mostly flat top served as an all-too-narrow landing point between Torrin’s ledge and the tunnel across from him.
At some point in the past, there had been a rope bridge across Needle Leap. But the rogues and outcasts who called Helmstar home had cut the bridge down years before. Moldering strands of rope hung from the pitons that had once secured them. Torrin had a rope, but he had been told not to trust the easily fractured rock. After noting how loosely anchored the rusted pitons were, he thought it wise advice.
Instead, he’d jump. There was just enough room on the ledge to get a good running start, but the gap between the ledge and the Needle was wide. Too wide for more than one young daredevil who had learned it at the cost of his life, after being so unwise as to accept a dare. Even with his longer human legs, Torrin estimated, he’d only just be able to make it. On top of that, the stone here was dewy with condensation from the damp air. Slippery. It would be a treacherous leap.
Torrin slid his mace into the loop on his belt and ensured that his backpack was snug; he didn’t need it sliding about and throwing off his balance. He whispered a quick prayer to the Watcher over Wanderers and kissed, for luck, one of his beard’s tiny silver hammers. Then he ran.
A leap… and he was sailing through the chill air, with nothing between himself and the jagged rocks far below. With his arms windmilling for balance, Torrin threw his body forward into a run the moment his foot touched the Needle. Still sprinting-one step, two, three-he leaped a second time.
Sudden movement to the right and far below caught his eye. The cloaker was winging its way upward! The distraction threw off his landing, and he stumbled badly on the distant ledge, his lead foot twisting off the edge. He crashed down, half on and half off the ledge, sliding backward. He scrabbled for a crack, any crack, to jam his fingers into. No use-he couldn’t stop his momentum! Rough stone scraped his cheek and wrenched the goggles away from his eyes, sending them clattering onto the ground beside his head. Blinded, he slid until his clawing fingers were all that kept him from going over the edge. The rest of him dangled in empty space.
“Marthammor,” he gasped, knowing that in a moment more his trembling hands would betray him. “Why have you forsaken me?”
Hands seized his left wrist, just below his bracer, and pulled hard. As he was dragged bodily up and onto the ledge, Torrin at last found a knob of stone with one foot. He hiked himself up the rest of the way and rolled onto his back. Safe!
The hands released his wrist. Panting, Torrin lay arched uncomfortably over his backpack, sweat trickling down his temples. He felt the rough hands of his rescuer touching his beard and then patting their way down across his shoulders, chest, and legs.
“You’re no dwarf,” his rescuer rasped. “You talk like one, but by the feel of your limbs, you’re human.”
Torrin sat up. He felt around for his magical goggles and heaved a sigh of relief when he found them. They allowed him to see only in shades of black, white, and gray, but that was far better than blindly stumbling about the Underdark.
He looked up at his rescuer. The fellow who’d just pulled him to safety was a dwarf with patched, dirty clothes and a beard in need of combing. He had shoulders even broader than most, but moved stiffly. He wheezed like an old forge hand, his chest audibly rattling as it rose and fell. His breath smelled slightly off, with an odor like damp clay. His eyes, however, were the most disturbing. They were a pale, pitted white, like chipped marbles-and they weren’t moving. The skin at the corner of each eye was deeply creased. In normal light, it was likely a painful red.
“You’re blind!” Torrin gasped. “How did you know I was-”
A hand, as rough as chipped stone, grabbed Torrin’s neck. A dagger point pricked his throat, silencing him. “Who are you?” the blind dwarf rasped.
Torrin swallowed. Carefully. “Torrin Ironstar,” he replied. He started to raise an arm to show off the star on his bracer, then remembered the dwarf wouldn’t be able to see it. “Are you Kendril, son of Balund?”
The blind dwarf frowned. Then he laughed and released Torrin’s throat. He felt for his sheath with one hand, and slid the dagger into it. “I am,” he replied, sighing heavily. “Just as well, really, that you’re human.”
“Actually, although I may not look like it, I’m a dwarf,” Torrin corrected. “Moradin recast my soul in a human body this time around. I’d have told you that during our negotiations, but I didn’t think you’d trust me if I did.”
“Pull my beard another time, human,” Kendril said with a grunt. His head cocked slightly to one side. “Did you hear that moan? There’s a cloaker somewhere nearby. And we’ve business to conclude.”
Torrin stood and glanced down over the edge. He was on solid ground-but someone needed to tell his pounding heart that. He couldn’t see the cloaker, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still down there, somewhere. “You’re right. We should get back from the edge. Are you able to find your way?”
“I found you, didn’t I?” the blind dwarf said, wheezing. Feeling his way along with one hand on the wall, Kendril led Torrin into the tunnel. After a dozen or so steps he halted. “This should be safe enough, for now.”
Grunting with what sounded like pain, Kendril reached stiffly inside his shirt and pulled out a worn leather pouch. He teased open the pouch strings with shaking fingers and pulled out a fist-sized oval of bloodstone. He felt for Torrin’s hand and pressed the stone into it. “Here’s what you paid for.”
Torrin felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he took the runestone. Was it just his imagination, or was its magic making his hand tingle?
“You can feel its magic, can’t you?” Kendril asked.
Torrin nodded, then remembered to speak aloud. “I can.”
He held the runestone up and peered closely at it through his goggles. One side was blank. The other was inscribed with two runes, barely visible thanks to the many chips, scuffs, and cracks the runestone had acquired in the hundreds or even thousands of years since its creation.
“ ‘Earth magic?’ ” Torrin wondered aloud.
Kendril’s eyebrows rose. “You know how to read Auld Dethek?”
“Enough to make out simple words like these,” Torrin said. He took a cloth from his pocket and wrapped it around the runestone. “You said this stone would teleport me to wherever I wanted to go. How do I do that?”
“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”
“But you said-”
“I said I would sell it to you,” the dwarf said. “And I have.”
“But you must know how to use it,” Torrin said. “How else would you have gotten here? You can’t see.”
“Quite true. But teaching you how to use the runestone wasn’t part of our bargain.”
“What if I paid you more?”
Kendril sighed. “I don’t need your coin,” he said. “Or anything else you think to offer. Not any more. Our transaction is done.”
Torrin fumed. It was clear that Kendril wasn’t going to budge, and there was little Torrin could do about it. He wasn’t about to threaten a fellow dwarf, let alone one who was blind and obviously unwell. Kendril had stuck precisely to the wording of their bargain, and that was that.
Torrin wished that he’d anticipated such an obstacle. Figuring out how to use the stone would mean a consultation with a loremaster. And that would require payment-coin he didn’t have. He should have known better than to agree to purchase what was-he was starting to suspect-stolen property that Kendril himself didn’t even know how to use. Torrin had compromised his principles, and would have one more thing to answer for when his life was done.
“Where is it you want to go, anyway?” Kendril asked.
“The Soulforge,” Torrin replied.
Kendril rasped out a laugh. “The Soulforge?” he repeated. “If that’s what you’re looking for, step off that ledge, human. Test that theory of yours. If your soul really is that of a dwarf, it will wind up at Moradin’s forge soon enough.”
“The Soulforge I’m looking for is the one here on Faerun,” Torrin said. “It’s the one the dwarves emerged from when they entered this realm.”
“That’s an even harder beard pull,” Kendril said. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you’re going to forge a new race of dwarves with it-that you’re the Dwarffather himself.”
Torrin made no comment. He was used to people mocking his holy quest. He shrugged off his backpack, tucked the runestone inside, and carefully tied the flap shut. “Your clanfolk received the fee,” he told Kendril. “In gemstones, as you specified. I had to sell everything of value I had, but-”
