Dark Thane Page 15

  Atop the shrine burned hundreds of white and blue lamps, each made of wrought silver paned with sodalite or some other polished translucent mineral. Most were stamped or etched with some form of family crest or seal, symbolizing the ongoing dedication of the deceased's family to their fallen kin. More than any other ceremony on this day of ceremonies, this gathering of the Hylar was dedicated to those who had died in the Chaos War.

  As Tarn's boat bumped into the wharf, he heard the deep mournful sound of dwarven voices lifted in song—a dirge for the lost dead. Tarn stood on the wharf while his rowers put away their oars. Mog remained sitting in the boat, a dour look on his face.

  "I'm sorry, Mog," Tarn said when the rowers had climbed out of the boat and headed for the ceremony. "They won't allow you to join me on the island. Thane Stonesinger has convinced the others that this island is holy to the Hylar and the Hylar alone. There is nothing I can do to change their minds."

  "You are the king. It's not proper for you to be without your bodyguards," Mog grumbled. "But I will follow your wishes."

  "I am safe here, if nowhere else," Tarn said. Reluctantly, he turned away. Mog seemed so miserable sitting in the bottom of the boat, alone, the cold, moist air seeping through his clothes and into his bones, fighting an internal battle between his loyalty to the king and his burning desire to beat some Klar sense into the fools that seemed to surround him on all sides.

  "I hope this won't take too long," Tarn muttered.

  20

  As Tarn reached the edge of the crowd of Hylar dignitaries gathered around the shrine, their song was just winding down to its long, dolorous ending. Only the most important Hylar were allowed to be present at this solemn ceremony, but at least one member of every Hylar family, no matter how low in rank, were invited. Of all the bloodlines represented here this day, only Tarn's was not of pure Hylar lineage. But he was their king, and they opened a way for him through the throng to the center of the waterside plaza.

  Thane Jungor Stonesinger stood beside the shrine, his grotesque features twisted into an agony of grief. He seemed not to even notice Tarn's arrival as he cried out, "We commemorate this day those who met their end at the hands of the shadow wights, foul creatures of Chaos, whose touch not only destroyed flesh and spirit but also memory. We know that they existed, even though we cannot remember them, because of the effect they had on all our lives."

  Clutching a beautiful white lamp to his chest and glaring balefully at the heavens with his one eye, Jungor bellowed histrionically, "I live, yet I have no mother. No one remembers my mother, not even my father, yet we know she lived. We feel her presence in every aspect of our lives. My sisters and I exist because she existed. Yet it is as though she never lived, never bore an honored name, and nowhere on Krynn will you find her tomb. It is to the lost dead of Thorbardin that I dedicate my lamp today."

  Finding his place in the ceremony, Tarn stepped up beside the Hylar thane. Atop the shrine lay a tall gilded torch, nearly twice his height and unlit. He picked it up and held its flammable end to Jungor's lamp, lighting it from the lamp's tiny flame. The torch burst to life, its flame warm and yellow compared to the cold white light of Jungor's lamp. He lifted it so that all could see.

  "Today we honor all our dead, those who died before Chaos, during Chaos, and after Chaos. Those whose tombs we know and those who he in nameless tombs in the deep places of the world; those slain in battles far from home, and those who ended their lives surrounded by those who loved them. To all dwarves, to the Kingdom of the Dead, we dedicate these lights of remembrance."

  As Tarn concluded his dedication, a death skald approached through the crowd. Dressed in black robes and wearing a death mask over his copper-bearded face, he was a fearful sight This day, he represented death incarnate, the living representation of mortality, and he bore in his hand a book in which was written the names of those whose bodies lay unburied on the Isle of the Dead. This island was his place; no one knew his name, not even the king. His was a secret role assigned to his family in a time forgotten even by the dwarves—a true priest of the dead. Tarn suspected that the current death skald was none other than the merchant Hextor Ironhaft, but he couldn't be sure. If Jungor knew, he didn't say. In fact, it was forbidden even to ask, or to publicly speculate about the real identity of a death skald, and no one would even dare consider trying to discover his secret.

  Stepping up between the king and the Hylar thane, the death skald opened a diptych and began to chant the long litany of names to be found on the pedestal under the granite basin. His voice, harsh and powerful, was nonetheless beautiful in its own way. Half song of mourning and half war cry, it spoke of the eternal grief of the dwarven peoples as well as their will to endure any hardship or loss. When he sang a name, those who had known the dead in life remembered their grief as well as their former happiness.

  As he chanted, bearers appeared carrying large urns in harnesses strapped to their shoulders. Dressed like ancient priests of Reorx yet wearing none of his symbols, they approached the granite basin and bowed beside it, allowing the contents of their urns to pour into the wide stone bowl. The heady scent of fine dwarf spirits stung the nostrils of everyone gathered near the shrine.

  As Tarn listened to the chanting of the names and the pouring out of libations for the dead, his mind began to drift back to thoughts of home, of his son. He wondered what Tor was doing, and not for the first time, he wished he were back home with the boy. The voice of the skald resonated with his thoughts, and when the name of his father, Baker Whitegranite, was pronounced, Tarn was overcome by a horrible vision—of himself, lighting a candle in memory of his son. Would Tor's name one day be added to the lists of the dead during his father's lifetime? All the nameless fears that had been tormenting him since the birth of his son were suddenly given life and form. He saw the myriad ways that a dwarf child could die abruptly— disease, violence, accident—and he knew, to his everlasting terror, that there was no way he could protect Tor from all of them. For the first time in his life, Tarn longed for a god to which to pray.

  As the skald read the last name from his book, the last urn was emptied. A silence fell over the assembly. Shaken from his morose thoughts by the demand of his ceremonial duty, Tarn approached the basin, fluttering torch in hand. This was always a tricky undertaking, involving a certain degree of risk. Pure, unbridled dwarf spirits of the kind brewed in every local tavern were notoriously flammable, one might say explosively flammable. Battles had been won in the ancient past when walls were breached by dwarf spirit bombs being rolled against them and lit with flaming crossbow bolts. The king's spirits, being of a finer grade and brewed with better equipment and ingredients, were not so volatile, but still required careful handling. As was the custom, Tarn had donated from his private stores the urns of dwarf spirits to fill the drinking bowl of the dead. This was the way the king celebrated the Festival of Light, for this granite basin filled with dangerous spirits was his lamp, the only one he was allowed to light.

  Standing well back, long torch in hand, Tarn touched the flame to the edge of the bowl. A blue-white column of fire shot up, roaring like a whirlwind, a plume of superheated glowing smoke rising high into the darkness of the great subterranean chamber. Everyone scurried away from the intense heat. And, as usual, the ends of Tarns eyebrows and beard hairs were scorched and smoking as he turned his face away from the flames.

  Shnatz Ong started in surprise. "That signal!" he whispered excitedly.

  He sat at the edge of the collapsed section of the tunnel, gazing down into the blackness and carelessly dangling his feet over the ledge. Earlier, he had watched numerous small collections of lights cross the black Urkhan Sea and gather along the shore of the massive dark bulk of the Isle of the Dead, hundreds of feet below him. Now, he saw a jet of blue-white flame rise up from the midst of the lights. He didn't really care what kind of sentimental ceremonies the Hylar conducted on the Isle of the Dead. Such was not his purpose in spying on them. Jungor had to
ld him to watch for a pillar of blue-white fire, for that was the signal for him to complete his task. Leaping to his feet, he scurried off down the tunnel toward the light of the gully dwarves' torches.

  His sudden return startled the lounging gully dwarves from their ruminations, waking the others from their naps. "Hurry, back to work. Dig! Dig!" he shouted.

  "What wrong?" the gully dwarf named Hong cried as he clamored for his hammer and chisel.

  "Somebody coming!" Shnatz said. "We got to get treasure before they get here."

  "That just our luck," Hong muttered and he began to hack and bang at the stone. The other gully dwarves returned to their tasks with renewed fury. Stone chips flew under their pickaxes, and then the floor began to sink visibly, the walls to crack and moan.

  "Must be some big treasure chamber!" one of the gully dwarves shouted excitedly as a large section of the floor beside him dropped away. He leaned over and looked into the hole it left behind. "I see twinkles, look like shiny rocks, whole bunches of shiny rocks, way far below!"

  "Dig! Dig!" Hong cried. "How much deeper, you think?" That's when he noticed that Shnatz had disappeared again.

  But of course, by that time, it was already too late.

  21

  Tarn shook the ashes from his hair and stood back to admire the pure elemental ferocity of the fire he'd ignited. The pillar of blue-white flame rose forty or more feet into the air and burned with a steady magnificence that was startling to behold, even for a people much accustomed to the intense flames of the forge fire and the smelting pit. He felt the heat baking the flesh of his face, almost as though he had, for a moment, stood too close to the sun.

  Then, as quickly and violently as it began, the flame winked out. A few gossamer whisps of bluish fire were all that remained, dancing like elf spirits along the edges of the smoking granite basin. Even so, the dwarves could still see a great mushroom of smoke rising up and up toward the place where their city once hung. Their prayers, their hopes, their regrets, and their collective grief rose up with that swirling cloud, leaving their hearts lightened and their spirits lifted. Someone began to sing an ode to joy—one of the rarest songs of the dwarven musical catalogue. Tarn felt his own fears and thoughts of death shredded by that rising cloud of smoke. He knew it was nothing more than smoke, yet it left him feeling strangely at peace with his past as well as hopeful for the future. It had been many years, more years than he could remember, since any sort of ceremony, religious or otherwise, had affected him so deeply. It had brought him from his accustomed apathy to the depths of fear and despair in the visions of his dead son, and left him, at last, as though upon a plateau of joy.

  He noticed that others felt the same emotion, and he marveled to see dwarves from families long considered enemies standing side by side, their voices lifted in song. He searched the crowd for the death skald, but he had already either disappeared or shed his mask and cloak in order to blend in with the crowd. Shrugging, Tarn added his own voice to the song. He had a good singing voice, and some of the Hylar smiled to hear him use it.

  But after only a couple of stanzas, the words died upon Tarn's lips, for the song tapered away as the crowd noticed a gathering commotion near the wharves. Suddenly, a bellow of agony stilled the voices of the last stalwart singers. Everyone turned to look what caused the interruption, including Tarn.

  At first, he was relieved to see that Mog had not grown weary of waiting and had decided to join the festivities. But it comforted him little to note that Jungor Stonesinger lay at the center of the disturbance. "What now?" Tarn grumbled as he began to push his way through the crowd.

  He found the one-eyed Hylar thane collapsed in the arms of none other than Hextor Ironhaft, the dwarf Tarn suspected of being the death skald. Jungor's body was shaking with paroxysms, foam flecking his bearded lips, and his hands clutching spasmodically skywards. His staff (as preposterous a theatrical prop as Tarn had ever seen) lay on the ground next to him. Hextor clutched the thane to his breast, crying out in despair.

  Seeing the Hylar thane flopping about on the ground filled Tarn with disgust. It was obvious even to a blind gully dwarf that Jungor had been taking far too many theatrical liberties of late—his missing eye and acid-scarred face, the wizard staff, his beard and queer robes. But rather than seeing this charade for what it was, it sometimes seemed that the Hylar wished to be fooled by Jungor's theatrics. They preferred a lying charlatan promising all their dreams would come true, rather than a king who only wanted to improve the lives of all his subjects, from the lowest to the highest.

  Jungor's performance only grew more exaggerated as Tarn watched. The Hylar thane's guard, Astar Trueshield, arrived on the scene with much bluster, bombastically ordering everyone to stand back and give the thane room to breathe. The gathered dwarves retreated respectfully, fear and concern written upon their faces. Tarn almost laughed, but held his tongue. Hextor and Astar worked over the fallen thane, loosening his robe, fearfully calling his name. Jungor continued to writhe on the ground, bawling like a wounded cave ox, heels drumming the stone.

  "What's the matter with him anyway?" Tarn asked, his voice tinged with impatience. The other Hylar glared at him balefully, but he ignored them. He would have liked nothing better than to kick Jungor in the groin and see if that didn't set him right. In his eyes, the Hylar thane was nothing but a fundamentalist fraud, an advocate of an old way of life who was bent on dragging everyone else into the mazes of his delusion.

  Soon, the thane's gyrations lessened. His eye assumed a faraway stare as he lay back on the cold stone ground, his closest advisors kneeling worriedly over him. Suddenly, he rose up and shouted, his voice like the blare of a trumpet. "Beware! Beware! The Kingdom of the Dead brings a warning. The dead are not pleased. Danger approaches, danger from above to send a warning and clear the way." Then he fell back, limp as a cloth doll, his good eye closed, empty eye glaring upward.

  "What does he say?" Tarn demanded, leaning over Jungor's body. "What's this fool raving about?"

  Astar stepped between the king and the thane, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword in warning, the features of his face set as though carved from stone. Tarn stepped back in alarm, but before he could challenge the Hylar captain, Hextor Ironhaft said, "The dead speak through Jungor Stonesinger. Just as the spirit of Vault Forgesmoke obeyed the thane's command in the arena, now the dead bring us a warning of danger. We must flee the island!"

  Hearing this, many of the Hylar wasted no time in hurrying toward their boats lined up along the wharf or pulled up on the stony shoreline. Astar and Hextor lifted their thane between them and hustled him toward their own boat, a large craft of sixteen oars moored beside Tarn's boat They didn't even bother to gather their lamps from the shrine.

  Others shared Tarn's skepticism yet remained somewhat apprehensive, not sure whether to flee with the others or defiantly remain where they were. Tarn was of a mind to stand on the shore and shout words of ridicule to those who had fled the island so ignobly.

  But then a rock the size of his fist struck the ground before him, shattering explosively and stinging his exposed flesh with tiny razor-sharp shards. Words of derision died upon his lips. Smaller stones began to fall about them like hail. Then a boulder smashed into the shrine, extinguishing the lamps in one concussive explosion. Choking dust boiled around them, casting them into sudden darkness. Tarn's eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, but the other Hylar were hopelessly blinded, while a sudden shower of pebbles pelted them. Screams of pain and terror echoed off the surrounding ruins.

  Shouting for them to follow him, Tarn led the remainder to their boats. Luckily, it was only a short dash from the shrine to the water's edge. As Tarn rushed along the wharf toward his own boat, the stonefall slackened somewhat, though to look at the roiling surface of the Urkhan Sea, one would think it were raining inside the mountain. Mog held the boat to the wharf by threat of violence, else Tarn's rowers would have abandoned him already. Most of the boats had already left. He
could see them cutting the water with their shining oars, fearful faces glaring back toward the Isle of the Dead.

  "There's a light up there," Mog shouted as Tarn drew near. "I saw a light, high above, but just for a moment. I…"

  That is when a concussive explosion of water flung Tarn onto his back, knocking the air from his lungs. Coughing and gasping, he climbed to his feet as a fine mist of rain began to fall about him. Mixed with the rain were bits of wood, metal fittings; a bronze oar lock clattered to the ground at his feet, then the frayed stump of an oar dropped beside it.

  Tarn rushed to the wharfs edge and peered down into the water. His boat, and everyone in it, were gone. He stared in disbelief at the tattered bit of mooring line still tied to the cleat.

  A shout from farther down the wharf brought him slowly around. Still stunned, he climbed down into a boat that had returned to retrieve him. He didn't even notice who the others were in the boat. He merely thanked them and sat down in the bow while the boat shot away from the island, stones raining down all around it.

  A noise like a crack of thunder echoed through the vast cavern. The noise shook Tarn back to his senses. "Turn the boat around!" he shouted. "We have to go back for Mog."

  "Listen!" someone in a nearby boat cried. The rowers paused in their strokes for a moment as everyone bent an ear to hear. Tarn heard it first—a distant chorus of shrieking voices, growing ever louder, somewhere high above.

  "What new evil is this?" one of the rowers asked fearfully.

  "Never you mind. Keep rowing. Bend your backs to it!" shouted the boat's helmsman.

  "No! Turn the boat around! We have to go back," Tarn said as the shrieking quickly grew louder, like a dozen banshees dropping down upon them from the darkness.