He sprawled there and looked up into bright, concerned eyes. It was Lotta.
"Skitt all right?" she asked.
"All right" He belched. "Fulla wine, though. Hit 'nother gusher."
Several other young gully dwarves were intently aware of the attention being paid to the wine-logged miner by the fetching Lotta.
"He got somethin' goin'," one of them said.
"Got Lotta goin'," another agreed. "You know anything about mine? Or wine? Or work?"
"What's to know?" A third shrugged. "Just dig, keep diggin'. Somethin' bound to turn up."
With one final gaze at the recumbent Skitt, basking in the glow of Lotta's undivided attention, the other young Aghar dashed away and went looking for tools. This being Off Day, and having nothing better to do, they had decided to go into the mining business.
The acolyte Pitkin thought that yesterday had been a bad day. Today turned out even worse. His morning duties now included the inspection of only eight vats — the ninth had been sealed the day before by the chief warder — but nagging intuition made him more and more nervous as he worked his way along the catwalk.
It couldn't happen again, could it? Not again?
Somehow he knew, even as he opened the sampler port on Vat Eight, what he would find. Nothing.
Vat Eight was empty.
It was a pale and shaken messenger who ran all the way from the chief warder's quarters in the lower temple to the vast upper halls with their radiant stone, to hand a sealed message to the captain of the guard outside the portals of the great hall of council. The messenger knew what was in the message. The lower levels were buzzing with gossip, and everyone, from the highest maintenance personnel to the lowest cooks and keepers, was worried.
The messenger was almost too worried to notice the odd appearance of the captain of the guard… but not quite. As he returned to the lower levels, he wondered why such a magnificently attired soldier would wear one piece of armor so out of keeping with all the other pieces. From polished helm to burnished braces, from fine, oiled chain to fine-worked scabbard, from gleaming gauntlets to glistening plates, every piece of his armor was perfectly matched to every other piece — with one notable exception.
That particular piece looked as though it might have been borrowed.
Within the grand chamber, the sealed message was passed from the clerk of entry to the clerk of the vestry, then carried silently to the clerk of the keep, who handed it across to the aide of the keeper of portals. A moment later the keeper himself rose to his feet, bowed toward the throne and approached it, kneeling at the base of its pedestal. He lowered his eyes and raised the opened message toward the light.
"Share this news," the Voice of Radiance said.
Sadly, the keeper of portals turned toward the Grand Council of Revered Sons. Holding the message at arm's length, he read to them its brief contents.
Vat Eight of the blessed wines — the vintage from the border province of Ismin — was empty, as empty as the vat from Taol, discovered only the previous day.
"Evil strikes at us," the master of scrolls said when Sopin had finished. "So subtle a taunt, yet so direct a challenge. O Most Radiant — O Most Revered Sons — we must respond."
Somewhere beyond, where shadow dimmed the radiance, a quiet voice whispered, "Destiny."
Within hours, at least a dozen would-be wine miners were at work in the royal mine, and more Aghar were on their way. The earliest arrivals found a sizable lake of wine in the cavern below the mine, but only a trickle coming from the mine itself. Armed with various delving tools, they entered single file and traced Skitt's route, going through a long tunnel of rock and a short tunnel of wood, through a sagging tunnel of congealed sludge to another tunnel of wood, which led again to rock, then to wood, then to a seeping mass of wet pulp. Here, dim light filtered through from above and anxious Tall voices sounded muddled, muted by the pulp.
In silence, the Aghar waited until the light and the voices faded. They heard the distant boom of a heavy port being sealed.
When all was silent, the one in the lead said, "Come on. Maybe more pockets of wine. Let's get 'em."
In single file, they trudged through the cavern of sludge, only their heads and candles rising above it, and set to work on the wooden wall beyond. After some tunneling they encountered stone, then wood again.
The caverns of This Place roared with the thunder of released wine, flowing and frothing through two empty vats, spewing outward from the mine shaft into the growing lake beyond, carrying a round dozen gully dwarves tumbling with it. Their shouts and splashes resounded as they hit the roiling, rising surface of the wine lake.
When the commotion finally died down and the drunken gully dwarves had been fished out by their peers, several dozen others picked up tools and headed for the mine. It became a contest to see how much wine could be mined and who could produce the most.
It also was an interesting way to spend Off Day — as good a way as any, since nobody was sure what Off Day was all about, anyway.
By the time the glorious radiances of the grand chamber began to soften, to take on the pastels of evening, a visitor might have thought that the Temple of the Kingpriest at Istar — the most awesome piece of architecture in the entire world — was in a state of siege.
In the upper reaches, white-faced clerics and ashen functionaries rushed here and there, carrying messages, pausing for fervent prayer, gathering in clumps and clus ters to whisper among themselves. In the lower levels, daily routine was a shambles. Warders and coding clerks came and went from the wine vaults. A general, emergency inventory had been ordered, an audit of every artifact, every store and every commodity.
And to top everything else off, half a company of temple guards on the noon-to-night shift refused to leave their quarters.
In the evening hours, the final holdouts on the Grand Council of Revered Sons conceded. There was no reasonable explanation for what was happening within the temple, but things were becoming worse by the minute.
There would be no decision reached today regarding the unleashing of the power of the Scroll of the Ancients. Nor would such a matter be decided tomorrow, or even next week. But the zeal of the master of scrolls was having its effect upon the Revered Sons, assisted by the air of chaos in the temple.
It was only a matter of time before the Kingpriest himself conceded that the ultimate power was needed in the battle against evil. Thanks to the master of scrolls, when the power was called for, the council would sanction it.
"Destiny," the whisper in the shadows said again. But in the entire chamber, only the keeper of portals heard it. Intuition told him that it meant something, but reason could not define it.
"Drip." The Dark One in the shadows laughed.
Far beyond the temple, in the skies over Istar, thunder rolled.
In filtering light of dusk, Gorge III, Highbulp by Choice and Lord of This Place and Maybe a Lot of Others, glared at his subjects crowded around him. It wasn't his presence that had drawn them, as much as that this part of This Place was the only high ground left in This Place, and even here they were ankle-deep in wine.
His elk antlers towering over him and all the rest, the Highbulp muttered every curse he knew… which at the moment was two or three. "This abomin… abom… this no good!" he roared, his voice echoing through the cavern. "Too much wine! Wine all over everything!"
"Should'a traded it off when you had the chance, Highbulp," old Hunch snapped. "Prob'ly too late now."
"This place lousy place for This Place." The Highbulp snorted. "Inoccup… unoccu… not worth livin' in."