The palace bells ring, signaling the quarter hour. Philippa hastens me out of the chamber and into the waiting arms of my escort guard once more. Their numbers have tripled since last night. I’m surrounded by a veritable phalanx as they march me through the stone passages, making for some part of the palace to which I’ve not yet been. This surprises me; I assumed the trials would take place in the great hall, as it’s a large enough space forwhatever feats of heroism must be performed. Soon, however, we leave behind the polished floors and tapestried walls, entering a rough and natural cavern that seems not to be part of the palace at all. There are noscintilshere save for those the guards carry with them, and I’m suddenly much more aware than I was before of the terrible weight of stone overhead.
“Where are we going exactly?” I ask, addressing myself to the back of Captain Norlan’s head in front of me.
The captain turns to cast a half glance over his shoulder. “To the pulley carts, Princess,” he says, leaving me none the wiser. Light appears up ahead within the next few moments, however, and our little party soon joins another, larger party waiting at the end of the tunnel. King Alderin stands at the forefront of his gathering, various courtiers of Stromin Palace clustered behind him, solemn and beautiful in their regal robes.
“Welcome, Princess,” he says, extending a hand to me. “Come—ride with me.”
I peer curiously beyond him into a larger tunnel, which the gatheredscintilsilluminate. A series of boxlike carts on rails stand before me. The rails seem to run rather steeply downhill, and I shudder at the prospect of venturing any deeper into the mountain than we’ve already come. But the king’s hand remains extended, expectant. I can’t very well refuse him.
Placing my fingers lightly in his, I allow myself to be guided into the foremost of the carts. It’s well cushioned and carpeted, as befits a royal carriage, though the height of the benches implies they were meant for dwarves rather than humans. Still, I sit and try to arrange my legs and skirts as gracefully as possible. The king takes a seat opposite me, his expression mild.
The rest of the courtiers board as well, and two guardsmen take up standing positions at the front of each cart. There’s asignal shout, a sudden creak of metal on metal, and I cannot quite stifle a little yelp when the cart begins to move much more swiftly than expected. At a brisk clip, it begins its descent, clinking and clanking along the way. Thescintilsswinging from their posts flash off brief glimpses of caverns and crevices far deeper and older and more terrifying than anything I’ve yet seen. There’s a whole world down here beneath the mountain, beyond the safe walls of the palace proper.
“And did you rest well last night following your ordeal, my dear?” the king asks, speaking above the clank of the carts and pulleys.
I manage a nod and force a weak smile to my lips.
“That was certainly not the end to the banquet I had hoped for,” he continues, “but you came through unscathed. And a viper has been plucked from our midst.”
My smile melts away. I cannot believe he didn’t see fit to warn me that an assassin had infiltrated the palace. I would have been more on my guard. Perhaps he simply did not want to worry me unduly…or perhaps I’m giving him too much credit.
“What happened to Prince Valtar?” I ask, obliged to repeat myself to be heard over the racket. “Will he be charged with…with Prince Joro’s murder?”
The king shakes his head, his eyes kind, though his jaw is firm. “It is not for you to concern yourself with such things, Princess. Fix your mind only on the five trials to come. There is much to be accomplished in a short amount of time. And there are other preparations to be made before you will set out on your quest. Leave all other matters to those who are bound to serve you and prepare you for what lies ahead.”
With this verbal pat on the head, he turns in his seat to lookforward as we hurtle on through the dark. I’m left to twist handfuls of silk skirts into knots, gritting my teeth against any other questions threatening to rise in my throat. Thankfully, the ride does not last much longer. The rails level out, and the pulley carts grind to a halt. Swiftly, guardsmen leap forward to carryscintilsbefore them into the darkness on our left. They light more orbs as well, and soon a large space is revealed. Once more, I see polished floors, carved rails, signs of dwarf work and civilization. Servants appear and set up a refreshments table, and a lone musician takes up position in a quiet nook, filling the echoing air with the sound of lilting strings.
“This way, Princess,” Alderin says, offering his hand again. I rise, step from the cart, and let him lead me to a seat placed near a waist-high stone rail. As I sit, the king turns and claps his hands twice before calling out a harsh dwarfish word: “Marikoth!”
Immediately, the darkness on the other side of the rail illuminates, revealing a vast cavern, far bigger than any I have heretofore seen. Big enough to swallow the great hall and more than half the palace with room to spare. It’s wild and craggy, but there’s a strange order to the space that I cannot quite comprehend. And the light! The light bouncing from stone to stone, gleaming off veins of pulsingmeorise, is so bright and golden, I could almost swear it was…
“Sunlight?” I whisper.
Alderin smiles with pleasure at my surprise. “Look,” he says, pointing to the cavern ceiling far overhead. From where I sit, I can just discern various points from which the spotlights seem to fall. “Dwarves care nothing for magic,” the king says, “and refuse to usescintilsor any other enchanted means to light their spaces. Here you see an incredible example of dwarfish workmanship inthe light funnels: tunnels dug all the way to the surface world. Sunlight shines in, refracts off expertly cutkothcrystals, and is reflected from polished black-mirror glass. Impressive, is it not?”
It most certainly is. Living close to Inamaer as I have for the last sixteen years, I’ve become relatively inured to the wonder magic inspires in those who rarely see it. This feat of engineering strikes me as far more tremendous.
“What is this place?” I ask, casting my gaze once more over the cavern, trying to make sense of the pits, crags, stalactites, and shadows where the refracted sunlight cannot quite reach.
“It’s called theHolarieth,” Alderin replies. “It was a proving ground for young dwarf warriors in ages past. They designed it to challenge their best and brightest, to see who among them was truly worthy of the glory of war. This gallery,” he adds, nodding to indicate the space in which we now sit, “is an observation platform from which the dwarf king might best see and judge the results of the contest. See there?” He points behind me, and I turn in my seat to look back at the wall. A series of enormous mirrors hang there at various angles. They are all dark at the moment, reflecting nothing. “There are more mirrors set across the whole of the cavern below, angled so that, when the time comes, we will be able to observe parts of the trial which cannot be seen from this vantage.”
It sounds too marvelous for belief. Even magic mirrors and seeing pools are murky things at best and cannot always be trusted to reveal what the looker asks to see. I suppose I shall find out soon whether these unmagicked mirrors will work any better.
I turn back to the cavern below, taking in what I can of the scene. I can’t make any sense of it. What sort of trial are the champions meant to perform in this setting?
As though reading my mind, Alderin barks anothercommand. A horn blows close by, startling me, but the shout on my lips is drowned out in a thunder of grinding gears and mechanisms. To my eye-bulging shock, the cavern below me begins to…shift. It’s like an earthquake, only so measured and controlled and precise. The floor opens up, falls away, and a series of precisely carved and perfectly placed stalagmites rise up like teeth. Hundreds of them, filling the floor below me, save for a small platform just below the gallery. Another clunk of gears, and flat-topped columns rise from among the spikes—different heights, scattered seemingly at random. They fill the floor for at least a hundred yards square, ending in a smooth, sheer wall.
Beyond the wall, I cannot see. But when I turn to look at the mirrors again, the nearest one flashes with light, revealing what I suppose must be the second leg of this trial. I struggle to make sense of it, though the image is clear enough. It seems as though the ground is full of great, rolling pillars, large enough to pulverize a man if he puts a foot wrong.
The next mirror glows red, the reflection so bright I must let my eyes adjust for some moments before I’m able to discern what I’m seeing: a lava pit. Of course there would be a lava pit. And dangling over that pit, a series of vines, all of which look ready to burn away at any moment.
My eyes open wider and wider, taking in each new image the mirrors reveal, each new peril more deadly than the last. I knew the trials would be difficult, of course. But I never suspected any of them would hold so many opportunities for men to die gruesome deaths. Spikes and churning stones and molten lava and who knows what else! It’s all one great jumble of horror.
Finally, I turn to Alderin once more. “This ‘proving ground,’ as you call it…it’s meant for dwarves?”
“Indeed.” The king nods.
“Which means…Well, is it not built on a scale for dwarves then?” I continue, trying not to grasp at hope. “What I mean is, won’t that make it a little easier? For full-sized human men?”
