Stepping through the small door Royce and Hadrian entered into a strange new world of bewildering confusion. Everywhere they looked were stairs, platforms, axles, and gears. Thousands of interconnected cogs ran vertically, horizontally, and on varying angles. There were flat gears, round gears, solid and hollow gears. Some were diamond-shaped while others looked like grooved toy tops—the serrated heads of giant drills. Hadrian spotted some the size of thimbles and others as big as ships. A few were so massive he couldn’t tell if they were gears or parts of a wall. Some spun with a soft whirl, others clicked with constant and perfect repetition, and the big ones didn’t appear to move at all. There were levers, also of varying sizes and lengths, along with dials, switches, and cranks. The place was illuminated by yellow and green light. The green came from colored crystals similar to Scram the Scallie, only far larger. The yellow—far too gold to be sunlight—shone out of massive glass covered apertures as if a great fire burned behind them. Some natural white light spilled from high overhead, but it was faint and hazy as if showing signs of wear from having bumped and bounced its way down. The whole of the interior smelled of grease, oil, smoke, and new metal.

The two stood just inside the door overwhelmed. There had to be a dozen different directions to go, all of them leading into the jungle of cogs and the maze of stairs and catwalks.

“How long do we have?” Royce asked.

Hadrian looked back out at the sun. “Two—maybe three hours until sundown. Then what? Another hour before moonrise? So three to four hours, I guess.”

Royce sighed “Up or down?”

“Down, I think.”

“Why?”

Hadrian shrugged. “Because up is harder.”

“Works for me.” Royce picked a path much the way he did in a forest relying on a sort of gut instinct of this path feels better than that one and started down a set of narrow stone steps.

“And remember,” Royce said. “When we find Gravis—don’t kill him. We’ll need the little monster alive.”

“Yeah, because between us, I’m the one prone to mindless murder.”

Everything appeared to be moving. All around them was the sound of machinery. Clicks, claps, whirls, ticks, and even the occasional tolling of a bell. After a short while, Royce noticed it wasn’t all noise. The sounds repeated. An ongoing rhythmic symphony comprised of a million instruments played in the background. Without realizing, Royce began keeping pace stepping down the stairs to match the common time subdivision of beats. To move out of sync annoyed him.

They came upon rooms large and small. Some were a mystery, like the tiny cubicles lined in sheets of hand beaten copper, but most were easily identified. There were loads of storage rooms. One they found jammed full of broken cogs, while another was crammed with unbroken ones. They passed by meeting rooms, eating halls, dormitories, even baths, but most of the doors they passed led to workshops. These too presented a variety that could be deduced by the layout of furniture and tools. Stone blocks, hammers and chisels, not to mention works in progress defined the abode of a sculptor. Saws, planers, mallets, files and drills, arrayed on a pegboard beside boxes full of various shaped spindles, told the story of a woodworker whose main task had been to make handles for other tools. There were glassblowing shops, rooms that made nothing but nails, and others that made only screws. All told, Royce and Hadrian found just about everything except the flesh and bone of a living dwarf or a dead man that still walked.

They were on what appeared to be a productive path that led down several flights of curving stairs, only to find the route going back up. This frustrated Royce until he spotted a new passage hidden behind and beneath a complicated series of gears and pulleys. At another point on this insane trail of whirling sprockets the solution to the baffling dead-end was through a trapdoor in the floor where the two descended to the next floor by way of sliding down a brass pole.

Then, after a lengthy descent, the two passed through an ornate double door and entered the strangest chamber so far. Five stories tall, at least by dwarven standards, the room had six walls of smooth stone and a domed-vaulted ceiling. By some magic of stone work, sunlight penetrated the space making it brighter than any other. The reason was obvious, for while there was not a scrap of furniture in the room, the walls were covered in murals.

Royce was reminded of the frescos he’d seen in the Abbey of Brecken Moor. These had that same flat approach to art lacking all sense of depth or perspective, but they were not frescos. These images were painted directly on naked stone. They were also far simpler as they lacked backgrounds and any concept of shading. The colors were all flat making heavy use of outlines, often aided by chisel work that lent a three dimensional aspect to the image. And while each wall comprised a different set of images, the palette was always limited to only three colors: orche, turquoise, and a charcoal black.

On the far side of the room was another door, which Royce made for straight away with Hadrian close behind. The door was the typical sort, that required ducking to get though, only the moment Royce touched it, the whole thing appeared to dissolve as if it too had only been painted on the wall. Royce gave it a solid shove just the same receiving nothing in return.

“Dead end,” he told Hadrian.

Turning around, Royce saw a gray-haired dwarf standing just outside the room looking smiling at them.

“Gravis!” Royce hissed and lunged forward.

Inside the shortest measure of the fastest tick of the gears, the other door, the one they had just entered, closed behind them. Before Royce could reach it, the door dissolved.

“That can’t be good,” Hadrian said as Royce frantically searched the wall for any sign of what had once been. They both scanned the chamber for any means of escape and found none.

“Change your mind about dwarfs yet?” Royce asked.

Hadrian continued to study the walls, ceiling and floor while slowly pivoting, but nodded. “I’m starting to see your side of the argument.”

“Hello, gentlemen, and welcome to Drumindor.” The voice came from high above where a small portal opened inside a portion of the vaulted ceiling. Barely big enough to pass a hand through, it offered no hope of escape. On the far side, filling the entirety of the little peephole was the face of Gravis Berling. “It is awfully nice of you to visit. Impressive, too. That was a long climb wasn’t it? The important thing is that you made it here just in time for the show. The curtain goes up in just a few hours, and granted, for you the spectacle won’t be a long one, but I guarantee you’ll never forget it as long as you live. Sadly that ought to only be a few seconds.”

Gravis slammed shut the little peephole door leaving them to their fate.

With the little door closed, Gravis’s feigned bravado dissolved. He collapsed shaking and breathing hard both from the sudden activity of running around and sealing the men in the mural room, and from the stress that if his trap had failed the men would have killed him. Gravis lay in the little access loft that was used for cleaning the upper portions of the ancient murals. A tight narrow space even for a Dromeian, Gravis felt trapped, and the close quarter walls had little to do with it.

Who, by Drome, are they? Gravis lay on his back, his heart pounding as he stared up at the dark ceiling that was only two feet overhead. Why would anyone come in here now?

To stop me, a’course.

But why? Why now? Everyone else has left. All of the tall folk anyway. Who are these people?

Gravis knew the answer, he just didn’t want to accept it, but there was no mistaking their equipment. The rope they used, the harnesses around their waists—those were not made by men. That they were able to open the bridge door said even more. The fact they were here just hours before the rising of the full moon, making their quest a likely suicide, revealed even more.

“What do you want from me Ena?” He whispered in the dark. “Why are you making this so hard?”

He waited, listening as he always did. And as always he heard only silence.

“Alright, alright, I admit it, I wanted revenge,” he bellowed and his voice rattled down the length of the horizontal duct sounding small and sad. “I wanted to hurt them—kill them. Drumindor belonged to me. I have more a claim on it than anyone, and it hurt to have it taken away…but it only hurt my pride. A’course that’s what they warned you about, isn’t it, Ena? That in the end the pride of the Berling’s would break your heart. That’s what they told you, and you died believing it—believing they were right.”

“Gah!” Gravis punched the stone wall so hard he nearly broke his fingers.

“And yet, everything they did to me is nothing compared to what I did to you.” His words became tiny whispers that barely cleared the hairs of his mustache. “I don’t want to hurt them, Ena. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want…” Gravis wiped tears with his beard. “All I want is for you to hear me. I want you to know that I do love you. Why did you have to die before I could say it, before I could prove it? I’ve have done anything, if I had only known. And I still will. I’ll set fire to the scraps of my pride and bury the legacy of my entire family if that’s what it takes to convince you. But there’s innocent people now. I thought they would all leave. Why didn’t they leave? I told them. I put out the sign. I warned them! They know what’s coming? So why?”

Gravis cried. His beard was long, but not long enough and soon was as soaked as his face. Then he lay until his breathing retuned to normal. “What do I do with them? I’m not a murderer, Ena. You know that. I’m just a stupid, old dwarf, a lousy Dherg, who was too blind to see the treasure that slept beside me each night. I’ll do anything for you, Ena. But is this what you really want? Can you hear me, Ena because I can’t hear you. Please, love, please talk to me. Tell me what you want? And if it isn’t too much trouble, could you make it quick because we’re all running out of time.”

Royce made a frantic but detailed study of the tiny chamber, inspecting every corner, angle, and seam in the stone—cursing as he did. He knew there had to be a mechanism. Somewhere was a way out. No one decorated the interior of a prison cell with murals, and he doubted an imprisoned artist would have had access to paint.

“Royce,” Hadrian said.

“What?” Royce growled. The thief was down on all fours, his head touching the floor as he made his way around the room searching for a dent or seam.

“Up there.”

Hadrian had his head tilted back as he stared at the wall opposite him.

Thinking his partner had spied a way out, Royce followed Hadrian’s line of sight. It only took a second to see what prompted the comment, and while of no help, Royce was just as captivated by what he saw. In bewildered disbelief Royce got off his hands and knees, sat down, and he too stared at the art on the wall, dumbfounded.

Painted in the still crisp, but ancient orche, turquoise, and charcoal black was the image of two men scaling the side of the North Tower of Drumindor. The figures were simple, mostly silhouettes, but shockingly descriptive. One figure was smaller than the other. He wore a cloak and hood and climbed ahead of his companion. The other one, the larger of the two who relied more on ropes, carried three swords—one extra large one on his back.

“I wasn’t wearing my cloak,” Royce said.

“Seriously?” Hadrian scoffed. “You’re quibbling about the accuracy of the wardrobe in the illustration? These had to have been created a long time ago—thousands of years, maybe.” Hadrian began to nod. “This is the prophesy of Beatrice. She was a dwarven princess who predicted stuff and they always came true.”

Royce peered at him. “Let me guess…more tavern trivia?”

Hadrian looked over and nodded. “Sloan at the that little pub went on about her for quite some time saying how five thousand years ago she foretold that we would climb the tower. This must be what she was talking about. All of these images are prophecies.”

This caused both of them to look at the other walls, and armed with Hadrian’s explanation Royce saw how each wall told a different story in a series of panels that read from top to bottom.

On the one to the right of the door, and starting at the top, a man and two women escape a terrible monster that was ill-defined and drawn as a huge and vague black shape. Then one of the women appears to sacrifice herself for the other two. The last panel near the bottom of that wall simply shows a beautiful landscape with the sun shining and a wolf howling at the moon.

The next wall depicted a great city and a wondrous tree beneath which were many children. Then that same darkness-monster stabs the tree. The tree turns dark, as do all the fruit upon it, and one is given to a man who eats it. In the next panel, that same man has turned dark, he is wearing a crown, a robe, a cloak and a spear and kills many. In the last panel on that wall, the tree is dead and the man who ate the fruit and led in the battle, weeps.

On the third wall the Weeping Man—who no longer wears a crown—is seen directing a dwarf to build two great towers over a volcano. Then a dwarf wearing a crown leads a war against elves. A young dwarf girl is on her knees before him, arms up as if pleading, but the king has his back to her. In the next panel, the dwarven kingdom is in ruins, the elves surround the two towers, but nearby the Weeping Man takes the elven queen through a door and shows her the dead tree. They both weep.

On the fourth wall there is dwarf who digs down into the underworld. There he receives a great sword from the same dwarven king from the previous wall. This dwarven digger returns with the sword and is himself crowned king. He marries a dwarf girl from a small village, and the together they sit on thrones in a great castle.

The fifth wall showed the two men climbing one of a pair of towers joined by a thin bridge on the night of a full moon. Beneath the towers, three terrible monsters claw upward to get out. This part of the image was disturbing because the monsters were horrific and so huge they made the two towers of Drumindor look like blades of grass. Royce took this as a stylized symbol of the power of a volcano—because what else could it be? In the next panel, the two men fight a tall thin creature with claws while a dwarf pulls on a lever connected to a massive gear. Aiding him is a dwarven woman with long lair. In the next panel, one of the men throws a book into the mouth of a great fire. In the last panel, four figures stand together embracing before the south tower as a full moon shines and wolves howl.

On the sixth wall. A great door is opened and a multitude of people rush out. They divide themselves into two groups and fight. The three monsters from below the towers on the previous wall escape and devastate the world. Great cities are destroyed, mountains torn down, oceans drained, and even the sky is darkened as a great war is fought. Then the same darkness-monster from the first two walls reappears on this one. It has grown so huge that it consumes the entirety of the world, taking with it the sun, and the stars. The final image is of the Weeping Man down on his knees. He once more wears his crown, robe, and mantle, but instead of his spear he holds a fruit that give off light. Kneeling beside him is a beautiful woman, and around them is a multitude, but beyond this…nothing but the darkness of a charcoal wash.

“Who are you?”

The little peephole had opened once more and through it Gravis Berling peered down.

“I’m Hadrian Blackwater and this is Royce Melborn,” he said in that infuriatingly cheerful and friendly greeting he always had handy.

The dwarf frowned.

“Who sent you?” the Gravis asked.

Royce thought a moment as a list of names ran through his head: Lord Byron, Cornelius DeLur, even Pickles put in a showing. They all had a hand in it. Each contributed to their being in that room, but only one person sent them. “Gwen Delancy.”

“Who?” Gravis asked.

“Gwen Delancy sent us.”

“I don’t even know who that is,” Gravis replied.

“Your loss.”

Gravis thought a moment, then asked, “My people are still in the city, aren’t they?”

Royce nodded. “A lot of people are.”

“Why?”

“For a lot of them they haven’t any place else to go.” Hadrian explained. “Tur Del Fur is their only home. Not only the only one they have, but the only one they want to have.”

Gravis frowned again and looked decidedly miserable. “I don’t want to kill you. I didn’t want to kill anyone. But…”

Royce didn’t like the but.

“I can’t do anything about it now. We’re nearly out of time. All the spouts have been set and the master gear has been locked and it’s down there.” He said the words with revulsion. “Even if I was convinced to stop, even if we had time…I couldn’t reach the master gear. Not now.”

Auberon and the others all admitted they didn’t know how Gravis would accomplish the feat he threatened. Even the other Drumindor workers couldn’t offer a guess as to what exactly Gravis had done. According to them, the towers had a failsafe system that auto-vented when the pressure rose too high. With so much at stake, the overflow value had been made idiot-proof. It couldn’t be closed or locked. But given Gravis’s knowledge of Drumindor was unmatched, everyone agreed he would deliver on his threat.

Royce’s plan had always depended on forcing the dwarf to undo what he’d done. Royce just assumed that if he began administering pain, that Gravis would comply, but that no longer appeared likely. He couldn’t reach the dwarf and it seemed as if it wouldn’t change anything if he could.

Royce felt defeat like a kick in the stomach. He had no answer and time was running out. Turning, he faced Hadrian who had followed him blindly without even asking why, much less how. “Hadrian, I—”

“Why are we on your wall?” Hadrian asked Gravis, and pointed.

“You’re not,” The dwarf replied, without looking.

“Really? Sure appears like us. Him in his cloak, and me with my three swords, both scaling the tower just before the rise of a full moon. What’s the order here? It starts with that one over there right? The one where the couple escapes from the dark blobby monster? That’s just to the right of the door we came in, and since you read right to left. It goes this way round, correct?” Hadrian swung his arm in a circle about the room. So, that means Royce and I being here—this moment in time right now—is what was prophesied on…one, two, three, four—the fifth wall. Isn’t that right?”

Gravis didn’t answer.

“Which makes you…” Hadrian walked over and reaching up tapped on the dwarf pulling the lever. “This guy here. But who is this with you?”

Gravis looked down. He stared at the image stunned. “By the beard of Drome!” Gravis shouted then promptly slammed the little door shut once more. Royce heard a faint and muffled scurrying.

“What’s going on?” Hadrian asked.

“I think he’s coming down.”

The door to the room appeared once more. It opened with a sudden jerk and Gravis Berling entered. Ignoring both of them, he strode to the fifth wall and beheld it with an open mouth. Then he turned to face them. In his eyes were tears and a desperate longing.

“Lift me up,” he said to Hadrian. “Please.”

Hadrian glanced at Royce who shrugged. He had no idea what was going on, but the door was open, and he took that as a good sign.

Hadrian reached down and hoisted Gravis up onto his shoulders.

“Move closer to the wall.”

Hadrian did as he was told, and Royce watched as Gravis touched the image of the lady dwarf helping him to pull the lever. Gravis ran his finger along the outline of her, then rising up on his toes put his lips to the wall and kissed the little image. “I can hear you, Ena. I can hear you.”