“It’s not what you think,” Torrin said. “I’d never harm Kier. The boy’s my nephew.”
The skyrider snorted. “And I’m his mother,” he said as he sighted down the crossbow. “Put the boy down. Now. And when you’ve done that, you can unlash your mace and toss it to me. You’re under arrest, for the theft of a griffon.”
Torrin set Kier down. Gently. He fumbled at the straps that held his mace. “The boy’s been poisoned,” he said. “He touched a violet fungus. He needs a healing potion.”
“Your mace,” the skyrider repeated. “Toss it to me.”
Torrin at last got the weapon free and threw it to the skyrider, who caught it in one hand and deftly tucked it into a loop in his saddle.
“This boy’s grandfather is a Peacehammer,” Torrin told the skyrider. “Baelar Thunsonn. The boy took his mount-you must have seen the Thunsonn crest on the saddle. That’s why I borrowed the other griffon-to fetch the boy back so he wouldn’t be shot down for breaking quarantine. Please! If we don’t heal Kier quickly, he’ll die!”
The skyrider hesitated. Still holding his crossbow in one hand, he reached into the saddlebag behind him, never once taking his eyes from Torrin. He pulled out the medicine pouch that all skyriders carried, and pulled a metal vial from it. “Catch!” he called, tossing it to Torrin.
Torrin snatched it out of the air. He wrenched the cork out of the vial with his teeth and spat it aside. He squatted and gently lifted Kier’s head. He parted the boy’s lips, noting with more than a little alarm that they were turning blue. He poured in the potion and tipped Kier’s head back, hoping that the liquid wouldn’t slide down the boy’s airway and choke him.
Torrin heard the flap of wings and felt a gust of air from their downbeat. The skyrider was backing his mount away from the entrance. He had raised something round to his mouth and was speaking into it: one of the magical “sending stones” that allowed the Peacehammers to communicate with their commanders in Eartheart.
Kier coughed. Faintly. A moment later his eyelids fluttered open. He looked blearily around. “Uncle Torrin,” he said weakly. Then he retched, and threw up.
Torrin gently wiped Kier’s mouth with his sleeve. “That was a close one, lad,” he said. “Don’t scare me like that again.”
Kier struggled to sit up. “I found gold, Uncle!” he cried. “A king’s fortune in gold.”
“Indeed you did,” replied Torrin, “but not nearly enough to be worth your life.” He glanced at the skyrider, who was still speaking into his magical stone. “Now keep your voice down. We don’t want others chiseling in on our delve.”
Kier also glanced at the skyrider and dropped his voice to a whisper. “This mote was part of Underhome,” he said, looking steadily pinker as the skyrider’s potion did its work. “That box I found… Maybe it held more than just gold. Maybe there’s something else inside it. Something ancient.”
Torrin doubted it. The strongbox had looked brand new. “Do you feel strong enough to stand?” he asked Kier. “We should go.”
Kier rose to his feet; the potion had indeed completed its work. “I’m not leaving all that gold behind.”
“Yes you are,” Torrin replied firmly. He nodded in the direction of the skyrider, still engrossed in his communications with his commander. “Verdagain has blessed us this day by providing us with an escort-one who’s going to be so busy taking me into custody for stealing a griffon, he won’t have time to explore the mote. I’ll come back for the gold later.”
“How can you do that without a griffon?” Kier asked.
“Remember my runestone? Once I figure out how to use it, I can teleport here any time I like.”
Kier’s eyes gleamed.
“In the meantime,” Torrin said, “we’ve got some quick talking to do if we’re going to persuade that guard not to lock me up and throw away the key. I don’t want to be behind bars when your little sisters are born.”
“Little brothers,” Kier corrected. “Mother says they kick like boys.”
“Sisters,” Torrin said. He winked. “I’m going to win our bet, remember? You’re going to be sweeping my room for a month.”
Kier snorted. “If I lose, I’ll pay someone else to do it. I’m rich!”
Torrin felt a gust of wind as the skyrider flew closer again.
“You’re in luck, human,” the guard announced. “Captain Baelar has vouched for you. There’s still the matter of the stolen griffon to be dealt with, but for now I’m going to trust you. Is the boy strong enough to climb back up the rope?”
“I am!” Kier said.
“Then up to the top of the mote, the two of you,” said the skyrider. “We’re flying back.”
Torrin bowed, elated. “My thanks!” he called back.
“Don’t thank me-thank the boy’s grandfather,” replied the guard.
“When will I get my mace back?” Torrin asked.
“When we land in Hammergate,” he replied.
Torrin groaned inwardly. Hammergate? He didn’t want to sit outside the walls for days on end, waiting his turn to be cleansed. Not with the door to the earthmote’s secret room standing open, and the gold inside it just lying around for the taking. Still, what choice did he have? “Fair enough,” he said.
“Now climb,” the skyrider ordered. “The boy first, then you.”
Torrin glanced down at Kier and saw that the boy’s eyes were twinkling. Torrin could guess why. “Don’t think you’re getting up to more mischief,” he warned. “I’m going to have my eye on you every single moment we’re in Hammergate. There’ll be no chats with outlanders and tallfolk, no trips to the Gatehouse Inn. Just days and days of sitting around, doing nothing, waiting for our turn in the temple pool.”
Kier pouted in silence. It seemed to have finally sunk in that his adventure was at an end. Being poisoned hadn’t brought it home, but the prospect of several days of tedium had.
With Kier safe, Torrin’s thoughts turned back to the gold below. A single bar would be enough to pay the tithe for his previous cleansing, if only he could recover the gold. Another bar would pay for the cleansing to come. And there had been far more than just two gold bars-more than enough to equip an expedition to the Soulforge!
All Torrin had to do was figure out how to use the runestone-and quickly-before someone else visited the earthmote and found all that gold.
Torrin placed both of his hands on the dusty counter and leaned in closer to the head stonecutter. “I swear, by Moradin’s beard,” he said vehemently. “There’s a small fortune in it for you. Just loan me one of your motediscs for the day and I’ll cut you in on the profits from my delve.”
The foreman folded his burly arms across his chest. He was short, even for a dwarf, with a forked beard whose two braids had been pulled to the top of his head and clipped together-a peculiar style that no doubt raised more than its share of snickers. But judging by the defiant glint in the foreman’s eye, he enjoyed a good fight.
“No credit,” he repeated. “Especially for humans.” He picked up his hammer and chisel and glared at Torrin a moment more, as if daring him to provide an excuse to use the tools on Torrin’s skull. Then he turned toward the workroom where knappers banged away at slabs of earthmote that had been secured to worktables with vises, so they wouldn’t drift away.
Torrin swore under his beard. He was knee-deep in irony. He’d invented the motedisc-not that anyone ever believed him when he told that tale. Four years after he’d discovered he was really a dwarf recast in a human body, he’d sought out an apprenticeship in a suitably honorable trade, as a stonecutter at a quarry near Glitterdelve. Wielding a hammer and a chisel all day throughout his teenage years had given him his bulging biceps. The smell of stone dust still took him back to the days before he’d taken up an adventurer’s life.
One day, during an all-too-rare visit to the surface permitted during his apprenticeship, Torrin had noted that the chunks of stone that sometimes crumbled from an earthmote continued to float for some time, after calving off from the main body of the mote. Inspiration struck. What if, he thought, he could find an earthmote comprised of flint or chert-stone that split easily into sheets-and then split off chunks of it and shape them into circles. The shield-sized floating discs would be similar to the metal “driftdiscs” the drow crafted with their dark magic.