BECMI Chapter 154 – A Dwarf Redoubts

“Regent, Highness, Revered,” I greeted each of them in turn, sitting down with Brittabelle here… and King Antius in attendance, as King of the North and the foremost monarch here, deserving to know what was going on and still a personal friend of Regent Karrackheim.The three dwarves were the seniors among those who had followed me. Naturally Regent Karrackheim had far, far more followers, personal and otherwise, as he was a lord of this era. At the same time, he was a little discomfited by the presence of extremely competent dwarven royalty, and the close-mouthed Revered Cruxin who might or might not serve the same gods, and certainly had many questions about them, also elicited a lot of curiosity.

“Lady Edge,” the dwarven Regent nodded to me, trying to be a little reserved. He’d seen me fighting, Casting, leading a multi-racial army, and doing so without much bias, only maximum lethality and getting the job done. Although not as focused as Ukker’s people, dwarves of this era still prized efficiency, and I’d given a master-class on genocide for all to see… along with so much prowess in Healing and Buffing armies not a single Dwarf dared to raise his voice about me.

That, and I’d danced a half-dozen polkas with him, and his face had been so red I’d feared his crimson beard was going to catch fire.

“You were invited today to be informed of some of the truths and details of the coming future,” I informed him calmly. “You have been informed of the fact that Belle, Prince Ukker, and Revered Cruxin and I come from the future, through the Portal through time that exists in the bottom of the Thisbean Inn.”

“I have,” he nodded gravely. “There bin been little said about that future by du people…” he pointed out somberly and shrewdly, as certainly knowing the future would be of immense benefit in the present.

“This is no longer our past,” I informed the Regent calmly, making him blink. “Free Will and the future are thus in play and in flux. You are not locked into the history we know, Lord Regent. Your choices and deeds can still shape the future, but it is not the future we come from. We are in a different history, a different branch to the stream of time. The deeds of Regent Himmelstern Karrackheim of our past are already done, recorded, and writ in time, harder than stone.

“Your deeds are still yet to be written.”

He took a deep breath, eyes returning from the Holos I’d drawn of the branching streams and connections. “I believe I see. Un du cannot jump back to, nor return to our future?” he pressed.

“That is correct. I can venture carefully into that other timeline’s past, having completed the loop, but I have to be careful not to mess with the course of events that are known. The future here is not reachable, the Portal through the Inn only connects to the other side of the river, not to the downstream here on this side.”

He straightened marginally, glancing at the other two dwarves. “That… bin very reassuring. Antius, du know ov this already?” the Regent of the Halls asked gravely.

The human king nodded his darkly-haired head. “I do. The next part is driving much of what we do.”

I nodded slowly. “Although the times have branched, these are minor things, in the end. Events that happened in places beyond Darkmoor will still occur, even if matters are slightly different.

“The most important to you, Lord Regent, is the Doom of Darkmoor.”

His eyes opened at the weight of those words. “An ominous name…” he said, and watched as I pulled up a map of the North.

Then I detonated the Doom in the middle of it.

He tried to hide his horror and could not as a crater basically swallowed all of the fledgling nation of Darkmoor, and cracks raced across the continent. As he watched, I drew back the view to include the whole world as it wobbled and spun on its axis, turning north to south and east to west in places as it did so.

He watched the sea come in to swallow all that was made here. The shape of continents rose and fell.

There was no more Darkmoor, and no more of the dwarven clans who dwelled here.

“The dwarves survive this, Lord Regent.” I pointed at Ukker and Cruxin in turn, and he considered them with both astonishment and pride. “But the dwarves also perish to a one,” I went on, my voice cold, and he blinked in confusion. “All of your history, your culture, your legacy, and your achievements are lost.

“There are no records of any dwarves remaining outside of Rukheim itself. The wonders you crafted for Iberon, gone. The coins and ingots you stamped, wiped away. The Arms and Armor, the monuments and the mines… all buried or scrubbed free of dwarven legacy. The very name and image of dwarves was scrubbed from the minds of humanity… if not those of the elves.

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“You and your clans all perish, Lord Regent, and yet the dwarves survived your fall into oblivion.

“Most pointedly, the Immortals you serve, your very own creators, are lost to time. They may well serve and watch over dwarves in other realms, on other worlds and places, but in the future in which I come from, Harnadin, Beroan, and the rest of their Pantheon are simply unknown, as if they never existed.

“The dwarves serve one Immortal, and one Immortal only: the Crafter Clangyr, known among the humans of Iberon in this age as Wulshar the Maker.”

His jaw opened in disbelief, and he turned his eyes on Prince Ukker and Revered Cruxin, who nodded in tandem somberly. Aghast at the revelation, he turned his eyes back to me, but I simply nodded to Revered Cruxin, who took up the tale.

“In our oldest tales, over two thousand years old, the dwarves arose in the depths, brought forth by wise and mighty Clangyr. There, protected from all enemies, He gifted unto us the First King, Denvun, who organized our people, set up our clans und kings und heritage, bidding us build und grow strong in the deeps, until we could rise from the depths und stake our claim upon the surface once more.

“We know this, und it bin certain. There bin no records beyond the First Tales, recorded in stone. No word ov mouth ov lost ages. We arose from the stone, we bin taught ov the stone, und the Words of Clangyr bin wrote in Rune und Stone for us.

“There bin no dwarves before our people. None,” the dwarf-priest breathed out, bowing his head. “Yet here we bin, two thousand years before the dwarves bin made, und there are many, many dwarves…”

“Who are different,” I interposed, and the Lord Regent blinked, while Cruxin and Ukker nodded firmly.

“Different… how?” the Lord Regent asked, mystified and wary.

“Revered Cruxin is a true dwarven Cleric, similar to any human.” The Regent’s blue eyes blinked in consternation, confusion, and some awe at Prince Ukker’s words. “We know there are no such true Clerics among your people. In turn, there bin no Artificers, Geomancers, or Forge-mages among the dwarves ov Rukheim,” the dwarven prince added firmly.

The Lord Regent blinked, and waved his hand. “That bin impossible,” he stated flatly. “I bin seen du wield the Forge-magic myself, Your Highness!” he declared carefully. The speed with which the future dwarves had mastered the magic of their ancestors had been remarked upon by many an astonished elder, and not without some disapproval. That I might have been advising them on the side was certainly part of it, contaminating the older teachings with elvish nonsense.

“Du have not noticed me Casting an Infusion or spell even once, Lord Regent,” Prince Ukker refuted gravely, and pulled up the Rod at his waist, the egg-sized ruby of its tip gleaming ready and even beating in time with his heart. “Du have only seen me Channeling the ancient magic. I cannot Cast at all.” He set the Rod down, lifting his hand away, and the fiery light of the jewel atop it dimmed and went out. “Without an Implement in my hand, I have no ability to wield the Forge-magic at all.” He gestured to me humbly. “The Lady Edge’s advice und teaching in how to wield Implements to reclaim the power bin why we can use our ancestor’s magic at all.”

The Lord Regent looked back and forth from the impossible Dwarf-priest to the crippled Forgemage. Slowly, he said, “Du did say ‘reclaimed’,” he pointed out directly.

Prince Ukker nodded slowly, his and Cruxin’s eyes sliding back to me. “I know my lineage. I know the first Denalan, risen from the stone und Named by Denvun himself. There bin no dwarves before his generation.” He took a deep and painful breath.

“Lady Edge wrought a spell to show us our bloodline, our lineage, our legacy.” It was Revered Cruxin who spoke, and there was something shaken and broken under his firm words. “Lord Regent, your counterpart in our past bin a great-great grandfather ov the line ov Denalan,” the dwarf-priest said, his voice a bit hollow.

The astonished Lord Regent turned his eyes back upon his distant descendant Prince Ukker Denalanin shock.

“The spell she wrought showed me my mother, my father, und then my grandparents, und then theirs, on und on in a line to the past, names und faces she should have no way of knowing,” Prince Ukker nodded grim agreement. “I could see the magic boiling in mein own blood. There was no falsehood, no lie, only a legacy wrought in blood und stone… und then it jumped, und it changed, und yet, where it said all began from naught, more dwarves led into the past, beyond und before all dwarves existed.

“The dwarves ov Darkmoor bin our own ancestors,” he declared with a firmness that was yet numb. “Yet all knowledge ov them und their achievements bin wiped away from the world, und the dwarves bin changed from those ov this era, to those ov ours.” Prince Ukker took a deep breath. “Great und mighty Clangyr might have saved us all, but He extracted a bitter price for doing so.”

The Lord Regent was somber as he considered these dwarves of the future, his own descendant one of them… and a Royal, no less! “Our culture und our history, our deeds und names… a terrible thing to lose. Yet, dur words run deeper. How bin we… different?” he asked directly.

“The Earthpower runs stronger in them than it does in you,” I interposed calmly, drawing his eyes back to me. “They have been remade to be more resistant to radiations and poisons than the dwarves of this age, defying the lingering after-effects of the Doom of Darkmoor and the Crimson Cataclysm that follows it. In doing so, the Earthpower denies the flow of the Forge Magic entirely. They have the will and the attunement to draw the power to them, and at its most basic, this allows them to forge steel into Arms and Armor even in the future using basic Runecraft. But they have no ability to Infuse or Cast at all… save the Divine magic which binds them so closely to Clangyr.”

“We bin also bound to the deeper places in the world,” Prince Ukker went on gravely. “The dwarves of this era bin surface-dwellers who bin unafraid ov stone, but they are not deep-dwellers. Du herd. Du ride beasts. Du farm, und du raise great buildings ov stone, rather than delve und mine und create dur cities below. In our eyes, du bin very much like humans in how du live, only more committed to dur crafts und longer ov years.

“For us, the natural place ov a dwarf bin below the earth, in solid tunnels carved through stone, protected by the deeps.”