Song of the Serpent by Hugh Matthews

Author:Hugh Matthews
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781601253880
Publisher: Paizo Publishing, LLC
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“There Will Be a Reckoning”

Between two of the tall windows was a group of overstuffed armchairs arranged for conversation. Brond led them there and bade them sit. Since the furniture was scaled to dwarven dimensions, Krunzle and Gyllana were more comfortable sitting on the plush arms of their chairs, while Raimeau eventually settled for turning his completely around and placing his thin rump where a dwarf’s head would rest, his long legs extended before him.

Then the hairless one told his tale. He had been born an ordinary dwarven baby to an ordinary dwarven couple in the ordinary dwarven township of Skagnoth. His father had been a porter in the cheese market and his mother a weaver of shawls. Until the age of twelve, Brond, son of Tottreuch, had shown no remarkable qualities at all.

“Then, on my twelfth naming day,” he said, “I was struck down by a sudden fever. It came on quickly, and within hours I was tossing on my bed in delirium. My parents sent for the quacksalver, but none of his potions had any effect. For two days, I lay upon death’s doorstep. My mother said my forehead was too hot to touch.

“Then, on the third day, the fever broke. Sweat poured from my every pore, and when my mother went to wipe my dripping brow, she found that the cloth had taken away my eyebrows. When I sat up, my hair remained on the pillow. From that moment on, I was completely bald, and nary a hair has grown on my body since.”

But that was not the strangest part of the experience. In the deepest moments of his delirium, when he babbled and tossed and apparitions hovered over his bed, a part of him had remained cool and calm. A voice had spoken from within him, telling him not to worry, that not only would he come through but that he would go on to greatness.

The voice had spoken with such assurance, and carried with it such a profound presence, that young Brond had never doubted the truth of its message. And when he rose from his sickbed, pale and smooth, he no longer spoke or acted as a child. This, along with a lack of hair that made him unique among dwarfdom, made him a target of jibes and mockery from his age-mates—one of them dubbed him “the noble head”—but the bald dwarf youth was so oblivious to their ridicule that in no great time the chaffing simply ceased.

He had become a grave and thoughtful young dwarf. His manner gave rise to suspicion among some that he thought himself better than his equals—a guarantee of unpopularity—but his lack of boastfulness and constant, quiet humility won him praise. It was then that his insight and intelligence were finally noticed. Other dwarves, even his elders, began to ask his advice, and found his simple but clear-sighted responses to be charged with a wisdom that belied his years.

“By the time I achieved adulthood,” he told the three travelers, “dwarves were coming from as far away as Highhelm to consult me.

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