Shaking his arm free from Kjan's urgent grasp, Dante hurried along beside him with the beginnings of a ireful speech on his face.

"Right, I'm going to be perfectly at home in a cave that I can't even visually identify as a cave because it's so impossible to see it! Where are we even <i>going</i> anyway? It's not like I'm ever informed of anything, no, just wake Dante up, drag him through sleet, snow, icy rivers, and legions of wild gnomes... and then expect him to hold his own in the center of the earth."

All at once the torch in Kjan's hand registered, and he had to ask dourly, "And where did you get that? Pull it out of the brilliant knapsack of yours no doubt?"

_________________
<center>
"The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air."

"Sure, something like that," Kjan said absently as he navigated his way through the tunnel again. He really wasn't overly fond of being underground himself, even after having lived in the Keep for five years. It was too...restricting, in his opinion. Though he also couldn't exactly complain about getting out of the less-than-pleasant weather conditions at the moment. "In response to your previous query, we're going to see the dwarves in order to hopefully find out some very important details about something. And could you please hurry a little? I'm not entirely certain that Erdhod was willing to wait for our return, and I'd rather not get lost with just you for company - no offense."

Without waiting for Dante's consent, Kjan quickened his pace again and didn't slow down until they'd finally caught up with the company once more. "Crisis averted," he announced. "No, no, nobody thank me. I did only what you would have done if you cared a whit about our hapless cartographer."

Feeling along the walls, Ash managed to find a second torch before Kjan ran off with the first one. "Light, light." he muttered, feeling in his pockets until he grabbed his bag of matches. Striking one, he touched it to the dry tinder of the torch, which flared up promisingly, but dwindled down. It wasn't much, but it was light, at least. Maybe it would help cut down on the number of stubbed toes he was getting.

As Kjan and the wanderer rejoined the group, Ash offered Dante a quick grin to assure that he did indeed care about the cartographer, then quickened his pace until he was behind Erdhod.

"So, where does this, erm, lovely tunnel lead to? I wouldn't ask, you know, but so far it appears to be more tunnel. I'm merely wondering if there's anything different to be looking forward to." He seemed to be oblivious to the dwarf's glare.

"Nope," said the dwarf, customary surly expression not differing by a single iota. This proved to be the only explanation he would evince. It also proved to be correct.

The Phantom, after the first two hours, was almost dry. This made his mood marginally better. After four hours, he was feeling the beginnings of annoyance at the stale air and unchanging dark tunnel. After six hours, two breaks, three instances of him wanting very much to aim a boot at Erdhod's head, and several new torches, he was positively claustrophobic.

"Cheery bunch ye all are," growled Erdhod, and the Phantom had to exercise an inordinate amount of self-control to keep from caustically pointing out that the dwarf wasn't exactly the epitome of a sunny personality either. "I'm paying you a lot of gold," he growled back instead. "Why don't you do some of the guiding you're being paid for?"

"Yer a pack o' ninnies if ye need guidin' down a tunnel," was the congenial reply, and the Phantom had to agree.

Half an hour later, there were the first hints of variety. Tunnels began to branch off the main one, which itself proved to be a branch of a much larger tunnel. The Phantom was actually feeling rather upbeat about this.

'Was' being the operative term. All too soon, they came to a gate. And gates generally meant trouble.

"Right," said Erdhod with a vaguely chilling grin. "So yer here, and now ye have to get in. Better make it good." He gestured to the pair of guards flanking the gate, both of whom were appraising their party with something less than enthusiasm. The Phantom cleared his throat and looked at Kjan. "I suppose the responsibility of explanation in this case probably falls to me?"

_________________

"You would be correct in that supposition," Kjan replied without missing a beat, glancing around curiously at their surroundings. This portion of the tunnel was actually quite well-maintained and much more spacious, which did something to ease the growing sense of claustrophobia that had been bothering him since they had entered the confined space. And the torches here were actually lit, which was a nice change from the perpetual dark stretching before them and behind them.

"May want to get to it quickly," he advised as an afterthought. "They don't look very happy to see us."

"Right," said the Phantom, who seemed to be examining his person for something he was having trouble finding. Eventually he fished out the dilapidated remains of what appeared to be folded parchment from a pocket in his jerkin, and unfolded it. The duo of dwarf guards were looking more skeptical by the minute.

It was indeed a pathetic excuse for anything resembling a document to allow passage. In the Phantom's travels, he'd evidently forgotten that conditions such as driving sleet can damage such things as parchment. The ink had run slightly, one corner was entirely gone, and most of the content was illegible.

However, the signature 'Dyriak Jewelsbane' was still somewhat legible, and it was with airy confidence that the Phantom indicated it and thrust the pitiful scrap of parchment at the pair of dwarves. They scrutinized it doubtfully, muttered at each other for a moment or two, and looked up at the Phantom again. "Sorry," said the one, in an unimpressed monotone. "No entry. You a mite touched in th' head?"

The Phantom looked bemused at this question, delivered in a tone of voice as if the guard were perhaps inquiring after the weather. "Er, not last I checked," he responded uncertainly.

Scrutiny from both. "He doesn't look loony," said one to the other. His partner shrugged and folded his arms over his broad armored chest. "Dyriak's daft in the head," he delivered bluntly. "Anythin' signed by him might just earn ye somethin' worse rather than somethin' better."

_________________

"We traveled here with a bloody dwarf!" Kjan interjected, coming up to stand next to the Phantom. "Isn't the fact that he trusted us good enough?"

"Ne'er claimed to trust ye," Erdhod argued, folding his arms in the same manner as the guard. "I agreed t' take ye as far as th' city for a certain fee, aye, but it was ne'er agreed that I'd vouch for ye once we got 'ere. Far as I'm concerned, yer a group o' mercenaries sent t' slaughter every last dwarf in this city. Trust wasn' part o' the contract."

Kjan pointed a finger at their guide. "You're really not helping, you know."

"Helpin' wasn' part, either," Erdhod replied indifferently. "Show me another sack o' shiny things, an' I might be inclined to get ye through."

Sighing in exasperation, Kjan turned back to the Phantom and their new guard friends. "Look, it doesn't even say Dryiak," he said, indicating the smudged signature. "That is very clearly 'Dhiraen.'"

"Ohh, Dhiraen, is it?" asked one guard, his countenance brightening considerably. "Tha's a stone of a diff'rent cut altogether."

"Aye," the other agreed, nodding emphatically. "'Course we'll let ye through for Dhiraen." He reached up and yanked on a thick chain, and the stone gate slowly swung open. "Welcome to Heiregard," he said with as gracious of a bow as could be expected from a dwarf.

As the company slowly made their way through the opening, Kjan couldn't help but shoot a self-satisfied glance in the Phantom's direction. He had just opened his mouth to say something when the heavy doors snapped shut behind them with an ominous thud and they suddenly found themselves trapped in a circle of dwarves bearing disconcertingly sharp objects.

"Hand over yer weapons an' come quietly," ordered one whom Kjan assumed to be the leader of the group.

"What?" said the Phantom loudly, stopping in his tracks. Far from handing over his weapons, his hand was on the hilt of his greatsword. He swiveled, taking in the scowling dwarven countenances surrounding them. The gate was most decidedly shut.

"I think I must be misunderstanding you," he said cautiously.

"Nope," said the nearest dwarf, and kicked him in the shins.

Slight mayhem ensued. Had the Phantom been betting, he would have indignantly demurred that quality came before quantity and that his party could take on a horde of dwarves anytime, but he would have been wrong, because within the somewhat admirable space of thirty-four seconds, the entirety of their band was subdued, and the Phantom had a dwarf sitting on his back.

"Yer diggin' yerself deeper," he growled - or at least, the Phantom assumed it was a he, as he couldn't actually see the dwarf who was planted to solidly on top of him. "Want to hand over those weapons now?"

This was bad. Bad, and entirely unexpected. However, the Phantom unwillingly relinquished his greatsword, expression thunderous. "Would somebody care to explain what in the seven levels of the bloody underworld is going on?" he demanded. The effect was somewhat lessened by the fact that he was still facedown with a dwarf on top of him, but he hoped it got the point across.

_________________

Kjan was getting rather tired of having his posterior kicked by pint-sized opponents who had no right doing so. At least when he was soundly beaten by a great ox of a man, he could keep his pride from falling apart entirely by constantly reminding himself (and others) that he had been at a natural disadvantage in the fight and was thus doing well to be alive at all. No such excuse existed when the foe came up to your chest (or knees, in the case of the gnomes).

At least he wasn't being sat on like the Phantom was. He wasn't entirely certain that the past few days' events had left all of his ribs intact to begin with, and the additional weight of a dwarf (who, despite the lack of height, likely weighed as much or more than Kjan) would only result in suffocation on Kjan's part. As it was, he had simply had his arms deftly pinned behind his back by one dwarf while others angled their sharp, pointy objects - otherwise known as spears - toward regions that he wasn't particularly comfortable having pointy objects directed toward.

"'Dhiraen Jewelsbane' isn't what ye'd call a friendly name, hereabouts," the head dwarf expounded with a scowl. "Any friend o' his is an enemy o' ours...unless ye have information concernin' him."

Kjan looked over toward the Phantom in surprise, but the thirty-five percent of the man's face that wasn't pressed against the hard stone looked just as bemused as he was. They had both been under the impression that Dhiraen was on the right side; he'd been helpful enough, anyway. There hadn't been any apparent reason to think otherwise.

"Are ye goin' to remove yer weapons, or am I goin' to have t' search ye?" the dwarf nearest Kjan demanded, tapping his foot impatiently.

Kjan hesitated, glanced one more in the Phantom's direction, then reluctantly removed his weapons belt and laid the two sheathed knives in the waiting hands of the dwarf with the mien of one parting with a most treasured possession. He started to walk away, only to stop as though abruptly remembering something. He knelt down and removed a sheathed dagger from his boot, then rolled up one sleeve and produced another small, slender blade. There was a third one hidden on his person somewhere, but the dwarves couldn't see it, and Kjan wasn't overly interested in leaving himself completely unarmed. With an air of further resignation, he relinquished the new additions to the dwarf as well, muttering something not-so-friendly about dwarves under his breath.


Two-and-a-half seconds later, Kjan found out just how keen dwarven hearing was, just how quickly they could move, and exactly what the stone floor looked like when examined from a distance of roughly half an inch.

Bloody dwarves.

Oh lovely. Jate suppressed a groan, mainly because he saw how well the dwarves could hear Kjan's mutterings. It seemed that the "great name" the Phantom provided wasn't so great after all. He wondered what the situation was with this 'Jewlesbane'. Having grown up in court with plenty of politics floating around, he caught the smell of some juicy suspicion. Anyone who could find the cracks in the kingdom and push in just the right way...well, the dwarves would be ripe for taking. And there wouldn't be any of this "hand over your weapons," no. They would be the ones subdued.

"Ahem. Ye going to give me those shiny daggers of yers, or will I have ta sit on ye like those other two lumps?" Jate looked down at a dwarf in front of him with an eager and dangerous gleam in his eye.

"All right, all right. Here." Jate slid his twin daggers from his sides, then for good measure added the one in his boot. The one in his back was completely concealed, and as far as he knew, the dwarves didn't know everything. Besides, three was a reasonable number for people.

_________________
going on a journey through my old claims

"I haven't got any weapons."

Dante held up two very frostbitten hands just so the dwarves would be certain. They didn't appear convinced.

"Look, I wouldn't even <i>be</i> with this lot had not a chain of catastrophic befallen my entirely innocent self. No knives, no swords, no crossbows, no daggers, not even a nice club or something." In case they hadn't heard the first time, for they were glowering blankly at him, he repeated himself. "I. Haven't. Got. Any. Weapons."

With the last articulate syllable, some secret understanding seemed to pass between the dwarves. They leapt forward and began searching Dante in the most haywire method possible. Struggling to keep their hands off of him, Dante yelled, "Would someone please tell them I'm telling the truth?"

No one seemed inclined to do so however, not like it would have helped anyway. Finally the dwarves stepped back, content that Dante wasn't holding anything from them, and nodded to the head dwarf.

_________________
<center>
"The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air."

Ash was quickly learning just how stubborn dwarves could really be. And how hard they could kick.

"Right, right- here you go!" Seeing the others handing over their weapons, he unsheathed his knives and handed them over.

"You got anymore?" A very impatient-looking dwarf growled.

"No, not one, sorry to dissapoint you."

The dwarves didn't seem willing to take him at his word, as Ash suddenly found himself face-down on the ground, being searched. After a moment, the dwarves stepped back and the young man clambered back to his feet, straightening his clothes indignantly.

"Right," growled the Phantom, patience worn to about the thickness of the sodden, fragmented parchment in his jerkin pocket. Eledhe deserted, Silvryn gone, trudging up a mountain in the sleet, getting attacked by gnomes, managing to fall down what just happened to be a mine shaft, spending six hours walking through endless tunnels, and at the end of it all he got this. "If you're quite finished asking us questions and paying no attention to the answers -"

"S'this way," grunted the nearest dwarf, who seemed to be the head of his somewhat ferocious party. It wasn't particularly difficult to see why, as his glare from beneath jutting brows was quite half again as formidable as that any two other dwarves present would be combined. The Phantom shoved his hands in his pockets and followed the dwarf's retreating back, not quite assisted by the nearest helpful spearpoint.

They were descending deeper into the expertly mined rock passages, through a series of gradually sloping tunnels. Unlike earlier, when all had been dead silent on their underground trek, muted vibrations could be felt through the rock, and several times they passed gates opening onto what looked like vastly large chambers - each torchlit with a vaulted ceiling arching up into darkness. These brief encounters were accompanied by likewise brief spurts of sound, many deep voices characteristic of dwarves mingling to form a constant rumble punctuated by the unmistakable sounds of mining.

All of them were silent for quite some time, and then, growing increasingly uneasy with the depth of the still-descending passages, the Phantom increased his speed to catch up to the lead dwarf.

"Look, er, whatever your name is," he began, which probably wasn't the most winning way to start an acquaintance.

"Orduum," grunted the dwarf. The Phantom wondered if he ever did much besides grunt. "Commander Reikh Orduum, to you, human."

"Phantom Grey, pleased to meet you," muttered the Phantom under his breath, irritated. Clearing his throat, he went on. "I'd be, er, most grateful if you were to explain what this all is about. We've come to your city entirely in peace, and we've an urgent matter to discuss with the more knowledgeable of your mages."

Orduum grunted again. The Phantom took it as a cue to explicate upon said matter. "It involves an artifact called the Heartshard."

In a perfect world, this would have meant that Commander Reikh Orduum instantly stopped dead in the middle of the passage, apologized profusely for having inconvenienced the party, given them back their weapons, and escorted them to the perfect venerable, wise dwarf that could answer all their questions. Unfortunately, in a perfect world, he'd be at home twiddling his thumbs and wondering what boring social event he'd next have to attend rather than traipsing around leading a rebellion. Except that here he was, traipsing around leading a rebellion.

All that to say that Orduum grunted once more, and kept walking. "A piece o' information for ye, human," he said - the longest string of words he'd yet uttered in their presence - "next time ye want entrance to Heiregard, ye'd best have somethin' not signed by Dyriak Jewelsbane."

Which, of course, told him absolutely nothing. The Phantom began to wonder, with a touch of desperation, if they had any chance of getting out of here once they were in. "Look, you've heard of the Regent," he said, testing the waters. "Fat, ugly, rules a kingdom about as well as he manages physical fitness?"

Predictably, a grunt. The Phantom wondered why he even bothered to pause. "Well, we're rebels, you see," he explained. "And it's of utmost importance that we find out some information about this Heartshard as soon as possible."

If that dwarf grunted one more time, the Phantom was going to strangle him.

---

Commander Reikh Orduum stumped up the last gently sloping passage and hammered on the solid oak door to be found at the end of it with a mailed fist.

"What?" was the bad-tempered response he got. "I'm not gettin' up to open the door."

Upon opening it himself, the commander was greeted with the sight of a large mound of varied parchments, scrolls, books and otherwise writable materials, with what might have been a dwarf in the middle. "They're here," he not-quite-grunted, a concession for him. "Five humans."

"Hm?" The dwarf he'd come to see clambered from his heap of resources in a could of dust and brushed a few sheets of parchment from a chair before seating himself to survey the commander impatiently. "Who's here?"

Orduum resisted the urge to sneeze. "Five humans," he repeated. "One calls 'imself the Phantom."

The countenance of the dwarf before him altered dramatically. He might almost have been smiling beneath the wilderness of wiry black hair and beard, sprinkled with grey that was either indicative of age or an inclination to burrow among sheafs of dusty parchment. "Beard of Belar, took 'im long enough. I can't be bothered now. Where's the man, then?"

"Dungeons," said Orduum. "Lower level, right corridor."

"Eh, few days. Keep 'em there till I have time." He'd disappeared beneath the parchment once more.

"Right, yer grace," said Orduum, but he probably hadn't been heard. "Keep 'em there. Few days. Right," he muttered, closing the door. "Hope they don't kill 'emselves waiting."

_________________

Kjan leaned back against one side of the cell with his eyes half-closed, content to wait for the time being. He'd already evaluated the craftsmanship of the cells as they were being led down, though he'd already more or less known what to expect. The dwarves were naturally most renowned for their masonry, they weren't half bad as blacksmiths, either. And given that they had implemented both of these skills to their full extent in constructing the prison's cells, Kjan strongly suspected that there would be no sudden departures on the prisoners' part unless the dwarven authorities explicitly willed it.

So, they were waiting. Not like they had much choice in the matter. In Kjan's experience (and he considered himself quite experienced when it came to jail time), there were only four things that one could do in a jail cell: sleep, sit and think, talk, or build little huts out of the straw that typically covered the floor. Or pace the cell and mutter like a lunatic, but Kjan had tried that once and had been introduced to a wonderful thing called Solitary Confinement for his troubles. He'd done quite enough sitting and thinking already, sleep didn't seem to be forthcoming, the cell was too small to allow for adequate pacing, and he'd already constructed enough huts to constitute a small village. Only one option left.

Kjan casually glanced over at the Phantom, silently gauging the man's present temperament before clearing his throat to speak. "I don't suppose you gave Vairtan any sort of time frame for our 'outing'?" he asked quietly. "So that he might at least be fractionally concerned if we fail to return within a month or two?"

The Phantom, who had just finished folding the dilapidated scrap of parchment into something strange and floppy that resembled a miniature hat, glanced up at Kjan. "After a month, maybe," he responded, with the barest hint of a wearily wry grin. Stretching, he leaned back against the wall and idly played with a piece of straw. "It'll be too late, after a month," he said abruptly, as if just realizing it himself.

He got to his feet opposite Kjan. "We've had enough practice escaping prison." The statement bore just the faintest inclination toward dry humor. "This can be a sort of final examination, to see if we measure up."

---

Eledhe blew on the tiny tongue of flame, encouraging it into blossoming over her campfire. When it did, she sat back on her heels and, out of habit, scanned their current surroundings, not without a glance at Liell and Silvryn each. The one was, as usual, apathetically morose, and the other looked as icily lofty as ever, despite being (for safety's sake, though Eledhe was confident enough in her abilities to think it unnecessary) neatly bound to a gnarled and broad-boled oak in their immediate vicinity. Liell had insisted, and Eledhe was too annoyed to do more than snarl and let him have his way.

Beyond the two, forest dimmed by dusk stretched out in every direction. In late afternoon they'd descended through the mountains far enough to enter the thick wood, and traveled for a good three or four hours more, doubling back several times, to make tracking them more difficult. Now trees, gigantic and hung with dark greenery, were the only view available save the last sliver of sun slipping below the horizon - and that only half visible. Belatedly, as she examined the tiny clearing in which their campfire now burned, Eledhe noticed the lack of wildlife. There had not been a single squirrel's scolding chitter since they first passed the border of the wood.

Shrugging it off, she fed the fire and moved back, gaze flicking first to the uncommunicative Liell, then to Silvryn. Princess Silvryn. Eledhe was tempted to gloat, but Her Highness seemed unlikely to pay it any mind, which rather diminished the pleasure. Also, she had no wish to give anything away in front of Liell, who she trusted about as much as she had faith in a torch not to ignite dry wood on contact.

"No wood," he grunted, waving at the fire.

"Want to fix that?" said Eledhe sarcastically, in no mood to go hunting for more wood. She'd built the fire, after all.

Surprisingly, he made a noncommittal noise and trudged off in an easterly direction, away from the faintly glowing horizon. Eledhe stared after him for a moment, wondering at the unexpected acquiescence.

Then there was silence. "So," said Eledhe, shifting position by the tree she had her back against and not looking up at Silvryn. "I'd imagine my name's nearing the underworld, it's so low on your list of liked personages."

_________________

"Do you take pleasure in asking inane questions?" Silvryn asked stonily, fixing her impassive gaze on a tree some twenty yards away. "I should think that you are quite capable of reaching the underworld already, and entirely of your own accord. Any addtional attempts on my part would be quite redundant."

She made no attempt to continue the conversation beyond that point until she abruptly noted that Eledhe's companion -Liell?- had not returned in quite some time. "It has been nearly half an hour," she remarked suddenly. "Considering that we are in a forest, your companion should have had no problem locating suitable wood for a fire. Are you so certain that he is on your side?"