“I was a teacher once, you know,” Zarifar said. “At the College of Ancient Arcana, in Sshamath.”
The drow city. Torrin struggled to keep the distaste from his expression. He needed information from Zarifar.
Torrin was setting aside his principles a lot lately. But it was for the greater good. He might learn something from the wizard that would help Kier-help everyone. Surely Moradin would understand.
“What I want to know,” Torrin told the wizard, “is how to more reliably activate the teleportation magic of an earth node. I find that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Could that be due to a warding ritual, or some magical device that blocks teleportation, carried by the person I’m trying to teleport to?”
The cleric spoke again. “So now you’re a wizard, as well as a Delver?”
“I’m no wizard,” Torrin answered over his shoulder. “Although I am a dwarf. But that’s another tale.”
The cleric chuckled and set his book down, giving Torrin his full attention. “This gets better and better,” he said.
“I hoped to find the answer in these texts,” Torrin said, gesturing at the stack of books in front of him, “but the solution still eludes me. I was hoping that you might offer some suggestions. You must know a thing or two about teleportation.”
“Doors within doors,” Zarifar said. He placed his palms, fingers spread, each touching their counterpart on the opposite hand. “The patterns must match precisely. If they don’t-” he shifted one hand slightly, so his fingers were no longer lined up “-there’s only emptiness where an alignment should be.”
Torrin nodded respectfully. He already knew about the linked portals wizards could create: how the runes around each of the circles had to be inscribed in exactly the right order, using the same color of chalk, to forge a link from one to the next. But he was no wizard.
“What I want to know is this,” he continued. “Supposing someone wasn’t a wizard, but he had a magical device that could activate an earth node’s magic, and allow him to teleport? Could he go anywhere he wanted, or would the destination have to meet certain conditions?”
“You have such a device?” the cleric asked, his eyes glittering.
Torrin hesitated. If the fellow had been anything other than a cleric of the Delver’s patron god, Torrin might have hesitated. But he was a fellow dwarf, and one of the brotherhood. Torrin could trust him.
The cleric obviously sensed Torrin’s hesitation. He introduced himself. “Rathorn Battlehammer, son of Horatio Battlehammer and grandson of Rornathoin the Third,” he said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Torrin Ironstar,” Torrin repeated, clasping the cleric’s arm in the traditional dwarven greeting. “And no, I don’t have such a device-but I know of one.”
Rathorn chuckled. “No need for subterfuge,” he told Torrin. “As I said before, you can trust Zarifar. He’s no rogue, and he’s as honorable as any of the stout folk. I swear it, by the gleam in Dugmaren’s eye.” He touched the holy symbol that hung about his neck.
Torrin took a deep breath. “All right, then,” he said, after one last wary glance at the wizard. “Yes, I have such a device.” He pulled the runestone from his pouch and showed it to the cleric.
Rathorn studied it a moment, then pushed it back to Torrin. “Interesting. But Zarifar knows more about these things than I do, though I am chagrined to admit it.”
Zarifar started to reach for the runestone.
“It also draws spellfire,” Torrin warned.
The wizard’s hand jerked to a stop. He sat back, leaving the runestone where it was.
“But only when it’s in an earth node,” Torrin continued.
“Spellfire,” Zarifar said softly. He moved one finger back and forth across the table in a seemingly aimless fashion, mumbling to himself in a low voice, speaking in drow. He stared dreamily up at the ceiling.
Torrin waited while the wizard mused.
“Not possible,” Zarifar said abruptly, his hand jerking to a halt.
“What isn’t?” asked Torrin.
Zarifar traced lines across the table with his finger, each line ending at the tablet he’d spun in the air earlier. “Magic follows lines,” he said. “Spellfire…” He lifted his hand suddenly from the table and waggled his fingers. “Does not.”
Torrin gritted his teeth.
Rathorn chuckled. “What Zarifar means is that the lines of magical energy that come together at the locations we call ‘earth nodes’ each run along a fixed course through the earth,” he explained. “Spellfire, on the other hand, is wild magic that can neither be constrained nor channelled. It explodes into this realm at random, disfiguring flesh and grossly distorting spells. It is a force of chaos, and as such would be utterly antithetical to the tightly controlled and constrained magic of an earth node. That’s what Zarifar is trying to say-isn’t that right, Zarifar?”
The mage nodded down at one of the runestones on the table. “Order,” he said, flipping it over, blank side up. “Disorder.” Then he paused, and stared hard at the back of the tablet. “And yet… patterns, within the grain of the stone itself.” He seemed to have forgotten that Torrin was even there. He flipped the tablet faceup again and mumbled to himself.
“Yet channelling spellfire is possible,” Torrin insisted. He thought of the blue fire that crackled through Eralynn’s hands. “The spellscarred do it all the time when they work their magic. Why couldn’t a magical runestone do the same?”
“Impossible,” Rathorn said. He was obviously one of those dwarves whose tightly tied beliefs were impossible to unknot. “Next you’ll be telling me it’s possible to wring water from a stone.”
Torrin smiled and said, “Funny you should say that.” He lifted his pack and pulled out a stone he’d collected from Araumycos, long before he became a Delver. He carried the stone around with him still, as a souvenir. It was about the size of a walnut, and porous, like volcanic rock. Torrin shook it, then held it above the table. A dribble of water trickled out-more water than the holes alone could have held. The water puddled on the table and dribbled down onto the floor, prompting a frown from Rathorn.
Zarifar’s attention was immediately captured. “A rock gourd,” he said.
Torrin nodded. It was one area of geomancy in which he was well versed. “Rock gourds are valuable, if they’re large enough,” he said. “Kind of like a never-empty waterskin. But this one’s hardly big enough to quench a mouse’s thirst. Still, the point is made.”
Rathorn folded his book shut. His cheeks were pink above the beard bag. He stood. “That’s enough for me,” he said. “Good night, Zarifar.”
The dark elf didn’t answer. He was still staring at the rock gourd, his lips moving silently as he counted the drops falling from it. One finger moved downward, drip by drip, as he traced their fall.
“Good night, Delver Torrin,” the cleric added. “And… good luck with your quest for knowledge.” With that, Rathorn took his leave.
Torrin scrambled to his feet and bowed. He realized he’d embarrassed the cleric, for which he was sorry. But lately, it seemed even dwarf clerics didn’t have all the answers. As Rathorn left, Torrin turned back to the dark elf, who’d fallen silent.
Zarifar stared off into space, one hand idly playing with the tablet he’d been spinning earlier. “It just might be possible,” he said.
“What?” Torrin asked.
“Channelling spellfire,” replied the drow. He nodded at the runestone. “Grooves cut deep in stone expose the patterns within. Spellfire could leak into them and flow, like water through a trough. But only if the caster dug deep.” He pointed at Torrin’s chest. “Deep inside himself.”
Torrin stood for a moment, lost in thought. “Emotion?” he guessed.
Zarifar nodded.
So that was what triggered the runestone’s magic when it was within an earth node. Strong emotion. The first time, it had been Torrin’s fear and his desperate need to be safe, to be home. The second time, it had been his concern about Eralynn. But the runestone hadn’t worked when he’d tried to find Vadyr, despite the fact that Torrin’s hatred for him smoldered. That emotion should have been enough to carry Torrin past any magical wards the rogue had surrounded himself with. Yet it hadn’t.
That mystery notwithstanding, Torrin was making progress. The Dwarffather himself, it would seem, had steered him to Sundasz, the library, and a meeting with the strange dark elf. For that, Torrin gave praise. He was
