The Crimson Gold

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  “Foolish, wasn’t I, all things considered?” she asked, prepared for the duergar’s snide remarks and ridicule.

  “No,” he said with a dignity she didn’t imagine he would ever show her. “No.”

  She was nonplussed and simply stared at him for a while. In due course, she walked back over to the bed and sat down, studying him.

  “All right,” she said finally, “now you. Why are you here?”

  “I’m a prisoner, in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he replied.

  “Look,” Tazi shot back at him, “I’m too tired for this. I admit, I don’t know much about duergar, but I do know you are a long way from home. And people don’t normally stray too far away without a good reason. I’d honestly like to know, if you would be willing to tell me. We are stuck in here together.”

  The dwarf turned his head slightly and stared at her. Eventually Tazi became ill at ease and cast her eyes downward.

  “What are you doing?” she asked and felt the heat rush to her cheeks.

  “Faces are like stones,” he answered enigmatically. “Their history, their character is written there plainly if one knows how to read it.” He sighed deeply, as though he had come to a decision.

  “Fair enough,” he said after a pause, “a truth for a truth. I came here for family, too.” Tazi watched him encouragingly but didn’t want to interrupt him if he was willing to tell her about himself.

  “My brother left our home several months ago and traveled here to Thay. You don’t need to know where ‘home’ is, either,” he shot at her in anticipation of her question, but Tazi just nodded in agreement. “He is the dreamer in the family, not me. You say you know something of dwarves. I’d wager not too much. Most humans don’t bother. Did you know, for example, that up until a few years ago, our numbers were dwindling? And when I say ‘our’ I mean all races of dwarves.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Tazi acknowledged honestly, “but I always suspected that there were not great numbers of you.”

  “Great numbers,” Justikar snorted. “You have no idea. And I’m not going to tell you, either. But a few years ago, the dwarven people received the Thunder Blessing, and suddenly we can’t stop making whelps,” he explained, and Tazi couldn’t understand why he sounded disgusted. “All of the dwarves except us—except the Duergar.” There was no mistaking the bitterness that edged his words.

  “Once again, the gray dwarves were cheated out of what every other dwarf benefited from. That seems to be our lot in life, though we don’t deserve it. I expected no less. But, as I said, my brother is a dreamer and a scholar. He wanted more. He was always searching for evidence, proof that there was more to it than just us. Adnama came across some parchments some months ago that led him to believe that there might be an offshoot of our kind located here.”

  “Here?” Tazi asked and pointed to the floor of their room. “Is that why you lit up when I mentioned the Citadel the night you were wounded?”

  “Somewhere in the depths below the Citadel,” the duergar nodded, “and here he came. I know he made it as far as some of the tunnels below, but that’s when I lost track of him.”

  “So you’re here to find him,” Tazi finished, “and reunite your people.”

  “If there is another vein of duergar, if we were to combine numbers, we could become an unstoppable force,” he informed her.

  Tazi frowned. “And here I thought you just wanted your brother back and maybe what was best for your people. How are you any different from Naglatha or any of these other Red Wizards?” She shook her head and climbed all the way onto the bed. As she stretched out, she looked at him again.

  “Get some rest,” she told him, suddenly exhausted, “so we’re ready for tomorrow. I think I understand you better now.” She closed her eyes and was asleep in mere moments.

  Justikar watched the woman sleep for a while. When he was sure it was a deep slumber, he moved silently to her side and deftly removed her worn sack without jostling her or it at all. He swung the leather sack in his grip twice and smiled.

  “I came here for family, too,” he whispered to the sleeping Tazi and slunk out of their chamber into the darkened hallway beyond.

  3 Kythorn, 1373 DR

  When she heard the light footsteps in the room, Tazi opened her eyes and instinctively reached for the knife she had secreted in her night table. As she fumbled around for it, and came up empty handed, Tazi remembered that she was not in her bed in Stormweather Towers, though it was as comfortable as hers, but in the depths of the Citadel. While her eyes focused on the source of the noise, she realized it was not some unknown intruder, but the duergar that had roused her. She sat bolt upright when she saw he was standing in the doorway to their room with her sack in his strong hands.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded and jumped from the bed to pull her bag from his unresisting fingers.

  “Take a look inside,” the dwarf directed her, and Tazi saw he had a pleased expression on his face. She peered into the sack and looked back down at him incredulously.

  “What have you done?” she whispered.

  “While you slept, I did some exploring. Since that fat, pasty-faced girl said there were some workshops available to us, I thought it best to see for myself if that were true. There is a passable forge and bellows, so I made use of them during the night,” he told her smugly.

  Tazi could see that the dwarf was watching her closely. She pulled the drawstrings farther open and extracted a small, razor sharp dagger that radiated with a deep red shine from the bag. She would have described the piece as delicate if she hadn’t seen the evil glint to its edge.

  “That metal was a little tough to work with and I had to use almost all of it. It’s not nearly as malleable as regular gold. In fact, it appeared to be even harder than steel. And there’s something else about it,” he added quietly, “a quality I can’t put my finger on. It’s not something I have ever run across before. I wouldn’t mind having some of it myself.”

  Tazi relit one of their lamps and inspected the dagger in its ruddy glow. The blade felt like a natural extension of her hand. The weight and balance were perfect. And she wasn’t able to deny that the workmanship was some of the best she had ever beheld. And Tazi was a woman who had seen and could afford the finest. When she gazed at the dwarf again, she could see he enjoyed her pleasure in his skill.

  “But, Justikar,” she asked in a curious voice, “why did you do it? I know it’s a good idea to have a weapon, but why did you do it to my gold?”

  “I thought about what you told me last night,” he explained to her seriously, “and I think this will make a more fitting offering to the spirit of your father.”

  “How is that?” she wondered.

  “Because this,” he nodded to the dagger she held expertly in her white hand, “is what you have become, Thazienne Uskevren. If you think long and honestly, you will know I am right about that. And to make peace with your sire, you will have to make peace with yourself.”

  Tazi frowned at his words and had little to say. She busied herself with wondering where she could secret the blade, but all the while the dwarf’s words echoed in her ears. Had she become something sharp and deadly like the dagger? A woman who appeared to be one thing and yet was really something else? Weren’t the dwarf’s sentiments similar to the words Steorf had voiced when he gave Tazi her necklace saying the chain was deceiving, like her?

  “You see more than I give you credit for,” she informed the duergar.

  “You just don’t know me,” he replied.

  “I think I might like to,” Tazi told him with a smile.

  “No,” he warned her seriously, “no, you wouldn’t.”

  Tazi shrugged her shoulders and slipped the dagger into her right boot for the time being. Given all the wizards that were housed in the Citadel, she decided there were probably enough magical items present that the dagger might go unnoticed. If it did, she would have a fine weapon that would come in handy
. And if it was discovered, she would at least know it had been confiscated and not search for it fruitlessly later on.

  “What else did you find while I was snoring away? Surely you didn’t spend your entire time making one, little blade?” The dwarf gave her a dirty look at her last statement until he saw her crooked grin and realized she was teasing.

  “Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll show you?” he invited.

  Tazi grabbed a glass from her table and rinsed the morning taste from her mouth and ran her fingers through her tangled, shoulder-length hair. The dwarf moved over to a dressing table against the wall while she was busy and rummaged around the bottles and brushes. When he found what he wanted, he grabbed it and came back to where Tazi sat.

  “Is this what you need?” he asked and held out an item to Tazi.

  She turned and saw he was holding a hand mirror for her. She was about to snap at him until she saw his sly smile. She wasn’t the only one who liked to slip in a joke.

  “Show me,” Tazi told him, ready to go.

  Together, they snuck out into the hall. The rest of the chamber doors were shut, and Tazi wondered if the other servants were taking advantage of the events and resting in or if they had already gone to assist their respective masters.

  “Do you think they’ve gone?” she whispered cautiously to the duergar.

  “You’ll see,” was all Justikar offered.

  Tazi studied the walls. There were many designs carved into them. She still marveled at the fact that they were now deep underground. Whoever had constructed the structure, be it the lizardfolk Naglatha mentioned or some other equally fantastic beings, Tazi was overwhelmed at their abilities. Stones and other decorative tiles and mosaics covered the hallway, and the tunnel had been cut with such precision and squared angles, it looked like a corridor one would find in any well-built house or mansion. There wasn’t the slightest hint that it was bored through solid rock except for the absence of windows.

  Tazi followed Justikar like a shadow. When they reached the end of the servants’ quarters, the dwarf turned to the left, though the corridor continued in two directions. The very next chamber they came to was the metal shop.

  Tazi followed Justikar in and shut the door behind them. Truthfully, Tazi was glad they didn’t go any farther down the passageway as she was unwilling to test the girl’s warnings regarding their boundaries just yet.

  She moved about the room, and Tazi could still feel the heat from Justikar’s recent fires. Without any windows, though, Tazi was puzzled why the place didn’t smell more of burning metal. She looked questioningly at the dwarf, and Justikar pointed to a few, well hidden openings. A unique venting system in the chamber allowed the excess heat and smoke to escape without filling the room with its noxious odor.

  “I had the same thought as you,” Justikar explained to Tazi, “before I started working in here. When I found those,” he pointed to the series of openings, “it got me thinking.”

  “If there are hollows up above,” Tazi replied, following the dwarf’s logic, “then there might be hollows elsewhere.”

  Justikar nodded and walked over to a far wall, motioning for Tazi to follow. She studied the spot where the dwarf was standing and ran her fingers lightly over the façade of brickwork. She felt two spots that were somewhat suspect but, try as she could, she couldn’t release any of the stones or trip any mechanism.

  The dwarf half-pushed her aside and deftly pushed a brick face at a certain angle. A slice of the block slid a few inches to one side. With that pin free, the entire brick twisted ninety degrees. Justikar released his hold on the stone and took a step back. With a slow grinding, a section of the wall shifted back and slid to the right, exposing a pitch black maw.

  “You were close,” he told her. “You just lacked the right touch.”

  “Nicely done,” Tazi complimented the duergar and chose not to take his words as an insult though they irked her. She’d been breaking into things for years now and felt she would have found it, given more time. Pride and her temper, she realized, had no place here if they were going to work together.

  “It’s nothing to someone who spends their life around such things,” he said as he dismissed her compliment.

  He partially bowed from the waist and motioned to the black entrance. “After you,” he told her.

  “You first,” Tazi replied. “After all, this is second nature for you.”

  Justikar shrugged and moved easily into the hidden passageway. Tazi followed right behind him, understanding that she needed his skills in the shadowy walkway. She was amazed at his ability to move through the darkness. It made sense to her that he could, being a person at home in the Underdark, but it was still impressive to experience. She tentatively touched his shoulder for guidance and either he didn’t feel it, or he wasn’t bothered by her hand because he didn’t shrug it off. Even with his lead, she barked her shin against a minor obstacle and swallowed the yelp she wanted to make.

  Tazi wasn’t certain, but she thought the passageway doubled back, but without any visual frame of reference, she couldn’t be certain. They walked slowly, and Tazi’s eyes began to adjust to the gloom. There was a faint light coming up ahead. She thought she could make out thin, slivers of illumination, and they slowed their pace even more. A few feet in front, bars of pale light crisscrossed the floor in alternating patterns. When they got to the first one on the right, the duergar crouched down near a small portal located only a few inches above the floor. Tazi did likewise and peered in.

  As she had thought, they had doubled backed and were in the servants’ quarters once again, only on the inside, as it were. Tazi realized that every small portal was a diminutive window into a different chamber. The one they were spying in was furnished similarly to theirs. Tazi could see two women seated near their dressing table, rifling through the various sundries that were littered about the table like children in a toy shop.

  “Try this one,” the blonde-haired woman said to her companion. She held out a blue, crystal perfume bottle and, before the other girl could reply, spritzed her with the contents. The blond then took in a long breath and sighed appreciatively.

  “I’m sure that Zulkir Lauzoril will find you irresistible, smelling like that,” she giggled.

  “I’m sure he would, if he ever took his mind off of finding a way to best the lich long enough to notice me,” she replied in a low voice. Both women looked around after that and sobered up some.

  “Still,” the fragrant girl added, “I wouldn’t mind if the zulkir turned his green eyes toward me once in a while. And that blond hair …” she sighed.

  While the two servants discussed various paramours and dalliances from their past, Tazi and Justikar crawled to another portal.

  “I still can’t believe Zulkir Mythrell’aa fell out of favor with Szass Tam,” a black-haired youth said in sotto voice to the two other young men that sat around the table in their room.

  A brunette nodded, “Yes, and I understand that she’d love to see him fall. I think she’s considering throwing in with Aznar Thrul.” Tazi noted how knowledgeable he was trying to sound and deduced he was probably a new purchase trying to prove his worth to his peers.

  “That’s not what I heard,” the third interjected. “I heard it on the best authority that she’s going to side with Lauzoril. And everyone knows he and Aznar Thrul hate each other like fire and water.”

  The first youth slapped the third on his arm and corrected him. “How can you say that? Didn’t you see how well they got along at the Spring Festival? You’ve got it wrong.”

  “Do you think we need to help with the morning meal?” the brunette interrupted their banter, and he seemed suddenly concerned with the time.

  Tazi took that as a cue for them to keep moving, too. She and Justikar peeked in a few more of the windows, but the conversations were almost identical to the others they had already overheard, and they learned nothing useful from them. She signaled to the dwarf to follow her, an
d they made their way carefully back to the metal shop. As they exited the passageway, Justikar flipped the brick back into place, and the panel sealed shut, without a trace that they had been there.

  “I’m surprised this country even functions at all,” she told the dwarf disgustedly.

  “When I passed through there the first time,” the dwarf agreed, “the talk was much the same. It seems like they all want to make an alliance, but don’t trust one or the other of their neighbors enough to forge a strong one.”

  “It makes no sense,” Tazi said shaking her head. “Though,” she added thoughtfully, “I think I can see now why they haven’t been more successful in their attempts at conquest. Their hierarchy is so fractured because of their personalities, it can’t function effectively. It’s almost like they do need just one, strong leader.”

  “What would happen if they did have just one?” the duergar asked.

  Tazi shuddered. “I don’t care to dwell on that thought too long. Let’s get back,” she told him, “before we’re needed to polish Naglatha’s toes or some other mundane chore.” Justikar snorted, and they walked back to their chamber.

  When Tazi opened the door to their room, she was momentarily surprised to see Naglatha seated at the dressing table. The Red Wizard was combing her thick hair languorously, one long stroke at a time. She glanced at Tazi through the reflection of the mirror, and Tazi saw how black her eyes were.

  “Where have you two been?” she asked them angrily, continuing to regard Tazi and the dwarf by means of the mirror as if they weren’t worthy of more direct contact.

  “You want me to steal for you, don’t you? Well, I need to know the layout of the place. How else am I going to find that out without some reconnoitering? That’s what we were doing,” she told Naglatha, seizing the beast by the horns. She cast a sideways glance at the dwarf. He gave the wizard a curt nod of agreement.