The Gilded Rune

Chapter Ten

Torrin crossed Silvershield Bridge by night and headed for the city’s southern gate, his conversation with the Lord Scepter still echoing through his thoughts. He saw one of the Steel Shields coming toward him across the bridge. His helmet plume was bobbing, and his armor glinted in the starlight. As the knight approached, Torrin lowered his head so his hood shadowed his face, and slowed his pace. He didn’t want to enter the lantern light just yet. “Dumathoin, shield me,” he prayed. “Keep my secret this night.”

The Steel Shield barely glanced at Torrin as he passed by. The knight’s boots thumped steadily against the stonework as he marched away into the night.

Torrin sighed in relief.

Ahead, at the spot where a lantern illuminated the apex of the bridge, he saw a dwarf walking slowly, one hand on the stone bridge rail and his back to Torrin. He seemed to be blind, feeling his way along. As Torrin watched, the dwarf’s hand bumped against one of the silver-plated shields that gave the bridge its name. Abruptly, he stopped and cradled his bruised hand against his chest.

Like Torrin, the dwarf wore a hooded cloak. In itself that was nothing unusual; it was a chilly night. But as the dwarf stood nursing his hand, the hood slipped back, revealing a bald spot on the back of his head that shone in the lantern light. With a start, Torrin realized that it was the dwarf who’d waylaid him outside the motedisc factory.

The rogue yanked his hood back into place, and continued walking.

Immediately on guard, Torrin glanced quickly around. Aside from the rogue, the bridge was empty. There was no sign of Vadyr-although that didn’t mean the human rogue wasn’t invisible.

Torrin drew his mace. Openly wielding a weapon would invite the attention of any other Steel Shields who happened by on patrol, but he was willing to risk that. He wasn’t about to get knocked out a second time. The balding dwarf was laying it on thick, moving even more slowly and stiffly than when Torrin had first had the misfortune of making his acquaintance. Putting on a show, for Torrin’s benefit.

Torrin didn’t let it distract him. He stood, his mace ready, his back against the bridge railing. “Show yourself, coward,” he called out. “If you want the runestone that badly, let’s see you try to take it.”

Several moments went by. Nothing happened. Torrin started to feel foolish standing there with his mace raised. He suddenly sprinted across the rest of the bridge, in the direction the balding dwarf had gone. He reached the deeper shadows at the base of the bridge and ducked into an alcove that held a stone statue of Clangeddin Silverbeard. The god’s twin axes poked into Torrin’s lower back.

Torrin waited. No footsteps approached. No second assailant attacked.

He stepped out of the alcove. He realized that it might not be a setup-that the dwarf rogue might indeed have suffered a blinding injury and then been subsequently abandoned by Vadyr. He ran in the direction the rogue had gone, and spotted him as he passed through slits of light emitted from a shuttered window.

The dwarf heard him coming. He whirled when Torrin was a pace or two away.

“Don’t come any closer!” he cried in a shrill voice. “I have the stoneplague!”

Torrin stared in horror. The light slanting through the shutter cracks fell across the rogue’s face. His eyes were as white as limestone-two shrivelled marbles in their sockets-and his face was as gray as slate.

Torrin steeled himself. There was no time for hesitation. He poked the fellow in the chest with the tip of his mace, jostling him. The man staggered, nearly fell.

“By Moradin’s beard, show mercy!” the fellow cried. “You wouldn’t steal from a blind man, would you?”

“That’s an odd plea, coming from a thief,” Torrin growled. “And as for your blindness, it looks like you got what you deserved. Your gold was the cause of it.”

“What?” the rogue asked, looking wildly around, one arm raised to defend himself. “What are you talking about?”

Torrin moved suddenly. He grabbed the rogue’s throat with his free hand and slammed him against the wall. He kept his mace ready, and one eye on the street. “Tell me who cast the curse,” he told the blind dwarf in a low growl, “and I’ll let you live.”

“Please,” the rogue gasped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Who are you? By all the Morndinsamman, please, have mercy!”

Torrin laughed as he said, “You didn’t show me any mercy, thief, that day outside the motedisc factory.”

The rogue’s face turned even grayer as that memory sank in. “I’m… no thief,” he wheezed. “Just… a sick man… desperate enough… to do anything… to raise enough coin… for a cure. For me and… my family.”

Torrin’s eyes widened. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. He eased up the pressure on the man’s throat. The words spilled out.

“I knew what I was doing was wrong,” the dwarf said in a quavering voice. “But the human offered so much gold, and for such a simple thing. Just to recite a few words to you, and clasp your hand. I didn’t realize he was going to hit you, to hurt you. And now I’m being punished for what I’ve done. The Morndinsamman have turned their backs on me, and my brother and his wife are dying.” He croaked out a bitter laugh. “All that gold… And the ‘cure’ it bought was worthless. Worthless!” The dwarf’s shoulders shook as he sobbed.

Torrin released him. “May the Dwarffather forgive me,” he said, ashamed at how he’d roughed up an innocent man. The anger that had flamed through him a moment before was gone, replaced by the cold ash of regret. “I’m… so sorry.”

The blind man said nothing. Torrin thought of how Kendril had flung himself from Needle Leap. The fellow looked likely to do something similar. Torrin wanted to say more-to do more. But he knew he could offer the man no solid hope, only promises.

“I forgive you,” Torrin said at last. “And so shall Moradin. Don’t lose hope.”

The dwarf nodded, but his head still hung low.

Torrin glanced around the plaza. So far, he’d been lucky; no one had responded to the altercation. But he didn’t want to press that luck. For all he knew, the people he could hear talking inside the building next to him had already sent out a runner to fetch a patrol.

Feeling like a rogue himself, Torrin slipped out of the plaza. He made his way out through the city’s southern gate, into the night.

Torrin surveyed the cavern where he and Eralynn had been trapped by the red dragon, near the slab of rock where they’d raised a cup in memory of her dead parents. It still smelled of smoke. Every surface was covered with the soot that also coated Torrin’s hands and clothes.

Getting back into the Wyrmcaves had been the easy part; the portal had opened as readily as before. Sneaking through the tunnels that led to the cave had given Torrin a few anxious moments, when he’d thought he heard the sound of slithering behind him. But if the red dragon was nearby, she hadn’t shown herself yet. Torrin had even peeked into the cave where she had made her lair, but nothing moved up in the nest. He hadn’t seen any sign of Baelar, either-although the air in the wyrm’s cavern stank of fresh smoke. As he’d made his way back to the cavern with the earth node, all had been ominously silent.

He took the runestone out of his pack and held it out in front of him. He waited, wondering when the spellfire would begin-praying that it would begin, that the runestone would work a second time. In order to see in the absolute darkness, he had to keep his right eye shut. He hadn’t had the time-or the coin-to get his magical goggles repaired.

“Take me to Vadyr,” he commanded.

Nothing. No spellfire.

He tried again, concentrating on the brief glimpse he’d had of the human with the missing front tooth. Yet his mind kept straying. Every time he thought of the rogue’s part in the affair, anger boiled inside him. Bitter anger, at the deaths of Ambril and her babes, and a boiling rage stirred by the realization that Kier might die, too.

“Vadyr,” he said again through gritted teeth.

Still no spellfire.

He at last realized it wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t about to succeed where the most powerful wizards in all Eartheart had failed. But that was all right. There was a second reason he’d returned to the Wyrmcaves.

Increasingly worried about where Eralynn had disappeared to, he’d been making enquiries. Mara had let slip that Eralynn had told her not to worry-that she knew where she’d go for healing if she succumbed to the stoneplague. She wouldn’t go to one of the clerics who’d already tried to cure the stoneplague, and failed, but to clerics of a goddess whose name, she said, she was certain Mara would never recognize. When Mara had pressed her for details, Eralynn had refused to say more.

Delvemaster Frivaldi, meanwhile, had revealed that Eralynn had borrowed his map of the northernmost reaches of the Deep Realm, showing the region surrounding Sundasz. It was a small dwarf city, but one with an unsavory reputation. Some whispered its wealth came as a result of a clandestine trade with duergar or even drow.

Torrin didn’t believe it. Likely, the rumors were fuelled by nothing more tangible than jealousy. The dwarves of Sundasz were not only secretive, but had always been very wealthy. Still, if Eralynn was headed to Sundasz, she could benefit from a friend to shield her back.

And if she knew of a cure that no one else had yet tried, Torrin wanted to hear about it-for Kier’s sake, and the sake of all Eartheart.

He raised the runestone again, and concentrated on Eralynn, on the details of her hair, her face. Despite the fact that no one had seen Eralynn in more than a tenday-which might very well mean she had succumbed to the stoneplague after handling the cursed gold bar-Torrin refused to imagine her as a corpse or even sick. He pictured her alive and well, rolling her eyes at his “wishful thinking” that the Soulforge was here on Faerun. She might consider his ideas foolish, but she’d always listened, and had, perversely, stood up for him when the other Delvers had called him ignorant or misguided. She’d been there for him, and he was going to return the favor for his shield sister.

“Eralynn,” he commanded. “Take me to her.”

Was that a tingle he felt in his hand? He closed both eyes, gripped the stone tightly, and repeated his command more forcefully.

He was certain he felt it-a rush of prickly hot and shivery cold energy that made his hand feel as though it was simultaneously in an icy pond and in a fiery blast of dragon’s breath.

Blue light flared against his eyelids. He opened his eyes and saw spellfire. It streaked across the walls and the ceiling, and shone upward through the gaps in the rubble on the cavern floor. “Praise Moradin!” Torrin cried. “It’s working!”

The spellfire crackled downward from the ceiling, upward from the floor, and inward from the walls, coalescing around the runestone in his hand. Something hot splattered onto the stone near Torrin’s boot. It was molten gold, he realized, dripping out of cracks in the ceiling above his head. With spellfire illuminating the cavern, he saw that the slab of stone he stood on was crusted with similar splatters: dribbles of gold, hardened like candle wax.

But he mustn’t let that distract him. He locked his gaze on the runestone, seeing it in livid blue and searing white, through regular vision and through the single lens of his goggles.

“Take… me… to… Eralynn!” he shouted.

A sudden twist. His body felt impossibly thin, poised between one place and the next. For a moment, it seemed to stretch to infinity. Then he was borne along on a bright blue ribbon of spellfire that dazzled his eyes and filled his mind with a bright buzzing. Elation filled him. He’d done it! Activated the runestone!

He landed with a jarring thud in knee-deep, icy water that filled his boots and soaked his trouser legs. He staggered sideways and nearly fell. His shoulder struck something hard. Whatever place he’d entered was dimly illuminated by a flickering torchlight that came from behind the enormous pillar into which he’d just staggered. Briefly, he caught a glimpse of a vast room awash with water and filled with dozens of other pillars, each as thick as a centuries-old tree. When he glanced upward, he saw a ceiling covered in stalactites of dark, gooey, dripping slime.

Then the light went out.

A hissing noise like the spray of a waterfall filled his ears, accompanied by a steady, rhythmic pounding. Each thudding beat vibrated his entire body. The air was cold and smelled of wet stone and mildew.

Where was he?

The torchlight-if that’s what it had been-was gone. The only remaining light came from the runestone in his hand. A few sparkles of spellfire clung to it still, bleeding off into the darkness. Then they were gone. He shoved the stone into a pocket. Had that light been a torch, carried by Eralynn?

He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Eralynn! Are you here?”

He could barely hear his own voice over the steady pounding and constant, hissing spray. He realized the pounding came from inside the nearby pillars, which reverberated like hollow logs struck by a mallet. One of them was cracked down its length; water sprayed from it in a thin sheet. The sheet pulsed in time with the steady pounding, the spray intensifying in force with each beat, splattering onto a nearby pillar. It was covered in crusty white patches of tiny crystals: salt.

Suddenly, Torrin realized he must be in a portion of the Pumps of Pyraddin-a millennia-old marvel of dwarven engineering that drew water from Azulduth Lake, up on the surface. The pumps pushed the water through a series of charcoal beds far below that filtered out the salt. The purified water then ran through a series of bored tunnels for two hundred and fifty leagues, all the way to East Rift. Built when Underhome was first constructed, the pumps had continued to function ever since, and were still a major source of drinking water for Eartheart.

Why had Eralynn come to this place? Assuming she was at the Pumps. Torrin couldn’t see any trace of her.

“Eralynn!” he shouted again.

A flash of motion, to his right. Something plucked at his sleeve and struck the pillar beside him. An arrow or a crossbow bolt! Torrin whirled. He squinted his right eye shut so he could see through the lens of his goggles. Barely visible through the spray, he saw someone crouched low behind a pillar with one arm raised. Black face, white hair. A drow, aiming a wristbow at him!

Torrin ducked behind the pillar. The thudding of the pumps and the hiss of water made it impossible to hear anything, but Torrin saw a second bolt punch through the spray where he’d just been standing. It disappeared into the darkness beyond. Belatedly, he realized that the rush of water had saved him. It had deflected the first bolt just enough for it to miss.

“Marthammor be praised!” Torrin whispered. The god who watched over wayfarers was protecting him.

Torrin was safe-but only for the moment. He wrenched his mace from his belt and readied it, wondering which direction the next attack would come from. The drow had been wearing a cloak over his shoulders, likely one that would render him all but invisible in the darkness. Keeping his back to the pillar, Torrin peered left and right through the one good lens, desperately trying to watch in two directions at once as vibrations from the pillar shuddered through his back.

A ripple to his left alerted him to-the drow, invisible, wading through the water.

“ Thuldnoror! ” Torrin shouted, swinging his mace.

The mace swept through empty space-the drow wasn’t there! — and smashed into a pillar. As the weapon’s magic activated, thunder boomed, louder than the thudding of the pumps. The mace smashed a hole in the pillar, releasing a spray of water. As Torrin wrenched the mace free, cursing, pain stabbed through his right leg. He twisted, and saw the black-fletched end of a wristbow bolt protruding from the back of his thigh. The drow had gotten behind him!

Torrin whirled around, waiting for his opponent to close, but the drow held back. Torrin immediately realized why, as his thigh went numb. Drow sleep poison! His thoughts slowed, and gray spots clouded his vision as it started to take effect.

A short distance away, the smirking drow suddenly became visible, no longer bothering to conceal himself. Torrin lifted his mace. It felt as heavy and as unwieldy as a sack of anvils. As he sloshed toward his assailant, his legs buckled and he fell face-first into the ice-cold water. His mace slipped from his numb fingers. He sank to the floor, completely submerged. Shivers coursed through his body as the water stung his eyes, filled his nose, and clogged his throat. He couldn’t breathe or even cough the water out. The poison had sapped the strength from him, leaving him as weak as a babe.

He was going to drown.

I’ve failed you, Kier, he thought.

Distantly, he felt hands yank at his pack, lifting him partially out of the water. The drow was looting him.

Dwarf… father, Torrin prayed, each thought as heavy as a boulder. I… convey… my… soul…

Torrin felt his body rise and fall, rise and fall. There was the sensation of moving through space, as though he drifted among clouds-cold clouds that chilled him to the core. He must be dead, he thought, his soul detached from its human husk and on its way to Moradin’s realm to be reborn. Had he a voice, he would have laughed bitterly. He was on his way to the Soulforge, but not as he’d intended.

Moradin grant that I be recast as a dwarf, this time around, he prayed.

Someone spoke in a language Torrin didn’t understand. It was a harsh-sounding language, but with melodic overtones.

That was odd. The pain in his leg was odd, too, as was the sensation of something scratchy and hard under his right hip and shoulder. If he were dead, why did it feel as though he still had a body?

Torrin realized he could open his eyes. Rough stone slid past a short distance away. A dull yellow, flickering light illuminated a wall, casting dancing shadows.

A horizontal line bisected Torrin’s field of view-a curved metal edge. He realized he was lying on one of the magical driftdiscs used by the drow. The oversized floating disc moved steadily forward, bobbing slightly.

The white-haired drow who’d shot Torrin walked a pace or two behind, just at the edge of Torrin’s vision. His black skin gave him a natural camouflage against the dark stone of the tunnel they were passing through, yet he was close enough that Torrin could make out details of his face. He looked old; his face was deeply lined.

The drow turned his head, shielded his eyes from the light with one hand, and stared at Torrin. Then he said something in the same language Torrin had just heard.

Torrin fought to marshal his thoughts. They came sluggishly, as though he were still only half awake. That was the drow sleep poison, he knew, from the wristbow bolt. But the drow hadn’t let Torrin die, after all. He’d been pulled from the water. Why?

Torrin’s leg ached. He moved a hand to touch the wound, to feel whether the bolt was still in his leg. His hand fumbled on his goggles, lying on the driftdisc beside him. They reminded him of another mystery. Why would drow be using torches to light their way? The black-skinned elves could see as well in the dark as any dwarf.

Torrin at last touched his wounded thigh, He winced. No bolt protruded from it. Instead, his leg was bandaged. He was naked, he realized. A blanket had been wrapped around his body, covering all but his head. Though his body was dry, his hair and beard were still damp. It had been some time, then, since he’d fallen into the water.

Slowly, by degrees, Torrin eased onto his back and turned his head the other way. He saw two elves, a man and a woman. Their dark skin at first made him think they were drow, but then he realized their skin was deep brown, rather than true black. And their hair was black, rather than white. They had deeply lined faces, too, and the man’s hair was thinning. Torrin would have guessed their age at about sixty, had they been human. The two were likely in their second century of life, possibly older. Both wore black trousers and shirts, and high-collared cloaks of the same mottled fabric as the drow’s. The man was armed with a wristbow and had a sword sheathed at his hip; the woman also had a sword at her hip. Carrying a torch in one hand, she led the group.

Between them, a second driftdisc floated along. A dwarf with braided blonde hair lay on her side atop it, her back to Torrin. She was also covered by a blanket, and a backpack lay next to her. Torrin could just see the top of a rune: an elaborate D. A delver’s pack!

“Eralynn?” Torrin said weakly.

The blonde head turned. Slowly. “Torrin,” she said. She closed her eyes and sighed. In a weak voice, she added, “You shouldn’t have followed me.”

“What…” Torrin coughed, clearing his throat. He glanced again at the strange, dark-skinned elves. “What’s happening?”

Eralynn rolled over to face him. One hand emerged from beneath the blanket. The fingers were curled tight, the skin gray. It looked more like a rock than a hand. The only way Torrin would have recognized it as Eralynn’s was by the veins of blue spellfire that crackled across it.

Torrin felt as though a cold fist had just squeezed his heart. “You’ve got the stoneplague,” he said.

“Yes,” Eralynn replied, letting her hand fall. It thudded down onto the driftdisc.

“And these… drow?” Torrin asked. “Who are they?”

“Friends,” Eralynn said. She rolled onto her back, grunting, obviously in pain. “They’re helping me get to Sundasz.”

Torrin felt less woozy. He rose slightly, propping himself up on one elbow on the driftdisc. He saw his own pack near his feet, together with his wet clothes and boots. “Helping you how?” he asked, still not quite believing what was happening.

The drow were their sworn enemies, a brutal race who worshipped evil gods and were perpetually at war with the dwarves. They’d swarmed into what remained of Underhome like cockroaches after the collapse of the Great Rift, slaughtering women and babes. They were foul and cruel and could be trusted even less than demons.

And yet the drow who’d shot Torrin hadn’t let him drown, nor had he and his two companions slit his throat. Instead they had bound his wound and wrapped him in a warm blanket. And they were carrying him somewhere.

“They’re going to cure me,” Eralynn said, at last mustering the strength to answer Torrin’s question. Her eyes were closed, her expression strained. Torrin could see that speaking was difficult for her. She struggled to draw breath.

“But they’re drow!” Torrin protested. He spotted his mace, down by his boots. Before he could even think of how he’d reach for it without being noticed, a hand roughly shoved him flat.

“No lift up, you,” the dark-skinned elf with the sword said in heavily accented Dwarvish. He was walking beside the driftdisc, his wristbow pointed at Torrin. Still keeping a watchful eye on Torrin, he spoke in his own language to the woman. She answered him with a flick of her hand, the silent speech used by the drow. The man’s nostrils flared. He lowered his wristbow and fell back into place behind the driftdisc.

“We were once drow, it’s true,” the woman said.

Torrin blinked in surprise. Her Dwarvish was flawless.

“For us, the Descent was undone,” she continued. “A few hundred of us-those without taint-returned to our original forms a century ago. We are Miyeritari once more.”

Torrin had no idea what she was talking about. “Who are you?” he asked. “Your name, I mean.”

“Val’tissa, priestess of Corellon,” the woman replied. She lifted a pendant that hung against her chest, showing him. It was an eight-pointed silver star-the holy symbol of the elf god. A second pendant also hung against her chest-a miniature silver sword, tarnished black. Torrin had no idea what it signified.

“Where are you taking us?” he asked.

The woman paused, as if considering whether to answer. “To the temple in Sundasz,” she said. “Your friend needs healing.”

Torrin felt a stab of jealousy. When Eralynn had fallen ill with the stoneplague, why hadn’t she come to him for help? Instead she’d done what she always did and stubbornly gone off on her own. To drow, of all people. Or rather, to dark-skinned elves who had once been drow, if Val’tissa was to be believed.

“Corellon’s clerics already tried their healing rituals,” Torrin told her. “They didn’t work.”

“Ours are different,” Val’tissa replied.

“How?”

“Some of us still remember the old ways. The songdance will succeed where other rituals have failed.”

“What’s a songdance? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It is ancient,” Val’tissa said. “Not commonly practiced, anymore.”

Torrin touched the cloth bandage on his leg. The bolt wound still ached, but when he worked a finger under the bandage, he felt puckered skin, rather than a fresh wound. “Did you heal me?” he asked.

Val’tissa nodded. “Eralynn insisted on it.”

The drow walking beside Torrin’s driftdisc said something in his own language, a growl of anger in his voice.

“Tzoth wanted to kill you,” Val’tissa said. “Especially after you barged in on us like that, and tried to kill him.”

“He shot at me!” Torrin protested.

“He aimed for the arm, then for the leg,” she said. “Non-vital spots. We were going to render you senseless and leave you where you were, but out of the water, so you wouldn’t drown. But Eralynn recognized you, and said you were her friend. She urged us to bring you along.” Val’tissa shrugged. “It’s her decision. If she wants us to drag you along, that’s up to her.”

They were climbing a slope. At the top, the drow said something to the two dark elves. Coin changed hands. The drow departed the way they’d just come, slipping off into the darkness.

“Imyr,” Val’tissa said, catching the other dark elf’s eye. Torrin guessed that to be his name. Val’tissa spoke quietly, and her companion moved to the side of Eralynn’s driftdisc. Then he pulled the blanket up over Eralynn’s head.

Torrin sat bolt upright, causing his driftdisc to bob up and down. “What are you doing?” he cried. “Is she…”

“She sleeps,” Val’tissa said. “Now be silent. Say nothing that will give Eralynn’s condition away, or the dwarves will panic. If anyone asks, your leg was broken in a fall from a ledge, and Eralynn died of a broken neck after falling while trying to rescue you. Now lie still, and pretend to be in pain. Say nothing of the stoneplague.”

Torrin chafed at the blunt instructions, but did as she suggested. He lay back down on the driftdisc, allowing himself to be borne along. If Eralynn had arranged matters-and there was no reason to believe she hadn’t-he didn’t want to spoil whatever chance of healing the strange elves could offer. Perhaps they would succeed, where all others had failed.

They emerged into a wide canyon whose high walls had been carved into a series of switchback stairs punctuated by balconies-the settlement of Sundasz. Windows, some filled with soft yellow candlelight, dotted the canyon walls. Far overhead, the canyon closed to a narrow crack, through which Torrin could see the starry night sky. A warm breeze blew down from above, carrying the smell of woodland. Closer at hand, the air smelled of coal smoke.

A handful of dwarves made their way back and forth across the canyon floor. Others were climbing or descending the stairways, or could be seen through the windows, inside the residences above. As the dark elves made their way through the canyon, Torrin spotted people of other races: humans, some fair-skinned elves, more than one person who was an obvious mix of elf and human, even a tiefling or two. Though several people turned to stare at Torrin and sadly shook their heads at the driftdisc that held Eralynn’s “corpse,” no one seemed at all surprised to see the two dark elves in their settlement.

Val’tissa and Imyr continued across the canyon floor to one of the staircases, with the two driftdiscs floating between them. It was a long climb up the stair. Close to the top, they turned into an arched tunnel just wide enough to accommodate the discs. From there, they entered a wider corridor, ascended a broad flight of stairs flanked by an intricate mosaic of a forest, and at last passed through stout wooden doors into a cavern open to the sky.

The canyon walls were thick with ferns. A grove of oak trees wove their branches together high overhead into a natural lattice through which the stars peeped. Torrin smelled dew-wet grass and night-blooming flowers. The dark elves made their way to a white marble statue that gleamed in the moonlight. The statue was of a tall, thin elf wearing armor and carrying a shield. The elf’s face looked both male and female. It was Corellon Larethian, high lord of the elf gods.

Val’tissa gestured. The disc carrying Eralynn drifted to the statue and settled on the grass at the god’s feet. Imyr sent Torrin’s driftdisc slowly to the ground nearby.

“Up now, you,” he told Torrin. “Clothes and pack.”

Torrin rose and pulled on his shirt and trousers. After the long ride on the driftdisc, he felt as though he were still rising and falling, even though he stood on solid ground. As he fastened his belt and tied his mace to it, he watched as Val’tissa kneeled beside Eralynn. “Is she… alive still?” he asked, a catch in his voice.

Val’tissa gently pulled the blanket down from Eralynn’s face. It looked gray in the moonlight. “She lives,” Val’tissa said as she stood. “We will perform the ritual as soon as we are ready. Go with Imyr. He will take you to one of the local inns. We will send word to you there, once Eralynn has been healed.”

Imyr touched Torrin’s shoulder, but Torrin shrugged his hand off. “I’m staying,” Torrin protested. “Right here, with Eralynn.”

“The spellsong is a secret ritual,” Val’tissa said, gesturing at the forest. “We normally would not have allowed someone who’s not one of the faithful to come even this far. But we made an exception this night, for Eralynn’s sake. She and I have known each other for many years, ever since she saved my life-something few other dwarves would have done. I always said I’d repay her, if I could. Tonight I shall honor that promise.”

Again, Torrin felt a stab of hurt. Eralynn had known these dark elves for years, and had never once told him? All that time, he’d thought he was her shield brother, that she would confide anything to him. He’d been wrong. She was even more of a loner than he’d thought.

“Now leave her,” Val’tissa said. “And know that she’s in Corellon’s hands.”

“All right, I’ll go,” Torrin said. “But there’s something you need to know before you attempt your ritual. The stoneplague isn’t a disease.”

“How do you know this?” Val’tissa asked. “That’s not what Eralynn told me.”

“She left before we discovered the true cause.”

“Which is…?

Torrin hesitated. Should he tell her the truth?

He thought back to what the Lord Scepter had said to him on the staircase. The Deep Lords had acted sagely when they’d kept secret the reason why gold was suddenly being confiscated. Letting the general populace know that gold was the source of the stoneplague would indeed have thrown the city into panic, despite the natural stoicism of the dwarf race. What’s more, it would have opened the door for unscrupulous rogues to buy gold-especially cursed gold-at a fraction of its value. Gold that would later come back into circulation, spreading the stoneplague once more. And should people learn the unwitting role Sharindlar’s temples had played in the spread of the disease, clerics like Maliira would be in danger.

All that meant there was a need for secrecy. Yet the Lord Scepter hadn’t ordered Torrin to remain silent. Instead, he’d set him free to do as he saw fit, just as he’d freed the star in his prophetic dream.

Torrin glanced at Eralynn’s gray face. If it would help, he decided, he’d speak. Her life wasn’t the only one hanging in the balance. Kier needed a cure, as did hundreds, perhaps even thousands of others.

“A curse caused the stoneplague,” Torrin began. “A curse that was placed on gold.” He told the dark elf about the gold bars from the earthmote, and the unusual way in which the “stoneplague” had spread throughout Eartheart, a pattern of infection unlike any regular disease. He paused at that point, loathe to reveal how Sharindlar’s clerics had inadvertently exposed supplicants to the gold, but after a moment’s hesitation he plunged on. He would tell all, he decided. Eralynn’s life might depend upon it. He wound up by describing the experiment Wylfrid had performed, describing the way the gold foil had pulsed with red, and the strange black pattern that looked like veins he’d seen through the tube.

“Thank you for that information,” Val’tissa said. “But curse or plague, with Corellon’s blessing, our spellsong will remove Eralynn’s affliction.”

Though far from certain, Torrin nodded.

“Now go,” Val’tissa said. “I’ll send word when we’re done. But know that it may take some time. The rest of the night, at least.”

Torrin saw movement in the forest. About a dozen other women, dark elves like Val’tissa, moved toward them through the trees. Val’tissa called out a greeting in drow, and they answered.

Once again, Imyr took Torrin’s shoulder, his grip firm.

Torrin let the dark elf lead him away from the statue. Away from Eralynn.

Torrin glanced back at her, lying so still under that blanket. As he left, he whispered a fervent prayer to Moradin, begging the god to permit one of his own to be healed by those strange, dark elves.