long, long time ago, in the very last year of the Purple Years, when we’d almost defeated the gnomes. The final victory was very close, we had our relatives pinned back against the Gates of Grankhel, and he turned up. Well, we dwarves are no fools; we welcomed our guest with every possible honor and courtesy, took him to the Council … And then the Gray One told us it was in our own best interests to make peace with the gnomes, and the sooner the better, otherwise in hundreds of years the balance would shift. He warned us that if the gnomes left the mountains and moved away, sooner or later they would come back. Some hothead immediately said: ‘Let them come back, we have enough battle-axes for all of them.’ Do you know what the Gray One’s answer was? That we’d sing a different song when the gnomes came to the mountain with the gunpowder, pistols, and cannons that they would invent because we drove them out. And he said that someday the gnomes’ inventions would be seized by men, and sooner or later the dwarves and the gnomes would both be left weeping bitter tears. He told us all that and then he went away. He didn’t even wait for our answer—but then the answer was obvious even to a Doralissian.”
“He just went away?” I asked, unable to believe it.
“Yes, imagine that, Harold. He just went away. He didn’t try to persuade us, he didn’t hack us to pieces.… He just went on his way. The Council thought about that, and then decided that even if everything he’d said was true, there were still hundreds of years before the balance shifted. The Gray Ones had decided to wait.… We won that war, the beard-faces left the mountain and went to the Steel Mines of Isilia, and for the time being everything more or less settled down. One generation followed another and this story was almost forgotten.… Until the moment came when the gnomes invented that darkness-damned powder. And then the cannons. And then our wise old heads remembered the old story, and when they remembered, it set them thinking. It turned out that the Order of the Gray Ones had told us the truth. It all happened—the powder and the cannons … only no one had heard anything yet about those strange pistols. But now I’ve seen Hallas holding one of them in his hands. And that means the day’s not far off when the gnomes will decide to return to their old home.… And then you’ll grab their weapons, and then we’ll all be in a bad way.…”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
The dwarf looked at me thoughtfully.
“Darkness only knows, Harold. It’s just that this story shows the Gray Ones don’t often make mistakes, and if that vampire told you that when we fish the Horn out of Hrad Spein the balance will be disrupted, then that’s probably exactly what will happen.”
“He said it
“Do you understand the old gnomes’ fable? You’re sitting on a keg of gunpowder and the fuse is burning. And your only hope is that it will start to rain and put out the fuse. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
“Perfectly,” I chuckled.
“That Horn was created by the ogres to protect them against their own magic, right?”
“That’s what the Order says.”
“Well then, I don’t have to explain to you how dangerous things that were made in the Dark Era are.”
“So you think like Mumr, that the artifact should be left where it is now? In Grok’s grave?”
“I don’t know, Harold. The Rainbow Horn neutralizes the magic of the Nameless One. If the Horn is in Avendoom, the sorcerer will be forced to retreat forever. Without his magic, he’s nothing.… So, we need the Horn. On the other hand, that phrase ‘could be’ … Perhaps we’ll be bringing something even more terrible into the world? There must be a reason why it was so well hidden, mustn’t there?”
“More terrible than the Nameless One?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing we can do but trust in the gods, Deler.”
The dwarf chuckled quietly and stirred the embers with a stick, frightening up a cloud of sparks.
“I shouldn’t have started this conversation. Now you’ll have doubts. Get that thrice-cursed Horn, and then we’ll figure out what’s what.… Go and sleep.”
“In a moment,” I said.
“Did you see the spear that Gray One had?” the gnome asked.
“The one that Egrassa took?”
“Our elf knows a good thing when he sees it.” Deler laughed. “Yes, that’s the one.”
“A spear like any other,” I said with a gentle shrug. “Just a bit strange.”
“Ah, you men.… You’re always boasting about how superior you are, but in so many things you’re just like little children,” Deler grumbled. “When you say ‘strange,’ do you mean the shape or something else?”
“The shape,” I replied, although I knew it was the wrong answer.
“That’s what I thought,” the dwarf sighed. “It’s not really a spear, it’s a krasta, a kind of pike. You can slash with it and stab with it. You don’t come across them very often, especially in the Northern Lands. It was invented in Mambara, a country way beyond the Sultanate. But that’s not important right now. None of you men took any notice of the handle and the metal of the blade. But Egrassa and I spotted it straightaway. And Hallas probably did, too, although the dratted beard-face isn’t saying anything.”
“What about the handle and the metal?”
“There are ancient runes on the handle. You can barely even see them, but it’s the first language of the gnomes. The language of the time of the great ones Grahel and Chigzan—the first dwarf and the first gnome. Don’t ask me what it says, I’m a warrior, not a Master, and I could only recognize a few runes. With a spear like that you can strike through any magical shield.”
“Oho!”
“Yes indeed, ‘oho.’ And as for the metal that was used for the blade, in the old days, back in the Age of Achievements, it used to be known as Smoky Steel. Ever heard of it?”
“No.”
“That’s not surprising. We forgot a lot of things during the Purple Years. The secret of smelting … it has been lost—forever, I’m afraid. But there was a time … there was a time when gnomes and dwarves worked together. Some prospected for ore and made steel, others gave it the required form and invoked the magic. Ruby Blood can never compare with Smoky Steel. It cut through everything. Anything the blade fell on—a silk handkerchief, stone, or the finest armor.”
“How much did it cost?” I blurted out.
“A lot,” Deler chuckled. “So much that only a king … or the Gray Ones … could afford a blade made out of it. Imagine you’re facing a front-line knight-at-arms. Heavy armor, a full-length shield. Like a tortoise in a shell. You could sweat yourself to death trying to get at him with a sword. But you just take a blade of Smoky Steel and hit him across the helmet, and it will slice through the man like a knife through butter, split him into two neat halves. And his helmet, armor, and shield, too.”
“So it’s very valuable?”
That earned me a suspicious glance from the dwarf.
“Valuable? It’s priceless! Give it to the king and you can ask for a dukedom and a hundred ships and a summer palace, and anything else you might fancy.”
Deler tossed more wood into the fire.
“Come on, Harold, get some sleep. It’s a hard day tomorrow. Or are you trying to follow the elf’s example?”
“Where is he, by the way?”
“Over that way, not very far.”
“I’ll take a stroll that way,” I said, getting up off the log.
Deler just waved his hand: Okay, take a stroll.
The night was coming to an end; the stars had faded and the full moon was already turning pale. The elf was a dark silhouette against the pale background of a golden-leaf’s trunk. He was sitting on the ground, with his hands on his knees, and his eyes were closed.
The grass rustled under my feet. Egrassa made a movement too fast for me to follow, and there was an arrow pointing straight at me, already poised on his bowstring. I froze to let the elf take a good look at me.
“What are you doing here?” Egrassa asked in a surly voice, but he put the bow away.
“Deler said you were here.”
“So what?”
I hesitated. Yes, so what? What in the name of darkness had brought me this way? Those yellow eyes were
