"Just a small scratch. A little stiff and nothing more. But what a night! Lucky that any of us got through safely. And this one!"He indicated Slanter, who trailed a step behind. "His escape was nothing short of miraculous! Did he tell you?"

Jair shook his head, and Edain Elessedil promptly informed him of all that had befallen Slanter and Helt during their harrowing walk through the Gnome encampment the previous night. Jair listened with growing astonishment, casting more than one glance back at the Gnome.

Beneath a mask of studied indifference, Slanter was looking a bit embarra.s.sed by all the attention.

"Simplest way out, that's all," Slanter announced gruffly when the effusive Elf had finished his tale. Jair was smart enough not to make anything more out of it.

Their guide took them up a stairway onto the battlement on the northern watch, then led them through a set of double-doors into an atrium filled with plants and trees, flourishing in an obviously transplanted bed of black earth beneath gla.s.s and open sky. Even here, within the high mountains, the Dwarves carried with them something of their home, Jair thought in admiration.

Beyond the gardens. lay a terrace occupied by tables and benches.

"Wait here," the Dwarf ordered and left them.

When he had gone, Jair turned back to Edain. "Why is there no battle being fought this day, Elven Prince? What of the Gnome armies?"

Edain Elessedil shook his head. "No one seems certain what has happened. The locks and dams have been under siege for almost a week. Each day, the Gnomes attack both exposures of the fortress. But today, no attack has come. The Gnomes gather at their siege lines and watch us-nothing more. It appears as if they are waiting for something."

"I don't like the sound of that," Slanter muttered.

"Nor do the Dwarves," Edain said quietly. "Runners have been sent to Culhaven and scouts slip through the underground tunnels to the rear of the Gnome army to keep watch." He hesitated, then glanced at Jair. "Garet Jax is out there, too."

Jair started. "He is? Why? Where has he gone?"

"I don't know," the Elf shook his head slowly. "He said nothing to me. I don't think he's left us. I think he's simply out looking around. He took Helt with him."

"Scouting on his own, then." Slanter frowned. "He would do that."

"Who can say?" The Elf tried a quick smile. "The Weapons Master keeps his own counsel, Slanter."

"Dark reasons and dark purposes drive that one," the Gnome muttered, almost to himself.

They stood in silence then for a few moments, not looking at each other, lost in their private speculations of the actions of Garet Jax. Jair remembered Slanter telling him that it was the Weapons Master who had possession now of the vision crystal and the Silver Dust. That meant that if anything were to happen to Garet Jax, the magic of the King of the Silver River would be lost. And that meant that Jair's only chance of helping Brin would be lost as well.

The sound of the door opening brought them about, and Foraker appeared from out of the fortress. He came quickly to where they stood and greeted each with a handshake.

"Rested, Ohmsford?" he asked gruffly, and Jair nodded. "Good. I've asked that dinner be brought to us here on the terrace, so why don't we find a table and sit?"

He motioned to the table closest to them, and the other three joined him there. The trees and shrubs of the gardens darkened further the gray cast of the late afternoon, so candles were lighted against the gloom. Moments later, a meal of beef, cheese, bread, soup, and ale was brought, and they began to eat. Jair was surprised to discover how hungry he was.When the meal was finished, Foraker pushed back from the table and began fishing through his pockets. "I have something for you." He glanced briefly toward Jair. "Ah-ha, here we are."

He held in his hand the bag of Silver Dust and the vision crystal on its silver chain. He pushed them across the table to the Valeman. "Garet said to give these to you. Said to keep them safe until you woke. He had a message for you, too. He said to tell you that you showed courage last night."

Surprise flashed over the Valeman's face, and he experienced a sudden, intense feeling of pride. He glanced self-consciously at Edain Elessedil and Slanter, then back to the Dwarf.

"Where is he now?" he stammered.

Foraker shrugged. "He's gone with the Borderman to explore a pa.s.sage that will take us out from the fortress behind the Gnome siege lines north. He wants to be certain it's safe before we all go. And we go at nightfall tomorrow. Can't wait any longer on the siege; it may go on for months. We've been shut away too long already for his taste."

"Some of us have been more shut away than others," Slanter grumbled pointedly.

Foraker faced him, brows knitting fiercely. "We have vouched for you, Gnome-all those who came with you from Culhaven. Radhomm, who commands this garrison, feels that our word is enough. But there are some within these walls who feel much differently-some who have lost friends and loved ones to the Gnomes who lay siege without. For them, our a.s.surance may not be enough. You have been kept under guard not as a prisoner, but as a charge. Your safety is of some concern, believe it or not-particularly to Ohmsford here."

"I can look after myself," Slanter muttered darkly. "And I don't need anyone's concern-especially this boy's!"

Foraker stiffened. "That ought to come as good news to him!" he snapped.

Slanter lapsed into silence. He withdraws into himself again, thought Jair; he shields himself from everything happening about him. It is only when he is alone with me that he seems to be willing to come out of that protective sh.e.l.l. It is only then that he seems to recover even a bit of the old Slanter he showed when we first met. The balance of the time he is an outsider, a self-proclaimed loner, unaccepting of his role as a member of our little company.

"Did our message get through?" Edain Elessedil was asking Foraker. "About the destruction of the bridge at the Wedge?"

"It did." The Dwarf removed his dark gaze from Slanter. "Your plan was well conceived, Elven Prince. Had we known better the extent of this siege and the army that mounts it, we might have escaped in the bargain."

"Are we in danger here, then?"

"No, the fortress is secure. Stores are plentiful enough to withstand a siege of months if need be. And no army can bring the whole of its strength to bear with the mountains so close.

Any danger to us will be found outside these walls when we resume our journey north."

At his elbow, Slanter muttered something unintelligible and drained the remainder of his ale. Foraker glanced at the Gnome and his bearded face tightened. "In the meantime, there is something that must be done-and you and I, Gnome, must do it."

Slanter's eyes lifted guardedly. "What is it we must do-Dwarf?"

Foraker's face darkened further, but his voice stayed calm. "There is someone within these walls who claims to know well the castle of the Mord Wraiths-someone who claims to know it better than anyone. If true, that knowledge could be of great use to us.""If true, then you have no further use for me!" Slanter snapped. "What have I to do with this?"

"The knowledge is of use only if it is true," Foraker continued carefully. "The only one who can tell us that is you."

"Me?" The Gnome laughed mirthlessly. "You would trust me to tell you whether or not what you are being told is the truth? Why should you do that? Or do you think to test me? That seems more likely, I think. You would test what I tell you against what another says!"

"Slanter!" Jair admonished the Gnome, a flush of anger and disappointment stealing through him.

"You are the one who mistrusts," Edain Elessedil added firmly.

Slanter started to respond, then thought better of it and went still.

It was Foraker who spoke then, low and pointed. "If I thought to test you, it would not be against this one."

The table was silent. "Who is it?" Slanter asked finally.

The Dwarf s fierce brows knitted. "A Mwellret."

Slanter went rigid. "A Mwellret?" he growled. "A lizard?"

He said it with such loathing that Jair Ohmsford and Edain Elessedil looked at each other in astonishment. Neither had ever seen a Mwellret. Neither had even heard of one until now, and both, having witnessed the Gnome's reaction to the mention of one, wondered if perhaps they would have been better off remaining ignorant.

"One of Radhomm's patrols found him washed up at the edge of the lake a day or two before the siege," Foraker went on, his eyes holding Slanter's. "More dead than alive when they pulled him out. Mumbled something about being driven from the Ravenshorn by the black walkers. Said that he knew ways in which they could be destroyed. The patrol brought him here.

Didn't have time to get him out before the siege." He paused. "Until now, there had been no way to test the truth of what he has to say."

"The truth!" Slanter spit. "There is no truth in the lizards!"

"Revenge against those he feels have wronged him may bring out the truth. We can offer him that revenge-a trade, perhaps. Think carefully. He must know the secrets of the Ravenshorn and Graymark. Those mountains were once his. The castle was his."

"Nothing was ever his!" Slanter came out of his chair with a lunge, stiff with anger. "They took it all, the lizards did! Built their castle on the bones of my people! Made slaves of the Gnome tribes living in the mountains! Used the dark magic like the walkers! Black devils, I would as soon cut my own throat as give them an instant's trust!"

Jair thought to intercede, rising as well. "Slanter, what...?"

"A moment, Ohmsford," Foraker cut him short. The fierce countenance turned again to Slanter. "Gnome, I give the Mwellrets no more trust than you. But if this one can help, then let us take whatever help we find. Our task is difficult enough as it is. And if we find that the Mwellret lies...well, then we know what can be done with him."

Slanter glared down at the table in front of him wordlessly for a moment, then slowly reseated himself. "It is a waste of time. Go without me. Use your own judgment, Foraker."

The Dwarf shrugged. "I thought that this would be preferable to being left under lock and key. I thought you might have had enough of that." He paused, watching the dark eyes of the Gnome snap up to find his own. "Besides, my judgment is useless in determining whether or not the Mwellret speaks the truth. You are the only one who can help us with that."For a moment, no one spoke. Slanter's eyes remained locked on Foraker. "Where is the Mwellret now?" he asked finally.

"In a storage room that serves as his cell," Foraker answered. "He never comes out, even to walk. Doesn't like the air and the light."

"Black devil!" the Gnome muttered in response. Then he sighed. "Very well. You and me."

"These two as well, if they choose." Foraker indicated Jair and Edain.

"I'm coming," Jair announced at once.

"And I," the Elven Prince agreed.

Foraker rose to his feet and nodded. "I'll take you there now."

20.

They went from the terrace gardens down into the bowels of the locks and dams of Capaal. From the gray light of an afternoon rapidly fading into dusk, they descended stairwells and pa.s.sageways that curled deep into stone and timber. Shadows gathered about small pools of hazy light given off by the flames of oil lamps dangling from iron brackets. The air trapped within the ma.s.sive rock of the dam was stale and damp. Through the silence that pervaded the lower levels came the distant rush of waters flowing through the locks and the low grinding of great wheels and levers. Closed doors came and went as the four pa.s.sed deeper, and there was the sense of a beast hidden somewhere within, stirring in response to the sounds of the locks and their machinery, caged and waiting to break free.

They came upon few Dwarves within these levels of the fortress. A forest people who had survived the Great Wars by tunneling within the earth, the Dwarves had long since emerged from their underground prison into the sunlight and in so doing had vowed never again to return. Their abhorrence of dark, closed places was well known among the people of the other races, and it was only with some difficulty that they managed to endure such closures. The locks and dams at Capaal were necessary to their existence, vital in the regulation of the waters of the Silver River as they flowed westward to their homeland, and so the sacrifice was made-but never for long and never more frequently than was required. Brief shifts to monitor the machinery that they had built to serve their purposes were followed by hasty exits back into the world of light and air above.

So it was that the few faces the four companions did come upon as they made their way downward bore a look of stoic endurance that barely masked an abiding distaste for this most unpleasant of duties.

Elb Foraker evidenced a trace of this, though he bore his discomfort well. His fierce, dark face was turned forward into the maze of corridors and stairwells, and his solid frame was erect and purposeful as he took his companions through lamplight and shadow toward the storage room yet further down. As they went, he told Jair and Edain Elessedil the story, of the Mwellrets.

They were a species of Troll, he explained in beginning his tale. The Trolls had survived the Great Wars above the earth, exposed to the terrible effects of the energies those wars had unleashed. Mutated from the men and women they had once been, they had altered in form, their skin and body organs adapting to the frightening conditions the Great Wars had created over almost the whole of the earth's surface. Northland Trolls had survived within the mountains, grown huge and strong, their skin toughened until it had taken on the appearance of rough tree bark. But the Mwellrets were the descendants of men who had sought to survive within forests that the Great Wars had turned to swamp, the waters poisoned, the foliage diseased. a.s.suming the characteristics of creatures for whom swamp survival was most natural, the Mwellrets had taken on the look of reptiles. When Slanter called them lizards, he was describing them in truth as they now appeared-scaled over where skin had once been, arms and legs grown short and clawed, and bodies grown as flexible as snakes.

But there was a greater difference yet between the Mwellrets and the other species of Trolls that occupied the dark corners of the Four Lands. The Mwellrets' climb back up the ladder of civilization had been more rapid, and it had been marked by a strange and frightening ability to shape-change. Survival had made fearful demands upon the Mwellrets, as upon all of the Trolls; in the process of learning the secrets of that survival, they had undergone a physical transformation that enabled them to alter body shape with the pliability of oiled clay. Not soadvanced in their art as to be able to disguise their basic characteristics, they nevertheless could shorten or elongate all of the parts of their bodies and could mold themselves in ways that would allow them to adapt to the demands of any environment in which they found themselves. Little was known as to how the shape-changing was done. It was enough to know that it could be done and to know that the Mwellrets were the only creatures who had mastered it.

Few beyond the borders of the Eastland knew of the Mwellrets, for they were a reclusive and solitary people who seldom ventured beyond the shelter of the deep Anar. No Mwellrets had come forth in the time of the Councils at Paranor. No Mwellrets had fought in the Wars of the Races. Withdrawn into their dark homeland, within forest, swamp, and mountain wilderness, they had kept themselves apart.

Except where the Gnome people were concerned, that was. Sometime after the First Council at Paranor, a time more than a thousand years earlier, the Mwellrets had migrated up from swampland and broken forest into the wooded heights of the Ravenshorn. Leaving the dank and fetid mire of the lowlands to the creatures with whom they had shared those regions since the destruction of the old world, the Mwellrets had drifted into the higher forestlands inhabited by scattered tribes of Gnomes. A superst.i.tious people, the Gnomes had been terrified of these creatures who could change shape and who seemed to command elements of the dark magic that had been brought to life with the advent of the Druids. In time, the Mwellrets began to take advantage of that fear and to a.s.sert their authority over the tribes living within the Ravenshorn.

Mwellrets a.s.sumed the role of chieftains, and the Gnomes were reduced to slaves.

At first, there was resistance to these creatures-these lizards, as they were called-but after a time all resistance ceased. The Gnomes were not strong enough or organized enough to fight back, and a few terrifying examples of what would be done to those who failed to submit made a lasting impression on the others. Under the rule of the Mwellrets, the fortress at Graymark was constructed-a ma.s.sive citadel from which the lizards governed the tribes inhabiting the immediate region. Years pa.s.sed, and the whole of the Ravenshorn fell under the sway of the Mwellrets. Dwarves to the south and Gnome tribes to the north and west stayed out of those mountains, and the Mwellrets in turn showed no inclination to venture beyond their newly adopted home. With the coming of the Warlock Lord in the Second War of the Races, it was rumored that a bargain had been struck in which the lizards offered a number of their Gnome subjects to serve the Dark Lord-but there was never anyone who could prove it for a fact.

Then with the conclusion of the aborted Third War of the Races-the war in which Shea Ohmsford had gone in search of the mystic Sword of Shannara and the Warlock Lord had been destroyed-the Mwellrets had unexpectedly begun to die out. Age and sickness began to deplete their numbers and only a handful of young were born into the world. As their numbers declined, so did their sway over the Gnome tribes in the Ravenshorn. Bit by bit, their small empire crumbled away until at last it was limited to Graymark and the few tribes that still remained within that region of the world.

"And now it seems that these last few, too, have been driven back into the swamps that bred them," Foraker concluded his tale. "Whatever their power, it was no match for that of the walkers. Like the Gnomes they ruled, they would become slaves as well, were they to remain within the mountains."

"Better they had been wiped from the face of the earth!" Slanter interjected bitterly. "They deserve no less!"

"Do they in truth possess the power of the dark magic?" Jair asked.Foraker shrugged. "I've never seen it. The magic is in the shape-changing, I think. Oh, there are stories of the ways in which they affect the elements-wind, air, earth, fire, and water.

Maybe there is some truth to that simply because they have developed an understanding of how the elements react to certain things. But for the most part, it is just superst.i.tion."

Slanter muttered something unintelligible and gave Jair a dark look that suggested he wasn't in complete agreement with the Dwarf.

"You will be safe enough, Ohmsford." Foraker smiled gravely. The dark brows lifted. "If he were foolish enough to use the magic within these walls, he would be dead quicker than you could blink!"

Ahead, the darkened corridor grew suddenly light, and the four approached an intersecting pa.s.sageway and a line of doors stretching down to their right. A pair of sentries stood watch before the closest door. Hard eyes turned to oversee their approach. Foraker spoke a quick word in greeting and ordered that the door be opened. The sentries glanced at each other and shrugged.

"Take a light," the first said, pa.s.sing Foraker an oil lamp. "The lizard keeps it black as pitch in there all the time."

Foraker lighted the lamp from the wick of one hanging beside the door, then glanced over at his companions. "Ready," he told the sentries.

Latch bolts released and a crossbar lifted. With a mournful groan, the ironbound door swung open into total blackness. Foraker started forward wordlessly, the other three a step behind. As the faint circle of the oil lamp penetrated the gloom, the humped and shadowed forms of crates, packing cases, and sack stores came into view. The Dwarf and his companions stopped.

Behind them, the door swung closed with a bang.

Jair glanced about the darkened room apprehensively. A rank and fetid odor permeated the air, a smell that whispered of things dying and fouled. Shadows lay over everything, deep and silent about their little light.

"Stythys?" Foraker spoke the name quietly.

For a long moment, there was no answer. Then from the shadows to their left, from out of a corner of crates and stores, a stirring broke the silence.

"Who iss it?" something hissed.

"Foraker," the Dwarf answered. "I've come to talk. Radhomm sent word to you that I would come."

"Hss!" The voice rasped like chain being dragged over stone. "Sspeak what you would, Dwarf."

Something moved within the shadows-something huge and cloaked like death itself. A shape appeared, vague and shadowy, rising up beside the stores. Jair felt a sudden, overwhelming repulsion for what was there. Keep very still, a voice within him warned. Say nothing!

"Little peopless," the figure murmured coldly. "Dwarf and Elvess and Gnome. Musstn't be frightened, little peopless. Sstep closser."

"Step closer yourself," Foraker snapped impatiently.

"Hss! Don't like the light. Need darknesss!"

Foraker shrugged. "Then we'll both stay where we are."

"Sstay," the other agreed.

Jair glanced quickly at Slanter. The Gnome's rough face was twisted in a mask of hatred and disgust, and he was sweating. He looked as if he might bolt at any moment. Edain Elessedilmust have seen the look, too, for all at once he moved around Jair and Foraker and placed himself almost protectively on the other side of the distraught Gnome.