Hermes

Hermes is a wandering warrior of the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign who fights for the dwarves without belonging to their regular army. A dwarven officer recommended him to Kemp Corvus, Sarah and Ephorus as one of those trusted fighters who do not sell their swords to anyone who pays. He has red hair and beard, wears round spectacles on a strap and a shield, and carries a metal-hafted spear whose tip is a crystal, called a diamond, shaped like a piece of the moon.^{1 2}

He says that the spear's tip glows when magic is near and that his spectacles show more than ordinary sight, even what is invisible. The crystal needs the light of the sun or of a fire every few days. His constant companion is Barut, a black dog big enough to carry him.^{3 4}

The lost expedition

When the companions came to the dwarven garrison town of Gazad, Hermes had not been seen at his lodgings for two days. In a noisy tavern under a sign of a shield, the black-bearded innkeeper told them he lodged there. The old dwarf veteran Deligöz had heard that Hermes's team of three had come to grief near the closed amethyst mines: one, it was said, was killed fighting a cave creature, and another hanged himself in camp out of fear, which Deligöz could not believe of seasoned fighters.^{5 6}

Hermes later gave his own account. Fighting in the mines, the place around them seemed to change, they found themselves at the edge of a chasm and a comrade fell; he came to think that what they saw and felt did not reflect what was real. In an unguarded old duergar post they found scrolls in a language they could not read. Only from his dead companion's diary did he learn that the man had begun translating them on watch and had noted that there were strange things in them; that night he died, and Hermes woke to the sound of a whistle.^{7 8}

Afterwards a letter reached him from someone signing as O.C., urging him to leave the matter, act as if he knew nothing and tell no one about the whistle. He made a show of taking small jobs as though about to move on, but would not let his companion's killer go unpunished. From his own inquiries he believed that the Puppeteer was very powerful but not without limits, that killing by whistle did not work on everyone, and that the method had been spoken of in the region since old times.^{9 3}

Guiding the company

Asked openly to guide them into the closed mines, Hermes refused: if they sought treasure he would not go, for many adventurers had died there. But he left his cup behind with a hidden note, and after dark he met them in secret. He warned that by asking openly after The Puppeteer they had put others in danger, said he had fought that being unwillingly without ever seeing its face, and agreed to join them without pay, for the cause was his own as well.^{10 11 12}

He loaded their heavy gear on Barut, arranged for their horses to be kept at the surface village of Yediocak, and led them down past the dwarven road posts, gathering reports from the officers. On the first night he brought them to a resting place he knew and opened a vent blocked with stone. He told them the duergar had been dwarven kin left behind who had become slaves of dark powers, something the dwarves still feel responsible for, and that the duergar's machines are driven by the minds and feelings of those held inside them, more prisoners burned as fuel than pilots.^{13 14 15 16}

On the second day he picked out freshly dug traps, and on the second night invisible duergar scouts attacked the camp; Hermes fought with his spear and Barut bore one attacker to the ground. Taking a longer road, he brought the company past eight fallen duergar to the sealed galleries, where they met O.C.^{17 18 19}

After O.C. left, Hermes stayed with the company to search the Demirkapı amethyst mines. At the end of the fifth day he spotted an old wall built across a passage, through which Kemp broke into a sealed duergar research hall; there Hermes and Kemp held the front against risen skeleton warriors.^{20 21 22}

He then proposed, with a map, a nearby abandoned duergar fortress called Karazor or Karamor, where old things that might turn the war could be found, and led the company there by safe ways. In its long-unused halls they found a rotten barracks and an overseer's office with a seated skeleton wearing a moon-marked ring. A hidden mechanism split the company with walls of stone, and from beyond them came the sounds of Hermes and Barut fighting stone guardians; when he was seen again he was in a very bad way, and a red blast filled the chamber.^{23 24 25 26}

Spoiler: Called backRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #41; Sürgün Günlükleri #42 · Say what you have read

After the blast Hermes's soul left his body, and Sarah called it back at once with her crystal. Grateful that the crystal had been spent on him, he asked for no share of the spoils.^{27 28}

Farewell and the war

Hermes led the companions through tunnels full of dwarven civilians going to help the war effort, said goodbye to Kısmet near the surface, and went back underground to fight in the coming battle, Barut staying at his side. He described the path to Yediocak, past a stone road and an old well for watering herds. The companions thought of asking him to join their next secret task, but did not wish to put yet another person's family at risk.^{29 30}

Spoiler: What followedRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #44; Sürgün Günlükleri #45 · Say what you have read

Hermes died in the battle for the dwarves. Barut and his kin kept watch over his body; since no heavy wound could be seen, poison was suspected. A dwarven war banner was given to his family to keep at his grave in memory of what he had died for, and they were moved that he was honoured like one of the dwarves' own. His kin took the body to be carried to the family's city.^{31 32 33}