The Lioness

“Well, we’re not going to be all night talking about it.” His eyes grew hard, and when he leaned across the bar the hair rose prickling on the back of Kerian’s neck. “Now, tell me, missy, what are y’doing here?”

“Well, I—”

He lifted a finger, as though to a child. “Don’t be shaping lies now. We like order here in Thorbardin, and there is a guard comes by here regularly. It wouldn’t take but a shout to call them down.” Again the smile but this time very cold. “Everyone in this place had his back to the door a little bit ago. Everyone but me. I saw you come in.”

Her head pounded, and her hands shook. She wondered if she had failed in her mission not an hour into it Kerian reached for the mug of water, but the dwarfs left hand closed over hers before she could lift it.

“Nay,” he said, “you’ll just spill it. Take a good breath, Mistress Kerianseray. Tell me your story.” When she hesitated he said, “Or tell it to the guard on the way to the dungeons. I don’t think you’ll like the dungeons of Thorbardin. We tend to forget about the people down there, and when we do remember, it’s not always in time.”

Kerian gauged the threat, and she gauged the dwarf. She reckoned back along the months and seasons, back along events to the time she first saw him. She believed she knew who he was, this trader, this barman, and she slipped the emerald talisman from her shirt, the unfurling leaf he might well have seen Nayla or Haugh wear.

He had. She saw that in the sudden glint of his eyes, the way his head lifted.

“Tell me now, what are you doing here?”

Kerian’s voice dropped low, soft for only the two of them to hear. “My king has sent me.”

Stanach raised an eyebrow, then lifted the water jug in silent question. This, or better? When she nodded to her mug, he filled it again.

“I’m here to see your king.” She slid him a sideways glance. “I’m hoping his ambassador will help me to an audience.”

“I’m not his ambassador, girl.” He shook his head. “I’m not anyone’s anything. I did my thane a favor, that one who sits on the Council. I was in the Outland, a long time ago when your king’s mother commanded dragonarmies.” His eyes softened with remembered pain, the fingers of his ruined hand twitched on the bar rag. “Ah, a while ago. I know the ways of Outlanders, some. The thane, he said our king needed a man like that to go out to Qualinost to speak with the elves. No more than that, and I’m glad to be done with it.” He wiped the bar, pushing the rag around with his useless hand. Softly he said, “It’s no good thing to be gone from here. It’s no good thing to leave.”

The tavern rang with the clattering of plates and cutlery, the voices of hungry dwarves, those who’d been at the bar, new customers coming in. Kerian leaned across the bar.

“Will you take me to the king, to Tarn Bellowgranite?”

“D’ye think I can just go knocking on his door, girl? Do you think—”

“I think you are a man who can do pretty much whatever needs doing. Can you do this, Stanach Hammerfell?”

After a moment more of bar wiping, the dwarf said he supposed he could.

Kerian waited, uncertain whether to go into the council chamber or to wait for an escort. Stanach was gone, slipped away through the gardens outside the great shining brass doors to the chamber. Those doors stood ajar now, not swung wide but not tight shut. From within came the rumble of deep dwarven voices. They sounded like distant thunder, a storm roaming a far mountaintop. Then, sharply, one rose in striking challenge. The thanes of the clans didn’t seem minded to let their deliberations end easily. From her stance outside the door, she saw only a great cavernous hall beyond and had a sense of high ceilings and wide walls. Lights gleamed redly, in silver cressets torches flared, and tripod braziers stood at regular intervals. By their reaching light, Kerian saw thick marble columns marching upon each side of the hall, creating a broad aisle of bright marble leading to a dais.

Behind her, the city shone, a brightness of light. Thorbardin had sustained great damage during the wrenching civil war, but in this part of the city, high in the magnificent Life Tree of the Hylar, all seemed rebuilt and wondrous. Light poured in from the distant outer world, sliding into the city upon shafts of crystal. The gardens outside the Court of Thanes grew as richly as though they lay in an elven glade, but here, Kerian saw, gardens had only the seasons their gardeners wished them to have, for here light, temperature, and water were strictly under dwarven control. The crocus of winter grew happily beside the red rose of summer, and spring’s yellow jonquil nodded at the foot of a tall wisteria.

Kerian found it strangely unsettling, this confusion of seasons. She couldn’t imagine how they marked the passing of time beneath the mountain where the moon didn’t shine and the sun didn’t rise.