55 – From the City of Brass to the Hellforge

“You  know, Azrael, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but man – your people had a habit of a little too much drama in your naming schemes.  Seriously…the Hellforge?”  Horace said this around a roll with jam.  He shook his head, then washed down the food with coffee.

 

I shrugged.  “No offense taken.  It’s an apt name – the Master Smith, Rithzalgor, is an infernal.  The Hellforge was designed to use the souls of those sacrificed to it to power its enchantments.  If the shoe fits, you know?”

 

“And you commissioned a weapon to be made there?  Whose soul got used for that?” Nemmy was expressionless while he asked the question.  It was the first time I’d seen him without some form of emotion crossing his face.

 

“I might have made a promise of a certain halfwise…”  I saw the frown starting and held up my hand to admit the joke.  “I sacrificed no-one.  Instead I had a supply of metal from the Pool of Bronze, the grave of infernals destroyed for betrayals or disloyalty to Bael Turath. If there was a source of power, a soul involved in the making, it was from that.”  I wasn’t eating this morning, only a steaming cup of coffee sat before me.

 

“To the best of your knowledge,” Lotonna completed for me.

 

“Yes, to the best of my knowledge.”  I agreed cautiously. “Look, I’m not asking you to accompany me to the forge.  In fact, if you prefer not to, you don’t have to come along beyond just getting me down the slope into Vor Kragal and un-shrinking my barrel when I get down there.  I can take care of the rest.”

 

Horace shrugged.  “It’s not a problem going there, man, I think the important part is just making sure we know what’s on the agenda.”

 

Kineta had remained silent through most of this.  She and I had already had this discussion the night before, and she had agreed to come.  Actually, it was more along the lines of refusal to be left behind, but I wasn’t going to go into deep distinctions.

 

“Does that mean you’re coming with me?” I asked with some trepidation.

 

“I suppose so, yeah,” Horace said non-commitally.

 

“Then that requires another question on my part, and please forgive me for asking it.”  I leaned forward at the table.

 

Nemmy just drew pictures in the condensation on his glass while the others looked on questioningly.

 

“If I ask you to wait for me, to stay outside while I go on ahead, will you do?  Or if I ask you to leave me in a dangerous place, will you?”

 

Nemmy gazed at me uncomprehendingly.  Horace looked alternatively relieved and embarrassed.  Lotonna just stared at me – rather like a cow staring at an abacus, if you’ll pardon the likeness.  Kineta closed her eyes.

 

Lotonna broke the silence.  “Yes.  We might not enjoy it, but yes.”  They all agreed more or less around the table.

 

I felt relieved.  I still hadn’t seen these people challenged, and while I was comfortable fighting alongside them, the Smith was altogether a different story.  Not only would he have been a Lord of the Nine Legions were he in his native land, he was arguably off his rocker, which made him even more unpredictable and dangerous.  That problem was mine, and I had no intention of putting these people – these friends – in the path of greater harm than necessary.

 

I suppose if they had simply been hired hands, I wouldn’t feel this way, but in three weeks I’d grown to like them.  As I said, I considered them friends.

 

“Good, and I appreciate that.”  I sat back, satisfied, and stuffed a biscuit loaded with sausage gravy into my mouth.  Half because I was hungry, and half because I needed to shut up at this juncture of the conversation.

 

“So what is this weapon you had made?”  Lotonna asked.

 

“That’s an interesting question, because in the end, I really don’t know.  I gave him materials, which he saw as a challenge, and I gave him the bronze, which he’d never worked before.  He said he’d figure it out.”  Come to think of it, I didn’t really know what I was setting myself up for.

 

“So you went to all the trouble of taking yourself down there, to this ‘Hellforge,’ at great personal risk, gave him what was probably priceless materials to work with, and you don’t even know what he’s making for you?”  Nemmy was wide-eyed as he looked at me.  He seemed to just not be able to accept the idea.

 

“He’s the Master Smith of probably the most astonishing and powerful magical forge that there has ever been, at least in this known world.” I said with little inflection.  “I wasn’t precisely in the position to dictate what should or should not be done.”

 

“Fair point, well made,” Horace said.  “So, you’ve got what, five days?”

 

I nodded. “And it’ll take two to cross the Hastwith and get to Vor Kragal, I expect another one or two to descend the wall and reach the Forge with the barrel.”

 

He did a measure of counting on his fingers.  “Guess we’d better get moving then.  After food?”

 

“We’ve probably got time for food.”

 

*             *             *

 

The trip to Vor Kragal goes much faster after you’ve been there once or twice.  No biting sandstorms, no hazy pits to pull one in.  At least, nothing accosted us this time around.  I decided to avoid Serim Saldazzar’s encampment this time, at least until we’d retrieved what we’d come for.  No sense in exposing ourselves to additional – and unnecessary – risk.

 

As we passed through the Overspill, I saw Madam Garandes working her peculiar magic on a male Eladrin.  She smiled and nodded to our wave as we went past, her hands too full with the man’s tresses to return the gesture.  We saw no sign of Geria’s village on our way across the Hastwith.

 

The morning of the second day, the Charspire became visible, like a great finger raised to point at the heavens…which may have been an intentional obscene gesture, come to think of it.  Who knows?  The upper echelons of the nobility were never terribly clear in their purposes.  Which was also intentional, most likely.

 

“Why is everything named the So-and-so-Spire?” Nemmy had asked me at that point.

 

“Not exactly sure, but I suspect we’re all emulating the Feywild.  It seems most of the Eladrin cities focus around spires of some kind or other.  That, or we are all emulating a precursor from some lost empire and we just don’t know it.”  I shrugged a little, then gestured at the giant structure.  “I’m sure if you wanted to ask them, they might answer if you knock nicely.”

 

Lotonna looked over at the halfwise.  “I don’t think it would be a wise choice to do so, Nem,” his rumbling voice almost seemed to lift dust off the road as he spoke, while his footsteps clumped through the ground alongside the horse’s hooves.  “It would probably be your last.”

 

Nemmy nodded.  “Yeah, the folks living in there probably aren’t the most reasonable sort.”

 

I withheld mentioning where I had received my materials for the commission we were going to pick up.

 

We arrived a bit after noon, and I led them around to the side from which the Forge would be most readily accessible.  The smoke of the Forge was rising lazily up, drifting up a ways before being caught by a breeze and carried away.  The smell of brimstone was still quite distinct here, but there was enough clear territory around that we could see anyone or anything approaching without much trouble.

 

I decided we’d go in on the following morning, rather than rush overly fast and get caught up at night in the ruins, weighted down with cargo.  When I explained the reasoning, it was met with general approval.  Camp was established in sight of the city, and we settled in to wait through the night.

 

As soon as we’d settled in, Kineta approached me.  “Retrieve the barrel – we’ll try the shrink again.”

 

I did as she requested, and shortly I had the wide curve of the barrel’s top extending out of the mouth of the bag.  She opened a tiny journal, and ran her fingers over the wooden container while repeating several phrases.  I envied her the ritualistic casting methods she used, the flexibility they offered.  In my accepting a pactbinding, my old ways of magic had been forbidden to me – I’m sure I could have made an arrangement to open that path again, but the cost of such a bargain both in trouble and in sheer price wasn’t something I was quite ready to go through.

 

On the third pass of her hand, the barrel visibly reduced its size.  It was a strange and dizzying affair, seeing the thing larger on one side of her palm than the other.  Several more passes continued the reduction, after which she closed the little book and secreted it back to its pocket.

 

She said, “Should be good for another day, I’d think.”  The mouth of the bag easily fit over the barrel’s end now, and it was clear that the thing could pass unhindered out into my possession without notice.

 

“Can you dispel this effect?”  I looked at it skeptically.  “I don’t want to be thought stingy here.”

 

“Sure, of course, though I would rather save that spell for something more needful.”

 

“Yes, I see your point.  I can always wait before entering the Forge.”  I shrugged and slid the bag closed around the barrel.  “Just making sure.  I don’t want to be accused of shorting him.”

 

Nemmy’s voice broke in just then.  “Ready for dinner?”

 

I looked over to see a large pot of soup or stew cooking over a small fire.  My stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in quite a while, and that the trail had been somewhat tiring.  I looked back to Kineta.  “Are you able to conjure horses as well?  Steeds?”

 

“If you have the castings, I have the rituals.”  She patted a pocket, and I refrained from making worm jokes.

We settled in, each of us producing a bowl and spoon, and divvied up the stew from the pot.  I produced some whiskey from the small cask which I wasn’t intending to trade, then replaced it in the haversack.  I reminded myself that on my next visit to Al’Veydra I’d have to get that Cask of Liquid Gold to take with me on trips, now that I could transport it easily.  As the night wore on, we traded a few stories back and forth.

 

“…so as it turned out, our rescued Fomorian turned out to be the new King of Ihnbarhan – and a healthy business partner.  He buys up a good chunk of my ale stocks now.”

 

Lotonna shook his head.  “So many turns and choices, it is astounding that they should come to that – fighting down your hated enemy, meeting an old friend, and making a new ally in a noble destined to be king.  It was a nexus of choices, the Fates must have been whirling about your head like flies.”  He tipped back his cup.

 

“All right, your turn.  Tell me, why ‘Lion’s Lunge’?  What’s up with that name?”  It had been itching at me for a while, and I hadn’t found a good moment to ask the question before now.

 

Horace moaned and fell back on the ground, looking up at the stars.

 

Nemmy coughed a few times to cover his obvious good humor.  “All right, Az, you deserve to know this one.  Are you familiar with Stonehaven, the barrow town to the far south?”

 

“Heard of it, never visited.”  That town was old, even when I was young.  Rumor had it that the empire which preceeded Bael Turath – and that was a while back – had constructed barrows for their kings there.

 

“Well, this was back before Horace joined us, see, and we’d gone to Stonehaven, thinking to recover a bit of what once was, right?”  He was tracing in the air with a stick, whose end was a glowing ember.

 

“The dead certainly have no use for the riches they’re buried with,” I agreed.

 

He pointed authoritatively at me with the stick.  “Exactly.  So Lotonna, Kineta and me, we went down there, and we found ourselves a barrow whose entrance wasn’t incredibly hidden, and we pop it open and go in.  Thing is, it turns out that there aren’t a bunch of barrows there, there’s just one.  It’s one giant necropolis down there, an entire city of the dead encased in a great bubble of earth.”

 

“Curious – and surprisingly powerful, if that’s the case.  I hadn’t thought that such enchantments were available to those people.”  It was interesting, this really was news to me.

 

“That’s correct – it should not have been there, yet it was.  Vast twisting alleys and streets, I could have spent a month there, finding my way,” Lotonna added.

 

Nemmy looked over at him.  “Hmm.  Yes, I suppose so, and probably could have made your home there.  Mazes and dark and all, you’d have been right at home.”

 

He glanced back at me.  “So we decide to try to find a new way in, since a lot of other groups have used the one that faces the town.  We figure there’s a better chance of coming across some unmolested barrows if we find  a new path.”

 

“Interesting choice of words for someone looking into an old grave.  Molested.  Remind me not to turn my back on you, okay?”  Horace’s voice drifted up from his makeshift pillow.

 

“Yeah, just hush.  Remember first who’s telling this story, and then where we found you.”  Nemmy quipped back.

 

“So, short version, we find a new way in,” Nemmy continued.  “It’s beneath an old oak, we find this sinkhole, and it leads to a ramp-like spot that descends deep down.  We are figuring we’ve got a whole new path here.  We’re going down, thinking about how rich we’ll be.  I’m already spending my findings while we walk.”

 

Lotonna threw another few large sticks on the fire, and sneezed once in the small cloud of ashes that rose into his face.

 

“We’re going down, and we get to the gate of the city – we had no idea of this, it’s an entire necropolis.  There’s a whole city there, all dark and dead, but it looks just like a city on the surface.”

 

“And at the gate, to either side, are these giant carved lions, sitting on their haunches, with one paw out – like a cat does, when it’s sitting next to you and wants food.”  He gestured with his hand in the air.

 

“That’s not asking for food, that’s asking the people around you if you are food.” Lotonna said this with what I assume was dead-pan (still getting used to his face), and then chuffed a few times.  Kineta snickered at the joke as well.

 

“Ha, ha,” Nemmy said with a nasal tone in his voice.  “Anyhow, we start down, and we see these giant stone lions – and there’s something hanging from the extended paw of one of them, something kinda big.”  He made a weighty gesture with his left hand.

 

“So we go to take a look at this thing it’s holding, and it turns out, it’s some man,”  He pointed straight at the man as he said so.  “He’s hanging by the straps of his backpack, and his arms are pinioned out to either side, he can’t move.  At first, we think he’s dead, but as we get closer, I see his feet moving.”  He made little dangling motions with his fingers while he said this.

 

“Yeah, about all he sees of anyone is feet moving,” came Horace’s voice.

 

“Shh!  Anyhow, I see his feet moving, and we get closer, and that’s when this moaning starts, fit to wake the dead themselves.  Now his arms are wagging a little, and we hear this voice, he’s mumbling ‘help me,’ over and over again.”

 

I sat up a little.  “I take it you did?”

 

“Yep, we stepped up and looked, and this guy was strung up by his backpack – he couldn’t free himself from it.  We cut him down after a few minutes of checking him out to make sure he’s not a trap, and as it turns out…”

 

“It was Horace,” I finished for him.

 

“You got it!”  Nemmy squealed.  “The great adventurer had been upon top of the statue, trying to pry an eye out of it, when he slipped and his pack got caught on the arm as he was coming down.  He didn’t even have a knife to cut himself free, dropped it when he fell.”

 

“How long were you up there?”  I asked.

 

“I guess about six hours,” Horace said.  “Kinda lost track of time there.”

 

“Rough night, I think.”

 

“You ain’t kidding.  Took two hours just to get the feeling back into my hands.  Not to mention I’ve never heard the end of that story.”  He threw a small clump of dirt at Nemmy, who dodged proudly, grinning.

 

Kineta had been silent through the whole thing, but was smiling and enjoying Horace’s discomfort.  “As much as I enjoy that tale, we have work tomorrow, and I for one am not on watch.”  She rolled back towards the fire, covering herself up from the chill.

 

I spent the next hour or so listening to the others before turning in myself.  They settled soon after.

 

As soon as I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep, I found myself in a barren mountain-scape, looking down at a gigantic flowing glacier.  Grey rock without a hint of vegetation rose up like islands in a sea of chill.  The enormous river of ice didn’t move, but its sense of motion and incredible vastness was clearly visible.  Standing on it was a single figure, a tiny spec of darkness against the searing white.

 

Coming down? Voedle asked.

 

I stepped across and was beside him.  “Funny, I’ve never been to Levistus, yet here it is.  I draw enough power from it, though, so I suppose it’s made an impression on me.”  I smelled the ice in the air, its sharpness freezing the inside of my nostrils and frosting my lungs.

 

It can do that.  All the Hells can do that.  I suspect every Astral realm leaves its mark on those who spend enough time in contact with them. He hefted a chunk of blue-white before dropping it on the ground.  Where did you learn to dream with such detail?

 

“I don’t really know.  I just do.  I noticed it even on trips into the Feywild, though there’s little enough time to dream there.”

 

Or perhaps more than is good for a soul. He eyed me sidelong.

 

“That’s also possible.  Why are we fencing around this?”  The ice beneath my feet was far from uniform, great gashes and ridges ran the length of the current, huge boulders of the stuff arose as though caught in mid-bob.  Snow fell around us in tiny, almost microscopic, particles, each glittering as it fell on the wind.  My feet caught tiny globs of them as I walked and tossed them ahead of me, where they skidded through their compatriots, leaving little streaks of clean ice to mark their passage.

 

Have you decided how you are going to handle Rithzalgor? He stood steady, unmoving.

 

“I think so.  Initially, I will go direct.  He asked for whiskey and the chance to work at something challenging.  I’ll give him that.”  Voedle walked, keeping distance with me.

 

And if he wants more?

 

“That’ll depend on the nature of ‘more,’ won’t it?  I can hardly anticipate him.  I can, however, guide his thinking.”  I scooped up a small handful of snow and bit into it.  Clean, but with a taste of char in it.

 

This is not some third-rate swampy provincial noble you’re dealing with here, Azrael.  This is serious business, and it could get you worse than killed. He drew himself up and stopped walking.

 

“Well I’m hardly a third-rate ne’erdowell looking for handouts, either, and my soul is already destined for an end that isn’t natural.”  I dropped the remaining snow, brushing my hand off on my jacket while I turned to face him.  “I’m an officer of the Cairn Jale, a successful campaigner, and if I have to I’ll find a way to rip a hole through the Astral Sea myself to get what I want.  I will either succeed, or I will fail.  If my soul feeds his Forge or the engines of Nessus, it hardly makes a difference, does it?”

 

Easy, boy, I’m just making sure you’re taking this seriously. Voedle chuckled a bit as he approached me. I’ve got some skin in this game too, in case you weren’t paying attention, and I didn’t hitch a ride with you just to do a little sightseeing and end up in the Forge myself.

 

“Then I’d appreciate it if you’d back off a bit, and help rather than just observe.”

 

Okay, fair enough.  How are you going to get the barrel to him?

 

“Kineta can summon steeds.  Barrel can go on one of them.  If things get violent in there, I don’t have to dodge a big pile of horse-meat, or have it thrown at me.”  I was a little surprised he hadn’t been listening when she and I had discussed that.

 

What then, afterwards?  When you have your weapon, what then?

 

“Not sure.  I need to re-locate Fellbane.  Sered is an immortal, he knows angels.  As does Morin.  The two of them may be able to get me an audience with their patrons, and at the very least might be able to help me find information on how to destroy an angel.”

 

Angels?  You’re looking at a full god, you know?  He stopped being an angel a long while back.

I nodded.  “Yes, I know.  But we all carry around with us a piece of our past selves.  A weakness then might be my best shot at a weakness now.”

 

I got some bad news for you, then.  He has no weaknesses – that’s why he was the chief of the armies of He Who Was.  None at all.  Unless you want to consider his pride a weakness.  His well-deserved and world-sized pride.

I thought of the ‘conversation’ I’d had with the whirlwind on my last visit to Vor Kragal.  “Oh yes, I certainly will.  Pride will do, nicely.”

 

*             *             *

I had last watch, and stirred up the fire to observe the dawn with its warmth on my hands.  It rose yellow-gray, the wind coming in off the desert this time.  I could smell blooming flowers from somewhere, and heard the occasional chirp of a bird.

 

Nemmy was the first up, to my surprise.  I always figured halfwise to be a somewhat lazy race.  Chalk that up to another misconception born of my background.  There he was, puttering around camp and getting himself ready.  Lotonna was next, stretching with audible cracks up and down his spine.  Even his tail snapped as he straightened it out.  He yawned, showing the feral teeth that generally dispel anyone’s debates regarding the herbivorous nature of cattle and his species’ relationship to the bovine.  They may have similar faces or hair, but with teeth like those it was obvious that salads were not at the top of a minotaur’s menu.

 

Kineta also sat up, staring blearily at the fire for nearly half an hour before speaking.  I’d noticed that back in the City of Brass as well – she would sit up in bed for ten or twenty minutes before getting up.  I do much the same myself, though when a snap wakeup is needed I have no problems getting to business.  Horace was last, standing and doing a series of calisthenics that just made my teeth hurt to watch.

 

I strapped my armor on carefully, cinching the leather straps down firmly.  Checked Riftspar and Crownfire in their places, and nodded to the others.  “Hopefully I will only be gone for the day,” I said.  “Kineta, if you please, those mounts.”

 

She performed the ritual calmly and easily, and before I knew it, there were several ghostly horses all around us.  I climbed upon one, as did each of the others.

 

“These should be more than suitable,” Kineta said.  “In fact,” she ventured, “from the looks of them, they can fly.”  She slapped hers on the rump, and it jumped a few feet into the air before settling down.

 

“Yep, we’re good to go,” she smiled.  I felt a little of that envy again, but let it slip past.

 

“How long do we have before this grows back to full size?” I patted the haversack.

 

“Depends on how excited you get it,” she replied in a demure tone.  Lotonna chuffed so hard that I thought he would swallow his own snout.  She continued more seriously: “At least noon, it was later than that when we shrank it.  Let’s get to the front door and get it out then.  You can go in with it shrunk, and get it as far inside as you can before it returns.”

 

I accepted that, and gave a look around.  No one for miles, which was good, but I found myself wondering where my pursuit might be.  I didn’t like not knowing.

 

On the other hand, they might have more pressing things to concern themselves with. Voedle reminded me.  You aren’t exactly an emergency, and they’re pushing an army.

 

Considering it that way, I felt somewhat better.  They’d already hired mercenaries, and I assumed they had been good ones.  That the mercs didn’t make it out might have just been filed away under “deal with later”.  Or I could be fooling myself.  In any case, it wasn’t worth sweating over, just something to remain cautious about.

 

The spectral horses took us up a few feet and we glided to the edge of the city.  I saw no gurragal, and also no sign of Morvreyans.  From this distance that didn’t mean a lot, but on a first-look it was calm down below.  We coasted down the slope and around the row of buildings to the gate of the Hellforge with little effort.  I really feel knowing the way is a huge advantage.  I’ll remember to hire a guide for future visits to unexplored territory.

 

Onreaching the gate, I got off my mount and double-checked my things.  “I will go on from here,” I said.  “If you please, I’d appreciate it if you waited for me until two dawns from now.  I’d like to think this will be done by then, but if I don’t come out, I don’t want any rescue attempts.”

 

“You know we’re probably going to try, don’t you?” Lotonna intoned.

 

“Yes, but you shouldn’t.  Rithzalgor is a major pile of nasty with a capper of bad-ass on it, and if he takes a dislike to me or you, things won’t end well.”

 

Horace interrupted us.  “Message received.  Whether we listen to it or not is up to us.  Now get going so we can go get dinner ready.  I’ll make sure they save some leftovers for you.”

 

I nodded and walked in.

 

*             *             *

The place hadn’t changed all that much, though some of the tools had seen use recently and an anvil, glowing hot, was still charged up and occasionally spitting flame and sparks.  No hand worked that anvil, though.

 

I carried the still-shrunken barrel over my shoulder – even in its current state it was still a good thirty or forty pounds, and I’m no log-tosser.  I set it on the floor gently, and strolled around a bit.  The seat, or throne, or whatever you might call it that I’d first seen the Smith sitting on was empty.  In fact, aside from me and the anvil, nothing made any semblance of motion.

 

I made a note to myself that should I ever return, I would bring the Smith some books, as well.

 

Venturing over to the anvil, I inspected the various tools there.  Enormous hammers, tongs, an oversized poker, and some kind of strange set of rollers, like a grain-crusher or a clothes-press, were arranged around the thing.  I could not make out where the heat was coming from that made it flame up like this, but the warmth gave me some comfort.  I couldn’t tell you why that is, it just felt right, somehow.

 

I lifted a hammer, and found it absolutely ridiculously heavy.  Embarrassed at my own grunting, I replaced it where it had sat and resumed walking around the huge room.  Other devices were present here – more workplaces, complete with anvils, bellows and tools.  A great crucible sat across the room from Rithzalgor’s seat, apparently used to smelt ore, for beside it was a large pile of slag.  Above it was a crows-cage, with chains leading down to anchor-points on the sides of the crucible.

 

I assumed this was where subjects having their souls drawn for the Forge were placed.  Not a pleasant end, I have to say.

 

I also found three holding areas, each containing bars of various metals, as well.  As before, the scent of brimstone throughout the complex was unmistakable.

 

Finding little else, I drew out a small sandwich and went to sit upon the barrel I’d brought.  The gloom of the ceiling was depressing, and I was somewhat curious at the seeming emptiness of the place.  After finishing my food, I stood again and walked over to the Smith’s seat.

 

It was an enormous settee, constructed of iron and inlaid with a silvery metal.  Runes were etched all over it, and in some places filled with another material. The sense of enchantment in this thing was clear and strong.  A large sword rested on display hooks against the back wall, and a set of ornaments (mostly armor, from the look of it) waited on a stand beside the sword.

 

I could not reach the sword from my height, but I walked over to get a better look at it.  Fully six feet in length, it curved gently towards the fore like an inverted khopesh, and ended in a chiseled point.  Nicks in the edge had been worked out, and it gleamed in the dim light with a greenish tinge.  It was probably two inches thick at its middle, and six to eight inches in width, which would make it extremely heavy – this was an absolute cleaver.  I was surprised at how simplistic the blade seemed, given the Smith’s reputation.

 

“Enjoying the view?”  The deep voice came from behind, startling me.  I found my hands had been in my pockets, and I had to struggle to free them as I turned around.

 

“That is an excellent piece of work, though it somehow doesn’t seem like what I would expect.”  I tried to play off the possible faux pas by changing the subject.

 

“You mean it looks plain, don’t you?”  He was standing by the anvil, turning the poker on its surface.

 

“I suppose so, yes.  I was expecting something…I don’t know, prettier.”

 

“Your kind always did have a flair for vanity.  Much like Himself.”  He set the poker back in its place gently.  “My weapons need no decoration, though your people always demanded it of my tools.  That,” he gestured to the sword, “has served me well for a great many centuries.”

 

I looked back at it.  “I imagine it has few equals, given its apparent strength.”

 

He did not move.  “You would imagine correctly, considering what transpires in this world.  Perhaps we can dispense with the flattery.  It is enough that you restrained your hands, I hold no grudge for the passage of your eyes.”

 

I felt relieved, as well as somewhat ashamed.  “Still, I apologize for my intrusion.  And I remain quite impressed with the blade.”

 

He nodded.  “Accepted and noted.  Whiskey?”

 

I pointed at the wooden container.  “Currently subject to a shrinking ritual.  A while after noon it shall revert to full size, a sixty-gallon barrel.  Hainish white oak staves, except for three of Fey nature, black oak.  The Hainish are somewhat wide-grain and the Fey are medium, so while the mix is good now, it will appreciate over the next year or two considerably.  If you can wait for ten, it will reach its full measure.”

 

I also drew a flask from my side-pocket.  “I’ve also brought a full sample of its current state, so that you don’t have to break the seal to get an idea of its quality.”

 

He extended his hand – fully the size of my upper torso – and held it out.  I walked forward and placed the flask on his open palm.

 

With remarkable delicacy for fingers so large, he unscrewed the cap and held it to his nose.  Quickly, he threw back a splash into his mouth, then looked down at me while he worked it about in his mouth.  I couldn’t tell from his expression what he was thinking, but eventually he smacked his lips loudly.

 

“Not bad, Shadrim, not bad at all.  Now, I am in need of your help.  Follow me.”  He turned and walked silently away and around a corner.

 

I followed, to see him descending on a large spiral stair – one I had missed before, I suppose.  I walked down the stairs, which were considerably larger than they should have been, if carved for a normal man’s legs.  The stone wall around it was deeply etched with something that could have been writing, or could have been simply heavy etching by whatever force carved the stair in the first place.  It felt coolto the touch, though I imagined I could feel a warm draft seeping in from the deeper slices.

 

Reaching the bottom, I saw a room of perhaps sixty feet on a side, with several tables laid out before an array of six huge cauldrons, each of which contained a brightly-glowing molten fluid.  Probably some kind of metal.  Against the wall opposite, a stone trough of clear water ran the length of the wall.  The water moved from one side to the next, following some unknown course as it passed through this place.

 

Rithzalgor drew up at the bottom of the stairs to his full height – which again made me a bit nervous.

 

“The salt-bath is done, and I shall be ready to quench the blade again shortly.”  He reached into one of the cauldrons and drew out a dully-glowing metal object.  “This is molten rock-salt,” he said.  “It is quite useful for sealing in enchantments and enhancing them with heat.  It doesn’t become part of the weapon, but lends its properties to it through a receptive pattern I placed on it earlier.”

 

“What do you need me to do to help?” I asked.

 

“Speak with me while I work,” he replied, immersing the thing into the next cauldron.  “Shortly after you visited me, I was granted a dream.  A nightmare, actually. Do I need to explain to you how…how unlikely it is for me to partake of a nightmare?”

 

He stirred the thing, like a galley chef making soup, swirling a stick here and there through a thick liquor of water.  Steam of some sort rose from the liquid, and clung to the thing in his hand.  Drawing it up I saw the thing surrounded by a maze of swirling threads, which glowed with changing color and moved slowly around the centerpiece – for the life of me it looked like candy-floss.  He nodded with satisfaction at this.  “Orium, one of the bars you brought with you.  This will be very receptive to arcane energies.”

 

He gave it a few more moments in the cauldron, then picked it out and took it to the next.  As he lowered it into the solution, the candy-floss contracted around it, pulling tight and concentrating its glow upon the surface of the object.  He retracted his hand and looked at me, leaning against the deep vessel. “You keep wondering, don’t you?”

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

“My madness.  The stories of me being unbalanced, insane.”  He tapped enormous clawed fingers on the edge of the vat.

 

Careful, Voedle’s voice spoke quietly.

 

“Madness is a subjective term, relative to the observer.  To many, I would be deemed mad.  You are infernal – by nature that puts the workings of your mind into a different perspective than those born here in the middle-world.”

 

Rithzalgor chuckled slowly.  “Very diplomatic answer, Shadrim.  Structured to give as little offense as possible, leave as few holes in it as possible.  You’re right to be concerned, for I do have my moments.”  He looked down into the tilted opening of the great vessel.  “And yes, many would consider you mad.  I myself do.  I respect that, even if I think it folly.”

 

“Where do you lie on the skein of things, Shadrim?  What threads do you follow to your fate?”  His tail twitched, the stinger on the end of it drawing hissing circles on the stone.

 

“I’m not sure I follow, Smith.  I don’t see the threads, I only can proceed where best I feel I can succeed.”  He did make some sense, but it was tough to see where he was going with this.

 

“Those are threads – your feelings.  Your choices.  Your minotaur friend would relate it as navigating a maze.”  He knew about Lotonna?  His information network must either be very, very good, or he had been scrying on me unobserved.  Either one I found mildly unsettling.  “Where do you think you are headed?”

 

“I cannot be certain of that, but I do not think it will end well,” I spread my hands out.  “I am but one person, what can one do against so much?”

 

“All ideas begin with one person, and from ideas, gods live or die.  Mighty Vecna knows this, they all do.  If I did not think your idea had merit, I would have slain you outright, a mercy-killing.”  He looked back into the hot, still solution and harrumphed once.  “But you’ve come a long way, and accomplished more than most ever could in a lifetime.”

 

I supposed he was right.  “There seems little choice before me.  I was born to this, I think.  It gives me purpose.”

 

“Your world is the realm of demons and my kind, fighting over their meat, you and yours.  There is only room for some to escape to other realms in between our periods of dominance, Shadrim.  You and all mortals like you are like wheat before the scythe.  They wish to devour you, we wish to make you better.”  He stirred the fluid while he said this.  “What is your stance on this?”

 

“We see the nature of you, we have escape, we have our gods.”  I said, more defensively than I think I’d intended.

 

“Not if He has his way.  He would eclipse all others from you, tell you how you would be best served by glorying him and elevating His name.  And you’d follow, knowing nothing else.  You’d engage in His wars when he needed you to, to feed his machine’s hunger for souls.  Even the noblest among you would stoop to the deepest horrors in His name, thinking you were on the side of righteousness. You would enslave yourselves gleefully, sacrifice the blood of your children, torture one another with relish.  All thinking you follow the path of good.” He washed his hands in the trough as he said this.  Turning to me, he placed a hand on its edge and scratched his ear with the other.

 

“On the other hand, if He does not win, they will.  And as terrible as His rule may have been or is yet to be, their depredations will be a thousand times the worse, albeit shorter in duration.”  He walked to the first vat of bubbling, glowing fluid.  “They would rip every being on this world to shreds, animal, vegetable, or other.  They would devour the soul-stuff of each in their hunger and their sheer enjoyment of the hunt.  Theirs is no plan, it is simply to devour, for the one who eats the most of the world will emerge stronger than the rest, and will dominate all others until they discover another world to eat.”

 

He looked back at me.  “The choice you described to me last time seems to favor them.”

 

“I am loyal to my people, though they might not see this.  I wish for them to be free.”

 

“Even if it costs them their very souls?  That it extinguishes all things considered living in this world?”

 

I thought this over.  “No.  Were those my only choices, I would put aside my grudge and serve the King of Nessus.”

 

“You imply that there are other options. Do you believe there to be?”

 

“Of course.  I would not be seeking your aid if I did not.”  I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

 

“I would advise you to seek guidance in this choice of yours.  No, I would urge it.”

 

“Guidance?”

 

“You were right, you cannot do this alone.  Your idea is sound, I think – take that for what it might be worth, coming from an insane fiend.   But there are others, not insane by your judgment, who may help.  Sources of information, if you can find them.”

 

I walked to the first table, and picked up one of the items on it.  A long-handled scupper, used to skim waste off the top of hot liquids.  “Where would you suggest I look?”

 

“There are many gods, some devoted to knowledge.  Some to creation.  Some to justice and law.  They or their servants may consider your goal to be worthy of their aid.”

 

“They also may turn on me.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“It means I wish to end this time – I wish for our lands, our world, to cease being a battleground for others.  Cease having us be no more than cattle.  Many of these other gods still use us as such, even if their touch is gentler.”

 

“You will always be cattle, that is not an option to be changed.”

 

“Perhaps that is my madness, to believe it to be so.”  I set down the scupper and made a half-hearted effort to examine the other things.

 

He seemed to accept that.  “You recently acquired two things, a gate opening device, and one to find gates.  Give them to me.”

 

“What?”  I was a little taken aback.  In our discussion I’d forgotten them.  “Why?”

 

Before I realized what had happened, he was only feet away from me, a great hand wrapped around my torso and holding me fast against the table.

 

“Because I want to be FREE as well, mad Azrael.  Perhaps they can give me insights I have missed.”  He relaxed his grip and stepped back.  “Do not confuse my resignation to reside here as acceptance of an eternal future.”

 

I nodded and reached into my haversack, then passed both the lodestone and the sextant to him.  He examined each, pocketing both.  Then he turned back to the bubbling cauldrons.

 

“The wrapping I put on the weapon there, it has drawn tight in this curing solution.  The next,” he reached in and drew out the object – it was longer now, and I could see the candy-floss had become a glazed, ridged surface.  “This next, is the mithril you brought.  It lends great strength, and it channels magic well.” He set the long object down in the vat, where it floated on the surface.

 

“The bone, that is at the center of the thing, is porous. I shaved it down to give it an initial form and embedded the liquid bronze into that.  It will draw up a coating of the mithril around itself, something of a reflex action, what’s left of the life inside protecting itself.” As he said this, I could see the silvery metal was slowly drawing up and around it, coating the surface and filling out its form.  It was beginning to look like a blade.  “Yes, you can see it now, it is finally achieving its desired form.”

 

“It still lives?”  I was a bit amazed at the behavior of the metals.

 

“Only in the most rudimentary form.  It has no mind, if that is what you are asking.  It can still receive your will, but it does not have any of its own.”

 

“You mentioned this was to be a blade.  Of what sort did you make it?”

 

“I didn’t.  I simply gave it the semblance of a blade and am letting it progress as it will.”

 

“You don’t choose the form these things take?”

 

“Not this one.  I can push it in directions, but something as complicated as this chooses its own form.  The last one of these I made became a flanged mace-head.”  He turned the weapon over on the molten mithril.  “So, mad Shadrim, I asked you this before.  Who are you?”

 

“I remain Azrael Ille Macreane, as I was before.”

 

“Yet you are more than that.  Any best can have a name, but who are you?”

 

“I don’t understand the question, I’m afraid.”  It frustrated me to not know a second meaning to this simplest of questions.

 

“We spoke of my madness earlier.  Allow me to tell you more.”  He flipped the blade over again.

 

“When I took this form, I found I was gifted – or cursed, if you will – with the ability to see intent.  Many people say things, and do others.  Some even live their entire lives with the idea that they will accomplish a goal, yet deep in their hearts is hidden the fact that they simply will not do what they think they will.  Whether they intend it this way as active deception or whether they follow this path in denial of their nature, I see it.”  He swirled his finger in the molten mithril, wincing and withdrawing it after a few moments.

 

We need to get out of here, Now, Voedle’s voice urged from somewhere inside.

 

Rithzalgor sucked on the burnt end of his finger.  “Because of this ability, I was most unwelcome in the every corner of the hells, from Avernus to Nessus.  I could see through every hidden purpose, I could sense every motive.  It is effortless.”

 

Get moving.  He’s going to snap.  RUN. His voice was almost shrill.

 

“Eventually I became too inconvenient, and He sentenced me to serve here, where I could be rendered harmless.”  He looked over at me.  “No one comes to see me here, and I cannot therefore have any motivations revealed to me.”

 

Will you, for all the Nine Gates, MOVE?!?

 

I was transfixed by his stare.  “My nightmare, such as it was, had you in it.  Instead of completing your goal, you joined alongside Him, and as his first task for you, he sent you to punish me.”

 

My chest began to feel tight, and I could feel my arms twitching, seemingly of their own accord.

 

“So I ask you, who are you?”

 

My feet began to vibrate in my boots.  MOVE.  Don’t make me do something rash, Voedle’s voice began to sound ominous, threatening.

 

“I am Azrael Ille Macreane.”  I said evenly.

 

“Mad Azrael, you must choose…”  As he spoke, Rithzalgor’s voice began to grow distant and my vision greyed out.  The last I heard was: “…to survive.”

 

I found myself back in the mansion.  In the library, where a fire was going in the fireplace, and the chairs positioned themselves longingly for someone to rest in them.  Voedle was there, beside one, clutching firmly to the back of one of them, as if afraid to let go.

 

I was hoping I would not have to do this, he said.

 

“Do what?”  I asked, warily.

 

Direct things.  But that damned Smith has forced me.  I cannot let you leave. He drew from behind him a set of crystal shackles, at least two inches thick, chained together with some kind of thick cable.  I cannot let him further influence you.

 

“I believe that isn’t your choice to make.  Now, end this.”

 

Or what?  We’re in this together, Azrael.  I’m just pointing out that I have the upper hand, and while I am content to remain courteous, I am not so content to let you jeopardize us. He approached, still holding the shackles.

 

“You will not put those on me,” I said flatly.

 

He looked down at them.  They are merely a precaution, Azrael.  I have to get us away from him, and I cannot have you interfere.  We cannot let him further threaten us.

 

“Threaten us?  He’s made no motion or threat to me, other than to take the two things.”

 

That was a test, to see your resistance to his aggression against you.

 

“He is an infernal, a Lord of the Pit.  I could at best escape him, and possibly injure him.  If I know this, surely he must have done the balances by now and knows it better than I do.”  I stepped to the cart and poured myself a glass of wine while keeping an eye on Voedle.  “He could have killed us the first moment he found me looking among his things.”

 

He could also be playing with you.  Loneliness can make you willing to treat even your worst enemies as friends.

“And what is happening out there right now?  He could be ripping limbs from sockets as we debate this issue.”  I raised the glass and sipped.

 

Won’t happen.  You and I are having this conversation in a time that is nearly instantaneous. He moved slightly closer.  We must escape him, and we must go now.

 

“I think I want to know what your plan is, Voedle.  Obviously the Smith sees something that he disagrees with.  And you haven’t shared with me what your hopes for the future are.  Better start talking, because we’re not leaving this room until we come to an understanding.”  I gestured to the chairs with my glass.

 

I had hoped we could avoid having this talk for a while, but since you seem determined, we might as well do.

 

And he charged me.  He’d dropped the shackles, which vanished when they left his hands, and his hands had grown to double their former size, sprouting wicked claws.  He swiped at me with both, and I was able to barely dodge the first.  Not so lucky with the second, which rang my bell pretty hard.  Lights swam for a second in my vision before I stumbled upright, still clutching a half-full wine glass.

 

I swiveled and ducked away without looking, passing under his follow-up and extending my foot to trip his feet out from under him.  He hit the floor with a grunt and began to rise.

 

“Okay, if this is how we play it out, then so be it,” I said, throwing the glass and its contents at him.  I braced and readied myself for him, arms out and low.

 

He rose quickly and turned to look at me, face distorted from its normal shape, spikes extruding from every possible angle of bone beneath.  I don’t want you dead, Shadrim, I only want you incapacitated.

 

“Why is that?”  We circled around a chair, slowly.  I watched his feet, which had also grown in size.

 

I still need you to run most of this body.  I only have the small amount you took up – enough to contain me, and to channel our power, but I cannot keep your heart beating or make your feet dance when I need them to. He swiped the chair aside, and it flew across the room to shatter on the wall.  For a moment I lamented its loss, till I remembered I could probably dream a new one.

 

As he did this, I sent a spray of witch-fire at him, striking him full in the face.  I sent a minute prayer to the Black Queen when I did this, “Please, please don’t let me set my own brain on fire.”  He winced a little, and as I expected the fire did little harm, but the play of smoke and flames confounded his vision.  While he waved futilely at the distraction, I leaped and aimed a braced foot at his right knee.  The satisfying crunch told me I’d caused real harm, and the scream he let out confirmed it.

 

While he staggered down to the floor on one knee, I grabbed a full, heavy crockery bottle of whiskey from the cart and whirled with it over my head.  I hefted it like a rock and came down with all my force at Voedle’s skull.

 

This, I thought, was a great move – except he apparently thought so too.  At the last moment his head slipped to one side, and his hand appeared in exactly the place to catch my wrist.  That hand squeezed – hard.  Pain exploded in my head, shrieking rivers of soaking agony chasing up my neck and into my skull from my wrist.  I remember distinctly hearing the grinding pop of every bone being crushed in sequence as he first squeezed it limp and bent it backwards.  Splintered fragments of my wrist punched through the skin, welling up red in a myriad of wounds that melded into a magnificent and horrible compound fracture.

 

He released my arm, whereupon I sank to my knees, moaning.

 

Your death, as I said, is unnecessary and undesirable. He rose up to his full height, knee apparently uninjured.  Your pain, however, might be entertaining.

 

He swung down, backhanding me across the jaw, and sending me sprawling.  Fresh shoots of furious torment rocketed up my arm, and new abrasions made their presence known on my face.

 

Did you think I would sit idly by, mortal, watching you run this show while I stood by?  Me?  A bystander?  Hardly. He raised the remaining chair above his head – he was fully eight feet tall now, spikes all over, a heavy tail balancing his weight behind him – and flung it down on me.  I felt ribs shatter.  I couldn’t speak, and breathing was a completely new torture.  I not only gain some measure of revenge against your people, but against the very family I spent so many years suffering.

I found irony in his use of the word ‘suffering’ at that moment.

 

I can empathize with the Ruby Lord, his revenge is artful.  And nothing says admiration better than emulation, wouldn’t you say, Azrael? He reached down and lifted me by the front of my jacket.  My feet dangled helplessly.

 

Between bloody inhalations I managed to mutter wetly, “Oh, I totally agree.”

 

Yes, despite your moments of recklessness, you aren’t stupid.  And you have an appreciation for the finer things. He shook me like a doll and threw me against the wall, and much like the chair I fell in a broken heap.

 

You see, no matter what I do to you here, you won’t die.  Unless I do something to you out there, he waved his hand in a gesture that meant somewhere outside of this mansion, you’ll survive.  Your mind might be destroyed, but that makes controlling your physical self much easier.  I had hoped you would have given me more time to learn your habits, emulate you better, so that I might join your companions, this group ‘Fellbane’.  No matter, they trust you so little from what you’ve said, I could probably start speaking in goblin and it would make no difference.  I’ll bring each of their heads to the Ruby Lord himself – I have no doubt he’ll reward me for that.  And then what fun we’ll have.  Imagine!  You and I, forever, I’ll beat you until the end of time.

They didn’t deserve that, I thought.

 

Now, Voedle said as he walked slowly towards me, let’s see about some restraints.

 

I was dragged bodily off the floor and spread-eagled against the wall.  I could feel the splinters of my wrist that protruded from the back catching against the wood – it was an effervescent pain, brilliant champagne bubbles drifting to the surface to join their fellows bursting on the meniscus like a hissing symphony of woe.

 

I came to a stop, and crystal shackles extruded from the wall to clasp around my arms and legs above the knees and elbows, and around my neck.  I was transfixed, bleeding and broken, in my own mansion.

 

Did you think I was just loitering around, enjoying the wine?  I was learning how your dream-world’s physics work, Azrael.  It’s fascinating, playing in another man’s mind.  Learning to master the tricks of it.  I have to give you credit, Az, your dreams have a vivid quality mine never did.  Your attention to detail is positively superb.  Those bindings, by the way – those are mine.  They’re the same as the ones I was originally bound with when I was taken from being man to being as I am today.

I lay against the wall, my weight supported by the shackles, clawing breath into my lungs.  The flickering firelight made it look as though my library was burning.  Through the haze of blood clouding my vision, it could very well have been.  In the ceiling, skylights shone the dark of night through crystal-clear panes.  My vision cleared, and I saw a break in the clouds above, crystal points of light shone through.  The stars gazed down as the rip in the clouds widened and passed them by.

 

The tear in the clouds continued to move, and behind it was revealed a bright, full moon.  Its cool light splashed across me, like a bath of cold water.  I felt my wounds ease, my breathing smoothed out.  Deep down, I felt more than heard a thought.  It was all sharp edges and deceptively soft pillows of ice.

 

I was in a dream, one of my own making. But I never made those skylights.

Yes, it’s most telling, to investigate a man’s dreams. One learns a great deal, though piecing the threads together cannot be done without knowing the mind that collects them.  I can tell a great deal, much as knowing the materials that make up a tapestry can tell you much of its quality, but little of the story worked into its weave.  Being with you these weeks, it gives me insight to you I would not have otherwise been able to take up.

 

As he said this, he stripped away the ragged clothing which had ripped to shreds when his body grew.  The funny thing was, that in spite of the pain I could hear him and comprehend perfectly.  My ears still were ringing from the solid blow he’d delivered to me when he flung me against the wall.  The bindings holding me were tight – constricting, but not damaging.

 

Yet I was in a dream.  This was no room, there were no books, there were no shackles.  This was a contest of wills, augmented by imagination.

 

And in dreams, no weapon is more powerful than nightmare.

 

Now I recognized what I was seeing.  The moon faded behind the scudding clouds, its gentle light slipping away into darkness.  With it, the heat of my injuries returned.

 

“I learned from the best,” I said.  It came out as a gurgle, and blood dribbled down my chin.

 

He looked up from pulling his belt off and dropping it to the floor.  What’s that?

 

I mumbled something, I’m not sure what.  He approached more closely.  Did you say something?

 

“I learned…from…” I took a shuddering breath.  “the best.”  As I spoke the words, in my mind I traced paths of insane dimensional logic, preparing a channel.  While Voedle was looking up at me, he didn’t notice the floor around his feet develop a lovely inlaid silver circle, etched with runes.  I steeled myself for what was coming.

 

And who would that have been? Voedle grinned up at me, a predator’s mouth full of teeth, jagged and sharp.

 

“Easier…” another breath, “…to just show you.”

 

And with that I tore open a rift to Taer Lian Doresh.

 

I open rifts like this all the time in the world.  I port through them to cross short distances without moving, I shunt enemies there for moments to give me a chance to remove myself from a crowd, and even at times open a fountain of nightmares to unfold upon a battlefield much as I did with Kurrian’s group.

 

I’ve never done it in my own dream before.  I certainly had no idea what the impact would be on me directly, though I suspected it would be controllable.  I sank my cursing grip into Voedle’s spirit and forged a link between what I perceived as his mind and the realm of my Fey patron, the Lord of Nightmares.  I felt the flood of unformed horror wash through the link, like a tidal rush of water.  I smelled them as they raced past me.  I even think I heard one giggle madly as it rushed towards its victim.

 

I then rift-ported to the archway next to the drink cart, where I collapsed to my knees.

 

I heard Voedle scream – a deep, yodeling affair – while I turned quickly.  Blood smeared the floor where my knee twisted on it.  Voedle was clawing at the flesh of his face, pulling chunks of it off and leaving deep gashed wounds.  I’d apparently done right, for he screamed fitfully over and over again.  When he saw me, I found the terror in his eyes reassuring.  He charged straight at me.

 

And ran face-first into the binding circle I’d laid down on the floor.  I saw his face compress as though running into a wall of crystal, and he rebounded onto his back.

 

I widened the rift a bit, opening it up beyond just his personal space, whereupon it began to suck new terrors from the Realm of Nightmare into my library.  They scoured his form, flaying skin from muscle, muscle from bone.  He flung himself about wildly, thrashing on the floor while the flood of nightmares scourged his dream-flesh and his mind alike.

 

I staggered to my feet, concentrating to maintain the fountaining rift while watching carefully the things that entered the room.  I wanted to make sure they dissipated and faded, as they did in the world outside my mind.  Most did, but several clung to the walls, digging a hold into the books and holding there.  The ones with eyes watched Voedle and I, while others waved antennae or simply crawled blindly along the surface they had come into contact with.

 

After a while, I let the rift settle closed, and had spent a moment repairing my wounds.  He lay there, twitching slightly, flesh stripped away from his skeleton in great swaths.  I swiftly walked up to Voedle’s form, manifesting a sword in my hand.  It was my old blade from the Cairn Jale, an artistically-curved scimitar.  I came down from overhead with it, hard, headsman-style, and sliced clean through his neck.

 

A fountain of banana-yellow scum burst from the severed pipes, like soured pudding.  His head rolled a short distance, coming to rest on its side.  The eyes popped open as his head rolled clear.  Please, Azrael, I want to live. His mouth worked silently, gaping like a fish pulled from the water.

 

“I gave you that option when you first joined me.  You chose not to accept it.”

 

What will you do now?

 

I stepped free from the circle, leaving his body trapped inside. I carried the head by one of its horns, and set it upon the floor, upright.  It left an ugly smear of yellow to one side.  “I can’t trust you to remain with me any longer.  I see now why the first of those to visit the pool dashed his own brains against a stone.”

 

Did he?  I had heard that his arm strangled him.

 

“He was a cousin.  We blamed it on the hand rather than allow the shame of suicide to taint the family.”

 

Something new every day.  Please keep me safe, Azrael.

 

“I would love to say yes to that, but events as they just transpired will not allow such a future.”

 

You cannot destroy me, we are one. His argument was true – but he did not take into account that we were in my dream, my mind.

 

“No, you’re right, I can’t simply kill you.”  I thought it over for a moment.

 

I glanced over to where his body lay, seeing it slowly repairing.  There was only one option that I could see here.  I walked over to the edge of the circle, focusing my will on the space and the body within.

 

What are you doing? A hint of panic tinged his voice.

 

At a thought, flames leaped into existence on the floor, bright blue and white, forming a cyclonic ring of devastation within the circle.  The body resisted the heat for a short while, then ignited, burning brightly.  Pieces broke off, whipping into the air as they quickly converted to ash.  Voedle shrieked like a wild thing as the flames ate his body.

 

“I cannot destroy you, but I can subsume you, Voedle.”  I focused hard, forcing the tempest of flames to thoroughly immolate the body.  The skeleton took the longest, first etching in the fire, then crumbling to pieces which were all thrown about in the tornadic storm of heat.  I held my arms out, cradling the boundary of the circle, slowly shrinking it and compressing its circumference.  The silver circle in the floor bent to my will, tightening as I willed it.

 

When the body was only so much ash and smoke, swirling about in the wind, I cut the flames and stepped into the circle.

 

“First, your strength.”

 

I inhaled him.  In one long breath, I took the remnants of the body into my lungs.  It was not an unpleasant feeling, rather like walking through the smoke of a cooking-fire.  I felt power course through my veins, washing through me like a draught of hot wine on a frozen winter day.  The moment seemed longer, somehow, than it should have.  When I was done, I stood in the empty circle and willed it away.

 

I turned back, feeling a thrumming of power through me, and faced what was left of him.  Voedle’s eyes darted this way and that, variously between me and the vestigial nightmares still clinging to the library.

 

Please, I don’t want to go.  Don’t make me go, Azrael.  I am so sorry, I didn’t know…

 

“You won’t die, Voedle,” I said.  “You won’t ever be conscious again, but you won’t die.”  I looked at the nightmares in the room.  “I am sorry too – I always liked you, warmaster.  But I can’t grant you any sort of freedom.”

 

As I said this, I willed a crystal bucket to appear on the drink cart.  I gently lifted the head and placed it inside the bucket.  I felt him trying to resist me, but this was my mind, my dream – and this was my victory.  I imposed my choice of image on him, and beat down his resistance with the implacability of a glacier.

 

Please, no…

 

I liquefied him.  The head in the bucket melted, slowly at first, accelerating as the transformation neared completion.  In the end, the bucket contained a dark red wine, whose depth of color seemed to go on forever, layer after iridescent layer.

 

The bucket transformed into a wide-globed glass atop a thin crystal stem, half-full of the remnants of the infernal soul.

 

“Now, your spirit,” as I said this, I could feel his lamentations and fear.  “Don’t fear, Voedle.  I will always remember you.”

 

I drank down the wine, and consumed the rest of his soul.  I felt his past, knew his stories, filed them all away.  He became a part of me, and slowly faded behind my self.

 

I sighed heavily, and set the glass down on the cart, wiping the last of the fluid from its rim with my thumb and licking it away.  I walked to the fireplace, willing my wounds to re-knit, and leaned against the mantle.  I then turned, observing the half-dozen malformed spirits who were present.

 

“Each of you is welcome here, and if you are not beholden to your master, I offer you terms of service.  You may remain here under my law, and reside here for the duration of your existence, so long as you obey my commands.  I may require you, from time to time, to perform a service for me.”  I walked to the door.  “If you have other obligations that would prevent such service, or you find these terms unsatisfactory, you are to return to Taer Dian Loresh by dawn of this coming morning.”

 

I walked out of the room, and back into the Smith’s construction laboratory.  The transition shocked me slightly, and I stumbled into the table before me.  A sharp poker stuck me painfully in the chest.

 

He was there, leaning against the fourth cauldron, looking at me.  “I see before me only one, now.  I take it you have chosen between you which of you is to survive?”

 

I contemplated this.  “How long was I…preoccupied?”  I took the chance I had and leaned heavily against the table.

 

 

“A few minutes.  You mumbled quite a bit.  Are you prepared to answer my question now?”

 

I thought it over.  “I am the instrument of my own destiny.”

 

He considered this.  “You are singular in your intention, which is good.  My nightmare seems distant, now.  This makes me glad.  Have you chosen this destiny of yours?”

 

I nodded.  “I must end this cycle, or perish in the attempt.”

 

He looked down into the cauldron.  “The mithril coating is done, and this is a crystalline bath.  It will smooth the rougher edges,  fill in gaps, and will form channels along the blade.”  He pulled the weapon out of the cauldron, where it glimmered in the light as though covered with ice crystals.  “Most of these will sunder in the next, which is the adamantium you brought me.”

 

He slowly pushed the weapon into the fifth vat’s fluids.  It made sharp, long, cracking noises.

 

“This will provide you the sharp edge, and strength along the length.  The bone beneath is for flexibility, the mitrhil for a strong spine, but this will make and keep an edge forever.”  As he stirred the great pot with the blade, the surface collected the black metal in small patches, which eventually grew to cover the entire surface.  They shone dully with a faint indigo tint as he raised it from the vat.

 

“You do things very differently here than from what I would normally consider forging,” I said.  “I am accustomed to thinking of it as a process of beating and folding with hammers, tongs, that sort of thing.  This is…this is almost like making candles.”

 

“It is, in many ways the same.  I do not beat the metal down, that breaks a valuable part of its spirit.  Instead, I coax it into the places I want it to be, give it the chance to choose a form that I prefer for it.  In this way, the weapon created wants to be what I make, rather than be forced into it.  Much like training a good soldier, you will have greater results with a volunteer than someone forcibly recruited.”  He looked about the room.

 

“It seems almost a shame that I should make this for you.”  He looked at me, grim determination on his face.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You are almost guaranteed to fail, and it will likely be lost to time.” He held it before him, and the hard intent faded into something softer, something morose.

 

I thought about it for a moment.  “I do not intend to fail,” I said.

 

“And He has no intention of abdicating.  Remember, I do this for you not out of generosity, but out of spite.  It is one of the few things I have left.”  He took the blade to the final vat and began muttering a repetitious chant of five words, in some arcane language I could not make out.  If I had heard him clearly, I’m sure that my stone would have translated for me, but I must hear the words in order to understand them.

 

The blade itself began to shine, slowly glowing beneath its black surface.  It passed up the spectrum from a deep red to brilliant white, shining birght as a star in response to his enchantment.  When it practically lit the room, he sank it into the final vat.  The liquid in it practically exploded, the reaction was so violent.  Vapor shot up out of the vat around the great Smith, obscuring him from view for a moment.  I could hear him over the sound of the hissing stuff, shouting his cadence.

 

A few minutes passed while the steam surged occasionally, but eventually it lessened and finally stopped.  Rithzalgor turned to face me.  “Now we just need a wrapping and a grip.”

 

We walked upstairs, where we went to a different worktable.  He tried several different fittings before choosing a slit ivory handle, and through its apertures he wound a length of leather strap reinforced with twined wire.  He fastened a tang nut that had a grasping dragon-claw motif on it, the individual talons wrapped around a deep grey crystal.  With another muttered spell, the grip and tang sparked and fused together.  He then passed it over his rolling mill, to give it an edge or test for one, I couldn’t tell – he spent so little time at it, I couldn’t imagine it had a great effect.

 

“Azrael, you must do one more thing for me before I will grant you this.”  He stood and faced me.

 

“What would that be?”  Exhaustion was beginning to set in.  The fight with Voedle had taken a lot out of me, and I wasn’t sure I was hearing him right.

 

“If you are successful in your chosen path, free me.”

 

Knowing what I did of his bindings, I suspected them to be eternal.  His fate was chosen for him, and I don’t think even a god could undo what had been done.  I sagged against the table, hoping this wasn’t going to be a deal-breaker.

 

“Rithzalgor, if I say yes to that request, you will know me to be lying, because you can see my intent as clearly as your own.  Know that if it is ever within my power or the power of those I can convince to do so, I will do my utmost to see you freed from your fate, but I cannot simply affirm your request.”

 

He remained impassive.  “Give me your hand,” he said.  I thought I knew what he was about to do, but reached out to him anyway.  He grasped my arm, and used the new blade to cut my forearm open.  Not a deep gash, but it bled a good deal – and continued to do so after, forcing me to wrap it right away.  I swore an oath under my breath while I wound a strip of bandage around my arm.

 

“Now,” he said, smearing my blood – laced with little rivulets of bronze, I could see – over the blade.  “Swear that on your blood, and on the blade before you.”  He held it out to me.

 

I gripped the blade and looked him in the eye.  “I do so swear, Rithzalgor.”

 

He nodded.  “It is done then.  Every blade should taste the blood of its bearer, that it knows its ally and does not give in to curiosity during a battle.  This, is Dreaming Fire.” He released his grip, and I was left holding the sword by its blade.  I carefully changed my grip to the hilt, testing the balance and heft.

 

I’d like to say it was beautiful, but that would not be honest – it was functional, and wickedly sharp.  I suppose there is a level of beauty in that.  The blade was scalloped on its back half, forming a slightly jagged surface, while the fore curved smoothly upwards.  Its dark surface glittered indigo, and when I looked closely I could see lines of bronze meandering about on its surface, like drifting cobwebs caught in a soft breeze.  It was very warm to the touch, and as I held it I could sense it resonated with the flames of the Hellforge.  Small wisps of vapor traced down from the blade to the floor, evaporating before they touched it.  Enemies cut by this would burn as well as bleed.

 

“I did not tell you how I was given my nightmare, Azrael,” Rithzalgor said.  “It was your patron who gave it to me.  He delivered the idea of this to me, in the same nightmare that warned me of your duality.”

 

I hesitated before asking about such a nightmare.  “What would you have done if I had lost, if the infernal spirit had come to dominance?”

 

“I’d have killed you.  I could not afford to let you live if you weren’t going to try to help me.”  He set his tools back straight.  “In addition to heat, Shan Doresh also asked me to link a portion of this weapon to his realm.  It will serve you as a conduit for your own spells, and rather than ignite your enemies, it can rip their minds.”

 

Useful to know.  I looked back at the blade, and focused on it.  I could feel the dual nature of it now.  I thought of flames, and the gray gem slowly turned to a deep blood-red, and the edge gleamed with heat.  I extinguished the flames and imagined the deep mood of fear inherent in nightmare, and the gem turned white as snow.  The heat faded, and in its place was a vibration I almost heard, rather than felt or saw.  I grinned now, satisfied.

 

“Your reputation does not describe your talents well enough, master Smith.  You have my gratitude as well as my pledge,” I hefted the weapon, gave it a few practice swings and thrusts.  It was heavy, but not oppressively so.  The balance point was about fifteen inches ahead of my hand, leaving the curved portion of the blade to carry most of the weight during a swing.  One would term it a scimitar, though it approached the character of a longsword.  In form it was very similar to the traditional weapons of the Cairn Jale, and I felt comfortable with it almost immediately. I took up a small bar of iron from a scraps-table and ran it gently along the edge of the blade – and was rewarded with seeing Dreaming Fire ease its way through the metal with only a heavy stickiness for resistance.

 

Definitely was going to have to keep the fingers and toes clear of this one.

 

Rithzalgor hunted about in a bin for a few moments, and withdrew a sheath of leather.  “Try this, it should fit until you can have one tailored.”  It was a little loose, but it did fit the blade just fine.  I realized as I released the grip that tiny tendrils of bronze linked me to it, like strands of wet glue that broke and retracted between my hand and the sword.

 

The Smith observed this.  “I was wondering if that would happen,” he said.  “The metal in the blade and the metal in your blood have a sympathetic bond.  I don’t know exactly what that will do, but it should be interesting.”  He scratched his chin as he said the words.

 

“Now, Mad Azrael, I wish to be alone.  Pass my regards to Himself when you two finally meet.”  He walked me back to the stairs, where the barrel of whiskey waited.  It had returned to its full size while I had been here, and he picked it up with no more effort than I would have a loaf of bread.  “And remember your promise to me, Shadrim.”

 

I bowed to him.  “I shall indeed, master Smith.  Again, my thanks.”  I didn’t want to give him reason to change his mind, and so took my leave – rapidly.

 

I walked out of the Forge to find the sky showing a brilliant orange, sunset coming on.

 

Already knowing the way, I climbed the ridge again, quickly – even so armed, I didn’t want to get caught after nightfall in this ruined city.  I reached the top of the ridge and turned to gaze back down into the dark crater, to see sunset fall on Vor Kragal.

 

The crater had already developed an evening mist, some distance down from its edge, and few buildings protruded from it.  The Charspire still extended defiantly into the light of the setting sun, gleaming wetly like a dagger recently extracted from a mortal wound.

 

I imagined eyes looking back at me from that edifice, that refuge.  It did not inspire me with the greatest of security.

 

I walked back to the campsite amidst the gathering darkness.

 

*             *             *

 

I came in from the night-side, so either my shadow melted in with the others, or someone was being particularly unobservant.  I was practically on top of them when Kineta first spotted me.

 

“Azrael!” She cried out, and raced towards me.  A great fur-covered arm caught her across her midsection, while Lotonna interposed himself between us.  He held up his axe, ready for a fight.  I noticed Horace had his bow out, nocked but pointed down, and Nemmy had his crossbow ready as well.

 

I raised my hands unthreateningly.

 

“Password?”  Lotonna said in a deep growl.

 

“Huh?”  My usually sharp wit failed to provide me with a proper retort.

 

“What was the name of the third king of Elden?”  Nemmy called out.

 

“Err, what? What in the hells are you all at?”  I dropped my hands.

 

“What did you come back with?”  Kineta asked.

 

I patted Dreaming Fire beside me.  “This,” I replied hesitantly.

 

“It’s him, Lot, I swear it’s him,” she said from behind the menacing minotaur.

 

He eased down a bit.  “Approach, Shadrim,” he intoned.

 

“Would one of you mind telling me what’s going on?”  I requested, walking up to Kineta.

 

She hugged me, hard.  “We’ve had a hard night and day.  Shapeshifters, some kind of undead, the first one pretended to be you.  They almost had us, but Lotonna killed one and we all drove the others off.”

 

“Had you given us ‘cream cheese’ we’d have killed you.”  Horace said.  “We made a password, but we knew you weren’t around for that and wouldn’t know it.  They have some way of reading minds, they would pick it up and give it back to us.”

 

“I understand now; glad I wasn’t in the mood for toast.”

 

Nemmy giggled at that one.  “That the big bad weapon you had made?  Doesn’t look nearly as huge as I was expecting,” he looked at me sideways.

 

I nodded.  “This is Dreaming Fire, the latest of the Smith’s creations.”  I drew it out and offered it to him.

 

He reached for it, and drew his hand back quickly.  “It’s hot,” he muttered.  I checked the hilt – the gem was neutral gray.  Touching the blade, it felt normal, cool.  I raised my eyebrows.  “Looks neat, though,” he said.

 

Lotonna motioned to see the weapon.  “It looks like it was carved from stone,” he pushed the back of his hand against the flat of the blade.  “It is uncomfortably warm, but not unusable.  May I?”  I presented the hilt to him, and he took it up, feeling the weight.

 

“Very nice,it almost feels…ow!” He grabbed it by the blade with his other hand and drew away the one holding it.  I saw the strands of bronze retreating from his palm and back into the grip of the sword.  He handed it back to me quickly, licking blood from his hand.  “Fascinating,” he said.  “It seems attuned to you, somehow.”

 

I thought about it for a moment.  This would be useful information, to keep it out of the wrong hand, so to speak.  Then it occurred to me – all hands except one other, that was.  Kaenig had an arm of bronze by all accounts.  I would have bet real money that he would have no issues handling this sword.

 

Good reason to make sure that I either kept it from him, or gave him only the business end.

 

Horace held his hands up in denial.  “No thanks, man.  I trust you, it’s a cool sword.”

 

“How many of these shapeshifters were there?” I asked.

 

Kineta walked me over to the camp. “Three or four, it was hard to tell when we started fighting.  They showed up about two hours after we came back.  You’ve been gone maybe four or five hours now.”

 

“Well, we could travel at night, and head back to the Overspill, if you’d rather,” I offered.  “The desert isn’t particularly safe, though.  Would be better if you can see where you step.”

 

“Yeah, not so sure I want to trade one threat for another.  We fought off the things once, hopefully they won’t be back for more.” Horace had replaced his arrow and was unstringing his bow.

 

Lotonna and Nemmy looked at each other and exchanged a few shrugs.  “Alright, we stay here overnight.  That will give us time to determine what we wish to do, now, anyway.”  The minotaur shouldered his axe and replaced it by his bedroll.

 

I sat down by the fire.  “First order of business, let’s have some food.  I’m starving.”

 

We had a mixed-bag dinner of dried meats and fruits, washed down with water and a reasonable wine – which is about as good as it gets when you travel, since whatever you take with you generally comes out of a skin instead of a glass bottle.  I told them about Rithzalgor, and my agreement to try to free him.

 

We didn’t discuss Voedle at all.

 

“I’d like to try to re-establish contact with Fellbane sometime soon,” I brought up.  “We still have business in dealing with Hesrith Andelyn and the Morvreyans.”

 

“Not so sure I want to get mixed up in that mess,” Horace said.  “No offense, but they don’t know me, and from the sound of it I’d rather it stayed that way.”

 

Nemmy nodded quickly at this idea.

 

Lotonna remained impassive, as did Kineta.  The eyes of the great ox-headed creature narrowed a little.  “I don’t like to back away from a fight, but this might not be ours.”

 

I nodded.  “It will be everyone’s fight soon enough.  You’ve heard me describe the sides – demons on the one, infernals on the other.  If either wins, the end result isn’t pretty.  We could use your help, I think, if we’re going to put both by the wayside.”

 

I opened my hands.  “I can’t, and I won’t, force anyone to choose.  But someone will, eventually.  This situation has all happened before, and it will all happen again.  If you choose to participate, seek out Addaweyr of the Night in or around Banner.”

 

“You say that like we won’t be with you,” Kineta said.

 

“I might not be.  On the other hand, maybe I will.  It all depends on where our paths take us.  I think once I find Fellbane again, that might take us on different roads.”  I looked closely at her.  “I’m not saying we’d never see each other again, but if I go on with them, it’s likely we take a different path. One you might not want to take.”

 

She didn’t react, just turned her face back to the fire.

 

“For now, though, what do we want to do?”  Nemmy showed a strangely diplomatic side, shifting the topic.

 

“What about the Witchlight Fens?  Wasn’t there some report of some strange temple rising up there?” Horace offered up.

 

I nodded.  “I’d heard that, a long while back, but I don’t have any details about it.  There’s also Hammerfast, that’s up in the mountains – should be plenty of interesting things around there.  Maybe even a dragon or two.”

 

“Dragons, that could be good, if it’s not a really big one,” Nemmy blurted.

 

Lotonna stirred the fire with a long stick.  “I could be happy trying that place out.”

 

Kineta just shrugged.

 

Horace stood up and stretched.  “Hammerfast it is,” he said.  “I always wanted to see a dwarven city.”

 

Later that night, Kineta and I had a chance to chat privately by the fire.  Our watches coincided, hers ending while mine had just begun.

 

“Az, I’m really angry,” she began.  My immediate reaction was to get fired up as well, but I set it aside for the time being.  “You sound like what you’re saying is that none of us are welcome to come along when you rejoin Fellbane.”

 

“That’s not it at all, Kineta.  I don’t want to speak for you, is all.  I also can’t speak for them.  Who knows, maybe one of them will get a bug up his ass about traveling with a minotaur.  I mean, that’s not likely, but introducing five or six people to four more, someone’s bound to rub someone else the wrong way.”

 

“So if I wanted to come along, you’d be alright with that?”  She looked me in the eye.

 

“For the most part, yes.”  I shrugged.

 

“What do you mean, ‘for the most part’?  What’s that?”  She frowned deeply.

 

“I…I don’t like to see you in danger.  When you came down to the Forge with me today, I couldn’t help but worry.  I thought…”

 

“No, you didn’t think, Az.  I’m a grown woman, I can take care of myself, thanks.  I don’t need your protection.”  She stood up and slammed her fists against her hips.

 

Of course, read an attack where there isn’t one.  Why do people do this?  “That is NOT what I said.  I said I worried.  Before you cut me off, I was going to say I didn’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.  I really care about you, and I don’t want that to happen.”

 

She stopped and drew up short.  I stood up to face her.  “How am I supposed to feel, Kineta?  It’s dangerous to hang around me.  It’s going to be for some time to come. I want you to be there when all this is said and done, and coming along is a pretty good way to bump up the odds that that won’t happen.  I don’t know what to do here.”

 

She stayed silent for a long while.  “I need to think about this,” was all she said.  She walked over to her spot, then laid down to get some sleep.  Whether she was successful or not, I couldn’t tell – and I didn’t want to disturb her in either case.