Oberon's Dreams - By Aaron Pogue Page 0,78
no answer. Ogden seemed happy with the silence for a while. He led Corin on among the pillars, until at last they reached an earthen wall stretching off into darkness on either side. The dwarf had come unerringly to the only breach in the wide, clean-cut wall. A rounded passage angled up through the earth, for all the world like a man-sized rabbit hole. Or…not quite man-sized.
“It may be a tight fit,” Corin said.
“Oh, aye! Good thing you’re hungry, eh?”
Corin sighed. He ducked his head toward the tunnel, but Ogden stopped him with a hand on his elbow. “This is as far as I go. We must make haste if my people are to survive the coming days. But I would give you this.” He held out the small hand lantern, and Corin accepted it gratefully.
“And this.”
Corin took the cloth-wrapped bundle. He’d hoped against reason that it would be the sword Godslayer, but it was far too small. Curious, he folded back the dirty rags and gasped to find the gleaming gold-plate stock of Ephitel’s revolver.
“That is a piece of master craft,” Ogden said. “Borrowed from the lore of yesterworld. There’s not another like it in the world.”
A gift of dwarven master craft. Corin was stunned. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
Ogden shrugged. “ ‘Thanks’ is pretty popular. Or ‘Give it here, ya stinkin’ dwarf.’ It’s probably fifty-fifty.”
Corin turned the pistol in his hand to catch the light. He remembered how the thing had felt when he’d fired on the prince—powerful and wicked and alive. Priceless treasure though the weapon was, Corin was not sure he could trust a thing like that in battle. He certainly had no desire to carry bags of its black powder with him.
It was just as well. He could see the glint in Ogden’s eye, the desperate, unspoken hesitation. Corin took his knee to meet the chieftain eye to eye. He had never bent his knee to god or king before, but he suffered nothing for the chieftain’s pride. “Why do you give me such a gift?”
“It’s a trophy won in battle. You left it on the field.”
There was some ritual to giving master craft, and Corin saw that it would take some ritual to reject it. He shook his head. “Not if it is dwarven master craft. Such things cannot be owned by men unless they’re given by their makers.”
Ogden grinned. “Well. Little Benny taught you something.” He cleared his throat. “Aye, well, that’s the heart of it. I made it as a heritage for Benny.”
A tension loosened in Corin’s chest as he pushed the bundle back toward Ogden. He had tried before to rob another people’s history, and it had ended badly. He could hardly rob a friend. “Then it belongs to Ben. I cannot take what you would give to your own blood.”
Ogden made no move to take the package. “You’re an honest manling, Corin Hugh. But you show more respect to my handiwork than I ever did. I broke the maker’s bond for greed when I offered Benny’s heritage to Ephitel. Greed and sin and—”
“Hunger,” Corin interrupted. “That is not a sin.”
“Be it what it is,” Ogden said, “I made the gun a gift to Ephitel, and now whatever falls, Oberon will learn of it. Even if you find us some clemency from him, he will not allow a gun the likes of that within my clan.”
“But Ben—”
“Will grow just fine without a weapon in his hand. I’ll teach him axes if it comes to that.”
Broken bottles would be better, Corin thought, but he held his tongue again.
Ogden went right on. “And if the tale you tell is true, if you can somehow go back through future ages to a time when little Benny is a friend, you may pass my heritage along to him if it please your heart.”
“You place a great deal of trust in me,” Corin said.
“I would. But no. If it never sees my son’s hands, that is my sin, not yours. If you keep it to your hoard, I can’t complain. You are a more worthy owner than the one I sold it to.”
Corin drew a heavy breath, sighed, and nodded. “Very well. If that’s truly how you feel, then give it here, ya stinkin’ dwarf.”
Ogden barked a laugh of sheer surprise, then he clapped Corin warmly on the shoulder. “You have a task I wouldn’t see delayed, but if you’ll tarry one more moment, I will show you how to use the thing.”
The chieftain taught