Icevein: Chapter 33
The door to the Owners’ Drift and the outer door to the Rhûl’s Holt were adjacent to one another, and between them stood at least two and sometimes three Ridge Warden guards. Peridot had once asked her father if there was really so much danger as to require guards.
“Danger tends to find the unguarded,” he had answered. Now, she approached the guard standing next to her father’s holt. The other two were a few paces closer to the opening of the Owners’ Drift. She did not need to ask if her father was within the holt; she knew already. As she approached, the warden’s eyes narrowed in confusion, but he moved to open the door for her without question.
“No,” she said.
He paused, clearly unsure of what to do.
“I want you to announce me,” she told him. “I want to request an audience with the Irik-Rhûl.”
The warden opened his mouth as if to speak, stopped, and looked to the other two wardens for help. She glanced at them. Their brows were raised and they made no move to speak or intervene.
“Announce me,” she said again. After another moment of hesitation, the guard turned and knocked on the door.
“Ay, yes?” her father called from within.
The guard leaned inside.
“Irik-Rhûl,” he said, the doubt clear in his voice. “Ehm. Your dau. . . I mean, Peridot daughter of Chargrim is here. She requests an audience.”
It was clumsily done, but she could not entirely blame the dwarf for his confusion.
“Peridot?” her father asked.
“Ay, yes, rhûl.”
“Send her in.”
The warden leaned back and pushed the door all the way open. Peridot stepped inside. Her father sat at his desk, a curl of smoke rising from his pipe, one Mine Runner on the table and another in his lap. He looked at Peridot with no less confusion than the guards.
“Gilnaleku, what is this about? Come, sit.”
Peridot ignored the request to sit. Instead, she stepped into the center of the chamber as if she was any other petitioner.
“I have a request to make, my father.” She’d considered calling him Irik-Rhûl, but she had worried it would offend him.
“What is this about, Peridot?”
She hesitated. Why was she so nervous?
“Father, I have never asked for wealth before.”
He leaned back, but he looked more curious than guarded.
“No, you haven’t.”
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“I wish to have gold or goods for trade.”
“How much do you need?”
“I need. . . eight hundred yothe.”
“Of?”
“Gold, or something of its worth.”
Peridot watched the gradations of surprise and confusion cross her father’s face. It was an enormous sum. She did not think she could do for less than seven hundred yothe. That was still an incomprehensible amount to most dwarves,but she had determined to ask for even more, thinking he might offer less. Yet as she watched, a smile slowly turned the corners of his mouth.
“I must say you have intrigued me, Peridot. What do you intend to do with eight hundred yothe of gold?”
“I. . . I would rather show than tell you, if it please you.”
“Show me? Do you intend to trade for something?”
“No. Well, not exactly.”
“What could you possibly do with so much gold?”
She could tell he was truly curious, but she was also afraid to tell him, lest he get the wrong idea and think it frivolous. But it was not frivolous—that much she knew. Didn’t she?
“I understand if you say no,” she said. “I ask a boon that perhaps no dwarf-maid has ever asked her father, or ever could. Let me make my first move, and then you will see my strategy. Soon, I promise.”
The smile faded from her father’s face. He watched her for a time. She stood in the center of the chamber, heart beating. Her dream was bigger than anything she had ever considered possible, and it hinged on his answer.
At last, her father slid a piece of paper and picked up an inkpen. He dipped it, wrote something, and handed it out to her.
“Here,” he said. “Take it.”
She stepped forward and took the note. Her father’s script was not the firmest or boldest, but there was an attention to detail in the angles and lines that she had always found pleasing.
Assist and advise my daughter in whatever she requires, up to the value of nine hundred yothe in gold. Chargrim
She could hardly believe what she read. He had even added a hundred yothe.
“Take the note to Fivepouch,” he said. “You cannot carry so many yothe of gold, nor should you attempt to use it without guidance. If you wish to surprise me, very well, but do not surprise Fivepouch. He will help keep you out of the worst of any trouble. If it is for trade, he will help you to deal, and he can make the necessary arrangements for the hoard.”
“Thank you!” she said, still looking at the note.
“Ambition is well enough,” he answered. “But you are not yet to rhundal. See that you are aiding your mother still.”
“And if she gives me permission to cease my labors with her?”
“I was already curious,” he said. “Now I am mystified. But it is up to her.”
She nodded, and looked down at the paper again.
“Truly, you’ll allow it?”
“My jewel, what else should I do with it? I do not know you to be rash. Show me your strategy when it is prepared.”
“Ay, yes, father. I will. Thank you.”
Peridot bowed, and he laughed.
“That’s enough of that. If you want to thank me, bring me some cave bread in butter and garlic.”
“Ay, yes, father.” Peridot hurried down the inner passage and toward the stonehold. She would take her father his cavebread, but she must do one thing first with her momentum of spirit. She continued straight to her mother’s workshop. Iolite and Onyx sat at the table.
“Where have you been?” her mother asked without moving her eyes from the meshwork of glimmering wire laid out before her. Her hands continued to move with the deftness of many decades, intertwining the wire into a multi-layered plastron. It was her next piece, now that the wedding overlay was well on its way to Deep Cut.
“Mother,” Peridot said. “I know what I want.”
Onyx carefully disengaged her needles, set them on her workbench, and swiveled her stool to face Peridot. Even Iolite stopped her work and turned her head.
“What do you mean?”
“I know the labor I want when I reach rhundal, but I must start now to accomplish it.” Peridot hesitated, feeling another wave of doubt. “It might be absurd, but it is what I want. And I need your help. And Iolite’s. And Uncle Greal’s, and Prase’s, and others.”
“You are sure?” Onyx said, her voice calm.
“I am.”
“Then we will help you.”
Iolite turned to Onyx.
“Shouldn’t we find out what it is first?” she asked.
“I see enough of it in her eyes.” Onyx looked back to Peridot. “And I have been watching. Now, daughter. What is in your heart?”