"I want to go home," he muttered to himself. "Helta knows that, and Tap knows it, too. Maybe they all know it. But if I take my people away from here, they will lose their finest dream. Most of them now are neither Neidar nor Holgar. It is as Tap said, these people have become a new breed of dwarf. Maybe Pax Tharkas is their destiny. But is it mine?"
Troubled and confused, Derkin the Lawgiver raised his hands toward the flowing sky. "Gods!" he whispered. "Reorx… and any others who care… give me a sign!"
The clouds swirled slowly in the high winds above, shifting from pattern to pattern. Then, for a moment, one bit of cloud broke away from the rest and stood alone. And just for an instant, as the winds molded it, it seemed to take the shape of a wedge-or an arrowhead-pointing south.
Derkin lowered his arms and sighed. "Maybe it is a sign," he told himself. In the distance, dappled moonlight played on the massive construct that now filled the lower one-third of Tharkas Pass. Where "Derkin's Wall" had once stood, twenty feet of stone defending a mountain pass, now rose the beginnings of a city-a city that would one day bridge the gap between two alien worlds, the ancient land of the dwarves and the new land of the western elves.
Above the pass, flowing clouds shifted in the wind, and it seemed that there was a face there-a wide, bearded dwarven face that molded and remolded itself in its features as the breeze in the pass whispered long-forgotten names, a litany of generations of Hylar leaders. "Colin Stonetooth…" the breezes murmured. "Willen Ironmaul… Damon Omenborn… Cort Fireblend…" Fascinated, Derkin stood gazing upward as the breezes whispered names to him-the names of his own ancestors. And with each name, the flowing cloud-face became another face. "Harl Thrustweight…" the breezes whispered, and the face Derkin saw was that of his own father. And now the breeze shifted and the whispering was a voice like his father's voice. "Thorbardin," it murmured. "Thorbardin has never been ruled… but it must be governed. That is your destiny, my son."
The breeze died away, and the clouds above were again only clouds, but in Derkin's mind was the echo of a whisper. He knew now what his course must be, and he felt oddly at peace with it. "Destiny," he muttered.
Only one regret remained in his mind. He had failed to keep his pledge-to himself and his people-to bring Sakar Kane to the justice the man deserved. Sakar Kane had simply disappeared. "If only I knew," Derkin said aloud. "If only I could be sure that he is gone."
As though in answer, a voice spoke. He knew he was alone. There was no one else within half a mile of where he stood, yet the voice spoke clearly, as though at his side. It was a low, musical voice, the voice of Despaxas, and it said one word: "Chapak."
Instantly, Derkin found himself deep within a dark, reeking place, a place where mildew grew on ancient stone walls, moist and glistening in the light of a single candle. On one wall hung the skeletal remains of a man- a man who had been dead for a long time-and Derkin knew exactly where he was and what he was seeing. With absolute certainty, he realized that he was looking at a deep cell in a dungeon beneath the palace of the human emperor of Daltigoth. And he knew that the shackled body hanging there was that of Lord Sakar Kane, the Prince of Klanath.
The single candle lighting the scene was held by a man who seemed to be two men. Each time the flame flickered, the man's appearance changed. At one moment he seemed a squat, bulky human with a braided beard and elegant robes, at the next a tall, burly man in dark robe and dusty boots.
Derkin knew one of the faces. It was the man called Dreyus. And he knew the other as well, though he had never seen him. The man with the braided beard was Quivalin Soth V, Emperor of Daltigoth and Ergoth.
Again the candle flickered, and Derkin found himself where he had been, standing on a craggy knoll in a mountain pass, half a mile south of the place that would be Pax Tharkas. Beside him, where no one stood, Despaxas's musical voice whispered, "This is the gift my mother wished for you, Derkin. To know that you did not fail."
His eyes wide with wonder, Derkin the Lawgiver turned full around, then shook his head. "Magic," he muttered. "A latent spell."
With one last glance at the sky above-which was once again only an autumn sky-Derkin headed back toward his quarters. On the way he stopped at the fire of Culom Vand, then at several other places in the camp. By the time he opened the door of his own quarters and stepped in, a crowd was following him.
Helta Graywood and the Ten were waiting for him, alert and concerned as he had known they would be. It was rare that any of them ever let Derkin out of their sight. Derkin stood before them, his fists on his hips, firelight gleaming on the polished luster of his armor, as other dwarves entered behind him. He looked from one to another of those gathered around his hearth, then let his somber gaze linger on Helta. "Do you still say you can live anywhere with me?" he asked.
"Anywhere," she asserted.
"Then live with me in Thorbardin," he said. His gaze turned to Tap Tolec. "Do you still dream of being a Hol-gar?"
Tap raised one eyebrow. The ironic expression, combined with his broad shoulders and long arms, made him look more Theiwar than most who were full-blood. "As always," he said. "Maybe as much as you do."
"Could you be the leader of a thane?"
Tap blinked, surprised at the question. 'There is a legend among my family," he said, "that an ancestor of mine was a chieftain, a very long time ago. His name was Slide Tolec. They say he led the Theiwar when Thorbardin was in its glory."
Derkin nodded and turned. "And you, Talon Oak-beard? Could you be a leader of people?"
"I have no thane." Talon shrugged. "My people were always Einar or Neidar. What people would I lead?"
'The Chosen Ones," Derkin said. "They are your thane. If I pronounce you their chieftain tomorrow, do you pledge to lead them well?"
Talon stared at the Lawgiver for a full minute, hardly believing what he had heard. "I'd do my best," he said finally.
It would be spring before the one called Lawgiver could undertake the journey southward to Thorbardin. There were conferences to be held and plans to be made. There were messages to be sent and pledges to be given and received.
Some of the Chosen Ones would choose to go with Derkin, and some, like Tap Tolec who would replace Swing Basto as chieftain of Thane Theiwar of Thorbardin, would need time to adjust to what Derkin had in mind for them.
There was a great deal to be done and much to be decided before Derkin Winterseed-Hammerhand-Derkin the Lawgiver-could return to Thorbardin to find the rest of his destiny.
Epilogue
The First and Always King
In tbe spring of tbeYear of Nickel, the final year of both the Decade of Cherry and the Century of Rain, frost-bearded guards at a hidden outpost high on Sky's End Mountain looked up from a winter-long game of bones to see movement in the distance-a large caravan approaching from the north. Drums relayed the news to Northgate of Thorbardin, and runners carried the message from there to all of the thanes. It was the day those in the undermountain fortress had been waiting for ever since the message came from Culom Vand months earlier. Derkin the Lawgiver, Master of the Mountains, was coming home to Thorbardin. And this time he was coming to stay-not as a citizen but as regent of all thanes.
Five years had passed since the first visit of Derkin's army, when thousands of dwarves had set up trade pavilions below Northgate, and Thorbardin had rediscovered the value of trade.