The Gilded Rune Page 5

  Kier’s rapid nod was all the encouragement that Torrin needed.

  “It’s going to be the greatest delve of all,” Torrin told him as he undid his pack. “And this—” he took the runestone out and unwrapped it “—is going to lead me straight to it.”

  Kier studied the runestone. “How?”

  Torrin shrugged. “I still have to figure that one out.”

  “Can I hold it?” Kier asked.

  “Why not? Here you go.”

  “I’ve planned a delve of my own,” Kier said as he avidly examined the runestone.

  “Oh really? Where to?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “Even from me, your favorite delving partner?” Torrin chided, humoring the boy.

  “You can’t come, Uncle,” the boy said. “I have to do this one solo. There … isn’t room for you.”

  Torrin chuckled, wondering which unwatched pantry or dusty storeroom was going to be the subject of the boy’s “delve.” Gimrick had better count his carving knives, lest some “ancient dagger” be plundered. “I hope you’ve made all your preparations,” he told Kier.

  “I’m ready,” the boy assured him.

  “And that you’ll show me what you’ve delved, once you’re back.”

  “Of course. You’ll be the first to see whatever I find!”

  Torrin smiled. If only the Delvers would show as much enthusiasm! Yet despite Torrin’s fervent prayers, the gods had yet to convince anyone from the order to join Torrin’s quest for the Soulforge. Likely, he thought ruefully, he’d have to wait for Kier to become a man, in order to finally have a delving partner.

  He shook his head. “Moradin grant it,” he said to himself, “that my quest is complete before the boy is as old as that.”

  “The gold you have yet to win gleams the brightest.”

  Delver’s Tome, Volume IV, Chapter 3, Entry 23

  YOU’RE IN TROUBLE,” A CHILDLIKE VOICE SAID.

  Torrin turned and saw Gimrick hurrying up the stair behind him. The gnome servant kept one hand on the iron handrail that was set into the wall. His eyes remained firmly on Torrin, never once glancing down at the canyon floor where the Riftlake sparkled in the sunlight, far below. Gimrick’s face was pale under his short gray beard. Whatever he’d come to tell Torrin, it must have been urgent. Otherwise, Gimrick would have used one of the interior spiral staircases instead.

  Torrin squatted on the steps. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Ambril’s looking everywhere for you. She’s furious!”

  “Why?”

  A dwarf squeezed past them on the stair. Gimrick clung with both hands to the handrail and closed his eyes as she brushed past. “You were supposed to take Kier with you to the market today,” he said.

  Torrin smacked his forehead. “I forgot. And I promised him a toy shield, too.” He started to rise. “I’ll go back and fetch him, then.”

  “You can’t,” said the gnome.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s the trouble. Kier’s vanished. Ambril can’t find him, and she says it’s your fault for not minding him.”

  Torrin sighed. Kier was always wandering off somewhere, but the boy didn’t need minding. He was eight years old and big enough not to trip over anyone’s beard. “He’s probably just hiding again,” Torrin said with a laugh. “That’s Ambril for you, making mineshafts out of dungholes. Always worrying. Remember the last time, how she was convinced the drow had kidnapped Kier for sacrifice? Turned out he was in the armory, trying on helms. Safe and sound, aside from the bump he got when the shield fell on his head.”

  “But what if he’s left the city?” Grimrick said, fretting. “With the quarantine, it could be a tenday or more before he gets back in again. The clerics can’t keep up with the new arrivals, especially now that the caravan’s arrived from Delzimmer. They say the tent city has attracted a number of unscrupulous characters. Kier could run afoul of a rogue.”

  “That would be bad,” Torrin said with a frown. Then he shrugged. “But even Kier would know better than to leave the city when there’s a quarantine in place.”

  “But—”

  “He’ll turn up, Gimrick,” Torrin assured the gnome. “I’m certain of it.”

  “Ambril’s not.”

  Torrin sighed. Despite his reassurances that the Council had proclaimed Eartheart free of the stoneplague, the contagion elsewhere in the Deeps had taken its toll on Ambril. In the days since the gates had closed, she’d been imagining her only child in the clutches of a plague-wracked denizen of the Deeps who’d slipped in past the guard. Her pregnancy only made it worse. Her shrill tirades followed Kier everywhere, like a shadowing cloaker. Don’t touch anyone, even tallfolk. Don’t touch the handrail when climbing the stair. Don’t accept food or drink from strangers. On and on she went. Torrin was certain that most of it went in one ear and out of the other. Kier had an independent streak and had always forged his own path, no matter what anyone said. It probably came from being a singleton.

  Torrin turned to go back down the stair, resigned to searching for the boy. “Thanks for letting me know about Kier, Gimrick. Tell Ambril I’ll find him. I’m sure he’s in the clanhold, somewhere.”

  The gnome caught his arm—with both hands. “No, wait! There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” he said. “Baelar’s griffon is missing from the eyrie. I think Kier took it.”

  “What makes you say that?” Torrin asked, startled.

  “Just … Opel acted strange when I asked him why the boy wasn’t helping him muck out the eyrie. He claimed not to know where Kier was, even though those two are as tight as rogues. And he paused to think a moment when I asked where Baelar’s griffon was.”

  “Smite me with a hammer, Gimrick!” Torrin exploded, shaking off the gnome’s hands. “When will you ever learn to put the most important point first? If Kier has taken the griffon, he’s in real trouble!”

  “I’m sure he’ll put the griffon back. No harm done.”

  “You’re not thinking this through, Gimrick. When Kier returns to the eyrie, they’ll think he’s trying to break the quarantine. If he doesn’t heed their warnings to land, he could be shot down!”

  The gnome glanced out across the East Rift, blanched, and grabbed the railing. “Kier may not have taken Baelar’s griffon, of course,” he sputtered. “Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps Baelar is on duty.”

  “Did you check?” asked Torrin.

  “Well no. I thought maybe you could—”

  Exasperated, Torrin charged down the stair, shouting at those coming up to get out of his way. When they saw the look in his eye, they flattened against the wall, letting him pass. He entered the corridor at the bottom of the stair and hurried to where the Peacehammers kept their mounts.

  As Torrin barged in, Opel, the mucker, whirled, scat-shovel in hand. He gaped at Torrin and backed up a step. “I don’t know anything!” he cried.

  Never breaking his stride, Torrin bore down on the fuzz-bearded boy. “Clearly you do, Opel, or you wouldn’t have opened your mouth just now. Out with it. Where’d Kier go?”

  Above, the griffons shifted on their iron-rail perches, their nails scraping against the metal. One screeched, and a downy golden feather drifted down from above. The shovel shook in Opel’s hand, and he refused to meet Torrin’s eye.

  “A new earthmote rose out of the Underchasm,” he whispered, cocking his head toward the balcony. “It drifted over the Rift this morning. Kier wanted a closer look.”

  “The fool!” Torrin shouted. He grabbed Opel’s shoulders. “How long ago did he set out?”

  Opel flinched. “Not long,” he said. “Just after lunch.”

  Torrin rushed to the balcony and peered out. He could see the new earthmote in the distance to the northwest, partially obscuring the spire of rock known as Sadrach’s Splinter. A small moving dot to the right of it, near the edge of the Rift, might have been a flying griffon. If that was Kier, he was already well beyond the city walls. And he was g
oing to need Torrin’s help getting back.

  “Fetch me a saddle,” Torrin ordered.

  “You can’t!” Opel said. “These are Peacehammer mounts!”

  “Do as I say,” Torrin commanded. “Now!”

  A guilty Opel rushed to obey.

  Torrin grabbed a bridle and climbed the ladder to the nearest griffon’s perch. The enormous creature gave him a sidelong look and flared its wings. It clearly wasn’t used to being approached by someone so tall. Fortunately, it didn’t snap at Torrin. Its lion’s tail lashed back and forth behind it, sending up a cloud of dust that smelled of straw, feathers, and fur.

  “There, there, birdie,” Torrin said soothingly as he lifted the bridle into place. “We’re just going for a nice little ride, you and I.”

  “Her name’s Mischief,” Opel said.

  “Wonderful,” Torrin said under his breath. “Just what I need—more mischief to worry about.”

  “Careful what you say,” Opel called up from below. “She understands every word.”

  The griffon glared at Torrin, but allowed him to slide the bridle over her head and buckle it. Opel, meanwhile, labored up the ladder, weighed down by a heavy, padded saddle. Torrin plucked it from his shoulders and lifted it into place atop the griffon’s back at the spot where her lionlike hindquarters met her eagle chest and wings. He reached under the griffon’s belly for the strap and cinched it tight. Then he swung up into the saddle and fastened the restraining straps over his own thighs. He’d never ridden a griffon before, but he had ridden horses—including some very spirited mounts. Controlling a griffon, he was certain, couldn’t be that much different.

  “Release her,” he ordered.

  Opel unbuckled the bands around the griffon’s forelegs, setting it free.

  “Away!” Torrin ordered. “Fly!”

  The griffon edged her way along her perch in a series of quick hops, out over the balcony. Then she unfolded her wings, crouched slightly, and sprang into space. Torrin’s stomach lurched as the griffon first dove, then climbed sharply upward with powerful strokes of her large, golden wings. He tugged the reins and nudged the griffon’s foreflank with his right knee, trying to get her to turn, but the beast didn’t respond. Perhaps he was being too gentle. He tried again with a stiffer yank on the reins. The griffon responded, turning to the northwest in a smooth bank.

  “That’s it, birdie, now you’re—”

  Without warning, the griffon swerved straight up, leaving a startled Torrin clinging to the saddle horn. “What are you doing?” he shouted. He kicked the creature’s flanks. “Stop! Level out!”

  The griffon wasn’t responding. Instead of leveling out at the top of her climb, she did a loop that wrenched Torrin’s hands from the saddle horn, nearly flinging him off. Dangling upside down, the straps across his thighs the only thing preventing him from falling to his death, Torrin fought to reach the saddle horn again. The iron mace that hung from his belt cracked against his head, causing him to see stars.

  Then the loop turned into a dive. Torrin was hurled backward with such force that he nearly vomited. The dive was so steep that the rush of air tore tears from Torrin’s eyes and sent his hair pluming out behind him. Then, with a swoop, the griffon was flying level again. The beast let out a laughlike scree.

  “All right!” Torrin shouted. “I understand. You’re the boss. And … I won’t call you ‘birdie’ again.”

  Scree. The griffon’s neck feathers ruffled, then flattened again.

  Torrin tried a gentle tug on the reins. That time, the griffon responded smoothly.

  Within just a few moments, Torrin was over Eartheart’s wall. The guards atop its towers looked up as he sailed over them, and trained their ballistae upon him as soon as he was outside of the city limits. He waved to them, but instead of waving back they began pointing and shouting. But there was no time to worry about that.

  Torrin flew toward the new earthmote. He could no longer see the dot that might have been Kier’s mount. If that’s where the boy was headed, he would likely have already landed atop the mote.

  Torrin flew past the edge of the East Rift and out across the Underchasm. The East Rift itself was several hundred paces deep, but the Underchasm was far deeper, plunging to the very depths of the Underdark. The enormous sinkhole, easily the size of a small kingdom, stretched nearly one hundred leagues north to south, and was almost as wide. Narrower canyons splintered outward from it like cracks around a footprint in dried mud.

  The Underchasm had formed when a vast expanse of the dwarf lands, weakened by spellfire, had collapsed into the Underdark below. Earth motes drifted above the leagues-deep chasm, throwing long shadows that stretched all the way back to East Rift.

  As Torrin flew, he tried to decide what to do once he had found Kier. The best course of action would be to fly back to Hammergate, the town just outside Eartheart’s walls where Torrin had grown up. It had become more of a “foreign quarter” for the tallfolk who’d been drawn by Eartheart’s prosperity, and it was not subject to the quarantine. Kier could stay with Torrin’s parents while he waited his turn at the temple.

  Torrin glanced back at Eartheart and saw that another griffon had taken off from the city. The flutter of a yellow-and-red striped cloak told him who rode it: a Peacehammer, one of the elite city guard. They, it would appear, were still allowed in and out of the city. And that one was headed straight for Torrin. Thankfully, Torrin would reach the earthmote long before the skyrider intercepted him. After that, well … surely the rider would listen to reason, and understand why Torrin had been forced to borrow one of the griffons.

  As Torrin drew closer to the earthmote, he saw that it was small, no more than a few hundred paces across. Like most of the floating splinters of stone, it was tooth-shaped, relatively flat on top with a pointed base. Trees sprouted from the top, and a tangle of roots and vines hung in a fringe over its edges. A hole near the mote’s midpoint appeared to be a natural cavern at first, but as Torrin drew nearer, he noted its regular shape. The mote spun as it drifted, and the opening rotated out of sight. A short time later, a similar hole, closer to the top of the mote, rotated into view. Torrin realized he was looking at a section of staircase—one that had likely descended from the surface, before the mote had broken away from wherever it had originated.

  There was no sign of Kier on top of the mote, but a saddled griffon sat under a tree near the edge, snapping its beak at the crows that swooped and dove on it. The griffon would have made short work of them had it not been tethered.

  Torrin spotted the Thunsonn crest on the tooled leather back of the other griffon’s saddle. “That’s Baelar’s griffon, all right,” he muttered. “Kier’s here. But where?”

  Torrin landed near the other griffon, tied off his own mount to another tree, and walked—slightly bowlegged from the ride—toward the first griffon. “Kier!” he called through cupped hands. “Where are you?”

  He realized he was walking at a kilter. The rotation of the mote was making him slightly dizzy. Strange—motes didn’t usually spin. They usually just bobbed up and down, or rocked slightly from side to side, with residual motion from their plunge off whatever cliff had spawned them.

  A rope was tied to the tree where Kier had tethered his griffon. It extended over the edge of the mote, down to the spot where the staircase began. Torrin tugged gently on the rope. Though it was slack, it didn’t hang free. Tied off somewhere near the top of the staircase, he guessed.

  Torrin descended the rope to the inside of the staircase. It was a perilous climb, but one that Kier had successfully negotiated, since the end of the rope was secure—assuming that it was Kier who had tied it. Once inside the staircase, Torrin swung down from the rope. With his feet firmly on the stairs, he let go. Thrown off balance by the earthmote’s spin, he immediately threw out a hand to steady himself against the wall. The stone felt cool. The wild magic that kept the mote suspended crackled slightly against Torrin’s palm.

  Torrin follow
ed the staircase as it spiralled downward, one hand still on the wall. The deeper he went, the dizzier he felt. The light from above grew dimmer with each turn, but he could still see well enough, even without his goggles. A bit of light filtered up from somewhere below, as well.

  “Kier?” he called out.

  No answer. A breeze drifted up the staircase, cooled by the stone’s chill.

  Torrin continued down the stairs and came to the lower opening. As his foot touched the bottommost step, a chunk of stone broke free and drifted away. Torrin lurched back, then steadied himself. “Moradin smite me,” he swore. “I hope Kier didn’t fall!”

  Though he knew it was futile, he scanned the landscape below. The bottom of the Underchasm lay deep in shadow, too far away to make out any detail.

  No. Kier was smarter than that. He was probably hiding somewhere atop the mote, laughing at Torrin’s attempts to find him. He might even have flown off already, perhaps taking the second griffon with him as an added joke.

  Torrin made his way back up the stairs.

  Halfway up, he stopped to take a better look at something he’d bypassed at first. One of the steps was twice the width of the rest, forming a sort of landing. On one side of it stood two pedestals that must once have supported twin statue-columns. Not much remained of the statues. The one on the right extended only as far as the knees, which were covered by what looked like the hem of a blacksmith’s apron. Next to one foot was a smashed lump of stone that was vaguely anvil-shaped. All that remained of the other statue was a pair of feet, protruding from under the hem of a dress.

  Torrin’s eyes widened as he realized whom the statues had once depicted: Moradin, father of the dwarf gods, and his bride, Berronar Truesilver. He immediately bowed, honoring what was left of them.

  The destruction had been deliberate. Torrin could see the gouges left by hammers. And it had most likely taken place long before, since there was no rubble on the floor. The mote, Torrin realized, had likely been part of a dwarf city—perhaps part of ancient Underhome. If so, the statues had probably been destroyed by the drow who had overrun that city, long before.