Flint dug into a pocket and drew out the sum total of his winter's wages from Solace: one gold coin. "Well, if I starve here, it doesn't matter if I'm broke or not," he reasoned, and tossed the coin into the honeylike fluid.
The liquid lit up as though a lamp burned deep within it, within the woody flesh of the oak. "Reorx!" Flint muttered, and grabbed Fleetfoot's mane for support. The sweaty animal nuzzled him again, as if to encourage him. "Oh, all right," he snapped, then continued more thoughtfully. "Maybe I should've tossed the coin into the flower; the lily seemed to be doing the speaking." He touched one golden petal and…
… Warmth suddenly flooded the dwarf's body, and, turning to the mule-whom Flint now realized he had never appreciated for the dear, devoted creature that she was-he saw a similar warm glow glisten in Fleetfoot's limpid eyes. Flint would later swear that the music of a hundred lutes filled the cavern at that moment. The room faded around them. Flint saw the mule's heavy eyelids begin to close, and he let his own drift shut as well.
Suddenly the room grew noisy, and Flint felt stone, not wood, beneath his feet. His eyes flew open.
He stood, daubed in mud, pine needles, and mule sweat, embracing the odoriferous Fleetfoot. Around him, and slightly below, stood the open-mouthed figures of Tanis, Miral, and several elven courtiers. Flint gazed around him.
He was on the rostrum of the Tower of the Sun. With Solostaran, Speaker of the Sun. And a mule.
Fleetfoot opened her mouth and brayed. Flint took that as a suggestion to speak.
"Well," he said. "I'm back."
Chapter 8
In a guest room at the palace, the dwarf lay floating in a huge bath mounded with blossom-scented bubbles, happily digesting the huge meal the Speaker had ordered prepared for him-wild turkey basted with apricot sauce, and robust Solace ale from Flint's own saddlepack. All but one of the flasks had leaked; the rough ride certainly had not improved the last container of ale, but the beverage was drinkable, at least by Flint's standards.
Off in the palace stable, the dwarf knew, Fleetfoot also was being treated to a fine feed. The animal, apparently still awash in warm feelings from being teleported with Flint, had initially refused to be separated from the dwarf. As Flint told his tale to Solostaran and the rest of the court-and heard Xenoth explain that other elves had spotted a rare, magic-wielding tylor west of the ravine during the past few weeks-the gray mule followed the dwarf around the Tower of the Sun, nuzzling him with a fond muzzle, resting her hairy chin on his shoulder, and aiming a deadly kick at anyone who came too close. She finally consented to leave the dwarf after he led her to the stable himself, fed her a carrot and half a peach, and introduced her to the stablehand who would wash her and give her a proper feeding.
Flint had paused in his tale only when the Speaker ordered a troop of Tower guardians out to hunt for the tylor. The search was made more difficult because the dwarf was uncertain exactly where he'd been attacked. He knew only that it was along a trail several miles from Qualinost, and the pell-mell pace through the underbrush had left him utterly confused as to where he'd encountered the oak tree.
The Speaker, worried about leaving Flint unattended so soon after such a potentially devastating attack, insisted that Flint rest for a few hours at the palace, attended by Miral, who, if need be, might be able to assist the dwarf. Flint protested, professing himself as hale as a dwarf half his years, but Solostaran proved astonishingly stubborn.
Now, as Miral lounged on a bench near the bath, Flint soaked in the bath water, holding his thick salt-and-pepper beard underwater and watching little bubbles escape through it to the surface. He wondered if he could equip his regular quarters at his shop with such a wondrous invention. Dwarves normally hated water-cold, running water, that is, inhabited with fish and frogs and worse, and deep and dangerous enough to gather the unwary dwarf to Reorx's smithy-but this was something else entirely.
"You encountered a sla-mori," Miral explained to Flint.
"Oh, no, I don't believe so," Flint rejoined distractedly. "Lord Xenoth said that lizard was a tylor. Unless tylors and sla-mori are related?" He raised his brows in question.
The mage wiped a patina of sweat from his face and pushed his carmine hood back. His pale face appeared gaunt; circles smudged the skin below his eyes. Yet he spoke patiently. "Sla-mori, in the old tongue, means 'secret way,' or 'secret passage,' " he explained. "Myth says there are many of them in Qualinesti, but they are nearly impossible to find. The oak tree was the entrance to one, apparently."
He had Flint's attention now. "Where do these… these 'sla-mori'… lead?" the dwarf asked.
"To important places, obviously," Miral said matter-of-factly. "After all, you ended up on the rostrum in the Tower of the Sun." He paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts, and his normally hoarse voice sounded raspier. "Some elves even say the Graystone could be found in a sla-mori somewhere in Qualinesti. But the most famous sla-mori is said to lead into Pax Tharkas," he said, naming the famous fortress in the mountains south of Qualinesti. "Some believe that the body of Kith-Kanan lies in the Pax Tharkas sla-mori."
"There's more than one sla-mori, then?" Flint asked, sinking back in the perfumed water until his hair floated and spread around his face like a corona. He gazed at the roseate ceiling high above him and sighed.
Miral waited for the dwarf to surface. "There have been tales from the oldest elves that the area around Qualinost is host to several sla-mori, their entrances well hidden and accessible only to the elf – or dwarf, I see now – graced with the proper power to open them." The mage broke off his account. "What's wrong?" Miral asked.
The dwarf had sat up and was gazing about the luxurious room with a worried expression.
"I'm looking for the bucket," Flint said.
"The bucket?" Miral asked. Suddenly, the mage laughed. "No, we don't empty the water with buckets." He stood and walked to the foot end of the tub.
"Magic, then? You know how I feel about magic," Flint said, worry creasing his face again. "Is this bath magical?" Such a creation would almost have to be aided by magic, he said, suddenly sad. Hill dwarves distrusted magic.
Miral just shook his head. "I forgot that you had not been here since we had these contrivances installed. They were designed by gnomes."
"Gnomes?" the dwarf demanded incredulously. "Reorx!" Nothing gnomes made ever worked right. In fact, he was probably lucky to be alive. Ignoring the mage's chortle, Flint vaulted over the edge of the tub and burrowed into the thick yellow towel that a servant had left on a stone slab.
Shaking his head and smiling, the mage pushed the sleeve of his heavy woolen robe up to his elbows. He plunged his arm into the bath water, fished around a bit, and yanked. With a damp belch, the water level began falling. Miral held up a cork with a chain attached.
"The water drains into the floor," Miral explained.
Flint looked dubious. "With all respect, that doesn't seem very practical," he ventured. "Hard on the building foundation. It's not surprising, coming from gnomes, I guess. But I confess I'd expected a bit more from elves."
Miral rolled his sleeve down again and handed the dwarf a freshly laundered white shirt. "We redesigned it. The gnomes originally had the drain-the hole this cork fits into-at the upper edge," the robed elf said. "It took forever to drain. You had to wait for the water to evaporate."