“If we delay much longer, Johan may get his way and send the rest of us to the next life as well,” Jynn added.
“Aye. Let’s call the meetin’ to order.” The Dwarf sighed as he stood and knocked on the table a couple of times. Naturally, several attendees took this as a signal to visit the refreshment table one more time before the meeting really got going, and so when Gorm spoke it was with a voice raised over the clink of spoons in coffee mugs and the clatter of plates.
“Friends, acquaintances, and lawyers, thank ye for gatherin’ on short notice. As most of ye know, our party descended into the depths of Wynspar not a week ago. Most of my companions and I returned this morning, though two dear friends did not make it.”
A solemn silence fell over the room, broken by the clattering of crockery from the refreshments table. The lone lawyer-monk by the coffee winced sheepishly and hurried over to sit beside her brother in law.
“We’ve no time to mourn, though,” Gorm continued. “We ain’t reported our quest to the guild yet, and only a few souls know we survivors have returned. We need your secrecy, and your help, for the good of the kingdom.”
The assembled attendees exchanged uneasy glances. “Will it be legal?” asked one of the lawyer-monks.
“You’re here to make sure it is,” said Gorm. “Now, will ye commit to speak none of this to the outside world until tomorrow?”
Most of the attendees voiced their agreement, but the lawyer-monks insisted that all parties execute Adchul’s standard mutual NDA. This took several minutes of shuffling, reading, discussion, and finally signatures. Once the paperwork was executed, Gorm continued, “First of all, we didn’t kill the dragon.”
Concerned murmurs filled the room. Gorm waited for them to die down before dropping the flaming oil down the mineshaft.
“But we did find the beast, and it has no treasure.”
The room erupted in gasps and startled cries. An accountant fainted. A financier began to softly weep.
One face at the table, however, did not seem so upset. “And what is this to us?” asked a large Orc. “BORPO SKAR’EZZOD – JUNIOR ELDER OF FINANCE” was engraved on the nameplate in front of him. “Have we not wisely divested from the dragon’s hoard? This is to our advantage!”
“You speak out of turn, Borpo,” said Asherzu Guz’Varda. “All of the economy hangs on the hoard of this dragon. If there is no treasure beneath Wynspar, we shall have no customers. Nobody shall pay rent. Loans shall go unpaid. Money will be both precious and meaningless. The system itself shall break.”
“The Lightling’s system is already broken,” Borpo retorted, and a few of the Shadowkin nodded. “We can reforge the world into something better!”
The beads in Asherzu’s braids rattled as she shook her head. “If we throw everything back into the forge, it is our people who would feel the fire the most. Did you learn nothing of my father’s teachings? If we cannot conquer each other through business and commerce, are you so naive as to think all people will stop striving to advance? And how will they strive and fight without an economy to do it in? How do you think the Lightlings will behave if we have all of the giltin in the economy?”
“It will be different now,” Borpo insisted. “We have many gold-hounds in the guild. Many Lightlings will flock to our banners if we have the gold. We could win such a war!”
“We may, and we may not,” Asherzu said. “But what would we lose in the fight? How many children would never see parents again, or die hungry? How many widows and widowers will roam the streets? How many lives would we destroy to make the system better for a few? And would a system built on such pain and loss be any better than the one we have?”
She shook her head. “The world must change, but you cannot separate what it will be from how it will be made. My father did not choose the path of the aggressive seller because he had never been wronged by the gold-hounds, nor was it because he feared to fight and die as his father before him. No, it was for my siblings and I that he laid down his axe and picked up his counting scales. For the way of the Wall and finance is brutal and unjust and merciless, but Mankind was all of those things before the first coin was minted, and it will be so after the Wall and its banks crumble to ruins. My father knew that if he waged war with coin, if he followed the path of the aggressive seller, he would see his sons and daughters grow up. And though he and our clan were dealt a great injustice by the king and his guild, Zurthraka Guz’Varda saw all of his children come of age. I cannot say the same for my mother, or their parents, or their parents. Has any other chieftain in our tribe’s sagas done as much?”
“And so must we sit back and endure more, just to preserve a system that has taken so much from us?” asked a Goblin executive.
“No. I know as well as any that this world is flawed. My father, my tribe, were unjustly killed, and they are but grains of sand on the shores of the dead.” The chieftain and CEO stared at each of her kinsmen and employees in the eye, one by one. “But for all of its faults, our path to glory and honor lies along the Wall, not over its ruins. If we wish to give our children a future that is a gift and not a curse, we will follow the path of the aggressive seller. We will hear of every opportunity to deliver value for our people.”
Borpo stared at her a moment after she finished speaking, and Gorm braced himself for the Orc’s retort. It never came; the burly financier hung his head. “Your words ring true, Chieftain. I wish to see my Druella grow mighty and wise. Let us hear the Son of Fire’s proposal.”
“Thank ye,” said Gorm. “We’ve a plan to save everything, but to do it, we’ll need all of ye. Warg Inc. brings capital and manpower. I’m told Duine Poldo may be one of ten brokers on Arth with enough experience to pull it off. The guild and the lawyers make it all legitimate. Every one of us has a part to play if there’s to be a future for any of us.”
“We will hear your entreaty, friend Gorm Ingerson,” said Asherzu. “The Guz’Varda Tribe and Warg Incorporated remember the help you have given our people.”
“As does the Heroes’ Guild of the Old Kingdom,” said Vordar. The Dwarf nodded to Gorm. “I shall consider your offer most favorably.”
“Hearing your request does not initiate an attorney-client relationship,” intoned the lawyer-monks.
Gorm looked to Mr. Poldo. The Scribkin stared back with red-rimmed eyes, and his words came in a short gasp. “I will help. For the sake of friends lost, and those I still hold dear, I will help.”
“Good.” Gorm grinned and nodded to Jynn, who began to pack up. “Now, I’ll tell ye the outline of me plan, but ye’ll need to carry it out. Work together, respect each other, and don’t falter for a moment. This is literally to save the kingdom, if not the world.”
Burt piped up. “And what are you heroes going to do? Where’s the rest of your party? And where’s the wizard going?” The Kobold pointed to Jynn, who was already heading for the door with his cloak drawn tight around him.
“Oh, we all got our parts to play.” Gorm’s grin was like a Flame Drake’s, all teeth and malice. “Ye focus on buildin’ the future. We’ll right the wrongs of the past.”
Chapter 27
Arth’s history played out on the passage walls, outlined in luminous liquid dancing over the damp stone.
Kaitha watched the people of the old world flow through the dark hallways. The tiny figures performed familiar scenes from legends she’d been told since days she could no longer remember. The sounds of the streams and the hum of magic flowed together into a haunting melody, and each watery figure moved to the music’s rhythm. They repeated the same actions over and over, as though caught in eddies of time, allowing Kaitha to follow their tale like a book as she slowly made her way down the passage.
A part of her didn’t want to look. The rest of her couldn’t look away.
She knew some of the stories. Her eyes fixed on the Dwarves mourning the loss of their wives in the Age of Legends. The gods Baedrun and Fulgen came up from the heavenly depths to deliver a plan to save their people from dying out. Some Dwarves’ heads flashed up and down in acceptance of the divine plan, others flickered from side to side in rejection. These dissatisfied clans walked away from Baedrun’s offer and journeyed to a patch of marbled lichen, where they made a pact with a cloaked figure. Kaitha recalled that temples taught that the figure was Noros the Nightmare King, then still Noros the Dream Maker, and the pact he was making was to give them new women to replace their fallen wives. Another scene showed that the lost clans of the Dwarves had married the women Noros introduced them to, and their children were the first Goblins. Any priest would tell you this was their punishment for disobedience to their gods, and most would follow that bit of moral instruction with a reminder that tithing your wealth was also a prominent commandment.
Yet the story on the wall continued past the advent of the baby Goblins, first among the Shadowkin, into the province of heresy. On the walls of the dark passage, the first of the Shadowkin were greeted with joy, as the first children born to Dwarves in a long time. Even when more Dwarves were born from Baedrun and Fulgen’s scheme, they joined their green cousins on the wall without any apparent conflict. The watery citizens of the passage resumed their mundane tasks, now with Goblins alongside them.
Kaitha squinted in confusion at the glowing figures. She was sure that everybody knew that Goblins and Dwarves had been ancient enemies since the Second Age. Yet according to the glowing water, the Goblins and Dwarves of the Second Age seemed blissfully ignorant of their enmity. One Goblin tribe held a great feast for all the other peoples of Arth in one image, with the Sten taking a place of honor at their table.
It didn’t stop with the Goblins. Further down the hallway, equally confusing vignettes showed the first Orcs born to the Elves, cursed with mortality and new forms by the magic of Mannon and his demons. Yet the Elves on the tunnel walls welcomed their new children, mourned the deaths of the first Orcs, and built cities with their green kin. She saw the Gnomes collaborating with Gremlins and Gnolls, witnessed the Naga rise and be welcomed by Humans and Halflings. Every time the magic of Noros or the demons created a new type of Shadowkin, the people of old moved to welcome them. With each new addition, the walls became more crowded, more vibrant. Some of the streams shifted in color as the demographics of the liquid mural changed, flowing toward violet or emerald, and even on to ruby or golden. Soon the passage was a glimmering rainbow that stretched farther than she could see.
Tears brimmed in Kaitha’s eyes as she walked beneath the scintillating lights, in part because of the beauty of the dancing colors and the joy they portrayed, and in part because of a sensation, undeniable and undefinable, lurking at the back of her mind. A memory of a memory, a whisper of a long-forgotten thought, tugged at the corners of Kaitha’s consciousness and filled her with an uneasy sorrow that didn’t feel entirely her own. That alien melancholy crescendoed as she witnessed the first Troll born to Stennish parents. The parents seemed unable to find a suitable bassinet, given the hairy arms and legs extending from it, but otherwise they were clearly enamored with the first of the most deadly of the Shadowkin.
“They were at peace,” she said, though just voicing the thought ached in depths she didn’t know she had. “For a time, at least.” The water on the wall seemed to sense her doubt, even react to it. Even as she recalled stories of the War of Betrayal, she began to notice the fissures running through the illuminated streams; jagged slashes of dark, dry stone where the water and the light would not touch. Citizens whispered and schemed at the edge of the darkness, faces dour and eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. Once she focused on one of the swaths, she saw more, until all she could see was the web of shadowy fractures running through the mural of light. Kaitha felt her stomach drop as she stared at the malignant gloom spreading through the dancing luminance, a sense of growing dread and certainty festering in her core. The histories may have been wrong about how the Third Age began, but there was no question as to how the War of Betrayal ended.
“They lost it all,” she rasped, staring at the beautiful, breaking mural wrought in water on the walls. “Why? Why would they throw it all away?”
