'It's been thousands of years,' Frivaldi muttered. 'Any traps are going to be frozen with rust.'
He could hear Durin moving away, retreating around the bend of the tunnel. Standard delving procedure, Durin called it, backing it up with a quote from the Delver's Tome: 'When facing a potential danger, one member of the delving pair should remain in a position of safety, thus ensuring that a report can be delivered to the Order in case of calamity.' But Frivaldi suspected the exaggerated caution was rooted in Durin's age. The longer the beard, the more fearful a dwarf became of tripping over it.
Frivaldi felt the rust holding the pin give a little, and gave the prong a sharp wrench. The prong bent. Cursing, he retracted it back into his ring. From around the corner, Durin continued to scold. 'There may be a ward. When I delved the Halls of Haunghdannar…'
The door bore no glyph. Even through its mottling of rust Frivaldi could see that much. As Durin droned on, Frivaldi rose to his feet, rolling his eyes. Durin was agonizingly tedious-especially when he got on to one of his stories about the delves of decades gone by and the artifacts he'd carried home to Brightman-tle's temple, described right down to the last boring detail. For Frivaldi, delving wasn't so much about the artifact-surely the dwarves had enough magical axes already-as the challenges faced along the way. That lock, for example-the centuries of rust that had frozen its pins in place would have defeated even the most experienced rogue. But where finesse had failed, brute magic could hammer a way through.
He rapped his ring against the door and said, '01-burakrinr
The lock clicked and the door slammed open with a boom that rattled the floor under Frivaldi's boots, releasing a gust of stale air. Beyond the door was a staircase leading down into darkness. Its stairs were cut from the native rock, worn smooth by the feet of centuries-dead dwarves. Grinning, Frivaldi took a step across the threshold-
And something metal clanged onto the floor behind him. A heavy object slammed into his back, knocking him headlong down the stairs. Frivaldi scrabbled for a grip, trying to halt his tumble, but his head slammed against stone. Sparks exploded across his vision, then all went black.
Durin thumbed the cork out of the vial, parted Frivaldi's lips, and poured a dose of healing potion into the unconscious dwarfs mouth. The smell of honey, herbs, and troll's blood lingered in the air as Frivaldi sputtered, then swallowed. His eyes fluttered and he groaned.
Durin touched the egg-sized lump on Frivaldi's head and felt it slowly sink away as the potion took effect. He clucked his tongue, resisting the urge to scold. The boy would either learn from the experience and be a little more cautious around trapped doors, or not.
Most likely not.
'What… what happened?' Frivaldi asked, sitting up. his voice echoing in the cavernous space.
'There was a pendulum trap at the top of the stairs,' he told Frivaldi. 'Had you followed standard-'
'So it knocked me down the stairs and I bumped my head,' Frivaldi said. 'So what? I'm good as new, thanks to the healing potion.'
'The pendulum was an axe,' Durin continued. 'Through luck alone, the wood had shrunk and the loosened blade fell off before it struck you. That axe might have cleaved you in two-killed you-and all because you didn't follow standard delving procedure.'
Instead of looking properly contrite, Frivaldi rolled his eyes.
'I know,' he said. 'LOST.'
'L–LOST,' Durin corrected. 'Listen, LOok-'
Frivaldi rubbed his head and finished for him, '-and Spring the Trap.'
Durin sighed. Could he teach his apprentice nothing? He recorked the vial and tucked it back into a side pouch of his Delver's pack, then unbuckled the main flap. Reaching inside the magical pack, he pictured the object he was searching for and felt it nudge his hand. He drew out the map he'd assembled through decades of research and carefully unrolled it. The chamber they stood in was large, extending beyond the limits of his darkvision, and had an arched roof high enough to accommodate a giant. Its floor, once polished, had been cracked by some long-ago earth tremor. Skeletons in rotted leather armor lay on the floor where they had fallen-skeletons with grossly elongated arms and wide jawbones set with small, sharp fangs. These were the goblins that had overrun the kingdom of Oghrann and the stronghold of Torunn the Bold.
Frivaldi clambered to his feet and looked around.
His eye settled on the statues that stood on either side of the staircase.
'Are those supposed to be Moradin?' he asked. 'They look like they were hacked out with an axe.'
Durin bristled. Frivaldi knew nothing about art.
'They are hewn in a style distinctive of ancient Oghrann,' he patiently explained. 'Do you see the sharp angles of their foreheads, noses, and chins?'
Frivaldi nodded, but his attention was wandering.
'They are meant to resemble the facets of a gem,' Durin explained as he strode over to the nearest statue and ran a hand along the stone.
The surface was precise and smooth, not a chip or a mis-chisel on it. If he'd had a block and tackle and a team of ponies, he would have gladly hauled the statues away. They would have made a fine addition, indeed, to the athenaeum in Silverymoon.
'The arms, legs, and fingers deliberately hexagonal, like rock crystals,' Durin continued. 'These statues are an exquisite example of their type, a metaphor in stone for the creation of the dwarf race, which Moradin crafted from precious metals and gems cut from the heart of the-'
'So is this the hall we were looking for?' Frivaldi interrupted. He nudged one of the skeletons with his boot. Its skull collapsed, and a rusted helmet clattered to the floor. 'I don't see any axe. Lots of goblin swords and maces, but no axe.'
Durin sighed. What, by the gleam in Brightmantle's eye, were the Delvers using as selection criteria these days?
'This,' Durin concluded, 'must be All-Father's Hall. The Bane of Caeruleus lies to the southwest, in the Hall of Hammers.'
He paced a straight line across the hall, which turned out to be precisely forty paces wide. Reaching the wall, he turned right-standard delving procedure was ERROR: Enter Right, Return Opposite Right-making a circuit of the octagonal hall. As he walked, he quoted from The Fall of the Bold, a saga he'd spent decades piecing together from fragments: inscriptions on standing stones and feast bowls, dusty parchments long forgotten on library shelves, and bardic song.
Frivaldi trotted behind him, scuffling and scattering skeletons.
'I don't see any dwarf bodies,' Frivaldi said.
'The dwarves carried out their dead,' Durin replied. 'It was an orderly retreat.'
Spotting a crack in the wall that ran square to the floor, Durin examined it according to procedure. FAIL: Feel Air, Inspect, and Listen. He wet a finger and held it to the crack. No air was escaping. He ran a palm against the floor, but found no groove that would indicate that feet had worn away the stone. He gave the wall a sequence of sharp raps with his delving pick, but heard no telltale reverberations. The crack was a natural fissure leading a short distance into the wall, not a secret door.
Frivaldi, all the while, stared idly around. 'So why didn't they take the axe with them?'
' 'Weapon,'' Durin corrected as he resumed his circuit of the hall. He passed the staircase. 'The precise translation from Auld Dethek is 'weapon.''
Frivaldi waved a hand and said, 'Axe, weapon-whatever. Why didn't they take it with them, if it was so valuable?'
'The Bane was too large,' Durin explained. 'Only Torunn could wield it.'
He paused. A portion of the wall was angled slightly off true. It was time for MISS: Manipulate, Inspect, Slide, Shove. He pressed a raised spot on the wall next to it, but nothing happened. The section of wall didn't slide when
