the tower, and we’ll make our way to the king somehow. Do you know the Royal Guard is in the ghetto right now, killing every goblin that comes within reach of a dwarven blade?”
Greta winced again, her eyes filling with tears. She shook her head, whether, in denial or pain Darann couldn’t tell. “We have to stop them,” the servant maid said at last. “I will come with you. But what do I tell the king?”
“Tell him what you know about Nayfal and your father!” Darann urged. “And we can only pray that’s enough.”
“I might have expected to find you two living among the goblins,” Nayfal said with a sneer, strutting between the two prisoners-only after he had ordered that Borand and Aurand Houseguard be soundly trussed and forced to kneel on the cold, slimy paving stones of the ghetto street.
They glared at him soundlessly, though he could read the hate in their eyes. The intensity of their emotion gave him a little thrill, despite the fact that he found it somewhat frightening, as well. Walking this close to them, staring down into their faces, even touching the ropes that bound their arms so securely behind their backs… these things made him feel very brave.
“You just didn’t ever learn your place or the goblins’ place. In fact, that was your father’s failure, as well. He was too soft on our enemies, too blind to see the threats dwelling right under his nose.”
“Our father was ten times the Seer you will ever be,” the younger one-his name was Aurand, the lord recalled-hissed. Despite his bonds and his helpless position, the dwarf did not seem frightened. “Know this, coward: he will be avenged!”
With a sudden lurch Aurand knocked a shoulder into Nayfal’s hip, sending the dwarven nobleman staggering to the side. A guard stepped forward and cuffed the prisoner so hard that he toppled onto the flagstones. Nayfal, furious, gave him a sharp kick in the face. “Be careful about your talk of vengeance!” he snapped. “You are in no position to make threats!”
Spitting blood, the imprisoned Seer squirmed up from the ground, though the guards seized his shoulders to prevent him from rising off of his knees. Nayfal’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword, the blade as yet unblooded in this night of pillage. He was tempted to draw, to stab this insolent dwarf right in the heart. Indeed, that would be the perfect complement to this raid that had turned out to be far more complicated than he had supposed it would be. He could slay the sons of Rufus Houseguard, gut them both, let each watch the other die…
His sword was out, all but dancing in his grip. Which one first? That was easy: the young, impetuous one. Of course, he would need to make sure the other was securely bound. Who knew what efforts his grief might impel him toward?
But then a sense of caution held his blow. He considered: these two dwarves had been taken in the midst of the enemy camp, in fact as part of a group of goblins actively resisting the king’s guards. What clearer proof of treachery could he hope to find? Indeed, this was a masterful stroke of luck, when he thought about it: the king was altogether too reluctant to see the danger right under his people’s nose. Yet with this proof, dwarven captives- scions of an esteemed clan!-taken right out of the goblin mob, there could be no room for doubt, no mistaking the depths to which corruption had penetrated the Seer people.
Indeed, taking these two prisoners was about the luckiest thing that could have happened to him! Clearly, his best course of action was to take them to the monarch, and let King Lightbringer pass the only sentence that fit such a crime: execution for high treason.
There would be plenty of time, then, to watch them die.
“Here, this is called the Pailslopper Gate,” Greta Weaver said, holding her head high, as if challenging Darann to impugn her menial chore.
She had led them through quiet side streets over a distance of a mile or so, to bring them to the rear of the Royal Tower. This was a part of the king’s palace that Darann had never seen. There were corrals for darkbulls nearby, the beasts snuffling and lowing and emanating their characteristic stink, and tiny shops where servants and other menial workers could purchase clothes and other items, including inexpensive food like pale fungus and blindfish that never would have found its way onto a table in one of the nicer quarters of Axial.
Finally she had brought them to this door, which was guarded by a lone, elderly palace guard. He had greeted Greta with a cheerful “Hello,” then simply nodded to Darann and Konnor as they had accompanied her through.
“Thank you for getting us this far,” said the lady of clan Houseguard. “You are giving us a chance to make a difference in the history of our people.”
“Well, we’ll have to do something,” Greta said, shaking her head as if she still couldn’t believe what she was involved in.
In another moment the trio had slipped through the anteroom and found the worker’s lift that would lead to the many higher levels of the Royal Tower. This was a larger cage than Darann was used to; Greta explained that sometimes as many as a hundred workers were coming or going at one time, and the conveyance was needed to efficiently move these crowds. Now, fortunately, there were only a few dwarves-blacksmiths, to judge from their burly arms and leather aprons-waiting at the bottom. In a few minutes the cage arrived with a hiss of steam. The gate clanked open, and the trio entered behind the smiths.
“Level twelve,” declared one of the workers, as the operator closed the mesh gate.
He looked toward Darann expectantly, but it was Greta who spoke. “Take us up to twenty-three.”
The ride lasted for several minutes and passed in silence, except for some quiet banter among the metalworkers. The smiths departed at their destination, and the last eleven levels seemed to pass at a snail’s pace. Finally the lift rattled to a halt at the twenty-third level, and they exited to find themselves in some sort of barracks room with several passages leading in different directions from this central chamber.
“The Royal Hall is two levels above here, but there is no lift station-not for the workers’ lift-up there. This is where the maids get dressed for work. If we can find a friendly face, I think I can get us up to the throne. Of course, then we have to hope that we find the king there. If he’s in his private quarters, there’s no way we’ll get past the guards.”
She started down one of the corridors, and Darann immediately noticed a large iron door, secured with a massive lock. She heard sounds of steam and hammering coming from behind the portal and asked Greta about it.
“That’s where that crazy engineer is working on his Worldlift,” the pailslopper reported. “I don’t know why they waste the time. But they say that shaft goes all the way through the Midrock, to Nayve if you can believe it, before the blue magic barrier closed it off.”
“I’ve known Donnwell Earnwise all my life,” Darann pointed out. “He’s about the smartest dwarf I’ve ever met. If anyone can make a Worldlift work, I think it would be him!”
Greta merely shrugged. “I don’t know why anyone would want to go to Nayve, anyway. We’ve got everything we need down here.” She was only echoing a sentiment believed by many dwarves, Darann knew, choosing not to argue the point. Even so, she recalled the warm sun, the waves on seas and lakes, the green hills and vales with suddenly poignant affection. She wished that, somehow, she would be able to see those wonders again, just once before she died.
“There he is!” Greta whispered excitedly, waving at a man-at-arms who was just coming through a door at the end of the corridor. “Larson! Hello!”
“Why, Greta!” declared the dwarf, beaming like a fellow who has just seen a woman toward whom he holds a great deal of affection. “This is a pleasure; I thought they had you on the first shift, these days. I miss our little-” For the first time he apparently noticed the two other dwarves accompanying his sweetheart. “Um, talks.”
“Me, too,” Greta said, her tone lighter than it had been at any point since their meeting at the Goat Hair Inn. She might have been a young maiden, stopping to flirt with her handsome soldier; indeed, Darann thought, that was exactly what she was.
Yet Greta showed that she was not lacking a certain capacity for guile. “This is my cousin Dari, from the Metalreach, and her husband… She’s in the city for a few cycles and has never been up here. I told her there was a chance we might be able to spot the king-you know, from the wings of the throne room. Do you know, is he in the hall?”
“You’re in luck,” Larson said, then lowered his voice and looked around furtively. “Not too happy about it, he ain’t. Was all set for bed, when he got a message that Nayfal needed to see him. Something about the troubles in
