chamber. Glowglobes ringed the walls of the place maybe twenty feet up. It felt like the roof had to be much taller than that, but the lights made it hard to see past them to the ceiling, wherever it might be.
The palanquin had set down in the center of a sunken landing pad off to one side of the chamber. Low wide stone steps rose up in every direction from where we stood. Statues and carvings covered three of the walls — the ones nearest us — with imagery I knew told the story of the founding of Dragon City. I’d heard it recited many times over the years, but the sculptors who’d rendered these visions out of solid rock had likely borne witness to the events themselves.
That was always one of the jarring things about life as a human in Dragon City. Compared to some of the people who lived there, I had the relative lifespan of a fruit fly. The things I thought of as history or legends, they’d actually been through.
Belle was young for an elf, for instance, full grown but not ancient. Her parents, on the other hand, had been here before the city had been founded. They may have withdrawn into the heart of their estate these days, but from what she’d told me, they’d played a large role in the creation of our hometown.
Being human means that even if you make it to a ripe, old age, the elves and dwarves and gnomes will still think of you as a child. That struck home even harder when I looked past the massive meeting table that stretched across the center of the room and I glimpsed the gigantic door set into the far wall.
The top of the door towered out of sight, hidden by the darkness beyond the reach of the glowglobes’ lights. Side to side, it had to reach at least twenty feet, and it seemed to be made out of solid stone. How anyone could get such a slab to move, I couldn’t comprehend. It had to involve magic.
The arch that was the symbol of the Stronghold had been carved into the door’s surface. A massive hammer and pickaxe stood crossed underneath that, the arch framing them both. They’d been inlaid with gold and platinum and rubies and diamonds, and they sparkled in the dim light, seeming to produce illumination from inside. The artisans who’d worked the gems into the design had also enchanted them so that they moved on their own, the rubies mixing with the diamonds to produce flame patterns that reminded me of nothing more than the Dragon himself.
C HAPTER T EN
“They’re waiting for us, Max.” Johan jostled my arm and pointed over to the table stretching before us.
A handful of dwarves stood there staring at us with dour faces. It was hard to tell if they were angry with me or not. Long, braided beards tend to disguise mirth well. That’s one reason why most people think dwarf men are grumpy. They have to smile twice as wide to make an impression through all that bushy hair.
The table at which the dwarves stood was shaped like a gigantic horseshoe or — as I realized as Johan and I walked closer — the Stronghold arch. Johan guided me right between the two legs of the arch to stand in the center of it. I didn’t like the idea of letting these people surround us, but I figured if they’d brought me there to hurt me they’d have already done it. I was in their hands now, for good or ill.
The dwarf in the absolute middle of the arch — at its highest peak — stood and stared at me. One of his eyes had gone milky, but the other burned with such intensity that I worried that he might shoot a beam out of it to lance me through where I stood. His hair had gone to gray but not yet white, and the braids in his beard were so long that he had stuffed them into his belt for safekeeping.
It wasn’t until I reached the spot directly across the curved table from that dwarf that I realized the floor inside of the arch was lower than that outside of it. Despite the fact the people standing outside the arch were dwarves, they all looked down on me as if they were
The palanquin had set down in the center of a sunken landing pad off to one side of the chamber. Low wide stone steps rose up in every direction from where we stood. Statues and carvings covered three of the walls — the ones nearest us — with imagery I knew told the story of the founding of Dragon City. I’d heard it recited many times over the years, but the sculptors who’d rendered these visions out of solid rock had likely borne witness to the events themselves.
That was always one of the jarring things about life as a human in Dragon City. Compared to some of the people who lived there, I had the relative lifespan of a fruit fly. The things I thought of as history or legends, they’d actually been through.
Belle was young for an elf, for instance, full grown but not ancient. Her parents, on the other hand, had been here before the city had been founded. They may have withdrawn into the heart of their estate these days, but from what she’d told me, they’d played a large role in the creation of our hometown.
Being human means that even if you make it to a ripe, old age, the elves and dwarves and gnomes will still think of you as a child. That struck home even harder when I looked past the massive meeting table that stretched across the center of the room and I glimpsed the gigantic door set into the far wall.
The top of the door towered out of sight, hidden by the darkness beyond the reach of the glowglobes’ lights. Side to side, it had to reach at least twenty feet, and it seemed to be made out of solid stone. How anyone could get such a slab to move, I couldn’t comprehend. It had to involve magic.
The arch that was the symbol of the Stronghold had been carved into the door’s surface. A massive hammer and pickaxe stood crossed underneath that, the arch framing them both. They’d been inlaid with gold and platinum and rubies and diamonds, and they sparkled in the dim light, seeming to produce illumination from inside. The artisans who’d worked the gems into the design had also enchanted them so that they moved on their own, the rubies mixing with the diamonds to produce flame patterns that reminded me of nothing more than the Dragon himself.
C HAPTER T EN
“They’re waiting for us, Max.” Johan jostled my arm and pointed over to the table stretching before us.
A handful of dwarves stood there staring at us with dour faces. It was hard to tell if they were angry with me or not. Long, braided beards tend to disguise mirth well. That’s one reason why most people think dwarf men are grumpy. They have to smile twice as wide to make an impression through all that bushy hair.
The table at which the dwarves stood was shaped like a gigantic horseshoe or — as I realized as Johan and I walked closer — the Stronghold arch. Johan guided me right between the two legs of the arch to stand in the center of it. I didn’t like the idea of letting these people surround us, but I figured if they’d brought me there to hurt me they’d have already done it. I was in their hands now, for good or ill.
The dwarf in the absolute middle of the arch — at its highest peak — stood and stared at me. One of his eyes had gone milky, but the other burned with such intensity that I worried that he might shoot a beam out of it to lance me through where I stood. His hair had gone to gray but not yet white, and the braids in his beard were so long that he had stuffed them into his belt for safekeeping.
It wasn’t until I reached the spot directly across the curved table from that dwarf that I realized the floor inside of the arch was lower than that outside of it. Despite the fact the people standing outside the arch were dwarves, they all looked down on me as if they were
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