Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(45)

Athrogate looked at him as if he’d just awakened from a deep, though tumultuous slumber. “It canno’ be,” he whispered, barely able to get the words out.

“Well, let us see what it be, my friend,” Jarlaxle replied, and started away.

He’d barely descended to skim above the pond on his disc when Athrogate passed him by, the dwarf apparently shaking off his stupor and willing his own disc on with all speed.

On the far side of the pond, Dahlia, an elf once more, was helping Valindra off her disc, and Athrogate simply leaped down from his, which was still half a dozen feet above the ground. The fall didn’t hinder the dwarf at all, though—in fact, he didn’t even seem to notice it as he bounced right back to his feet and stumbled and scrambled forward, following the central rail line.

“This place knew much battle,” Dor’crae remarked after shedding his bat form and bending low to pick up a whitened bone. “Goblin, or a small orc.”

Jarlaxle glanced around to confirm the vampire’s observations. The soft ground was scarred and many bits of bone showed clearly. More interesting, though, were the sights that lay ahead, the image that had Athrogate on his knees, and though his back was to the drow, Jarlaxle could well imagine the tears streaming down his hairy face.

And who could blame him? For even Jarlaxle, only partially acquainted with the legends of the Delzoun dwarves, could guess easily enough that they had stumbled upon Gauntlgrym, the legendary homeland of the Delzoun dwarves, the most sacred legend of their history, the place Bruenor Battlehammer himself had sought for more than half a century.

A great wall faced them, sealing off the end of the cavern. It was built much like one would expect of a surface castle, with gate towers on either side of a massive set of mithral doors, and a crenellated battlement lining the top of the wall that spanned the cavern and seemed as if it had been built deep into the stone at either end. The strangest part, aside from the huge silvery doors, was the tightness of it all. Looking up the wall, Jarlaxle almost expected to see it give way to open sky, but instead there was only a very short space to the natural ceiling of the cavern. A tall human would have a hard time even standing straight up there, and even Jarlaxle would have to crouch in many places.

“It canno’ be,” Athrogate was saying as Jarlaxle came up beside him, and confirmed that the dwarf was indeed crying.

“I can think of no other place it could be, my friend,” Jarlaxle replied, patting Athrogate’s strong shoulder.

“You know it, then?” asked Dahlia, moving up behind them with Dor’crae and Valindra in tow.

“Behold Gauntlgrym,” Jarlaxle explained. “Ancient homeland of the Delzoun dwarves, a place thought to be but a legend—”

“Never did a dwarf doubt it!” Athrogate bellowed.

“… by many nondwarves,” Jarlaxle finished, flashing a smile at his friend. “It’s been a mystery even among the elves, with memories long, and among the drow, who know the Underdark better than any. And doubt not that we have searched for it all these centuries. If one-tenth of the claims of the treasures of Gauntlgrym are true, then there is unimaginable wealth behind that wall, behind those doors.” He paused and considered the sight before him, and their location and depth in a region that was far from remote, by Underdark standards.

“Great magic must have masked this place all these years,” he said. “Such a place as this cavern alone could not have gone unnoticed in the Northdark through so many centuries.”

“How do you know this is Gauntlgrym?” Dor’crae asked. “The dwarves have built, and abandoned, many kingdoms.”

Before Jarlaxle could respond, Athrogate broke out into verse:

Silver halls and mithral doors

Stone walls to seal the cavern

Grander sights than e’er before

In smithy, mine, and tavern



Toil hard in endless night

In toast, oh lift yer flagon!

Ye’ll need the drink to keep ye right

At forge that bakes the dragon.



Come, Delzoun, come one and all!

Rush to grab yer kin

And tell ’em that their home awaits

In grandest Gauntlgrym!



“Old song,” Athrogate explained. “And known to every dwarfling.”

“The stone walls and mithral doors, I see, but that alone is all the evidence—”

“All the evidence I’m needin’,” Athrogate replied. “None other place’s built with such doors as that. No dwarf’d do it, out o’ respect. None’d try to imitate that which can’t be copied. It’d be an insult, I tell ye!”

“We’ll know more once we get inside,” Jarlaxle conceded.

“I’ve been inside,” Dor’crae explained, “and can’t confirm the silver halls, nor did I discover any great hoards of treasure, but I understand the verse about the forge.”

“Ye seen the forge?”

“You can feel its warmth levels away.”

“It’s still fired? How is that possible?” Jarlaxle asked.

The vampire had no answer.

“Are ye saying someone’s living in there?” Athrogate demanded.

Dor’crae sent a nervous glance Dahlia’s way and said, “I found nothing … living in there,” he explained, “but the complex is not deserted. And yes, there is a great forge several levels below us that is indeed still fired. Heat like I’ve never felt before. Heat that could melt an inferior sword to a puddle.”