The General turned to me. “I have thoughts, but I would first like to hear Gwydion’s ideas. He bridges our worlds, and while young, has wisdom beyond his years.” He looked at me with a tilt to his head, “It must be the Ringweaver blood in him.”

  “I do have an idea and a concern. I will start with the concern.” Even though we just spoke about this, I spoke to the Duke and the General together as if they were hearing it for the first time. “If we realize that having our dwarven soldiers here is a huge benefit to the city’s defenses and that there is vulnerability with misunderstandings of honor, the enemy would be a fool not to try to drive a stone splinter between us. If animosity can be created between dwarf and human, we become less and the enemy more.”

  The General stroked his beard. “I looked at this only from my own eyes, and what I perceived would be the eyes of Philip. I foresaw how we might be entangled in mischief and sidestaking. I did not look at this through the eyes of our enemy.” He nodded to me. “The Patron schools the General. I thank you.”

  The Duke said, “Is there a way to suspend challenges to honor?”

  The General sat up straight and then calmed. “That would be an example of why we do not allow challenges of honor in these meetings. I understand your words, Philip, but it is like me asking, could you forgo your religious practices while the dwarves are present in the city? It is who we are, and to change that would change us. It is a vulnerability between us for our enemy, but no, we cannot suspend it, and please do not suggest such a thing outside this protected room.”

  The Duke sighed. “Thank you for your candor and patience, Udebark. Then perhaps the best we can hope for is a warning from you that the enemy might find ways to create such tensions, and we need to be aware of it and be mutually respectful. It might also be helpful if some lessons on how to back down from a challenge, or respectfully ask for clarification, occur between officers to be shared with the human troops. We could offend one another without knowing it and have no vocabulary to explain or apologize.”

  The General stroked his beard again. “Yes, we have a process we use with dwarf children. A child who has not reached the age of maturity cannot offend or be offended, at least, not from the perspective of the challenge. Our youth can be highly annoying and frustrating, but according to our law, they cannot offend honor.”

  “If you could avoid explaining that this training is meant for children, I think the humans would find it very interesting. Our soldiers also have honor, just not as structured or mature as yours.” The Duke replied.

  “That has also been my observation. We will consider this part of the training and drills planned for the next few days. It will be seen as an expected duty by both groups, and therefore, a challenge would be highly unlikely during this time. It would be shameful for a dwarf to challenge under those circumstances unless it was a gross misconduct by a human.”

  “And we are working to identify what those kinds of things might be.” The Duke agreed. “For instance, a physical strike by a human on another would be considered gross misconduct by our honor standards, but ill-chosen words would not.”

  “Hmm.” The General said. “Our code is just the opposite. Yes, we have much to discuss.”

  “Your counterparts, the Commanders, will be instructed to work with you and your teams of officers to arrange training as soon as possible.”

  “Excellent, Philip. I think this is a good plan.” He turned back to me. “Now, brother, what is your idea to keep our cousins out of mischief?”

  I explained the story behind Ears in careful detail. I wanted the youth, talent, and foresight of a boy who had not yet reached the age of maturity but who saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives to be honored.

  The Duke replied, “You never shared that much of his story with me, Gwydion. I am very glad my son and daughter are involved with both his memory and helping our people.”

  The General was silent for a full minute, and at one point his eyes teared. It was an odd sight on such a stern and battle-scarred face. Finally, he said, “I have heard that among your people there are those without family, without work, without a home, without purpose, and without hope. That one of these lost ones should help save the city will touch dwarves very, very deeply. We will help, and we will do so with sincere motivation.”

  “Thank you Udebark. I think we found the cure to idleness.”

  The dwarf looked at me and said, “And the young will guide us when our eyes see dimly in the dark.”

  I didn’t know what that line referenced, but I knew it was a compliment.

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  The Duke said offhandedly, “And the young Patron also skipped over how he and a group of his journeymen, barely older than the age of maturity, held back the advancing goblin incursion, six shiploads full, until reinforcements arrived, led by your friend Sam the Bear Wrestler.”

  The General glanced at me in pride. “Yes, it was the first toast Sam gave at our, ahem, strategy session at the Double D.”

  I looked surprised, I couldn’t help it. Sam, the foremost warrior in modern times, legendary with his impatience for mages, offered a toast for us holding back the goblins before he and the others came and really did the work. I was stunned.

  Apparently, so was the Duke. He said, “Well, that old Bear Wrestler has been full of surprises this week.” He turned to me. “But it was well deserved. Next to Ears, you and your Special Services are the heroes of that dark hour.”

  The General stood up. “Well, Philip, unless there is more?”

  The Duke stood, and they clasped arms. “Thank you for your time, Master General.” He said, catching my correction to the simple title of General.

  “And thank you for your honor, Lord Duke,” Udebark said, and then he just walked out of the room, pushing aside the Duke’s Dogs as if they were young boys in his way. That would put them in a foul mood, which they would undoubtedly take out on some unsuspecting person. I was half tempted to say something, but it was the Duke’s call how he managed them, not mine.

  The Duke turned to me, “Can you depart for the elves this afternoon?

  “Yes, I’ll go set things up at the Shoppe. They won’t be happy.”

  “Thank you and good luck.” He clasped my shoulder and called for Jon to re-enter.

  What have I gotten myself into? I asked myself.

  More trouble. Bella replied, and I sensed a genuine concern from her, even more so than when I was to go to the dwarves.

  Everything okay, Bella?

  Fine. She replied. And I sensed that she had just lied to me for the very first time. And she knew she had done it. And she knew that I knew she had done it. I didn’t know what to say, so I just let it go. But something was wrong. And that put me more on edge than anything I had faced yet.

  Biff chastised me the whole way back. “You can’t just leave now, you were gone a day and a half with the dwarves.”

  “It was just twenty-four hours,” I said.

  “It was twenty-four hours after you had already been there, toured, and slept. It was a day and a half, Gwydion.”

  He was right. “But you all said I only missed four meetings.”

  “That’s right. We were busy, thought you’d be back sooner, and got off schedule. Don’t tell Red I told you, because he was pretty upset about it. He thought he let you down or something.”

  “Oh. No worries, I’ll keep it between us if you stop nagging me about going to the elves. I’m doing what the Duke asked me.”

  I didn’t get any sympathy from the others, either. I finally had to put my foot down and say we had limited time, and did they really want to use what little time I had before I departed, debating what had already been decided by our liege?

  That got them refocused, and I went to work. I produced three sets of the twenty-one Dwarven Copper rings using the yellow wax modifications to our process for the skinny copper rings. It was not as smooth as the process for the SUS rings, and working them into the Dwarven Copper forging process took more effort than I had expected.

  I also created sets of the larger Dwarven Copper rings and placed five sockets in them. These were designed for each of the royal family. I also slipped in some SUS blanks for Isaac to work with under the plan to make one set of the rings to be a Limited Group Teleport to the capital. The bracers would be defensive in nature, like we had discussed. Isaac would provide the base enchantments in the ones left untouched by me, and I would later produce five sockets in each Dwarven Copper version if we did not get seven inserted by another mage. But this would get us started, given my short time before departure.

  I chose 7pt and 14pt gemstones and several 28pt stones, pulled out their desired abilities, and added them to the bag. I noted it all down on a parchment which I folded and sealed in wax with my maker’s mark.

  The unfinished Dwarven Copper SUS rings went to Daria, my forge apprentice, and Cynthia, my jeweler apprentice, to buff and polish. Olvar handled the socketed Dwarven Copper rings with the help of both of the others, given our time constraints.

  I sent Toby and his guard to The Tower with the bag, but did not specify why.

  Bella, when you can reach him, please let Isaac know that I am sending him the protection rings and bracers for the Duke and his family. Toby will be along shortly.

  Of course, Gwdyion. She replied quietly.

  I spoke with Red privately, gave him a pep talk, and also asked him to meet with Isaac and to bring him a description of his ideas. One copy only, no others are to be informed, and to keep the circle very, very small.

  I met one final time with the team leaders who were present before I departed and asked Hufnar to work with the Master General and the journeymen to get things started on Ear’s Academy, but we could not slow down production. If there is no city, the academy was a goner anyway. But there was time to get some work done. There were many staff on Special Services now, and we could count on hundreds of dwarven and human volunteers once word got out about the project.

  “Be extra wary of saboteurs. As the time draws near, they will have thought about ways to make things difficult for us. See what can be done to anticipate those plans. Maybe there are some elementals or spirits out there with some insight into our future. Do what you can.”

  I asked Ariana, Grolin, and Bido to see if any of the Masters could lend a hand with foretellings. I was not a big fan of them, but I had also been on the receiving end several times now.

  “Also, all of you check in with your masters to see if they can stop by to lend a hand with our work and ideas. We need to add some protections to the warehouse and also to my swampy tower. Nothing so fancy as the shoppe, but the warehouse could serve as a fallback if the city fell for many people, and we might be able to create trouble for the goblins from the tower if it is adequately protected. They can make that call in consultation with the Majordomo.” I wasn’t sure what could be done, but it was possible.

  Bella appeared. “I can also help with hospitality there if the masters set it up carefully. It could be an extension of this shoppe, just in another nearby physical location, or we can bring in lesser spirits that I know and could provide some aid and comfort.”

  “You can do that?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She said, “But it has to be done very carefully or it compromises my demesne and your shoppe. I can help them.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll leave that in your hands.”

  Check with me if there are any questions. I sent to her.

  Of course, it can only be done with your approving will.

  Things were set. At least, they were set until some new wrinkle happened, which could be in the next ten to fifteen minutes, the way things kept happening around here.