Tales of Mantica

by Rospond, Brandon; Waugh, Duncan; Werner, CL

  Venturing out upon the broken beach of black sand, their heavy boots crunching into the fine black powder, Yurec’s heavier footsteps sent up small clouds of dust as they fell. Near the cliff wall, the beach was clustered with what might have been stalagmites in a different cavern, but here looked like trees surrounding a body of water, only cut down to dirty, blackened stumps. Beyond the stumps, the beach of molten, grainy slag extended cleanly to the sea’s edge, where liquid magma washed up and receded ever so slowly, leaving swollen patterns of hardening lava with each crawling wave. There was an entrancing motion to it; a current, even, when they could find it, and it swelled away across the cavern for as far as their keen dwarf eyes could follow. The light emanating from the liquid rock seemed to somehow grow in intensity as they approached it, the orange glow managing to simultaneously permeate every nook and cranny of this new world and yet still create dancing shadows between the dripping rock formations in the ceiling far above.

  His gaze transfixed upward as they neared the land’s edge, Lord Yurec wondered at the glossy black stones hanging above, conjuring the image of glittering stars in a night sky capable of guiding a ship across that molten sea. The heavy clanking noises of the Ironguard, so loud in the cramped tunnel before, seemed to disappear in the shimmering waves of heat, transformed into something they could feel in the air more than catch with their ears.

  The stretching expanse made the dwarfs uneasy, all of them acutely aware that their number, which had seemed more than adequate in the tunnels before, seemed insignificant in their new surroundings. Stifled from the heat in his armor, Yurec took off his helm for a moment’s respite as they walked, confident he would have plenty of time to replace it should a threat manifest against them. His heavy iron-shod boots hissed with each step, their soles beginning to score and brighten from the intense heat they protected him against, the gears and servos whining in protest. It was like walking through the fires of the Abyss itself.

  It is beautiful here, brother; I’ll concede to you on that. But damn is it hot!

  Unrelieved, he placed his helm back atop his head, finding no joy in the typically satisfying -click- as it settled into place.

  As their eyes finally adjusted to the searing brightness of their strange surroundings, the form of a single stout dwarf became visible near the sea’s edge. He sat with his legs crossed, clad only in a tattered and blackened loincloth, his matted hair and scarred back facing them almost serenely. Miraculously, he seemed completely unbothered by the intense heat of the ground upon which he sat. Yurec halted at the sight of him, the Ironguard stopping a few paces behind their leader.

  “Lord Yurec, is it him?” Joshurn loosed from the line of Ironguard, his voice betraying only the slightest hint of the worry etched so clearly into his eyes. This quest had been Joshurn’s first selection to join the Traduciators in their hunt. The more seasoned veterans around him grumbled at his outburst.

  Yurec stepped ahead another several paces to gain a better view, his encyclopedic mind racing until recognition dawned within him. “Nay. That is not our former Lord Durok… that would be one of his suspected companions, a former champion of our clan named Andreu. He’s been on the council’s list for many years now.”

  The scarred abyssal dwarf before them stood slowly and turned to face the Ironguard with an almost feline grace, his presence intimidating even at the distance between them. The craggy face bore none of the hate the Ironguard had expected to see, his expression instead that of cold indifference. His deeply set eyes appeared solid black with the backdrop of the glowing lava behind him.

  “Hmph.” Andreu grunted, turning his neck slowly, the bones within crackling loudly.

  Breaking ranks, Joshurn burst free of his fellow Ironguard before they could stop him, running forward with his weapons held wide. Joshurn turned his head and spat upon the ground as he ran, where it sizzled away almost immediately. “You’ll be mine, betrayer!” He was shouting, but his voice fell flat in the heavy air. “You’ll pay for the dishonor you placed on our clan!”

  Rage commanding his features at the sudden insubordination, Yurec held his position as Joshurn raced past him. Yurec roared, “Joshurn, no! Stand down!” His words fell on deaf ears however, as the fool dwarf began to gain speed in his headlong rush.

  Andreu stood stock still, his expression nothing more than detached boredom; not so much as a single muscle twitched as the armored dwarf bore down on him. As Joshurn reached the point of no return, his hammer swinging in a beautifully executed crescent aimed precisely for the berserker’s skull, Andreu’s eyes seemed to light up as though an internal fire had been stoked. A sudden and disarmingly bestial scream escaped his chapped lips as the hammer arced down, and he began to move alongside the projected force of his yell. In the span of a single heartbeat, his hand shot up to the descending hammer and pushed, using the charging dwarf’s own momentum to slip deftly from beneath the blow and simultaneously bring a rock-hard elbow crashing into Joshurn’s armored cheek. The faceguard crumpled as though made of paper.

  Joshurn howled with embarrassed fury, spinning himself around rapidly to gain extra power in a bone-shattering cross hand swing. Contorting his unarmored body to allow the hammer an unobstructed path, the berserker launched an open hand strike into Joshurn’s exposed chest the moment the swing was clear with enough force to stumble the dwarf back a step. Andreu followed in a leap, reaching out with both hands to grip Joshurn’s helm before arching back and delivering the most violent headbutt the Ironguard in audience had ever witnessed, the percussive waves of the impact visible as they spread away in the heat haze. Joshurn’s face melted into his helm with the force of it, and the dwarf immediately went slack, dead before his body crumpled to the sizzling ground.

  Andreu turned slowly to face Yurec, his eyes having faded again to a depthless black, only now he wore a smirk. Blood dripped from a fresh cut on his forehead somewhere above the hairline, running down into his eyes and resembling the oil of some foul machine in the glowing cavern. The Ironguard raised their shields in unison, maintaining their discipline where their shamed cousin had not, and prepared to crush the lone berserker.

  * * * * *

  3 Months Earlier

  You have always known that he would come for you. It was inevitable that the council would place you on his shortlist.

  Durok shook his head, shook it hard, the voice in his mind feeling like an incurable itch beneath the surface of his skull, ever at a simmer and threatening to bubble to the fore.

  “Of course I knew, I’ve been expecting it… Just hoped we had more time. He isn’t ready to listen, yet.” The dwarf spoke aloud in his cavernous chambers, alone except for the cowering goblin slave by the doorway attempting to sink unnoticed into the ground.

  The plan you’ve concocted may work. By Her light, I am to know only what was, and what now is, but not what yet may be. I believe that h-

  “YES I KNOW!” Durok shouted, interrupting the gravelly voice within his mind, the dwarf’s words sinking into the warm walls of blackened stone. The inky, darker-than-black walls of the chamber always seemed to steal his words from the air quicker if there was anger in them. The laws of the Abyss were not so rigid as they might be in the world above, after all.

  Ahem.

  Durok hated when his ‘guide’ acted as though it were performing on a stage, voicing actions in that manner, as though it actually had a throat to clear. Its dramatic pause only succeeded in frustrating the dwarf further.

  I was simply attempting to inform you, Lord Durok, obvious and evident master of his domain, Durok’s brow furrowed unconsciously into a grimace, that I could allow you to see it as well, if you would like. I could show your eyes the sight of your kin in their hunt for you. They ransacked your private study only a short while ago.

  “So they’ve broken the seals, then. That speaks highly to their desperation. I’d wager they’ve finally taken notice to how few orcs roam their northern tunnels. How many went in, then? Wa
s Yurec there himself?”

  Of course he was. One does not investigate a traitor lightly.

  “Traitor!? Traitor!? I am her Chosen! The Bearer of the Torch! You have grown too bold, creature. Perhaps She would raise concern at your delight in delaying the progress of Her plans by troubling me so!” Durok’s fist seemed to glow with an inner light as though magma itself coursed through his veins, and he soundly struck his chamber wall with explosive force. The room suddenly grew brighter – and quite a bit hotter, as well – as orange and red light from the molten sea below spilled in through the chamber’s new window.

  This had proven to be a common degradation in their conversations as of late, the chamber already having several of the fist-sized windows throughout. Durok and the guide assigned to him, a formless creature of energy named Ka’Ryl, had steadily grown more and more frustrated at their slow progress during their time together. They had been bound during Durok’s second century in a secret ceremony, on a day now many years behind him. Initially he had felt hesitant of the binding, but he could not deny that Ka’Ryl had indeed helped to guide him in seeing the true way forward for his people. The responsibility of it had lost him a great many things, but it would all seem a trivial cost soon enough, of that he was confident.

  Ariagful had said that all dwarfs were rich when beneath the world. It was their kingdom to rule; their seat of power. Durok had learned the truth of such statements.

  Finally, he calmed enough for Ka’Ryl to continue.

  Close your eyes, groundling, and look upon your brother’s Traduciators which hunt us, like so many before.

  *** * *

  The Traduciators had been at it for hours, their frustration growing with each passing moment. They were ripping through the furnishings of the former Lord Durok’s grand apartments, pulling all manner of adornments from the walls or off of shelving in their search. It had taken the fire priest nearly five solid hours to breach the outer seals and access the abandoned portion of their family keep. Yurec was beginning to fear the seals had been nothing more than a distraction, though. The abandoned chambers had been largely ignored after the initial search, but Yurec’s gut had lead him back one last time, and finally he’d discovered the seals. It had been so obvious that he’d missed them the first time, but it would be just like Durok to have left a seerstone secreted away in his very chambers.

  Breaking through the seals, Yurec and his men had discovered a grand set of rooms extending immediately below the primary rooms, the architecture and styling within shaped from glossy obsidian. Adorning the walls throughout and typical in their design aesthetic, pieces of finely crafted gold had been fashioned into unnerving and embarrassing organic shapes. The vast majority of them now riddled the floor, obscuring the lush red carpets with their heavy golden swirls, seeming to invoke both flame and flesh when looked upon. Stone dressers filled with lavish cloths and trinkets were overturned as well, their contents spilled before them. One of the chambers had contained a humongous bed with a tall headboard of the same black stone found throughout, but Yurec’s men had cracked it when trying to yank it away from the wall, leaving it to lean at an unnatural angle as they continued their search elsewhere. Numerous sitting chairs were overturned, the stuffing from their slashed cushions strewn across the floor. Hundreds of leather-bound tomes had been pulled from the abundant shelving throughout the apartments, many of them in languages that would invoke madness should anyone attempt to read the words scrawled within, and now sat in piles from which they would be collected at some later time and fed to the fire priest’s cleansing flames.

  Yurec found himself fretting, yet again, that this latest dishonor would be impossible to keep secret for long. The former Lord Durok, the influential eldest child and Lord of Grunn Keep, formerly in good standing with the Council of Free Dwarfs, had been discovered to be as traitorous as the other villains seeking power beyond the natural means. And it would be his own brother, now Lord of Grunn Keep in Durok’s absence, that would be the Chief Traduciator to drag him before the council for judgment. It would have struck Yurec as ironic, had it not felt so ridiculous.

  The Traduciators always tended to err on the side of caution and be more thorough in their investigations than not, but the manner in which they shredded and ravaged here, their rage evident, bothered Yurec more deeply than he would have cared to admit. How easily their hearts had turned against a former lord of the clan; how fickle the hearts of dwarfs, that the lure of the Abyss had become an issue at all. Perhaps these few had simply been too close to Durok, their former admiration now fueling their ire? But no, they had allowed their newest inductee, Joshurn, a recently promoted member of the Ironguard and now the youngest among them, to accompany them on this search, and he ravaged with no less enthusiasm than his companions. Yurec thought, could their hearts turn so easily against me, as well?

  “Ol’ Durok decorated more like the pointy-ear folk than one of us, eh, fellas?” The ginger-haired veteran, Kristoff, exclaimed as he enthusiastically ripped through an embroidered pillow laced with delicate metals to depict a sea of fire beneath a mountain.

  “You’ll not speak of Lord Durok that way again and keep that tongue in your head, Kristoff.” Yurec spoke with a calm and confident tone, at odds with his discomfort for the deed at hand. “Suspicions be damned, he was still a lord of this keep.”

  A tense moment of silence passed before Broyleson muttered something from the next chamber, but Yurec couldn’t quite make it out. Kristoff seemed to collect himself at it, though, and dropped the pillow before turning to address Yurec more formally. “Aye, sir. Forgive my outburst. I forget sometimes he was your kin. The two of you are just so different!” The warrior spread his arms to indicate the artifacts littering the ransacked chambers with a smile.

  Yurec sighed. “…It is forgiven. These are hard days for the House of Grunn. If we can retrieve the seerstone, though, we can prove Durok’s ties to the Abyss and get approval from the council to use it to find him and haul him back.” Yurec’s fists clenched tightly. He shook his hands out with an exasperated grunt. “I have every confidence we’ll find it this day; we know that he never came back to his chambers before he fled, and the keep has been under constant guard ever since. It must be here.”

  Nodding in mute agreement, the golden trinkets in Kristoff’s beard clanged against his breastplate like coins spilt onto the paving stones at market. “We will find it,” he said, before moving to continue his search along the far wall of the spacious underground chambers.

  It was high upon that same wall, from a tapestry comprised of thousands of glittering gemstones, that Durok himself watched the ravaging dwarfs through the molten orange seerstone hidden within the effulgent eye of a magnificent fire beast. Yurec’s head shot up, his attention suddenly drawn to the tapestry as a wave of unfiltered rage and disgust and frustration and disappointment radiated from it, lasting no longer than the blink of an eye. He cursed at how obvious Durok had made it; it had always been games within games between them, and this had proven no different.

  “Stop the search! It’s right there, for Fulgria’s sake!” he exclaimed, gesturing to the tapestry upon the wall. “He’s been watchin’ the whole damned time!”

  Grumbling profusely, Yurec tore a small black pouch from his belt; no larger than a coin purse, the glossy metal links were woven so tightly that no light could penetrate it. He moved toward the tapestry, intent upon tearing it down, but caught himself and thought better of it, the image of Durok laughing soundly as his sibling scrambled for the stone clear in his mind. Finally, he tossed the bag across the chamber to Broyleson.

  Broyleson caught it deftly, having anticipated Yurec’s decision and already moving to pull the tapestry from the wall. The dwarf had witnessed the brothers’ relationship for many years while serving under Lord Durok, but he had been one of the few to remain loyal to the council when his lord had fled. Just as he reached it, however, Joshurn grabbed the bottom corner and yanked, ripping it from w
all in a single swift tug. “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed excitedly.

  As it fell, the eye of the beast seemed to flare with light, the seerstone brushing against Broyleson’s face on its way to the ground. It burned like a touch from magma itself, searing away the facial hair on his cheek and scorching the flesh black instantly. The dwarf howled, his hand shooting up to cover the mark while simultaneously shoving Joshurn fiercely into the stone wall with his free hand. “Fool youngling!”

  “Youngling!?” Joshurn’s face contorted in fury, the title clearly hitting a sore spot. “I’ve earned my place here an-”

  “You’re a gap filler and a waste of good armor! Get away from me!” Broyleson shoved the other dwarf again with finality, gritting his teeth and squinting his eyes at the fresh wound on his cheek. Turning back to the fallen tapestry, he committed his hands – steady, despite the pain – to carefully wrapping the black pouch over the seerstone before firmly tearing it free.

  Yurec, wanting nothing more than to get away from the ravaged chambers, held out his hand expectantly. “I’ll present it to the council before the week is through and get our final orders. See to your face, friend, then ready the others; we’ll depart as soon as we’re given approval.”