That his “escape” involved placing himself into slavery was, he chuckled to himself, the very foundation of its brilliance. House Timuran was obviously just another of uncounted self-important and equally insignificant Imperial Houses of the Third Estate aspiring to grandeur in the grandeur-ridden Rhonas Imperium. A more important House-or perhaps one closer to the actual power of the Empire-might have recognized the Heart of Aer for what it truly was, and then Jugar would have been a fool indeed. But a backwater House of the Western Provinces. . no, that was a place that would not recognize what they had until he had used its power against them, caused their hearts to be torn still beating from their chests, and freed himself and his prize.
That this human idiot heard the Song of the Northern Legends in his mind made it all the easier.
And it had all worked out so much better than he had planned. Jugar congratulated himself again on how well he had manipulated this Drakis fellow to the point where his distraction had allowed the dwarf to recover the Heart of Aer-and do all the damage that he had hoped to achieve. That Drakis and his companions had brought him north through the infernal elven folds had been a wonderful and happy accident that he had managed to steer toward Togrun Fel-his intended destination all along. The westward bend in their course across Hyperia had been necessitated by the Rhonas armies that remained encamped at the Southern Gates.
But then things began to go wrong. The Hecariat had been a close thing, and then, try as he might, he could not influence Drakis-who had grown unreasonably stubborn-to turn them back north toward the mountains. Somehow that madwoman Lyric had put that nonsense about Murialis in his head. Even then he might have managed to persuade Drakis to turn north toward the end of the mountains, but his back luck turned to worse. The Iblisi Inquisitor and his Quorum had shown up at the most inopportune moment and forced them all into the lands of the dreadful Murialis faery queen.
But the dice of the gods had not stopped rolling, and even that apparent disaster had turned to his advantage. Murialis had bought into the Drakis legend-no wonder faeries are so fond of tales-and had not only spared their lives but had managed to whisk them through her kingdom and deposit them all at its northernmost boundaries almost exactly at the spot where-in his wildest dwarven dreams-he had hoped to come.
“So, you’re leaving us?”
Jugar actually started at the voice behind him. He slipped the black, cold crystal stone back into his pocket. “Eh? Oh, Drakis!”
“My apologies,” Drakis said, his own gaze fixed on the mountains in the distant east. “Still, I’d be sorry to see you go.”
“Go?” The dwarf turned and smiled charmingly. “No, friend Drakis-I was but looking on the ancestral mountains of the lost dwarves. Just a fool lost in thought.”
“Not so lost, I think,” Drakis replied. “I’ve been doing some thinking of my own. Just before the last battle-before we met-Braun told me. .”
“Who?” Jugar asked.
“Braun,” Drakis answered with some annoyance. “Our Proxi. . you don’t know him. Anyway, he pointed out that there were no young nor old among the dwarven dead.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed,” Drakis continued. “So, I think they must have gone somewhere, Jugar. There must be dwarves somewhere-and a great many of them, I wouldn’t doubt.”
“This-Braun-friend of yours seems uncommonly clever,” Jugar sniffed.
“My point is that you should go and find them,” Drakis said, nodding toward the mountains. “You’ve done enough for us.”
“Nonsense!” Jugar laughed. “We’ve only just started down our road!”
“My road, not yours,” Drakis said. “Why have you even come with us this far? I half expected you to leave us at Togrun Fel. .”
He nearly had, Jugar thought to himself.
But now he wavered.
Jugar gazed at the distant outline of the Aerian Range to the east and sighed with great satisfaction. He pulled the Heart of Aer from his pocket, fingering its cold facets as he tumbled it over and over with the fingers of his hand. There beneath the mountain, he thought, his people waited. There, deep in the dark roots and secret places farther below than elves or men ever suspected, his fellow dwarves waited for the return of the Heart of Aer and through it the healing of their race.
But healing was not what Jugar had in mind.