certain of.”
“What about… other gods?” Torrin asked as diplomatically as he could. “Couldn’t a cleric from Berronar Truesilver’s temple heal you?”
“When it seemed Sharindlar had turned her face from us, we tried just that,” she said. “We also took one of the afflicted to an elf healer, but it was no use. The cleric’s prayers to Corellon also went unanswered. Nor were magical potions effective.” The Merciful Maiden looked on the verge of tears. “There’s nothing any of us can do.”
Her words turned Torrin’s veins to ice. If the Maidens couldn’t even heal themselves, Haldrin was right.
Eartheart was doomed.
Chapter Eight
“More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.”
Kier sat at the table in the clanhold’s common room, frowning down in concentration at the soft wax tablet. He moved the stylus with slow, deliberate strokes, copying the runes from the story tablet. Torrin stared over the boy’s shoulder, supervising the lesson, occasionally reaching down to rotate the round wax tablet so that the inscription would spiral inward correctly.
“That’s not bad,” Torrin commented. “But if you’d just take off those gauntlets, you’d have an easier time of it.”
Kier shook his head without looking up.
Torrin sighed. The gauntlets-toy replicas of those worn by the Steel Shields-were made of leather, but even so they hindered Kier as he tried to write. The boy insisted on wearing them all the time, even to bed. No one reprimanded him, however. The family was still grieving the death of the newborn twins, and Ambril herself had fallen ill with the stoneplague. It was as if the disease, no longer having babes to feed upon, had turned its attention to the mother instead. Ambril was too ill to rise from her bed, and Haldrin was run ragged caring for her, nearly frantic with worry he’d lose her, too. It had fallen to Torrin to watch over Kier, to keep some sense of order and routine in the boy’s life.
Torrin stared down at what Kier had just written. “It’s delvar, ‘to dig,’ ” he corrected. “You’ve scribed deladar, which means ‘to descend.’ Here, let me show you.” He tried to take the stylus.
“No!” Kier shouted. “I’ll do it.” He yanked the stylus back with such force that his hand knocked over a drinking mug that had been on the table beside him. Ginger beer spilled everywhere, splashing onto the tablets and soaking Kier’s sleeves.
“Now look what you made me do!” Kier shrilled.
Torrin kneeled beside the boy. “It’s all right, Kier,” he said. “We’ve done enough for today. Let’s stop.” He picked up the stylus rag and dabbed at the tablets. But when he tried to pat dry Kier’s gauntlets, however, the boy reared back. It was as if he didn’t want Torrin to touch his hands.
Torrin suddenly felt his face pale. “Kier,” he said in a low firm voice. “Take off your gauntlets.”
“No!” Kier cried as he shot to his feet, nearly knocking over the bench.
Torrin clasped his shoulder gently. “Kier, you can trust me. I’m your delving partner, remember? Your uncle. Whatever’s wrong, you can tell me.”
Slowly, jerkily, Kier took off his left gauntlet. Torrin knew, the instant he saw the first wince of pain, what he would see. The sight, however, still made him ill, made him feel as if he’d been punched in the stomach hard enough to make him vomit. Kier’s fingers were crooked and gray; the discoloration had spread up his hands, almost to the wrists.
The stoneplague.
“Oh, Kier,” Torrin said in a hoarse whisper. He held out his arms. Kier fell gratefully into them, allowing himself to be hugged. To be touched.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Torrin asked.
Kier buried his face in Torrin’s shirt. “Everyone’s so scared,” he said in a muffled voice. “I worried what people would do to me. People are acting so… badly. I’ve seen what they do.”
Torrin felt his anger rise. He pulled back slightly so the boy would meet his eye. “Nobody’s going to hurt you,” he said. “If they try, I’ll-”
“Moradin is punishing me, isn’t he?” Kier whispered, an anguished look in his eyes. “I’ve offended the Dwarffather.”
Torrin grasped the boy’s shoulders firmly. “Nonsense,” he said. “You’re a fine boy. What could you possibly have done?”
“I… don’t obey my parents,” Kier whispered, his eyes locked on the floor. “I sneak out. And… I took grandfather’s griffon-and that gold bar. Now the gods are punishing me. The very next day after I flew to the earthmote, my fingers started to feel funny.”
“Kier, listen,” Torrin said. Gently, he lifted the boy’s chin. “That gold bar was yours by law. It was an honest find. You know what they say: ‘Delvers, keepers.’ I was there, too, and the stoneplague hasn’t touched me.”
“Of course not,” Kier said, meeting Torrin’s eyes briefly before glancing away again. “Because you’re…”
The unspoken word hung in the air between them for an uncomfortable moment.
“Human,” Torrin said at last, the word coming out as a sigh. In all those years, Kier had never once called him that.
Kier gave the slightest of nods, further twisting the dagger in Torrin’s heart. “Everyone knows the stoneplague only strikes dwarves,” he said.
Torrin opened his mouth to protest. But no words came. He was a dwarf, no question of that. Until that moment, he’d fully expected to eventually succumb to the disease. And yet, he was forced to admit, his body was indisputably human, and thus he likely would never have to fear the stoneplague. He…
“Moradin smite me,” Torrin cried as the implication struck home. “ That’s why he did it!”
Torrin’s sudden burst of wild laughter made Kier back up a step. “Uncle?” the boy asked. “Are you…?”
“Quite sane, I assure you,” Torrin said, wiping tears from his eyes. It was all clear to him: why Moradin had recast his dwarf soul in human form, why he’d sent Torrin that cryptic dream. Torrin was immune to the stoneplague. Immune. Yet he was a dwarf!
He knew his destiny, at last. He must save his people. But how?
Torrin stared across the room, thinking hard. He felt certain that the answer was buried somewhere in the dream he’d had. The runestone was a “puzzle,” the god had said, and the clue was that the runestone was gold. Molten gold. When Torrin had used the runestone, back in the Wyrmcaves, molten gold had dripped on his arm. Yet the more he twisted that fact back and forth, the more tangled the puzzle became.
Molten gold…
Gold bars with a counterfeit mark. Gold that had been melted down, and recast. Could that be the clue?
Torrin might not have figured out the entire puzzle yet, but a link had just fallen into place. He knew where to begin his search for answers: Sharindlar’s temple, in Hammergate.
“Don’t worry, Kier,” he said. “I’m going to find a way to cure you. I swear it. By Moradin’s beard, I will not rest until I do.”
Kier stared up at Torrin. Hope glimmered behind his tears. “I believe you, Uncle.”
Torrin passed through the gates that led from Eartheart proper to Hammergate, and started toward the temple of Sharindlar. In contrast to the near-empty corridors of Eartheart, Hammergate was bustling.
With the arrival of the stoneplague-not just in the Thunsonn clanhold, but in clanholds throughout the city-a significant number of its fifty thousand occupants had either fled or retreated behind their doors. Even when the general quarantine that had closed the city’s gates was lifted, those who had yet to succumb barricaded themselves inside their clanholds, barring the doors and refusing to emerge.
