The Quiet Register and the Mist of Witness

 

The Quiet Register and the Mist of Witness

Lukkog comes to the temple of Moradin, Clangeddin, and Dumathoin alone, carrying something that does not look like a relic until you understand what it is.

The Quiet Register is not a book. It is a slab of dark stone, smooth as river-worn bedrock, its surface veined with pale mineral threads that catch lanternlight like buried frost. Names move across it as if written by an invisible chisel. Each line is steady. Each letter is precise. A record not of glory, but of rest.

In the main hall, the forge-brazier breathes low. Oil lamps burn steady. The air tastes faintly of soot and sanctified resin. This place is built for oaths and endings.

Lukkog does not announce himself. He does not ask for attention. In a private side chamber, he sets the Quiet Register on the basalt plinth with a care that borders on tenderness, as if stone can feel disrespect. The slab settles with a dull, heavy certainty, like a door closing.

He bows once.

Not as a warrior bows to a lord, but as a living man bows to the dead.

Then he leans close enough that his breath warms the surface, and he begins.

His voice is no more than a whisper.

The first name fades as he speaks it, lifting from the Register like a final exhale. A heartbeat later, another name appears in its place. Then another. Then another, each one arriving with the same quiet insistence.

At first, Lukkog thinks there must be some mistake. A trick of the stone. A cruel mechanism meant to test him.

But the names keep coming.

Hours pass. Lanterns are tended. A novice sets water within reach, then retreats without looking up. The chamber cools and warms in slow cycles, as if the mountain itself is breathing. Lukkog reads each name with the same strength and commitment as he read the first. He does not rush. He does not stumble. He does not turn reverence into performance.

He simply speaks them.

And as he speaks, some spirits come.

Not with fanfare. Not with torment. Just a faint shift in the air, like a latch turning far down a corridor. A figure will coalesce for a moment in the lanternlight, blurred at the edges. A suggestion of a helm, a braid, a miner’s cloak dusted with stone. Then, as if reassured by the sound of their name spoken cleanly, they fade into the quiet peace of Moradin’s halls.

Others do not appear at all.

And still, the Register fills.

Lukkog’s throat grows raw. His lips crack. His eyes burn. His hands tremble once, then steady again on the plinth. He keeps reading.

But there is a new pain that rises as the hours stretch into something that feels like a trial.

He remembers the mines.

He remembers names spoken in darkness, under strain, under fear. He remembers the dead being near enough to feel, and the living being desperate enough to bargain with anything that would listen. And the thought comes, sharp and unwanted:

Had he done harm?

Had he bound them?

Had he condemned dwarven spirits by speaking their names in a place where stone held grudges and blood remembered?

The thought lodges beneath his ribs like a splinter.

He keeps reading anyway.

Then, in the space between two names, a voice touches his mind.

Not loud. Not dramatic. Not a command.

A presence like deep stone, patient and unmoving, settling the way a heavy hand settles on a shoulder.

You did not condemn them.

The words are not heard with ears. They arrive whole, already certain.

You spoke what was already true. You carried their names out of a place of distress. You gave them witness. The dead are not trapped by honor. The dead are steadied by it.

Lukkog’s jaw tightens. His eyes sting again, but this time it is not only exhaustion. He does not answer aloud. He simply bows his head a fraction, and reads on with a steadier breath.

Night comes and goes. The temple above hums with distant life, then stills. Lanterns are replaced. The brazier is fed again. The stone does not hurry him.

More than twenty-four hours after he began, Lukkog speaks the final name.

The Quiet Register brightens for the span of a breath.

And only then does the mist come.

It gathers at his feet, cool and low, curling around his boots. It smells of deep earth, old coin, and freshly split granite. The brazier’s flame leans away as if the air itself makes room.

Lukkog realizes, without turning his head, that he is no longer alone.

Dwarves of Clan Battlehammer have gathered in the temple, quietly, without ceremony, without announcement. They stand at the chamber’s threshold and along the walls beyond, shoulder to shoulder, eyes lowered. Witnesses. Not judges. Their faces are carved with the restraint of a people who do not give reverence lightly, and who know when reverence is owed.

As the final name leaves Lukkog’s mouth, a spirit steps from the Register.

The last dwarf is clad in ceremonial plate armor that gleams as if freshly polished, draped in holy vestments whose edges seem stitched from pale light. He turns. He meets Lukkog’s gaze.

Then he bows.

Not as a subject bows to a king. As one warrior bows to another, acknowledging something clean and rare.

The mist thickens.

And out of it, something takes shape.

A manifestation of a vow older than any clan, older than any feud. A face the mountain wears when it must speak.

The form is made of fog and pressure and the suggestion of carved features, as if a statue remembered how to stand up. The eyes are not eyes, but depth, like a mineshaft seen in daylight.

A deep voice cuts through the quiet, filling the chamber without shouting.

“Lukkog Iron-Grip, the Hearthborn. Son of Thraak the Unbroken.”

The name lands like an anvil strike.

“I am Kharrum of the Still Deep.

Keeper of Names. Warden of Rest. Stone That Remembers.”

The gathered dwarves do not move. They do not interrupt. They do not question the miracle in front of them. They simply witness it, because witnessing is a kind of devotion.

Kharrum’s voice continues, slow and certain.

“I know your story. I know the story of those of Rhukas, the dwarven name for orcs. I know blood that has been shed between dwarf and orc, and I do not pretend it was small.

You have not asked to be forgiven.

You have not asked to be praised.

You have done what is rarer than both. You have borne witness.”

The mist rolls outward, then settles again, like a breath taken and released.

“In this temple, where stone holds memory, you have spoken the dead with honor. You have given rest its due. You have placed respect in your mouth and made it true.

So hear me.

A gift is presented to you, Lukkog Hearthborn. A gift that honors both dwarf and rhukas. A gift from your father and his fathers, and from the family who has adopted you, and forged you, into the dwarven warrior you have become.”

The mist thins.

On the floor at Lukkog’s feet lie a hammer and an axe, their metal dark, soul-forged, still bearing the jagged runes of the Iron-Grip. Yet something new runs through them, clean and unmistakable as a fresh strike on an anvil.

Three sigils shine faintly where none had been before: Moradin’s anvil-mark set like a seal, Dumathoin’s hidden gem worked into a crease of iron, Clangeddin’s crossed axes cut into the heart of each weapon with deliberate simplicity.

“I present to you the weapons of Thraak.

Varkhul, the Spirit-Breaker.

Groz-Nul, the Grave-Hammer.

Forged by the greatest smiths of rhukas. Now blessed with the might of Moradin the All-Father, Dumathoin the Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain, and Clangeddin Silverbeard, who weighs courage in the balance of war.

Let the orc-iron keep its fury.

Let dwarven stone give it steadiness.

Let the dead be honored by what the living do with what they are given.”

A low, resonant ring follows, not loud, but felt, as if the chamber itself has been struck like a bell.

“I have spoken,” Kharrum says, and the final words settle into the rock. “So it is witnessed. So it is remembered.”

The echoes fade.