Tarmid ushered an extraordinarily aggravated Thane into his messy office. The same old stacks of books she was so accustomed to seeing had been pushed up against the walls. Likewise, the desk that had occupied the center of the room had been dragged aside, leaving only three rough-hewn mudstone chairs as centerpieces. She took one at Tarmid's request, and her former teacher took the chair across from her. She idly reflected that this was the first time in years that she had sat down with Tarmid without a book or a bottle between them.
"Well, Tarmid? Why have you called me here?"
"Because things have been stirring in Demongate, Thane." The scribe sounded twice his age. "Mad, rambling things. A madness has infected our home, and I aim to contain or excise it before it claims us as well."
Thane rolled her heliotrope eyes. Their brilliant shine had long ago given way to something else. A dull hardness. "Oh, I've noticed a madness alright. Do you have any idea the kind of crap I've put up with lately?"
"I won't pretend I know," Tarmid replied. "But perhaps your experience with the subject will be of some help. It'll have to wait a bit, however."
"Wait for what?"
"Sir Brenzen."
Well, that explained the third chair. Thane idly flicked a thumb at one of the amethyst spikes on Ob Kat. "So, if our previous interactions are anything to go by, this is when you make me swear to secrecy. Am I right?"
"Afraid so," Tarmid replied. "Do you accept?"
"Yes, yes, it's not like I have a whole lot of people left to trust." Though she sounded distant, Tarmid could still sense the pain and anger hidden beneath the surface of her words. How could he not? The two dwarves had come to know each other fairly well over the years.
Several minutes of awkward silence passed them by before Brenzen joined them, clad in shining adamantine from head to toe as always. He exchanged quick pleasantries with the two dwarves before taking the other seat and set Udeshkurol, his fabled bismuth bronze mining pick, down across his lap. It was odd to think that the knight's weapon was the least valuable piece of his military attire, despite its many kills at his hands.
"So," Thane began, "if I'm allowed to be in on this, why can't we discuss the matter at Evening Prayers?"
"Cornelius has been affected as well," came Brenzen's reply. "Torvald is suspicious as well. That leaves us."
Tarmid nodded "I would have extended the invitation to the Padre as well, but the whole elf caravan fiasco more or less disqualifies him as a sensible dwarf at this point." Brenzen and Thane agreed.
"Now, to summarize the madness." Tarmid went into his teaching voice, and for a moment Thane felt she was having history lessons again. Those were the days. "There have been multiple incidents of catacomb vandalism. Some woman claims to be Danman reincarnate, we've had four dwarves named Fallen Angel, each more unhinged than the last, a dwarf claiming to be a demon, and apparently sensible old Cornelius is losing his mind as well. Am I missing anything?"
Thane piped up,, and regaled the two dwarves of the Order with her tale of Fallen Angel's latest choice of insane behavior. Brenzen's scowl could have killed a wagon. She carefully omitted any mention of the voice within Ob Kat. Thane asked if there was anything else. Tarmid and Brenzen exchanged glances. Then Tarmid walked to the back of the room, toward a pair of thick tarps. Tarmid pulled them down without ceremony, and the objects beneath dazzled Thane's eyes for a moment.
They were strange collusions of gemstones. One was all bloodstone, and roiled ever so slowly, gentle as a shallow stream in summer. The other, made of wood opal, shone and shimmered in a brilliant golden hue, giving off far more light than the candles around the room. It shifted in a curious pattern in all directions, enough to hurt the eyes if you stared into it for too long.
"This," Tarmid said, pointing to the bloodstone structure, "is essencially a vampire detector. From the shifting, you can tell that a vampire or Bloodkin resides somewhere near the territory, though I've no idea where." He turned to the other device, one hand shielding his eyes. "This, on the other hand, is a thaumaturgy sensor. It shines when magic is used in its vicinity. I've calculated its range to include the whole of our territory. The more brilliant the shine, the more magic is being used. And this is far too much magic for one fortress."
Thane gulped. The dwarves of the Order often spoke ill of magic users, claiming them to be selfish fools dabbling in powers they know nothing of. She had never considered the whole magic thing as good or bad, until she started seeing them abuse their powers left and right. And to think that there was so much magic in Demongate...
Tarmid threw the tarps back into place, concealing the brilliant gemstone arrays. "There is more. I have studied the works of Saint Emdief for the past couple of years, and learned enough to replicate one of his most famous devices, believed to be lost to time. It was gruelling work, but I do believe it functions correctly now."
From the sleeve of his robe, Tarmid produced a small oval device, fashioned of copper and bismuth bronze. In a socket at its center was a wood opal, and a short tube of etched green glass filled with some strange fluid.
"This is what Saint Emdief called a thaumometer." Thane tried to suppress the flash of recognition. She was fairly certain that Tarmid had caught it, but the scribe said nothing of it. "It detects magic in a much shorter range. I've fine-tuned it enough to pick up exactly how much magic is being used, in a unit I think is called 'thaum'." He flipped a switch in the back of the device, and a faint sliver of light grew from the core of the wood opal, pointing in Thane's general direction. Tarmid brought the device closer, and the fluid within the glass tube shifted and compressed, until it lined up with one of the etchings.
"Something on your person is giving off around fifteen thaum," Tarmid said. He moved the device around in Thane's vicinity, until it passed close to Ob Kat. There was a moment of resonance, and the light within the gemstone began to blink. Tarmid raised an eyebrow. "I suppose this will have to wait." He disabled the device and stowed it back in his sleeve. "Come. We've something else to show you."
They crested the western hill in the last hour before twilight. A crisp autumn breeze tugged at their clothes and hair, blowing dried birch and oak leaves across the dense, wild grasses. In a matter of weeks, these trees would be naked, and woodcutters would labor in the winter chill and snow to cut them down for precious timber.
Ahead of them, taking up the southwest portion of the hill, was an unfinished wall of grey stone, grass and moss growing through the many cracks. Nobody had ever bothered to come finish this addition to Demongate's architecture, and so it had come to lay in abandonment, mostly forgotten by the fortress denizens.
Castle Helgarde. A clever observer could tell how it was meant to provide a view for marksdwarves over the entire western portion of the territory. However, no marksdwarf had ever been stationed in the unfinished hill fort. It was unsafe, with no ceiling or battlements. There were but two rooms, and only one of these had a proper stone floor. The other had been left with natural grass, which had grown into a wild tangle. An occasional topic of conversation among the Evening Prayer Group had been the re-purposing or continued construction of the Castle, but it had always been put off under the unfailing argument of 'who cares'.
"What's so special about Castle Helgarde?" Thane asked nobody in particular.
"I'd never have given it a second thought," Brenzen replied, "until I saw Torvald walking about. He said he just likes to take his breaks by the castle, but I don't buy a word of it."
The High Magebane led them through the chest-high grass of the southernmost room, pick held out in front of him, navigating toward one of the corners. Once Thane and Tarmid were close by, he swatted aside the thin branches of an overgrown shrub. Just behind the shrub, embedded in the cool ground, was a wooden hatch.
Tarmid pulled out the thaumometer, flipped its switch. It shone brighter than before, and the fluid moved to the fifty thaum mark. The three dwarves exchanged dark glances, then turned back. They walked at a brisk pace back toward Demongate, not slowing down until they were safely back inside Tarmid's office.
"Was that there before?" Thane asked.
"No," said Tarmid. "It wasn't in the original plans either. Someone built a tunnel beneath the castle in recent years, though I have no idea whom. Far more worrying is what Sir Brenzen and I found within the tunnel." The scribe turned to Brenzen, as if urging him to pick up the tale.
"Down there, a shoddy tunnel leads to a steel door. Beyond the door is a chamber of dwarven masonry, with a bismuth bronze throne and table at its center and a silver lever. There are five slabs as well, of the sort we use to memorialize the dead, but none of them is engraved. We've no idea who built it, and no idea what it's for, but the fact is that it wasn't there two years ago. Someone built a hidden structure near Demongate, using the most common building materials in Demongate. We must find out who built it, and why."
"There's more," the Scribe pitched in. "Inside the chamber, the thaumometer gets a reading of well over one hundred thaum. Powerful magic is at work within that strange room, though I've truly no idea what kind."
"Is one hundred really so much?" She asked. "How much does a normal dwarf emit?"
"Half a thaum."
Thane nervously licked her lips.
"So Thane," said Tarmid. "What are your thoughts on the subject?"
There it was. An obvious glance towards Ob Kat. Tarmid wanted more than just her input on the madness and the chamber beneath Castle Helgarde, she was sure of it. But was she willing to tell them?
My apologies if I didn't portray Thane very accurately. I thought this scene was much more interesting from her point of view. I can change that if you're not okay with it, Asmoth.
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Topic: Demongate: Wrapping up the Loose Ends. (Read 698370 times)