Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [17]
“I’m afraid you lost me again,” Gantor declared. “But why don’t we find that water and make ourselves comfortable? Then you can tell me all about it.”
“I’m not even sure you want to hear it!” snapped Emilo, a trifle peevishly.
“Well, what about my story, then? I can tell you about Skullcap.”
The kender brightened immediately. “Well, that’s something to look forward to. All right. It’s this way.”
Emilo stepped up the sloping approach to the vast cavern, the gap that, even at this close perspective, looked so very much like a sinister maw waiting to devour an unwitting meal. A smooth pathway, like a great, curving ramp, allowed them to easily approach the dark, sinister cave.
The dwarf clumped heavily along beneath the lofty overhang, instantly relishing the coolness of the eternally shadowed corridor within. The air was drier here than in Thorbardin, but for the first time since his banishment, Cantor Blacksword had the sense of a place that was fully, irrevocably underground. Each breath tasted pure and good, and the Theiwar’s wide, pale eyes had no difficulty seeing into the darkest corners of the vast rubble-strewn cave.
Overhead, tall stalactites jutted sharply downward, like great fangs extending from the upper jaw of a preternatural mouth. Cantor saw piles of great rocks heaped across the floor, many of them showing jagged cracks and sharp edges, establishing that this was a cavern of violent creation. And that, of course, matched well with the stories he had always heard.
“Let’s try this way. I think the path was around here somewhere,” the kender suggested.
“You-you don’t remember?” growled the dwarf, spluttering in suspicious indignation. “How can you forget something like that?”
“I remember.” Emilo’s tone showed that his feelings were hurt. “It was this way, I’m sure. Pretty sure, anyway.”
He led the way before the Theiwar could make a further protest. It took perhaps an hour of wandering, of guessing between this passage and that, before Emilo had rediscovered the small circular chamber enclosing a pool of still water. The two explorers had descended a steep passage of stone, where a few steps remained visible through the wreckage of boulders and gravel that had tumbled onto the floor. Cantor Blacksword wondered idly how the kender had managed to make his way through the impenetrable gloom, for he noticed that Emilo was likely to stumble over rocks and other obstacles that stood clearly revealed-to Theiwar eyes, at least-in their path.
Perhaps it was by sound. There was, in fact, a faint trickling that penetrated the deep chamber, suggesting that the water in this pool was subject to some sort of flowage. Still, the surface was utterly still, free of ripples or waves, as if it had been waiting here for a century and a half for no other purpose than to quench the thirst of these weary travelers.
“Why did you say a century and a half?” asked Emilo when Cantor, his thirst quenched, had belched, leaned back, and voiced his supposition.
“‘Cause that’s how long this place has been here-as Skullcap, I mean.”
The dwarf, feeling sated and expansive, decided to grant the kender the privilege of the story that was the birthright of every dwarf born beneath Thorbardin’s doming cap of mountain. The Theiwar exile gestured vaguely to the massif rising far over their heads. He was in a fine mood, and he decided he would let the kender live for now.
“What was it before?” Emilo had settled nearby. Chin on his hand, he listened intently.
“This wasn’t a mountain. It was a huge tower, a complete fortress, Zhaman by name. A place of mages, it was. We dwarves left it pretty much alone. Even the elves”-Cantor said the word as if it were a curse- “were content to halt at Pax Tharkas. They, like