Torrin clambered to his feet. He couldn’t see! Damn his human eyes! He heard a faint noise, down and to his left where the table had landed. He yanked his mace from his belt and smashed downward, shouting the word that activated the weapon’s magic. Thunder boomed, echoing off the walls of wherever they’d teleported to. Torrin felt his weapon strike something that gave way with the crunch of breaking bone. Belatedly, he realized that Val’tissa also might have been caught up in the teleportation. He prayed it wasn’t her he’d just killed.
Torrin stood, panting, and straining to hear any sound. But all he heard was his own harsh breathing. Every muscle in Torrin’s body tensed. He anticipated a dagger thrust at any moment. He swung his mace back and forth and turned abruptly to and fro. One foot bumped something on the floor, and he stumbled and nearly fell. Despite his vulnerability, the attack he anticipated didn’t come.
Cautiously, Torrin shrugged out of one of the straps of his backpack. Another shrug and the pack was hanging against his chest. Holding his mace ready with one hand, he fumbled open the pack and reached inside. “Goggles,” he commanded. They rose to find his hand. He dragged them over his eyes, and suddenly he could see out of his left eye.
He stood in a natural cavern about a dozen paces wide and a hundred long. The floor was littered with stone molds, iron tongs, and stone dippers with long wooden handles. Rough flash-the solidified spill left over from casting-was splashed everywhere on the floor, and was so soft that it bent when he trod on it. A neat slit had been cut into one wall of the cavern. More solidified metal hung from the bottom of it like icicles from the edge of a roof. A warm breeze blew in through this gap.
The table from the inn lay nearby, partially covering a body with a staved-in head. Torrin recognized Tril by his blood-soaked doublet. He was dead. What Cathor had started with his dagger, Torrin had finished with his mace.
The “bodyguard”-who Torrin realized must be yet another rogue in the hire of whoever had cursed the gold, if not the wizard himself-lay a pace or two away, his wounded hand just shy of the runestone in a smear of blood, his other hand slack around his dagger. Torrin heaved a sigh of relief, realizing the sleep poison on Val’tissa’s bolt had done its work just in time. Had Cathor remained conscious a heartbeat or two longer, he might have activated the runestone a second time and teleported away.
Torrin shook his head, amazed at what had just happened. He’d been wrong. It wasn’t necessary to be in an earth node to activate the runestone. Its teleportation magic, it would seem, could be commanded from anywhere on Faerun.
Torrin crossed the cavern and picked up the runestone. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. He tucked it away in his pack.
He picked up Cathor’s dagger and sword and put them in his pack as well, for good measure. Then he stripped the rogue naked-there was no telling what form a magical amulet might take-and bound his wrists behind his back, using rope from his Delver’s pack. He tied Cathor’s ankles as well. Finally, just in case the rogue was capable of magic, Torrin stuffed a gag in his mouth.
All Torrin had to do next was wait for the sleep poison to wear off. Meanwhile, he prayed that Cathor didn’t have accomplices nearby. The cavern they’d teleported to, however, was as quiet as a crypt. And, Torrin saw as he walked its circumference, it had no visible exits, aside from the narrow fissure in the wall, which was too narrow for a person to squeeze through. No matter. The runestone was Torrin’s way out-assuming he could figure out how to use it.
Torrin nudged Cathor with his foot. The dwarf was still unconscious, but alive. “Don’t claim him yet, Moradin,” Torrin prayed. “Not until I’m done with him.”
He pulled a lantern from his pack and lit it, then slid his goggles up onto his forehead. He turned his attention to the objects littering the floor. The flash was solid gold, as he’d expected from the way it bent under his boots. The molds were the ones used to cast the cursed gold bars. He inspected the slit in the wall and saw that it led to an almost perfectly round tunnel, perhaps a pace wide, whose walls were coated with a crust of hardened gold. Torrin sniffed and caught the faint scent of molten metal.
“The River of Gold,” he breathed.
He glanced around, shaking his head in wonder. A fortune lay at his feet, splashed all around him like waste slag. Even though he knew its role in spreading the stoneplague, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pure greed at the sight of it. All that wealth made his heart pound. His people had a name for what he was feeling: aetharn or “gold lust.” With that much gold, he could go anywhere, do anything. Fund the most exotic delves anyone had ever dreamed of.
Then he thought of Eralynn, Kier, Ambril and her stillborn twins, and the hundreds of other dwarves who’d succumbed to the stoneplague, and the taste of his fantasies soured. He’d trade all the gold in the cavern-all the gold in the world-for them to be alive again.
He heard a faint movement behind him. Cathor had woken up. He was feigning sleep, but his shivers betrayed him.
Torrin squatted next to the dwarf. His anger banked as he stared at him. Rather than fan it red hot, Torrin let it smolder. The time for vengeance-for justice-would come later.
Cathor’s eyes opened. He strained at his bonds and shivered violently, either from the feel of cold stone against naked flesh or from fear. He shook his head and tried to say something. But all that got past the gag was a moan.
Torrin stared down at his captive. He pulled a tiny glass vial from his pack and showed it to Cathor. “This potion is the same as the one that forced your half-elf friend to talk, back at the inn,” he said. “One way or the other, you’re going to drink it. If I have to, I’ll kneel on your forehead and slice your lips open with my dagger. Or we can do it the easy way, and you can just swallow it.”
Cathor stared up at him, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Perhaps he believed Torrin would free him once he had talked, or perhaps he thought he might yet use the runestone to escape. Whatever the reason, he grunted his assent.
“Good,” Torrin said. He took the gag from Cathor’s mouth. Cathor opened his mouth, and Torrin poured in the potion. Just in case Cathor was lying about being cooperative, Torrin immediately pinched the rogue’s lips shut.
Cathor glared, but swallowed down the potion. Torrin released his hold on the fellow’s lips and stood up.
“And now,” Torrin told his captive, “we’ll talk.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Truth comes to us from the past, like gold washed down from the mountains.”
Torrin stared down at his captive.Since the truth potion would only last so long, he decided to ask Cathor the most important questions first. He folded his arms across his chest. “How, exactly, was the gold cursed?”
“I don’t know,” Cathor said.
Torrin silently fumed, then realized he needed to back up a step. Cathor might be nothing more than a minion, after all. He might not know the details. Torrin had to take this step by step. “All right, then, let’s try again,” he said. “Let’s start with this: who cursed the gold?”
That, it seemed, was a question his captive could answer. “The duergar,” Cathor replied.
“The one who was trying to find Vadyr? What’s his name?” Torrin asked.
Cathor shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“Perhaps I should be more clear,” Torrin said. “What I want to know is this: What’s the name of the duergar who invoked the curse?”
“Perhaps I should be more clear,” Cathor said mockingly. “I don’t know.”
Torrin grit his teeth. He tried again. “Where can I find the duergar who cursed the gold?” he asked.
