The Gilded Rune Read online

  Torrin felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he took the runestone. Was it just his imagination, or was its magic making his hand tingle?

  “You can feel its magic, can’t you?” Kendril asked.

  Torrin nodded, then remembered to speak aloud. “I can.”

  He held the runestone up and peered closely at it through his goggles. One side was blank. The other was inscribed with two runes, barely visible thanks to the many chips, scuffs, and cracks the runestone had acquired in the hundreds or even thousands of years since its creation.

  “ ‘Earth magic?’ ” Torrin wondered aloud.

  Kendril’s eyebrows rose. “You know how to read Auld Dethek?”

  “Enough to make out simple words like these,” Torrin said. He took a cloth from his pocket and wrapped it around the runestone. “You said this stone would teleport me to wherever I wanted to go. How do I do that?”

  “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

  “But you said—”

  “I said I would sell it to you,” the dwarf said. “And I have.”

  “But you must know how to use it,” Torrin said. “How else would you have gotten here? You can’t see.”

  “Quite true. But teaching you how to use the runestone wasn’t part of our bargain.”

  “What if I paid you more?”

  Kendril sighed. “I don’t need your coin,” he said. “Or anything else you think to offer. Not any more. Our transaction is done.”

  Torrin fumed. It was clear that Kendril wasn’t going to budge, and there was little Torrin could do about it. He wasn’t about to threaten a fellow dwarf, let alone one who was blind and obviously unwell. Kendril had stuck precisely to the wording of their bargain, and that was that.

  Torrin wished that he’d anticipated such an obstacle. Figuring out how to use the stone would mean a consultation with a loremaster. And that would require payment—coin he didn’t have. He should have known better than to agree to purchase what was—he was starting to suspect—stolen property that Kendril himself didn’t even know how to use. Torrin had compromised his principles, and would have one more thing to answer for when his life was done.

  “Where is it you want to go, anyway?” Kendril asked.

  “The Soulforge,” Torrin replied.

  Kendril rasped out a laugh. “The Soulforge?” he repeated. “If that’s what you’re looking for, step off that ledge, human. Test that theory of yours. If your soul really is that of a dwarf, it will wind up at Moradin’s forge soon enough.”

  “The Soulforge I’m looking for is the one here on Faerûn,” Torrin said. “It’s the one the dwarves emerged from when they entered this realm.”

  “That’s an even harder beard pull,” Kendril said. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you’re going to forge a new race of dwarves with it—that you’re the Dwarffather himself.”

  Torrin made no comment. He was used to people mocking his holy quest. He shrugged off his backpack, tucked the runestone inside, and carefully tied the flap shut. “Your clanfolk received the fee,” he told Kendril. “In gemstones, as you specified. I had to sell everything of value I had, but—”

  “I may be blind, but I still have eyes in Eartheart,” Kendril said. “I wouldn’t be here with you now if it hadn’t been paid.” He turned his face, seeming to peer at Torrin with those eerie, marble white eyes. “You’re certain they won’t be able to trace the gems back to me?”

  “I’m sure,” Torrin replied. “I had a middleman deliver them to your brother’s wife. As you specified, he explained that they were part of the trove that had been overlooked during the division of the Sorndar estate. She seemed to believe that story, and didn’t question it.”

  “And you delivered my message?”

  “Yes. In person.”

  “How did my brother receive it?”

  Torrin hesitated, remembering the shove that had nearly sent him tumbling down the rampart stairs. “He … ah … He didn’t exactly listen to it.”

  “Lightning smite the old fool!” Kendril exclaimed. “Does he still have only stone between his ears?” He smacked a fist into the rock wall beside him. It struck with a dull clunk. A piece of something gray splintered off and flew away. A fragment of loose stone from the wall? Torrin wondered.

  No, he realized. That had been Kendril’s little finger—and the dwarf hadn’t even noticed. Dark blood oozed from the stump, slowly dripping onto the ground.

  “You’ve … injured yourself,” Torrin said, feeling as if he were about to be sick.

  “Have I?” Kendril asked. He felt the place where his finger had been but made no step to staunch the blood.

  Torrin took an involuntary step back. “Your eyes … Your hand … Are you ill, or was it a spell that did that to you?”

  Kendril’s bitter laugh skittered along the edge of sanity. “Don’t you worry, human. You’re not going to catch it from me.”

  Torrin guessed that was supposed to put him at ease. It didn’t. But Kendril was a fellow dwarf, someone who quite clearly needed aid. More aid than Torrin could deliver, but he was bound by the code of the dwarves to at least do what he could. “Let me bind that wound,” he said.

  “Too late for that,” the dwarf said.

  Kendril lurched forward suddenly and seized Torrin’s hand with his own, undamaged one. Torrin shuddered and tried to pull away, but Kendril’s grip was as strong as stone, despite the dwarf’s trembling.

  “If you can’t convince Jorn, speak to his wife,” Kendril said. His foul-smelling breath panted up into Torrin’s face. “Tell her! They need to get as far away as possible, and as quickly as possible, or they’ll wind up like me.”

  Torrin glanced uneasily down at Kendril’s oozing hand. If it was some sort of sickness that Kendril was suffering from, was it in his blood?

  “Just tell them to get out of Eartheart—to get as far from the East Rift as they can,” Kendril said, pleading. “And tell Jorn I am his brother, still. Despite … everything. That I will carry my regrets to my grave.”

  Torrin tried to ease his hand free. “Why must they leave Eartheart?” he prompted. “Tell me more. Tell me what the danger is.”

  “Too late,” the dwarf said.

  “But—”

  “Shh.” Kendril cocked his head, listening. A low moan welled up from the cavern behind them. “That cloaker’s coming back.”

  Finally, he let go of Torrin’s hand.

  “We’d best be going, then,” Torrin said, backing off a pace. “Will you be able to find your way back to Helmstar on your own? Can I … guide you?”

  In truth, Torrin wanted to turn and run the other way. Chance Needle Leap a second time, despite the cloaker. Run all the way home to Eartheart, and tell someone, anyone, of his strange encounter and ask them what it meant.

  “I’m not returning to Helmstar.” Kendril said. “My destiny lies in another direction.” He took a deep breath, then turned his face up toward Torrin’s. “I was a cleric, once. Did you know that?”

  “Really?” Torrin replied. Belatedly, he admonished himself for letting the word slip out. It wasn’t his place to mock a fellow dwarf, no matter how low the fellow might have fallen. Torrin knew how mockery could sting.

  Kendril abruptly clenched both fists and banged his right hand down atop his left—the sign of Moradin’s hammer striking the anvil. “May the Soul Forger find a vein of worthiness, amid my dross, and forgive me for what I’ve done.” Then he sprinted away—straight toward the chasm.

  “Kendril!” Torrin exclaimed. “Stop!” He started after the blind dwarf, but it was too late. Kendril ran straight over the edge, hurtling forward. Screaming the Dwarffather’s name—“Moradinnnnn!”—he plunged into the chasm.

  “No!” Torrin gasped. He heard the sickening thud and crack of Kendril’s body striking a wall, followed a moment later by the rustle of a cloaker enveloping its prey. There was no scream. Torrin prayed that meant that Kendril had been knocked uncons
cious before being devoured.

  “Moradin’s blessing upon you, Kendril,” he whispered as he backed hurriedly away from Needle Leap. “May you be reforged anew.”

  Torrin turned and ran down the tunnel that followed the longer route to Eartheart, bypassing Needle Leap. As he ran, conflicting emotions clanged through him like hammers all trying to strike the same anvil at once. He was elated to have at last acquired the runestone, but at the same time a rising sense of dread filled him. What had been wrong with Kendril? Obviously some strange new disease that the blind dwarf feared would spread to his family. But why—and how? By his own admission, Kendril hadn’t spoken to his brother’s family in years.

  And why had Kendril killed himself? Yes, the cloaker had been had been headed back, and might even have squeezed itself into the tunnel, but surely Kendril wouldn’t have felt it necessary to create a distraction that would save Torrin, a complete stranger to him. Such a sacrifice was something one would expect only of a shield brother.

  Which, Torrin suddenly realized, was exactly what Kendril must have been doing: protecting his fellow dwarves by killing himself, so whatever it was that had afflicted him wouldn’t spread.

  Torrin realized he was wiping his hand against his trousers as he hurried along. “Might as well try to blow out a forge with a breath,” he said, admonishing himself. If Kendril’s touch had left disease on Torrin’s hands, he’d need a blessing to expunge it. It wasn’t about to be brushed off like dust.

  A cleric, he decided. A cleric was what he needed. The temple of the Lady of Mercy in Hammergate, just outside of Eartheart, would be his first stop. And he wouldn’t touch anyone, or anything, until he reached it.

  “Gold is where you find it.”

  Delver’s Tome, Volume I, Chapter 67, Entry 103

  TORRIN STRODE, NAKED, INTO THE GLACIAL POOL IN the temple’s chamber of healing. He winced as the numbingly cold water reached his genitals, and shivered as he descended the steps into chest-deep water that took his breath away. “Sharindlar,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Lady of Mercy, I beg a boon: cleanse me.”

  He ducked underwater, his shivers bone-deep. Praying silently, he tipped his head back and held himself underwater with powerful strokes of his arms. Through the water above him, he saw the red-robed cleric gesture, one of her hands sweeping across the water, palm down. A sheet of blood red flame spread across the surface of the pool, obscuring everything else from sight. Torrin counted one heartbeat, two, three—and then stood upright. Flames flickered across his hair, face, and shoulders—warming but not burning him—and spread down his body as he strode forward to the edge of the sacred pool. The sweet scent of burning frankincense filled his nose as he climbed the stairs and stepped out, leaving wet footprints that danced with tiny red flames. Then the cleric clapped her hands together, and the flames on both his body and the pool went out with a loud hiss—extinguishing his worries along with them. Whatever illness Kendril had been suffering from, any lingering taint that had rubbed off on Torrin was gone.

  He bowed before the statue of the goddess that dominated his side of the room. Twice as tall as a dwarf and carved from a single piece of fire opal, it depicted the goddess dancing, her red robes swooshing to the side as she spun.

  He rose from his bow. His body prickled, both hot and cold at once, as he waited for the Merciful Maiden to pronounce the tithe that would be demanded for the cleansing. At the same time, he snuck a look at her.

  The priestess looked as though she were in her late teens, but with dwarves, who aged much more slowly than humans did, appearances were deceiving. She was likely in her late twenties, closer to Torrin’s age. And she was quite beautiful. Dark eyes, a full, curvy figure that filled out her robe, a dimpled chin, and a few stray black ringlets that had escaped the blue headscarf holding back her hair. Sharindlar’s silver disk rested gently on the portion of her breasts not covered by her robe.

  It wasn’t generally known, outside the dwarf clans, that the goddess Sharindlar’s second, secret aspect was fertility. The Merciful Maiden was naked under that robe. And she was looking at Torrin far more directly than she needed to.

  “Fifty Anvils,” she announced.

  Torrin blinked, startled out of his sidelong appraisal. Fifty gold pieces! How was he to get his hands on that much coin? The only thing he had left of value, after paying for the runestone, was his mace. And he wasn’t about to part with that. The magic of the mace was what had led him to discover who he really was. He’d rather part with one of his arms.

  Despite his consternation, he kept his composure. “Done,” he agreed. “Although I’ll need some time to raise the coin.”

  “You have until Midsummer Night,” she replied.

  Torrin groaned inwardly. Midsummer wasn’t that far off. If it wasn’t for his human body, he’d have been given as much time as he needed to pay the tithe. Quite possibly, he wouldn’t have had to pay it at all.

  “I so swear.” Torrin clapped his right arm across his chest, his fist over his heart, and spoke the sacred oath. “My word is my shield,” he quoted. Then, with a grin, he added, “Without it, I am naked.”

  “Indeed you are, Torrin Ironstar. But your words wear a pretty costume.”

  Torrin’s eyebrows rose. She’d used his dwarf name! Was it just his imagination, or did he see an appraising look in her eye?

  “Perhaps you’ll honor me with a dance at the Midsummer Festival?” he ventured to say. “It will be Fullmoon, after all.”

  The Merciful Maiden didn’t answer. She pulled a thin strand of blue silk ribbon from her pocket and wrapped it around Torrin’s left wrist, tying its ends off in a knot. She’d tied it a little too tightly—likely distracted by regions that lay further south.

  “A reminder,” she told him.

  “Of my promise to dance with you?” he asked, smiling.

  “Of your debt, and the trust the temple has extended to you.”

  Torrin stroked his full red beard, purposefully drawing her attention to the silver hammers tied into its braids. “You mistrust me, because of this human body that I wear,” he said. “But I need no magical compulsions to seek you out a second time.”

  She made no reply to his banter.

  “Could you tell me your name?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to deliver the tithe to you in person. Prove to you I’m a dwarf who pays my debts.”

  She stared at him a moment before answering. She was coy. He liked that.

  “Maliira,” she said. “Clan Gallowglar.”

  She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Or, perhaps, to do something. Torrin glanced around the pool room, which was empty save for the two of them. A soft rain had begun to fall through the portion of the ceiling that was open to the sky; it pattered on the water behind him. A murmur of voices echoed down the corridors leading to the temple’s guest rooms, hinting that the privacy they shared was fleeting. But the way she was looking at him … Had the stories he’d heard about the Merciful Maidens really been true? Some dwarf women had a taste for the exotic, after all.

  Footsteps sounded from one of the corridors. Maliira turned in that direction. “Another supplicant is coming,” she said. “You should leave now, Torrin Ironstar.” She gestured at the corridor that led to the room where he’d left his clothes and equipment, then turned her back on him.

  Torrin nodded to himself. Patience. That was what the goddess was demanding of him. He slipped into the corridor that led to his change room, casting one last, longing glance back over his shoulder at Maliira.

  Her back was to him. She was busy greeting the next visitor to Sharindlar’s sacred pool. Torrin saw that it was Ambril, a cousin of Eralynn, the woman who’d spoken in Torrin’s favor when he’d first applied to join the Delvers. Ambril was in the final month of her pregnancy. Her belly was so distended she had to lean back, hands on hips, to counterbalance the weight as she waddled into the room. Twins, the midwives had said, but wh
ether girls or boys—or one of each—was still a matter of much debate.

  It was no surprise to see Ambril in the temple. Ever since learning she was pregnant, she had imagined herself to have one ailment or another, and had made trips to a shrine at least once a tenday. Her husband, Haldrin, had gritted his teeth each time he’d opened his coin pouch, but he indulged Ambril, just the same. Likely the thinness of his pouch was what had caused Ambril to seek out blessings at such a lesser temple, outside of Eartheart proper.

  Torrin made his way to the change room, all thoughts of the lovely cleric washed from his mind. He whispered a prayer of thanks that he hadn’t run into Ambril before his cleansing, when he still had the taint of disease upon him.

  The gods had just sent a sobering reminder of how important Torrin’s visit to the temple had been. Whatever Kendril had been afflicted with might have been passed not only to the living, but also to those generations of dwarves yet to be born.

  Torrin pushed open the doors of the Delver’s Roost and strode into the room, ducking under the heavy wooden ceiling beams that were just at his forehead height. The curtains on the far wall were drawn—as always—across the window, hiding what would otherwise be a spectacular view of East Rift and the Underchasm beyond. Delvers were a secretive bunch and liked to keep their doings from prying eyes.

  The other Delvers looked up from their maps and ale glasses, and a familiar rustle of whispers broke out in Torrin’s wake. One fellow, whose red face suggested he’d had a little too much ale, rose to his feet, slung his beard over his shoulder, and stepped into Torrin’s path. “What’s this?” he asked loudly. “Has our order adopted a pet human?”

  Torrin bit back his anger. He turned slightly, so the fellow could see his backpack. “My apologies,” he told the other Delver. “I didn’t realize you couldn’t read. Shall I tell you what rune is on my pack? It’s a ‘D.’ You must know what that means, since there’s one on your pack, as well.”