Quiet descended. Pa’alu joined them, casually wiping blood from an elven sword.
Pakito looked up from his awkward position atop the unconscious elves. “Well, dragon-man,” he said genially, “I’m glad we didn’t try to take you back at camp!” He told his brother how the elf’s spear had hurt Duranix no more than a soggy reed.
Pa’alu listened intently then shoved his sword through his belt and surveyed the area. “Lucky thing we happened along.”
“Luck? You two have been trailing me since I left Karada’s camp.”
“Not us!” Pakito insisted, but his open expression easily betrayed the truth of the matter.
The dragon shook his head. “No matter. What concerns me most is the elf priest who escaped.”
“We first thought you came here to meet them,” Pa’alu said. “It wasn’t until we heard you talking that we realized you were as surprised as we were to find them here.”
“What is this place, anyway?” asked Pakito.
“I’m not certain,” said Duranix. “It feels like… a graveyard.”
Pakito jumped to his feet. The elves he’d been sitting on groaned but remained quiescent. “Who’s buried here?” the big man asked, eyes wide.
“No one.”
Pa’alu ran a hand lightly over a nearby stone. “What do you mean?”
“This formation is not natural,” Duranix told them. “These stones have stood for untold years, yet they still resonate with great power.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Pa’alu said, lowering his voice, “tales of the days before men and elves. It’s said the spirits fought a great war over who would rule the world.”
“True enough,” Duranix said.
“Maybe these are some of the losers.”
The dragon was struck by the plainsman’s surprising acumen. He knew from his hatchling days of the All- Saints War, when the spirits aligned themselves with Good or Evil, or tried to remain neutral. After some defeats, the forces of
Good and Neutrality allied themselves and defeated — hut did not destroy — the forces of Evil. What greater punishment could there be for defeated spiritual beings than to be confined to the material world, imprisoned for eons in a matrix of unfeeling stone?
Pakito broke the silence. “What about them?” he asked, gesturing toward the limp pile of bodies.
“Take their metal and leave’em,” Pa’alu said, squatting by his brother’s unconscious victims. “It’s a long walk back to the forest. Maybe a wolf or panther will get them on the way.”
“Karada should know they were here,” Pakito insisted. “There aren’t supposed to be any elves this far north. What if there are more?”
“What indeed?” Duranix shook off the oppressive aura of the stones. “Your chief should be warned. This was a small party, but if a sizable band of elves is about, your people could be trapped between it and the force ascending the Thon-Thalas.”
“Who’ll warn Karada?” Pakito wondered, looking confused. “We were ordered to follow you.”
“I return to Yala-tene. One of you can come along; the other can go back and warn Karada.”
The brothers saw the sense in this. Pakito, knowing his brother’s feelings for their chief, offered to go with Duranix. Pa’alu declined.
“I haven’t been to the mountains since I was a boy,” he said. “I’ll go with the dragon-man.”
“But — ”
“Go on, Pakito. You’re the only one who can carry all this metal back anyway.” He filled his brother’s arms with elven javelins, swords, greaves, and helmets. “Start now. You’ll reach camp before noon.”
Pa’alu hung a few extra waterskins — taken from the elves — around his hulking brother’s neck and, with a hearty slap on his back, sent him on his way. While the brothers were parting, Duranix went to where Vedvedsica’s robe lay. A dense odor of flowers still clung to the empty garment.
Pa’alu approached. “Find something?”
“I’d hoped to find the bag of stone chips he carried,” said Duranix. “It appears he took them with him.”
“How are such things done?”
“It’s a talent, and a rare one among flimsy creatures like yourselves. I think the priest has somehow learned to tap the latent power of the stones. It’s a dangerous ability for savages.”
Duranix stood, tossing the robe aside. When he did, a single small stone fell from the folds. Pa’alu picked it up. It was a smooth, heavy nugget, no bigger than a walnut, and of a richer yellow color than bronze.
“Heavy,” said the plainsman, handing the stone to Duranix. “What is it?”
“Gold.” What felt like cold stone to the plainsman almost burned Duranix’s hand. The nugget was saturated with power.
To Pa’alu’s bewilderment, Duranix put the yellow nugget in his mouth. Without further explanation, he struck out due west for Yala-tene, leaving Pa’alu hurrying on his heels to keep up.
*
Smoke poured from the mouth of the tunnel. Amero and his chief digger, Mieda, stood back from the opening with strips of wet birch-bark over their noses and mouths. Deep inside, they could see a red flicker of flame. More diggers emerged, coughing and soot-stained. When they reached open air, they doused themselves with handy buckets of cold lake water.
“How goes it, Farun?” Amero asked anxiously.
The digger, his face blackened by soot, coughed and said, “It’s still burning, but no one can stay in there long.”
“That’s all right,” Amero replied. “As long as we can run in and feed the fire, there’s nothing else to do right now.”
Fire had been Mieda’s idea. The storage tunnels had progressed well as long as there was sandstone to burrow through, but when the diggers found a strain of hard black stone, the project stopped dead. They tried various tools on the black stone, including shovels fashioned from the dragon’s cast-off scales, but nothing made an impression. Then one morning Amero found Mieda by the shore of the lake. He’d built a small twig fire and was watching it intently.
“Catch a fish?” Amero asked.
Mieda tapped the black object in the fire with a stick.
“What’s that?”
“Black stone, like in tunnel.” Mieda’s command of the plainsman’s language wasn’t complete. Many villagers still thought he was slow-witted because he didn’t talk much. Amero knew better.
“You’re cooking a stone?”
“Yes.” Mieda remained cross-legged on the sand, staring at the fire.
Amero dropped down on the other side of the flames. He said nothing for a long time, then impatience stirred his tongue.
“What are you doing, Mieda?”
“Learning to break rock.” He leaned forward and spat on the black stone shard. Satisfied with the hiss that it produced, Mieda dipped his hands in the lake and dumped the water squarely on the stone. Smoke and steam rose. The little fire sputtered and died.
“What did that accomplish?” Amero asked.
Mieda raised his stick — a limp pine branch, plucked green from the tree — and struck the black rock smartly. To Amero’s amazement, the rock cracked and fell apart.
“How did you do that?” he exclaimed.
Mieda smiled. “Seen it before. Cooled fast, hot stone breaks.” He met Amero’s eyes. “Understand?”
“Yes! We can do this in the tunnel!”
So they did. It wasn’t as easy as cooking a rock on the beach. The tunnels filled with smoke when the first dry pine boughs were set alight. The diggers ran out for fresh air, but someone had to go back at intervals to feed the flames. Every bucket, gourd, and bowl in Yala-tene was filled with water, ready to throw on the heated rock face. Normal work in the village came to standstill as everyone waited to see if Mieda’s technique worked as well in the large scale as it did in the small.
