…“What is the chief virtue of virtues, my children?”

To the Fire of Innovation they cried: “Mercy!”

“What is the greatest of goods, my children?”

To the Keeper of Memory, they cried: “Redemption!”

“What is the most natural law, my children?”

To the Great Artificer, they cried: “Healing!”

It was in those days the All-Father took them

to the depths beneath the world, where it was proper,

and placed the dwarves as keepers of His illumination,

in the darkness that would test them like the forge,

which softens steel that it might be made useful,

and in their gentleness, the God survived…

-The Litany of Tek, 1:14

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For all of its familiarity here in the Lands of Tek, the darkness remained a paradoxical thing: unremarkable in the absence of light and then, with the simple introduction of a single struck match, it became both alive and somehow deeper. Dorn Urald cleared his throat as he lit the ceremonial candle and then shook out the match. A shrine to the All-Father stood in the antechamber before one reached the Heartforge. His vision, a dim gray-scale of lost details and general shapes hardly perceptible within ten feet, could barely pick out the contours of the gem cut to resemble a column of fire as it caught the light of the candle’s flame.

The young dwarf considered for a long moment what prayer to make. Did it even matter when the only answer would be silence? A twinge of guilt at the borderline heretical thought twisted in his stomach.

Please care for your children, O All-Father, Dorn prayed. Do not let the darkness overtake us.

He could barely make sense of his dream here in the quiet serenity of the center of Dhuldarim. The only sound was the constant vibration of the artifice’s workings, a humming through the mesh of stone and metal that made up every fraction of the city. The song soothed his frayed nerves, so different from the shrieking cacophony of his nightmare.

And yet, the destruction of Dhuldarim followed him like the echoing of his own footsteps as he approached the Heart-Forge.

Constructed of glass and strange, singing metal unlike any other, the Heart-Forge woke on its own: the fire burning within without coals or obvious fuel flared brightly. The words of the God of Dwarves etched into its surface glowed with an impossible light, imprinting themselves like after-flash on his vision.

Dorn cleared his throat nervously. While tradition did not forbid the average dwarf from speaking directly with their ancestors, it was customary for all questions to be channeled through the Forge-Tender and normally Dorn honored his elders’ wisdom above all other things. He just couldn’t find it in his heart to worry the old dwarf over a bad dream. If he hadn’t had the dream over and over, perhaps he wouldn’t have even come this far with it.

He wiped his hands on his thick leather apron as he approached, rasping rough palms catching on the scarred surface of his outerwear. The familiarity of the soft sound and the long-ago memorized map of textured leather grounded him. He cleared his throat again. It was only a dream, probably from your masterwork, he told himself.

Welcome, Dorn Urald. The Heartforge glowed with an embracing warmth as he took the last few steps into the chamber. You come to us troubled.

He stood beside the anvil placed reverently before the heart of Dhuldarim, gathering his wits. The calm in the perfect chorus of his ancestors’ voices soothed his frayed nerves like a balm. The fire burned low, nowhere near as hot as when the Forge-Tender consulted it. “I do, Honored Ones.” He lowered his head and took a knee before the Heart-Forge, carefully gathering his thoughts. “We received a gift from our brothers and sisters in Bhelladuhr.” He reached into his apron pocket.

The armband he produced gleamed like an eye-stinging torch in the reflected light of the Heart-Forge, thread-thin engravings of the God Tongue perceptible as faint etchings under his thick fingers as he turned it over in his hands. He knew every indentation on the otherwise smooth surface after spending the better part of a year working on the translation of the poetic inscriptions.

The fire in the Heart-Forge crackled and curled closer, extending a tongue of flame for a moment, almost as if reaching for the armband. Before making contact, however, the Heart-Forge recoiled. The armband vibrated in Dorn’s hand with an ethereal bell-like ringing, too soft to be a hammer blow, and grew almost painfully hot. It was the same haunting melody from his dreams. It sings a song we have not heard in a thousand years: the bitter-sweetness of ages gone by, the tears of those given over to the fire, the One who dreams where none can reach Him…

Dorn almost dropped the armband in shock. Not once had it ever made a sound before, even exposed to fire, but here it played like a music box. The vibrations rippled up his arm, humming louder than even Dhuldarim’s beating heart in his bones. “Tek? It sings of the God of the Machine?” His sense of direction distorted even as he spoke, like the armband itself contained a north of its own, tugging at his sense for the magnetic field that guided all of his kind in their mental mapping.

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It sings of the ending. The flames of the Heartforge hunched like a grief-stricken dwarf, crackling with the snaps and pops of gnashed teeth. It sings of the pain. It sings of the coming silence.

“Then it is an accursed thing?”

It is the weight that all dwarves must bear.

In his hand, the symphony from the armband abruptly cut out. It fell still and left an aching absence in its wake. “I…understand.” Dorn’s voice cracked under the weight of echoing grief. The engravings on the band were part of the Carving of Laments, the scholar from Bhelladuhr claimed, and Dorn’s translation confirmed that much. Yet the other dwarf had said nothing of it singing. Had they never thought to take it to their own Heartforge?

You do not.

Dorn ran his hands over the armband, but already the metal was cooling back to the ambient temperature and no longer did it sing. “What does this mean, then? Why does it sing here? Why do I dream of Dhuldarim’s destruction?”

So much has passed over into shadow, Dorn Urald. It will not be you who pierces the darkness with light. Know only that difficult times lie ahead. This fragment sings here because Dhuldarim was the last to lose its ties to Thuumdolahr.

Thuumdolahr. Dorn felt a quiver in his soul. The sacred forge of the God of the Machine, the assembly-grounds of all dwarfdom, the place where Creation itself was hammered into shape by divine power. No artifice in the Lands of Tek knew where the Golden City lay now, as lost as the god who created it. “Is it possible that we could find it again using this?” he asked.

It will not be you who pierces the darkness with light, the Heartforge said with both sorrow and a gentle warmth.

“Why?” Dorn asked. “I know the God Tongue better than any. I have devoted my life to–”

Dhuldarim needs its favored son to guide it through difficult times. When the time comes, we will choose one for the task as the artificer selects the tool best suited.

Dorn bowed his head, accepting the wisdom of his ancestors. They had seen the span of thousands of years. They knew better than anyone living. “I will do my best,” he said, tucking the cooled armband back into his apron pocket.

Yes, the voices whispered softly as the flames receded. Ever faithful, ever vigilant. This is what it means to carry the mantle of Dhuldarim’s Forge-Tender.

Sweating and trembling slightly, Dorn cleared his throat with a rough sound. He turned and retreated into the shrine of Tek, where the single candle still burned and another dwarf had taken up vigil, praying quietly in alto tones. There was no hope the scuffing of his boots and his breath would be unheard, so Dorn cleared his throat again to announce his presence. “Sibta?”

The female dwarf cocked her head slightly in acknowledgment, turning an ear towards him as she stood up. She still smelled faintly of stone dust and earthy soap. “I wondered who else was up so late.” Sibta Aethrum’s voice had the character of a miner’s, a bit gruff despite the protective coverings worn in the mines and wet drilling to prevent silicas from getting into the lungs. She spoke with carefully restrained force as a result of her comfortable command and a natural determination one could chip diamonds on.

Dorn smiled a little despite his disquiet at the sound of such a dependable dwarf. It had been almost a month since he’d last seen Sibta, absorbed in his studies. “How’s the hearth, Aethrum?” he asked, stepping over and reaching out to touch her face.

The female dwarf greeted him similarly, hands nimbly mapping the crags of his face as he did the same. She’d shorn her hair short to keep it out of her face down in the mine, a common fashion in those who worked the stone. “I hardly feel its warmth half the time,” Sibta admitted ruefully. “Thorgin keeps offering to take shifts, but I can’t do that to him when he has his own little on the way.”

“And what about your little?” Dorn said pointedly.

Sibta sighed into a creaking sound of the voice, the dwarven tone of regret. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Divine guidance?”

“She wants to follow me into the mines, Dorn. I’d much rather she be her father’s daughter.”

Dorn understood without Sibta needing to say more. The mines were dangerous, even in the best of situations. Even with the care and knowledge of the dwarves, there were any number of hazards: floods, collapses, pockets of poison gas, and many other things in the depths below the artifice. “She has the heart and hands of a gemcutter,” he agreed. “Master Geim even says so.”

Sibta clicked molars in agreement, letting out a proud puff of breath. “I just wish she could see it.”

“What does Garran think?”

“He already worries himself sick with me down in the mines,” Sibta said. “He’d rather have Tali with him.” She worried at a blister on her hand for a moment, ear still cocked towards Dorn. “I was hoping Forge-Tender Aradun was here. She adores him and might actually stop fussing if it was his idea.”

Dorn had heard the girl in question poking around her father’s workshop. Even if she said she wanted to follow Sibta into the mines, he knew gemcutting was far more likely to catch her passion. “It’s the peacekeeper in her. She doesn’t want you to feel like she loves you less.”

Sibta made the creaking sound again. “Probably.”

He gave the female dwarf a little push. “Take a few cycles off from the mine and have her show you what she’s been getting up to in Garran’s workshop. Let her know how proud you are.”

The miner gave him an affectionate thump on the shoulder with one hand. “You know, Dorn, you ought to be careful. Keep giving good advice and they’ll make you Forge-Tender when Aradun goes to the flame.”

“Tek help us if ever that happens,” Dorn said with a faint smile. He was the favored choice already, but Aradun probably had half a century left and he was in no rush to take over such a weighty position, particularly after what the Heartforge had said.

Even after Sibta had departed in better spirits, however, the words of his ancestors lingered with him.

Difficult times lie ahead.