could see for quite a distance.
The corridor, they saw, meandered somewhat on its path-for at one time it had been a natural passageway, not a tunnel excavated from solid stone. True, there were signs of dwarven stone craft-regular arches to support the ceiling and buttresses in many places lining the walls. Because of the rubble and the cracks and crumbles in the walls and ceilings, however, it still looked like a wild place, long neglected.
“This like tunnel to Thorbardin,” Gus whispered. “We going to Thorbardin?” He wasn’t all that enthused about the prospect of returning to his lifelong home.
“No. This is the Sla-Mori-the ‘secret way’ into Pax Tharkas. The elves used these halls for burial very, very long ago.” But she was interested in the fact, if Gus could be believed, that similar tunnels existed in Thorbardin. She would have to remember to write that down.
“Bury bodies here?” asked the gully dwarf with an audible gulp.
“Yes,” Gretchan said. Unlike her nervous companion, she was filled with reverence and awe to be in such a hallowed place. Her feet padded respectfully across the dusty stones, and in spite of the rubble and decay, she saw it as it once had been: a great hall, sacred to dwarves and elves alike, a symbol of alliance and peace as testified to by the name of the fortress itself.
“Pax Tharkas,” she whispered to Gus, “translates roughly to mean ‘Peace and Strength.’ ”
“Piece and strength,” he mouthed, walking quietly beside her.
They came to a fork in the passage, and Kondike hesitated until Gretchan gestured with her staff toward the left. Again the dog led the way, picking up the pace slightly so the dwarves had to walk quickly in order to keep up. Despite his palpable fear, Gus hastened along, frankly more worried about being left behind than about any danger ahead.
Finally they came into a chamber so large, even the light from Gretchan’s staff couldn’t illuminate the far corners. It was a square vault with a series of columns lining the two side walls. In places, the ceiling had collapsed, dumping more rubble onto the floor, but in general the room was in better condition than the tunnel they had been following.
“Oh-oh. Dead guy! Who he?” asked Gus, suddenly freezing as he looked to the left.
“He was a great king,” Gretchan said reverently as her eyes followed his. “He lived long ago, thousands of years before the Cataclysm. His name was Kith-Kanan.”
“Kiss Caning,” mouthed Gus.
The body of the legendary elf king, founder of Qualinesti, sat on a massive throne. Two tall statues of elf warriors loomed over him, sentries flanking the king’s seat. The chair was set upon a raised dais, the monarch’s body seated as if at rest, facing the vast chamber just as if he were hosting a vast crowd of lords, courtiers, and ladies.
Perhaps, Gretchan thought as a shiver of an imaginary breeze drifted over them, he did have a court full of ghosts to wait upon him. She had seen enough strange things in her life that she was not about to discount the possibility. The two looming statues to either side of the throne, each a stern-faced elf warrior, armed and armored and easily four times the height of a mortal elf, gave a strong suggestion of a watchful presence there.
Gus, meanwhile, couldn’t fight his curiosity; he was creeping closer to the king’s throne. He halted, gazing upward with trepidation, as Kondike padded over to stand protectively beside him. Gretchan, too, strolled over to look at the image of the ancient ruler. Kith-Kanan’s flesh was not visible, for he had been entombed in a suit of full plate armor, including a helmet with a visor that covered his face. The armor had once been shiny silver, though it was blackened with age. Even so, the ornate scrolling on the greaves and breastplate was still visible; if anything, it was highlighted by the light film of dust.
“Kiss Caning elf king?” asked the gully dwarf, shaking his head in confusion. “In dwarf fort?”
“Yes,” Gretchan said gently. “Kith-Kanan,” she said, emphasizing the pronunciation, “lived in a time when elves and dwarves worked together for the greater good of Krynn.” She couldn’t help the bitterness that seeped into her voice. “Now, it seems, even the different clans of dwarfkind are not content unless they are trying to kill each other every day.”
“Not kill you!” Gus said fiercely, reaching up to take one of her hands in his grubby paws. “Gus not let them!”
“Thank you, my friend. I know you speak the truth from your heart, and that means a lot to me. I’m glad I could show you this place too. Now let’s get going.”
They left the corpse and statues and ghosts behind, proceeding through the darkened halls of the Sla-Mori. With her staff lighting the way, Gretchan found herself walking faster and faster, propelled by an eagerness even she didn’t understand. Kondike loped along at her side. They came to a place where the cavern once had been blocked by a cave-in, but they were able to keep going since Tarn’s laborers had obviously cleared the passage some years before. Other corridors and smaller passages branched off to the right and left, but Gretchan knew where she was headed. Her feet carried her rapidly along, around more twists and turns, and finally she reached an apparent dead end-a solid wall of stone.
Only then did she notice that Gus was missing. He must have fallen behind. She sighed in exasperation, trying to reconstruct when the intrepid Aghar had struck off on his own, until she realized she hadn’t heard a sound from him for the better part of an hour.
“Hmm, that’s not good. I hope you can stay out of trouble, little friend,” she whispered to herself. More to the point, she hoped he wouldn’t get into any trouble that would lead to her discovery. She was not ready to present herself to the lords of Pax Tharkas, not yet.
But she didn’t intend to turn back and look for him. More eager than before, Gretchan pressed forward. She probed along the dusty wall and felt the outlines of an ancient carving, like a wheel with deep spokes engraved into the stone surface. Pushing her fingers into those grooves, she strained to move the mechanism. For a moment she feared that she wouldn’t be strong enough, but suddenly it jerked and something broke free. The wheel in the wall rotated a quarter turn, and the great slab of stone blocking the passageway slipped to the side, opening the way into Pax Tharkas proper.
With a searching backward look, she determined that Gus hadn’t caught up to her yet. She decided to leave the door open for the moment with the expectation that the gully dwarf was not far behind. Indeed, as the air deep within the fortress wafted past her nose, carrying the scent of garbage and miscellaneous refuse, she realized he probably wasn’t the only Aghar in the place. Like most dwarven cities and fortresses of any size, Pax Tharkas no doubt hosted a thriving community of the little wretches, deep within the dungeons and tunnels where they were not-much of-a bother to the prevalent hard-working dwarves.
With her dog still shadowing her, Gretchan entered the dim corridors of the deep dungeons underneath what she knew was the East Tower of Pax Tharkas. Moving quietly, she slipped past dark, empty cells, climbed a narrow stairway to an upper floor, and continued to move farther into the fortress. She was approaching the next stairway leading up when she heard a key rattle in the lock overhead, and a door opened to reveal flickering torchlight.
Silently the dwarf maid and the shaggy, black dog shrank back into the darkness, a whispered word extinguishing the light glowing on the end of her staff. They drew deeper into a narrow side corridor off of the main dungeon hall. They would be almost impossible to see back there, even with strong dwarf eyes.
Sure enough, a small party of dwarves clumped by, ten paces away from her, but none of them even glanced her way. Two of the guards were escorting a prisoner, and she wasn’t too surprised to recognize Brandon Bluestone, once again a prisoner.
Gretchan had spent much of the past two weeks watching the Kayolin dwarf’s suffering. She had seen him captured by Garn Bloodfist’s Klar the morning after she visited the mountain dwarf camp, and had observed him locked in chains, and dragged roughly along by his uncaring captors. She had followed closely, observing the company’s progress all the way to Pax Tharkas. She knew he couldn’t expect any better treatment from the hard- headed Hylar and Klar who lived there.
And Daewar, she reminded herself curtly. After her conversation with Garn Bloodfist, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was at least one Daewar there.
She waited in the silent darkness as she heard a metal door open, followed by the coarse laughter of the two guards as they tossed their prisoner into his cell.
“Don’t worry,” one of them taunted. “We’ll be along with some food by next week at the latest.”
“Until then,” chortled the other, “you can always snack on the rats.”
Gretchan frowned but held her tongue as the guards again clomped past her hiding place and climbed the
