The connecting passages to the Zhaban Delving were just ahead when the elder dwarf stopped and looked at his brother seriously.
“Remember, Brandon,” Nailer said solemnly. “We haven’t brought an ingot of gold out of this place yet. We haven’t even filed our claim in the king’s court.”
“Governor’s court, you mean,” Brandon corrected. “The only true dwarf king dwells in Thorbardin.”
Nailer chuckled grimly. “Well, that’s what tradition says. But if Regar Smashfingers wants to call himself the King of Kayolin, I suggest you don’t argue the point with him while we’re trying to establish our claim.”
“Right,” the younger dwarf agreed. “But between you and me, he’s claimed more than his due.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Nailer declared. “But you must be discreet with such opinions.”
“By Reorx, Nail!” Brandon protested. “This is the best thing that’s happened to our clan since… well, since before the Cataclysm! We’ve just changed a run of bad luck that’s lasted four hundred years! I have a right to be excited.”
“Sure you do. I am too, whether you want to believe that or not. I keep picturing father’s face when I tell him we’ve discovered enough wealth to get the Bluestones a seat on the Kayolin council again. Just between you and me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to make that old dwarf proud.”
Brandon felt a flush of shame. He’d been thinking about dazzling the dwarf maids by wearing jeweled rings, ornate platinum breastplates, and exotic feathered plumes on his steel helmet. He had already mapped out the floor plan of the new house he was going to commission, a dwelling that would be excavated from the virgin bedrock of the Garnet range. The parties he would host! The cream of Kayolin society would rub elbows with him!
But Nailer was right. Their discovery, a new delving of tremendous prospective value, meant much more than mere trivial wealth. It would provide for the restoration of one of the great clans of Kayolin’s history. The Bluestones had produced great miners, generals, even a governor, in the long centuries before the Cataclysm. The dwarf nation in the Garnet range had been mostly immune to that violent act of cosmic revenge, but when the gods hurled the mountain down upon Krynn, there had been several cave-ins and collapses in Kayolin. The most destructive of those had destroyed the Bluestone Delving, and in that instant the clan had been reduced to a minor player in the nation’s power and politics.
For more than four hundred years, the Bluestones had struggled along, managing small mines, branching into trade and manufacturing, but never attaining a status that gave them a regular presence at court. Always they were plagued by ill fortune: a mine tapped into a submountain aquifer, drowning the workers and submerging a small treasure in silver ore; a marriage that had produced two impotent offspring, narrowing the line to Brandon’s father’s and one distant cousin’s families. One enterprising great uncle had thought to display a captured ogre for the edification of Garnet Thax’s citizenry and had been unlucky enough to use cast-iron brackets, rather than steel, to contain the beast. Although the only fatal casualty of the incident had been the uncle himself, it had been a spectacularly public example of House Bluestone’s ill-starred history.
Other newcomers, epitomized by the wealthy and ruthless Heelspur clan, had long eclipsed the Bluestones. A small smelting venture had practically bankrupted Brandon’s father, Garren Bluestone, when the Heelspurs had erected a larger and more modern factory on the same level of the undercity. With the claim that Brandon and Nailer Bluestone intended to file in the governor’s court, that long decline would be reversed.
“Do you think the new mine might be as rich as the Third Delve?” asked the younger brother, remembering the tales of the mine that had brought the Bluestone family its first epoch of glory, some seven hundred years earlier. Indeed, it had been a bedrock strata of sapphire-infused rock that had caused their ancestors to adopt Bluestone as the family name.
“How in Reorx’s name should I know?’ Nailer snapped. But then he paused to consider the question and shrugged. “Maybe. It just might be, you know!”
“Yes, I know!” Brandon exulted. “Just imagine it! We could start a whole new house!”
“And what’s wrong with the House of Bluestone?” demanded the elder, glowering.
“Well, nothing.” Brandon cheerfully waved away his brother’s concern. “I mean, I’m just talking. I don’t want to start a new house, anyway. Especially if this means that our luck is changing. But if we were that rich, we could!”
“And if I had wings, I could fly to the Lords of Doom,” Nailer retorted. “That doesn’t mean I would.”
“I would!” Brandon replied delightedly. “I mean, don’t you want to try some new things, go new places? Maybe places dwarves have never gone before?”
“My home under the mountain is all the place I’ll ever need. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come to the same conclusion. You remember old Balric Bluestone, don’t you? How he just had to climb that mountain?”
“Sure I do.” It was a story that every scion of the Bluestone family learned as a lesson in youth. “And I always loved his sense of adventure. I mean, not too many dwarves set out to climb any mountains, much less Garnet Peak.”
“And he was the only one who happened to be doing it when the Cataclysm struck!” Nailer reminded his brother. “They never even found his body. Just his axe, the one you’re carrying right now. Now come on. Let’s get out of here. We’ve got a lot of work to do before this gets settled.”
“Should we go see father first when we get back to Garnet Thax?” Brandon wondered. Indeed, once he thought about it, winning approval from crusty old Garren Bluestone would bring him a flush of pleasure deeper, more significant, than any that could be aroused by the building of new houses or collection of gem-studded jewelry.
“I’d like to,” Nailer replied. “But I really think we should go right to court. Once the claim is recorded, there’ll be plenty of time for celebration.”
“Right,” Brandon agreed. “Let’s go to the palace first.”
Another ten minutes of climbing brought them to a narrow passage almost blocked by tumbled rocks. The gap forced them into single file, Nailer leading the way as he used his hands to pull himself up. At the top the passage became almost a chimney. “Here, take the lamp and hold it up for me,” the elder dwarf requested.
“Sure.” Brandon held the flickering lantern high, watching as his brother wedged himself into the chimney. After a few moments, the sturdy dwarf braced his hobnailed boots against the stone walls and started pushing himself up and through the crack connecting to the massive Zhaban Delving.
Above them sprawled an ancient network of mines that had produced silver, lead, and some gold for the wealthy Heelspur clan over the past six hundred years. Their access point was in a shaft that had been long abandoned-and, in fact, was vigorously avoided by sensible dwarves since there had been many unexplained and fatal encounters there over the years. The cave troll, the brothers knew, had been the reason behind the “hauntings,” and they were rightfully proud of the courage that had led them to challenge the beast and earn the spoils of their hard-fought victory.
At the top of the chimney, Nailer turned and reached a hand down. Brandon passed him the lantern, which he set on the floor at the edge of the gap, then reached down again to help Brandon up the last stretch. With a last kick and a pull from his brother’s strong arm, the second dwarf rose up from the gap and set his boots, once again, on a stone floor that was plotted and mapped in the official surveys of Kayolin.
For a moment the two dwarves stood, breathing heavily, resting for the long walk back to Garnet Thax, Kayolin’s great capital city.