"Hmm! Red Zagraban cherry?" said the master craftsman, turning the wooden case over in his immense hands, and then he slowly opened it.
Inside there was a small black velvet bag tied with a golden thread. The dwarf snorted in annoyance. These elves loved all sorts of frills and flourishes. They couldn't just give you something, they had to bundle it up in a hundred wrappings, and then you had to unwrap them!
But Frahel's annoyance evaporated without a trace when he saw what he had been given.
A large, long, dirty-white stone of irregular form. At first glance it was nothing special-there were plenty of cobbles like that to be found on the bank of any river. But that was only at first glance. If it was worked with skill, this stone would become a genuine treasure: a bright gem that would glitter in the light, sparkling with all the colors in creation. This was the magical child of the mountains, the rarest of stones, which the earth only surrendered to alien hands with the greatest reluctance.
"A dragon's tear! And such a huge one!" The old dwarf's face glowed with rapturous delight. "But where did you get it from? The last time we found this mineral was more than two hundred years ago!"
"This stone has belonged to my house for more than a thousand years," the elf replied. "In those days dragon's tears were found far more often than now. The House of the Black Flame bought it in your mountains."
"The dwarves would never have sold such a treasure!" Frahel protested indignantly.
"The gnomes sold it to us," the elf admitted.
"Those bearded midgets!" Coming from a dwarf who was only slightly taller than a gnome, these words were, to say the least, amusing.
"It will take a great deal of time," the dwarf said, tapping his fingers on his workbench. "You know what I mean, working the material. Magic. It will take me two months to make the first designs."
"The key must be ready in a week," Elodssa replied sternly.
"Do you want me to work day and night?" Frahel asked indignantly.
"Why not, if we pay you well for it?"
"How well?" the dwarf asked, screwing up his eyes.
"Name your price."
Frahel thought for a moment and named it.
"I agree to a quarter of the sum named."
"This is a serious conversation," the dwarf snapped.
"Plus you can have all the material that remains after working."
"You offer me leftovers?" Frahel exclaimed furiously.
But this was only for form's sake. The cunning craftsman knew perfectly well that even the small scraps of the mineral which were certain to be left over would be beyond price.
"All right," he said, chewing on his lips with a discontented air. "Have it your way, Tresh Elf. I'll start work immediately."
"Then I will not dare to distract you any longer," the elf said with a bow.
The dwarf waved casually in farewell to Elodssa. In his mind he was already at work.
The elf hated these cursed underground halls and corridors with all his heart. The stubborn bearded gnomes who built these rocky tunnels had not been concerned about the fact that elves were a lot taller than their own stunted race. And so, for most of the way to the chambers that the dwarves had allocated to the prince of the House of the Black Flame, Elodssa had to walk hunched over, almost doubled over in fact, to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling. The entire maze was enough to depress and dismay anyone who had been born under the green crowns of oaks and not in the bowels of the earth.
One wrong turn at a crossroads, one heedless moment, and you could say farewell to life. You would find yourself in some old workings long-ago forgotten even by the gnomes who had created them, and you would never see the blue sky and your native forests again. Perhaps your remains might be found a year or two later, when some drunken gnome or dwarf stuck his nose into the wrong corridor. And the worst thing was that the populated parts were right there beside you: Take just one step, turn the right corner-and you would be saved.
The elf shuddered. To him a death like that, seasoned with a large dose of despair, seemed the most terrible death possible.
Elodssa and his guide walked on for an interminably long time. The elf had long ago lost his bearings in the capricious bends of the corridors that must have been carved out by gnomes whose brains were befuddled with charm-weed. Only once did they meet a group of bearded miners. With glowworm lamps attached to their helmets, clutching work-mattocks and other tools in their hands, the gnomes were bawling out a simple song at the tops of their voices as they walked down toward the very heart of the earth.
"Why are there so few people here?" Elodssa asked his guide.
"Who would agree to live here?" the dwarf asked, surprised at the question. "This is the fifty-second gallery. It's an eight-hour walk up to the surface! Everyone lives higher up. Only our master craftsmen, like the venerable Frahel, require seclusion for their work. To avoid being disturbed by anyone, or accidentally affecting them with their magic. And then sometimes the gnomes walk through on the way to their workings. But in general this area is deserted. If you get lost, you're really in trouble. We're here, my lord elf."
They stopped in front of a lift. There was night below it and night above it. The travelers had to go up more than nine hundred yards through the round tunnel. Of course, they could make the ascent on the steep stone staircase that threaded through the body of the mountains in a dizzying spiral, but that would have required too much time and effort. So they would have to trust their lives to the precarious swaying platform.
There was a drum on the lift, and the dwarf struck it three times. The sound went soaring upward, and after a while Elodssa made out a quiet reply, muffled by distance.
"Off we go!" the dwarf said with a smile, taking hold of the railing.
For just a moment the lift lurched downward, taking his heart with it. But almost immediately it began slowly, but surely, creeping upward.
"Here we are, then," his guide said good-naturedly, getting off the platform. "The twenty-eighth gallery, if you count all the way from the top. Will you find the way on your own, sir elf?"
"I don't think so."
"It's all very simple. From here you go straight along the main corridor, through the hall with the emerald stalactites, and then count the branch corridors. The sixth on the right is yours. Then after every second crossing turn left three times, and you'll find yourself in the sector where we accommodate our guests. Don't be afraid, it's almost impossible to get lost here. If anything happens, ask one of our people the way. But not the gnomes-just recently those bearded clowns have completely forgotten how to use their heads. All they can do is cut new galleries!"
After that the dwarf climbed back onto the lift, struck the drum, and set off downward.
The elf went in search of his room, not intending for a moment to actually stay in this accursed catacombs. He wanted to collect his things and go up to the first gallery, closer to the sky and the sun. If he loitered down here for a whole week while Frahel was making the key, he could go insane. It would be better to come back at precisely the right time, collect the artifact, and never, ever again come anywhere near the mountains.
As Elodssa walked along he looked around. Unlike the lower galleries, there were plenty of sights worth looking at here. The handiwork of the gnomes and dwarves could only be rivaled by the works of the elves and the orcs in Hrad Spein. Although, in the Palaces of Bone Elodssa did not feel like a rat buried alive deep below the ground. But still, he had to give the underground builders their due-everything, absolutely everything, from the finest details to the octagonal columns soaring up toward the ceiling, was beautiful.
When he entered the amazingly large hall with the emerald stalactites, he froze in admiration. From a small window somewhere up in the ceiling a ray of sunlight that had somehow made its way down to this depth sliced through the deliberately created twilight to fall on the green stalactites. Its gentle caress set the green stones glittering as if they were sprinkled with fine diamond dust. And in the center of this display there was an image of a dwarf and a gnome.
"They are the great Grahel and Chigzan-the first dwarf and the first gnome. Brothers," said a voice behind Elodssa's back.
The elf looked round and saw the elfess who had spoken to him standing beside one of the green columns.
"They say that the gnomes were the first to discover this image, when someone decided to provide light for the stalactites. So you can tell your people that you have seen one of the great relics of the underground kingdom."
"Midla," said Elodssa, bowing ceremonially and trying to conceal his amazement.
"Tresh Elodssa," she said, bowing no less ceremonially, holding the bow without moving for several seconds, as etiquette required when an elf met a member of the royal family of a house.
"I am most surprised to see you here," said Elodssa.
"Pleasantly so, I trust?" the elfess asked with a smile.
Her hair was not cut in the manner of the dark elves, who normally preferred tall hairstyles or thick braids. It fell onto her forehead in an ash-gray fringe, and was cropped short on the back of her head and the temples. She was dressed in the dark green costume of a scout, and hanging at her back, instead of a s'kash, she had two short, curved swords with jade handles like the one on Elodssa's sword. He himself had given her the pair of swords at a time when life had seemed simpler. How young they had been then!
"That depends on what you are doing here," Elodssa replied as distantly as possible.
"What could a scout from the House of the Black Flame possibly be doing here but protecting the crown prince?" she asked with a crooked smile. The crown prince. Those cursed words had come between them two years earlier, shattering their happiness forever. "The head of the house has ordered me to be your shadow."
"That cannot be! My father would never have sent you."
"Have I ever lied to you? Unlike you, I have no right to do so." She, too, could not forget what had happened.
"I did not deceive you," Elodssa blurted out. "What happened between us was not a lie!"
"Of course not." Another bitter smile. "It was all the fault of your father and stupid prejudice."
"I cannot contravene the law, and you know it! It is not my fault that we cannot be together. The son of the head of a house cannot commit his life to ..."
"Carry on, Elodssa," she said in a gentle voice when the prince broke off. "To whom? To one who brandishes swords? To one who wanders round Zagraba in search of units of orcs who have invaded the territory of our house? To one who teaches young elves to hold the s'kash or fire a bow? Or simply to one who has no noble blood flowing in her veins?"
"This conversation will come to nothing, like all those that have preceded it."
"You are right," Midla agreed sadly.
"You may go back to my father and tell him that all is well with me."
"Do I look like a messenger?" There was a glint of poorly concealed fury in the yellow, almond-shaped eyes.
He knew that expression well. When they were still seeing each other, he had seen similar rage in her eyes a few times. But now, for the first time, it was directed at him.
"I have enough guards," Elodssa snapped.
"Your guards are up there," said Midla, jabbing one finger toward the ceiling. "A league above us. Long before they could get down here, the heir of the House of the Black Flame would be lying dead and still."
"Who is going to attack me here? The dwarves and the gnomes?"
"I am carrying out the orders of the head of the house," she said with an indifferent shrug.
"And I order you to go back to Zagraba!" Elodssa declared furiously.
"You do not yet have your father's authority," she said with a triumphant smile.
The elf gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, then turned and walked away, cursing Midla's obstinacy.
The young elfess watched Elodssa go, trying to hold back her tears. Her eyes were clouded with pain.
That week dragged on forever.
Elodssa changed his mind about going higher up. Midla would only follow him, and the elf did not want anyone talking about him behind his back. Everyone still remembered how close they had been and how Elodssa's father had forbidden the marriage. And so the heir of the House of the Black Flame spent most of the time sitting in the accommodation allocated to him by the dwarves, only occasionally strolling through the nearby halls, admiring the beauty and magnificence of these subterranean places. At such moments he was accompanied by the silent Midla. Somehow or other she always knew that he had left his room, and immediately appeared beside him.
They both behaved with emphatically cool politeness. And they both felt awkward. Every stroll concluded with Elodssa losing his temper, mostly with himself, and returning to his quarters alone. And so the elf was relieved when the deadline he had set for the dwarf craftsman finally arrived.
This time he was lucky and managed to get away without disturbing Midla, although her room was opposite his own. But that was most probably because the elf had deliberately not warned his dwarf guide that he was planning to visit Frahel: Elodssa suspected that Midla knew about his strolls from this little informer.
He found his way to the lift with no difficulty, and there he came across several gnomes in armor, holding battle-mattocks. The bearded little folk were arguing heatedly about something.
"Good day, respected sirs," Elodssa greeted them.
"What's so good about it," grumbled one of the gnomes. "You've heard what's going on, I suppose?"
"Unfortunately not."
"All the sentries at the hundred and fifteenth gate near Zagorie have been killed. Eight dwarves and the same number of gnomes have lost their lives."
"Do you know who has done this?"
"No." The gnomes' faces were all darker than a storm cloud. "But there is a chance that the killers could have made their way into the kingdom."
"Maybe that's so, of course, but what in the name of a soused turnip are we hanging about here for?" a mattock-man in heavy armor asked angrily. "That's a hundred and fifteen leagues away from here. No mortal being who doesn't happen to be a gnome or a dwarf will ever get that far on his own! He'll lose his way in the galleries!"
"Never mind, we've been posted here, so this is where we'll stand," the first gnome said calmly. "Where do you want to go?"
The question was addressed to Elodssa.
"To see Master Frahel."
"The fifty-second gallery, isn't it? Right, get onto the lift. Do you know the way?"
"Not very well."
"Turn left at every second crossing and do that five times. Then straight on for six crossings and take the third corridor to the left. Will you find it?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Hey!" the gnome shouted upward. "Take the honorable gentleman to the fifty-second!"
"Right!" a voice called back down.
The lift shuddered and started downward.
Frahel heaved a sigh of relief and sat back in his chair. He had managed to do the impossible. This work was the finest thing he had ever created in all his long life.
The effort had completely absorbed the master craftsman, the challenge to his skill had required his absolute commitment-and now there was the key made out of the dragon's tear, lying on the black velvet. The slim, elegant object already contained immense power, and after the dark elves endowed it with their magic, it would become a truly mighty artifact.