Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [80]
With a bowl of water and some bread, the gnome became more alert, looking around. Arvid stayed between his gaze and the dwarf’s body. The gnome stared at the sapphire.
“That?” he asked. “That is what he aimed for, one single jewel and a bit of gold?”
“Indeed,” Arvid said. “And he blamed me for that, and would have killed me, had I not killed him first.”
“Fool,” the gnome said. He looked down at himself. “Was it you or he who took my blade?”
“I took nothing,” Arvid said. “He had an ax and a long knife or short sword—I know not how you call something that length.”
The gnome turned, still sitting; Arvid moved aside and let him see the dwarf’s body, the blade lying beside it and the ax some distance away. The gnome looked back at Arvid. “You were wounded,” he said. “By my blade, I judge. The ax would have severed your arm.”
“Wielded by someone else,” Arvid said. “I bear you no ill-will for that.”
“Under our law, wounds dealt by my blade are my responsibility,” the gnome said. “Only in part, if someone else dealt it, but it was still my blade, and I did not prevent its use.” He looked at the water carafe, and Arvid poured more into the bowl. The gnome drank, then spoke again. “You may think it strange, that I do not ask now what you expect from me. You have shed blood from my blade and, I deem, in my service—for that dwarf would have killed me. My life is yours, until the debt is paid, and my debt to the prince as well. It is the Law.”
Arvid stared. “Rockbrother—what is this? It was not your fault: he put something in your food or ale and took your blade. He used your power as well as his.”
“It is the Law,” the gnome said again. Though still shaky and gray about the mouth, he got up to his hands and knees and kissed Arvid’s boot. “I will serve you in any way that does not break the Law, and I must interpret that law leniently, toward human laxity. Accept my service; say the words that seal the contract.”
But you are kteknik hovered on Arvid’s lips; he did not let the words pass. “I accept your service,” Arvid said instead. “But I ask only that you guide me from this place, which the dwarf sealed with his rock-magic—I deem you too ill as yet to use yours again this night.” He waved to the wall that had once had a door in it.
The gnome peered at the wall. “It is true, my lord, that I cannot open that rock this night. It will be days before I can use my powers again, for you said truly that the dwarf, may he rot in the light, drained me near to death. You are my savior; it is my delight to do your will.”
“Can you tell if it will take long for those outside to break through, should they choose? There is a passage, where men wait—they might hear me pounding—”
The gnome shook his head. “It will not be done, my lord. That is no skin of rock across a door: that is solid stone, encasing door and—” he winced, hands to his head. “He brought rock upon them in a trice; they were made one with it. Wicked, wicked—”
Arvid felt cold through. He had not imagined such a thing. The deaths of those knights … he should have insisted they stay farther back—
The gnome, was watching him, obviously fearful. Weak as he was, he must have realized Arvid could slay him easily.
Arvid forced his voice to calm. “Can we then use the passage through the rock that you came in?”
“Indeed, though it will be uncomfortable for you, being made for us. It is wide enough, but low.”
“More than one has told me it would do my soul good to bend,” Arvid said. He caught up the gnome’s blade; his own blood had thickened on it, and it took scrubbing with the remaining water and the dwarf’s cloak to clean it well. “Take this,” Arvid said to the gnome, and handed it over. He looked around the room and shrugged. “We might as well take the sapphire and gold as well; those above will not find it.”
With the carafe and bowl, the sapphire and gold, they descended into the crack, Arvid finding it awkward. Below, the opening the rockfolk had made was rough, wide enough for a man Arvid’s size but so low he found it easier to crawl than crouch. For a time, a little light