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“The Stoneheart?” KriChan said through his fanged grin. “The last throne of the dwarves? Yes, Drakis, I believe we have found it.”

  The Stoneheart, Drakis thought. Every Impress Warrior had been thoroughly instructed in it from before the battle began. It was a single, massive granite disk, polished by the dwarves to a glassy smoothness, though Drakis had wondered why dwarves would want to go to so much trouble to put a brilliant finish on something that would never be touched by light. It was nearly a hundred yards in diameter and perhaps twenty yards thick in the center. Most remarkable of all, the entire stone sat atop an enormous geyser whose channeled energies pushed upward with such force that the stone seemed to float atop it. It was the flow from this geyser that fed the torrents raging across the floor of the cavern.

  “We may have found it, but how do we get to it?” ChuKang mused. “These gate symbols we’re laying down will make this the entry point for the entire army once they are engraved, but charging that island with an army isn’t going to get them any closer to the throne. Look—to the left—that small dwarven city on that side of the cavern. There’s a causeway that runs up from those buildings to that gate . . .”

  “The Thorgreld,” Drakis said aloud.

  The Stoneheart was accessible only via a single bridge carved from the stone that extended from the doors to the Heart outward toward the Last Gate of Thorgreld. It was the final defense of the Last Dwarven Throne, for on the order of their king the entire Stoneheart could be rotated atop the geyser by the dwarves within, moving both bridge and entrance door away from the Last Gate and making it unreachable. The Tribune had told them a great deal about it as they prepared, for battle within the Stoneheart was the prize coveted by all the Houses of the Rhonas Imperium, but hearing it described did not convey to Drakis the enormity of the experience of seeing it himself.

  “We’ve got to get to that causeway,” ChuKang said, his voice rumbling as he considered the problem.

  “Were any of our warriors over there before?” Drakis asked.

  Both ChuKang and KriChan turned toward him. “The Tribune would know . . . but if they were that close to the causeway, wouldn’t they have pressed the attack?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know it was over there,” Drakis replied. “They might have been fighting in the corridors as we have . . . perhaps they didn’t know how close they were to the prize. We can only see it now because we’re over here.”

  “If that’s true, then they might have abandoned some gate symbols there,” KriChan said quickly. “We could fold there and make for the throne ourselves!”

  “Captain!”

  ChuKang turned abruptly toward the sound. “Here!”

  “They’re coming!” Jerakh said. “We can see them moving toward the rotunda.”

  “How long?”

  “Not long.”

  “Braun!” ChuKang called.

  The Proxi was still kneeling next to the gate symbol glowing faintly from the stone next to him. Braun moved his Standard over the symbol, and a spark arced upward and over the heads of the arrayed warriors until it landed nearly five hundred feet farther down the landing. There it burned briefly into the stones, carving out a duplicate of the gate symbol. “That’s ten, Captain!”

  ChuKang reached down and picked up the Proxi with his massive hand, lifting him bodily from the ground and pulling him to stand next to him. “Do you see that city to the left?”

  Braun squinted slightly. “Yes . . . the one built into the face of the cavern.”

  “They’re coming, Captain!” Jerakh called.

  The sound of the slow march of dwarven boots became a growing thunder in their direction.

  “That’s the way to the throne,” ChuKang said. “There’s a causeway next to it—a road that leads straight to the gate. Do you see it?”

  Braun smiled. “Yes . . . and so does the Tribune.”

  Braun turned at once and knelt again next to the gate symbol in the floor. He planted the Standard, and its great crystal flared into brilliant light at once.

  The fold opened.

  Drakis shuddered. He could see nothing at all through the ink-black fold.

  “Timuran Centurai!” ChuKang called out. “Fall back! Into the fold by the numbers! Octian Nine!”

  The group leaped from their positions on the landing, dashing at once through the crackling oval into the darkness on the other side.

  “Octian Eight!”

  Warriors from the other side of the landing jumped up, scrambling toward the fold and vanishing into the blackness.

  “Ethis! Megri!” Drakis called out.

  The chimerian and the goblin both called out in ragged response, “Yes, Octis!”

  “Each of you stand guard on opposite sides of the fold. TsuRag! GriChag!”

  “Yes, Octis!”

  “Keep your eyes on the dwarves coming up the hall! We’re leaving!”

  ChuKang continued to call out the Octia. In quick succession each pulled back, running quickly through the black opening of the fold.

  Drakis stared down the hall. The dwarves were running now, seeing that their enemy was trying to elude them. Their battle cries filled the hall, their blades flashing in the torchlight.

  “Octian Two!” ChuKang shouted.

  Jerakh and his warriors leaped up, dashed between the members of Drakis’ Octian and, without hesitation, jumped through the fold.

  The dwarves shouted their rage in terrible chorus.

  “That’s it!” ChuKang roared. “Fold out!”

  Drakis turned toward the fold. Ethis and Megri had already jumped through. TsuRag and GriChag were following the captain, and KriChan as he watched. That only left . . .

  “Braun!” Drakis shouted.

  The Proxi stood up. The Standard still emitted the magical Aether, holding the fold open, but Braun now held it casually in his hand.

  “Let’s go!” Drakis barked.

  Braun’s form was silhouetted against the bright hall. Beyond him, Drakis could clearly see the dwarven warriors less than a hundred feet away and getting closer with every thundering step.

  Braun made no move.

  “Braun!” Drakis shouted.

  “It’s all right,” Braun replied, standing perfectly still. “You don’t see it, do you? The walls have all crumbled, and here—here in the darkness—the light comes at last!”

  The dwarves cheered. Fifty more feet and their enemy’s blood would flow.

  Braun smiled but made no move. “Do you see the picture? Do you hear the music?”

  Nine notes . . . Seven notes . . .

  “What did you say?” Drakis asked, his eyes going wide.

  Twenty feet. Eight more steps.

  Drakis lunged forward, pushing his shoulder into Braun’s stomach. The Proxi doubled over the warrior’s shoulder in surprise.

  Axes and sword blades alike were raised. Two steps more to strike.

  Drakis wheeled with the Proxi over his shoulder and leaped headlong into the fold.

  CHAPTER 3

  Empty Rooms

  DRAKIS FELL SHOULDER FIRST against the stone floor. The impact shook the Proxi from his grip. Drakis felt Braun tumble away from him just as the thunderclap of the closing fold shook the air next to him and plunged him into absolute darkness.

  Something fell with a dull thud and a resounding clang next to him. Drakis started, rolling quickly away from the sound. Instinctively, he reached to his side, drawing his sword from its leather scabbard, but though his eyes shifted back and forth in anxious anticipation, sight was useless in the total absence of light.

  Black is the sightless light smothering . . .

  Dead to the waking world sighs . . .

  Dead is the hero . . . Dead to all lament . . .

  Buried past memory here below . . .

  He was alone with the song.

  Drakis’ hand began to shake uncontrollably in the darkness.

  “Octian!” Drakis called out, his words swallowed into the black void around h
im, echoing small and hollow. His fellow warriors had passed through this same fold just a few moments before him. They should have been arrayed all about him with their globe-torches shining.

  Yet he crouched in the darkness, and there was no reply to his call.

  The wheeling melody surged forward in his mind once more. Drakis quickly muttered a prayer to Rhon—god of war—and drew enough courage to shout again.

  “Octian!”

  The gentle, answering voice coming from so near in the darkness unnerved him with its quiet calm.

  “I am here, Drakis.”

  The warrior spun around in the dark. “Braun? Is that you?”

  Dim blue light grew stronger as he watched, pushing back the smothering black as it brightened. Drakis fixed his eyes and his sanity on the glowing, expanding circle. Drakis’ world settled with each revelation of the brightening sphere. The headpiece, then the shaft of the Timuran Proxi staff that he had followed to victory in every battle of his life emerged from the darkness. Then the bald head now obscured with three days’ growth of gray-flecked hair, the hooked nose and the piercing eyes . . .

  . . . The figures of Impress Warrior dead.

  The bodies of an Imperial Octian lay about their feet. Drakis frantically started examining the mutilated corpses but then stopped.

  “These aren’t ours,” Drakis said.

  “No, they’ve been waiting for us here for a day or so now, as you might have guessed by the stench,” Braun nodded. He pointed over to the decapitated body of a human nearby with a broken Standard staff still gripped in his cold, discolored hand. “He’s how we got here. That fool managed to do his duty to the last; and carve the gate symbol before they got him. I guess we arrived a bit late to be of much use to him.”

  Drakis looked down at his feet. The freshly severed arm of a dwarf with an ax in its hand lay bleeding onto the ground.

  “And if we had been a little later, we wouldn’t have arrived at all. Braun,” Drakis struggled to make his voice calm as he spoke. “Where is the rest of our Octian?”

  Braun looked up, considering the question, then smiled knowingly. “Not far, I should think. No doubt they have been called away by some glorious and pressing cause on behalf of our masters. Still, I should think that they will need us more than we will need them in the end, wherever they have gone.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Hurt?” The Proxi asked in amused surprise. “No, Octis Drakis . . . I am remarkably at peace.”

  Drakis stared at his companion for a moment. “Braun, stop that talk. You’re pushing KriChan’s fur the wrong way. I think he’s about ready to tear your limbs off as it is.”

  “And how would the big cat get home then?” Braun answered simply. “How would he be able to lie on his master’s feet and be petted? Who would feed him his table scraps then? And who would remember him, buried here under the mountain? Not a one, Drakis, not a one.”

  Braun peered into the darkness. “His memory would be buried with him here—and with it he would have ceased to exist at all.”

  Drakis shook with a sudden chill. “Now those are exactly the kind of words that get you into such trouble with . . .”

  “Look!” Braun said, pointing with his free, right hand. The glow from the top of the staff was now shining with a brilliant white, revealing a great underground avenue running between facing sets of narrow structures. All featured an arched opening next to large, ornately framed windows fitted with thin plates of polished crystal through which Drakis could see with almost perfect clarity. Yet, in spite of their common features, each was uniquely appointed with different carvings and strange dwarven symbols.

  “What are they? Drakis asked.

  “Shops, I should think,” Braun replied.

  “Shops?” Drakis asked. “What are shops?”

  “You don’t know what a shop is?” Braun gave a sad little laugh.

  “I am a warrior of House Timuran,” Drakis said, setting his jaw. “I have had no need to know of such things before, nor do I see any point in it now.”

  “Let’s find out anyway,” Braun replied, stepping toward the open archway of one of the buildings. The light from his staff shifted the shadows across the buildings as he moved.

  Drakis realized he was being left to the darkness. He quickly sheathed his sword and fell into step behind the Proxi. “Braun! We’ve got to find the Octian!”

  But the Proxi was already inside the archway of the structure, his light shining out through the gentle ripples in the polished crystal window. Drakis ducked quickly through the low arch. He was stopped almost at once by a vertical wall beautifully carved with dwarf figures, some carrying baskets over their shoulders filled with vegetables and grains while others were enjoying eating loaves of bread and drinking from tall mugs. He easily stepped around the wall and into a large room. The fitted stones of the floor shone like a white marble mirror under the light from the Proxi’s staff.

  Drakis shook his head. He knew they had to move, to rejoin the Octian and press the battle forward. ChuKang had told them time and again that to stand still on a field of battle was to invite death to find you. Drakis had to join the battle, had to find some honor in this debacle. More importantly to him, he secretly dreaded the silence and the stillness around him; it gave the music in his mind space to grow.

  “What do you think, Drakis?” Braun said as he stood in the center of the room.

  “I think we need to find our Octian and . . .”

  “No,” Braun snapped, an angry edge to his voice. “Do you see the picture? There’s a large flat platform inside the window. There . . . back there . . . is a carved stone counter and behind it . . . can you see it? . . . there are three ovens.”

  Awaken the ghosts long forgotten . . .

  Recall the loved dead . . .

  Drakis began to sweat in the chill room. “It’s a . . . a kitchen . . . a kind of dwarf mess hall . . . a place to eat . . .”

  “You look, but you don’t see!” Braun urged, stepping closer to Drakis. “The spirits still breathe whispers of their passing in this place. Their voices shout to us from the silence, and you! You hear nothing!”

  They eat here. They love here. They laugh here.

  Better if left and forgotten . . .

  Nine notes. Seven notes.

  “I hear enough.” Drakis swallowed hard. “Leave me alone, Braun!”

  “It isn’t what is here, Drakis; it’s what isn’t here that you need to see!” Braun swept past Drakis to the window. “Here on this shelf were the wares of this shop: baked goods, breads, meats—can you smell them still in the air? There . . . there in the archway that we came through, there is no door. There have been no doors in any of the openings or halls through which we have come in the three days we have been wandering down here in our graves. By all accounts, the dwarves love their gems and their precious metals and their stonework—we are told they are all even more covetous of such things than our righteous elven masters. Why, then, are there no doors between the dwarves?”

  We kill without cause. We kill without thought.

  Five notes . . . Five notes . . .

  “What difference does it . . .”

  “And this room,” the Proxi continued. “The floor is cleaner than any plate I’ve ever eaten from in the Centurai barracks of our great Lord Timuran. No dust. No dirt. But where are the chairs? Where are the tables? There are images of them carved into the wall facing the archway, but there’s not a stick of either to be found inside. Look, Drakis! See! There are hooks in the ceiling above the counter, but where are the pots, the pans, the kettles, or the spoons? Where are the tools? Where are the kegs and the stores of grain or tubers or roots or whatever the dwarves fed upon?”

  “Stop it, Braun! I don’t care . . .”

  The Proxi turned again to face Drakis. “Where are the children who squealed through the streets with joy, Drakis? Where are the women who breathed life into this place? Where are the gray-bearded elder dwarves w
ith their frail bodies and their wisdom aged like fine wine?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know!” Drakis answered.

  “No, you don’t,” Braun said, stepping toward him with a strange twisted smile on his face. “You don’t know . . . I don’t know . . . but at least I’m beginning to understand just how much I don’t know!”

  Drakis reached behind him, feeling for the archway as he carefully backed away from the wild-eyed Proxi.

  “It’s all unraveling, Drakis,” Braun said softly. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth, drawing in the spittle that had formed there. “Here in the darkness I can see . . . here in these rooms that are so like you and me. Perhaps it is the distance from the Aether Well of House Timuran, perhaps it is the three days we have gone without renewing our Devotions. Maybe it has something to do with being so deep beneath the mountain of the dwarves. I don’t know, but whatever it is, the cords, soft and silken as they have been, are unraveling from my mind, and I am beginning to see the picture of truth at last.”

  Drakis felt the edge of the archway with his left hand and carefully stepped back into it, His right hand slowly reached across his body almost without conscious thought, his palm resting on the hilt of his sword. “Braun, we’re warriors . . . Impress Warriors of House Timuran . . .”

  “No, Drakis, you’re wrong,” Braun breathed through clenched teeth. He would not stop advancing. “Who are you, Drakis? Why do you fight so well? What makes you so determined to live?”

  “I fight . . .” Drakis swallowed, taking another step back through the archway. “I fight for the glory of Rhonas, for her Emperor, and for the glory of House Timuran!”

  “Pretty speech, hollow words,” Braun spoke, his words dripping disdain. “You dance like a marionette and vomit out the words spoken by others behind the curtain. I’ve seen what’s back there. You take a peek at the truth and tell me. It’s just us here . . . you and me buried in our crypt, and there should be no lies between the dead. You know the answer! Tell me!”

  Drakis’ breath was coming hard.

  Five notes . . .

  For the love of her . . . For the loss of her . . .

  “Tell me!”