Arc 2. "Of Phoenixes and Dungeons."
Olfred Warend
My father's command was a stone tablet in my mind, immutable and absolute: I was to accompany Corvis Eralith, crown prince of the elves, to the Red Gorge.
The assignment was a tapestry of execrable violations. I was trespassing on sovereign elven territory. By any reasonable law, I was kidnapping a four-year-old child—who would believe a toddler could consent to such a perilous journey?
And that wasn't all, our destination was a dungeon monopolized by House Wykes of Sapin, a nest of human opportunists whose reputation for greed was only matched by their cunning and obscenity.
It was a mission that could ignite a war, dismantle my life and position and unravel decades of my father's careful work.
But it was Rahdeas's command. So I would obey. The obedience was not thoughtless, but it was absolute, a foundation stone upon which my entire being was built.
It was a more truthful, more profound version of the loyalty that bound me, through artifact and oath, to the wretched King Dawsid Greysunders—a loyalty that was a daily crucifixion.
For Rahdeas, however, I would walk into the fire without a second thought.
The child-prince, however, was not what I had steeled myself for. I had expected a brat. I had prepared for tears, for imperious demands, for the spoiled fragility of royalty raised in gossamer halls.
What I found in the back room of Stonebound Tomes was a kid of unsettling quiet. Corvis Eralith possessed a stillness that was intensely observant.
He listened—truly listened, with a focus that most adults, drowning in their own self-importance, had forgotten. His questions were few, precise, cutting to the heart of the matter. His intelligence was a sharp, clear light in eyes that had maybe seen too much for four years. It was unnerving.
No wonder my father had taken an interest. Rahdeas had always been a magnet for the lost and the promising, a protector of the young who bore sparks of something greater.
It was why I, a slum rat born to nothing and no one, orphaned before memory could form, now bore the title of Lance.
Rahdeas had seen something in the grime-covered, feral child I had been, and with a single, extended hand, had altered the trajectory of a life destined for a short, brutal end in the lightless deeps of Vildorial.
My loyalty was the interest paid on that unimaginable debt.
"We are heading to Zestier's portal," I stated, my voice the same low, gravelly tone I used for all things, as we emerged from the shop—one of the many commercial outposts of my father's discreet empire.
The boy, now Finn Warend, followed a half-step behind, perfectly mimicking the posture of a dwarven child minding his elder.
My work on him had been clinical, an exercise in sculpting truth into fiction. His skin, that pale, almost luminous white common among high-born elves, had been warmed to a tanned, olive shade with pigments ground from Darv's clay deposits.
Using a whisper of earth magic, I'd shaped a soft, light compound to subtly fill out his frame, giving the illusion of a stockier, dwarven build.
Elven royalty, it seemed, did not indulge in the decadent gluttony that had swollen King Dawsid and his sycophantic court into parodies of dwarven strength.
The memory of the king's petulant, jowly face flashed before me, and the familiar, acidic hatred coated my tongue. Serving him was a special kind of torture, a constant abrasion on the soul.
"And from there?" Corvis—Finn—asked. His voice was small but devoid of tremors. He had chosen simple, grey travel robes with functional leather accents. Sensible. Unobtrusive. The kid chose well.
"Burim. It is the closest to our destination," I replied, already moving through the elven capital's bustling streets. "From there, we will travel for three days and reach the dungeon by the dawn of the fourth."
A nod. That was all. He didn't like the timeframe; I could see the impatience flicker behind those now-brown eyes. But he didn't whine. He didn't sigh or drag his feet.
Again, the comparison was involuntary and brutal: not like Dawsid.
A grown dwarf, a king, who would weep and rage if his wine was a half-degree too warm. This elven child had more dignity in his silence than the ruler of my homeland possessed in his entire bloated body.
"I understand," was all he said.
The portal of Zestier loomed ahead, an ancient arch of silver-veined stone humming with a power that predated our kingdoms. It was a relic of the Ancient Mages. Elven guards in their red and white stood vigil, their expressions a blend of aristocratic boredom and sharp vigilance.
"Name and destination," the guard on the right intoned, his eyes gliding over us, lingering for a fraction of a second on Finn. The boy wisely looked down at his boots, a picture of shyness. The disguise was perfect—I'd stake my craft on it—but paranoia was a survival trait.
"Damien Malaisson," I said, the alias smooth on my tongue. "This is Finn Warend. I am here by order of Elder Rahdeas Warend of Darv. We are headed for Burim."
I retrieved the necessary documents. The guard glanced at them, then nodded, stepping aside.
"For Burim, understood."
We stepped through the arch. The world dissolved into a vortex of compressed space and directionless light—a sensation that never grew familiar—and then solidified into a different kind of air.
—
Burim's atmosphere hit me first: a familiar, comforting cacophony of industry.
It was the smell of hot metal and stone dust, of smoke from mana-driven tools, of deep-earth minerals and the yeasty tang of dwarven ale.
The sound was a symphony of hammers, grinding wheels, shouted orders, and the low, perpetual rumble of great machinery moving deep below the cavern floor. We emerged into a thoroughfare teeming with my kind.
Dwarves in leather aprons, faces smudged with soot or pale with stone dust, moved with purposeful energy. Here and there, an elf in practical travel-wear stood out like a sapling in a quarry, usually an artisan or merchant here on business. The crowd was our best camouflage.
"This place is huge…" Finn breathed beside me, and for the first time, I heard the unvarnished awe of a child. The note of genuine curiosity was reassuring. It was the one emotion that fit his face perfectly.
"It is," I grunted, not breaking stride. "Now be careful. It's easy to get lost in these alleys."
Burim was Darv's beating industrial heart, but its layout was a testament to pragmatic, constrained growth.
Unlike the multi-tiered, vertical majesty of Vildorial—a city I associated with the oppressive weight of Greysunder rule—Burim was a sprawling, single-level expanse housed within a cavern of unimaginable size.
The city was built in concentric rings, hugging the vast central plaza where the great forges and primary manufactories churned. This radial design meant the spaces between the outer rings were a labyrinth of narrow, shadowy streets, where buildings of dark brick and fortified timber leaned against one another for support, their upper stories nearly touching.
The air here was cooler, thick with the smell of damp stone and packed earth, the constant din of the center muted to a distant thrum.
"There is a tavern where a friend of Elder Rahdeas will bring us to the surface," I explained, my voice low.
The journey to the surface was always a logistical hurdle for dwarves. Darv was a desert wasteland; our survival underground was all thanks to hydrological engineering—aqueducts of stunning complexity channeling precious meltwater from the Grand Mountains.
That engineering defined our hierarchy. In Darv, true wealth wasn't measured in gold or gemstones; those we mined in abundance. True wealth, true power, was measured in water rights.
Thirst was a more common killer than cave-ins or beast raids. It was a fundamental truth every dwarven child learned, a truth that made the gluttony of the royal court in Vildorial even more obscene.
As we delved deeper into the warren of alleyways, a darker reality pressed in. The narrow, poorly lit passages were hunting grounds for another kind of predator. Kidnappers.
They preyed on the children of the poor, the overlooked, snatching them from these very shadows to sell into servitude in the unregistered, brutal private mines.
The thought was a cold knot in my stomach. My hand, almost of its own accord, reached out and closed around Finn's smaller one. The touch was awkward, impersonal. He stiffened momentarily, but didn't pull away.
If something happened to the Crown Prince of Elenoir under my watch… the consequences were unthinkable.
Virion Eralith's wrath would be continental. I was a white-core Lance; I could best the old elf in a direct confrontation. But I could not protect my father from the political firestorm, from the ruin of all his work, from the war that would follow.
There was a reason why the name Virion Eralith was respected—feared—across all Dicathen.
Finally, we arrived. Beer & Stone. The sign was a simple, carved slab of slate. I pushed the heavy oak door open, its hinges groaning, and ushered Finn inside.
The tavern was a pocket of warmth and noise amidst the cold stone. Low, smoke-stained beams crossed the ceiling. The air was rich with the scent of stew, pipe smoke, and fermented grain.
Rough-hewn tables were occupied by burly craftsmen and miners ending their shifts, their conversations a loud, cheerful roar.
Finn's eyes swept the room, and that gaze again—assessing, calculating, scrutinizing points of entry and exit, the composition of the crowd. It was the hyper-vigilant sweep of a soldier, not a child.
It was a gaze I recognized with a jolt of visceral memory. It was the look I'd worn in the Vildorial slums, before Rahdeas. The look of someone that trusts nothing, that sees threat and opportunity in equal measure, that knows the world is a hungry mouth.
By Mother Earth's bones… what has this kid lived through? The question echoed, uneasy, in my mind.
"Oh! Look who we have here!" A voice boomed over the din, warm as a forge-fire.
Durzek Oreguard emerged from behind the bar, a mountain of a dwarf with a wild, golden mane of hair that rivaled a World Lion's and a long, meticulously trimmed beard.
His round glasses perched on his broad nose, giving him a scholarly air that belied his brawn. He wiped his hands on a towel and extended one to me, a grin splitting his face.
"Mr. Oreguard," I said, shaking his hand firmly. "A pleasure to meet you again."
"The pleasure is mine, Damien!" he boomed, his voice filling the space. "Always a pleasure to speak with one of Elder Rahdeas's workers."
Durzek was another thread in my father's vast, subtle web—a beneficiary of his fair-trade practices, someone lifted from subsistence to modest prosperity. He saw Damien the merchant's agent, not Olfred the Lance.
"And who is this little guy?" Durzek turned his magnified, kindly gaze on Finn, stroking his magnificent beard.
The boy, for his part, seemed strangely at ease amidst the unrefined clamor. He looked up at Durzek, and I saw not royal disdain, but that intense, studying focus. Then, he did something that made my internal alarm chime. He bowed. A perfect, elegant, elven bow of polite greeting.
"Finn," he said.
I clicked my tongue softly against my teeth. My mistake. I should have drilled him on dwarven casualness. Royal etiquette here would paint him as a bizarre, possibly mocking, outlier.
But Durzek, bless his generous heart, merely threw his head back and laughed, a great, rumbling sound that drew smiles from nearby tables.
"Ah! That was a nice bow, Finn!" he chuckled, misinterpreting the formality as a quaint, earnest joke. "Please, sit down! Have something. It's on the house."
"We are on the rush," I said, the instinct to keep moving, to reduce our exposure, overriding courtesy.
"That means you need energies for the trip!" Durzek countered, his tone leaving no room for argument. He was right, of course. I could run on mana for days, but the child couldn't.
"Yes, it's a nice idea," Corvis—Finn—said, his small voice cutting through our brief standoff.
I let out a short sigh, the sound lost in the tavern's noise. "Be fast, Mr. Oreguard."
We settled at a small table in a corner. Finn sat, his back straight, his disguised hands resting on the scarred wood, his too-observant eyes still taking in everything.
What a strange kid, I thought for the hundredth time since leaving Zestier. As Durzek bustled off to fetch food and drink, I sat in the noisy warmth of the tavern, the weight of the prince's silent, unsettling presence beside me.