The wizard stared at him without blinking, saying nothing.
The cleric’s head jerked up. He glanced back and forth between Torrin and the wizard. Then he eased his chair back from the table, its wooden legs scraping the stone floor, and looked as if he were getting ready to leave. Torrin suddenly wondered if interrupting the wizard had been a healthy thing to do.
“Mind,” the dark elf repeated. He cocked his head to the side and lifted his left hand. Torrin shied back, but the wizard didn’t touch him. Instead, he pointed with a slender finger at the Ironstar symbol on the bracers Torrin wore.
“Your mind matches that mark,” he said in a soft voice.
Torrin blinked. “I … I am a dwarf, it’s true,” he said. He leaned forward. “You could sense that?”
The wizard’s fingers traced a star in the air. “Patterns,” he said.
The cleric snorted. Relaxing once more, he returned his attention to his reading.
The wizard touched the bracer on Torrin’s left arm, his finger briefly tracing the groove that had been gouged into the iron during Torrin and Eralynn’s scramble to get away from the red dragon. “Patterns,” he repeated.
Torrin inclined his head in a bow. “Torrin Ironstar,” he said, introducing himself a second time. “And you are …?”
“Zarifar,” the wizard replied, nodding at the tablets he’d been playing with. “A geomancer.”
Torrin hesitated. He was loath to trust a former drow, yet the wizard who studied earth magic might be able to tell him a few things. And for all Torrin knew, the Morndinsamman had caused their paths to cross. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” he asked.
The dark elf gave a vague wave of his hand. Torrin hoped that it meant yes. “What do you know about earth nodes?” he asked.
Zarifar smiled. “Everything.”
“How do they work?” asked Torrin. “How do they allow people to teleport, I mean.”
“You mean why do they work,” the wizard said. He stared across the room, as if looking at something far beyond it. “The lines. The angles they form where they cross. It’s all … in the numbers. The equations, the formulae. The vertex, and how the chords of the circle and the tangential lines align.”
The cleric chuckled and caught Torrin’s eye. “You’re sorry you asked, I’ll wager,” he said.
Torrin ignored him. “Could you explain that again, in lay terms?” he asked.
“I was a teacher once, you know,” Zarifar said. “At the College of Ancient Arcana, in Sshamath.”
The drow city. Torrin struggled to keep the distaste from his expression. He needed information from Zarifar.
Torrin was setting aside his principles a lot lately. But it was for the greater good. He might learn something from the wizard that would help Kier—help everyone. Surely Moradin would understand.
“What I want to know,” Torrin told the wizard, “is how to more reliably activate the teleportation magic of an earth node. I find that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Could that be due to a warding ritual, or some magical device that blocks teleportation, carried by the person I’m trying to teleport to?”
The cleric spoke again. “So now you’re a wizard, as well as a Delver?”
“I’m no wizard,” Torrin answered over his shoulder. “Although I am a dwarf. But that’s another tale.”
The cleric chuckled and set his book down, giving Torrin his full attention. “This gets better and better,” he said.
“I hoped to find the answer in these texts,” Torrin said, gesturing at the stack of books in front of him, “but the solution still eludes me. I was hoping that you might offer some suggestions. You must know a thing or two about teleportation.”
“Doors within doors,” Zarifar said. He placed his palms, fingers spread, each touching their counterpart on the opposite hand. “The patterns must match precisely. If they don’t—” he shifted one hand slightly, so his fingers were no longer lined up “—there’s only emptiness where an alignment should be.”
Torrin nodded respectfully. He already knew about the linked portals wizards could create: how the runes around each of the circles had to be inscribed in exactly the right order, using the same color of chalk, to forge a link from one to the next. But he was no wizard.
“What I want to know is this,” he continued. “Supposing someone wasn’t a wizard, but he had a magical device that could activate an earth node’s magic, and allow him to teleport? Could he go anywhere he wanted, or would the destination have to meet certain conditions?”
“You have such a device?” the cleric asked, his eyes glittering.
Torrin hesitated. If the fellow had been anything other than a cleric of the Delver’s patron god, Torrin might have hesitated. But he was a fellow dwarf, and one of the brotherhood. Torrin could trust him.
The cleric obviously sensed Torrin’s hesitation. He introduced himself. “Rathorn Battlehammer, son of Horatio Battlehammer and grandson of Rornathoin the Third,” he said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Torrin Ironstar,” Torrin repeated, clasping the cleric’s arm in the traditional dwarven greeting. “And no, I don’t have such a device—but I know of one.”
Rathorn chuckled. “No need for subterfuge,” he told Torrin. “As I said before, you can trust Zarifar. He’s no rogue, and he’s as honorable as any of the stout folk. I swear it, by the gleam in Dugmaren’s eye.” He touched the holy symbol that hung about his neck.
Torrin took a deep breath. “All right, then,” he said, after one last wary glance at the wizard. “Yes, I have such a device.” He pulled the runestone from his pouch and showed it to the cleric.
Rathorn studied it a moment, then pushed it back to Torrin. “Interesting. But Zarifar knows more about these things than I do, though I am chagrined to admit it.”
Zarifar started to reach for the runestone.
“It also draws spellfire,” Torrin warned.
The wizard’s hand jerked to a stop. He sat back, leaving the runestone where it was.
“But only when it’s in an earth node,” Torrin continued.
“Spellfire,” Zarifar said softly. He moved one finger back and forth across the table in a seemingly aimless fashion, mumbling to himself in a low voice, speaking in drow. He stared dreamily up at the ceiling.
Torrin waited while the wizard mused.
“Not possible,” Zarifar said abruptly, his hand jerking to a halt.
“What isn’t?” asked Torrin.
Zarifar traced lines across the table with his finger, each line ending at the tablet he’d spun in the air earlier. “Magic follows lines,” he said. “Spellfire …” He lifted his hand suddenly from the table and waggled his fingers. “Does not.”
Torrin gritted his teeth.
Rathorn chuckled. “What Zarifar means is that the lines of magical energy that come together at the locations we call ‘earth nodes’ each run along a fixed course through the earth,” he explained. “Spellfire, on the other hand, is wild magic that can neither be constrained nor channelled. It explodes into this realm at random, disfiguring flesh and grossly distorting spells. It is a force of chaos, and as such would be utterly antithetical to the tightly controlled and constrained magic of an earth node. That’s what Zarifar is trying to say—isn’t that right, Zarifar?”
The mage nodded down at one of the runestones on the table. “Order,” he said, flipping it over, blank side up. “Disorder.” Then he paused, and stared hard at the back of the tablet. “And yet … patterns, within the grain of the stone itself.” He seemed to have forgotten that Torrin was even there. He flipped the tablet faceup again and mumbled to himself.
“Yet channelling spellfire is possible,” Torrin insisted. He thought of the blue fire that crackled through Eralynn’s hands. “The spellscarred do it all the time when they work their magic. Why couldn’t a magical runestone do the same?”
“Impossible,” Rathorn said. He was obviously one of those dwarves wh
ose tightly tied beliefs were impossible to unknot. “Next you’ll be telling me it’s possible to wring water from a stone.”
Torrin smiled and said, “Funny you should say that.” He lifted his pack and pulled out a stone he’d collected from Araumycos, long before he became a Delver. He carried the stone around with him still, as a souvenir. It was about the size of a walnut, and porous, like volcanic rock. Torrin shook it, then held it above the table. A dribble of water trickled out—more water than the holes alone could have held. The water puddled on the table and dribbled down onto the floor, prompting a frown from Rathorn.
Zarifar’s attention was immediately captured. “A rock gourd,” he said.
Torrin nodded. It was one area of geomancy in which he was well versed. “Rock gourds are valuable, if they’re large enough,” he said. “Kind of like a never-empty waterskin. But this one’s hardly big enough to quench a mouse’s thirst. Still, the point is made.”
Rathorn folded his book shut. His cheeks were pink above the beard bag. He stood. “That’s enough for me,” he said. “Good night, Zarifar.”
The dark elf didn’t answer. He was still staring at the rock gourd, his lips moving silently as he counted the drops falling from it. One finger moved downward, drip by drip, as he traced their fall.
“Good night, Delver Torrin,” the cleric added. “And … good luck with your quest for knowledge.” With that, Rathorn took his leave.
Torrin scrambled to his feet and bowed. He realized he’d embarrassed the cleric, for which he was sorry. But lately, it seemed even dwarf clerics didn’t have all the answers. As Rathorn left, Torrin turned back to the dark elf, who’d fallen silent.
Zarifar stared off into space, one hand idly playing with the tablet he’d been spinning earlier. “It just might be possible,” he said.
“What?” Torrin asked.
“Channelling spellfire,” replied the drow. He nodded at the runestone. “Grooves cut deep in stone expose the patterns within. Spellfire could leak into them and flow, like water through a trough. But only if the caster dug deep.” He pointed at Torrin’s chest. “Deep inside himself.”
Torrin stood for a moment, lost in thought. “Emotion?” he guessed.
Zarifar nodded.
So that was what triggered the runestone’s magic when it was within an earth node. Strong emotion. The first time, it had been Torrin’s fear and his desperate need to be safe, to be home. The second time, it had been his concern about Eralynn. But the runestone hadn’t worked when he’d tried to find Vadyr, despite the fact that Torrin’s hatred for him smoldered. That emotion should have been enough to carry Torrin past any magical wards the rogue had surrounded himself with. Yet it hadn’t.
That mystery notwithstanding, Torrin was making progress. The Dwarffather himself, it would seem, had steered him to Sundasz, the library, and a meeting with the strange dark elf. For that, Torrin gave praise. He was one step further along the path that he hoped would save Kier.
Zarifar yawned. He pushed his stool back from the table, as though getting ready to leave.
“I have one more question,” Torrin said hurriedly. “If you’ll indulge me?”
Zarifar had half-risen, but the stones seemed to catch his attention once more. He sat down again and began lining them up in a column, largest to smallest.
“When I used the runestone and it drew spellfire,” Torrin said, “something else happened. Gold dripped from the ceiling of the earth node cavern. The first time, there was an explanation. A red dragon was attacking, and I assumed its breath had melted a vein of gold. But the second time I used the runestone, gold also dripped from the ceiling. What might have caused that?”
“Gold,” Zarifar said, not looking up. His finger traced a line through the water left on the table by the rock gourd, dragging a wet smear across the wood. “Molten gold. Flowing. Spellfire, flowing. Patterns atop patterns.”
Abruptly, Zarifar tapped the wet finger against one of the books Torrin had taken from the stacks. “This one,” he said. “Page two hundred and sixty-four.” He pushed the tablets he’d aligned into an untidy pile and stood. Before Torrin could protest, he exited the center of the library and was gone, leaving without so much as a farewell.
Torrin picked up the book the wizard had indicated. It was a small book, its leather binding flaking with age. It was titled Moradin’s Mysteries and had a hammer and anvil, symbols of the Dwarffather, embossed on the cover.
Torrin frowned. He didn’t remember pulling it from the stacks.
He opened the book carefully. The vellum pages were loose in their bindings, spotted with age, and musty smelling. Several were missing, and others were hanging by their binding threads. Page two hundred and sixty-four was still there, but was loose. The page began with one of the standard prayers to Moradin, written in Auld Dethek. The runes were scribed in a small cramped hand that made them difficult to read. Torrin had to decipher the prayer rune by rune. Grant me the strength of heart, O Moradin, to do something good this day. Something useful, something of lasting worth … Torrin knew the prayer by heart; he said it every morning. He skipped past it, to the bottom of the page. What was written there immediately caught his attention.
One of the lesser known wonders by which Moradin makes his blessings manifest upon Faerûn is the River of Gold. Glory to those who cross its ever-changing path! For not only shall they bask in Moradin’s presence, but shall be rewarded with riches the like of which have not been seen on Faerûn since the coming of our people to this Realm! But beware, treasure seekers, the River of Gold is a difficult vein to tap. Use only stone vessels to draw from its current, for it melts all base metals that come in contact with it.
Torrin paused, thinking. A river of molten gold? He’d had never heard of such a thing. Gold might be melted by proximity to a volcano, perhaps—or by the breath of a red dragon, or by spellfire—but once it flowed away from the source of the heat, it cooled and hardened. It didn’t keep flowing through all the earth like a river. That wasn’t possible. Or was it?
He leaned forward to read on, his arms crossed. His right hand rested atop his left bracer, his fingers picking at the groove in it. The groove wasn’t sharp-edged, but smooth, like a line traced through sand. A groove made by flowing water.
Or by flowing gold?
He thought back to the piece of hardened gold he’d plucked from his scorched sleeve. Had it come from the River of Gold?
He picked up the magical runestone, the hairs on the back of his neck shivering erect. He could almost feel the Dwarffather standing beside him, watching. Waiting.
He was on to something—something important. Another piece of the puzzle that the dream-Moradin had urged him to unearth. He placed the runestone back on the table and read on eagerly.
No map exists of the River of Gold, nor will it ever be found in the same location twice. It flows as the Dwarffather wills. It ever must be hunted anew, in the deepest and most remote regions of the earth. It alters course continually, from channel to channel, following the magical conduits that were forged, eons ago, at the time the gods themselves first took form. Some runemasters claim to be able to direct its flow, to temporarily pull …
There, the text ended, at the bottom of the page. The page that should have followed was missing—as were fully a dozen other pages. They’d been deliberately removed, by the look of it. The threads that had held the signature in place were cleanly cut, and there was a small nick at the inside edge of the page that followed, likely made when the signature was cut free.
Torrin flipped pages, hoping to find another reference to the mysterious River of Gold, but the rest of the book contained only prayers and notes on caverns of great natural beauty. Nor was there any mention of earth nodes, or, for that matter, of the Soulforge. Just that one cryptic reference to a river of molten gold that flowed through the earth in a constantly shifting vein.
A vein that could, he was willing to wager, be “pulled” to any spot on Faerûn by the ru
nestone that lay on the table in front of him.
Torrin stared at the runes carved into the stone. “Earth magic,” they read. The runestone, he decided, must act like a lodestone, drawing not one but two sets of magical “filings” to it: the wild magic of spellfire, and the River of Gold. But only, it would seem, when it was activated within the magical lines of force that crisscrossed Faerûn and converged to form earth nodes.
Any other dwarf might immediately have turned his thoughts to the limitless wealth the runestone could convey. Torrin, however, was delving deeper than that.
He thought about what he’d learned so far.
Someone—likely some enemy of the dwarves—had invoked the powerful curse that caused the stoneplague. That curse might have been placed on any object. Copper coins, for example, would have been a better choice, since they’d guarantee a wide and rapid distribution throughout the dwarf settlements. Yet the spellcaster had chosen the noblest metal of all. Why?
The answer might be as simple as the fact that dwarves coveted gold, something the caster of the curse would have in abundance. Armed with the runestone and the missing pages from the book, the spellcaster had called the River of Gold, tapped it, and cast the gold into bars, before fouling them with the curse.
Kendril, the dwarf Torrin had purchased the runestone from, was likely the one who’d removed the pages from the book. His brother had mentioned that Kendril came to Sundasz to study after their falling-out. Kendril had been a cleric at the time; he would have had an interest in such texts. The prospect of wealth without limit must have tempted him. And somehow, the secret Kendril had uncovered in that book wound up in the hands of the person who’d cursed the gold. Later, after Kendril realized the use the pages had been put to, he’d felt remorse for his role in creating the stoneplague. But instead of reporting what he’d done, he’d stolen the runestone and sold it, so that his own clan might be saved.
Given Kendril’s affliction, he was probably an unwitting pawn, unaware until it was too late that a curse had been placed upon the gold. Which explained Kendril’s deep remorse. A dwarf, Torrin knew, would never willingly condemn his race to so dire a fate.
The Gilded Rune Page 19