a slanderous worse charge-of murder! Must I put up with this insult, this dishonor, here in open court?”
Brandon was ready with a reply, but his father was already pulling him away from the gallery. “It’s true!” he shouted, but the words were muffled by Garren’s hand planted firmly across his mouth.
“Don’t be a fool!” snapped the elder Bluestone, dragging Brandon back between the guards flanking the palace gate. Garren propelled his son toward the stairways spiraling back down to the city’s midlevels. “Now move! Get out of here before you do more damage!”
“But, father, he was claiming our find! The find that cost Nailer his life!” spit Brandon, finally breaking free from the patriarch’s steely grasp. “He is behind Nailer’s murder!’
“I know that!” retorted Garren. “But we must present our case to the king-and now you have humiliated his ally in public court! Quickly, down the stairs.”
“But-” Brandon was forced to obey, propelled by his father’s stern push. “What are you-we-going to do?”
“We?” growled Garren Bluestone, pushing even harder. Behind his father’s anger, Brandon realized, was a very powerful undercurrent of fear. “It’s you I’m worried about now. We are going to do the only thing we can! We are going to try to save your life!”
NINE
With his hands pressed tightly over his face, Gus peered through the gaps between his fingers. He watched in terror as the deadly bolts flew through the wizard’s lair, cringed as one dwarf after another was killed by weaponry or magic. The green cloud of lethal gas drifted near to his cage, and he couldn’t help coughing and gagging as he drew small, painful breaths, but the bulk of the poison gas passed over his head. He could only stare in horror as the two elves in the next cage writhed and puked and, ever so slowly, died. The gully dwarf tried looking away, but the male elf was staring at him, and he couldn’t help staring back, watching those ancient eyes until they slowly glazed over and finally went dark and still.
He gaped in awe when the wizard vanished from sight, then watched him reappear. He saw the bottle that the Theiwar pulled from his cabinet and watched as the mage set that bottle down on the bench, near to the bottle of black liquid and the other of dwarf spirits that the Black Robe had seemed to cherish so much. Gus cowered at the sight of a young Theiwar, one of the wizard’s helpers, who seemed to fight like a crazed monster-throwing his foes around the room and leaping after them with a speed and agility unlike any dwarf’s.
When at last the fiery tentacles emerged from the deep pit, he yelped in abject horror and pressed his face to the floor. He heard terrible screaming and felt the heat of infernal fires warming his skin. Only as the sounds of battle slowly faded and the intense warmth waned did he risk looking again through the stubby fingers that offered so little protection.
He listened to the talk between the wizard and the doomed assassin, not entirely understanding what they were talking about-though even a miserable Aghar knew that Jungor Stonespringer was the high king of all dwarves, the mightiest and most lofty ruler in all the world. And the black-robed wizard sought to supplant him!
He must be very mighty indeed, and that thought made Gus even more afraid.
That last prisoner died, and the terrible, powerful usurper was looking around his lair again. The Aghar tried to make himself very small… to no avail.
“You!” snapped the wizard, pointing at Gus. “Come out of there.”
The words were more than just an audible command. They were a summoning spell, and Gus could no more have disobeyed than he could have turned himself into a cave bat and winged away. His knees knocked as he forced himself to his feet and stumbled forward, clumping like an automaton as he emerged from the still-open door to his cell. Once outside he stopped, for the wizard had made no further immediate command.
“I mean, come over here, to this bench,” said the Black Robe in irritation.
The wizard was horrible to gaze upon. His eyelids were sewn shut, sealed with ghastly scars. His beard was filthy, matted with bits of food and possibly drool-though when he spotted a bit of mushroom tangled in the drool, Gus’s stomach momentarily growled. But terror quickly pulled his attention back to the magic-user’s commands.
Gus, unable to resist the magical compulsion, did as told. His eyes widened as he saw the sinister black liquid. He could sense the evil power there, and it made him very afraid. Beside that bottle was another, of dwarf spirits, which Gus recognized as something that would make him very sick-he had tasted the liquor once before, when he had claimed a nearly empty bottle off the body of a dead Klar. And there was a third bottle too, the one that the wizard had taken out of his cabinet while the fight was raging in the laboratory.
“Now listen carefully, you miserable little dimwit,” snapped the Theiwar wizard. He gestured to the bench where the black liquid and the other two bottles rested. “I want you to take a very small sip of this tasty potion. You must drink now.”
Again, the compelling spell of command allowed no disobedience. Gus’s hand shook uncontrollably as the little dwarf reached upward-the top of the bench being as high as his chin.
“Be careful! Don’t drop it!” snapped the dwarf wizard.
At his words a burst of fire erupted from the crack in the floor, the flame and smoke billowing into the cavern as the great beast that lurked there seethed and burned. The mage turned his face, momentarily grinning at the horrific display of fiery power.
Gus was reaching up, compelled to grab the bottle, to drink a small drop. The wizard’s command was insistent, magical, irresistible. But that black liquid terrified him so! His hand hesitated, terrified by the dark swirl of the bottle’s creamy contents. Even so, his fingers started to close around it, curling shut despite every effort he made to balk.
Some tiny corner of his brain raised a good, pertinent point. The wizard had not specified which liquid he was required to drink. He said to drink “this,” but maybe he meant one of the other bottles. He moved his hand ever so slightly in that direction, pleased that the spell didn’t keep him from doing so. And the wizard didn’t notice. Gus quickly snatched up the bottle that looked like dwarf spirits, but then remembered the retching, the pounding headache, that had resulted last time he drank something like that. Nope, better not, he told himself at the last moment. So he let go of the dwarf spirits bottle, which dropped into the sagging pouch of his front pocket.
The wizard was still distracted, admiring the glowing aura of his pet monster, but just then he started to turn back toward the gully dwarf.
Eagerly, like a drowning swimmer snatching for a lifeline in a stormy sea, Gus grabbed the third bottle, the one the wizard had brought out of his cabinet. He raised it to his lips and took a small sip even as the Theiwar returned his stare to him and the potions.
“No, you fool!” shrieked the mage. “Not that one!”
But the liquid was already trickling down his gullet, a strangely bubbly sensation that tasted like water but was not. The wizard reached furiously for him, his eyeless face contorted, and Gus instinctively flinched away, wishing he was somewhere, anywhere, besides that horrible place. Besides terror and hunger, he felt the bottle of dwarf spirits flopping around in his deep pocket.
Then suddenly, miraculously, the dread wizard was gone. His whole laboratory was gone. It was dark but not dark like the dark of a deep cave. Gus felt very cold, as air moved past his skin, a sensation he had never experienced before. Instinctively he looked up, seeking the ceiling, the upper wall of whatever chamber he was in.
Instead, he saw a speckling of tiny lights, impossibly distant, and uncountably numerous. Around him were great mounds of rock, some of them dusted with a curious whiteness. Most of all, there was an undeniable sense of vast distances, of space above him and to either side, a feeling that he had never experienced before. Only gradually did the truth dawn:
He wasn’t in Thorbardin anymore.
Willim trembled with uncontainable rage. He shouted and shrieked, and fire flew from his tongue, searing
