by T. H. Lain
Upon the floor lay open chests, some overflowing with coins and ingots, others with ivory scrolls and tomes bound in lizard hide and gold. Several of these works had been left open, their pages torn out and scattered upon the floor in curling leaves, the detritus of history and lives chronicled then buried. All these works surrounded a pair of stone biers bearing a pair of sarcophagi. The lid of each was carved with surpassing skill and obvious veneration, their features painted so artfully that the figures might have seemed alive before the cloak of dust dimmed their hues and the oozing walls streaked their features with a calculus of tears.
To the right lay the sculpture of a dwarven matron of ageless beauty. Her refined cheekbones and the faint lines etched around her closed eyes informed Tordek that she had lived well over three hundred years before her death. Her dark, braided hair was entwined with silver threads. Upon her cheeks were painted black tears, the mark of a loyal wife who went to her grave mourning a disgraced husband.
Her spouse's sarcophagus was on the left. The figure on the coffin's lid wore black chain armor with a shattered breastplate, the mark of a dwarf slain in combat by his own people. His scarred and craggy face was shaven, his eyes open, his naked hands empty: three signs of an accursed interment.
"It's him," said Devis, approaching the husband's coffin with an uncharacteristic reverence. His eyes glowed with awe as he gently laid a hand on the dwarf's stony boot. "Andaron the Black."
The heavy lid jumped, and in the instant of its leap, a deep, sepulchral gasp escaped the coffin, stirring the ruined pages on the floor like autumn leaves in a dry wind.
Tordek already had his axe at the ready. "Don't touch anything," he said. He heard the sound of little hands scooping coins and gems and added without looking, "That goes double for you, Lidda!"
Vadania remained warily back from the treasure and the coffins while the others looked over the treasure, resisting the temptation to scoop it into their sacks all at once. Devis whistled a cantrip that made his eyes flash with green light. Gazing around the room, he grinned broadly.
"That," he said, "and that…" He pointed to a large wooden shield with a bronze lion's face for its boss, a suit of beautifully tooled leather armor, and a pair of steel gauntlets. "Oh, and I want that crossbow."
Vadania chanted her own orison of detecting magic and scanned the room as Devis had. Seeing what she was doing, the bard jutted his jaw in blatant indignation and gave up his survey of the treasure in a huff. He turned his intention instead to the parchment pages littering the floor. Snatching one up, he perused it briefly before handing it to Tordek.
"Dwarvish," he said. "Naturally."
Tordek scanned the parchment as Devis collected others, searching for a title page and passing the most promising candidates to the dwarf. Some of the pages were rendered illegible by water damage, but others appeared almost pristine after Tordek blew the dust from their faces.
'"The Thane of Harrowstone Implores Andaron to Truce,'" read Tordek from a chapter heading.
Again, the cover of the smith's coffin jumped, and a moaning wind blew forth and stormed through the tomb. The swirling parchment leaves rose from the floor in a cyclone that formed around Andaron's coffin, swelling and shrinking in the rhythm of a frantic heartbeat as the wail grew so loud it shook the foundation of the tomb. Each time the parchment tornado contracted, its cylindrical form became increasingly like the image of Andaron lying on his bier. As its mouth gaped wider, its moaning cry rose ever louder. Tattered pages swept across the parchment-ghost's chaps to form a windblown beard, and a dark red ribbon writhed within its jaws to serve as a tongue.
"Who has disturbed my crypt?" wailed the ghostly figure. "Why have you come?"
The others turned to Tordek, who had no argument to defer to one of his allies as the spirit spoke in Dwarvish. He gripped the haft of his axe more for courage than in hope of defeating the semi-corporeal Andaron, should it come to a fight.
"We have come to quench the re-ignited fires of your forge, damned specter!" he thundered in his most authoritative voice. "We have come to slay the barghest who gathered your accursed weapons from their graves and seeks to conjure his infernal master from the Abyss. What say you to that, Andaron the Black?"
A hellish blast hurled the lid to Andaron's coffin against one of the high crenellations, smashing it to gravel that whipped around like hailstones. Gems and coins exploded from their containers on the funereal tables, and all the arms and blades hummed a murderous song upon the walls. The parchment writhed and twisted into a serpentine length that lunged past Tordek, between the bard's legs, and over Lidda's shoulder to thrust itself into a suit of dull, black plate armor. There it forced its fragile pages into the sleeves and greaves, rising to stand at the head of the open coffin.
The armored ghost reached up to the wall, heedless of the four blades raised to descend upon its body. It snatched down not a weapon but a helm, which it thrust down upon the tortured lump that formed its head. Once contained, a ragged face formed again, this time in still detail. The old parchment formed a visage not unlike a smith's leathery face, except for the runes that slanted and overlapped upon its nose and brow.
"What do I say to that? What do I say?" The ghost's voice crackled with heat. His hollow eyes fixed on Tordek's, and he said, "I say it is a noble answer."
"Loyal, every one," said the ghost. He spoke the Common tongue with a rolling accent. He gripped the rail with parchment fingers as he looked down upon dozens of mausoleums, far beneath his tomb. A few coins enchanted by Devis's light cantrips cast the marble walls into stark relief in the atramentous gloom of the chasm beneath Andaron's tomb.
"Your ancestors?" asked Tordek. He stood beside the spirit in what he hoped was a respectful posture, but every sinew of his body was taut with suspicion. Should the spirit make one false move, Tordek would be ready to defend himself.
"My counselors," he said. "They invoked me to reason. They conjured every sage argument, and yet I heard only Hargrimm's voice. Still, they gave themselves to death to perpetuate my own, unworthy life."
"Hargrimm?" asked Devis. "How could you come to trust such a demon? Why did your people ever accept him?"
"He was not always as you saw him," explained Andaron, still gazing out over the cemetery of his followers. "Once he was my nephew, a dwarf of boundless craft. This vessel in which he now exists was his gift for subverting my mind toward the designs of his master, whose name I shall not utter so near his gate."
"Are you saying Hargrimm is to blame for your disgrace?" said Devis.
Andaron glanced over his shoulder at the half-elf, then turned to Tordek. Even through the crude material of his face, his expression was unmistakably that of one who has been insulted by an idiot or an outlander.
"No," said Tordek. "Only Andaron is to blame for what befell this place. He accepts the responsibility for his crimes, and neither Moradin nor the hordes of the Abyss shall shield him from his mortal shame."
The ghost murmured his appreciation of Tordek's words, which spared him from the humiliation of speaking them himself.
"I wished to forge the mightiest weapons ever shaped by mortal hand, and I accepted any promise, any hint of the power I knew must be used to make such magic. When my own skills fell short, I turned to sorcerers, yet they could offer only those enchantments that have been born so many times again in this world that bards sing of them in every hall of humans, dwarves, and elves."
"Halflings, too," offered Lidda quietly. At a glance from Vadania, she cast her eyes to the floor and stilled her tongue.
A faint crinkle of mirth formed at the edge of Andaron's mouth, but it died as he remembered more of the past.
"Hargrimm spoke to me of ancient lore forbidden by jealous wizards, kings, and priests. In my pride-in my folly-I charged him with gathering me this knowledge that I might bend it to my own design and infuse my weapons with such puissance as to place my image uttermost in every forge, even beside that of the Soul-Forger."
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Tordek stepped away from the blasphemy.
Andaron nodded sadly. "Aye, such was my depravity, and so was I justly abandoned by the gods."
"You say Hargrimm went on your quest for power," said Vadania.
Andaron nodded. "Indeed, and he returned to the hearth with the prize I craved. In tomes and scrolls and ancient stories whispered now only by the cults of Nerull and gods still more vile, he culled the forbidden knowledge and presented it to me as a gift of his devotion. My heart too greedy for achievement, I took it all and demanded more. After three decades and some years, he brought me all I desired, a design to infuse my greatest weapons with magic unknown on our mortal world.
"My engineers balked at the plans for the great forge, and my clerics rebuked me for the unholy images I set my artisans to carving. I listened to them all or pretended so. When their chests sagged for all the air they had blown, I dismissed their suits and continued, unmoved by their entreaties."
"Did you kill any of them?" asked Devis.
"What?"
"In your passion, did you order any of these wise counselors executed? Perhaps a close friend or relative."
Andaron turned to Tordek for a translation of the half-elf's inexplicable inquiry. "What mockery is this?"
Tordek narrowed his eyes and glared a warning at the bard, again to no avail.
"It's a common event in stories of this kind," shrugged Devis. "I just thought it might add some drama to the tale for when I tell it in…"
"YOU…!" Andaron's body rose, levitating from the ground as a sourceless white light shone up at him. He pointed at the bard as he intoned a harsh Dwarven curse before adding in Common, "If thou bandy my woeful chronicle with the least adulteration, minstrel, I shall harry thee to the very terminus of the world."
Tordek raised his axe, uncertain whether it would be better to smite the spirit or the bard. Lidda drew her short sword and stood bravely by Devi's side as he raised his hands in surrender.
Vadania stepped around them both to intercept the angry spirit.
"Your sins have roots, hammer-fist. Even now, centuries after your wickedness first sprang from this mountain, its sap runs through the sieves of your fastness and into the streams that feed the forest. Life withers, water curdles, children die in their mothers' dens, and everywhere your infamy makes a stain upon the land. Do you dare demand commendations from your grave?"
The illumination beneath Andaron turned bloody as his body shivered in its rage. Gradually, both the light and the fury dimmed to nothingness, and the ghost floated back down to the floor. His shoulders slumped, and his beard sagged upon his chest.
"You speak fairly," he conceded. "I deserve no pity nor even true remembrance…and yet I would you speak of me as I was and conjoin to my legend no crimes I did not undertake. I implore you."
Tordek lowered his weapon. "We make no such promise."
"Still," added Devis, stepping away from Lidda before she could climb up and stop his mouth with a little fist, "how better to conclude this tale of villainy than with redemption?"
"Redemption?" Andaron raised his head, intrigued.
Tordek relaxed and waved Lidda away from Devis. "Let him talk."
"Take all you wish," said Andaron as they stuffed their packs with gems and jewelry. "Should you succeed, then you will not be able to return. Should you fail…"
"When I strike with these," said Tordek, making a fist inside one of the fabulous gauntlets, "you shall have a hand in undoing your deeds."
"If what you told us proves true," promised Devis, "I'll fire no truer with this bow than I shall sing of your chronicle." He unstrung his own crossbow in favor of the fine weapon from Andaron's tomb.
The ghost looked down at Lidda, who stretched her arms and legs to accustom them to the armor she had claimed. As she tested its boundaries, it seemed to snuggle just right into the crooks of her arms and elbows.
"My wife's," said Andaron. "She tracked many a rogue goblin in her youth, and that armor served her well. I pray that it will do the same for you."
Tordek demanded that Devis leave behind a sack of coins he had gathered, insisting that the burden was too great. Treasure was all well and good, but a fleet foot was better in a fight. Tordek ignored the bard's reproachful glance as he paused to sling the magical wooden shield onto his left arm.
"A replacement for the one I lost," he said when Devis raised his eyebrow at his seeming hypocrisy. He cursed himself silently for sounding so defensive. Tordek knew it was more than his share, but they could settle the difference later. In the meantime, he needed a new shield. Besides, he had no need to explain himself to the minstrel.
The ghost noted the silent exchange and spoke to them all. "You must each have a gift for the quest you have undertaken on my behalf." He looked directly at Vadania, who had taken no magical loot from his trove.
"We do not do this on your behalf, Andaron," said Tordek.
"Nay, that is true. Yet it is in my benefit, and I would see no guest leave my hall, as tiny as it has become, without a gift befitting the hope you offer me."
He lifted the lid to his wife's coffin and pushed it aside as if it were as light as a blanket. For a moment he stared down at the contents of the crypt, his face a leathery mask of reverie and sorrow. He reached down and gently unclasped something from his wife's body.
When he turned back to the living occupants of his tomb, he proffered a silver armband inlaid with mother-of-pearl and studded in six places with a sapphire lozenge. "For you, lady of the wood. It was a gift my mother gave me, and it granted me wisdom in my youth. In turn I gave it to my bride, and yet it was I who needed its aegis."
Vadania hesitated, and Tordek knew she was reluctant to accept such a gift. Yet the druid was already wise beyond her peers, and she weighed the offense of refusal before responding.
"She will not grudge you," assured Andaron. "Not if in wearing it you may undo some part of my iniquity."
"Then I accept her gracious gift," said Vadania, taking the periapt into her hands.
"Go, then," said Andaron, "and may the Soul-Forger reward your beneficence with courage and resolve, for surely you face a terrible task."
Tordek did not look back as he left the secret tomb, but he sensed Devis and Lidda fidgeting all the way through the passage and into the vault, where they rejoined Gulo. The dire wolverine snuffled at each of them in turn. He nudged Vadania in a rough gesture of affection that might have sent a big man running in terror.
They stepped out into the crumbling dwarven street. The distant sounds of the forge still echoed in the reaches above, but now they were joined by a new and deeper sound, a throbbing pulse of goblin war-drums. Tordek covered his everburning torch, and they listened as a deep, trumpeting roar filled the upper expanse and rang through every adjoining passage.
"Sounds like the giants are inside," said Lidda.
"At least they won't get through every passage," said Tordek. "It could take them hours to make it down here."
"So," said Devis, "do you think we have the slightest hope of actually accomplishing what he suggested?"
Tordek shook his head solemnly.
"No," said Lidda. "Not really."
"Not a prayer," agreed Vadania.
"You realize there's nothing stopping us from climbing back down to that lake and swimming out of this place, right?"
When they all nodded, Devis looked into each of their faces, one by one, and saw the same determination.
"So we're going up there anyway to die in the attempt?" "That's the plan," said Tordek, slapping the bard on the shoulder. "Glad you're with us."
MORADIN’S GAZE
Lidda shifted around slowly and made the all-clear sign. Even so, Tordek gestured for the others to wait as he crawled up to the halfling's vantage with as much stealth as a dwarf in scale armor could muster. That was not much.
"How many?" he whispered.
"Twenty-eight goblins and two giants," she said. "No sign of Hargrimm or hi
s lieutenants."
Tordek considered that fact. "No doubt he remains in the forge, but judging from what that quasit said in the vault, I wager the others are looking for us down below with as many goblins as Hargrimm would spare."
Together they looked down at the chasm bridge. On this side, it led into a grand arch that housed chambers on the northern half of Andaron's Delve. On the other was a huge gate that defended a wide plaza filled with the smashed remnants of half a dozen statues and most of a sculpture melding a peculiar natural rock formation with chiseled spires and turrets to form a fantastic castle. In other dwarven strongholds, Tordek had seen similarly capricious sculptures in which children played at battles with tiny stone and pewter warriors. The remembrance made him briefly melancholy for all the orphans created by the fall of Andaron's delve and all the blameless souls who dwelt within its caverns.
"What are those?" asked Lidda. "More air vents?"
Tordek followed her gaze up to the massive copper tubes slanting out of the wall above the plaza. Each was wider than the height of two dwarves and perfectly round. All of them terminated in louvers connected to cables running down through green brass rings. At one time they must have run all the way to a brass plaque bolted into the wall near the grand door, yet someone had cut the chains at a point some thirty feet above the floor.
"No," said Tordek. "Those are something else entirely. Even dwarf children need the kiss of the sun to grow hale and strong, so they built the eyes of Moradin to shine down upon them as they played in the afternoon."
"Magic?" asked Lidda.
"No, not a dram of it," said Tordek, allowing a faint smile to cross his lips. "It's an ancient dwarven secret."
"Oh?" said Lidda. "How does it work?"
"By not telling halflings," he said.
"Very funny."
"Seriously," said Devis, "how does it work?" The half-elf had slipped up without making a sound, but the fact that he had not waited for Tordek's signal annoyed the dwarf.