Raistlin took the hammer, hefted it to test the weight, then affected to study the runes.

"It would be easier to carry," Flint said, fidgeting nervously with the straps on his armor, "if it was lighter in weight."

"Anyone watching?" Raistlin murmured.

"No," said Sturm, smoothing his mustaches. "Arman is outside. Tanis is with your brother."

Raistlin closed his eyes. He gripped the hammer with one hand, running the other over the rune-etched metal. He drew in a soft breath, then whispered strange words that Flint thought sounded like it feels when a bug crawls up your leg. He regretted his decision and started to reach for the hammer, to take it away.

Then Raistlin gave a sigh and opened his eyes.

"It is is heavy," he said, as he handed it back. "Remember to be careful when you use it." heavy," he said, as he handed it back. "Remember to be careful when you use it."

Obviously, the spell had failed. Flint was relieved. He grabbed hold of the hammer and nearly went over backward. The hammer was as light as the kender"s chicken feather.

Raistlin"s eyes glittered. He slid his hands inside the sleeves of his robes.

Flint looked the hammer up and down, but he could not see any change. He started to put it back into the harness, then he caught Raistlin"s eye and remembered just in time that the hammer was heavy. Flint wasn"t very good at play-acting. He was doubly sorry he"d agreed to go along with this scheme, but it was too late now.

"Well, I"m away," he announced. He stood hunched over, as if bowed down by the weight of the hammer, which was, in truth, weighing on him.

"I wish you would reconsider," said Tanis, walking over to say good-bye. "You still have time to change your mind."

"Yeah, I know." Flint rubbed his nose. He paused, cleared his throat, then said gruffly, "Do this old dwarf a favor, will you, Tanis? Give him a chance to find glory at least once in his dull life. I know it sounds foolish-"

"No," said Tanis, and he laid his hand on Flint"s shoulder. "It is far from foolish. Walk with Reorx."

"Don"t go praying to G.o.ds you don"t believe in, half-elf," Flint returned, glowering. "It"s bad luck."

Straightening his shoulders, Flint walked out to join Arman Kharas, who told him in no uncertain terms it was time to depart. The two walked off, escorted by Hylar soldiers. Two Hylar guards remained behind, taking up their posts outside the inn"s door.

"I hope they haven"t forgotten breakfast," said Caramon, sitting up in bed.

"I thought you weren"t feeling well," said Raistlin in withering tones.

"I feel better now that I threw up. Hey!" Caramon walked over, opened the door, and stuck his head out. "When do we eat?"

Ta.s.slehoff stared out the window until Flint had disappeared around the corner of a building. Then the kender plunked down on a chair.

"Flint promised me I could go with him to the Floating Tomb," Tas said, kicking the rungs.

Tanis knew it would be hopeless to try to convince the kender that Flint had made no such promise, so Tanis left Tas alone, confident that he would forget all about going in another five minutes, once he found something else of interest.

Sturm was also staring out the window. "We could handle the guards at the door. Tanis. There are only two of them."

"Then what?" Raistlin demanded caustically. "How do we slip through Thorbardin unnoticed? Pa.s.s ourselves off as dwarves? The kender might do it, but the rest of us would have to put on false beards and walk on our knees."

Sturm"s face flushed at the mage"s sarcasm. "We could at least speak to Hornfel. Tell him of our concern for our friend. He might reconsider."

"I suppose we could request an audience," said Tanis, "but I doubt we"d succeed. He made it very clear that only dwarves can enter the sacred tomb."

Sturm continued to stare gloomily out the window.

"Flint is on his way to the Valley of Thanes," said Tanis, "the Kingdom of the Dead, with a mad dwarf to watch his back and the spirit of a dead prince to guide him. Fretting over him won"t help."

"Praying for him will," said Sturm, and the knight went down on his knees.

Raistlin shrugged. "I"m going back to bed."

"At least "til breakfast comes," said Caramon.

There was nothing else to do. Tanis went to his bed, lay down and stared at the ceiling.

Sturm began to pray silently. "I know what I did was wrong, but I did it for the greater good," he told Paladine. He closed his hands and clenched his hands. "As I have always done..."

Ta.s.slehoff stopped kicking the rungs of the chair. He waited until Sturm was caught up in the rapture of his communion with the G.o.d, waited until Tanis"s eyes closed and his breathing evened out, waited until he heard Caramon"s loud snore and Raistlin"s rasping coughing cease.

"Flint promised I could go," Tas muttered. "T"d sooner take the kender." That"s what he said. Tanis is worried about him, and he wouldn"t worry half so much if I was with him."

Ta.s.slehoff divested himself of his pouches. Leaving them behind was a wrench. He felt positively naked without them, but he would make this sacrifice for his friend. Sliding off the chair, moving silently as only a kender can move when he puts his mind to it, Tas opened the door and slipped quietly outside.

The two soldiers had their backs to him. They were talking and didn"t hear him.

"Hullo!" Tas said loudly.

The guards drew their swords and whipped around a lot faster than Tas would have given dwarves credit for. He did not know dwarves were so agile, especially decked out in all the metal.

"What do you want?" snarled the soldier.

"Get back in there!" said his friend, and pointed at the inn.

Tas spoke a few words in Dwarvish. He spoke a few words of many languages, since it"s always handy to be able to say, "But you dropped it!" to strangers you might meet along the way.

"I want my hoopak," said Tas politely.

The dwarves stared at him and one made a threatening gesture with his blade.

"Not "sword"," said Tas, misunderstanding the nature of the gesture. "Hoopak. That"s spelled "hoo" and "pak" and in kender it means "hoopak"."

The soldiers still didn"t get it. They were starting to grow annoyed, but then so was Ta.s.slehoff.

"Hoopak!" he repeated loudly. "That"s it, standing there beside you."

He pointed to Sturm"s sword. The soldiers turned to look.

"Oops! My mistake," said Ta.s.slehoff. "This is what I meant." A leap, a bound, and a grab, and he had hold of his hoopak. A leap and a thwack, and he"d cracked one of the guards in the face with the b.u.t.t end of the staff, then used the p.r.o.nged end to jab the other guard in his gut.

Tas rapped each of them over the head, just to make sure they weren"t going to be getting up too soon and be a bother. Choosing the smaller of the two, he plucked the helm off the dwarf.

"That was a good idea Raistlin had. I"ll disguise myself as a dwarf!"

The helm was too big and wobbled around on his head. The dwarf"s chain mail nearly swallowed the kender, and it weighed at least six tons. He ditched the chain mail and put on the dwarf"s leather vest instead. He considered the false beard idea a good one, and he gazed thoughtfully at the dwarf"s beard, but he didn"t have anything to use to cut it. Tas took off the helm, shook out his top knot, dragged his hair in front of his face, and put on the helm again. His long hair flowed out from underneath.

Unfortunately, all the hair that was bunched up in front of his eyes was a little troublesome because he couldn"t see through it all that well, and it kept tickling his nose, so that he had to stop every so often to sneeze. Any sacrifice for a friend, however.

Ta.s.slehoff paused to admire himself in a cracked window. He was quite taken with the results. He didn"t see how any one could possibly tell the difference between him and a dwarf. He set off quickly down the street. Flint and Arman Kharas had a pretty good head start, but Tas was confident he"d catch up.

After all, Flint had promised.

Chapter 14.

Three Hundred Years Of Hate. The Valley Of the Thanes.

Flint had hoped to be able to make his way to the Kalil S"rith, the Valley of the Thanes, quietly and quickly, avoiding fuss, bother and gawking crowds. But the Thanes had not kept quiet. Word had spread throughout the dwarven realms that a Neidar was going to seek the Hammer of Kharas.

Flint, Arman, and their escorts left the city of the Talls and walked into a hostile mob. At the sight of Flint, dwarves shook their fists and shouted insults, yelling at him to go back to his hills or take himself off to other places not so nice. Arman came in for his share of abuse, the dwarves calling him traitor and the old insulting nickname, "Mad Arman."

Flint"s ears burned, and so did his hatred. He was suddenly glad Raistlin had come up with the idea of sneaking the true Hammer out of Thorbardin and leaving the dwarves the false. He would take the Hammer with him and let his loathsome cousins remained sealed up inside their mountain forever.

The mob was so incensed that Flint and Arman might have ended up in the Valley of the Thanes as permanent residents, but Hornfel, receiving word of the near riot, sent his soldiers out in force. The soldiers ordered the crowds to disperse and used their spears and the flats of their swords to enforce their commands. They closed and sealed off the Eighth Road that led to the Valley. This took some time. Arman and Flint had to wait while the soldiers cleared the road of pedestrians and ordered pa.s.sengers out of the wagons. If Flint had been paying attention, he would have noticed a very odd-looking dwarf pushing and shoving his way through the crowd: a dwarf of slender (one might say anemic) build, whose helm wobbled about on his head and whose beard poked out of the helm"s eye slits. Flint was nearly blind with rage, however. He held the hammer in his hand, longing to use it to bash in a few mountain dwarf heads.

Just when the odd-looking dwarf had almost caught up with them, the soldiers announced that the Eighth Road was clear. Arman Kharas and Flint climbed inside the lead wagon. Flint was taking his seat when he thought he heard a familiar voice cry out in shrill tones, "Hey, Flint! Wait for me!"

Flint"s head jerked up. He turned around, but the wagon rattled away before he could see anything.

Ta.s.slehoff fought, pushed, shoved, kicked, and slithered his way through the angry crowds of dwarves. He had just managed to get near enough to Flint to yell at him to wait up, when the wagon carrying his friend gave a lurch and began to roll down the rails. Tas thought he"d failed.

Then Tas remernbered he was on a Mission. His friends were all worried about Flint going off alone. Sturm was even praying over it. They would be sorely disappointed in him-Ta.s.slehoff-if he let a small thing like a regiment of dwarves armed with spears stop him.

Arman and Flint had entered the first wagon in a series of six wagons hooked together; the soldiers in Arman"s escort had been going to accompany him. Arman ordered them to stay behind, however, which left the other five wagons empty.

The wagons were gathering speed. The dwarven soldiers stood arm-in-arm, their feet planted wide apart, forming a human barricade to keep the mob from rushing the mechanism that controlled the wagons. Tas saw an opening. He dropped down on all fours and crawled between the legs of a guard, who was so preoccupied with forcing back the heaving press of bodies that he never noticed the kender.

Tas sprinted down the rail line and caught up with the last wagon. He threw his hoopak inside, then he leapt onto the back of the wagon and clung there as tight as a tick.

After a tense moment when he nearly lost his grip, Tas hoisted one leg up over the side. The rest of him followed, and he tumbled down to join his hoopak at the bottom of the wagon. Ta.s.slehoff lay on his back, admiring the view of pa.s.sing stalact.i.tes on his way to the Valley and thinking how pleased Flint was going to be to see him.

The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Roads led to the Kalil S"rith, the Valley of the Thanes. Each road ended at an entrance known as Guardian Hall, though no dwarves ever stood guard there. There was no need. Reverence and respect were the guardians of the Valley. Dwarves coming to bury their dead were the only ones who ever entered, and they stayed only long enough to pay their homage to the fallen.

It was not like that in the old days, at least so Flint had heard. Before the Cataclysm, the priests of Reorx tended the Valley, keeping all neat and trim. Dwarves came to celebrate family anniversaries with their ancestors. Pilgrims came to visit the resting places of ancient Thanes.

After the clerics departed, the dwarves continued to come to the Valley, but without the clerics to tend to it, the gra.s.s grew long and wild, the tombs fell into disrepair, and soon the dwarves quit coming. Although dwarves revered their ancestors and thought enough of them to include them in their politics and in their daily lives, asking them for guidance or a.s.sistance, the dwarves were now reluctant to disturb the slumbers of the dead. Once a dwarf was laid in tomb or cairn, his family bid farewell and departed, returning to the Valley only when it was time to bury another family member.

The Valley of the Thanes was hallowed ground, blessed centuries ago by Reorx. Once the valley had been a place of quiet and peace. Now it was a place of sorrow. The valley was also a place of sun and wind, cloud and stars, for the valley was the only area in Thorbardin on which the sunlight shone. This was another reason the dwarves rarely went there. They were like babes in the womb, who cry at the light. Living all their lives in the snug darkness beneath the mountain, the dwarves of Thorbardin felt uncomfortable-vulnerable and exposed-when they entered the wind-swept, sun-drenched emptiness of the valley.

The huge bronze doors of the Guardian Hall were marked with the symbol of the Eighth Kingdom-a hammer p.r.o.ne, lying at rest; the warrior"s hand having put it down.

Neither Flint nor Arman spoke during the journey down the Eighth Road. Neither spoke as they walked toward the bronze doors. The noise of the chaotic scene behind them had faded away in the distance. Each was occupied with his own thoughts, hopes, dreams, desires, and fears.

They came to the double doors, and by unspoken, mutual consent, they put their hands to opposite sides-Flint taking the left and Arman Kharas the right. Removing their helms and bowing their heads, they pushed open the great doors of the Kilil S"rith.

Sunlight-bright, brilliant, blinding-struck them full in the face. Arman Kharas squinted his eyes half-shut and held up his hand to blot out the dazzling light. Flint blinked rapidly, then drew in a huge gulp of crisp mountain air and lifted his face to the warmth of the sunshine.

"By Reorx!" Flint breathed. "I did not know how much I missed this! It is like I have come back to life!"

Ironic, he thought, in a valley of death.

Arman shielded his eyes. He could not look into the wide, blue sky.

"For me it is like death," he said grimly. "No walls, no borders, no boundaries, no beginning, and no end. I see the vast expanse of the universe above me, and I am nothing in it, less than nothing, and I do not like that."

It was then Flint truly understood, for the first time, the vast gulf that lay between his people and those beneath the mountain. Long ago, both clans had been comfortable walking in sunlight and in darkness. Now what was life to one was death to the other.

Flint wondered if his people could ever go back to what had once been, as Arman Kharas dreamed. Hearing again the curses, the insults, the words of hate-sharper, harder, and more lethal than missiles-feeling the burning of anger in his own heart, Flint did not consider it likely hammer or no hammer. Though his anger burned, he felt a sorrow at that, as though he"d misplaced something treasured.

The two dwarves stood waiting for their eyes to grow accustomed to the bright light before they proceeded. Neither could see very well, thus neither of them noticed Ta.s.slehoff climb out of the wagon. He had thrown off the bulky helm and removed his smelly and itchy leather vest, and he hurried toward the bronze door intending to take Flint by surprise, for it was always fun to see the old dwarf jump into the air and go red in the face.

Tas ran inside the doors, and the sun hit him smack in the face. The sunlight was bright and completely unexpected. Clapping his hands over his eyes, the kender went reeling backward through the bronze doors. The glare jabbed right into his brain, and all he could see was a huge red splash streaked with blue and decorated with little yellow speckles. When this admittedly entertaining and interesting phenomenon had pa.s.sed, Tas opened his eyes and saw, to his dismay, that the bronze doors had swung shut, leaving him stranded in darkness that was worse than ever.

"I"m going to an awful lot of trouble," Tas grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "I hope Flint appreciates it."

The Valley of the Thanes had been a cavern that had collapsed thousands of years ago, leaving it open to the air. The dead lay in small burial mounds rising up out of the rustling brown gra.s.s, or in large cairns marked by stone doors, or in the instances of very wealthy and powerful dwarves, the dead were entombed inside mausoleums. Each site was marked with a stone in which the family name had been carved at the top, with the names of the individual family members added in rows underneath. Some families had several such stones, for their generations extended back through time. Flint kept an eye out for Neidar names as he went, including his own, Fireforge. Another point of contention between the clans when Duncan sealed up the mountain was that the Neidar who came back to Thorbardin to be buried were now barred from their traditional resting place.

No paths or trails circled the mounds. The feet of mortals rarely walked here. Flint and Arman wended their way among the mounds, their destination visible to them the moment their eyes grew accustomed to the light-Duncan"s Tomb.

The ornate and elaborate structure, more like a small palace than a tomb, floated majestically many hundred feet above a still blue lake in the center of the valley. The lake had been formed by run-off from the mountain snows flowing into the hole left behind when the tomb was wrenched out of the earth.

Flint could not take his eyes from the marvelous sight. He stared at the tomb in awe. He had seen many dwarven-built monuments before, but none to rival this. Weighing tons upon tons, the tomb floated among the clouds as if it were as light as any of them. Towers and turrets made of white marble adorned with flame red tile shone in the sunlight. Stained gla.s.s windows opened onto balconies. Steep stairs led from one level to another, crisscrossing up and down and circling round the edifice.

A deep musical note resonated from the tomb and echoed throughout the valley. The note sounded once, then the music faded away.