Part 19 (2/2)
”Now who else would it be?” the other snapped.
Jail blinked. ”Slanter?”
Abruptly the events of the previous night recalled themselves to his mind in a flood of images: the flight from the Gnomes in the mountains about Capaal; the separation of the company; the long drop into the Cillidellan with Garet Jax; and their subsequent rescue from its waters by the Dwarves. You're all right now, the Weapons Master had whispered to him. He blinked again. But Slanter and the others...
”Slanter!” he exclaimed, now fully awake. Hastily, he pushed himself upright. ”Slanter, you're alive!”
”Of course I'm alive! What does it look like?”
”But how did...?” Jair left the question hanging and grasped the Gnome's arm anxiously.
”What about the others? What's happened to them? Are they all right?”
”Slow down, will you?” The Gnome freed his arm irritably. ”They're all fine and they're all here, so stop worrying. The Elf took a dart in the shoulder, but he'll live. Only one who's in danger at the moment is me. And that's because I'm shut up in this room with you, dying of boredom! Now will you climb out of that bed so we can get out of here?”
Jair didn't hear all of what the Gnome was saying. Everyone's all right, he was repeating to himself. Everyone made it. No one was lost, even though it had seemed certain that some of them must be. He breathed deeply in relief. Something the King of the Silver River had said recalled itself suddenly to his mind. A touch of magic for each who journey with you, the old man had told him. Strength for the body, given to others. Perhaps that strength, that touch of the magic, had seen each of them safely through last night.
”Get up, get up, get up!” Slanter was practically hopping up and down with impatience.
”What are you doing just sitting there?”
Jair swung his legs out of the bed and glanced about the room in which he found himself.
It was a small; stone block chamber, spa.r.s.ely furnished with bed, sitting table, and chairs, its walls bare save for a broad heraldic tapestry hung from the far supports of its sloped ceiling. A second window opened out at the other end of the wall against which Jair's bed rested, and a single wooden door stood closed, opposite where he sat. In one corner, a small fireplace cradled an iron gate and a stack of burning logs.
He glanced at Slanter. ”Where are we?”
Slanter looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. ”Now where do you think we are?
We're inside the Dwarf fortress!”
Where else? Jair thought ruefully. Slowly he stood up, still testing his strength as hestretched and peered curiously our of the window in back of him. Through its narrow, barred slot he could see the murky gray expanse of the Cillidellan stretching away into a day thick with mist and low-hanging clouds. Far distant, through this s.h.i.+fting haze, he could discern the flicker of watchfires burning along the sh.o.r.es of the lake.
Gnome watchfires.
Then he noticed how quiet it was. He was within the fortress of Capaal, the Dwarf citadel that stood watch over the locks and dams that regulated the flow of the Silver River westward, the citadel that one day earlier had been under a.s.sault by Gnome armies. Where were those armies now? Why wasn't Capaal under attack?
”Slanter, what's happened to the siege?” he asked quickly. ”Why is it so still?”
”How should I know?” the other snapped. ”No one tells me anything!”
”Well, what's happening out there? What have you seen?”
Slanter jerked upright. ”Haven't heard a word I've said, have you? What's the problem-ears not working or something? I've been right here in this room with you ever since they dragged you out of the lake! Shut away like a common thief! Saved that confounded Borderman's skin out there and what do I get for my trouble? Shut in here with you!”
”Well, I...”
”A Gnome's a Gnome, they think! Don't trust any of us! So here I sit, mother hen to you while you slumber on like you don't have a care in the world. Waited all day for you to decide to wake up! You'd be sleeping still, I suppose, if I hadn't lost patience entirely!”
Jair drew back. ”You could have woken me sooner...”
”How could I do that!” the other exploded. ”How was I to know what was wrong with you? Could have been anything! Had to let you rest just to be sure! Couldn't be taking chances, could I? That black devil Weapons Master would have had me flayed!”
Jair grinned in spite of himself. ”Calm down, will you?”
The Gnome clenched his teeth. ”I'll calm down when you get yourself out of that bed and into your clothes! There's a guard on the other side of that door keeping me shut up in here! But with you awake, maybe we can talk him into letting the two of us out! Then you can be amused on your own time! Now, dress!”
Shrugging, Jair slipped off the night clothes that had been provided him and began pulling on his Vale clothes. He was surprised, though pleased, to find Slanter so vocal again, even if his discourse was, for the moment at least, limited to a tirade against the Valeman. Slanter seemed more his normal self again, more that voluble fellow he had been that first night after making Jair his prisoner in the highlands-that fellow Jair had come to like. He wasn't sure why the Gnome had chosen now to come out of his sh.e.l.l, but he was delighted to have the old Slanter back as company once more.
”Sorry you had to be locked in here with me,” he ventured after a moment.
”You ought to be,” the other grumbled. ”They put me in here to look after you, you know.
Must think I make a good nursemaid of something.”
Jair grinned. ”I'd say they're right.”
The expression that crossed the Gnome's face then caused Jair to turn away quickly, his face a carefully frozen mask. Chuckling inwardly, he was in the process of reaching for his boots when he abruptly remembered the vision crystal and the Silver Dust. He had not seen either while dressing. He had not felt them in his pockets. The grin he had allowed to slip back over his face faded. He ran his hands over his clothing. Nothing! Frantically, he pawed through hisbedding, his bedclothes, and everything in sight. The vision crystal and the Silver Dust were gone. Then he thought back to the night previous, to the long jump into the Cillidellan. Had he lost them in the lake?
”Looking for something?”
Jair stiffened. It was Slanter speaking, his voice laced with false concern. Jair turned.
”Slanter, what have you done...?”
”Me?” the other interrupted quickly, feigned innocence in the crafty face. ”Your devoted nursemaid?”
Jair was furious. ”Where are they, Slanter? Where did you put them?”
Now it was the Gnome's turn to grin. ”Enjoyable as this is-and believe me, it is enjoyable-I have better things to do. So if it's the pouch and the crystal you're looking for, the Weapons Master has them. Took them off you last night when they brought you in here and stripped you. Wouldn't trust them to my care, of course.”
He folded his arms across his chest contentedly. ”Now let's put an end to this. Or do you need help dressing, too?”
Jair flushed, finished dressing, then wordlessly walked over to the wooden door and knocked. When the door opened, he informed the Dwarf standing guard that they would like to go out. The Dwarf frowned, told them to stay put, glanced suspiciously at Slanter, and pulled the door firmly shut again.
Growing curiosity over the absence of any sort of battle without and impatience with things in general notwithstanding, they had to wait fully an hour before the door to the room opened a second time, and the guard at last beckoned them to follow. Leaving the room hastily, they turned down a windowless corridor that ran past dozens of doors similar to the one they had just pa.s.sed through, climbed a series of stairs, and emerged on battlements overlooking the murky waters of the Cillidellan. Wind and a faint spray blew off the lake into their faces, the midday air chill and hard. Here, too, the day was still and expectant, cloaked in mist and banks of low-hanging clouds that stretched between the peaks that sheltered the locks and dams. Dwarf sentries patrolled the walls, eyes s.h.i.+fting watchfully through the haze. There was no sign of the Gnome armies, save for the distant flicker of the watchfires, reddish specks of light in the gray.
The Dwarf took them down off the battlements, turning into a broad courtyard that spanned the center of the high dam where it walled away the Cillidellan. North and south of where they walked, the towers and parapets of the Dwarf fortress rose up against the leaden sky, stretching away into mist. It was an eerie, ghostly look that the day lent to the citadel, shrouding it in halflight and haze so that it almost seemed as if it were something strayed from a dream that threatened to be gone in a moment's time upon waking. Few Dwarves were in evidence here, the vast courtyard all but deserted. Stairwells burrowed down into the stone at regular intervals-black tunnels that Jair presumed must run to the inner workings of the locks below.
They had almost crossed the empty courtyard when a shout brought them up short, and Edain Elessedil came running to greet them. Grinning broadly, his injured arm and shoulder heavily wrapped, he went to Jair at once and extended his hand in greeting.
”Safe and sound after all, Jair Ohmsford!” He put his good arm about the other as they turned once more to follow their taciturn guide. ”Feeling better, I hope?”
”Much better.” Jair smiled back. ”How is your arm?”
<script>