by Josh Vogt
"What is this place?"
Izthuri leaned against the wall by the threshold, peering out to watch the area they'd just come through."Ruins."
Akina was too taken in by the sights on the walls to reply to what sounded like a sarcastic answer. Ruins. Oh, stone endures, yes. Dwarven ruins. This building must've been a temple or meeting hall of some sort, she figured, as graven murals covered every inch of the wall, ranging from runes to images of dwarves at work and celebration. She even spotted an icon of Torag with his warhammer, Kaglemros. She wandered deeper into the building, unable to absorb the enormity of it all, but unable to look away.
"You see?" Izthuri came up beside Akina and waggled fingers at a particular section on the lower wall."You read?"
"It's confusing," Akina said."I can read some, but other sections don't make sense. The runes are all there, but they're different somehow." She pointed out one set."The part I can figure out says: Here we served. Here Torag taught us. Here we fought. Here we died. Here we were born. Here we made. Here we left when the signs showed the way. Remember us." Her hand trembled at that last bit."It's a farewell. A form of gladdringgar, almost." She squinted at the preserved carvings."I'm not a historian, but..." She noticed Izthuri's confusion at the word."Not a scholar." Tapped her helm."No big thinker."
Izthuri hissed, and Akina couldn't tell if she was being laughed at or not. She refocused on the ancient script.
"I figure this goes back to before the Quest for Sky. This must've been one of our ancestral settlements before we headed to the surface. Or maybe a stop along the way. Not a major city, but still ours. And it's just been sitting here."
She found herself blinking back tears to think she stood in one of the original homes of the dwarves themselves. It felt like a holy place, sacred and worthy of protecting. She knuckled her eyes clear, wondering at her strong response. She hadn't realized she felt so deeply about this sort of thing. Had the healing spell made her more raw around the edges? Or did her connection to her people carve deeper channels through her soul than she'd believed? To be here, where it all began...
Her mother should've had the chance to see this. Jannasten had deserved this sort of discovery, not her wayward daughter. But maybe Akina could find a way to honor her memory here.
She turned."I need to see more."
Izthuri slunk over and studied the mural. She reached up to an icon near the top, out of Akina's reach, and tapped it with a long finger."Evil."
Akina strained to make out the image. A stylized flame rested atop an anvil, with two dwarven forgemasters standing on either side, one raising a hammer, one raising tongs. She could just make out the hint of a face within the flame.
"You saying something moved in after my people left, or that my people left something evil here?" But if it had moved in after, how had it been incorporated in this mural?
"Always been," Izthuri hissed.
Akina scowled."My people didn't create evil."
Izthuri shrugged.
"Take me there."
They passed back out into the ancient settlement, and Akina couldn't shake the feeling of walking among the ghosts of her most ancient ancestors. Would she have fit in with those who once lived here, able to stride among them without drawing odd glances? Did any spirits linger, watching her even now? Did they like what they saw? Did they even recognize her as one of their own descendants?
As they went, Akina realized the city had been built in concentric circles, each inner district ringed by a solid wall with offset gates leading out to the larger neighborhood surrounding it. A defensive construction? A way to force any invaders down specific streets while dwarven defenders picked them off from preplanned routes? With each ring-wall they passed through, the buildings grew more elaborate, the structures more decorative. Columns and archways grew more abundant, with faces and figures worked over most surfaces, much like in Taggoret. These here had been somewhat worn by time, but the lack of weather and general exposure had preserved much of the original artwork, if not the gilding.
When they passed through the fourth such ring-wall, a distant glow caught her eye. It flickered against the cavern ceiling far above, and she figured the source had to be another ring or two away. Near the center of the place. Before they went through the next gateway, Izthuri ducked into a nearby swath of shadow and waved for Akina to do the same.
A band of four duergar marched by. The increasing light illuminated their black chainmail, strapped over with violet vambraces, breastplates, and helms, each one carrying a silver-etched axe. The duergar scouted on without spotting the intruders, and Izthuri waited until they walked out of sight before emerging from the shadows. Akina itched to stalk after the duergar and lay them all low, but she had to see the place first. She had to know what they faced.
Rather than take her closer to the glow, Izthuri crept inside a tower base and took Akina up a spiraling flight of stairs to the top. They edged out onto a walled landing and peeked over the edge.
The next ring over proved to be a large central circle, with three inner rings forming a clover shape inside it. One inner ring held a three-story building, a proportionate duplicate of the mural-filled temple Izthuri had showed her. The second ring held a massive hole. Whatever once sat there must have caved in long ago, as a rough shaft dropped straight out of sight into the earth.
The third ring contained an enormous forge, which sat on a raised rectangular platform with steps on either end. Dozens of duergar milled about the platform, accompanied by an assembly of earth and fire elementals, all of which looked to be hard at work.
Large archways crowned both sets of steps, and each arch had been fashioned in the guise of a helmed dwarf's head, with the walkway leading through the mouth—wide open as if roaring a battle cry. The top of their helms extended back to meet and form a roof across the whole platform. Long openings along the side of the forge indicated where metal gates might have once been installed, providing numerous stations for smiths to work, and more gaps in the top suggested old vent systems or hoist openings. Several fire elementals worked within the forge itself, stoking a blaze ever-hotter, ever-brighter, forming the light she'd seen on their approach.
On the near end stood a giant anvil, far too big to be of practical use—large enough for a troll to lay down for a nap, in fact. Beside the anvil lay a broad hearth and fire pit, where coals could be dumped and ignited. The oven housing extending from this could've been used as an actual house.
Duergar and their elemental minions chiseled on certain surfaces, bolstering others, filling in gaps and replacing stones. Others appeared to be casters, running their hands along the forge stones or standing back with arms raised, mouths wide in unknown chants. The whole process filled the ring with a constant din, while the flames of the forge added a throaty crackle.
Akina watched all this, dumbfounded. Four gates allowed access to this walled ring, each gate guarded by huge pairs of dwarven statues holding various smithing instruments. Below the platform, a duergar encampment had been established. Soldiers patrolled around the ring on foot as well as on spider, beetle, and reptilian mounts. From this distance, the duergar looked like beetles themselves, clad in their gleaming armor of black and silver and red.
Among all the glinting armor and ashen skin, a couple of figures stood out. One duergar sat astride an enormous beetle with an obsidian shell and a multi-pronged horn thrusting from its head. Unlike the other duergar, this one wore spiked, white armor. Bone? A pair of hook axes were strapped to his back, the blades weirdly pink. He oversaw the labor with an air of authority visible even across the distance.
On the ground beside him stood a gray-robed duergar, the first Akina had seen who was both entirely bald and beardless. He or she held a solemn poise, arms crossed within sleeves. A priest of some sort?
Next to them stood Gromir. Even if his dusty blue robes hadn't given the dwarf away, his face gleamed golden when he lifted his head to gaze up at the fires of the active forge.
Akina scrubbed at her forehead, trying to make sense of it all."That forge. That's the evil? Or the duergar?"
Izthuri wriggled fingers."Forge hungry."
Akina clamped teeth down, biting a retort in half."Forges need fuel, sure, but you realize it's just equipment."
At Izthuri and the tribe's blank stares, she plunked a chin on a fist and tried to sort out her thoughts. What could the duergar want with the place? Ever since the dwarves had left the Darklands for the surface, the duergar had gone to great lengths to overrun many of their ancient homes, making them their own and rebutting later attempts to reclaim them. It made some sense, then, that they'd show interest in undiscovered ruins linking back to that time period. What about the forge, in particular, had caught their attention?
Well, she knew one person who'd have answers. And where Gromir was, Brakisten should be as well, though she hadn't noted her brother's presence earlier. They'd likely drugged or enspelled him and stashed him somewhere.
She clapped hands on her knees. The noise made many caligni shy away, but Izthuri at least appeared used to their noisy companion.
"Right. We need a few diversions."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fiery Crossing
Ondorum stared down at the molten river in dismay. While the first two magma flows he'd encountered offered natural bridges, as Izthuri said, this one lacked such as far as he could see. The ravine the lava flowed through also proved the deepest and widest yet.
When he'd found the lava-scoured cavern, he'd rejoiced at first, knowing he remained on the right path. However, he'd already trekked up and down a goodly length of this flow and saw no way to cross. The delay back in the rock-beast's cavern, and now this obstruction, compounded his anxiousness upon weariness. Even when he took cleansing breaths and worked through a series of mantras, he realize his struggles with the rock-beast had drained him more than he realized. At least his numb foot had regained sensation so he didn't have to hobble any longer.
Unlike the duergar wall back in the Long Walk, he couldn't leap this gap. He entertained a brief, desperate thought of jumping and trying to grab onto outcroppings halfway down the other side of the ravine, then climbing back up from there, but the opposing wall looked melted smooth by the magma's passage, with nary a crack nor ledge to be seen. Whatever stone the flow cut through, it had a glassy sheen that suggested no purchase whatsoever.
He considered the metal link still held in his loincloth, but any construct made from it couldn't extend more than ten feet, and the crossing looked to be at least five times that, even at its narrowest point. He jogged up, against the direction of the lava flow. It had to have a source somewhere.
What felt like hours later, he finally found it. The channel broadened into a molten river that rose out of the ravine and funneled up into the gaping opening of a giant lava tube. The size of it reminded him of dwarven city gates. Ondorum suppressed a groan; this discovery offered no solution. The magma still spanned further than he dared try to jump, and no stone bridge allowed for crossing anywhere.
Or did it? In the fiendish light, he studied the cavern wall surrounding the lava tube opening. The bottom had piles of rubble, but above, it turned smooth enough to defy climbing, with nothing to grab onto or kick off of. He placed palms against the rock. Roughened surface, yes, but any attempts to clamber up more than a few feet made it crumble under his weight and slide him back down.
He returned to the edge of the magma river and stood, arms crossed, to meditate on the problem. He would not allow this to defeat him. Nature, even the subterranean sort, provided as many answers as it did obstacles. It did so without regard for mortal convenience, though, so one had to learn to see the dilemma from a different perspective.
He looked up into the lava tube itself. Slowly, he bent over to one side until he pressed a hand to the ground and stared at the tube upside-down.
A different perspective indeed.
Unlike the channel the lava currently oozed through, the tube sides and ceiling hung craggy and ridged, rife with areas to cling to. Ondorum straightened and regarded his hands. Did they shake? Did they tremble? Did the strength remain within him to attempt such a feat? He spent a little while longer studying the area, ensuring no other option presented itself. Returning to the tube, he assayed the best starting point.
Heat waves and caustic fumes washed over him as he neared, and the stones themselves steamed along the edges. The fumes bit into the back of his throat and threatened to send him hacking, and he prayed his elemental heritage protected him from the worst of the effects. After all, what was magma but earth mingled with fire? Surely his nature could withstand it to a degree. Was he not, in some distant way, kin to the liquid stone flowing before him?
From the tube's entrance, a thin shelf of rock edged out along the base of the inner wall for twenty feet or so before ending. He eased out onto this, making sure it didn't crumble beneath his weight and end the attempt before it began. The rock burned against his bare feet, but not quite hot enough to start sizzling. This portion of the wall formed into blocky, black rock, with ridges sharp enough to cut if he gripped them wrong. He saw how a certain pressure flaked the edges, while pushing another way ground the flakes to coat his fingers and palms, forming a grit that improved friction between his hands and the stone.
The heat wove around him as he took a breath to steady his mind. Irori, if failure is ever to impede my progress, let it not be here or now. May my skill be flawless for your glory. Before doubt could seep in and the acrid air start to overwhelm his lungs, he climbed.
The lower portion proved relatively easy, but he refused to let overconfidence turn his efforts sloppy. Heat radiated into his palms and the soles of his feet as he scaled the first fifty feet. By the time he reached the first section curving overhead, sweat dribbled down his face, back, and thighs, cutting channels of their own into the dust caking his body. With two more advances, he shifted out over the lava flow. Falling now gave him no chance of dropping back onto the shelf where he'd begun. As his perspective inverted, the pressure required to remain aloft doubled, then trebled. Ondorum kept his stomach pressed close to the stone, not letting any sag in his form add to the strain.
He breathed as shallowly as possible through a thin gap between his lips. Still, the fumes built inside him, shoving out the fresh air and replacing it with a burning tingle throughout his neck and chest. His eyes stung and watered, forcing him to pause between each movement to blink the tears away, clearing his vision so he could see his next handhold well enough. The heat ripples played with his sense of distance, and more than once, he reached out to grasp a ridge or press a palm against a surface to find it an inch or two further than he estimated.
His world turned upside down, and he tried to trick his mind into thinking he crawled through a bowl of roughened earth while the sky above burned with a sunset. His body became a composite of opposing pressures, each perfectly balanced to offset the other. It felt as if someone had tied a rope around his waist with a heavy rock at the other end, trying to force him to buckle and drag him back to earth. His joints clicked as he locked them into place. He would not bend. He would not break. He would be perfect in this moment. And then the next. And the next.
With his back to a river of the earth's very blood, each advance became a series of precise calculations as he gauged direction, weight, balance, force. Each successful reposition of a foot and hand became its own minute victory.
Halfway across the ceiling, he braced his left hand, secured both feet, and reached for a thorny, black ridge to press the right palm against. As he did, the corner he gripped with his left crumbled. He jammed the reaching hand against the ridge,
and the rocky spikes bit deep into the meat of his palm. Blood squeezed out between his fingers and slicked his whole hand. Keeping his breaths under control, refusing to let the pain master him, he sought a replacement hold for his left. Found it. Jammed fingertips into a crevice and prayed it held.
He withdrew his right hand and studied the damage: two puncture wounds, like fang bites, bruising already evident. He wiped the blood off on a leg, but by the time he repositioned it, more already welled. Nothing to be done but strive onward.
Below him, the lava burbled and hissed. A cloud of steam rose, enveloping him in a white haze. His arms and legs trembled as he tried to peer through it, unable to determine where next to move. Staying still would be his doom, but a blind leap would be equally disastrous.
The steam burned his eyes, blurring his vision further. How had the next portion of the ceiling looked before he lost sight of it? Which way should he go?
The steam congealed into a flat, white expanse; the exhaustion faded from his body. Any sense of up or down, of heat or chill, fled him, and it seemed as if he stood in an endless land without form or features. This must be death, then. Without realizing, he must've lost his hold and fallen into the lava. Now he waited in one of the realms beyond, where his soul would be weighed and parceled by Pharasma.
A vision wove into being before him, curling up like steam, yet with shadow and substance to set it apart from the rest of the nothingness. As it shivered into motion, he both saw and lived it in the same moment...
Ondorum and Akina slogged out of the swamp, mud and insects clinging to them with boot- and blood-sucking tenacity. Akina paused to scrape muck from her soles, but Ondorum trod straight for the village across the field, jaw set in barely checked fury.
Akina called after."Maybe we should hear them out. What if it's not what it seems?"
"She spoke the truth," Ondorum called back."And we are committed to our course. But I would still hear a full admission."
She grumbled behind him."Good thing we got paid half up front."