Netac made sure not to tell Corha of Harkin's plans, but then Corha wasn't exactly speaking to him any longer. She might acknowledge him politely when required to socially, but after finding out how he had suggested they leave her behind in Nur, she decided to take his suggestion personally. He wasn't sure what he had thought he might have seen in her anyway. The fact that she now seemed enamored with that oaf, Garanth, certainly didn't endear her to him any further. It only encouraged the idiot to spend every moment he wasn't training reavers hanging around her, flexing his new found muscles and stinking of sweat and leather.

Sitting in Karux's classroom, he concentrated on their latest exercise, which involved raising, dropping and then catching heavy bronze spear points, using only schemas. It turned out to be surprisingly difficult, for it required speed and timing as well as the ability to gather karis quickly. It also resulted in falling bronze spear points ringing like bells as they repeatedly fell and struck the stone floor. The sound quickly became annoying. Karux stayed long enough to smile at their floundering efforts and then quickly left for his meetings. Harkin barely waited for Karux to get out of sight before getting up and wordlessly leaving.

"Where are you going?" Corha asked, but he didn't answer. She turned to Netac. "Where is he going?"

Netac shrugged. "He said his stomach bothered him earlier. He may just be going to the privy."

Corha gave him a skeptical look. "Fine, be that way." She went back to sending her bronze spear point wavering uncertainly in the air.

They practiced all morning and began to master the necessary schemas. Bored and tired, they were both about to stop when Netac caught Corha's spear point before she could drop it and, in a fit of pique, she sent it at him. He caught the point and sent it back and they played catch with it even sharing a laugh as if they were children again.

"Very good!" Karux smiled.

Netac missed his catch and the spear point narrowly missed his head as it whizzed past and thunked into a table leg.

"I approve of your improvisation, but you should be more careful." Karux paused and looked around. "Where's Harkin?"

"He left," Corha said and gave Netac an accusing look.

Karux looked at Netac. Netac shrugged. "He said his stomach was bothering him earlier."

Karux sighed, looking disappointed. He closed his eyes and slowly turned his head. "There he is." He opened his eyes and swept them both with an accusing glare. "Did you really think that I could have lived with you so long and not known your patterns? Get your traveling packs. We're leaving."

Corha made an exasperated sound and rose. "Is it really necessary that we all go?"

"If you had told me of his plans or simply talked some sense into him, then it wouldn't be necessary for us to chase after him like this." He turned and strode out of the room. "Hurry. We leave in ten minutes."

<====|==|====>

Harkin grabbed his traveling pack and a skin of water and was down the hill, most likely, before Karux had made it to his first meeting. He practically skipped down the trail to N'shia-Potoma hurried through town and was out the north side in minutes. He had to slow his pace as he felt a stitch form in his side but he forced himself onward at a fast walk. The dwerkan travelers would have left that morning. Despite their short legs, those people could really move, he thought. It took him nearly half a day to catch up to them.

A score of dwerka, covered in articulated metal skins, marched along a line of donkeys they had loaded down with bags of grain and baskets of goods. Their leader, as was their custom, walked in the back. "Greetings traveler," he said.

"Well met, kelvid lao," Harkin greeted him with the traditional greeting for a skilled worker.

"Ah! You know the customs of the dwerka. My name is Cwardiad. How is it you come by that knowledge?"

"My name is Harkin. I'm an apprentice of Karux, the Oracle of Har-Tor. In his service, I've had the privilege of visiting Ogofdinas."

"Ogofdinas? We are headed there now. Are you returning to the gateway of the underground kingdom?"

"I am. I seek the source of the Pardos."

The dwerkan leader laughed. "Pardon me, but only the old and the sick seek the source of the Pardos, and you look like neither, unless I misjudge your kind."

"You are correct. I am neither old nor sick. Why do you say some seek the source of the Pardos and others do not?"

"Many seek it for its healing properties. The closer to the source one drinks, the more powerful its properties are. If one could find the hidden source buried in the heart of the mountains, then one can turn back death and live forever."

Immortality? Harkin examined the dwerka's face for any sign he was being teased. Cwardiad seemed completely earnest. Could it be? And we were standing right there! "Is this true?"

"Who knows? It is considered a fool's search. Some have gone mad trying to find it. Only the very old and the very sick with nothing to lose bother seeking it. 'Seeking the source of the Pardos' has nearly become a euphemism for death." The dwerkan read his expression and laughed. "You are welcome to travel with us though. May the High One bless and guide you in your search."

The dwerka traveled steadily all morning, then surprised Harkin by stopping and setting up camp at midday. As the sun began to lower, they broke camp and continued moving. The animals were unhappy, but the dwerka preferred to travel at dawn and dusk. They traveled late into the night before stopping for a second rest.

They broke camp hours before dawn. The dwerka had no trouble packing in the dark. They removed their visors and goggles of smoked glass lenses and moved freely about the camp while Harkin stumbled and bumped into things. They had gone several miles before the first light of dawn allowed Harkin to let go of the donkey he used as a guide and walk on his own. As the sun came up, the goggles and visor went back on and Harkin began to see why moving about on the surface was such an ordeal for the dwerka.

The caravan made its midday stop in the pass on the northern ridge of the Pelavale. One of the guards drew Cwardiad's attention to distant figures approaching from the valley.

"How many?" Cwardiad asked.

"Three. One of them is definitely a human. The other two are shorter, but are probably human as well," the guard said.

A sickening feeling came across Harkin. He considered the possibility of leaving the caravan and striking out on his own, but to do so now would only attract attention and arouse suspicion.

"I don't think they can be a threat to us," Cwardiad said. "I'll greet them when they come near and we'll see. Have a few guards nearby just in case." Cwardiad caught Harkin's worried expression and smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry. We're not far enough into the mountains for it to be Angorym."

Harkin hurriedly put up his small tent and crawled inside hoping he'd be forgotten. He heard Cwardiad greet the strangers when they arrived and his worst fears were confirmed.

"Greetings Oracle," Cwardiad said once introductions were made. "Yes, it seems we have one of your students with us. His tent is right over there."

The cold arms of terror seemed to grab Harkin from behind and steal the strength from his limbs. He wanted to get up, burst out of the tent and run away, but as the thumping of a staff approached and a familiar shadow fell upon his tent, he could only look up hopelessly like a child caught in the act of disobedience as Karux pulled aside the tent flap and leaned in.

"You can't have thought this was going to work."

This stunned him. "But, I did."

"Did you think the council of guild masters would let you walk up and claim..." Karux's gaze flicked to Cwardiad standing next to him with a puzzled expression, "...your objective without my approval?"

"I thought I might slip past the guards."

"You would not have even made it into the city. And if you had, it would have been pointless. If the guild masters have honored our agreement, that passage has been closed for months. You'd need an army of dwerka with picks to find it again."

Cwardiad frowned at Karux. "You speak as if the source had been found."

Karux turned to him and hesitated. "I assure you, the source of the Pardos is as lost as it ever was."

"Lost implies it was once found."

<====|==|====>

The final hours of the year were slipping away in the festival of the Long Night and the taverns of Mari were full of celebrants. Tarakae beat his drum for the sheer viscous joy of it while men and women danced and sang and drank. Nearly a fortnight after the assault on Mimoor's house, the city had quieted down. Tarakae had left off his inciting performances and the city seemed to hold its breath as if waiting to see what would come of it all. But nothing happened. There were some muted expressions of shock and disgust and much shaking of heads, but these came mainly from the wealthier merchants.

The next month another attack occurred. This time the work-boss was beaten so badly he died two days later. A fortnight after that another tacarch and his family were beaten though no one died this time. After this the various merchants spoke to the work-bosses and they agreed to pay the tacarchs directly for providing laborers so that the work-bosses were giving money to the laborers rather than taking it from them. Fearing for their lives, the tacarchs handed out a little more coin than the former merchants had, but they still kept back most of the pay. With a little more coin in their pockets, the workers' outrage died somewhat, though Tarakae kept the pot simmering.

By the time of the festival, the holiday cheer masked a growing undercurrent of dissatisfaction. While work situations had changed, the laborers' situation had not improved.

The crowd groaned in good-natured complaint as the tavern's proprietor put out the fire in the fireplace. Instead of singing traditional songs of thanksgiving as they waited for a new fire to be built using a fire bow, they sang mocking songs of their thirst and their poor empty cups. The new fire was started and the stones were heated in the fireplace. The New Year's loaves of keleos bread were baked and the crowd gathered around eagerly. Somehow the simple peasants' flat bread always tasted especially good on Long Night.

"Ai! I didn't get any!" one of the revelers complained when the bread ran out. Others joined in on his complaint.

"That's all the nuts we had with which to make flower," the proprietor explained.

Some in the crowd began to murmur angrily.

"If you want more," someone in the crowd suggested, "go beg alms like you're supposed to."

"Yes!" another voice agreed. "Where is the bread the wealthy are supposed to be giving us!"

"Time to go singing!"

The crowd surged to the fireplace, pouring beer over their right hands and running them through the ashes of last year's fire. Tradition dictated that those who had been blessed in the year were supposed to give bread to the deserving poor. The dirty hand represented the dirt of their labors and qualified them to share in the blessings of the more fortunate.

Tarakae made sure to get out in front of the crowd as it rushed out laughing and singing. He led them to the houses of the rich, beating out a rhythm with his sticks as they marched up the hill. Pausing outside the house of a wealthy victim, they began to sing.

"Good Adra, Good Madra"
"Remember traditions of old"
"As you sit beside your fire"
"And we stand out in the cold"
"With a feast upon your table"
"Remember those not able"
"And do now as you're told..." 

The revelers laughed and began changing the words of blessings to thinly veiled curses, wishing them things like their house not burning down and their legs not breaking in the New Year. Each improvised verse sung louder than the last.

Tarakae stood at the front, drumming on the door with his sticks until it opened and a frightened merchant poked his head out.

"Please don't hurt me or my family," the merchant said.

"We're not here to hurt you; we're just exercising our rights as tradition calls."

The merchant's wife, standing behind his shoulder, held out a cloth covered basket. "It's all the bread we have."

"Where's the drink?" One of the revelers shouted over Tarakae's shoulder.

"It is tradition," Tarakae said. "A loaf of bread, a drink of beer and a coin."

"How much?" The merchant pleaded. "How much for you to go away?"

"How much have you got?" Tarakae smiled.

"One moment." The merchant disappeared into the house while his wife stood at the door begging.

"Please don't hurt our family. Please don't hurt us. We don't want trouble. Please have mercy."

Tarakae grew irritated with her begging, but fortunately her husband returned quickly with a jug of beer and a small bag of coins. Tarakae peered inside. The bag held enough copper aescs to make several silvers. He hefted it in his hand. "I think this will do." Tarakae turned and held up the jug while the man next to him held up the basket. "They decided to share!" The crowd roared its approval. "Put your right hand to their house and leave your blessing.

The merchant and his wife crouched behind the door, peering around its narrow opening as the revelers surged forward. They put their ash-covered right hands to its walls, leaving a black ring of hand prints around it.

"To the neighbors," Tarakae cried, hoisting the jug high.

With a loud cheer, the crowd crossed the street and continued singing.