A Bard's Story: Here There Be Dragons

Chapter Ten

Kehdem wakes abruptly to the buzzing sound that marks the time in the dwarven city. He tries to go back to sleep, but to no avail. He'd like to blame it on the fact that they never figured out how to turn off the lights in their room, but they managed to dim them to a level where he can't reasonably buy that excuse.

He rolls over in their makeshift bed to see Leyha sleeping peacefully. There's a part of his mind perfectly keyed into how she's feeling, and it tells him her sleep is as restful as it looks. Well, as long as one of us gets some rest, he thinks. His sleep wasn't nearly as restful, but then, he has a bit more information than Leyha does — at least until she asks about it. He's tried not to dwell, for fear she'll overhear his worries, but perhaps now, when she won't hear it, is the right time to consider how in the world they're going to convince the yelet that Leyha and Kehdem deserve to have the marks removed.

The day before, Ash had explained to him the situation as frankly as possible. Kehdem had waited until he was confident he and Leyha couldn't overhear each other when separated by long distances in the mountain. On the one hand, it was a relief to think things for himself for the first time in months. On the other hand, it was rather a puzzle to him whether the onmipresent runecrafting or the mountain itself was dampening the marks' effective range.

While Kehdem was pretty sure that no distance would be far enough for him to escape his vague awareness of Leyha, being down in the depths of the mountain meant he didn't know about her activities other than that she was safe. So he had felt comfortable asking Ash questions he wouldn't have considered in the same way if Leyha could overhear them. It's not that he is exactly hiding things from Leyha, but...

Kehdem has studied dwarves as much as runecrafting, even if he hadn't quite mentioned that to Leyha. His forgetfulness can likely be blamed on the fact that he knows dwarves; that is, he knows that dwarves, as a race, are terribly fearful of outsiders and perhaps a bit too reverent towards runecrafting. He'd originally suggested they go looking for Semben in the hopes that Semben might be able to remove the marks himself, and Kehdem and Leyha wouldn't have to deal with dwarves directly.

And now they're stuck here, indefinitely locked in a mountain with only two locals who can understand them, and they aren't likely to find more by searching other dwarven towns. Kehdem isn't so much worried about their safety — dwarves might not be the most willing hosts, but even they wouldn't intentionally harm their guests. Unfortunately, it seems likely that they won't agree to remove the marks on Leyha's and Kehdem's arms, and that might be just as bad: Ash told Kehdem, in no uncertain terms, that the marks would, eventually, kill one of them.

He's not even the first person to say that, Kehdem thinks. And if the Goddess is concerned...

He sighs and glances over at Leyha. She's still asleep, so he carefully gets out of bed and crosses the long room to the beds they've arranged in a semblance of a sitting room. It's not exactly far enough for him to expect Leyha not to hear him, but it's easier to think things through when he's sitting up.

After he settles down on the bed acting as a couch, he mentally lays out everything he knows. The marks on his and Leyha's forearms were caused, somehow, by the runestone sitting on the table beside their bed. They'd found it in an abandoned dwarven fortress on a previous adventure, following a hunch that it might help them with the war that was brewing between Leyha's families. In that duty, the runestone — or the marks, at least — have performed quite well. The problems are all in the side-effects: days and then weeks Leyha has spent recovering from the toll of being a conduit for enormous amounts of magic. Every time it happens, Kehdem's sure this latest time will kill her; it hasn't yet, but the fact that all the experts agree with his assessment isn't exactly reassuring. And they're running out of options: the dwarves are a last resort, and unfortunately one that isn't turning out too promising.