Nate paced restlessly. The news he'd found out from Grandmother Wen and Xiao Yi hadn't been good. That Gerald guy was bad news and was even continuing to be from behind bars. It was like he left normal people and came home to find that everything had been transported to a soap opera.
That reminded him of Great Aunt Jerry. Her only vice had been watching soap operas and frequently, she'd roped them into watching with her. Nate had always figured it was because she needed someone to fetch drinks and snacks so she didn't have to get up and possibly miss something important.
Soap operas had shown him that some families were messed up no matter what they did. It had given him some perspective on his own family.
His Grandmother Tory reminded him a lot of the people on those soap operas. Flighty, unwilling to take responsibility for her actions (mostly because she figured she could cry to her Aunt Addy for help), and self-centered, Nate had always wondered how she wound up with his grandfather. Pops had been laidback, hardworking and thrifty.
As far as he could remember, he'd never seen Pops spend more than he had to on anything. Nate figured that it might have been a reaction to his wife's more flighty ways. It had been Pops who'd arranged for first Jerry and then Addy to have the raising of him.
Nate could remember the first and last time he ever saw Pops furious. He'd come to visit unexpectedly when Nate was six and was surprised and then angry. Nate remembered most of that day as a blur of shouting and flashing lights that ended with him sitting with Grandmother Tory who was half-sobbing, half-snarling.
Then the next day, he'd been sent to Great Aunt Jerry and met Cora. His parents had had to sign papers to make it all legal, and adult Nate realized that there had been more going on than anyone was willing to explain to a child.
Great Aunt Jerry had been tough but fair. She'd also taught them a variety of things that kids probably didn't need to know, but that was her all over. It was why Cora had no problem making money; well, that and Cora was a genius when it came to the stock market. She could just look at stock prospectuses and tell which ones would go up and which ones would go down.
If Nate was superstitious, he'd think she was psychic or something.
Now, she'd gone through who knows what with this Gerald guy. Nate was furious at the thought. Gerald sounded like one of the more extreme con artists, and Nate was positive that Cora had no clue that the police were taking on a murder charge from one of his previous victims.
He turned towards his closet. Cora was a visual girl. She was usually thinking of too many things to doubt her eyes. Nate grinned.
He knew exactly what he was going to wear to go see his cousin.
*****
"Pleased to meet you, Heart of the Mountain," Cora said, staring at the face in the wall.
"It is always interesting to meet new beings," Heart of the Mountain replied. "I had despaired of my children but now have hope."
"Despaired?" Cora asked, looking at Kylen and Enlais who were now unwrapping candies for three children, two girls and a boy.
"I have asked Kylen to find a place for them. It is increasingly unsafe for them here," Heart of the Mountain said.
"There's been people snooping around my claim for all that everyone thinks I'm nuts," Kylen said, handing a brilliantly blue candy to the lone boy.
The boy half-bowed his thanks before popping the candy into his mouth. Like the girls, his hair was made from multiple filaments and his eyes were jewels. His skin seemed to be some sort of marble while his clothes were a weirdly flexible metal.
Looking at them, she realized that their clothes were copies of what Enlais and Kylen were wearing. The girls had clothes with multiple pockets while the boy was wearing a miniature version of Kylen's almost too ornate clothes.
"Why would they be snooping if they think that there's nothing here?" Cora asked.
"That's just it. There's something here. If it was a bust, I wouldn't care that much," Kylen shrugged. "I'd just call the guards and have them fined or something. But with the Heart of the Mountain and the kids here…"
"That would cause an even bigger issue," Cora finished. She sighed and looked at Heart of the Mountain whose expression was calm and inscrutable. "What do you think?"
"I am the Heart of the Mountain. I will exist until I don't," Heart of the Mountain replied. "I would, instead, insist that the children be taken somewhere safer. I know stories of what happened to others like them."
"They're your children?" Cora asked.
"In a way. All mountains possess a heart, but not all hearts are fostered in those mountains." Heart of the Mountain paused. "I remember when I ran on two legs. I met a human similar to Kylen."
"My great-great-grandfather," Kylen explained. "It was after that that we became prosperous."
"He helped me build this tunnel and this dwelling," Heart of the Mountain said. Her eyes and lips curved into a smile. "He was a true miner. So thoughtful and meticulous," she sighed.
"I'm not commenting. That is not…" Kylen let the sentence die out as he shivered.
"Ah! That's why you can see the title," Enlais exclaimed, smacking her fist into her palm. Then she looked at the children who were now playing some incomprehensible game with the paper wrappers the candy had been in. "You're going to have to disguise them if you take them out of here."
"And you need to do it in an entirely underhanded way," Cora added, frowning at Kylen who let out a sound of frustration before burying his head in his hands and thumping his forehead lightly on the table. "It's not that bad."
"But it is," Kylen said, looking up. Before Cora's eyes, the slight wound healed as if water evaporating from a hot skillet. "It's not just my family that has been here forever. Before they gave it to me, six of the other eight offered to take it off our family's hands."
Kylen stood up, stretching. Then he started pacing.
"My ever-great was, like, friends with a lot of people who settled here. Some of them had to have seen Heart of the Mountain when she was a kid." He paused. "It's so hard to say that. I mean, she's a mountain, right?"
"I am now. Then, I was just a rootless fledgling, searching for a home." Heart of the Mountain's eyes darted to the children. "I did not think I would generate so soon or so many. My own progenitor only generated me."
Cora blew out a breath and exchanged a worried look with Enlais. She could tell that the little dwarf hadn't thought much of the problem that the three children would generate.
Just looking at them, Cora could see the problem, and that was just with the usual greedy player base. Most of them wouldn't see innocent children, just valuable minerals walking around like golems of some sort. Cora was sure that there was a chunk of NPC citizenry who would think the same thing.
"Maybe an illusion?" Cora suggested.
"Too expensive. We'd also have to let the mage in question in on their real identities, and some mages use them for spellwork." Kylen ruffled his hair.
Cora blinked at that. Then she remembered the dryads still recuperating at Wilderven. With luck, the grove would be restored when she returned.
"Why would they use children for spellwork?" Cora asked.
"Mountain hearts are a rare thing," Heart of the Mountain said. "We don't generate often, and there's only one heart per mountain."
"Then wouldn't all mountains have them by now?" Cora looked at Enlais and Kylen who shook their heads.
"Once we generate, we're only around for a short time more. That's so that more will generate from other mountains," Heart of the Mountain explained.
"But what if none of the children make it?" Cora felt horrified. She could remember stories about extinct animals where the last adults were killed so the offspring could bring in more money. "Wouldn't that mean that there would be no more?"
Heart of the Mountain laughed. It was like crystals striking against each other.
"We will always be here, child. Even if I'm gone, another will take my place. They may not be me, but it would still be me." Heart of the Mountain looked at the children who were ignoring their discussion. "I would, however, like them to make it to their own mountains. The ones here are all taken, so it would be quite the journey."
Cora thought of her mine. As far as she was aware, there hadn't been any consciousness that talked to her as she mined.
"I might be able to provide them a home," Cora said hesitantly. "I have some mountains near my town that don't seem to have anyone living there. We just have to smuggle them out of the town."
"And be careful while doing it," Enlais sighed. "I suppose I was being stupid. I'd no clue why those idiots had been hanging around. Thought they might be looking for some tools to nick."
Enlais let her head fall back on her shoulders, teeth grinding.
"Never thought about mages. They're so rare around here anyways. Usually, they're stuck up in their research towns instead of wandering around." Enlais stood up, fishing around in her pockets.
She pulled out a chunk of ore. It was irregularly round with random bits of glowing rainbow crystals scattered around the surface.
"This is probably what the mages are looking for." Enlais gave the ore in her hand a disgusted look. "Never knew where it came from. It pops up from time to time in trading batches, never more than a few pieces, and this is the largest I've ever seen."
She held it out. Kylen took one look and recoiled.
"Never put it together before," Kylen said, sounding like he was going to be sick. "It's called 'Heart Ore' by the traders."
As one they turned and looked at the children who were still playing. Something amused them, and they fell on their backs, laughing silently. The boy noticed them looking and flashed them a smile made of crystalline teeth.
Cora managed a smile back.
"Are those diamonds?" She muttered to Kylen whose eyes dilated at the thought.
"We need cloaks or something," Kylen muttered back. He looked at Enlais whose jaw was still working. "Maybe really thick enchanted ones?"
"Like the ones the old guys wear to go to the bath houses," Enlais finished. "Old dwarves don't like open air so they commission enchanted cloaks so they can scurry there. They look like moving balls of shadow," she added, seeing Cora's confused look.
"And a distraction," Kylen added, "and soon."
"Very soon, I would think. That lady you have a crush on, her family suspects something or it wouldn't have taken those old guys so long to make a move playing their game. They'd just started when we walked in." Cora stood up. "I've played a similar game. The beginning is always a fast setup."
"Then we should do it in the next couple of days," Kylen said. He stared at the tabletop. "Enlais, you go filch five cloaks. I'll go see if I can gather some supplies."
"And I'll go see if I can find a map," Cora said. She shrugged as they looked at her. "I have an old teleportation circle in my town. All the exits leave me about five to ten miles outside civilization. I was just lucky that there was a trade road a little bit away from the last one."
"The town has moved a bit," Enlais said, shaking her head. "I'll get going. Meeting back in front of the mine soon?"
"Yeah," Kylen nodded. "If I'm not here, just go in. I just wish I'd noticed things before this."
"It's not your fault," Enlais said, patting him on the back. "Who'd know that it would escalate like this?"
Cora glanced at Heart of the Mountain who smiled faintly. She silently sighed to herself. It seemed that she wasn't the only one who'd noticed weird goings on.
"I will provide a distraction when you're ready," Heart of the Mountain said. "You should hurry. I have felt someone tunneling towards here from another angle, and they are very close."
The trio nodded, heading towards the tunnel that led towards the mine's exit.