The upper workings of Glint had wide passages and expansive halls. The stone was ticulously smoothed, so passages squared and so with rounded sides, the sandstone polished to a high luster and here and there carved in reliefs. Basalt and granite intrusions added mottled variations of color. There was little left of the original rough-hewn workings of her father and the others owners from just a few decades earlier. Spreading veins of Miner’s Eye fungus lit Peridot’s way, so even glowing with yellow and red hues, telling of Glint’s wealth.
The upper workings were also busy. It did not matter the hour. Within the colony of dwarves, there was never a ti when all slept. Over ti, individual workings developed their own patterns of sleeping and waking beneath the stone, and dwarves often worked in shifts so that labors never ceased. The light of sun and moon made no difference. They certainly made no difference to Peridot as she moved along the passages, for she rarely left the ridge, especially not in the winter. She had not walked beneath the sky in months, nor did she care.
Peridot shouldn’t have had to go looking for her brother. She was younger than he was by three years, and he was still over a year away from his rhundal. He should have been with Shineboot’s cadre in the lower workings, but he wasn’t, at least according to the ssage Shineboot had sent to their stonehold by the mouth of one of his kulhan. Rightauger had failed to show up.
Again.
“Go get your brother before your father finds out,” her mother had told her, and now, hiding behind her heavy veil, Peridot passed by countless dwarves hurrying about their business. It was not expected of a maid before her rhundal to wear a veil, and indeed, even maids past their rhundal did not need to do so, but Peridot preferred it—she did not want to be noticed, recognize, or bothered. She didn’t want to be there at all.
The ssenger hadn’t told Peridot where to find Rightauger, but she had a pretty good idea. There were a few places that Rightauger was likely to go, and she would start in the Warden’s Hold. It was not a public stew hall or gathering place; it was the hold of the Ridge Wardens, her father’s warriors and sentries, but they hardly forbid Rightauger’s presence—in fact, many of the wardens appeared to enjoy having the Irik-Rhûl’s son visit them.
The Warden’s Hold was no great distance from the Owner’s Passage, reached by a stair near the adit, and as she arrived at the door, she found it closed. She didn’t bother to pull the bell-cord but grabbed the outer handle, trusting it would be unlocked. Wardens ca and went with frequency and had little to fear in Glint. She was correct; lamplight and warm air poured outward as the great stone door slid soundlessly open on its smooth, greased workings. She squinted in.
A group of wardens, so in half-harness as if they had just co from duty, sat on stools around a central brazier. A few of the dwarves roasted at over the coals on the ends of iron skewers, others leaned against the side of a great table with mugs at their elbows, but all were listening to a dialogue occurring at the center of the hall. There, a raggedy-looking dwarf huddled in a deer pelt near the brazier.
Peridot saw Rightauger imdiately, sitting on one of the stools near the center as if he belonged there. Rightauger’s closest friend, Tinsnips, sat beside him. Their backs were toward her. Peridot stepped inside, and a hush fell on the room. One of the wardens nearest her at the table rose.
“And who are you?” he asked, his voice heavy with the authoritative confidence of one who was sure he confronted a transgressor. No maid or wif ought to be present in the warden’s hold uninvited, but she had more pressing concerns than their customs. Even as the dwarf approached her, Rightauger turned to look, and veil or no, he recognized his sister. He sighed in obvious irritation.
“I am Peridot, daughter of Chargrim, and I’ve co for my brother,” she said. The warden stopped in his tracks, and after a mont, he inclined his head. “The lad is here,” he said, pointing to where her brother obviously sat. Rightauger had turned his back to her again, facing the ragged dwarf.
“You are wanted, Rightauger,” Peridot said.
“I’ll be there directly,” he answered, not looking. He was the oldest by two years, nearly at his rhundal, and she knew he would not show deference to her, despite their nearness in age. It was rare for dwarven siblings to be born in such short succession—so rare that they were often called twins, though they were not.
“It is mother’s wish,” she said, still speaking to his back. .
“I hear you, and I know father would want to provide a clear report of this dwarf’s news.”
She glanced at the wardens gathered around. They wore the sha-faced expressions of those pretending not to hear every word that was said. Rightauger knew she would not press the point, not in front of witnesses. His resistance made her feel foolish, but it was what she had expected. She was far more sensitive to the respectability of their hold than he was, and she would not make more of a scene. She hated when her mother sent her to deal with Rightauger. Seeing that she made no further speech, the wardens turned their attention back toward the brazier.
“So after, he stole their possessions?” one of the wardens asked the ragged dwarf huddled in the deer pelt. “And you did not attempt to stop the theft?”
The dwarf had the look of a prospector: worn clothing, his pants wet, as if he had trudged through snow, his boots heavy, the thick leather soaked and dark. His brown beard was gathered together with a coil of wire.
“No,” the dwarf answered, looking around at the faces of the well-fed wardens, dwarves who spent their days training and patrolling, their needs t. “He took nothing of mine nor of the claim’s common property.”
“And you did nothing this whole ti while your partners were struck down?”
“I told you!” the prospector said. “They broke hospitality.”
“You are certain that they struck first?” Rightauger asked, as if he was not a gilke.
“Struck? No. But they drew their knives on him.”
“By claim law, that is enough,” one warden said.
“They began it,” another confird.
“It cannot be murder.”
There were nods throughout the hold. Little difference it made, Peridot knew; murder could cause outlawry, so that the cri might be avenged by all dwarves, but nothing would prevent the kin of the slain from seeking blood vengeance, murder or no.
“Not this ti,” one of the wardens at the table said. “But he has murdered before.”
“And for that, he must be held to account,” Rightauger said.
Peridot’s veil hid her expression of exasperation. What authority did Rightauger have to speak? He could play the part of a dwarf, but he was a gilke, ada gilke who had skipped out on his work. She stood by the door and waited. None of the wardens offered her a stool or refreshnt, preferring to act like she wasn’t there, except for the hurried glances they cast her way. She felt a familiar surge of rage. The wardens let him speak as if his voice mattered. She had little doubt it was all because of their father, but Chargrim was her father, too. How would they act if she sat herself in their circle and offered her opinion? Then again, if she was any other maid, she wouldn’t even be standing there. They would have escorted her straight out of the hall.
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“What if Chargrim judges differently than Deep Cut?” one of the wardens asked. “You can hardly bla him, after what the Highlodes did.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He’ll have to be taken, first,” said a warden with a tone of authority. “Then the Irik-Rhûl will determine the truth of it.”
“He was like a bear,” the prospector said, shaking his head. “I have never seen. . .” he fell silent.
“Here.” One of the wardens handed the dwarf a skewer, the at glistening with fat. “Eat. You will regain your courage.”
“I am no coward!” the dwarf nearly shouted. “You would understand if you were there.”
Peridot saw a few glances exchanged between the wardens. These dwarves prided themselves on daring. It was clear they thought little of their guest. Despite his ire, the prospector took the skewer and blew on the hot at.
“And what direction did he take?”
The prospector shrugged, ripping a piece away with his teeth.
“I don’t know. He did not wait for the weather to break.”
“So like as not, they will find his body this spring.”
“He won’t freeze,” the prospector said, shaking his head. “He has ice in his veins. I could see it in his eyes. Only violence will kill that dwarf. When he arrived, he was covered in ice.”
“Ice-vein,” one of the wardens said with a smirk.
“He is no match for the wardens,” Rightauger said. He still ignored Peridot, and she’d had enough. She wasn’t going to stand there any longer. Her mother had sent her to get him, but Peridot couldn’t force him to co.
There was soone who could. She turned and left the hall.
Her father’s chamber was adjacent to the Owner’s Drift, and she debated with herself the entire walk back. There were dwarves in the main drift, and as always there were two wardens at the door. She didn’t want to be seen entering the Rhul’s Holt, as it had co to be called. What if the wardens talked, and told how she had run to her father? It irritated Chargrim to have the guards at his door, but Thrushbeard, rinlen of the Ridge Wardens, insisted on the precaution. Peridot agreed with Thrushbeard, though, and she didn’t have to approach the Rhul’s Holt from the front. The back of her father’s chamber connected to their family stonehold via a small passage.
The wardens at her father’s door could see and guard the entrance to the Owner’s Drift as well, but they had seen her leave, and there was nothing notable in her return. They made no movent of acknowledgnt as she passed.
Peridot ran the risk of being harangued by her mother when she entered their hold without Rightauger, but she suspected that Onyx would have returned to her workshop. Her mother worked intensely, often for ten or twelve hours at a ti with little break. While her father’s prestige as the Irik-Rhûl of Glint was renowned, her mother had also beco fad as one of the most skilled workers of decorative wire, an unheard of distinction for a dwarf-wif, for the skilled of their sex were glüsht-na-fen, wifs-of-craft and not of dwarves, able to dedicate themselves wholly to their work. Yet great wealth provided ample opportunity for Onyx to pursue her craft and keep a hold, and Peridot and Iolite served as her assistants in both.
Not even the gilke were in the reception chamber, only one of the Mine Runners who swished his tale and watched. Peridot entered without disturbance and padded along the inner passage, avoiding her mother’s workshop. Their stonehold was a fifty—more, in truth—a massive and wealthy hold by dwarven standards, which made it easier to slip by unnoticed. She entered the narrow passage leading to her father’s chamber, coming to the far door. Putting her ear to the stone, she listened but heard no voices, and so she pushed.
Dwarven doors typically opened outwards from inside, and this was no different. Despite being carved of heavy stone, the door sat upon perfectly smooth, level, and greased hinges, so that it swung with little effort and less sound. The doorway led into a little alcove stacked on each sides with shelves of ledgers. The Rhul’s Holt was half library and half office, with no grand trappings to indicate it as the haunt of one of the most powerful and wealthiest dwarves alive.
Lamplight shone from inside the main chamber of the holt. She could sll the strong odor of hill-smoke, a heavy though sowhat pleasant aroma like soil and cedar. With paper and ink and Mine Runner, it was the perpetual sll of the chamber and of her father. Stepping beneath the arch, she saw her father at his table, a great slab of carven granite polished to a high sheen, each side stacked with ledgers and papers. He sat with his back to her, for the table faced the main entrance on the far side of the chamber. His elbow rested on the granite, and he drew his fingers through his beard as he contemplated sothing. Next to him lay his pipe, burnt out and abandoned. Another of the Mine Runners sat among the stacks of papers on the table, staring at her.
“Hello Peridot,” he said without turning.
“Hello father,” she answered. She stepped forward and saw that he was not reading. Instead, an Ingots stone sat before him. Ingots was normally played by dwarves, far less frequently by maids or wifs. She had seen it played—her father and Rightauger sotis played in the hold, and it was a common enough past ti in the stew halls—but she understood only the basics. It looked like a ga was in progress, yet there was no opponent in the chamber. Next to the stone sat a mug of tea. She could tell by the color and the sll that it had long cooled.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Studying.” Chargrim lifted a stack of ingots from one of the depressions on the stone and moved them forward. This done, he spun the corner of the stone so that it faced the opposite direction.
“Studying?”
Chargrim looked up. He had dark bags of flesh beneath his weary eyes. She wondered if he was sitting up because he was too tired to get himself to his sleeping alcove again. He smiled.
“It’s an instructive ga,” he said. “There are many lessons in it.”
“Are you expecting a war?” she asked. It was winter, and she knew that ürsi prowled the far reaches of the Red Ridges, and there was fighting near Sledge Rock.
“War?” he asked. “No. No more than usual, at least.” He leaned back and looked at her. “Ingots is not just about war. Or maybe there are many things that are like war, I don’t know.”
“What is it about, then?”
“It is about the vying of wills. It could be trade, running a mine, or yes, fighting a war. But there is an even more useful aspect to it.”
“What’s that?”
“It teaches you about your opponent.”
“But you’re playing yourself.”
“Exactly.” He smiled at her. “Now what can I do for my eldest daughter?”
Peridot hesitated. She had co thinking she might tell him about Rightauger. Her brother had irritated her, angered her even, but she was also worried. Rightauger used to play warden. Not so long before, he’d carry a blunt child’s spear and a toy shield and practice when he thought he was alone, but he had put them away. Now he hung around the Ridge Wardens, listening to their talk and trying to take part in their training, even when he should be elsewhere, as today. It would displease their father to know he had failed to report to Shineboot’s cadre. She wanted Rightauger to do better, not to see him punished.
“Can I play?” she asked. Despite having watched the ga, she had never played, herself.
He motioned to one of the wooden chairs in the chamber. She pulled it up to the desk and folded her legs to give her extra height to see the stone. Chargrim deftly scooped the bronze and iron ingots, separating them into the respective starting hollows.
In stew halls and private holds, Ingots was not just played for entertainnt. Dwarves would bring their own ingots, and the winner would keep the tal, or another wager would be placed. While it was tradition to play with bronze and iron in a friendly match, stories were told of gold and silver won at Ingots.
“Iron or bronze?” he asked.
“Bronze.”
“You know iron moves first?”
“Does it make a difference?”
“It is important to learn both ways.”
“Bronze,” she said again. He nodded and spun the stone so that the bronze ingots faced her. It was a silver stone, which was sothing of a contradiction. It bore intricate designs etched over its face, but it was the hollows and ingots that mattered most for the ga.
Her father moved one of his forward mik ingots laterally, forming a stack of two with a kulhan ingot. Mik was an old word for warrior. She looked down at her own ingots, the luster of the polished bronze gleaming in the lantern light. She had chosen bronze at first because they were prettier than the dark iron.
“Do you want help?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. She took a mik ingot and moved it laterally as well, only in the opposite direction as her father. She had hardly set the ingot down before he played, another lateral move, this ti in the sa direction as her own. She looked up at him, and he smiled at her. She had expected he would advance imdiately, forcing her to react. Now she didn’t know what to do, but she took an ingot and tentatively moved it forward into the field, and so the first ga progressed.
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