The Gilded Rune (forgotten realms)

by Lisa Smedman

  “Ah,” Eralynn said, looking somewhat mollified. “Still, even if the bar isn’t full value, it’s enough to pay your tithe. So keep it.”

  Torrin opened his mouth to thank Eralynn, but his eyes fell, just then, on the Merciful Maiden who had just appeared at the entrance. Maliira. Torrin held up his left hand to display the ribbons, and waved. Maliira nodded back at him. Was she smiling? He couldn’t tell. She crooked a finger, beckoning him closer.

  “You know her?” Eralynn said.

  “A little. Not as well as I’d like,” he replied.

  Eralynn suddenly turned and walked away.

  Torrin was taken aback by her abrupt departure. “Wait!” he called after her. “I wanted to thank…”

  But Eralynn had turned the corner. Torrin scratched his head. If he hadn’t known better, he might have guessed that she felt affection for him. But she’d made it clear many times in the past that they were just friends. Fellow Delvers, nothing more.

  He shrugged, then strode to the spot where Maliira stood. “You wanted to talk to me?” he asked her.

  “It’s your turn for a cleansing, it would seem,” Maliira told him. “Since you’re the only one left in line.”

  Torrin smiled. “Will you administer the blessing?”

  “No,” she replied, waving a hand at the people who were starting to venture-albeit timidly-back to the street in front of the temple. The line was beginning to reform. “I’m needed here, to keep order until the Steel Shields arrive. Some idiot, apparently, accused someone else in line of having the stoneplague, and nearly started a riot.”

  Torrin was thankful his beard hid the flush of his cheeks. “Ah. Yes. Stupid thing to do,” he said.

  “What he should have done was quietly pull the afflicted person aside and bring him to the front of the line, so we could heal him,” Maliira continued.

  “Yes, yes, of course. That’s exactly what he should have done,” Torrin agreed.

  Was it just his imagination, or was she giving him an accusing look?

  He needed to change the subject. “This time, I’ll be able to pay my tithe,” he said. He lifted the pouch Eralynn had given him and opened it with a flourish, drawing out the gold bar.

  Maliira took it from him and stared at it thoughtfully. For a moment, Torrin thought she was going to reject it as payment. She further alarmed him by glancing around somewhat furtively, and drawing her dagger.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is my tithe… insulting in some way?”

  “Quite the contrary,” she said. “It’s very generous. Now hold out your left hand.”

  Torrin did as he was bid.

  She sliced the two ribbons off his wrist. “Your debt is absolved,” the priestess said.

  Torrin rubbed his bare wrist. “But… I promised to pay for the previous two cleansings,” he said. “And I always keep my oaths.”

  Maliira didn’t seem to be listening to his protests.

  “I was told what you said in the Council chamber,” she said, sheathing her dagger. “You were very brave.”

  “I was merely doing my duty as a citizen of Eartheart,” he replied.

  “Yet you’re not a citizen. You’re human.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. As I told you the first time we met: I’m a dwarf.” He thumped his chest. “Here. On the inside.”

  “Regardless of whether that’s the truth or a pretty fantasy, you have the honor and the courage of a dwarf. It seems unfair you should pay when you’ve already done so much.”

  “Nevertheless, I will pay,” Torrin insisted. “As promised.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. “Is your insistence on payment just an excuse to dance with me on Midsummer Night?”

  Torrin grinned as he replied, “Does the coal in a forge glow red?”

  Maliira smiled. “Off you go, then,” she said. “Get cleansed. That way, they’ll have no excuse to haul you before the Council again.”

  “Until Midsummer then,” Torrin said.

  “Until Midsummer.”

  Torrin entered the temple, still grinning. He might have lost all of the gold in the earthmote, but somehow, ironically, his footsteps felt all the lighter. The weight of the gold had lain upon his shoulders, filling him with anxiety and guilt. In truth, he was glad to be rid of it. And he had something much, much better to look forward to.

  He still had to raise the hundred Anvils he’d stubbornly insisted on paying, but as a result of his foray into the Wyrmcaves, he realized the solution to that problem was already at hand. Once the other Delvers learned that the runestone was capable of taking them anywhere they wanted to go, they would pay Torrin whatever price he asked to transport them to their delves. Dorn, for example, would pay a pretty price to find the lost tomb of Velm Dragonslayer-and he was just the start.

  Whistling cheerfully, Torrin made his way to the temple’s lower level. After seeing Maliira again, a plunge into an ice-cold sacred pool was just the thing he needed.

  Interlude

  1306 DR THE YEAR OF THUNDER

  “A babe is more precious than gold. And twin babes, twice as precious.”

  Dwarven Proverb

  Moradin sat upon his throne, his warhammer resting across his knees, his bracers gleaming redgold in the light of the Soulforge. His long white beard lay against his chest and lap, hiding his smith’s apron and leather leggings. His expression was grim as he stared down upon the face of Faerun.

  “My children,” he observed. “They are diminishing.”

  Berronar Truesilver, matron of home and hearth, sat on her own massive stone throne beside her husband. She stared down at the clanholds of the dwarves, a hand stroking one of the four neat plaits of her beard. Her lips moved in silence as she counted. “I am saddened, my husband,” she noted. “Not since the fall of Bhaerynden to the drow have we seen so many empty clanholds.”

  “Many souls have been lost,” Moradin observed. He gestured toward the Soulforge, at the ghostly dwarves who stood in line behind it, awaiting their turn to be reforged. “Fewer of them return to us each year, and thus fewer each year are reborn. Something must be done.”

  He raised a clenched hand. A shield appeared in it. Moradin lifted his warhammer, and struck the shield. It rang like a gong, summoning the lesser deities who served him. Clanggedin Silverbeard was the first of the Morndinsamman to appear. He materialized at the right hand of Moradin, garbed for battle in blood-splattered chainmail, with a matched set of mithril axes in his hands. His eyes darted back and forth. “Am I summoned to battle?” he cried with a ferocious scowl. “Where is the enemy?”

  Moradin lowered his hammer and shield. “Stand easy, Lord of Battle,” he told Clanggedin Silverbeard. “I call you not to a contest of arms, but to a conference.”

  Clanggedin heaved a great sigh, disappointment etched plain on his face. He lowered his axes. “Very well, my Lord.”

  Dugmaren Brightmantle came hurrying in next, a heavy, leather-bound book tucked under one arm, his bright blue cloak fluttering behind him. The god of scholarship wore round-lensed spectacles, although, being divine, he had no real need for them. His long hair was thinning on top, and recessed at the temples. “You have need of my knowledge, my Lord?” he asked. His voice was a contradiction: a whisper that carried clearly.

  “Or my gold?” another voice asked. The speaker was Dumathoin, god of buried wealth, and the patron deity of those who mined and worked the earth’s noble metals and precious gems. Dumathoin was barrel-chested, with earth-brown skin and eyes that gleamed like silver. His arms were as well-muscled as those of a miner or a smith, and he carried a mattock in one hand. Rock dust smudged his face.

  “Indeed I do!” boomed a voice that was a duplicate of Moradin’s own. “Give it to me; I command you!” A hand thrust out from behind Moradin, pushing between his right arm and his side, pretending to be Moradin’s own.

  Moradin turned, and saw Vergadain crouching behind his throne. The trickster god let out a peal of laught
er as he pulled his hand back.

  Moradin would have chastised Vergadain, but was distracted as Sharindlar danced lightly into view. The goddess of healing and mercy was seductive in every movement, from the slightest toss of her flame red hair to the twitch of her delicate fingers. Desire rose in Moradin as his eyes lingered upon her curves-desire that he only just managed to quench as Berronar cleared her throat to remind him that his wife was seated next to him.

  Moradin turned and gave Berronar a rueful smile. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he continued to watch Sharindlar’s dance, as smitten as any mortal by her beauty.

  Abbathor was the final deity to respond to Moradin’s summons. He strolled in languidly, seemingly more interested in cleaning his fingernails with the point of his diamond-bladed dagger than in whatever the Lord of the Morndinsamman had to say. He would likely be of little assistance; Abbathor was well known for only being of aid when there was something he could gain in return.

  “I have summoned you on a matter that is vital to us all,” Moradin told the assembled gods. “Behold Faerun. The dwarves who dwell upon it are fewer in number than ever in their history. Our worshipers are diminishing. Should they decline too dramatically, it could spell our doom. For what are we gods, without mortals to pay us homage?”

  With that, he had even Abbathor’s attention.

  “I have done an accounting,” said Dugmaren. He opened his book and pushed his spectacles up with a finger so that they sat a little more firmly on his nose. “The trouble lies in the fact that not every dwarf soul reaches our realm. A certain portion are lost each year from the Fugue Plain. Some are snared by demons before we can claim them; others are lacking in faith and so stray from the path and lose their way. Still others are lost because they have sworn their allegiance to other deities, and thus are claimed by those gods.”

  “It fills me with such sorrow,” Berronar said, “to think that there are dwarves who lose their way back to hearth and home.”

  Moradin’s mind, however, was fixed on the latter point Dugmaren had raised. He stared down at the assembled Morndinsamman with a steely eye. “We Morndinsamman must work harder to keep our chosen people within the fold,” he said. “I will not have the fruits of my labors stolen from me!”

  “I must point out that only a small fraction of souls are lost to other gods,” Dugmaren hastily amended. “The greater number are lost because so many are dying in battle. There are simply too many dwarf souls wandering the Fugue Plain for us to collect them all.”

  “We must smite the enemies of the dwarves!” Clanggedin suddenly shouted. “Lay waste to those who are decimating the clanholds. Permit me to manifest on Faerun, Lord Moradin, and I shall lead the dwarf armies to victory!”

  “Fool,” Abbathor spat. “Leading the dwarves into battle will only cause them to die in even greater numbers. And then where will we be?” He pointed his dagger at the Soulforge. “Even more souls will be lost to the perils of the Fugue Plain. And those souls that do find their way here will be lined up at the Soulforge a thousand deep. There won’t be any dwarves left alive to worship us.”

  Clanggedin whirled to face Abbathor, his face red with wrath. “Since when do you care about the souls of the dead?” he shouted. “All you care about is how many offerings the living can heap upon your altars.”

  Clanggedin raised his paired axes. Dull red forge light glinted off their mithril blades. Abbathor roused from his slouch, his dagger at the ready.

  “Clanggedin! Abbathor!” Moradin shouted, his voice pealing like thunder. “I must remind you of your sworn oaths. Lower your weapons, the pair of you.”

  The two lesser deities held their glares a moment more. Then each did as Moradin had bid.

  Sharindlar broke the silence that followed. “It is not death we should be contemplating, but birth,” she said in a melodious voice. One hand strayed to her belly and caressed it, like a pregnant woman feeling for the life within. “The more dwarves who are born, the more worshipers we shall have.”

  “And how will we manage that?” Vergadain countered, leaning, somewhat irreverently, on the arm of Moradin’s throne. He strode over to the line of souls who waited before the Soulforge, approaching one near the front of the line-a graybeard whose ghostly form held a hand to the small of his back, as if he could still feel the aches a lifetime of toil had produced.

  Vergadain pretended to tap the graybeard on the shoulder; his fingers poked into the waiting soul. “Excuse me, good sir, but could you hurry up and be reborn?” he asked. “We Morndinsamman would appreciate it. Come to think of it, we’d appreciate it even more if you could find a way to be reborn twice over!”

  Vergadain laughed at his own joke. The other deities joined in the merriment. Even the normally dour Clanggedin laughed so hard he had to transfer his paired axes to one hand, so he could wipe the tears of mirth from his eyes with the other.

  Moradin suddenly leaned forward, his attention rapt as he stared at the identical axes Clanggedin held. His eye wandered to Sharindlar, who still had a hand on her belly, and he broke into a smile.

  “My thanks, gods of the Morndinsamman,” he said. “You have given me my answer.”

  Heads turned.

  “They have?” Berronar asked.

  Moradin rose from his throne. The graybeard who’d been the butt of Vergadain’s joke was at the head of the line. In a moment more, his soul would step into the Soulforge and be reborn. Moradin took the ghostly greybeard’s arm, and turned him. The soul, feeling the Dwarffather’s hand on his elbow, startled and turned. Then his eyes widened, and he trembled. A look of rapture flushed his face, and his eyes leaked tears of joy.

  “Dwarffather!” he exclaimed.

  Moradin held out a hand. “Clanggedin,” he demanded. “I have need of one of your axes.”

  Clanggedin didn’t hesitate. He extended the weapon.

  Moradin took the axe and raised it. The soul of the graybeard glanced up at the blade, not in fear, but in puzzlement. “Dwarffather,” he said in a voice as soft as mist. “Have I displeased you?”

  “Quite the contrary,” Moradin answered. He looked into the graybeard’s soul and saw much that pleased him: a lifetime of hard work, honest words, and respectful worship. “I am going to reward you. Your soul will be reborn not once, but twice.”

  Moradin released the graybeard’s arm. “So be it!” he cried, bringing the axe down in a powerful swing. It cleaved the graybeard in two equal, identical parts-two halves of the same mold.

  Before either could fall to the ground, Moradin dropped the axe and caught each half of the soul in a hand. Like a father lowering a babe to bed, he gently placed them into the Soulforge, one at either end of it.

  “Be reborn,” he intoned, his breath fanning the fires of the forge. “Not as one, but two. As twins.”

  The souls disappeared from the forge, already on their way back to Faerun. As they streaked like bolts of lighting toward the realm where mortals dwelled, thunder rumbled through the skies above a dwarf clanhold. In that clanhold was a dwarf woman whose womb would quicken not with one life, but with two.

  The Thunder Blessing had begun.

  Chapter Seven

  “Gold is tried by fire; men by adversity.”

  Delver’s Tome, Volume X, Chapter 93, Entry 76

  Torrin dreamed.

  In the dream, he sat at one end of a massive feast table in the great hall of Underhome, a place he’d heard the bards sing about. In his dream, it was still whole, not yet in ruin and overrun by drow. The walls were intact, and the furniture and chandeliers were unbroken. The intricate tapestry against the far wall, depicting the Morndinsamman grouped around Moradin’s throne, was vibrant and unfaded.

  A host of dwarves was gathered around the table where Torrin sat, feasting and chatting. Though he spoke Dwarvish fluently, Torrin couldn’t make out a word they said. Their voices were muffled, indistinct. Nor could he see them clearly. Their bodies wavered like candle flames seen through thick
, wavy glass.

  His own body was clear enough, though. Glancing down at himself, he saw that his chest was thicker, his legs shorter. The fingers that gripped his feast cup were short and blunt.

  He was a dwarf!

  Before he had time to rejoice at that, someone tugged at his sleeve. He glanced to one side and saw-clearly-a dwarf whose white beard trailed so far behind him that it stretched out of the door. The longbeard wore a blacksmith’s leather apron and leggings, and bracers of solid gold. The smell of charcoal smoke clung to him. He placed a wooden strongbox on the table in front of Torrin.

  “What’s inside?” Torrin asked, nodding at the box.

  “A puzzle,” the blacksmith said.

  Torrin opened the box. Inside was the runestone he’d purchased from Kendril-except that it was made not of stone, but of gold.

  Torrin lifted it out.

  Suddenly, the runestone turned red hot. Torrin gasped and dropped it on the table, where it turned into a puddle of molten gold. The chest and table became an enormous pile of kindling, which went up in flames. The dwarf revelers who had been seated around it likewise burst into flame and melted in an instant to glowing heaps of slag.

  Torrin turned to the blacksmith, seeking an explanation, but the longbeard had turned into a statue. He stood, stiff and gray, with cracked-mud skin and eyeballs like chipped white marbles. Soon his statue crumbled into a heap on the floor, leaving only the apron, leggings, and bracers behind. A moment later, the bracers melted into twin puddles of molten gold, just as the runestone had.

  Curiously, though the blacksmith was gone, he still could speak.

  “You must help me,” the statue dwarf pleaded in a voice like cracking stone. “No one else can.”

  “How?” Torrin said. “How can I help you?”

  Silence whispered through the great hall, stirring up nothing but dust.

  Torrin awoke with a start, his heart thudding. That dream! What had it meant? Trouble, obviously-he could feel it-but in what form? And from where?