The Gilded Rune by Smedman Lisa

Author:Smedman, Lisa [Smedman, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786961290
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2012-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

Torrin dropped a moonflower into the offering font that was already overflowing with white flowers, gems, and silver coins. He murmured a prayer to Berronar Truesilver, the goddess of home and hearth. Following the abrupt closure of Sharindlar’s sacred pools—the reason for which had yet to be revealed to the general populace—it had fallen to the clerics of Berronar to tend to those afflicted by the stoneplague. Her main temple had been turned into a hospice for the dying. Berronar was less commonly associated with comforting the sick, but home in the goddess’s embrace was preferable for those waiting the journey to their next life.

Torrin made his way through the cavern, past the hundreds of mattresses of living moss on which the afflicted lay. The smell was almost overwhelming—a mix of vomit, urine, and stale sweat. Harried-looking Revered Sisters and Revered Brothers bustled back and forth, directing the tallfolk servants who’d been hired to tend the sick. Despite the Lord Scepter having thrown open the treasury for the duration of the crisis, there weren’t enough helpers. The tallfolk not only didn’t have to fear the stoneplague, they didn’t have to face it if they didn’t want to.

Despite Torrin’s discovery that the cursed gold was the cause of the stoneplague, the most renowned of Eartheart’s wizards, alchemists, loremasters, and sages—working in secret, under order from the Deep Lords—had yet to find a way to purge its curse. They had used magic to destroy a large pile of the gold that had so far been recovered, but even though that gold was gone, the curse lingered. Not a single person among the afflicted had responded to a curative spell. Clerics from dozens of faiths had tried to cure the afflicted, but failed.

The Morndinsamman seemed indeed to have turned away from their chosen people. All their clerics could do was comfort the dying.

Likewise, the information Torrin had wrested from Mercuria had proved to be a dead end. The Steel Shields had immediately scoured the streets of Hammergate for Vadyr, but had no success in running the rogue to ground. A squad had departed for Helmstar, to see if he might be found there, but proved futile, too. They had, however, managed to confirm that a human by that name had until recently resided there—a suddenly extremely wealthy human, to no one’s surprise. “Spending gold like copper,” as tavern talk had it.

Eartheart’s wizards had used their magic to scour all the Deeps for Vadyr, but the rogue had so far proved impossible to find. No doubt he was screened by expensive magical wards against scrying, paid for with all that gold.

Despite those disappointments, Torrin still had one nugget firmly in hand—the ointment the tiefling had given him. Sadly, the time had at last come to try it, to see if it would do what Mercuria had claimed, or whether it was just fool’s gold.

He picked his way across the cavern, to the spot where Kier lay. The living carpet had been worn down to

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