Chapter 304: The Dwarven Cave of Mantamia (6)

“What is this thing?”

Wandering the White Snowfield, Ketal spotted a black axe half-buried where the wind had knifed drifts into the hollows between snow. He stood over it for a quiet moment, studying the way the haft lay canted in the snow, then reached down and closed his hand around the grip, lifting it in a single smooth motion.

In that same instant, something inside the axe stirred. A presence that had been sleeping awoke and hurled itself toward the living being that had grasped it, rushing along the handle and into the hand that held it, intent on swallowing the soul and then the flesh that housed it. It was the kind of thing that made monsters seem tame, a devourer that even a seasoned powerhouse would not have resisted, not in any meaningful sense.

Yet nothing happened.

“Why was an axe just jammed into the ground like this?” Ketal asked the empty air, turning the weapon toward the light.

He tilted his head and inspected his find. The edge showed not a nick, and the polish had a hard, cold gleam. When he gave it an experimental swing, the balance felt reassuring, and the weight sat in his palm as if made to be there.

“This looks useful,” he said at last, shouldered the axe, and walked on.

That was all there was to it—no visions, no shuddering change, no creeping stain of influence. The axe simply became the tool in Ketal’s hand.

***

Ketal fell silent.

When Hephaite had asked him where he had come from, they had not meant the White Snowfield. Their question reached for something more fundamental, where the being called Ketal truly came from.

No one had asked him that before. However, thinking back, Ketal realized someone from the Inside had asked once, a long time ago. His gaze cooled as the old memory surfaced, then he set it aside.

Where did I come from, huh...,

Ketal thought.

He had come from a place without wonder and without mystery, a world with neither gods nor demons nor monsters, only a flat palette of grays. He had come to this world from that hell.

He kept his mouth shut for a long while, and when he finally spoke, his voice was level. “Is that an important question?”

A chill crept across the shrine. For the briefest moment, Hephaite felt fear. On instinct, they sensed a threat and understood it was the kind one did not tease awake lightly. Hephaite realized at once that this line of inquiry was a mistake, and they answered quickly, their tone decisive.

“No. Leave it. It is not important. There is no need to thrust your hand into briars and wake a snake. I will disregard it.”

They had recognized the boundary. There was nothing good to be found by crossing it.

“In that case, my thanks,” Ketal said with an easy smile.

That odd pressure that had prickled the air a heartbeat earlier was nowhere to be found. Even so, Hephaite knew what they had felt, a sensation that belonged neither to one category nor another. They put the thought away and moved the conversation along.

“Our bargain stands. Defeat the demon, and your wishes will be met.”

“Good,” Ketal replied. “I will put my back into it.”

“Then work hard.”

The god withdrew from the surface. As the great presence lifted, Grombir’s knees gave, and he dropped onto a low stool, breathing hard. When his spirit steadied, he looked up at Ketal.

“Did the talk end well?”

“It did. The bargain is made. Thank you for arranging it,” Ketal replied.

“I see...”

It was a strange sight for a devout dwarf, to witness a mortal striking a deal with a god. Given the grim circumstances, however, it felt less sacrilegious and more like common sense. Grombir stood again and extended a thick, scarred hand.

“Then we will be relying on you.”

“You may,” Ketal said with a grin, clasping the dwarf’s grip.

Grombir decided he needed a short rest. Even as a king, being used as a vessel for descent left the soul rattled.

“

Whew.

Thank goodness,” the Holy Sword whispered, voice wobbling. “It thought the god was going to reclaim me the instant they saw me and cart me home...”

“If they had said that, I would have refused,” Ketal said. “So there was never anything to worry about.”

“Oh. Oh. You...” There was an honest feeling in the sword’s small voice.

Afterward, Ketal went to see Ignisia.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her

“Getting better,” she said, rolling her shoulders as if to test them. “If you had not arrived when you did, I would have been in real trouble. You picked a perfect moment.”

“I am glad I did.”

“It has been a while, Ketal.”

“It has,” he answered, flashing a brief, lopsided smile.

“How have you been?” she asked him, returning the smile with one of her own.

“Busy,” he said. “I took care of this and that. I trained the way you told me to and worked on handling the Myst. I can manage it now, at least to a point.”

“It looked that way,” she said.

In his bout with Raphael, Ketal had wrapped himself in the Myst and moved with a speed and weight that had not been his before.

“Useful, is it not?” she added.

“Very,” he said, satisfaction plain in his eyes. “I am not perfect yet, though. There are gaps. I came here to fill them.”

“Then you need the dwarves.”

“That is the state of things,” he agreed. “There is something I need refined. And a lot has happened besides. I drew the Holy Sword, for one.”

He showed her the broken blade. Ignisia paused, eyebrows rising.

“So it really is the Holy Sword,” she murmured. “I half suspected it, but still... Why is it broken?”

“I forced it, and this is the result,” Ketal said. “My apologies to the Mortal Realm.”

“You can force the Holy Sword out...?” she said, as if testing the words on her tongue.

“That is why it is troublesome,” he went on. “I cannot very well throw it away. I came to pass it to its rightful owner, but the sword accepted me instead. It is awkward.”

“I can imagine,” she said, making a face, eyes lingering on him with a conflicted look. A being out of the White Snowfield was carrying a sacred weapon the gods had sent down, and it was broken, and somehow that was simply where things stood. It was a peculiar picture.

Ketal continued in the same even tone. “I also visited the holy lands, went North, crossed blades with demons, and put a few things back that had broken out.”

“What were those?” she asked him, then shook her head. “Never mind. You have been busy.”

“I have,” he said. “And I kept your request.”

“My request?” she repeated, tilting her head.

“You asked me to show goodwill to those who live in the Mortal Realm.”

That request had been the reason he had not smashed Ferderica’s church to pieces.

“Oh,” she said. “Right. That.”

“You forgot,” Ketal said, mock wounded. “How hurtful.”

“I did not think you would truly do it,” she admitted with a small laugh. She had asked because asking was all she could do, and she had expected nothing beyond a bare possibility that it might take some edge off the worst. She had never once imagined he would hold it close.

“I keep my promises,” he said.

“Thank you,” she answered, and this time there was nothing light about her tone.

“Looks like you have been busy too,” he said. “How long have you been here?”

“More than two weeks,” she said with a grimace. “That demon is maddening. Every line out of his mouth needles me, and he has the power to back it up. I burned favors to come here, so calling for help was not an option. I was stuck.”

“Now you are here. This changes things. I am counting on you,” she continued, eyes brightening.

“And I on you,” Ketal said, smiling back.

A few hours later, with his soul steadied, Grombir sent for them. The three gathered in the king’s hut and spoke frankly.

“A proper introduction,” Ketal began. “I have made a bargain with your god, Hephaite. I will do everything I can to reclaim Mantamia. I ask for your strength.”

𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

“You have it,” Ignisia said.

“You have mine as well. We were at the end of our rope. Your timing is a blessing,” Grombir admitted. Then, he laid out the details. “As you saw, the demon holding Mantamia is only one. The Demon of Jewels, Raphael.”

He was a count among demons, and one even Ignisia could not beat under current conditions.

“If this were anywhere else, I would not be pressed like this. The problem is the mine. Mantamia gives him everything he wants. On the surface, there are very few who could take clear advantage against Raphael while he holds a mine like that. The Tower Master and the Sun God’s Saintess might do it,” Ignisia scolwed.

Only the high-level Heroes could answer that sort of foe.

Grombir turned to Ketal. “Can you truly defeat a thing like that?”

“I can,” Ketal said, as if stating a plain fact. “I can win.”

Grombir exhaled through his beard. For someone even Ignisia had failed to break, to hear a calm assurance of victory sent a ripple of awe through the Dwarf King.

“There is a problem, though,” Ketal added.

“What problem?” Ignisia asked him.

“I can win, but it will likely take time. He will resist with everything he has.”

Raphael had already shown he could block Ketal’s Myst-honed blows by pulling ore from the ore and shaping it faster than thought. If the demon kept bringing minerals to bear, Ketal could not simply blast through.

“While that plays out, the ores in the mine will vanish by the hour,” Ketal said. “It is possible the mine will be stripped bare.”

He had no wish for that outcome. To meet his goals, the mine needed to survive, at least to a meaningful degree.

“So even you cannot put him down quickly,” she said, nodding slowly. “He is strong.”

“That is not it,” Ketal said.

“What do you mean?”

“I can probably kill him, and I can probably do it quickly.”

“Then where is the problem?” she said. “Finish him before he can make use of the mine.”

“There is still a problem,” Ketal replied. “The mine will not endure if I do that. It will collapse.”

“You do not need to worry about that,” Ignisia said at once. “This is Mantamia.”

Mithril, Adamantadium, Orikalos, and the rest were ores that carried stature in their very nature. Even with her clashes against Raphael, the tunnels had not so much as quivered. No matter how ferocious the force, the mine would not simply fall apart.

“It will collapse,” Ketal said, and the certainty in his voice silenced both of them.

“Are you sure?” Grombir asked him.

“Sadly, I am not good at controlling that particular kind of strength,” Ketal said. “If collapse is acceptable, I will use it.”

“No. No,” Grombir said, hands up. “Let us think a moment longer.”

They sank into thought, looking for a way to break Raphael without destroying the mine, and the longer they thought, the more the answers refused to come.

“Maybe we have to take him and the mine together,” she said, clicking her tongue.

“But...,” Grombir began, and then stopped.

“We are out of options,” she said. “He is sending precious ore to Hell even now. We do not have to finish this today, but we do not have leisure either.”

“That is true,” he admitted, grimacing.

Just when the talk was drifting toward the inevitable, Ketal spoke again. “There is one thing I want to understand.”

“What is it?” Ignisia asked him.

“Raphael is the Demon of Jewels,” he said. “That he can exert dominion over gems is clear. What I do not follow is how he can wield them with this much freedom.”

Ignisia could command the world with the Dragon Tongue, but even she could not simply seize what lay under Raphael’s hand and bend it. Raphael was a powerful demon, and his authority was gemstones, but that alone should not have let him turn everything inside the mine into extensions of his will with such ease.

“There is a reason,” Ignisia said. “Mantamia is his domain now.”

“In a normal place, not even Raphael could work the ore as he does,” she continued. “But Mantamia has become his domain.”

That was why he could use the mine as if it were a workshop he had built himself. A thoughtful light rose in Ketal’s eyes.

“Can a domain be broken?” he asked her.

“Not easily,” she said. “Once a domain is established, the best way to break it is to kill the demon who made it, and that is the hardest thing of all.”

“So the issue is that the mine lies within Raphael’s domain, and that is what allows him to handle the ores however he pleases.”

“That is right.”

“In that case,” Ketal said, almost cheerfully, “there is a solution.”

Ignisia blinked. “You have one? What is it?”

Grombir and Ignisia both stared. The two of them had turned the problem in their minds until the edges were worn smooth and had found no path through. Ketal sounded as if he were stating something obvious that they had somehow missed. Curiosity chased across their faces.

“If the problem is that the mine is inside Raphael’s domain,” Ketal said, “then we will move the mine outside it. That will do it. It is simple.”

“What..?” Ignisia said.

“Beg you pardon?” Grombir said.

Both of them looked at him as if he had just suggested lifting a mountain and setting it in the sea.