by Lisa Smedman
“He could have heard about it after the fact,” Torrin said. “And once the scouting mission is a success, and the curse is lifted, you’ll be a hero. No one would dare besmirch your honor.”
“What does it matter what they say? They’ll know.” Baelar said, gesturing angrily. “And the men under my command won’t trust me. Not fully. Nor will High Commander Steeleye.”
Torrin suddenly felt hollow with remorse. He suddenly understood the cryptic comments the Lord Scepter had just made about keeping an eye on any squad members who didn’t appear fully ‘loyal.’ The Lord Scepter had seen the wisdom of putting a captain who spoke duergar in charge of the mission, yet he still had his reservations about Baelar.
And, thanks to Torrin, so would everyone else.
Baelar shook his head. “What you’ve done can’t be undone,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do about it now. The part that really stings is that you betrayed my trust. And if you think that’s going to earn you a place on the squad-which will have trust as its very foundation-then you’re even less of a man than I took you for.”
Torrin winced.
Baelar glared up at Torrin. “No dwarf would ever do what you did, back there in the High Commander’s office. No dwarf with any honor. Honor is the marrow in our bones.” Ruefully, he shook his head. “That’s something no human will ever understand.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.
Standing in the echoing hall, Torrin felt like a clod of dirt tossed into a puddle. All the pride he’d felt a short time before, in the Lord Scepter’s chambers, had just leached out of him. He stood as if rooted to the spot, not acknowledging the Steel Shields who passed by-officers who’d heard how he’d discovered that the duergar were behind the stoneplague; officers who honored him with their bows. Yet Torrin felt as empty as the dome above his head.
“Baelar,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
But Baelar was gone.
Torrin had been so certain he’d done the right thing. But had he?
He was even questioning the belief that was at his very core. Was Baelar right? Was Torrin truly a dwarf? Or had he been deluding himself all those years?
Perhaps it was all just wishful thinking, as the loremaster his mother had consulted had said. Perhaps knowing how to use the mace didn’t mean anything. Perhaps he was just what everyone said.
Human.
He glanced down at the bracers on his wrists. At the star that he’d believed with his whole heart, right up until that moment, marked him as a reincarnated soul from the fabled Ironstar clan. Did he truly deserve to wear them?
Torrin closed his eyes and hung his head.
“Am I truly a dwarf reforged, Moradin?” Torrin whispered. “Is it truly your will that I should continue to walk this path? I pray, Dwarffather, show me a sign.”
The chamber brightened. Torrin opened his eyes and glanced up. The sun had risen directly above the center of the dome. It shone in through the dome’s central panel-the only clear pane of glass in the ceiling. A beam of sunlight transfixed the spot where Torrin stood. He looked down and saw that he stood on a pace-wide circle of mithril at the center of the chamber. The precious metal gleamed like a mirror under his feet, catching and holding his reflected image. A quirk of the reflective surface made it look as though Torrin was half his height, his body broader and thicker than it actually was. Short and stout: a dwarf.
Torrin fell to his knees, the silver hammers in his beard twinkling in the sunlight. “So be it, Dwarffather,” he vowed. “I shall serve as you command.”
Torrin took a deep breath, steeling himself. He’d made his preparations. His Delver’s pack was secure on his shoulders, hidden by his cloak; his goggles were positioned on his forehead, ready for use. The magical potions and ring he’d coaxed out of Delvemaster Frivaldi were secure in his pockets and on his finger.
He stood just outside the city, not too far from the spot where Eartheart’s massive stone walls met the edge of the East Rift. As a boy, he’d often visited the natural lookout point. In the distance, a Peacehammer rode his griffon, their shadow streaking across the glittering expanse of the Riftlake, far below. A haunting screee drifted on the wind.
The sun was setting. The moment had come. He glanced around, making sure he was the only one on the lonely ledge. Then he kneeled. “Marthammor Duin,” he prayed, “Watcher over Wanderers, guide my steps. Find the way for me, and make my path smooth.”
He pulled his goggles into place, closed his eyes, and formed a mental image of the library cubicle as Cathor had described it-a small chamber with a thick pane of glass that looked into the library proper. Below that connecting window was a counter with a glass top. When a patron of the library wished to study a particular tablet, the librarians would slide it into a drawer in the counter, and the patron viewed it through the glass. Runes etched into the countertop ensured that patrons didn’t use magic to reach through and touch a tablet; those who tried triggered lethal magical effects.
Now that he knew the command words that activated the runestone, it should be possible, Torrin thought, to teleport into the cubicle. The temple’s library was open not only to duergar, but also to their allies-the handful of humans, deep gnomes, and derro that called Drik Hargunen home. The chamber would certainly bear wards against true dwarves, but someone like Torrin-a dwarf with an indisputably human body-should be able to slip through.
“The library of the Runescribed Hall of Laduguer’s Graving,” he commanded the runestone. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin, take me to it, now!”
Spellfire flared around him, its blue glare bright against his closed eyelids. Torrin felt the twist as he slid between one place and the next. A moment later, he landed, still kneeling, on a rough stone floor. He opened his eyes. Through the one lens that remained in his goggles, he saw that he was in an unlit room with a ceiling low enough that his head would have brushed it, had he been standing. The room was covered in overlapping lines-a myriad of glyphs carved into the stone. The small chamber had a dwarf-high door in one wall and a window set into the opposite wall at what would have been the level of his chest. Below the window was a glass-topped counter.
He’d done it! He was inside Drik Hargunen!
Spellfire crackled around his knees, bleeding away into the floor. The stone under his knees was warm, but the warmth dissipated rapidly. Torrin scrambled over to the window and peered into the library proper. Duergar librarians bustled back and forth between the shelves, but none seemed to have noticed his arrival. So far, so good. He put the runestone inside his pack to keep it safe. Then he made his way to the door, and opened it a crack.
A hallway ran right and left. It had doors similar to the one he was peering through, likely leading to other cubicles. Faint murmurs came from behind some of them, probably the voices of library patrons. At the end of the hallway was a black metal door, inscribed with a large glyph surrounded by a multitude of smaller inscriptions. In fact, the hallway was covered in glyphs, too. Any one of them might trigger a magical alarm or a deadly trap.
Torrin reached up to stroke his beard, and halted as his hand touched blunt-ended braids. He’d had to remove Moradin’s hammers from his beard; the braids ended where he’d cut them. Likewise, he’d reluctantly left behind his bracers, lest their distinctive Ironstar rune give him away. His forearms felt naked without them. His mace, however, was at his hip. Though it was a mission that required stealth, he couldn’t very well walk through an enemy city without some protection.
He pulled a thumb-sized vial out of his pocket, uncorked it, and drank. The potion would temporarily allow him to spot anything that was ensorcelled. It tasted faintly of mushrooms. He gagged it down with a shudder.
Within a heartbeat or two, the potion took effect. Several of the inscriptions in the hallway acquired a faint, sparkling glow.
Cathor had said the exit lay to the right. Moving cautiously, careful not to tread on any magical inscription, Torrin made his way to
that door. He could stand upright there; the arched ceiling was at least a handspan above his head. He glanced around as he walked, taking care not to let his shoulders brush the walls, and found he could read many of the inscriptions. The duergar spoke a separate dialect, yet they wrote with the same runes as the dwarves. Most of the inscriptions appeared to be prayers-the name Laduguer was repeated over and over again. None of the names bore a magical glow, but Torrin took care not to touch them anyway.
He reached the door without incident and eased it open.
The door led to a balcony with an iron floor and roof that were bolted onto the wall of an enormous natural chimney in the rock. The vast vertical tunnel was honeycombed with corridors leading into the rock and fronted with similar balconies. Arching ramps, also made of iron, connected each balcony to a spiral staircase at the center of the chimney. Scores of bald-headed duergar moved up and down the central staircase, intent on their business, passing across the bridges to the corridors bored into the rock. They moved for the most part in silence, barely acknowledging each other as they passed. Their hobnailed boots clanked on the metal steps. The only other sounds were the hiss of the chill, soot-tinged air through the cavern and the steady thud, thud, thud of something heavy and mechanical far below. Huge inscriptions, each glyph taller than a cottage, spelled out words on the chimney walls: “Silence. Toil. Obedience.”
Torrin rested his hands on the balcony’s grimy railing and leaned out, looking up. Just above was the rest of the Runescribed Hall of Laduguer’s Graving, temple to the god Laduguer. Its outermost walls were made of iron and bolted to the natural rock. They bulged out from the wall like an angular shield, protecting the corridors and rooms within. Two enormous metal doors, each bearing a brightly glowing glyph, marked the temple’s entrance. They were closed, likely locked and warded. Torrin hoped to get inside by subterfuge. His plan was to pose as a human slaver who needed the services of a cleric to scry out a particularly valuable escaped slave. But if that didn’t work-if he couldn’t convince Laduguer’s clerics to let him inside-there was always the magical ring that Delvemaster Frivaldi had loaned Torrin. All he had to do was knock, and any lock would open.
Torrin stepped back, brushing the soot from his palms. It was going to be dangerous. But he had to try.
He crossed the bridge to the central staircase and made his way up the wide metal stairs. Each step was a grill of metal, and the view below was dizzying. Torrin passed several duergar, each of whom lifted his or her normally downturned head to stare sullenly at him as he passed. Their eyes bored into his back as he climbed. The women were bare-cheeked, and the men wore beards that reminded Torrin of animal quills-each strand of hair was as thick as the spine of a feather and bristling stiffly from cheeks and chin. All had black eyes and dull gray skin. Torrin repressed a shudder. He reminded himself that it was their natural coloration and not the stoneplague.
Other creatures moved up and down the staircase as well. Grimlock slaves, a full head taller than the duergar, walked bent over as if worn down by their servitude. They had normal noses and mouths, but no eyes-just empty sockets covered by flaps of skin. Large, cupped ears helped compensate for their natural blindness. Most carried heavily loaded baskets or other burdens.
The grimlocks wore clothing little better than rags, tattered and stained. Lash marks-some healed, some fresh and weeping-covered their shoulders and backs. One grimlock stank of rotting flesh; maggots squirmed in an untended wound on his mangled hand.
Torrin swallowed down his bile. The sight of how the duergar treated their slaves made him sick. He started to whisper a prayer for the wretched slaves’ souls, but halted himself just in time. With his eyes down, he plodded on up the stairs.
Just above was the bridge leading to the temple. A pair of duergar wearing gray hooded mantles and riding boots and carrying lances over the shoulders had just started across to the temple. Torrin decided to wait until they had disappeared into the temple before trying to enter himself. He slowed down and let other duergar pass him. One hurried up the stairs, elbowing aside a grimlock. Already unbalanced by a basket filled with tubers, the slave stumbled sideways and threw out a hand to steady himself. He was about to touch one of two nearby runes that glowed with magic. Not the benign sounding burakrin, meaning “passage,” but the one that read bazcorl — “fiery death.”
Before the slave’s hand could make contact with the rune, Torrin shoved him. The slave lurched forward, and his hand came to rest on a non-magical part of the wall, instead. Unfortunately for him, he stumbled into the duergar who’d elbowed him aside. Tubers spilled from the slave’s basket and bounced off the duergar’s head and shoulders before rolling down the stairs. Some tumbled off the edge of the staircase and spun away out of sight.
The duergar whirled and spat out angry words. Torrin couldn’t understand the dialect, and at first thought the duergar was berating the slave. One word, however, he recognized: “human.” The sneer on the duergar’s lips made it clear he intended it as an insult. And he was staring down at Torrin!
Torrin had no idea what was expected of a human in Drik Hargunen. Should he answer the fellow’s insult with one of his own? Bow meekly and ask forgiveness? The duergar carried himself as if he were someone important-a noble, no doubt. He wore an expensive-looking cloak and several gold rings, some of which were glowing to Torrin’s potion-enhanced eyesight. His spiky beard glowed with magic as well.
Torrin bowed his head. “My apologies,” he said in Dwarvish. “I tripped.”
The noble’s eyebrows rose. With his quill beard bristling, he shouted something at Torrin. Immediately, the slave fell to his knees, trembling. Above, one of the duergar who’d been crossing the bridge to the temple glanced back at what was happening and halted abruptly. On the staircase below Torrin-all around him in fact-other duergar had gathered. They were staring at him with each passing moment, nudging each other, and muttering.
Torrin swallowed. He bowed again at the highranking duergar and tried backing away down the stairs. But something pressed into his back, blocking his path. He glanced behind him and saw what must have been one of Drik Hargunen’s guards, wearing an iron breastplate and a small round helmet. He’d turned his quarterstaff sideways, to block Torrin’s path.
Meanwhile, the hooded duergar who had halted on the temple bridge waved his companion on and headed back to the staircase, his lance at the ready. He shouted something at the noble, who shook his head and gestured angrily at Torrin as the tips of the quills oozed a blood red substance that let off tiny wisps of sulfurous smelling smoke. Poison?
Things weren’t going at all well.
“I’m newly arrived in Drik Hargunen,” Torrin explained in Dwarvish, hoping the noble could understand him. “I meant no offense. I’ll just be on my way now.”
The gray-hooded duergar with the lance had reached the staircase. The knot of onlookers parted for him. Clearly, he was someone important, too. The lance alone looked valuable, with an intricately carved shaft and a large black star sapphire set into the shaft just below the blade. The gem had a crack running through it that had nearly split it in two. It reminded Torrin of something. Laduguer’s holy symbol was a broken crossbow bolt… Was the broken gemstone something similar? Was he a cleric of Laduguer?
“You there,” the cleric said in Dwarvish, pointing down at Torrin. “Slaver. Discipline your chattel.” He jutted his chin in the direction of the cowering slave.
Torrin was grateful for the cleric’s mistake. If they thought the grimlock was his slave, it would make things easier. Torrin had planned to pose as a slave trader, and the grimlock was opportunity to make himself look legitimate. He forced a scowl onto his face and kicked the cowering grimlock. “Apologize for your clumsiness, slave!” he bellowed.
The grimlock let out a howl.
The noble sneered and said something to the guard who stood behind Torrin. The quarterstaff nudged Torrin forward. He stumbled up a step.
The cleric flick
ed a hand, catching Torrin’s eye. “Stupid human,” he shouted. “Do you think you’re invincible — that you’ve been drinking dragon’s blood? Kill that grimlock, or your life is forfeit. Your slave has touched a klegesk! You’re both about to be quilled!”
Torrin blinked in surprise. Dragon’s blood? He suddenly noticed the cleric’s gnarled hand. That was no duergar. That was Baelar, in disguise! He’d just risked the entire mission to intervene, despite what Torrin had done earlier.
“Quit trying to protect your property, human!” Baelar commanded. “Throw him off the staircase. Now!”
Torrin was appalled. Surely there was some other way to escape than murdering an innocent slave! Baelar obviously didn’t like it much, either. Torrin could see the sadness in his eyes that belied his apparently firm, commanding voice.
Torrin swallowed. He knew what was expected of him. The mission depended on it. The lives of people like Kier depended upon it. Yet he just couldn’t kill the slave. Not when there was another way out.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. And he meant it. It was something else Baelar would have to forgive him for. He smacked a hand against the second magical rune on the wall beside him, the one that read “passage.” Instantly, he felt the familiar wrench of a teleportation spell.
As it whisked him away, he heard shouts. The noble’s beard exploded quills that left streaks of smoke as they sped toward him.
Torrin vanished from the bridge, the quills shattering against the wall where he’d stood.
Torrin landed face down in something warm and squishy. He came up sputtering and spitting, frantically wiping the stinking mess from his face. It smelled as though he’d landed in a latrine. The taste of it on his lips made him gag. He heard more than one large creature moving nearby, and low-throated grunts. He dragged a sleeve across the one lens of his goggles. Suddenly, he could see in the darkness.
He’d been teleported to what looked like a slave pen. The walls were gray granite; the floor in the corner where he’d landed was slippery with feces. Between Torrin and the padlocked iron grate that closed off the pen, three huge, muscular ogres stared at him, dull-eyed with surprise. One scratched its head, the chain connecting its wrist to the wall clanking as its hand moved. The other two bared vicious tusks. Drool dribbled from their mouths. Like the first ogre, they were chained to the wall. Yet that chain was plenty long enough for them to reach Torrin.