The rounded walls were covered with purple gemstones. My mouth fell open in awe as we walked down a narrow path cut into the stone, the lights of a hundred torches reflecting off the glassy quartz. Colors from palest lavender to a deep royal purpleclung to the walls. Several miners glared at me. I kept my hands in plain view, one with reins, and the other bared, as we plodded along deeper into the mine.
“This is beautiful,” I whispered aloud as the sounds of axes breaking gems rose and fell in a rhythm that ran perfectly with a song they were singing. “Do the miners work in tandem?”
“Aye, they sing, and they strike,” Asdren called back over his stiff shoulder. The lyrics were in Dwarven, obviously, but I could make out some of the words. Ho, drive the hammer home was followed by a few lines I did not know. Ho, may the mountain feel our might…something about dark and light…a spark of steel. “Come along, Chirp. We got lots of walking to do, and you’re making the miners nervous.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek to not explain to them that I was not a thief. If they knew my last name, they would toss me down a shaft. Moving along, I spent the next few hours marveling at the gems surrounding us. Thousands of tons of them. The gold they would bring the Grimmane mining company was beyond any sum I could imagine. And being raised dirt poor, I could imagine a great deal of gold.
The mines wandered on this way and that. A web of dusty tunnels filled with dwarves, ponies pulling carts, and small cages with birds hung along the walls. I tried to block out the unhappiness of the caged finches but some of their sadness leaked into my heart. Asdren led us down a narrow corridor off the main thoroughfare, the stone under our feet even dustier here, the torches less frequent, and the bird cages long gone.
“I’ve never been this deep into the old mines before,” Narub commented, sword riding on his hip. “My da used to tell us that this far into the stone the walls talk and the old gods whisper to those that have the sharpest stone sense.”
The twins paused ahead of me, heads tipping left then right like two identical dogs trying to pick up the sound of their master’s tread.
“All I hear is my pony farting,” Dulgar said as we cleared the narrow tunnel to empty into a large cavern with stone carvings of dwarves lining the walls. The floor was aged stone adorned with etchings worn smooth by the passing time and small boots. Dozens of small tunnels bled off this main area, some filled with rock, others open. A musky smell I was unfamiliar with lingered in the air.
“Someone fed them too much grain,” I explained while slowing down to stare skyward at the immense statues. “Are these gods? They look nothing like…oh, this is no dwarf,” I whispered, moving to the base of a mighty stone dragon, wings tucked around it, long snout touching its clawed feet. I placed a hand on the cool stone. Cool. “The rock is colder here.” I turned to look at Asdren.
“Aye, we’re leaving the deeper mines. From here on, it will be a slow climb from the hot depths to the cool tundra. About four days, give or take, as long as I don’t get us lost or walk us into a stone slide. The maps of the old mines aren’t kept up too well, as most don’t come down here anymore. The silver run out several hundred seasons ago, so they left the mine and the worship areas and moved on to richer veins.”
“Oh, I see.” Now he mentioned it, the sweat that had poured off me had slowed. It was still warm here, with lava bubbling under us, but not as swelteringly hot. “The gods?” I waved a hand at the statue’s faces, mostly gone with age.
Smuta padded up to one, a busty female missing most of her face, her nose lying in rubble at her cracked feet. The scuttling of tunnel rats in the webbing of smaller offshoots reached my ear.
“Them are the old gods. The creators of everything. A male and a female of every race.” My sight darted to a slimmer effigy,clearly elven, with pointed ears and long hair. It was harder to tell which was male and female. Human statues sat across from each other, rounded ears and slimmer than the stocky stone dwarves, facial features lost to time.
“And dragons,” I said as I crossed to the largest carving of all, bits of stone crunching under my feet. “A male.” I laid a hand on its feet, my fingers resting on a talon the size of a fully grown human male. “And a female.”
“Aye,” Asdren interjected, moving to stand in the middle of the ancient cavern, his voice echoing off the smooth ceiling carved of pure white stone. “We’ll camp here, sleep, eat. Let the ponies rest a bit.”
I moved to Newt to remove his pack, brush him down, and feed him a flake of hay. I let him drink from one of the small barrels he carried on his back after I dipped a dented metal cup into the warm water. Not much, for it had to last us.
Smells are bad. No good smells. Apples. Song.
I patted Newt then checked his hooves while I softly sang the song of the stalwart pony. I fed each horse one apple slice as I moved among them, stroking them, helping them to settle so they could drop into sleep. They did rather quickly, locking their legs as they drifted off. No dreams entered their minds as they were standing. I had noticed with Hasulett, many seasons ago, that he only dreamt when lying down.
Easing out from the small area between a stone human male and his female, I sat down with the dwarves around a small fire and ate some dried berry strips, an apple, and some wood nuts. I wondered as I chewed if Asdren could really taste them in my seed. I looked from the small brown nuts in my palm to Asdren. His blue eyes met mine, held them, and did not waver until one of the twins asked about the dragons and if we would find any bones.
Asdren’s attention left mine. I felt tossed about by that loss. Mad and sad all at once.
“Mayhap,” he replied, taking a moment to light his pipe with the dark wooden bowl. He flicked the thin stick from the fire that he had used to light the tobacco back into the flames. A ring of smoke encircled his head. The beads in his beard glowed a dark blue that captured my attention as he spoke. “Back in the days before the new gods come into power and our people were just learning the arts of mining and smithing, the ice dragons lived among us. High up on the peaks, they roosted, mated, and hunted. The tundra had larger beasts then, bigger than the moss oxen that run the plains now, twice that size, and thrice as mean.” His gaze found mine. I could not look away even if I had wished to, which I did not. Foolish elf. “When the time come to nest, the females dug into the mountains, using their mighty strength, claws, and ice breath. The rock splits more easily when frozen as we all know. Down into the depths they went, as deep as they could bear, and dug out huge caves to nest in. I reckon this was one such nesting site. If you look closely, you can see the faint outlines of them deadly claws gouged deep into the stone.” I did just that, peered closely at the rock, and found that I could see lines that might have been claw marks. They, too, were smoothed over with wear and rock dust.
“Dragons need warmth to incubate their eggs,” I interjected as I rubbed a rough wood nut between my fingers. “I have seen large reptiles in the swamps of the Glotte—bog lizards the wood elves call them—that leave the water to build huge nests on land. The rotting vegetation warms the eggs steadily.”
“Right you are, Chirp,” Asdren said around the stem of his plain pipe. A sweet feeling of pride flowed over me. Then I remembered I was mad at him. Ugh, feelings. Why did we even possess them? “Dragons be much the same. They needed warmth to get the eggs to grow, so they would lay their clutch,and then emerge into the tundra in the spring when the herds migrate to the grasslands. There they’d teach their wyrmling brood how to hunt.”
“I hope we find an old nest,” Dulgar mused as he ran a whetstone over the blade of one of his daggers, the sound grating but becoming more familiar. I popped the nut into my mouth. It was growing chewier with age but still tasted slightly bitter and very nutty. “Imagine if we could bring up an old egg or scrounge some teeth from a skull! I would make a crown of teeth to wear into town. The females would grow moist as soon as they seen it.”
“Then they’d talk to you and their tuffets would dry up like the Black Sands desert,” Smuta tossed out. We all snickered. They were all quite good at insults. The brothers began slapping each other in merriment as Asdren puffed on his pipe. I rose from the fire.
“I will take first watch.” They all nodded at me. Asdren blew a ring of smoke into the air but said nothing. I made my way to the ponies, climbing up to rest in the open palm of the female elf towering over the fire. I watched them all stretch out, one by one, and then drop off into slumber.
My gaze remained on Asdren’s back for far too long. So long that I had slipped into a gentle, meditative state. Mind open fully, I picked up the resting images of the ponies as well as something else…
That something else eased me from the reflective state I’d drifted into. Eyes now focusing on the walls around us, the stone that had seen so many things for so many centuries, I found a soft humming sound brushing my senses. No, not a hum…
It was a beast of some sort, I felt, but its thoughts were…dull. Slow. Unsure of what I was tapping into, I eased off the lap of the statue with my bow and quiver. Dropping to the dusty floor in silence, I began to creep around the vast cavern.Pausing every few feet while pushing outward with the druidic gift passed to me via my mother. I made a full circle, trailing my fingertips over the rock, sensing no firm imagery or thoughts until I stood in front of a cramped tunnel that led into darkness. The pulse—the best word to describe the dull whispers—seemed somewhat stronger. I glanced back at the others snoring loudly. The horses had come awake, watching me with curious brown eyes.
I flashed the steeds a smile before I plucked a spent torch, coated in webbing, from a rusty metal ring on the wall. Padding around the mercenaries, I lit the old torch, watching it flare to life. It would not last long. I’d not added any oil to it, but it would do for a quick peek. Moving back to the old shaft, I bent down and entered, holding the torch before me. There was a thick coating of rock dust and rat droppings on the floor. I kicked up some dust as I crept further, bowed like a willow branch, easing onward as the subtle pulse ran over and over in a steady loop. I paused when the tunnel branched off in two different directions. Dropping to one knee to ease the crick in my back, I closed my eyes and reached out with all I had. The dull thrum was slightly stronger, just slightly though, as if the trapped beast were behind tons of rock or under water or…
