The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,198

mountains.”

“I know men who’ll start a fight about the dimensions of their own little man,” replied the girl from Ido, and the other woman laughed.

“You see? They’re laughing at us,” Slîn complained to Rodario. “There’s some kind of conspiracy going on. It started that night we were in the burned-out farmhouse.”

The actor stroked his chin in thought. “Yes, you’re right. The fine ladies choose to make us the butt of their jokes.” He winked at Coïra, who smiled back before glancing quickly at Mallenia. The Ido girl nodded to her, which Rodario found surprising. He was pretty sure he had missed something.

“What else do you know about the desert?” Balyndar urged. “I don’t want fairy tales. I want the truth.”

“Then you’d better ask the Scholar,” said Ireheart. “He always used to know that kind of stuff.”

“And we’ve got Franek.” Coïra waved the famulus over. “We were just talking about the desert; what can we expect, apart from heat and sandstorms?” she asked him. “You must have crossed the desert when you escaped from Lot-Ionan?”

He sat down on the green moss and scooped up some water from the stream to drink and to cool his face. “May Samusin be by our sides…”

“May Vraccas continue to stand by us,” Ireheart corrected sharply. “I want nothing to do with that other god. And I certainly don’t want to owe him any favors.” Slîn and Balyndar were of the same opinion. Ireheart filled his pipe indignantly. That’ll be the day…

Franek started again. “Whoever is protecting us we’re going to need his help on the final miles through to the Blue Mountains. Bumina has gone to ground in the desert. She always planned to give eternal life to dead things.”

“Hey, undeads! We know all about them, don’t we?” Ireheart called to Tungdil, who was sitting talking to Barskalín. “I’m not afraid of them. In the time of the Perished Land we cut them down, whole ranks of them, one, two, three, fast as you like!” He accompanied his words with appropriate arm movements, losing odd bits of tobacco.

“That’s not what I meant…” replied Franek.

“Then you weren’t expressing yourself clearly,” Slîn interjected, grinning. He enjoyed being able to play out his distrust of the famulus. “Why don’t you come to the point?” Humans and dwarves laughed in response.

Franek didn’t rise to their bait. Rodario admired his cool. “Bumina found places in the desert where she released some magic and she sealed it in,” he explained slowly. “She wanted the magic to find itself something to embody, to incorporate itself. At first the experiments failed and the magic capacities dissipated. But, with time, she discovered the formula to enforce her will on the magic to do what she wanted by employing runes. She was assiduous and persevered until circumstances conspired…”

Ireheart thumped his crow’s beak handle on the ground. “Tell it properly, wizardling. Say it so we can understand.” The audience laughed again.

Now Franek grew impatient. “So it’s not just your stature that’s diminutive. Your brain must be the same,” he hissed venomously.

“Ooh, a hit!” Rodario commented.

Ireheart’s chest and arm muscles jerked dangerously. “Have a care, little wizardling. Or my hand will slip and I’m not sure my tiny brain will be able to hold me back.” He pointed to Coïra. “We already have a maga and we can find the way without you.”

Franek made an obscene gesture—and in a flash Ireheart was beside him, grabbing his little finger and snapping the top joint; it cracked and the famulus shrieked with pain.

“Sorry, it’s the fault of my tiny brain,” said the dwarf in a dangerously quiet voice. “If I were brighter, of course, I’m sure I wouldn’t have done that. And just think what else I might be stupid enough to do to you?” He played with the crow’s beak. “Having a hole in your foot is probably quite painful, my little sorcerer’s apprentice.”

“Stop it, Ireheart,” Tungdil ordered, looking up from his study of the maps. “Leave him be. He is on our side.”

“But he insulted me!” the old warrior fumed, pointing with his pipe. “It was him that started it!”

“Then that’s an end to it now. Sit down and let me get on with my work.” Tungdil pored over the map again.

Franek clutched his damaged finger and showered his assailant with ferocious looks. Ireheart was sitting now next to Slîn. “Well at least he can’t do any magic now, even if he gets to bathe in the source,” he whispered to the fourthling, who burst out laughing.

“I