No, nothing good can come of it. I’ll leave, he thought. Go back home. I’ll give them the tyros. Callie’ll be mad at me anyway. I might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat, as the saying goes. I’ll leave now. This very moment.
But he continued sitting in the clearing, absently spreading salve on his palms. He thought he could hear, far away, the sound of someone weeping. He tried to ignore it, but eventually he could stand it no longer.
“I think I hear your wife crying,” he said to Roland. “Maybe something’s wrong.”
“Rega?” Roland glanced up from feeding the tyros. He appeared amused. “Crying? Naw, must be a bird you’re hearing. Rega never cries, not even the time when she got stabbed in the raztar fight. Did you ever notice the scar? It’s on her left thigh, about here . . .”
Paithan rose to his feet and stalked off into the jungle, moving in a direction opposite to that which Rega had taken.
Roland watched the elf leave out of the corner of his eye and hummed a bawdy song currently making the rounds of the taverns.
“He’s fallen for her like a rotten tree limb in a storm,” he told the tyros. “Rega’s playing it cooler than usual, but I guess she knows what she’s doing. He’s an elf, after all. Still, sex is sex. Little elves come from somewhere and I don’t think it’s heaven.
“But, ugh! Elven women! Skinny and bony-you might as well take a stick to bed. No wonder poor old Quin’s following Rega around with his tongue hanging out. Its only a matter of time. I’ll catch him with his pants down in a cycle or two, and then we’ll fix him! Too bad, though.” Roland reflected. Tossing the waterskin on the ground, he leaned wearily back against a tree and stretched, easing the stiffness from his limbs. “I’m beginning to kind of like the guy.”
CHAPTER 15
THE DWARVEN KINGDOM
THURN
FOND OF DARKNESS AND OF DELVING AND TUNNELING, THE DWARVES OF PRYAN
did not build their cities in the treetops, as did the elves, or on the moss plains, as did the humans. The dwarves carved their way downward through the dark vegetation, seeking the dirt and stone that was their heritage, though that heritage was little more than a dim memory of an ancient past in another world.
The kingdom of Thurn was a vast cavern of vegetation. The dwarves dwelt and worked in homes and shops that had been bored deep and straight into the boles of gigantic chimney trees, so called because the wood did not burn easily and the smoke of dwarven fires was able to rise up through natural shafts in the tree’s center. Branches and plant roots formed walkways and streets lit by flickering torchlight. The elves and humans lived in perpetual day. The dwarves lived in endless night-a night they loved and found blessed, but a night that Drugar feared was about to become permanent.
He received the message from his king during the dinner hour. It was a mark of the message’s importance that it was delivered to him at mealtime, a time when one’s full and complete attention is to be devoted to food and the all-important digestive process afterward. Talking is forbidden during the eating of the food and only pleasant subjects are discussed during the time following, to prevent the stomach’s juices from turning rancid and causing gastric upset.
The king’s messenger was profuse in his apologies for taking Drugar from his dinner but added that the matter was quite urgent. Drugar bolted from his chair, scattering crockery, causing his old manservant to grumble and predict dire things occurring in the young dwarf’s stomach.
Drugar, who had a dark feeling he knew the purport of the message, almost told the old servant that they’d be fortunate indeed if all the dwarves had to worry about was indigestion. But he kept silent. Among the dwarves, the elderly were treated with respect.
His father’s bore-hole house was located next to his [20] and Drugar didn’t have far to go. He ran this distance, but then stopped when he reached the door, suddenly reluctant to enter, reluctant to hear what he knew he must. Standing in the darkness, fingering the rune-stone he wore around his neck, he asked for courage of the One Dwarf. Drawing a deep breath, he opened the door and entered the room.