The dusk settled into the high mountain pass like grey velvet dropped over limestone crags.
Inside the Grand Hall, the central hearth burned with a clear, steady amber flame that cast long, dancing shadows across the unplastered walls. There were no illusions of dancing nymphs in the chimney-draft, no phantom trumpets echoing through the roof-beams, and no eerie blue phosphorescence clinging to the mortar seams. The warmth on the flagstones was ordinary wood-heat, fed by dry birch logs that Hobb had seasoned through two mountain summers, and the air smelled comfortably of hot fat, boiled barley, and woodsmoke.
Young Roland sat on a low wooden bench near the hearth, his heavy leather coat unbuttoned at the throat.
“It is a very poor business model,” the boy said, shaking his head as he dipped a thick wedge of dark rye bread into his wooden bowl. “I tell you plainly, master stone. If you went down to the capital and opened a dungeon with three rooms of swinging timber logs and a mirror puzzle, the guild wardens would laugh you out of the market. Delvers want terror. They want three tiers of poisoned spikes, a ghoul with iron teeth, and a chest of enchanted gold at the end that pays for their funeral expenses if their luck runs out.”
