The Gilded Rune (forgotten realms)

by Lisa Smedman

  “It also draws spellfire,” Torrin warned.

  The wizard’s hand jerked to a stop. He sat back, leaving the runestone where it was.

  “But only when it’s in an earth node,” Torrin continued.

  “Spellfire,” Zarifar said softly. He moved one finger back and forth across the table in a seemingly aimless fashion, mumbling to himself in a low voice, speaking in drow. He stared dreamily up at the ceiling.

  Torrin waited while the wizard mused.

  “Not possible,” Zarifar said abruptly, his hand jerking to a halt.

  “What isn’t?” asked Torrin.

  Zarifar traced lines across the table with his finger, each line ending at the tablet he’d spun in the air earlier. “Magic follows lines,” he said. “Spellfire…” He lifted his hand suddenly from the table and waggled his fingers. “Does not.”

  Torrin gritted his teeth.

  Rathorn chuckled. “What Zarifar means is that the lines of magical energy that come together at the locations we call ‘earth nodes’ each run along a fixed course through the earth,” he explained. “Spellfire, on the other hand, is wild magic that can neither be constrained nor channelled. It explodes into this realm at random, disfiguring flesh and grossly distorting spells. It is a force of chaos, and as such would be utterly antithetical to the tightly controlled and constrained magic of an earth node. That’s what Zarifar is trying to say-isn’t that right, Zarifar?”

  The mage nodded down at one of the runestones on the table. “Order,” he said, flipping it over, blank side up. “Disorder.” Then he paused, and stared hard at the back of the tablet. “And yet… patterns, within the grain of the stone itself.” He seemed to have forgotten that Torrin was even there. He flipped the tablet faceup again and mumbled to himself.

  “Yet channelling spellfire is possible,” Torrin insisted. He thought of the blue fire that crackled through Eralynn’s hands. “The spellscarred do it all the time when they work their magic. Why couldn’t a magical runestone do the same?”

  “Impossible,” Rathorn said. He was obviously one of those dwarves whose tightly tied beliefs were impossible to unknot. “Next you’ll be telling me it’s possible to wring water from a stone.”

  Torrin smiled and said, “Funny you should say that.” He lifted his pack and pulled out a stone he’d collected from Araumycos, long before he became a Delver. He carried the stone around with him still, as a souvenir. It was about the size of a walnut, and porous, like volcanic rock. Torrin shook it, then held it above the table. A dribble of water trickled out-more water than the holes alone could have held. The water puddled on the table and dribbled down onto the floor, prompting a frown from Rathorn.

  Zarifar’s attention was immediately captured. “A rock gourd,” he said.

  Torrin nodded. It was one area of geomancy in which he was well versed. “Rock gourds are valuable, if they’re large enough,” he said. “Kind of like a never-empty waterskin. But this one’s hardly big enough to quench a mouse’s thirst. Still, the point is made.”

  Rathorn folded his book shut. His cheeks were pink above the beard bag. He stood. “That’s enough for me,” he said. “Good night, Zarifar.”

  The dark elf didn’t answer. He was still staring at the rock gourd, his lips moving silently as he counted the drops falling from it. One finger moved downward, drip by drip, as he traced their fall.

  “Good night, Delver Torrin,” the cleric added. “And… good luck with your quest for knowledge.” With that, Rathorn took his leave.

  Torrin scrambled to his feet and bowed. He realized he’d embarrassed the cleric, for which he was sorry. But lately, it seemed even dwarf clerics didn’t have all the answers. As Rathorn left, Torrin turned back to the dark elf, who’d fallen silent.

  Zarifar stared off into space, one hand idly playing with the tablet he’d been spinning earlier. “It just might be possible,” he said.

  “What?” Torrin asked.

  “Channelling spellfire,” replied the drow. He nodded at the runestone. “Grooves cut deep in stone expose the patterns within. Spellfire could leak into them and flow, like water through a trough. But only if the caster dug deep.” He pointed at Torrin’s chest. “Deep inside himself.”

  Torrin stood for a moment, lost in thought. “Emotion?” he guessed.

  Zarifar nodded.

  So that was what triggered the runestone’s magic when it was within an earth node. Strong emotion. The first time, it had been Torrin’s fear and his desperate need to be safe, to be home. The second time, it had been his concern about Eralynn. But the runestone hadn’t worked when he’d tried to find Vadyr, despite the fact that Torrin’s hatred for him smoldered. That emotion should have been enough to carry Torrin past any magical wards the rogue had surrounded himself with. Yet it hadn’t.

  That mystery notwithstanding, Torrin was making progress. The Dwarffather himself, it would seem, had steered him to Sundasz, the library, and a meeting with the strange dark elf. For that, Torrin gave praise. He was one step further along the path that he hoped would save Kier.

  Zarifar yawned. He pushed his stool back from the table, as though getting ready to leave.

  “I have one more question,” Torrin said hurriedly. “If you’ll indulge me?”

  Zarifar had half-risen, but the stones seemed to catch his attention once more. He sat down again and began lining them up in a column, largest to smallest.

  “When I used the runestone and it drew spellfire,” Torrin said, “something else happened. Gold dripped from the ceiling of the earth node cavern. The first time, there was an explanation. A red dragon was attacking, and I assumed its breath had melted a vein of gold. But the second time I used the runestone, gold also dripped from the ceiling. What might have caused that?”

  “Gold,” Zarifar said, not looking up. His finger traced a line through the water left on the table by the rock gourd, dragging a wet smear across the wood. “Molten gold. Flowing. Spellfire, flowing. Patterns atop patterns.”

  Abruptly, Zarifar tapped the wet finger against one of the books Torrin had taken from the stacks. “This one,” he said. “Page two hundred and sixty-four.” He pushed the tablets he’d aligned into an untidy pile and stood. Before Torrin could protest, he exited the center of the library and was gone, leaving without so much as a farewell.

  Torrin picked up the book the wizard had indicated. It was a small book, its leather binding flaking with age. It was titled Moradin’s Mysteries and had a hammer and anvil, symbols of the Dwarffather, embossed on the cover.

  Torrin frowned. He didn’t remember pulling it from the stacks.

  He opened the book carefully. The vellum pages were loose in their bindings, spotted with age, and musty smelling. Several were missing, and others were hanging by their binding threads. Page two hundred and sixty-four was still there, but was loose. The page began with one of the standard prayers to Moradin, written in Auld Dethek. The runes were scribed in a small cramped hand that made them difficult to read. Torrin had to decipher the prayer rune by rune. Grant me the strength of heart, O Moradin, to do something good this day. Something useful, something of lasting worth… Torrin knew the prayer by heart; he said it every morning. He skipped past it, to the bottom of the page. What was written there immediately caught his attention.

  One of the lesser known wonders by which Moradin makes his blessings manifest upon Faerun is the River of Gold. Glory to those who cross its ever-changing path! For not only shall they bask in Moradin’s presence, but shall be rewarded with riches the like of which have not been seen on Faerun since the coming of our people to this Realm! But beware, treasure seekers, the River of Gold is a difficult vein to tap. Use only stone vessels to draw from its current, for it melts all base metals that come in contact with it.

  Torrin paused, thinking. A river of molten gold? He’d had never heard of such a thing. Gold might be melted by proximity to a volcano, perhaps-or by the breath of a red dragon, or by spellfire-but once it flowed aw
ay from the source of the heat, it cooled and hardened. It didn’t keep flowing through all the earth like a river. That wasn’t possible. Or was it?

  He leaned forward to read on, his arms crossed. His right hand rested atop his left bracer, his fingers picking at the groove in it. The groove wasn’t sharp-edged, but smooth, like a line traced through sand. A groove made by flowing water.

  Or by flowing gold?

  He thought back to the piece of hardened gold he’d plucked from his scorched sleeve. Had it come from the River of Gold?

  He picked up the magical runestone, the hairs on the back of his neck shivering erect. He could almost feel the Dwarffather standing beside him, watching. Waiting.

  He was on to something-something important. Another piece of the puzzle that the dream-Moradin had urged him to unearth. He placed the runestone back on the table and read on eagerly.

  No map exists of the River of Gold, nor will it ever be found in the same location twice. It flows as the Dwarffather wills. It ever must be hunted anew, in the deepest and most remote regions of the earth. It alters course continually, from channel to channel, following the magical conduits that were forged, eons ago, at the time the gods themselves first took form. Some runemasters claim to be able to direct its flow, to temporarily pull…

  There, the text ended, at the bottom of the page. The page that should have followed was missing-as were fully a dozen other pages. They’d been deliberately removed, by the look of it. The threads that had held the signature in place were cleanly cut, and there was a small nick at the inside edge of the page that followed, likely made when the signature was cut free.

  Torrin flipped pages, hoping to find another reference to the mysterious River of Gold, but the rest of the book contained only prayers and notes on caverns of great natural beauty. Nor was there any mention of earth nodes, or, for that matter, of the Soulforge. Just that one cryptic reference to a river of molten gold that flowed through the earth in a constantly shifting vein.

  A vein that could, he was willing to wager, be “pulled” to any spot on Faerun by the runestone that lay on the table in front of him.

  Torrin stared at the runes carved into the stone. “Earth magic,” they read. The runestone, he decided, must act like a lodestone, drawing not one but two sets of magical “filings” to it: the wild magic of spellfire, and the River of Gold. But only, it would seem, when it was activated within the magical lines of force that crisscrossed Faerun and converged to form earth nodes.

  Any other dwarf might immediately have turned his thoughts to the limitless wealth the runestone could convey. Torrin, however, was delving deeper than that.

  He thought about what he’d learned so far.

  Someone-likely some enemy of the dwarves-had invoked the powerful curse that caused the stoneplague. That curse might have been placed on any object. Copper coins, for example, would have been a better choice, since they’d guarantee a wide and rapid distribution throughout the dwarf settlements. Yet the spellcaster had chosen the noblest metal of all. Why?

  The answer might be as simple as the fact that dwarves coveted gold, something the caster of the curse would have in abundance. Armed with the runestone and the missing pages from the book, the spellcaster had called the River of Gold, tapped it, and cast the gold into bars, before fouling them with the curse.

  Kendril, the dwarf Torrin had purchased the runestone from, was likely the one who’d removed the pages from the book. His brother had mentioned that Kendril came to Sundasz to study after their falling-out. Kendril had been a cleric at the time; he would have had an interest in such texts. The prospect of wealth without limit must have tempted him. And somehow, the secret Kendril had uncovered in that book wound up in the hands of the person who’d cursed the gold. Later, after Kendril realized the use the pages had been put to, he’d felt remorse for his role in creating the stoneplague. But instead of reporting what he’d done, he’d stolen the runestone and sold it, so that his own clan might be saved.

  Given Kendril’s affliction, he was probably an unwitting pawn, unaware until it was too late that a curse had been placed upon the gold. Which explained Kendril’s deep remorse. A dwarf, Torrin knew, would never willingly condemn his race to so dire a fate.

  Vadyr, as well, was likely only a minion of whoever had cursed the gold. If he’d been powerful enough to invoke a ritual capable of producing so strong a curse, he would have used magic to lay Torrin low, not a rogue’s sap.

  There was someone else-some powerful wizard-lurking in the shadows behind those two. Torrin was certain of it.

  That was all well and good, but it still left Torrin wondering what to do next. The puzzle, like the one Frivaldi had challenged Torrin to solve, seemed no closer to a solution, despite the fact that more than one link had just fallen into place.

  One thing was certain, however. Torrin’s runestone was a lot more valuable than he’d thought. Literally priceless, since using it could make a person wealthy beyond even the greediest prospector’s wildest dreams.

  He idly gave the runestone a twist, and listened to it rasp against the tabletop as it spun. Which direction next, he wondered? Back to the Wyrmcaves or some other earth node, to try once more to teleport to Vadyr? On to Helmstar to make enquiries about Kendril, to see whom he’d associated with there? Whatever course of action Torrin embarked upon next, he’d have to be as stealthy as a rogue, even with the brooch the Lord Scepter had given him pinned inside his shirt. As soon as word got out of the runestone’s capabilities-which it surely would given that Torrin had told Zarifar about it-Vadyr wouldn’t be the only rogue going after it.

  That raised a question. Why hadn’t other rogues tried to grab the runestone? Surely the wizard who’d invoked the curse had enough gold to hire every rogue on Faerun, and could have sent countless hirelings on Torrin’s trail. The only answer Torrin could think of was that Vadyr must have gotten greedy. Rather than telling his master the location of the runestone, he’d made a grab for it himself.

  If that was what had happened, whoever had cast the curse might not know about Torrin yet.

  Dumathoin grant that it stays that way, Torrin thought.

  He caught the spinning stone, halted it, then spun it in the other direction. Caught it, and spun it again the other way, watching its shadow wobble across the tabletop. Caught it and…

  Suddenly, he realized the answer.

  “Of course,” he said, grinning at himself for sounding like Zarifar. “The opposite direction.”

  He tucked the runestone into his pack, where it would be safer, and hurriedly departed from the library.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Better an ounce of happiness than a pound of gold.”

  Delver’s Tome, Volume VI, Chapter 46, Entry 35

  Torrin counted out the last of his coins onto the merchant’s counter. He had just enough to buy wayfarer’s bread and a round of cheese. Behind him, he heard a woman calling his name. He turned and saw Val’tissa striding through the market toward him. The dark elf wove her way through the stalls heaped with truffles, dried apples, cured meats, and bags of spice, skirting around the dwarves and tallfolk who crowded the narrow walkways. She moved with the grace of a dancer.

  Torrin braced himself as she drew closer. “What news?” he asked.

  Val’tissa’s expression was grim. “It was as you feared. Our ritual couldn’t cure her.”

  Torrin felt as though ice water had been poured down his back. His hands shook. “Eralynn is…”

  Val’tissa said what he couldn’t. “Dead.”

  Torrin closed his eyes and wept, tears streaming down his face. Another of his clanfolk, gone! Eralynn had been so certain the dark elf’s magic would save her. But she had died, far from clan and hearth. If only Torrin had more of the ointment Mercuria had sold him, he might have prevented it! He might have kept death at bay, as he’d done with Kier.

  He’d been wrong to place his trust in the dark elves.

  “I’ll…” He
swallowed. Forced the words out. “I’ll take her body home. For…”

  For burial, he’d been about to say. But he couldn’t get the words out.

  Eralynn’s soul would already be on the Fugue Plain, waiting for Moradin’s messengers to convey her to his realm. There, she would dwell until the time came for her to be reborn. When that time came, her soul would return in a new body forged by the Dwarffather and filled with the breath of life. She’d live again-of that, Torrin was certain. Yet that promise held as little comfort as cold ash. As Eralynn had herself said, Torrin would likely never recognize her, in her next incarnation. And she would not know him.

  Torrin wiped his cheeks with the back of one hand. “Take me to her,” he said in a husky voice. “Prayers need to be spoken.”

  Val’tissa nodded, as if she’d been expecting that. Together they left the marketplace and made their way through Sundasz to the sacred cavern of Corellon. The sun was overhead, streaming golden light that turned the oak leaves a vibrant green-the color of life budding anew. The beauty of the grove did little to cheer Torrin, however. All he could focus on, as he walked to the statue of the elf god, was Eralynn’s body.

  She lay on a bier that Val’tissa and her fellow clerics must have constructed-a platform of living tree roots that had been magically drawn from the earth and woven together. She was on her back, her blonde braids tamed at last and lying neatly across each shoulder. The spellfire that had once crackled across those poor, gnarled hands had fled. Her face, so determined and defiant in life, was stiff and gray in death, her mouth open slightly. Val’tissa had closed the eyes, for which Torrin was grateful. He didn’t think he could bear Eralynn’s reproachful stare-a stare that would demand why he’d not yet found a cure, as he’d sworn to do.

  Torrin knelt beside the bier and held his hands above Eralynn’s body, his fists clenched. As Kendril had done on the day Torrin had met with him near Needle Leap, Torrin brought his fists together-hammer on anvil. “Dwarffather, hear my prayer,” he said. “Convey to your realm the soul of this, my fellow Delver. May she bask in the warmth of your forge, may her soul prove to have more about it that is pure than dross, may it prove worthy of being cast anew.”