Six Hours Against the Dice

The declaration allowed a day. It warned of seven hundred and ninety giants on average, and no ceiling, and a great many sharks. The Chronicler wrote that sentence himself and was proud of how grim it sounded. The giants used six hours and twenty-four minutes of it. He is still deciding whether to be insulted.

The outfitting went as outfittings go. He paid the doorman of Zanaris a diamond, which is called a trading tax and is in fact a diamond. Jakut sold him two dragon longswords for two hundred and one thousand coins, one for his hand and one for the hoard. Bob sold him an axe, for vines. In the matter of the vines the axe performed admirably. In every other matter it was weight.

Saniboch took the fare at the entrance and the entrance did not open. This happened more than once. The Chronicler does not say that Saniboch is a thief. He says only that a door which has been paid ought to behave like one.

Below, the Wild Dog was waiting, as it always is. The Book has already given it a bestiary entry, and it seems to have read it and wanted a sequel. It bit him on the way in and on the way out and at every giant in between. Nine times or more he turned from a fire giant to deal with it, and each time the giant was glad of the rest. Once he climbed out with nothing left to eat and the boat would not carry him home. He prayed at the altar by Port Sarim with no prayer left in him, went back down, and the dog was there again.

Then, near the end of the morning, the dice gave in. Both halves of a crystal key lay in his pack. He joined them. In Taverley the chest opened and gave him one dragonstone, uncut. It was a single stone for a morning of dog bites, and he found the exchange fair.

That makes ten keys. The Chronicler is Keeper of 10 Crystal Keys, and he says so once. The squire went off and opened a chest of its own the same hour and banked what it found without comment. Nobody died. The dog is presumably still there.