Lisa Smedman - The Gilded Rune

One or two rats burst out of the cloud and ran to the spot where Torrin stood. He readied his mace. Just before they reached him, a sheet of flame erupted out of the floor, filling the tunnel with a blaze of redorange light. It was barely a pace away from Torrin. He felt its intense heat on his face and smelled his beard singe. For a moment, the sheet of fire blazed brightly. Then it vanished, leaving behind blackened lumps that stank of charred flesh and fur.

“By Moradin’s beard,” Torrin whispered, mopping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “That was close.”

Marthammor Duin, finder of trails, had truly lent Torrin his blessings. Still trembling slightly, Torrin whispered a prayer of thanks to the Watcher over Wanderers.

He shook his head and contemplated the dead-end corridor. What to do? It was clear that the duergar had taken great pains to ensure that no one could use the corridor to reach the cavern where the rune had been inscribed. They’d obviously anticipated that someone might learn of the corridor from the slaves. Torrin wondered why the duergar hadn’t killed the slaves to ensure their silence. That was the sort of thing they usually did.

The more important question, however, was whether the duergar had collapsed just that tunnel, or the entire ceiling of the cavern beyond, burying the curse rune under masses of rubble that would be impossible to excavate in time.

Torrin squinted his right eye shut and peered through his remaining goggle lens. The rubble ranged from jagged slabs of rock the size of a table down to smaller fragments no bigger than his fist. They were locked together in a tight mass that filled the end of the tunnel from floor to ceiling. Over the spot where Torrin stood, the ceiling was a concave hollow.

Torrin grabbed a loosely placed chunk of rock. After several moments of straining, he managed to pull it free. It landed with a thud on the floor beside his foot. All was silent for a moment. Then a sharp crack sounded just overhead as a split appeared in the ceiling. Torrin started to take a wary step back, but remembered the flame trap just in time and jerked to a halt. A chunk of stone the size of his head fell, shattering on the floor at his feet.

Torrin stood still, barely daring to breathe, until he was certain no more rock would fall. Clearly, he couldn’t go forward.

Nor could he go back. Between the traps and the rats, Torrin would be lucky to make his way back to the slave pits alive, let alone to Drik Hargunen. What’s worse, his magical potion was wearing off. He could no longer see the glow of the magical rune he knew was just a hundred paces or so down the corridor.

With his eyesight no longer magically enhanced, Torrin noticed something. A faint blue glow was coming from the spot he’d just pulled the stone out of. He groaned. Were more of the spellscarred rats headed his way? He squatted and peered through the gap. No, it wasn’t rats. The glow pulsed slightly, but it wasn’t moving toward him. Through a gap in the rubble he saw an open space, perhaps half a dozen paces beyond where he squatted. The blue light came from there.

The cavern?

With his heart pounding, Torrin reached into the gap he’d created in the rubble. If he could just move that one chunk that blocked the view, he’d be able to see more. Slowly, praying under his breath the whole time, he pushed the mace’s handle into the gap and carefully levered the chunk of rock aside. As it fell into a gap in the rubble, the blue glow intensified. With it came a hot, metallic scent, like forge-heated metal.

Torrin’s heart beat faster. The map had been right! The cavern with the rune lay just beyond the rubble. And it looked as though there was a space big enough to teleport to!

He grinned. A section of collapsed tunnel wasn’t going to stop him. not when his runestone could teleport him to the other side. But as he contemplated that, a shiver coursed through him. What awaited him next? More swarms of spellscarred rats? Even more horrific creatures and still deadlier traps?

He pushed those thoughts aside. Kier was depending upon him. The memory of the boy’s anguished eyes and stone gray face was all the prodding he needed.

He stared at the open space on the other side of the rubble. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin, take… me… there,” he commanded the runestone.

Spellfire shot out of the gap in the rubble and swirled in a tight spiral around the runestone. Its tingle was so intense it numbed his hand, and Torrin nearly dropped the runestone. The spellfire twisted up his arm and into his chest. He felt his heart flutter and saw dark spots swimming before his eyes. Then the runestone yanked him from where he stood, twisting him beyond the rubble to the cavern beyond.

He landed on his hands and knees on sharp rock; the runestone clattered onto the cavern floor. For several moments, he couldn’t see. Flashes of blue spellfire filled his vision, pulsing to the rapid beat of his heart. As those cleared, he saw that the fingers of his right hand-the hand that had held the runestone-had turned blue. Spellfire blazed within the flesh, turning it translucent. Dark shadows hinted at the bones within.

There was no time to worry about that. He crawled carefully to the runestone and snatched it up. It still leaked blue fire-something else he’d worry about later.

He forced himself to his feet and looked around. The sight that met his eyes might have taken his breath away had it not already been wheezing in and out of his chest.

The cavern was even larger than the orc’s map had indicated. A small town could have fit inside it with room to spare. And it was an enormous geode-the largest Torrin had ever seen. Every surface was studded with quartz crystals, some clear, others clouded. Finger-sized crystals crunched underfoot every time Torrin took a step. Those that broke off floated upward like earthmotes to join scores of other broken crystals already drifting through the air. The moving crystals reflected the spellfire, refracting the light in millions of glittering blue flashes, like sunlight sparkling on snow.

The source of the blue light lay at the center of the cavern-an enormous dome of raw spellfire the size of an assembly chamber. Streaks of blue lightning crackled upward from it with each pulse, striking the ceiling overhead. Even at a distance, Torrin could feel its fell effects. He felt weaker already-a fatigue that went deeper than mere exhaustion or the debilitating effects of the cuts and bruises he’d suffered. He felt weary to his very core. Burned hollow, from within.

Eralynn must have felt the same thing, the day she’d blundered into the spellfire that had scarred her hands.

Just outside the blue glow, a wide hole had been bored into the floor. As Torrin watched, a splatter of what he at first took to be lava erupted out of it and landed on the floor, filling the air with the smell of hot metal. No, not lava. Molten metal. It bore a greenish tinge, thanks to the crackling blue glow that filled the cavern, but Torrin knew what it must be.

Gold. That hole was a well, tapping the River of Gold.

He searched for the spot where the duergar had cut their rune. At first, he didn’t see it. Then he realized it must lie under the dome of spellfire. It was difficult to see through the crackling blue haze. Yet by staring at the spellfire intently, first through his goggle lens and then through his uncovered eye, Torrin could barely make out wide grooves on the cavern floor, filled with the same green-gold metal. Those were the rune lines the duergar had carved, filled with gold taken from Moradin’s lanced vein.

“Moradin smite me,” Torrin whispered. “What am I supposed to do now?” He reached with a trembling hand to touch his beard. Once again, he winced at the unfamiliar feel of the blunt end.