Free A Thief in the Night by David Chandler Page B

offered,” Mörget said. “Yet come to the western lands—and Redweir—I must. So I took the long way around. I traveled halfway around the continent, on ships that sank and by trade routes beset by bandits. Along the way I taught myself how to fight against magic.”
    â€œHow?” Malden asked.
    â€œBy finding sorcerers and slaying them, of course. Many times death whispered in my ear, but never did she claim me.” He shrugged. “It was a long journey, and I needed something to do to pass the time.
    â€œAt last I came to Redweir, and the library there, which contains more than one thousand books. The customs of the place were strange to me. I could not read your languages. I had to teach myself even the shapes of your letters, and then I had to do many labors for the librarians before they would allow me to even see their books. But eventually I learned what I sought. The shaft I had found, the mountain I wished to enter, was known well to the sages on this side of it. The entire mountain was hollow on the inside, carved out by ancient hands. I learned that no one knew of the shaft I had found, but that on the western side there was a grand entrance to the mountain. I took this as a sign. I could not return to my homeland, not yet. I must enter the mountain here, from this side, if I were to slay my demon.”
    â€œThis mountain,” Croy said, “I fear I know its name.”
    â€œI think you might,” Mörget said. “It is called Cloudblade, for the way it splits the storm clouds with its sharp peak. I think perhaps you also know the name of what lies underneath it. Yes, my friend. I learned that the place I sought was the Vincularium.”
    Malden frowned. He had never heard the name before. It had to be very old, though, because it sounded like a word from the language of the Old Empire—a language no longer spoken in Skrae, and used now only by the Church and by scholars. He knew only a few words of that language, but perhaps enough to know what the name meant. “The . . . Chained Place, no—the House of Chains?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” Croy and Mörget said together.
    â€œWhat’s a House of Chains?” Malden asked.
    Mörget glanced at Croy. “He knows little of maps, aye, but nothing of his own history.”
    â€œAgain, I’ve lived in Ness my entire life. What do I care about the rest of the world? But come, indulge me. What, I ask once more, is a House of Chains?”
    â€œIt’s . . . a tomb,” Croy said. From the look on his face it was a lot more than that. “A very . . . old tomb. It was built by the dwarves, a long time ago. They say it fills half of the interior of Cloudblade, and that it is a great labyrinth of traps and pitfalls. They also say it is haunted.”
    Malden touched his eyes with his thumb, an old gesture for warding off ghosts. He was not a superstitious man by nature, but no good ever came of disturbing the dead.
    He shivered as he imagined the place. He’d heard far too many frightening stories about the underground lairs of the dwarves. In his day the dwarven kingdom was a small land just north of Skrae, a place of silent forests and cold, deep lakes. The dwarves themselves never went to the surface because they preferred to live underground. They had a handful of small cities up there built into old mine shafts where they worked tirelessly at their labors and only ever emerged to trade their wares for Skraeling gold. Once, though, their borders had extended much farther. Before mankind had come to this continent, the dwarves had been of much greater numbers and power. Most of their underground works were forsaken as their population dwindled. There were old abandoned dwarven cities left behind all over the continent—they were found as far away as the Northern Kingdoms and even on the Islands of Blue Mist, far to the east. No one ever went into those