have been killing each other for centuries; it seems we don’t even need an excuse! Wars and gates and pride and clans give cause enough! But now, for one clan to charge a bounty for the heads of another? For gully dwarves!”
She stomped on the ground and planted her fists on her hips, glaring downward. “And you, down there-you claim to be the descendents of the great mountain dwarf clans! You’re a bunch of frightened little rats, hiding in your holes! Why, if I could reach you, I’d pull your beards out by the roots!”
Gretchan stalked back and forth in the little clearing. Gus stayed very still, hoping she would forget about him. He didn’t understand who she was yelling at, but he was pretty certain it wasn’t him, and he was determined to leave it that way. Finally, after two long, loud minutes, she came back to the stump by the fire and sat down with a heavy sigh.
“I’ll be damned,” Gretchan said, looking far away into the night. Her tone was sad, but not so loud anymore. She looked at him and shook her head. “You tell a very interesting story. It sounds as though things have soured under the mountain these days.”
Gus didn’t know what ‘soured’ meant, but he was inclined to agree. He would have said so too except Gretchan didn’t seem to want to talk anymore. She went back to her sleeping roll and, with her staff nearby, bundled herself up in her blanket. Her eyes were open, staring past the gully dwarf and the fire, peering into the darkness of the woods. She filled her pipe, lit it with a stick she drew from the fire, and puffed furiously as she glared at the night.
Wracked by guilty feelings, Gus nonetheless needed only about two minutes to fall asleep. His dreams were untroubled, and when he woke up, the forest floor was dappled with sunlight, and Gretchan already had a fire going and a pot of tea on to brew.
His ability to forget meant that Gus’s mood had brightened, his fear-and guilty twinges-vanquished to some distant, cobwebbed portion of his brain. He cheerfully warmed his belly with the tea and filled it with a hearty slice of dried bread. Soon they were up and striding through the woods.
“What we do today?” he asked as they set out. “More walking?”
“Some,” Gretchan replied with a laugh. “Actually, I’m on a working expedition.”
“Work? Extra-mission?”
“Yes, like an ‘extra-mission.’ I’m a writer. A historian, I guess you could say. At least, I’d like to be. I travel around and talk to dwarves and write down their stories. I’ve been working on a book for a very long time.” She sounded a little wistful as she concluded her statement.
“Writing” was a concept as foreign to the gully dwarf as “reading.” He didn’t really understand what the dwarf maid was talking about, so he settled for a more pertinent question.
“Where we walking to?”
“I’m on my way to have a very interesting talk with a dwarf woman,” Gretchan replied. “I’ve heard many things about her, and I think it’s time I meet her for myself.”
“Where dwarf lady?” wondered the Aghar.
Gretchan chuckled, the sound as musical as ever, and Gus felt a fresh bounce in his step.
“She lives with a tribe of Neidar,” she said. “They live pretty close to here-in a sleepy little village called Hillhome. It won’t be long and we’ll be there.”
SIXTEEN
H arn Poleaxe approached the small hut with a measure of trepidation. He hadn’t seen the oracle for more than two years, but he well remembered the frisson of mingled terror and excitement that his last encounter with the old Neidar crone had provoked.
Yet he was returning in triumph, he told himself. He held the Bluestone wedge in his left hand as he raised his right and knocked, hesitantly, at the flimsy door.
“Enter, Harn Poleaxe!” came the command from within the hut.
Grimacing, the big Neidar tried to suppress the trembling that shook his hand as he pressed against the door. He ducked his head to pass underneath the low frame. The interior of the one-room house, not surprisingly, was dark, for the one who lived there had no need of illumination.
“I have returned, Mother Oracle,” Harn said, bowing humbly. “I take it you have been informed of my arrival?”
The old dwarf woman who sat in the shadowy room uttered a dry bark of laughter. “No one spoke to me,” she said. “But I knew you had come to Hillhome. And I know, too, that you bring the Bluestone from Kayolin.”
Harn shuddered at the evidence of the oracle’s far-seeing powers then quickly extended the heavy wedge of stone. As his eyes adjusted to the murk, he watched as she reached out her arthritic hands to take the talisman, lifting it easily into her lap.
The oracle had been a very old woman when she first came to Hillhome, some ten years earlier. To Harn, who had not seen her since he had departed for Kayolin two years ago, she looked the very same as when he had left, which was the same as when she had first wandered up the hill road into the town. Her hair was white and thin, hanging in a scraggly tangle around her round, wrinkled face. Her eyes were open but milky white, proof of the blindness that had long afflicted her. Her shoulders were rounded, and her posture, as she sat in a small rocking chair, stooped and frail looking. She wore a worn cloak of pale brown, patched in many places. Her feet were encased in soft moccasins.
But her voice was strong, and so were her hands. He watched as she hefted the heavy Bluestone, feeling the smoothness along both sides. She raised the artifact to her face and smelled the stone, running it along her wrinkled cheek, holding it to her ear as if she expected it to speak to her. For all Harn knew, she did hear something there. In any event, she issued a cackle of laughter and lowered the object into her lap.
“You have done well,” she said. “I believed in you, but even so, when I sent you to gain this stone, I knew you would face many obstacles. I was not certain you would succeed.”
Harn lowered his face, pleased by her praise and her acknowledgment of the severity of his challenge. “I had to live among the mountain dwarves for a long time,” he admitted. “But in the end, I was able to win their trust and gain the stone.”
“Go to the chest, over there by the window,” she said, handing him the Bluestone. He saw a small strongbox, protected by a solid steel lock, but when he crossed to the container, the lid turned out to be unsecured. He lifted it, looking down in amazement at another stone, the perfect image of the one he held in his hands except it was as green as emerald, albeit impossibly large for any such gemstone. He had known about the other stone’s existence, but it was moving, even awe inspiring, to see them together.
“Put that one in there, with the Greenstone,” the oracle said. He did as she asked, noting that the two stones nestled easily together to form a sharp-pointed, broad-based wedge.
“Close the lid and lock it. Bring me the key,” she instructed, and again he did as requested. “There is one more. When we obtain it, we will be ready to act,” she said.
“Huh. Where is this third stone?”
“I am not certain. It is moving now. I will need to study, consult my auguries, before I can pinpoint the exact location.”
Harn shuddered. Like most dwarves, he had a strong distrust of magic, and her suggestion of auguries, not to mention her inexplicable knowledge about matters unearthly, smelled too much like sorcery for his taste. Still, her information had always proven accurate, and her arcane knowledge made her his most important ally.
“Go to the stove,” she ordered suddenly. “And kindle a fire there.”
She had a small pot-bellied iron cook stove in one corner of the hut, and Harn did as she instructed. He found some dry straw for tinder as well as small sticks of firewood and a piece of flint. He struck the stone against the blade of his knife to drop sparks into the straw, and soon a small blaze ignited. The oracle was tapping her feet impatiently, so he blew on the fire to hasten it along then added more sticks until it was crackling enthusiastically.
