No, the dwarf was right. It was better if she just didn’t know.
“Now watch what I do, and then you do the same when it’s your turn.”
So saying, the dwarf stepped up to the door and placed his left palm in the hand-shaped imprint there. As far as Sabira could tell, nothing happened, but a moment later, Rockfist pulled his hand away and the door swung open to admit him. She thought she caught a glimpse of blood on the dwarf’s hand as he swept across the threshold. That would explain the need for the severed appendage. If the door was magically keyed to open only for dwarves, blood was probably the quickest way to make that determination.
As the door closed silently behind the barrister, Sabira stepped forward to take his place. With a quick prayer to Olladra—for somehow she was sure Dol Dorn would not approve of this particular adventure—she grasped the severed wrist, placed the still-warm hand on the plate, and waited to be struck down for her impertinence.
As with Rockfist, nothing seemed to happen, though she thought she felt the slightest pressure against the counterfeit hand. Then the door swung open and she stepped quickly through, before the ruse was discovered.
Rockfist waited inside the vestibule, surreptitiously wiping the blood from his palm off on the underside of his cloak.
“Oh, good,” he said when he saw her. “It worked.”
“You mean, you didn’t know for sure that it would?” she asked, stunned by the dwarf’s nonchalance.
“Well, there was always a chance that the blood wasn’t fresh enough, or that the hand actually came from a changeling masquerading as a dwarf, or that—”
“Never mind,” Sabira interrupted him, haphazardly rewrapping the severed hand and thrusting it back at him. “Let’s just get on with it.”
Rockfist replaced the appendage beneath his cloak and then led her out into a small, high-ceilinged lobby whose focal points were twin spiral staircases leading downward and a wide balcony between. A darkwood desk sat just to the left of the entrance, its only adornment a thick, leather-bound ledger.
And behind the desk stood what was probably the oldest dwarf Sabira had ever seen.
His face was a map scarred with deep ravines and canyons; his back was humped and twisted with the weight of years; and his thick, gray beard extended far below the desktop—probably brushing the floor.
“Most Honored Caretaker,” Rockfist began, bowing at the waist and motioning for Sabira to do the same. As she did, he continued, “We have come—”
“I know why you’re here, Rockfist, and I hope to Onatar that you rot in Khyber for it.” The Caretaker’s words were spoken in a strong, furious voice that was not at all what Sabira would have expected to hear coming from such an ancient throat. Then she remembered Rockfist’s comment about the Caretaker having been a client of Blackiron’s, and his implication that the famous barrister had been instrumental in the Caretaker’s selection for this post.
His age, she guessed, was not a result of the actual years he’d lived but of some sort of spell that bound him to this sacred trust.
She could certainly understand his anger at Rockfist. For someone who’d given up his very youth for this position, anything that might jeopardize it would be anathema. And the person who asked him to do it would be the most hated being on the face of Eberron, or below it.
“Well, at least I’ll have you to keep me company there,” the barrister retorted. “Now, just tell her where her report is, and we’ll leave you in peace.”
The Caretaker looked at Sabira. She wondered belatedly if he knew her identity. Not that she supposed it really mattered at this point—the severed hand had already put her far over the line—but she decided to keep her hood up and pulled forward, just in case. Disguising her voice and speech patterns probably wouldn’t hurt, either.
“I know not the name of the document I seek, Most Honored One,” she said, imitating the lilting cadence and high diction of the half-elves of Sharn’s Skyway district, whose august company she’d had occasion to keep during one particularly memorable mission. It was a vocal distortion she’d used more than once, usually to good effect. “I know only this—that the document was authored by an esteemed dwarf whose name begins with the letter ‘D.’ ”
The Caretaker didn’t bat an eye.
“There are one million, eight hundred twenty-three thousand, nine hundred and six documents in the Tombs written by dwarves whose names begin with ‘D,’ and those are only surnames. Either be more specific or quit wasting my time.”
Well, she hadn’t really thought it would be that easy.
“The document was also viewed at least once by a dwarf named Haddrin Goldglove, late of Frostmantle, if that information is of any use, Most Honored One?”
The Caretaker grunted and moved over to the ledger. There, he unerringly turned over a stack of pages almost an inch thick and, without looking, pointed to the third name in the leftmost column. Sabira read the entry silently:
Haddrin Goldglove, Research Fellow, Morgrave University
On the Nature of Magmatic Fissures Associated with the Fist of Onatar, Illustrated and Annotated
by Birggid Darkore (published posthumously in 986 YK, 1 copy extant)
Opal Room
Below that was a scribbled signature that she assumed was Goldglove’s, written in a reddish ink that she further assumed was not actually blood.
So he’d been a Research Fellow at Morgrave, had he? That certainly explained how a lowly Copper Concordian could get access to the Tombs.
Then she noticed the next entry on the list.
Haddrin Goldglove, Research Fellow, Morgrave University
Mining Rights Along the Noldrunhold Border: A Perspective on the Deepspring, Mountainheart, and Stoneblood Families
by Baron Juri Deepspring (published in 990 YK, 1 copy extant)
Opal Room
Curious. What was Goldglove’s interest in Noldrunhold, she wondered? And why did that accursed place keep cropping up?
“Yes, Most Honored One,” Sabira replied diffidently in her newly acquired singsong voice. “That is the document I seek.”
“Opal Room. You have until just before the third morning bell to find it and get what you need from it. I can’t protect you once the Tombs reopen.” What he really meant, of course, was that he couldn’t protect himself, but Sabira had no intention of staying that long in any case.
“Many thanks, Most Honored—”
“Just go.”
Sabira inclined her head to the Caretaker and then turned expectantly to Rockfist.
“It’s on the Soldorak level—that’s where all the writings pertaining to the Fist are, since it’s in Soldorakhold. I’ve never been to that particular room, but I know where it is. Follow me.”
“No,” the Caretaker said firmly. “Just her. One fool traipsing about my halls is more than enough.”
Rockfist opened his mouth to argue, took a good look at the hard set of the Caretaker’s wrinkled face, and thought better of it.
“Fine. I’ll just walk her to the stairs, then.” To Sabira, he repeated, “Follow me.”
Sabira did as she was bade, trailing behind the dwarf as he walked to the staircase on the right. As they neared the balcony, she couldn’t help but sneak a glance through the carved marble railing. The balcony opened onto a wide stairwell that plunged thirteen levels, with identical balconies on each landing. The twin staircases curved along their respective walls and then came in again toward the center, hanging in the air with no visible means of support. Fortunately, the stairs had high balustrades to keep those who used them from stepping off into the open stairwell and reaching their destination quite a bit more quickly than intended. From where she stood, she couldn’t see all the way to the bottom, but even the look she did get was enough to trigger a brief spell of vertigo. She hoped the Soldorak floor was toward the top.