Spider and Stone

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Garn lay on the ground, his face swollen with bruises and gashes that made him almost unrecognizable. Ruen wouldn’t have known him if not for the runes still faintly visible under the dirt and blood. A pile of rubble buried the right side of his body. Ruen was convinced the runepriest was dead, but when he guided Obrin to sit next to the body, he saw Garn’s chest rising and falling.

  “He’s alive,” Ruen murmured. “Obrin, your father lives.”

  Obrin grabbed Ruen’s tunic and jerked him close. “He’s dying,” the dwarf growled in broken Common. His accent was so thick, Ruen barely understood him. “Dying in agony. Can’t even pray!”

  “Let me look at him.” Ruen worked Obrin’s fingers loose from his tunic and knelt next to Garn. The runepriest opened his eyes and looked at Ruen. For a breath, there was no recognition in his eyes. “Garn, your son is here,” Ruen said. Obrin’s hands lay slackly in his lap. Ruen lifted one and placed it in Garn’s.

  Garn drew in a breath and gasped. Pain clouded his vision. Obrin held his hand and leaned in close, whispering something to his father. Garn moaned softly and moved his head from side to side. Obrin looked up at Ruen imploringly.

  “Garn, do you hear me?” Ruen said. He eased his glove off his left hand and laid it on the dwarf’s forehead. He’d expected the cold, but it still made him gasp with its intensity. His heart stuttered in his chest. Inside and out, Garn’s body was broken. It was surely a miracle from his god that he still drew breath at all. “I don’t have any more healing draughts,” Ruen said. “Can you call on your god to heal your wounds?”

  Garn moved his head from side to side again. A cough shook his body, wracking the already devastated frame. Garn cried out in anguish. “Leave me. Leave it be!”

  “He’s out of his head,” Obrin said. “Doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Ruen pulled off his other glove, leaned over Garn and put both hands on his chest. Energy tingled at his fingertips, waiting for his call. “Help him,” he told Obrin. “Say the words in the Dwarvish tongue.”

  “It’s too late,” Obrin said. “He’s going.”

  “He’s not gone yet!” Ruen snapped. “He needs to hear his son’s voice. If he knows he’s not alone, he’ll come back. He just needs to move beyond the pain and remember who he is.”

  Obrin scrubbed a hand across his wet eyes and nodded. He began speaking softly in Dwarvish. The words turned into a rhythmic chant, the sounds rumbling from the dwarf’s chest, rolling out smoothly on the air. Ruen closed his eyes and let himself be lulled by the soothing prayer, though he couldn’t understand the words.

  Energy, life—it all comes from the hands. His teachers at the monastery had told him this, though he’d never truly understood what they meant. The power provided strength, balance, and peace. He’d never understood because he’d never thought the teaching applied to him. In his mind, the spellscar eclipsed everything, tainted all that he touched, the power that slept inside him.

  “That’s why you’re leaving. Will you run forever, Ruen Morleth?”

  Carlvaris—his teacher’s words. It had been years since Ruen had thought of him. He’d never liked the man or any of his other teachers, though that hadn’t been their fault.

  His mind was wandering. Ruen tried to refocus his concentration, but Garn’s broken body faded, and an image of Icelin replaced it. She smiled at him while flames licked at her flesh. The memory of the dream slammed into him, and Ruen’s resolve wavered. Power surged and died.

  “So weak. You’ve always let it hold you back.”

  The teacher’s voice cut at him. How can I not? Ruen thought. It breaks down my body, piece by piece, bone by bone. No one should hold death in his hands. How could he touch her, knowing what was in his hands?

  Ruen looked down and saw Garn’s eyes open and fixed upon him. Something—a light, a spark of life—kindled in the dwarf’s eyes.

  “I feel it,” he rasped. “So warm …”

  “I can’t … it’s not what you think,” Ruen faltered. He was no healer. All he felt was cold.

  Obrin laid his hand over Ruen’s, linking the three of them. “Moradin, aid us,” he prayed. “We’re alone in the dark and lost. Guide us. Show us the way.” He looked at Ruen as he spoke the words in Common.

  Ruen fought to clear his mind. He breathed in deeply and released the breath, forcing himself to release his doubts as well. Garn’s life depended on it. The power surged in his hands, warmth swelling to replace the cold. His life force extended from his hands to cradle Garn. It was not healing, but strength he lent to the dwarf—balance and peace.

  Garn opened his eyes wide. A flash of gold light outlined the runes on his face. Obrin gasped, but Ruen couldn’t look away from the dwarf’s eyes. Tears dripped down the runepriest’s face.

  “Moradin, be with me,” Garn murmured. “I’m not done yet. Please.”

  The prayer’s effect came from within Garn’s body. Ruen felt the flesh and bone mending, the cuts and bruises on Garn’s face closing. The healing magic enveloped his own life energy, and Ruen stifled a shocked cry.

  Moradin’s blessing washed through him, hot like the time he’d stepped into Ingara’s forge. He saw her face in his mind’s eye, working the rare metals for her wedding gift to her man. The image faded, and then he saw Obrin, swinging his axe at a group of drow that surrounded him. They outnumbered him four to one, but he took them on fearlessly, and fatherly pride swelled in Ruen’s chest.

  Garn’s memories. Linked to the dwarf body and mind, Ruen felt the dwarf’s memories swell in him even as healing magic swirled through them both. He tried to pull away. He felt like an intruder, but Moradin’s power held them fast.

  In memory, Obrin’s battlefield changed to an open plaza, where two dwarves stood, waiting to be married. Was this the future? Ruen thought. Was he seeing Ingara’s wedding? No, it wasn’t Ingara. The female dwarf looked a bit like her, but her hair was golden, more like Joya’s, and the man standing next to her was definitely not Arngam but a younger version of Garn. The couple smiled happily at each other, and the woman leaned over spontaneously to kiss Garn.

  The scene melted to the interior of a temple. Garn knelt before an altar, his arms wrapped around Joya as she wept.

  “They’re gone!” Joya sobbed. “What am I going to do now, Father? Both halves of my heart—they’ve been torn out.”

  “You know better than that,” Garn gently chided his daughter. “Your mother and your goddess are still with you. Be strong, child. Your mother carried so many sorrows. I hoped it wouldn’t be your fate, but we do what we must …”

  The vision faded. Images crowded together faster now, dizzying Ruen. Garn being embraced by his king—a feeling of sorrow so strong it choked the dwarf silent, though he desperately wanted to speak to his friend. Mith Barak turned away and ascended his throne. A brilliant flash of light, and suddenly the king transformed, his flesh turning grayish silver and solid. He’d become a statue upon his throne, his eyes staring vacantly at Garn.

  Too much. Ruen cried out as the memories blended with his own—images of his mother when he was a child, the people in his village running away when he came near. They were afraid he would touch them. He was ill luck, a child of death. Even his mother had looked at him thus. When she smiled at him, Ruen saw the fear and revulsion lurking just under the surface.

  His teachers loomed over him, admonishing him to be strong, to look past his spellscar. None of them understood. The memories pressed in on him all at once, shadows he’d thought long buried, drawn from the dark places in his heart.

  Gods, Garn was seeing it all too, Ruen realized, all of his deepest secrets and fears. Their memories blended. He had nowhere to hide. Instinctively, Ruen tore himself away, and a searing pain enveloped his hands.

  Then it ended. Ruen came back to himself slowly. Afraid that he’d find himself trapped in another memory, Ruen cautiously looked around. Soon enough he recognized the dark cavern and the smell of death. He lay on his back next
to Garn, who was sitting up with Obrin’s aid. Sometime while the two were linked, Obrin must have cleared the rubble to free his father.

  “Are you all right?” Obrin asked Ruen, speaking again, haltingly, in the common tongue.

  Ruen nodded. The movement revealed a dull ache in his head, as if he’d had too much to drink. Drunk on memories. Ruen almost chuckled at the notion, but he was too weary and heartsick with everything he’d just seen.

  He looked at Garn. The runepriest had his eyes closed and fingered the holy symbol he wore around his neck. He spoke softly under his breath, still communing with his god. Ruen didn’t blame him. Moradin’s power still thrummed in his veins—a warm touch, but rough like a calloused hand. Healing energy suffused his limbs. They’d completely healed his broken arm.

  “The others are regrouping,” Obrin said as more lights kindled around the cavern, revealing dwarves moving around the battlefield, tending to the wounded and collecting the dead. “We need to be on the move, see how bad the tunnels are.”

  “We’ll have a lot of digging ahead of us,” Garn said, opening his eyes abruptly. His voice was clear and free of pain. “Moradin knows we’ll need every hand we can spare to get us back to the city.”

  “This attack was just a decoy,” Ruen said, “a distraction. Their target is the sphere, not the city itself. By now they must know Zollgarza’s failed to get it, so they’ll attack the city directly.”

  “Then we dig fast,” Garn said. “My hands are healed, and by the gods, I know how to move the earth. Moradin gave me a second chance to do what I do best.” He glanced at Ruen. “And you—you have my thanks,” he said. “When you touched me, I saw—”

  “So did I,” Ruen interrupted. “Things we didn’t mean for the other to see. I won’t speak of them, I promise you.”

  Garn looked puzzled. “Or maybe we were meant to speak of them,” he said. “Whatever’s inside you, human, it touched me, and it wasn’t death. You shouldn’t be afraid of your power.”

  Ruen started to reply, to dismiss the dwarf’s point, but he hesitated under the scrutiny of Garn’s gaze. The dwarf had seen inside of him, his memories and fears. Lies and dismissals couldn’t hide the truth from him.

  “Everyone I’ve ever let close has turned from me,” Ruen said. “You saw it for yourself, in my memories. The spellscar made my bones brittle and brought me so close to death that it became a part of me. I can measure your life force just by touching you.”

  “Bah, that doesn’t mean you cause death,” Garn said. “You touched me, and I felt warmth, not ice. You brought me back from the brink, cleared my head, and let me reach out to my god.” His voice cracked. “That’s worth something, boy.”

  “What if you were in my place?” Ruen challenged him. “What if you’d known before it happened that your wife was going to die?”

  “I did know,” Garn said flatly. Beside him, Obrin, who’d been quietly watching the two, put his hand on his father’s arm. “You didn’t see all the memories. I didn’t know it on the day she got sick, but soon after, I saw it. I read it in her eyes. You don’t always have to have magic to know when you’re looking death in the face.” Garn looked at Obrin, staring into his son’s eyes. Ruen realized then that Obrin had his mother’s eyes. “Knowing what I knew didn’t taint the time we had left,” Garn went on. “I wouldn’t let it.”

  “This isn’t the same,” Ruen said.

  “Isn’t it?” Garn said softly. “Don’t worry,” he added. “I know you don’t want me to speak of what I saw in your mind. I won’t talk about the girl, but you can’t lie to yourself. You know what you feel.”

  “What if it isn’t enough?” Ruen said, and this time it was his own body that felt like ice. “What if she rejects what she sees in me?”

  “Her choice,” Obrin said, shrugging. “Trust her.”

  Ruen looked at Obrin. The gruff, taciturn dwarf actually smiled at him. It was a faint, tremulous expression, and completely out of place on the warrior’s face, but then again, nothing made sense on this battlefield. Ruen had never dreamed he’d be sitting with these two dwarves in the middle of a war, talking about his hopes, fears, and loves.

  Yes, he loved Icelin. Garn was right. Ruen couldn’t lie to himself—or her—anymore. He had to get out of here, back to Iltkazar before the drow attack came. He owed her an explanation for why he’d pushed her away.

  Reality hit Ruen then. Several tons of rock lay between him and that lofty goal. Not to mention the fact that Icelin was probably furious at him for how he’d behaved. He likely had a lot of digging and then a lot more groveling ahead of him. Ruen groaned silently. “We should get moving,” he said.

  GUALLIDURTH, THE UNDERDARK

  27 UKTAR

  IT IS DONE,” LEVRIIN SOLTIF TOLD THE MISTRESS mother.

  “The deception was successful?” Fizzri clenched her hands into fists to quell her excitement.

  “We engaged the dwarves in what I believe was the largest skirmish yet with their forces,” the wizard replied. “We decimated their numbers and sealed them off from the city.”

  “They will return,” Fizzri said. “Tunneling animals always find a way to return to their dens. We don’t have much time.”

  Levriin bowed his head in assent. “Scouts report they are breaking through the debris even now and filtering slowly back to Iltkazar. If we strike again before the end of the tenday—”

  “We attack on the morrow,” the mistress mother cut him off. “Our forces are already mustered for a multi-pronged assault. Prepare your magic and whatever apprentices you have left—those that will follow you,” she said, her lips curving in a wicked smile. “You’ve done well.”

  “Mistress—” Levriin hesitated. Fizzri saw the doubts flashing in his eyes. Her own eyes narrowed, but this did not deter the male. “I advise taking at least one day to regroup and rest our forces. When next we engage them in battle, the dwarves will be fighting from their home ground. The advantage is theirs. If we’re not prepared, we risk losing any advantage we’ve already gained.”

  “Then you will ensure we are prepared,” Fizzri said. “See to it personally, Levriin. Consider it your test, another opportunity to prove your worth to the Spider Queen.”

  “Mistress, we have been bold. We’ve proven that we can take Iltkazar, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished by any of the generations of drow who’ve come before us. We will take yet another piece of Shanatar.”

  “You’re right, Levriin,” Fizzri said. “And we will do so on the morrow.”

  Levriin’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He bowed again and left the audience chamber. Fizzri decided not to call him back or take him to task for questioning her judgment, no matter how indirectly he’d gone about it. She felt calm, more at peace than she had been since Zollgarza had disappeared.

  He was alive. Lolth was still with her. Fizzri felt it deep inside her. The goddess was letting her prove that she had this conquest in hand. She would claim the Arcane Script Sphere for Lolth.

  As for Zollgarza …

  He was for the Spider Queen. The goddess had maimed him and marked him. He was the vessel, the conduit that when combined with the Arcane Script Sphere would usher in Lolth’s ascension to goddess of magic. And Fizzri would be there, conducting the ritual, giving Lolth exactly what she desired. The rewards for her service and Zollgarza’s sacrifice would be beyond imagining. All Fizzri had to do was retrieve him and the sphere.

  Stay alive just a bit longer, Zollgarza. I’m coming for you.

  Ruen assured himself for perhaps the fifth time that day that his arms were on the verge of falling off. Doubtless they’d just be hauled away with the rest of the debris from the tunnel collapse, along with Ruen’s exhausted body.

  They’d been digging for hours, though time, in Ruen’s mind, had blurred together into an endless series of motions: fitting his hands around a piece of stone, prying it loose from the pile blocking the tunnel, and hauling it away to the Hall of Lost Voices. The man or woma
n in front of him and behind him shared those same motions, and at first they’d talked—and even jested a little, once they’d got over the initial horror and shock of the battle’s aftermath—as they worked to reopen the tunnel. Exhaustion had gradually set in, and they worked in a silence of lumbering movements and glazed eyes. Ruen had a new appreciation for the lot of a beast of burden.

  The dwarf behind him tapped him on the shoulder. Ruen reached back automatically to accept the waterskin the dwarf held out and nodded his thanks. He took a measured drink and passed it on to Obrin, who worked in front of him.

  They took brief rests for food and sleep, but the only thing worse than the backbreaking labor was sitting idle in the empty cavern among the wounded and the dead. They’d gathered all the bodies together beneath the carved stone faces and covered them with blankets. Only then did it become clear how costly the battle had been. Seeing the bodies did not bother Ruen, but he felt trapped in the tunnel, the stone pressing in on him from all sides. He was weary, sore, and so damned tired of being underground. Endless darkness and no sky above his head—he couldn’t live the dwarf life.

  Ahead of him, a commotion erupted. Excited whispers drifted back to Ruen, but he was so absorbed in his own world that at first he didn’t realize what they were saying.

  “They’re breaking through the wall!”

  “I heard his voice! He came for us—the king!”

  The dwarf standing behind Ruen began shaking him by the arm. Ruen turned and saw the wide grin stretched across the warrior’s dirt-streaked face. “Did you hear? We’re gettin’ out.”

  Ruen smiled wearily at the dwarf. “The king himself comes to rescue us.”

  The dwarf patted him roughly on the shoulder. “We’ll get those drow bastards yet. Watch and see.”