Hlaeth Chapter 43 – Kings and Thanes

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Only the sharpest-eyed of the dwarves caught it at first, doubtless thinking it was a trick of the light, or a passing gust of wind. Then breaths hissed, dark eyes shifted even if postures did not, and they blinked hard, as if trying to convince themselves that the worn stone and wear of the ages was vanishing.

The great tiles and carvings of the stone beneath my feet were restored to sharp-edged clarity, fairly gleaming with their renditions of dwarves and wars and monsters fought and treasures crafted across the centuries.

The three males and one veiled female of the dwarves, in highly polished, ornate, and very, very serviceable armor, drew themselves up before me proudly. Despite being chest-high to me, I was pretty sure they all outweighed me, even without the thick Armor and Weapons they held in readiness to fight… a gesture of respect, showing their own power to one with the strength to appreciate it.

The rendition and repair of the tiles extended up to the edge of the fortress, and stopped there as if cut by a knife. I also stopped and did not step past that border.

I looked left and right slowly, craning my head back despite the covering on my eyes.

“The stone sings of the genius who wrought these doors. Does Ghiundun the Elder yet live? I would pay my respects to such mastery,” I spoke up before formalities began… in extremely fluent Denthek.

The dwarves stirred at the slight disruption to ceremony, but displayed no irritation. “Ghiundun the Elder passed these two hundred und sixty-seven cycles of the sun past, Magos Aelryinth ov Heaven,” the eldest and most white-bearded of the four, bearing the hammer of the smith god who was likely their pantheonic leader.

“And so a Master Engineer has gone to his rest.” I took the opportunity to bow deeply to the four of them, while a long spear point rose from Mortus Dius and flared with Light and both Holy and Vivic fires, as well as pure Elemental Flames and crackling silver lightning, all pulsing around the harsh metallic Gold glowing around the adamantine Spear of the Four Seasons.

That point also came down to the ground before them, not breaking the door. “I am a follower of Heaven, and while I would claim your faith as allies, this is your sacred ground, and I would not be remiss to ask the permission of the guardians of the faith to set foot up ground so mighty with belief and true worship remaining pure after so many centuries of quiet. I present to you the Color of my soul, and ask that I be allowed to step on the hallowed stone of the Ironaxe.”

“And if we bin to deny du passage?” grunted the steel-bearded with shield and symbol showing an axe, his own Axe gripped securely in a huge hand.

“Then I shall turn around and await my audience without your halls, Elder,” I replied simply.

He grunted in some satisfaction at the acceptance and recognition of his authority to keep me out if he believed me a danger. He did wince slightly as he looked at the Gold upon my Spear, knowing what the Color signified.

At the very least, I was not an enemy.

“Magos Aelryinth, I bin Patriarch Goldhammer ov Horvak the Smith-Father.” I lifted Mortus Dius up, let it stand alone as I clasped hand to face and bowed to this hard White elder at least four hundred years old. “This bin Matron Goldhearth ov Shamast the Hearth-Mother.” I turned to the veiled White and beard-less dwarven female with her long Glaive, and repeated the gesture. “Greeting du bin High Axe Silveraxe ov Crumdwell the Axe-Lord. Observing bin Keeper Grayhand ov Rogannaud the Secrets-Keeper.” I repeated the gesture to each of them, a Blue-White and White-washed Green, in equal measure, the dwarfin’s symbol showing a hearthflame, the Keeper’s showing a pick upon a tome.

“I have at times served all of the gods of Heaven known to my people in one manner or another, but those nearest to my heart are known to us as Mithar, the First Paladin and Silver Sun, and Sylune, Queen of the Heavens and Mistress of Silver Magic. By their grace, I am accorded a Lorelord of Battle under the auspices and oversight of Heaven. I greet the Hammer, the Hearth, the Axe, and the Keeper in their place of power as friend and ally in these troubled times!”

Heavily mollified by the respect shown their positions and their absent gods, the four priests hid their sighs of relief and decided to trust their judgment and assessment of their gods as equals of the strange ones a human had named.

“Magos Aelryinth ov Heaven, you may enter the sacred ancestral halls ov Ironaxe.”

I bowed my acknowledgment, and took that last step.

There were Wards present, much more focused than the old and grand ones protecting against the Yellow, still mighty and completely beyond their power to Cast right now with the gods locked away. At best, they might possess a handful of Raised and Meta’d I and II Valence spells, or those easily up-Cast to greater effect, like the various Healing spells, which was a power probably limited to the Hearth priestess.

Using local faith as best they could, much like an Ur-priest did.

Someone like me, not beholden to getting Faith returned from a deity. I could intercept it on the way and use it as I wished, a skill I had to both be very wary of abusing, and could abuse the shit out of if appropriate.

Getting trapped under a Veil with no access to the divine was definitely one of those abusive moments.

“Du bin an engineer, Magos Aelryinth?” Patriarch Goldhammer inquired as we stepped down the hall. I kept my strides slow and casual to keep pace with them, although I could have flit what looked like a quarter-mile approach in just seconds, and that without magic.

“Aye, Patriach. I have built thousands of miles of roads, hundreds of bridges, countless ditches, endless sewage lines, tens of thousands of homes and larger buildings, great walls and fortification, docks and towers and fountains and tunnels and pipes and cellars and stairs and trails and pedestals and fences and foundations and granaries and barns and dams and breakwalls and storehouses and shops and posts and tiles and Obelisks… but I am most known for constructing Pyramids as the defensive foundations for my people,” I replied calmly. “The doors there are wonderful, a testament to genius and the skill to make that genius a reality.”

They all tried valiantly not to smile at the praise. “A builder, then. What think du ov this?” High Axe Silveraxe asked, waving proudly around at the great hall about us.

“My apologies, I am visually blind and cannot behold the entirety of it in the manner you are, at least not without help,” I answered him smoothly. “I can sense the hands of the artisans on the stone, slow and careful, working in harmony with it, as much molding as carving what was needed out of the mountain. I can tell that the chamber we are in is long and wide, and there are many doors and tunnels leading out of it by the flow of the earthpower and air and magic through the place, but I cannot currently see any fine details. For instance, I imagine the ceiling is carved, and the greater heights of the pillars that extend up to it as well, but I cannot see them to give you my opinion. I will trust that if they have been wrought half as well as the floor beneath us, they are a sight to remember.

“I really admire a good floor.”

That got raised eyebrows from all of them. “Truly a builder!” Matron Goldhearth commented knowingly. “I noted du made no claim to plazas, murals, sculptures, und statues in du list ov things du made, Magos Aelryinth.”

“I have made those things, Matron Goldhearth, but I have a great deal of work to do, so artistic salutations to my own ego and capabilities are rather far down on my list of priorities. I knew enough to repair the murals out front, which were crying out for a bit of touch-up, and I was able to regard the great carving of the king athwart your entry in simple means, but such things are not something I typically spend my time upon.”

“The Great Hall ov Ironaxe can assemble every dwarf under the mountain!” the High Axe proclaimed proudly. “Upon its columns, walls, and ceilings bin carved the history und deeds ov Ironaxe for twenty centuries und more!”

I made a vaguely impressed face. “Ah, you are one of the younger kingdoms, then?” I asked blandly.

The other three dwarves snorted in unison, while the High Axe looked alternately angered and crestfallen at being caught out. “Aye, hume,” the Patriarch broke in, dry amusement in his tone. “Ironaxe bin the youngest ov the twelve Kingdoms under the Mountains, it bin true. Know aught ov dwarves, du?”

“Again, my apologies for my topical knowledge. I asked some questions of the local non-dwarves, who passed on some basic knowledge and courtesies to follow. I am not from this world, so what I know of the Clans under the Mountain is less than a breath upon a still lake.

“Were I a scholar, I have no doubt I could spend years delving into your history and learning it to bring back to my people to read and be impressed by. If you’ve an extra copy of the basic history primer you teach your children, I would be interested in gaining it.

“I can reciprocate with a book on the history of my homeworld, but given the drastic changes that have taken place over the last decade, much of it is, well, quite irrelevant.”

“Drastic changes?” the heretofore silent Keeper suddenly spoke up, as if a curse was spoken. “What manner ov changes?” he asked warily.

“Well, hmm.” I considered how to phrase it. “We were a world without magic. Then a world-eater from Outside Creation decided to eat us. An Archmage stopped it, but our world was sent spinning into a completely different dimension, where magic worked, gods were present… and all the billions of dead slain during the transition got up and tried to kill the rest of us.

“Our world had no dwarves or elves, goblins or orcs. There were over seven billion humans on our world, and only one in fifty or so survived The Fall.

“That was ten years ago. Our world is no longer our own, our numbers are a pittance of what they were, horrors stride the land, seas, and sky, gods call out for attention, and it is a very different place from what it once was.

“The old world is very, very dead, buried under the flames of apocalyptic war, seven billion undead tramping over them and being Burned away, and the hordes of invaders from other worlds that bedevil us even as we seek to rebuild and fortify what we have managed to retain.

“So, one could say our current history starts merely ten years ago, and the millennia before them are dust upon the wind. Certainly nothing like the roll of years of the Ironaxe.”

There was no answer from the dwarves for a long and somber moment.

It wasn’t my main, but I had Bard and Minstrel Levels, and the Theurgies to raise them up, with the Masteries to make them truly effective, if more focused on the Sublime Chord than standard Heartsong effects.

But I could Diplomance with the very best of them, and my words had weight. The dwarves had felt death behind my words, catastrophe, world-shaking events, things they wanted to never feel or see themselves…

And they also felt the grim resolve behind every word, the terrible, cataclysmic killing that had been needed, a defiance that simply wasn’t going to end until we reclaimed what we had lost… and had become something even greater than what we had lost when that happened.

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