crystal, but he could see veins of colorrosy beige, copper, and light bluethat reminded Boult of the inside of a seashell. The thin bones branching from its back showed a wingspan that was impressive, even for the creature’s gargantuan size. Splints of metal jutted out from the remains of the shackles. The splints looked as if they had punctured the skin of the Captive and fused to his bones while he still lived. It must have been incredibly painful, and Boult wondered if the fire was a way to honor the massive creature that had suffered at the hands at the Scaly Ones.
“Is the urn’s fire natural or unnatural?” he finally asked.
“Unnatural and perpetual,” she said, the corners of her lips turning upward slightly.
“It’s never gone out?” Boult asked.
“Not even when a young scamp snuck in and doused it repeatedly with water,” Majida replied. “Still it burned.”
“Were you the scamp?” Boult asked after a pause.
Majida looked momentarily surprised. “That secret dies with me,” she said good-naturedly.
BTult took a closer look at the metal urn. Fashioned from unadorned bronze, the shallow urn had a wide, circular base. Inside the urn, the flame burned on a plate of opaque glass.
“I once heard a story about a man who turned against his patron god, going so far as to deny the god’s existence,” Boult said. “One night, the man realized that he had made a grave error and begged for the god’s forgiveness. The god forgave the man, but all he promised him in return was suffering.”
“Suffering is the nature of the world,” Majida said. “Honor is not.”
“I used to believe in honor. When I was a soldier, I lived to serve my queen and countrymy mastersfaithfully. Do you know what my masters did to me?”
“They betrayed you.”
“They forced me to suffer for someone else’s crime.” “Humiliation is the backbone of evil. That doesn’t make your honor a mistake.” “My honor is dead.”
“And what has risen up in its place? Revenge?”
“It has brought me so far,” Boult pointed out.
“It has determined the company you keep,” Majida said gravely. “It has brought you to the ends of the earth. And for what?”
“If Cardew wants something, I want it more,” Boult growled.
“Then you are serving a master, whether you realize it or not.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Maybe not. But I know that you and your friends are close to finding the Torque, and that gives me pause,” Majida said.
“Because you want it to stay hidden in the ruins?” Majida gave a little shrug. “I’m going to tell you a secret. One that most of the dwarves of the Domain don’t know.”
Boult’s eyes narrowed. ” You don’t know me. Why trust me with it?”
“Because you will appreciate the irony.”
“That’s a very poor reason,” Boult pointed out.
“Hence the irony,” Majida said. “Will you listen?”
“Secrets are the commerce of revenge, Majida,” Boult said. “Ill listen, as long as you know what business I am in.”
“I know what you are,” Majida said. “And I’m telling you anyway. For centuries, people have died trying to get the Torque. The Scaly Ones have bent their will around protecting it. It has been the nexus around which life and death have spun. And it’s powerful, no doubt.”
Majida stopped. Boult raised his eyebrows. “Don’t stop now. I’m more than curious.”
“All that time, the dwarves of the Domain have had something more powerful. Something that overshadows the Torque and all it has done.”
“What?”
“Him.” Majida gestured to the Captive and looked at Boult with a resolute expression on her aged face. “I don’t understand.”
“His blood. There is a vial beneath the urn filled with an elixir made from his essence. The flames keep his life force alive, and the wards around the Domain keep him hidden. As you have seen for yourself, both the Scaly Ones and the Practitioner have the skill to bring him back to life and to dominate his will, at least for a short time.”
“Create a husk of the Captive,” Boult said incredulously, staring up at the towering skeleton that dominated the cavern. “In the history of bad ideas, that sounds like the worst. Huh. I’m not sure that’s information I wanted to know.”
Majida smiled. “Yes, but it’s information that Cardew and his patronwould kill to have, is it not?”
Boult nodded slowly.
“Sou don’t have to be his chattel anymore.”
“I’m not”
“Boult!” Verran called, surprising them both. Neither had heard the boy approach. “Harp is looking for you.”
“You are very puzzling,” Boult said to Majida. But he said it in a kindly way, in a voice he was not accustomed to using. Then he left with Verran.
“Just as long as someone has all the pieces but me,” she murmured to herself when they were gone.
Someone shook Harp’s arm roughly. He and his crew were sleeping in a narrow dormitory where Harp had shoved multiple cots together to make something long enough for him to lay in comfortably. Harp was well fed, clean, and warmall the things that made a perfect night’s sleep. Or they would have, if someone wasn’t still shaking his arm.
Irritable at the disruption, he sat up and saw Majida standing by his cot. His exasperation disappeared. He couldn’t imagine the elder dwarf disturbing him for something trivial. The room was dark, but the door was ajar and the torches lit in the corridor outside. In the shadows, he could see her motion for him to follow her. Kitto and Boult were snoring, but Verran stirred restlessly as Harp pulled on his boots and shouldered his pack.
So far, Harp hadn’t seen much of the layout of the Domain except the common room, which was like the hub on a wheel with a series of tunnels rotating off it like spokes. With multiple fire pits and clay ovens, the toasty, cedar-scented room was where most of the day-to-day living took place. Harp had met a handful of the other residents the night before, but hadn’t gotten a sense of how many dwarves actually called the Domain home. Apparently, the dwarves kept goats on the open passes between mountains, and it was the time of year that many dwarves were away tending the herds.
They crossed through the common room where small fires still smoldered in the fire pits. In the dim light, Harp could see wisps of smoke rising into slits cut in the rock ceiling. When he passed under one, he could see a slice of the starry night sky high above him. Harp couldn’t imagine how the dwarves could have carved such long narrow shafts in the rock.
“Are those shafts natural?” he whispered to Majida.
“We have built everything you see,” she replied, pausing to light a torch in the fire pit. “Everything except the chamber of the captive.”
At the end of the tunnels, Majida stopped at a plain wooden door, which she unlocked with a key from the chain that hung from her belt.
“So much for communal living,” Harp remarked, nodding at the key.
“My kin think books should be used for kindling,” Majida said, pushing open the door with her hip. “And the only use for metal is for swords.”
They stepped into a cramped chamber at the bottom of a tall, narrow shaft with spiral stairs leading up through the rock. As Harp followed Majida up the stairs, his head brushed the bottom of the steps above him. At the top, Harp climbed into a dome that was built on the top of a rocky peak. The walls of the mountaintop observatory were almost translucentHarp could see the ridges and formations of rocks on the outside. The color and sheen reminded him of an ivory plate that was so delicate it seemed his breath alone could sunder it.
“What is that?” Harp asked, brushing his fingertips against the smooth walls, which felt cool under his touch.
