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 followed 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.
“Gods smite their dark hearts,” Torrin said through his clenched teeth.
The rusted nub of an iron bar protruded from the wall, just above the broken throne of Moradin’s statue. At first Torrin took it to be a reinforcing bar that had held the statue upright, but then he realized dwarf stonemasons would have done better work than that. Not only that, but the ceiling above was stained with soot, as if someone carrying a torch had stood in that spot for a while.
Torrin grabbed the iron stub and gave it a tug. The wall pivoted with a grinding noise, revealing a small hidden chamber. It was dark inside. Torrin took a moment to pull on his goggles.
His stomach gave a lurch as soon as he saw what was within. A pace or two in front of him lay Kier on the floor, next to a wooden strongbox half-filled with gold bars, each the size and shape of a stick of butter. Each was easily worth fifty gold coins. More gold bars were scattered across the floor. A fortune! Easily enough to pay for Torrin’s cleansing, a loremaster, or anything else Torrin desired.
Torrin’s elation was gone as quickly as it had come, however. Kier was hurt. He needed help.
Torrin stepped into the room and kneeled beside the boy. Immediately, a piercing cry like a woman’s scream filled the air. The sound came from a cluster of tiny white mushrooms that had rooted in a rotted beam that had fallen from the ceiling long ago. Also rooted in the beam were larger mushrooms of a vivid purple, with hairlike filaments waving above their spotted caps. Poisonous mushrooms-and Kier must have touched them.
“Mother of Safety!” Torrin cried. “By your sweet mercy, let the boy be alive!”
Torrin lifted Kier. The boy’s body was not yet cold-a hopeful sign. Gold bars clinked as Torrin kicked them out of the way. There was enough gold here to make a rogue weep, but Torrin cared nothing for it any longer. All that mattered was Kier.
He shouldered open the secret door and ran up the stairs, the boy limp in his arms. The purplish mushrooms were small-a fully grown specimen of the violet fungus stood twice the height of a dwarf-but there had been dozens of them in that room. Kier, praise Sharindlar, was still breathing, although the raspiness of his breath alarmed Torrin.
When Torrin got to the top of the stair, he saw the rope jerking sharply. He wondered what fresh crisis that implied, then realized that it was likely the skyrider who’d followed him to the mote, giving the rope a tug.
“Down here!” Torrin cried. “Bring your medicine pouch. We need help!”
Moments later, he heard wingbeats. The skyrider’s griffon came into view, tossing its horselike head and ruffling its feather mane as it hovered just outside the opening. The Peacehammer riding it had black hair, a beard whose lower half was encased in a tight golden tube, and a nose that looked as if it had been flattened in a fight.
When he saw Torrin he raised his crossbow. “Set the boy down, thief,” he ordered. “Gently, or I’ll put a bolt through your chest.”
“It’s not what you think,” Torrin said. “I’d never harm Kier. The boy’s my nephew.”
The skyrider snorted. “And I’m his mother,” he said as he sighted down the crossbow. “Put the boy down. Now. And when you’ve done that, you can unlash your mace and toss it to me. You’re under arrest, for the theft of a griffon.”
Torrin set Kier down. Gently. He fumbled at the straps that held his mace. “The boy’s been poisoned,” he said. “He touched a violet fungus. He needs a healing potion.”
“Your mace,” the skyrider repeated. “Toss it to me.”
Torrin at last got the weapon free and threw it to the skyrider, who caught it in one hand and deftly tucked it into a loop in his saddle.
“This boy’s grandfather is a Peacehammer,” Torrin told the skyrider. “Baelar Thunsonn. The boy took his mount-you must have seen the Thunsonn crest on the saddle. That’s why I borrowed the other griffon-to fetch the boy back so he wouldn’t be shot down for breaking quarantine. Please! If we don’t heal Kier quickly, he’ll die!”
The skyrider hesitated. Still holding his crossbow in one hand, he reached into the saddlebag behind him, never once taking his eyes from Torrin. He pulled out the medicine pouch that all skyriders carried, and pulled a metal vial from it. “Catch!” he called, tossing it to Torrin.
Torrin snatched it out of the air. He wrenched the cork out of the vial with his teeth and spat it aside. He squatted and gently lifted Kier’s head. He parted the boy’s lips, noting with more than a little alarm that they were turning blue. He poured in the potion and tipped Kier’s head back, hoping that the liquid wouldn’t slide down the boy’s airway and choke him.
Torrin heard the flap of wings and felt a gust of air from their downbeat. The skyrider was backing his mount away from the entrance. He had raised something round to his mouth and was speaking into it: one of the magical “sending stones” that allowed the Peacehammers to communicate with their commanders in Eartheart.
Kier coughed. Faintly. A moment later his eyelids fluttered open. He looked blearily around. “Uncle Torrin,” he said weakly. Then he retched, and threw up.
Torrin gently wiped Kier’s mouth with his sleeve. “That was a close one, lad,” he said. “Don’t scare me like that again.”
