Black amethyst

Black amethyst is a gemstone of Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles"). Amethyst is valuable and hard-wearing but carries no particular magic of its own; the black kind is far rarer than ordinary purple amethyst. Dwarven and gnomish engineers use it in automatons and golems to keep magic from passing from one part to another.^{1 2}

An old wizard told Ephorus that the stone cannot by itself hold back a spell about to burst, and that lead alloys and counter-magic serve better to imprison magic; amethyst rather keeps magic apart from what it touches.^{3 4}

Where it comes from

Through guild craftsmen and middlemen who deal in untaxed goods, Ephorus traced the trade to the Demirkapı family: not engineers but soldier nobles who defend a fortress, and distant kin of the Demirsakal. The mines of the dwarven kingdom of DağAltı are the main source, and the stone is exported through the fortress of Gazad, though small finds elsewhere and resale also occur.^{5 6 7}

Balgur Demirkapı said that about nine in ten black amethysts came from his own mines. A local expert added that the stone is little loved or traded, and that hardly anyone nearby digs it except the dwarves.^{8 9}

The old dwarf Deligöz, who had taken part in closing the Demirkapı amethyst mines, said that no new amethyst had come out of them for some twenty years. When the companions searched those mines, they found the black amethyst taken out to the last crumb, while veins of gold and silver had been left behind.^{10 11 12}

Lore and theories

Ephorus found a small book on the symbolic meanings of stones, written by a priest as a hobby. It gives black amethyst another name, "Ama", and tells a legend in which a god used a device made of the stone for seeing and hearing to sow discord among the commanders of the dark side. Ephorus told his companions that the stone is called the Ama stone in myths.^{13 14 15}

The naturalist Merrick Galevan took black amethyst to be ordinary amethyst changed by the residue of magic, perhaps by an ancient dragon or some other power in a particular mining district. The black colour alone, he said, proves no new magical power, though some things are turned into wholly different materials by intense magic.^{16 17}

The local expert spoke of the possibility that blood darkens amethyst, and suggested that a stone might be a casing hiding something within. A dwarf struck one with a mithril tool, and at about the third blow its base opened on a hollow holding a white powder with a fresh scent of grass and rain that made those near it feel well.^{9 18 19}

The companions took care not to treat the powder as the same thing as the black amethyst ring they were seeking, reasoning that other stones might hold other things. A contact known as O.C. said that he had seen pieces of amethyst on those who followed the Puppeteer of their own will, and the companions told him that the stone they had broken held what they took for dust from angels' wings.^{20 21}

The ring and the stone in the chest

The companions' search for black amethyst began with a ring. When Ephorus drew its sign, Galevan said that it was no dwarven symbol and that its answer would not be found there. At Gazad they asked who carried the stone out and sold it; an officer said that all goods bound lawfully for the Empire pass through Gazad, but that its records were incomplete after a change of command and the damage of the battle at the Dwarf Gate, and might have passed to the Demirsakal or remained in abandoned shafts.^{22 23 24}

Later, in a hidden chest in an old room of a noble's mansion, they found two vials and a stone like black amethyst wrapped in velvet. They took it for a trace of the Puppeteer, who uses minds and leaves no memory behind, and thought the master of the house might be his victim. The Puppeteer then demanded that they give him two stones.^{25 26 27}