Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 11

Virginia pursed her lips. "You think he can't?"

I nodded. "Yes," I said.

"Well, sir," Virginia said. "I don't exactly think we can guarantee that. What if his plans involve you liberating him from some prison or something, and he seeks to goad you into unwittingly freeing him?"

The dwarven guards peeled off as we entered into a large, vaulted chamber. A throne made of iron and steel sat at a dais that was positioned at the end of almost fifty feet of stairs, though thankfully the stairs were on a gentle incline and quite broad. The throne itself had a dwarven man standing beside it, clad in ornate, gold and silver armor. Standing next to him and looking as terrified as I had ever seen her, was 'Magnus', who was speaking quietly to the dwarven King. As I started up the stairs, I whispered to Virginia. "Well, then. If I ever find Arronax in a prison, I won't free him. Deal?"

Virginia chuckled. "Of course, sir."

We came to the throne and I bowed as low as I could manage. "Sire," 'Magnus' said, his voice pitched so low I was worried that she'd completely lose control of her ability to speak. "This is my comrade in arms, Rayburn Cog."

"Mr. Cog," the dwarven king said. "I am Randver Thunder Stone, son of Longhaire Thunder Stone, King-In-Waiting to the Wheel Clan." He gestured, his armor clicking and clacking slightly. "Mr. Shale Fist here has told me quite a deal about your adventures. But what he has not said is why you are here." He frowned, his thick, black beard bristling ever so slightly. AS I stood and looked into his eyes, I could see that Randver was looking deeply concerned. His eyes lacked the steely resolve I had expected from the king of the most grand dwarven clan in the entirety of Arcanum.

But maybe his title explained that: King-In-Waiting. Not King.

"Your majesty," I said. "I come bearing grave news of the Black Mountain Dwarves."

Randver's eyes narrowed and he placed a gauntlet clad hand upon the rest of his iron throne. "Tell on," he said. Thus prompted, I told him the entire tale -- starting with the destruction of the Zephyr and continuing on to Tarant, then from Tarant to Ashbury and the Isle of Despair. Once I had completed with my return and the eerie proclamations of Arronax, Randver put his face into his palms, cupping his head -- the most remarkable display of emotion I had ever seen in a dwarf. He breathed out a slow sigh, then dropped his hands. His eyes flashed with anger.

"Damn the elves..." he growled. "Damn them and their assurances."

"What happened exactly?" I asked. "Why did the elves banish the Black Mountain C-"

"That is the business of my father," Randver said, pacing back and forth before me, his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes grew distant.

"Well, did he tell you?" I asked. "Please, your majesty-"

"I am not the King!" Randver exclaimed, turning to face me. He shook his head. "My father is not dead." He paused. "He...was broken. Broken more completely than any dwarf I had ever seen. You do not know what it was like, outlander, to see Longhaire Thunder Stone on that day." His voice grew black and bleak, like the most distant peaks of the Grey Mountains. His eyes looked at mine, but they did not see me. They were witnessing the past, I was sure of it. "Longhaire united our people after the Clan Wars. For five centuries, he fought to bring us together. He broke Lorek the Abjurer over his anvil at Gorgoth Pass, and burned him and ten thousand dwarven followers of his alive with phosphorous bombs." He shook his head. "He did not break then. But the day after those elves came and he consigned that foolish, short sighted, backwards clan to their punishment, he...he tore his clothes from his body. He threw himself against the stones of this hall, beat his fists against the ground, and ripped his beard into tatters."

He closed his eyes. "And then he took his ax, Harrower, and...left."

I shook my head slowly. "But...but why?" I shook my head again. "And w-what were those Clan Wars?"

"They happened before humans wrote their histories, in the Age of Legends," Randver said, shaking his head. "When my father was young, and when the world was rich in magick." He paced a gain. "And...you wouldn't understand."

I clenched my jaw. "Randver," I said, quietly. "I believe that I can-"

"You believe?" he turned to face me. "You think you can see to the soul of a dwarf, and grasp what makes him act and think? Hmm?" He narrowed his eyes. "Your kind -- all human stock -- die before a dwarven child begins to speak. And you think you can understand my father and his will?"

I felt frustrating bubbling inside of me -- and it sprang forth. "I have been across the width and the breadth of Arcanum twice over. I've been drowned, stricken with amnesia, attacked by assassins, haunted, hunted, accused of being a criminal simply for being green of skin and long of tooth." I stepped forward and leaned down, so that my eyes were on the level with this petulant king. "I am done hitting dead ends and I refuse to budge until you explain what you mean, your majesty."

Randver blew out a frustrated snort. Then, crossing his arms over his mailed chest, he lifted his chin. "Very well," he said. "A dwarven soul is not like that of an elf or a human. It is comprised of, in our words, the Shape and the Stone. If you understand these two things, you can grasp our morality. Our purpose. How we shape our lives within the context of our world." He gestured about himself at the great hall. "How we build such greatness..."

I nodded -- and out of the corner of my eye, I saw 'Magnus' watching with wide, wide eyes. "I follow."

Randver rubbed his beard, looking as if was struggling to find the words. "The Shape is...the Stone..." he sighed. "The Stone is unchanging. Gravel is gravel. Flint is flint is flint." He nodded. "You can craft a great deal from stone, but it must be the right stone. Gemstones for delicacy, granite for sturdiness and the like." He looked at me, his voice growing more firm. "You cannot carve a Shape without a Stone -- and the Stone cannot be a Shape without being itself."

I nodded again, slowly.

Randver brought his hands together with a clink of metal. "A fire striker must have flint -- and flint must be a fire striker. The two concepts are linked, you see?"

"Yes..." I said, quietly. "Go on."

Randver, looking as if he was warming to his subject, began to speak with more confidence. I had noticed a sense of unease in him on matters of kingship...but this? This appeared to be what he found to be comforting. No wonder he so missed his father. "There are many Stones, and there are many Shapes for each stone. And thus, our morality is not a choice, as humans see them. One cannot not be their Shape, nor turn against their Stone. Rather, you express what you are. We are dwarves. That is our Stone." He nodded. "While our Shape..." He trailed off.

"You are a dwarf," I said. "That is your Stone. But your shape is that of a King." I smiled. "In Waiting."

Randver inclined his head, slowly.

"And Lorek the Abjurer," Randver said. "He was true to his Shape, that of being a great inventor. But he betrayed his Stone -- being a dwarf, by believing that he and his Clan were greater than all others."

"And your father..." I said. "Betrayed his Shape and his Stone. By not protecting his people, he failed at being a king. And by kowtowing to elves over his own people, he failed at being a dwarf."

"And thus, he was nothing," Randver said. "You...follow?"

I nodded. "I do," I said. "But one thing does not make sense to me."

Randver frowned. "What?"

"How do you know you're the King in Waiting and not the King?" I asked, my voice soft. "Where did your father go."

"To the Dredge." His voice was grim. "A warren of tunnels and sledge pits and monster dens. We keep it under lock and key -- but he could be anywhere within." His voice caught at that word. Anywhere. My eyes narrowed slightly -- and I saw the only logical reason why he would claim to be a King-In-Waiting. For he spoke of his father being in the Dredge not with hope that his father was alive. No. He spoke with resignation that he was there at all.

"Randver," I said, seriously. "You know he's alive. Which means you've seen him recently."

Randver let out a slow sigh. "Damn it all," he rumbled under his breath. "Yes. Yes, Mr. Cog. I know where my father is. I had a tunnel dug to his hide-away, so that I might visit him, tell him of the clan. Beseech him to..." He trailed off.

"You don't think his self banishment was just?" I asked.

Randver glared at me. "What I think does not matter, Mr. Cog," he said, seriously. "My father chose what he thought was right-"

"Just as he did when he allowed the elves to banish the Black Mountain Clan, banish them for spreading technology to humans," I said, stepping closer to him. "But he was wrong to do that -- clearly, their banishment has a darker purpose than any we could have imagined. And now, you think he has compounded a failure with his Shape with another failure."

"I-...I-" Randver looked caught betwixt the devil and the deepest, bluest sea. He clutched at his chest, then wheezed out, as if he had been struck. "Yes." He hung his head forward. "The tunnel, it...it is beneath my throne. Simply push it aside, and you will reach Longhaire. And...please...Mr. Cog..." He looked up at me. "Please, make my father see reason."

I clapped my hands on his shoulder. "I swear it, Randver."

***

I left Virginia and 'Magnus' behind, crawling in the tunnel by myself. Virginia had objected -- but 'Magnus' had born no objections. Indeed, the young dwarf had looked as if she was thinking deeply about the conversation. I wished her the best of luck, but for the moment, I had nothing in mind but getting to the end of the tunnel. Constructed in secret and for a dwarf, the tunnel was pitch black and narrow and low, requiring me to crawl on my hands and knees. My breath often gusted back into my own face, only adding to the claustrophobia of this place. But I gritted my teeth and continued on until, after what felt like an eternity, I came to a small slab of stone, bumping face first into the material. Fortunately for me, the stone was smoothly hinged on metal pivots, and swung outwards into a cave, lit by a smoldering flame.

Above the flame was what appeared to be a large rat, spitted and slowly sizzling. Kneeling before the rat, turning the crude spit of wood and scrap metal, was yet another dwarf. Grizzled and toughened and entirely exposed, Longhaire Thunder Stone looked in all parts like a king, in a way that his son simply did not. Despite being clad in gilded armor and pacing back and forth before a throne, Randver felt like a school teacher that had been thrust into the pulpit. Longhaire, though, held himself with a regal pride, despite being completely nude. His body was pockmarked with scars and puckered wounds that could have been ancient arrow impacts. He had winding tattoos along his incredibly muscular forearms and his shoulders looked sturdy enough to bowl over a man in full plate with nothing but his short, powerful legs. His beard was cut deliberately short -- and if I was any judge of looks, that shortness suited him more than a wild mass of beard would.

His eyes were gold and they flared like molten metal as they looked at me. In an instant, he stood, holding a battle ax made of silvery metal in his hand. Lightning crackled along the edge of the blade and his voice -- deep, authoritative, and entirely certain -- filled the small cave.

"What are you doing here, orc? Speak. Quickly!"

I lifted my hands and said: "Your majesty, I am Rayburn Cog, and I have come to speak-"

"To speak?" Longhaire said, his voice deadly soft. He started to pace around the flames, his ax passing from hand to hand as he glared at me. "You come to speak to me, orc? I have come here to die." His eyes flared. "I have come here to writhe upon the blade of my sorrow, to live a life of a thousand deaths until at last, the great silence claims me, by the rights of the most ancient Kings. These laws are passed down through the mountain from the beginning of time. Your life is forfeit to them -- do you understand?" He lifted his ax -- clearly intent on bringing his solitude back through main force.

"I am here about the Black Mountain Clan!" I shouted.

Longhaire dropped the ax. Harrower struck the ground with a chink of metal and gravel.

"Speak..." his voice was roughened with emotion. Sitting down, so that I might be level with the shorter man, I spoke. I told him the tale I had told his son. As I spoke, the rat began to burn, ignored by the two of us. Once I had finished my tale, Longhaire whispered to himself.

"My shame..." he whispered. "My shame returned -- and compounded. How could this have happened?"

"Maybe you should tell me...from the beginning what happened," I said, my voice soft. Gentle.

Longhaire bowed his head. He spoke...and he told his tale.

***

Longhaire's Tale

The elves arrived with bows, swords, and magick. They came in a great host -- or, at least, great for that race. A hundred elves in a single place had not been seen for many centuries, and Longhaire was roused from his bed with the news of their arrival, and with the strident tone of their demands. He went to them, under flag of truce, beneath the vastness of the sky. There, on the bank of the Hadrian, he saw something that reminded him of his worst nightmares.

For two thousand years, his old eyes had only seen the patterns of war in the hands of humans and orcs and other younger races. Only they had the numbers and the inclination to order themselves and march under snapping banners, in gleaming armor, with bows and spears and swords and shields. For two thousand years, the only time he had ever seen the elder races marching to war had been in his terrible dreams. Dreams of Gorgoth Pass. Dreams of his army's battle cries as axes and hammers met shield and mail. The clang and clatter of metal, the scream of the dying, the wounded. And at the center of it, Lorek the Abjurer, shrouded in a crackling shield of magick and wielding a staff.

That staff and his ax, Harrower, met again and again in those dreams.

Every time, Longhaire wished that Harrower would be struck from his hands and the staff's energy would reduce him to ash, as it had reduced the King of the Gemcutter Clan to ash two centuries before.

But no.

His dreams never so kind. Instead, he had to remember the sight of Lorek in his mailed hand, his eyes bulging with terror. Of the last, desperate mutterings of the madman, begging him. Begging him not to. Every time, Longhaire was forced to watch as he tossed the mad dwarven king over the cliff, down to the screaming inferno of ten thousand warriors. His army had continued to fire the phosphorous bombs over the edge of the mountain, shooting them into the pass, until nothing was left but burbling slag, slag that had hardened into blackened glass -- still laced with the charred bones of his victims.

Longhaire saw that in the hundred elves.

Uniformed. Armored in mithril chain and armed with saber and bow, the hundred elves positively cracked and hummed with magicks. Defensive spells had been cast, and offensive ones waited for the join of battle.

Under the light of the moon and the endless, gem-scattered sky, Longhaire had met the leader of the elves: Min'Gorad.

"What is the meaning of this, elf?" Longhaire asked. Min'Gorad -- whose name had only been revealed to Longhaire after this meeting -- glared down at him. He had been a tall elf. Narrow faced. Sallow complexioned. Red of hair. Utterly unbending.

"Morhiban is dead," Min'Gorad snarled. He tossed down a branch, blackened and charred. "The entire forest has been cut down by steam engines. Steam engines run by Bates Industry Logging Company." His eyes flashed. "An entire forest, King Longhaire. Every. Last. Tree. The Hadrian runs through a wasteland now!"

Longhair rocked back -- stunned. The humans had only been given technology twenty years before -- the idea they could have done so much in such a short turning was...very like them. Humans scurried about, under an eternal fear of death. But rather than accepting their lot, rather than finding what peace they could, they ignored death. They thought they could buy immortality by their actions, and so they acted. Acted. Acted. And, as a distant second, they thought.

And further after...they felt.

And they would never live to see the consequences of their decisions.

"We are already working on how to punish the Black Mountain Clan," Longhaire said.

"The Silver Lady sent us to ensure the punishment is sufficient," Min'Gorad said, his lips curling in a sneer. "For if the Black Mountain Clan is not punished appropriately, then I have been given orders to tell you that there will exist a state of war between our peoples, King Longhaire."

Longhaire's eyes widened. The dream! The dream came to him then -- but now it was not ten thousand dwarves. It was ten million dwarves, screaming out their battle cries, rushing at the elves. Arrows darkened the sky. Magick crackled and the ground itself shook. War machines, long buried in vaults, trundled across the battlefield and Arcanum blackened as the sky filled with ash and the bones of the dead choked out the forests. In an instant, the vision vanished and he clenched his jaw.

"What punishment could suffice?" he asked.

Min'Gorand affixed him with an icy glare. "The Silver Lady of Quintarra says there is only one..." He frowned. "Banishment to the Isle of Despair, overseen by ourselves."

Longhaire felt his gut knot. He looked at the elves. At their steely eyes. And he saw not a single bit of bend there. But...no. How could he strip a clan of its honor, of its pride. Of its home! He was about to say that -- about to send these elves home. But then his eyes fell upon the blade of Min'Gorand. And Longhaire could feel the bodies in his hands. The bodies, the bodies, the bodies. How many had he buried, how many dwarven sons had he laid to rest in crypts? How many waited the end of the world, eternally looking into nothingness. How many? How many more could he bear to lay to rest?

And he learned the answer that day, beneath that endless sky.

None.

***

Longhaire lapsed into silence, his face once more haunted.

I had crossed my legs beneath me and my rump had gone nearly numb. But my mind was spinning. "That's what happened?" I asked, quietly.

Longhaire inclined his head in a subtle nod. But my mind had latched onto several inconsistencies within the story -- strangeness that needed to be explained. And I would need to guide him into the same realization I had, and that would be the first step in returning Longhaire to his sanity and to his throne.

"Are elves a warlike people?" I asked.

Longhaire's brow furrowed. He shook his head. "No...they have outgrown it. Like we, they realized that war harms many and benefits few people." He smiled, slightly. "It was a bit of wisdom we shared. And..." His brow furrowed.

"And the Morbihan Forest, if I remember, was entirely populated by humans before it was clear cut, correct?" I asked, sitting up more.

"Yes, I..." Longhaire stroked his short beard. "Yes, elves had relocated to the Glimmering Forest before the 14^th century."