The Mournful King

XVI. The Spinner of Fate

It was said sometimes that the great forges of Dhir Daral had burned since the world began, that their fires fueled the engines that powered the turning of the earth. Gazing down from the great overlook that revealed the seemingly endless, mammoth machines that blended together stone and metal, the Silent could believe even the most outlandish of the stories. Giant, turning gears meshed together as the foundations of the city, buildings woven into the inner workings. Each piece of the labyrinthine metropolis was worked into the whole so precisely that there was sometimes only a hair's breadth of clearance between each moving part.

The network of endless chasms revealed an orange, glowing heart of the mountain beneath. It was hot here, like standing within a furnace, and above great vents belched out dark smoke that was carried up and out of the mountain by cave zephyrs and cut chimneys. The ringing of hammers was constant. Here and there were channels of water that rushed down to quench steel and thirst alike, cold and icy as they flowed from the heights of the peak. The Silent could smell nothing other than oil and hot metal.

"Impressive," Ekundayo said with something near awe as they followed their dwarven guide along a broad stone walkway that spanned across a dark gap filled with whirring parts. "I have never had the honor of setting foot inside before. Your people are still most cautious, Dain."

The dwarf leading them looked back with his large, blind, white eyes. His bronze skin was dirty, but his dark beard was plaited and his hair had been cropped very short. He was a stocky, short creature with a chest broader than Ekundayo's and arms that were long and powerful for his size. He wore durable work clothes with a heavy leather apron over the top, and boots that clanked slightly when he walked. Despite all the weight, he moved easily, occasionally just pulling himself along with his arms as if his legs were an afterthought. "If you didn't bugger up your world, we wouldn't worry about you in ours," the dwarf said with a gruff chuckle.

Andraste smiled a little bit. "Fair enough."

"Forge-Tender's this way. He's been expecting you."

That little comment caught the three of them by surprise. "Why is he expecting us?" Andraste asked.

The dwarf's expression became a bit grimmer. "When an elder fiend shows up on Imperial business and says the daughter of a goddess is going to be here soon, it's hard not to listen."

The Silent felt a stab of anxiety. He didn't like the sound of encountering an elder fiend. One in his life was far, far more than enough.

"Orobas?" Ekundayo asked with concern.

Their guide shook his head and stopped, running a hand over his beard. "Not the Architect. It's the Spinner."

"Beleth?" Andraste said, gripping onto the railing. She seemed stunned for a moment, as if she had never thought to hear of the demon being beyond her homeland. "What Imperial business brings him here?"

The Silent had heard Gader'el speak of Beleth, the one that mortals sometimes called the Spinner of Fate. He was one of the oldest, older even than Gader'el, and yet one who had forsaken his maker to follow the Divine Imperatrix. Even the Silent's tormentor hadn't understood why. To gaze upon the Spinner was to gaze upon the unknowable, or so demon-kith said in hushed tones. They also said that Beleth was the first elder fiend created after the Princes of Iron. If that were true, it would have put Beleth next in line for succession after their destruction...or it would have, if the Divine Imperatrix hadn't ascended.

Whatever reason Beleth had to be here, it was not by chance that he had come into their path.

"Is he with the Forge-Tender? I should speak to him," the sorceress said. She seemed unsteady for a moment. If the Silent had to guess, she definitely hadn't been expecting to run into him either.