Corpus Tamrielicum - The Imperial Library

[30.7] KING EDWARD VII
Mats may get there soon. He doesn't fight his best against Moraelyn, though. Maybe he
doesn't want to, or maybe Moraelyn just knows him too well. Oh, well, you want to hear
about the dragon..."
"So Moraelyn was gambling with this Nord in a tavern one night, trying to pick up a little
easy gold. The pot's pretty big, and the man can't match his bet, so he says he'll put this map
on the pile and tap Moraelyn. Says it's a map to the hiding place of the best blade ever made.
Says there's a spell on it so that if you hit your opponent, you get as much heal as he gets hurt.
That some Mage hid it just before he died so's only someone worthy of it can get to it."
"'And you think I look worthy?' Moraelyn says, grinning. We were young and dumb, but not
all that dumb."
"The Nord grins back and says 'I saw you fight in Falcreath, kid. You look like you'd take a
chance.'"
"'Why not? The story alone is worth the gold. You ought to be a Bard.' So anyway Moraelyn
wins the pot and tosses the man enough back to keep his throat wet all evening. Just for
laughs we look at the map. It showed the Dragon's Teeth Mountains down in Hammerfell.
Real wild country. And there's an 'X' and some writing saying 'Fang Lair'. Mats gets excited
and says he's heard of the place, but he'd never known just where it was."
"'And you still don't,' I say. 'Any fool can draw a map, just as any fool can look at one. I could
do as much myself.'"
"Mats says Fang Lair is an old dwarf mine, but there's supposed to be a dragon there now, and
the dwarves are gone. Moraelyn looks real interested at the mention of a mine, and asks what
they mined there. Mats says mithril and gold."
"Moraelyn says, 'Hmmmmm.'"
"The mithril had him interested. We couldn't afford really good weapons. And mithril's
scarce, but it's light to carry for its worth, and easy to mine and work if you know how; and he
did. He didn't believe in the magic blade or the dragon, but he thought the mine might be real.
Mining's in his blood, as it is in all the R'Aathim, the royal Kin of Ebonheart."
"It took us a couple of months to get there. We couldn't afford horses. We never would have
found it without the map. It's tricky country, full of canyons and hidden valleys. We sure
never expected what we saw when we did get there. You could see the towers from the
canyon mouth, way back in there. Dark elves live right in caverns if they mine, but the
dwarves had built a hall over the top of their mines. It's a pretty thing on the outside. Narrow
towers, and arched bridges between them. Delicate looking; you wouldn't expect work like
that from Dwarves. Merged right into the rocks too. And there was a big stone dragon
mounted above the gate."
"'There's your dragon, Mats,' I said. The inside wasn't much to look at, just rock wall. The
doorway was enormous, but the doors were gone. There was a balcony running right around a
big open pit, probably the start of the mine, turned into a hall. And right in the middle was
more treasure than you can imagine piled up almost like a haystack that'd been flattened out.
And what had flattened it was a golden dragon curled right over it; we didn't even see him at
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