Haven 5 Blood Magic BOOK (6 page)

Gudrin herself stood among them, fists planted upon her hips. Her sky-blue eyes were alight, as fiery as the blasting red heat of the Earthlight. Upon her brow no hint of hair remained, all of it having been burnt away during her early experimentation with Pyros. Now that she had attuned herself to the Orange Jewel however, the one thing she was immune to, in any form, was heat. She knew she could walk into the magma of the Earthlight itself unaided, and swim in it like a warm lake without harm. She had not yet dared such a thing, but knew that it was possible for the master of Pyros to perform the feat.

She watched with swelling pride as the groaning cranes and roaring Kindred hoisted rattling cables and pulleys into place. The vent itself had been reforged where it lay after Fafnir had dislodged it. Proudly, Gudrin herself had provided the fantastic heat it took to melt an alloy so hard, so ancient, that it had withstood the breath of magma for a thousand years. Only Pyros could produce such a dexterous tongue of flame as was required. She did not know how her ancestors had managed the job without the Orange Jewel.

Like an artist with a stylus of fine brilliant flame, she drove a white beam of fire from her extended fingers at will. She had first carved a new hinge for the vent, a hinge so great and massive that the pin alone was thicker than the trunk of any tree that grew upon the world. Ancient metal melted like wax before her stylus of flame, and when she looked upon the finished hinge, she felt as might a sculptor gazing upon her masterwork.

Now that the vent had been reforged, and the hinge had been welded back together with the fantastic heat of Pyros, they were ready to lift the structure into place.

All eyes fell upon Gudrin. She raised her fist slowly upward above her scarred, bald head. She extended her fingers then, flinging them wide with a sudden thrust. A gush of fire shot up, red-orange, from her open hand. The ballooning puff of flame rolled a hundred feet up toward the cavern ceiling, resembling the triumphant exhalation of a great dragon.

A tremendous cheer went up from the Kindred, all of whom wore heavy leathers to protect themselves from the heat, save for Gudrin. Obeying her signal, a thousand pairs of arms convulsed, a thousand backs hunched. But the real power came from the ticking machinery they had so carefully deployed.

The mechnicians opened great valves atop the fat-bellied boilers. The boilers had been rebuilt of fresh shining brass, and they had been stoked to bursting with superheated steam. The steam, coursing through huge pipes, pumped against pistons and forced them to move. With a screeching of new metals, massive cogs were forced to rotate. Cunningly laid axels spun huge gears. Each gear pressed against another, increasing the slow, but inexorable, power of the lifting mechanisms. The slack cables drew taut. The straining Kindred could not possibly lift the massive weight, being as it was a mile-long length of dense metal. Only machines, properly engineered, were up to the task. The clockwork engines applied impossible torque, straining to lift the fallen blade of the Great Vent.

It took hours, during which none of the Kindred faltered. They sweated, they grimaced, and they gasped in worry when something swung loose or snapped taut, but they did not fail in their duties. Not a single one of Gudrin’s people succumbed to the deadly heat, or the grinding strain of their efforts. Sweat poured from brows and into their beards, but long before a rivulet of salty perspiration could reach the tip of any beard, it was blasted away to vapor by the fantastic heat.

Finally, after what seemed a hazy, dream-like time of collective effort, the topmost blade of the Great Vent reached the hinge. With a final heaving, clanking effort, the massive structure was locked into place. During the zeal of the lifting, few had spared a word except to shout a harsh warning or command, but now a ragged cheer went up. The noise rose to a frantic pitch. It was a wild, exhausted sound. The sound of prideful, unbridled joy. It was the first such sound to be heard since the effort had begun.

Dozens of Kindred collapsed then, cheering even as they sagged down onto the burning ash heaps. Some of those that fell died, their stout hearts giving out in their moment of jubilant triumph. But Gudrin knew that they had died proudly, for every one of their leathery faces was later found locked in a grinning rictus, their exposed teeth full of hot grit.

“My Queen,” said a voice beside her.

Gudrin didn’t acknowledge the courier at first. She had noted her approach during the final stages of the lifting. The courier had come from the broken citadel, which still served her people as a seat of government until such time as she rebuilt it. A message from that direction could not be good. Little good news came to any monarch in haste, and so far, Gudrin had never experienced a messenger with gleeful tidings.

And so, to savor her triumph, possibly one for which she would be remembered long after her passing, she ignored the messenger and stood gazing proudly at the Great Vent. Tonight, there would be
nightfall
, and every fresh babe in the Earthlight could sleep soundly, knowing that their Queen had made it possible to sleep in a cool dark place once again. No longer would the red heat of the Earthlight plague them without respite.

A dozen clanmasters, every one of them in fact, came and gave her a hearty clap upon the back. Unlike other monarchs, such familiarity was not only acceptable to Gudrin, it was relished. The Kindred could be stuffy about some things, but a fine day’s work was to be hailed loudly and long, and hopefully with a great mug of ale in a stone tankard to wash it all down.

Finally, as the messenger shuffled from foot to foot, Gudrin heaved a sigh. She turned and faced the youth. The messenger was young and female. She had worry in her eyes, which told Gudrin what she already knew. The message carried grim tidings.

Gudrin snatched it from the messenger, growling her thanks. The girl bowed swiftly and trotted away, her cloak rippling behind her, and mounted her waiting mountain ram. She clattered away on her steed, no doubt glad to get away from the searing heat of this place.

Gudrin hesitated further before tearing open the seal on the scroll. She waved to a passing cartsman and took a cool jug of ale. She downed a great deal of it, gulping. She might be immune to the heat of this place now, but she had still eaten a great deal of ash and grit, a sensation made no more pleasant by the Orange Jewel that hung around her neck.

Thirst quenched, she tore open the scroll and rolled it out flat. She squinted at it, turning her back to the Great Vents so their lurid red light could illuminate the text.

She blinked, realizing the scroll was from the River Folk. It was from Brand himself, not from their foppish council. That part was both good and bad. It was good that Brand took the time to communicate with her directly, but bad that he felt the urgency to do so. Also, possibly, it meant he didn’t trust his own people with the information he passed on.

She read quickly. The scroll told of Myrrdin’s warnings. It gave no specifics, but said that the enemies of the Kindred, fearful of what they might do once their city was repaired, were gathering armies. Brand also mentioned his fear that Oberon was involved, and that those who had grown accustomed to having great power were jealous of those who now newly wielded it.

Gudrin rolled the scroll back up tightly. A few prying eyes were denied their chance to investigate. She nodded and pursed her lips. Brand grew wiser with every passing year. He had maintained his alliance with the Kindred, and did so most tightly. Brand did so knowing, she felt sure, that her people’s response would be in like kind.

And Brand was
correct
. The Kindred valued no trait greater than that of unfailing loyalty! Had not her own brethren proudly dropped dead not an hour earlier striving to repair the Great Vents? They had sacrificed themselves
gladly,
out of dedication to their people and to their queen. She did not take their deaths lightly. They would be feted with many silver hammers in the morning, and sent on their final journey into the cone of fire. Their dedication, their loyalty to their queen and comrades, these things defined the very
essence
of what it was to be one of the Kindred.

She tried to dampen down her pride, to think more clearly. Pyros, like all the Jewels, tended to get one worked up, especially when it was recently wielded. To help settle her thoughts, she drew a second mug of ale and drank it much more slowly while she marched back toward the broken citadel.

Behind her, a number of courtiers followed at a discreet distance, knowing that she was deep in thought. They desperately wanted to avoid interrupting her thoughts. The results of such interruptions, when the queen was thinking hard, were often painful.

She soon left behind the bustling masses of workers who still worked hard, testing and lubricating the Great Vent with black, dribbling buckets of graphite. Her work was finished at the vents, so she left the clean up to the Mechnicians. She had matters of state to consider now.

Enemies
, Myrrdin had told Brand.
Old ones
.

Enemies they had all but forgotten. Myrrdin meant creatures from the Everdark, she knew. Wurms, kobolds, elemental armies. They had never really declared peace with them, nor even a truce. They just existed and stayed down deep, far below the Kindred frontiers. Likewise, the Kindred had stayed near the surface and out of the depths, mining only in the highest galleries of thin ore and relative safety. Except for occasional raids by one side or the other, relative peace had reigned for centuries.

Perhaps, she thought, Modi had not been all wrong. Perhaps it was time the Kindred once again turned their eyes
deepward
. If the things that dwelt below their ancient plugs were no longer content to stay alive… Well, perhaps it was high time they were slain.

At the very least, if the enemy mobilized, the Kindred would have to match the effort. They would, in fact, have to grossly exceed it.

She sighed, looking ahead at her citadel of crumpled black stone. Fafnir had done great damage. She had planned to rebuild first, and then extend their construction further. Possibly, she would have ordered a new colony built, a new mountain hollowed out.

But now, their efforts would have to turn to the machines of war. With the aid of Pyros, she knew she could build things the world had not seen for millennia. Clicking clockwork crawlers would walk again. Golems would be animated and armed. Steam-driven ballistic weaponry, long foresworn by her people, would be rebuilt and perfected. Armor of hardened steel would cover every warrior, and axe-blades would be forged that could cut through anything.

She finished off her second ale, smashed down the mug and clapped together her gloved hands. She called for the Clanmaster of the Mechnicians. There would be no resting, no lying about with feet lifted from the floor, not even after such an effort as the reforging of the Great Vent.

There was much more work to be done.

Chapter Six

Jak’s Wedding

By noon, the wedding party had assembled. Brand’s impatience grew with every minute that stretched into an hour. His plans of leaving by early afternoon were torturously shredded by effusive relatives and endless proceedings.

Holding a surprise wedding on an island in the Haven prevented precise timing. They simply had to wait until all the principles were there, and then once they had finally arrived the ladies began an exorbitant period of primping.

Brand, being a farmboy, had never envisioned these delays. He had been to a wedding or two, but never on the hosting end of things. As well, now that he had the vaunted title of
Lord
Rabing, people seemed to expect much more pomp and circumstance from him.

He had to admit, the families had done an amazing job in such a short time. They had brought every festive item they had on their boats, festooning the trees with paper lanterns and rippling gossamer. At night, he knew, the tiny candles in the lanterns would be set alight and the entire garden area would resemble a faerie mound encircled by wisps. That very thought was worrisome in itself, as he now realized this party would indeed stretch on into the night. He was itching to be off and away.

The loveliness of the garden, however, arrested those thoughts in his mind. Jak had done an amazing job. He had been working on the garden since the snows melted away, a few weeks back. Fresh, tiny shoots of grass grew everywhere, thrusting up from the black earth, eager for the sunshine of spring after a hard winter. The trees themselves still had no leaves, but bore thousands of light green buds which would soon explode into full life.

The family had brought the chairs and the wicker archway. He thought perhaps that had come from Gram Rabing’s barn. After all the cobwebs had been whisked away and the whole thing was braided with vines, it looked quite entrancing. Under that arch, Jak and Lanet were married. The ceremony was performed by none other than Old Man Thilfox himself, both giving away his daughter and taking her vows at the same time.

Another surprising thing was the new people. New faces among the crowd, those who looked a bit wide-eyed, wild-haired and generally unkempt. Thilfox had made an effort to bring them, these outsiders who had recently migrated to Riverton. He had invited the head of every family he could find to his daughter’s wedding. He felt that they must be brought into the fold, invited to weddings and such. They must be made to feel at home. There were many of them this spring, many more than there had ever been. Brand eyed them, and occasionally their gazes strayed to meet his, but then quickly flashed away.