“Ah, good,” she said at length. “Now take my teapot and fill it from the water cistern outside; you must use rainwater, not well water.”
“Aye, Mother Oracle,” Harn replied. He found the teapot, a battered old ceramic vessel, and went outside to see that the barrel poised under her downspout was nearly full. A few neighborhood youngsters were playing tag nearby, and they snickered to see him performing such woman’s work, but they quickly scampered away when he glared at them. With the teapot full, he reentered the hut.
“Now put it on the stove. Keep the fire going; make it boil!” she snapped.
Again he did as he was told, feeding more wood into the stove, wondering about the purpose of the tedious ritual. Still, he wasn’t inclined to ask questions and, fortunately, the water was boiling a few minutes later.
“Bring me my tea,” the oracle commanded, pointing a bony finger toward a cluttered table near the stove. Amid a cheese crock and a box of small spice bottles, he found a container, heavy and glazed, that held a bundle of bitter-smelling brown leaves. He took it over to her and watched as she worked by feel, counting ten leaves into the palm of her hand.
“Put these in a mug, and cover them with the hot water,” was her next instruction, which he duly followed. He was surprised to see the brew foam and bubble when the boiling liquid contacted the leaves. The smell was truly vile, and he wondered what it must taste like.
But she had no intention of drinking it. After he handed her the mug, he had to jump backward to avoid the scalding spray as she unceremoniously upended the container and dumped the water and leaves right onto the wooden floor at her feet. With a surprisingly fluid gesture, she pushed herself out of the chair and dropped to her knees. Gingerly reaching out her gnarled hands, she traced her fingers over the hot leaves, taking care not to move them, but using touch, she carefully studied their positions on the floor.
She spent a long time in that slow activity, several times clucking her tongue in apparent displeasure. Harn didn’t dare interrupt her scrutiny, and he was startled when she looked up suddenly, fixing those blind eyes upon him as if they could read his thoughts.
“You did not return alone from the dwarven nation in the north,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp.
“No,” he admitted warily. “I came with a Kayolin dwarf. It was his family, an ancestor, that uncovered the stone, and his father bade me bring the son along. It was the only way I could get the stone.”
“That was a mistake,” she said, sitting on her haunches and shaking her head dismally as if she could not believe the scope of Harn’s incompetence.
“What do you want me to do?” Poleaxe asked, suddenly-he couldn’t say why-chagrined.
“The Kayolin dwarf must never leave Hillhome,” replied the oracle. “He must be eliminated.”
“Well, I intend to do just that,” Harn said defensively. Suddenly his throat felt terribly parched, but he wasn’t about to ask for a drink, not from the Mother Oracle. He gulped. “He’s locked up right now, and I have arranged for him to be charged as a spy. If the trial goes as planned, he will be executed shortly.”
“Make sure, then, that the trial does go as planned,” she said. “For this Kayolin outsider is a great danger to us if he lives. Remember, he must never leave Hillhome.”
“I will make it so, Mother Oracle,” pledged the Neidar stoutly. “Is… is there anything else you need from me?” he added, silently hoping the answer would be “no.”
“Yes,” she said immediately. She leaned forward for a moment, touching the leaves again, even bending down to loudly sniff at them.
“Another stranger, a female, approaches Hillhome-a dwarf maid. She interests me. I want you to meet her, study her, see what her purpose is.”
“Why is she coming here?” Harn asked worriedly.
“She comes to seek me. But I will not allow her into my presence. You must make sure she stays away.”
“How can I do that?”
“For now, tell her that I am very unwell. Sick, even dying, in my bed. I will accept no visitors.”
“I will,” Harn said. “But what if that doesn’t work?”
“Then,” she said sharply. “Think of something else.”
Gus gazed into the valley as the road crested a gentle rise and began to wind again toward the lowland. He saw a collection of brown shapes, apparently made of wood, sprawling through the fields, along the roads, up and down the banks of the narrow stream, and scattered all around a wide, central square.
“Those are buildings, and this is a town,” Gretchan explained. “Hillhome, to be precise.”
“Hill home,” repeated the Aghar in awe.
The dwarf maid, together with the Aghar and the big, black dog, ambled down the road toward the place. Gretchan puffed easily on her pipe as she walked along, while Gus looked around at new wonders as they approached: fenced pastures where cattle, pigs, sheep, and horses grazed; wooden houses with flower gardens; neatly tended ponds where fish jumped and splashed. He was particularly taken by the sight of a lumber crew, Neidar dwarves using axes to fell tall trees while massive horses hauled the logs toward a pile of timber next to the road. He gawked so long, he had to race to catch up to his companion, who had kept walking and was already at the edge of town.
“We’ll stop at an inn first,” Gretchan said. “I learned years ago that that’s the best way to find out what’s happening in a community-especially a town of dwarves!”
“I like inn!” Gus agreed. He had never actually been inside of such an establishment-the dwarves of Norbardin were notoriously strict about keeping the Aghar out-but he had sniffed around the edges and sorted through the garbage of many eating and drinking inns. Maybe, with his new friend Gretchan at his side, the Neidar would actually let him inside the door.
Gretchan was busy looking around the town that crowded the valley before them. She frowned. “I really can’t believe Hillhome is this big.”
“Never been here before?” Gus asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve been doing my work for a number of years,” she admitted. “Traveling. But I’ve really only scratched the surface of the vast dwarven nations.”
“You can scratch my surface,” the Aghar offered helpfully, doffing his cap in case she needed access to his scalp.
The dwarf maid recoiled with a grimace, which to Gus’s eyes was a mighty beautiful expression. “Listen, Gus,” she said in a low, gentle voice. “Sometimes people aren’t always nice to… um, your kind. You just stick with me, and I’ll do the talking, all right?”
“All right! You do talking!” he agreed. Strutting proudly along on the right side of Gretchan, with Kondike pacing on her left, Gus marched purposefully into his first hill dwarf community. Several dwarves, maids filling buckets at a well, looked at him scornfully, but he ignored their hostile glances-they were nothing he hadn’t experienced every time he dared to skirt the edges of Norbardin. He was more concerned with the hill dwarf males who, to a man, ignored the gully dwarf in favor of ogling the pretty Gretchan. He wanted to rebuke them-challenge them to a fight-but he remembered the dwarf maid’s instructions and decided that he would indeed let her do the talking.
So he tried to communicate his displeasure by glaring at the dwarves who took such a lascivious interest in his companion, but when one fellow uttered a long, low whistle, Gus lost his temper.
“You stop it, you big bluphsplunging doofar!” he barked, taking a step toward the hill dwarf, but Gretchan snatched him back by his collar.
“Keep quiet!” she snapped, and he vowed he would really, really try.
They wandered down a street that was busy with pedestrians and cart traffic. Gus spied vaguely familiar sights: a smith pounding iron beside his hot forge; a baker pulling loaves from an oven; a fishmonger standing at a cart full of a fresh catch, calling for business, exchanging his wares for silver or copper coin. But much of Hillhome was utterly unprecedented in his narrow experience. He yelped and jumped out of the way as a team of oxen, lumbering like giants over his head, rumbled past, pulling a wagon full of beer kegs. He gawked at horses and ponies in the street, and goats and chickens in the yards of some of the houses. They passed carts full of vegetables, for sale like the fish, but more brightly colored and fresh smelling than any food in all of sunless Thorbardin.
He reached for one of the things Gretchan called “carrots” but flinched back when she cuffed him on the head. “Hands to yourself,” she told him, then sighed at his crestfallen expression.
