The Gates of Thelgrim Read online

  “The hand,” Slevchek exclaimed, gesturing furiously. “The hand is fake!”

  Raythen made a show of sighing heavily.

  “We’ve been over this,” he said, making sure he was speaking loudly enough to be overheard by the rest of the taproom. “Yes, the hand is fake. No, I’ve not stuffed cards or coins in it. Look.”

  He grasped the wooden prop with his other hand and unbuckled it, removing it from the sleeve of his green cloak.

  “Solid fairoak,” he said, tossing it across the table. “Inspect it for yourself. Again.”

  Slevchek snatched the carved object and squinted at it, blinking rapidly as he tried to focus through his inebriation. He let out a grunt of frustration and tossed it to the accomplice on his right, who turned it over in his own hands, searching for some sign of duplicity.

  “If you’re quite done, I’d appreciate it back,” Raythen said, holding his good hand out. “Perhaps we can also stop insulting and harassing an old dwarf and get back to the game? Unless you manlings would rather call it a night?”

  “I want my money back,” Slevchek barked, hitting the table again as his friend reluctantly passed Raythen his replacement limb.

  “You can win it back,” the dwarf said brightly, refastening the hand. “What do you say to one more round? All or nothing?”

  “Liar,” Slevchek bellowed, attempting to rise from his seat but falling back into it instead. He fumbled at his belt and drew a long, lean bullock dagger, the candlelight winking from its slender blade. “Give me my money!”

  Raythen reached out with his good hand and snatched the front of Slevchek’s jerkin. Ignoring the knife, he hauled him forward so he was planted firmly against the table’s edge, knocking over a flagon of ale and scattering coins and cards as he did so.

  “I didn’t lie about the hand, you stupid manling,” he snarled. “It’s solid. But I do just happen to have a third one, and it’s currently pointing a loaded hand bow at your manhood, underneath the table. So, settle down, smile, and play one more round, and you won’t be spending the rest of the night trying to pluck a quarrel from the only treasure that really matters. Agreed?”

  Raythen fixed Slevchek’s eyes with his own, their faces inches apart, the stink of unwashed, intoxicated, idiot manling almost more than the dwarf could bear. He saw the slow, pained realization in Slevchek’s bleary gaze, giving way to the spark of outrage.

  “Choose your next words very wisely, my friend,” he urged. This was the decisive moment, the one he’d been expecting since he’d first offered the three merchants a game. Either Slevchek would accept what was happening and would be walking out of Skellig’s unharmed but with a lighter purse, or Raythen was about to be forced to make a hasty exit of his own with the money he’d made thus far. The ace up his sleeve – not quite literally, in this case – was the false hand he sometimes employed to confound opponents. An extra sleeve was sown into his heavy green cloak, concealing his real arm and hand while the focus of those across from him remained on his wooden prosthetic. His finger tightened fractionally on the hand bow he was grasping below the table.

  Play the odds right, and nine times out of ten you’d come out on top.

  “Raythen,” said a voice, shattering the moment.

  Still gripping the front of the merchant’s tunic, both Raythen and Slevchek look up, slowly. While the dwarf had been trying to get his point across, a hulking bear of a man had approached their table. He was clad in a fur-edged cloak, his head shaved, a huge, bristling moustache drooping down almost to his chest. He loomed over the table, looking pointedly at Raythen.

  “You’re late,” he rumbled.

  Raythen let go of the tunic abruptly, letting Slevchek slump back in his chair. With practiced speed, he began to unload and conceal the crossbow beneath the table, all the while smiling up at the big man.

  “You know, Cayfern, I was actually early. Couldn’t find you anywhere though, so I thought I’d entertain these fine fellows until I spotted you. I suppose I lost track of time. My apologies.”

  He finished with the hand bow as he spoke, slipping it into his rucksack. Cayfern grunted. He seemed oblivious to the attention much of the bar was giving him – the big human was practically a minor celebrity in parts such as these, a well-known face in the taverns and inns that crammed their way along Frostgate’s icy streets.

  “Well, if you still want a job beyond tavern pickpocketing, I suggest you come with me,” he said. “Now.”

  “Absolutely,” Raythen said, rising and offering a short bow to the merchants. “Duty calls I’m afraid.”

  Slevchek rose unsteadily to confront the interloper, and Raythen couldn’t help but smirk as he saw the man’s anger turn to dismay as he realized he barely came up to Cayfern’s chin.

  “I would sit down if I were you, Slevchek,” Cayfern said. “Enjoy the last of your ale and go home quietly to your wife.”

  He extended a hand to Slevchek’s shoulder as he spoke, patting it. Slevchek once more fell back into his chair.

  Avoiding making eye contact with anyone else, Raythen swept his winnings into his sack, slung it over his shoulder and followed Cayfern through the taproom into a small space through the back of the bar. It had once been a pantry, but its shelves were now empty and thick with dust, the only sign of its former use a few old sacks of meal still heaped in one corner. A single table and four chairs filled the cramped space, lit by a lonely, festering tallow candle. Cayfern sat across from the door, his chair creaking beneath his weight.

  Raythen hesitated before taking the seat opposite. They were not the only two in the room. A woman was already at the table, looking decidedly bored as she passed a small stone shard between her fingers. She was dressed in an embroidered golden coat that turned to long, flowing pleats below the waist, worn over a silken white shirt with flared sleeves. Her hair was long and dark, plaited down her back and held away from her forehead by a red and gold wrap. Bangles and charms decorated her wrists, and a carved bone staff was propped casually against the chair behind her, topped by a shard of blue tanzanite that seemed to shimmer like the ocean depths. Her face was lean and sharp, like a hawk’s. Raythen could practically feel the sorcery bleeding off her.

  “I didn’t know we’d have company,” he said.

  “Sit,” growled Cayfern.

  He obeyed. The woman slipped the shard she’d been toying with into the pocket of a bag strapped around her waist. Raythen looked at her directly.

  “Can I be the first to say what an honor it is to be in the presence of a runewitch?” he asked.

  “You know me?” she replied, her accent thick. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it.

  “Every adventurer worth employing has heard of the great Astarra, Greyhaven’s finest protegee,” Raythen said, smiling at her.

  “I dislike you already,” the sorceress said. Raythen laughed. Being disliked was hardly a break from the norm for him.

  “Astarra, this is Raythen, formerly of the Dunwarr city of Thelgrim,” Cayfern said. “He will be joining you on the expedition.”

  “Will he indeed?” Raythen asked, turning his attention back Cayfern. “That’s good to know. Last I heard, Raythen had only expressed mild interest in finding out why the great Cayfern had put out a call in the bars and taverns of Frostgate for Raythen to join him.”

  “I know you well enough, dwarf,” Cayfern said. “I know that when you start preying on fat, drunken merchants in Skellig’s, it means your coin pouch is empty. My employer is offering to change that. You’ll take the job.”

  “That all depends,” Raythen said.

  “The money is good.”

  “That’s a start, but I was rather wondering about the company.”

  “If you know of Astarra, you will know of her abilities,” Cayfern said, nodding briefly to the woman.

  “Exactly,” Raythen said.
“And I suspect those abilities probably don’t come cheap. So just what sort of task is dire enough to see your mystery employer paying out to hire a runewitch? And, more importantly, who else are we still waiting for?”

  “I was wondering that myself,” Astarra said.

  “Four chairs,” Raythen added, nodding to the last, unoccupied seat. The room had clearly been set up for the meeting, and he knew their host well enough to be certain he wouldn’t have accidentally set out extra spaces.

  Cayfern said nothing. He was a well-known facilitator in the northern Baronies, a go-to between the rogues, malcontents and bravados that populated places like the Free City of Frostgate, and those who wished to employ them anonymously for work across Terrinoth. Raythen had been contracted by him four times previously, though whether the person actually paying him had been the same one or a different client each time, he had no idea. What mattered was that Cayfern always paid up in full when the time came. He clearly chose his employers carefully, and in this sort of business, that counted for a lot.

  The facilitator didn’t answer Raythen’s question. Instead, he looked pointedly past him, towards the door. Raythen twisted in his chair as it opened.

  A tall figure stepped inside, forced to duck under the mantle. By the dirty light of the candle, his immediate appearance was nightmarish. He was achingly gaunt and pale, his skin seemingly stretched too tightly over a jagged skull. His ears came not to one point, but three, and his eyes were black as fresh pitch, sunken into his bony face. He was clad in raggedy, dark robes, and had manacles fastened around his wrists and throat. His only visible ornamentation was a large, strange-looking key hanging from his waist.

  Raythen reached for the axe under his cloak as Astarra surged to her feet. Only Cayfern didn’t react, and when he spoke it was without concern.

  “Welcome, Shiver.”

  “What in the name of Kellos’s holy flames is this?” Astarra demanded, lifting her staff. Her eyes had gone wide, and her knuckles white where she gripped the arcane conduit. The figure that had caused such a reaction – a deep elf, Raythen realized – looked at her without a hint of emotion, though he felt the temperature in the pantry plummet, as though a window had just been opened directly onto the icy streets outside. His breath started fogging in front of him.

  “This is the third member of the expedition,” Cayfern said, as though it was the most obvious thing in all of Mennara. “His name is Shiver. Like the rest of you, he was chosen specifically by my employer.”

  “He’s a dark sorcerer,” Astarra snapped, apparently sensing the interloper’s aura. “What are you, creature? A necromancer? A slave to the Ynfernael?”

  “You are Cayfern?” the elf asked the big man, ignoring Astarra. His voice was hoarse and scratchy, as though unaccustomed to use.

  Cayfern nodded. “That I am. My employer thanks you for answering his call.”

  “I do not know your employer,” Shiver said. “But I have seen you enough in my dreams to know this path is the one I am bound to tread.”

  He grasped the back of the last unoccupied chair and pulled it out with a long, slow scrape. Astarra was still on her feet. Her staff had started to glow a cold blue.

  Raythen cleared his throat and reached over to his false hand, beginning to unbuckle it.

  “I can do magic too,” he said pointedly, removing it and freeing his real hand, which he placed flat on the table next to the other. “See? If we’re going to have a sorcerous duel in a tiny closet, I should warn you both, I won’t hold back.”

  Cayfern laughed. Astarra looked from Shiver to Raythen, but the tension was broken. Slowly, the light of her staff started to fade. Raythen noted that he could no longer see his breath either.

  “Aren’t you going to chastise the elf for being late?” he asked Cayfern. The manling ignored him, though Shiver turned his black gaze on him.

  “I was waylaid several times,” he rasped. “Waking visions.”

  “Oh, well that’s alright then,” Raythen said. “Perhaps Cayfern can get on with telling us why we’re here, and I can get on with rejecting his offer of a job with either of you two.”

  Cayfern looked pointedly at Astarra. She sat, though she kept her staff in one hand.

  “I don’t work with dark sorcerers,” she said, looking hard at Shiver. “I have learned enough over the years to know that death stalks all those who do. No good will come of it.”

  “Shiver is not a dark sorcerer,” Cayfern said. “My employer does not pay those who dally with the unnatural arts.”

  “He feels like one, and he looks like one,” Astarra pressed.

  “And I look like a completely trustworthy, honest Dunwarr ranger, but I’m not,” Raythen snapped, beginning to lose his temper. “Now, I didn’t come to this… lovely establishment in this wonderful city just to sit and debate the philosophies of magic. So, could we please get to the point. Cayfern?”

  The facilitator looked at him silently for a moment before starting to speak.

  “A month ago, Thelgrim, ancient city of the Dunwarrs, closed its gates. Since then, there has been no contact whatsoever with the inhabitants. No one has entered, and no one has left. All lesser entrances and exits into the mountains also appear to have been closed. The city has been sealed off.”

  “I had heard that the Dunwarrs had grown silent,” Astarra said. “But if you want to know why, perhaps just ask the Dunwarr sitting opposite you?”

  Raythen scoffed.

  “I can assure you, if I was in any way privy to the thoughts of Ragnarson and the other short-sighted fools who rule that place, I would not be here right now,” he lied. He had no intention of elaborating on his knowledge regarding the king’s mindset. “I haven’t set foot in Thelgrim in almost twenty years.”

  “None know why the city has been shut off,” Cayfern said. “My employer has asked far and wide, and has received no satisfactory answer. That is why he has brought you together–”

  “No,” Raythen interrupted. The trio all looked at him. He kept his eye fixed on Cayfern.

  “If your master thinks I’m going back to Thelgrim, he hasn’t done his research,” he went on. “I thought you knew me better, Cayfern.”

  “You have unfinished business there,” the manling said. “That is why you will go. And this…”

  He planted a bulging leather purse down on the table. It clinked heavily.

  “That’s just the initial payment,” he said. “My employer promises more once the contract is completed. It’ll be enough that you don’t have to spend your evenings robbing drunken oafs in stinking, dirty taverns in Frostgate.”

  “Maybe I enjoy doing that,” Raythen said, not moving to pick up the bulging pouch. “What’s the payment in?”

  “Honest Dunwarr silver,” Cayfern said. “My employer vouches for it.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Raythen said.

  “And just who is your employer?” Astarra asked, seemingly unimpressed by the offering on the table. Shiver, who hadn’t said anything since sitting down, nodded once. Raythen had been wondering the same thing all evening, though he’d done this enough times to know there was no point in asking a professional facilitator like Cayfern. Whoever they were, they had a lot of dwarven silver for a start, and an interest in Thelgrim, but not the personal contacts necessary to find out what had actually become of the subterranean city. Raythen had been trying to think of a match for someone like that, and so far, he had nothing. That, in his considered experience, didn’t bode well.

  “My employer will remain anonymous,” Cayfern said. “All you need to be sure of is that they can pay, and pay well. I will attest to that.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t find that overly reassuring,” Raythen said. “Not while you still haven’t told us what he actually wants us to do.”

  “He wants us to go to Thelgrim,” Astarra said, as though Rayth
en was an idiot. He smiled condescendingly at her.

  “To what purpose exactly? Knock on the great gate, ask how Captain Lyssa Svensdottir is and whether old Ragnarson is in good health, then saunter back here to collect our riches? Come on! What else is there to it, Cayfern? Tell us the whole story.”

  “Once you have entered the city, you will proceed to the headquarters of the League of Invention,” Cayfern said. “There is an item there which my employer would have you collect and return here with.”

  “I knew it!” Raythen exclaimed, slapping his palm on the table. “I knew you wanted me to steal something!”

  “Not steal,” Cayfern said, stoically. “The League know you are coming. You are to ask for Mavarin, and he will provide you with what you need freely.”

  “And just what is it we’re going all the way to Thelgrim to collect?” Astarra asked.

  “It possesses magical properties,” Cayfern said.

  “A runebound shard?” Astarra asked. Raythen noted a pulse of light that ran through her staff as she spoke the words.

  “Yes,” Cayfern said.

  “Which one?” Astarra demanded, the need in her voice obvious.

  “I do not know,” Cayfern admitted. “I was not informed. But my employer wants it retrieved from the Dunwarr. He has already struck a deal for it, and merely requires its collection. Bring it here and you will all be paid, and paid handsomely.”

  “I have no need for coin,” Shiver said abruptly. The deep elf had been a silent, brooding presence since taking his seat, but now he clasped distressingly long, black-clawed fingers on the table and fixed his unnatural gaze on the facilitator. “Your master sought me out, so he must know this.”