Chapter 4: "Hammerstrokes in the Abyss"

  "Iron holds memories deeper than flesh. A smith does not merely shape metal—he shapes the past."

  — Proverb of the ancient dwarf masters of the Lost Forges

  The Cursed Anvil

  The air in the underground forge was so thick it felt liquid—a mixture of ancient soot, stone-oil vapor, and the acrid sweat of decades of unbroken labor. Gorin breathed deeply, filling his lungs with this familiar air like one drinking strong wine. His calloused fingers, marked by countless burns, closed around the hammer’s handle like roots clutching the earth.

  The black oak chest continued to tremble.

  Three iron locks—each forged by Gorin himself on moonless nights—rattled against the wood like caged animals. The oldest one, etched with runes of silence, was already warped, its inner mechanism groaning under some invisible pressure.

  "Thrain!" Gorin called, his voice echoing off the damp stone walls. No answer. His apprentice was likely drunk again in the lower taverns.

  With a precise motion, the smith wedged a crowbar under the chest’s lid. The metal whined in protest until, with a dry snap that set Gorin’s teeth on edge, the locks surrendered.

  The smell that escaped was like opening a forgotten tomb—mold, rusted metal, and something indescribably ancient. The cloth wrapping the sword was now soaked in a silvery fluid that glowed faintly in the gloom, dripping between the dwarf’s fingers like warm blood.

  The blade was hot to the touch. Not the residual heat of the forge, but a living, pulsing warmth, as if it cradled a beating heart within its steel core.

  The Forge of Nightmares

  Gorin’s anvil was no ordinary piece. Forged from the black meteorite that had fallen on the Doom Mountains in his great-grandfather’s era, its surface was pocked with the grooves of countless strikes. It was said a true master smith could read the future in the marks left upon it.

  When Gorin’s hammer struck the sword for the first time, the sound was not the expected metallic clang, but a muffled scream—human, yet not entirely human.

  The second strike made the runes along the blade glow a deep red, like embers in a gale. The air above the anvil warped, and for an instant, Gorin saw:

  A city in flames. Not Valtherion, but something older, with towers that twisted like trees in a hurricane. Figures ran, their mouths open in silent screams as... things... descended from the sky like incandescent spiderwebs.

  The third strike was never completed.

  The anvil—which had endured centuries of unbroken labor—exploded in a rain of sharp shards. Gorin was hurled against the stone wall, feeling at least two ribs crack on impact. When the dust settled, the sword lay intact amid the wreckage, now pulsing with an erratic light.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  And then it spoke.

  Not with words, but with memories.

  Gorin saw himself as a child again, watching his grandfather forge the legendary Sword of Dawn. He witnessed battles he’d never fought, cities he’d never visited. He saw the face of a man he somehow knew to be D■■■ A■■■■■■—centuries before his own birth.

  Most disturbing of all, he saw moments from his own life he didn’t remember living.

  The Emissaries of the Spires

  The torchlight danced over the three visitors as if afraid to touch them. They stood in the entrance arch, still as statues, their twilight-colored cloaks drifting slightly despite the windless subterranean air.

  The leader stepped forward, and Gorin felt the air grow colder with each step. When the Vanire raised his hands to remove his hood, the smith saw he wore gloves of a strange material—not leather, but something resembling human skin preserved in honey.

  The revealed face was both perfect and profoundly wrong. Beautiful, yes, but too symmetrical, like a mask carved by an artist who’d never seen a real human. His eyes—large and clear as frozen lakes—had no pupils, only an inner glow that shifted in intensity as he spoke.

  "Smith Gorin, son of Barin of the Unbroken Hammer Lineage." The voice was soft, almost musical, but there was something in it that made Gorin’s teeth ache. "The Council of the Golden Spires requires your... specialized services."

  Gorin spat on the stone between them. The spittle sizzled, eating into the rock like acid.

  "My grandfather told stories of your Council," the dwarf growled, wiping blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. "Said a Vanire asking for help is like a fox offering to guard the henhouse."

  The emissary smiled, revealing teeth too sharp and too perfect. His companions opened an elongated case made of some black bone veined with silver. Inside, three bars of metal glowed with their own light.

  Gorin’s heart raced.

  Mithril.

  Not the common mithril of the deep mines, but True Mithril—the metal of the gods, said to exist only in the deepest veins beneath the Golden Spires. Legend claimed Vorgarath the Shaper had used this very metal to hammer the first stars into being.

  "For a special blade," the Vanire continued, his eyes fixed on the trembling sword. "One that can cut what should not be remembered."

  It was then Gorin noticed—the emissary’s eyes did not reflect the torch flames. Instead, they showed a strange pattern, like spiderwebs floating in still water.

  Exactly like the pattern on the cursed blade.

  The Child and the Shadow

  In the Tower of Healing of the Seven Mirrors, Lirien coughed convulsively, her small body arching on the moss bed like a fish out of water. Veylis held her hand, feeling the fragile bones beneath feverish skin.

  "This is no ordinary illness," the elven healer murmured, wiping the child’s lips with a cloth soaked in moon-lotus essence. "She’s expelling... this."

  He held the cloth up to the candlelight. Thin, sticky threads shimmered between the fibers, weaving complex patterns that resembled ancient script.

  Veylis felt ice down her spine. She recognized those patterns. They were identical to those she’d seen on Nytheris’s loom.

  "Where’s the shadow?" she asked abruptly.

  The healer hesitated. "It vanished after the elder’s incident. But—"

  A chill swept the room. The candles snuffed out simultaneously, plunging them into darkness. In the far corner, where the silver mirror hung, something began to move.

  Lirien sat up in bed, her eyes now completely black.

  "He’s returned," she whispered, her voice echoing as if from a deep well. "And he brought hunger."

  In the mirror, where the child’s reflection should have been, there was only a tall, faceless silhouette—its slender hands pressed against the glass like a prisoner trying to escape.