The Hammer of Fire (41 page)

“Dol Delius has returned! He has the Hammer
of Fire!”

What little noise was left in the chamber
abruptly stopped as dwarves froze with their hands around one
another’s throats.

“What?” said the High Councilor his eyes wide
and his mouth hanging open. “What do you say?”

“Dol Delius has returned,” said the soldier,
and to prove the point Dol staggered into the room. His face was an
unrecognizable ruin and his armor fused with flesh stiffened his
walk so that he looked more like a puppet on a string than a dwarf
warrior, but he held the Hammer of Fire and the great weapon pulsed
like a beating heart and glowed with the radiance of the sun.

“I have returned,” he said and held the
hammer high.

“Just in time,” said Councilor Five as he
stared at the raw power of the hammer and licked his lips. “I move
that we make Dol Delius First Edos so that he might replace the
previous office holder once execution takes place.”

“What?” said the High Councilor with a sudden
turn towards his brother.

“Don’t listen to them, Dol,” said Borrombus
from the floor. “They mean to bribe you. You’ve been in the world,
you know we must strike out from this place.”

“The motion is seconded,” said one of the
dwarves in the golden armor.

“A vote,” prompted Councilor Five.

“Yes,” said the High Councilor. “The motion
has been seconded. We must have a vote.”

“There will be no more votes,” wheezed Dol
barely able to breath. “There will be no more High Council. The
dwarves of Craggen Steep will take their place in the world for
good or for ill. I have slain Gazadum and yet his words live in me.
Let Craggen Steep be free! Let dwarves live free. Let us all live
our lives to their fullest and never again hide, never again let
fear determine our path.”

With this he raised the hammer high over this
head and slammed it down onto the massive granite floor fashioned
countless eons ago by the greatest of the earth elementals. The
floor cracked, but the pulsing hammer simply exploded sending eight
shards of molten death sailing through the air like falcons diving
towards their prey.

The seven councilors were dead before they
even fully understood what happened, and a gasp of shock came from
the crowd as if from a single entity. Dol looked down at his own
chest, where the eighth shard rested, and smiled. He was dead
before he hit the floor.

The dwarves in the balcony and the floor
stormed as one towards the raised podium, and the golden armored
soldiers threw down their weapons and fled. Dol’s eyes, although
open, saw none of this. Nor did his ears hear the cries of freedom
that rang up and down the ancient halls. His body did not feel the
hands that lifted him, that carried him, nor did he hear as they
called out his name again and again long into the night.

“Freedom! Freedom! Dol Delius and
Freedom!”

Jurus Thrimskull did not like these deep
passages of the Maw where Edos Edorin Firefist often came to do his
meditation. The fumes of the Black Fire were intense and the heat
even more so. He wore a mask on his face and a heavy linen smock to
keep as much of the heat from his body as possible. “Why is it
always me,” he muttered to himself as he turned a corner and saw
the dim black glow of the ancient cavern ahead. The heat seared him
and even with his magically treated mask he felt his lungs burning,
“Go get Edorin” he said in a high-pitched, whiny voice. “Why is it
always me?”

He took a few more steps forward and saw the
form of the dwarf master blacksmith standing near the open chasm
below which roiled the Black Fire. The heat of it drove Jorus back
a step and he turned his head away, “Edos Edorin?” he said in a
small voice but the words seemed to die in the atmosphere. The
apprentice coughed, “Edos Edorin?” he repeated a bit louder.

The master of the black forge sighed and
turned towards his best apprentice, “What is it, Jorus?”

“The trade master wants to know if we will
have this month’s shipment ready for Queen Onolodia?”

“You know the answer to that,” said Edorin as
he turned back towards the river of black fire that flowed beneath
him. It leapt and bubbled with turbulence and the heat waves
distorted the air. He breathed in deeply and smiled.

“I told the trade master that the Black Fire
is running hot and that all shipments are delayed, but he wants you
to tell him,” said Jorus and lowered his gaze.

Edorin nodded his head and put his hand to
his beard. He wasn’t wearing his metal circlets as they tended to
heat up too much down here in the bowels of the Maw where the Black
Fire burned hottest. “I understand. I’ll be up shortly. Come here,
Jorus, come and look upon the Black Fire.”

Jorus sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and
hesitatingly walked forward towards Edorin. The heat was intense,
and the boy put his hand in front of his face to try and ward off
some of the power of the furnace below. He looked down upon the
lava not for the first time and blinked in awe at the power. This
was the source of all the wealth of Hot Rock. No one had managed to
harness it until Edorin arrived some thirty years ago, before Jorus
was born. Now they used it in the smithies to forge the great
weapons that were in demand the world over. His wealth was assured
for the future as long as Edorin stayed here in Hot Rock and tended
the forge.

“What do you think,” said Edorin looking down
upon the chaos below. The lava seemed to leap and shake as if
trying to remove itself from the channel that contained it.

“The Black Fire runs hot,” said Jorus and
blinked rapidly. “Very hot.”

Edorin’s gaze suddenly went far away and he
said nothing.

“Is there anything I can do, Edos Edorin,”
said Jorus breaking the long silence.

“No,” said Edorin. “Time is the only
answer.”

“Time?” said Jorus.

Edorin smiled and his mind drifted back to
the ancient wooden chest that contained a half white, half burned
hammer haft and eight pieces of metallic slag that still burned to
the touch. Or at least he assumed they still burned to the touch.
He hadn’t seen them in over thirty years but they had stayed hot
for two thousand years after Delius smashed the hammer. There was
no reason to suspect that the last thirty years could change that
immutable fact.

“Time?” repeated Jorus.

Edorin thought about the scroll in his room
that when read would send a signal across the continent to dwarves
waiting in the ancient citadel, now shamefully hidden again. This
time it would be his family, the Firefists, who would free Craggen
Steep from its second, self-imposed exile from the world. This time
it was the Blackirons who held onto power like a lover holds the
object of his affection. The signal would send his cousins
scrambling to pack up the chest and send it south, here, to the
Maw. “Yes, time.”

“I … I don’t understand,” said Jorus and
lowered his head.

“The Black Fire runs hot,” said Edorin. “But
not hot enough.”

“Hot enough for what?” said Jorus and looked
at the dwarf with wide, blue eyes.

“Time,” said Edorin. “Soon,” he turned back
towards the roiling fire. “Shadak was the first born of Gazadum you
know, Jorus. In his essence is the key.”

“I don’t understand,” repeated Jorus and
shrugged his shoulders.

“Soon,” said Edorin and turned away from the
fire. “Soon you will. But now, let us go to the trade master and
alleviate his concerns.”

Edorin and Jorus walked away from the cavern
and though Jorus looked back frequently, Edorin only looked
ahead.