by Lisa Smedman
Torrin listened avidly, temporarily forgetting the dire circumstances he was in. He had hoped the clerics’ examination might have revealed some clue as to the runestone’s function, but Frivaldi made no mention of whether the clerics had probed its magic. Nor did he so much as glance at Torrin, even when he turned to leave. There was no encouraging nod, no sympathetic look.
But Torrin understood why. If a member of the order had indeed brought plague to the city, the Delvers would be disgraced, even reviled. The fact that Torrin was a second-rank member, a mere “human,” would have little bearing.
Torrin’s shoulders slumped. He’d hoped Frivaldi would support him. But it was as if the Delvemaster had mentally closed the door on Torrin, no longer recognizing him as a member of the order. That stung. One day, assuming he survived the Council meeting, Torrin would prove to Delvemaster Frivaldi that he was, indeed, still worthy of being called a Delver.
Maliira was the next one called to the Council chamber. Questioned by the Deep Lords, the priestess confirmed that Torrin had sought a cleansing at the temple in Hammergate before entering Eartheart proper. She assured the Council that the cleansing had been properly performed, and that Torrin had been free of any contagion when he left the temple.
“And did he pass directly through the city gates afterward?” asked a Deep Lord in the front row who wore a red doublet.
“That I cannot say,” Maliira admitted. “I was busy with another supplicant.”
The Deep Lord nodded behind his hood, as if that was significant. “So for all we know,” he continued, “he may have had dealings with others who carried the stoneplague during his walk between the temple and the city gates?”
“My Lords,” Torrin protested. “I assure you, I did not. I came directly-”
“You will speak only when bid, human!” another Deep Lord thundered back. He shook his finger at Torrin, his sleeve falling back to reveal an elaborate silver bracer.
Torrin’s jaw clenched in frustration. Seething inside, he bowed his head. “My apologies.”
The Deep Lord who’d just spoken glanced around at his fellows, his eyes glittering from behind his hood. “It will shock you to learn that yesterday, a man believed to be suffering from the stoneplague was reported within Hammergate itself,” he said. “A suspicious looking dwarf with a gray tinge to his skin. Could he have been another of this human’s companions, I wonder?”
“More to the point,” a Deep Lord seated just to the left of the Lord Scepter added, in a quavering voice that betrayed his age, “the human admitted having had dealings with this Kendril fellow long before his misadventure at Needle Leap. It’s entirely possible these ‘negotiations’ carried the stoneplague to our doorsteps a tenday ago!”
Torrin opened his mouth to protest that his earlier negotiations with Kendril had been through a third party, not in person. Then he realized that, no matter what he said, the Council wouldn’t listen. Not at the moment. He closed his eyes to steady himself as whispers of suspicion chased each other around the room. When they stopped, he tried to gauge the reaction of the Lord Scepter, but the head of the Council was glaring off into space, not looking in Torrin’s direction.
The Council had no further questions for Maliira. She, at least, met Torrin’s eye as she left, but with so fleeting a glance that he couldn’t tell if it was meant to express sympathy-or sorrow.
As the doors closed behind her, the Lord Scepter raised a hand. Silence fell upon the room. “By show of hands,” he said, “who believes this human to be at fault, to have brought the stoneplague to our city?”
Torrin glanced quickly around the room and saw more than one Deep Lord-in fact, most of them-shifting slightly in their seats, starting to raise their hands. Torrin could contain himself no longer. “Lord Scepter!” he cried. “If you’re going to sentence me to death, I must know how to reply to Moradin, when he asks me to list my sins! I invoke the Treaty of the Hammer, which allows a condemned man-no matter what his race-to ask a single question, and have it answered.”
Silence fell. Heads turned.
“And your question?” the Lord Scepter asked.
Torrin drew a deep breath. “ Is the stoneplague in our city?”
Several Deep Lords gasped behind their hoods. The two knights flanking Torrin bristled, their weapons ready. But, Torrin noted wryly, they seemed as interested in the answer as he was.
The Lord Scepter patted the air. “At ease, knights,” he said. His chuckle surprised Torrin-and more than a few of the Deep Lords, judging by the way the hooded heads turned. “He may be human, but he knows our laws. And more to the point, there is no harm in answering him.”
He stared down at Torrin. “The quarantine has done its work. Not a single case of the stoneplague has been reported in Eartheart. Nor has it been confirmed, I might add, that the man spotted in Hammergate yesterday actually had the stoneplague. That, as far as I am aware, is mere rumor.”
Torrin nodded. “Thank you, Lord Scepter,” he said with a bow. “Do with me what you will.”
Lord Scepter Bladebeard stared down at him for several moments. Then he spoke. “By show of hands-Who believes this human to be innocent?”
Torrin’s eyes widened. Had he heard correctly? The change in the Lord Scepter’s question was subtle, but significant. “Innocent,” he’d said. Several of the Deep Lords also appeared startled by the shift in emphasis.
“I might also point out,” the Deep Lord continued, “that if this man’s dealings had resulted in contaminated objects entering our city, we would surely have seen evidence of the stoneplague within our gates by now. As well, we have heard how he sought out a cleansing in Sharindlar’s sacred pool. Does that sound, to any of you, like the action of a man who cares nothing for our welfare?”
Lord Scepter Bladebeard’s eyes swept the chamber, lingering momentarily on the hooded face of each of the Deep Lords present. Slowly, a smattering of hands rose. Then more, and still more, until the majority of the Deep Lords had their hands in the air.
Torrin let out a relieved sigh. He wanted to laugh aloud, but that would be unseemly. Instead he assumed a suitably dour expression-but inwardly he wore a beard-splitting grin.
“Delver Torrin,” the Lord Scepter said. “You are absolved of any wrongdoing. Your sole fault is for not coming forward sooner. We bid you now to leave our Chamber; we have much to discuss.”
The knights on either side of Torrin snapped to attention. They barely allowed Torrin to bow his thanks-low and deep, until the silver hammers in his beard brushed the floor-before grabbing his elbows and hustling him from the Council chamber.
Torrin walked down the hallway with a newfound confidence. The Deep Lords had the matter in hand. The stoneplague would not spread to Eartheart, despite Torrin’s tardiness in coming before them.
“Praise Moradin,” Torrin whispered. “We’re safe.”
It was only after he was back on the city streets that he realized something. Lord Scepter Bladebeard had called him by his dwarf name. Not Daffyd, the name Torrin’s human parents had given him, but Torrin.
Moradin had indeed bestowed a blessing today.
“Uncle Torrin!” Kier cried, leaping up from the breakfast table and nearly tripping over the bench in his excitement. “I heard you were ordered before the Council last night. Tell me all about it! What happened?”
“Kier!” his father Haldrin chided. “Mind your manners. Torrin may not want to speak of it.” But from the way Haldrin leaned avidly forward, peering at Torrin from behind his spectacles, he was obviously hoping to hear Torrin answer the question.
Torrin chuckled to himself and tousled Kier’s hair. “He’s still a boy, Haldrin.”
“He’s old enough to know his manners,” Haldrin replied. “Being summoned by the Council is no light matter. Are you all right? Did they…” As if suddenly realizing he too was asking questions, he changed the topic abruptly. “Sit down. You look exhausted. You must be famished.”
Torrin did s
o. He was grateful to be sitting down, despite the fact that his knees knocked the underside of the table. He accepted a bowl of cinnamon-scented oat porridge from Gimrick, the gnome who served Clan Thunsonn.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Torrin answered. “They met to discuss the stoneplague. They were worried that I…”
Just at that moment, Ambril entered the room. She settled herself on the bench beside her husband, her pregnant stomach making her awkward and unbalanced.
Torrin quickly amended what he’d been about to say. “They knew I’d recently had dealings with a fellow from Helmstar,” he continued. “The stoneplague is as thick as fleas in an unwashed beard there, and they wanted to ensure I’d been properly cleansed before entering Eartheart.”
“Were you?” Ambril asked. She leaned back from the table, staring in wide-eyed alarm at the spoon Torrin had just taken a mouthful of porridge from, as if it were a venomous serpent.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Torrin assured her, even though he knew it would make little difference. “The Deep Lords themselves decreed that I posed no danger.”
Haldrin patted his wife’s shoulder. “There,” he said. “You see? Nothing to worry about, dear.”
Kier settled himself on the bench beside Torrin, ignoring his mother’s frantic hand signals to sit somewhere else. “Were they all wearing hoods, Uncle?”
“All except the Lord Scepter,” Torrin replied.
The boy shook his head. “Ridiculous! What did they think you were-some sort of drow assassin?”
Torrin lowered his spoon with a sigh. “It’s what they thought I wasn’t,” he said.
Kier nodded as his eyes gleamed with boyish indignation. “You should have taken me along,” he said. “I would have told them you’re no human.” Just eight years old, Kier was a long way off from sprouting the first hairs of a beard like his father’s, yet Torrin often caught glimpses of the boy’s grandfather in him. Kier had the same daring that had made Baelar Thunsonn one of the most renowned of the knights colloquially known as “skyriders.” No doubt Kier would become a Peacehammer and ride a griffon himself, one day.
Torrin noted the uncomfortable silence that had descended upon the other side of the breakfast table. Ambril and Haldrin were suddenly very interested in their porridge.
Torrin sighed. The Thunsonn Clan had taken him in and given him a home within the city. But that had been an act of charity, prompted by his friendship with Eralynn and cemented by his acceptance into the Delvers. To most of Clan Thunsonn, Torrin might act and dress and pay fervent homage to the Morndinsamman, but he was just a peculiar human.
“Thanks, Kier,” Torrin said. “I’d have been proud to have you by my side.” He grinned across the table at the boy’s parents. “Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary.”
“You’re not being banished, then?” Haldrin asked, finally looking up.
“You’re not rid of me yet,” Torrin said jokingly.
“That’s good,” Haldrin replied, his voice equally deadpan. “If we did lose you, we’d have no one to reach items down from the highest shelves. Poor Gimrick would have to resort to his ladder again-and we all know what a fright that would put into him.”
Everyone around the table chuckled-even Ambril, who at last seemed to have reassured herself that Torrin was not, indeed, a danger to her unborn babes. The family resumed their breakfast in companionable silence.
As they ate, Torrin eased his pack from his shoulders and set it on the bench beside him. The runestone, having being thoroughly examined by the clerics, had been returned to him, and was back inside his pack.
“I do have other news,” Torrin told them. “Soon enough, if the gods are willing, I’ll be setting out on my quest for the Soulforge. I finally have what I need to find it.”
Ambril and Haldrin nodded, only partially listening. Ambril’s twin sister Mara had just come into the room, and was enquiring about the pregnancy. Fair enough-the Thunsonn Clan had heard Torrin go on more than once about his quest.
Kier, however, was all ears. “What, Uncle Torrin?” he asked. “What have you got? Tell me!”
Pleased by the boy’s interest-and understanding how hard it was to be a singleton, in a race where Moradin’s thunder blessing consistently produced twins-Torrin dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “A magical runestone,” he confided. “Want to see it?”
Kier’s rapid nod was all the encouragement that Torrin needed.
“It’s going to be the greatest delve of all,” Torrin told him as he undid his pack. “And this-” he took the runestone out and unwrapped it “-is going to lead me straight to it.”
Kier studied the runestone. “How?”
Torrin shrugged. “I still have to figure that one out.”
“Can I hold it?” Kier asked.
“Why not? Here you go.”
“I’ve planned a delve of my own,” Kier said as he avidly examined the runestone.
“Oh really? Where to?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Even from me, your favorite delving partner?” Torrin chided, humoring the boy.
“You can’t come, Uncle,” the boy said. “I have to do this one solo. There… isn’t room for you.”
Torrin chuckled, wondering which unwatched pantry or dusty storeroom was going to be the subject of the boy’s “delve.” Gimrick had better count his carving knives, lest some “ancient dagger” be plundered. “I hope you’ve made all your preparations,” he told Kier.
“I’m ready,” the boy assured him.
“And that you’ll show me what you’ve delved, once you’re back.”
“Of course. You’ll be the first to see whatever I find!”
Torrin smiled. If only the Delvers would show as much enthusiasm! Yet despite Torrin’s fervent prayers, the gods had yet to convince anyone from the order to join Torrin’s quest for the Soulforge. Likely, he thought ruefully, he’d have to wait for Kier to become a man, in order to finally have a delving partner.
He shook his head. “Moradin grant it,” he said to himself, “that my quest is complete before the boy is as old as that.”
Chapter Four
“The gold you have yet to win gleams the brightest.”
Delver’s Tome, Volume IV, Chapter 3, Entry 23
"You’re in trouble, ” a childlike voice said.
Torrin turned and saw Gimrick hurrying up the stair behind him. The gnome servant kept one hand on the iron handrail that was set into the wall. His eyes remained firmly on Torrin, never once glancing down at the canyon floor where the Riftlake sparkled in the sunlight, far below. Gimrick’s face was pale under his short gray beard. Whatever he’d come to tell Torrin, it must have been urgent. Otherwise, Gimrick would have used one of the interior spiral staircases instead.
Torrin squatted on the steps. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Ambril’s looking everywhere for you. She’s furious!”
“Why?”
A dwarf squeezed past them on the stair. Gimrick clung with both hands to the handrail and closed his eyes as she brushed past. “You were supposed to take Kier with you to the market today,” he said.
Torrin smacked his forehead. “I forgot. And I promised him a toy shield, too.” He started to rise. “I’ll go back and fetch him, then.”
“You can’t,” said the gnome.
“Why not?”
“That’s the trouble. Kier’s vanished. Ambril can’t find him, and she says it’s your fault for not minding him.”
Torrin sighed. Kier was always wandering off somewhere, but the boy didn’t need minding. He was eight years old and big enough not to trip over anyone’s beard. “He’s probably just hiding again,” Torrin said with a laugh. “That’s Ambril for you, making mineshafts out of dungholes. Always worrying. Remember the last time, how she was convinced the drow had kidnapped Kier for sacrifice? Turned out he was in the armory, trying on helms. Safe and sound, aside from the bump he got when the shield fell on his head.�
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“But what if he’s left the city?” Grimrick said, fretting. “With the quarantine, it could be a tenday or more before he gets back in again. The clerics can’t keep up with the new arrivals, especially now that the caravan’s arrived from Delzimmer. They say the tent city has attracted a number of unscrupulous characters. Kier could run afoul of a rogue.”
“That would be bad,” Torrin said with a frown. Then he shrugged. “But even Kier would know better than to leave the city when there’s a quarantine in place.”
“But-”
“He’ll turn up, Gimrick,” Torrin assured the gnome. “I’m certain of it.”
“Ambril’s not.”
Torrin sighed. Despite his reassurances that the Council had proclaimed Eartheart free of the stoneplague, the contagion elsewhere in the Deeps had taken its toll on Ambril. In the days since the gates had closed, she’d been imagining her only child in the clutches of a plague-wracked denizen of the Deeps who’d slipped in past the guard. Her pregnancy only made it worse. Her shrill tirades followed Kier everywhere, like a shadowing cloaker. Don’t touch anyone, even tallfolk. Don’t touch the handrail when climbing the stair. Don’t accept food or drink from strangers. On and on she went. Torrin was certain that most of it went in one ear and out of the other. Kier had an independent streak and had always forged his own path, no matter what anyone said. It probably came from being a singleton.
Torrin turned to go back down the stair, resigned to searching for the boy. “Thanks for letting me know about Kier, Gimrick. Tell Ambril I’ll find him. I’m sure he’s in the clanhold, somewhere.”
The gnome caught his arm-with both hands. “No, wait! There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” he said. “Baelar’s griffon is missing from the eyrie. I think Kier took it.”
“What makes you say that?” Torrin asked, startled.
“Just… Opel acted strange when I asked him why the boy wasn’t helping him muck out the eyrie. He claimed not to know where Kier was, even though those two are as tight as rogues. And he paused to think a moment when I asked where Baelar’s griffon was.”