One of the soldiers finally mastered his awe, and fear of Hyden, and told him that the gates needed to be closed. Hyden didn’t respond with words, he just turned, and quietly followed the men back through.
Vaegon, with the help of some tired and worrisome servants, found Dugak. It amused the elf to think that he was the strange one here, in a place as strange as any he could have imagined. To Vaegon, Dugak was the oddity among all these humans. Vaegon’s good eye might be yellow and wild looking, and his ears a bit sharp at the tips, but at least he wasn’t built like a tree trunk, with so much facial hair that only his nose poked through. How the squat, thick-bodied little people once ruled the realm, Vaegon couldn’t fathom.
He found the dwarf in the Queen’s Council chamber, where he was as shocked as he was welcome.
If Dugak, and his bearded wife, Andra, seemed strange to him, then the little, blue-skinned, winged fairy man, hovering a few feet in front of Queen Willa, left Vaegon bewildered. The tiny man was no taller than a hand span, and hovering there in the air on glassine wings that were but a blur to the eye. The sight of one of the flying fair folk, left the elf utterly speechless.
“Starkle,” Queen Willa introduced the tiny man as Vaegon approached with a wide eye and an open mouth. “This is the elf, Vaegon. Vaegon, this is Starkle. As you can see, he’s a pixie. He’s one of my most trusted advisers.”
“How do you do?” Starkle said, in a voice that was entirely too big for such a small creature.
Vaegon was awestruck. Here was this man, the size of a sparrow, wearing a white robe, tied at the waist with a golden thread. The robe’s back was split to accommodate the wings, and on his tiny feet, were laced sandals. He was half the size of the little man Talon had caught in the Evermore Forest, but his neatly cropped hair and beard were the same exact shade of dull gray.
It was all Vaegon could do to muster a response to the friendly greeting.
“I’m better than my companion seems to be,” he finally said, trying to suppress his awe with the gravity of his reasons for being there.
“Sir Vaegon is seeking the cooling stone,” Dugak announced, saving Vaegon the trouble of explaining.
“Why do you seek the cooling stone?” Queen Willa asked pointedly.
Vaegon noticed that her eyes went from his, to the sword he was carrying, and back to meet his gaze without a hint of emotion showing on her face.
Vaegon glanced around the room. It was empty, save for the four of them. He wasn’t sure what he should say, so he said as little as possible.
“I do not seek it for myself, but for my companion. The reasons are his to say.”
“So, that is the mate to the Hammer of Doon, then?” She didn’t wait for an answer to her question. “Ironspike, the westerners foolishly call it. We have waited a long time for it to find its way home.” She paused, as if remembering something. “Why didn’t it extract the demon’s essence when King Mikahl drove it into the Choska? The boy is of Pavreal’s bloodline, no?”
“Its power was drained by Mikahl’s father, in a deed performed for the benefit of the giants, and the people of Westland.”
Vaegon chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to betray Mikahl, while trying to help him. He wasn’t sure what Queen Willa was inferring by calling this Ironspike’s home either, and he was beginning to feel uneasy. He decided to lend a little weight to what he was saying.
“King Aldar, the ruler of the giant realm, told Mik – uh – King Mikahl that the sword had to be placed in the cradle it had formed in the cooling stone in order to replenish its power.”
“Dugak?” Queen Willa looked at the dwarf expectantly.
Starkle buzzed around behind Queen Willa’s head, and perched on the crown of her chair’s back. Dugak scratched at the side of his head. His whole hand disappeared into the tangle of his hair.
“It can be done, as he said, your Highness.” Dugak looked a little uncertainly at Vaegon. “The people of the deep might not like the trespass, but the sword has every right to lie in its cradle.”
“The people of the deep!” Starkle blurted out in his big, little voice. “Your people, Dugak, should have no concern over a trespass into a shallow place that they left behind and forgot.” The pixie shoved off from his seat, and took back to the air. “If the people of the deep had concerns over the cooling stone, then they should have taken it with them!”
“It’s underground,” Dugak replied, in a yielding tone, as if any argument would be futile. “Is it wrong to respect the domain of my kin? They could surface just as quickly as they went underground.”
“They’ve been to ground for centuries –”
Queen Willa waved the pixie quiet with an attempted swat.