Drumindor Led by a fast walking Tenkin warrior, the few remaining members of the Emerald Storm's crew made their way down from the Palace of the Four Winds through a series of damp caves to the base of the blackened cliffs where the surf attacked the rock. In a tiny cove, a little sloop waited for them. Smaller and narrower than the Dacca vessel, the ship sported two decks but only a single mast. Wyatt rapidly looked the ship over, declaring it sound, and Poe checked for provisions, finding it fully stocked for a month-long trip.
They quickly climbed aboard. Poe and Hadrian cast off while Wyatt grabbed the wheel. Derning and Royce ran up the mainsail and loosed the headsail, which billowed out handsomely. The power of the wind just off the point was so strong that the little sloop lurched forward, knocking Poe off his feet. He got up and wandered to the bow.
"Look at them. They're everywhere," he said, motioning out at the hundreds of black sails filling the harbor like a hive of bees.
"Let's just hope they let us through," Derning said.
"We'll get through,d Hadrian told them. He was seated on a barrel holding Wesley's hat, turning it over and over. Hadrian had refused to leave Wesley and Grady in Erandabon's hands. Their bodies had been brought aboard for a proper burial at sea. He kept Wesley's hat. He was not sure why.
"He was a good man," Royce said.
"Yes, he was."
"They both were," Derning added.
The tiny sloop was a bit hard to manage with just the five of them, but it would be ideal once they picked up Banner and Grieg in Dagastan. She was a fast ship and they were confident they could reach Tur Del Fur in time. The armada of Tenkin and Ghazel ships looked to be still gathering.
"Jacob, trim the foresail, I'm bringing her over two points," Wyatt snapped as he gripped the slick ship's wheel. "And everyone jump lively, we're in the Ba Ran Archipelago and this is no place for slow witted sailors."
The moment they cleared the cove they understood Wyatt's warning. Here the sea was a torrent of wave-crashed cliffs and splintered islands of jagged rock. Towering crags rose from dense fog, and blind reefs of murderous coral lay in ambush. Currents coursed without reason, rogue waves crashed without warning, and everywhere the dark water teamed with sweeping triangles of black canvas-each emblazoned with white slashes that looked vaguely like a skull. The Ghazel ships spotted them the moment they cleared the point and five abruptly changed course and swooped in.
The black ships of the Ba Ran Ghazel made the Dacca look like incompetent ferrymen as they channeled through the surf and flew across the waves.
"Run up the damn colors!" Wyatt shouted, but Royce was already hauling the black banner with white markings that stretched out long and thin.
There was a brief moment as Hadrian watched the approaching sails that he cursed himself for trusting Erandabon Gile. But after the colors were hoisted, like a shiver of sharks the sails peeled off, swirling back around to resume their earlier paths.
Wyatt cranked the wheel until they were pointed for Dagastan and ordered Royce to the top of the masthead to watch for reefs. No one spoke after that, except for Royce who shouted out obstacles and Wyatt who barked orders. It only took a few hours before they cleared the last of the jagged little islands, leaving both the archipelago and the black sails behind. The little sloop rolled easily as it entered the open waters of the Ghazel Sea.
The crew relaxed. Wyatt set a steady course. He leaned back against the rail, caught the sea spray in his hand, and wiped his face as he looked out at the ocean. Hadrian sat beside him head bowed while he turned Wesley's hat over in his hands Erandabon had sent a messenger to Hadrian as they left the arena. The search for Allie had produced no results. All previous shipments had been delivered to the Ghazel weeks ago. He knew females, especially young ones, were considered a rare delicacy. She was dead, likely eaten alive by a high-ranking goblin who would have savored the feast by keeping the girl conscious as long as possible. For Ghazel, screams were a garnish.
Hadrian sighed. "Wyatt…I have something to tell you…Allie…"
Wyatt waited.
"Allie is dead. As part of the deal, I made Gile investigate. The results weren't good."
Wyatt turned to gaze once more at the ocean. "You-you made that part of the deal? Asking about my daughter?"
"Yeah, Gile was a little put out but-"
"What if he had said no?"
"I wasn't going to accept that answer."
"But he could have killed all of us."
Hadrian nodded. "She's your daughter. If I thought she was alive, trust me, Royce and I would be on it, even if that meant heading back into the Ba Ran Islands, but…well. I'm really sorry. I wish I could have done more." He looked down at the hat in his hands. "I wished I could have done a lot more."
Wyatt odded.
"We can still save Tur Del Fur," Hadrian told him. "And we wouldn't have that chance without you. If we succeed, she won't have died in vain."
Wyatt turned to look at Hadrian. He opened his mouth then stopped and looked away again.
"I know," Hadrian said, once more fidgeting with Wesley's hat. "I know."
Greig and Banner were pleased to see them. Nights living on the little Dacca ship were getting cold and provisions dangerously low. They had already resorted to selling nets and sails to buy food in town. They made a hasty sale of the Dacca ship. The Tenkin vessel was far faster and already loaded.
Wyatt aimed the bow homeward, catching the strong autumn trade winds. The closer they came to home, the colder it got. The southern currents that helped warm Calis did not reach Delgos, and soon the wind turned biting. A brief rainstorm left a thin coat of ice on the sheets and deck rails.
Wyatt continued at the helm, and refused to sleep until he was near collapse. Hadrian concluded that, failing to save Allie, Wyatt placed his absolution in saving Delgos instead. In a way, he was certain they all did. Many good people had died along the trip-they each felt the need to make their sacrifice mean something. Even Royce, suffering once more from seasickness, managed to climb to the top of the mainsail where he replaced the Ghazel banner with Mister Wesley's hat.
They explained the events of the previous weeks to Grieg and Banner as well as Merrick's plan and the need to reach Drumindor before the full moon. Each night they watched the moon rise larger on the face of the sea-the lunar god indifferent to their race against time. Fortune and the wind were with them. Wyatt captured every breath, granting them excellent speed. Royce spotted red sails off the port aft twice, but they remained on the horizon and each time vanished quietly in their wake.
Shorthanded, and with Royce seasick, Hadrian volunteered for mast work. Derning spent the days teaching him the ropes. He would never be very good at it. He was too big for such work, and yet he managed to grasp the basics. After a few days he was able to handle most of the maneuvers without instruction. At night, Poe cooked while Hadrian sat practicing knots and watching the stars.
Instead of hugging the coast up to Wesbaden, they took a risk and sailed due west off the tip of Calis directly across Dagastan Bay. The gamble almost proved to be a disaster as they ran into a terrible storm producing mountainous waves. Wyatt expertly guided the little sloop, riding the raging swells with half canvas set, never leaving the wheel. Seeing the helmsman's rain-lashed face exposed in a flash of lightning, Hadrian seriously began to wonder if Wyatt had gone mad. By morning, the sky had cleared and they could all see Wesley's hat still blowing in the wind.
The gamble paid off. Two days ahead of the harvest moon they rounded the Horn of Delgos and entered Terlando Bay.
As they approached the harbor, the Port Authority stopped them. They did not care for the style of the ship or the black sails-Wesley's hat notwithstanding. Held directly under the terrifying smoking spouts of Drumindor, dock officers boarded and searched the vessel thoroughly before allowing them to pass below the bridge between the twin stone towers. Even then, they were given an escort to berth fifty-eight, slip twenty-two of the West Harbor. Being familiar with the city and the Port Authority, Wyatt volunteered to notify the officials of the impending invasion and warn them to search for signs of sabotage.
"I'm off mates," Derning announced once they had the ship berthed. The topman had a small bundle over his shoulder.
"What about the ship and the stores?" Grieg asked. "We'll want to sell it-you'll get a share."
"Keep it-I have business did nottend to."
"But what if we can't get…" Grieg gave up as Derning trotted away into the narrow streets. "That seemed a bit abrupt-man's in a hurry to go somewhere."
"Or just glad to be back in civilization," Banner mentioned.
Tur Del Fur welcomed sailors like no other port. Brightly painted buildings with exuberant decorations received them to a city filled with music and mirth. Most of the shops and taverns butted up against the docks where loud signs fought for attention: The Drunken Sailor-join the crew! Fresh beef amp; poultry! Pipes, Britches amp; Hats! Ladies of the Bay, (we wring the salt out!) For recently paid sailors who may have been at sea for two or more years, they screamed paradise. The only oddity remained the size and shapes of the buildings. Whimsical western decorations could not completely hide the underlying history of this once dwarven city. Above every door and threshold was the sign: "Watch your head."
Seagulls cried overhead, crisscrossing a brilliant blue sky. Water lapped the sides of ships that creaked and moaned like living beasts stretching after a long run.
Hadrian stepped onto the dock alongside Royce. "Feels like you're gonna fall over doesn't it?"
"To answer your question from before…No, I don't think we should be sailors. I'd be happy never to see a ship again."
"At least you don't have to worry about land sickness."
"Still feels like the ground is pitching beneath me."
The five of them bought fresh cooked fish from dock vendors and ate on the pier. They listened to the shanty tunes spilling out of the taverns and smelled the pungent fishy reek of the harbor. By the time Wyatt returned to the ship, he was red-faced angry.
"They are going through with the venting! They refused to listen to anything I said," he shouted, trotting up the quay.
"What about the invasion?" Hadrian asked. "Didn't you tell them about that?"
"They didn't believe me! Even Livet Glim, the port controller-and we were once mates! I shared a bunk with him for two years and the bloody bastard refuses to-as he puts it-'Turn the entire port on its ear because one person thinks there might be an attack.' He says they haven't heard anything from any other ships, and they won't do a thing unless the armada is confirmed by other captains."
"It will be too late by then."
"I tried to tell them that, but they went on about how they had to regulate the pressure on the full moon. I went to every official in the city, but no one would listen. After a while I think they became suspicious that I was up to something and I stopped when they threatened to lock me up. I'm sorry."
"Maybe if we all went?"
Wyatt shook his head. "It won't do any good. Can you believe this? After all we've been through, we get here and it won't change a single thing. Unless…" He looked directly at Hadrian.
"Unless what?" Poe asked.
Hadrian sighed and looked at Royce who nodded.
"What am I missing?" Poe asked.
"Drumindor was built by dwarves thousands of years ago," Hadrian explained. "Those huge towers are packed with stone gears and hundreds of switches and levers. The Tur Del Fur Port Authority only knows what a handful of them actually does. They know how to vent the pressure and blow the spouts, and that's about it."
"We know how to shut it off," Royce said.
"Shut it off?" Poe asked. "How do you shut off a volcano?"
"Not the volcano, the system," Hadrian went on. "There's a master switch that locks the whole gearing system. Once dropped, the fortress doesn't build pressure anymore, the volcano just vents itself. It won't be able to stop the invasion, but it won't explode either."
"How does that help?"
"If nothing else, it will prevent the instant destrucon of this city. When the black sails appear people might have time to evacuate, maybe even put up a defense. Once the system is shut down Royce and I can crawl through the portals to find out what Merrick did. If we can get it fixed in time, we can raise the master switch and barbeque an armada of very surprised goblins."
"Can we help?" Banner asked.
"Not this time," Hadrian told him. "Can you four handle this ship alone?"
Wyatt nodded. "It will be tough with no topmen but we'll work something out."
"Good, then you get out of here before the fleet comes in. You were a good assistant Poe, stick with Wyatt and you'll be a captain one day. This one we have to do alone."
Legend held that dwarves existed centuries before man walked the face of the world. Back in an age when they and the elves fought for supremacy of Elan, dwarves were a powerful and honorable nation governed by their own kings with their own laws and traditions. It was a golden age of great feats, wondrous achievements, and marvelous heroes. Then the elves won the war.
The strength of the dwarves was shattered forever and the emergence of men destroyed what remained. Although never enslaved like the remnants of the elves, men distrusted and shunned the sons of Drome. Fearful of a unified dwarven kingdom, humans forced the dwarves out of their homeland of Delgos into a shadowy existence of nomadic persecution. Despite their skills in crafts, humans scattered them whenever they gathered in groups too large for comfort. For their own survival, dwarves learned to hide. Those that could adopted human ways and attempted to fit in. Their culture obliterated by centuries of careful erasure, little survived of their former glory except what stone could tell. Few dwarves, and even less humans, possessed the imagination to recall a day when they ruled half the world-unless, like Royce and Hadrian, they were staring up at Drumindor.
The light of the setting sun bathed the granite rock, making it shine like silver. Sheer walls towered hundreds of feet, rising out of the bedrock of the burning mountain's back. The twin towers stood joined by the thin line of what appeared from that distance to be a wafer thin bridge. The tops of the towers smoldered quietly, leaking thin plumes of dark smoke out of every vent, creating a thin gray cloud that hovered overhead. Up close the scope and mammoth size was breathtaking.
They had one night and the following day to accomplish the same magic trick they had performed eight years earlier. It was dark by the time they purchased the necessary supplies, slipped through the city of Tur Del Fur, and hiked up into the countryside, following goat paths into the foothills that eventually led to the base of the great fortress itself.
"Is this where it was?" Royce asked, stopping and studying the base of the tower.
"How should I know?" Hadrian replied as his eyes coursed up the length of the south tower. Up close, it blocked everything else out, a solid wall of black rising against the light of the moon. "I can never understand why such small people build such gigantic things."
"Maybe they're compensating," Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope.
"Damn it, Royce. It's been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger and, if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again."
"That's why you shouldn't make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat."
Hadrian sighed, staring upward. "That's one tall tower."
"And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they've let it rot. You should be happy-the last eight years will only have eroded it further. It should be easier."
"It's granite, Royce. Granite doesn't erode much in eight years."
Royce said nothing as he continued to lay oils of rope, checking the knots in the harnesses, and slipping on his hand-claws.
"Do you recall that I nearly fell last time?" Hadrian asked.
"So, don't step there this time."
"Do you remember what the nice lady in the jungle village told you? One light will go out?"
"We either climb this, or let the place blow. We let the place blow and Merrick wins. Merrick wins, he gets away and you never find Degan Gaunt."
"I never thought you cared all that much if I ever found Gaunt." Hadrian looked up at the tower again. "At least not that much."
"Honestly? I don't care at all. This whole quest of yours is stupid. So you find Gaunt-then what? You follow him around being his bodyguard for the rest of your life? What if he's like Ballentyne? Wouldn't that be fun? Granted, it will be exciting, as I'm sure anyone with a sword will want to kill him, but who cares? There's no reward, no point to it. You feel guilt-I kinda get that. You ran out on your father and you can't say you're sorry anymore. So for that, you'll spend your life following this guy around being his butler? You're better than that."
"I think there was a compliment in there somewhere-so thanks. But if you're not doing this to help me find Gaunt, why are you?"
Royce paused and from a bag he drew out Wesley's hat. He must have fetched it down before they left the ship. "He stuck his neck out for me three times. The last one got him killed. There's no way this fortress is blowing up."
Even in the dark, Royce found hand and footholds that Hadrian could never have spotted in the full light of day. Like a spider, he scaled the side of the tower until he came to the base of the first niche. There, he set his first anchor and dropped a rope to Hadrian. By the time Hadrian reached the foothold of that niche, Royce was already nailing in the next pin and sending down another coil. They continued this way, finding minute edges where several thousand years of erosion revealed the maker's seams in the rock. Centuries-old crevices and cracks allowed Royce to climb what was once slick, smooth stone.
Two hours later, the trees below appeared like tiny bushes and the cold, wintry winds buffeted them like barn swallows. They were only a third of the way up.
"It's time," Royce shouted over the howl of the wind. He anchored a pin, tied a rope to it, and climbed back down.
Hadrian groaned. "I hate this part!"
"Sorry buddy, nothing I can do about it, the niches are all over that way." Royce gestured across to where the vertical grooves cut into the rock on the far side of a deep crevasse.
Royce tied the rope to his harness and linked himself to Hadrian.
"Now, just watch me," Royce told him and, taking hold of the rope, he sprinted across the stone face. Reaching the edge of the crevasse, he leapt swinging out like a clock's pendulum. He cleared the gap by what looked like only a few inches. On the far side, he clung to the stone, dangling like a bug on a twig. He slowly pulled himself up and drove another pin. Then, after tying off the rope, waved to Hadrian.
If Hadrian missed the jump, he would slip into the crevasse where he would end up dangling helplessly, assuming the rope held him. The force of the fall could easily pop out the holding pin, or even snap the rope. He took a deep breath of cold air, steadied himself, and began to run. On the far side, Royce leaned out for him. He reached the edge and jumped. The wind whistled past his face, blurring his vision as tears streaked back across his cheeks. He struck the far side just short of the landing, bashing his head hard enough to see stars. He tasted blood and wondered if he had lost his front teeth even as his fingertips lost their tenuous hold and he began to fall. Royce tried to grab him, but was too late. Hadrian fell.
He dropped about three inches.› Hadrian dangled from the rope Royce had the forethought to anchor the moment his partner had landed. Hadrian groaned in pain while wiping blood from his face.
"See," Royce shouted in his ear, "that went much better than last time!"
Hadrian declined comment knowing the look on his face said it all.
They continued scaling upward, working within the relative shelter of the vertical three-sided chimneys. They were too high now for Hadrian to see anything except the tiny lights of the port city. Everything else below was darkness. They rested for a time in the semi-sheltered niche, then climbed upward again.
Higher and higher Royce led the way. Hadrian's hands were sore from gripping the rope and burned from the few times he slipped. His legs, exhausted and weak, quivered dangerously. The wind was brutal. Gusting in an eddy caused by the chimney they followed, it pushed outward like an invisible hand trying to knock them off. The sun came up and Hadrian was nearing the end of his endurance when they finally reached the bridge. They were slightly more than two-thirds of the way, but thankfully they did not need to reach the top.
What appeared from the ground to be a thin bridge was actually forty-feet in thickness. They scrambled over the edge, hauled up their ropes, ducked into a sheltered archway, and sat in the shadows catching their breath.
"I'd like to see Derning scale that," Royce said, looking down.
"I don't think anyone but you could manage it," Hadrian replied. "Nor is there anyone crazy enough to try."
Dozens of men guarded the great gates at the base of the tower, but no one was on the bridge. It was thought impossible for intruders to start at the top, and the cold wind kept the workers inside. Royce gave the tall slender stone doors a push.
"Locked?" Hadrian asked.
Royce nodded. "Let's hope they haven't changed the combination."
Hadrian chuckled. "Took you eighteen hours last time, right after you told me, 'this will only take a minute.'"
"Remind me again why I brought you?" Royce asked, fanning his hands out across the embossed face of the doors. "Ah, here it is."
Royce placed his fingers carefully and pushed. A hundred tons of solid stone glided inward as if on a cushion of air, rotating open without a sound. Inside, an enormous cathedral ceiling vaulted hundreds of feet above them. Shafts of morning sunshine entered through distant skylights built into the dome overhead, revealing a complex world of bridges, balconies, archways, and a labyrinth of gears. Some gears lay flat, while others stood upright. Some were as small as a copper coin, and then there were those that were several stories tall and thicker than a house. A few rotated constantly, driven by steam created from the volcanically superheated seawater. The majority of the gears, particularly the big ones, remained motionless, waiting. Aside from the mechanisms, nothing else moved. The only sound was the regular, ratcheting rhythm and the whirl of the great machine.
Royce scanned the interior. "Nobody home," he said at length.
"Wasn't last time either. I'm surprised they haven't tightened security up more."
"Oh, yeah, a single break-in after centuries is something to schedule your guards around."
"They'll be kicking themselves tomorrow."
They found the stairs-short shallow steps built for little feet, that they took two and three at a time. Ducking under low archways, Hadrian nearly had to crawl through the entrance to the Big Room. This was a name Hadrian gave it the last time they visited. The room itself was huge, but the name came from the master gear. It stood on edge and what they could see was as high as a castle tower, but most of its bulk sunk beneath the floor and through a wall, leaving only a quarter of the gear visible. Its edge was crenellated like the merlons on a castle battlement, only larger-much. It meshed with two other gears, which connected to a dozen more that joined the dwarven puzzle.
"The lock was at the top right?" Royce asked.
"Think so-yeah, Gravis was up there when we found him, right?"
"Okay, I'll handle this. Keep an eye out."
Royce leapt up to one of the smaller gears and walked up the teeth like a staircase. He jumped from one to the next until he reached the master gear. It was harder to climb, since the teeth were huge, but for Royce this was no problem. He was soon out of sight and a few minutes later a loud stone upon stone sound echoed as a giant post of rock descend from the ceiling, settling in the valley between two teeth, locking the great gear.
When Royce returned he was grinning happily.
"I'd love to see the look on Merrick's face when this place doesn't blow. Even if the Ghazel take the city, he'll be scratching his head for months. There's no way he can know about this master switch. Gravis only knew because it was his ancestor that designed the place."
"And we only know because we caught him in the act." Hadrian thought a moment. "Do you think Merrick might be nearby, waiting for the fireworks?"
Royce sighed. "Of course not. If it were me, I wouldn't be within a hundred miles of this explosion. I don't even want to be here now. Don't worry, I know him. The fact that this mountain doesn't explode will drive him nuts. All we have to do is drop the right hints to the wrong people and you won't have to look for him-he'll find us. Now come on, let's see if we can find what is blocking the vents so we can put this back in place and cook some goblins."