Frostborn: The Broken Mage (11 page)

“Yes,” hissed the First. “The Devourer requires a tithe of blood. We can pay it from our own kin. Or we can pay it from fools who wander into the ruins. Many times have the orcs of Vhaluusk come to seek treasure in Khald Azalar…and we have offered many of them as sacrifices to the Devourer.”

“The Devourer claimed a great power has awakened in the ruins?” said Ridmark.

“There is a place of power far below,” said the First. “I know not what it is. Perhaps the Devourer knows, but it has not chosen to share that wisdom with us. The power within has been dormant, but it awakened a few fortnights past, and will call others to its side. The dvargir, most likely, came in answer to that power.” Ridmark felt the pressure of the eyeless orc’s attention. “And you, too, Gray Knight, have come to claim the power.”

There was no point in lying. It sounded as if the First had already made up his mind.

“We have,” said Ridmark. “Do you intend to oppose us?”

Again the First let out his hissing, gargling laugh. “Can we oppose you? Our kin who survived their battle with you have spoken of your prowess. You have two shining Swordbearers, and who can stand against their might? You have command of powerful magic, spells to turn the stone against us, spells to unleash killing fire. Aye, we could fight you, but many more of the Silent Ones would perish. Better to let you go.” The First laughed again. “We shall not kill you.”

“You’re going to let us go,” said Ridmark, “because you’re certain the Devourer is going to kill us.” 

“You understand, human fool. The Devourer will kill you,” said the First. “It is best when we can bring our sacrifices to the Devourer with our own hands. But you are too strong for that…and the Devourer shall be pleased when he consumes your strength.”

“Very well,” said Ridmark. “We shall march joyfully into the arms of the Devourer, then.” Jager snorted. “This place of power. Where is it?”

“I do not know exactly,” said the First. “Somewhere in the lower levels of the city, near where the dwarven kings of old kept their throne. The Silent Ones rarely go there. We can move quietly enough through the Forge Quarter and the mines and entrances to the Deeps, but some of the old defenses are still active. Only the Devourer can penetrate the defenses of the dwarves, and the Devourer dwells near the throne of the dwarven kings.” The First pointed his spear at one of the gallery entrances beyond the murmuring waterfall. “Take the tunnel to the Forge Quarter. Beyond are galleries that shall take you to the seat of the dwarven kings, and thence to the place of power.”

“Thank you, First,” said Ridmark. “We shall contemplate your counsel.”

The First grinned. The combination of his tusks, his sallow skin, and his eyeless face made the expression ghastly. “You will not thank me, Gray Knight. You shall find our god, and the Devourer shall consume you. When it does, remember that the First sent you into its arms and curse my name.” 

The First gestured, and the deep orcs faded away, vanishing back into the empty shells of the dwarven houses. 

For a moment no one said anything. 

“Well,” said Calliande in Latin. “That was certainly a pleasant conversation.”

“This Devourer,” said Antenora. “Do you think it a myth of the deep orcs? Perhaps they kill their victims and lay the blame upon their false god. I encountered such cults often upon Old Earth.”

“No,” said Ridmark. “No, I’m certain the Devourer is a powerful creature of some kind. Maybe an urdmordar.”

“Urdmordar?” said Antenora. 

Gavin answered her. “Spider-demon. Very, very powerful. They regard all mortals as cattle, and sometimes let themselves be worshipped as goddesses by their slaves. Makes them easier to control.”

“You have faced such a cult before?” said Antenora.

“Yes,” said Gavin. He said nothing else, though a brief shadow went over his face.

“I do not think the Devourer is an urdmordar,” said Calliande. “A female urdmordar would always take the form of a woman, and a male urdmordar would be too impatient to bother with the subterfuge of a cult. The deep orcs called their god ‘it’, not female.” 

“So what would it be, then?” said Gavin. 

Ridmark shrugged. “It could be anything. All manner of powerful and dangerous creatures dwell in the Deeps. One might have decided to make the Citadel of Kings its new home after the Frostborn were defeated.” 

“Could the Devourer be a creature you summoned to guard your staff, Keeper?” said Antenora.

Calliande flinched a little at that. “Maybe. I…don’t know. That doesn’t sound like something the Keeper would do. If I summoned a guardian creature, I don’t think it would be the sort of thing the deep orcs would worship as a god.” She swallowed. “At least I hope not.”

“Our best course of action,” said Ridmark, “is to make for the Forge Quarter and then this Citadel of Kings with all speed. With luck, the Mhorites, the Anathgrimm, the deep orcs, the dvargir, and this Devourer will expend their energy fighting each other, and we can slip past in the chaos.”

Jager snorted. “When have we ever been lucky?”

Kharlacht grunted. “We are still alive, are we not?” 

“The Lord’s hand has been with us,” said Caius. Morigna scowled a little but said nothing. “And that plan worked in the Vale of Stone Death. The Traveler and Mournacht are more concerned about each other than they are about us.”

“We almost got killed in the process,” said Arandar. 

“But that plan worked as well, did it not?” said Jager. “And this time we have the Gray Knight to keep you and Morigna from bickering as the enemy closes around us.”

Arandar frowned. “That’s not what…”

“What is done is done,” said Ridmark, hoping to forestall yet another argument. “It’s the future that concerns us. Let us be gone from here.”

No one offered any objections, and Ridmark led the way across the corpse-strewn cavern to the gallery leading to the Forge Quarter.

Chapter 6: Images In Stone

The next day they entered a room filled with coal.

“Antenora, I urge you not to summon any magic,” said Caius, looking around. “There is a great deal of coal dust upon the floor. Even the slightest spark and we shall be consumed.”

Calliande thought that sensible advice. 

They stood in a large room lit only by a few glowstones hanging in steel cages from the ceiling. Dozens of carts of bronze-colored dwarven steel filled the room, arranged in a haphazard pattern, some fallen over onto their sides. A brief flicker of amusement went through Calliande. Outside of the Three Kingdoms of the dwarves, dwarven steel was a rare and precious commodity. Among the dwarves themselves, though, their steel was so common that they built simple carts from it. 

Coal filled every single one of the carts, heaped as high as Calliande’s head. Many of the carts had fallen, spilling lumps of jagged coal across the floor, and a thin film of black dust covered everything. A memory stirred in the mists that choked her mind, the story of a coal mine in the Northerland. One of the miners’ lamps had shattered, accidentally igniting a seam of coal, and the resultant fire had burned for decades. 

“I think you should do as Brother Caius says, Antenora,” said Calliande. The hooded sorceress nodded, the sigils in her staff fading to darkness. 

“We must be near the Forge Quarter,” said Caius.

“An astonishing feat of deduction,” said Morigna. “Did the enormous quantity of coal give it away?”

“It did,” said Caius, either missing or ignoring Morigna’s sarcasm. 

“If the city’s Forge Quarter is laid out anything like the great forges of Khald Tormen, then we must be near the silos that stored the coal. By necessity, the fires in the furnaces burn hotter than even molten stone, since dwarven steel must be melted and cooled several times during its forging. For safety the coal is stored well away from the furnaces, and carried over only when needed.”

“How do you make the fires hot enough without destroying the walls of the blast furnace?” said Jager.  

Arandar gave him an odd look. “I thought you were a thief, not a blacksmith.”

Jager flashed his smile at him. “I was an excellent thief, Sir Arandar. Of course, that left me with a surfeit of money, which I then invested into various merchant enterprises. Blacksmiths and silversmiths were just one of them.”

“The stonescribes carved glyphs of warding and fire into the walls of the furnaces,” said Caius, “allowing the fires to reach the necessary intensity.”  

“I can believe that,” said Calliande, remembering the glyph in the High Gate that had burned the Mhorites alive. 

“Unless there’s anything useful in here,” said Ridmark, “let’s keep moving. I would prefer not to have come all this way only to burn alive if someone accidentally strikes a spark.”

Calliande followed the others as they picked their way across the room. A ramp led to the far wall, to a doorway sealed with a thick slab of dwarven steel. Fortunately, no glyphs marked the door. Ridmark, Caius, and Kharlacht gripped the handle and pulled, and after a moment of straining the heavy door swung outward, rotating soundlessly on its hinges. 

“Two hundred years and it still doesn’t squeak,” said Jager, “and I couldn’t find a single smith or carpenter in Coldinium who could make a door with quiet hinges.”

“You wanted doors that squeaked, husband,” said Mara. “Harder for anyone to sneak up on us.”

“The thief is ever restless with his takings,” said Arandar. 

“See, that is the difference between us, Sir Arandar,” said Jager with aplomb as Ridmark, Kharlacht, and Caius shifted the door. “I lived dishonestly, and you lived honestly…and we both ended up as enemies of Tarrabus Carhaine.”

Arandar grunted, but said nothing. Calliande could tell that Arandar was thinking about his son Accolon, framed for murder by Tarrabus and the Enlightened of Incariel. Jager, for once, had the sense not to push the matter further. 

“All right,” said Ridmark. “That’s…”

There was a flash of white light from beyond the door. At once Ridmark stepped back, raising his staff in guard, and Kharlacht and Caius drew their weapons. Calliande lifted her hand, summoning power to cast a warding spell. Caius stepped forward, looking past Ridmark to the chamber beyond.

“Hurry!” said Caius. “We need to get through the door! Hurry, hurry!” Kharlacht went through the door, greatsword in hand. “Go! If one of those sparks gets in here, we’re finished!”

Sparks?

Calliande shrugged and urged the others forward, another flash of white light coming from beyond the door. The others hurried through the door, and then Calliande went after them, Ridmark right behind her. He beckoned to Kharlacht and Caius, and together they pulled the massive door closed with a resonant clang. 

The chamber beyond was another market, smaller than the Dormari Market or the residential cavern near the Farmers’ Quarter. The shops here were smaller and more ornate, their walls carved with elaborate reliefs and glyphs. Yet the shops showed a great deal of damage, some of them smashed to rubble, others scarred and cracked. Bones lay here and there, along with pieces of damaged dwarven armor. The air in here was cold, and Calliande spotted three piles of Frostborn armor and bones, white mist swirling around them.

“What,” said Morigna, “is that?”

Calliande had no idea.

The white light came from a massive armored figure that stood motionless in the center of the market. It looked like a suit of dwarven armor, albeit one that stood twelve feet tall. Glyphs of harsh white light shone upon the armored figure’s arms and legs. The helmet was wrought in the image of a stylized dwarven face, but a gash marked both the helmet and the cuirass. Within Calliande glimpsed the bones of a long-dead dwarf, though she could not imagine how the dwarf had moved in the massive armor, let alone worn it without getting crushed by the tremendous weight.

“That is a taalkrazdor,” said Caius. “Other kindreds commonly call them titans.”

“There are potent spells upon it,” said Mara.

“Spells of strength and warding,” said Antenora. 

“Well and good,” said Jager, “but what exactly does it…do?” 

The glyphs sputtered and flashed, and a small spark of lightning burst from the gashed cuirass and lashed at the nearby ground. Calliande shuddered to think of what would have happened if one of those sparks had landed in the room with the coal carts. 

“They are suits of magical armor, crafted by the finest smiths and the most knowledgeable stonescribes,” said Caius. “One titan has the strength of a hundred men, and can fight entire armies to a standstill. Only the most skillful warriors are chosen to wear suits of titan armor. Alas, we never had enough of them.” 

“I can see how they would be useful against an ursaar or an urvuul,” said Ridmark. 

“The dark elves used their sorcery to make war beasts,” said Caius. “The khaldari had metallurgy and the skill of the stonescribes, so we used those to fight back. Don’t touch the titan. It is badly damaged, and I do not think the glyphs are stable.”

“They are not,” said Antenora. “It is safe enough for now, but touching it would be unwise. There are tremendous forces bound within the armor, and they are looking for release…”

“Let’s not give it to them,” said Ridmark. “Caius, can you guess where we are?”

Caius squinted at glyphs carved over the archway. “I believe….yes. This is the Goldsmiths’ Market. The goldsmiths, silversmiths, and jewelers would have kept their shops here.” Jager smiled at that, eyeing the damaged buildings. “It is possible that some documents might have survived the fighting, including…”

“Including some maps?” said Ridmark. 

“Aye,” said Caius. “That was my thought.” 

“Very well,” said Ridmark. “We will search. Split up and go through the shops. For God’s sake, don’t go alone. If you find anything interesting, call out. If you find any enemies, call out and retreat back into the Market, and we’ll fight the foes together. Above all, don’t touch that titan.” 

Calliande nodded and went with Antenora to search the nearest shop.

###

Mara stepped through the doorway and into the ruined shop, a peculiar melancholy coming through her