The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [166]
“They do their work quite well.”
Lady smiled and leaned back in her chair. “But look at the disarray, ” she went on. “It aches my heart, as the men of Deverry say, to see the disorder. You’re a man of the Mountain Folk. You know the value of these things. You shall bring order into the gatherings.”
“Sort them, you mean?”
“Just that, and tell a scribe their worth, piece by piece. I see you as an honored servant, not a slave. You shall have a nice chamber and all the fish you can eat.”
“Fish? Only fish?”
“And porridge. We do cook porridge.”
“How splendid!”
“I doubt me if you’d like our other foods—worms, leeches, and the like.”
Kov felt his face turn cold—no doubt he’d paled.
“I thought not,” Lady said. “Well, we’ll see if our food gatherers can find fruits and suchlike in the summers for you. Your task will take years, more years than I have left, no doubt, and you and my granddaughters shall finish it. The Mountain Folk live long lives, or so I hear.”
“Did your men kidnap me just because I come from the mountains? ”
“They did not. They took you because you were measuring out our streets and chambers.”
One of the men spoke briefly in their language.
“That, too,” Lady said. “And because you were puzzling out the runes in the village. We keep our secrets no matter what the cost.”
The cost to others, Kov thought. Aloud, he said, “Has it ever occurred to you to put a fence around your village, then, so strangers can’t wander into it?”
Lady stared at him in a wonderment that was nearly comical. “It hasn’t,” she said at last. “But we shall do so. I believe the gods have sent you to us, Kov.”
Kov’s first impulse was to assume she was lying about the fence. No doubt they needed an excuse to grab and enslave the occasional traveler. Yet she was looking at him with such a sincere admiration that he doubted his own assumption. None of these people had ever thought to sort their treasures, either, not even to put like with like the way any dwarven child would have done.
“Now that you’re here,” she continued, “we needed to find important work for you, somewhat much grander than digging tunnels. It’s our good fortune that you come from Lin Serr.”
“Your good fortune, no doubt.”
“But not yours?” She laughed, a low chuckle that reminded Kov of ferret sounds. “If you have kin at home, my heart regrets your captivity for their sake. As for your sake, if what I’ve heard about the Mountain Folk is true, soon our gatherings will become your kin and your love and your life. I think me that in time, you’ll be happy here.”
She’s probably right, Kov thought, and that’s the worst thing of all. Already he could feel a longing in his fingers to touch the gold, to run his hands through it, to pick up handfuls of it and squeeze it in tight fists. He’d grown up listening to every adult he knew talk about metals and jewels, whether precious gold or cold iron, the rare diamonds or the more common opals and turquoises. He’d learned the lust from them, he supposed, for the treasures of the earth. Lady was smiling at him as if she could read his thoughts.
“I was told,” she said, “that the Mountain Folk have a name for gold, what we call the blood of the sun. Is it a secret name?”
“It’s not. ‘Dwe-gar-dway, the perfection of Earth of Earth.’ ”
“A lovely name, and I shall remember it. Now, while we prepare the binding ceremony, you’ll sleep up in the village. Once it’s done, you’ll see more of the city.”
“Binding ceremony? What do you mean, binding ceremony?”
“Oh, it’s naught that will cause you pain, unless cutting a lock of your hair will cause such, which I doubt.” Lady smiled in a way that was almost kindly. “Don’t let it trouble your heart.” She leaned forward in her chair and spoke in her own language.
The Dwrgi pack surrounded Kov again and led him away. The audience had ended. They left the Chamber of Gold through a different door to a different tunnel, which once again twisted,