The Gilded Rune (forgotten realms)

by Lisa Smedman

  “Grast,” the orc said.

  Torrin pulled his dagger out of his pack and offered it to the orc. “It’s not magical,” he explained. “But at least it’s something. It might help you get out of here.”

  Grast juggled the blade in one hand, testing its balance. Torrin, meanwhile, peered cautiously into the corridor-which, praise Moradin, was empty of guards-and used his ring to once again knock open the padlock. He swung the grate open slowly, making sure it didn’t squeak, and stepped out of the slave pen. Grast followed close on his heels.

  “No go cave, human,” the orc cautioned again as he eased the grate shut and replaced the padlock. “Gold no worth it.”

  “I’m a dwarf, actually,” Torrin said. “And yes, it will be worth it.”

  Grast gave him one last puzzled look. Then he shrugged and hurried away.

  Torrin glanced around. Then he spoke into his brooch. “Lord Scepter. Can you hear me?”

  No response.

  “I’ve learned where the rune was inscribed,” he continued.

  Still no response. Torrin grimaced in frustration. Was the Lord Scepter simply not listening, or was some rune in the tunnel blocking the brooch’s magic? Just in case the Lord Scepter could hear him, Torrin quickly told what he’d just learned, keeping his voice low. He whispered a quick prayer that the Lord Scepter had heard him, and would find a way to communicate the information to the squad.

  In the meantime, Torrin was on his own. He had to assume that the orc hadn’t lied to him, and that he was correct about the rune’s location.

  Torrin headed for the tunnel where the spiderriding duergar had passed him. Assuming Grast’s map was accurate, that tunnel eventually connected with the large cavern where the rune had been inscribed.

  He wondered, as he hurried along, if he shouldn’t head back to Drik Hargunen proper and instead try to find Baelar and the other members of his squad. But he had no idea which tunnel led back to the city. What’s more, he’d have a tough time recognizing Baelar or the other squad members. More likely than not, Torrin would just blunder about and give the game away.

  Instead he made his way down the tunnel, following the map to a cavern that, according to the orc, was filled with enough spellfire to scar him.

  Torrin snorted. A little spellfire wasn’t going to scare him off. If he wound up like Eralynn, so be it. A spellscar was one more excuse for people to dislike and mistrust him. And Torrin was used to that. Spellfire or no, he was going to find that rune.

  And when he did… Well, he’d figure that part out as he went along.

  Torrin heard a faint click and felt the floor shift slightly under his foot. A pwuff, pwuff, pwuff sound came from the right. Pain speared into his right calf and forearm as darts shot from the wall next to him and struck home. Instinct screamed at him to leap to the side, but he resisted. The trap his foot had just triggered might be a double-trip pressure plate that would trigger still more darts upon release.

  Gritting his teeth against the searing pain, careful not to shift his weight too much, Torrin raised his right arm to inspect the damage. The dart was no longer than a human finger and as slender as the spine of a quill. It had pierced the skin without penetrating much muscle. The wide metal flanges of its tail prevented the dart from going all the way through, and it hung from his arm. Drawing it through would only make the wound worse. Nor did Torrin have any way to cut through the dart’s metal shaft, having given his dagger away. That left one course of action. Steeling himself, he yanked the dart out, tearing the flap of skin. Blood dribbled from his arm.

  He peered at the black metal dart through his goggle lens. The barbed head had something gummy smeared on it, underneath the blood.

  Dwarfbane, he guessed.

  Would he succumb? The duergar’s trademark poison was specifically designed to kill dwarves; the duergar themselves were immune to it. Torrin’s human body, thankfully, was also immune. Yet the two puncture wounds burned as if the darts themselves had been forge-hot.

  Torrin threw the dart aside; it clattered away on the tunnel’s stone floor.

  He glanced down. The second dart had been slowed by his boot. The tip of it had barely pierced his calf, yet the tiny wound stung as fiercely as the first had. Torrin left the dart where it was for the moment, as it would take some effort to yank it back through the leather. He didn’t want to blunder into additional triggers while taking his boot off.

  The third dart, Marthammor Duin be praised, had missed.

  Torrin wished he’d brought a shield with him. Or, for that matter, his iron bracers, he thought ruefully as blood dribbled from the torn skin of his forearm. There was no time for regrets, however. Still moving slowly, he bent his knees slightly. Then he leaped backwards and away from the trigger. As he’d suspected, more darts exploded from the wall, streaking through the air at a dwarf’s chest height. They slammed into the opposite wall and skritched off into the darkness.

  Away from the pressure plates at last, Torrin paused to remove his boot. He yanked the dart out of it and put the boot back on again. He’d have to be careful, he thought.

  He drank the last of his potions. As took hold, the glow around anything that was ensorcelled intensified. A large rune on the wall just ahead, for example, glowed brightly. Yet his magically enhanced eyesight wouldn’t reveal ordinary pressure traps like the one he’d just trod upon. Nor had the orc given any warnings about traps when drawing his map. Likely, the traps had been installed after the rune was inscribed, to keep intruders like Torrin out.

  Torrin had read extensively about traps in the Delver’s Tome, and had encountered more than one type, in the course of his years of delving. There was always a way to disarm or bypass any trap. Otherwise, those who’d installed it wouldn’t have access to their own strongholds.

  He inspected the timbers that held up the section of the tunnel, and studied the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. He saw no evidence of a hidden lever or a secret passage to bypass the trapped section of tunnel. Either the duergar trap makers had done their work too well for Torrin to find their handiwork, or they’d never intended to use that way in.

  Did that mean there was a second way to access the cavern where the rune was inscribed?

  The obvious way to bypass the dart trap would be to crawl along the floor, below the level of the darts. Yet the trapmakers would have thought of that and prepared for it. Likely, just up ahead, the darts shot out at a height that would strike a crawling intruder-possibly in the eye. Or else some other, more deadly trap would be sprung.

  Torrin could run through the hail of darts and suffer only minor damage-it was apparent the dwarfbane wasn’t going to kill him-but in his haste he might blunder into even more dangerous traps, triggered by spidersilk tripwires or the disruption of a current of air. There was no sense taking chances, especially given that he was so close to his goal. According to his map, the rune cavern was just a little farther ahead, at the tunnel’s end.

  Through his remaining goggle lens, he could see some distance down the tunnel-about fifty paces or so. The magical rune he’d spotted was about half that distance away, and the area at the limit of his vision looked clear. There was one way to reach that clear spot without triggering any more traps.

  Maybe.

  He pulled the runestone from his backpack. It would likely work again, now that he was away from the slave pens, but did he dare use it? Teleporting such a short distance, to a spot he could clearly see, would be easy enough. But if he landed on a trigger, could he teleport away in time?

  As he contemplated that, he heard a rustling noise behind him. The tunnel grew lighter, awash with a faint blue light. He whirled and saw what at first appeared to be a flowing mass of blue fire that humped and bulged as it flowed toward him. As it drew closer, he recognized it as dozens of rats whose fur crackled with faint blue light.

  Spellfire!

  There was no longer any time for debate. The swarm would be upon him in an instant. An individual rat
he could easily kill with his mace. But there were scores of them, with enough teeth to gnaw him to bloody bone in a matter of moments.

  He fixed his eye on the apparently safe stretch of tunnel up ahead and pointed at it for good measure. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin, take me there,” he commanded.

  He felt a twist, then a prolonged stretch as he was pulled by magic to the spot. The walls blurred on either side, glowing with the blue spellfire the runestone was channeling. Then he landed. A pressure plate clicked underfoot. Barely in time, he threw himself aside. A blade scythed out of the ceiling and swept across the tunnel, jarring as it caught his pack and sliced off a buckle. As the blade continued to swing back and forth, swishing in a deadly arc, he glanced behind and saw the rats swarming up the tunnel toward him, drawn by the scent of fresh blood. Darts erupted out of the walls as they ran, clattering in a hail against the opposite wall.

  Torrin whirled, gave the corridor beyond the spot where he’d landed a quick scan, and chose his next landing spot. Again, he activated the runestone. He teleported just in time, as the blue glowing rats swarmed under the swinging blade. He landed on something soft and invisible. The stench of squashed mushroom filled his nose even as spores erupted all around him in a suddenly visible cloud. Were they toxic? He couldn’t run the risk that they were. As the spores swirled upward to his chest and face, he frantically chose his next landing spot, on the near side of an area of tunnel that glowed brightly with magic. Did it hold yet another deadly trap? He had to take the chance. In another moment he’d be breathing in potentially deadly spores.

  In the nick of time, just as the spores swirled level with his chin, he teleported to the spot he’d chosen. That time, praise Moradin, he landed without triggering a trap. He held his breath and shook spores from his clothes and his hands; they drifted lazily down to his feet. Still not daring to breathe, he stepped back a pace.

  His heel bumped something on the floor. He stumbled and fell backward into an area that glowed with magic, landing on top of what felt like a pile of jagged rubble. He threw his body into an awkward roll, trying to escape the glow, knowing that, even as he did so, it was probably too late. The magic, however, proved to be benign. An illusion. What had appeared, a moment before, to be a continuation of the tunnel was revealed to be a collapsed dead end, as the illusion that had hidden the cave-in from sight winked out.

  The rustling swarm of rats drew closer. Torrin sprang to his feet. Should he use the runestone to try to teleport back the way he’d just come, once they reached him? He wasn’t sure if teleporting past the rats would be possible; the glowing swarm stretched down the tunnel as far as he could see. He switched the runestone to his left hand and hefted his mace in his right. If he had to teleport into their midst, he’d need it.

  The rats hit the spot where the cloud of spores still swirled. More spores exploded into the air as they struck others-invisible puffballs. The cloud grew denser. From inside it came harsh squeals and a frenzied rustling. Rats collapsed, asphyxiated by the deadly spores. Still more rats plunged on into the cloud and piled atop their fellows. At last, dimly sensing the danger, most of the swarm wheeled and scuttled the other way, flowing away down the tunnel in a glowing, ragged stream.

  One or two rats burst out of the cloud and ran to the spot where Torrin stood. He readied his mace. Just before they reached him, a sheet of flame erupted out of the floor, filling the tunnel with a blaze of redorange light. It was barely a pace away from Torrin. He felt its intense heat on his face and smelled his beard singe. For a moment, the sheet of fire blazed brightly. Then it vanished, leaving behind blackened lumps that stank of charred flesh and fur.

  “By Moradin’s beard,” Torrin whispered, mopping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “That was close.”

  Marthammor Duin, finder of trails, had truly lent Torrin his blessings. Still trembling slightly, Torrin whispered a prayer of thanks to the Watcher over Wanderers.

  He shook his head and contemplated the dead-end corridor. What to do? It was clear that the duergar had taken great pains to ensure that no one could use the corridor to reach the cavern where the rune had been inscribed. They’d obviously anticipated that someone might learn of the corridor from the slaves. Torrin wondered why the duergar hadn’t killed the slaves to ensure their silence. That was the sort of thing they usually did.

  The more important question, however, was whether the duergar had collapsed just that tunnel, or the entire ceiling of the cavern beyond, burying the curse rune under masses of rubble that would be impossible to excavate in time.

  Torrin squinted his right eye shut and peered through his remaining goggle lens. The rubble ranged from jagged slabs of rock the size of a table down to smaller fragments no bigger than his fist. They were locked together in a tight mass that filled the end of the tunnel from floor to ceiling. Over the spot where Torrin stood, the ceiling was a concave hollow.

  Torrin grabbed a loosely placed chunk of rock. After several moments of straining, he managed to pull it free. It landed with a thud on the floor beside his foot. All was silent for a moment. Then a sharp crack sounded just overhead as a split appeared in the ceiling. Torrin started to take a wary step back, but remembered the flame trap just in time and jerked to a halt. A chunk of stone the size of his head fell, shattering on the floor at his feet.

  Torrin stood still, barely daring to breathe, until he was certain no more rock would fall. Clearly, he couldn’t go forward.

  Nor could he go back. Between the traps and the rats, Torrin would be lucky to make his way back to the slave pits alive, let alone to Drik Hargunen. What’s worse, his magical potion was wearing off. He could no longer see the glow of the magical rune he knew was just a hundred paces or so down the corridor.

  With his eyesight no longer magically enhanced, Torrin noticed something. A faint blue glow was coming from the spot he’d just pulled the stone out of. He groaned. Were more of the spellscarred rats headed his way? He squatted and peered through the gap. No, it wasn’t rats. The glow pulsed slightly, but it wasn’t moving toward him. Through a gap in the rubble he saw an open space, perhaps half a dozen paces beyond where he squatted. The blue light came from there.

  The cavern?

  With his heart pounding, Torrin reached into the gap he’d created in the rubble. If he could just move that one chunk that blocked the view, he’d be able to see more. Slowly, praying under his breath the whole time, he pushed the mace’s handle into the gap and carefully levered the chunk of rock aside. As it fell into a gap in the rubble, the blue glow intensified. With it came a hot, metallic scent, like forge-heated metal.

  Torrin’s heart beat faster. The map had been right! The cavern with the rune lay just beyond the rubble. And it looked as though there was a space big enough to teleport to!

  He grinned. A section of collapsed tunnel wasn’t going to stop him. not when his runestone could teleport him to the other side. But as he contemplated that, a shiver coursed through him. What awaited him next? More swarms of spellscarred rats? Even more horrific creatures and still deadlier traps?

  He pushed those thoughts aside. Kier was depending upon him. The memory of the boy’s anguished eyes and stone gray face was all the prodding he needed.

  He stared at the open space on the other side of the rubble. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin, take… me… there,” he commanded the runestone.

  Spellfire shot out of the gap in the rubble and swirled in a tight spiral around the runestone. Its tingle was so intense it numbed his hand, and Torrin nearly dropped the runestone. The spellfire twisted up his arm and into his chest. He felt his heart flutter and saw dark spots swimming before his eyes. Then the runestone yanked him from where he stood, twisting him beyond the rubble to the cavern beyond.

  He landed on his hands and knees on sharp rock; the runestone clattered onto the cavern floor. For several moments, he couldn’t see. Flashes of blue spellfire filled his vision, pulsing to the rapid beat of his heart. As those cl
eared, he saw that the fingers of his right hand-the hand that had held the runestone-had turned blue. Spellfire blazed within the flesh, turning it translucent. Dark shadows hinted at the bones within.

  There was no time to worry about that. He crawled carefully to the runestone and snatched it up. It still leaked blue fire-something else he’d worry about later.

  He forced himself to his feet and looked around. The sight that met his eyes might have taken his breath away had it not already been wheezing in and out of his chest.

  The cavern was even larger than the orc’s map had indicated. A small town could have fit inside it with room to spare. And it was an enormous geode-the largest Torrin had ever seen. Every surface was studded with quartz crystals, some clear, others clouded. Finger-sized crystals crunched underfoot every time Torrin took a step. Those that broke off floated upward like earthmotes to join scores of other broken crystals already drifting through the air. The moving crystals reflected the spellfire, refracting the light in millions of glittering blue flashes, like sunlight sparkling on snow.

  The source of the blue light lay at the center of the cavern-an enormous dome of raw spellfire the size of an assembly chamber. Streaks of blue lightning crackled upward from it with each pulse, striking the ceiling overhead. Even at a distance, Torrin could feel its fell effects. He felt weaker already-a fatigue that went deeper than mere exhaustion or the debilitating effects of the cuts and bruises he’d suffered. He felt weary to his very core. Burned hollow, from within.

  Eralynn must have felt the same thing, the day she’d blundered into the spellfire that had scarred her hands.

  Just outside the blue glow, a wide hole had been bored into the floor. As Torrin watched, a splatter of what he at first took to be lava erupted out of it and landed on the floor, filling the air with the smell of hot metal. No, not lava. Molten metal. It bore a greenish tinge, thanks to the crackling blue glow that filled the cavern, but Torrin knew what it must be.

  Gold. That hole was a well, tapping the River of Gold.