Oberon's Dreams (27 page)

Corin sighed. He ducked his head toward the tunnel, but Ogden stopped him with a hand on his elbow. “This is as far as I go. We must make haste if my people are to survive the coming days. But I would give you this.” He held out the small hand lantern, and Corin accepted it gratefully.

“And this.”

Corin took the cloth-wrapped bundle. He’d hoped against reason that it would be the sword
Godslayer
, but it was far too small. Curious, he folded back the dirty rags and gasped to find the gleaming gold-plate stock of Ephitel’s revolver.

“That is a piece of master craft,” Ogden said. “Borrowed from the lore of yesterworld. There’s not another like it in the world.”

A gift of dwarven master craft. Corin was stunned. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

Ogden shrugged. “ ‘Thanks’ is pretty popular. Or ‘Give it here, ya stinkin’ dwarf.’ It’s probably fifty-fifty.”

Corin turned the pistol in his hand to catch the light. He remembered how the thing had felt when he’d fired on the prince—powerful and wicked and alive. Priceless treasure though the weapon was, Corin was not sure he could trust a thing like that in battle. He certainly had no desire to carry bags of its black powder with him.

It was just as well. He could see the glint in Ogden’s eye, the desperate, unspoken hesitation. Corin took his knee to meet the chieftain eye to eye. He had never bent his knee to god or king before, but he suffered nothing for the chieftain’s pride. “Why do you give me such a gift?”

“It’s a trophy won in battle. You left it on the field.”

There was some ritual to giving master craft, and Corin saw that it would take some ritual to reject it. He shook his head. “Not if it is dwarven master craft. Such things cannot be owned by men unless they’re given by their makers.”

Ogden grinned. “Well. Little Benny taught you something.” He cleared his throat. “Aye, well, that’s the heart of it. I made it as a heritage for Benny.”

A tension loosened in Corin’s chest as he pushed the bundle back toward Ogden. He had tried before to rob another people’s history, and it had ended badly. He could hardly rob a friend. “Then it belongs to Ben. I cannot take what you would give to your own blood.”

Ogden made no move to take the package. “You’re an honest manling, Corin Hugh. But you show more respect to my handiwork than I ever did. I broke the maker’s bond for greed when I offered Benny’s heritage to Ephitel. Greed and sin and—”

“Hunger,” Corin interrupted. “That is not a sin.”

“Be it what it is,” Ogden said, “I made the gun a gift to Ephitel, and now whatever falls, Oberon will learn of it. Even if you find us some clemency from him, he will not allow a gun the likes of that within my clan.”

“But Ben—”

“Will grow just fine without a weapon in his hand. I’ll teach him axes if it comes to that.”

Broken bottles would be better
, Corin thought, but he held his tongue again.

Ogden went right on. “And if the tale you tell is true, if you can somehow go back through future ages to a time when little Benny is a friend, you may pass my heritage along to him if it please your heart.”

“You place a great deal of trust in me,” Corin said.

“I would. But no. If it never sees my son’s hands, that is my sin, not yours. If you keep it to your hoard, I can’t complain. You are a more worthy owner than the one I sold it to.”

Corin drew a heavy breath, sighed, and nodded. “Very well. If that’s truly how you feel, then give it here, ya stinkin’ dwarf.”

Ogden barked a laugh of sheer surprise, then he clapped Corin warmly on the shoulder. “You have a task I wouldn’t see delayed, but if you’ll tarry one more moment, I will show you how to use the thing.”

The chieftain taught him how to load the barrels, how to prime the pan and set the safety cock. He showed him how the revolving mechanism worked as well, though Corin had received ample education watching Ephitel.

Still, out of courtesy he waited through the demonstration—grateful when the dwarf refrained from firing the last live shot—then he expressed his gratitude with more sincerity, said his good-bye, and slithered up the rabbit hole.

It was no easy task, but he emerged into a bright midmorning. The songs of sparrows seemed like strident screeches after the ancient silence underground. The gentle sunlight seemed a searing blaze. But worst of all, by contrast, was the rushing tide of time.

Midmorning already. Time had felt imaginary underground, but based on the sun’s position, Ephitel must have gained an advantageous lead.

Corin cursed and caught his bearing. The bridge stood south, along the nearby riverbank, not half a mile down. Corin frowned, calculating. He didn’t recognize the place, but this could not be far from the path Kellen had shown him. That meant Ephitel’s mansion would be near enough to see…

He turned that way, in time to see the windows on the first floor light up red and orange, exploding outward in a rain of glass. The walls followed a moment later, firing bricks across the lawn like cannon shot. The second floor went half a heartbeat behind the first, and then a plume of fire lifted the shingled ceiling up into the sky.

So
, he thought,
I guess they found the storerooms
.

The thunder of it hit him then, and Corin turned his back before the debris could start to fall. He threw his cloak over his head and started south beside the riverbank, heading for a meeting with the king.

There was no sign of Ephitel or his guards now, only rioters flush with victory, marveling at the bonfire atop the hill. That was no sure victory, though. Not while the wretched prince was still alive. Corin left them cheering and headed for the bridge.

When he reached it, soldiers barred his way. They did not seem hostile—not Ephitel’s men, then—but they were stout and they watched the thick black smoke with nervous eyes. Corin approached them at a stroll, trying hard to look uninteresting despite his limp. Despite the bundle in his arms and his mud-slick hair and clothes. He must have looked a sickly pauper, and the guards responded automatically with raised eyebrows and lowered pikes.

“Halt!” cried their commander. “The bridge is closed. No one’s to pass until that mess is sorted out.”

Corin went straight to him, heedless of the iron spear points aimed his way. “I’m on a mission for the king. He bade me bring him this—” he raised the bundle “—with every haste.”

The commander shook his head. “Orders were clear.
No one’s
to cross the bridge.”

Corin ground his teeth. “Very well. Send a messenger for me.”

The commander shook his head. “Come back tomorrow.”

“If I wait till then, we’ll all be rotting corpses,” Corin growled. “I have the answers you are waiting for. I can explain what happened over there, and I bring news of far worse things than that! Send someone to the king to tell him Corin Hugh—”

“You’re Corin Hugh?”

The burst of excitement in the soldier’s voice took Corin aback. He nodded slowly. “Aye.”

“You should have said! I didn’t recognize you under all that mud. Come through! Let him on through!”

Corin went mechanically, still shocked that it could be so easy. “Oberon’s expecting me? The king will see me?”

“Oh, not much chance of that. The king’s in a right pique. But you can wait with Lady Delaen and the others. They said you would be coming.”

Lady Delaen. The name curled Corin’s lip.

But the commander didn’t seem to notice. He frowned, lost in thought. “Where’s the other two?”

“They’ll be here shortly,” Corin said. “Send them on through,
even if
they’re dirty.”

The commander chuckled, his cheeks a little red. “I will. I will. I’ll see it done. But you go on to the Midnight Grotto. That is where they’re waiting.”

“To where?”

“Oh! Ha. She said you’d need a guide. Pothamer! Show the man the way, and make it quick. We wouldn’t want to keep the druids waiting.”

The Midnight Grotto proved to be the same chamber Corin and the others had ducked into before to hide from Ephitel. Corin’s escort pointed out the doorway, clearly hesitant to approach the room, and when Corin nodded understanding, the soldier turned and scurried back toward the bridge.

Corin watched him go, then steeled himself and slipped into the room. His gaze went to the distant corner, where delicious-smelling fruit had grown before, but now the bushes were picked bare. Corin sighed and turned himself to business.

Maurelle was there, and Corin was glad of that. The lady’s hair was disheveled, her sleeve ripped, and a scrape across her temple was just now beginning to bruise.

She was not alone. Aemilia was there as well, stretched out on the grassy floor, apparently asleep. And there, of course, was Delaen, expression grim beneath that stark white hair. She was watching Corin with appraising eyes, and as he considered her, he felt a rising tide of anger.

He stalked toward her. “Good morning, druid. You won’t—”

Maurelle wrecked his stormy entrance. As soon as she turned his way, she screamed, “Corin! You’re alive!” and wrapped him in a crushing hug.

“I’m alive,” he said, smoothing down her hair. “And Avery as well.”

“Where is Avery? And Kellen?”

“Together,” Corin said, not yet prepared to tell that tale. “In a cavern underneath the Piazza Autunno.”

Delaen spoke up. “There is no cavern under the piazza.”

“There is now,” Corin said.

Maurelle gasped in shock.

Corin nodded. “Ephitel’s handiwork. Just one of many ugly surprises he had planned.”

Delaen narrowed her eyes. “I hear a note of accusation in your voice, but I cannot guess what you mean to imply.”

Corin pushed away from Maurelle so he could face the druid. “Then I will tell you plainly. I begin to see a guiding hand at my every turn. Someone sent me to the Piazza Primavera at just the right moment to encounter the sister of Avery of Jesalich. Someone helped me when I went to rescue Avery. Someone arranged for me to pass the blockade on the palace bridge—”

Delaen tossed her hair. “If you object to friendly aid—”

“You do not aid
me
,” Corin said. “You use me like a puppet—like a blacksmith’s hammer—and I grow tired of the pounding.”

The druid frowned. “I don’t underst—”

“You sent me to the king! You told me what to say. You promised it would get me home, but instead he sent me on an errand.”

“The king has unpredictable—”

“No!” Corin snapped. “You did this to me! From the moment I arrived in this city, someone has been twisting my fate. One of your druids took me in? Oh, and
just
as Ephitel was at her shop? You showed me his tyranny. You gave me over to one of his pretty, pitiful victims—”

Maurelle squeaked in objection, but Corin paid no mind. He felt a throbbing fever in his temples, and he gave it vent.

“You handed me to Avery, whom I’ve admired since I was a child. You paired me with a noble warrior badly used. You primed me like a pistol so that Oberon could fire me upon your foes.”

Delaen arched an eyebrow. “Are you opposed to fighting Ephitel?”

“This is not my war! I only wanted to go home. But you have broken me.”

“I have done nothing,” Delaen said. “I could not arrange a tenth of what you say.”

“So it is chance? Pure chance I met the ancient father of the only dwarf I know in all the world? All my life I’ve walked with fortune near at hand, but even I cannot believe…what?”

The shock and fear in Delaen’s eyes stole Corin’s fury. He trailed off, then asked again, “What have I said?”

“I could not arrange these things,” Delaen said, her voice far off. “But there is one who could.”

Corin didn’t have to consider long. “Oberon?”

“Oberon. His will can tug the threads of fortune. He has been known to twist a fate.”

“I am done with being twisted,” Corin snapped.

“Then on your own, you would not have challenged Ephitel?”

“I never would have dreamed to! No!”

“And now that you have dreamed?”

Corin’s chest heaved, but he could not easily answer that question. He furrowed his brow, thinking hard, and when he spoke his voice rang hollow to his own ear. “That is why I rage. My heart is mine. It is not yours to manipulate, and it is not Oberon’s.”

“But you do not want to fight Ephitel?”

“I want to see him dead!” Corin shouted. “Like I have wanted nothing else in all my life. I want to kill that wretched snake…”