Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [16]
“Let’s go,” he said, making the unfamiliar effort to make his voice sound friendly. “Why don’t you show me where those caves are?”
CHAPTER 7
Skullcap
251 AC
Third Adamachtis, Dry-Anvil “There-didn’t I tell you that it looked like a skull?” asked Emilo Haversack. “And doesn’t it make you wonder how it got to be this way?”
Gantor leaned back, allowing his pale, luminous eyes to trace upward across the pocked face of the mountain, past the eye sockets and mouth that gaped as vast, dark caves. The visage did indeed look ghastly, and so realistic that it might have been the work of some giant demented sculptor.
“It might,” the Theiwar said agreeably, “except I’ve heard a lot about this place, and I know how it was made. It serves as a monument to ten thousand dwarves who died here and an emblem of blame for the mad wizard who brought them to their doom!”
“Really? That sounds like a great story! Won’t you tell me? Please?”
The kender all but hopped up and down beside the Theiwar, but Gantor brushed him away with a burly hand. “Time for stories later. I think we should head inside before the sun comes up.”
They had plodded steadily through the remaining hours of darkness, with the kender claiming that he could see the pale massif of the garish mountain rising against the dark sky. This had been the first clue to Gantor that creatures on the outside world had much farther-ranging vision than did the Theiwar dwarves. Of course, even under the moonless skies, the under-mountain dweller had been able to make out every detail of his companion’s features, and he had realized that his own eyes seemed to have a greater affinity for the darkness.
In fact, to Gantor, the ground underfoot had been clearly revealed. The dwarf had once pointed out a shadowy gully that the kender had almost rambled right into. Without missing a beat in his conversation, which consisted for several uninterrupted hours of preposterous stories of wandering and adventure, Emilo had hopped down into the ravine and scrambled up the other side. Still overcoming his stiffness and fatigue, Gantor had followed, pondering the difference between Theiwar and kender, not only in perceptions but in balance and movement as well.
Now, however, they stood at the base of the white stone massif, and Gantor did not need the slowly growing light of dawn to reveal the skeletal features, nor the gaping black hole-the “mouth” of the skull-that offered protection from the imminent daylight.
“Well, this is it,” Emilo announced, drawing a slightly ragged breath.
“Though I’m not sure that we have to go in. In fact, I’m pretty certain we can find water around here somewhere else, if we look hard enough. Now that I mention it, it might even be better water. I don’t know if you noticed, being so thirsty and all, but the stuff I got in there was kind of bitter.”
“I’m going in,” Gantor announced, with a shrug of his shoulders. Faced with the nearby prospect of shade and water, he didn’t care whether the kender came with him or not.
But then his thoughts progressed a little further. No doubt the kender knew his way around in there. And the place was certainly big, there was no denying that. Who knew how long it might take him to find the water once he started looking?
Furthermore, though the dwarf wouldn’t consciously acknowledge the fact, there was another reason he desired Emilo Haversack’s company.
Perhaps it was just the grotesque appearance of the mountain, but there was something undeniably spooky and unpleasant about the place. Gantor didn’t want to go in there alone because, in all utter, naked truth, he was afraid.
“Why don’t you come along?” he asked. “You can show me where the water is and finish telling me that story about your cousin Whippersink and that big ruby he found in… what was that place again?”
“Sanction was the place.” Emilo sighed in exasperation. “But you’re not getting any of it