High Chieftain Durgan Embersmyth's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The stone-carvers came to him at dawn with their hammers still cold. All six of them stood in a line outside the lodge, and the one with the split thumbnail did the talking. They wouldn't go into the eastern hall ruins. The structure wasn't sound. Durgan asked which beams had shifted since yesterday's inspection. The carver said they hadn't inspected it yesterday. Or the day before. When Durgan asked when they'd last been inside, none of them answered. Durgan picked up his own hammer and walked to the ruins. The carvers followed at a distance but stopped at the entrance. He stepped through the collapsed archway and let his eyes adjust to the dark. Most of the hall was rubble, but the far wall still stood. Hanging there was a mirror with a cracked wooden frame. Its surface was shattered into a web of fragments, and every piece reflected only darkness, even where sunlight cut through the broken roof. Durgan moved closer and saw his own reflection split into a dozen pieces, each one showing him standing in a different part of the hall—some where the ceiling had already fallen, some where the floor had given way. He reached out and touched the frame. The wood was cold, colder than stone should be underground. Behind him, one of the carvers called out a warning, but Durgan pulled the mirror from the wall and carried it outside. He set it face-down in the dirt and told the carvers they could go in now. The one with the split thumbnail shook his head. They'd all seen what the mirror showed, he said. Men working in places that had already killed them. Durgan looked at the six of them and understood. They weren't refusing because the structure was unsound. They were refusing because the mirror had shown them their own deaths, and they'd believed it. He picked up the mirror again and walked it to the cliff edge. He threw it over. It fell without a sound and disappeared into the ravine below. When he returned to the ruins, two of the carvers had already gone inside and started sorting stone. By midday all six were working, hauling dressed blocks out to the staging yard. Durgan watched them measure and stack, their hands steady now that the mirror was gone. The youngest carver paused at the archway on his way back in and glanced at Durgan. He asked if the High Chieftain had seen himself in the mirror too. Durgan said he had. The carver asked what it showed him. Durgan told him it showed a man standing in a hall that had already fallen. Just like it showed all of them. The carver nodded and went back inside. That night Durgan updated his scroll. Six stone-carvers, one ruined hall, one discarded mirror. The cost had been half a day of stalled work and a superstition he couldn't afford to let take root. The return was a crew that would enter the eastern hall again, and enough salvaged stone to start the first foundation work by week's end. He set the scroll aside and walked to the cliff edge where he'd thrown the mirror. The ravine was dark and deep, and whatever the mirror had been—dragon's work or dwarven fear made solid—it was gone now. Tomorrow the carvers would go deeper into the ruins, and he'd go with them to make sure nothing else was waiting to stop the work. But tonight, the eastern hall was open again. That was enough.