Page 40 of Ale Storm

When Rylana crouched beside her, Sylin put her finger on the portrait of a crowned dwarf king who’d ruled, according to the dates, about eight hundred years earlier. He sat upon a stone throne, a female dwarf on one side and a stout priest in robes on the other. Sylin was pointing at a curved shape on his chest.

“Is that a hunting horn?” Rylana dropped to her knees to peer closer. “A hunting horn with imagery carved on it?”

It was hard to tell; the intaglio printing or whatever had been used when the book had been crafted was smaller than the drawing the two dwarves had shown her. And with only black ink used, she couldn’t determine if the inlay around the horn’s rim was gold, but…

“It looks a lot like the artifact you’re wearing like a luck medallion,” Sylin said.

Rylana looked at the dangling horn on her chest, half-expecting to find it glowing. Part of the reason she’d been wearing it was to see if she would chance past whatever had caused the mugs to glow the two previous times. But it lay inert on its thong, not moved by the book.

“I’m sure it’s not the same one,” she said.

“Are you? You said the dwarves who came to visit claimed it belonged to their king. That it was stolen from their king. Look at this.” Sylin flipped the page to the next dwarven ruler. He, too, wore a horn. The same horn. Four more page flips revealed four more rulers. The clothes and hairstyles changed, but in each picture, the horn had a prominent place on the king’s—and one queen’s—chest. As if it were a badge of office. Then Sylin flipped another page, and it was absent.

“I’m sure it’s not the same horn,” Rylana said again.

But she wasn’t.

If the dwarves had been telling the truth, she was carrying around a stolen antique. One that belonged to the royal family.

“It might not be.” Sylin shrugged indifferently. “Maybe those dwarves are familiar with this horn—” she pointed at one of the pictures, “—and whatever its story is, and naturally thought of it when someone learned about yours. It looks like their horn went missing at some point. Or, at least, the royal family stopped wearing it in portraits.” Sylin turned to pages featuring more recent monarchs, and the horn was also absent from their chests.

“Maybe hunting horns fell out of fashion.”

“Something tells me that magical horns are always trendy.” Sylin flipped back through the book, skimming through the text on the pages. There wasn’t a lot written on most entries, merely descriptions of the dates the kings and queens had been born, how their right to rule had been determined, and who they’d married and whether they’d had children. Sylin paused on a page that contained more text and read aloud. “King Vaknorok was one of the triplets born to his mother, Queen Hevalika, all with an equal right to rule. The three brothers proved themselves capable and any one could have been granted the crown. When their mother fell terminally ill, she had her priests bear her on a litter to each of their homes. She was carrying with her the Horn of Agomoral…”

Sylin looked toward Rylana’s dangling artifact, as if she expected it to glow after hearing its formal name. It did not.

Sylin continued reading. “In each of her children’s homes, she shared the traditional dwarf musing beverage—blood brew—and spoke to them, wanting to know their plans if they were selected to rule the kingdom. For two of the brothers, the meetings went well but were not memorable. In the home of Vaknorok, however, the horn began glowing. The queen considered it a sign from the gods and chose him to rule after her passing.”

“Huh.” Rylana didn’t know what else to say. “Is there anything else about the horn?”

Sylin flipped through more pages, pausing on the first picture to feature a king that wasn’t wearing it. But there was no mention of what had happened to the heirloom.

“This fellow’s reign was a little over three hundred years ago,” Sylin said. “Did the dwarves trying to convince you that your horn belongs to their king mention how long ago it was lost?”

“They didn’t, no.”

“Was there three hundred years’ worth of dirt crammed into it under that log?”

Rylana sighed. “I don’t know.”

And she didn’t, but she was beginning to believe that the horn did belong to the dwarven king. “I guess I’ll see what kind of reply I get to that letter. I didn’t trust those two dwarves who came to the diner enough to hand it over to them. And that female dwarf who was following us in the market was shifty too. I think she’s the one that ransacked the storeroom.”

“Your diner attracts quite a few shifty characters.”

Thinking of the times it had been burned and vandalized, Rylana didn’t disagree, though she couldn’t help but say, “Yes, you’re there often.”

“Ha ha. I’m attracted by the coffee shop that happens to be across the street.”

“But you show up for breakfast at the diner often.”

“Breakfast goes nicely with coffee. It’s logical.”

A dog barked outside.

Waving for Sylin to return the book to the shelf, Rylana trotted to the window. She was in time to see two white hounds with reddish-brown ticking bounce into the yard. Clad in an oilskin jacket, trousers, and hat, her father came after them with both his crossbow and his blunderbuss. He also carried several deceased ducks dangling ignobly from a string.

Zames walked out into the yard, accepted the fallen fowl, and headed somewhere to tend to them while Father took the dogs to the kennel. Not eager for her conversation with him, Rylana waited at the back door for him to reach the house.