Dragon's Bluff

8

“I’m happy you asked me,” Notwen said, beaming up at the tall, lanky man.

Ulin didn’t feel he should say there wasn’t anything else better to do, so he returned a cooler version of the gnome’s smile and replied, “Saorsha told me you could show me the treasury.”

The gnome, mindful of Mayor Efrim’s constant reprimands, tried to speak his words slowly and deliberately so the human could understand. “There really isn’t much left of it, but I’d be happy to show you the ruins.”

They had met at the foot of the Rock near the wharves at noon. It was another cloudless, sunny, hot day in Flotsam, and Ulin was out of sorts. He and Lucy had argued quietly and at length since they left the city hall the day before. Lucy refused to leave without some due thought to her father’s alleged villainy and Flotsam’s predicament. Ulin just wanted to pack and go before things got worse. If he could have firmly believed the city council was telling them the truth and if he had been alone, he would have given serious thought to offering help. But Lucy was with him, and he had a bad feeling about all of this. Two dragons, missing taxes, robbery, death, and citizens who couldn’t seem to keep their story straight. He had a hard time believing they’d send someone all the way to Solace just to look for a relative of the thief on the vague chance that person might help out of a sense of second-hand guilt.

Akkar-bin offered them a place in the caravan returning to Khuri-Khan, but, to Ulin’s disgust, Lucy turned him down. The Khurish caravan left that morning, and Ulin had watched it go, his thoughts worried and unhappy. Their one sure mode of transportation and armed escort had moved on without them, and no one in this forsaken dump of a town seemed to know when the next caravan would arrive.

Feeling surly, Ulin walked around the streets of Flotsam for hours until a short, white-haired figure wandered into his path. Saorsha’s comment came to mind. Hot, tired, and bored, Ulin decided to ask the gnome about the burned treasury.

Notwen turned toward the docks and took Ulin around the harbor road toward the barracks. Ulin was startled then dubious when Notwen led him though the large double doors of the city hall and into the main corridor. No one had mentioned the treasury was in this building. But the gnome kept walking past the office of the mayor, down the corridor, through the great hall, and out a back hallway to a walled courtyard.

“This is the old prison and work yard,” Notwen explained as he trotted into the hot sun. “It was built by the dragonarmy years ago. It’s only accessible through the barracks.”

Ulin looked around. The prison was a one-story stone building with barred windows and a single entrance. There were no prisoners inhabiting the damp, cramped cells—only spiders and cockroaches the size of rats. The only impressive aspect of the building was the fact it was still standing.

“The treasury is, uh, was over here.” The gnome showed Ulin to the corner of the courtyard opposite the prison. The damage quickly became apparent. What looked like a shadowed doorway into the building under the wall walk proved to be a doorless entrance into a gutted room, scorched and scored by a powerful blast. The floor had collapsed into a deep pit eight to ten feet deep, and the inner dividing walls had been burned away, destroying part of the old kennels and a bake house.

The smell of burned wood and stone permeated the narrow room, as well as an odd smell that reminded Ulin of something he couldn’t place. A thin chill crept up his back. This blackened room reminded him too much of the ruins of the Academy of Sorcery after the attack of Beryl’s minions. He shoved that thought aside and stepped into the room. He was both impressed by the thieves’ audacity and puzzled by their methods. He studied the room carefully from blackened ceiling to collapsed floor, while Notwen moved cautiously around the edge of the pit and examined the walls from behind his large spectacles.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Ulin said. “If thieves did this, why is Lysandros so eager to help the council? Why does he want a sorceress like Lucy to be sheriff?”

“Because the Thieves’ Guild had nothing to do with this,” Notwen replied. “It was an outside job, and the captain is furious. He would split Kethril in half with that sword of his if he could find him.”

“Why? For horning into his territory?”

“No! For putting the town into such a crisis! The Thieves’ Guild here may be sticky-fingered and greedy, but they would never do something to endanger the entire town. They live here, too.”

“Hmm …” Ulin squatted in the doorway and tossed a pebble into the dark pit where the floor had been. “How did they pull this off? In the city hall of all places. Weren’t there guards?”

“Of course, we posted guards outside. They never saw a thing until the room blew up in their faces.” Notwen pushed his spectacles back on his nose, leaving a smear of soot from his grimy fingers. “As for the theft, I can’t say for certain how they did it. I can only go by the clues. Take the pit, for example. There is no lower level beneath this section of the barracks, so I have surmised Kethril and his cohorts dug a tunnel beneath this room and removed the contents a little at a time. The tunnel apparently collapsed in the explosion.”

Ulin lifted a single eyebrow. Whether he liked it or not, he found himself intrigued by the gnome’s interpretation of the theft. It was a heinous deed, but the machinations behind it were interesting. “What was in here? Ingots? Loose coins?”

The gnome peered down into the pit. “Mostly loose coins and odds and ends like jewelry, plate armor, swords, a few fine daggers, things like that. This town has to scrape up every bit just to meet Malys’s demands. My guess is Kethril only had a few men to help and it took several nights to remove the pile. I think, in order to keep us fooled, they replaced the valuables with fakes.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Someone on the council came in here every day to add deposits or check the inventory.” Notwen patted the wall beside him. “I noticed these walls are spattered with bits of fool’s gold and lead,” then he pointed down at the hole. “If you look carefully you can see broken glass and bits of cheap twisted metal in the rubble.”

“Fool’s gold … good gods,” Ulin muttered. He didn’t have to ask what would have happened if the theft had gone unnoticed until the city council presented the false coin to Malys’s collector, Fyremantle. Red dragons were anything but understanding. A slow anger began to simmer in Ulin’s gut. What kind of a man could put his own greed before the safety of an entire town?

“Is there any chance this Kethril got caught in his own explosion?” Ulin suggested.

Notwen scratched his head. “I don’t think so. We looked through the debris, and we only found the bodies of the guards and two thieves. There was no trace of anyone else.”

The young man stared deep into the darkness of the hole. “What if Kethril set off the explosion to kill his cohorts and mask his escape with the treasure?”

“We thought of that,” Notwen sighed. “I just don’t know. The explosion happened down there in the tunnel, and its blast started the fire, but I haven’t discovered yet what set it off or why.” The words were barely out of his mouth when his face suddenly brightened. “I’ve taken some samples to my laboratory. Would you like to see?”

Ulin hesitated. He was hot, tired, still feeling out of sorts, and most gnome labs usually involved noxious smells, clouds of odd gases, and the imminent danger of an explosion. And yet … the puzzle of the treasury piqued his interest. He had studied the effects of explosives at one time, and his interests leaned toward alchemy these days. Why not take a quick look at Notwen’s samples? Solving that puzzle could prove useful in the future if Lucy decided to stay. Besides, if the lab proved too dangerous, he could always leave.

“All right, thank you,” he replied.

“It’s this way,” Notwen said. He led the way out of the barracks, skirted the docks, and trotted up the path that climbed the slope of the promontory called the Rock.

The road was wide enough for handcarts, donkeys, and pedestrians, though it was little used any more by anyone other than the Vigilance Force, who maintained a constant watch from its height. After the first time Malys leveled the buildings on its top, a few stubborn people tried to rebuild the Saltbreeze Inn and the lord of Flotsam’s manor, only to see their efforts destroyed in seconds during another of Malys’s visits. Since then the Rock had remained bare in deference to the Overlord’s opinion. Even the Force’s lookouts stayed concealed behind a camouflaged observation post.

Ulin remembered the stripped and wind-blown surface of the Rock from his previous visit, and he wondered where Notwen could possibly hide an entire laboratory.

The little gnome led him past the crest of the path and to the side of the headland where the rock bulged out like the belly of a pregnant woman. A level, bare space and some stones were all that marked the foundations of Toede’s old manor and its walls.

Ulin stopped and stared around, his arms crossed. A sea breeze stirred his chestnut hair. “Now what?” he asked, too curious to be annoyed.

“Over‌here‌Ulin‌I‌found‌this‌a‌year‌after‌Toede‌died.”

Ulin held up a finger. “Wait. Wait, slow down again.”

“Oh, sorry. Sorry. I do that when I get excited.” Notwen’s blue eyes were vivid against his golden-brown skin. He waved a small hand and headed to the edge of the ruined building where a few shattered blocks of stone were scattered over a layer of dirt and sand. “Stand back,” the gnome warned, and he pushed one stone about a hand span to the left to reveal a weathered bronze lock. Pulling a key from his pocket, he inserted it and turned.

A loud rumbling, grating noise erupted from the ground at Ulin’s feet, and he leaped back in alarm. Dust rose in clouds around him. The sound grew to a roar, and suddenly a huge block of stone lifted out of the dirt.

Notwen watched proudly. More rumbling, creaking, and grinding of stone on metal thundered around them. Slowly and noisily, the block of stone lifted straight up until it was clear of the old floor. Still the noises went on, louder than before. The huge slab lifted ever higher until a three-foot gap yawned underneath the massive weight of the stone. The sounds ground to silence, the stone halted in place, and the dust settled slowly around the hole.

Ulin stared, amazed. The slab, nearly one-foot thick, had been lifted horizontally out of the foundations by what looked like four columns, one at each corner of the slab. He glanced at Notwen questioningly.

“Hydraulics,” the gnome grinned. “I’m working on a way to lift the slab completely out of the opening, but I haven’t completed all the calculations to compensate for its thickness and weight.”

Ulin had to admit he was impressed. He’d never thought much of gnomes. Tinker gnomes were notorious among the other races of Krynn for building large, overly complex machines that failed more often than not. Although they were often bright, curious, and endlessly imaginative, they were cursed by the god Reorx so they could never master the inventive genius of their quick minds. And yet, Ulin remembered hearing a tale about a group of gnomes who had been freed of the curse at the end of the Chaos War. They came to be called thinker gnomes, and they scattered across the world seeking wisdom and knowledge. They did not look different from their tinker cousins, yet they were master inventors and perfectionists whose smaller, less flashy constructions usually worked.

The mage watched Notwen walk to the slab and disappear into the dark depths underneath, and he wondered if indeed this bright-eyed fellow in the orange tunic was a thinker gnome.

Ulin eyed the stone warily. It seemed sturdy enough. Using utmost caution, he sat on the brink of the opening and swung his legs through onto a wooden staircase that led down into darkness. He barely breathed while he slid his long torso through and drew his head under. Hurriedly, he crawled down the steps until his head was clear of the stone and he could stand upright.

“Come on down!” the gnome’s voice called. Light flared golden yellow some twenty feet below.

Ulin stepped down between the columns. The walls of the stairwell consisted of packed dirt and rubble braced with wooden beams. Beneath the stairs, Ulin could just make out the complex gears and cables of Notwen’s hydraulic machine. Slowly, he went down toward the light.

The bottom of the stairs ended in a narrow corridor, stone flagged and arched overhead. The corridor had been carved out of bedrock by skilled hands and led directly to a wooden door that stood open into a room blazing with light.

Ulin hesitated a moment. The rock slab opening into the earth, the working machinery, the corridor leading into a room as bright as day—this was not at all what he was expecting. In spite of his depressed mood, he found himself intrigued and more than a little curious. He hurried into the room and stopped with a sudden jolt.

The chamber was huge. A great round circle cut out of the living rock, its ceiling was domed and painted white with a mural depicting the ancient runes and symbols of the gods. Ulin stood on a railed balcony that circled the upper portion of the room and contained a row of bookcases. Looking closely at the shelves he saw every imaginable form of print on books, scrolls, vellum, parchment, paper, linen, and even tablets of clay and wax. Lamps hung on sconces from the walls, and overhead, suspended from the ceiling, hung a chandelier of glowing oil lamps set behind reflective lenses.

Ulin walked farther into the room and saw a circular stair leading down to the floor below. Tall cupboards, gilded with gold, stood upright between more shelves crowded with an incredible clutter of stuff. On the few bare spaces of wall left hung clocks of every description, size, and shape, their ticking filling the air with a steady drone. A water clock occupied the space near a large fireplace. Other instruments of time, navigation, survey, and drafting lay scattered on heavy worktables or piled on shelves. Everywhere Ulin looked, he saw tools, artifacts, colored glass bottles, crocks and jugs, knives, candles, dishes, maps, and odd things he could not begin to identify.

Notwen was nowhere to be seen, so Ulin walked down to the bottom floor. Curious, he threw open the doors of the first cupboard he came to and drew a breath of astonishment, for on its set of shelves he beheld an alchemist’s treasure: scales and weights, a mortar and pestle, stone bowls, rows of neatly-labeled bottles and boxes. He saw yellow brimstone, sulfur, saltpeter, white lead, vials of mercury, and nuggets of pure silver. There were little bottles of arsenic, viper’s poison, distilled toad, cock’s eyes, larger bottles with animal specimens neatly preserved—tangled webs of jellyfish tentacles, clippings of mermaids’ hair, and many more substances he did not recognize.

He heard a sound behind him, and he turned to see Notwen appear through another door pushing a wheeled tray bearing plates and bottles.

“How did you find all of this?” Ulin asked. He flung out his arms to include the entire chamber. “How could one person collect so much?”

The gnome pushed his tray to the fireplace and arranged two leather chairs beside it. “Come eat. I’m hungry.” He settled Ulin comfortably in a chair, filled two flagons with cold cider, fixed two plates of food, and sat down on a shorter chair to enjoy his meal. It wasn’t until his plate was empty that he leaned back against the worn leather padding and answered Ulin’s question.

“I wish I could say I collected all this, but as I said, I just found it. I’ve added my own things, of course, but the books, the Istar artifacts, and the chamber were here.”

Ulin’s interest spiked at the mention of artifacts, but he said nothing.

“I’ve studied some of the papers and manuscripts left down here,” Notwen continued, “and I believe the collection belonged to a black-robed mage who worked for Highmaster Toede for years. Toede helped him add to it, of course, probably hoping the mage would add to his treasury in return.”

“Why didn’t Malys destroy it?” Ulin asked. “Or add the artifacts to her own collection?”

“She hasn’t found it yet. I think the chamber is protected like the barracks with magical wards. When the red dragon attacked the manor, she destroyed the original entrance and filled the basement above with rubble. Fortunately, the original flooring remained and the chamber is still intact.”

Ulin pointed toward the ceiling. “Why don’t you replace that slab with a concealed door of bronze or something easier to open?”

“So it won’t be easy to open—or find.” Notwen shuddered. “Can you imagine the kender down here? And who would hesitate to plunder a gnome’s laboratory if all you had to do was open a door?”

“Point taken.” Ulin finished his cider and set the flagon aside. He felt better now that he’d eaten. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was placed before him. “Would you show me your collection?”

Happiness glowed on Notwen’s face, and he bounced eagerly to his feet. He took Ulin by the hand and led him to the first table, made of stone and used for working with volatile substances. The surface was stained and pitted by constant use. Notwen ran his hand over a particularly large pit blasted from the table’s surface. “Knowledge is obtained by study and practice,” he said, then chuckled. “I practice a lot.”

Ulin’s thoughts went back to memories of the laboratory at the Academy of Sorcery, to the chambers of Huma’s Tomb where he met Sunrise for the first time, and to other places where he had learned and practiced the art of sorcery. The little gnome may not cast spells or know the intricacies of wielding magic, Ulin thought, but his philosophy of knowledge and his pleasure in its gathering were so similar to his own that the young mage felt drawn into the conversation.

The two soon lost all track of time in the discussions that filled the afternoon. They talked about healing remedies from Notwen’s tome, argued about metallurgical experiments, and examined every bottle and box in the laboratory.

Notwen proudly showed Ulin the clocks he had made and demonstrated each gear and weight and clock face. “Beneath the magic and superstition, there is a clockwork precision to the way the world works,” he proclaimed. “I want to find that precision and learn what makes it tick.”

Ulin found the words matched his own unspoken need. He had tried magic and that had failed him. Now he wanted to look for something deeper, something more basic and profound that would be unchangeable, irrefutable, and perhaps eternal. In his studies of magic he had never taken the time to see how ordinary things worked, or why. He had been too involved in learning spells, and for a while he had excelled at his chosen craft. Then came the failures, the terrible losses, the bitterness, and the fear … until he could no longer face the torment of the endless disappointments. All he had left was himself—his own intelligence, imagination, and strength, and slowly he was beginning to stretch out his abilities to learn the depths of capabilities he never realized were there. Notwen was right. Behind the veneer of magic was an entirely new world to be explored, tested, and studied, a world more reliable and eternal than the realm of faulty magic. His mind filled with these thoughts, Ulin studied Notwen’s clocks with new and fascinated eyes as if he had never seen a gear or pendulum before.

Time passed swiftly in the gnome’s laboratory, and in spite of all the clocks around him set to the same time, Ulin did not realize how long he had stayed until he looked at one particularly large clock on the wall and saw the small hand on the number eight. His eyebrows flew to his hairline.

“Lucy is going to have a fit!” he exclaimed. “Notwen, I must go.”

The gnome started at the man’s outburst. “But why? If you are hungry, I will fix a meal. I keep food in a small pantry here. There is no need to go yet.”

“Yes, there is! My friends don’t know where I am, and I have been gone all day. One in particular will be very angry.”

Notwen’s small face creased in thought. Gnomes were often too busy to worry about social and personal obligations, but Notwen had met Lucy. “Ah, the Sorceress. It would not be right to anger her. Will she allow you to return?”

The irony of his simple question did not escape Ulin. While he deeply respected Lucy’s abilities as a mage, he had always been the one in the forefront: the son of Palin Majere, the assistant director of the Academy of Sorcery, one of the few dragon mages on Krynn. People had come to him for help and advice. They had looked up to him. Now most of that was gone, and by a strange twist, he was being called “Friend of the Sorceress” and treated as her bodyguard or shadow. He didn’t know whether to laugh or bury his head in his arms and weep. He was not an envious man by nature, and he would never begrudge Lucy the honors she deserved, yet the changes in his life had left him raw and badly shaken.

Keeping careful control of his voice, he thanked Notwen for his hospitality and accepted an invitation to return, then he hurried up the wooden stairs and crawled out into the fading light of evening.

A vigilante hurrying toward the slab almost stepped on his fingers. “Ulin!” he gasped. “I’m on watch tonight. I saw a patrol of Dark Knights ride into town, so be on your guard. They’re Malys’s men, very unpredictable.” Before Ulin could reply, the guard shouted down the stone hole. “Notwen! Knights in town!”

Ulin backed away as the machinery began to grind. The stone slowly dropped into place with an echoing boom. By the time he looked up, the guard had returned to his post, and he was alone on the windy rock. He kicked some dirt over the cracks between the stone until the slab was indistinguishable from the others. If he hadn’t seen the block with his own eyes, he would never guess the entrance was there. He couldn’t wait to tell Lucy about the laboratory—once she got over being mad at him.

He took a quick survey of the town while he hurried down the path. Dusk cast a heavy gloom over the weather-beaten old buildings, but everything seemed normal. The taverns and pleasure houses were crowded, the market was nearly deserted, and the city hall was dark. Lights glowed in the windows of houses and tenements, and columns of smoke rose from dozens of kitchen fires to drift west into the grasslands on the wind from the sea. There was no sign of the Knights’ patrol. Ulin hoped fervently he could reach the Jetties and get out of sight before he was spotted. He did not want to risk a confrontation with the Knights of Neraka.

All too soon he discovered his wish was in vain, for when he approached the ramshackle old inn his hope sunk into dismay. Five saddled horses stood tied to the inn’s hitching post. Each one wore a skull-shaped brand of the Dark Knights on its hip. Although the front door stood open and lamps were lit, no one was in sight, and the inn was strangely silent.

A commotion rose out of the walled stable yard to the rear. Ulin could hear the nervous clatter of a horse’s iron-shod hooves on the stone paving and the shouting of angry voices. One of the voices was Lucy’s. Ulin broke into a run toward the door.

Without warning a small figure pelted out of a side entrance and slammed into Ulin’s stomach, knocking the air from his lungs.

“Oh, it’s you!” squeaked Pease. “Ulin! You must come. The Knights have arrested Lucy.”