“Smells like someone’s been letting Simeon get into the cheese again.”
There was a silence. Then an almost impossibly loud and long fart from around the corner that would put Entras’s gas to shame.
“Fuck yourself, Silas. Life’s short and I eat what I want.”
“Life’s gonna be a whole lot shorter for all of us if you don’t stop breaking your evil wind-of-poison!” came another voice with a Lysterian accent.
“Goll?” Felgor asked, voice raising to a half shout. “Goll, is that you?”
“Aye, Balarian. It’s me. Come out, will you? We ain’t gonna shoot.”
They entered a chamber that made no sense to Vera. It had been carved from the earth by dragon claws, but it was adorned with human trappings. There were lengths of teakwood boards laid out to form a kind of floor, and half-rotten carpets thrown across them. There were bookshelves bursting with sheaves of paper and two rusted alchemy stations must have been at least ten years old.
There was also a pile of new crates in the middle of the room, and there were hundreds of Jaguar wardens perched in various places, looking back at her.
A tall warden with a narrow face and bulbous chin stepped forward. Smiled.
“Gods, it’s good to see you, Silas.” His smile faded when he turned to Vera. “You fight for the Balarians.”
“Now she’s fighting with us, Willem.”
“If you say so. And what about Ash—”
Willem was interrupted by a bone-clacking rattle as the big Skojit shoved forward from somewhere deeper in the cave. He was eating from a rusty tin can with a silver spoon.
“Silas, you survived. Good. You hungry?” He held up the tin. “We got lots o’ this stuff.”
“Simeon, those tins are almost twenty years old. Ashlyn and I brought them down here when we were teenagers.”
“Yeah, that’s what the others said. Which is why I got ’em all to myself.” He took a bite. “This one is some kind of meat situation with a decent cheese that—”
“Simeon, will you shut the fuck up? Ashlyn and Jolan aren’t here.” The dark-haired warden who’d tried to kill Garret came forward. Oromir. He stalked over to Bershad. “Are they dead?”
“Ashlyn’s alive. I’m not sure about Jolan, but I think they were both captured.”
“What happened?”
Bershad told them about the bridge. Vera could tell from the rough edges around his words that he was barely holding back his emotions.
Everyone was quiet for a while.
“What are we gonna do?” asked a miserable-looking man with no ears and a Balarian accent.
“That’s easy,” said one warden. “We’re gonna wait till nightfall comes around again, then we’re gonna swim back across the Gorgon and get lost in the Gloom.”
“That’s an option for anyone who wants to take it,” said Bershad. He motioned to the crates. “But I have a mind to take those to the walls of Floodhaven and break through them.”
“Might be we can get through the walls,” said Willem. “But there’s gonna be an awful lot of grayskins waiting for us on the other side.”
“There’ll be some,” Bershad agreed. “But we saw skyships coming and going all day from the tree we hid in. We’re thinking that Ward is rushing to fill in the gaps that Ashlyn created, and he’s using the reserves of men and grayskins from Floodhaven to do it. It’ll be skeleton crews guarding those streets. That’s my bet.”
“But once we attack, Ward will call the skyships back,” said Willem.
“Yeah.”
“And then we’re screwed,” Willem finished.
“Nonsense,” said a red-haired warden with a blue mask on his hip. “That’s when Lord Bershad’ll call the dragon down to help us, right?”
Bershad gave him a look. “Who told you I could do that?”
“Felgor.”
Bershad turned to Felgor, who just shrugged. “Didn’t think it was a secret.”
Bershad shook his head. “The Nomad’s gone. She’s not coming back.”
“Then there’s no chance,” said Willem. “It’s suicide.”
“Maybe,” said Bershad. “But if I’m gonna die, it’s gonna be trying to reach Ashlyn. Not running away.”
There was a silence. Oromir stepped even closer to Bershad.
“I’ve hated you since the moment I met you,” he said. “You’re impulsive, violent, reckless, and you’ve squandered every gift and advantage you’ve ever been given.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Just like me.”
Bershad didn’t say anything.
“But Jolan is better than both of us. He always has been.” Oromir swallowed. “If there’s a chance that he’s alive, and a chance you can help me get to him, I’ll follow you. Doesn’t matter if we die, so long as there’s a chance.”
“There is,” Bershad said. “I promise.”
Simeon belched loudly.
“There’ll be Ghalamarians in the city,” he growled. “So I’m in.”
Willem sucked on his teeth. “Me too, I guess. Gods know that Jolan’s dealt with my cock rot enough times to warrant a rescue attempt.”
Goll stood. Hefted his axe. “I’ve failed to repay my blood debt to you, Flawless. So I have no choice but to die by your side.”
Felgor cleared his throat. “This display of bravery and devotion is really touching and all, but there’s a way to do this that isn’t completely guaranteed to end with all of us swallowing shells.”
“If there’s another option besides attacking the most fortified city in Terra with a thousand men and some apple-sized bombs, I’m all ears,” said Willem.
“Well, actually you lot are still going to have to do that. But me and Vera can sneak into the castle while you have everyone’s attention. We’ll free Ashlyn, and she’ll save our asses. You all should have seen the damage she did on that bridge. It was incredible.”
“How are you going to get into the castle?” Willem asked.
“Please. I’ve snuck in and out of Floodhaven four times this year.” He patted Vera on the shoulder. “Plus, I’ll have this little murderous assassin with me, who will be my prisoner.” He pointed to Oromir. “You’ll be my muscle.”
“That’s idiotic,” said Oromir.
“You’d be surprised how many stupid decisions get made when there are large explosions outside the window. Trust me, I can get you into the castle. From there?” He shrugged. “Guess we’ll just see.”
Bershad looked at Vera. “What do you think?”
The truth was, she thought the entire thing was suicide on all fronts, but the alternative was leaving Kira to die.
“I’ll do it.”
Bershad turned to the wardens.
“Any man who doesn’t want a part of this should leave now. I won’t stop you. And you’ll leave with your honor intact. Get back to the Dainwood. Protect the people for as long as you can. That’s all I ask of you.”
A few men blinked. Spat. Adjusted their armor and their weapons. But nobody moved to leave.
Willem cleared his throat. “We’re all with you. Lord Bershad.”
Bershad nodded. “Rest up today. We’ll move out after nightfall. Attack at midnight.”
88
JOLAN
Castle Malgrave, Level 37
Jolan woke up to the sound of coffee being poured. He was laid out on a simple cot in a room illuminated by the pale light of ignited dragon threads that were bunched inside glass vases.
His neck was so stiff it felt like his vertebrae had been fused together. He went to rub his muscles and found a perfectly wrapped, cold seaweed poultice swathed around his trapezius muscles.
“I apologize for the injuries you sustained,” came a man’s voice. “That poultice will minimize the pain and swelling.”
Jolan sat up. His head hurt almost as much as his neck.
An old man was sitting behind a desk, staring at him with sharp eyes. There was a steaming mug of coffee next to him.
“Would
you care for a cup? Freshly brewed.”
“You’re Osyrus Ward.”
“Yes.”
Jolan desperately wanted to ask about Ashlyn, but forced himself not to. The less Osyrus knew about Jolan and his relationship to Ashlyn, the better.
“And you are Jolan Fent, of Otter Rock,” Osyrus continued when Jolan stayed silent.
Jolan’s stomach twisted. He hadn’t heard anyone speak his last name in a very long time.
“How did you know that?”
“The same way that I knew you appreciated a fresh pot of coffee in the morning.”
Osyrus tapped a stack of loose-leaf papers that was tied together with a strip of red leather.
Jolan frowned. There were only a handful of people who knew Jolan’s last name, and only one of them knew how to read and write. “Morgan Mollevan.”
“A quick and accurate deduction. You probably weren’t aware, but every master alchemist is required to submit annual progress reports of their apprentices to the main archives in Pargos. Those glorified librarians never did anything with the information, but the alchemists do love collecting facts for no reason.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Jolan.
“No?” Osyrus pulled a page from the pile and read aloud. “‘Jolan displays great creativity with his poultice concoctions, as well as natural instincts as a forager. But his lack of detail orientation holds him back from greatness. And his forgetfulness when it comes to daily chores is extremely annoying. The morning coffee, in particular.’”
Jolan swallowed. That was Morgan. Hearing his words made Jolan’s heart long for the quiet life he’d once led. And longing for it made him feel ashamed.
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” he asked. “Morgan Mollevan is dead. I never became an alchemist.”
“No,” Osyrus agreed. “You became something far greater. I know that you have been aiding Ashlyn Malgrave. Half the mechanisms installed in her body were crafted by your hand. Sprung from your mind.”
“I’m just her assistant.”
“False modesty? No. Caution, I think.” Osyrus scratched at his greasy beard. “Would you like to know how your mother died?”
Jolan knew that Osyrus was probing for a weak point in his mind. Something that he could manipulate. He wasn’t going to let that happen. “My mother is a stranger. I barely remember her.”
“I see.” Osyrus smiled. Stood. Walked to the door of the chamber. “Please. Follow me. I would like to show you one of my workshops. I think you’ll find my current experiment relates to something that you do remember.”
* * *
Ward took him to a large room that was filled with rows and rows of glass tanks.
“If you’ll lead the way, we’re looking for specimen tank #9907.”
Jolan headed down the first aisle. He wasn’t sure what else to do.
Ashlyn had told Jolan of the things that they’d found on Ghost Moth Island. Gruesome experiments and torture performed in the darkness. But that wasn’t what Jolan saw in the tanks that he passed.
Each tank was filled with a different, and carefully manicured ecosystem. Some had flora from the jungles of the Dainwood. Others the deserts of east Pargos. Others still were somehow kept cold enough to contain Lysterian snows.
Then there were the creatures.
The first ten tanks contained buzzing, mechanical re-creations of normal insects and animals. Beetles. Hummingbirds. Scorpions. But then he began to pass animals that seemed perfectly normal except for their size. Pargossian elephants the size of rabbits. Thundertail dragons no larger than sparrows, roosting on twigs.
“Size and scale are interesting variables to manipulate,” Ward said as they moved down the aisle. “But these changes were mere precursors to my actual aims. Here we are. Just on the left.”
The things they’d passed were so strange that Jolan was taken aback to find that tank #9907—marked with an embossed, steel placard across the top—contained something very familiar.
Four toxic, red-shelled snails, and one squirrel, which was chewing on an acorn that was laced in the snails’ poisonous mucus. Given the squirrel’s size, a few nibbles of the tainted acorn should have killed it. But the rodent looked perfectly healthy.
“I had the specimens plucked from the stream half a league south of a burnt-out apothecary in Otter Rock,” Osyrus said from behind him. “I wanted to ensure my experiments matched your own previous efforts.”
Jolan wasn’t sure what to feel. He could cast off memories of a mother he barely knew, but he’d dedicated most of his life to finding an antivenom for the red-shelled snails with Morgan Mollevan, and they had failed.
“What did you use to purify the antibodies?” he asked. That was the problem they could never solve.
“Oh, I can certainly show you the method at a later time. I am not stingy with my knowledge, like the alchemists. But right now, I believe the details of my success will be less compelling than the time it took for me to implement them.”
Jolan turned away from the tank. “Are you going to make me guess?”
“No. The samples arrived by skyship four hours ago. I created the antibodies while I was waiting for you to wake up.”
Despite Jolan’s best efforts, that bothered him. He and Morgan Mollevan had toiled for years. Years. And when Morgan died, they’d been nowhere close to a solution.
“I must acknowledge, of course, that I was able to adapt an existing purification process for this purpose. But the point I am trying to illustrate is that my work has reached a stage where applications such as this are, to be blunt, very easy.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I was once like you, Jolan. Brilliant. Creative. And afraid of my own strength. Afraid to take the next steps.”
“I’m nothing like you,” said Jolan. “And I’m not afraid.”
“Yes, you are. I can see the hesitation and fear in your eyes. You see the faces of the men you’ve killed for the sake of progress. The weapons you’ve built to oppose me are haunting you. Do you know why you feel that way, and Ashlyn Malgrave does not?”
Jolan didn’t respond. He felt sick to his stomach.
“Because she’s royalty. Everything she has was given to her because of the blood running through her veins. You and I had to fight for it. Struggle. We had to earn it.”
“She’s earned it, too.”
“Not in the same way.”
“I’ve seen your other work, Osyrus. I’ve seen the burnt-out villages and charred corpses that your skyships leave in their wake. I’ve seen the gray-skinned abominations you’ve unleashed on Terra.”
“That is a small fraction of my work. In Balaria, there is clean, potable water flowing into every home because of me. With a few more advances, I will pull tumors from children’s brains without harming them. I can create a new genus of Ghalamarian wheat that doesn’t go to rot in its field when Green Horns are eradicated from the area. I can end famines. End the suffering. Nothing is out of reach anymore, Jolan.”
“A few more advances,” Jolan repeated.
“Yes. All that I need is access to a stronger power source.”
Jolan understood immediately. Ashlyn must have triggered her kill switch when she was captured. He gave Osyrus a nasty smile. “Having trouble breaking through the lock on Ashlyn’s bands? Must be annoying.”
“Pettiness does not suit you,” Osyrus said.
“Maybe not, but Ashlyn and I spent three months struggling to break through your system. It’s only fitting that you struggle a bit with ours, too.”
“Ours?” Ward repeated. “So, you did help her build it?”
Jolan went quiet. He needed to be more careful with his words.
“This is about progress, Jolan. You can help me change the world.”
Jolan turned to the rows of lush, incredible experiments in front of him. He knew that despite the wonders in front of him, there were rooms full of horrors above and below. He looked back
to Osyrus.
“I don’t know the sequences. Even if I did, there is no way that I will betray Ashlyn Malgrave in exchange for a coffee and the vaporous promise of some imaginary future where suffering doesn’t exist.”
Osyrus gave a sympathetic nod. “I’ve also been seduced by the trappings of royalty. I was not much older than you when Ashlyn’s own aunt, Empress Okinu, took me into her service. At first, she was kind. Supportive. Made me think that she deserved my undying loyalty. But I was always just a servant in their eyes. When I pushed against her royal goals, she betrayed me. Ashlyn will do the same thing to you.”
Jolan shook his head. “Ashlyn treats me as an equal. She always has. Maybe the reason Okinu betrayed you is because you’re completely insane. I will never help you.”
“Certainty is such a brittle thing,” Osyrus said. “Just like Ashlyn, you would have been a more productive asset if we had formed a mutualistic relationship, but alternative methods of obtaining your cooperation are available.”
“You can tear every limb from my body, I still wouldn’t help you.”
“Speaking from a rather large data set, you most definitely would. Everyone breaks eventually. But I’ve always had a soft spot for wayward alchemists. And because of that, I would prefer to avoid causing you physical harm until necessary.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have the run of my workshops on this level for the time being. Explore them. Enjoy them. And give my offer deeper consideration.” Osyrus smiled. “Just know that while you wait here in comfort, I am causing Ashlyn Malgrave a considerable and growing amount of pain with each passing moment.”
89
BERSHAD
Outside Floodhaven
There were dead wardens hanging in the trees outside of Floodhaven. They’d rotted down to nothing but bones and rusted bundles of armor. Bershad, Vera, Cabbage, and Simeon sat beneath them, looking out at the walls of Floodhaven, which were bathed in artificial light.
“Who’re these poor bastards?” Simeon asked, motioning to the nearest skeleton.
“Malgrave wardens,” said Bershad. “They were strung up by a lord named Cedar Wallace during a siege.”
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