Twenty-Six: Much Unseen Is Also Here

  We spent the night on the shadowy cavern island which the korreds had mentioned in their song. It was a sight, again, rising just a few feet above the surface of the water in a large and wide cavern which had opened up. The korreds’ torches threw yellow-orange light that glinted on the water, touched the island, and barely spilled over onto some cavern walls beyond. We paddled up to the gravel bank and beached our boats.

  Our dinner was baked grain cakes, which the korreds had wrapped in broad leaves. The cakes seemed to be made of the same type of hard wheat which made our porridge on the other days.

  “Ko-Rethal,” I asked him. “Where do you have enough open space to raise these grains?”

  “We ourselves do not. We trade for the grain. With kobolds who are further along this stream. That’s one reason we have those cargo vessels and we make these trips.”

  “It’s an entirely underground trading route?”

  “It is.”

  “What do you trade them for it?”

  “Eh, they like our spears, so some of those. And tree fungi – the very ones I just talked about in that story of Mo-Ranevall; shelf fungi. Also morels. And the colorful garments we make, the ones we often wear after we swim, as you’ve seen.”

  “And do the kobolds paddle to you, sometimes?”

  “Indeed they do.”

  “All this commerce beneath the Drearwold. Who would have guessed. Do dunters or trolls ever get down here?”

  “They do not. The trolls would not fit. As for the dunters, I think it just has not occurred to them, even across all these years. We guard our cavern carefully, and the kobolds do the same with their entrance to the waterway. We ourselves have never seen exactly how they access this stream, on their end; we’ve unloaded barges outside their warren but have not been allowed any further.”

  “Do you have a word for this stream?” I asked.

  “The Spelepike,” he answered. “A mighty artery.”

  Then he said:

  Spelepike!

  Hauler of trade –

  Your wares, your cargoes, your baskets and chests, bushels and bales,

  Near bursting their straps.

  The lighters hauling goods; our strong-teethed race of paddlers of canoes, polers of barges, the handsome-brown sailors,

  The freshwater air, the torchlight, the sun shafts.

  The easy stream current, the little island, all familiar;

  The alcoves and side-tunnels

  watching our way.

  Spelepike of many tribes:

  Your Stillwold korreds, your foothills brothers, your kobold friends.

  Timeless tranquil hidden waterway, the scourges above unaware.

  Strongwater below, ever-running – lift our ships! Gird our launches! Float these provisions from light, through darkness, to light!

  *

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  Freydis, Caiside, and I spread our sleeping rolls there among the korreds again. Our party nearly covered the entire little island. I wondered if strong rains outside would raise the stream level and submerge the island – and how one would know if that were about to happen – but the korreds showed no concern about this.

  When they extinguished their torches, and we all turned in, I saw that there was one small, small hole in the ceiling right over the island. It was nearly invisible, almost black, but not quite as dark as the rest of the cavern vault. With that bare handful of indirect moonlight, I could just make out Freydis’s hair, to my right, and Caiside’s blanket cast over her hips, to my left.

  The hole in the ceiling did not exactly blaze with sunlight, in the morning; but it was blue, and was just enough to let us know the day was under way. We ate more wheat cakes and were soon packed up, into our boats, and heading again upstream.

  We exited the island’s cavern into a tunnel, again, and the journey resumed just like the day before. We and all the korreds paddled and paddled, not too hard given the hours we had ahead of us. Korreds at the front and toward the rear re-lighted new torches as needed.

  “Soon we will arrive,” Ko-Rethal eventually told us. “The base of the tower was built over this stream, as you’ll see. It was a reliable water source for whoever was there. There is an area where we can pull up our boats, and then – up we go. We will have some hours of light, still, and I don’t think we’ll see the apparition until night. So, we will just wait.”

  And shortly a square chamber hewn into the stone did indeed open up to our left. At its rear was a stairway, also simply cut into the rock.

  “The tower,” Ko-Rethal said. “Ovart Turn, we call it. The people who built it – humans; your people – called it Overaskelse Tarnet.”

  “Do you know what that meant?”

  “No. I thought perhaps you would. We can’t help but wonder if it had to do with people asking for something else over this stream, of course. I have my doubts that’s the explanation, though.”

  “And you haven’t climbed up, in some time?”

  “We have not. For years. We pass through, to travel further upstream, but have not ventured up the stairs for a very long time. I’m one of the very few who have done so.”

  “What have you found, up there? Trolls?” I assumed that was not the answer, or he would not be entering now, either . . . unless perhaps the apparition had frightened the trolls away.

  “No,” he said. He sighed. “I don’t look forward to speaking about this, but it’s – haunts. Other spirits, visions, even apart from our apparition. This place has a bad – ” he waved his arms – “atmosphere, I suppose you could say, about it. That’s likely why this apparition of ours has found a place here.

  “But up we will go,” he said, louder, for all to hear. “It’s about time korreds made their presence felt again in Ovart Turn.”

  His followers seemed heartened by his leadership, but I noticed that a good number of them – more than I would have thought necessary – volunteered to stay behind in the large room and guard all the boats which had been hauled up. A number of the korreds put on very stern expressions, planted their spears butt-first in the gravel right at the edge of the stream, and puffed out their chests. The vessels would be quite well-guarded.

  “So, what we will find,” Ko-Rethal said. “Up these stairs, there will be a sort of staging room, where goods and cargo were probably kept when this tower was occupied by your people. It is illuminated by apertures up near the ceiling. And then above that, the great hall. There are more levels up higher than that, which you might explore if you wish. But we will sleep in the great hall. And wait. The good news is, it has a very large fireplace which we can make use of.”

  “Can we exit the tower on that level?” I said. “Or would we be overtaken by the trolls or whatever else is out there?”

  “There are fewer trolls, here; we have traveled far enough north to be largely beyond their range. And it would likely take several days for those that might be around, to notice us. We hope to be gone by then.”

  We began climbing the stairs in the back of the room; and I realized something that had not occurred to me before: how hard it would be for korreds to climb human-sized steps. The steps were large, and came up to their belts or even higher. Each of them had to toss his spear – or her spear – up before them, vault up, toss the spear again, and repeat. Even Caiside had an easier time, despite her crutches.

  Near the top of the stairway there was enough light to see without the torches. The next room was as Ko-Rethal had described: largely empty, dusty, littered with a few scraps of perhaps old barrels or crates, and animal bones. The next flight of stairs up from there was much shorter than the first, and had mercifully smaller steps for the korreds.

  At the top, we half-emerged into the great hall. This was a very spacious area with a high, beamed ceiling, and wood-paneled walls. The beams and panels were stained, and battered, but it was obvious what a grand space this had once been. Down at the far end was indeed the large – very large – fireplace which Ko-Rethal had promised. It was a massive stone stack that reached up to the ceiling.

  I say we only half-emerged because down before the fireplace – not facing us, fortunately – was a group of what looked to be miniature rotund men. They wore nothing but breeches, being bare-chested and barefoot; all were male, most were bald, and they all had very large noses that seemed to start higher up their face than they really should have, and also reach down farther – over their top lips. They were taller than the korreds, but shorter than kobolds; they probably outweighed the kobolds, though, on average.

  We froze.

  The odd-looking small men had been quiet as we climbed the stairs, but they now erupted in some sort of argument in front of the hearth. One reached out and grabbed another by the nose; that one slapped the first’s hand away and then grabbed him, in turn, by the ear. There were about eight of them, and they all joined the fray, tugging and pushing each other back and forth.

  We dropped back down the stairs.

  .

  .