The Gilded Rune (forgotten realms)

by Lisa Smedman

  “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 child.

  “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 cleric at last nodded. With a look of amusement in his eye, he handed the runestone to Torrin. “Very well, then,” he said. “The Lord Scepter will be waiting for us, when we return. You can give it to him when we reach Eartheart.”

  The cleric glanced around at the gold-crusted walls and floor, and shuddered. “Knights, prepare yourselves.”

  The knights stilled, like soldiers preparing for inspection. The cleric swept his axes up, and crashed their blades together. “ Faern! ” he shouted-the same word Torrin had used the first time he’d activated the runestone’s magic.

  The cavern, still illuminated by Torrin’s lantern, disappeared in a final flash of gold as the group was whisked by the cleric’s magic back to Eartheart.

  Torrin stood off to the side in the High Commander’s office, his hands clasped respectfully behind his back. He was in the office of High Commander Vorn Steeleye, who was flanked by a dozen or so top ranking officers, as well as the Lord Scepter. Cathor lay on the floor at the High Commander’s feet. Primed with yet another truth potion, the captive filled in more of the story he’d told Torrin.

  Cathor, it seemed, had gone to Drik Hargunen at Kendril’s behest. There had been some texts in the temple library, unearthed decades before, at the close of the War of Gold and Gloom, that Kendril had wanted to study. Able to pass as a duergar, Cathor had applied to study at the library and had been accepted.

  Students weren’t permitted to handle any of the runestones the library contained; only the librarians could do that. So he struck up a friendship with one, and that was how he heard about the library’s magical runestones — one of them, in particular.

  The librarian had boasted that the library contained many powerful runestones, including one that could summon the River of Gold-Moradin’s vein, his manifestation on Faerun. By doing so, Laduguer’s clerics had been able to strike the Lord of the Morndinsamman in his one vulnerable spot. They had inscribed a rune so powerful, it could kill even a god.

  With Moradin dead, the librarian chortled, Laduguer’s clerics would at long last have their revenge.

  At that point, Cathor’s motivation for stealing the runestone had been simple greed. He wanted to mine the River of Gold. The librarian had been of a like mind. Once Kendril, back in Sundasz, had learned that the runestone could also be used for teleportation magic if the correct words were spoken in Auld Dethek, Cathor and the librarian had used the runestone to spirit themselves-and it-out of the library. “As simple as that,” Cathor boasted.

  When they’d arrived at their destination, Cathor had slit the librarian’s throat.

  It wasn’t the first time the rogue had gotten blood on his hands. Nor would it be the last. Once mining had begun, he’d seen what handling the cursed gold did to dwarves-and had made the decision to continue.

  The rogue provided much detail of the portions of Drik Hargunen he’d visited, as well as the layout of the library itself. Yet he was unable to give any information about where the rune that had poisoned Moradin might have been inscribed. Despite being questioned repeatedly, despite the truth potion, Cathor’s only answer was a shrug.

  When the questioning ended, guards dragged Cathor away to a cell. By that time, sunlight was slanting in through the slit windows of the High Commander’s office. Torrin expected to be dismissed himself, but the Lord Scepter motioned for him to stand over by a side wall.

  Torrin obliged, bowing his head slightly to hide a yawn of exhaustion. High Commander Vorn Steeleye and his officers discussed what they’d just heard, while Torrin stood and fretted, glancing between the Lord Scepter and the runestone on the commander’s desk. When the meeting was done, it would be locked away in a magically sealed vault, so it could do no further harm. Then the Lord Scepter would depart to convene the Council, so that the Deep Lords could ratify whatever course of
action the military commanders decided upon.

  Torrin kept hoping to find a quiet moment before then when he might approach the Lord Scepter and ask to use the runestone one last time, once everything was all over, to search for the Soulforge. So far, that opportunity had yet to present itself.

  Torrin sighed. He picked at the food that had been laid out to sustain the officers: roast boar and cooked apples, spiced tubers and surface greens, along with jugs of dark brown ale. He plucked a sweetbread from one of the platters and munched on it. The sweet taste of aniseed filled his mouth, scouring away the sourness his breath had acquired.

  Voices ebbed and flowed as the officers argued about what course of action to take.

  Attack Drik Hargunen and smash it into dust? That seemed to be the favored option, but there were some who argued it was simply not possible. The duergar city was more than three hundred leagues away. Teleporting an entire army to the area would not be feasible; they’d be faced with more than a tenday’s march across the surface realms, longer through the Underdark. Provisioning the army would add still more delay.

  Send in an elite squad of Steel Shields-like the one that had extracted Torrin from the cavern-to try to locate the rune? Faster and stealthier, the commanders agreed, but the squad would need to include wizards trained in runemagic, as well as rogues. Who to include was a matter of much debate.

  As his officers skirmished verbally, Commander Steeleye bent over a map that was spread across his desk, its curled edges held down by stone weights. Torrin was used to seeing him in armor, helm, and shield, but the commander wore a leather jerkin with a high ruffled collar, upon which the tight coils of his beard rested; and tight-legged trousers that flared at the hip, like those the skyriders wore.

  The map showed Drik Hargunen-or rather, what little was known of its layout. Much of the map was blank, or bore captions that were guesses at best, since no true dwarf had ever set foot in the duergar city. But the general layout was hinted at, and Cathor’s answers had resulted in a few more of the blank spots being filled in. Drik Hargunen was laid out around a natural chimney that twisted down through the rock; the city’s corridors splayed out like twisted spokes around that central shaft. It was also joined to the Runescribed Hall of Laduguer’s Graving, the temple whose library Cathor had stolen the runestone from. That temple was, presumably, where the runic magic that had cursed the River of Gold had been invoked.