“What’s the matter?” Eralynn asked.
“I visited Araumycos once,” Torrin explained. “Ever since then, the smell of mushrooms has made me sick.”
“Oh,” she replied with a laugh. “For a moment there, I thought that maybe the boy had the stoneplague.” She waved at the mushroom seller. “You there, boy. Wait a moment!”
Torrin noticed that he was suddenly no longer being jostled by the others in the line. A gap had opened around where he and Eralynn stood. A buzz of voices broke out all around them.
“The stoneplague,” someone ahead of him whispered. “Did you hear? The boy has the stoneplague.”
A moment later, the word rippled up and down the line.
“The stoneplague!” a man just behind them shouted in a shrill voice. “The mushroom seller has the stoneplague!”
Eralynn’s eyes widened. “No!” she insisted. “He doesn’t. I was just-”
It was too late. The line surged backward, people tripping over one another in their haste to escape. Men shouted, one woman screamed, and an elderly man several paces away broke into a loud, quavering prayer. The once orderly line suddenly descended into a milling mob, people running to and fro. Eralynn, caught up in the surge, was swept away from Torrin’s side. Above it all, Torrin heard the temple cleric’s shrill voice, shouting for order. And, much closer at hand, the metallic snick of steel being drawn. It was the man who’d shouted that the boy had the stoneplague-a black-bearded dwarf with a dagger in his hand and a malicious look on his face. He bore down on the mushroom seller, his hard eyes firmly fixed on the boy’s coin pouch.
Torrin didn’t have time to unfasten his mace from his belt. Instead he dove at the would-be thief’s back, tackling him. The rogue was tougher than Torrin had expected. He didn’t go down, but whirled, spinning Torrin off his feet. Torrin clung to the man, his feet scrambling for purchase, and finally managed to bring him down. The rogue twisted in Torrin’s grip like a greased eel, and Torrin felt a flash of pain as the blade of the knife nicked his ear. He flung himself sideways, both hands on the rogue’s knife hand now. They struggled, pitting strength versus strength, the rogue sputtering curses. From several paces behind him, Torrin heard Eralynn shouting to hang on, that she was coming. Then the rogue looked at Torrin. Torrin saw that the rogue’s eyes had a touch of the same dull, glassy look that Kendril’s had shown, and he felt an icy rivulet of fear course through him. The rogue’s eyes weren’t clouded enough yet to blind him, but the skin at the corners was the same: deeply cracked and as dark as mud.
“Yes,” the thief hissed up at him. “I’ve got it.”
He spat in Torrin’s face.
Torrin let go of the man and flailed back, frantically rubbing the rogue’s spittle from his forehead. Had it run into his eyes? Was he going to catch the stoneplague and go blind?
“That man has the stoneplague!” he screamed, pointing at the thief who was already several paces away and running hard. “Stop him!”
It was the wrong thing to have said. The crowd, whipped into an even greater hysteria by the second mention of the stoneplague, elbowed, shoved, and screamed at each other in their increased urgency to get away from not one, but two possible sources of contagion. One or two fell, and were nearly trampled as the mob surged back and forth. Torrin floundered to and fro as dwarves crashed into him, sending him staggering. By the time he had fought his way to where Eralynn stood, the street in front of the temple was rapidly emptying.
Soon everyone was gone, except for the mushroom seller, who lay face down on the cobblestones, blood trickling from his nose. Mushrooms lay scattered about the street all around him, stamped into a slippery mush by the feet of the fleeing crowd.
Eralynn’s eyes widened. “Moradin have mercy,” she said in a strained voice. “What have we done?”
Torrin ground his teeth as he saw that the boy’s coin pouch was gone. Ordinarily, he’d have assumed that one of the tallfolk had taken it. He liked to think that dwarves had more honor than to steal from their own kind. But that didn’t seem to be the case.
He glanced around but saw no sign of the rogue. He rubbed his stinging ear. Despite the attack, he didn’t think the fellow was connected to the two who’d jumped him. The theft from the mushroom seller had appeared spontaneous, prompted solely by greed.
The cleric from the temple hurried forward to examine the fallen boy. She knelt beside him and gently lifted his head.
Eralynn kneeled down beside her. “Is he-”
“He’s alive,” the red-robed cleric said.
“Praise Sharindlar.”
“But he’ll need healing,” the Merciful Maiden added. “And soon. His skull is cracked.”
Torrin, meanwhile, was thinking of the spit that had struck his face. He reminded himself that no human had yet succumbed to the stoneplague. Yet he wondered if that were also true of a human with a dwarf soul. In any case, a cleansing would take away whatever degree of illness the dwarf’s spittle had held. That was one thing Torrin could be certain of.
He walked toward the cleric and the injured boy, feeling sick at the thought that his reaction to the stench of mushrooms had caused the situation. Eralynn must have felt equally guilty. He saw her open her coin pouch.
“Please,” Eralynn said, insisting. “Let me pay for his healing.”
As Torrin drew closer, he was surprised to see that it wasn’t coins Eralynn had inside her pouch, but a bar of gold, exactly the same size and shape and color as those he’d seen in the earthmote!
The Merciful Maiden waved it away. “No need,” she said. “We can afford to extend a little charity.”
As the priestess carried the boy into the temple, Torrin caught Eralynn’s eye. “Where did you get that?” he asked, nodding at the pouch.
Eralynn, he noticed, had taken a step back from him, probably uncomfortable with the fact that he’d just wrestled with someone who had the stoneplague. “Why do you ask?” she said.
She sounded evasive. Torrin could guess why. She’d obviously explored the earthmote herself and found the gold. Just as he had, she’d kept quiet about it, not even telling her best friend. Instead, she’d taken the gold for herself. And Torrin would be left, cap in hand, begging for a portion of what they might instead have shared equally, if only he’d told Eralynn about his find.
“Did you take all of it?” he asked in a defeated voice.
“All of what?” Eralynn asked. “The rope?”
“What rope?” he asked.
One of Eralynn’s eyebrows rose. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
“The earthmote,” Torrin said. “You found it, right?”
“What earthmote?”
Torrin felt his eyes widen. “The… Ah…”
Eralynn waited, tapping her foot. “What earthmote?” she repeated. “Or is that some secret delve of yours you’re not going to tell me about?”
“Not my delve-Kier’s,” Torrin replied.
“ What? ” Eralynn hissed.
Dropping his voice to a whisper, Torrin quickly told her the story of Kier’s flight to the earthmote, and what they’d found inside. He didn’t get far, however, before she halted him.
“Oh, Torrin,” she said. “You didn’t hear. The Peacehammers found your gold yesterday. Uncle Baelar said they claimed it for the city coffers, in the name of the Lord Scepter. It’s helping to pay for the cleansings.”
Torrin opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak. “It’s… gone? All of it?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it sooner?” Eralynn asked.
“It… I…” He hung his head and gave a rueful sigh. “Greed. And now the gods have punished me for it.”
She stared at him in silence for several moments. Then she surprised him by laughing. “I’d have done the same.”