by Tim Waggoner
“Have you decided to allow Elidyr to go through with his experiment tomorrow?”
He sighed. “Yes, though reluctantly so. We have some time before Bergerron wants us out of the lodge, and I see no reason why we shouldn’t put it to good use. Elidyr can conduct his experiment while the rest of the Outguard are packing everything up in preparation of our leavetaking. And my brother made a good argument when he pointed out how much Bergerron has invested in our project-especially considering the cost of the dragonshards and psi-crystals Elidyr’s built into this latest contraption of his …”
“He called it the Overmantle,” Ksana said.
“I don’t know if Elidyr will be able to get the device functional in time, but the man’s brilliant-though if you ever tell him I said so, I’ll deny it-and if anyone can get this Overmantle working, he can.”
“You sound convinced to me. So why did you say your decision was made reluctantly?”
“For the same reason you’ve come here, I’m sure,” Vaddon said. “I’m a soldier, not an expert in magic, but from the way Elidyr described the experiment, I have no doubt it would be dangerous under the best conditions. My brother may be a master artificer, but a rush job is still a rush job. How much more dangerous will his experiment be because the Overmantle was completed in haste?”
Ksana thought of her earlier hesitation to speak with Vaddon, and she couldn’t help smiling. She should’ve known the man’s thoughts would’ve been running parallel to her own. Although now came the moment for those lines of thought to diverge.
“I believe you should reconsider allowing the experiment to take place,” she said. “I’ll grant that Elidyr’s reasons for why the experiment should be allowed to go forward were persuasive enough, at least on the surface, but in the end they all boil down to the same thing-Elidyr wants to prove that symbionts can be used successfully as weapons. You know better than I how obsessed he’s been with Xoriat and its aberrations all these years. That obsession has blinded him to the risks involved with attempting to control symbionts. We all saw the results of those risks today, and it nearly cost Osten his life-Lirra too. They both might have died if things had gone differently. As you said, the Overmantle, assuming Elidyr can finish it in time, will be completed in haste. But even if it does function perfectly, do you really think it’s wise to open a portal to Xoriat, regardless of how small that portal may be or how short a time it may be open? Who knows what sort of chaotic forces we may unleash and what sort of havoc they might wreak?”
“We are soldiers, Ksana,” Vaddon said sternly. “Taking risks is our duty.”
“Taking risks, yes. Taking foolish ones, no. A wise soldier plans before heading into battle. She knows the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses as well as her own, knows the terrain upon which the battle will take place. And she knows when a battle simply isn’t worth the cost. Over these last few months, I’ve come to see that Elidyr’s view that symbionts can be used as weapons is based on a false premise. Symbionts are creatures of chaos, and chaos-by its very nature-cannot be controlled. And the more you attempt to control it, the more disastrous the outcome. Elidyr’s experiment is doomed to failure. If not tomorrow, then later, when those soldiers who become bonded to symbionts are inevitably corrupted by them. Please, Vaddon. Do not allow Elidyr to test the Overmantle tomorrow.”
Vaddon had listened to Ksana without expression, and when she finished speaking, he did not reply for several moments. When he did finally speak, his voice was calm, but firm.
“There’s a line in one of Galifar’s letters: ‘Some see duty merely as a task to perform, while others see it for what it truly is-placing the good of one’s people above one’s own desires.’ If there’s even the slightest chance that Elidyr’s right about using symbionts as weapons, then we have to give him one last try to prove it. It’s our duty.”
Ksana sighed and nodded. If Vaddon truly believed he was acting in the best interests of Karrnath, there was no use arguing with him further. She decided to change the subject.
“I checked on Osten before coming to see you. He told me he wished to volunteer for tomorrow’s experiment and that Lirra was going to ask you to allow him to do so.”
“Lirra came to see me earlier, and she did indeed tell me of Osten’s desire to attempt bonding with a symbiont once more.”
“You’re going to let him, aren’t you?”
“Yes, though I admit Lirra didn’t have to work hard to convince me. In a way, Osten is the perfect subject for Vaddon’s experiment. We know that he could not control a symbiont on his own, but if he can do so after having been exposed to the magic of the Overmantle, that will be proof the device works.”
Ksana frowned. “You sound like Elidyr.”
Vaddon chuckled. “Don’t insult me.”
Ksana wanted to argue with Vaddon, to try and convince him to deny Osten’s request, but she knew it would be fruitless to do so at this point. After all his talk about risk and duty, Vaddon’s mind was made up and there would be no changing it. The experiment would take place, Osten and a number of other soldiers would volunteer, and she’d be there to put them back together as best she could after everything went hideously wrong, as she feared it was bound to.
Sinnoch continued work on the Overmantle while Elidyr slept in a wooden chair, slumped over in a position that looked exceedingly uncomfortable to Sinnoch. Humans had so many frailties, the dolgaunt thought, the need for sleep chief among them. As soundly as Elidyr slumbered, anyone could sneak up on him and slit his throat before he had a chance to defend himself. As the dolgaunt worked, he amused himself by imagining the patterns the resultant blood spray would create in the air along with the desperate gurgling sounds Elidyr would make as his life rapidly bled out of him
Despite Sinnoch’s earlier skepticism that the Overmantle would be ready in time, the work had gone rather well, and the device was almost finished. Actually, it was complete as far as Elidyr’s design was concerned, but Sinnoch had a few touches of his own to add before tomorrow, so it was just as well that the artificer slept. Of course, it helped that an hour ago the dolgaunt had offered to fetch Elidyr a cup of water-and that the water had somehow managed to get a sleeping draught mixed into it before Sinnoch had served it to the human. The dolgaunt grinned. Life was funny that way sometimes.
Elidyr would doubtless give the device a thorough going-over before the experiment, but Sinnoch wasn’t worried that the artificer would detect his tampering. The changes he was making consisted of subtle, but vital, alterations in various energy valences that, while innocuous enough in and of themselves, would produce quite a dramatic effect once the Overmantle was activated.
As he continued making adjustments, Sinnoch thought back to his first meeting with Elidyr. The man had been much younger then, though the dolgaunt had a difficult time judging the ages of other species by appearance.
When Elidyr the young scholar had first met Sinnoch, it had never occurred to him that the dolgaunt didn’t make his home in the empty cave where they’d talked. Sinnoch’s abode lay deeper in the earth, a cave filled with a collection of mystic artifacts he’d acquired since escaping Xoriat. Sinnoch had gathered these items, often pried from the rapidly cooling hands of their recently deceased owners, for a single purpose-he had once traveled from Xoriat to Eberron through a dimensional portal, and he hoped to discover a way to create a similar passage for his lord and master, the daelkyr Ysgithyrwyn, to step through. And when Sinnoch encountered Elidyr, he’d realized the brilliant young artificer might prove to be the perfect tool to help him achieve his goal.
At first, he’d merely encouraged Elidyr’s interest in matters related to Xoriat and its denizens. But as time went on and the young artificer-who was no longer quite so young-continued his visits, Sinnoch began to pry information from him about spells designed to breach the dimensional barriers between planes. And then, one day, Elidyr, now a middle-aged man, had come to the cave and asked Sinnoch to help him with a very important pro
ject … Sinnoch wasn’t certain how aiding the artificer in creating a battalion of impure princes would help him free his master, but he’d recognized the opportunity for what it was and agreed. And now, with the Overmantle nearly completed-and modified by Sinnoch-the day of Ysgithyrwyn’s liberation was finally at hand.
Sinnoch turned his face toward Elidyr’s sleeping form. Though the dolgaunt could not see by conventional means, his sensitive cilia allowed him to perceive the artificer’s body.
Tomorrow you will learn more about Xoriat than you ever imagined, my friend, Sinnoch thought with amusement. You will make wonderful clay for my master to reshape. I cannot wait to see what dark wonder you will become beneath his hands.
Sinnoch was about to turn back to the Overmantle to make further adjustments when he sensed a presence outside the door. There was no sound, no knock. Nevertheless, the dolgaunt knew someone stood outside, waiting. More, he knew who-and what-it was. A creature of corruption himself, he could always recognize its presence in another. Though Elidyr had been drugged and was unlikely to wake even if someone were to sound a trumpet blast next to his ear, Sinnoch moved silently across the room. He opened the door quietly, glided into the hall, and closed the door behind him.
While most of the soldiers in the Outguard had quarters on the lower levels of the lodge, none of their rooms were near Elidyr’s work chamber. Even so, Sinnoch spoke softly as he addressed his visitor.
“How did it go?”
The visitor also spoke in hushed tones. “I do not believe she will ever choose to accept a symbiont.”
The disappointment was clear in the other’s voice, and Sinnoch couldn’t help thinking how weak humans were made by their emotional needs. Then again, their emotions certainly made humans easier to manipulate.
The dolgaunt laid a lean-fingered clawed hand on the man’s shoulder then smiled with his mouthful of sharp teeth.
“Fear not, Rhedyn. Tomorrow we both shall get what we want.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lirra stood on the far side of the chamber where the symbionts were kept, Vaddon on her right, Rhedyn on her left, Ksana on the other side of her father. The general wore the protective armor that Elidyr had created to guard against a symbiont attack, but as during Osten’s test yesterday, Lirra and Rhedyn wore their Outguard uniforms, and-despite her preference for comfortable clothing-Ksana also wore her uniform. In addition, she’d brought her halberd with her, and she held it in her right hand, the butt of the handle resting on the chamber’s stone floor. Lirra, Vaddon, and Rhedyn were armed with swords, along with daggers for backup weapons. Standard precautions for any Outguard experiment, but that day their weaponry was even more important. Given how rushed Elidyr had been to complete the Overmantle, Lirra figured there was a good chance that the device could go wrong, and they needed to be ready for whatever might happen if it did.
Lirra thought the Overmantle was a bit on the disappointing side. Given what the device was supposed to do, she’d been expecting something more impressive than a box holding a handful of pretty stones. But her uncle was a skilled artificer, and if he thought his metal box could generate the magical energies necessary for the day’s experiment, then she knew it would function as advertised, regardless of its unprepossessing appearance … hopefully.
The Overmantle rested atop a stone column that one of the soldiers had hauled into the chamber at Elidyr’s request. Her uncle stood on one side of the device, while the dolgaunt stood on the other. Sinnoch wore the outsized robes which concealed his inhuman form with the hood up. Even so, Lirra could see slow, sinuous movement beneath the cloth of Sinnoch’s robes which she knew came from his shoulder tentacles and, to a lesser degree, the cilia covering the rest of his body.
Four symbiont cages sat on the chamber floor-two on one side of the room, two on the other. The rest of the cages had been removed by soldiers earlier and hauled off to another chamber for temporary storage. Elidyr always insisted that an attempted bonding between symbiont and host take place in the chamber where the symbionts were normally kept. They were more comfortable there, he’d explained to her once, which helped them relax during the bonding process. Well, relax more than they might have otherwise. During an ordinary attempt at joining, the other symbionts remained in the chamber, but Elidyr had thought it best if only the symbionts that were going to be involved in the day’s experiment were present, and Lirra thought it a wise move.
Soldiers wearing enchanted armor stood guard by each cage, keeping a close eye on the symbionts inside. Their soldiers’ swords were sheathed for the time being, and instead they carried the metal rods Elidyr had designed for capturing and handling symbionts. A steel table was positioned in front of the cages, and upon each a volunteer lay prone. Affixed to the foot of each table was a single three-foot long crystalline rod, its milky-glassy surface gleaming in the illumination cast by the everbright lanterns stationed around the chamber. Each volunteer was an Outguard soldier, and they all wore their uniforms.
The volunteers lay still, features composed, though it was clear to anyone watching that they were working hard to project the appearance of calm, in defiance of how they really felt inside. Their hands were clenched into fists, their chests rose and fell in erratic patterns as they struggled to master their breathing, and they swallowed often. Lirra looked at Osten. Given the bad experience he’d endured yesterday, she wouldn’t have blamed him for being a nervous wreck, but of the two men and two women who’d volunteered to receive a symbiont today, he looked the calmest. Out of the four, he was the only one who’d been bonded to a symbiont before, if only for a short time, and she figured that experience was helping him manage his anxiety.
Elidyr had chosen to use four different types of symbionts today: a tongueworm, a crawling gauntlet, a stormstalk, and the tentacle whip that had taken over Osten the day before during his test. Osten lay on the table positioned in front of the tentacle whip’s cage, for he intended to try once more to bond with that particular aberration. Lirra had asked him about his choice not long before the experiment began. “I know the thing, and it knows me,” Osten had told her, as if that was reason enough. And perhaps it was, but Lirra couldn’t help feeling that Osten had chosen to bond with the whip again because he had something to prove to himself-and perhaps to the aberration as well. For their parts, the symbionts seemed to sense that something important was about to take place, for they writhed restlessly in their cages, occasionally testing the doors, as if eager to taste the flesh of a new host.
She glanced at Rhedyn then. His shadowy aspect was more prominent, making his features barely discernible. Perhaps he was merely gathering his shadow sibling’s strength in case anything should go wrong.
Elidyr wore a leather satchel slung over his shoulder, containing tools of the artificer’s trade, and for the last several minutes he’d been using one device or another to poke and prod at the Overmantle as he performed a last check to make certain everything was in working order.
“How much longer?” Vaddon said, an edge of irritation in his voice.
Elidyr stood hunched over the Overmantle, holding a device made of two thin glass rods with silvery webbing stretched between them. He waved the device in front of the Overmantle’s opening, nodding to himself as he did so.
“That should just … about … do it.”
Elidyr abruptly straightened, tucked the glass rods back into his satchel, and then turned and grinned at Vaddon.
“We’re ready to begin whenever you are, General.”
“Let’s get it over with,” Vaddon said evenly.
Elidyr nodded once then turned back to the Overmantle. He slid a tray of crystals halfway out of the containment framework and began touching them in a precise order. He didn’t bother explaining what he was doing, but there was no need since Elidyr had covered the basics the day before in Vaddon’s office.
“The Overmantle will do two things,” he’d said. “First, the psi-crystals will strengthen a host’s mental d
efenses, allowing him or her to resist all attempts at mental dominance by a symbiont. Second, the dragonshards will open a tiny portal to Xoriat, one no larger than a pinprick. The crystals will draw forth a small controlled stream of chaos energy through that portal and transfer it to a host. Once that energy is inside a host, it will insulate him or her from a symbiont’s corrupting influence, much the same way our bodies are more resistant to a particular disease after we’ve contracted it and recovered. Once a host is cloaked by these powerful twin protections-hence the name Overmantle for my device-he or she should be able to control a symbiont with ease.”
Elidyr turned to Sinnoch. “Open the cage doors.”
A clawed hand emerged from a sleeve of the dolgaunt’s robe. Clutched in his spider-leg fingers was a glass sphere the size of an apple. Sinnoch circled his thumb over the top of the sphere’s surface, and in response the locks on the four symbiont cages disengaged with audible clicks and the doors began to rise. The symbionts were intelligent enough to sense that something strange was going on, and they were reluctant to expose themselves to danger willingly. And yet, there was a host for each one of them, laid out on a table like food at a feast, just waiting for them to come forth from their cage and take it. Eventually, instinct won out over caution, and one by one the symbionts began to move out of the cages and toward the steel tables.
The tentacle whip was the first to emerge. It slithered quickly toward Osten, as if somehow sensing he was the same man it had dominated before and it was eager to claim him once again.
Elidyr turned his head back and forth, watching closely as the quartet of symbionts climbed onto the tables and drew near their soon-to-be hosts. Elidyr had explained to them that it was important the bonding process between human and aberration already be underway before he activated the Overmantle-if for no other reason than to keep from scaring the symbionts off-but it couldn’t be too far along, else it might be too late for the device to prove effective. He had to activate the Overmantle at just the right moment, and not before.