The Crystal Bridge

Chapter 15 - A Knife for a Life

In the near perpetual darkness of the northern reaches of Ealdar, deep within the canyons of ice and rock, slave gangs of Dwaros dug into the frozen earth. Their dark purple fellstone chains rattled and clanked as they clawed like wild animals at the ground, singing without ceasing as they did.

Diresh had left her throne of ice behind for the evening to watch them dig. Their Song was powerful magic and she respected them in a way for this. It aided their digging and sent out waves of images and sensations.

Diresh licked her lips. She could taste their sorrow and despair as they sang, their only hope finding the point of darkness below that called to their masters. As much as she detested the little beasts, she enjoyed watching them work. There was a desperate rhythm to it, and they so longed for death. Delicious. After generations had died in these pits, the Dwaro had become very much like their Tyninian masters.

We all long for oblivion, do we not? To be embraced by the darkness and absorbed into Rho. To cease to exist and be one with a god. Diresh shivered with the ecstasy of the thought.

She whispered a word of power and sent a bolt of electricity into one of the Dwaros who had slowed, knowing it would pass through the chains to the others. Their song stopped for a moment, but then picked up again even fuller of longing for freedom and death.

“Don’t worry, my little pets. You are very close to finding what I want, what I need, and then you will all be freed in one form or another.”

They sped their pace at this, their song almost jovial at the prospect of an end to the suffering they had inherited from their ancestors so long ago.

Diresh closed her eyes and could feel the pulsating rift in space that sat beneath them. It defied reason and magic. She had no idea if it was several hundred feet below or just a matter of inches, but she knew it called to her and each swipe of a Dwaro claw brought it closer.

It had called to her grandmother and then her mother for hundreds of years. It had brought the Tyninians to the North a thousand years ago. Patience was a part of being Sidra, but Diresh’s patience had withered. She would be the one to uncover it if she had to work every last Dwaro she had left to death in the process.

One of the Dwaros cried out as the stone beneath it gave way and it tumbled into a dark chasm. The scream cut short. The other Dwaro pulled up on the chain only to find it had broken.

“Impossible!” Diresh stepped forward and allowed her staff to glow slightly. She didn’t need much light and she didn’t like using the light globe often. The Dwaros looked down as the light came near. The chain had been singed where it broke, blackened.

Diresh raised an eyebrow and approached where the slave had fallen. She could see nothing even with her light. She plucked the globe from her staff and dropped it in the hole. It fell, lighting up a small cavern of crystal, ice, and blue stone as it fell. It had fallen only a few feet before it vanished, swallowed into nothingness like it had never existed.

Diresh grinned at the Dwaro who cowered away from her. “You will be free sooner than I thought.” She turned to her soldier who had been watching the Dwaros before she’d arrived. “Go, get the other slaves. We must uncover this cavern fully. We must make it grand. We have found our god once more.” Finally.

***

Evandrel felt the communication between the Dwaro and the human. He could taste the foul King’s English in the air, a coarse language that lacked the depth and beauty of his own. He had never understood why the Elders required him to learn it. Because they are wise. There is always a reason. Now may be the first time any Sidra has spoken with a human in generations.