"The fires that are evil's reward will be your just end!"

The officer shrieked his curse as he tried to whip his horse through a tight turn. But Horgan circled faster, until he once again stood before the narrow bridge.

Furious, the centurion urged his steed to the very brink of the gorge, took a vicious cut at Horgan with his sword.

The dwarf dodged underneath the singing steel. Chopping savagely, Horgan hacked his axe into the rider's leg.

The man screamed in pain and terror as he struggled to keep his balance. The horse skipped away from the cliff's edge. The wounded man toppled to the ground, landing heavily at the brink of the precipitous drop.

"You're no better than that ogre!" hissed the centurion.

His fingers grasped and tore at the gra.s.s as he slipped toward oblivion. "The G.o.ds curse all of you who would thwart the Kingpriest's justice!"

Horgan watched the human slide over the lip of the cliff, uprooted gra.s.s tufted in his clenched fingers as his feet kicked empty air. The centurion twisted into s.p.a.ce, his face a mask of stark terror. Then, his red cloak billowing around him, the man smashed onto the boulders of the stream bed. The dye of the robe blended with his blood, flowing downward through the rapid stream.

(Note, Excellency, if you will forgive my aside, that once again we have this image of blood flowing downhill to Istar. A foretaste of the Bloodsea, rendered in the hand of an adventuring dwarf, nine centuries before the Cataclysm! Oh, poetry and prescience!) Wearily, Horgan clumped back across the bridge. He remembered with a sense of vague detachment the ogre who had started this fracas.

Here, in his journal, Horgan Oxthrall records that he reached a point of decision in his life. He was filled with disgust and loathing for the humans and their arrogant lord.

Considering the ogre, the dwarf found it hard to muster the same kind of antipathy - despite the racial hatred that was so much a part of his being. He wondered if the human had spoken an inadvertent truth in his dying breath. Were dwarves any better, truly, than ogres? Did they not have more in common with ogres, in some ways, than they did with their so-called civilized neighbors in Istar?

He came back to the clearing and found Gobasch standing before the cave mouth and looking at Horgan with an expression of bewilderment on his great, three-tusked face.

"Why you fight for me?" asked the ogre.

Horgan scowled. Why, indeed? So that he would have the honor, the pleasure, of slaying the ogre for himself?

There had to be a better reason than that, he told himself.

"No human has been allowed in these mountains for twenty-five years!" he huffed, angrily.

The ogre stood before him, his huge sword held defensively across his chest. Chin jutting in determination, Gobasch regarded the dwarf, the ogre's three tusks bristling in Horgan's eyes.

"And ogres? How long for them?" grunted Gobasch. Even as his mind grappled with the question, Horgan knew the answer. If he carried out his duty now, he would be no better - in his own mind - than the human bounty hunters he had just confronted.

"Go on," Horgan said to Gobasch. "Get out of here!"

He indicated the valley, the ogre's route before Horgan had caught up with him. There, through the foothills, lay wild country - and beyond, the plains of Istar.

The ogre blinked, suspicious.

"Move, by Reorx! Before I change my mind!" shouted Horgan Oxthrall.

Still blinking, Gobasch looked cautiously over his shoulder. He kept looking, all the way down the trail, until he disappeared from sight.

At this point, Horgan sets his journal aside. It is not for another year that he again takes pen to paper, and then it is to record, briefly, the events of the intervening annum.

Horgan Oxthrall, being a dwarf of true honor, reported the incident to his thane. The closing words of his journal are difficult to read, but indicate that his gesture toward the ogre cost him his post in the scouts, and he was banished from the high thane's court.

Nevertheless, as I read his words, penned in the year following his banishment, I see no sign of regret, no desire to change the decision he had made with regard to Gobasch, the ogre. If anything, the words of Horgan Oxthrall fairly swell with pride.

This is the first scroll of the cheesemaker's find. It leads me to believe, Excellency, that the tales of the Last Messenger are true! Somewhere in the heights above me lies the tomb of this hero who preserved the history of the Khalkist dwarves. I go to seek this trove, an opportunity that any historian would seize - though not all, I dare to venture, with as much stoicism as I!

With the coming dawn, Master, I set out for the icy ramparts that have framed my view for these past months. I will send further word with all the haste I can muster, though I doubt that ready accommodation will present itself for the pa.s.sage of messages.

Until my next word, I remain, Your Devoted Servant, FORYTH TEEL, Scribe of Astinus *****

My Most Honored Master: I can only beg the G.o.ds of good and neutrality to see that this missive retraces the path I have recently traveled.

My own survival I take as proof of divine providence - and should this brief note reach your hands, I shall claim no less than the benevolent intervention of Gilean himself!

Of course, Your Grace, as always I press forward without complaint, but - by the G.o.dS, Excellency! - the summits that have loomed above and below me! The thundering avalanches spewing their deadly weight across my path a dozen times a day! And this, along a route imperiled by monstrous bears - beasts that could tear the limbs from a man without apparent effort, jaws that couldsnap off a head....

Forgive me, Lord. My nerves are not at their best.

Truth to tell, we saw no bears. Still, the knowledge of their presence, you may be sure, robbed me of even a single decent hour of sleep.

Now I have reached this cheesemaker's place, and before me are spread the scrolls of the Khalkist dwarves. As soon as my hands thaw out enough to unroll the parchment, I shall continue my perusal. (In the morning, hopefully, the sun will come out and, by its pale heat, I may manage to save a few of my fingers.) In the meantime, I await this humble dairyman, for he has ventured out into the night. He promises to bring me something of interest. But until his return, the scrolls around me shall keep my attention. I turn to them now.

Excellency, hours of reading allow me to present a summary of the additional scrolls. Further efforts yield a wealth of material, all relevant to the history of the Khalkist dwarves - -but alas, little of it relating to the decade immediately preceding the Cataclysm. The mystery left by their disappearance remains.

I have unearthed a few items of note, mostly gleaned from the tales of dwarven lore. I have endeavored, as always, to cull these legends into the most conclusively indicated facts: Extensive financial records were saved by the bold messenger, who gave his life to carry these scrolls to safety. It is clear that the dwarves were taxed by their thane at an extreme rate during the years 60 PC through 10 PC.

Then the tax records end. Was this ma.s.sive treasure expended? For what? Is it hidden somewhere? Destroyed in the Cataclysm? Or taken by the Khalkist dwarves when they left ... wherever they have gone?

One dwarven record postdates 10 PC, and this is unusual for not only the date, but that once again we encounter our friend, Horgan Oxthrall - though only in a peripheral sense. The record itself is the history of a battle that was fought at Stone Pillar Pa.s.s, around 7 PC. It is the last known contact, in human records, with the Khalkist dwarves.

It seems clear, as claimed by Istar, that the Kingpriest's invasion of the mountains in 7 PC was considerably more successful than had been the attempt of a century and a decade before. However, the Istarian tales of great victories and righteous ma.s.sacre of the "dwarven heathens" are, at best, grotesque exaggerations.

For one thing, evidence indicates that this was a war with few battles. Indeed, I can find evidence of only one major skirmish. It occurred on the Stone Pillar Pa.s.s road and is hailed by the Istarian histories as the Kingpriest's greatest victory - a "rout" of the defenders.

There is a note in one of the scrolls about this battle, however, and it is interesting to contrast the dwarven point of view with that of the humans. From the dwarven perspective, the engagement is regarded as a moderately successful holding action. A gorge in the road was held for one day, and then abandoned - as so many dwarvenpositions were abandoned in this war.

Indeed, it seems as though the dwarves fought merely to gain time for a withdrawal into a more remote, una.s.sailable position. Finally, they were able to fall back so far that the humans could no longer find them.

In his arrogance, the Kingpriest declared the war "won," his enemies "destroyed." The truth seems to be that the dwarves simply yielded the mountains to the humans and disappeared. Their escape route and destination remain one of the great mysteries of the world.

Forgive me, Your Grace, I wander. There are two unique points a.s.sociated with the Stone Pillar Battle. I feel confident enough of their veracity to report them.

First, the curious reference to Horgan Oxthrall, who once again plays a role on the stage of history. He was the commanding general of the dwarven army standing against Istar. (I get ahead of myself, Your Grace. A new thane, Rankilsen, had taken the throne. Oxthrall's banishment ended in 12 PC. The venerable warrior had been readmitted into society. He took command of the field army shortly thereafter.) Second is a tale that defies ready explanation, yet is referenced enough to compel its inclusion here. As the battle waned, the human forces - with rare initiative - attempted to encircle the dwarven army. Reports indicate that this tactic almost succeeded, save for the intervention of a sudden reinforcement. An unexpected brigade marched out of the mountains in support of the dwarves, breaking the human flanking action and allowing the dwarven army to escape.

The curious thing is the ident.i.ty of this rescuing brigade: you see, all of my sources are adamant in their insistence that the army of Khalkist was saved by a brigade of OGRES! Where they came from, where they went - these are questions that will entice future historians. What I know is this: The ogres fought as allies with the dwarves against Istar and then, like the dwarves themselves, disappeared.

Implausible? Certainly. But it seems to be a fact.

I have to wonder, as I know you, Excellency, yourself, must be wondering: Could this have been a return of the boon, a life for a life?

Gobasch and Horgan meet again on the field, the bodies of the shattered human army scattered like trampled weeds around them.

"I come onto your lands again, dwarf," says the three- tusked ogre, his jowled face wrinkling into a wry grin.

Horgan looks up at the beast as his army escapes, filtering into their caves and tunnels, turning their backs on a sun that most of them, during their lifetime, will never again behold.

"I thank you for coming," Horgan says, quietly.

The two clasp hands awkwardly. The sun sinks, casting mountain shadows across the human camp in the valley. Mult.i.tudes of fires blink in the darkness, and drunken revelry begins. To the humans, it was a "victory"

"They are your mountains now," adds the dwarf, turning to join his people. "Care for them well."

"We shall do our best," Gobasch replies. *****

I hear a noise at the door, Your Grace. It is my host, returning with his mysterious burden. I see - he brings me the skull of the messenger, this lone courier who brought the secrets of the dwarves into this remote range before the Cataclysm! My historian's heart thrills for their brave hero, perishing so that his words could be read in a future age.

Who is this brave soul? Why did he strike out, alone, to carry the tale of history?

Imagine my shock, Excellency, when the cheesemaker holds out the whitewashed skull, the remains of this courageous figure. For the skull belongs to an ogre! From the jaws jut three yellowed, but clearly recognizable, tusks.

As always, Excellency, I seek the truth in your name; Your Humble and Devoted Servant, FORYTH TEEL, Scribe of Astinus Filling The Empty Places Nancy Varian Berberick The minotaur fell to his knees on the cracked, filthy cobbles of Beggar's Alley. Covered with rough red fur, the man-beast had the head of a bull, horns as long as my forearm, hair like a mane growing down between his shoulder blades. He foamed from the corners of his mouth like an animal.

I'd taken the minotaur two days before in an unexpected end to a fruitless search for heretics. He'd come at me like a storm, rising up out of the tall savannah gra.s.s, a knife in each fist; charged me roaring, dark eyes afire with battle-joy. Minotaurs don't much like humans or anyone else, and they do love to fight. But this one, it seemed, hadn't reckoned on my horse. The gray reared high, hooves flailing, and the minotaur went down before he knew what had hit him. He stayed senseless long enough for me to get the manacles, hobbles, and chains on. They have a strength beyond believing, those horned man-beasts.

Bound and hobbled is the only way you can take 'em prisoner.

I never liked bringing live heretics to Istar, but sometimes - like in the heat of summer, when you don't really want to be traveling with the dead - you have to. That's the way of things and seasons, and that's the way I was working in that long, hot summer of my thirtyfifth year. By then I'd been fifteen years in the bounty trade. I'd had good times and bad, pockets filled with gold and just as often empty. In Istar they called me "Hunter-Doune," and I was good at my work.

Fair quiet it was in Beggar's Alley that evening, but for the minotaur cursing and panting on the cobbles. Rats ran in the filthy gutters. Tumbledown shacks and unpainted, drab houses huddled together, empty and looking lonely. At sunset the panderers and pickpockets did a better trade over by the great temple. From a distance - beyond the alley, beyond the market and the slave auction - rose a hymn, a gathering of elven voices, as soft and sweet as any dream of what song should be. The holy choir was beginningevening devotions. Elven women, famous throughout the world for their piety, lifted eerily pure voices in praise to the G.o.ds of good. Tonight they celebrated wise Paladine and his gentle, compa.s.sionate Mishakal.

The minotaur, struggling to his feet again, lifted his dark, homed head. He spat in the direction of the temple. I should have kicked him for it, but because no one was near to see what could be considered my own heretical omission, I let the minotaur have his way. I wasn't one for tormenting prisoners. It's bad business.

I had a partner once - a mountain dwarf. That was all right, no chargeable heresy in those days to be seen with a dwarf. Toukere Hammerfell, his name was. He'd been in the bounty trade longer than I had, and I remember all the advice he gave me.

"One thing you need to know in the trade, Doune, my friend," he once said. "Don't let feelings become part of the hunt. Now, some people think this means don't let softer feelings get in the way. No pity, none of that sweet nonsense. But the harder feelings are just as much a trap. If you want to do well in this business, you'll empty out all those places where your feelings are, the soft and the hard.

Mercy costs you money, Doune. So does taking time to plague a man with kicking and beating when he's going to be dead soon anyway."

Toukere would pause to take a long drink of ale and wipe the thick foam from his black beard. We were taking our meal in the Hart's Leap that day, a tavern known for the goodness of its ale. He always liked his ale, Toukere did, and he held that no one could talk well or wisely unless he had some in his belly.

"A heretic's a heretic, Hunter-Doune, whether it's some woman weeping over her babe or some ugly minotaur all chained up and looking like an easy thing to kick. The only thing you want to worry about is how much you're getting paid for 'em. Worrying about feelings - theirs or yours - is a waste of time."

A HERETIC'S A HERETIC.

As it happened, Toukere had found out that this simple definition worked to the Kingpriest's advantage, too. Not long after that night the Kingpriest spun a new twist in his religious logic: He decided that since most dwarves worshiped the G.o.ds of neutrality - the crafter-G.o.d, Reorx of the Forge the most honored among them - then the whole race must be evil because they would not worship the G.o.ds of good. Notice went up in the paymaster's den that a bounty hunter could make sixty gold on a dwarf. Now, I never knew how Touk worshiped - or even whether he did - but the night the notice went up, he parted with more gold than I'd ever known him to, got me and everyone in the Hart's Leap drunk enough to forget where we were - or who we were - and sneaked out the back door.

He left Istar without me, and with no word of farewell.

Ah, yes. He robbed a minor shrine to Mishakal on the way out of Istar, getting himself some traveling money, and likely needing it after his trick at the Hart. The cleric at the shrine resisted, was dead of his wounds before morning.

And so the bounty on Toukere Hammerfell was larger than that on the average dwarf - one hundred gold, a sixty-forty split between heresy and murder. That was years before. Since then, I'd heard a few rumors that someone over Xak Tsaroth way had finally claimed the gold on Touk. For the most part, I got over missing my partner, but I lost my taste for ale, learned to like wine. Ale didn't taste like ale after Touk left.

So at the end of that long, hot summer day, with sunset's gold shining on the broken cobbles of Beggar's Alley and the air filling with hymns, I didn't kick the minotaur. I took care of business as Toukere and I used to: jerked the chain and got my prisoner moving again.

I hustled him down the alley, out into the wide avenues where the wealthy and the pious live. The tall, beautiful towers of Istar rose gleaming and shining around us. I herded the minotaur along the broad, tree-lined street where flower beds made lush and fragrant medians, and hummingbirds danced in the air like living jewels. The street led to the great temple, and beyond that holy place was the jail.

People on their way to prayer stopped to cheer as we pa.s.sed, and in an excess of zeal, a young man, dressed in brocades fashionably cut to imitate hunting gear, scooped up what my horse left on the cobbles and hurled it at the heretic. But the fancy bravo didn't know what to do about the mess on his hands after that. I laughed about it all the way to the jail, was still laughing when I turned the minotaur over to the guards and went to the paymaster's den to collect my gold. A small place, the den; a little wooden shack crouched behind the jail where the Kingpriest wouldn't see it. He didn't mind that his clerics and clerks paid bounty on heretics. He just didn't like to see it done.

The walls of the den were filled with the usual notices that reward would be paid for those who served the G.o.ds of neutrality or the G.o.ds of evil; for kender and elves and humans, dwarves and ogres and goblins, minotaurs, and any cleric who declined to worship the G.o.ds of good.

The bounty had been doubled again on Kell, the infa mous outlaw-heretic who professed to revere the G.o.ds of good, but who scorned the Kingpriest's practice of using torture and execution to convince people that they must worship those wise and gentle G.o.ds.

(Some holy defender of good that Kell was. Ask anyone about Kell and you heard the tale of how he robbed and murdered a whole family of pilgrims on their way to Istar to worship at the great temple. Or the one about him looting wayside shrines and slaughtering the clerics. A real favorite was that he liked to sneak into wakes and steal the silver pennies off dead men's eyes. All in all, Kell didn't sound like he was much better than the Kingpriest.) Every bounty hunter knew that he could retire richer than an elf lord if he managed to capture Kell, but, though everyone knew what his crimes were, no one knew where in all of Ansalon this fellow, Kell, was hiding. No one even knew what he looked like. Was he a dwarf or human or elf?

It depended on which rumor you liked best.

I didn't do more than glance at Kell's bounty sheet that day. There was a time when I'd been eager to hunt for Kell, but that was a while ago, and now I remembered what Toukere used to say about him: "When you think on it, Doune, my friend, no one reallyknows whether this terrible heretic, Kell, is much more than a bad dream the Kingpriest has from time to time when his food is too rich. I like the gold as much as the next one - maybe more, eh? - but I stick to the easy prey.

No sense wasting time chasing savannah-wind that's all the time changing direction."

Then he'd called for another tankard of ale.

There was a kender at the Hart's Leap. The race's heretical status didn't bother kender enough to keep them out of Istar, though no few of that free-worshiping kindred had met the heretic's fate there. Ah, but you know kender: those light-fingered thieves don't worry about much. This one was young, a likable-looking fellow, the way kender can be when they're not torturing you with their eternal chatter and endless nonsense. Red-haired and slim, with a thief's long, nimble fingers, he wore kender motley - yellow leggings, blue shirt, green cloak and purple-dyed buckskin boots. He had six or seven pouches and wallets about him, all stuffed full with pack-rat junk.

Except for me and the kender and the barman, the tavern was empty. Careful people were still at devotions or keeping discreetly out of sight. There were plenty of tables to choose from, but the kender was sitting at the table by the Hart's only window, the one with the knife-scarred top, where Toukere and I used to sit reckoning a bounty's split and drinking ale. Chance, the barman, always kept that table clear for me, no matter how crowded or empty the place was. Now he only shrugged when I scowled to see the table occupied.

"He's here lookin' for you, Doune."

That was thirty gold in kender topknot sitting at the table. Ah, life is mighty sweet, I thought, when the bounty comes looking for the hunter. I fingered the hilt of my sword, told Chance to get me some food, and said that I'd like to have it by the time I got back from hauling the kender's b.u.t.t to the jail.

But Chance closed his hand round my wrist, gripping hard. "Maybe you should eat first, eh, Doune?"

The kender c.o.c.ked his head, eyes alight and grinning as if he was expecting to have some fun.

Then someone told me - a woman's voice, as soft and deadly as a steel blade cutting cold air - that no one would be hauling kender anywhere tonight.

I turned fast on my heel, sword half drawn, and nearly spitted myself on her blade. The tall swordswoman set the point of her steel gently against the base of my throat.

Chance never lifted voice or hand in my defense.

"How much did they pay you, Chance?" I asked bitterly.

"Just exactly enough," he said, not even bothering to try for shame. He said no more, and I heard him leave for the kitchen.

"Gently," the swordswoman said, smiling and flattening out her words so that they were a taunt. "Gently, Doune, if you like living."

I like living well enough. I dropped my sword point, but not the sword. She was human, like me, but dressed and geared like an elf whose family had some means. Silk and buckskin and low-heeled riding boots of the finest cut. I'll tell you now, she was well made, long-legged and slender of waist.