Icevein: Chapter 35
Peridot gazed out upon the hall full of feasters, thankful for the veil that hid her face. Her heart pounded, and she was sweating. She wanted to look at her shoulders, to see if the concoction of tallow and quartz-dust she had invented was streaking from the sweat, but she forced herself to remain erect, facing straight ahead. The smell of food and drink was strong, as well as the scent of hill-smoke, and her stomach rumbled. She regretted that she had not eaten more before. It was nervousness that had troubled her appetite, but she would not eat, now.
The feast had continued for an hour, and still folk stared at her. She had never longed for the gaze of others; she had always sought to avoid it when she could, but now she willed herself to breathe steadily, to soak it up, hidden within the armor of cloth-of-gold and jewels. It was no longer Peridot who held their gaze; it was the beginning of another creature—one she would forge out of wealth.
She had first envisioned this moment during the trial of Icevein son of Edgefiler. The idea had grown into a plan, and the plan was given form by her father’s gift and the skill of the crafters. Many hands had brought about this moment, all the way back to the miners who had dug the gold-bearing quartz and, when she thought about it, the departure of her father from Deep Cut.
Onyx and Iolite had worked the fire. Her uncle Greal and his sons had faceted the stones and worked the garnet enameling. Lowpleat and his hold had woven the cloth-of-gold and fashioned the garments, embroidering them with his utmost skill. Fivepouch acted as broker, bringing in stones from other claims and negotiating for the services of silver and goldsmiths.
Little enough of her creation had formed under her own hand, but her mind had guided it all. Early on, they had met in the Owners’ Chamber with her father’s permission: her uncle Greal, Onyx, Iolite, Lowpleat, and Fivepouch.
“Might agates serve, instead?” Fivepouch asked. He did not like the cost of importing citrine from Deep Cut.
“No,” her uncle Greal had answered, his eyes shining from the mere idea of it. “Agates must have the light behind them to show to effect. It must be citrine.”
“Nothing like this has ever been made. I doubt even Queen Jade. . .” Fivepouch shook his head. “It is staggering.”
“I will not be discouraged,” Peridot answered.
“I do not mean to discourage. The mere fact it can be done is hard to fathom. I am honored to be a part of the creation of such masterpieces.”
“They must be masterpieces,” Peridot answered. It is not enough that the stones and cloth be finest. Every bit of artifice, every bit of skill must be superb, for skill surpasses wealth.” Her father and mother had both taught her that.
Now, Peridot sat adorned with years of the finest dwarven skill that gold could procure. Finer even than gold could procure, for her uncle, mother, sister, even Lowpleat, had all poured their souls into it, set free to indulge in the pleasure of the masterworks themselves. She glanced out into the feast hall and found the face of her Uncle Greal. He sat with his mug clutched in both hands, his face alight with joy as he stared at the gemlight shining from her.
Even so, she wavered, questioning again if this was a worthy plan. Such moments of doubt had come to her often in the past few days. Chargrim had always taught her that quality was better than show. Those dwarves who possessed fine things rarely displayed them. Was it not shameless vanity?
Yet her father had not stopped her. In private, her sister had asked:
“Is it not enough that you are the Irik-Rhûl’s daughter? Is this necessary?”
It was not that Iolite was loath to craft the wire; she would happily work. Peridot was not sure she knew the answer to the question, though she had told Iolite that it was necessary. She wanted to glance over at her sister, now, but she wouldn’t. She did not want to see what might be read upon Iolite’s face. She did look at Rightauger. Her brother sat across from Tinsnips son of Thrushbeard, and it was clear from their flushed faces that they were well into their cups. Her brother was leaning forward, speaking to a dwarf next to Tinsnips as their other tablemates looked on, hanging on his words. Dwarves followed him, while maids thought him bold and charming. To Rightauger, it appeared natural. Peridot couldn’t relate.
He was one of the heroes of Tonkil’s Rock, the slayer of One-Ear, their father’s foe. Rightauger dressed in well-made but plain clothes. In that, father and son were alike. Their father appreciated quality, but he had never indulged in show. As the Irik-Rhûl, he could have had both, but when the folked looked upon her father’s plainness, they saw the legend, the leader who had saved the folk from the ürsi and built Glint from nothing, defying all who opposed him. Finery would do more to hide that legend than show it. She was certain that her father knew that. Rightauger had made a name for himself, as well.
Before this day, no one had seen a legend when they looked on Peridot, except perhaps the shadow of her father’s. Nor was it a loss to wear a veil. She had her father’s broad face, though her mother’s complexion. Peridot was not ugly, but she fell well shy of beautiful. This she knew. Iolite was the fairer of the two. A dwarf-maid didn’t need beauty for security in life, but beauty intimidated, and Peridot could have used it. What her face would not do, gold and silver would aid.
These dwarves would never see her like they saw her father—how could they? Instead, they would see a precious and untouchable jewel, the gilt-maid, inspiring and unreachable. She was to be a wif-of-craft, though none would call her so. No dwarf who gazed on her could accuse her of impropriety, but every glimmer and facet would remind them of her sex. She would be the unreachable desire of dwarves outlined in jewels, enamels, and gold lace.
Down in the center of the hall, she saw movement. It was her uncle Khlif and his wif. Uncle Greal and his wif came next, then her uncle Sledgefist and his wif, followed by the other owners and their wifs. Those of her cousins past rhundal stepped into the center of the hall as well, and now the the rest of the guests stood. The music swelled, and the musicians stamped their feet.
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The dwarves placed hands on each other’s shoulders, forming a ring, and within their ring formed another ring of wifs and maids, hands held low, and now the rings swayed and moved, this way and the other, with the rhythmic stamp of their booted feet on stone. The lines and rings and swirls of dancers twined in the center of the hall to the sway of the flutes, the bronze-stringed harps, and the silver-and-cedar elkanef. Still, as the rings and lines flowed by, the eyes of the folk returned to her at the high table again and again. Erect and unmoving, she watched the folk as they danced before her.
Chargrim presided in his holt, maps spread out on his table. Farhear sat on a stool at the table’s end, while Sledgefist leaned down and squinted at a few runes on one of the maps. Rightauger stood opposite Farhear, and Thrushbeard occupied a stool next to Rightauger.
“So what you’re saying is that we truly don’t know how far the ridges go? I find that hard to believe,” Sledgefist said.
“It depends what you mean,” Chargrim answered. “There are sections where the ridges are low, more like foothills, covered in grasses with grazing horned beasts upon them, and further on, we have heard rumors that some ridges rise up again, leading into the north, but there are ürsi there as well.”
“And the humans have no maps of this, either?”
“Nothing reliable,” Farhear said. “There is nowhere to trade to the east. It is wild country.”
Rightauger was standing, and he looked down at the maps, both palms planted on the stone tabletop.
“Few prospectors have braved it and fewer returned,” his father said. Chargrim sat in his usual seat, smoking his pipe, a Mine Runner asleep on his lap. He did not bother to stand and look down at the maps, but Rightauger got the impression that his father knew exactly what they showed. These maps had been a preoccupation of his for years.
“But it sounds like the ridges weaken, at least at first,” Sledgefist said.
“That is so,” Chargrim answered with a nod.
“Then south makes more sense.”
Rightauger looked at the little cluster of markings at the bottom of the map. He knew they were supposed to represent mountains.
“These are over six hundred miles away,” Chargrim said, “across the Ürsi Steppes, to the southern sea. They say that you can see across the straight to the elven swamps from the cliffs.”
Sledgefist frowned. As far as Rightauger knew, no one in Glint had ever seen an elf, but old stories did not speak of them favorably. Sledgefist traced his finger away from the southern mountains and across the center of the map, across Senland, up through Laith, and into the far north.
The Kara-Indal. Only the foothills were traced upon the map, as the depiction came from human charts, and the Laithans had only pushed the ürsi back toward the foothills of theKara-Indal. The distance from the Red Ridges was great. A thousand miles, it was said.A few sketches of mountains had been drawn above the traced foothills of the Kara-Indal, and Rightauger knew they were based on old stories and the accounts of Auntie Tourmaline and Uncle Salt themselves. They and their companions were the last dwarves to ever set foot in the Kara-Indal, and they nearly didn’t survive.
Chargrim watched Uncle Sledgefist’s fingers trace over the Kara-Indal. Sledgefist released a long breath and drew back.
“We have not even prospected all of the Red Ridges,” he said, his tone more reserved. “These ridges. It will take a hundred years and more. Two hundred, even. Who knows how much there is to find, here?”
“Ay, yes,” Chargrim said. “But I do not know if Deep Cut can withstand another fifty.”
“They just defeated the entire human army,” Sledgefist said, shaking his head.
“No,” Farhear interjected. “They defeated an entire human army. There is a difference. And now many thousands in Senland and Laith would happily take vengeance. The merchant confederacy may have gelded the king of Laith, but their alliance is only as strong as their enemies, and they know it.”
Sledgefist looked from Farhear to Chargrim.
“What is this dwarf saying?” he asked. Chargrim grinned.
“He’s saying they’ll be back. Everyone knows about the wealth of Glint. I am told even human children speak of it.”
“They speak of a dwarf king in the east who sits on a heap of gold,” Farhear said.
“And you think the Jackals can’t handle the humans? With enough Black Fire they can blow up the sands beneath any foe.”
Chargrim leaned forward and traced his finger across the map, drawing a path north of the Waste, along the slopes of the Brown Hills, and to the Red Ridges.
“So they go around. Deep Cut has salt. But we have gold.”
“Let them try it,” Sledgefist said. Rightauger could hear the strength in his uncle’s voice, bordering on eagerness. He might actually enjoy such a fight. “We would fill the valleys with their dead.”
“And ours,” Chargrim said.
“We have the Black Fire, too.”
“The humans are not fools,” Farhear said. “It is only a matter of time. It might take them a hundred years, but the secret will spread, and all the faster if it is used.”
“They don’t live that long.”
“They don’t need to.”
“What does it matter!” Sledgefist snapped, slapping his hand on the table. “We will not become slaves again. If we are attacked, we fight and we win.”
“I am not saying otherwise,” Chargrim said.
“Then what are you saying?” Thrushbeard asked. The rinlen of the Ridge Wardens was often quiet in councils, and the tone of his question made it clear it was not a challenge.
Chargrim took a deep breath and released it slowly, staring up at the ceiling of the chamber. He shook his head.
“That we have to think about the safety of our folk. That is all. Their safety now and in the years to come.”
“Then we build fortifications,” Sledgefist answered, pointing along the northwestern flank of the ridges. “Wherever we think they might try to cross.”
“Fortifications do nothing without dwarves to hold them.”
“There could be enough for warning.”
“Ay, yes.” Chargrim looked at Thrushbeard. “Send a patrol, at least two cadres. Survey the approach from the Brown Hills, and then go north to the end of the trees and the downward slopes.”
“Ay, rhûl. It will take months.”
“So long as they are back by the raids of fall.”
“I want to go,” Rightauger said. Thrushbeard looked from him to Chargrim. Rightauger met his father’s gaze. “I want to go with the cadres. I would like to see these hills of grass.”
“So be it,” Chargrim said. “But if you go with the wardens, you submit to the rinlen.”
Rightauger nodded.
“So be it,” he echoed.
His father turned to Sledgefist.
“And I think it is time that we saw to Sledge Rock, again.”
“I will go with the thaw.”
“We will go,” Chargrim answered. “And then I proceed to East Spire.”
The effect of these words on the dwarves around the table was instant and uniform. They all straightened and turned from the maps to the Irik-Rhûl.
“Why would you go, brother?” Sledgefist asked.
“I have my reasons. It will only be for two months. I have never seen the Rock, you know. Not since I passed it on my way to the claim at the first.”
“It is a long journey.”
“And I am not so much of an invalid as you seem to think.” There was a hint of scorn in Chargrim’s voice.
“It is just. . . You are needed here.”
“I will make arrangements. And if the mine falls apart in two months, then I have done a poorer job of it than I would have hoped.”
Sledgefist gave a shrug of concession.
“That settles it,” Chargrim said. “We will all taste much of the upper air, this spring.”