stairs toward the next-higher level. Only when she heard the door slam behind them did she emerge, Kondike quietly trailing, to move into the main corridor.
There was only one cell with a closed door, so that must be where Brandon was being held. There was a small grid of bars in the door, providing a window into the cell, and she pressed her face to that opening before speaking in a whisper.
“Brandon? Brandon Bluestone of Kayolin?” she asked.
Seated on the bench that doubled as a bunk, he looked up with an expression that mingled consternation and pleasure. Their eyes met and even in the lightless conditions-she did not want to risk illuminating her staff again- they could recognize each other. She braced herself, preparing for another angry outburst, but instead the prisoner threw back his head and laughed heartily.
“Do you make a habit of visiting every prisoner in every dungeon?” he said, still chuckling. “Or is it just me?”
“Actually, it’s just you,” she admitted. “I saw you get taken by Garn’s men, and then I saw them leading you into the dungeon and I followed you here. I wanted to, uh, see how you are doing. I hope they haven’t beaten you- too badly. Have you had anything to eat?”
He shrugged from his seat on the bench. “So far, my survey of Neidar versus Klar hospitality has failed to arrive at any conclusion. But my research-as you can see-continues.” Brandon’s voice took on an edge of sarcasm. “I’ll share the final result with you, for your book, if you want.”
She bit her tongue on a sharp reply, as always sensitive to the progress-or lack thereof-of her book. “I’m sorry this happened to you again. I… I wish there was something I could do. About your bad luck, I mean. And I wasn’t too nice to you last time we spoke; I wanted to apologize for that too.”
Say something, she screamed silently. For a long heartbeat, he only sat there, studying her.
Finally, he rose and came over to the door, leaning his face close to the bars. He was really quite handsome, she told herself, even if he was still dressed in the same filthy garb he had been wearing for two weeks of marching through the mountains. His hair was uncombed but rich and thick and a pleasant shade of brown. It was draped low on his forehead, almost covering one eye with a rakish, very intriguing effect. His beard, once neatly trimmed, was unkempt, but it parted to reveal a neat set of white teeth.
“Uh, actually, I’d been wishing for the chance to say the same thing to you. I could have been more pleasant when you visited me in the brig,” he admitted.
She was taken aback by his frank statement. It seemed almost un-dwarf-like! She realized that, when she first had met him, she had wanted to get him talking about his homeland, to learn about Kayolin from a dwarf who had lived there; then, it was only her research, her book, that mattered. At that moment, though, she found herself just wanting to get to know him, to understand him.
“You really are from Kayolin, aren’t you?” she said. “I should have believed you.”
“All my life,” he replied. “Until the last few months.”
“How did you come to be in the south hills?”
“It’s a very long story,” he said with a bitter chuckle.
“I have plenty of time,” she replied.
And so he told her the long story. He told her all about the vein of gold he had discovered and about his brother’s murder and Ham’s murderous betrayal. He discussed his father’s grief and his hopes, the treasure he had sent south with his son, and about Poleaxe’s treachery in stealing it from him.
“That’s where you found me, in the Hillhome brig. Waiting for execution, it turns out,” he concluded.
“Wait. You mean, you think Harn Poleaxe intended to have you killed?” she asked.
“Intended, tried, almost did,” Brandon said bitterly. He described his sham trial and his perilous predicament when he’d been shackled to the timber frame with tinder and firewood piled around his feet as the Klar attack began. “If the Klar hadn’t attacked when they did, I’d have been cooked to a cinder in the next hour.”
“That Poleaxe! He’s even worse than I thought,” Gretchan said. She told him all about Poleaxe’s attack on her and fleeing Hillhome.
“The bastard!” Brandon spit, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the bars of his cell door.
All of a sudden Gretchan felt terribly weary and discouraged. She slumped against the door. “It’s not just Poleaxe. There’s Garn Bloodfist and Tarn Bellowgranite-and the high king in Thorbardin. All they can think about, it seems, is how they can make war against their fellow dwarves.”
“Wait. You’ve been to Thorbardin?” Brandon said. “Is that your home?”
“No. I come from… far away from here,” she said. “But all my life I’ve studied Thorbardin, talked to dwarves who lived there-even some who want to go back.”
“But it remains sealed against the world, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. And when I finally accepted that I’d never be able to visit the place, I decided to come to Pax Tharkas, to meet the dwarves here, who left Thorbardin only a decade ago. That’s the closest I can get to chronicling Thorbardin, for now.”
“I see. And where will all this research and chronicling lead?”
She sighed. “My great ambition is to go to the Great Library, in Palanthas. I want to ask them to take me in as an aesthetic or a student. I just want to read, to study, to learn about the dwarves of the past.”
“All this talk of the past!” he challenged her, shaking his head. “What about the present or the future?”
Gretchan looked at him through the narrow bars and shook her head. “You’ve seen the present,” she admitted sadly. “War and false trials and treachery and theft. What kind of future do you think the dwarf race has?”
“Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that, can it?” he objected.
She couldn’t help but place her own hands over his, and when his fingers clutched at hers, she felt a giddiness she had never felt before. It was as if he would never let her go.
And she would never want him to release her.
Gus was busy wandering through the tunnels of the Sla-Mori. He strolled into one room full of crypts, and when one of the coffin doors started to squeak open, he fled, dashing at top speed through the darkness. He scrambled over piles of loose stones, investigated shadowy niches, and discovered a chamber where a massive chain emerged from the ceiling to be fastened to a heavy iron bracket sunk right into the stone of the floor.
Once or twice he tried looking around for Gretchan, but he felt certain she was just a few steps ahead of him, and there was simply so much to see, he couldn’t be bothered to worry about her. Little insect critters scurried out of his path, too fast for him to catch even one, but they reminded him he was getting hungry. Luckily he found a piece of old, rotten timber with a sumptuous yellow mold growing along one crumbled edge. He feasted on that rarity, spitting out the larger pieces of wood, until he felt sated. He got up to start walking again until, finally, he realized that he was very, very much alone.
He hastened down the darkened hallways, tripping and falling over many a loose rock, anxiously seeking the dwarf maid who had become his companion, his rescuer, his best friend-his goddess! He wanted to call out to her but didn’t dare risk attracting attention to himself. So he trekked on, moving as fast as his stubby little legs would carry him.
He came to a door that was standing open. The other side of the door smelled refreshingly like Agharhome, the gully dwarf slum where he had lived nearly all of his life. He slowed to an easy stroll, wandering down a winding corridor with wet, slimy walls that reminded him of home. Then he caught an especially familiar, favorite scent, the stink of wet fur and a fleshy body.
Rat! He saw the creature scampering to the side, scuttling underneath a low shelf. Instantly Gus dropped to his hands and knees, clawing after the creature, reaching his stubby fingers under the shelf. He felt its naked tail, squeezed hard, and pulled only to feel it yanked away from his grip by an even more forceful tug. “Hey! Rat mine!”
The protest came from a female gully dwarf who popped into view on the other side of the shelf. She held the wriggling rat in her hands and deftly twisted its body, snapping its neck.
“No, rat mine!” Gus retorted, planting his fists on his hips and glaring at the female. He had been startled by her abrupt appearance but managed to overcome his instinct of flight to stand in place and face her down.
She glared back at him, stubbornly clutching the rat. Her nose, Gus saw, was impressively large, swelling out from between two round cheeks. Her hair was reddish brown, tangled, and long, straggling over her round shoulders except where her large ears caused the matted tresses to extend almost straight out to the sides.
