There is no telling what the others were thinking. What went through the mind of Sir Andrew, of Marigold, of the boy Raphael, was as mysterious as old writing. Within the hour, despite Enid's better judgment and the urgings of the older Knights, Bayard had led the party even farther below the foundations of Castle di Caela. Masonry had given way to earth and igneous rock. Even the taproots of vallenwoods did not go down this far, though the water was here, hissing about them and dripping from crevice and outcropping as though the whole earth was a sodden sponge.
Gileandos leaned against the cellar wall, which felt cool, mossy, uncomfortably moist. "Indeed," he asserted, eager to support the judgments of his employer. "In my humble opinion as physicist and alchemist, I should have to insist that nothing I have seen or heard or otherwise observed here is necessarily the product of anything more than the altogether natural workings of the elements."
Bayard, Robert, and Brandon stared at the tutor with contempt. Suddenly Gileandos's eyes wided. His thin, pale-fingered hand slid over the wall behind him and pulled away in disgust.
"What is it, pedant?" Sir Robert snapped. But the tutor was speechless, staggering to the center of the corridor.
Brandon steadied Bayard, moved quickly past the old man, and set his hand to the wall.
He felt a give, a wet leathery surface that pulsed under his fingers. His voice thin and wavering, he turned to the party, struggling for composure.
"It-it cannot be, Bayard," he said, his words rising scarcely above a shaken whisper. 'The wall… the wall is alive!"
"And I am the Kingpriest of Istar!" Sir Robert snorted, stepping forward to rid the world of nonsense. But Bayard's hand stayed the old man, and slowly Bayard hobbled toward Brandon, removing his gloves as he approached.
The wall was pliable and moist. From a distance, it was indistinguishable from stone, and indeed at some time others had made the same mistake, for whatever the thing was that lay in front of the huddled Knights, it was covered with drawings and scratches and fabulous designs. Only at close quarters could one see the pores and the leathery contours of what appeared to be skin.
"Gileandos!" Bayard hissed. "Quickly! What are the legends, the lore about great creatures under the earth?"
"Arrrh…" the tutor replied. Then "Arrrh…" again as his wits and resources failed against the prospect of danger. Sir Andrew slapped him with a glove, but the old tutor continued to gargle and stammer.
"If I might be so bold, sir," Sir Brandon Rus offered, peering intently at the rippling surface in front of him. Bayard turned to the young man and heard the others close ranks behind him.
"In several collections of lore," Brandon began, "I have seen mention of the daergryn, as the elves call it. The giant worm that bears the surface of Ansalon on its back. 'Tellus,' the creature was called in the times of Huma, and the dale worm is its name in the common speech."
"You have heard of this, too, Gileandos?" Bayard asked.
The old man swallowed and nodded. "Mythopoetic way that the less scientific times explained the rumblings and tremors of the earth. 'The dale worm stirring,' they were wont to say. Hence the expression 'the worm has turned' to denote great change and reversals."
Emboldened by his knowledge, the scholar folded his arms triumphantly, then remembered that the worm in question was neither myth nor poetry and began to stammer again.
"Gileandos," Bayard said, his great hand calming the scholar with a simple touch on the shoulder. "I suppose we can all say that the worm has turned now. And I fear we're in for a turn or two more. It is time you all learned what I read in the papers of Castle di Caela. Perhaps, with luck and the favor of the gods, we can avert the promises and threats we have inherited."
There, crouched by the side of the dale worm, Sir Bayard Brightblade revealed what he knew. That "the rending of earth" was part of a dead man's plan, seized upon in vengeance four centuries ago. That somehow a device-some gnomish machinery, no doubt, or an ancient unfathomable mechanism-was set in motion by the anger and hatred of the very Scorpion destroyed by Bayard in the recent past. Now it was set to arouse this creature, to disrupt everything "from the Vingaard Mountains to the Plains of Solamnia, even unto the foundations of this murderous house."
What that meant, and how the arousing would take place, not even Bayard Brightblade knew.
Chapter XV
Seven stones were set in his crown. Seven godseyes: one brought from above, six mined in the dark recesses of the Vingaards.
For Firebrand, it was not enough.
Are there not places for thirteen stones?
Oh, the timid had warned against it, shaking their fingers and saying, "The power over life and death belongs to no man, nor should any man try to take it. For what right has man to govern the plains and the caverns, the places that give birth to him and nurture him and receive his body when he is no more?"
A weakling's argument, in which a false mysticism hid one's fear. One might as well ask what right a man has to govern himself.
But it was more-indeed, much more. For recently Firebrand had felt it, as the visions grew sharper, more consuming, as the stories of those around him came to painful and vivid life in his thoughts. There were times when Firebrand thought he was becoming transparent, when torchlight shone through his extended hands, when he could look through his palms and see the carvings on the stone walls of the corridor. It was only a matter of time, he thought, until he rose beyond himself.
All the more reason for the thirteenth stone, for the power over life and death. For when the prophecy was fulfilled and Firebrand led the Que-Tana back to the surface, he would rule over all the Plainsmen as history renewed itself.
Slowly Firebrand rose from his throne. The Que-Tana below him continued in their tasks, tirelessly combing the stones for the godseyes. He turned from them, his bearskin robe stirring the lifeless air in the Porch of Memory, rocking the flames of the candles, and he climbed up the stairs that were carved in the sheeted stalactites above the throne. He entered the corridor that took him past the Hall of Chanting, where the women recited the Song of Firebrand continuously.
Two miners met him in the corridor, carrying the stone-crushed body of a child between them. They stopped and knelt before the Namer. Firebrand touched his eye patch absently and stepped over the boy's broken body.
One of the miners thought of a curse as the Namer passed, but he cowered, and the words died in his throat.
Past the library Firebrand proceeded, where at his orders, the children had removed the last of the books and destroyed them, because soon all history, all thought and science and poetry-all of anything worth knowing-would reside in the stones on the silver crown.
He stopped and touched the carved writing on a torchlit wall. A poem in Old Que-Nara-a love poem to a dark-haired woman.
Blue light flickered in the Namer's hand. His fingers coursed over the words of the poem, and the stone smoked: beneath them. The words vanished, and in their stead, the wall was glassy and black like obsidian.
Firebrand admired himself in the reflection.
Deeper into the caverns he went, his duties calling him to his own cubicle, where the warriors had taken the kidnapped cleric. He came to the Gates of Flame, the yellow row of stalactites and stalagmites that marked the boundaries of his private quarters. They were long, sharp, and irregular, like teeth of fire.
Stepping through the gate, Firebrand entered the long, narrow part of the underground cavern wherein he resided. He was no longer surprised at the uncanny warmth of this part of the caverns, the wind as regular as a heartbeat, soft against the face of those who approached, carrying upon its back the cloying smell of decay, the floors and the walls of the corridor wet with centuries of sediment.