The Lake of Death

18

In the back of her mind Feril held the scrying image of the black’s scale. She knew she couldn’t be too far away now. She prayed to Habbakuk that the scale was not damaged. It had to be intact to be of any use to Dhamon.

A slight tremor raced through the ground. She gripped a wooden brace to keep her balance. The tremor persisted for a while, then stopped. She released a nervous breath she’d been holding and continued her ascent. Even without the mountain shaking, mines were dangerous—with their narrow tunnels and vulnerable beams and supports, crevices that threatened to spill the unwary into the bowels of the earth, and musty air that made breathing an unpleasant task.

“Getting closer now, but it’s as though the mountain is trying to stop me.”

The tunnel widened as she climbed, and she barely squeezed through a niche that had been mined. The soles of her bare feet were thick, but she still felt the sharp shards which littered the ground here. Should slow down, she ordered herself. No, she should hurry up. “Find it and get out,” she told herself.

She wished now she had taken the dwarf’s lantern. This darkness was unnatural, the gray-brown of rock and earth melding with the thick air.

Light intruded suddenly, a low beam from behind. Feldspar was plodding toward her, holding the lantern so that it highlighted his features from below, throwing shadows against the walls and giving him an eerie appearance.

“Did you feel that big tickle a minute ago?” Feldspar asked. “Told you it’s not safe here, not with the mountain still dancin’. C’mon back with me, hear? Don’t need you dyin’ in our mine, rottin’ and stinkin’ it up.”

Feril shook her head, turning to press on. “It’s not much farther.”

“This scale you’re looking for…”

She nodded and coughed. The air was filling with dirt and stone dust.

“Why is it so important, this scale?”

“I need the scale for a spell,” she said, before continuing onward, hoping the dwarf would turn back. Though he grunted in surprise, he still followed her, the light from his lantern swaying behind her back. But he was keeping his distance and making a tsk-tsking sound, mumbling, “Fool elf…and fool me.”

“It’s terribly important to me and my friend,” she explained as she climbed.

The tsk-tsking was louder. “The sivak?”

Feril opened her mouth to say “no,” but said nothing. The dwarves didn’t know about Dhamon, who was attached to the sivak as a shadow. Being in the sivak’s company was odd enough, they kept saying; best not start explaining about a dragon who used to be a man who was now taking the form of the sivak’s shadow.

“Whatever kind of spell are you going to cast with a dragon scale anyway? How can you help that sivak? You trying to get its wings to grow back or something?” Feldspar’s feet crunched faster over the gravel as he tried to catch up with the Kagonesti. “You know, I really don’t care much for magic.”

When she turned, she was taken aback by his narrowed eyes and the light slanted across the underside of his brow, which made him look sinister. She knew from conversations with Jasper that a lot of dwarves were distrustful of magic—save for the healing kind that Jasper practiced.

“I’m not a sorcerer, Feldspar, and the scale’s needed for a spell that I don’t understand…completely…yet, but I’ve no intention of casting this spell anywhere near your mine or your mountain. I just want the scale and then I want to leave.” The words tumbled from her lips, slurred a little because of the ale. Just then another tremor struck. Rock shards and dirt rained down and sent her and the dwarf into a coughing fit. It took a few minutes before the air cleared.

“So the scale’s valuable? Just what is it worth to you, missy?”

“I can’t pay you for it. I have no coins. I just need it for a spell.”

“Fool elf,” the dwarf said. “Must be some important spell to risk your fool neck. That scale must be worth more than a bit.” He stretched his hand out and waggled his fingers, his head bobbing at the same time. “You keep on going, Dawnspringer. There’s a chamber up ahead, about a quarter mile or so. Some of our gear’s left in it. It’s near the main vein we’re working. There’s a fissure beyond it, and what you’re looking for is just past that, I believe. Fissure’s too narrow for us. Easier to get at it from the outside. The scale you’re looking for is easy to spot…from the outside of the mountain, but the quake has buried it deeper, right? That’s why you’re using our tunnels. To get at it from the inside?”

“Yes, that’s why,” Feril said.

“Hope it doesn’t bury you, too.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, waggling his fingers again. “Hurry up. I’ll go along with you so you can see where I mean, and so I can watch you, but I ain’t helping you—and don’t disturb our stuff. You’re going to have to pay us somethin’ for that scale. Campfire’ll insist on it, if I don’t. Labor, if nothin’ else. That sivak ought to be good for haulin’ rocks.”

She smiled her acceptance and let him take the lead.

“I want you to be human, too,” Ragh said. “I want it every bit as much as Feril does, and as you do. This dragon thing…it doesn’t suit you.” If anyone had been watching, it would appear the sivak was talking to his shadow. “Dhamon, I well know that you’re not happy to be a dragon. I envy your wings, but nothing else. You’ve too lonely a life in that huge body, and I well know about being lonely. You can’t even hold your son in your arms. Can’t spend a single steel piece of your treasure. Can’t be…familiar…with your elf lady friend.”

The light globe in the sivak’s hand was fading, as he neglected his concentration. He paused and focused the magic until the light grew bright again.

The tunnel narrowed ahead. He held the globe close to the thick supporting beams on the walls, finding a mix of dirt and granite and the worked stone of a castle wall. There wasn’t a trace of ore, no evidence this area had been mined.

He hunched over and squeezed between a pair of supports. “Wonder how much of a head start the elf has on us? Wonder if I’m headed in the right direction? She might have taken the other tunnel.” Ragh sniffed the air, picking out the scent of wood that had started to decay and the strong odor of the dwarves.

“The dwarves have been doing something down here,” he said, half to himself, half to Dhamon. “Their smell is strong; the supports are recent, a relatively new tunnel, I’d say.” He ran his scaly fingers over one wall. “Probably less than a year old. Maybe as recent as a month or so.” He passed under the next set of support beams. “Can’t smell the elf. Maybe I ought to go back, try the other tunnel.”

He smelled something else intriguing that he couldn’t put a name to, so he continued on. He clenched his teeth when the mountain trembled all around him, and he shut his eyes, expecting to be buried under tons of rock. The thick supporting beams held and only a moderate amount of stone dust filtered down.

“Should go back,” he said. “Doubt your elf came this way.” He wanted to find out what was behind the unknown scent and just what the dwarves had been mining in this tunnel, though. The elf was curious and had keen senses; she might have come this way. His senses were also keen, and he was just as curious.

“Damn,” he said, as he noted the tunnel gradually angling downward. “Damn. Damn. Damn. She didn’t come this way. This way only goes down.”

Ragh turned around to retrace his steps, but then he smelled the unusual smell again; it was slightly stronger heading down, so he thought he might go on just a little farther. Even the faint tremor which he felt didn’t give him pause.

“You keep telling me that the elf can take care of herself,” he told Dhamon, as he felt the shadow tug in the other direction. “She’s probably doing just fine.”

The tunnel narrowed further. Ragh pictured the dwarves squeezing through. It would be a tight fit for the one called Churt—he had wide shoulders for a dwarf. It was sure tight for him. The sivak bumped his head on the low ceiling. A long string of curse words came out and faintly echoed back at him.

“Tunnel turns ahead, or maybe there’s a chamber,” the draconian said, feeling how strange it was to be talking to himself and to keep hearing his own words echo back at him. “Let’s see what we’ve got ahead, then we’ll go right back the other way and find Feril. Let’s see what’s making that smell.”

A dozen steps later the tunnel opened into a chamber so small that he imagined that all four dwarves would be hard pressed to fit. He spotted earthen jars stacked three high against one curving wall. He edged forward, crouching under the lowering ceiling. At the far side of the chamber was a small pool of liquid.

“That’s what smells.” He dropped to his knees and shuffled closer, scraping the satchel on his back and realizing that only the youngest dwarf would be able to stand up in here. Ragh inhaled deep and held his light globe over the surface.

At first he thought he recognized a trace of sulfur coming from the liquid. No, but there was the suggestion of steel or something like steel. It was nothing he was familiar with. It was at the same time a pleasant and disturbing odor, subtle and cloying, rare but memorable. It nagged at his curiosity.

His light revealed that it was a small but deep pool. Welling up from somewhere far below was a liquid metal, glistening brighter than pure silver. He tentatively reached out one finger, finding the liquid cool as a mountain stream and thick as pudding.

The liquid metal clung to his talon, and as minutes passed, he watched it harden.

“By the memory of the Dark Queen, what in all the levels of the Abyss is this?” He scratched on the stone at the rim of the pool, trying to scratch the metal off, but instead digging a line in the rock with its hard edge. “By all of the Dark Queen’s glorious heads!” He proceeded to dip each talon of his free hand in the substance, then worked on his other talons. The claws of his feet were next.

“Dragonmetal, Dhamon! This is a pool of dragonmetal.” He said these words softly, so softly he wasn’t sure that Dhamon even heard. He waited a few minutes as the metal dried. “Dragonmetal is the only thing this could be,” he said louder, excitedly. “No wonder they wanted us to stay out of their mountain. People would kill for this. Go to war over this.” He glanced at the clay jugs. “They’ve figured out a way to store it without it hardening up on them. The earth, clay, that’s it. Encased in earth it stays liquid. Wonder who they’re going to sell it to?”

Ragh was so preoccupied with his discovery that he didn’t notice another tremor racing through the stone nor the approaching footfalls of the young red-haired dwarf who had followed him all the way through the tunnel.

“Dragonmetal,” the sivak repeated, mesmerized by his discovery. The draconian had lived a very long time and had traveled most of Krynn. He’d never seen dragonmetal, but he’d heard of it from fellow draconians who had witnessed the pool beneath the great Stone Dragon in Foghaven Vale. That was believed to be the only place on Krynn where dragonmetal existed.

“A gift from the gods,” Ragh recalled from the legend.

It was said the gods of light bestowed the pool in the Vale, along with the secret of working the metal, to the master armorers of Ansalon. A skilled smith, using the artifacts known as the Silver Arm of Ergoth and the Hammer of Kharan, had forged the dragon-lances from this innately magical metal. It was called dragonmetal because of the dragon statue that loomed over the pool and because of the deadly lances made from it that could slay evil dragons. Solamnic Knights had used it for forging other weapons and armor, but these pieces were generally reserved for members of the order who were particularly distinguished.

“There was said to be only the one pool,” Ragh said to his shadow. “That one was under the huge Stone Dragon in Foghaven Vale, but this is also dragonmetal, I’d bet my teeth on it. That makes this absolutely priceless.”

“That makes you dead.” The young red-haired dwarf stood at the entrance of the small chamber, lantern in one hand and a pick in the other. The pick was tipped with the silvery metal. He hung the lantern from a stone peg on the wall and shook his fist at Ragh. “You sealed your fate when you came down here! I’m going to have to kill you and the meddling elf, too, when I find her.”

“Wonderful,” Ragh grumbled, turning on his knees to face the fresh menace. With a thought, the globe in his hand grew bright, then he let it fall to the edge of the pool. He crept closer to the dwarf, then stood, stoop-shouldered, his clawed hands held to his sides but at the ready. “Look, I’ve really no desire to kill you…Campfire, right? That’s what’s going to happen if you press this fight.”

The dwarf chuckled. “Funny, I’ve every desire to end your pathetic life.”

Feril had no trouble keeping up with Feldspar, but she marveled at his deftness and at the speed with which he could travel through the winding tunnel. He was surefooted on the ascending stone, sidestepping patches of loose rock and ducking nimbly under the low support beams. He stopped only once, and this was when the mountain shook and one of the beams shifted and ominously cracked.

“Fool, fool elf…and more fool me,” he said. Feldspar let out a string of Dwarvish curse words as he shifted the lantern to his other hand. “We’re almost there. You better get that scale quick as a rabbit—if you can. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“Then you and the sivak are going to pay us something for it. That scale’s got to be worth a lot to you, to risk coming here with the world rumblin’ so.”

At last the tunnel widened considerably, with the ceiling reaching high above them. Feril found herself in a natural cavern, the floor of which was slick in places with guano. There was no sign of any bats, however, and Feril suspected that when the first quake hit they flew out through a crevice above, opening to the sky.

“Is that the crevice you mentioned?” Feril pointed to it.

“Yeah. You’re thin enough to slip through it, ain’t you? I ain’t going to work to make it bigger, don’t want to weaken the ceiling anyway.” The dwarf held the lantern high, the light barely stretching above, but it was enough to show a black strip wedged near the top of the cavern. “That’s the tip of your dragon scale. Looks like it’s in there pretty tight, Dawnspringer. Think you’ve got a way to…”

“To get it out of there? You said you planned on watching me, Feldspar. Well, just watch.” She crouched and stooped to enter the crevice, then managed to hold the satchel behind her as she found finger- and toeholds. Awkwardly, but making surprisingly easy progress, she climbed the wall. “Obelia, I’m so very close,” Feril whispered, hoping the specter could hear her through the flask.

The wall trembled slightly, but she held on and climbed higher, finally reaching the slash in the rocks where the scale was lodged. Only part of it was visible in the faint light provided by Feldspar’s upstretched lantern. Feril ran her fingers over the edge of the scale, finding it nearly as sharp as a blade and as hard as metal.

She offered a silent prayer to Habbakuk for guiding them to these dwarves, the basin, and to this tunnel. Then she thrust her arm into the tight gap, trying to feel for the scale. At the same time she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing and forced herself to relax. A tingle raced from her chest and down her arm to her fingers, which were exploring the shield-sized scale and which were somehow molding the stone, cradling it as though the granite were malleable clay.

“I’ll get you loose,” she vowed. “Might take a few minutes.” She pressed and smoothed the stone, while continuing to explore the edges of the scale with her fingers. Her body ached from being wedged so tight, but she pushed the pain aside and focused on the granite and the scale. “That’s better. A little more.” The rock flowed around her hand and arm as if trying to accommodate her.

“How’s it going?” Feldspar asked when he heard Feril’s sharp intake of breath. “Are you all right up there, Dawnspringer? ”

Feril couldn’t be bothered with answering him. Her arm had stretched as far as it could inside the gap in the rocks. Her fingertips had passed over chips and flakes in the scale that might have been caused by battle or by the rocks, and they were now feeling a split in the scale that covered several inches.

“Ruined,” she said with dismay. “You were right, Obelia, it is damaged.”

“What? Are you all right? Who’s Obelia? Mine name’s Feldspar!”

“Yes, yes, I’m all right,” she said finally, holding back the tears that had settled at the edges of her eyes. “I came so damn close and for nothing.”

“It’s no good for ya, that scale up there?”

She shook her head and released the spell she’d been concentrating on. She withdrew her hand. The stone hardened again.

“Then let’s get out of here, Dawnspringer, the faster, the better. I won’t charge you for all the fuss. I bet dinner’s on, and I’m as hungry as an urkan worm. You and that sivak are welcome to join us…if it doesn’t eat too much.”

“All for nothing.” No, she corrected herself. She’d spotted other black scales when she scryed with Obelia. This particular venture had proved fruitless, but there were additional shed scales to be found and examined in the swamp.

“C’mon, hurry. Shouldn’t be in here now, anyway. Not with all the…”

Just then a great rumbling resounded through the cavern. The walls shook. Rocks broke loose from the ceiling and clattered to the stone floor. Feril was caught between shifting stone and cried out in pain, the sound of her voice lost in the increased rumbling and the great cracking noise of the ceiling of the cavern.

She heard support beams snapping from the tunnel beyond, more rocks falling everywhere, and the final desperate words of her dwarf companion.

“By Reorx’s bushy beard! The mountain’s coming down on us! Fool, fool elf!” Feldspar called. “Fool me! Now we’ll never get out of…”

His light went out. She heard Feldspar scream, his voice trailing off into nothingness. The cavern seemed to explode, huge chunks bursting from the walls and ceilings. She couldn’t see anything anymore. Everything was blackest black. The ground beneath her gave way, stone dust enveloping her, so she could barely breathe. She was falling. Feldspar was surely dead, and she would be next.