“Lady elf,” he said slyly, “forge need more cage-walk. You get halfling Finner.” He grinned at Ravon, actually drooling. “Night shift.”
Ravon frowned. “He’s already done his shift, boss.”
“Missed work today.” Stonefist put a finger to his forehead. “Stonefist remember. Missing shift.”
“Two shifts in the same day will kill him.” Ravon shrugged. “A waste of a worker when the very important visitor is coming.”
Stonefist paused, processing this idea. Then: “Lady elf-you wake halfling.”
Ravon kept his expression neutral. “Means nothing to me. You’re the boss.”
“Stonefist boss. Vuulgaaar boss, yah?”
“Yeah,” Ravon said, giving an insolent salute.
Stonefist liked a few military flourishes. But he still sent Nastra up to the barracks.
Soon dismissed, Ravon rushed up the stairs to catch the elf. He found her at the door to his cell. “Nastra,” he murmured.
She turned, her face a mask of indifference.
“What’s he doing to you? You look worse every day.”
Her eyes caught a glint from the everbright lantern high on the wall. “What’s it to you?”
Ravon shrugged. “Just wondering why you want to be a lackey for our lovely forge master.”
“Maybe I like the work.”
That had occurred to Ravon, but he wanted to keep her talking. “Leave Finner alone, Nastra. Show a little mercy. Some day you’ll need a favor.”
She smiled, showing surprisingly clean teeth, not that it was a pleasant sight. “I thought you didn’t care about Finner.”
“I don’t. But I made a promise in battle to Finner’s dying lieutenant. I said I’d watch over his steward. Damned if I know why.”
Her dark eyes held his. “It was a promise.”
“Yes.”
For a moment he thought she might be softening, actually affected by Finner’s story. But no, the old sarcasm was at the ready. “Cry me a bucketful,” she snapped.
She turned on her heel and stalked away. But to Ravon’s surprise, she let Finner sleep in peace that night.
The next night, Ravon lay in wait for Nastra.
He hid in a recess by the north stairs and, true to habit, the elf skulked by and disappeared down. Nastra was hiding something, he was sure of it.
What he couldn’t figure out was why he gave a damn.
In the last six months he’d learned not to care, even relishing the prospect of his own death. But then Finner had become his steward, and in Finner’s eyes, Ravon had seen the reflection of the man he used to be. Nine Hells. One foot in the grave and now he had hope again… not a hope to live-no, never that-but hope to have absolution for all that he’d done.
By the Devourer’s Teeth, he wished he’d never met Finner.
But now he was curious. Where did the sovereign bitch go on all these back stair excursions? A lover? His stomach turned at that thought.
He watched from a recess in the wall as Nastra stood before the hot door, fumbling for her keys. She selected a blood red one and, using it, went through.
Ravon plunged forward, catching the door an inch from closing. He worked the latch so that the elf would hear the mechanism click into place. Then he followed her down.
For down it was, a shaft of a stairwell now steeper than before-and hotter with every step. Here the walls streamed with foul excreta, slick and stinking. It brought to mind the question of why the whole forge, not just here, sweated a vile slime. It had always seemed natural to the misery of the place, but now Ravon thought it was something more, perhaps something far worse. The hammering heat itself was a mystery. But the forge was built on top of a graveyard of giants, and places of such ancient magic had a natural affinity for the dark places of Khyber, bringing its hellish heat close.
And down, still-with Nastra rounding the corners of the landings, and Ravon one turn behind, just catching a glimpse of her cloak as it disappeared. No lover down here. Nothing down here. His curiosity mounted.
Abruptly, the descent ended. Nastra was off across a murky cavern, roiling in noxious fumes. Ghostly rock formations jutted up from the floor while stalactites hung down from above, dripping goo… the very pus that infected the forge itself. Ravon followed the elf, the ground thrumming beneath his feet as though the heart of a giant lay just below.
A scream tore through the cavern, stopping Ravon in mid stride. The howl trailed off. He couldn’t see Nastra, lost in the murk.
Voices. One horrid and low, the other a murmur. Nastra was with someone. That low, guttural voice sent a shudder over him. All senses on keen alert, he moved with practiced stealth toward the source of the voices, using rock formations as cover. That voice. Not human, not in any way normal. The list of possible creatures was short and exceedingly nasty; maybe best to slink away now before he risked discovery. Lying flat on the ground behind a massive rock, he crept forward to look.
A creature stood on a rock outcropping. A skeletal, flesh-wasted monster, some seven feet tall.
By all the Six, a death hag. Why had he pulled forward? The hag could probably hear his very breath if she wasn’t so focused on Nastra. He was frozen now, lying flat, but exposed.
The death hag jumped down to where Nastra knelt, screaming, “My master does not wait! The baron of Cannith signifies nothing to such as us. My master does not wait for human lords!”
Then the hag slowly craned her neck, looking around. Ravon stopped breathing.
“Yes, exalted,” Nastra piped up, bringing the hag’s attention back. “Just a day, however. What is a day to your great master? It is nothing!”
The death hag screamed in frustration, raising her hands and wringing them. “A day, a day? You shall understand how long is a day, when my sisters cut a slit in you and slowly draw out your entrails!” The creature swiped her claws through Nastra’s hair, snapping the elf’s head back and forth. “We shall bring up the fires to feed the engine. Open the pipe! Let the sweet lakes of Fernia flow!”
Ravon heard the word Fernia, and his mind opened to a new and most unwelcome surmise.
The hag was still screaming, “Aye, Fernia longs to flow!”
Nastra quailed but answered, “Yes, Fernia shall flow, great one. The glorious day!”
Ravon’s heart cooled at the growing realization. By all that was unholy, the forge needn’t worry about running out of dragonshards. It was going to have Fernia. It would be fueled by one of the planes of the Elemental Chaos: Fernia, the Sea of Fire.
Because, he now realized, the genesis forge was sitting atop a manifest zone, where the worlds intermixed. But not even a death hag could create a pipe to extrude the Elemental Chaos…
Nastra looked up at the hag. “A glorious day it will be, but not yet, exalted one. Tomorrow. Stonefist begs the demon lord’s indulgence for one more day-”
Her agitation growing, the death hag rolled her eyes fully around in their sockets.
Nastra went on, “-so that his master, the great Cannith personage, may arrive, may witness the event.”
The death hag emitted a horrid ululation. She bashed her right hand down on her own upper leg, shattering it. Somehow, the witch remained upright. Then she plucked aside her rags and touched her femur, healing it over with gristle. Calmer now after her outburst, the death hag grinned and yanked Nastra to her feet.
“One day only, sweetling. The demon lord shall wait one day. Then the fire comes up. The forge is born!”
“Yes, exalted lady. Tomorrow. You have my word.”
The hag rasped, “What is your word to me?”
“Nothing,” Nastra said. Then she met the hag’s maddened gaze. “But it’s all you’ve got.”
The witch cocked her skull-like head, as though considering whether to eat the elf on the spot or save her for another time.
By the Sovereign Gods, Ravon had space in his mind to think, Nastra just talked back to a death hag.
“Leave me,” the hag spat. “Return tomorrow and tell us Cannith has arrived. Then the gates of fire open!” With a ferocious leap she launched herself away, disappearing into the boiling smoke.