Chương 97: V3: Chapter 38 - Full Moon Rising

"C limb, you old fool!" Ena shouted.

"When I said I wanted to hear you, lassie, I didn't mean I wanted to hear ya scream," Gravis replied as he pulled just as hard as he could to mount the final tooth. He was nearly out of strength. If he was honest with himself, he had actually passed that mark a while ago. Gravis was running on sheer determination now. Falkirk had lacerated his abdomen, and the cuts had been deep. He didn't dare look down. He didn't want to see his innards trailing out.

How he managed to scale the gear was beyond his comprehension, nor did it hold much interest. None of it mattered. Even the condition of his ripped-open belly was inconsequential. He knew this beyond any doubt because Ena told him so.

"I don't care a fig if you don't like the tenor o' my voice, Gravis! You dig in, you bearded boil on the butt of a baboon! You only need to do one lousy thing. In your whole life, this is it! Don't you dare fail now! You say you love me — so prove it. Prove it to me now, you daffy old hampot! Stand up and pull that lever!" Gravis pushed to his knees. The world was swirling around him. The walls had gone red and were smoking. As far as Gravis could tell, Drumindor ought to have already blown.

The moon had to be up by now, should have risen a while ago. And when its full pale light had kissed the walls, the Grand Old Lady ought to have popped like a cork, ushering in a new year of death and destruction. Perhaps I underestimated the stubbornness of the old gal. Looking up, Gravis spotted the chain that dangled from the Armtarin. It swayed with the rocking of the tower. He raised his arm but couldn't reach it.

"You've got to stand, love!" Ena shrieked in his ear. Gravis had absolutely no idea how she was there, and much like his astounding climb, he didn't much care. All that mattered was that she'd heard him, and he could see Ena on her knees by his side, cheering him on. She was a dainty thing in her white nightgown, young and beautiful, just as she had always been in his mind's eye.

"For you, my love, I'll do anything."

"Don't tell me — show me!"

"Aye, that I will." With every fiber of his body, and the last droplets of strength that remained in him, Gravis pushed to his feet. He caught the swinging chain, gripped it tight, and then as darkness folded in around his vision, he proceeded to wrap, wind, and bind the chain around his wrists.

"I do love you, Ena," Gravis said.

"I always have."

"Anything you desire!" the voices told Royce as he walked the long dark bridge toward the Dragon's Mouth.

"Riches beyond your imagination!" Royce kept walking as the molten lake bubbled and burst. The temperature was bad, but not horrific. The stone bridge shielded him from the worst of it. He could see the blurry waves of intense heat to either side, and when a spout of lava blew up high enough to reach the level of the bridge, he felt a blast like a furnace on that side. Breathing was easier than he expected. The air smelled like rotten eggs but wasn't overpowering. There was a reason.

The dwarfs had built in a ventilation system that pumped surface air, which circulated through the room, or at least along the bridge. Royce knew this because he felt a cool breeze that had no business being there. Entering that chamber had seemed to be certain suicide, but feeling the fresh air, Royce was reminded that this was a forge, and dwarfs had worked here. The conditions had to be bearable. Iceboxes, doors, and now this — the little monsters will take over the world one day.

Through his ears, he heard what could best be described as teeth dragging across a sharp blade, but in his head, he heard,"We'll give you everlasting life, Royce!" They weren't words, not really, but it was difficult for him to separate words from thoughts. Can anyone think without words? It must be possible. People without sight and hearing who couldn't read still thought; he just didn't know how.

What Royce experienced as he crossed that bridge did not impress him as words so much as a simple understanding, an idea that became clear in his head, which his mind translated into words.

"We will make you a god!" This one made him smile. Maybe the idea that something was speaking to him was only a hallucination brought on by heightened anxiety, or perhaps he was experiencing a form of delirium stemming from the noxious fumes. He leaned toward the latter — but either way, he found the promises humorously off target.

"Let me guess," Royce said aloud.

"To become a god, all I need to do is not destroy this book?" The chamber roared with a positive affirming answer.

"I should just, what? Sit down, take a nap, and wait for this whole place to be obliterated?" Again, the euphoric response. Royce reached the Haldor Gigin. The mouth was the size of a giant's cave, and the doors were closed and sealed by a massive metal bar that he had no hope of removing.

"That's interesting. In order to become a god, all I must do is die. But let me ask you this: who are you to create gods of men?"

"We are greater than gods."

"Okay, prove it," Royce said.

"You say that for me to receive my reward I need to die. Fine. I'll do what you want if you prove that you are greater than a god by opening this furnace door." You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Nothing happened.

"Obey us, child of dirt! Or you will pay!" Royce studied the door and realized that it made no sense for the forge to be so large. Did the dwarfs really open this whole thing and face exposing themselves to all that heat if all they wanted to do was melt enough metal to forge a bracelet? Like most dwarven doors, these were ornate and subdivided. He spotted a small hook hanging off to the side of one of the smaller squares and saw the answer.

The mouth of the dragon could be opened in a variety of ways: a tiny aperture, a set of multiple squares, and all the way up to the giant chasm of the full mouth. Whatever size was required was available. The bar was likely there as a safety precaution. Royce grabbed up the metal hook, and after catching it on the side of a relief image depicting a dwarf hitting an anvil with a hammer, he swung a door open.

Foolishly standing directly in front of it, he was singed, and only his quick reflexes saved him from a severe burn. Royce raised the book.

"NO!" The chamber shuddered and groaned, and the lava pool splashed and churned as Royce tossed the diary of Falkirk into the Haldor Gigin, trying his best to do it in the same fashion as had been depicted in the painting. He wasn't taking any chances.

"Turns out I have no interest in being a god or living forever, nor do I want riches, or even a key to the city of Tur Del Fur," he said, speaking either to himself or his delusion as he trotted back across the bridge. He didn't really think it mattered at this point.

"There's only one thing I want." As soon as he said it, he knew that wasn't quite accurate.

"Okay, so that's an understatement. There're five things, but I always had the first four, and now it looks as though I've got a good shot at the fifth." Hadrian threw Falkirk off. The dead man's body hit the floor and slid a few feet. Hadrian rolled to his knees, awaiting the next attack, but Falkirk didn't move. He looked to be nothing more than a long-dead corpse. As he stared at it, Hadrian noticed it wasn't merely Falkirk who had stopped moving. The tower had grown still, and everything was quiet.

At least for a moment. Royce appeared in the doorway just as the master gear rotated one tick, but that click resounded with authority, and once more the tower shook. Instantly, a hundred other gears whirred to life. The big ones that never moved crept forward. The medium-sized wheels beat a determined pace, and the little cogs spun so fast that they sounded like a hive of bees.

"You did it!" Royce shouted while looking up at the ceiling of gears that performed a show like a ballroom of couples putting on a grand dance.

"I didn't do anything," Hadrian said. They both looked to the place where Gravis had fallen and found only a pool of blood. A scarlet trail smeared its way across the floor and up to the top teeth of the master gear. There, dangling from a chain attached to the retracted lever, the dwarf hung by a single wrist, limp and unmoving. They pulled him down, but Gravis Berling, the last of his bloodline, was dead. Still, his eyes were open, and on his face sat a smile.

Gwendolyn DeLancy and Rehn Purim sat beneath the stars outside Table by the Tea. Gwen leaned forward with her elbows resting next to the steaming cup of black leaf she had made for herself. She didn't think Olivia Montague would mind. Gwen had put everything back the way she found it and doubted Olivia would even notice. In doing so, she smiled to find all the silverware, cups, and plates hadn't been touched. Despite Olivia's offer, no one had taken a thing. Rehn sat with his feet up in the chair across from Gwen.

The white of his fresh bandages peeked out beneath his shirt.

"Where's the moon?" Rehn asked, concerned.

"I'm certain it will be along," Gwen replied and sipped the hot tea. Rehn narrowed his eyes at her, his mouth turning up in amazement tempered with a dash of disbelief.

"You're so... relaxed."

"And you should be, too. Getting all worked up isn't good for your recovery. You need peace and quiet. You should have gone back with Arcadius and Albert like I told you to." He shook his head.

"I'd rather die — for real this time — than to do that to him again." Gwen nodded.

"Very brave of you." He scowled in return.

"You don't mean that."

"I do... sort of. For you, this is still a question. We could die at any moment, so your decision to stay is very courageous."

"But it's not heroic for you?" Gwen smiled and shook her head.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Experience," Gwen replied. She set her cup back down, then smiled.

"Look, there's your moon."

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, shocked, as in the sky hung a dark circle that appeared nearly invisible and a tinge red. Gwen herself would have been equally aghast if she hadn't already seen the sight through Rehn's eyes and confirmed the story through a few others. She had left nothing to chance. Gwen had no idea what it meant but knew it was nothing bad. Still, witnessing that blood-red disk — seeing it with her own eyes — made her wonder what was happening.

Something amazing, certainly, something in the realm of the divine, and it frightened her to think she was involved — possibly even the cause. Will this make the gods notice me now? The thought was terrifying. The moon had already been well above the horizon revealing that she had risen unseen several minutes ago, draped in a dark and blood-colored cloak. Now as they watched, the moon began to peel off her covering, exposing the familiar white light beneath.

The pale radiance displayed storefronts, tables, and chairs, and for the first time, Gwen discovered there were others at the dock — small groups standing silently around the boardwalk, watching. And then it happened. The night exploded in a magnificent burst of yellow-illuminated brilliance as Drumindor vented. Like a fountain of light, all forty-eight spouts fired, and dazzling streams of gold spewed in gorgeous arcs out into the ocean.

The whole of the harbor lit up in its fantastic glow as gasps and screams turned to cheers that burst from the assembled crowd. Gwen watched all of them. What looked to be more than a thousand dwarfs, several dozen mir, many Calians, and even a few Ba Ran sailors mingled together, faces glowing with relief and delight. Fists were punched in the air; shouts of joy and leaps of exuberance were everywhere.

Among the revelers, Gwen spotted Calvary Graxton, Jareb, Atyn, Baba, Salen, and Amster, and not far away, Auberon, who did not cheer — he cried. Atyn embraced Jareb. Mister Parrot got down on his knees and kissed a lady dwarf. Hugging and kissing became something of an epidemic that spread through the crowd. Rehn slammed his palm on the table, upsetting Gwen's tea. Then he rose to his feet and proceeded to hop up and down.

"Stop that, you'll hurt yourself!" Rehn ignored her.

"They did it!" Gwen righted her cup. Hugs and kisses shifted to dancing, as the dwarfs began impromptu jigs with music provided by slaps, stomps, and voices that soon fell into rhythm. Incredibly, this strange assortment of people began to sing together. They started with the dwarven anthem, which the taller folk tried their best to lend voices to. Then the multitude rolled right into Calide Portmore, which everyone knew by heart.

Then came the Calian folk song Old RaMar and finally Ibyn Ryn, a song Gwen had only heard sung by the mir in the alleys of Wayward once a year. Hearing the song brought Atyn to tears. As the songs died down, the moon finally cast off the remainder of her dark cloak and climbed the sky in her full circle of silvery splendor. And off in the distance, spilling down the cliffside from the high ridge, Gwen heard the lonesome howls of wolves. She thought this strange as she wasn't aware they even had wolves in Delgos.

"There she is," Gwen told him.

"There's the lady of the evening. She arrives making a delayed but dramatic entrance that no one will ever forget."

"Now I just have to hope that Hadrian doesn't hate me and want me dead," Rehn said. Then he looked at her.

"He doesn't... does he?" Gwen lifted her cup and sipped.