slipped from his fingers. He tried to catch it, but then suddenly the runestone activated. Torrin felt a wrench, and an instant later found himself standing several paces away from where he’d just been. The blue glow was so fierce that he could barely see his feet, yet a dim gold-green glint beside his right foot told him where he’d landed-directly beside the gold-filled rune.
The spellfire so close to the rune was even more intense. Torrin felt it sear into his lungs, felt more of his skin burn away. In a few moments more, he’d be nothing but bones cloaked in ash. He realized, in that instant, what had been keeping Baelar from reaching the rune. The duergar must have placed wards that prevented the approach of any magical device capable of dispelling the rune’s magic. The feather was no use. It was impossible to bring it close enough to the rune to activate it. All of their efforts, everything they’d been through so far-Baelar’s death, Torrin’s imminent death-all had been for nothing.
Torrin would have wept, except that his eyes were as dry as sun-hot stone. “Moradin,” he prayed as he sank to his knees. So great was his agony, within and without, that he barely felt the crystals on the floor spike into his flesh. “Forgive me.”
He raised the runestone and squinted, trying to see the wall of the cavern. There was one last thing he might try-to teleport to the spot where Baelar and his squad had entered the cavern. If any of the other squads made it that far, and found the runestone, there was the faintest of chances they could-
Torrin screamed as a fresh agony forced itself upon him. His knees were on fire, flaring with the most intense pain he’d ever felt!
He glanced down and saw a shiny puddle. The gold filling the rune had overflowed the edge closest to him and was touching his knees. Burning them. Still more gold was flowing out of the rune toward him.
No. To the runestone clenched in his left hand. He moved it to the side, and saw the puddle of gold follow it. A hysterical laugh bubbled out of him.
“By Moradin’s beard!” he cried. “That’s it! That’s how it can be undone!”
The agony of his knees and shins reached a point beyond comprehension. The pain was so intense that his mind was no longer capable of registering it. He collapsed, halting his fall by slapping his right hand onto the cavern floor, directly into the flowing gold. The skin was immediately charred-a fragment of white knuckle bubbled to the surface-but Torrin didn’t care. With something between a laugh and a scream, he turned and hurled the runestone toward the hole that had been bored into the floor. Spellfire sped after it as it landed with a splash inside the well, and molten gold from the rune followed, flowing past Torrin in a wave that sealed his doom. He saw the hole in the floor begin to close, to scab over the molten metal that was flowing back into it. Then he fell onto his side, splashing down into the last of the flow leaving the rune. The last sensation he had was the smell of charred flesh and hot metal. He sighed in contentment as he died, knowing his work was done.
The rune was empty, the gold flowing back into Moradin’s vein. The Dwarffather would live.
The stoneplague would end.
The first sensation was a white radiance. Cooling. Soothing. Pure.
He felt it more than saw it. The glow surrounded him. Sustained him.
Slowly, the radiance dissipated. A second sensation replaced it-the sound of metal on metal. Each blow reverberated slightly. A hammer, striking forge-heated steel on an anvil.
How he knew that, he could not say.
He realized he was standing. A massive, calloused palm was the floor on which his feet rested.
No. That wasn’t quite right. He had no feet, no legs, no body. Just… self.
Where am I? he asked.
Then a more pressing question. Who am I?
“You were known, in your last lifetime, by two names,” a voice that boomed like thunder said. “You preferred your dwarf name.”
I am Torrin Ironstar, he realized. But no, that was slightly wrong. I was Torrin Ironstar. A delver, of Eartheart. I am he no more.
“Yes,” said the voice.
The clang of hammer on steel continued, as steady as a heartbeat. Sights joined that sound. The soul that had been Torrin could see around itself. The palm that supported him was joined to an arm, and that arm to the shoulder of a figure seated on a throne-a dwarf, with a gleaming white beard that flowed down onto his chest, across his apron-covered lap, to touch the floor between his boots.
A god, seated on his throne.
Moradin.
The soul that had been Torrin bowed low. Silver tinkled, reminding him that he’d once worn the Dwarffather’s hammers braided into a bright red beard. Flashes of memory returned, as fragmentary and as glittering as shards of broken glass. Recollections of dwarves, their faces gray and stiff, dead of a curse masquerading as a plague. One of these faces evoked an especially sharp pang-a boy’s face, twisted with pain. Eyes closed, thin body covered with a blanket. Kier.
Does he live? Did I save him? The clamor of the hammer strikes sped up a little, like an anxious heartbeat.
“You did,” said the voice. “Observe.” Moradin’s other hand lifted. The gold bracer around the god’s left wrist shone as brightly as a mirror. Reflected in its gleaming gold depths was the image of a father embracing his son. The boy was healthy, healed. Awake and alive, and free of the stoneplague. Just behind him stood a cleric, her hand rising and falling in a healing blessing. Maliira, also healed of the stoneplague. The sight of them filled the very air with joy. The soul that had been Torrin felt his cheeks and beard grow wet with tears.
Kier asked a question of his father then. The boy’s lips moved, but the reflected image conveyed no sound. Haldrin’s face grew grim, and then he answered. Kier burst into tears and pulled something across the bed-a boy- sized pack with the letter D embossed upon it. An imitation Delver’s pack. Kier clutched it to his chest, sobbing.
He mourns me.
“You two will meet again.”
But will he know me?
“Perhaps one day. While your mace still lies in the cavern where the duergar inscribed their foul rune, your bracers remain in the Thunsonn clanhold, where you left them. If the boy you will become stumbles across them, he may recognize them. But what truly matters is that Kier will call you ‘Son.’ He will love you and protect you, just as you loved and protected him.”
The soul that had been Torrin should have been comforted, yet a tinge of sorrow tainted the good news. That will be many years from now, he observed, perhaps decades.
“Yes.”
I’ll miss what remains of Kier’s childhood.
“It is as it must be.”
A second memory drifted to mind, causing a lump to form anew in Torrin’s throat: a heart-shaped lump, as smooth and as cool as glass. He remembered a woman’s face. In his memory, she was laughing, one hand brushing back unruly hair. The hand crackled with a blue spellscar.
Eralynn.
“She, too, passed through my halls,” Moradin said. The god’s breath was as warm as a coal fire, as cool as quenching water, all in one. “An impatient one, she was; she couldn’t wait to be reforged anew. Even now, her soul quickens in the days-old body of a child who will not be born for many months yet.”
A dwarf child?
Moradin smiled. “Of course.”
The question was an important one. Vitally important. Or so the soul that had been Torrin believed. And… what of me? he asked. Am I to be cast a dwarf, this time?
Moradin’s flinty eyes stared down at Torrin, peering into the very heart of him. “That was your most heartfelt wish, was it not? Why you sought so desperately, throughout your past life, for something you hoped could be found where mortals dwell?”
I sought… He paused, grasping at the memories that flitted about like wayward candle flickers. I sought your Soulforge.
“And there it lies,” Moradin said, gesturing in the direction of the hammer-on-steel sound.
