them to get moving.
The passage beyond the statues was exceedingly narrow, no wider than the girth of a single horse. Trying to make haste, yet hampered by the tightness of the passage, Miya went first, leading her mount. Kiya followed, then Darpo. Tol and Frez dismounted, and Tol pushed his comrade ahead of him into the passage.
The tornado had almost reached the statues, yet for some reason Felryn had lingered behind. The healer was hunched by the mountain wall, standing over a square block of stone carved out of the plateau itself.
Tol bellowed at him to follow them, but Felryn turned and shouted back, “This is the hammer! The Hammer of Reorx! Remember the inscription? We must strike the hammer!” Felryn gestured wildly at the loose rocks by Tol’s feet. “Strike the stone!”
Tol didn’t fathom him in the least, but in the face of imminent death, he chose to trust his old friend. Bending, he picked up a stone the size of a loaf of bread.
A surprised cry brought Tol’s head around. The advancing tornado had pulled Felryn off balance. The healer’s feet flew out from under him, and he was drawn backward. His large, strong hands scrabbled vainly for purchase against the side of the mountain.
“Strike the hammer!” he shrieked, before vanishing into the gap between the statues.
Every muscle straining, Tol raised the stone over his head and dashed it onto the carved block. A loud, metallic clang resounded.
The wind yanked him this way and that, and Tol lost his grip on the heavy stone. His hobnailed boots skittered over the ground as he was pulled toward the cyclone. Like Felryn before him, he flailed his arms wildly, seeking a handhold.
Just as he’d given up hope, Tol beheld an amazing sight: the colossi were beginning to move! Pivoting on their bases, the giant statues slowly turned inward to face each other. A tremendous grinding noise, audible even above the thunder of the tornado, reverberated through the canyon.
The giants plowed ahead, closing the distance between themselves. The gap between them had been six or seven paces; soon, it was barely two. Felryn had wisely interpreted the meaning behind the Dwarvish inscription. Striking the carved block-”Reorx’s hammer'-opened and closed the passage. The time-worn Irda statues were not mere monuments: they were an ensorcelled gate.
Danger wasn’t done with Tol yet. The roaring column pressed against the colossi, seeking to squeeze between them, and Tol was held against the statues by its force. Up close (too close!) he could see the white surface of the tornado was made up of tiny, glittering shards. Ice, mostly, with some fragments of loose stone. Where the spinning crystals touched the statues, the surface of the stone was polished away.
The bases of the colossi finally touched, choking off the passage and the wind completely. Tol dropped to the ground. His head pounded from the sudden silence, and his body ached as though he’d fought a battle.
“Husband?”
Kiya crouched by him. Miya was staring in awe at the statues. She asked about Felryn. Tol did not answer. Felryn had saved them all but doomed himself.
Tol’s face was red and raw from the flying dust. Memory of Felryn’s terrible death brought a stinging to his eyes that had nothing to do with dust. Kiya helped him to his feet.
“Felryn-” he began to explain, then had to swallow hard to continue. “Felryn solved the dwarves’ riddle. Striking that stone”-he pointed at the Hammer of Reorx-“causes the statues to move, to open or close the pass.”
Touching the massive stone figures, they discovered the statues were intensely cold. The tornado could still be heard shrieking on the other side.
“It’s trying to grind its way right through the stone!” Kiya said.
Tol had to force himself to take up Shadow’s reins and move on. The suddenness of the healer’s demise had stunned them all, but there was nothing to be gained by remaining.
Frez took Felryn’s horse, a gentle old nag called Stumbler. Single file, they made their way through the narrow canyon. In subdued voices, they discussed the strange events. None of them, not even the widely traveled Darpo, had ever heard of a phenomenon like the ice cyclone, not even in the high, wild mountains.
Tol rode wrapped in silence. He, for one, did not believe the tornado was a freak of nature. The sky had remained clear and blue as lakewater even as the cyclone raged. It had come seemingly from nowhere and made straight for them, as though seeking to devour Tol and his people. The storm had been raised by magic-potent magic-Tol was certain. Twice now someone had tried to kill him with sorcery, and twice he had escaped, though not without cost. Two of his soldiers had died in Tarsis and now Felryn.
Tol jerked the reins, halting Shadow. The others stopped behind him. The setting sun was half hidden by the mountain peaks ahead. Staring straight into the crimson fire, Tol drew his jeweled dagger and held it high. Bloody sunlight flashed off the dagger’s gold-filigreed blade and silver-wrapped brass hilt. In the pommel, the hen’s egg ruby glowed as though afire.
“My lord, what is it?” Frez called.
“Just saying good-bye.”
Still holding his dagger aloft, Tol silently saluted the gallant healer.
Chapter 4
Knuckles white with strain slowly relaxed. Blood rushed in, setting his fingertips ablaze with a thousand pin- pricks. In the phosphor glow of the spirit-orb, the hands did not match. One was pinkish-white and soft, with stubby fingers and blunt nails. The other had long, tapering fingers and was the color of polished teak.
Mandes let out the breath he’d been holding. The strip of rag he’d been wringing in his fists fell into the shallow copper basin, disturbing the shadowy scene there.
The shadows obscured too much. Had it worked? Was the danger over at last?
God’s death, Lord Tolandruth was difficult to kill! This ill-born son of a northland pig farmer must die. Mandes would not allow all he had accomplished, all he had made for himself, vanish simply because Tol of Juramona was coming back to Daltigoth.
Exhaustion made his head reel. There was blood in his mouth. He could taste it, thick and salty. The whirlwind he’d created in the far-off mountains had claimed at least one life. Someone’s blood was on his tongue, he knew that.
Pushing himself to his feet, he cast about for water, wine, anything to cleanse the ugly taste from his mouth. As he stumbled about in his half-lit sanctum, he brushed against a hanging cymbal. Moments later his servant, Yeffrin, appeared in answer to the unintentional summons.
“You called, master?” the elderly servant rasped, squinting into the darkened room.
Mandes whirled, shoving his hands into his deep sleeves. “How dare you enter without my permission! Get out!”
“But, master, you rang-”
“Get out!”
Lightning flared behind the sorcerer’s eyes. A swirl of wind followed, catching up loose scraps of parchment and tangling Yeffrin’s long gray hair around his face.
With a terrified gasp, the servant retreated, blindly grabbing the brass handle and yanking the door shut..
“If you enter unbidden again, I’ll have your eyes plucked out!” Mandes screamed, voice breaking.
He snatched up his gloves and worked the tight-fitting leather onto his hands. He hated for anyone to see his ill-matched limbs and never appeared in public without the gloves. He even slept in a loose-fitting pair.
A cough spasmed in his chest. It escaped his lips explosively, flecking his chin with tiny droplets of blood.
Yeffrin was fleeing down the stairs at his best hobbling pace when he heard the thunderclap resound inside his master’s private chamber.
