The Gilded Rune

by Smedman, Lisa

  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 cleared, 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.

  He searched for the spot where the duergar had cut their rune. At first, he didn’t see it. Then he realized it must lie under the dome of spellfire. It was difficult to see through the crackling blue haze. Yet by staring at the spellfire intently, first through his goggle lens and then through his uncovered eye, Torrin could barely make out wide grooves on the cavern floor, filled with the same green-gold metal. Those were the rune lines the duergar had carved, filled with gold taken from Moradin’s lanced vein.

  “Moradin smite me,” Torrin whispered. “What am I supposed to do now?” He reached with a trembling hand to touch his beard. Once again, he winced at the unfamiliar feel of the blunt end.

  He was so close. Yet he might as well have been on the opposite side of Faerûn for all the good it would do. That dome of spellfire was enormous. And deadly. If he went any closer to it, he’d likely be incinerated, reduced to ash before he got halfway there. Even though it was all the way across the cavern, the raw magic was taking its toll. A wizard protected by powerful magic might last a day or two before succumbing to the deadly wash of energy. Torrin would be lucky to last half a day.

  Should he retrace his steps? Try to find Baelar and the others? See if they could think of a solution? Yet doing that would mean admitting he’d been wrong. Admitting that he wasn’t capable of undoing the rune magic on his own.

  “Moradin,” he whispered. “Am I the one who is to be your savior?”

  No answer came. Torrin hadn’t expected it to.

  As he stood there with the runestone, wondering what to do next, a faint sound reached his ears: a clanging, like metal on metal. Was that really the clash of weapons? He paused, listening, and at last pinpointed the sound. He stared in that direction, squinting against the harsh blue light of the spellfire, trying to make out what was happening.

  There! At the side of the cavern! About a dozen moving figures emerged from a tunnel to his left that definitely hadn’t been there a moment before. It was likely that the tunnel mouth had been cloaked by an illusion. Torrin saw two groups, locked in combat. The glare of spellfire made their outlines wavering and indistinct, but Torrin could make out that those on foot were being pushed into the cavern by attackers mounted on what looked like giant spiders.

  Escaped slaves, being herded into the deadly spellfir
e by duergar?

  Then he heard a sound like the wail of an icy wind, and saw a cloud of what looked like swirling snow-flakes erupt around a standing figure who’d just landed a blow. Torrin had seen that magical effect before. And he knew the weapon that produced it—a frost axe.

  “By Moradin’s beard!” Torrin gasped. “That’s Baelar!”

  He jammed the runestone into his pocket. Then he sprinted, crystals crunching underfoot, to the spot where the battle raged.

  “Pure gold does not fear the fire.”

  Delver’s Tome, Volume I, Chapter 2, Entry 8

  TORRIN RACED TO THE BATTLE, HIS MACE IN HIS HAND, ploughing through the floating crystals that crowded the air like floating hail. He wanted to shout Baelar’s name, to let the dwarves know he was headed their way, but that would draw the duergar’s attention as well. In the hazy, crackling light, there was just a chance that they wouldn’t notice him, or would think him some shadow or trick of the light.

  As he drew nearer, he could see more clearly through the spellfire-hazed air. Just ahead, four dwarves battled three spider-mounted duergar. The dwarves were being pressed hard. They’d been forced out of the tunnel and into the cavern, where crystals on the floor made the footing treacherous. The crystals didn’t slow the spiders at all. One scuttled out of the tunnel and up onto the ceiling, where its rider rained arrows down at the dwarves. Another raced lightly along the wall and jumped down several paces beyond the entrance, flanking the four dwarves. The third spider leaped out of the tunnel and, as one of the dwarves stumbled and lowered his axe, grabbed him in its jaws.

  The dwarf screamed in agony as the jaws scissored shut. He suddenly went rigid, and his axe fell from his hand.

  Baelar ran at that spider, brandishing his axe. He shouted and swung. The blade sliced off one of the spider’s legs. Frost exploded in a cloud as what remained of the leg froze solid then shattered, wrenching a chunk of the body off with it. The spider released its hold on the dwarf and crumpled. Baelar’s second blow cracked its head wide open.

  The dwarf who’d been bitten fell in a stiff-limbed heap to the ground and didn’t rise. Baelar glanced at him, then pressed home his attack on the rider who’d just leaped off the spider’s back. Baelar’s next axe swing, however, passed through empty air as the duergar did a peculiar leap backwards, twisting as he jumped. The foe suddenly appeared behind Baelar. His axe descended in a deadly arc …

  But in that moment, Torrin reached the battle. “Thuldnoror!” he cried, swinging his mace. Thunder boomed as the mace smashed into the side of the duergar’s head, shattering the duergar’s skull like weakened stone in an explosion of blood and brains.

  Baelar stared at Torrin for a heartbeat, his eyes wide. He gave the briefest of nods and pointed at the rider who’d landed his spider behind them. “That one!” he ordered.

  Torrin scrambled to the spot where one of the other dwarves—Captain Blackhammer—was fighting the duergar rider who’d flanked them. Blackhammer was trying to lop the legs off of the spider as Baelar had done. But before he could, the duergar rider hurled his lance. Blackhammer dove under the spider and rolled, emerging beyond its claw-tipped legs. The lance clattered off the crystal floor and skittered away.

  “Stoneshield!” Baelar shouted from somewhere behind Torrin. “Close the tunnel!”

  Torrin could see Captain Stoneshield out of the corner of his eye. The gray-bearded knight punched a fist into the air above his head. An arrow that had just been shot by the rider on the ceiling shattered into harmless splinters as Stoneshield’s magic struck it.

  “But the others!” Stoneshield shouted back at Baelar. “They won’t—”

  “Now!” Baelar shouted. “Do it!”

  Torrin risked a second glance at the tunnel behind him. He spotted another dwarf inside it, sprinting for the cavern and shouting at them to wait. Three more duergar on spiders were close on his heels, about to overtake him. Baelar shouted again at Stoneshield to close the tunnel. Stoneshield continued to hesitate. At the last possible moment, just as the running dwarf burst into the cavern, Stoneshield slapped his hands together.

  The walls slammed shut, crushing the three spiders. Colorless blood squirted out in a spray from between the rock. A clawed foot caught in the rock twitched, then was still.

  Then an arrow plunged down into Stoneshield’s neck. He crumpled wordlessly, slain where he stood.

  Baelar shouted and hurled his axe. The weapon whirled through the air, blades flashing, and buried itself in the chest of the rider above. The duergar rocked backward, then slipped from the saddle to dangle from a stirrup, his twisting corpse spurting blood that froze to red hail as it fell. The spider scuttled away across the ceiling.

  Torrin reached the last rider just as that duergar’s spider crouched for a leap. Shouting “Thuldnoror!” once more, he slammed his mace into the spider’s twitching abdomen. Thunder boomed, rupturing the abdomen and sending blood, strands of guts, and fragments of bristle-haired chitlin everywhere. Spider blood splattered onto Torrin’s face, blinding him. He danced back, frantically wiping a hand across the lens of his goggles and spitting out the foul-tasting liquid. As he moved, he heard a scream above. He whipped up his mace to parry the expected blow, and heard the thud of a body landing beside him. Another wipe of his goggles cleared them. He saw it was the rider who’d fallen, pierced by his own lance. Captain Blackhammer stood a pace away, panting. He must have been the one who threw the lance. Baelar was cursing as he watched his prized axe, still buried in the body of the rider he’d thrown it at earlier, being carried away by the fleeing spider.

  Torrin grinned through the muck that covered his face. They’d done it! Killed the three duergar riders and their mounts, and sent the one surviving spider scuttling away. The squad had paid a heavy price, having lost Captain Stoneshield and the knight who’d been killed by spider venom, but three of them remained: Baelar, Captain Blackhammer, and a third dwarf who stood next to the spot where the tunnel had been, holding an axe in his hand.

  Torrin stared at the third dwarf, trying to place him. He must be a captain, yet Torrin didn’t recognize him. And he was holding his axe in an odd manner, straight out ahead of him like a wand. There was also something odd about the way the dwarf was smiling. He looked … smug?

  Torrin squinted, and the axe in the dwarf’s hand seemed to waver. That was a wand he was holding.

  Baelar glanced in the direction Torrin was staring. He startled. “That’s not one of—”

  A beam of green light streaked from the wand and slammed into Blackhammer’s chest. Blackhammer grunted, glanced down, and saw that his body was bathed in a sickly green light. A hole opened in his chest, and in the space of a blink it widened until it had split him in two. As the axe he’d been holding clattered to the floor, the sickly green glow flashed up to Blackhammer’s head and down to his boots, consuming him as it soundlessly burned. A heartbeat later, there was only a dwarf-shaped puff of greasy green smoke where he’d been standing.

  Captain Blackhammer was just … gone. Killed by the dwarf who’d just dropped the illusion that had been cloaking him. Not a dwarf, Torrin saw, but a duergar whose body was covered in tattooed runes.

  Their enemy grinned and shifted his wand.

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Torrin heard his heart thud in his ears. He saw Baelar dive for Black-hammer’s axe. He heard his heart thud a second time. Torrin started to shift his mace, and realized he’d never reach the duergar wizard in time. He heard his heart thud again. Saw green light blossom at the tip of the wand, which was tracking Baelar as he dove.

  Torrin felt a strange detachment. He heard his own voice shouting “No!” and felt his body, as if in a dream, leap into motion. His right hand—the one crackling with spellfire—reached out to block the beam as it streaked toward Baelar.

  Spellfire flared outward from Torrin’s palm, expanding into a glowing blue shield. The green light struck it and reflected, streaking back to the duergar holding the wand.
The duergar’s mouth opened in surprise as he was consumed from within by the noiseless green fire, just as Blackhammer had been. A heartbeat later, only greasy green smoke remained. The smoke drifted away and was gone.

  Baelar rose shakily to his feet, Blackhammer’s axe in hand, and gaped at Torrin. “How did you do that?” he said.

  “I have no idea,” Torrin said in a faint voice. “It just … came to me.” He stared in wonder at his spellscarred hand. What else might it be capable of? If only Eralynn were alive, he might have asked her. The thought saddened him.

  “By the gods,” Baelar said, shaking his head. “You’ve just pulled me out from between hammer and anvil. One moment more …”

  “Yes,” Torrin answered.

  One thing was clear. The duergar whose spell Torrin had turned must have been the one Tril had asked about, back in the tavern in Sundasz. The half-elf had mentioned tattoos. Now Torrin understood what had frightened the rogues so. He could also guess where Vadyr had disappeared to—why magic couldn’t find him. Like Blackhammer, he’d been consumed by the wand’s foul magic. That was why Eartheart’s mages hadn’t been able to locate Vadyr, and why Torrin hadn’t been able to teleport to him. He was simply … gone.

  Baelar bowed until his beard touched the floor. “My thanks, Torrin Ironstar,” he said. “My profound thanks. You have indeed proved yourself as stout-hearted as any dwarf this day. And every bit as honorable.”

  Torrin nodded in reply. Then the trembles began. He clutched his mace tightly, by sheer will alone forcing the shaking to stop. There was still work to be done.

  “How did you find this cavern?” Torrin asked.

  “That was your contribution, Torrin. Your message got through. The Lord Scepter relayed the information to us. He’s no doubt listening, even now.”