“I don’t know,” Torrin said. “I never saw him, myself. Just heard about him.”
Whoever the duergar was, it was clear the half-elf recognized him. Perhaps the duergar had been on the trail of the half-elf, as well. Making enquiries about the gold, and perhaps killing when he didn’t get the answers he wanted. A duergar in Sundasz wouldn’t surprise Torrin. Tallfolk, dark elves… anyone was welcome, it seemed.
Tril had regained his composure. He nodded at the runestone on the table. “How did you acquire that?” he asked. “The real one, I mean.”
“A dwarf named Kendril sold it to me,” Torrin replied.
Tril’s mouth twitched slightly. “And what happened to him? Did he just… disappear, the way Vadyr did? Or did you have something to do with it?”
“I may be a rogue, but I’m no murderer!” Torrin said vehemently. “Kendril took his own life. When we met to conduct our transaction, he was blind and crippled with the stoneplague, and begging the Dwarffather to forgive him. Then he jumped off Needle Leap.”
“Pushed, more likely,” the bodyguard growled.
“No!” Torrin said. “By Moradin’s beard, I swear it. I tried to stop Kendril from jumping, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Well, then,” Tril said, suddenly breaking into a wide smile. “That certainly clears things up.”
“Clears what up?” Torrin asked, uncertain what had just caused the half-elf’s sudden change of demeanor.
Tril waved the question away with a slender hand. “Another drink is in order, I think,” he said. “To celebrate the start of a new relationship.” He snapped his fingers. “Bartender! More wine for me, and two ales for my companions, if you please!”
Torrin smiled to himself. The half-elf had just saved him a lot of bother. He’d been worried about how he’d get him to order another round, but the fellow had solved that problem. Torrin clenched both fists-the signal for Val’tissa to move to the bar and tip a potion into the half-elf’s glass as the bartender filled it.
“Then you’re satisfied with what’s being offered?” Torrin asked. “You’re willing to buy?”
Tril stared across the table at him. “What’s the asking price?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
The bartender arrived with their drinks. The conversation paused as the half-elf paid him.
“I want to know about the curse,” Torrin said. “Who cast it, how it was done. And how it can be undone.”
Tril stared at his wine glass, idly turning it. “That’s asking a lot,” he said.
Torrin felt sweat trickling down his back. Drink it, he silently pleaded. “The runestone’s worth a lot.”
Tril started to smile, but then hid it by taking a sip of wine. It took everything Torrin had not to sigh in relief. The half-elf was obviously about to lie to him. Thanks to the potion, however, he’d be compelled to speak the truth. Assuming Val’tissa had been successful.
“We were wondering ourselves what caused the gold to become cursed,” Tril said as he lowered his glass. “Kendril thought it was because Moradin was angry. But Cathor here-” he jerked a thumb in the direction of the bodyguard “-said it was probably something the duergar did.”
The bodyguard sat forward abruptly. His left hand was hidden under the table, and one of the sheaths on his bandolier was suddenly empty.
Torrin prayed Val’tissa would notice and position herself accordingly. He couldn’t signal her. A single flick of a finger might be his last. Cathor looked ready to strike. And he was obviously more than he’d seemed-more than a mere bodyguard.
“What duergar?” Torrin asked, his mouth suddenly as dry as rock dust.
“The ones in Drik Hargunen,” the half-elf replied. “The place where Cathor-”
Tril’s face suddenly went white. Several things happened then in rapid succession. Tril clutched himself as something sticky and wet-blood? — sprayed onto Torrin’s knee, soaking his trousers. Cathor lunged out of his seat and tried to grab the runestone. Before he could reach it, a wristbow bolt, shot by the invisible Val’tissa, thudded into his hand and pinned it to the table.
Cathor grabbed at the runestone with his other hand, but Torrin dived across the table and grabbed the front of his shirt, shoving him back.
Cathor was shorter than Torrin, but stronger. He forced himself forward. His hand closed around the runestone. He shouted something in a language Torrin didn’t understand.
Waves of blue spellfire erupted out of the floorboards and streaked toward the runestone. Terrified, the inn’s other patrons scrambled to get away. Shouts and screams filled the inn.
Torrin’s jaw dropped. Cathor had activated the runestone! How was that possible?
Val’tissa, now visible, raced to their table. “Torrin!” she shouted.
Torrin felt a sudden, familiar wrench. Still clutching the front of Cathor’s shirt, he was yanked sideways by the magic of the runestone. As the pair of them twisted into the space between the inn and wherever they were teleporting to, tumbling end over end together with the table, Cathor’s hand tore free of the bolt that had pinned it. His howl of pain echoed eerily as he and Torrin spun through space. Torrin saw a flash of steel. Despite his injured hand, Cathor had drawn his second dagger! Torrin’s mace was at his hip, but he couldn’t reach for it. He had to keep hold of Cathor or the Morndinsamman only knew where he’d wind up.
“Moradinnn!” Torrin screamed, his wail drawing out the way that Kendril’s had, that terrible day at Needle Leap. “Aid meee…”
Torrin and Cathor landed in darkness, crashing in a heap onto a rough stone floor. An eyeblink later, the table landed on them. Smashed prone, Torrin lost his grip on Cathor’s shirt. Something clattered away in the darkness. Cathor’s dagger? The runestone?
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.