Shadow Blizzard

3 At The Gates

It took us an hour to build the funeral pyre. There were plenty of trees all around; Deler’s battle-ax worked away without a pause, and all the others kept up well with the dwarf. The pile of timber on which we set Miralissa rivaled the size of the pyre we had built when Ell died. The elfess’s s’kash and bow lay beside her and Egrassa kept only the quiver.

When the elf first led us to Miralissa, no one could believe that she was dead. She seemed to be sleeping or resting with her eyes closed. There were no wounds, and her bluish chain mail was undamaged. Only when we picked the young elfess up to carry her to the fire, a single drop of blood flowed out of her right ear.

Miralissa had been killed by her own shamanism. At the moment when the magical wall burst and shattered under the furious pressure of the h’san’kor’s attack, the thread of the elfess’s life had also snapped. The princess of the House of the Black Moon had put all her strength into the magic and she had no chance of surviving the powerful backlash from her own spell.

When the magical flame of the pyre was transformed into a wild roaring dragon that threatened to consume the moon and the stars, and Miralissa had disappeared forever behind the red tongues of flame, Egrassa sang the funeral song.

The flames roared furiously as they accepted Miralissa’s soul and escorted it to the light, but the elf’s voice could be heard even above their roar. The bright glow of the fire flickered on the faces of the warriors silently observing the raging flames.

Hallas and Deler looked like brothers now—both silent, with gloomy faces. Alistan Markauz gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Eel was as impassive as ever; there was not a trace of emotion in his face, only weariness dancing in his eyes the color of steel. Lamplighter leaned on his bidenhander with his eyes narrowed, peering into the fire. Kli-Kli was crying his eyes out and wiping the streaming tears off his face. And I …

How was I?

I suppose … desolated … and very tired. I felt that now there was absolutely nothing that I wanted.

“Kli-Kli, stop crying,” Egrassa said when he finished the song.

“I’m not crying,” the goblin whined miserably.

“Do you think I’m blind?”

“If I say I’m not crying, then I’m not crying!”

“She knew what she was doing. Take comfort in the fact that if my cousin had not maintained the wall for so long, we would all be dead.”

“But…”

“She was a true daughter of the House of the Black Moon—she did it so that we could finish what we came here to do. We elves have a completely different attitude toward death. She did not die in vain, and there is nothing more to say.”

The goblin nodded hastily and blew his nose into a huge handkerchief.

We moved on when there was nothing left of the pyre but a heap of glowing embers.

There was no more than two hours left until dawn and Egrassa led us on without making any allowances for our tiredness.

I still couldn’t believe we had lost Miralissa. Anyone else, but not her. Somehow I’d been sure that she would be with us right to the very end. But as they say, man proposes and the gods dispose. The elfess with the ash-gray hair and mysterious yellow eyes, and that polite half smile constantly playing on her blue-black lips, had left us now, disappeared into the fire.

Now as we made our way through the forest, we were completely dependent on the elf’s knowledge, and, to a lesser degree, the goblin’s. If they hadn’t been with us, the group would have lost its way in the trees and never found the burial chambers, even if they were only a hundred yards away from us.

Miralissa’s death was an irreplaceable loss in another way, too—we had effectively been left without any magical defenses. Yes, Egrassa knew how to do a few things, but they were limited to the superficial knowledge possessed by every member of the ruling family of a house of dark elves. The elfess wasn’t a fully fledged shaman, either, but her knowledge was far deeper than Egrassa’s.

Of course, there was still Kli-Kli—the one-time student of his shaman grandfather—but you couldn’t afford to trust him in serious business like this, or you might end up getting the soles of your feet roasted at the most inconvenient moment. There had been precedents already, when the goblin’s knowledge of magic had almost dispatched our group to a meeting with the gods. I personally didn’t feel like taking any more risks.

As we prepared to leave the site of the funeral pyre, the goblin pulled his throwing knives out of the h’san’kor’s dismembered body and gave the severed head a final kick of farewell. I picked up the sack the monster had dropped.

Kli-Kli was still sniffing as he trudged along in front of me.

“How are you?” I asked the goblin sympathetically.

“Fine,” he said through his nose, furtively wiping away his tears. “Absolutely fine.”

“I’m sorry she was killed, too.”

“Why do things like that happen, Harold?”

“I don’t know, my friend. I don’t make a very good comforter. Everything is decided by the will of the gods.”

“The gods? That gang of bandits only exists because some Dancer allowed them to move in when he created this world!” He sighed. “All right, let’s not talk about that.”

A Dancer …

That’s my curse. According to the goblin, I’m a Dancer in the Shadows, too. At least, that’s what the goblin shamans’ famous Book of Prophecies says. I don’t know how Kli-Kli figured out that I’m a Dancer (the first one for ten thousand years), but if a goblin says you’re a sheep, proving to him that you’re not is about as easy as making the sun run backward—one thing is as impossible as the other. So sometimes the jester called me Dancer in the Shadows. I tried for two weeks to shake out of him exactly who this Dancer was and what he was supposed to do, and eventually the infernal little blackguard gave way and fed me his half-witted tribe’s old campfire yarn.

Apparently there used to be a world of Chaos, the first and only world in the Universe, and people lived there. Some of these people possessed the strange power of being able to create new worlds. And to do this they required any shadow from the world of Chaos.

So these special people were called Dancers in the Shadows. They created thousands of worlds and eventually made so many of them that the world of Chaos had almost no more miraculous living shadows left, and Chaos died. But that’s not the point. If the goblin’s theory is right, then our world was created by one of the Dancers in the Shadows. And the lad was obviously a little crazy—otherwise would our world have turned out to be such a rotten, lousy place?

And as for me, I didn’t feel like any kind of Dancer, no matter how much Kli-Kli harped on about it. Although it would be fun all right, to create a world of my own, where mountains of gold would just appear, and there wouldn’t be any rotten skunks of guards or municipal watchmen. But anyway, there’s nothing I can do about that, because to create new worlds, you need shadows from Chaos.

Ah, darkness! Who can make any sense of these goblin superstitions?

Egrassa suddenly threw his arm up in the air as a signal for us to stop. Another slight gesture—and everyone reached for their weapons. With an arrow already on his bowstring, the elf took a step forward and one to the side in order to let the warriors past him.

The track had led us to a small forest clearing with two bodies in it—a h’san’kor, slit open from the neck to the groin, and a man in a gray cloak who had been torn to pieces. His legs and the lower half of his trunk were lying beside the h’san’kor, and his upper half had been tossed a few dozen yards away.

“Both dead,” Alistan Markauz declared, thrusting his sword back into its scabbard.

“What a stench its innards give off!” Hallas said, making a face and covering his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

The gnome was right, the dead h’san’kor stank worse than a hundred corpses decomposing in the heat.

“We-ell now,” Lamplighter drawled, “this lad gutted the beast very neatly. Putting paid to a h’san’kor single-handed sounds like a very tall tale, in fact.…”

“A legend,” put in Eel, who was carefully examining the spot where the fight had taken place. “He put paid to it all right … but look at the signs here.… Egrassa?”

“Yes, he slit its belly open with this.” The elf was holding the stranger’s black spear. “But that still didn’t save him. The mortally wounded monster was still dangerous. Even as it was dying, it was able to tear the man in half.…”

“A blow for a blow,” Eel muttered, studying the flattened grass.

“What do you mean?” asked Milord Alistan.

“They each struck only one blow, milord. You see these marks here on the grass? I’m not Tomcat, but I can read them quite clearly. It was over very quickly. The man stepped forward, struck upward, and spilled out all the flute’s innards.”

“He must have been very agile to do that. He’d have to move as fast as the h’san’kor,” said Deler, refusing to believe what Eel had said. “Men aren’t capable of that.”

“Did you see how fast this man in gray ran past us? And you see what he did to the monster? What more proof do you want, in the name of darkness,” Hallas asked Deler.

“I don’t know,” the dwarf muttered reluctantly. “I just can’t believe it.”

“But it’s true,” Eel continued. “The lad killed the beast all right, but it was the first time he’d come across a h’san’kor, and his ignorance of the monster’s ways was what killed him. He thought he’d struck a fatal blow and he let his guard down. Before the flute died, it had one second to tear its killer in half.”

“Come on, Deler, chop the horns off its head,” said Hallas, thoughtfully stroking the handle of his beloved mattock as he looked at the dead beast.

“What?” asked the dwarf.

“You heard! Is that a battle-ax or a stick in your hands! Chop the horns off the head!”

“Why should I, may the darkness take me?”

“Because! Do you know what a h’san’kor’s horns are worth?”

“No, I’ve never sold any to anyone.”

“There, you see! You’ve never sold any! They’re priceless! Just think how many gold pieces the Order, may it burn in the abyss, will shell out for a wonder like this! Imagine it, we’ll buy a hundred barrels of the finest elfin wine, that Amber Tears, for example.”

“You’ll burst, Hallas,” said Lamplighter, teasing the gnome.

“No, I won’t. I won’t buy it just for myself! We’ll take it to the Lonely Giant, it’s high time we fill our cellars up with some good wine.”

“Wine for the Giant, you say? Well then, let’s give it a try!” Deler spat on his hands and picked up his battle-ax.

“Ah!” Hallas exclaimed regretfully. “We should have grubbed out the first beast’s horns, too!”

“Harold!” Kli-Kli called, indicating the man’s body with his eyes.

“What?” I asked, knowing what the goblin had in mind.

“I want to see his face. Eel, coming with us?”

“Let’s go,” Eel replied curtly.

The man was lying facedown with his arms flung out.

“Harold,” Kli-Kli said warily, “you turn him over.”

“Turn him over yourself.”

“Hey, Mumr,” Eel barked. “Light a torch and get over here!”

“Coming!”

“Harold, the body won’t turn over just because you’re standing there,” said Kli-Kli, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, as if he had a sudden urge to visit the bushes.

“Let Eel turn him over,” I said, trying to get out of it again.

“I won’t do it, I’m not interested. But at least it’s obvious he’s the same lad the flinny told us about,” said Eel.

Just as soon as there’s any dirty work to be done (say, going down into Hrad Spein to collect the Rainbow Horn, or turning over a dead body) everyone suddenly remembered Harold. Now, why would that be?

I sighed and did as I’d been asked, and just at that moment Lamplighter arrived with the torch.

“What’s all this, never seen a dead man before?” he growled ill-humoredly.

“Bring the torch closer,” Kli-Kli said instead of answering. “Pull back his hood, Harold.”

I did as the goblin said and saw the dead man’s face. This was the last thing I’d been expecting—the warrior was no more than a boy. There was no way he could have been any older than eighteen.

A pale bloodless face, thin bluish lips, chestnut hair sticking to his forehead. A torn gray cloak, a coarse shirt of undyed wool. A thick silver chain hanging down across his chest. And hanging on the chain—a long, smoky-gray crystal.

I leaned down over the dead man, trying to get a closer look at the mysterious stone.

“Kli-Kli, get Egrassa over here, quickly!” Eel suddenly blurted out.

“What for?” the goblin asked in amazement.

“I don’t like this—he was torn in half, but there isn’t a drop of blood anywhere.”

And then the dead man, who only had the top half of his body left, opened his eyes. His hand darted out as fast as a striking snake and grabbed the collar of my jacket.

“You must not … take the Horn … the balance could be … disrupted!”

I tried to break free, but his hand had a strong grip. The gray eyes were looking straight at me, and the young guy’s pupils were no larger than pinheads.

The dead man had come to life! But that wasn’t what really frightened me. The man (and it was a man lying in front of us) had four long, thin white fangs glittering in his mouth.

“Don’t take it … do you hear? The balance…,” he wheezed.

Someone pulled me back hard by the shoulders and the stranger’s hand released its grip.

Kli-Kli yelled for Alistan and Egrassa.

“Are you all right, Harold?” asked Eel.

“Yes,” I said, trying not to let my voice tremble.

The elf came running up.

“What’s happened here?”

“He came to life and grabbed Harold!” Kli-Kli babbled, nodding at the man with a frightened expression.

“Don’t talk bunk, fool,” Milord Alistan said with a frown. “He was torn in half, how could he grab anyone?”

“It’s true, milord,” I said, confirming what Kli-Kli had said, and earning myself a suspicious look from the captain of the guard.

“It’s not so very strange; they’re telling the truth,” said Egrassa, going down on his knees beside the body.

“Careful!” Lamplighter warned him.

“Don’t worry, he’s dead,” said the elf, staring impassively into the stranger’s eyes.

Egrassa was right, the veil of death had clouded the warrior’s eyes and they had a glassy sheen.

“How could he have stayed alive for so long?” asked Alistan Markauz, still unable to believe it.

“That’s easy to explain, look,” said Egrassa.

Without the slightest sign of squeamishness, the elf raised the man’s upper lip. I hadn’t imagined it—the lad really did have thin fangs, like needles.

“That’s incredible,” Milord Alistan exclaimed, stunned.

“But it’s a fact. ”

“In a single night we encounter a h’san’kor and…” Markauz hesitated.

“Why are you so shocked? A vampire, milord. A genuine vampire.”

“Vampires don’t exist!” Hallas snorted contemptuously, twirling one of the flute’s severed horns in his hands. “That’s just a story, like…”

The gnome glanced at the horn and stopped in confusion.

“A story? Then who was it that grabbed hold of me? A ghost?” I asked. My heart was still pounding away furiously.

“Vampires do exist, and if you haven’t seen them, that doesn’t prove anything. That’s why he was able to make such short work of the flute and stay alive until we got here,” said Egrassa, cautiously feeling at the vampire’s fangs.

“Harold, he didn’t bite you, did he?” the dwarf suddenly asked out of the blue.

I automatically raised my hand to my neck.

“No. I’m all right.”

“Milord Alistan, perhaps we ought to … put a stake through this … vampire … to make sure he stays quiet?”

“He’s dead, don’t talk nonsense,” Eel replied instead of Alistan.

“He’s dead now, but what if he suddenly jumps up and starts drinking our blood?”

“Hallas, you’ve heard too many horror stories. Vampires are almost like people, they’re just faster and stronger, and they drink blood. You can kill them with plain ordinary steel, but not with aspen stakes, silver, garlic, or sunlight. All that’s just absolute nonsense, like the idea that a vampire can turn into mist or a bat. All right! Now, what’s this?”

Egrassa had spotted the crystal. He took it off the body and showed it to us.

“Milord?”

“Now this is getting absolutely absurd,” said Alistan, shaking his head.

“What is that thing?” Lamplighter asked, looking at the smoky crystal as if it were a poisonous snake.

“It is the badge of the Order of the Gray Ones,” Eel answered his comrade.

Hallas grunted in shock and amazement. Deler whistled, took off his helmet, and scratched the back of his head.

The Order of the Gray Ones.

I didn’t know much about them. But then, neither did anyone else there. All my knowledge came from hushed conversations in taverns, unconfirmed rumors, and a book that belonged to my teacher For, which devoted one brief passage to the Order of the Gray Ones.

Far away in the Cold Sea there is an island that is known to the common folk as the Island of the Gray Ones. It is protected by magic and no ship can land there if the island’s masters don’t want it to. This little scrap of land got its name because it is where the Order of the Gray Ones made its home.

They say they are great warriors, invincible. They are trained from early childhood, and rumor has it that a single Gray One can take on fifteen experienced soldiers and dispatch them all to the darkness with ease. Of course, every tavern has its own bright spark who has met one of these mysterious warriors in person, and if you pour this bright spark a brimming glass, then he’ll tell you a colorful tale of how the Gray One killed a hundred knights and then defeated a dragon into the bargain.

I don’t know just how much truth there is in all these rumors. But even the most stupid rumor and the most fantastic story are based on at least a tiny grain of truth.

They also say that the Gray Ones are the guardians of equilibrium—the balance—in Siala. They only leave their island when the world is threatened by some really serious danger that could tip the balance in one direction or the other. To put it in simple terms (although this is not quite right), it doesn’t matter to the Gray Ones which way the world is tilting—into good or evil, toward the white side or the dark side.

They maintain the balance and in any particular situation they join the weaker side. When good is winning, they’re on the side of evil; when evil is winning, they’re on the side of good. It’s a matter of indifference to them what goals or ideals you pursue and what it is you want—peace throughout the world or evil throughout the Universe. If you threaten the balance, they will try to persuade you to stop. If persuasion doesn’t work, then … The Gray Ones have a reputation as dangerous warriors and superb magicians, and they will find other ways of changing your mind. The order of mysterious warriors has no ambitions of its own and stands above all sides. It is not white, it is not black.

It is Gray.

“Are you sure this is an absolutely genuine Gray One?” Hallas asked in amazement.

Hallas got up off his knees and tossed the crystal to the gnome.

“Look for yourself. The Order of the Gray Ones gives a chain like that to all its warriors. At least, that is what it says in our chronicles. I’ve never met one of this brotherhood before in my entire life.”

“So the Gray Ones are vampires?” Kli-Kli squeaked, giving the motionless body a wary sideways glance.

“Probably not. Their order is said to include men, and elves, and even orcs. So why not a vampire?” Egrassa said with a shrug. “But what concerns me is what this young lad was doing here in the forest.”

“The flinny told us about him,” Eel said again. “The vampire was following us.”

“I know, but that doesn’t answer the question. What did he want from us? The last time these warriors left their island was during the Spring War.”

“He said something to Harold,” Kli-Kli blurted out.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“What did he say, thief?”

“That we mustn’t take the Horn, or the balance could be disrupted,” I answered quite candidly, remembering the stranger’s whisper.

Silence fell in the clearing.

“Mmm, yes,” Kli-Kli murmured thoughtfully, and scratched his hooked nose.

“How did he find us? How does the Order of the Gray Ones know that we’re trying to retrieve the Rainbow Horn?” Deler asked.

The dark elf laughed. “They have their own ways of discovering secrets.”

“We were fortunate that he was alone,” Alistan Markauz murmured.

“What if he isn’t?”

“He was alone, Harold,” Lamplighter reassured me. “The flinny said so.”

Hallas snorted loudly to indicate his opinion of anything Aarroo might have said.

“The Gray Ones must have known that we want to take the Horn out of the burial chambers in order to stop the Nameless One,” Kli-Kli insisted. “Why do they think that if Harold gets it, the balance will be disrupted?”

“Perhaps they know something that we don’t, Kli-Kli?” I said, remembering the living dream I’d had about how the Forbidden Territory appeared in Avendoom because of the Rainbow. “After all, the magicians of the Order must have had some reason for hiding the Horn in the Palaces of Bone.”

“But if the Gray Ones are so afraid of the Horn’s return to the world … if it’s that dangerous … maybe we shouldn’t try to retrieve it,” Lamplighter said uncertainly, forcing out the words.

“We’ve come too far to stop now,” Milord Alistan objected. “And the Order of the Gray Ones might be mistaken. It’s just half a day’s journey to Hrad Spein, surely we’re not going to stop when we’re at the very gates?”

“Milord, don’t think that I’m a coward, it’s just that if that’s the way things are and they really did send this mysterious killer after us —”

“Nobody thinks you’re a coward, Lamplighter,” the captain of the royal guard interrupted him. “You know as well as I do how badly we need that Horn. Egrassa, it’s been a hard night and everyone’s tired. It’s time to make a halt and get some sleep.”

The little campfire lit by the elf crackled cheerfully and threw sparks up into the sky. I couldn’t get to sleep and just lay there, watching the cold twinkling of the stars. The Archer, the Crayfish Tail, the Swineherd, Sagra’s Dogs … dozens of constellations gazed down on me through the branches of the trees. The Crown of the North, stretching halfway across the sky, glimmered on the horizon like the coals in the fire.

When an elf dies, a new star lights up in the sky. Perhaps Egrassa was right and it was a foolish superstition, but I strained my eyes until they ached, gazing up at the night sky and trying to make out the star that should have appeared when Miralissa died.

Hopeless.

Even if a star had appeared, I couldn’t see with all these trees around us.

A falling star whooshed silently across the night sky. It hurtled past above my head, blinking one last time as it disappeared behind the trees. Usually, when people see a falling star, they make a wish.

What did I want to wish for?

Those who had died on the journey could never be brought back again. Tomcat had been left behind forever in Hargan’s Wasteland, beside the old ravine. Loudmouth, who had turned out to be a traitor, never left that cellar near Ranneng. Arnkh and Uncle were at the bottom of the Iselina, thanks to Lafresa’s magic. Marmot was buried in the ground of the Border Kingdom, Ell’s ashes had become part of the river, and Miralissa had found her resting place under the shade of the fir trees. They had all been left behind us. They had done everything they could to get to Zagraba, they had faced deadly danger, caring nothing for their own lives … So I had to get my hands on that cursed Horn so the Order could stop the Nameless One. And … let no more of those sleeping round this fire be killed on our journey.

Another cold flash in the sky—and another fiery trail streaked between the stars. The orcs called September Por Za’rallo—the Month of Falling Stars.

One more star.

If you looked at the sky for a long, long time, you could see dozens of falling stars that could become our wishes, even if those wishes will probably never come true.

I turned my head and saw Deler. The dwarf couldn’t sleep, either. He was sitting huddled up by the fire, staring intently at the flames. Hallas was snoring quietly beside him.

I got up, carefully stepped over Lamplighter, and walked across to Deler.

“Can’t sleep?”

He broke off from contemplating the dancing flames and looked at me. “You should sleep while you have the chance; I’ve got to stand watch for another hour until beard-face gets up.”

“I can’t get to sleep,” I said, sitting down beside him.

“I can understand that. After all this…”

He paused for a moment and then said reluctantly, “It’s so stupid … an absurd way to die … killed by your own magic…”

I didn’t say anything, and no words were needed anyway. Everyone was mourning for Miralissa, although they tried not to show it. It was just … just that that was the way things were with the Wild Hearts: When a friend dies, don’t give way to your tears; find the enemy and take revenge.

Deler grunted as he turned round, picked up a small log off the ground, and threw it into the fire. The flames recoiled and then cautiously licked at the offering, getting the taste of it, and finally fed themselves on the fresh food voraciously.

“You know, a Gray One came to the Mountains of the Dwarves once,” Deler said unexpectedly. “It was a long, long time ago, in the very last year of the Purple Years, when we’d almost defeated the gnomes. The final victory was very close, we had our relatives pinned back against the Gates of Grankhel, and he turned up. Well, we dwarves are no fools; we welcomed our guest with every possible honor and courtesy, took him to the Council … And then the Gray One told us it was in our own best interests to make peace with the gnomes, and the sooner the better, otherwise in hundreds of years the balance would shift. He warned us that if the gnomes left the mountains and moved away, sooner or later they would come back. Some hothead immediately said: ‘Let them come back, we have enough battle-axes for all of them.’ Do you know what the Gray One’s answer was? That we’d sing a different song when the gnomes came to the mountain with the gunpowder, pistols, and cannons that they would invent because we drove them out. And he said that someday the gnomes’ inventions would be seized by men, and sooner or later the dwarves and the gnomes would both be left weeping bitter tears. He told us all that and then he went away. He didn’t even wait for our answer—but then the answer was obvious even to a Doralissian.”

“He just went away?” I asked, unable to believe it.

“Yes, imagine that, Harold. He just went away. He didn’t try to persuade us, he didn’t hack us to pieces.… He just went on his way. The Council thought about that, and then decided that even if everything he’d said was true, there were still hundreds of years before the balance shifted. The Gray Ones had decided to wait.… We won that war, the beard-faces left the mountain and went to the Steel Mines of Isilia, and for the time being everything more or less settled down. One generation followed another and this story was almost forgotten.… Until the moment came when the gnomes invented that darkness-damned powder. And then the cannons. And then our wise old heads remembered the old story, and when they remembered, it set them thinking. It turned out that the Order of the Gray Ones had told us the truth. It all happened—the powder and the cannons … only no one had heard anything yet about those strange pistols. But now I’ve seen Hallas holding one of them in his hands. And that means the day’s not far off when the gnomes will decide to return to their old home.… And then you’ll grab their weapons, and then we’ll all be in a bad way.…”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

The dwarf looked at me thoughtfully.

“Darkness only knows, Harold. It’s just that this story shows the Gray Ones don’t often make mistakes, and if that vampire told you that when we fish the Horn out of Hrad Spein the balance will be disrupted, then that’s probably exactly what will happen.”

“He said it could be disrupted.”

“Do you understand the old gnomes’ fable? You’re sitting on a keg of gunpowder and the fuse is burning. And your only hope is that it will start to rain and put out the fuse. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

“Perfectly,” I chuckled.

“That Horn was created by the ogres to protect them against their own magic, right?”

“That’s what the Order says.”

“Well then, I don’t have to explain to you how dangerous things that were made in the Dark Era are.”

“So you think like Mumr, that the artifact should be left where it is now? In Grok’s grave?”

“I don’t know, Harold. The Rainbow Horn neutralizes the magic of the Nameless One. If the Horn is in Avendoom, the sorcerer will be forced to retreat forever. Without his magic, he’s nothing.… So, we need the Horn. On the other hand, that phrase ‘could be’ … Perhaps we’ll be bringing something even more terrible into the world? There must be a reason why it was so well hidden, mustn’t there?”

“More terrible than the Nameless One?”

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing we can do but trust in the gods, Deler.”

The dwarf chuckled quietly and stirred the embers with a stick, frightening up a cloud of sparks.

“I shouldn’t have started this conversation. Now you’ll have doubts. Get that thrice-cursed Horn, and then we’ll figure out what’s what.… Go and sleep.”

“In a moment,” I said.

“Did you see the spear that Gray One had?” the gnome asked.

“The one that Egrassa took?”

“Our elf knows a good thing when he sees it.” Deler laughed. “Yes, that’s the one.”

“A spear like any other,” I said with a gentle shrug. “Just a bit strange.”

“Ah, you men.… You’re always boasting about how superior you are, but in so many things you’re just like little children,” Deler grumbled. “When you say ‘strange,’ do you mean the shape or something else?”

“The shape,” I replied, although I knew it was the wrong answer.

“That’s what I thought,” the dwarf sighed. “It’s not really a spear, it’s a krasta, a kind of pike. You can slash with it and stab with it. You don’t come across them very often, especially in the Northern Lands. It was invented in Mambara, a country way beyond the Sultanate. But that’s not important right now. None of you men took any notice of the handle and the metal of the blade. But Egrassa and I spotted it straightaway. And Hallas probably did, too, although the dratted beard-face isn’t saying anything.”

“What about the handle and the metal?”

“There are ancient runes on the handle. You can barely even see them, but it’s the first language of the gnomes. The language of the time of the great ones Grahel and Chigzan—the first dwarf and the first gnome. Don’t ask me what it says, I’m a warrior, not a Master, and I could only recognize a few runes. With a spear like that you can strike through any magical shield.”

“Oho!”

“Yes indeed, ‘oho.’ And as for the metal that was used for the blade, in the old days, back in the Age of Achievements, it used to be known as Smoky Steel. Ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“That’s not surprising. We forgot a lot of things during the Purple Years. The secret of smelting … it has been lost—forever, I’m afraid. But there was a time … there was a time when gnomes and dwarves worked together. Some prospected for ore and made steel, others gave it the required form and invoked the magic. Ruby Blood can never compare with Smoky Steel. It cut through everything. Anything the blade fell on—a silk handkerchief, stone, or the finest armor.”

“How much did it cost?” I blurted out.

“A lot,” Deler chuckled. “So much that only a king … or the Gray Ones … could afford a blade made out of it. Imagine you’re facing a front-line knight-at-arms. Heavy armor, a full-length shield. Like a tortoise in a shell. You could sweat yourself to death trying to get at him with a sword. But you just take a blade of Smoky Steel and hit him across the helmet, and it will slice through the man like a knife through butter, split him into two neat halves. And his helmet, armor, and shield, too.”

“So it’s very valuable?”

That earned me a suspicious glance from the dwarf.

“Valuable? It’s priceless! Give it to the king and you can ask for a dukedom and a hundred ships and a summer palace, and anything else you might fancy.”

Deler tossed more wood into the fire.

“Come on, Harold, get some sleep. It’s a hard day tomorrow. Or are you trying to follow the elf’s example?”

“Where is he, by the way?”

“Over that way, not very far.”

“I’ll take a stroll that way,” I said, getting up off the log.

Deler just waved his hand: Okay, take a stroll.

The night was coming to an end; the stars had faded and the full moon was already turning pale. The elf was a dark silhouette against the pale background of a golden-leaf’s trunk. He was sitting on the ground, with his hands on his knees, and his eyes were closed.

The grass rustled under my feet. Egrassa made a movement too fast for me to follow, and there was an arrow pointing straight at me, already poised on his bowstring. I froze to let the elf take a good look at me.

“What are you doing here?” Egrassa asked in a surly voice, but he put the bow away.

“Deler said you were here.”

“So what?”

I hesitated. Yes, so what? What in the name of darkness had brought me this way? Those yellow eyes were watching me closely.

“I’m very sorry about what happened to Miralissa, too.”

Silence.

“She has a daughter, doesn’t she?”

“How do you know that?”

“She told me.”

“She told you.… She trusted you people so much … she respected you, she didn’t think you were really that bad. She should never have left the House of the Black Moon. None of us should have.”

“I…”

“Just get that Horn, Harold. Just get it. Prove to me and my kinsmen that Miralissa was not mistaken. Now go, you’re bothering me.”

That was it. Who can ever tell what’s going inside these elves?

“Harold!” he called to me.

“Yes?”

“Will you get it?”

“Yes, I’ll get it.”

“No doubt or hesitation?”

“No doubt or hesitation,” I answered, after a pause.

He seemed satisfied with my answer; at least, he didn’t say another word about it.

“We don’t have to worry about the Firstborn any longer,” said the elf, leaning on his new weapon.

“But we do have to worry about Balistan Pargaid and his men; there are more than twenty of them,” said Milord Alistan, checking to make sure that his sword left the scabbard smoothly.

“And Lafresa,” Kli-Kli reminded him. “She’s worth twenty warriors.”

The fool was right: Lafresa was dangerous, especially now, when we didn’t have Miralissa with us.

“Let’s go, but quietly, it’s not very far to the gates now,” the dark elf warned us, and set off along the track.

We walked through a grove that consisted of nothing but golden-leafs, trees beyond compare with anything we’d seen before. The huge, ancient trunks were more than fifteen yards around, the crowns of the trees soared so high that they seemed to prop up the very sky. Here and there orange roots protruded from the ground, each of them four times as thick as a grown man’s thigh. The sun’s rays pierced the golden crowns like arrows, flying down through the morning mist that had still not dispersed and striking the ground. This was how I had pictured Zagraba in my imagination—majestically beautiful.

D-r-r-r-r … d-r-r-r-r-r …

“That woodpecker’s working hard,” Deler croaked admiringly.

“Quiet!” Egrassa hissed, listening to the sounds of the forest.

The wind quietly rustled the murmuring crowns of the golden-leafs, and the woodpecker continued with his tireless search for food, setting the forest ringing with his dr-r-r-rr-r. Little birds chirped and insects buzzed in the grass; the forest was as alive and busy as if it was midsummer, not early autumn.

“There are men … nearby.”

The elf leaned the krasta against a tree, set a new string on his bow, and took an arrow out of his quiver.

“I’ll go to check … if you hear any noise, be ready.…”

“Eel, go with him,” Alistan Markauz ordered.

“Yes, milord. Harold, will you lend me your crossbow?”

“It’s loaded,” I said, handing the Garrakian the weapon and two extra bolts.

“If everything’s all right, I’ll whistle,” said Egrassa.

The elf and the man disappeared into the dense undergrowth of gorse. For a long time we heard nothing apart from the sounds of the forest, and everyone listened to the trilling of the birds and the rustling of the branches. Eventually we heard a faint whistle in the distance.

“Forward!” ordered Alistan Markauz. “Kli-Kli, don’t get under our feet.”

“When do I ever get in the way?” Kli-Kli grumbled. “That’s what Harold does.”

I laughed, but didn’t say anything and picked up the elf’s spear.

Egrassa and Eel were waiting for us in a shady meadow surrounded by a neat circle of golden-leafs … with three men lying at their feet. Two of them were dead. The elf’s arrow had easily pierced the chain mail of one of Balistan Pargaid’s soldiers and stuck in his heart. The other, who was still clutching a small ax, had taken an arrow in the eye. The third man was alive—squirming on the ground with a crossbow bolt in his leg.

“Who have we got here?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, milord,” Eel said, clearing his throat and handing me the crossbow. “Egrassa killed the first one straightaway, the second one grabbed an ax and got shot in the eye. The third one tried to run; I had to shoot him in the leg.”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Alistan Markauz asked sharply, turning to the prisoner.

The man just wailed and clutched at his wounded leg.

“Why do you ask, milord, as if you didn’t know?” Kli-Kli asked in surprise. “These are Balistan Pargaid’s dogs, you can tell from their faces!”

“He’ll tell me everything he knows,” said the elf. He stepped on the man’s injured leg and the man howled and lost consciousness.

Hallas took out a flask of water and splashed some in the man’s face. No response. He had to slap the man hard on the cheek. The man shuddered and opened his eyes.

“And now we’ll have a talk,” said Egrassa, holding his crooked dagger to the man’s chest. “How many of you are there?”

“What?” said the man, licking his lips.

“How many of you are there?” Egrassa repeated, pricking the man with his dagger.

That worked.

“Three, there were only three of us! Don’t kill me, milord! I’ll tell you everything!” the man babbled, staring wide-eyed at the dark elf and obviously taking him for an orc.

“Where are the others?”

“They all … went away.”

“You’re lying,” said Egrassa, pressing in the dagger.

The man squealed and yelled.

“I’m telling the truth, they all went and left us here on guard! I haven’t done anything, honestly! Don’t kill me!”

“Perhaps this goon really doesn’t know anything?” Deler boomed.

“Of course he does! Egrassa, you leave him to me and I’ll soon shake him out of his trance!” Hallas suggested, rolling his eyes furiously.

“Where did they go?” asked Egrassa, ignoring the gnome.

“Into the burial chambers, they all went into those burial chambers cursed by the darkness, milord orc!”

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

“How many men went down there?”

“Ten.”

“He’s lying,” said Kli-Kli, performing simple calculations in his head.

“That’s not important.… Did the count go with them?”

“Yes, milord.”

“And the woman?” I blurted out.

“The witch? She’s with them, too. It was all her idea! She was the one who decided to go down there!”

“Why did they go?”

“They didn’t tell us. Me and the others were just supposed to stay here and wait for the rest of them to come back. That’s all. I don’t know anything else.”

“That’s a shame,” said the elf, plunging the dagger into the man’s chest up to the hilt.

The prisoner shuddered and went limp. Without showing any sign of emotion, Egrassa pulled the dagger out and wiped it on the dead man’s clothes.

“Deler! Hallas!” Alistan Markauz called to the dwarf and the gnome. “Bury these three. There’s no point in us hanging about any longer.”

And that was the end of the matter, except for the dwarf and the gnome muttering discontentedly that they were soldiers, not gravediggers.

“Well, how do you like it, Harold?” Eel asked me when I walked away to one side.

“Elves,” I said with a shrug, thinking he was asking how I felt about the recent killing.

“That’s not what I meant,” Eel said with a frown. “I meant the entrance to Hrad Spein.”

“Why, where is it?” I gasped.

Kli-Kli heaved a tragic sigh. “Harold, you’re hopeless! What do you think that is, if not the entrance?”

“A hill?” I asked in amazement.

“A hill!” Kli-Kli teased me, pulling a silly face. “Open your eyes, will you! What kind of hill, may you choke on a bone, is that? Go on, walk round it!”

“All right! All right! Just stop yammering,” I said, trying to calm the goblin down. “I’ve got a splitting headache from that squeal of yours.”

It really was the entrance to Hrad Spein, or at least, on closer examination the hill turned out to be artificial. It was hardly surprising that I hadn’t realized—the structure was so old (from the start of the Dark Era, after all!) that the back of it was all overgrown with grass and bushes. When I walked round it to the other side, though, I realized I’d got the era wrong.

Of course the gates weren’t from the Dark Era at all (although that was when unknown beings had founded the first and deepest levels of Hrad Spein). The gates had appeared much, much later, during the period when the orcs and the elves were in their heyday. It was just that after the ancient evil awoke in the Palaces of Bone and elves and orcs (and, after them, men) left the burial chambers to be demolished by the centuries, the gates fell into decay and were overgrown by the forest.

After all, Zagraba, and especially the Golden Forest, hadn’t always been here. The trees had been advancing for thousands of years. And they advanced until they swallowed up the gates and concealed them from prying eyes.

From this side the hill looked as if it had been sliced vertically with a knife. And instead of grass and bushes there was a gaping square entrance four times the height of a man. The rays of sunlight slanted into it and fell on a stone floor.

I shuddered.

“Well, how do you like it, Harold?” the Garrakian asked again.

“Are we really here, then?” I still didn’t believe it.

“The corridor stretches for a thousand yards, gradually sloping down. It’s a long tramp from here to the first level,” said Kli-Kli, waving his hand jauntily.

“You’re a real expert on the subject, jester. So can you tell me what’s written over the entrance and what those statues are at the sides?”

“I don’t know orcic, Harold, ask Egrassa what that scribble says. And as for the statues, they were carved out of the solid rock, see? And they’re so badly decayed, there’s no way to tell who they once depicted.”

“Hey, you historians!” shouted Hallas. “Let’s go and get the camp laid out, you’ll have time enough to feast your eyes on that!”

“And so,” Alistan Markauz began when everyone was gathered together (apart from Lamplighter and Eel, who had been sent to stand guard at the entrance to Hrad Spein), “Balistan Pargaid and his men are already down below.”

“May something down there gobble them up!” was the kind-hearted goblin’s sincere wish for our enemies.

“They’re two days ahead of us, thief. You have maps of the Palaces of Bone. Where do you think they could be now?”

“Anywhere at all, milord,” I answered the count, after a moment’s thought. “It’s a genuine maze starting from the very first level, if they don’t have maps.…”

Everyone understood what I had in mind. In Hrad Spein without maps you were a dead man for sure. Fortunately, I did have maps; I’d made a special excursion into the Forbidden Territory in Avendoom to get them. So I would find the way to the eighth level, where the Rainbow Horn was. That is, I’d be able to find the way, but would I actually get there?

“I think we should start out straightaway,” said Alistan Markauz, tugging on his mustache.

“It will be night soon, milord. Let’s wait until morning,” Hallas began cautiously. “I don’t like the idea of climbing down that hole in the dark.”

“Night, day … what’s the difference? Down below it’s always night anyway. Pargaid and that woman want to steal a march on us and take the Horn, in order to take it to the Master.”

“They won’t be able to steal a march on us, milord,” I said, chuckling sardonically. “They don’t have the Key, and the Doors on the third level can’t be opened without it. If they don’t have a map, and Lafresa decides to make a detour … Well, that will take them a couple of months.”

“A couple of months?” the dwarf asked incredulously.

“This is Hrad Spein below us,” said Egrassa, stamping on the ground. “I hate to shatter your rosy illusions, Deler, but the Palaces of Bone are a lot bigger than all your underground cities in the Mountains of the Dwarves. Hrad Spein is like a gigantic layer cake, it’s dozens of leagues deep and wide. It was worked on by ogres, orcs, men, and others we don’t even know about. So Harold is right. If you don’t go through the Doors, you can lose a great deal of time searching for ways round them.”

“And run into some very big problems,” Kli-Kli bleated.

“So do you suggest we should wait until morning, too,” the captain of the guard asked the elf, ignoring the goblin.

“Best go down well rested.”

Milord Rat pursed his lips and nodded reluctantly.

“All right. That’s what we’ll do. Then let’s decide who’s going with Harold, and who’s staying up here.”

“I think that’s for Harold to decide,” said Egrassa, and looked at me.

“The thief should decide?” Alistan Markauz said in amazement.

“Certainly. He knows best who should go with him and who should stay.”

“All right,” the count hissed. “What do you say, thief ?”

I took a deep breath and said, “No one’s going with me.”

“What? Have you gone completely insane?”

I was afraid Alistan Markauz was about to have a stroke.

“No, milord.” I decided to say exactly what I thought about our crazy excursion to Hrad Spein. “When you led us out of Avendoom, I didn’t interfere and I did what you said. And when we were walking through Zagraba, you did what Egrassa told you. I don’t need anyone else to go into the Palaces of Bone with me. You’d only be a burden to me.”

“We’re soldiers, Harold, not a burden,” Deler said resentfully. “Who’s going to save you from those zombies?”

“That’s just the point,” I sighed. “On my own, I’ll slip past a corpse unnoticed or simply run away, but with you I’ll get into a fight every time. I won’t be able to look out for you in there, too.”

“We can look out for ourselves, thief.” Alistan Markauz didn’t like what I’d said very much. “How am I going to protect you if I stay up here?”

“You have led us to Hrad Spein and performed your duty, milord. And in addition, they say the lower levels are flooded and I’ll have to swim, and you’re wearing too much heavy metal.”

“Then I’ll take off my armor.”

“Milord, I’ll move fast, but with you … Just don’t interfere with me carrying out the Commission.”

“What about Balistan Pargaid’s men?”

“The chances of meeting them in a maze like this are not very high.”

It took me an entire hour to persuade the captain of the guard that it was easier for me to go alone. He ground his teeth and frowned, but in the end, he gave up.

“All right, thief, have it your own way. But I’m not very happy with my own decision.”

“Do you have the maps of Hrad Spein?” Kli-Kli asked.

“Yes,” I sighed.

Since first thing in the morning the goblin had been getting on my nerves worse than a crowd of priests chanting their sacred rubbish.

“What about torches?”

“I’ve got two.”

“Are you joking?” the fool inquired acidly.

“Certainly not. Two torches will be more than enough to reach the first level.”

“And after that are you going to grope your way along?”

“You told me yourself that there’s plenty of light in the underground palaces.”

“If the magic’s still working, but what if it isn’t? And not all of Hrad Spein is palaces.…”

“I have my lights, too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that straightaway? Instead of treating me like an idiot!” he said, genuinely furious. “All right. What about food?”

“Kli-Kli, are you deliberately to trying to get my goat? You’ve asked me that twice already!” I groaned. “I’ve got plenty of magic biscuits. I don’t have to worry about food for two weeks.”

“Warm clothes?”

“Uh-huh.”

Darkness only knew what it was like down in the depths. I’d taken Eel’s double-knitted wool sweater—it was the kind that Wild Hearts wear in winter on patrol in the Slumbering Forest. Wearing it was as good as sitting in front of a hot stove. And its greatest advantage was that it could be rolled up into a slim little bundle that fitted easily into the half-empty canvas sack hanging over my shoulder.

“And have you…”

“No more!” I implored him. “You and your questions will drive me into my grave! Take a break for half an hour at least.”

“In half an hour you’ll be beyond my reach,” Kli-Kli objected, and carried on mercilessly. “Do you remember the poem?”

“Which one?”

“He still has to ask!” the goblin exclaimed, appealing tragically to the heavens. “Have you forgotten the scroll you showed us at the meeting with the king?”

“Ah! You mean the verse riddle? I remember it perfectly.”

“Repeat it.”

“Kli-Kli, believe me, I remember it perfectly.”

“Then repeat it. Don’t you understand that it’s the key to everything? It mentions things that aren’t in the maps.”

“Darkness take you.” It was easier to recite it than to argue with the detestable little goblin. “From the very beginning?”

“You can leave out the flowery bits.”

“All right,” I growled. “But if you don’t leave me alone after this, I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

So I strained my memory and recited the verse riddle for Kli-Kli.

I came across the poem purely by chance. It was scratched on a small scrap of paper lost in among the maps and papers about Hrad Spein that I found in the abandoned Tower of the Order. The poem was written by a magician who took the Rainbow Horn to the Palaces of Bone. And it was thanks to this work of literature that I’d been able to see my future route as I looked through the maps of Hrad Spein during our group’s evening halts.

“That’ll do,” the pestiferous goblin said with a satisfied nod when I finished declaiming the final quatrain. “Don’t forget it. And, by the way, remember that one section has been changed, I already told you about it. In the Book of Prophecies…”

“I remember,” I interrupted him hastily. Believe it or not, but by this time I couldn’t wait to dash into Hrad Spein so I wouldn’t have to hear any more good advice.

“You’re rotten, Harold,” said Kli-Kli, offended. “I’m trying my best for you! All right, damn you, someday you’ll remember this goblin’s kindness, but it’ll be too late. Bend down.”

“What?” I asked, puzzled.

“Bend down toward me, I tell you! I can’t reach up to you, I’m too short!”

I had to do as the jester asked, although I was expecting some farewell trick from him. Kli-Kli stood on tiptoe and hung a drop-shaped medallion round my neck—the one he found on the sorceress’s grave in Hargan’s Wasteland. The medallion had one invaluable quality—it could neutralize shamanic battle spells directed specifically at the wearer.

“In olden times the elves and orcs filled the palaces with magical traps. And this bauble can keep you safe from at least some of them.”

“Thank you,” I said, genuinely moved by his unexpected generosity.

“You bring it back to me,” the goblin said peevishly. “And bring yourself along with it, preferably with that Horn.”

I gave a brief chuckle.

“Well then, thief, it’s time,” Milord Alistan said.

“Yes, milord.” I ran through my equipment in my mind for the tenth time to check that I hadn’t left anything out, and then slung the crossbow over my shoulder. “Expect me in two weeks.”

“We’ll wait for three.”

“All right. If I’m not back by then, leave.”

“If you’re not back by then, someone else will go in. I won’t go back to the king without the Horn.”

I nodded. Milord Rat was a stubborn man and he wouldn’t give up until he got what he wanted.

“Here, Harold,” said Egrassa, holding out a bracelet of red copper, “put this on your arm.”

It looked just like an ordinary bracelet, although it was very old, and it had badly worn orcic runes on it.

“What is it?”

“It will let me know that you’re alive and where you are. And it will get you past the Kaiyu guards safely.”

I gaped at the elf in amazement, but he just shrugged and smiled.

“They say that it protects against them, that’s what it was made for, but don’t rely on it too much. I haven’t tried it myself.”

I nodded gratefully and put the bracelet on my left arm. Sagot had obviously decided this was Harold’s day for collecting trinkets. Well, I didn’t mind, the verse riddle mentioned the Kaiyu guards, and if the elf believed this artifact could save me from the blind guardians of the elfin burial chambers, I should definitely accept his gift with gratitude.

“May the gods be with you,” the elf told me as we said good-bye.

“Don’t let your king and his kingdom down, Harold,” Milord Alistan declared pompously, calling me by my own name for once.

“Good luck!” said Eel, shaking me firmly by the hand.

Deler, Hallas, and Mumr did the same.

“Good luck, Dancer in the Shadows,” the jester said with a sniff.

“Expect me in two weeks,” I reminded them again, then swung round and walked toward the black hole that led to the heart of the ancient burial chambers.