“Shouldn’t we go with him?” Rikus asked.
“Not if you value your life,” answered Caelum. “My father is quite touchy about taking care of himself.”
They waited for what seemed an eternity before Lyanius stepped silently out of the shadows. “There’s nothing there,” he said irritably. “Probably just a wrab.”
“Wrab?” asked Neeva.
“A tiny, flying serpent,” explained Caelum.
“Filthy blood drinkers,” added Lyanius, stepping through the door he had opened earlier. “Normally, they’re as quiet as death, but every now and then they bump into something.”
Frowning, Rikus peered back down the corridor. When he saw nothing to contradict what the old dwarf had said, he followed the others into a small room. It was lit by a flaxen glow of ambient light that issued from no apparent source, yet filled the chamber like a haze. In the center of the room, an open book hovered in midair, as though it were resting on a table that Rikus could not see.
“I wanted you to know that when you saved Kled, you saved more than a village,” said Lyanius, motioning at the book proudly.
Its binding was of gold-trimmed leather, and the long columns of angular characters on its parchment pages glowed with a green light of their own. In the margins, brightly painted pictures of horned beasts moved before Rikus’s eyes, grazing or leaping as though they still roamed the glens in which the artist had first seen them.
Despite the magical pictures in the book, Rikus was more interested in what he could not see. Passing his hand first under, then over the tome, he asked, “What holds it up?”
“What holds it up?” snapped Lyanius. “I show you the Book of the Kemalok Kings, and you ask the mechanics of a simple enchantent?”
“I’ve never had much interest in books,” the mul said, self-consciously shifting his attention back to the volume. “I can’t read.”
“Neither can I-at least not this book,” answered Lyanius, calming. “It was written in the language of our ancestors. I have learned to translate only a little of it, enough to know that this volume tells the history of Kemalok.”
“That’s-ah-interesting,” Rikus said, glancing at Neeva to see if she understood why Lyanius placed so much import on bringing them here.
“I think Rikus will find the Great Hall more to his interest, Urhnomus,” Caelum said, noticing Rikus’s puzzled expression. “What matters is not that our friends understand the importance of what they did, but that they kept the Book of Kings out of Urikite hands.”
Caelum’s words calmed the old dwarf. “You’re very wise for someone yet under a hundred,” he said, nodding proudly.
After they left the little room, the bas-relief head spoke briefly to Lyanius, then the door closed of its own accord. The old dwarf led his friends farther down the corridor and turned another corner. This time, they stopped before a pair of massive wooden doors so infested with dry rot that Rikus was surprised they still hung on their hinges.
Despite the deterioration of the doors, the strange animals carved into each one remained handsome and distinct. The snarling beasts resembled bears, save that, instead of the articulated shells armoring the creatures Rikus had fought, these were covered with nothing more protective than a thick mat of long fur. The mul wondered if the carvings depicted some gentler breed that the ancient dwarves had kept as pets.
As Lyanius stepped toward the great doors, they swung open, revealing a magnificent chamber so large that the torches could not light it from one side to the other. Still, as the four wandered around the perimeter, the mul saw that it had once been a great feast hall. From the walls hung dozens of steel weapons of all sizes and sorts, interspersed with huge murals vibrant in color and stroke. These paintings depicted either scenes of romance between a handsome dwarven noble and his beautiful lady-love, or valiant struggles in which lone dwarven knights vanquished giants, four-headed serpents, and dozens of red-eyed man-beasts.
Lyanius led the way to the front of the room, then asked Rikus to stand before the great banquet table located there. The mul cast a dubious glance in Neeva’s direction, but did as the old dwarf wished. Lyanius handed his torch to his son and disappeared into the darkness.
For several moments, the aged dwarf rummaged around the perimeter of the room, banging shields and axes about. Finally he returned to the trio with a black belt slung over his shoulder and a steel sword in his arms. He laid the belt on the table, then faced Rikus with the long sword and slapped the mul’s left arm with the flat of the blade.
“In the name and presence of the one hundred and fifty kings of the ancient dwarven race, I acknowledge your bravery and skill in driving the Urikite invaders from the gates of Kemalok,” Lyanius said, giving Rikus a stern smile and slapping the mul’s other arm. “I name you a Knight of the Dwarven Kings, and present you with this weapon of magic, the Scourge of Rkard.”
As the old dwarf held the weapon out to him, Rikus’s jaw dropped open. “Won’t carrying a weapon in Kemalok anger Rkard?” he gasped. “Especially when it’s his?”
“This isn’t Rkard’s weapon,” Lyanius answered, the corners of his mouth turning down. “It’s the blade that inflicted his last wound, the one that killed him. As for Kemalok’s law-guest are forbidden to carry weapons, but you are no longer a guest. You are a knight of the city.”
As soon as Rikus’s hand touched the weapon’s hilt, his mind began to whirl in confusion. Suddenly he could hear his companions’ hearts pounding in his ears like the drums of a Gulgian war party, and their breathing sounded to him like a dust typhoon storming its way across the Sea of Silt. From behind Rikus came the harsh grate of huge claws scratching across stone. The mul instinctively leaped to his feet and spun around, only to discover the sound had been caused by a black beetle scurrying across the floor several yards away.
No sooner had he relaxed from this strange sound than he heard the throb of wrab wings beating the air outside the great hall. Shoving past Neeva and Caelum, he rushed to the chamber doors and pushed them shut. The creak of their hinges rang in his ears and ran down his spine like a lightning bolt. The deafening crack of the clicking latch nearly knocked him from his feet. An instant later, the wrab alighted on the outside of the door with a deep rumble. A series of terrific rasps echoed through the wood as it searched for a crack. Rikus shook his head and stumbled back from the doors, raising the Scourge of Rkard to defend himself.
As the gleaming blade came into view, the mul’s confused mind slowly began to make sense of the situation. The sword was magic, he realized. With it, he could hear any nearby sound as though it were made by a giant right next to his ear.
“Rikus, what’s wrong?”
Neeva’s concerned voice boomed through his head like a thunderclap, scattering the thoughts he had just managed to collect. The sharp pain that shot through his ear made him cry out. At last Rikus dropped the sword, then fell to his knees.
“What’s the matter with him?” Neeva demanded. Her words still pained the mul’s ears, though they no longer seemed as loud as they had a moment ago.
“Rikus, pick up the sword again,” ordered Lyanius. “I should have warned you about what to expect and told you how to control the magic.”
When Rikus did not reach for the sword, the old dwarf shuffled toward him.
“I don’t think I want that sword,” Rikus said, glancing fearfully at the blade.
Lyanius stopped next to him. “Pick up the sword,” the dwarf whispered. “Concentrate on one sound, and the others will fade. You will find that it is a useful thing to have.”
Reluctantly Rikus obeyed, focusing his thoughts on the old dwarf’s breathing. To his surprise, all of the other sounds faded to mere background noise. He remained aware of them, but they no longer reverberated through his head or hurt his ears. Unfortunately, the old dwarf’s breathing still sounded like the roar of the Dragon to him.