by Wulf, Rich
She watched as he staggered down the corridor, leaning heavily against the bulkhead as he walked. He fumbled with the hatch to his cabin and disappeared inside. The tiny clay face of Tristam’s homunculus peered out through the hatch, looking at Seren with a worried expression. It closed the cabin with a creak.
Seren looked at the hatch for a long time, then climbed back down the ladder. She found Dalan leaning against the tower’s main support beam. The guildmaster chewed absently on a stick of dried meat, not looking at her. He didn’t look the least bit upset by Tristam’s insults.
“If my guess is right, you heard most if not all of that,” Dalan said.
“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“So what now?” Dalan asked, looking at her. “Are you going to threaten me again? Tell me to leave Tristam alone? Insult my cowardly self-interest? Any of that nonsense?”
Seren said nothing.
“Master Xain is ruled by emotion,” Dalan said. “Pride and arrogance rule him. Courage drives him. His brilliance makes him special, but it is his emotions that make him strong, Seren. Since we left the Mournland he’s been changing, growing more reserved. He blames himself for what happened in Metrol.”
“So do you,” Seren said.
Dalan chewed his lunch in silence and stared blandly out at the plains.
“Don’t you?” she asked.
“Now that really would make me a hypocrite, wouldn’t it?” Dalan said. “If I really wanted to stop Tristam from repairing the Dying Sun I could have done so any time while we were in Metrol. Maybe the Mournland was blurring my judgment as well, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I have no problem with the decision Tristam made, though I regret the outcome.”
“Then why did you say what you said?” she asked.
“Because Tristam’s emotions deserted him,” Dalan said. “He was exhausted. With no enemy in sight, he had nothing to dwell upon but his failure. But you know Tristam. You know there’s one thing that will always fire his sense of righteousness.” He looked at her shrewdly.
“You want him to hate you,” Seren said.
“He needs it,” Dalan said. “He has to draw strength from something. If he cannot draw it from within, then let him draw it from hate.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“Because sometimes I am motivated by cowardly self-interest,” he said, looking at her alertly. “The last time you perceived me as a danger to Tristam, you threatened to kill me.”
“I remember,” Seren said. She met his gaze, unflinching.
“Then you do not intend to kill me?” Dalan asked.
“Not at the moment,” Seren said.
“Excellent,” Dalan said. “You’ve made my day, Miss Morisse.” He bowed to her, popped his cap back atop his head, and began to walk away.
“Dalan,” Seren called to him.
He looked back over his shoulder.
“Is Omax really dying?” she asked. “Or was that another lie?”
“The halflings said no such thing, but I have known enough healers to recognize when they can do no more,” Dalan said, “but if anyone can save Omax, it is Master Xain.” He smiled at her, tipping his hat as he walked away through the village. “Good day, Miss Morisse.”
Seren watched Dalan go, uncertain what to say or think. Part of her wanted to climb back onboard the ship, to tell Tristam that Dalan hadn’t meant what he said so that he wouldn’t feel so terrible. The stronger part of her knew that Dalan was right, that Tristam needed to be angry right now, needed to push through his weakness. In either case, Tristam wouldn’t believe her if she told him. He was so used to being abused and manipulated by Dalan. The idea that the guildmaster was now manipulating Tristam for his own good would be inconceivable.
And as much as Seren hated to admit it, part of her felt that Tristam deserved Dalan’s barbs. They had been so close to finishing this. With the Dying Sun destroyed, Marth would have been unable to complete the Legacy. The race to stop the changeling from completing his mysterious plan of revenge against the Five Nations would have ended.
It seemed the closer he came to understanding Ashrem’s work, the more Tristam changed. At first, it was small. He became more impatient and cynical. After leaving Zul’nadn he had grown even more withdrawn, less idealistic. Everything came to a head in Metrol. What had happened back there? It was strange, like a haze had fallen over everyone. Looking back, repairing the Dying Sun instead of just destroying her and escaping the Mournland had been foolish. Yet, at the time, no one disputed it but Ijaac. It had seemed like the right thing to do.
The dwarf warned that the Mournland created illusions to make people crazy. Maybe that was it, and maybe Tristam wasn’t the only one to be affected. Ashrem d’Cannith’s “ghost” didn’t want the Legacy to be destroyed. Had it influenced them all, somehow?
Seren slid a hand into her boot and drew out the golden badge Ijaac found in Metrol. It had belonged to Haimel Gerriman, the Dying Sun’s first mate. Two of Ashrem’s ships had vanished into Cyre just before the Day of Mourning. Neither ship crashed, but only Marth and Kiris Overwood survived. What had happened to the rest of the crewmen?
Seren sighed and tried to stop thinking about it. If she kept agonizing over unsolvable mysteries, she was going to drive herself mad. There was no purpose to worrying about what might have been when there was so much gone wrong that still needed fixing.
She stepped toward the conical canvas tent. The gryphon seal of House Jorasco was painted in bright colors above the entrance. The soothing pattern of chanting and woodwinds continued from within. She pushed the tent flap open just enough to peek through. The gentle scent of sandalwood incense hung in the air. A quartet of halflings knelt in circle around a pallet in the center of the tent.
Omax lay upon the pallet, covered with a thin blanket knitted in a riot of color. Seren couldn’t help but smile at the odd sight. The blanket did a warforged no good, but Omax was too polite to remove it. The warforged’s head turned slightly as she entered. His face was, as always, an expressionless mask of scarred metal. The flicker of blue light in his eyes brightened when he saw her. At least both his eyes now shone again and had lost the sickly red light they radiated after Marth wounded him. Seren was no expert in warforged anatomy, but that seemed to be a good sign.
“Seren,” he said. His once rumbling voice was now cracked and hollow.
One of the halfling healers followed Omax’s eyes, looking at Seren. The little man smiled warmly and gestured for her to enter.
“Omax,” Seren said. She hurried into the tent and knelt beside the warforged.
“You may visit him, but do not tarry. He needs his rest,” said Mother Shinh, the elder halfling kneeling at Omax’s right side. She rose, as did the others. The flutist slid his instrument into a leather case at his hip. “If you need us, we will be nearby.”
Seren murmured her thanks as the healers filed out of the tent.
“I keep telling them that I do not rest,” Omax said. “They do not listen.”
Seren laughed softly.
“Mother Shinh has done what she can, Seren,” the warforged said, “but she can do nothing more.”
“You don’t know that, Omax,” Seren said. She reached out and grasped his hand. The three thick metal fingers coiled around hers with surprising gentleness.
“Tristam believes that his failure caused this,” Omax whispered. “He is wrong. It was my own failure. A warforged does not heal naturally as a creature of flesh does. If I had told anyone how truly injured I was …”
“I thought Norra Cais repaired you,” Seren said.
“She tried,” Omax said with a rueful chuckle. “She helped, but the full extent of the damage was beyond her skill. How strange that with all the threats and terrors that haunt this world, the deadliest enemy is the self.”
The warforged lay back on his pallet. He stared up through the hole in the ceiling at the sky, lost in his thoughts.
Seren wanted to offer words of encouragement, but could find none. She could not speak at all.
FOUR
If something was at all important, it either began in Sharn or ended there.
It was an old saying—one Norra Cais was fond of. It was coined by a Sharn poet, of course. Norra’s own bias was fairly evident, as a native of the city, but she was fond of the saying nonetheless.
Norra sat alone in a small passenger compartment, watching the landscape as the lightning rail sped through the heart of Breland. She had taken pains to appear inconspicuous. Her short robe and breeches were a conservative gray. Her blond hair was braided and coiled into a severe bun. She clutched a small leather duffle against her lap and kept to herself in a private cabin. With international relations as they were, a traveler who kept to herself and caused no trouble received little attention.
As the lightning rail crested a hill, Sharn came fully into view. Even to Norra’s jaded eyes, the City of Towers was an amazing sight. Impossibly tall spires of metal and stone reached into the sky. Islands of magically enchanted clouds hovered above the city, hosting even more towers that had never known contact with the crude earth. Even from here she could see the graceful skycoaches and much larger airships that soared through the city. Sharn was, quite literally, an impossible city. It was even more amazing for how starkly it stood out from the surrounding landscape, bordered by a mighty river and a lush jungle.
Sharn skirted the laws of possibility only because the boundaries between realities were thin here. In this place, Eberron bordered closely upon the plane known as Syrania, the Azure Sky. Syrania was a glittering paradise—infinite sky broken only by perfect flying cities of shining crystal. So close to Syrania, that realm’s laws imposed themselves over Eberron’s. The towers of Sharn could stretch as high as they wished and not topple. Skycoaches could take to the air, drawing upon only a fraction of the power needed to fuel a genuine airship. Sharn lived and breathed magic. For a woman whose life’s work was to create arcane wonders, it was an inspiring sight. Norra had not intended to return from the Frostfell, but it was good to be home.
The lightning rail cruised slowly to a halt, depositing its passengers at the Coggsgate rail station. People surged forward to board the train, pushing through the station’s crowded corrals in a jumbled sea of humanity.
Norra stepped out onto the walkway, her bag slung over one shoulder. Hovering signs drawn in pure magical energy guided passengers on their way to the appropriate exit. Norra ignored the press of the crowd as she looked for the right gate. She searched the pockets of her short robe, digging out the few silver coins she had remaining, and found a skycoach.
The vehicle resembled a long rowboat with no oars, featuring a covered passenger area in the rear. It hovered in the air like an airship, but without an airship’s ring of fire. A lumpy old dwarf captain sat hunched in the bow. He sat up and greeted Norra amiably, but his smile evaporated under the force of her unfriendly glare. Norra Cais was a woman with little patience for pleasantries.
“Menthis Plateau,” she ordered. She climbed aboard the skycoach and took her seat. “The university.”
“Yes, my lady,” the dwarf said. He shoved a felt cap onto his head and whispered a word of command, causing the skycoach to lurch skyward.
The dwarf made a few token attempts to engage his passenger in conversation, all of which Norra rebutted with a noncommittal grunt or ignored entirely. At the end of their flight she gave him a few soveriegns for the fare. He uttered a short curse in his language, which she pretended not to understand as she disembarked.
Norra leaned her head back, taking in the sight of Morgrave University once more. The school was housed in Dalannan Tower, a thick structure of polished black stone that rose higher than the other buildings in this quarter. Five spires stretched from its heights, each representing one of the Five Nations. Morgrave was not the largest university in Khorvaire, nor was it the most prestigious, but it was well respected. The students of Morgrave were known for using unconventional methods to achieve results in the name of profit. Though Norra might easily have secured a place at any number of the continent’s institutions of higher learning, none granted her the freedom that Morgrave did.
It had been her home for most of her adult life—first as a student, later as an associate professor. Though she was extremely talented and knowledgeable in several fields of arcane artifice, prejudice against her youth had prevented her from securing a position as a full professor. Her ego chafed at the lack of recognition, but at least that granted her time to conduct her research free of the university’s watchful eye.
She strode briskly up the tower’s main steps. Metal gates parted silently at her approach, allowing her access to the courtyard beyond. A few students sat on benches or on the grass, studying from textbooks or talking quietly with one another. They paid little mind to Norra as she strode past them, entering the lower levels of the library. She continued onward through darkened stacks, pushing open the door to a small side office and stepping inside. A middle-aged man in a scholar’s dumpy gray robes looked up from his reading with a start, nearly knocking over the lamp on his small desk.
“Norra?” he said, shocked. “Is that you?”
“I won’t deign to address such a stupid question, Petra,” she said. She set her bag on the floor and sat on a stool across from him.
“I see your trip has not softened your demeanor,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you again after your quarters were found empty.” His eyes widened as he spoke. He shifted nervously, as if he expected her to leap at him at any moment. Petra Ghein had been a junior librarian at the university as long as Norra could remember. He was always a nervous man, but at least that made him reliable. He didn’t have the courage to turn on her.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to come back,” she said.
“I feared as much,” Petra said. “A gentleman named Baron Radcul has been sending messengers to ask about you. They’re rather rude. Something about a debt. He sends a man once a day. I think Master Larrian is beginning to get annoyed.”
Norra looked around the office, distracted. “Do you have anything to drink, Petra?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “How else am I to be expected to deal with the students at end of semester?” He reached under his desk and took out a long-necked wine bottle and a sturdy metal cup.
Norra ignored the cup and took the bottle, drinking from it directly.
“You seem upset,” Petra said, watching her guzzle the alcohol with mild astonishment.
She looked at him coldly and took another drink.
“Stating the obvious; I know it annoys you,” he said. “Perhaps I can be of help?”
“You can start by not telling anyone you saw me here,” she said, “and maybe by helping me put some reagents together so I can craft myself a cap of disguise.”
“Norra, what’s going on?” Petra asked. He picked up the cup and held it out to her tentatively. She poured some of the wine into it, and he sipped nervously.
“I never told you why I was going to the Frostfell,” she said. “I know you think it was some sort of archaeological research, but it wasn’t. I knew what I was looking for. I went there expecting to die for a cause.” She smirked bitterly. “As it turns out, I didn’t.”
“Fantastic,” Petra said. His sudden grin faded when he noticed her dark expression. “Isn’t that good?”
“Good in some ways, bad in others,” Norra said. “I was so sure I wouldn’t come back, I used it to my advantage. I squandered every resource I had funding that trip to the Frostfell. I borrowed a lot of money I can’t afford to pay back.”
“This Baron Radcul, presumably, is a creditor?” Petra asked.
“The worst kind,” Norra said. “He was a brutal mercenary during the Last War. When the War ended, the Brelish army owed him a lot of money. Boranel settled the debt by awarding him some holdings on the Droaam border.”
“The lan
d of monsters?” Petra asked, wincing at the name. “Boranel must not have liked Radcul much.”
“Probably not; rumor has it he was a vicious killer,” Norra said. “Radcul turned the snub into a victory by leasing his properties to House Orien, helping them establish the Droaam trade route. He made a ridiculous profit, left his son to look over his holdings, and bought private estates in Sharn. Now he makes a comfortable living arranging independent loans for the desperate at ridiculous rates of interest.”
“A usurer,” Petra said.
“And a vindictive one,” she said. “If I wasn’t using magic to obscure myself from detection and scrying, he probably would have found me by now. I don’t even want to think about how much I must owe him by now.”
“Well, you should be safe enough while you’re within the university,” Petra said. “Master Larrian would not take kindly to his staff and students being threatened by a glorified street thug.”
“We won’t even need to bring Master Larrian into this,” Norra said. “I can take care of myself. I’ll figure out a way.”
“Is there no one who can help you?” Petra asked. “Friends? Family? Any of your old friends in Zil’argo?”
Norra paused, her lips on the mouth of the bottle. She hadn’t even considered paying off the debt legitimately. It seemed so unlikely. “I have a friend in House Cannith,” she said. “Well, not exactly a friend, but an ally. I don’t know if he would help me. If he did, it would only be exchanging one form of debt for another. At least Dalan is more merciful than Radcul.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt, Norra,” Petra said, hand shaking as he sipped from his cup. “If there is anything I can do to help …”
“If you’re talking about money, forget it. I know how much Larrian pays the junior staff,” Norra said. “But you can help me with some research.”
“Research?” Petra said, perking up like a pet offered a treat.
“Do you remember a man named Ashrem d’Cannith?” Norra asked.