“-. Dagran Thaurissan .-“

  “Your Majesty, an ash storm has engulfed the site of Old Thaurissan without any buildup.”

  “Your Majesty, humans were sighted fleeing the ruins ahead of the storm.”

  “Your Majesty, there were elementals and even a Flamewalker chasing the humans, has the Firelord ordered an offensive?”

  “Where’s it headed, scout?” “Yes, Senator, that human village up on the rand east of Redridge Pass.” “Is it finally time to wipe out that eyesore?” “You want a war with the humans?” “What war? Our mountain is impregnable!” “Bite your tongues, both of you! Or do I have to remind you who wields Ironfoe?” “That hammer should never have been given to non-dwarven hands, Forgewright was a sentimental fool.” “You have the nerve to say that when his other hammer’s the only reason you still have your job?” “Come over here and I’ll show you how good a hammer it is!”

  “Senate is adjourned.”

  For but a day.

  “Your Majesty, a group of humans appeared from nowhere!”

  “Your Majesty, the humans aren’t just any humans, they’re knights!”

  “Your Majesty, an entire company of human knights are rampaging across the steppes!”

  “That’s absurd!” “How’d they get past our patrols?” “Don’t we have sentries in Redridge Pass?” “They must be sleeping on the job!” “What in the Pit is Angerforge even good for?” “Some General!” “See, this is why we should have fireguards patrolling everywhere, not just Shadowforge City.” “Now that’ll please the Seven! And the Firelord too.” “Why Darkvire, I didn’t realize you were so high up in the Firelord’s confidence as to speak for him.” “I’ll get even higher up somewhere else, then it won’t be just your fist that needs oiling!”

  “Senate is adjourned.”

  For another day.

  “Your Majesty, the knights aren’t from Stormwind, their tracks leads somewhere else!”

  “Your Majesty, we found their trail, they aren’t even trying to be stealthy, they’re just that fast.”

  “Your Majesty, the knights came from the North! They somehow gained passage through Blackchar Cave!”

  “They what?!” “How?!” “Impossible!” “Even we can’t get the spirits there to respond, and they’re our own ancestors!” “That’s why we sealed it off!” “Fat lot of good that did, apparently.” “I told you so!” “A gob’s arse you did, the shamans told everyone so, don’t you dare claim credit!” “Maybe you’ll have your war after all, Grimstone!” “Where are they now?” “The scouts followed them until the knights charged headlong into the ash storm.” “What madness is this?” “Maybe they wanted to know what it’s like to choke to death?”

  “Senate is adjourned.”

  Until the next day.

  “Your Majesty, the ash storm has cleared.”

  “Your Majesty, the human village still stands…”

  “Your Majesty, the Firelord’s Captain, Lucifron is… dead.”

  For the first time since he took the throne, not one of the senators had anything to say.

  “Adjourned for today,” announced Dagran Thaurissan, standing up from the Imperial Throne. “We will reconvene tomorrow.”

  “All rise!” Called the powerful voice of watchman Doomgrip, today’s Sentry of the Seat. “All rise for Dagran Thaurissan, Master of the Dark Iron Clan, Emperor of Blackrock, Lord of the Blackrock Mountains!”

  The senators and their various hangers-on stood and bowed as Dagran left the Great Hall of the Imperial Seat via his personal side-entrance.

  He went to his apartments first. He entered the room adjacent to the parlor, that had no windows or lava slits, and could only be closed and locked from the inside. To his conflicted irritation, it wasn’t as vacant as it should’ve been. As was far too often the case these days.

  “Priestess,” Dagran grunted. “It’s not your place to invite yourself into the Imperial Apartments.”

  “Yet my Emperor continues to not order me not to.”

  “It’s implied.”

  “So is the opposite, especially when there are burdens on My Lord’s health that he will not confess. May I?”

  “… Fine.”

  The Priestess’s Light scoured through him. It felt the same as always, like his insides were being scrubbed with the most infuriatingly judgmental sandpaper. But the burning migraine pounding between his temples went away for another day, curse all medicines for being bitter.

  “You’ve done your duty, Priestess, now leave me to mine.”

  “As you wish.”

  He waited until he was sure she was gone before he began dealing with matters he didn’t bring up in front of the Senate. “Doomgrip, has the Houndmaster returned?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Bring him, then leave us.”

  As an unkempt orphan commoner whose only family were the bloodhounds he bred, Grebmar Fleabeard was not who anyone would expect to be in the Emperor’s confidence. Which was precisely how Dagran liked it. “The matter we discussed, have you confirmed?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. The first reports were true. Gryphon Riders were definitely sighted above the pass.”

  So it was true. Wildhammers. Here.

  Along with a hundred-some human knights from somewhere up in the Northern Kingdoms.

  They weren’t no gangue scraps either, if they were able to wipe out that many elementals and even one of Ragnaros’ own underlords. On their own ground, no less, even the Dark Iron Dwarves knew better than to fight in a storm like that if they had a choice.

  All of the interlopers were allied with Stormwind too, from the sounds of it. The same humans who continued to claim ownership of the Steppes. As begrudging as Dagran was to accept that the issue had never definitively been settled by Old Thaurissan – his grandfather’s lot had been rightly focused on the War of the Three Hammers – it was laughable that the tiny handful of dregs up on that ridge still thought they had a hope.

  Then again, if the humans had lacked tenacity, Franclorn Forgewright would never have gifted his legendary weapon to one of them, never mind a man who wasn’t even of noble blood.

  “Keep reporting on the humans but otherwise ignore them unless they make contact first,” if the interlopers discovered their watchers, it would just be more evidence to their level of threat. “As for the Widlhammers, don’t do anything unless they attack first. If they do, let the rangers use their best judgment.”

  It was galling, but the Wildhammers were masters of the sky, and the Dark Irons had very few ways to retaliate, even at home. War machines were slow, bulky, and only had a hope when the angle favored them. Good for sieges and home defense, but not so much on offense, and on the move they were completely hopeless.

  Mystics would be better, but they were few and far between in the rangers. Most of the shamans were needed at home to keep the volcano under control – insofar as the Firelord let them – and the mages were too few and valuable as enchanters to waste on week-long hikes where almost nothing ever happened.

  It was on that grim note that Dagran Thaurissan went to rest that night, after a torturous afternoon of struggling with all his arcane might to pass the Trial of the Seven in the Summoners' Tomb. He failed as always, but he managed to take out three of the seven ancestor wraiths of the Dark iron clan’s greatest patriarchs.

  The Priestess was waiting outside the doors as always, when he dragged his burned and battered self out. He never summoned her, but she always knew when and where to be to see him at his lowest.

  He let her heal him just to see her gone as quickly as possible.

  Somehow, the next day started out even worse than the last one ended.

  “Your Majesty, a human approaches the Causeway!”

  “Your Majesty, the human crossed the Bridge of Slate even though it was folded in, he just walked on air!”

  “Your Majesty, the human has reached the Grim Gates!”

  “What’s this now?” “Is it one of them knights?” “He came on foot?” “He just walked over the gap?” “Great, the humans brought mages with them too.” “What do you mean he’s not one?” “How would you know?” “What did the captain tell you, man, speak up!” “Word for word right now!” “That silly golden magic? “You can’t be serious!” “What next, will he start screaming prayers at the gates?” “He’d get farther just throwing his prayer book at them!” “What a crazy idea!” “What do you mean he’s just sitting there?” “Let him, we’ll see how long he lasts in the heat.” “He has a peace flag? How quaint!” “Wait, he’s how big?!”

  Dagran adjourned the senate in a mood so foul that he almost ordered the runner’s superior executed, instead of merely demoted to slave whipper in the Searing Gorge mines. The runners that came shouting in the middle of court this time had been from the mountain’s own guard force, not the rangers. Worse, whoever sent him cared more about senatorial favor than the Emperor’s operational security.

  Dagran had been as blindsided by the day’s news as everyone else. Even the Priestess was surprised. He hated that the earnestness of her and the rest of the medics was the only thing he could unironically take at face value.

  “I still say he’d be more use in the detention block,” High Justice Harrold Grimstone gave his entirely unsolicited opinion, when Dagran later summoned him to dictate the sentence of the guard officer that had overstepped. “The Sons of Thaurissan always love seeing traitors perish in the Ring of the Law!”

  I’ll certainly love watching it happen to you when the time comes. “Don’t fret, you might get fresh blood for your games yet.”

  “I’ll certainly not say no to some actual tallfolk warriors in the Ring, though of course they’ll never pull in as many spectators as the true enemy!”

  I’ll bet.

  Dagran dismissed the older dwarf, mind churning over how this changed his prospects.

  The High Justice was far from alone in his sentiments. Like most of the eldest generation, Harrold Grimstone resented losing the War of the Three Hammers. That the Wildhammers and Bronzebeards had allied against them made the outcome cowardly and dishonorable, while the fact they had to band together to win was taken as proof that the Dark Irons were truly superior.

  Such was the whitebeard’s view, one that was catching with fair speed among the younger generation.

  As if it wasn’t the Dark Irons themselves who attacked both their enemies at once to begin with.

  That sort of hypocrisy was certainly useful, since it was shared by most of the Old Guard who made sure to keep the younger generation stoked to get even. But still, if Grimstone weren’t such an able distraction for the Firelord’s ‘ambassador’, with how he was able to turn even the pettiest lawfare into a gladiatorial show at the Ring of the Law, Dagran would’ve replaced him by now.

  The old man forgot his place more than once, talking to Dagran himself as if he, the Emperor, didn’t know the truth of those times. He thought that Dagran agreeing with him about the combined Bronzebeard-Wildhammer actions meant he agreed with him on everything else. It certainly never occurred to the whitebeard that Dagran might have that opinion for completely opposite reasons.

  Dagran was looking forward to the day when he’d sentence Grimstone to become sport for the arena, like he himself enjoyed making of so many. He’d not be able to call it justice, he already couldn’t, justice wasn’t justice if it wasn’t proportionate and immediate. But it would be nice to enjoy irony for a change, instead of having to suffer it from the other side like almost every other time. Then, too…

  His circus acts aren’t enough anymore.

  Not for nothing were the taverns of the Blackrock depths grown so big as to almost match the size of the Domiciles they were attached to. The Grim Guzzler was just the largest among them. There was a lot of bitterness for the Dark Irons to drown in ale. Those who took the Old Guard’s stories at face value drank away their frustrations. Those who saw through the lies drank away their shame.

  Neither lot were the problem. The brawls they got into when they ran their inebriated mouths at each other, those weren’t the problem either.

  The problem were those dwarves who enjoyed the advancement they experienced under the Firelord’s cruelty, precisely because they enjoyed engaging in the same cruelty.

  He never thought twice of their dark urges, cruelty was the endpoint of all power in the end. But he did care when excesses undermined the realm – it was one thing to be a conquered nation, it was another to glorify your conquerors over everything else, including your own people and monarch. When it was for such a petty reason as sadism?

  Threats to the nation’s stability were only lesser than threats against its sovereignty, and neither could ever be tolerated. Not willingly tolerated, much less for reasons as volatile as that.

  Dagran had pretended otherwise – successfully – but some of his policy decisions had been made precisely to ensure a steady supply of captives and slaves, for them to indulge their urges on instead of their fellows. Unfortunately, even with the emperor ‘aloof’ from the matter, that only helped enable them.

  Thankfully, the sadists were still a minority, even if not the smallest minority. That spot was reserved for the sad saps who still believed their little healing light was something more than a peculiar arcane quirk, but thinking of them only served to make him angrier.

  Oh, but were they infuriating! They had the gall to claim connection to some lofty cosmic force for goodness, only to do absolutely nothing to prove it! They refused to make anything of themselves beyond preachers and healers! It was like they expected to coast by on just a third of what the shamans had to offer, just on pure faith!

  Faith, bah! Since when was that good for anything? When had faith been rewarded for anyone? Never mind one so blind as this! The ‘chapels’ were but glorified infirmaries, the High Priestess coasted more on her high birth than her magics, and the ‘blessed’ ones who made it into the ranks of the Anvilrage? They only ended up protecting and serving those they held in contempt!

  Oh, but what more can one expect from ways and teachings picked up from mere slaves?

  They didn’t even use what favor they did amass! All those connections they made every time they saved the high and mighty from death or embarrassment, they didn’t do anything with them. How was Dagran supposed to put them to any use like this? The Blackrock Empire needed more than sweet nothings and empty words!

  They would never be able to entrench themselves in the skeins of power, not when the shamans almost matched them in healing and vastly outdid them in everything else, but to not even try?

  This was why he resented the High Priestess almost as much as he held Grimstone and Darkvire in contempt. Every time she healed his pains away, there was always that one moment when he wanted to believe as she did.

  He’d think it mind control, if not for the mental fortress he’d had to build to make it as a pyromancer. But that ‘merely’ relegated her to a constant reminder of his weakness, which was its own torture.

  It was Dagran Thaurissan’s infuriating lot in life that it was still not the worst torture he had to constantly put himself through.

  Dagran sent the elder Grimstone on his way without ever committing to anything, then had Fleabeard called in again. Shamans may be few and far between in the rangers, but there were enough to have messages relayed between them without needing to walk for days or weeks on foot.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  It was a pain to puzzle through the vague imagery and symbolism in their astral projections and fire readings, especially when some were second- or third-hand accounts of far-sight visions. But that was why they always had at least four of the same message relayed, and Dagran was adept at deciphering the transcripts by now even if Fleabeard wasn’t.

  “The gryphon riders circled around the southern border and landed somewhere in the mountains, the sketch looks like the crest beyond our farthest patrol routes,” he thought aloud as he cross-referenced the transcripts of the people assigned to write down what the shamans said in their trances. “The petty lord and his soldiers on the ridge left by way of Redridge Pass at some point. All the knights seem to have gone with them. But there’s nothing about the man at the gates?”

  Fleabeard nodded stiffly. “We don’t know how this one human made it here.”

  “And the shamans’ visions indicate he left with everyone else.” Definitely travel magic of some sort. “What of the battle? Has a better picture of events emerged?”

  Fleabeard gave a terse nod, then handed over a bunch of different papers. It was the reports of the actual rangers and scouts that witnessed the original event, finally delivered to the mountain after all these days.

  They relayed a narrative that was, in all ways, absurd. A chase across the steppes, strange thunderous cracks that obliterated elementals of rock and magma, a doomed last stand up on the ridge, then the ash storm was blown away from the center outward. All in one blast with no identifiable source. And then the Firelord’s captain got trounced… by that weak, petty golden magic?

  That petty gold magic could conjure up gigantic spirits bigger and tougher than all but Ragnaros and his majordomo?!

  “Might not have been quite that big,” Fleabeard backpedaled in the face of Dagran’s sheer outrage. “But it was hard to tell from that distance, I’m told, it was right bright for how long it lasted, Your Majesty, the rangers swear by it!”

  “You’re dismissed.” Dagran ground out.

  Dagran didn’t even make it to the third of Trials of the Seven that day, and when he found the Priestess waiting for him as usual, he outright refused her help. Up until she pointed out that he won’t be able to train at all if he refused healing. For weeks, that’s how bad off he was. He should’ve called a shaman instead, just to put her in her place.

  But his mouth was too broken to speak after Anger’rel smashed his jaw with his hammer, and while shaman spells would’ve healed that, and even the burns from Doom’rel’s immolation, they were no good against the lingering malaise from the Third Patriarch’s shadow bolts.

  The next few days went by without surprises, but that just meant things didn’t get any better.

  “Your Majesty, the human is just sitting there.”

  “Your Majesty, the human is still just sitting there, no change from yesterday.”

  “Your Majesty the human is still just sitting there, still no change from before.”

  For days the Senate murmured, mocked and made boasts about what sport they’ll make of the intruder, which should’ve been fine. It was fine, Dagran hadn’t disclosed the ranger reports to the Senate yet, and strategy wasn’t their role regardless. The Senate’s role was to play the part of a belligerent check on the Emperor’s power. As long as Ragnaros continued to believe that fiction, as long as he believed the Dark Iron dwarves too incompetent to establish the same top-down tyranny he ruled his elementals by, the monster would keep his current hands-off approach. Even with all the fire elementals patrolling everything short of their latrines.

  Even so, an uneasy feeling began to build in Dagran’s gut. By all reports, that man sitting in front of the Grim Gates was the same man who’d slain the Flamewalker with a single blast of a small handheld weapon, who’d blown the ash storm away like a mere nuisance, who’d even conjured an elemental of golden light, or whatever the rangers had seen from so far away.

  That afternoon, after adjourning the Senate and finding the Priestess waiting to heal his migraine as always, Dagran had a strong urge to have her seized for questioning. What if she or her ilk could all do what that human had done, but never revealed it?

  Oh, if only the shamans were able to deal with his migraines instead of telling him he ‘needed to better align his spirit with the Firelord’s will’, he wouldn’t need to second-guess himself like this!

  Frustratingly, the woman was forthcoming without him saying anything. Worse, none of her answers were what Dagran liked. What kind of master of her craft answers questions about her specialty toolkit with ‘we never even imagined such a thing was possible’? If you’re going to run on blind faith, at least have the decency to choose the sort that’s only blind to sense, not to how you can actually make use of your only claim to relevance!

  The next day was not a court day, which was good because it was just more of the same otherwise. The strange human was still there, meditating or whatever it was he did all day. And night. The guards thought he must’ve spent at least some of the time sleeping, even if he didn’t change positions. But none of them had gone down to check, since Dagran had ordered them to just observe for now.

  A week, Dagran decided. If things don’t change after a full seven days, I’ll send someone to meet him.

  But life was cruel to the Dark Iron Dwarf nation. Whenever the Emperor reached a resolution, fate conspired to make sport of his dignity.

  “Your Majesty,” said Lord Uggel Hammerhand, a dwarf who styled himself a shaman and who’d let himself into the Emperor’s parlor precisely five minutes after sending a request for an audience. Without waiting for yea or nay. “Ambassador Flamelash sends for you. You are summoned to hear the Firelord’s will.”

  Dagran Thaurissan could scarcely believe the audacity.

  He went to his desk and set about writing an imperial writ of investiture. For better or worse, the fool didn’t speak up while he worked, or otherwise interrupt him until he was done. When the houndskin parchment was dried and stamped, he handed it to the other dwarf and took all the pleasure he could derive from watching how his face changed. The slow realization that he’d just been demoted from Senator to keeper of the Black Vault. On his ‘own request.’

  “This – this is an outrage!”

  “An outrage is for an ambassador to presume to summon the ruler of the nation he is ambassador in. An outrage is for a dwarf to play dogsbody to such a creature.” ‘Sends for’ you, ‘you are summoned’, all spoken unironically, the gall! “And for what? Another poison passed as power?

  Hammerhand opened his mouth-

  “Or will you claim that the guard outside my chambers just let you through unchallenged?”

  The dwarf closed his mouth. The glint of the lava shining through the slits in the walls faded from his eyes. The shadows on the wall began to grow darker, just from the shift in the dwarf’s mood. For a moment, the Emperor was morbidly curious if the dwarf would actually lash out with his Modgud-begotten ways. If he did, he’d learn the hard way that he didn’t come anywhere close to the shadow magics of Doom’rel.

  For better or worse, the dwarf showed more self-control than that. “I will, of course, obey the Emperor’s will.”

  Dagran pretended to think about whether he’d let it go with just that. It gave him the time to discreetly withdraw the massive flaming vortex behind Hammerhand back into the vent in the opposite wall. Discretion was the better part of valor, and often the only thing that distinguished between a foresighted ruler and a frightened one. The Firelord had eyes and ears in every spark and ember, even asleep.

  Hammerhand was oblivious to all of it, which meant the illusion Dagran had used to prevent the room’s lighting and temperature from changing had also done its job.

  “You’re dismissed.”

  Uggel Hammerhand stiffly walked out – after waiting to be dismissed this time – and headed for his new life of guarding the wealth of the Dark Iron citizens, instead of putting it to his own uses as he’d been privileged to do until today.

  If he weren’t stewing in such personal offense, Dagran might’ve mourned the loss of that willpower. It was precisely what positions of responsibility most needed in their realm.

  He went to check on his guard and found Doomgrip confused about whatever it was that Hammerhand had said to convince him to let him through. Dagran had him call his replacement and relieved him for the day, with orders to take it easy and – he almost couldn’t get the words out – orders to expand the Imperial Guard, with recruitment open to Light users this time.

  He told himself the man at the gates had nothing to do with it.

  Oh, how he resented being put in this position! But he liked the alternatives even less. Dagran didn’t want to see the Dark Irons devolve into the same court of cheats and backstabber of Anvilmar’s time, he had neither the time nor the patience for it. One war of the Three Hammers was enough.

  In that, at least, he had the Firelord’s unwitting help. The Fireguards patrolling every last home and hearth had proven a most effective uniter. The only thing that united a people faster than an external enemy was the smug internal one that you were never allowed to ignore.

  If only he was the only such enemy, if only I could be sure…

  As he descended to his ritual room, it felt to Dagran Thaurissan as if the only things he could be sure of these days were those that most enflamed his temper.

  “I invoke the art, the breach of order, the weave and unweave in the Arcane through which the substrates of the universe are mine to mould. Of earth rending, of flame binding, the working of Thaurissan the Old.”

  The ritual array was a mere extension of the tall fireplace in that vault, deliberately isolated from any other fire source by ten meters of solid stone in every direction.

  “By memories of wars most ancient, eons of age, rule of shadows dispensed by the Lords Primordial, I invoke the Shadow of the True Flame, who alongside his brethren once held sway unto the world’s end.”

  Dagran braced himself and channeled his spiritual power into the ritual array. Every line of it came alight with an orange glow. The fulcrum points erupted in wild flame. He wrestled with the pride that railed against the idea that he should ever kneel to anyone, anything. He almost didn’t beat it in time. Almost.

  “I invoke the Incarnate of the Living Flame! Ragnaros the Firelord, your greatest servant calls on you to answer!”

  The flames flowed over the ritual and combined inside the mouth of the fireplace, until they took on the blazing shape of two golden eyes and a wide mouth, glowing and glowering with fierce, breath-stealing heat. The air between it and Dagran shimmered like the waves rising from the Searing Gorge in deep summer.

  “An insect shouts in my ear, braying for regard.” The voice was like the crackle of fresh coal. “You’ve disturbed my sleep, gnat. Tell my why I should not turn you to ashes where you kneel.”

  Because you can’t, this ritual is all powered by me and the closest source of fire and heat you could pull on is ten meters of solid granite out of reach.

  Dagran had to believe that, if he couldn’t trust even his own skills he may as well give up on everything forever. “Great One, your Captains spend themselves against interlopers one day, only to hide in your shadow the next. Lucifron lies dead, yet there is no sign of retribution from his fellow underlords. And now Ambassador Flamelash is overstepping the boundaries of the station you invested upon him, even as the one who slew his Peer sits right outside our gates.”

  “So you decided to cut out the middlemen and ask for my wisdom directly?” The intensity of Ragnaros’ disdain was enough to scorch the ritual array to soot and ash, so it was notable that it didn’t. Either the Firelord was being careful not to ruin Dagran’s work or he couldn’t, the emperor did not let his relief show. “Every bit as presumptuous and reckless as your grandsire.”

  If I were him I’d never have summoned you at all. “I seek merely to pre-empt any straying from your true will, Lord.”

  “Then hear my command: the human waiting outside the gates, he comes seeking to turn you against me, to lure you into an alliance with your traitor-kin. He will offer gifts while twisting you in knots with his silver tongue. He will make grand claims and sweet promises. He will even provide proof of might enough that your weak mortal mind will surely be swayed, all to use you to strike a blow against the Primordial Masters, the Old Gods who gave mortals your very flesh. You will put on a show of resistance but eventually pretend to accede to all these entreaties. You will pretend interest. You will cooperate with his requests. You will strive to enter his confidence. You will volunteer help even above and beyond what he requests. Then, when the time comes, you will strike.”

  He was being punished for preventing the return of the cloak and dagger court by being made into the one who’ll single-handedly bring it about.

  “Do not put stock in his stories. Do not believe his promises. Above all, never look him directly in the eyes.”

  Why?

  “Finally, the only thing I appreciate less than having my sleep interrupted is to see my time wasted.”

  “AGH!”

  Dagran fell to the ground, screaming in pain as the Firelord’s heat shifted from material to immaterial, a searing in his mind worse than all the migraines he lived with, a burning on everything he was that wasn’t meat.

  “It is not the place of Flamelash to push the boundaries of his station, that is true. But it is not your place to judge my other servants, much less to circumvent them based purely on the hubris of insects!”

  It took all of Dagran’s spite not to lash out, not to yank his spirit back under his own control, not to push back and reveal that he could – that he just might be able to rebuff even the Firelord when he infringed on the selfhood of the Dark Irons.

  “Do your duty and do not disturb me for such paltry reasons again!”

  The flames went out.

  Dagran collapsed, twitching and trembling on the floor, feverish and almost blind with literal soul-searing pain.

  I – won’t – forget this.

  He crawled to the door. He only made it half-way.

  He said my ‘other’ servants. As consciousness left him, Dagran Thaurissan latched onto the one, last thought that mattered. He never outright denied that I’m his greatest servant.

  He woke up four days later. It would’ve been more, maybe several times over if not for the Priestess badgering the Imperial Guard to check on him for almost a day straight. He’d gone in seclusion for days before, some for happenings similar to this. Performances just like it. It was critical that the Firelord saw Dagran as the same grasping fool as his overgrown salamanders, that he never had cause to look past that surface.

  For once, it had worked too well. Whatever that man out there was, he had Ragnaros spooked. The Firelord had gone so far beyond even his idea of self-control that he almost killed Dagran this time.

  Dagran only recovered his consciousness so quickly because the gold magic could heal things other than the flesh, apparently. Even so, it didn’t make up all of the difference. Ragnaros had managed not to kill him, but that still left room for a lot of damage. Damage that couldn’t heal with just a few nights’ sleep, if it could at all.

  Majordomo Executus claims this is just a shadow of Ragnaros’ true self, Dagran thought angrily. Dreadfully. Can nothing in this world stand against him?

  It took almost all his remaining willpower not to lose his composure in company.

  “I sensed the Firelord’s wrath,” the Priestess was telling him, her glowing hands having never lifted from his chest. “It was weaker than usual, flighty. Unsure. Whatever he told you, he isn’t as certain of the outcome as he pretends.”

  Dagran had some choice words for her, but she wasn’t alone in his sickroom with him.

  “Your Majesty,” said Galgann Firehammer, one of the few senators Dagran liked. He had no agendas that could only come at the throne’s expense, and had always backed the Throne when someone else did. All without asking for favors or whatever else in the backrooms. It was why the man was at the top of the extremely short list of people allowed to take the Imperial Household over if the Emperor was ever indisposed more than three days. “I’m afraid you’ll be disinclined to keep resting after you hear the latest news.”

  For a moment, Dagran wished his pillow revealed itself to be a secret mimic and swallowed him up. “What happened?”

  “With you indisposed, Ambassador Flamelash made… a number of claims about what the Firelord supposedly ordered. The Senate decided to send someone to poke the human at the gate. Their plan ran head-first into General Angerforge, who was mighty put off by their attempt to go around your standing orders of wait and see. In the end, the only ones he couldn’t physically restrain without overstepping himself were the senators themselves.”

  Dagran cursed Flamelash, was it not enough that he got to look in on them every time they did something in the Chamber of Enchantment? Even insight into all of their possible avenues for autonomy wasn’t enough for the depraved being, he had to meddle in their politics as well, the worm! “What happened?”

  “Surprisingly little,” Firehammer reported. “The human only spoke up once for the first two days, to say you’re the only Dark Iron dwarf alive that he’s willing to treat with. Said he won’t leave until he does. The senators tried to have him seized, but nobody could move him, even in groups of ten. Weapons and spells were all stopped by a shimmering forcefield. They tried nets, but the first one was returned to sender, and the second one flew to wrap up the senator who gave the order and dangled him over the edge of the bridge upside-down.”

  “Even Ambassador Flamelash tried his luck with that barbed spear of his and didn’t even scratch the Light,” the Priestess said reverently.

  “Eventually, most of the senators gave up until only the more belligerent handful were left, you know the ones.”

  He did.

  “Credit where it’s due, they wore the man down. They didn’t get him to move, but they got him to talk at some point this morning. Which they immediately wasted as usual, they were already shouting over him and each-other when I left, you know the sort.”

  He did know, curse him for that too.

  Infuriatingly, the debilitating pain didn’t leave Dagran until another hour and change later, and even then only because the Priestess never stopped pouring her petty light into him. He distracted himself from his humiliation by listening to everything else Firehammer had to report.

  Then, as if the cosmos had been lying in wait for the very moment, Watchman Grimstone barged into the room just when Dagran regained the slightest ability to move under his own power.

  “Senator, the – your majesty! You’re awake!” Grimstone changed tracks with his normal alacrity and stomped forward to stand at attention next to his bed. “Sire, there’s been a development!”

  Of course there was. “Well spit it out then!”

  “The human’s gone!” What? “He and the senators were debating philosophy when all of a sudden the human stood up and – shrunk them!” What. “He used winds and forcefields to separate them from their guards and then just… shrunk them somehow. Made them so small you could toss three of ‘em in a beer mug and they couldn’t climb out! Then he stuffed them all in bottles, put the bottles in a pouch and then disappeared!”

  Dagran Thaurissan had not idea what he was hearing, he – they – shrunk them – debating philosophy?

  “Disappeared how?” the Priestess asked intently when Dagran couldn’t muster words. “Was there magic, sounds, colors, glyphs? Describe it to us.”

  “Beg your paron, Priestess, I wasn’t there-“

  Dagran snarled. “Then get someone who was!”

  It took all of five minutes, a garrison runner was the whole reason Grimstone had the news to relay at all.

  “It just looked like the human got really small himself, Majesty, ‘cept he never stopped until he disappeared completely. That and a woosh of wind and he was gone.”

  A woosh of wind? “In what direction?”

  “I – wouldn’t know? I’m sorry, sire, I don’t know, we were all bowled over.”

  Bloody useless, every last one of them! “Back to your post.”

  “Yes sire!”

  When the runner was gone, Dagran pulled his covers off, thankful he wasn’t naked underneath. He pushed out of bed and stumbled towards the lava hatch that would serve as a hearth to cook in and sit around, if he had any sort of family.

  “Your Majesty, do not strain yourse-“

  “I’m not an invalid!” He snapped at the Priestess, hating how he still had to lean on her support to make just those few steps, and Doomgrip’s too! “I can stand on my own.” In that, at least, he wasn’t proven a liar. He couldn’t walk without falling, but he could stand, if barely.

  He was weak, and his spirit was in pain, but he refused to give the Firelord the satisfaction of being rendered completely impotent just from a tantrum.

  Dagran asked for some coal, blew over it, then tossed it into the hearth. The magic he’d imbued became sparks, fire roaring to life.

  Fire scrying was more the domain of shamans, but Arcane magic could reproduce and even improve on the applications of other disciplines. If he was expected to embody the ways of his people, he couldn’t coast by without coming up with his own way to beat the spirits of the elements into submission.

  In most ways the spirits even preferred his methods. Ragnaros’ rule had twisted the ways of shamanism, turned them from reciprocal communion into domination, an imitation of how the elemental incarnates did things. Compared to that, the impersonal and transactional nature of arcane bindings was almost heaven to the spirits of rock and flame.

  Binding the petty spirit in the newborn fire, Dagran commanded it to stretch forth and connect to the ones in the lanterns above the Grim Gate. Finally, he could see the Causeway.

  There was indeed no one there.

  Then his hearth spirit got punched in the face.

  What in damnations?

  Dagran Thaurissan watched dumbfounded as the vision of the Causeway got replaced by a boxing brawl between snarling faces made of two different shades of yellow set in bodies of flame.

  And steam.

  He was belatedly noticing that his fireplace was practically belching steam into his room, when the sharp breaths of the other three dwarfs let him know he wasn’t the only one who could see what was happening.

  Before he could even wonder how he should respond to this absurd development, his petty spirit lost the fight, and then was – dragged in? Out? The fire in the hearth became a swirling spiral turning inward, until he was looking at a tunnel of flame and blurs.

  Finally, the other end of the tunnel ‘opened’ to a sight that left Dagran speechless. Whether it was astonishment, outrage or just plain shock he didn’t even have a way to tell.

  “Is that the architect’s tomb?” asked Galgann Firehammer when no one else would say anything. “Is that – that’s the architect’s tomb! That’s the human and – and the architect?!”

  The tunnel vision lasted up until the huge man turned in their direction and looked Dagran Thaurissan straight in the face.

  Then it went out and only embers were left of the fire, quickly going out due to the humidity in the air.

  Franclorn Forgewright! The human was inside his tomb! The human – the human was inside their mountain!

  And so was the architect’s own ghost!

  “Get me General Angerforge!” Dagran almost collapsed from the force of his own bellow, a curse on this weakness and the one who inflicted it! A thousand curses on them all! “No, get me ink and parchment! And my seal! I’m sending him a message and then we’re going there ourselves right now!”