Vanerak is on his way to his lowest chamber when the news comes to him. One of the junior masons, lost, racing up through the black corridor in a panic, yells it out:
“Runethane, save us! Save us!”
Vanerak smashes him out of the way. He has no time for tremors. He has an artifact of untold power to find.
“My Runethane, stop! It isn't safe! There's been a collapse! Everything's collapsed!”
Vanerak stops and turns. “What?”
“The roof! The roof above the magma sea! It's collapsed! We need to get lower—everyone's heading lower.”
“Tell the master mason to perform an assessment. Tell Halax to get together some runeknights and stop the panic.”
“But my Runethane—”
Vanerak is already striding away from the bruised mason down the corridor. He has a focus for his search now, a locus toward which he can set his soul. The sphere—if he can find the sphere, he can find the power, and use it with far greater skill than Zathar can.
Another tremor briefly knocks him off balance but he gives no thought to it. Let the masons and his commanders deal with the cave-in. Such catastrophes are a fact of life, and not uncommon, however disastrous they may be. More miners can be hired to replace the crushed.
Quick footsteps approach. Vanerak turns and sees a figure blurring toward him. He thrusts out with his pollaxe but Halax shifts to avoid the blow, then kneels, armor scraping up white sparks.
“My Runethane!” he says. “I apologize for startling you. There is great news that needs your attention.”
“I have heard,” says Vanerak. “You are to deal with it. Re-establish discipline and tell the master mason to perform an assessment.”
“Very well, my Runethane, but I feel that you should understand the severity of the situation. The entire excavations above the magma ocean have collapsed.”
This gives Vanerak pause. “The entire excavations?”
“Yes, my Runethane. Every last tunnel has been shaken down and there is not a single miner left alive. The head of excavations is also believed perished, as are more than a hundred overseers.”
Vanerak pulls the head of his pollaxe up. “I see.”
Halax looks up. “But my Runethane, there is more. You must see for yourself. It must be seen to be believed.”
“You see better than I do with your helm. Tell me.”
“A great network of ceilings has been uncovered. All of the stone the miners call impervious. This is the place of lost knowledge that Runeking Ulrike spoke of. A great city above the magma seas, filled in ages past by an eruption. Now it has fallen.”
“We have found little knowledge so far in what we dug out.”
“I believe I know the reason for that. Come with me, my Runethane, and I will point it out.”
“If you think you know the reason tell me it now. I have a very great task to accomplish now and must strike while the steel is white.”
“Very well, my Runethane. I traced with my eyes the patterns exposed by the fall, and discovered that they extend far out over the seas.”
"Explain further."
"I mean to say that certain parts, that lead away, were already exposed before this latest cave-in."
“I see. Why did you not notice this before?”
“I did not know what to look for, my Runethane. And the exposed ceilings leading out are but a few thin lines. Roads, I presume.”
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“Could you see where they lead?”
“I focused until my eyes ached like spheres of hot lead, and I saw. They lead to a hollow, an inverted caldera filled with smoke that my vision only barely pierced. The caldera is large—five or six times the area of the excavations that just collapsed.”
“And does this caldera bear traces of civilization?”
“Indeed it does, my Runethane. The patterns across it are similar to what has just been exposed by the cave-in, though on a far grander scale.”
“I see.”
“Whatever city was there fell into the sea in ages past. What we have been searching through was but an outer town. The main part lies in the molten rock more than twenty miles out. I predict that it is the origin of the shards that wash up upon the magma shore.”
“On the shards are only old runes.”
“The old runes are as powerful as the new, my Runethane, or at least Zathar has not yet proven otherwise.”
“We shall see." Vanerak considers; Halax detects vague irritation from him. "Whatever the case," Vanerak eventually says, "it is our duty as subjects of Runeking Ulrike to dig them out. Now you are to do two things: stop the panic, then gather the runeknights, and masons also, in the main hall of the palace.”
“Yes, my Runethane.”
“The collapse has been a terrible tragedy. Yet tragedy can lead to glory—such as the tragedy of Zathar has just proven.”
“Indeed, my Runethane. You are most astute.”
“We will see what lies in this fallen city. The old may lead us to the new.”
"It may indeed, my Runethane."
----------------------------------------
The great hall of Runethane Vanerak's palace is, just as it was on the date of Zathar's arrival, packed. Yet this time the doors are not closed, but set wide open, and through them and up the stairs the stone tiles are crowded with hundreds of masons. This news concerns them too, after all.
Standing at their head is the quiet, ancient master mason. He watches as Vanerak rises from his throne—a stone throne, carved by him of blue granite. Runeknights draw their power from metal but they know that in stone is power also. They do not know how much—yet neither do the masons. Too much has been lost since the time of the First Runeforger.
“Greetings, my loyal runeknights, in this sad hour. And greetings to the masons also.”
Long ago, the master mason resented how he and those of his craft were treated as secondary, but he has since grown resigned to their position.
“A great tragedy has occurred,” the Runethane continues. “You all felt the most recent tremors. Even those of you deep in sleep were woken by them—the greatest we have yet felt. And you are likely all by now aware of their origin—a disastrous cave-in.”
If the overseers and their chief had thought to consult us, thinks the master mason, such a tragedy could have been avoided. Stone was struck in the wrong place. That was the cause of this disaster. Stone wishes to be struck in some places, left whole in others. It has a will just as metal does.
“Yet with tragedy comes opportunity. The lives of so many of our comrades, those who were working tirelessly in the darkness to goad the miners on, have not been lost in vain. For the cave-in has revealed something truly great. Maybe some of you have already seen it. If not, you soon will, for it is clearly visible from the magma shore.”
The dwarves listen closely, rapt.
“A complex network of ceilings has been uncovered. Imprints of the ancient black stone the city we were uncovering was constructed from. The whole of that city has fallen into the magma sea—yet this is no cause for despair. Our excavations were uncovering nothing. They did not find a single rune. Wherever the shards in the magma sea came from, it was not from there.”
The shards in the magma sea. Of parts of runes and pictures no one has yet been able to put together. They ought to show the masons. Things of stone should be examined by dwarves of stone, thinks the master mason.
“We could not tell their origin. We assumed they were from somewhere buried deep by the magma, or perhaps set adrift from distant caverns. But the cave-in has also uncovered a road. A road to a hollow in which a great city, of domes and castles carved into the rock, once was. We were excavating but a town, yet now the capital is revealed to us.”
Runethane Vanerak steps forward.
“My runeknights!” he cries. “That capital fell into the magma deeps in ages past. Perhaps during the age of the First Runeforger. We must uncover it! Are you willing to?”
“Yes!” shout the runeknights, and some of the masons also.
“You have not convinced me! Look upon my face and tell me yes!”
Every runeknight in the hall draws breath as one. The master mason raises an eyebrow. Is their Runethane really about to show his face? He keeps it hidden to stir fear, but he is savvy, and knows that now is not a time for fear but for grand inspiration.
Runethane Vanerak undoes the clasps at the back of his helm and lifts away his mirror-mask. His face is revealed to his dwarves for the first time: it is bluntly carved, as if by an axe, with a wide nose and wide jaw. His eyes are the color of cold blued steel. His beard, cut neat and short, is slate-gray despite his unaging. His lips are unusually red.
“My dwarves!" he roars, and his teeth when he opens his mouth are like pale axe-heads. "Runeknights and masons all, are you willing to uncover this mystery alongside me? To battle demons in their molten homes? To swim through fire? Are you willing to travel with me, beyond the magma shore?”
“Yes!” comes the screamed reply. Weapons, armored fists, and rock-hammers thrash the air. “Yes! Yes!”
They are driven not only by fear, reflects the master mason. They may be petrified by him, but they also trust him utterly. This is the dwarf who is leading them toward the future. He saved them from the burning realm of Thanerzak; they are his chosen people he guided from that slag-rent cavern. They are the future of dwarfkind. Old runes and new, all will be for their power.
And the masons, as usual, will acquire nothing.
END OF PART ONE