The bodyguard caught the half-elf’s arm. “Touch it,” he told Torrin.
Torrin raised an eyebrow.
“You spilled it from the pouch without touching it,” the bodyguard said. “That makes me wonder if it’s ensorcelled.” He nodded down at the runestone. “Touch it.”
Torrin laid down the dice and picked up the stone. “Satisfied?” he asked as he placed it back on the table.
The bodyguard released his master’s arm, then picked up the runestone himself. After a quick examination, he passed it to Tril. The latter barely glanced at it before placing it back on the table.
So far, so good.
Tril leaned back in his chair, toying with his wine glass once more. His movements seemed idle, but his fingertips were white against the stem of the glass. “Where’s the real thing?” he asked.
“In my pack,” Torrin lied. “If you know anything about Delvers’ packs, you’ll know that I’m the only one who can remove anything from it, as Vadyr already found out. And just in case you’re thinking about it, little tricks like dispelling the pack’s magic won’t work. Everything inside it will just … vanish. Permanently. Killing me and reaching in with my dead hand won’t work, either. It’s my will that causes the pack to deliver its contents into my hand. And should you try to magically compel me to pull something out, well, let’s just say the pack will sense the difference, and act accordingly. Whatever I pull out will be a very unpleasant surprise, believe me.”
The last was just a myth the Delvers liked to spread, but the rogues wouldn’t know that. And for all Torrin knew, it might even be true. The manufacture and enchantment of a Delver’s pack was a closely guarded secret that only Delvemasters were privy to.
“Is that what happened to Vadyr?” Tril asked, his eyes cold. “An ‘unpleasant surprise?’ ”
“I have no idea what happened to your … associate,” Torrin said carefully, hoping his honest reply would be believed. “After he tried to steal the runestone from me in Hammergate, Vadyr disappeared. I never saw him again. Although I do know this—a duergar was enquiring about him around the same time.”
The half-elf started to glance at his bodyguard, but abruptly checked himself. He released the wine glass, which wobbled and threatened to fall. He caught the glass again, steadying it. His hand trembled just enough that Torrin noticed.
“What did the duergar look like?” Tril asked. “Did he have any tattoos?”
“I don’t know,” Torrin said. “I never saw him, myself. Just heard about him.”
Whoever the duergar was, it was clear the half-elf recognized him. Perhaps the duergar had been on the trail of the half-elf, as well. Making enquiries about the gold, and perhaps killing when he didn’t get the answers he wanted. A duergar in Sundasz wouldn’t surprise Torrin. Tallfolk, dark elves … anyone was welcome, it seemed.
Tril had regained his composure. He nodded at the runestone on the table. “How did you acquire that?” he asked. “The real one, I mean.”
“A dwarf named Kendril sold it to me,” Torrin replied.
Tril’s mouth twitched slightly. “And what happened to him? Did he just … disappear, the way Vadyr did? Or did you have something to do with it?”
“I may be a rogue, but I’m no murderer!” Torrin said vehemently. “Kendril took his own life. When we met to conduct our transaction, he was blind and crippled with the stoneplague, and begging the Dwarffather to forgive him. Then he jumped off Needle Leap.”
“Pushed, more likely,” the bodyguard growled.
“No!” Torrin said. “By Moradin’s beard, I swear it. I tried to stop Kendril from jumping, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Well, then,” Tril said, suddenly breaking into a wide smile. “That certainly clears things up.”
“Clears what up?” Torrin asked, uncertain what had just caused the half-elf’s sudden change of demeanor.
Tril waved the question away with a slender hand. “Another drink is in order, I think,” he said. “To celebrate the start of a new relationship.” He snapped his fingers. “Bartender! More wine for me, and two ales for my companions, if you please!”
Torrin smiled to himself. The half-elf had just saved him a lot of bother. He’d been worried about how he’d get him to order another round, but the fellow had solved that problem. Torrin clenched both fists—the signal for Val’tissa to move to the bar and tip a potion into the half-elf’s glass as the bartender filled it.
“Then you’re satisfied with what’s being offered?” Torrin asked. “You’re willing to buy?”
Tril stared across the table at him. “What’s the asking price?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
The bartender arrived with their drinks. The conversation paused as the half-elf paid him.
“I want to know about the curse,” Torrin said. “Who cast it, how it was done. And how it can be undone.”
Tril stared at his wine glass, idly turning it. “That’s asking a lot,” he said.
Torrin felt sweat trickling down his back. Drink it, he silently pleaded. “The runestone’s worth a lot.”
Tril started to smile, but then hid it by taking a sip of wine. It took everything Torrin had not to sigh in relief. The half-elf was obviously about to lie to him. Thanks to the potion, however, he’d be compelled to speak the truth. Assuming Val’tissa had been successful.
“We were wondering ourselves what caused the gold to become cursed,” Tril said as he lowered his glass. “Kendril thought it was because Moradin was angry. But Cathor here—” he jerked a thumb in the direction of the bodyguard “—said it was probably something the duergar did.”
The bodyguard sat forward abruptly. His left hand was hidden under the table, and one of the sheaths on his bandolier was suddenly empty.
Torrin prayed Val’tissa would notice and position herself accordingly. He couldn’t signal her. A single flick of a finger might be his last. Cathor looked ready to strike. And he was obviously more than he’d seemed—more than a mere bodyguard.
“What duergar?” Torrin asked, his mouth suddenly as dry as rock dust.
“The ones in Drik Hargunen,” the half-elf replied. “The place where Cathor—”
Tril’s face suddenly went white. Several things happened then in rapid succession. Tril clutched himself as something sticky and wet—blood?—sprayed onto Torrin’s knee, soaking his trousers. Cathor lunged out of his seat and tried to grab the runestone. Before he could reach it, a wristbow bolt, shot by the invisible Val’tissa, thudded into his hand and pinned it to the table.
Cathor grabbed at the runestone with his other hand, but Torrin dived across the table and grabbed the front of his shirt, shoving him back.
Cathor was shorter than Torrin, but stronger. He forced himself forward. His hand closed around the runestone. He shouted something in a language Torrin didn’t understand.
Waves of blue spellfire erupted out of the floorboards and streaked toward the runestone. Terrified, the inn’s other patrons scrambled to get away. Shouts and screams filled the inn.
Torrin’s jaw dropped. Cathor had activated the runestone! How was that possible?
Val’tissa, now visible, raced to their table. “Torrin!” she shouted.
Torrin felt a sudden, familiar wrench. Still clutching the front of Cathor’s shirt, he was yanked sideways by the magic of the runestone. As the pair of them twisted into the space between the inn and wherever they were teleporting to, tumbling end over end together with the table, Cathor’s hand tore free of the bolt that had pinned it. His howl of pain echoed eerily as he and Torrin spun through space. Torrin saw a flash of steel. Despite his injured hand, Cathor had drawn his second dagger! Torrin’s mace was at his hip, but he couldn’t reach for it. He had to keep hold of Cathor or the Morndinsamman only knew where he’d wind up.
“Moradinnn!” Torrin screamed, his wail drawing out the way that Kendril’s had, that terrible day at Needle Leap. “Aid meee …”
>
Torrin and Cathor landed in darkness, crashing in a heap onto a rough stone floor. An eyeblink later, the table landed on them. Smashed prone, Torrin lost his grip on Cathor’s shirt. Something clattered away in the darkness. Cathor’s dagger? The runestone?
Torrin clambered to his feet. He couldn’t see! Damn his human eyes! He heard a faint noise, down and to his left where the table had landed. He yanked his mace from his belt and smashed downward, shouting the word that activated the weapon’s magic. Thunder boomed, echoing off the walls of wherever they’d teleported to. Torrin felt his weapon strike something that gave way with the crunch of breaking bone. Belatedly, he realized that Val’tissa also might have been caught up in the teleportation. He prayed it wasn’t her he’d just killed.
Torrin stood, panting, and straining to hear any sound. But all he heard was his own harsh breathing. Every muscle in Torrin’s body tensed. He anticipated a dagger thrust at any moment. He swung his mace back and forth and turned abruptly to and fro. One foot bumped something on the floor, and he stumbled and nearly fell. Despite his vulnerability, the attack he anticipated didn’t come.
Cautiously, Torrin shrugged out of one of the straps of his backpack. Another shrug and the pack was hanging against his chest. Holding his mace ready with one hand, he fumbled open the pack and reached inside. “Goggles,” he commanded. They rose to find his hand. He dragged them over his eyes, and suddenly he could see out of his left eye.
He stood in a natural cavern about a dozen paces wide and a hundred long. The floor was littered with stone molds, iron tongs, and stone dippers with long wooden handles. Rough flash—the solidified spill left over from casting—was splashed everywhere on the floor, and was so soft that it bent when he trod on it. A neat slit had been cut into one wall of the cavern. More solidified metal hung from the bottom of it like icicles from the edge of a roof. A warm breeze blew in through this gap.
The table from the inn lay nearby, partially covering a body with a staved-in head. Torrin recognized Tril by his blood-soaked doublet. He was dead. What Cathor had started with his dagger, Torrin had finished with his mace.
The “bodyguard”—who Torrin realized must be yet another rogue in the hire of whoever had cursed the gold, if not the wizard himself—lay a pace or two away, his wounded hand just shy of the runestone in a smear of blood, his other hand slack around his dagger. Torrin heaved a sigh of relief, realizing the sleep poison on Val’tissa’s bolt had done its work just in time. Had Cathor remained conscious a heartbeat or two longer, he might have activated the runestone a second time and teleported away.
Torrin shook his head, amazed at what had just happened. He’d been wrong. It wasn’t necessary to be in an earth node to activate the runestone. Its teleportation magic, it would seem, could be commanded from anywhere on Faerûn.
Torrin crossed the cavern and picked up the runestone. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. He tucked it away in his pack.
He picked up Cathor’s dagger and sword and put them in his pack as well, for good measure. Then he stripped the rogue naked—there was no telling what form a magical amulet might take—and bound his wrists behind his back, using rope from his Delver’s pack. He tied Cathor’s ankles as well. Finally, just in case the rogue was capable of magic, Torrin stuffed a gag in his mouth.
All Torrin had to do next was wait for the sleep poison to wear off. Meanwhile, he prayed that Cathor didn’t have accomplices nearby. The cavern they’d teleported to, however, was as quiet as a crypt. And, Torrin saw as he walked its circumference, it had no visible exits, aside from the narrow fissure in the wall, which was too narrow for a person to squeeze through. No matter. The runestone was Torrin’s way out—assuming he could figure out how to use it.
Torrin nudged Cathor with his foot. The dwarf was still unconscious, but alive. “Don’t claim him yet, Moradin,” Torrin prayed. “Not until I’m done with him.”
He pulled a lantern from his pack and lit it, then slid his goggles up onto his forehead. He turned his attention to the objects littering the floor. The flash was solid gold, as he’d expected from the way it bent under his boots. The molds were the ones used to cast the cursed gold bars. He inspected the slit in the wall and saw that it led to an almost perfectly round tunnel, perhaps a pace wide, whose walls were coated with a crust of hardened gold. Torrin sniffed and caught the faint scent of molten metal.
“The River of Gold,” he breathed.
He glanced around, shaking his head in wonder. A fortune lay at his feet, splashed all around him like waste slag. Even though he knew its role in spreading the stoneplague, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pure greed at the sight of it. All that wealth made his heart pound. His people had a name for what he was feeling: aetharn or “gold lust.” With that much gold, he could go anywhere, do anything. Fund the most exotic delves anyone had ever dreamed of.
Then he thought of Eralynn, Kier, Ambril and her stillborn twins, and the hundreds of other dwarves who’d succumbed to the stoneplague, and the taste of his fantasies soured. He’d trade all the gold in the cavern—all the gold in the world—for them to be alive again.
He heard a faint movement behind him. Cathor had woken up. He was feigning sleep, but his shivers betrayed him.
Torrin squatted next to the dwarf. His anger banked as he stared at him. Rather than fan it red hot, Torrin let it smolder. The time for vengeance—for justice—would come later.
Cathor’s eyes opened. He strained at his bonds and shivered violently, either from the feel of cold stone against naked flesh or from fear. He shook his head and tried to say something. But all that got past the gag was a moan.
Torrin stared down at his captive. He pulled a tiny glass vial from his pack and showed it to Cathor. “This potion is the same as the one that forced your half-elf friend to talk, back at the inn,” he said. “One way or the other, you’re going to drink it. If I have to, I’ll kneel on your forehead and slice your lips open with my dagger. Or we can do it the easy way, and you can just swallow it.”
Cathor stared up at him, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Perhaps he believed Torrin would free him once he had talked, or perhaps he thought he might yet use the runestone to escape. Whatever the reason, he grunted his assent.
“Good,” Torrin said. He took the gag from Cathor’s mouth. Cathor opened his mouth, and Torrin poured in the potion. Just in case Cathor was lying about being cooperative, Torrin immediately pinched the rogue’s lips shut.
Cathor glared, but swallowed down the potion. Torrin released his hold on the fellow’s lips and stood up.
“And now,” Torrin told his captive, “we’ll talk.”
“Truth comes to us from the past, like gold washed down from the mountains.”
Delver’s Tome, Volume III, Chapter 9, Entry 100
TORRIN STARED DOWN AT HIS CAPTIVE. SINCE THE truth potion would only last so long, he decided to ask Cathor the most important questions first. He folded his arms across his chest. “How, exactly, was the gold cursed?”
“I don’t know,” Cathor said.
Torrin silently fumed, then realized he needed to back up a step. Cathor might be nothing more than a minion, after all. He might not know the details. Torrin had to take this step by step. “All right, then, let’s try again,” he said. “Let’s start with this: who cursed the gold?”
That, it seemed, was a question his captive could answer. “The duergar,” Cathor replied.
“The one who was trying to find Vadyr? What’s his name?” Torrin asked.
Cathor shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“Perhaps I should be more clear,” Torrin said. “What I want to know is this: What’s the name of the duergar who invoked the curse?”
“Perhaps I should be more clear,” Cathor said mockingly. “I don’t know.”
Torrin grit his teeth. He tried again. “Where can I find the duergar who cursed the gold?” he asked.
Cathor’s jaw muscles bunched as he tried to ke
ep himself from speaking. The potion, however, forced the words out. “In Drik Hargunen,” he said.
“That’s better,” Torrin said. It took him, however, a few moments to place the name. He at last remembered there was a duergar city by that name, somewhere in the Underdark. Torrin had stumbled across the name once, when researching rune magic. He dredged the phrase up from memory: the runescribed halls of Drik Hargunen.
Torrin reframed the question he’d asked earlier. “What did the duergar use curse the gold?”
“Rune magic,” Cathor said.
That much, Torrin might have guessed. “How can the curse be broken?”
The dwarf glared. “No idea,” he said. “Why don’t you go ask the runescribes yourself?”
Torrin balled his fists. He reminded himself that the rogue was answering his questions truthfully. He could see Cathor struggling not to speak, yet being compelled to. Yet the answers weren’t nearly as informative as Torrin had hoped they would be. He decided to dig in a different direction. He gestured at the gold-crusted slit in the wall. “Who used the runestone to call the River of Gold to this cavern?” he asked.
“We did. Me and Kendril,” Cathor replied.
“Who tapped it and cast the gold bars?”
“The same: me and Kendril.”
“Whose idea was it to distribute them in Eartheart?” After a moment’s silent struggle, the word popped out. “Mine.”
“And the other two rogues? Vadyr and Tril? What part did they play in this?”
“They were hired to distribute the gold. Tril, in the smaller settlements. And Vadyr, in Eartheart.”
That fit. Only tallfolk could safely handle the cursed gold. Torrin stared down at Cathor’s gray-tinged skin. The two dwarf rogues must have been careless, to let themselves be afflicted by the stoneplague.
Time to get back to that line of questioning.
“Whom did the four of you take your orders from?” Torrin asked. “Who told you to make the gold bars?”
“No one,” said Cathor. “It was my idea. Mine … and Kendril’s.”
The Gilded Rune Page 21
