When we awoke, Echo was still there, which surprised us.
"Echo? Did Callie never go to bed?" I asked, concerned.
"She did, finally, but it was so late that I decided to stay here. She knows where I am and is not worried. I dare say she will not be at breakfast."
"I agree. Callie is difficult to wake if she has been up nearly all night. I do not expect to see her until lunch," I told her.
Echo nodded and, after I dressed, rode on my shoulder to breakfast. Alice was doubly loaded as well, Bo wrapped like a sash with Dawn following both by walking and flying.
The plans were still on the dining room table. We five tried to make sense of all the markings and notations. Even with Alice and Anna, we found it highly confusing. Nana also tried explaining, but it soon grew too confusing for her as well. We left it laying so they could find all the parts again.
Not long after breakfast, Gorval and the council returned. We said nothing about it, but we were amazed that they were not still asleep. Builders and other "people of skill" joined them to look over the plans. All the dwarfs radiated good cheer and eagerness to get started. They gathered up the mass of papers and left, leaving the table nearly bare. The Crialas records had joined the Stahendring archives as the massive overhaul swept through the entire city, claiming and reclaiming thousands of items. If this journal were not with me, I think it, too, may have been cataloged. All that remained were parts deemed "repeated information: do not catalog". Truly, duplicate accounts of the same adventure were left. Fortunately, as we looked though this, we found an alternative to destroying the Mech. One account wrote that damaged Mechs "popped" back to Mechanicus almost the instant any serious damage was received. Being encased must have been why it had not done so. We decided to first try removing the encasing rock to see if that would cause it to go back home. If it did not, we would remove any gears that had been added. If it still remained, then we would have to destroy it. Many of the staff who listened to us praised us for trying the kind way first and giving this unintentional enemy a fair chance. The Keeper, on the other hand, did not seem to be one to whom we could be so kind. He had, willingly, turned from all things dwarf and Duergar to follow this malfunctioning Mech. However, we were not in a position to punish him. That would be up to Laduguer, the High Fathers, and all other dwarf gods. Remembering that my test had been a whimsy, I feared what real justice from dwarf gods would entail.
Lisa and Callie met us for lunch. They still looked tired. Echo and Bo warmly welcomed their return to our company. We dismissed their apologies, telling them we understood their passions and found no fault in last night's activities. They explained the plans. Material the Foot could not breach was to be laid strategically to guide the Duergar with the Foot to one of several trapped rooms. In each darkened room, a wooden room would be waiting. Once inside, a trigger would be tripped to lower wooden bars across the door, leaving no room for escape. In each room, a Darrknot with a bat-dragon would be waiting with a container of other non-penetrable material: wooden or glass box, cloth or leather bag. When trapped, this container would be used to quickly secure the Foot. Since there was a delay between the time Duergar and Foot were separated and the Keeper switching it with the acid cloud, it was hoped placing it inside something would prevent the switch if it was done fast enough. If this succeeded, they hoped the Keeper would attempt to recover it himself and bring the Mech along. At that time, the Mech could be removed and the Keeper brought to dwarf justice. As he was the leader and driving force behind the plans to invade, only he would be tried.
We thanked our sisters for clearing it up. We told them about our attempts to understand the written plans and how utterly confused we were. They laughed and told us all the short-hand notations and abbreviations, which, to anyone else, would seem like gibberish and be unintelligible. Lunch was a leisurely affair.
After lunch, as a thought, we went to look at the Stahendring archives. As we suspected, the place was in chaos. While watching, from outside, we saw it was rather organized chaos. Posts were set up to group the items. One by subject, one by author, and another by "index number", whatever that meant. Items were taken to all three posts to be fully cataloged. Set did not understand all the trouble. I explained as best I could, but to a being who, at some point, may make a bed out of gold and jewels, I suppose this would seem rather pointless.
It began as a change in air pressure. My sisters did not seem to feel it. I looked for its source, but did not see anything. Then, a tingle or chill rode up my back. Still, I felt no evil in this feeling. I turned to Callie. Both she and Echo appeared to be changing. Even Wrath was being affected. I reached out to touch her, but heard "Don't" in my head. The rest were becoming aware of their change, Callie and Echo stared straight ahead, into the archives.
"What is it?" the others whispered.
As soon as the question was asked, I knew, "High Fathers. Callie, Echo, and Wrath are about to do something god-like."
We stood out of their way. Callie extended her arms to the archives. Books, scrolls, pieces of parchment, and all matter of written material began zooming around the cluttered room. The archivists ducked and dived to avoid the flying articles. Someone noticed us and they made their way to us.
Before any could ask, a deep voice resonated out of Callie, "Fear not, Children of Fire and Stone, this task is well in hand. While we praise your efforts, we are much more efficient and far gentler."
" 'We'? Who...what...'gentle'?" the dwarfs stammered as they watched the room flutter with all that material. Callie and Echo were still as statues from that point until the room become still, orderly, and clean.
"See your archives as they should have been and, hopefully, shall remain," the deep voice boomed as Callie walked stiffly into the room.
The archivists went in and saw everything perfectly arranged and orderly. At the posts they had stationed, they found their catalogs completely redone with every item described and documented. Taking the records from all three posts, they could cross-reference and find any item by subject, author, or number. Once they had investigated, they returned to speak to "Callie".
"Who are you, mighty one? Who do we praise for this?"
The deep voice laughed, a sound I had heard before, "We are not 'one', but many. You know us as the Court."
The dwarfs dropped to their knees and put their heads to the floor.
The laugh echoed again, "Rise, Children of Fire and Stone, your homage pleases us. We leave now. Strong as she is, this sister grows weak from our presence. Attend her well."
The air pressure left. Callie and Echo slumped. We caught both easily. Wrath, too, passed out, unconscious for the first time in centuries. The archivists aided us in returning her home. I could sense the shift Callie was experiencing, becoming more dwarf in form and feature. Echo, as I carried her, also seem to change. Knowledge came to me and I smiled. My sisters gave me puzzled looks.
"Bat-dragons are called Jambacas. Dwarfs will remember this name as child stories of protective spirits to guard them as they sleep. It is not coincidence nor chance that made them winter in mountains. Dwarf gods, with aid from Brimagor, created them as help mates. Bat-dragons are truly dwarfish dragons," I told them mentally.
They glanced at the sleeping form in my hands and smiled.
At the house, Nana barked orders like a general. People ran this way and that to comply. Once Callie was abed, Nana shooed us out to administer to Callie as if she was her mother. Echo become our charge as Nana knew nothing on dragon health. In my room, we made a nest-like bed near the dark corner she had chosen the night before. Some of the gnome spice Set liked was laid on her tiny tongue and drops of water washed it down her throat. She purred and cheeped in her sleep. We left her to sleep when my sisters called for us to meet Gorval in the parlor.
He, Lanara, and the head archivist were seated when we arrived. Concern and worry colored their auras and faces. We joined my sisters.
"Is all well?" Gorval asked, almost timidly.
"Yes, they are resting. We do not expect either to wake until morning. Wrath, however, may wake sooner," I told him.
"My questions," the head archivist interjected, " are why did the Court want the archives straightened so quickly? Did they find fault with us?"
"Yes and no," I began, "From what I gathered, they felt you might damage some items or mislabel others. Also, your method of triple checking everything was slow and sloppy. This way, they insured all the archives were done to their standards."
"Did they use Callie because she is of dwarf blood?" Gorval asked after checking that Lanara was keeping up.
"She, Wrath, and Echo are dwarf. Wrath is a full-blood dwarf and Echo is Jambacas," I answered.
"Jambacas!" all the dwarfs echoed at once.
"I thought that was something the elders made up to get children to not be afraid to sleep in the dark," Gorval stated.
"No, these small creatures are Jambacas, the protective 'spirits' that guard sleeping dwarfs. As fewer dwarfs believed, they have become less divine and more mortal. Your gods and Brimagor co-created them. Another reason to straighten out the archives so this information can return to the minds of all dwarfs, joban in particular."
The dwarfs sat in silence, minds reeling from this information. The archivist excused himself to find this record and begin the relearning process. The staff invited Gorval and Lanara to dinner, which they both accepted.
During dinner, we six felt Wrath regain consciousness. He was a bit worried about Callie, at first, but calmed when he checked and found her only sleeping. Gorval asked Wrath, through us, if he knew anything about Jambacas. Wrath began rattling off titles of dozens of stories featuring Jambacas.
Gorval stopped us and him, "We need to have him tell these stories himself. He holds a wealth of knowledge we have lost or misplaced. How can we do this?"
"We can channel our swords," Alice said, "Callie has channeled Wrath on a few occasions. It is far less taxing."
Gorval thought silently, then shook his head, "No, we need him to tell the tales. Our people must know they are his tales, not your or her's. I hate being stubborn, but they will not believe otherwise."
"Let us work on it, Sire," Anna volunteered, "Our swords are experts in various fields. We shall find an answer."
"It is left to you, then," Gorval said as he rose, "We have traps to build. Hopefully the 'clock' will give us time."
We agreed as he and Lanara left. We went to check on Callie while discussing how to let Wrath teach the ancient tales on his own while Callie did other things. She was sleeping deeply, snoring a bit. We parted to our separate rooms, yet still working on the problem. Echo had woken enough to perch on the ceiling and went back to sleep. We shelved the discussion until tomorrow and headed to bed.
Day 310 (288)((278)):
A mental scream jolted us in the darkness. Callie's mental scream sounded again. By instinct, I grabbed Vanity and went through kirlan to appear in Callie's room. She was still screaming, mentally and verbally, in the darkness. I called the cover off the suncrystals and glowing grubs. Callie was sitting upright in bed, still screaming. Wrath hung in the air beside her, trying to calm her. I sat on the bed and took hold of her.
"Callie! Cal! It's me, Kayla. You're safe. You. Are. Safe."
She stopped screaming, blinked a few times, then collapsed on me, sobbing. I held her and rocked her, speaking soothing words and stroking her hair. Wrath and Vanity hovered in the air near us. Our remaining sisters ran into the room, followed by Nana and a few others of the staff.
"What by the All-Father is going on?" Nana asked breathlessly.
"Nightmare," six of us intoned together over Callie's sobbing.
"Nightmare? My dear, what images could cause such outcries?" Nana asked, getting a chair to listen and dismissing the rest of the staff as she did.
Callie was crying too hard to answer. Alice took up the tale.
"She saw the gray ones invading, killing everyone as they went. You, the rest of this household, Echo, Gorval, and all of us lay dead in the tunnels. She was completely alone, even Wrath was gone. The gray ones were dragging her down to sacrifice to the Divine Clock, to make it walk and talk once again. She started screaming as they were dismembering her."
"Oh, child!" Nana exclaimed and joined me in holding her.
Callie continued to sob, releasing all of her fear. Echo took her place on Callie's shoulder, purring and cooing to comfort her. Finally, we got her calm enough to lay back down. Echo remained and Wrath lay on the bed beside her. We left a bit of the lights uncovered so the room was not pitch black.
By our best guesses, we still had a few hours until dawn. Aside from Callie, the rest of us did not got back to sleep. Nana was very concerned. We told her that Callie's dreams have always been vivid with her nightmares the most intense. We went to the parlor. Drinks were brought to us and we took up last night's discussion of how to share Wrath's knowledge with the dwarfs. Sloth threw out several ideas and designs.
Just after dawn, the wizard Grikmor and his assistant Kaybany arrived at the house. They were brought into the parlor. Their emotions were swirling. They had armfuls of stuff.
"Ladies, we've been experimenting. Since the Mech cannot verbally speak, we have been working on devices to make his 'voice' audible. We have nothing to test on, which is why we are here. Your swords are the only sentient objects in Stahendring. It is our hope we can test them on your swords," Grikmor explained.
I smiled while my sisters gave me the look that said they saw Fate's hand in this development. We agreed to let them test their devices. The swirling emotions settled as they laid out their items. Some radiated strong magic while others shown none at all. They ranged from really simple to highly complex. Sloth, being both a wizard and the largest of the seven, volunteered to be part of the test. While they were setting up, Callie, Echo, and Wrath met up with us. She, too, gave me the look when we told her what we were doing.
We all had breakfast while watching the test. Some failed miserably. A few got minor results. They got some sounds from both magical and non-magical items, but nothing that could be called speech. Sloth provided tips for tweaking each to get results. About the third or fourth from the last, we were all shocked to hear real words squawk from the horn-like opening. Sloth stood upright on a thick mat with thin stiff metal rods surrounding him and pointing at him. All of these led to a large horn-type opening. When Sloth spoke, we seven hearing him clearly, the rods vibrated, sending them down the connections to the horn.
Out of the opening, we heard, "...ello...Hello...This is Sloth...an you hear me?"
"Yes! We hear you!" Grikmor shouted.
He jumped up and began fine-tuning all the rods and connections.
"Is that better? Can you hear me clearly?" Sloth's familiar voice sounded not in our heads, but out of the horn.
The room exploded in cheers. When we all calmed down, we tried it with the other six. Each one, with minor adjustments, spoke with their own voice through the device. Word was sent to the King.
Gorval, Lanara, the head archivist, several other archivists, and some of the council that had assembled in Callie's home. It was a tight fit, but we all managed to sit comfortably in the parlor. Grikmor and Kaybany presented the device, orginally designed to give the Mech its voice back.
"We have been told of the wealth of information held by the sword Wrath," Grikmor continued, "Hence, this assembly has been called so you can hear his words directly from him."
Gorval let a smile escape before he schooled his features back to neutrality, "Good work, wizards. Does it take much magic to power?"
"No, my Lord, in fact, pass enchanting these rods, there is no magic powering this device. The entity speaking holds ninety-nine percent of the magic in this combination."
The dwarfs applauded enthusiastically. With their general distrust of magic, knowing so little was in this thing let them accept what they might learn from whatever was in it.
"Wrath," Gorval called, "we are ready to hear about the Jambacas."
Wrath floated from Callie and settled into the device. As he was the last one to use it, no adjustments were needed. Lanara and the others got out writing tools and paper to record Wrath's tales.
His voice, as strong and sure as we heard it in our heads, rang out from the device. He began telling how, when the Drow elves encounted the dwarfs in "our" tunnels, they began sending dark magic to make the dwarfs fear the deep caverns. Some, later referred to a Severed or Departed, deserted the mountains and never looked back. Others, who became the Duergar, became allies with the Drow to stay in the deep places. Deep Dwarfs and joban neither left nor stayed, living closer to the surface than the Drow or Duergar or in areas unoccupied by either. To protect them, the High Fathers worked with Brimagor to make Jambacas. Originally, they could be invisible for hours, silently watching for the Drow's dark magic, usually in the form of venomous spiders. Dwarf eyesight let them sort of see the invisible beings and they called them spirits. While parents told children about them and the children believed, Jambacas had full power and kept them safe. Gradually, the tales faded, spirits became something to fear, and Jambacas slowly became bat-dragons and jobans forgot about their invisible guardians and relegated the stories to fantasies told to children. Until now, even the memory of anything like the bat-dragons was forgotten.
"Echo, having been divinely touched, is now a true Jambacas," Wrath told us.
Echo fluttered in front of the assembly, showing the minor physical changes she had received. The true changes were in her abilities. She could stay invisible much longer and her "flaming zap" was separated into a fire weapon and a lightning weapon.
"If I understand you, Wrath," Gorval interrupted, "rediscovering these being could revert them to their previous blessed states?"
"Simply finding them and seeing them is not enough," Wrath answered, "Dwarfs must renew their faith in these helpers to do what they were made to do and, then, over time, they may get some of their abilities back."
The assembly grumbled their understanding. The archivists made side notes, but I did not understand their notations.
As Wrath did not tire, he continued to pour tale after tale to all who wished to listen. He told of the terrible evil done to the dwarf nations by the Baalocs. He even explained why elves and dwarfs dislike each other so much. Lunch and dinner were served as he spoke. Stacks of scrolls were carried out by Callie's staff and junior archivists. Wheels were attached to the device to allow Wrath to speak anywhere in Stahendring.
The assembly left well after dark, heads spinning with all they had learned. A message was sent to us that the Darrknots wished "Jambacas training" for their partners, in hopes those skills could be awoken, even a bit, if they saw it for themselves. We sent back for them to meet us at the house around mid-day.
Callie kept some of the light on as she settled into bed. I agreed to stay with her until she fell asleep. In Faerie, I sang a lullaby that was also a spell for good dreams. I left when I saw her smile in her sleep.
We thanked our sisters for clearing it up. We told them about our attempts to understand the written plans and how utterly confused we were. They laughed and told us all the short-hand notations and abbreviations, which, to anyone else, would seem like gibberish and be unintelligible. Lunch was a leisurely affair.
After lunch, as a thought, we went to look at the Stahendring archives. As we suspected, the place was in chaos. While watching, from outside, we saw it was rather organized chaos. Posts were set up to group the items. One by subject, one by author, and another by "index number", whatever that meant. Items were taken to all three posts to be fully cataloged. Set did not understand all the trouble. I explained as best I could, but to a being who, at some point, may make a bed out of gold and jewels, I suppose this would seem rather pointless.
It began as a change in air pressure. My sisters did not seem to feel it. I looked for its source, but did not see anything. Then, a tingle or chill rode up my back. Still, I felt no evil in this feeling. I turned to Callie. Both she and Echo appeared to be changing. Even Wrath was being affected. I reached out to touch her, but heard "Don't" in my head. The rest were becoming aware of their change, Callie and Echo stared straight ahead, into the archives.
"What is it?" the others whispered.
As soon as the question was asked, I knew, "High Fathers. Callie, Echo, and Wrath are about to do something god-like."
We stood out of their way. Callie extended her arms to the archives. Books, scrolls, pieces of parchment, and all matter of written material began zooming around the cluttered room. The archivists ducked and dived to avoid the flying articles. Someone noticed us and they made their way to us.
Before any could ask, a deep voice resonated out of Callie, "Fear not, Children of Fire and Stone, this task is well in hand. While we praise your efforts, we are much more efficient and far gentler."
" 'We'? Who...what...'gentle'?" the dwarfs stammered as they watched the room flutter with all that material. Callie and Echo were still as statues from that point until the room become still, orderly, and clean.
"See your archives as they should have been and, hopefully, shall remain," the deep voice boomed as Callie walked stiffly into the room.
The archivists went in and saw everything perfectly arranged and orderly. At the posts they had stationed, they found their catalogs completely redone with every item described and documented. Taking the records from all three posts, they could cross-reference and find any item by subject, author, or number. Once they had investigated, they returned to speak to "Callie".
"Who are you, mighty one? Who do we praise for this?"
The deep voice laughed, a sound I had heard before, "We are not 'one', but many. You know us as the Court."
The dwarfs dropped to their knees and put their heads to the floor.
The laugh echoed again, "Rise, Children of Fire and Stone, your homage pleases us. We leave now. Strong as she is, this sister grows weak from our presence. Attend her well."
The air pressure left. Callie and Echo slumped. We caught both easily. Wrath, too, passed out, unconscious for the first time in centuries. The archivists aided us in returning her home. I could sense the shift Callie was experiencing, becoming more dwarf in form and feature. Echo, as I carried her, also seem to change. Knowledge came to me and I smiled. My sisters gave me puzzled looks.
"Bat-dragons are called Jambacas. Dwarfs will remember this name as child stories of protective spirits to guard them as they sleep. It is not coincidence nor chance that made them winter in mountains. Dwarf gods, with aid from Brimagor, created them as help mates. Bat-dragons are truly dwarfish dragons," I told them mentally.
They glanced at the sleeping form in my hands and smiled.
At the house, Nana barked orders like a general. People ran this way and that to comply. Once Callie was abed, Nana shooed us out to administer to Callie as if she was her mother. Echo become our charge as Nana knew nothing on dragon health. In my room, we made a nest-like bed near the dark corner she had chosen the night before. Some of the gnome spice Set liked was laid on her tiny tongue and drops of water washed it down her throat. She purred and cheeped in her sleep. We left her to sleep when my sisters called for us to meet Gorval in the parlor.
He, Lanara, and the head archivist were seated when we arrived. Concern and worry colored their auras and faces. We joined my sisters.
"Is all well?" Gorval asked, almost timidly.
"Yes, they are resting. We do not expect either to wake until morning. Wrath, however, may wake sooner," I told him.
"My questions," the head archivist interjected, " are why did the Court want the archives straightened so quickly? Did they find fault with us?"
"Yes and no," I began, "From what I gathered, they felt you might damage some items or mislabel others. Also, your method of triple checking everything was slow and sloppy. This way, they insured all the archives were done to their standards."
"Did they use Callie because she is of dwarf blood?" Gorval asked after checking that Lanara was keeping up.
"She, Wrath, and Echo are dwarf. Wrath is a full-blood dwarf and Echo is Jambacas," I answered.
"Jambacas!" all the dwarfs echoed at once.
"I thought that was something the elders made up to get children to not be afraid to sleep in the dark," Gorval stated.
"No, these small creatures are Jambacas, the protective 'spirits' that guard sleeping dwarfs. As fewer dwarfs believed, they have become less divine and more mortal. Your gods and Brimagor co-created them. Another reason to straighten out the archives so this information can return to the minds of all dwarfs, joban in particular."
The dwarfs sat in silence, minds reeling from this information. The archivist excused himself to find this record and begin the relearning process. The staff invited Gorval and Lanara to dinner, which they both accepted.
During dinner, we six felt Wrath regain consciousness. He was a bit worried about Callie, at first, but calmed when he checked and found her only sleeping. Gorval asked Wrath, through us, if he knew anything about Jambacas. Wrath began rattling off titles of dozens of stories featuring Jambacas.
Gorval stopped us and him, "We need to have him tell these stories himself. He holds a wealth of knowledge we have lost or misplaced. How can we do this?"
"We can channel our swords," Alice said, "Callie has channeled Wrath on a few occasions. It is far less taxing."
Gorval thought silently, then shook his head, "No, we need him to tell the tales. Our people must know they are his tales, not your or her's. I hate being stubborn, but they will not believe otherwise."
"Let us work on it, Sire," Anna volunteered, "Our swords are experts in various fields. We shall find an answer."
"It is left to you, then," Gorval said as he rose, "We have traps to build. Hopefully the 'clock' will give us time."
We agreed as he and Lanara left. We went to check on Callie while discussing how to let Wrath teach the ancient tales on his own while Callie did other things. She was sleeping deeply, snoring a bit. We parted to our separate rooms, yet still working on the problem. Echo had woken enough to perch on the ceiling and went back to sleep. We shelved the discussion until tomorrow and headed to bed.
Day 310 (288)((278)):
A mental scream jolted us in the darkness. Callie's mental scream sounded again. By instinct, I grabbed Vanity and went through kirlan to appear in Callie's room. She was still screaming, mentally and verbally, in the darkness. I called the cover off the suncrystals and glowing grubs. Callie was sitting upright in bed, still screaming. Wrath hung in the air beside her, trying to calm her. I sat on the bed and took hold of her.
"Callie! Cal! It's me, Kayla. You're safe. You. Are. Safe."
She stopped screaming, blinked a few times, then collapsed on me, sobbing. I held her and rocked her, speaking soothing words and stroking her hair. Wrath and Vanity hovered in the air near us. Our remaining sisters ran into the room, followed by Nana and a few others of the staff.
"What by the All-Father is going on?" Nana asked breathlessly.
"Nightmare," six of us intoned together over Callie's sobbing.
"Nightmare? My dear, what images could cause such outcries?" Nana asked, getting a chair to listen and dismissing the rest of the staff as she did.
Callie was crying too hard to answer. Alice took up the tale.
"She saw the gray ones invading, killing everyone as they went. You, the rest of this household, Echo, Gorval, and all of us lay dead in the tunnels. She was completely alone, even Wrath was gone. The gray ones were dragging her down to sacrifice to the Divine Clock, to make it walk and talk once again. She started screaming as they were dismembering her."
"Oh, child!" Nana exclaimed and joined me in holding her.
Callie continued to sob, releasing all of her fear. Echo took her place on Callie's shoulder, purring and cooing to comfort her. Finally, we got her calm enough to lay back down. Echo remained and Wrath lay on the bed beside her. We left a bit of the lights uncovered so the room was not pitch black.
By our best guesses, we still had a few hours until dawn. Aside from Callie, the rest of us did not got back to sleep. Nana was very concerned. We told her that Callie's dreams have always been vivid with her nightmares the most intense. We went to the parlor. Drinks were brought to us and we took up last night's discussion of how to share Wrath's knowledge with the dwarfs. Sloth threw out several ideas and designs.
Just after dawn, the wizard Grikmor and his assistant Kaybany arrived at the house. They were brought into the parlor. Their emotions were swirling. They had armfuls of stuff.
"Ladies, we've been experimenting. Since the Mech cannot verbally speak, we have been working on devices to make his 'voice' audible. We have nothing to test on, which is why we are here. Your swords are the only sentient objects in Stahendring. It is our hope we can test them on your swords," Grikmor explained.
I smiled while my sisters gave me the look that said they saw Fate's hand in this development. We agreed to let them test their devices. The swirling emotions settled as they laid out their items. Some radiated strong magic while others shown none at all. They ranged from really simple to highly complex. Sloth, being both a wizard and the largest of the seven, volunteered to be part of the test. While they were setting up, Callie, Echo, and Wrath met up with us. She, too, gave me the look when we told her what we were doing.
We all had breakfast while watching the test. Some failed miserably. A few got minor results. They got some sounds from both magical and non-magical items, but nothing that could be called speech. Sloth provided tips for tweaking each to get results. About the third or fourth from the last, we were all shocked to hear real words squawk from the horn-like opening. Sloth stood upright on a thick mat with thin stiff metal rods surrounding him and pointing at him. All of these led to a large horn-type opening. When Sloth spoke, we seven hearing him clearly, the rods vibrated, sending them down the connections to the horn.
Out of the opening, we heard, "...ello...Hello...This is Sloth...an you hear me?"
"Yes! We hear you!" Grikmor shouted.
He jumped up and began fine-tuning all the rods and connections.
"Is that better? Can you hear me clearly?" Sloth's familiar voice sounded not in our heads, but out of the horn.
The room exploded in cheers. When we all calmed down, we tried it with the other six. Each one, with minor adjustments, spoke with their own voice through the device. Word was sent to the King.
Gorval, Lanara, the head archivist, several other archivists, and some of the council that had assembled in Callie's home. It was a tight fit, but we all managed to sit comfortably in the parlor. Grikmor and Kaybany presented the device, orginally designed to give the Mech its voice back.
"We have been told of the wealth of information held by the sword Wrath," Grikmor continued, "Hence, this assembly has been called so you can hear his words directly from him."
Gorval let a smile escape before he schooled his features back to neutrality, "Good work, wizards. Does it take much magic to power?"
"No, my Lord, in fact, pass enchanting these rods, there is no magic powering this device. The entity speaking holds ninety-nine percent of the magic in this combination."
The dwarfs applauded enthusiastically. With their general distrust of magic, knowing so little was in this thing let them accept what they might learn from whatever was in it.
"Wrath," Gorval called, "we are ready to hear about the Jambacas."
Wrath floated from Callie and settled into the device. As he was the last one to use it, no adjustments were needed. Lanara and the others got out writing tools and paper to record Wrath's tales.
His voice, as strong and sure as we heard it in our heads, rang out from the device. He began telling how, when the Drow elves encounted the dwarfs in "our" tunnels, they began sending dark magic to make the dwarfs fear the deep caverns. Some, later referred to a Severed or Departed, deserted the mountains and never looked back. Others, who became the Duergar, became allies with the Drow to stay in the deep places. Deep Dwarfs and joban neither left nor stayed, living closer to the surface than the Drow or Duergar or in areas unoccupied by either. To protect them, the High Fathers worked with Brimagor to make Jambacas. Originally, they could be invisible for hours, silently watching for the Drow's dark magic, usually in the form of venomous spiders. Dwarf eyesight let them sort of see the invisible beings and they called them spirits. While parents told children about them and the children believed, Jambacas had full power and kept them safe. Gradually, the tales faded, spirits became something to fear, and Jambacas slowly became bat-dragons and jobans forgot about their invisible guardians and relegated the stories to fantasies told to children. Until now, even the memory of anything like the bat-dragons was forgotten.
"Echo, having been divinely touched, is now a true Jambacas," Wrath told us.
Echo fluttered in front of the assembly, showing the minor physical changes she had received. The true changes were in her abilities. She could stay invisible much longer and her "flaming zap" was separated into a fire weapon and a lightning weapon.
"If I understand you, Wrath," Gorval interrupted, "rediscovering these being could revert them to their previous blessed states?"
"Simply finding them and seeing them is not enough," Wrath answered, "Dwarfs must renew their faith in these helpers to do what they were made to do and, then, over time, they may get some of their abilities back."
The assembly grumbled their understanding. The archivists made side notes, but I did not understand their notations.
As Wrath did not tire, he continued to pour tale after tale to all who wished to listen. He told of the terrible evil done to the dwarf nations by the Baalocs. He even explained why elves and dwarfs dislike each other so much. Lunch and dinner were served as he spoke. Stacks of scrolls were carried out by Callie's staff and junior archivists. Wheels were attached to the device to allow Wrath to speak anywhere in Stahendring.
The assembly left well after dark, heads spinning with all they had learned. A message was sent to us that the Darrknots wished "Jambacas training" for their partners, in hopes those skills could be awoken, even a bit, if they saw it for themselves. We sent back for them to meet us at the house around mid-day.
Callie kept some of the light on as she settled into bed. I agreed to stay with her until she fell asleep. In Faerie, I sang a lullaby that was also a spell for good dreams. I left when I saw her smile in her sleep.
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