts.

“Go ahead.”

“What's the Runeking have to say about you coming here? And the Thanic Guard? If you're so keen for this hunt, why haven't you sought their patronage?”

“Very good questions. The answer is that I did seek the Thanic Guard's patronage, and was rejected. They don't want to risk their guilds and their power on what they think, as many of you do, is a suicide quest.” He shrugs. “And they don't like the idea of someone other than them being in charge either.”

“What about Runethane Vanerak and his Reconquerors?”

“I would've liked to ally with them, but they've been sent too far east and down, and we don't have the time to waste to travel there on what's probably a fruitless endeavor. Runethane Vanerak is not the sort, I've heard, for cooperation.”

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“And the Runeking?”

“I think he would rather Runeking Uthrarzak be forced to deal with the problem.”

Someone else raises their hand. She looks to be a relatively senior runeknight, third or second degree. She wears gold armor with vivid red runes.

“Yes?”

“I have question also.”

“Go ahead. I don't wish to hide anything.”

“How much planning has gone into this expedition? In my experience, quests are often decided before they even start. Food, water, supplies for repairs, the route, number of dwarves and kinds of equipment—if these are not calculated properly, the quest is failed before the first step.”

“Another excellent question. You'll be reassured to know that all my hunts are planned and prepared for carefully.”

“I would like to hear some numbers.”

“The number of dwarves—as many as I can get. Each will carry supplies enough for a good month of marching. Our journey will be longer than one month, of course, so we will have to hunt, forage, and purchase from the humans also. Unfortunately this means an advance payment from each participant in the quest—”

“Fraudster!” someone screams. Angry chatter rises up in the crowd:

“Knew it all along!”

“Here to steal from us!”

“Likely he'll vanish!”

“Thieving bastard!”

Xomhryk waits for it to die down. He's keeping his calm, not issuing any angry denials. When the shouting finally does fade, he says:

“It won't be an especially large fee. And partly it's because I want to keep numbers down only to those who are committed. Those who are serious. Those willing to risk their lives, not eat our food then bail out at the last moment.”

More grumbling arises, but it's more muted. There's logic to what he's saying.

“I thank you for your answer,” says the lady runeknight. “I also wish to know about the route. It's a long way to the Mountain of Halajatbast.”

“Of course.”

Xomhyrk snaps his fingers. It makes a sound like a lake of ice cracking in two. Then, from behind the stage, four of his runeknights wheel in a massive, crystal-clear cylinder of quartz, ten feet in height and three in radius. The audience draws breath as one. My eyes widen in awe. This is one of Runeking Yullel's—predecessor to Ulrike—most famed crafts. It's one of the three relics stored here in the Stadium of the Mind.

It is a map.

“The patron of the Stadium of the Mind is a believer in my expedition,” says Xomhyrk. “He lost friends and business interests to the black dragon. He's generously allowed me use of the old Runeking's map.”

Maps are a rarity in the dwarven underground. Humans, up on the surface, love them—after all, all you need to do to make a half-decent map on the surface is climb the nearest hill and scribble down what you see around. But the underworld is a maze of tunnels. It is no easy task to measure distance and angles in the darkness of a cave, especially if the cave in question is inhabited by vampiric bats and hungry salamanders.

So, few bother to make them, and of those maps that do exist, they are usually nothing but points linked by lines, dense with runic annotations but with little topographical detail. And they omit a great deal out of necessity, because who, even the most committed map maker, wants to venture down every tiny off-shoot, most of which probably lead to nothing but a dead-end?

But Runeking Yullel wanted proper knowledge of his realm and those around it. He had his Runethanes send armies out into every cavern of every realm to record the exact dimensions of every cave they could find.

Within the quartz cylinder is a tangle of dark lines, thin as threads, that denote tunnels. Many then thicken to become caves and caverns. Though I can't be sure, I think a flattish disc near the top, about the size of a golden wheel, is the stalagmite forest and the chasm of Hazhakmar.

I trace a path down. My eyes follow black spirals, jagged turns, climb and dips. The quartz is shaded subtly according to the kinds of rock, and my path goes through pinks and greens and a dozen shades of white-grey. It leads to a black jag dipping into the reddish tinge at the base denoting the magma sea.

That was my decade long journey. Seeing it laid out like this, I can well believe it took ten years. Conversely, I can hardly believe how fast it took the caravan to get us up into Allabrast, the diamond in the map's center. Caravan tracks are unmarked—more than a thousand years ago there weren't so many, and certainly there were no magnetic rails.

Xomhyrk takes a thin aluminum rod from one of his tungsten-clad runeknights and points to Allabrast.

“Here we start, of course. Then we move by the tracks”—he moves the pointer along—“to Runethane Lapak's realm, on the border with the realms of Runeking Uthrarzak. We spiral up, bypassing the destroyed realms of Runethanes Thanzerzak and Broderick, and make our way to the surface. Then we go straight”—he runs his pointer along the green-tinted top of the quartz, until he reaches a mountain at its extreme north—“until we reach the Mountain of Halajatbast.”

More mutterings arise.

“That's weeks of surface travel!” someone calls out. “We'll burn!”

“Not so. It's just become winter, and besides, the further north we go the less the sun will show its face.”

“Winter? What the hell is that?”

“When the weather becomes cold and cloudy.”

Confused murmurs arise.

“Ask someone who's traveled up there if you don't understand. And if you still won't accept the risk...” He shrugs. “Like I said before, I only want the most committed with me.

“Now, to end, I will give instructions for those who wish to join me. Come to my floor in the Crystal Stalactite in the Fireflea District and present your equipment and your gold. Or if you will go as a guild, you can send a representative. All degrees are welcome, though of course I will not let those of lower ranks fight the dragon directly. But there'll be human bandits and wild beasts to fight on the way, so you'll still be able to earn your share of the treasure.

“The fee is fifteen golden wheels. Not a significant sum, but not a paltry one either, for the reasons I've already given.”

He looks across the audience. Some more grumbling starts up, and dwarves rise to leave.

“I hope you join me!” he shouts, ignoring the disbelievers. He raises blue-glittering Icemite high. “Glory, riches, and revenge await those who do!”