“ ‘Let’ me?” Eralynn said. Her eyes narrowed, and her fists went to her hips.
Torrin swallowed. Eralynn might be only as tall as his chest, but her rages could knock the stoutest dwarf back a pace or two. Still, Torrin stood his ground. “The Lord Scepter has decreed that-”
Eralynn laughed, startling him. “Oh, Torrin. Sometimes you can be so… ridiculously stubborn.”
He smiled, relieved to see that the storm had broken before it had begun. “Well, I am a dwarf, after all,” he said with a shrug. “We have a reputation for that.”
Eralynn smiled. “You don’t need to worry,” she said reassuringly. “We’re not going to do anything illegal, amusing though that might be. This portal led out of Underhome, not into it.”
“Are you finally going to tell me where it goes?”
Eralynn’s eyes glittered with anticipation. “The Wyrmcaves.”
“The Wyrmcaves!” Torrin gasped. “Why would our ancestors build a portal that led there?”
“As a trap,” she replied. “Whenever a dragon attacked, Underhome’s soldiers would pretend to flee through this portal. It links to a cavern barely big enough to accommodate a dragon, with a connecting bolthole just large enough for the soldiers to escape through. All they had to do then was wait for the dragon to die.”
“Clever.”
Eralynn laughed. “Not quite clever enough. Some of the smaller dragons escaped. According to some of the runelore I’ve read, that may be how the Wyrmcaves became a lair to dragons in the first place.”
“The wrym biting its tail full circle, hmm?” Torrin said. He stepped forward to examine the runes.
Eralynn grabbed his arm, yanking him back. “Wait!” she warned. “It’s protected by magic.” She released his arm and handed him two pieces of candle wax. “Use these to plug your ears and stand over there. And brace yourself.”
Torrin did as she’d instructed. Eralynn was the more experienced Delver, and he respected her greater knowledge. Some might find her too bossy, but it was her delve, after all. Torrin was simply along as an observer. He firmly pushed a ball of wax into each ear and stood where she’d indicated, then pulled from his pack the runestone he’d purchased from Kendril.
Eralynn walked toward the portal and raised her hands. As they entered the space between the circle of runes, thunder boomed out of the tunnel with such force that Torrin staggered back several paces. The faint lines of magical energy that glowed like veins on the backs of Eralynn’s hands flared outward, creating a shimmering blue wall of magical force in front of her. Even with his ears plugged, Torrin could hear the thunder reverberating back and forth between her magical shield and the bend of the tunnel.
A moment later, the magical shield faded away. Torrin dug the wax out of his ears. A chunk of rock fell from the ceiling of the tunnel, smashing to pieces on the floor. To Torrin, whose ears were ringing despite the protection, it sounded like a muffled thud.
Eralynn said something. Torrin only caught the last couple of words: “… not lethal,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
Eralynn grinned. She was busy tying back her hair, trying to rein in her mop of unruly blonde braids. As she pulled on a padded leather helmet, blue fire crackled in faint lines across the backs of her hands-the residue of the magic she’d just invoked.
“I said… not lethal,” she repeated. “When they built… portal, they… glyphs… look as though… portal led… important, somewhere… magical protection.”
Torrin shook his head and cracked his jaw. It didn’t help. The ringing in his ears was ebbing, but he still wasn’t hearing properly. “Is it safe to approach now?” he asked, realizing belatedly that he was shouting.
“Are you questioning my ability to deactivate a glyph?” she asked sternly.
He’d heard the whole sentence that time. “Of course not,” he said with a grin.
Eralynn’s leather armor creaked as she unslung the shield that was her trademark: a shield made from a single, enormous red dragon scale, rimmed with silver. Having found out where the portal led, Torrin could guess where she’d acquired that scale.
As Eralynn made her preparations, Torrin took a good look at the runes surrounding the portal. The inscription was a passage from an ancient dwarven saga: “Ready now, with swords in hand / Onward march, at my command / Soon, perhaps, to fight once more / Safe against the dragon’s roar.”
Torrin frowned. The first two lines were wrong. “Shouldn’t it be ‘Steady now, with swords in hand / Soldiers march, at my command?’ ” he asked.
Eralynn looked up from her preparations. “You’ve memorized the Faern sagas?” she said grinning. “You never cease to surprise me, Torrin. You’ve got a better memory for obscure poetry than most dwarves I know.”
“Is the inscription a clue to the incantation used to activate the portal?” he asked.
“That’s twice your hammer’s landed true,” Eralynn said with a wink.
“So what are the activation words?”
“I only said I’d show you a portal, and that I’d let you watch while I used it. You’re not coming through with me.”
“But-”
“The Wyrmcaves are no place to wander around in.”
“Exactly my point,” Torrin said, patting the mace at his hip. “It never hurts to have a second weapon, backing you up. Especially a magical one.”
“This is a solo delve, Torrin,” Eralynn replied. She pointed at the lip of the Rift, far above. “That’s your way back.” She glanced up at the sky. “It will be dark soon. I suggest you wait until morning to make the climb.”
“I’ll wait for you here.”
“No, you won’t,” she said, nodding at the portal. “That’s a one-way portal. I won’t be coming out of it again. The only way back is to hike back through the Deeps. I’ll see you in a few days’ time.”
“But you’ll miss the Festival of Remembering!”
The smile vanished from her eyes. “I prefer to be alone for that. And rest assured, honoring the dead is the observance that I never forget.”
Torrin bowed. “My apologies. I’ve offended you. That was crass of me, to imply that you’d neglect to honor your parents.”
“I may never have known them, but I carry them here,” Eralynn said, touching the heart-shaped glass pendant that hung at her throat. “And here,” she added, touching the spot over her heart. She blinked several times, her eyes glistening.
Torrin bowed again, mortified at having upset her. “Again, my apologies. I trip over my words, it seems, as frequently as an ale-addled longbeard trips over his braid.”
He was relieved to hear Eralynn chuckle. Her fist punched his forearm affectionately. She had, it would seem, forgiven him.
“Let’s just hope your experiment works,” she told him, nodding at the runestone. “I’ve already thought up a list of ruins I’d like to teleport to and explore. A long list.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep my part of the bargain,” Torrin said.
“I know,” Eralynn said. “You’re a man of your word. It’s nice to know I can count on that.”
“I’ll see you in a few days’ time, then,” Torrin told her. “Good luck with your delve.”
Eralynn nodded and motioned Torrin back. Then she drew her sword and approached the portal.
Torrin kept glancing back and forth between the runestone and Eralynn as she halted just in front of the portal. He heard her whisper in a voice too low for him to make them out. The tunnel beyond the runes blurred slightly, as though seen through streaked glass. Eralynn stepped in and vanished from sight, the glow on the back of her hands leaving a faint smear of blue static that crackled for a heartbeat, then was gone.
Torrin stared hard at the runestone. But, to his great disappointment, he could see no obvious change in it. He’d hoped that the magic within might be activated by the wash of magical energy from a portal opening, that some sort of henceforth invisible command rune might appear on the runestone’s surface, or that perhaps the runestone might orient itself with a particular compass direction, or some other clue manifest. Yet nothing like that had happened. His experiment had been a failure. And a costly one.
Once again, he was outside the city walls. Once again-for a third time-he’d require a cleansing to get back into Eartheart.
Sharindlar’s clerics were performing cleansings on dwarves at a fee of whatever the dwarf could afford, with the balance of each tithe being paid from the city coffers. Tallfolk, however, had to pay the full cost out of their own
