the cauldron. A few more manipulations placed the heart and the brain of the corpse into the vat; the rest of the drying flesh was discarded. Finally, he set the metal kettle on the white-hot stone of his workbench and stepped back to work another incantation.
The raising of a minion was not something to be done casually or quickly. For more than an hour, Willim stood before the cauldron, working the spell, sweat pouring from the Theiwar’s face, trickling through his beard, causing his robe to stick to his skin. Never, however, did his intense concentration waver, and finally the kettle began to smoke then to burn. Flames shot upward, at first yellow and bright, then gradually fading to pale blue flickers barely extending over the rim, and at last fading away.
The cauldron continued to smoke, however, and that smoke grew thick, black, and strangely opaque. It rose in a column, but instead of dispersing through the chamber, it held together, coalesced, and in fact seemed to concentrate in on itself as more and more churning vapor surged into the cloud. Very slowly, the smoke emerging from the cauldron diminished as all of the components were consumed. Finally, there was nothing left save for the tall, amorphous pillar of black murk lingering in the air over the black kettle.
“Minion-awaken!” Willim commanded, his voice booming through the chamber. At the same time, he clenched both fists, and the smoke column contracted, writhing and, increasingly, wailing as the magic wove it into a physical presence. It floated to the side, then settled down onto the floor of the chamber. Two slender legs, ending in taloned feet, extended downward to support its weight. A pair of black, batlike wings extended from its shoulders. Finally eyes appeared: almond shaped and wide set, like the eyes of an elf.
But those eyes were red and glowing with hellish heat like the blazing coal within a hot forge.
Willim concentrated his thoughts; then, without speaking, he conveyed to his minion a mental image of the gully dwarf and instructed it to follow in the direction the Aghar had gone away from there. Only then did the Black Robe give voice to his command.
“Pursue the gully dwarf until you catch him. When you do, kill him and bring me everything he carries.”
The minion bowed deeply, those eerie elf eyes pressing all the way to the floor, in obeisance. Then the black wings spread and the horrid creature, taller than a tall man, took flight. It rose, met the stone ceiling of the vast cavern, and continued on through the bedrock of the world.
TEN
Garren Bluestone, pushing Brandon before him, rushed through the front door of his family’s manor. “Send for Harn Poleaxe,” he ordered his doorman. The young dwarf, a lanky Daewar, departed at once.
“Father!” complained Brand. “I was telling the truth; I deserved to be heard!”
“You deserved to be heard, maybe. But your actions were more likely to get you arrested, even killed!” declared the elder in exasperation. “Don’t you understand who wields the power in this nation? The power, whether you want to believe it or not, of life and death?”
“I saw the death part,” growled the son.
His father’s face fell, looking as though he had been struck a physical blow, and Brandon immediately regretted his tone. But Garren’s voice when next he spoke was steady, almost calm.
“I only have one son left. We have to get you out of Kayolin,” he said bluntly. “As soon as possible.”
“Do you think the governor will try to kill me right here in Kayolin? First they’ll have to arrest me, give me a trial!” Brandon blurted in disbelief.
His father glared sternly at him. “The king, I keep telling you, can do anything he prefers to do. And if it can’t be done legal and nice, Lord Heelspur has plenty more of his thugs to throw at you. One will pick a fight; others will be lurking. Your temper is not without some renown.” Garren looked wistful as he regarded his youngest son. “And everyone knows about the Bluestone luck. Whatever your fate, many people will say that you provoked it and you got what you deserved. Others will say it’s simply the curse that follows our house. We are in a real pickle here. My son, I would like to fight them too, but we have to keep you safe while we build up our case, muster allies and supporters.”
“But- leave? You tell me I must leave Kayolin?” Like most of the nation’s mountain dwarves, he had done his share of exploring the peaks and valleys of the Garnet Range. But the land beyond those lofty summits was completely unknown to him. “Where would I go?” he asked, finally.
“That’s where Poleaxe comes in. Now collect a few traveling things-just the essentials-and be here the moment he arrives. I’ll have a purse of about eighty steel coins for you; you’ll have to use it pay expenses, book passage on a ship, and so forth. We have no time to waste. And Brandon-”
“Yes, what?” he asked, numbly.
“Take your axe, and remember your house. It has not always been a legacy of bad luck, you know. Balric Bluestone was carrying that weapon when he set off to climb Garnet Peak. He was lost in the Cataclysm, but his axe was returned to us-the rescuers found it immediately, as soon as they went to look for him.”
“I… I know the story,” Brandon replied, confused.
“The point is, I’ve always felt that discovery meant something to us, to our family. It’s a symbol of hope, a sign that if we look toward the future, there is a promise of better things ahead. Bear it proudly, and find that future. Now go.”
Brandon’s heart was pounding as he went to his rooms and looked at the tunics, trousers, cloaks, boots, and belts that made up his wardrobe. Buy passage on ship? He couldn’t even imagine floating on an ocean! He had a chest of tools, another of weapons, each containing implements he had used during the nearly five decades of his life as he grew to adulthood. How could he shrink it down to the few items he could carry on his back?
He was standing there, feeling helpless, when his mother came in. Karine walked up to him, and he put an arm around her, drawing her against him, surprised by how frail, how small, she felt.
“I understand I am losing two sons today,” she said sadly.
He frowned. In his own wallowing, he had forgotten how his actions would affect the rest of his family. “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to-I don’t want to-that is, Father insists-”
“And he’s right,” she said firmly. “He told me what happened in the court. You won’t be safe here, but you should know, Brandon, that I am so proud of you.”
“But-why? I haven’t done anything to make you proud!”
“Shh,” she said quietly, touching a finger to his lips. “I know what you and your brother found. And I know what you did, carrying him out of the delvings by yourself. You are a credit to yourself and to our house.”
He couldn’t speak for a moment, just held her close. Finally he waved his free hand at his wardrobe and chests. “I don’t even know what to take,” he admitted.
“Let me help,” she said practically, bustling over to the chests, throwing the lids open, and clucking her tongue at the mess she saw in each. Yet somehow, in the space of a few short minutes, she had helped him gather together a compact traveling kit. He donned his most durable clothes, wrapped a knife, a waterskin, gloves, and a rope into a spare robe, and strapped his axe to the sheath on his back. The cook brought in some bread and cheese wrapped in dried lambskin that Brandon could carry in his belt pouch. At his mother’s advice, he put on his most comfortable walking boots, leaving both his hobnailed climbing boots and the ceremonial footwear he had worn to the palace behind.
He said a dignified good-bye to his mother, though her courageously dry eyes made him want to cry. “Go,” she whispered into his ear, and the anguish in her voice made him understand her grief and steeled his own resolve. He emerged to find that Harn Poleaxe had come quickly and was being ushered into his father’s study.
“I have reconsidered,” Garren Bluestone said to the hill dwarf when the Neidar and the patriarch were comfortably seated. Brandon stood inside the doorway, watching and listening as his father spoke. “I accept your terms, on two additional conditions.”
“Excellent!” rejoiced Poleaxe before narrowing his eyes. “Conditions?” he said warily. “My offer is on the table: a hundred times a thousand steel pieces for the Bluestone.”
Brandon tried to listen, though his head was whirling with the fast pace of events. He couldn’t even imagine a hundred times a thousand pieces of steel. And what were the new conditions? He had a feeling they involved
