A dozen times, Helta found herself wishing that Derkin would delegate the whole project to Talon and stop worrying about it. But spring became summer, and summer became fall, and still Derkin lingered at Tharkas.
Most of the dwarves from Thorbardin were still with them. With typical Hylar directness, Culom Vand had told Derkin that he would not return to Thorbardin until Derkin agreed to go back with him. 'Thorbardin needs your skill,' he had confided. 'I promised my father and jeron Redleather that I would find you and bring you back, so that's what I intend to do. If you won't go now, then I'll stay until you do.'
Having stated that, Culom Vand said no more about it. With typical Hylar dignity, he simply waited. In the meantime, he and most of the Hylar with him had found something to do. The beautiful old lake beyond Tharkas Camp, which had once served a great dwarven mining settlement but had been allowed to deteriorate during human habitation, was a challenge to the efficient-minded Hylar. They had taken it upon themselves to clear and reshape its channels and to build pump stages. 'Thorbardin's glaziers could fit these lifts with lenses to make steam,' Culom told Derkin. 'And our foundries could produce steam-driven wheels to lift the water to your new citadel of Pax Tharkas.'
Derkin's response had been only, 'It isn't my citadel. It's theirs… the Chosen Ones.'
Unlike the reserved, patient Hylar, Luster Redleather and the hundred other gold-bearded Daewar in the group had become enthusiastically involved in the construction of walls and foundations, and the dream of a great citadel that one day would rise to the very summits of Tharkas Pass to serve two nations.
'Think of the trade possibilities!' Luster exulted one autumn evening after a feast of roast boar, dark bread, and ale. His blue eyes alight with the Daewar love of commerce, Luster paced this way and that, his hands sometimes clasped behind him and sometimes waving happily over his head. 'Elvencraft, here at the very gateways of Thorbardin! Elven wines and spices, elven fabrics and flosses… There are fortunes to be made here! We'll provide steel and glass for the elves, and we'll stockpile elvenwares at Thorbardin for trade with the world!'
'How are you going to trade through closed gates?' Derkin asked him morosely.
'Just the way you said.' Luster grinned. 'We'll build commerce towns at all of our borders. Places open to anybody who has something to trade.'
'Did I say that?' Derkin frowned.
'You said you would build a place called Barter,' the Daewar reminded him. 'I'm just expanding on the idea.'
'That idea is for Kal-Thax,' Derkin snapped. 'Not for Thorbardin.'
'Kal-Thax is Thorbardin,' Luster countered.
'Not while those gates are closed,' Derkin said. 'I told your Council of Thanes that.'
Throughout the exchange, Culom Vand sat quietly to one side, simply listening. But now he said, 'If you come back to Thorbardin, Derkin, maybe you can open the gates.'
Derkin gazed at him with level, cynical eyes. 'By a vote of three to two?'
'By decree,' Culom said, 'if you were king.'
'There are no kings in…'
'Maybe it's time to change that.' Luster interrupted him. 'The Covenant of the Forge is only a document, after all. It can be amended.'
Helta Graywood set down a tray and stood beside Derkin, ruffling his hair with her fingers. 'That's what I've been trying to tell this stubborn oaf,' she told the Daewar, 'for ages.'
Shaking his head, Derkin growled, stood, and strode away into the dusk. When Tap Tolec and some of the Ten rose to follow him, Helta waved them down. 'Leave him alone this time,' she said. 'He needs to think.'
Late that night, Derkin stood alone atop a craggy summit, gazing up at the living sky where autumn clouds rode the high winds, forming shifting, flowing patterns in the light of two moons.
'I want to go home,' he muttered to himself. 'Helta knows that, and Tap knows it, too. Maybe they all know it. But if I take my people away from here, they will lose their finest dream. Most of them now are neither Neidar nor Holgar. It is as Tap said, these people have become a new breed of dwarf. Maybe Pax Tharkas is their destiny. But is it mine?'
Troubled and confused, Derkin the Lawgiver raised his hands toward the flowing sky. 'Gods!' he whispered. 'Reorx… and any others who care… give me a sign!'
The clouds swirled slowly in the high winds above, shifting from pattern to pattern. Then, for a moment, one bit of cloud broke away from the rest and stood alone. And just for an instant, as the winds molded it, it seemed to take the shape of a wedge-or an arrowhead-pointing south.
Derkin lowered his arms and sighed. 'Maybe it is a sign,' he told himself. In the distance, dappled moonlight played on the massive construct that now filled the lower one-third of Tharkas Pass. Where 'Derkin's Wall' had once stood, twenty feet of stone defending a mountain pass, now rose the beginnings of a city-a city that would one day bridge the gap between two alien worlds, the ancient land of the dwarves and the new land of the western elves.
Above the pass, flowing clouds shifted in the wind, and it seemed that there was a face there-a wide, bearded dwarven face that molded and remolded itself in its features as the breeze in the pass whispered long- forgotten names, a litany of generations of Hylar leaders. 'Colin Stonetooth…' the breezes murmured. 'Willen Ironmaul… Damon Omenborn… Cort Fireblend…' Fascinated, Derkin stood gazing upward as the breezes whispered names to him-the names of his own ancestors. And with each name, the flowing cloud-face became another face. 'Harl Thrustweight…' the breezes whispered, and the face Derkin saw was that of his own father. And now the breeze shifted and the whispering was a voice like his father's voice. 'Thorbardin,' it murmured. 'Thorbardin has never been ruled… but it must be governed. That is your destiny, my son.'
The breeze died away, and the clouds above were again only clouds, but in Derkin's mind was the echo of a whisper. He knew now what his course must be, and he felt oddly at peace with it. 'Destiny,' he muttered.
Only one regret remained in his mind. He had failed to keep his pledge-to himself and his people-to bring Sakar Kane to the justice the man deserved. Sakar Kane had simply disappeared. 'If only I knew,' Derkin said aloud. 'If only I could be sure that he is gone.'
As though in answer, a voice spoke. He knew he was alone. There was no one else within half a mile of where he stood, yet the voice spoke clearly, as though at his side. It was a low, musical voice, the voice of Despaxas, and it said one word:
Instantly, Derkin found himself deep within a dark, reeking place, a place where mildew grew on ancient stone walls, moist and glistening in the light of a single candle. On one wall hung the skeletal remains of a man- a man who had been dead for a long time-and Derkin knew exactly where he was and what he was seeing. With absolute certainty, he realized that he was looking at a deep cell in a dungeon beneath the palace of the human emperor of Daltigoth. And he knew that the shackled body hanging there was that of Lord Sakar Kane, the Prince of Klanath.
The single candle lighting the scene was held by a man who seemed to be two men. Each time the flame flickered, the man's appearance changed. At one moment he seemed a squat, bulky human with a braided beard and elegant robes, at the next a tall, burly man in dark robe and dusty boots.
Derkin knew one of the faces. It was the man called Dreyus. And he knew the other as well, though he had never seen him. The man with the braided beard was Quivalin Soth V, Emperor of Daltigoth and Ergoth.
Again the candle flickered, and Derkin found himself where he had been, standing on a craggy knoll in a mountain pass, half a mile south of the place that would be Pax Tharkas. Beside him, where no one stood, Despaxas's musical voice whispered, 'This is the gift my mother wished for you, Derkin. To know that you did not fail.'
His eyes wide with wonder, Derkin the Lawgiver turned full around, then shook his head. 'Magic,' he muttered. 'A latent spell.'
With one last glance at the sky above-which was once again only an autumn sky-Derkin headed back toward his quarters. On the way he stopped at the fire of Culom Vand, then at several other places in the camp. By the time he opened the door of his own quarters and stepped in, a crowd was following him.
Helta Graywood and the Ten were waiting for him, alert and concerned as he had known they would be. It was rare that any of them ever let Derkin out of their sight. Derkin stood before them, his fists on his hips, firelight gleaming on the polished luster of his armor, as other dwarves entered behind him. He looked from one to another of those gathered around his hearth, then let his somber gaze linger on Helta. 'Do you still say you can live anywhere with me?' he asked.
