Chapter 10 | Part 2

The room Xandor led him to was small and dim, lit by candles that seemed to struggle against shadows deeper than they should have been. Two dwarves sat near the window—an older one with the weathered hands of a merchant and a younger one who couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting.

But Eldric’s attention went immediately to the object on the table between them.

A cube. Perhaps four inches on each side, made of metal that didn’t quite look like any metal he knew. It sat on a cloth that might have been silk, and even from across the room, Eldric could feel something wrong about it. Not threatening, exactly. Just… insistent. As if it was pressing against his awareness, demanding to be noticed.

“You feel it,” Xandor said quietly. “Most people don’t. Not this quickly.”

“What is it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine.” Xandor moved to stand beside the table, his posture careful, as if he didn’t want to get too close. “Dulint, this is Eldric. The man I mentioned.”

The older dwarf looked up, and his eyes were tired in a way that had nothing to do with physical exhaustion. “You’re the one who saw the Grukmar patterns.”

“I’m the one no one believed about the Grukmar patterns.”

“Same thing.” Dulint’s mouth twisted into a grimace that served as a smile. “Xandor says you’re good at seeing connections that others miss.”

“Xandor is kind. What I’m good at is being right when being right doesn’t help anyone.”

The younger dwarf—Balin, Eldric assumed—made a frustrated noise. “Can we skip the introductions and get to the part where someone explains what’s happening? Because my uncle won’t tell me anything useful, and that—” he gestured at the cube “—has been pointing at things for weeks, and I still don’t understand why.”

“Pointing?” Eldric stepped closer, drawn despite his caution. The cube sat motionless on the cloth, but now that Balin had mentioned it, he could see what looked like a subtle orientation—one face slightly more luminous than the others, turned toward… something.

“It responds to direction,” Xandor explained. “Not magnetic north. Something else. We’ve tracked its orientation for days, and it consistently points toward specific locations. Or specific people. We’re not certain which.”

“What kind of artifact points at things?”

“The kind that’s looking for something.” Xandor’s voice dropped even lower. “Eldric, I’ve spent thirty years studying the old systems. The Nexus references, the barrier mechanics, the theoretical frameworks that most scholars dismiss as myth. This—” he gestured at the cube “—is not theoretical. This is real. And it’s active.”

The pieces were falling into place faster than Eldric liked. Stonehold dwarves. An active artifact. Pursuit that suggested others knew what it was. Xandor’s lifetime of research suddenly becoming relevant.

“Who else knows about this?”

“That’s the problem.” Dulint’s tired eyes met his. “Everyone who pays attention to these things. The artifact doesn’t just point—it broadcasts. Like a signal fire in the darkness. Anyone looking for it can find it. And there are people looking.”

“The people who followed you from Zuraldi.”

“Among others.” Dulint’s hands, resting on the table, were steady, but something in his posture suggested he was carrying a weight far heavier than the artifact’s physical mass. “We can’t hide it. We can’t destroy it. All we can do is keep moving and hope we find answers before the wrong people find us.”

Balin stood abruptly. “You still haven’t told me what it actually is. Uncle, I’ve been patient. I’ve followed you across half of Astalor without demanding explanations. But I deserve to know what we’re carrying.”

Dulint looked at Xandor. Xandor looked at Eldric. Some silent communication passed between them—the kind of look that said this conversation was coming anyway.

“It’s part of a system,” Xandor said finally. “An ancient system that predates anything we have records of. The Nexus, some texts call it. Different artifacts with different functions, all connected to the barrier between our world and… somewhere else.”

“Wyrmreach,” Eldric said. The word felt significant, heavy.

“Among other names.” Xandor nodded. “The barrier exists. The Nexus system maintains it—or maintained it, once. This piece—” another gesture at the cube “—is in what I believe is called Sense mode. It detects. It locates. It searches for… something.”

“The other pieces?”

“Possibly. Or for people connected to them. Or for events that matter to the system’s purpose.” Xandor spread his hands. “I don’t have complete answers. No one does. But I know enough to recognize that this isn’t something we can ignore, and it isn’t something we can handle alone.”

Eldric studied the cube. The wrongness he’d felt when he entered was still there, but now it had a shape—not malevolent, not benevolent, just active. Searching. Waiting for something to complete its function.

“You need someone who sees patterns,” he said slowly. “Someone who can help you figure out what it’s looking for.”

“We need someone who can help us survive long enough to find out.” Dulint’s voice was flat, practical. “The pursuit won’t stop. The artifact won’t stop broadcasting. And every day we spend wondering is a day we don’t have.”

Eldric counted exits. Three in this room. Four if he counted the window. A habit that had once been professional and was now simply paranoid.

But paranoid men survived. And something in his chest, dormant since his dismissal, since Varian and Garrick, was starting to wake up.

“Tell me everything,” he said. “From the beginning.”

End of Chapter 10.2 —> 10.3: The Knot at Riverhold: The Beacon