The Wealth of Kings (5 page)

“My thought is that perhaps our trials are a punishment,” Alferug said directly. “Your father continued the traditions and religion that your grandfather reestablished, but your brother did not. He allowed some semblance of our connections with the Ancients to exist up until he exiled me, but even then the level of worship waned throughout the mountain. Perhaps Roegudok Hall has dried up because of our lack of faith. When we turned our backs upon the Ancients, then maybe the mountain decided it was time to rebuke us.”

Al nodded thoughtfully. “If that is the case, then Hiasyntar’Kulai, the Father of the Ancients, will restore us. I will send a message to him, and ask for his help.”

“He lives?” Alferug asked. His eyes lit up as a child’s might when presented with a large gift. He stepped forward and placed both hands on Al’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me this immediately upon your return?”

Al shrugged. “I have a lot to work through,” he said matter-of-factly. “I was not trained to be the king. I didn’t mean to keep it from you, I just didn’t think about it until now.”

“The Father of the Ancients lives, and you didn’t think it worth mentioning to me?”

Al snorted. “I spent a great deal of the last couple of years surrounded by dragons. By the time I saw Hiasyntar’Kulai, the war with Tu’luh the Red was over. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him before he took off again from Fort Drake. I assume if he had intended to reestablish links with Roegudok Hall, he would have said so then.”

Alferug frowned. “I see.” The advisor turned and mumbled something under his breath as he shook his head and bit his lower lip. “So, then we are on our own?”

Al shrugged. “As I said, I will send a message to him. If he is able to help, I am certain he will. Until then, I need to find the way in.” Al thumbed at the large mirror.

*****

Hiasyntar’Kulai, the great Father of the Ancients, soared through the sky, propelled through the cool clouds by his massive, supple wings. He scanned the ground far below, watching the trees and fields pass by beneath him until he came to Valtuu Temple. His heart saddened when he saw what was left of the once mighty temple that had towered over the valley.

The outer citadel wall was intact, but the ground below and around the temple had sunken in. The tower itself had collapsed into the tunnel. It was obvious that the priests had spent their time salvaging what they could since the terrible catastrophe that had destroyed the temple, but all they had managed to create was a single-story building thirty feet by sixty feet made from brick and stone that had once been part of Valtuu Temple.

The dragon landed lightly upon the ground and peered into the great hole. A couple of priests called out, announcing his presence as they ran toward the building.

Within moments, seventeen priests exited the building and approached him.

“Is this all that remains?” Hiasyntar’Kulai asked as he looked to the priests.

A shorter, pot-bellied priest came forward and spoke for the group. “Many of our order died in the war with Tu’luh and the orcs,” he said. “Others abandoned our order when news of the prelate’s death reached us.” The short man turned and swept his arm out toward the others. “We stand loyally, ready and willing to rebuild the order, my king.” The short priest and all the others knelt on both knees and bowed so that their heads touched the ground.

“What is your name?” Hiasyntar’Kulai asked.

“I am Magdon Sorent,” the priest said. “I have been with the order for thirteen years.”

The dragon nodded. “And who is the new prelate?”

Magdon frowned and shook his head. “The Keeper of Secrets has not appointed one to take the old prelate’s place.”

Hiasyntar’Kulai smiled. He had already known of Master Lepkin’s intentions to seek seclusion with his wife, Lady Dimwater, and their newborn son. His question was meant more as a test of these priests, to see whether there had been any struggles for power, or if they had abided by tradition. He was pleased that the latter was the case. “I am here now, and I shall appoint a prelate.”

Magdon nodded and bent his head low to the ground.

Hiasyntar’Kulai let out a low, throaty growl as he focused his mind. As an Ancient, he had two different types of vision he could use. There was the normal kind of vision that all intelligent beings had, albeit his sense of sight was far more acute than any humanoid’s, and then there was another type that was called true sight. True sight allowed Hiasyntar’Kulai to see into the auras of living things around him. He could see the green and white energies of the grasses and trees and other plants around them, but more than that, he could decipher from the priests’ auras exactly how they felt and what kind of character they had deep within their hearts. The priests each had a lesser degree of true sight given to them. Their natural eyes had faded into gray orbs, for they no longer saw as other humans did. The dragon’s gift, however, was one he could use at will, changing between the two types of vision as he needed.

He scanned Magdon first. He saw blue energy swirling around yellow, with a small, marble-sized ball of green and white toward the center of the man. The dragon turned and studied the rest of the priests together. He saw several men with orange hues, red streaks, blue waves, and yellow cores. He saw darkness in none of them, but he was not entirely pleased with any of them either. None of them appeared to have the wisdom and brightness he was looking for.

Hiasyntar’Kulai scrutinized them for several moments, his gaze falling upon each man in turn and then moving on to the next. He repeated the exercise three times, but was still unsatisfied.

The door to the building opened again and a person stepped out with a bright aura that eclipsed all of the others. A core of white swirled within the person’s center. As the light radiated out, there was a bright, warm layer of golden yellow. The outer shell was green, the color of birth, growth, and life. This person had the traits he was searching for. More than that, the traits were far brighter than any counterpart currently bowing before the dragon.

Hiasyntar’Kulai changed back to his normal vision. “I have chosen,” he said.

The priests pushed up to a kneeling position, but did not rise to their feet. They watched expectantly as Hiasyntar’Kulai reached up and pointed a single talon. They glanced around each other, confused for a moment before they turned and looked behind them.

The brown-haired woman near the building stood and stared at the dragon with curious brown eyes.

“My king, she is not a member of our order,” Magdon protested. “She is a volunteer from a nearby village. She helps us with cooking and cleaning.”

The dragon shook his head. “Yet, each of you can see her potential.”

The woman reached up and put a hand to her throat. “What do you want with me?” she asked the dragon. Her voice was cautious, but Hiasyntar’Kulai detected no fear. The woman was as confident as her aura was bright.

“You shall lead this order,” the Father of the Ancients said. “If, you will accept the position as prelate of Valtuu Temple, I will have these priests train you in what you should do.”

“Will I lose my vision, like they have?” the woman asked.

Hiasyntar’Kulai shook his head. “No. The gift of true sight was given to these priests because we Ancients had to leave the Middle Kingdom centuries ago. The gift of true sight allowed the priests to help find the Champion of Truth. However, the Champion of Truth has already been discovered, and Nagar’s Blight no longer clouds the Middle Kingdom. Now that I have returned, I no longer require assistance of that kind. I would have you keep your natural sight, but you would be the steward of this temple and everyone in the order.”

The woman nodded thoughtfully.

“What is your name?”

“Sissil Varone,” she said.

Hiasyntar’Kulai stepped forward and bent his head low to hers. “Sissil Varone, I will form a connection with you now, and endow you with the authority and power necessary to be the prelate. Afterward, you shall go in and rest for a day. Tomorrow, these priests will begin to train you in your new duties. All of them are faithful, and will help you grow into your new position. With your stewardship, you shall make this temple great once more.”

The dragon locked eyes with the woman and formed a telepathic connection between them. Sissil’s shapely body went rigid and still as the dragon used the mental conduit to grant her the powers needed by a prelate of Valtuu Temple.

When he finished, a pair of priests were quick to help Sissil back into the building. They emerged a few moments later and bowed their heads.

“The prelate is sleeping,” one of them said.

“Good, she will need her rest,” Hiasyntar’Kulai commented. He then turned to Magdon. “Is there any addorite left within the temple?”

Magdon scrunched up his brow and shook his head. “No, my king. There has been no addorite here for more than a century.”

Hiasyntar’Kulai nodded. He knew there had been a store of addorite in Valtuu Temple before. He now understood that Tu’luh had likely taken in sometime after the Battle of Hamath Valley. That was the only possible explanation. The dragon sighed and looked back to the ruined temple. In his mind’s eye, he could see the temple rebuilt, but that did little to lessen his current sadness at seeing the destruction wrought upon the once mighty temple by his son, Tu’luh the Red.

“What shall we do, master?” Magdon asked.

The dragon turned and said, “Help the new prelate learn of her role. She has great power inside of her. Serve her as you would serve me. I shall return from time to time, but she will have authority to rule over the temple and direct its reconstruction as well as have oversight for recruiting new priests and acolytes.”

“Where will you go?” Magdon asked.

Hiasyntar’Kulai needed to find addorite. However, that was not a concern he was ready to fully disclose to the priests yet. Instead, he bid them farewell without answering the question, but promised to return soon. He then beat his massive wings and sailed through the sky.

Year 3,711 Age of Demigods, Summer.

2
nd
year of the reign of Aldehenkaru’hktanah Sit’marihu, 13
th
King of Roegudok Hall.

Al sat at his large, ebony desk. He leaned back in his chair and wiped a hand down his face and over his beard. He had read through each of the highlighted passages Alferug had given him. There were no obvious answers in front of him. He sighed and slumped down in his chair, frustrated and ready for a break. Then, his eyes saw a green leather book leaning against the wall on the farthest side of his desk. Without even reading the Peish rune emblazoned on the front, he knew the book.

“Well, Sylus, perhaps you will have some wisdom for me?” Al said as he leaned forward, stretching out for the book. He took it in his hands and then unceremoniously flopped back into the chair. He opened the cover and skipped the first chapter. As was customary with any historical text left behind by a king of Roegudok Hall, the first chapter was an account of the king’s heritage and ancestry. One might have thought that since Sylus was only the fifth king, the first chapter might have been small, but this was not so. Dwarven customs demanded an accounting of each king’s major accomplishments as well as their name and genealogical information.

The first chapter on Sylus’ book was well over one hundred pages.

Al shuddered to think how thick his first chapter might have to be if a book was ever written about his reign. He was the thirteenth king of Roegudok Hall. He pushed the idea out of his head and moved into the second chapter. If there was any advice to be found on how to make the mountain prosperous again in the face of such tragedy, Sylus would have the answer in his book. It was well known that Sylus had ushered in an age of unprecedented wealth for the dwarves of Roegudok Hall. The kings who came after him managed to extend that success, but none ever achieved the same status Sylus had created. This was not to say that Roegudok Hall had ever been poor after Sylus’ reign, however. Up until Threnton’s time as king, the dwarves had always enjoyed abundance and wealth.

King Al spent the next several hours scanning the book for insight into Sylus’ process. While the endeavor gave his mind a much needed break from straining to unlock the Wealth of Kings, it shed little light on the subject of prosperity. Sylus had expanded the mines much in the same way Al and Dvek had agreed to expand the mines now. However, there was no secret formula for success. It seemed that it was luck as much as expert mining that resulted in the windfall of gems and ore Sylus extracted during his reign.

It soon became painfully obvious to Al that Sylus had hidden the secret of Roegudok Hall’s wealth, instructing the historian to leave it out of the book. It puzzled Al at first, but then he landed on the idea that perhaps it was because each chapter detailing Sylus’ battles with the orcs of his time was so vivid and painstaking in its accuracy, that perhaps Sylus wanted to be remembered as a warrior-king, and not as a king who labored in the pits below the mountain. Chapter seven opened with the battle against an orc general named Borgnat. The account was so descriptive that Al was able to picture each moment of the battle in his mind as his eyes studied the runes.

He read through until the moment Borgnat was slain, and then Al flipped to chapter eight. It too, was an account of a great battle. So were chapters nine through thirteen. Al grumbled and tossed the book to the desk. Learning of battles long forgotten was not going to help him help his people. Al was already an accomplished warrior-king in his own right, having survived the battle at Fort Drake, and before that, having fought against the orcs in the south.

Al groaned and lifted his head to the ceiling. In that moment, he almost wished that he was back upon the battlefield once more. It wasn’t that he liked violence, or the grief that came with war, but there was something about it that made him feel more alive. It gave him a sense of purpose. An all-encompassing reason to exist.

He looked to the green book lying haphazardly upon the desk. “Is that why you focused on your battles?” he asked Sylus. “Maybe you didn’t care to focus on mining and farming because it wasn’t what gave you your value, is that it?” Al reached out and grabbed the book again, deciding that must be the reason the warrior-king had left such an exhaustive account of his wars while barely glossing over the general points of commerce in his time. “There is something about the crown that dulls the spirits in creatures who yearn for action,” Al said with an approving nod to the book.

He flipped through the last two chapters, scanning the runes just enough to know that chapter fourteen was a treatise about weapon types and the best metals to use in their creation, and that chapter fifteen was a short account describing Sylus’ death. He grabbed the back cover to close the book, but as his hand brought the cover up, something caught the light just right, shining ever so slightly.

Intrigued, Al bent his nose to the book and narrowed his eyes. It was an ink smear. The writing was old and much of it was faded. He turned and looked at the runes on the last page. They were written with black ink, and the writing there was not dimmed by time. Furthermore, the faded runes on the inside back cover appeared to be made by a different hand. Al held the book up to the light at an angle to better see, and discovered that there was a message there. There wasn’t much that was visible, but Al did see a distinct line of runes that made his mouth drop.

Al set the book down and called out to a servant to find Alferug. “Tell him to bring something to restore ink!” Al added as the servant scurried off down the hallway.

Alferug was quick to answer. An excited smile on his face told Al that he was expecting a breakthrough. The wooden box in his arms, filled with various bottles and brushes, showed that Alferug was prepared for any kind of restoration that might be needed.

“Have you found something?” Alferug asked as he set the box down on the desk.

Al pointed to the back cover. “Did you notice this before?”

Alferug bent down close to the book. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

Al gently pushed Alferug back and raised the book to the light. “Look again.”

Alferug’s mouth fell open and he nearly jumped with excitement as he turned to the box. “Tell me, is it red or black ink?”

Al paused as he brought the book closer. “It appears to be red.”

“Very well, set the book down. Move all the others. We don’t want to have any accidents.”

Al did as he was told and stepped aside.

Alferug brought out a thick cloth and set it on the last page of the book. “Don’t want to damage any of the intact pages,” he explained as he stretched the edges around the rest of the book. “Give me a moment.” Alferug went to the box and pulled a large stone bowl from the bottom. Next he pulled a cube of soap and three bottles. Each of the liquids in the bottles were clear, but the bottles were different shapes and were each stoppered with a large cork. “Water, ammonia, and muriate of tin,” Alferug announced as he indicated the bottles. Without waiting for a response, Alferug went to work shaving off an amount of soap from the cube and then grinding it into a powder inside the stone bowl. Next, he poured precise amounts of each liquid into the bowl and mixed thoroughly.

Al covered his nose and took a step back. He never did care for the smell of ammonia. Mixed with the other items, it was even worse.

Alferug then took a brush and held his breath as he dipped it into the mixture and then lightly applied it to the back cover. “Watch carefully. We may need to transcribe the writing to a new paper. This mixture is highly acidic, and may eat through the writing after a while.”

Al grunted as he fished for a piece of parchment from the drawer in the desk. He then set it next to the green book and marveled as the runes became clear, changing from an almost imperceptible, faded red to a greenish color that contrasted well against the aged book.

“The Wealth of Kings shall be found again when the bloodgrass springs up from the mountain,” Al read aloud as he quickly scrawled an identical set of runes on his paper. He then turned back to the cover.

“Find the book written by mine own hand, and you will understand the Wealth of Kings,” Alferug said as he read the last line of runes aloud.

Al transcribed the entire message and then shook his head as he looked to the signature at the bottom of the secret message. “This was written by Sylus,” Al said.

“But why would he hide the Wealth of Kings?” Alferug mused. He then took his brush and applied a thin layer of the mixture to other areas of the cover. In doing so, he revealed a smaller line of writing near the bottom. “Beware that you do not squander…,” Alferug said.

“Squander what?” Al asked.

Alferug shrugged. “The rest of the writing is too deteriorated to bring back. I can’t recreate the entire message.”

Al set his pen down and pointed to the book. “The Wealth of Kings,” he said. “Maybe he was afraid the mines would run dry one day, and he was cautioning us not to squander our wealth.”

Alferug sighed and set his brush down across the rim of the stone bowl. “What we need to do is find this other book that Sylus wrote.”

“Did my father ever tell you of it?” Al asked. Alferug shook his head. “He never told you anything about it?” Al asked again incredulously.

Alferug again shook his head. “As I said before, he never mentioned it to me. I never knew of the library’s existence until we found it together.”

“But surely you knew of the back door in the mountain, yes?”

Alferug frowned. “Your father told you about it, but he did not tell me.”

Al snapped his fingers. “We don’t need to find the book,” he said excitedly. “We just need to go back through the rear door. We have been wasting our time when all we had to do was retrace our steps.” Al smiled widely and moved to retrieve his cloak. “Come, you should be there with me. We will open the mirror from the inside, as we did before!”

The two made haste through the mountain and within the hour were outside, climbing the slope as the afternoon sun slowly made its descent in the west.

Al pushed on, ascending the mountain side as the loose dirt gave way to patches of gray shale and round pebbles. His thick fingers easily found the niches in the stone wall as he started up a sheer cliff, scurrying up the face like a squirrel climbs a tree. Alferug was only a few feet behind him until they reached the top and stood on the first shelf.

They made their way along the same path they had traveled together once before. At times the flat shelf gave way to steep drops where rockslides had occurred over the years. A man might have easily fallen down any one of the dangerous slopes, but Al was a dwarf. His feet were in tune with the mountain and the rock. He often joked that when it came to climbing mountains, dwarves were more akin to goats than to their taller human cousins.

They walked for the space of an hour before Al stopped to scan the ascending slopes, looking for the best route up the mountain. It didn’t take him long. He pointed a sausage-like finger at a jagged crevice and went straight to it. His hands found purchase quickly and his feet propelled him up. The rock felt cool and strong to the touch. A part of him began to come alive as the mountain seemed to welcome his ascent. A great smile stretched across his face and he increased his pace, scrambling up the mountain as though he were a strong summer wind, bending up to crest over the peak.

Once they arrived at the second shelf, Al led them on a winding trail to a place near the back of the mountain. They were about two thirds of the way up the great peak, exactly in the same area where they had found the door before.

“We’ll rest over there,” Al said, pointing to a flat area recessed in a small nook where the mountain curved into itself, hidden by a patch of scrub oak. The two dwarves knew they would need to wait for nightfall, for the door was only revealed by a blue moonstone set in the mountain.

“If you recall, the last time we were here, we were discussing how you brother had expelled the Keeper of Secrets from Roegudok Hall,” Alferug pointed out.

“I remember,” Al grunted.

“Fortunately for our people, Master Lepkin’s assertion that Threnton would not be king for long held true. Whatever hardship we face now in the mountain, I am glad you are here to guide us through it.”

Al took the compliment and offered a half smile. “And I am glad to have you by my side to guide
me
.” Al smiled and looked down below the mountain, taking in the sweeping view of valley floor and green forest. “It’s interesting how history unfolded,” Al said as he changed the subject. “To think that during Sylus’ time, Tu’luh the Red was the Patron Ancient of Roegudok Hall. He fought beside Sylus in many battles. The dragon even helped advise Sylus.”

“And then he turned on us,” Alferug said with a wistful nod. “There is not much written about the first rift between Ancients and dwarves,” he added.

“My father told me that it happened either during Sylus’ reign, or shortly thereafter, for his was the last king’s book to mention them until my grandfather restored our traditions.”

Alferug nodded. “Even then, the Ancients did not restore their relations with our kind until your grandfather stood with them in the Battle of Hamath Valley.”