“Be easy,” Gol’fanin warned. “It is not yet properly set.”
As he lifted the scimitar, Tiago Baenre hardly heard the blacksmith. The handle was loose but the grip superb, and even though it was not yet solidly set, Tiago could feel the perfect balance—perfect balance because it seemed to him that no blade was attached to the handle! He could see the translucent lines of the glowing scimitar, the sparkles of the diamond dust, but if he closed his eyes, his mind would tell him that he held an empty metal hilt and nothing more. With a slight twist of his wrist, the blade changed its angle, a wake of silvery blur behind it, and it took all the discipline Tiago could manage to stop from swinging it around—which would have likely launched the blade from the handle to fly across the room.
“What magic?” he asked.
“That remains to be seen,” said the blacksmith. “The djinni will imbue them.”
“You must know more than that!”
“Vidrinath,” Gol’fanin said, nodding to the weapon Tiago held, the one with the emerald eyes. He looked to the shield. “Orbbcress.”
Tiago rolled Vidrinath over in his hand and spoke the name, the drow word for the songs priestesses would sing to the young students at the Academy when they went into their Reverie repose. He understood then the power of this blade, so akin to that of the hand crossbow bolts, and spoke the name again, “Lullaby.”
And for the shield, “Spiderweb.”
He considered the potential. He let his mind wander down the paths hinted at by those particular names—names hardly chosen at random, he knew. “Tell me more,” he bade Gol’fanin, or started to, for his words were lost in a rumbling deep within the cavern stone, and a cacophony of sharp metallic rapping sounds.
Tiago looked curiously at the blacksmith, who could only shrug. Together, they turned back to the main forge. Inside the oven, the fires danced wildly, forming angry faces and spitting sparks at them.
For a moment, the young Baenre wondered if this was expected, but Gol’fanin’s expression dispelled that notion. “What is it?” he asked.
A half-dozen structures down to their left sat the darkened forge, the forge of the last breach which had not yet been repaired or refired, and from that oven came a tremendous bang. Suddenly, it teemed with fire, so fully that an angry orange glow emanated from its stones. Other dark elves cried out in warning, goblins scrambled, falling all over each other. Tiago and Gol’fanin ducked behind the main forge for protection.
The broken forge exploded, a giant fireball reaching across the cavern. Spurts of lava and lines of fire blasted from the wreckage of the forge. Amid the rubble, where the oven used to be, stood a mighty fire elemental, roaring and crackling and swinging its torchlike arms all around.
Other forges, too thick with primordial fuel, began to vomit, spewing forth jets of white-hot flames, and from those flames leaped more elementals, smaller ones, darting in frenzy, chasing down goblins and biting at them, dragging them down and swarming over them, lighting their clothes and hair aflame, shriveling their pallid green skin.
Screams mixed with the roaring flames and the continued throaty rumbling within the stones, and above that symphony of insanity, Tiago could not be heard. He shouted anyway, “Flee! Flee!” for the room was lost, the fight over before it had even begun. They could do nothing before the bared might of the primordial.
Nothing but burn.
A barrage of fire and lava came forth from the main forge, tossing aside the trays and the unfinished shield, and the implements: the tools, the scroll tube, the djinni bottle.
Tiago’s eyes widened with horror and he started forward. “Orbbcress,” he whispered as if he was speaking of his child. Gol’fanin tried to hold him back, but he broke free and rushed amid the flames, ignoring the heat and the stings. He would not lose these items, even at the cost of his own life.
He came out of the sub-chamber unafraid of the firestorm engulfing the forge room. Torrents of flames whipped around, elementals leaping to and fro, consuming the flesh of those creatures, goblinkin and drow alike, who had not escaped the conflagration.
Brack’thal did not care. The smell of burning flesh hung thick around him, but that only meant that his god-beast was feasting well this day. The wizard stepped right through the deep fires, his ring protecting him fully. Even more, he heard the song of the elementals, reveling in their freedom and calling to him, who had freed them.
He imagined himself as the Chosen of this primordial—did these ancient god-beasts even have such minions? He could be the first, a being of great power, with deadly fire at his easy disposal, ever ready to smite his enemies.
Or to melt his brother.
He continued across the room, moving for the small tunnel to the primordial pit. It was calling him, then, he believed, likely to congratulate him.
Brack’thal slowed his steps as the primordial voice rang out loudly, and once again, the room began to resonate with elemental power.
The forge of Gauntlgrym was not merely a dwarven contraption, was not simply a clever clockwork of levers and pins and valves and piping. It was a magical construct, full of energy as old as the fabled Hosttower of the Arcane of Luskan. And as such and given its role in containing such a beast as a primordial of fire, it had been carefully imbued with magical contingencies.
Brack’thal started again for the tunnel at a swift pace, then a trot, then a sprint. Just before he reached the entrance, though, his nostrils filled with a new odor, salty and pungent.
“Brine?” he asked, puzzled.
He looked up at the corner where the wall met the ceiling, to those curious green rootlike tendrils running like veins through the lower complex. Small knots, like tiny corks, popped from a thousand places at once, and water sprayed like rain across the room. Salt water. Brack’thal couldn’t begin to sort it out, for he did not understand that those tendrils ran to the harbor in distant Luskan, out into the dark and cold waters of the Sword Coast.
The fire elementals roared and fought back, reaching up to throw flames at the tendrils, and so great and pure was their fury that it seemed to Brack’thal as if they would surely win out against the clever irrigation.
But a greater rumbling came forth again, from the primordial’s room. Knowing that it wasn’t his god-beast speaking, knowing the sound to be ominous, the wizard ran again for the small archway.
But he fell back with a cry as the river rushed forth from that corridor, pouring into the forge room. And no normal river this, for as it spread into the room, giant humanoid forms broke free of it and charged to challenge the fire elementals. The water elementals fearlessly attacked their foes, extinguishing the small fiery mites with a single splashing stomp.
Brack’thal watched as one great water elemental faced a gigantic fire beast. Without fear or hesitation, the watery beast threw itself against the creature of fire, which roared in protest—Brack’thal felt its agony clearly.
A tremendous burst of steam replaced them both, the two bodies mingling to disastrous results. More so for the fire elemental, the wizard realized. The joining wrought steam, and from the steam would come anew the magic of the Plane of Water.
Brack’thal cried out and threw himself against the wall just beside the archway. More and more watery beasts came forth, sloshing and splashing and rushing into the fire.
Finally it let up, the battle raging throughout the forge room, and Brack’thal heard again the voice of his god-beast, and this time it was a cry of pain.
The wizard ran into the corridor and stumbled out into the chamber beyond, right to the edge of the primordial’s pit.
He noted immediately that the swirl of water around the sides of that deep well had diminished greatly, and he glanced back to the forge room, understanding then that many of the elementals previously holding back the primordial had come forth to meet the great challenge.
Water poured down from the ceiling above, raining into the pit, and steam obscured his view.
“Now,” he bade the primordial. “You must come forth now.”
He reached his thoughts through his ruby band, sending them to the primordial, bidding it to leap from its captivity.
He heard the bubbling below, and he fell back with a cry, and just in time, for the primordial leaped, or tried to, as the remaining elementals reached their watery limbs out to block it.
A small burst of rock and lava got through, lifting up over the edge of the pit to splash down on the floor right where Brack’thal had been standing.
For a few heartbeats, the wizard believed he had been betrayed. His ring might have protected him from the heat of that stony vomit, but the weight of it would surely have crushed him. Had this god-beast spat at him to pound the life out of him?
His confusion became curiosity a moment later, though, when that splattered lava reformed and regrouped, and stood up on thick rock legs, thrice his height. The drow wizard’s eyes sparkled in reflections of the monstrosity, the lava elemental, a creature of tremendous strength and magical power.
It stalked over to stand towering above the wizard, and how small and vulnerable Brack’thal felt at that terrifying moment. He sucked in his breath, fearing it to be the last he would ever draw.
Tiago and Gol’fanin sat against the corridor wall many twists and turns away from the forge room. Other drow milled around, most gasping for breath, or grimacing against the sting of multiple burns.
Tiago pulled back the hood of his piwafwi, a very powerful cloak indeed, as it had been enchanted in the magical chambers of House Baenre. The young Baenre had not a mark on him, and thanks to his quick actions and the blacksmith’s own enchanted garments, Gol’fanin had come through unscathed, as well.
More important to both of them, Orbbcress and Vidrinath, the scroll, and the djinni bottle had survived and now lay at Gol’fanin’s side, covered in a thick blanket.
“We were to abandon the forge anyway,” he said to his companion. “Let the Shadovar deal with this new intrusion.”
“If the primordial has broken free, the entire power of Netheril will not put it back,” the old crafter replied. “The forge of Gauntlgrym is lost to us.”
Calls of “Steam!” filled the area, echoing from the corridors leading back to the forge room.
“Perhaps Gauntlgrym has awakened to the threat,” Gol’fanin offered, and he and Tiago stood up and started away.
“What has happened?” came a cry from the other way, from Berellip Xorlarrin as she and the other House nobles rushed down the hallway, many other drow beside them, and a few of Yerrininae’s driders marching in rear guard behind them.
“A major breach,” Tiago replied. “The forge room was overwhelmed by flames and lava and creatures of the Plane of Fire.”
Jearth rode his lizard right past the young Baenre and down the corridor leading back to the forge room, rushing out of sight.
“Where is Brack’thal?” Ravel asked, and the look he tossed at Tiago made it clear that he hoped his brother was still in the room, preferably dead.
“You tell me,” Tiago replied, his voice thick with intrigue, for all of them were surely thinking that Brack’thal, broken and angry, might have had a hand in this disaster. “I’ve not seen him.”
“Find him!” Berellip snapped at the nearby commoner drow, and they nearly fell over each other as they started scrambling away.
“We lost a small group of bugbears, all of the goblins in the room, and a few drow as well, I fear,” said the young Baenre, but his casual tone belied his claim that he feared any such thing. In fact, he didn’t care. Gol’fanin had survived, the recipe had survived, and all the pieces and ingredients needed to finish Lullaby and Spiderweb had survived. Did anything else really matter?
All eyes turned back behind the Xorlarrin nobles, where Yerrininae moved past his drider rear guard and up to join the conversation. “The Shadovar approach in great numbers,” he warned.
Berellip nodded and started to speak, but Ravel beat her to it.
“Let us fade back to the deeper tunnels,” he said. “Let them deal with the danger in the forge room, and then deal with our magic and our blades as we see fit.”
“And our negotiations,” Berellip said.
“It would not do well for House Xorlarrin to begin a war between Menzoberranzan and the Netherese Empire,” Tiago warned in support of the priestess.
Berellip gave him a quick glance and a nod—a nod of appreciation for his support, Tiago realized.
Nothing could eliminate drow infighting quicker than an external enemy.
Ravel took the lead then, ordering and arranging his forces so they could begin their quick retreat from the area. As that ensued, Berellip moved near to Tiago, and she had just reached him when Jearth returned with news that a great battle was underway in the forge room, water against fire.
“This is a most marvelous design,” Ravel declared loudly. “Do not underestimate the skill of dwarves and the ancient magic their allies employed.”
He reminds us that it was he who led us to this place we will soon call our home, Berellip’s fingers flashed to Tiago.
Tiago’s hand subtly replied with a single question: Saribel?
Berellip looked at her sister—at her sister who had schemed against her. Saribel was hard at work issuing commands to those around her, seemingly oblivious to Berellip’s hateful glare.
Tiago saw the sting on Berellip’s face, and understood where the necessity of the desperate situation was forcing her even before she answered, Stand down.
She couldn’t let Tiago kill Saribel at that time, not until they knew the extent of Brack’thal’s role in this great breach. Saribel had double-crossed Berellip with her intent to side with Ravel over Brack’thal, but if their suspicions about the Xorlarrin Elderboy proved true and Matron Zeerith learned of Brack’thal’s ultimate treachery, how strong would Berellip’s claim against Saribel sound?
Indeed, given the victory by Ravel, Tiago had held no intention of killing Saribel in any case, not that he would have told Berellip that little truth.
Besides, Berellip might be the more important priestess, but Saribel was by far the better lover. A minor detail in the greater scheme of things, perhaps, but those minor details often allowed Tiago greater enjoyment in life, and to him, that, after all, was the whole point of . . . everything.
Brack’thal instinctively tried to make himself smaller, curling down and defensively bringing his arms in tightly. He almost laughed at that reflexive movement, for it would do him little good when this mighty elemental decided to crush him into a smoldering pile of gore.
The blow did not fall.
Gradually, Brack’thal summoned the courage to peek out at the beast, which stood towering above him, very near. But it made no move against him, and so the mage slowly unwound himself to stand up straight before it.
Only then did he hear the voice of the lava beast, calling him through the power of his ring.
“Master.”
The primordial had given this gift to him, the mage thought, and he nearly squealed with glee.
His giddiness proved short-lived, though, as a rumble from without, from the forge room, told him that the creatures of water had won out and were now fast returning. At that same time, a huge spray of water began from above the primordial pit, the magical tendrils bringing even more water into the complex in response to the primordial’s attempt to break free.
And among that falling water came more than one new water elemental, diving into the pit and once more strengthening the swirl of containing waters around its walls.
Brack’thal looked through the mounting steam toward the room across the way, where the lever remained fully engaged. He could never free his god-beast as long as that lever kept open the connection between Gauntlgrym’s devices and the power of the sea.
He had to find a way to throw that lever! He would need a dwarf . . .
A rush of water in the corridor to the forge room broke him from his contemplation, and he realized that he had to get out of that chamber at once.
And as he realized it, so too did his lava elemental. The mighty creature moved with incredible grace, the joints of its rocky appendages molten and fluid. It rushed to the wall beside the corridor, and there it seemed to flatten and widen as it pressed into the stone. Whether it was some powerful magic, like the dweomer known as passwall, or simply the intense heat, or perhaps a bit of both, Brack’thal could not tell, but the stone hissed and melted. Even as the returning water elementals began to pour in from the other corridor, the lava elemental departed, burrowing through the stone as easily as Brack’thal might move through water. Lava streamed behind the beast and dripped all around, and the stone seemed to simply part, leaving a sizable glowing corridor in its wake.
Given the protective magic of his ring, the dripping molten stone would not bother him, and so the mage ran off after his pet, winding its way from the room in a tunnel of its own making.