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“A dragon’s tear! And such a huge one!” The old dwarf’s face glowed with rapturous delight. “But where did you get it from? The last time we found this mineral was more than two hundred years ago!”
“This stone has belonged to my house for more than a thousand years,” the elf replied. “In those days dragon’s tears were found far more often than now. The House of the Black Flame bought it in your mountains.”
“The dwarves would never have sold such a treasure!” Frahel protested indignantly.
“The gnomes sold it to us,” the elf admitted.
“Those bearded midgets!” Coming from a dwarf who was only slightly taller than a gnome, these words were, to say the least, amusing.
“It will take a great deal of time,” the dwarf said, tapping his fingers on his workbench. “You know what I mean, working the material. Magic. It will take me two months to make the first designs.”
“The key must be ready in a week,” Elodssa replied sternly.
“Do you want me to work day and night?” Frahel asked indignantly.
“Why not, if we pay you well for it?”
“How well?” the dwarf asked, screwing up his eyes.
“Name your price.”
Frahel thought for a moment and named it.
“I agree to a quarter of the sum named.”
“This is a serious conversation,” the dwarf snapped.
“Plus you can have all the material that remains after working.”
“You offer me leftovers?” Frahel exclaimed furiously.
But this was only for form’s sake. The cu
“All right,” he said, chewing on his lips with a discontented air. “Have it your way, Tresh Elf. I’ll start work immediately.”
“Then I will not dare to distract you any longer,” the elf said with a bow.
The dwarf waved casually in farewell to Elodssa. In his mind he was already at work.
The elf hated these cursed underground halls and corridors with all his heart. The stubborn bearded gnomes who built these rocky tu
One wrong turn at a crossroads, one heedless moment, and you could say farewell to life. You would find yourself in some old workings long-ago forgotten even by the gnomes who had created them, and you would never see the blue sky and your native forests again. Perhaps your remains might be found a year or two later, when some drunken gnome or dwarf stuck his nose into the wrong corridor. And the worst thing was that the populated parts were right there beside you: Take just one step, turn the right corner—and you would be saved.
The elf shuddered. To him a death like that, seasoned with a large dose of despair, seemed the most terrible death possible.
Elodssa and his guide walked on for an interminably long time. The elf had long ago lost his bearings in the capricious bends of the corridors that must have been carved out by gnomes whose brains were befuddled with charm-weed. Only once did they meet a group of bearded miners. With glowworm lamps attached to their helmets, clutching work-mattocks and other tools in their hands, the gnomes were bawling out a simple song at the tops of their voices as they walked down toward the very heart of the earth.
“Why are there so few people here?” Elodssa asked his guide.
“Who would agree to live here?” the dwarf asked, surprised at the question. “This is the fifty-second gallery. It’s an eight-hour walk up to the surface! Everyone lives higher up. Only our master craftsmen, like the venerable Frahel, require seclusion for their work. To avoid being disturbed by anyone, or accidentally affecting them with their magic. And then sometimes the gnomes walk through on the way to their workings. But in general this area is deserted. If you get lost, you’re really in trouble. We’re here, my lord elf.”
They stopped in front of a lift. There was night below it and night above it. The travelers had to go up more than nine hundred yards through the round tu
There was a drum on the lift, and the dwarf struck it three times. The sound went soaring upward, and after a while Elodssa made out a quiet reply, muffled by distance.
“Off we go!” the dwarf said with a smile, taking hold of the railing.
For just a moment the lift lurched downward, taking his heart with it. But almost immediately it began slowly, but surely, creeping upward.
“Here we are, then,” his guide said good-naturedly, getting off the platform. “The twenty-eighth gallery, if you count all the way from the top. Will you find the way on your own, sir elf?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s all very simple. From here you go straight along the main corridor, through the hall with the emerald stalactites, and then count the branch corridors. The sixth on the right is yours. Then after every second crossing turn left three times, and you’ll find yourself in the sector where we accommodate our guests. Don’t be afraid, it’s almost impossible to get lost here. If anything happens, ask one of our people the way. But not the gnomes—just recently those bearded clowns have completely forgotten how to use their heads. All they can do is cut new galleries!”
After that the dwarf climbed back onto the lift, struck the drum, and set off downward.
The elf went in search of his room, not intending for a moment to actually stay in this accursed catacombs. He wanted to collect his things and go up to the first gallery, closer to the sky and the sun. If he loitered down here for a whole week while Frahel was making the key, he could go insane. It would be better to come back at precisely the right time, collect the artifact, and never, ever again come anywhere near the mountains.