Aegan was in heaven, and in hell.  The hellish part of it was simple:  his shoulder, his gut, his calf, and his head ached with pain unlike any he had ever experienced before.  Had he not already survived it, he would have said that the pain was indicative of mortal wounds.  The one in his gut burned in a way that had him worried, despite the reassurances of the dwarven clerics.

The heavenly part of it was the heat.  He was up to his neck in hot water that seemed as though it should be boiling, and it steamed up into the air.  He could feel sweat slicking his hair and the bandage across his forehead, and he inhaled warmth with every breath.  The water itself had scented oils in it, and the smell of it was enough to distract his mind from the pain.  He wanted to drowse, but his mind was too feverish to let him.

Aegan was in a room carved of solid rock.  The room was not very high, and the only light seemed to come from two oil-lanterns set behind him.  His back was to the door, and there was room in the hot-water pool for nearly a dozen others.  The heat, he understood, was excess from the forges, and the concept had given him a focus for his frazzled and energetic mind.

He heard a sound behind him, and then a pair of booted feet.  He frowned, for the tread and step were not dwarven.  He smelled lilacs, and realized that it was Eriel.

The elf maid asked, "How are you feeling?" as she lay down several things just behind him and out of sight on the stone floor.

He took in a deep breath, feeling several cracked ribs responding, and slowly let it out.  "Much better.  Thank you."

There was an amicable silence between them, though his curiosity began to get the better of him.  He also dimly realized he wasn't wearing anything, and hoped that the dim light would keep that from the elf.

She said, "Close your eyes, and lean back."

He did as she directed, and found himself having to rework his position, as his buttocks slid a bit on the stone bench under the water.

Aegan had expected Eriel to worry at the bandages that wrapped his head, but instead, she began applying something to his cheeks and his neck.  He dimly realized that it was a shaving brush applying a thick lather.

Before he could work past the comfort of the hot, relaxing water to ask her a question, she had begun to strop a straight-razor.  Aegan closed his eyes, prayed somewhat fervently that he hadn't irritated her recently.

One hand lay cool upon the side of his head, gently directing him as she quickly and expertly began to shave him.  None of the thick lather reached the water, and he heard the slight splash of water from a bowl as she wiped off the last of the lather on his face.

Eriel looked critically at him for a moment, and nodded to herself.  "Much better."

Aegan said, somewhat uncomfortably, "Thank you.  Ah..."

"The Baron-and-the-Bishop wants to see you.  I managed to repair your clothes, and the dwarves even brought back the sword and the hammer you used."  Her tone was clipped, precise, and had an underlying anger to it that he could feel.

"Eriel...  I-"

"Don't," she interrupted him.  "You're alive.  Be thankful Captain Razorbraid figured it out when she did, or you likely would have taken three or four good dwarven clerics with you to the afterlife."

He sloughed off the lethargy of the pool, icy dread prickly through his shoulders and his scalp.  "What do you mean?"  He began to sit up, and half turned to see her in the dim light.

Eriel knelt nearby, a shaving kit and a shallow ceramic bowl nearby.  She policed up the kit, and stood up with a fluid grace, the bowl in one hand and the kit in the other.  She motioned with her head to a bench along one wall, and said, "Your clothes are there."

He followed her gaze, and saw his boots, his clothes, the sword and the sledge-hammer, and a towel draped over it all.

She turned in a swirl of her blue and purple robes, and left the room without another word.

Aegan sighed, pulling himself up out of the water.  He looked down at his side, and saw that there was an old scar, already long-since healed.  His calf was the same way.  He gingerly pulled the cloth aside on his head, and felt himself gingerly.  He found only skin and hair beneath his fingers -- and a thin strip of hairless scar going back into his hair line.  Aegan had been in fights before, and half expected to find tender, aching flesh.  That he was completely healed was a testament to the power of the dwarven clerics.

He paused, thinking through that.  Something about what Eriel had said was nagging his rational mind.  He stood there with the cloth bands in his hands for a moment, dripping water, and thinking.  After a moment, he moved again, and began to towel himself.

When he was done, he looked over the heated room, and then strode out, sweat already soaking his clothing.  Aegan had seen no sign of repairs to his tunic or his breeches, and so he guessed that Eriel had used magic to restore the material to its original, pristine condition.  The sword sat comfortably but consciously at his side, and he merely threw the sledge-hammer over his shoulder.

Outside, two dwarves in chain mail shirts stood up when they say him.  One said, "Nach hammure ondray," and motioned with his thumb.  One, with a brown beard, led Aegan out into the corridors.  The one with the red beard followed, occasionally watching behind himself as though he felt hunted even within the Fortress of the Soul.

The corridors of the dwarven fortress were precisely seven feet wide by seven feet tall, and carved from solid rock in some places, and made of stone blocks cunningly crafted to look like solid stone in others.  A band of frescoes and carvings lay along the walls about two feet in height, two feet from the floor.  The carvings told stories about the dwarves, usually going forward on the left-hand side, and being looked at in reverse chronological order on the right-hand side.

Aegan knew that Lok Giran was barely ten years old, and yet the beauty of the carvings was amazing.  The detail bespoke dedicated attention, and the young smith wondered at how the dwarves could put such carvings up, everywhere, in such beauty and so quickly.

The story in that particular corridor seemed to be about a grizzled dwarven veteran who raised his short sword to defend to rival dwarven clans.  The dwarf with the red beard growled out, "Grithale," when he noticed Aegan paying attention to the story.

The sorcerer turned back to give the dwarf an inquisitive look, but the dwarf was looking over his shoulder again.

The corridor branched, and the dwarf with the brown beard confidently led them to the right.  After several more switches, and seeing other dwarves in the corridors -- all armed and armored -- Aegan quickly became lost.  He had always prided himself on a keen sense of direction, but every available space within Lok Giran was used to its fullest, with doors of stone inset everywhere, and tunnels and corridors branching off everywhere, some at perfect right angles, and others at strange angles.

Aegan realized that the wall-carvings served as sign-posts; for instance, if someone were to ask him where the baths were, he would be able to tell them with confidence that they were in the Hall of Grithale -- the dwarf that had raised his sword to defend a dwarf from another clan, and in so doing, begun the uniting of the two wary clans.  Of course, the sorcerer realized he might not be able to find the Hall of Grithale, but he could probably puzzle it out from looking at the stories in stone along the walls.

The dwarf with the brown beard confidently led them between two guards on either side of a door at the end of one corridor.  The dwarven guards in full-plate, armed with great-axes, looked each of them in the eye as they went past, but said not a word.

Inside was a large, rectangular room with several other exits, and a vaulted ceiling far overhead.  Up on some of the walls were balconies to other floors, or huge stone frescoes or carvings of battles and stories told in epic stonework.  The room was dominated by three wooden tables of stout oak -- one of which had a battle-axe sunk into it.  The tables were covered in paperwork, books, parchments, tankards, and odd items.  Several dwarves came in and out ferrying in or out books, while some worked at the tables inking things in or perusing documents.  Light fell on everything from torches and chandeliers that glowed with light that was obviously supernatural in its source.

Several other guards were scattered about the room, as well, watching all that happened with critical eyes.

At one of the tables stood two dwarves talking in quiet conversation.  They stood out from all the others in the room because of their dress and their bearing.  They were somewhat shorter than the other dwarves, but they had a presence that defined them as clearly as though they had been eight feet tall.

One of the dwarves wore an odd sort of scale-mail over his travel-stained brown leathers. His beard was as brown as his leathers, but his eyes were as green as the scale-mail.  The armor was made of over-lapping plates of some forest-green substance with iridescent depths, like those of an insects' wings.  The armor covered the dwarf's torso, his upper arms, and his thighs, and seemed as travel-worn as his leathers -- but maintained in a lustrous condition with pride and care.  The dwarf's green eyes had taken him in the moment Aegan entered the room, but had dismissed him as a threat immediately, continuing his conversation with the other dwarf.

The other dwarf, too, gave Aegan a similarly dismissing glance, and at first it infuriated him deep within his soul.  Then Aegan realized who the other dwarf was.

The second dwarf was dressed all in mithral armor polished to a high gleam, but with what Aegan recognized as dwarven script written around the edges of each piece of the armor.  The dwarf's beard was the kind of white that seemed to glow with its own, inner light, and his blue eyes were older than those of any living being Aegan had ever seen.  The dwarf's eyes had seen things that were beyond his understanding, and the human knew that it was the Baron-and-the-Bishop himself he was being marched up to.

The dwarven guard in front said something to the dwarf with the green-scaled armor, and the smile in their eyes indicated a friendship or a camaraderie that made Aegan jealous.  Then they were all business.

In the common tongue, the guard with the brown beard said, "Dwarfendale.  Ahira.  Aegan Smithdanovich of Vridara.  Sorcerer -- apprentice.  Smith -- journeyman."

The two dwarven guards stepped off to the side, but were not far away.  They felt no need to introduce the two important dwarves to Aegan, and the social gesture made Aegan realize just where he stood in the grand scheme of things.

He finally went to one knee, and said to the Baron-and-the-Bishop, "My lord."

Dwarfendale said without preamble, "Yuir the one that wants to know what 'cargdin' means?"

Aegan smiled fiercely, having finally found the answer he sought.  "Yes, my lord."

The Baron-and-the-Bishop merely grunted, and instead of answering, turned to his companion, Ahira.  "Go get that human Bridar's got in the South Tower.  When ye all get back here, I'll explain something to ye."

Ahira grinned fiercely, and looked once at Aegan, as though measuring the human's ability to be patient.

Dwarfendale turned to answer a question from a dwarven female with a thick beard of finger-length hair.  Her robes were cut low enough for Aegan to see a patch of fur between her breasts, and Aegan swallowed at the sight.

The human sorcerer waited as patiently as he could, while the Baron-and-the-Bishop attended to matters of state.  At some point, the priest-lord motioned to Aegan to get up -- probably more to get the big man out of the way than from any sense of propriety.

Aegan watched in fascination at the way the fortress was run.  The three tables handled three different types of events.  One was for matters of the faith.  One was for matters of war.  And the other was for all the domestic things needed to keep the fortress running.  Though the human understood none of the dwarven tongue, there were enough words in the common tongue that he occasionally understood what the subject of a conversation might be.

He also looked at the lights, and the various armors, and the metal-work of the weapons -- and he learned.

After perhaps a quarter of a mark, Eriel swept into the room, stepping lightly around a dwarf with an armload of books and scrolls.  She nodded her head at the Baron-and-the-Bishop, ensuring that he knew she was present, and then went to stand beside Aegan, without saying a word.  She gazed at him critically from brow to boots, and then grunted in satisfaction that he was at least presentable.

Moments later, through another set of doors, came Captain Loren Razorbraid leading a human woman in half-plate armor -- and behind her was the biggest elf Aegan had ever seen.

The elf was as tall as the corridors, and he stood up to his full height in the chamber with a languid ease that bespoke awesome strength and agility.  The dark leathers and darker tattoos of the elf, coupled with his orange eyes, made the hairs on the back of Aegan's neck stand up on end.

Ahira stepped out around the huge elf, and came to stand beside the dwarven priest-lord.

No one spoke, until the Baron-and-the-Bishop had swept all of them in in his steady blue-eyed gaze.

The priest-lord said, "I felt the call of Prophecy, last night.  All the king's advisors agree that the Prophecy will be accomplished sooner, rather than later.  Prat's agreed to give this matter what aid we can, even over the ograns invading."  He looked at Ahira, and then Loren.  "The king hopes, as do we all, that this Prophecy helps lead us to a way to end the war sooner, rather than later.  'The heart of Her Sons' has us all intrigued."

He turned to the table beside him, and picked up a bar of some odd silvery metal with rainbow highlights deep within its depths.  Dwarfendale set the bar upon the floor, and pulled his great hammer from its special attachment over his shoulder.  With one hand, he swung down on the bar upon the floor, and the bar shattered into hundreds of pieces, many flying out across the floor in a star-burst pattern, to be stopped by boots, table-legs, or simply sliding to a stop from the friction.

Dwarfendale pulled a second bar from the table and, brushing aside the remaining shards with one steel-clad boot, made a space for it on the floor where the other had been.

The dwarven priest-lord pulled from his armor a chain with an amulet upon it.  He kissed it to his lips, having to work around his white beard, and then held it in one hand.  He began chanting in the dwarven tongue, and Aegan watched in awe as the dwarf's formidable build began to strain the confines of his armor.  His bull neck became corded, its veins standing out in stark relief in the supernatural light.  Power infused the the Baron-and-the-Bishop, and the human woman in half-plate took a half-step back -- only to be stopped by the mass of the elven giant behind her.

Dwarfendale dropped his medallion, and with a mighty two-handed blow, brought it down upon the second metal bar.  The stone beneath it cracked and spit out shards, some flying into the air -- but the metal stood where it was.  The strange rainbow luster within it was gone, to be replaced with a sort of darkness just beneath the surface -- as though the metallic look were a glassy coating over something shadowy.

The lord and high priest of the dwarves of Mount Rilan stopped and picked up the bar of metal, and Aegan realized then what it was.  It was a form of adamantine that only the masters worked with.  In the Vridaran tongue, it was called 'shamathmae'.  He realized with sudden insight that 'cargdin mithral' was the mythical equivalent of the shamathmae, but the concept did not work well linguistically with the common tongue.  Cargdin was an adjective to describe things, whereas shamathmae was an all-encompassing noun.  Cargdin mithral could not exist -- except in tales of how a man's soul and spirit could be broken by small things, but made ever so much harder by great blows that shook them to the core of their being.

Dwarfendale stood there with veins bulging on the side of his forehead, and blood-shot eyes of intense blue, staring into Aegan's eyes with a will for him to understand that was inhuman.

The dwarven priest-lord said in a tired voice, "My part, is done, in this Prophecy."  He turned to the giant elf and Loren.  "Get them whatever supplies they need, and a hippotaun escort.  They'll be going to Rilan, next."  He turned to Ahira.  "The Black Holly is down in Rilan.  It's been in the docks there for a refit, and is just now serviceable.  Ye think it's a coincidence?"

Ahira's grin brought a chill to Aegan's spine.  The dwarf said, "Not by a long-shot."  He turned away, and moved off to make preparations.

The human woman asked, "What just happened?"  She seemed lost, as though things were moving at far too fast a pace for her.

Dwarfendale asked in a tired voice, "Bridar.  Her family?"

The huge elf said, "They are well taken care of.  Doom Rex will never find them.  They are safe."

The dwarven priest-lord nodded, and turned to the woman.  "Your family is safe.  Now, you have to uphold your end of the bargain.  You are the 'Cargdin Mithral', spoken of in Prophecy.  You will go with the Gahle liSear," and he pointed at Aegan, "And the 'Raven Liar'," and he pointed at Eriel.

The Baron-and-the-Bishop growled at Aegan.  "I've learned that sometimes, you have to push Prophecy ahead of you.  If you go by sea to the Halls of the Pixie Queen -- somewhere along the way, you'll meet the 'Stolen Thief'."

Aegan asked, "Vhy do ve have to go by sea?"  A cold sweat had broken out on his forehead, and cries of terror from the Scarlet Skies began rising to the surface of his mind from his nightmares.

"Because, boy," and the priest-lord's eyes were expressive of his vast knowledge and power.  "If you go by land, the ograns will kill you.  You think this invasion is a coincidence?"  He moved closer, and though he was two feet shorter and more than Aegan, his presence was intimidating.  "This Prophecy of Arkon's is our only ticket out of this war.  And if we lose this war, then we lose all of the wars afterwards."

The brown eyes of a human met the blue eyes of a dwarf, and they shared a quiet understanding.  One began to understand the import of his mission, and the other poured faith into the enlightened from a cup that overflowed onto the boundaries of sanity.