Greyfax Grimwald (9 page)

“Awfully jumpy about his kitchen,” whispered Otter when Creddin had gone and his footsteps had faded away toward the bade of the house.

“It seems so. Still, he’s old, and I imagine living alone all these years has affected him.’’ Dwarf put a finger to his temple, making a circular motion.

“I wonder what was really in it?” muttered Otter, mouth full of thick red jam bread. “Some of your old cousins’ jewels or gold, I expect.”

“Nonsence. From the looks of the place, the only thing worth having around here would be the dwarf cakes, and that’s not much better than gnawing my hat.” Dwarf went to the small keg of tea set out upon the stone floor, and drew a short cup.

Otter, having finished, began poking his small head into cabinets and drawers, pawing and whis tling occasionally, leaving Dwarf talking to a gray twitching tail or back as he came in and out of spaces, nose dusty, ears covered with ancient cob webs.

“Stop it, Otter. That’s not polite, nosing around someone’s kitchen. Hell think us horrible guests. I’m sure there’s nothing better than what he gave us.”

“I’m not looking for anything to eat, you thick headed dwarf. I’m looking for some more of what he’s got in that larder tin. Priceless, no doubt, and I’m curious as to why he thinks we shouldn’t see it.”

“Leave off, I hear him coming.”

Otter quickly straightened up at the approaching footsteps, bumping his head on a low shelf he had slipped beneath.

“Oooooh.”

The contents of the shelf spilled noisily onto the floor, clattering and ringing through the empty halls.

“Now you’ve done it. He’ll think we were snooping.” Dwarf glared angrily at Otter. “And he is, after all, a cousin of mine, loony or no, and I won’t have you behave like this.”

Creddin’s large, round head peered in the door, eyes drawn to slits.

“Still hungry, are you? You won’t find anything worth having in that lot. Old pans and scrub pots and such. I’m afraid I haven’t more to offer for a breakfast than what you have.”

“No, no, dear fellow, we’re quite satisfied, and I’m afraid we must be pushing on today.” Dwarf knelt, helping Otter pick up the upset pots and pans.

“Oh. Where might you be bound in these troubled times, Coz?”

Creddin’s face clouded, his heart beginning to darken within him. Perhaps they were after his treasure. He forgot his promise to himself.

Muffled footpads reached them, hesitant, dragging, something sinister and forbidding filling their gait with dread., Creddin’s eyes widened with delight as Dwarf and Otter moved nearer together, seeking shelter from that deadly-sounding approach. Otter slipped under the table, ears back, ready to attack anything from a man’s knee level.

Dwarf quickly looked to Creddin. “Are we the only visitors here, Cousin? Some later arrival last night, perhaps?” Dwarf’s eyes filled with stunned wonder when his eyes met Creddin’s. Almost, he would have sworn, they were filled with an ugly light, devouring him. The murderous glare took in Otter’s small gray form under the table, then quickly extinguished itself. An oily kindness crept into his voice as he spoke.

“No, you’re the only ones here, to my knowledge, or by my leave. Perhaps it is your friend, coming down to breakfast.” Creddin’s broken smile revealed yellowed teeth.

Nearer came the steps now, almost to the galley door. At last Dwarf screwed up his face into a hide ous dwarf scowl, and stalked as angrily as he could to the door.

“Hello there.”

The footsteps fell into silence.

“Dwarf?”

“Bear?”

“I changed my mind about breakfast. I kept toss ing and turning, so I decided I might as well come down and have a small something to ease my stomach.”

Bear tumbled backward in surprise as Dwarf fell on him, small arms flailing. Otter ran out to join them and try to make peace.

A low moan halted their scuffle.

“It’s Creddin,” said Dwarf.

“I hope our mischief hasn’t harmed him,” said Otter.

The three companions hastened back into the kitchen to find Creddin in a faint upon the floor, hands clutching air, as if he were struggling with an unseen assailant.

Bear ran to the well outside to fill a water jar while Dwarf and Otter tried to make the old dwarf com fortable. Creddin’s mouth worked wordlessly, then suddenly whispered loudly. “They can’t have it, it’s mine, the thieves. It’s mine, all mine, old Creddin’s.” Dwarf looked blankly at Otter, then to the gnarled old figure.

“He must have struck his head when he fell,” said Dwarf.

“What’s all his?” asked Otter.

“He’s ranting,” replied Dwarf. “Poor old fellow’s probably remembering the Tubal Hall of old.”

Otter, still suspicious, looked at the old dwarf’s face. “Then why didn’t he want us to see what he had in that old tin? I wager on the whiskers of my gray muzzle, he’s got some ill-bought treasure herea bouts. He’s still not told us how he was the only one to escape unharmed from all that’s gone on. Or who he was expecting in the night when we showed up instead. I know he’s your Ion, Dwarf, but something rings false here, as sure as I’ve drawn a breath. And that look that took him just before Bear came down. Brrr. It chills me to remember it.”

Dwarf remained silent a moment watching the feeble old hands knot and twist.

“Gold, more gold than kings, heh, heh, heh, and the fools will never find it, not while old Creddin guards it.” His crackling laughter filled the room with a cloud that darkened the bright sunshine for a moment.

“But,” and eyes bulging, Creddin started up, seeing nothing about him but the dim, forgotten places of his mind, “But I won’t, I won’t tell them.” He fell back, struggling, and as if a younger Creddin of long ago still lived within him, another voice crossed the old man’s lips, clear and strong, although softer. “You must warn them of their danger. They’ve done you no harm, and seek not your pre cious worthless treasure.”

The old voice croaked its reply. “I won’t They’ve come to murder me in my sleep and steal the treasure. I should have turned them over to him. I should.”

“You’re lost, Creddin. They’ll come for you soon, and then you’ll be taken down forever to your treasure and starved like a rat in a vault.”

Creddin’s wrinkled old face drew into a terrible, tormented mask. “No, no,” he shrieked. “They won’t kill old Creddin, not old Creddin. He’s given than everything they asked. They won’t take old Creddin.”

Across his face now crept a shadow as Dwarf and Otter watched, numb and helpless, and it grew until the room was darker than the deepest night, and Creddin’s grew still, and the shadow of his soul stood upon his heart, seeking the consuming blackness.

“Open the door,” cried Dwarf. “Light, quickly.”

Bear, returning just as Dwarf cried out, flung open the big kitchen entrance, flooding the room with a dazzling light that made Dwarf and Otter flinch. A hush fell over the three friends for a moment, and the dark shadow on Creddin’s breast sensed the light, ab sorbed it, and fled away into the brilliant rays of son that filled the room. Bear and Otter whimpered softly in the passing of life, rocking slowly from side to side and calling in their secret tongues, and Dwarf, in a voice he did not recognize as his own, hummed softly part of one of the old songs. For a moment, he thought it might have been his father, so deep and pure it was, but it passed, too, and silence returned.

Deep below them, in ancient caverns and tunnels, where no sunlight ever delved, the ancient stones of Tubal Hall shuddered and moaned, and with the passing of their last master, a tremor shook the hall, grew into a long, shuddering roar, and the burial vaults and chambers of gold crumbled and fell, tun nels long unused collapsed, and as the three friends raced into the courtyard flooded with morning, great beams and rafters crashed down with plumes of dust and masonry, the four massive outer walls shivered as the ribs of the hall faded, and in a final, thundering noise, Tubal Hall crashed into a heap of stone and wood, treasure and treachery sleeping side by side in the dark past, now gone and sealed forever.

Dwarf looked on the settling ruin in silence. Otter and Bear stood quietly a little way from him, and fi nally as it all grew clear in Dwarf’s mind, his small shoulders trembled and he let out a small sob of an guish and despair, and wept into his hands.

After a time, the tears and grief left him, and he placed his torn hat firmly upon his head. The two animals thought he had grown older in the short space of time, and there was something different in his voice when he spoke.

“Well, we’ve brought ruin and death here, but perhaps we can be forgiven in the end. I think Creddin has found his peace at any rate, and now my kindred can rest in their tombs avenged.”

Dwarf looked back at the warm sun falling on the stark, broken hall, the cracked doorways and arches opening only onto the bright, clear sky beyond.

“Now we must find a place that we may pass un noticed, I fear. I don’t know what I’ve led you into, but I feel somehow that today was only the be ginning.” Dwarf turned to his two friends. “And now Greyfax says that the River has closed and there would be no chance for you to return, at least not yet.”

“I’ve seemed to remember something, Dwarf,” said Bear. “Not about anything here, but something in the fire that the wizard showed us. Exactly what keeps escaping me, but I’m sure it had something to do with why we came.”

“Besides,” broke in Otter, “it’s plain we can’t go anywhere but on. I don’t much like these parts, and I’m afraid, but we’re amply in a tail-chasing circle, so let’s make the best of it we can.”

“And it’s not your fault anyway, dear Dwarf. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been something else that brought us here. I’d already left my home when you found me. It’s almost as if we were wait ing for you.”

“My old river was far away north, and I’d come that far alone,” added Otter. “So you see, all the ani mals and others were already moving, Dwarf. We couldn’t leave you alone now. Why, that would make us worse than old Creddin.” Catching himself, Otter continued. “I mean even the really good sometimes get into things that they can’t handle, and he’s all right now, I know. I wish we knew what we were supposed to do.” Otter sat down heavily at Bear’s great hindpaws.

“I guess we must first find shelter, and carry on like before,” Dwarf declared, standing a little straighten “I don’t know what we’re to do, but any thing is a start.” And turning away from the fallen hall, he added, “Let’s move from here. It makes my heart too heavy to see it.”

And Dwarf moved off toward the great tall shadows of the forest, away from Tubal Hall and its ruins, away from the River. That crossing seemed miles away, and buried with time, and Otter and Bear followed along after, single file, their hearts saddened yet determined.

At sunset, the three comrades halted at the top of a long green ridge sprinkled with mulberry thickets and great, tall oaks that towered above the mossy floor below. There was almost no light left, but the tail of the sun’s eye covered the valley below them in an orange fire, setting the swift stream there aflame with changing light. And far off, near where the hills covered the last light in a deep black blanket, a rainbow glistened and danced above a small waterfall that flamed from the darkness into the last veil of the crimson day, fading quickly over the woods and dis tant mountains, and they watched long as at last, like a quiet flow of deep, blue-black water, night came softly down. Stars appeared, flickering on as dark un veiled its curling robes, first two or three, then the sky was filled with their distant lamps, lighting their way almost as surely as if it were midmorning, and the three friends walked onward into the deep smell of wood and stream, and a wind came gently up from the mountains, bringing new hope, and a new home.

They built no fire that night, for it was warm, and they lay down to sleep close together, speaking their goodnights in low, tired voices, and the valley, sens ing its new inhabitants, smiled in a renewed flow of pine scent and flowers, and lulled them quickly to a deep, peaceful sleep.

Otter listened to the laughing voice of the stream calling, but he was too weary to heed it, so he played and swam in his dreaming mind. Bear sat down to a table filled with ten huge kegs of new honey from a secret sweet gum tree, and Dwarf, mind filled with sorrow and past, at last gave up and heard the deep voices of the oaks calling out to each other and the rocks chuckling and rumbling deep in their gray beards, and at last, he, too, dreamed, or dreamed he dreamed, of the morrow, when he could start his new dwelling, and do whatever else he knew must be done.

As the dawn lightened the chambers of night, the new morning brought the beauty of Dwarf’s new home to him in the first yellow gleam of sun, winking over the farhills. His limbs were strengthened and his mind at ease as he hurried to wake Otter and Bear to see this first sunrise in a place where they would long and safety dwell.

I
n the time it took Froghorn, elder of Fairingay, to reach the halls of Lorini, golden lady of the Light, aster of Dorini, Dark Queen of the World Between Time, many months, as counted in the world of ordinary men, passed. The swiftness of Pe’lon was great, and no lapse occurred from the moment Froghorn left Greyfax until he was standing in the great white-towered courtyards of Cypher, where many-colored trees of all kinds bloomed in forever spring and all things never withered or grew old as long as they stayed within the mystical realm of Lorini’s powers. She had dwelled many lifetimes here, lighting the four borders of Atlanton Earth against the darkness of Dorini. In Origin, the many-petaled Lotus world, she kept her court, until Suneater and Fireslayer had escaped their prisons and devoured the light, leaving all that world frozen by the cold ice night of Dorini’s dominion. When Lor ini fled to Maldan, she was closely pursued by those great beasts, and before she could move against them, they had brought the darkness into that world, too.