“So you and Kendril hired the duergar to curse the gold?”
Cathor shook his head. “No. They’d done it already. We just mined it.”
Torrin frowned in confusion. He looked at the cut in the wall. “So the duergar cursed the River of Gold,” he ventured, “before you mined it?”
“Yes,” said Cathor.
“And you knew it was cursed, yet mined it anyway?”
“I … Yes.”
Torrin felt as though a hollow had opened inside him. It took all of his self-control not to strike his captive. He stared down at Cathor in disgust. A duergar might have cast the curse, but Cathor and Kendril—two dwarves—had spread the stoneplague. They’d knowingly afflicted their fellow dwarves with a fatal disease.
Torrin no longer felt sorry for Kendril. The fellow had deserved his affliction, had deserved to die. He was pure dross. So was Cathor.
Torrin spat on the dwarf.
Cathor’s nostrils flared. He stared defiantly up at Torrin, as if he was still worthy of looking a fellow dwarf in the eye. It was all Torrin could do to not stamp out that smug look with his boot.
“Where did you get the runestone?” Torrin asked instead.
Cathor once again tried to clench his jaw shut, and failed. “I stole it,” he said.
“Where from?”
“Drik Hargunen.”
“Be more specific.”
A smug smile crept into Cathor’s eyes. “Right out of Laduguer’s temple. From its library.”
“Laduguer,” Torrin breathed. God of the duergar. Enemy of the true dwarves, who would see them all enslaved.
“A foul god,” he continued. “Deserving of his banishment from the Morndinsamman.”
“That may be,” said Cathor. “But Laduguer will be avenged, soon enough.”
“What are you talking about?” Torrin asked.
“Moradin,” Cathor said, jerking his head at the slit in the wall. “The River of Gold is his vein. His life blood. The duergars’ rune magic has poisoned it. Moradin is dying.”
Torrin felt the blood drain from his cheeks. A shiver of dread coursed through him. He remembered how it had been in his dream, the way the Dwarffather had turned gray with the stoneplague, then crumbled. Could it be true? Could Moradin actually be dying?
“That’s right,” Cathor said, the gleam back in his eye. “It will all be over, soon enough. The dwarves are going to lose their patron god. You can kiss those hammers in your beard goodbye, human.”
“Blasphemer!” Torrin shouted. He kicked Cathor in the ribs and revelled in the man’s grunt of pain. With all of his heart, Torrin wanted to believe the truth potion had worn off, that Cathor was lying. Or, at the very least, that his captive was wrong, and only thought he spoke the truth. Surely Moradin could not die! But other gods had died, in Faerûn’s long history. And other gods would yet die, as the millennia marched on.
Torrin didn’t want to believe what he’d just heard, yet Cathor’s words had driven an ice-cold spike of doubt into Torrin’s very soul. And that spike was being driven deeper with each chuckle his captive uttered.
Everything Torrin had ever learned by reading scripture fit with what Cathor had just told him, like a casting fit a mold. According to the holy texts, Moradin and all the other Morndinsamman had sprung from the stone of Faerûn itself, back when the world first formed. The scriptures went on to say that it wasn’t blood that ran through Moradin’s veins, but noble metal. Gold.
Torrin had always thought that to be a metaphor for the god’s purity of purpose, but he realized it must be truth. It made sense that Moradin would be bound to the land in some way, that he would choose to stay rooted in the stone his people worked and drew their livelihood from. If the River of Gold were part of the Dwarffather, it explained why the molten river was constantly shifting. The Dwarffather manifested throughout Faerûn, wherever there was rock to be mined.
And his life’s blood had been poisoned. Cursed, by the duergars’ foul rune magic.
That was why the cursed gold continued to spread the stoneplague, regardless of whether it was melted or subjected to magical ritual. Until Moradin himself was healed, the gold would remain tainted. It also explained why no cleric—even those who served the gods of the tallfolk—could cure the affliction. The blood of the Dwarffather flowed not only throughout Faerûn, in the form of the River of Gold, but also, indirectly, through the blood of the race he’d fashioned in his forge.
The meaning of Torrin’s prophetic dream was suddenly as clear as a gem from which the surrounding rock had been chipped away.
Moradin, lord of the Morndinsamman and patron god of the dwarves, was dying. Until the god himself was cured, there would be no cure for the spellplague.
And if the god died …
Torrin couldn’t bring himself to contemplate what that might mean. He shuddered, and struggled to pull himself together. “Moradin …” he began to pray. Then he realized the futility of his prayer. The Dwarffather had been trying to tell him, all along, that no help would be forthcoming from him. Torrin was on his own.
He stared down with righteous fury at Cathor. He wasn’t the one who had poisoned Moradin using rune magic, but by Cathor’s own admission, he’d committed a crime even more vile. He’d knowingly afflicted his own race. And for the most base of reasons: simple greed.
“How could you?” Torrin said through gritted teeth. “You’ve killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of your own people.”
Cathor sneered as he said, “They deserved it.”
“No one deserves this,” Torrin said, pointing at Cathor’s gray skin.
Cathor broke into wild laughter. “You idiot!” he cried. “You think I’ve been afflicted, don’t you?”
Torrin suddenly questioned what he saw. “But … you’re a dwarf,” he said. “And … you are afflicted, just like Kendril was. Just like everybody else. Aren’t you?”
“That would be true, if I was just like everybody else. But I’m not.”
“What do you—”
“Figure it out yourself, human. I saw how you looked at me. You don’t just dress like a dwarf, you think like one. You hate like one.”
Torrin suddenly realized that Cathor’s skin wasn’t gray because of the stoneplague. Nor was his head bald because he’d shaved it. That strange cast to his eyes. His wiry frame. “You’re … duergar?” he asked.
“One-quarter,” Cathor replied bitterly. “And that was the only quarter that counted. I’m an enemy. Someone to be reviled, to be driven out.” He smirked. “But I’ve had my revenge. And it was sweeter than anything else the gold might have bought. So go ahead and kill me. I’m tired of this life. And these ropes hurt.”
Torrin stared down at his captive. The time had indeed come for justice. And Cathor was all but begging for it. Yet how should Torrin kill the duergar dross that lay at his feet? Perhaps, he mused, with the rogue’s own dagger. Slash his wrists and let him bleed out. Whittle him down slowly, as the stoneplague whittled down its victims. Or perhaps Torrin should smash in the fellow’s head with his mace. It would be a quicker death, but one that would activate the weapon’s ancient dwarf magic. Either would be equally appropriate, not to mention satisfying.
The mace, Torrin decided. He lifted the weapon above his head. His hands were sweaty on the grip. He felt like Moradin, raising his hammer to strike a blow and making a holy pronouncement. His pulse beat in his throat against Eralynn’s pendant. “I strike this blow for Eralynn,” he intoned. “My shield sister. And for Kier, my nephew. And for Ambril, the boy’s mother. Clanfolk, all. I strike this blow in Moradin’s name, for all of the hundreds or even thousands of innocents you so callously afflicted. Utter your final prayer now, to whatever god you think might claim your soul, and—”
A whimper interrupted his pronouncement. Torrin smelled urine, and realized Cathor had just relieved himself like a cowering dog. Despite the bravado of a moment before, the rogue’s eyes were filled with tears. He was crying. Like a c
hild.
“There is no god to claim me,” he whispered. “Only the anguish of the Nine Hells awaits.”
Torrin scowled. “You should have thought of that before committing your foul crimes.”
Cathor looked up, his face twisted with anguish. “You don’t understand,” he said. “You couldn’t. None of the Morndinsamman will take me.”
“That’s not true,” Torrin answered. “Your soul might have been reforged anew, had you repented, instead of gloating over what the duergar did. Moradin would have shown mercy.”
“Moradin, a god for the ‘true dwarves,’ ” said Cathor, his lips twisting with the words. “Not those with duergar blood muddying their veins.”
“Nonsense,” Torrin argued. “Look at me. My body may be human, yet Moradin will welcome me at his side, when the time comes for my soul to be reforged.”
Cathor gave a bitter laugh and said, “You’re such a fool, human.”
“You’re the fool,” Torrin replied, raising his mace again, preparing to finish Cathor. He’d killed before—the half-orc who’d tried to rob his parents’ shop, back when Torrin was just a boy. And the drow he’d slain in battle, during his misadventure in Araumycos with Gamlin and Farrik. Just a few moments before he’d accidentally finished off the dying half-elf. But those had all been in the heat of the moment. The man he was about to kill lay bound and helpless before him.
The rage that had filled Torrin a moment before was leaking out, being replaced by a sick feeling that was mixed with a twinge of pity as he stared down at the crying rogue. Torrin found it all too easy to understand what had stoked the forge of bitter anger inside Cathor. Torrin himself knew what it felt like to be mocked, to not fit in. To not be accepted by his own people.
Yet unlike Cathor, who’d let those hurts fester, Torrin had managed to pull himself away from the self-destructive path he’d been walking, back when he was trying to drink away his confusion and hurt in the years before joining the Delvers. Cathor, in contrast, had turned on his own people, embarking on a horrific scheme of misplaced revenge that had ultimately led to his own destruction.
What had made him walk so different a path?
Perhaps, Torrin thought, Cathor’s hurt was deeper. Torrin could shrug off insults, and had always believed that, if he only tried hard enough and long enough, people would see past his human body and realize that he was, indeed, as much a dwarf as any of the clanfolk. The Thunsonn clan, the Delvers—both had accepted him. But Cathor, with his bald head and gray skin, wouldn’t even have been given the benefit of the doubt.
What Cathor had done—his role in spreading the stoneplague to Eartheart—filled Torrin with revulsion. But did that make what Torrin was about to do the right thing, in the eyes of Moradin? Did it condone the fact that Torrin was now contemplating killing a helpless captive in cold blood? That was the antithesis of all that dwarves stood for. And dwarf law had a word for an execution performed without benefit of trial by council.
Murder.
Was that what Torrin was about to become? A murderer?
He lowered his mace. He would not stoop to the level of his captive. He would instead hand him over to the authorities in Eartheart. Cathor would certainly still be condemned to death, but it would be done in a legal, civilized fashion and according to the law, not at one man’s whim.
Torrin realized something then. He heard a voice, whispering. It wasn’t coming from his captive. It was coming from … He cocked an ear. Inside his shirt?
Torrin pulled up his shirt so that the brooch the Lord Scepter had given him was next to his ear. The stone set into the brooch was definitely emitting a voice.
“… still alive?” it said. “If you can hear me, please answer!”
Torrin blinked in surprise. “Lord Scepter?”
“Yes,” said the voice. “My thanks, Torrin Ironstar. You’ve provided an invaluable service to your city this night.”
Torrin stared at the brooch and shook his head. That geode wasn’t mere decorative element; it was a sending stone! The Lord Scepter had been listening in on everything Torrin had said and heard, ever since he’d left Eartheart! At first, Torrin felt outrage. The Lord Scepter had tricked him into wearing the brooch, had listened in on his most private moments! But then he realized the wisdom of the deception, the necessity of it. Had Torrin known what the brooch actually did, he might have worried about what the listener was thinking, might not have pulled things off nearly so well.
The stone in the brooch was talking again. “Can you describe the cavern you’re standing in? A detailed description?” it said.
“Why?” Torrin asked.
“We’re about to open a portal to your location,” the Lord Scepter told him. “The Steel Shields are coming through to take charge of your captive.”
Torrin thought back to the Lord Scepter’s earlier warning. “Will they arrest me as well?”
The voice from the brooch chuckled. “That order has been rescinded.”
“Very well, then,” Torrin said. He described the cavern’s dimensions, its gold-crusted walls and floor, the cut in the wall. He started to describe the objects scattered across the floor and their placement, relative to one another, but the Lord Scepter interrupted. “That’s enough,” he said. “Stand still, and don’t move.”
“I won’t,” Torrin replied.
He heard a soft popping sound—the rush of displaced air. A cleric of Clangeddin Silverbeard appeared in the middle of the cavern, holding above his head the twin axes that were both the symbol of his faith and his chosen weapons. His silver-plated armor glowed with the blood-red radiance of the battle god’s magic. The light flushed his face, turning his cheeks ruddy, and stained his white beard red.
Four Steel Shields materialized next to him an instant later, their maces drawn and their shields at the ready. They fanned out into the cavern at a nod from the cleric, who was obviously their commander. Meanwhile the cleric, his eyes burning with battle lust, strode to where Cathor lay on the floor. For a moment, Torrin thought the cleric was going to hack the rogue to pieces on the spot. Cathor must have felt the same, for he twisted violently and tried to roll away. But instead of killing the rogue, the cleric stamped a boot down onto Cathor’s chest, pinning him to the ground.
He turned back to Torrin. “Where’s the runestone?” he demanded, his gaze as piercing as a crossbow bolt.
Torrin opened his pack and pulled it out. Although he was reluctant to part with the runestone, he handed it over obediently.
The cleric glared down at it. “Dwarven,” he observed. “Ancient. Yet a powerful weapon, in the hands of our enemies.”
The four Steel Shields had finished searching the perimeter of the cavern. “All clear,” one shouted. The other three echoed his findings. The four knights seemed to be stout, steady soldiers—all longbeards at least a century or two old. Yet they kept glancing uneasily at the gold-crusted floor. They must have known, Torrin thought, that the gold was cursed, that by exposing themselves they’d succumb to the stoneplague. Yet they’d come on this mission just the same.
Looking at them, Torrin felt fiercely proud of his race. Just like the heroes who’d given their lives at the Gates of Underhome, millennia before, those dwarf knights and their leader were prepared to sacrifice themselves so that the people of Eartheart might survive.
At their commander’s nod, two of the Steel Shields slung their shields over their backs and sheathed their maces. One grabbed Cathor by the ankles while the other lifted him by the shoulders. Although he struggled, they carried him easily.
The other two knights flanked Torrin.
“We’ll be returning now,” the cleric told him.
Torrin’s heart pounded. He glanced at the runestone the cleric held. It was such a wondrous thing, the type of artifact a Delver might spend a lifetime searching for. And not just any artifact, but one that that was linked to the very lifeblood of the Dwarffather. Torrin needed it to complete his sacred quest. The runestone would
allow him, at long last, to find the Soulforge. To make his place in the world. Yet it was about to slip out of his grasp.
“You aren’t going to use the runestone to teleport, are you?” Torrin asked.
The cleric glanced up at him and said, “Why do you ask?”
Torrin gestured at the slit in the wall. “If you do, it may call the River of Gold. Molten gold could flood in and burn us.”
“No need for that,” the cleric said. “We’ll depart the way we came. Clangeddin Silverbeard will open a way home for us.”
“The runestone,” Torrin began, still staring at it. He took a deep breath, and plunged on. “The Lord Scepter ordered me to keep it safe.”
The cleric barely glanced at him. “Don’t worry, human,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s in good hands. Your part in this is done. Once we get back to Eartheart, you’ll be free to return to Sundasz, or wherever else you’d like to go. The Steel Shields will take up it from here.”
Torrin bristled. He was going to be set aside, like a chisel that had proved just the right tool for the job, but was no longer required. The cleric would never have spoken that way to him, had he known Torrin was a dwarf. “You don’t understand,” he protested. “I may look like one of the tallfolk, but …”
The cleric wasn’t listening.
“I’m the one the Lord Scepter sent on this mission,” Torrin continued, desperation suddenly making the words tumble from his mouth. “I’m the one to whom he entrusted the artifact. Lord Scepter Bladebeard’s specific orders were that I be the one to place the runestone in his hand, when my mission was done. And I swore an oath by Moradin’s beard that I would do precisely that.” He raised a clenched fist to his heart. “Would you have me break my oath to the Dwarffather? Or defy the commands of your Lord Scepter?”
The cleric raised his eyebrows. Behind him, the other Steel Shields exchanged glances. Torrin waited, his heart pounding. One didn’t lie to a cleric of the Father of Battle, especially one who’d been gripped by kuldtharn just moments before and still had his axes in hand. Yet Torrin just had.
The Gilded Rune Page 22
