“Do his ministers not know, then?” Nellus questioned.
“Well, yes,” Thrang admitted. “They had to agree to the terms of our contract, after all. I daresay they will keep quiet, though. They won’t want anyone to know how generous Thorgood has been to us. It might make people think Thorgood has lost his bargaining edge.”
“Is it not the sign of a great king to be generous?” Barnabus asked.
“Men see it that way, as do elves,” said Arconn. “Dwarfs are not stingy, but they are more careful with their wealth. To be overgenerous might be seen as a sign of weakness in the king.”
“Thorgood is not weak,” said Thrang, staring into the fire. “He knows our quest will be a hard one. Possibly dangerous. He is willing to pay a fair price for what he has asked us to do.”
“Dangerous?” said Kat. “You’ve said nothing about known dangers.”
“Simply the normal dangers that accompany any adventure,” said Thrang, his eyes still fixed on the flames. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Still, the king must suspect something,” Kat went on.
“Albrek did not return from his travels,” said Thrang, speaking more to himself than to Kat. “The only members of his company to return came from the Isle of Bones, and they went back there after a short visit to Benorg. Where Albrek went and what he did after that is unknown. Something must have happened to him to keep him from returning or sending word, but who can say what.”
“The book in the library seemed to say more than simply where Albrek was going,” Alex said, thinking back over what he had read.
“Yes,” said Thrang, shaking himself from his thoughts. “The tale said that fifty of Albrek’s people returned to Benorg, bringing a fair amount of wealth with them. Those fifty reported to the king and then returned to the Isle of Bones with two hundred others dwarfs.”
“So Albrek had seven hundred dwarfs with him,” said Nellus.
“The dwarfs said that Albrek had planned to leave between one hundred and two hundred dwarfs on the island to work the mines he had found there,” Thrang said. “Once the fifty had returned to him and everything was in order, he was going to lead the rest of the group to the Lost Mountains and continue searching there.”
“And no one ever returned from the Isle of Bones again, or from the Lost Mountains?” Kat questioned.
“Nothing more was ever heard from them,” said Thrang, sinking once more into his own thoughts. “However, it’s not unusual for new settlements to remain isolated for long periods of time. If the dwarfs on the island chose their own king, the new leader would not want the king of Benorg making a claim on his new realm.”
“Is that likely?” Barnabus asked.
“If Albrek was still there, no,” answered Thrang. “But if Albrek had already gone south, who can say?”
“Well, we won’t know what happened until we get there,” said Arconn, stretching out on his blankets.
“And we won’t get there if we don’t get some sleep,” added Thrang.
Alex’s companions rolled themselves in blankets and went to sleep, but Alex sat by the fire, keeping watch and thinking about Thrang’s words. Closing his eyes, he pictured the writing in the old leather book from the library. The runes had sounded hopeful, even happy. There was nothing in the story—or at least in the part of the story he had seen—that would make him think there had been any problems at all. There was a chance, however, if the dwarfs had found some wealthy mines, that some of Albrek’s followers might have become greedy.
All of the dwarfs Alex knew were both kind and generous, but he had to admit that he didn’t know that many dwarfs—even though this was his third adventure. He suspected that some dwarfs, just like some men, could be corrupted by wealth and dreams of power. If that had happened on the Isle of Bones, there was no telling what they might find when they reached it. A new dwarf realm might be waiting for them, or the ruins of a dream gone badly wrong.
That night, after he had finished his watch, Alex dreamed about the Isle of Bones. He could see the beginnings of a beautiful dwarf city made of stone. The city faced south, and the sun warmed its stone houses all day long. In his dream, Alex wandered the newly made streets and entered the huge stone caverns in the mountains close to the city. It was a wonderful place, but nobody was there. The caves and mines of the city were empty, and he could see no sign that anyone had lived there for hundreds of years.
When Alex woke the next morning, his dream was already fading. He lost the dream completely as he rolled out of his blankets and found that it was starting to rain. Barnabus was at the fire, cooking their breakfast and looking unhappily at the cloudy sky.
“Unusual,” Thrang said as they ate. “It doesn’t often rain this time of year, but when it does, it doesn’t last.”
“Perhaps our wizard friend can push this little storm away,” Kat joked.
“A clear day here might mean a flood somewhere else,” said Alex. “And a little rain never hurt anyone.”
As the day went on, however, Alex began to doubt the wisdom in his own words. The rain grew steadily worse as they traveled and showed no sign of quitting. By midday, they were all soaked to the skin, and Alex had to start their cooking fire because neither Thrain nor Thrang could coax anything more than smoke from their pile of wet branches.
“A little rain never hurt anyone,” Arconn joked. Of the entire group, he seemed the least bothered by the rain.
“Oh, shut up,” said Alex.
They ate quickly and resumed their journey, moving slowly across the muddy grasslands.
Thrain muttered something about the weather, and Nellus and Barnabus teased him about adventures not being all sunny days and dragon hoards.
When they stopped for the night, the rain finally started to let up. They set up their tents and took care of the horses. Everyone changed into dry clothes and felt their spirits lift once more. Barnabus cooked their evening meal, and while they ate, Thrang told a story about one of his early adventures where he had experienced some remarkably bad weather.
“Rained for thirty days and nights, did it?” Nellus joked.
“I’ll bet crossing the road was more like fording a river,” Barnabus added.
“Laugh if you will,” said Thrang, brushing aside their jokes. “I’ll tell you this, though, it took me six weeks to get all my gear dry after that adventure, and that’s a fact.”
“You should have taken your gear out of your bag,” said Kat with a smile.
“Or at least dumped out the water,” Alex added.
“Maybe I should have added a swimming pool to my bag and saved myself the trouble,” said Thrang with a laugh of his own.
It was a merry night, and they were all happy to see the moon rising over the open grassland. Alex spent his watch looking at the sky and not really thinking about anything. The clouds were drifting to the west and south, and before his watch was over, there were more stars than clouds in the sky. As he went to his tent, he took one more look at the sky. The clouds seemed to be shifting again, and he feared they might have more rain the next day.
Chapter Six
The Lost Fiddler
Alex’s premonition that more rain was coming proved correct, as a light mist was falling when he woke. The clouds were not as dark as they had been the day before, so he hoped that the rain would not last. Thrang looked at the sky and grumbled to himself about it being strange weather for that time of year.
“Perhaps we will have rain for thirty days and nights,” Barnabus joked as he cooked their breakfast over the fire.
“Oh, I hope not,” said Thrain, glancing at the clouds, worried.
“It will clear off,” said Thrang, as he rubbed his chin and looked at the sky. “Storms don’t last long this time of year, and a few days of rain won’t ruin our adventure.”
“I imagine we’ll experience worse things than rain before this adventure is over,” Alex said, stamping his boots. “And if rain is the worst thing we meet, then I say thirty days of it would not be so bad.”