The Fate of the Dwarves - By Markus Heitz Page 0,79

his eye and sighed. “So who is Narmora?”

“Who was Narmora, more like,” growled Ireheart in exasperation. “By Vraccas! How am I expected to tell you what conclusions I’ve come to if you don’t remember half the things we’ve been through together?”

“I, too, would prefer to be able to remember.” Tungdil looked at his friend. “So was she an älf?”

“She was a half-älf. She was the companion of the crazy magister technicus…” He hesitated and waited tensely.

“Furgas,” said Tungdil without hesitation. “I remember him very well. A true master, more than a genius. But then he was seduced by evil ideas and went mad. Narmora will have inherited… Was it her father or her mother that belonged to the älf folk?”

“The mother.”

“So it goes like this,” Tungdil summed up pensively. “You think the black-eyes have been training the thirdlings in their own dark arts. But how would that work? Our race has no talent for magic…”

“And what about Goda, then? And my children?” Ireheart objected, having to rein in his family pride. His life-companion was a maga. The only maga in the dwarf folk. “Goda belonged to the thirdlings once. Why should she be the only one?”

“If you follow that through, maybe the secret talent Vraccas gave to the thirdlings was the gift of magic,” Tungdil mused. “A gift he never told them about, on purpose. He wanted them to find it out on their own, in good time.”

Ireheart rubbed his beard and fiddled around arranging the braids. “Why would he do that? I think it’s just a matter of chance.” Even while he was speaking he was aware that his friend had spent many cycles in the vaults of a great magus. “Go on, Scholar, tell me. Did you ever have a go at spells yourself?”

“No.”

That answer was so fast in coming that it made Boïndil’s inner chorus of doubting voices wake up. He closed his eyes and demanded that they stop challenging his friend’s identity, but however forcefully he pressed his eyelids shut the voices merely became hoarse, rather than going quiet; he waited in vain for them to be silent. What evidence will allay these suspicions once and for all, Vraccas?

After a long ride through the Brown Mountains and in through a vaulted arch, seven paces high and made of pure silver set with onyx stones, they reached an area of the dwarf realm set aside for official business.

On the walls of the corridors were depictions, more than life size, of events from the history of the fourthlings and of the other dwarf folk, displayed not in paint but in mosaic, using different-colored jewels. Shortly before they were told to dismount they saw a picture of the Black Abyss. The artist had placed a dwarf in heroic stance at the mouth of the ravine, the weapon Bloodthirster clearly recognizable in his hands.

Tungdil got down from the befún to inspect it. Slowly he raised his hand to touch his own image. “By all that’s unholy,” he mouthed, swallowing hard. “Such a long time. Such a long time ago.”

Ireheart stood next to him and observed his expression. “Typical of the gem cutters. They could easily have done one of me as well,” he complained jokingly, without taking his eyes off his friend’s face.

“In truth, they could,” said Tungdil absently, his armored gauntlet still resting on the mosaic. “I promise you’ll be in the next one they do.”

“Side by side, the two of us, Scholar.”

Tungdil stared at the picture of the Black Abyss. “No. I shan’t be on the next picture, Ireheart. I’ve already played my part. It is the turn of other heroes now.” Tungdil turned abruptly to face his companion. “Heroes like you and your children. Heroic women like Goda.” A tear rolled down his cheek and slid down into his beard to hide. “I shall merely be the one who brings things together, but the fighting and glorious deeds will be carried out without me.” He took a deep breath and his expression became cold and hard again. “Let’s get on.”

Ireheart was too surprised to respond. He followed Tungdil, who was heading toward a huge door where the dwarf-leader stood; the door itself was covered in gold leaf, and runes picked out in diamonds shone brilliantly. They promised a haven of calm and safety to whoever passed through the doorway.

Four dwarf-sentries stood guard. It was obvious from their relatively slight stature that they were fourthlings; they saluted the new arrivals.

Tungdil and Ireheart stepped into the room one after