Cara was slow to rise from bed. Her second round of dreams had been gentler than her first, but she was left with sense of unease. Her father was absent when they broke fast, off touring the Grand Bazaar with Malaad. Halfi had sent them a meal of hard marbled bread with thick cream, roast partridge stuffed with shallots and sweet ground herbs, and a hot cream soup of yak tail seasoned with cloves. Cara’s stomach had grown slightly thicker from the hearty fair served by the dwarves, and so she resolved herself to go for a walk outside after she ate.
Besides wanting to restrain the expansion of her midriff, she missed seeing the sun, and everyone but her was busy that day. Hale had gone on a snow lion hunt with Ror, Buri and Neri. Klar was with the Chieftain of the Guilds, an old dwarf named Urum, learning the ways of each guild. She was being groomed as his replacement, a prospect Cara found herself envious of. She had been feeling increasingly unsatisfied with the ways of her kin, as she saw dwarf women engaged in all manner of worthy endeavors. Smiths, explorers, tenders of beasts, overseers of enterprise, there was little division between the sexes in Thrond, save that only men served in the army.
“I met a lady knight,” her mother said as they ate alone together. Yemi had come to collect Istan and Gislain earlier that morning, with Audun in tow. Yemi had sweetly invited her to come along, but she knew the children would have more fun without any adults tagging along. Besides that, Cara had grown tired of their company. She loved her little brother and sister, and Yemi was sweet, but their childish behaviour and Audun’s antics at the play had soured her.
“Truly?” Cara asked, moderately curious.
Her mother shook her head excitedly. “Her name is Rykka Voluspa. They call her Bloody Rykka.”
“Is she fair?”
“Well,” her mother chewed thoughtfully on a mouth full of hard marbled bread, “she has a certain prettiness to her, I suppose. She’s quite large and strongly built. I took her for a man in her armor.”
Betha entered the dining hall and curtseyed. “Her Dread Majesty is here, Your Grace.”
“Oh show her in Betha. Halfi!” Her mother rose and went over to Halfi, then leaned down and hugged her fellow queen. “Come and sit with us. I wasn’t expecting you to come for me. I hope I’m not late.”
“No,” said the dwarf Queen, “I just longed for your company. I had the most marvelous time at the wedding feast. I hope the food wasn’t too filling.”
“It was,” said her mother, “but I gorged myself anyway! I’m so grateful you found time to spend with me today. I know how occupied you are. So much more than poor Cara and I.”
“And I envy human queens at times. Well, not all of them. I can’t fathom how poor Nandi keeps her tempestuous people in check.”
“Are the Aradaani as fearsome as people say?”
“They have to be, to keep the Janissi in their thrall. But they’re noble hearted, for all their fierceness. A burning land and a people with burning hearts, they say.”
“And hot heads.”
The two queens laughed. Cara felt lost. She tried to keep up with the banter between her parents and other monarchs, but she knew so little of the matters they quipped about.
Halfi turned to Cara and reached across the table to give her hand a squeeze. “Klar wanted me to extend her apologies. She feels dreadful leaving you unaccompanied for an entire day.”
Cara smiled meekly. “Thank you Dread Majesty. Let her know I’m quite alright. I am eager to see her again soon, but Thrond needs her.”
Halfi smiled. “You are such a sweet creature, Cara. May I join you two?”
“Of course,” said her mother. The queens spoke as they ate, their conversation fluttering from one topic to the next, as if their speech were a pair butterflies inspecting every flower in a field. It seemed to Cara that at times they spoke in code, using certain names and words to hint at hidden meanings. She knew her father had such words. She had learned many when she was a child, back when he was less discreet. She always laughed to herself when he spoke to Dennel of his architects, or his barrister. She knew the architects were drow emissaries who came rarely and at night, and that his barrister was a dwarf from Heth who advised him to engage in this scheme or that. There were two secret words of his she did not laugh at, though, and hoped never to hear. Nimbus was the worst. Stormcloud, it meant normally, but when her father spoke it it meant the stormclouds of war. Once when she was small, High Alden sent soldiers to liberate Corn Hill from the Dead Crows.
The bandits had lookouts hidden in the fields of elk grass outside the free city, and they abandoned Corn Hill to storm their castle while the bulk of their forces were away. She was sleeping in a chair in her father’s solar while he read from some old book, and Dennel had come in warning of a nimbus. “What manner of nimbus?” her father had asked. “Sanguine,” Dennel had replied. Nimbus Sanguine. Any nimbus was bad, but sanguine was the worst. They’d survived the assault, of course, and drove the bandits off, killing half of them. It was an awful memory for her still, as the Dead Crows had managed to climb the walls and a few made it into the inner ward. She remembered the sounds of steel hacking into flesh and crashing into bone, and had buried her head in her mother’s skirts. Hale had been a gallant boy, standing guard with the soldier’s Dennel left with them in the Pillar of Autumn. He would come back to the divan they were all huddled on and ask their mother how Cara and Aunt Idana were faring, then return to his post by the door, training sword in hand. Cara did not remember how they won, but she remembered seeing Dennel adding a red star to his shield.
Dyer was the other word she shuddered to hear. There were many dyers in her realm, to be sure, but there was one who produced only one color of ink; red. She’d never met the man, and never wanted to. He was called The Hood, and she’d heard his face was a ruin of burns and knife scars, and that he never washed, and had a pack of wolves that obeyed his every whim. Fortunately he was rarely spoken of, at least in her presence. She tried to pretend her father was above using such men, and would only send him against their enemies to prevent open war. She knew war was a bloody business, and that Dennel, Noxi and Ser Walsh had all done loathsome things when the joy of battle was upon them. Still, assassins and catspaws sent a shudder through her. An army you could see and defend against, and soldiers went home to their stables and farms when war was done. But a hired blade hid in the dark, beneath one’s bed or within one’s bower, and a hired blade killed for coin, or worse, for the thrill. The Dyer is a Nimbus Sanguine all by himself, she thought.
“Cara,” her mother said, “sweetness, are you well? You seem distracted.”
“Oh,” she stammered, “just deep in my thoughts. I was up late reading the Book of Stars.”
“Oh good,” said Halfi, “I’d hoped to acquire a copy for you when I’d heard how much you loved their troupe, but I never managed to speak to the Director. My son’s liquor got the better of me, I’m afraid.”
“You’re so very kind, Dread Majesty.”
“Please call me Halfi, dear Cara.”
“If it pleases you, Halfi. Uhm, Halfi?”
“Yes, Cara?”
“Has there ever been blood on your gate? The outside one, Malgond. Great big smears of it? And has the gate grown… erm, I mean, have you made it larger in recent years?” Cara felt her mother’s embarrassment, even though she acted as if nothing were amiss. Halfi wore her confusion as plainly as she wore her nose. “Not since I’ve come down from Nirmo,” she replied. “Well…”
Her mother looked up. “Have the doors of Malgond been expanded?”
“No,” Halfi said plainly, “there’s neither a need nor a way. They’re made of everglass, a substance lost to time, and as much a mystery as black mannarim. There is a tale unique to our edition of the Book of Tides that tells of Malgond being smeared with blood. It happened when dragons and gryfons held dominion over the world. They prevented the six kins from ever growing strong, and only our people were able to thrive, living safely within Obrus.
“The dragons and phoenixes warred against each other, and fought their final battle directly over Mount Obrus. According to the legend, the dwarves of Nastrond lured them there and goaded them into fighting each other, and the king of the phoenixes and queen of the dragons were the last to perish, clawing each other to death right outside the gates of Nastrond. The legend says that their blood stained the gates for all time to come, and their bones were buried in different places; the dragon queen deep beneath Obrus and the phoenix king high atop Esper, the floating isle. Our copy of the Tides tells that It’s a sad tale, but one of my favorites when I was a girl.”
“What’s it called?” Cara asked.
“The Wings of Ruin. I can loan you a copy of our book, if you’d like, to read while you’re here.”
“I would like that very much,” Cara said eagerly.
“Cara’s always loved fables,” her mother said.
Cara wished that were it, but she felt so unsettled by the strange things she’d seen. The blood on Malgond, Ror riding a ram made of shadow with six stone horns, and Halfur on a wolf made of fire, and the soldiers in bleeding armor with their fallen comrade’s heads mounted on their flails. “I’ve been seeing strange things, Dread Highness. I’m sorry mother, but it’s gotten worse and I need help. This is not usual for me, and it began when I first saw Malgond from a distance.”
“Please, Cara,” Halfi said in a sweet tone, “tell me what you’ve seen, and how it made you feel. And know that you are not alone. There are places in this world where certain powers stir, and Obrus is such a place.”
“Ror mentioned the ohr. And… Hale found a small stone of black mannarim. I don’t know if that could have anything to do with these, visions I’ve been having. Does balck mannarim possess the ohr?”
“Possess the ohr? No. Nothing possesses the ohr. The ohr is simply part of the world, as far as we can tell, and Obrus seems to be a font of it. White mannarim from the deep mines has absorbed it over time, but all that’s done is give it a glow.”
“Speaking of mannarim,” said her mother, “has anyone seen Balvor or my wedsister? They’ve been absent since the wedding feast.”
“I saw them both this morning, on my way here. They were walking on the outer terrace looking down on the Sholai. Poor Idana was wrapped in so many furs she looked like a gnoll. The wind coming up from that glacier is so cold it burns. Cara, would you hold onto your thoughts for just a few moments. I want Audun to hear of your visions. He has a wonderful mind for solving puzzles. Why not fetch your stone while I have him sent for?”
Speaking of mannarim? Cara wondered at her mother’s words while she went to fetch her black stone. She was beginning to form a theory about her aunt’s necklace. It seemed frightening to her, to think that the dwarves could forge a metal so impenetrably strong and fantastically light, especially if they used it for weapons and armor. If her speculation were true, then she was all the more glad for their burgeoning friendship with Thrond.
She was not glad, however, that she was being asked to bare her unnerving dream to Audun. There was something about that boy that deeply irked her. The way he almost never spoke, how he hovered around Yemi as if they were betrothed, and went straight to her when Kylie had used the men’s privy, and how Yemi, of all people, had to keep a constant vigil on him. He’s two years older than I am! Cara didn’t care if dwarves aged more gradually than humans, twenty years and two was plenty long enough for a person to learn how to behave.
Audun was some time in coming. Halfi had sent three porters to check the areas where the children might be, and one other to inspect a couple places they were not meant to be, but likely were under Yemi’s mischievous guidance. Halfi examined the black stone while they waited. Cara was impressed at the dwarf queen’s eye for detail. She caught many things Cara had not, but when she peered closely she could discern only hints of what Halfi had described. No wonder they craft and forge so well. Cara held out the stone after a time and offered it to the queen. Halfi took it from her hand and closed both of hers around it tightly. Cara saw the muscles in Halfi’s hands flex, the veins between forefinger and thumb filling with blood. She must be a fair hand with a sword, Cara thought. She wondered what it would be like to be so strong. To be able to lift a laden oxcart out of mud as if it were a whicker basket full of rushes, or wield a sword while wearing a heavy travel bag on her back.
She had noticed certain things about the dwarves since coming to their realm, how they stood and moved without signs of doubt or fear. “They listen with their backs,” Dennel had said. It was true. Cara easily caught frights when walking the dark tunnels and low roofed passages behind the main plazas and halls of the citadel. Any sound she didn’t expect would send her heart leaping in a scream out of her mouth if she let it. A dwarf knew a space was safe when they’d crossed, simply by virtue of the fact that they’d crossed it. Hale had commented also on how they chewed the ground with their feet as they walked. They seemed like giants of the old northern tales only in miniature. Hale had asked who could stand against the King of Graves. She believed Ror could, or Lobuhl, or Grar or the big mean one with all the warpaint, or even Balvor if adequately provoked. If the King of Graves threatened Idana, he’d hurl an oxcart at him.
“What are you doing, precisely?” her mother asked Halfi as she kept squeezing the stone tighter.
“Getting a feel of its surface,” she said. “It’s marvelously smooth. It has the texture of black mannarim for sure. I had to climb up the Titan’s arm more times than I cared to back when Yemi was small. As soon as she could stand she’d already grown bored with walking, and so she took to running instead, and climbing came shortly after. I once found her clinging to a chandelier. Anyhaps, this feels much the same as the Titan’s Arm, only not quite so old.”
“You can feel a thing’s age?” her mother seemed dubious. It seemed a far slung notion to Cara as well.
“Well,” the queen said, “I know how older ores feel, and this feels fresher. Give me your hand,” she set the stone back on Cara’s lap and held her mother’s hand in hers, pressing against her knuckles with her finger and thumb. “Do your wrists ache?” she asked.
“Yes,” said her mother, a mix of suspicious and impressed, “yes they do. How can you tell?”
“Because I see you rub them often,” Halfi laughed as she spoke. Her mother laughed along with her, and Cara would have as well had the door not suddenly opened.
“One of the porters has returned,” Betha said. Audun pushed passed the porter and her mother’s handmaid and stopped abruptly in front of Cara. She had not been this close to him before, and seated as she was her head was only a hand’s height above his. She could see plainly now what caused the strangeness in his appearance. His head looked slightly misshapen, an accident with his birth perhaps. His eyes were mismatched, as well, one being bronze and the other copper. It was a slight difference, but once Cara had seen it it was ever present. Most unnerving to her was how the boy refused to look her in the eye, even though he stood but an arm’s reach from her, and the way he continually rocked back and forth on his feet.
This is going to be arduous, she rued. She began her story, starting with her first sight of Malgond. Audun snatched the stone out of her hand the moment she spoke, causing her to suck in her breath. Halfi opened her mouth to reprimand the boy when he looked at Cara wide eyed and spoke.
“My apologies,” he said in his eerily gentle voice, “may I hold it? I enjoy stones.”
“So does Cara,” her mother said.
“I know that already,” Audun replied bluntly.
This time Halfi was quicker. “Audun, Yselde is a Queen, and my wedcousin. Show her honor.”
“Apologies, Your Grace. Yemi… her Dread Highness told me your daughter likes stones. She said she took your daughter to the dancing stars.” He turned to Cara excitedly, though his eyes drifted just out of the way of hers. She noticed one of them drifted slightly further than the other. Is there anything not wrong with this child? She forced a smile. “They were lovely. Perhaps we can go again, and bring you.”
“No,” he said, “uhm, no Your… Highness.”
“Why not? You enjoy stones. That whole room is a stone.”
“The light hurts me. I’ve been near, but I always have to turn back.”
The light hurts him? His oddities never end, do they? Cara fought the urge to roll her eyes, understanding why Halfur was so quick to do so in Audun’s presence. Though to be fair, Prince Halfur rolled his eyes at everyone. Cara had thought it amusing at first, until she’d caught him rolling his eyes at something Hale had said. She could understand if it were something the children had said, or even her, as she often tried to speak with princes of princely things, and admittedly knew little of a man’s role in the world. But Hale was a prince, and well on his way to being knighted. What reason could Halfur possibly have to balk at anything her brother said?
With a hidden sigh Cara told of Malgond’s bloodstained appearance. Audun looked to Halfi wide eyed at the mention of the blood. “From the battle!” he was rocking back and forth so fast Cara thought he’d fall. “Did you see claw marks?” he asked her. “I’d love to see a phoenix! They’re real, you know. And dragons. We just don’t have them in our time, so we use their names for other things. Dragons breath fire, and horde treasure, so any time there’s something people need that’s difficult to get, they say a dragon guards it. And did you know that in Canthor and Ronehelm, dragons are a symbol for time? Those two kingdoms are so far away and believe the same thing! I think they have the same Tides is why. The Book of Tides has all the answers, but lots of questions too, though. Like why are the Titans numbered the forty six and the two? Why not just say there’s forty eight of them? I’ll figure that out some day, when I’ve made my own complete version of the book. Half.. erm, Queen Halfi’s helping me make it. It’s going to have all the Tides in it, and then I’ll know how we’re supposed to...”
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Cara’s eyes widened at Audun’s flood of speech. She knew not how to respond, so she simply feigned a smile and nodded her head while the boy rambled on. When it became apparent that he had no intention of ceasing his wending tree of thought, Halfi prompted him to let Cara continue. Well, Cara thought, I’ve learned what it takes to get him to speak, should that ever be desired. When at last Halfi got Auden to stop his verbal avalanche, she hesitantly resumed her tale. He rocked excitedly during everything she told of her dream, until she mentioned Kylie trying to wake Ser Rowsby from sleep. He then dropped to the ground and lay on his back.
“He’s dead,” he said gleefully. “Bonked his head. He bonked his head and now he’s dead.”
“Audun,” Halfi said sharply, “stand up and listen. You’re being strange. Even more so than usual.”
Cara restrained a sigh, then explained to the little oddling what the red stars on Dennel’s shield meant, and how he’d been painting over them.
“Remember what I told you outside the black gate,” her mother said, “how Dennel would prefer his shield have no red stars at all?”
“That’s true,” Cara was hopeful. She wanted an explanation to the dream, and she wanted it to mean nothing more than her thoughts straying the way thoughts were oft to do during sleep.
“Seeds grow in the night,” Audun said, rocking back and forth on his bottom and swirling her mannarim stone in his boyish little hands. They were small for a dwarf boy’s and soft as well.
Cara forced a quick smile, then continued. Audun was unphased when she recanted her castle crumbling to pieces in front of her, and merely nodded approvingly when she described Obrus as a dragon belching lava and blood into the air.
“My mother is a beast,” he said softly.
“Audun!” Halfi seemed embarrassed. “It’s true, though. She’s an awful woman. Alright, boy, let Cara finish her dream.
She thought hard as she came to the end of the dream, doing her best to recall every detail. She feared how her mother and Halfi would react to the voice that told her to go to Eruhal, but she told of it all the same. Then she finished with the drow child with his one hand full of worms, and the other a blood-kissed knife.
The queens offered their guesses, that the drow boy holding worms and a knife were from the thoughts Noxi had planted, and Obrus’ wound representing the death of Yevn, Grar’s wife before Halfi.
“The whole kingdom was shaken,” Halfi recalled. “And poor Klar. She mourns her still.”
“How did she die?”
“Heat death,” said Audun.
Cara raised an eyebrow. “Father told me the heat death was a sickness men caught in the deep mines.”
“It is,” Halfi said.
“She erupted,” Audun made a motion with both hands, raising them quickly and tossing Cara’s stone into the air, “like a volcano!”
Halfi sighed and shook her head. “Klar was slowborn. You see, Cara, some dwarven children grow very slowly in the womb. It's a rare thing, and some say it passes through blood lines."
"How long?" Cara asked nervously. Child bearing frightened her. She had a very slight figure and did not care to see blood. The thought of carrying a child in her tiny body for any longer than three fourths a year seemed a nightmare.
"A normal dwarf child is carried for three years," Halfi said casually. Three years?! Cara shuddered. "And slowborn infants can take up to six," the queen continued, "or sometimes even nine. The birthing process is always difficult with those children. If they survive they tend to be among the strongest and healthiest of us, but it is always a hardship on the mother. Yevn was weakened awfully by the ordeal. I've been told the heartsmiths hung over her like the sun hangs in the sky, both day and night, until Klar was three years old."
"Your twins gave you quite the row,” her mother said.
"That, was entirely Ror's doing. That boy came out of me like a hurricane, complete with a tidal wave of tears and screams. Halfur, on the other hand, was quite discreet. I wouldn't have known I'd birthed him if the physicians weren't watching for his egress."
Cara had a dismal thought of two big, broad shouldered baby boys rolling about in her. "But you recovered, clearly."
"Oh yes, but having twins is no glacier hike. And it struck me a touch harder than most mothers. I was bedridden for a number of months. But I fared better than Yevn, the poor creature. I remember seeing her when Grar brought them both to Nirmo. I’d seen Grar before, and his brothers. My brothers now. They’re all such strong men. I remember seeing Grar standing tall and proud, and Lobuhl with his grim face and hard lean body, and Balvor’s big shoulders and bigger smile. I always pictured the Queen of Thrond to be a woman like our sweet Rykka. But there she was, wrapped up in her blankets and cloak, so timid and frail.”
“So she didn’t die while birthing Klar?” Cara asked, remembering the quiet answer Klar gave when she asked if she'd ever killed anyone.
“Not during, no" Halfi replied. "She lingered on for a number of years, greatly weakened by the ordeal. This tale pains both Grar and Klar very deeply, so I beg you never to mention it in their presence. Grar was working hard to bring a better life to Nirmo. He’d brought wagons of goods with him, reasoning that if our basic survival was not so urgent, we could attend to higher learning. He and Lobuhl drilled our generals and army chief in how to discipline our rabble of murderous brigands into disciplined soldiers, while Balvor taught droves of our children how to read. I learned from him as well, though prively, as I was too ashamed to learn in front of others. My husband was jealous, claiming Balvor was trying to woo me away, as if I needed to be wooed away from that monster. Akihud challenged Balvor to single combat over the matter. The fool.”
“Did Balvor defeat him?” Cara asked, grateful the conversation had shifted from her dream. Audun had gone to his hands and knees and was rolling her stone across the floor, chasing after it and rolling it back the other way, like the dogs in the throneroom did with bones tossed to the floor after they’d supped. If he loses it, I’ll have Halfur get him to him to eat rocks again.
“Balvor never fought Akihud” Halfi said. “His response was the most striking thing I’d ever seen. My former husband is not a large man, but he’s strong as a serpent bull and fierce as a viper. Balvor is no weakling, but he has the heart of a kitten, not a warrior. So he bowed almost to the ground, made a gracious apology, swore to stop tutoring me, then rested his big strong hand on Akihud’s shoulder, right beside his neck, and begged for his forgiveness. He even called him brother.”
Cara’s face was alight with joy. She wished she could see Balvor do such a thing. The man's smile was infectious, and his great physical might somehow made him all the more affable. But it's his sweetness that fells his foes. Well done Auntie, well done. “What did your husband do then?”
“Well,” Halfi’s face took on a somber aspect, “Akihud was not completely without virtue, not back then at least. He respected Balvor for how bravely he spoke, and withdrew his challenge. He treated the Narhim men graciously afterward. He forbade me from spending any time with them, though, and had me shut away in my chambers until they left.
“Oh my, it’s been so long since I’ve told anyone of these tales, I’m losing track of myself. Yevn, the poor thing. Grar had returned to Thrond and was already planning his next journey north. She’d asked him to stay for a time to be with her and Klar, but Grar’s progress with Nirmo was fragile and he was loth to pause, even for a few months. He decided to bring Yevn and Klar along on his next journey so they could both have their way. Yevn was far too shy a creature to resist him, though she should have. She was far too feeble for such a journey. Her heart gave out on the road as they began their trek back to Thrond, within sight of our gates. Akihud permitted me to be wherever Yevn was, so I was there to say farewell. I saw her fall to the ground.”
“What happened then?” Yselde and Cara asked together.
A wave of pain and shame washed across Halfi’s face. “I never knew until I came here and heard the tale, how Grar carried her out of sight of our gates, and he and Klar wept over her there for three days. My kinsman did nothing but turn and walk back through the gate, japing about how they were surprised she hadn’t died sooner. And I, I said nothing, and I did nothing. I followed Akihud back into our mansion and spent that evening by the fire in my bedchamber, reading from the Book of Tides for comfort, like a child.” Halfi looked over to Audun as he raced back and forth across the floor, swatting her stone back and forth without letup. “Alright boy, time to earn your keep. What sense can you make of Cara’s dream?”
“None”, he said dismissively, still playing with the stone.
“What do you mean?” Halfi was stern with him. “How can you tell me none? She told the dream in vivid detail.”
“I’d have to read it.”
I sat here and relived these troublesome visions, at risk of sounding a proper fool before my mother and Queen Halfi, and suffered through this oddling child acting half his age with MY stone, for nothing? Cara wanted to throw her arms in the air and storm out of the room. But instead she tried to appear undisturbed, and sat patiently.
“Why would you have to read it?” the Queen persisted.
“Words have a shape,” Audun said, still playing with her stone, “I need to see it.”
Halfi’s mouth formed a thin, tight line across her face and she swallowed hard. “Audun, Cara told you something that worries her, and it took great courage for her to do so. Now, you’re the cleverest young man I know, so please at least try to understand what Cara’s dream meant.”
Audun’s eyes instantly welled up and tears poured down his cheeks, clinging to the sparse hairs in his wispy little beard. His face turned the color of a stubbed toe, and he opened his mouth wide as soup bowl and howled. “I don’t know I don’t know I can’t… I can’t…”, his loud, pitiful sobs slurred his speech until his voice was an infuriating stream of whimpering. “I tried but I just can’t…” he whined on and on. Halfi apologized profusely to Cara and her mother, then lifted the wailing little runt into her arms and carried him out of their apartment.
Cara slumped forward and buried her face in her hands. “I want to strangle that little monster!” she shouted.
When the servants had cleared the table, Cara abruptly announced that she was going out of Thrond to mingle in the camp.
“Give my regards to Dennel,” her mother bid her. Dennel had remained in the outside camp with Noxi after the wedding feast. Apparently he’d had some dwarven liquor and made a fool of himself. Poor Dennel. His tongue loosened as all men’s did when they were in their cups, but Cara had only ever heard him speak the truth in those moments. Some men sailed further from the shores of reality with every draught, but Dennel merely lowered the draw bridge between his lips and his heart. Cara resolved to go seek him out so that they may comfort each other. And of course she looked forward to seeing Noxi as well. She could use a good laugh.
Malgond was closed so she was lead out of Obrus through a small tunnel used by messengers and guildsmen. She did not have to search far for Noxi or Dennel. Noxi was overseeing the clearing away of some boulders that had fallen over the stream they’d been watering their animals in, and Dennel was just exiting a very lavish pavillion covered in rich fabrics of every sort and color.
“Princess!” Dennel flourished.
“Who’s gaudy tent is this?” she nodded toward the pavillion.
“Surely you can guess.”
Of course. “Malaad’s?”
Dennel nodded and smirked. “He’s a prince in his own mind. Your father’s inside. Were you looking for him?”
How would father respond to my dream? Cara decided she didn’t want to trouble her father with something that was most likely for nought. “Nay, no need to bother him. I’m sure he and Malaad have important things to discuss.”
“Trade propositions. For… things that dwarves make. I drift off when I hear talk of coin.”
Cara smiled again. The air was cold save where the sun splashed over her. She had to squint heavily, but she was glad for its heat. Looking about the camp, she noticed the players’ caravan was missing. “Where are the Stars?” she asked.
“Gone, Princess. They departed just before dawn.”
The news made Cara sad. She’d hoped to spend more time getting to know the players. Are we not daughters of kings? Klar’s words echoed in Cara’s mind. She would have to make her own arrangements to see the Stars again. A gust of crisp alpine wind sent her hair on a voyage across her face to disrupt her thoughts. Between her wayward curls and her squinting against the sunlight she could scarcely make out a lean figure speedily approaching her. She hurriedly pulled her hair away to see who it was, but when she looked there was no one there. She turned to Dennel and Noxi sprung forward with his hands open. Cara yelped so loudly she worried her father might come out of Malaad’s tent and scold her.
“Noxi,” she said breathlessly, “you really are tempting me to have your head off.”
“I’ve given you ample reason, Princess,” he lowered his head and bared his neck. Cara raised an eyebrow at a bright chain of amethysts dangling from his right ear. She reached out and held it in her fingers. It was the finest chain of gems she’d ever touched. “Did you buy this from Malaad?” she asked. The gems were impossibly small, yet cut so that the sunling gleamed off them as brightly as it would a pane of glass. The stones were so closely bound that she could not tell where the strand that held them was, yet they moved lightly, and gave no sign of being strung too closely together. It was as if the jeweler had somehow spun a thread out of pure gemstone.
Noxi laughed. “Dennel has bits of corn in his plops more valuable than anything that tub of pudding has up for hawk." He rose and unclasped the chain from his big ear, then handed it to her. “These is dwarf jewels.”
She closed her fingers over the chain and rubbed them together. The amethysts felt like grains of sand in her fingers, yet smooth as silk. She peered down to look closely at the cut of the gems. They were so minute that all she could see was sunlight bouncing off their every surface like a rainbow in a hall filled with mirrors. “It’s beautiful,” she said under her breath. “Wait a moment. Noxi, this was in your ear. What’s happened?” She looked at Dennel and noticed a new scar across his left eye.
“Gnolls,” Dennel said quickly.
“Aye,” Noxi said in a queer tone, “gnolls. We helped fight them off, as we was in want for a diversion. The dwarves were grattitudenous for our help and gave us gifts. Dennel got a nice new shield and some red paint for it, and I got this new bit of clink.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re both alright. Was anyone hurt badly?”
“One of the dwarves was injured,” said Dennel, “and there were some other goblins in the fray, old friends of Noxi’s it turned out. They were tracking the beast and tipped off the dwarves. One of their number perished in the battle.”
“All of you against one gnoll?”
“Forgive me, Highness?”
“You said Noxi’s friends were tracking the beast.”
“Oh, forgive me. I meant to say beasts. So what brings you back to the outside world, Princess? Are you and the Dread Highness betrothed yet?”
Noxi’s eyes opened so wide they looked as if they would fall from their sockets. “Oy! The princess is betrothed to the dwarf prince!”
A man was drying a fishing net over a fire and almost dropped it onto the flames. Two women were pounding a stake into a mound of hard soil; one holding it while the other struck it with a mallet. The woman with the mallet nearly struck the other in the foot and they both gaped at Noxi’s words.
He took both her hands in his and leaped foolishly in the air. “Which one is it, Princess?” he asked loudly. “Is it the wolf or the ram?”
Just then two things happened at once. Her father did hear the shouting outside and burst from Malaad’s tent, looking at Cara with an expression of joyful shock. She would have swatted the back of Noxi’s head and explained away his jape, were it not for Halfur and Lobuhl leading a troop of soldiers into the camp. They surrounded her, Dennel and Noxi, and the first three rows of men lowered their spears.
Cara looked at Halfur. He drew in a deep breath, and seemed to be making an apology with his eyes, casting an accusing glance at his uncle. Lobuh’s face bore its standard hateful scowl.
“What’s the meaning of this?” her father demanded. “Lobuhl, explain yourself. How dare you come into my camp and threaten my household?”
“I’m not threatening your daughter, Sally,” Lobuhl’s deep, airy voice was glacial cold.
“Then raise your spears!” her father was furious. Their own soldiers were nervously gathering, loosening their swords in their scabbards and lifting partisans from racks. The rear row of dwarves turned as one to face them, but Lobuhl raised his hand and they stood down. Cara’s heart was racing. Every fearful thing Hale had said to her was circling about in her mind. What’s happening? What could possibly be causing this?! Obrus stood, rising from its haunches and shaking the snow off its back. Its eastern foothills lifted from the ground and whipped around like a lizard's tail, and the Brow split in two and spread like a pair of wings. No! Cara closed her eyes tightly, desperate to make the vision go away. Walk with me, said the Voice. Her eyes shot open. The dwarves were outside the camp and making their way back to the mountain. They had Noxi with them, bound in manacles. Halfur looked back and met her eyes, a look of woe on his face.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped. “Daughter,” her father said, “what’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?” she was incredulous, and afraid. What was the matter with her? She was wide awake and she saw the mountain come alive, and she’d even heard the Voice. “What about Noxi?” she didn’t want to talk about her visions or the Voice. Not here, not now, not ever.
“Noxi won’t be harmed. Lobuhl was simply being... over zealous. He and I aren’t overly fond of one another...”
“I don’t care about you and that contemptuous ass of a Prince not being fond of one another. Where have they taken Noxi? And why?!”
“Cara, don’t worry yourself over…”
“My friends? Because that’s what Noxi is, father. I know he’s a goblin and was a sellsword with no honor and he’s not truly one of us, but he means as much to me as Dennel, or Hale, or Gislain, or…”
“Or me?”
“Father...”
“Noxi won’t be harmed, my dear sweet daughter. Prince Halfur assured me of that. He's been accused of aiding agents of Goblin Town in an act against Thrond. I can say nothing more.”
“Goblin Town? Father, Goblin Town is leagues and leagues away from High Alden. Noxi hasn’t been there in ages. He has served us loyally since…”
Her father drew her close and embraced her, placing a hand on the back of her head. She only then realized that she had been trembling violently. Sweat poured down her forehead and she was burning with fever. Her father lifted her in his arms and began carrying her to Malaad’s pavilion, bellowing for his physician to be summoned immediately.
Cara saw the world above her growing dim. Dennel followed closely, looking down with worried eyes. As the old knight blurred into three, Cara’s vision drifted from him to the morning sky. The Titan’s Torch burned above, ever watchful now, even during the day. The blue center flickered gently, then burned bright, overwhelming the red for just an instant, a distant cloud of living light that glowed a deeper blue than the sky around it, and for the span of a thought, it was ringed by a wheel of violet flame.
Walk with me, the Voice repeated. “Who are you?” Cara murmured aloud. She heard faint voices that she hardly recognised, voices from outside, muffled and distant. They cried out to her, asking questions, telling her to hold on. “It’s me”, one of them was shouting mutely.
I am a memory, said the Voice, the light of a distant star, and I will see you through the storm. Her eyes had closed and the voices outside were fading into a soft pulse, and she saw with the eye of her mind a web of branches stretching across the sky, wending their way about and forming a protective dome. She tried to reach for them, to see if they were real, and then she knew nothing.