By the Devourer’s Teeth, he wished he’d never met Finner.
But now he was curious. Where did the sovereign bitch go on all these back stair excursions? A lover? His stomach turned at that thought.
He watched from a recess in the wall as Nastra stood before the hot door, fumbling for her keys. She selected a blood red one and, using it, went through.
Ravon plunged forward, catching the door an inch from closing. He worked the latch so that the elf would hear the mechanism click into place. Then he followed her down.
For down it was, a shaft of a stairwell now steeper than before-and hotter with every step. Here the walls streamed with foul excreta, slick and stinking. It brought to mind the question of why the whole forge, not just here, sweated a vile slime. It had always seemed natural to the misery of the place, but now Ravon thought it was something more, perhaps something far worse. The hammering heat itself was a mystery. But the forge was built on top of a graveyard of giants, and places of such ancient magic had a natural affinity for the dark places of Khyber, bringing its hellish heat close.
And down, still-with Nastra rounding the corners of the landings, and Ravon one turn behind, just catching a glimpse of her cloak as it disappeared. No lover down here. Nothing down here. His curiosity mounted.
Abruptly, the descent ended. Nastra was off across a murky cavern, roiling in noxious fumes. Ghostly rock formations jutted up from the floor while stalactites hung down from above, dripping goo… the very pus that infected the forge itself. Ravon followed the elf, the ground thrumming beneath his feet as though the heart of a giant lay just below.
A scream tore through the cavern, stopping Ravon in mid stride. The howl trailed off. He couldn’t see Nastra, lost in the murk.
Voices. One horrid and low, the other a murmur. Nastra was with someone. That low, guttural voice sent a shudder over him. All senses on keen alert, he moved with practiced stealth toward the source of the voices, using rock formations as cover. That voice. Not human, not in any way normal. The list of possible creatures was short and exceedingly nasty; maybe best to slink away now before he risked discovery. Lying flat on the ground behind a massive rock, he crept forward to look.
A creature stood on a rock outcropping. A skeletal, flesh-wasted monster, some seven feet tall.
By all the Six, a death hag. Why had he pulled forward? The hag could probably hear his very breath if she wasn’t so focused on Nastra. He was frozen now, lying flat, but exposed.
The death hag jumped down to where Nastra knelt, screaming, “My master does not wait! The baron of Cannith signifies nothing to such as us. My master does not wait for human lords!”
Then the hag slowly craned her neck, looking around. Ravon stopped breathing.
“Yes, exalted,” Nastra piped up, bringing the hag’s attention back. “Just a day, however. What is a day to your great master? It is nothing!”
The death hag screamed in frustration, raising her hands and wringing them. “A day, a day? You shall understand how long is a day, when my sisters cut a slit in you and slowly draw out your entrails!” The creature swiped her claws through Nastra’s hair, snapping the elf’s head back and forth. “We shall bring up the fires to feed the engine. Open the pipe! Let the sweet lakes of Fernia flow!”
Ravon heard the word Fernia, and his mind opened to a new and most unwelcome surmise.
The hag was still screaming, “Aye, Fernia longs to flow!”
Nastra quailed but answered, “Yes, Fernia shall flow, great one. The glorious day!”
Ravon’s heart cooled at the growing realization. By all that was unholy, the forge needn’t worry about running out of dragonshards. It was going to have Fernia. It would be fueled by one of the planes of the Elemental Chaos: Fernia, the Sea of Fire.
Because, he now realized, the genesis forge was sitting atop a manifest zone, where the worlds intermixed. But not even a death hag could create a pipe to extrude the Elemental Chaos…
Nastra looked up at the hag. “A glorious day it will be, but not yet, exalted one. Tomorrow. Stonefist begs the demon lord’s indulgence for one more day-”
Her agitation growing, the death hag rolled her eyes fully around in their sockets.
Nastra went on, “-so that his master, the great Cannith personage, may arrive, may witness the event.”
The death hag emitted a horrid ululation. She bashed her right hand down on her own upper leg, shattering it. Somehow, the witch remained upright. Then she plucked aside her rags and touched her femur, healing it over with gristle. Calmer now after her outburst, the death hag grinned and yanked Nastra to her feet.
“One day only, sweetling. The demon lord shall wait one day. Then the fire comes up. The forge is born!”
“Yes, exalted lady. Tomorrow. You have my word.”
The hag rasped, “What is your word to me?”
“Nothing,” Nastra said. Then she met the hag’s maddened gaze. “But it’s all you’ve got.”
The witch cocked her skull-like head, as though considering whether to eat the elf on the spot or save her for another time.
By the Sovereign Gods, Ravon had space in his mind to think, Nastra just talked back to a death hag.
“Leave me,” the hag spat. “Return tomorrow and tell us Cannith has arrived. Then the gates of fire open!” With a ferocious leap she launched herself away, disappearing into the boiling smoke.
The creature was gone. Even so, Ravon waited a few beats before standing up to face Nastra. He swayed for a moment, temporarily weakened by having been in the death hag’s proximity.
Spying him, Nastra’s look revealed her dismay. The forge’s secrets, or most of them, were now exposed. Her eyes flicked toward the vanished death hag. Then she waved him toward the end of the cavern where the stairs gave on to the audience chamber.
They stood face to face, eyeing each other. “So,” Nastra muttered. “You know.”
Ravon looked at Nastra’s stringy face and stooped shoulders. Her visits with the death hag had eaten away her life force, until all that was left was this pitiful, wasted creature. He spoke in a stunned whisper. “You’re going to unleash the Demon Lords.”
“Not exactly.”
His temper surged, and he pushed her against the stairwell wall. “No? Isn’t the hag’s master a demon lord?”
With surprising strength, Nastra pushed him away. “Nothing can unleash the Demon Lords. They are banished forever.”
Ravon grabbed her arm, this time holding on with a fierce grip. “But they aren’t. They’ve already found a way to unleash themselves. They’ve got you, Nastra, damn you to the Hells.” He twisted her arm behind her back and she winced in pain. “I ought to kill you. The world would thank me for it.”
“Go ahead,” the elf whispered. “See if that stops the forge!”
Brutally, he threw her against the wall and stepped away, unable to execute her as she deserved. Through his contempt, he asked, “Why, Nastra? Why help the bastards?”
She slid down the wall into a crouch. In the gloaming light from the few brightglobes, she looked a bit like a hag herself. “For love.”
He stared at her.
“The high lord of Cannith has my family. He’ll kill them, mother, father, brothers, cousins. Merrix d’Cannith has already slain my sister.” Her voice went very quiet. “Back when I first refused.”
“Nice story. But you’re not that important. Cannith could use any servant base enough, greedy enough, to do his bidding.”
“Dragonmarked,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I’m useful. My aberrant dragonmark. It shields me-just enough-from the powers of Khyber.” She looked blackly up at him. “Even Stonefist can’t survive down here for long. If you’d come much closer, you would understand.”
He watched her carefully for signs of cunning. But oddly, he believed her. She had a gift. A twisted, awful one. And Cannith had tortured her family to be sure she used it.
“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. And he was, woefully sorry, about the hellish forge, the pact with the demons, and even Nastra’s family. But pity was useless. It was anger that he needed. A righteous anger. He gazed
