Book 6: Chapter 41 - The Hall of the Mountain King (RAW)

Where a roof stands between you and the sky, the cup makes peace. Salt closes the teeth of quarrel; water cools the tempering fire. The host who offers a bite or a sip takes the guest into his shadow; until the next dawn, no blade speaks. The guest lays his grudges at the sill and bears himself as kin. To spill blood after bread is to call the house down upon your name, for stones remember. Bread, salt, and roof-beam are witnesses; betray them, and be roofless in every hall.

- an ancient treatise of Guest Right, attributed to Selamis of Quas AC 92.

The hall yawned vast as a battlefield, broad enough to host an army beneath the earth. Gold gleamed on every side, not hammered gaudily but shaped into smooth perfection that only the soft metal was capable of. Columns, hewn with the patience of centuries from the very bones of this place, lifted the roof to an impossible height. And there above, stars burned—not the cold wheeling lights of the night sky, but jewels, cut and set in now familiar constellation, gilded in gold. The Dwarves seemed to have dragged and trapped even the night sky beneath the earth with their craft. The floor of the court beneath was another thing of wonder. Carpeted with pale moss, soft and living, a breath of nature in this deep place that made the hall feel at once strangely welcoming and yet alien.

And there were the Dwarves, the lords of this buried realm. They shone brighter than the treasure around them, a pageant of silks, metals, and jewels, each robe and circlet meant to proclaim wealth and power. Premediated finery. All save one, for I could not see Horothric among their number.

In that, I knew, there was justice. My influence on this world was growing. My words and deeds could move people.

Upon the dais, their king awaited. His throne was no golden bauble but a seat carved from a single block of raw onyx, black as ebon. It drank the light, stark against the blaze of splendor all around, and so his figure seemed all the more severe. White fur mantled his shoulders, snow against the dark. A circlet of Mithril, that fabled metal that had lured a Dragon, bound his brow. His beard, salt and pepper, fell nearly to his waist, each braid threaded with precious stones that winked.

I knew little of Dwarven lore, but Beron’s book had given me some knowledge. This was the Nameless King, for such is the fate of those raised by their Witan. Names are the coin of lesser creatures; a king must give his up, to belong not to himself, but to his people and to the stone that bore them. Or so the Dwarves claim.

I would never give up my name, for it was my glory, the scar I would inflict upon existence.

Beside him, upon a lesser throne that seemed carved from the sea’s white pearl, sat his queen. Like the other Dwarf-women, she was swathed head to heel, a veil fine as smoke hiding all but her eyes. Those were molten gold—two hot gleams set against the deep wine of her raiment. The color suited her, yet silk can bind more surely than a steel chain; they were a mark of an oppressive and backward society.

Flanking the dais stood two sentinels: Runed warriors in armor as black as my own, though, perhaps, even heavier. Pale sigils crawled across their plates, cheating marks of cowards. Each gripped a long-hafted axe, sibling to the one I had taken from their brother, Adamantine-keen edges, murder made into fearsome measure.

I felt a tugging at my arm and thought to slap it away before I looked down. It was my ward, forgotten in all of this. I had barely registered her existence until now.

The golden-haired girl peered up, eyes wide as coins. “There’s more fancy stuff… than even you’ve got,” she breathed, the hall’s glory caught in her voice.

I glanced aside and found Cordelia’s gaze. She smiled, serene as a still mountain pool, unaffected by the raw opulence of this place.

“Do not gawp so. Do not allow them to think that we are the type to be so easily impressed,” I replied, my eyes fixed firmly forward.

Immediately, my ward shut her mouth, eyes, and expression hardening.

The same could not be said for the rest of the Scale that had accompanied us. They looked like country bumpkins that had encountered the wonders of the city for the first time in their lives.

The Dwarves who had escorted us thus far wheeled as one, clockwork precise, and posted along the walls. It was an impressive display of discipline.

“These are the humans from the Guild who answered us,” the king boomed from his onyx seat. “I would bid you welcome, but you have worn that word thin. Thin indeed. I have paid wergild from my own hoard on your account to answer the calamity you have brought.”

He stood up, and I saw that he looked to be almost my size. Tall for a Dwarf, which is to say he was not very tall at all. I had to hold back an urge to cut him down just for the sake of it. He annoyed me.

“The help has come,” he went on, “and they bring one who can bear Core Metal, the Thrumril, like a Runed. I thought that beyond your kind. A strong Orc perhaps… but you? No. Curious.” The Nameless King laughed, showing too many teeth.

A moment later, the queen stood up and whispered in his ear.

His queen leaned close, a whisper behind the veil. He cocked his head to hear it, then barked a humorless chuckle. “Ah. So this is the one who defeated a fated death, a fated judgment. The root of why our welcome runs thin. Bold to bring him beneath my mountain and into my hall, manling.”

I felt my patience being tested, my temper walking the knife’s edge.

“A demonstration of the strength at your command, should you still be minded to pay our price,” Damien said smoothly, bowing as if he’d been born to courts rather than camps.

“Twenty talents of the godmetal,” the Dwarf-king said with all of his regal pomposity. “A fortune for men, is it not? Our coffers are deep, but our tolerance for insult is shallow. A talent deducted, for the lives your man took. Fair, manling?”

“Manling? Call me what you like,” Damien answered, mild as milk. “Reduce our pay, or renege altogether, and you bind yourselves to the Guild’s displeasure. We have come far, and we will not have the bargain shifted like this.”

His fingers moved then, quick as minnows: the language of the flowing. Can you take them?

I caught his eye and nodded.

I caught his eye and gave the smallest of nods. In full kit, with Larynda and Cordelia beside me, it would be work rather than war. The warrior woman’s magical sword, especially, I felt, would be most useful in taking down the twin Rune warriors. The only threat I perceived to be of any notice.

“You bargain dangerously,” the Nameless King said. “But boldly. Very well. You shall take our coin… only when the task is done.”

“Half in advance,” Damien cut in, velvet over steel. “By Guild custom. There are rules to this, milord.”

“It is good that I like you,” the king said, “but do not test me, manling. A quarter now, the rest on completion. Be not afeared. The task is simple enough, even for a stripling. For your kind, all of you, are striplings to us. We would have you descend to the Deep Places—the Everdark, as your people call it. You are to go there and bring us a certain thing.”

The Runed ones, those black behemoths, did not so much as move since we had entered the hall.  And they did not even stir at this testy exchange, these behemoths, these statues cut from a horror night. I knew what lay underneath that dark armor plate… and it would make most squeamish.

“You will retrieve a stone of particular cultural significance to our people. My Chamberlain, Leocad, will furnish you with the particulars,” the Nameless King declared, inclining his head toward a Dwarf cast in his mold, if cut from a lesser bolt of cloth.

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” Damien interjected—only he could make that ironic honorific sound courteous when addressed to a Dwarf. “The Everdark is dangerous, yes, but hardly beyond your soldiery. Dwarves are a stout people and famed for their strength of arms. Why us? Surely you could do it without the expense.”

There was a stifled hush at this.

“We do not speak of it,” the king said at last, “but this is one of the Old Places. It is taboo for a Dwarf to go there. We tried to employ the Gnomes, but they were pitiful. They were incapable. My advisors counseled men, and your Guild’s reputation served you. You keep to your clauses like monks to their prayers. Adventurers we might hire by the score, but they would sooner steal our prize than return it.” A ripple of laughter loosened the hall.

He paced a step, rings chiming. “So, only a quarter of the agreed sum in advance, but ten talents more upon your return with it, or proof that the thing is destroyed. A stronger guarantee, I think, to make sure our wishes are followed. Is that agreeable to you, human?”

The beautiful man’s eyes furrowed, his mind lost in calculation. In my opinion, there was something obviously wrong here.

“I will at least hear the terms,” Damien replied at last, cautious but courteous, his face smoothing by a shade. “And I will accept food and drink beneath your roof, my lord. Such things are the ground for any renegotiation.”

“I have offered nothing of the sort, sellsword,” rumbled the Nameless King.

“You have added a new condition, a new demand,” Damien returned—firm, still civil. But there was an edge to it now. “I ask only for simple courtesies. Surely the Dwarves keep those.”

The Dwarven king’s chest shook. He laughed, and after a heartbeat the court laughed with him—thin, uncertain sounds, their eyes daggers all the while. The Nameless King slapped a meaty thigh. His mouth smiled; his eyes did not.

“My queen will hold the court in my absence,” he said. “You have caught me in a generous mood, manling. Very well. Come. Leocad, attend us. We must furnish these soldiers with the details of their quest, their mission.”

Without another word, he descended from the dais and started down the steps, his fine boots ringing on stone before the moss muffled his steps. “Come, Commander,” he called over his shoulder. “I will grant you meat and ale. You will enjoy guest right. But your fearsome escort stays. The queen and the court will keep them… entertained.”

I had heard enough. He took us for soft clay, to be thumbed and pressed as he liked. He needed reminding whose hand held the harder iron.

“If Damien does not return whole,” I said, my voice gone cold, “every soul in this hall shorter than a child dies.” The words fell and lay there like a snake about to bite. “You will extend him hospitality now, and I will witness it.”

The Runed warriors stirred as one—clanking to a wary attention, armored Adamantine gauntlets gripping long axe-hafts. Color climbed the Nameless King’s cheeks.

“How dare you—”

“Do it,” I said, flat as a blade laid on a throat.

Damien shot me a look—half consternation, half calculation—and his hand drifted toward his sword. Around us, the men tightened, boots rasping on the pale stone.

The air grew thick as cheap soup. Fate seemed to balance on a knife’s edge, and the next breath would decide which way it fell.

The Nameless King gave a sigh, a shake of his head. “Perhaps, I have been remiss,” he admitted, though his voice was forced and filled with ire.

He clicked his bejeweled fingers that were encrusted with rings. “Offer water and a slice of bread.” 

The Dwarf had decided to be a poor host, but Damien inclined his head in acceptance.