Krondor the Betrayal (38 page)

KRONDOR THE BETRAYAL

Owyn said, ‘‘We carry a message from Lady Katala, wife of Pug the Magician, to Tomas, Warleader of Elvandar.’’

The dwarf scratched his chin. ‘‘That’s a good one. I’ve not heard it before. In fact, I’m inclined to believe you.’’

Owyn said, ‘‘Why wouldn’t you?’’

The dwarf pointed at Gorath. ‘‘His kin have been coming down from the North for the last year or better, and we’d forgotten how irritating they could be as neighbors.’’

Gorath pulled back his hood, and said, ‘‘I doubt they feel any more warmly toward your people, dwarf, but the problems between your people and mine are for another time. Right now we need safe passage to Elvandar.’’

The dwarf squatted atop the rock, and said, ‘‘Elvandar?

Well, if you say so. As I understand such things, you’re likely to get even less warm a welcome from your cousins up there than you will from my folks.’’ Looking at Owyn, he added,

‘‘You wouldn’t have any sort of warrant from someone in authority now, would you?’’

Gorath nearly spat with contempt. ‘‘And what gives you the right to ask for such a thing, dwarf?’’

‘‘Well, to begin with, you’re on my land. Then there’s the twenty of my people who have surrounded you while we talked.’’ He whistled, and, seemingly out of nowhere, over a score of dwarves stood up. Owyn saw they all were heavily armed.

‘‘Point well taken,’’ said Owyn. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a message from Katala, bearing a ducal imprint and a countersignature from the Captain of the Royal Krondorian Guard.

The dwarf glanced at it and handed it back. Then with a grin, he said, ‘‘I believed you from the first. Say what you will about the moredhel, they’ve never been demonstrably stupid, and riding in here in plain sight would be exactly that if you were planning mischief. Come along, we’ll escort you into the village.’’

‘‘Village?’’ asked Owyn. ‘‘Are we near Caldara?’’

‘‘Another half hour. You can explain what it is that’s got you in such a hurry to reach Elvandar.’’

‘‘Explain to whom?’’ asked Gorath.

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‘‘King Dolgan,’’ said the dwarf. ‘‘Who else?’’

Nothing more was said as they moved along the trail, and when the cutoff appeared, they followed it down into a small valley, in which nestled a pretty little village. All the buildings were whitewashed stone, with thatch roofs, save a large wooden hall with a heavy log roof which dominated the center of the village. They made for that building, and the dwarf who had led them said, ‘‘The lads will take care of your horses.

The King is inside the long hall.’’

They were at the narrow end of the long hall. Owyn and Gorath mounted stone steps into the building. As they reached the door, the dwarf halted. ‘‘Present yourself to the King. I will see you later.’’

Owyn said, ‘‘Are you coming in?’’

The dwarf shook his head. ‘‘No, I have other business. You’ll be able to find your way. Just follow the passage to the end of the corridor, and you’ll see the King.’’

Gorath said, ‘‘You’ve been hospitable, dwarf. I would know your name.’’

The dwarf smiled. ‘‘I am Udell. I am the King’s younger son.’’

Owyn opened the door and found himself looking down a long hallway with doors on either side, at the far end of which he could see a large room. He moved down the corridor, and when he and Gorath reached the end of the hall, they entered a common room dominated by a large square formed by four long tables. At the closest corner sat five dwarves. One of them stood, and announced, ‘‘I am Dolgan.’’

Owyn awkwardly bowed, and replied, ‘‘Your Majesty.’’

Dolgan waved away the title, and said, ‘‘Just Dolgan.’’ He tamped down a pipe and lit it with a smoldering taper. ‘‘Now, what brings you two to Caldara?’’

Owyn said, ‘‘Lady Katala, wife of Pug the magician, asked us to carry a message to Warleader Tomas in Elvandar.’’

Dolgan raised an eyebrow. ‘‘Tomas is an old and dear friend.’’ With a smile he added, ‘‘An uncommon lad.’’ He glanced at Gorath, and observed, ‘‘You pick unusual companions, boy.’’

Owyn said, ‘‘Gorath brought warning to the Prince that a 264

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leader named Delekhan was mounting an invasion.’’ He went on to explain the entire situation to the dwarven King, who listened without interrupting.

After Owyn was done, the old dwarf sat silently for a while, weighing what he had heard. Then he looked at Gorath. ‘‘Well, my old enemy, answer me one question. Why do you warn your enemies so that we may slaughter your kin?’’

Gorath was silent a moment as he considered his reply, then he said, ‘‘I do not wish to see my kin die. I wish to see Delekhan overthrown. It has gone too far, and too few of us oppose him, but should the Kingdom defeat him, Delekhan will lose his hold upon my nation. Then many of us will rise up and depose him.’’

‘‘Then what?’’ asked Dolgan. ‘‘Another warlord to rally around? Will you take his place?’’

Gorath looked at the old King, and said, ‘‘I think I will never again see the Northlands. Two wives, two sons, and a daughter have I lost. All who are blood kin are dead. I have nothing there. But whatever may occur in the future, well, I cannot speak to that; I can only say that Delekhan must be stopped.’’

Dolgan nodded once, emphatically. ‘‘Well said. We shall help you. During the Riftwar my people would move to Elvandar to fight with Tomas and the elves every year. We have a safe route that will take you close to their border, and from there you can make your way safely to the Queen’s court. I’ll send along a few of the lads to ensure those of your kin and some goblins who’ve been pestering us lately don’t give you any trouble.’’ He stood up. ‘‘Now, rest and eat, and tomorrow we’ll have you on your way.’’

Owyn said, ‘‘Thank you . . . Dolgan.’’

The dwarven king smiled, and said, ‘‘That’s it!’’

Another dwarf, a young woman if Owyn judged her appearance correctly, showed them to a room in the long hall. Gorath hesitated when he stepped inside. ‘‘Something . . .’’

‘‘What?’’ asked Owyn.

‘‘A feeling of . . . call it a memory. Great power was once here.’’

The young woman said, ‘‘Lord Tomas used to rest here when he wintered in Caldara. I can sometimes feel it, too. If 265

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you need anything, just stick your head outside the door and call for me; my name is Bethlany.’’

‘‘Thank you,’’ said Owyn.

Owyn sat on a bed while Gorath looked at the other in the room. ‘‘What they say of Tomas must be true, then, for me to sense the power of the Valheru ten years or more after he slept here.’’

Owyn said, ‘‘Anything is possible.’’ He lay down. ‘‘But right now I need sleep.’’

Gorath watched as the boy quickly fell asleep, but sleep was not something Gorath felt in need of. He left the room after a minute and walked to the door, then stepped outside.

Dolgan stood upon the porch of the long hall, looking out over the village. It was comprised of a dozen buildings of varying side, a few obviously dwellings, while the others appeared to be shops: a smith, a carpenter, a baker.

‘‘Pretty, isn’t it?’’ asked Dolgan.

Even without the flowers of spring yet apparent, the valley was a lovely place, nestled in pine and aspen. The people living there were industrious, and everything in sight spoke of bounty. High enough up the hillside to be visible, cattle grazed in a meadow on the other side of a stand of trees. Chickens and ducks squawked as they hurried across the town’s square, while a pair of dogs tried to herd them.

‘‘It’s a good place,’’ agreed Gorath.

‘‘I’ve only seen a few moredhel villages, empty after the Tsurani drove your people from the high pastures. I remember them as not that different from here.’’

‘‘We build in a different fashion,’’ said Gorath, ‘‘but shelter is shelter, and we bake and work the forge, much as you and the humans do.’’

‘‘I’m five hundred and twenty-eight years old next Midsummer’s Day, and I’ve fought for my people for most of those years.’’ Dolgan looked up at the tall dark elf. ‘‘Do you know that you’re the first of your kind I’ve ever had a civil word with?’’

Gorath sat on the steps. ‘‘And I with a dwarf. Or a human until a few months ago.’’ He leaned back against a supporting post, and said, ‘‘I find the world a very different place than I 266

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thought it was when I was a boy. I was but twelve summers when the safety of my band fell to me, and I was thirty-seven summers when I avenged my father and became clan chieftain.

For more than a hundred years, the Ardanien tribes lived in the ice caves in the far North, where the sun never shines in winter and never sets in summer. We hunted seal and walrus, traded with tribes to the south of us, and lived apart even from most of our kinsmen.

‘‘Then we returned, and I fought to preserve my clan, and we rose and became a force within our nation. We had respect, we were feared, and when I spoke in council, the Ardanien were heeded.’’

‘‘What happened?’’

‘‘Murmandamus.’’

‘‘Which, the first or second?’’

Gorath smiled. ‘‘Both, you could say. The first was a remarkable creature. He spoke words that were compelling and insistent, and my people listened. I heard stories from those who had known him. We rose and struck south and overran the humans in Yabon.

‘‘But Murmandamus died and yet his legend lived, and when the second Murmandamus appeared, we were ready to follow without question.’’

‘‘Blind obedience is a dangerous thing.’’

Gorath nodded. ‘‘Before the second Murmandamus, some of my race were dislodged from the Northlands by more powerful clans, and they came south of the Teeth of the World. Others, like my clan, lived in the ice caves in the far North. We had one such upheaval a hundred years ago.’’

‘‘I remember,’’ said Dolgan. ‘‘Some of your lads got a little bold and made free to come this way.’’

‘‘I have never before ventured so far south on this side of the Bitter Sea. When a lad I fished the sea near what the humans call Sarth.’’ He sat back and closed his eyes. ‘‘I never thought I’d live to see the Grey Towers.’’ He looked at Dolgan.

‘‘Some of my kinsmen, especially those who followed my cousin Obkhar, may be coming this way to live again in the Green Heart.’’

‘‘Well, as long as they stay down in the trees, we won’t 267

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trouble their passing. We never had much trouble with the Green Heart moredhel, but your clans up here in the mountains were not gracious neighbors.’’

Gorath studied the dwarf and laughed. ‘‘You sound like your son. As I told him, I suspect my people would have little charity in their description of you as neighbors.’’

‘‘Aye, that’s true, I’m sure.’’ Dolgan chuckled. ‘‘But what has long puzzled me is why that is so. We dwarves, despite our skills in warcraft, are a peaceful enough folk when left alone. We trouble no one who doesn’t trouble us. We love our children, tend our herds, and winter in our long hall singing and drinking ale. It’s a good life.

‘‘But you’re the first of your kind I’ve spoken with in peace since I was born, Gorath, so I must ask you this: why do you moredhel hate us dwarves and the humans so?’’

Gorath considered the question for a long while, then said,

‘‘When I fled south from my homeland, chased by my own cousin who sought to kill me, I would have answered you one way. I would have said, ‘When the Valheru left, they made us a free people, and gave to us this world, and you and the humans are invaders. You take what is ours.’

‘‘Now, I don’t have an answer.’’

‘‘What’s changed?’’ asked Dolgan, genuinely curious.

‘‘Many things,’’ said Gorath. ‘‘My own people have become . . .’’ He sighed, long and as if releasing something held back a long time. ‘‘Many years ago, we were much the same people, those of us who became the moredhel, eldar, eledhel, glamredhel. We were
the people
in our tongue. Most of our names were given by our enemies. Eledhel is a word that was coined by my people in contempt, the ‘elves of light’ in the human tongue. It was a mocking name, hurled at those who sought to make themselves better than the rest of us. They called us ‘dark ones,’ or moredhel. We named the glamredhel, the ‘mad ones.’

‘‘We, who were once one race, are now so different one from another, that I think we have lost any sense of what we once were.’’

Dolgan nodded, but said nothing as he listened closely.

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‘‘Did you know that we cannot father a child on an eledhel or glamredhel woman?’’

Dolgan shook his head.

‘‘It is thought by our healers that something is needed between a man and woman of our race, something that has changed so profoundly we are as different now as dwarf or human to our own cousins.’’

Dolgan said, ‘‘That is most passing strange.’’

‘‘I am old by the measure of my people,’’ said Gorath. ‘‘Two hundred sixty summers will I see next Midsummer’s Day. My birthright is three times that; only our cousins in Elvandar reach those spans of years, Dolgan. And that is because they have found one thing we have never known in the North: peace.’’

Dolgan sighed. ‘‘Peace is a wonderful thing to find, either for one’s people . . .’’ He looked Gorath in the eyes. ‘‘Or within your own heart.’’

Gorath looked out at the serene tableau before him, and said,

‘‘We live behind walls. Our villages are fortresses. No woman goes to herd sheep or cattle without a sword at her hip and a bow across her back. Our children play with weapons.’’ He hung his head, looking down at the dirt. ‘‘We let them cut themselves so they learn early lessons. I despair for my people, Dolgan.’’

Dolgan again was silent, then he said, ‘‘I think you need to go to Elvandar. For more reasons than simply to take a message to Tomas.’’ He stood up. ‘‘But right now I think you could use a long draught of ale. And I happen to know where we can find one.’’

Gorath managed a slight smile, and said, ‘‘You treat an enemy with hospitality, Dolgan.’’

Dolgan shook his head as he said, ‘‘You’re no enemy of mine, Gorath of the Ardanien. That’s as plain as the beard on my chin.’’