Chapter 44 – Unexpected Guests

Captain Vaast would be out of action for weeks, only waking for a few hours at dawn. Silence tended to him as best she could, but a medic can only do so much for the wounds of the soul. With the usual leader of the Night Shift sidelined, His duties: preparation of the defenses, review of patrols, and negotiation of work tasks with Sefton fell to the second in command, Mareth.

Leadership might not be something their resident mage was inclined to seek, but Cadryn couldn’t help but feel she had a knack for it watching her field requests.

“I could just melt the entire south-western approach, given sufficient time,” Mareth was saying to Rof. From behind the Captain’s massive desk, she looked like a beloved niece playing governess in the outsized chair, but everyone present knew that was merely a trick of the eyes. Rof laughed easily, taking it for a joke. “I’m serious,” she clarified. “If you’re unable to come up with a plan to secure those ravines leading up to our flank, it seems best to just melt it.”

“That’s madness,” Rof said, thunking down his stump on the table. “If you melt all that down, who knows where rainwater and gods know what else will go. What sort of damage it might do to the integrity of an already honeycombed underground.”

“So I can’t melt all of it, but you agree some areas are too hard to access for repairs.”

“Aye.”

“So I’ll melt those, I just need to know where to burn,” Mareth said, smiling at Cadryn where he waited off to one side for his turn.

“I-I, I suppose!” Rof said, throwing up his arms, “I’ll need to make a map of what is safe for you seal off.”

“I’d appreciate that, greatly,” Mareth replied warmly, “Feel free to take Felina with you, now that you’re back on the Night Shift with us.”

“Obliged,” Rof said while rising and offered a salute with his good hand. On the way out he nudged Cadryn in the side. “Don’t think I missed you two making eyes at my expense boy, careful. I might need more help in those tunnels.”

Cadryn groaned, and took a seat, still sore from the last night’s work. It was now fully dark out and somewhere in the Gardens an owl called out for its mate. Across from him, Mareth cracked the knuckles of her left hand, picked up the quill again, and went back to transcribing totals for a report.

“I hate this,” she muttered.

“I thought you loved writing things down,” Cadryn countered while pulling a thin sheet of parchment free from the pile. It was an invoice from Amber’s Toast for their weekly wood delivery. He was amazed at the costs.

“I love rituals, or research,” Mareth said, plucking it away from him, she scanned it quickly, signed it, and added the leaf to the pile going to Sefton for the official stamp. “Paperwork, I can do without . . . which brings me to your assignment.”

“Oh no,” Cadryn said, running a hand down his face.

“Quiet, it’s not this. I want you to go do the monthly report on the Foundation Stone. Encara was supposed to do it, but she’s been holed up in the Library . . . doing something. Anyway, I don’t feel like writing her up yet.”

“More paperwork?”

“More paperwork,” Mareth inclined her pen at the door, “yes, now make yourself useful.”

“As you command, Second,” Cadryn said, leaping to his feet and saluting with far too much fanfare.

“It’s ‘Acting Commander’ if you’re going to be like that,” she said, balling up a scrap of paper as sparks danced across her hands.

Cadryn was out the doors before she could send anything flaming after him.

The path through the underground cells to the hidden stairs Encara had led Cadryn down the first time were now marked by small chalk signals that glowed a bright sky blue under the light of an arcane lamp. Sometime after their encounter with Lord Kanon, Sefton instructed Felina to add these to ensure that any of them might find the way back to the Foundation Stone if ordered. Indeed, Encara complained about being ordered to share her reports on the ancient artifact every month at their meetings like a paranoid baker guarding their recipes.

Not for the first time, Cadryn found himself questioning the woman’s true loyalties. They were to herself, first, and the Empire, last he surmised. The real question was what else lay between those two positions. He would ask Bahsa to weight in the next time they were on duty together at the guard post. Turning, he came up short against an empty cell.

“Ahh, right,” he said to the spiders, and pressed the base of the lamp against the center of the wall. Energy passed, cracks of blue crawling over the wall, before the passage downward opened. Shuffling along the narrow ramp the smell of old earth and the hum of the Foundation Stone grew the closer. Then something new, the sound of voices, raised in anger.

Cadryn stopped, dialed down the lamp and listened closely, holding his breath.

“If ye don’ stop touchin’ tha shite, I’ll bash ya skull in,” said a deep, guttural voice.

“Oi’ make me, ye wee bastard,” replied another.

“I’ll crush both ye skulls, as I did our dear pa. Now shut it! I’m thinkin’ here,” bellowed a third.

No protests followed and Cadryn was able to pad the rest of the way to the entrance to the massive room that housed the Stone. Looking around, he saw it was much the same aside from the air which was hazy with dust from the three occupants’ movements. He found them standing around one of the many tiny shrines carved into the borders of the room, three squat figures.

In the glow of the Foundation Stone it was hard to be sure, but the longer Cadryn watched them less human they seemed. Each of them would only come up to his chest, if that, but were nearly as wide at the shoulders as they were tall. They wore no shirts, only rough-spun hempen pants in poor repair. None wore shoes and their wide feet kicked up dust as they circled one another. It was the skin that really gave them away: the color and texture of slate, shot through in places with veins of gold and silver.

“Ye got us lost ‘gain, Yamdoc,” the largest was saying, a massive mason’s hammer on a leather thong hung from his left hand. “I’m apt whack ye one fer it.”

“We, got us lost,” the middle of the two replied, putting his shovel like hands out between the other two like a second born brother.

“Don’ go lumpin me wit ya, Yamdoc!” the smallest one yelled, smacking the hands down. “It was yer ‘dea to come home, Logrok.”

The big one, apparently Logrok, scoffed, “Never yer fault, tis it Skadas?” Shaking his boulder like head, Logrok began to walk toward the center of the room. “That’s the Felsar Stone, boys, we’re here.”

“But no kin,” Skadas muttered.

“Aye, no kin,” Yamdoc said and sighed, the sound a tiny rockslide.

The three seemed to deflate some, the fire of their squabbling dying out with that truth. They started collecting previously discarded packs form the dust, each was a massive assembly of leather bags, satchels, and at an entire smithy’s worth of tools. Heaving them up onto their broad shoulders the three started peering into the various tunnels leading out of the chamber. Before Cadryn could think to hide better, Logrok looked directly at him.

“Oi! You there,” he called out. “Ye seen any of our kin abouts these parts?”

Cadryn blinked, and standing upright shook his head.

“Well, ye seen anywhere we might get a drink?” Skadas said.

“We can work fer it, if needs,” Yamdoc added.

“Well,” Cadryn found himself saying, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

“Absolutely not,” said Sefton Atwood, removing his glasses to wipe the sleep from his eyes. They were standing in his office at the toll house, the lamp shaded low against the stiff autumn breeze through the open window. Their guests were next door in the dining room, enjoying ale and a midnight meal thrown together by Bahsa. “They’re not imperial citizens, much less Engineers. I won’t permit them to work on the Neeft.”

“But they’re dwarves,” Mareth said, not for the first time. With Vaast out of commission, the decision to employ the wanderers was not something she felt like doing without consulting the resident bureaucrat . . . It blew up in their faces almost immediately. “They’re direct descendants of the Lobeski, you know, the people who made the Foundation Stones in the first time and the first towers to rise out of this place. It stands to reason they might be useful when it comes to construction.”

“It’s moot,” Sefton replied, “my hands are tied by the laws of our Empire. Feed them and see them on their way. I’m going back to bed.” With that he rose, holding his night robes closed with one hand, and shuffled back to his cramped sleeping quarters just off the office. After he was gone, Mareth sighed slowly and rising to go, shrugged.

“What can we do, Sefton hath spoken.”

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Cadryn said, and got up to go give their guests the bad word. He gave Mareth a sad salute as they parted ways in the hall. Walking down to the far end of the unlit passage, the cozy light of the galley beckoned from the open door. Turning in, he found the three dwarves sitting around the long table with two of his fellow Keepers: Felina and Rof, both waved him over.

“Sit, drink!” Felina nearly howled, her cheeks already bright red.

“Preferably out of her cup,” Rof added, steadying her with his forearm. “She’s been into this stuff our new friends here brought with them.”

“Liquor,” Skadas said, reverently.

“Of barley,” added Yamdoc, pouring some from a flask for Cadryn. The smell was . . . potent, and it burned fiercely going down.

“Oh my,” Cadryn wheezed, “that’s horrible.”

“An acquired taste,” Rof replied, sipping from a tankard of Golden Kiss, one of Amber’s finest ales. “One, I choose not to acquire.”

The dwarves roared, slamming fists on the table, leaving a few splinters in their wake. This went on for a time, both groups advocating the supremacy of their chosen spirits. Pausing to consume what remained of the bread and cheese Bahsa put out for them. Eventually, the topic of working on the Neeft came round, Rof excited to finally have some skilled hands.

“Sefton, shut that down,” Cadryn admitted, feeling guilty for running the merriment.

“That’s idiotic,” Rof groused, sloshing ale out of his tankard. “I’d say to just do it anyway, but-“

“Da hammering,” Felina slurred from the tabletop.

“Aye,” Rof said, patting her head softly, “Sefton would figure us out quickly.”

Cadryn suddenly sat back, an idea swimming into his brain among the drink. He pointed at the cask from the Toast where it sat on the far side of the room. “Amber’s. They could work for her on the town’s defenses. I know she pays in beer on occasion, bet she’s even got a room they could use.”

“Smort,” Felina quipped, swatting in Cadryn’s general direction. “I cans show- I can taketh thems ovar there.”

“In the morning, perhaps?” Rof suggested, but Felina was already snoring.

“Aye, yer all right,” Logrok said. Slapping his brothers on the back to confirm their agreement, he held out a hand in offer.

Shaking it, Cadryn was surprised to find it really did have the same feel and weight as stone.