Skein of Shadows

by Rockwell, Marsheila

Brannan frowned.

  “Back down?”

  The warforged caravan master shook his head. “We could save the supplies and the party, but we’d have to leave the wagons and the camels up here, and it’ll take weeks to replace them.”

  The Wayfinder’s frown deepened.

  “Shelter here, then, or try for the Bones?”

  “We’ll take losses here. The Bones are big enough to house the whole caravan, but we might not make it in time.”

  Brannan smiled, grimly amused.

  “The choice that is no choice. How apropos.” He turned to the warforged who’d clustered about, awaiting their instructions. “You heard him. Finish loading those supplies and mount up! We’ve got a storm to outrun!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mol, Barrakas 9, 998 YK

  The Menechtarun Desert, Xen’drik.

  The caravan was a mix of traditional wheeled wagons and artificer-created schooners with mechanical segmented legs that skittered across the sand like ungainly, cloth-covered scorpions. The wheeled wagons were drawn by three-humped camels and sported runners on the underside of their wooden beds, much like the modified soarsleds the warforged had used to bring supplies up from Zawabi’s Refuge. A good choice, Sabira supposed, for the terrain—the wheels could be used on rockier ground, and the runners for traveling across sand. A better choice would have been to outfit the entire caravan with the mechanical wagons. An even better one would have been to use earth sleds, but apparently Brannan used the considerable wealth he’d gathered through various Wayfinder Foundation expeditions for other things.

  Or maybe he just couldn’t find any House Orien pilots willing to work in these conditions, Sabira thought sourly as she pulled the edge of her cloak up to cover her nose and mouth. Sand was already being whipped into a stinging frenzy by the approaching storm, tattooing every bit of exposed flesh with fine grit. She could only imagine how bad it was going to be when they were inside that towering wall—Brannan’s assurances notwithstanding, she didn’t think they had a chance in Dolurrh of outrunning it. At least the cloud of dust was beginning to obscure the sun, and the wind somewhat mitigated the ovenlike heat, drying the sweat that was already trickling down her back, even though it was barely past the seventh morning bell. Small blessings, she supposed. The only kind she was likely to get on this journey, though from which of the Sovereigns they came, she couldn’t say, and wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

  Brannan directed Sabira and her group into the back of one of the multi-legged wagons at the front of the line, already having to shout to be heard over the wind. The Wayfinder hopped into a seat at the front and took the controls, Xujil at his side. The wagon lurched into motion, humming with magical energy and scrabbling across the sand much faster than Sabira had expected. The other mechanical wagons followed, and the three-humped camels were not far behind, having been specially bred not only to hold water in their third hump, but to move more quickly than their mundane counterparts. Though she had no point of reference to measure by, she’d guess they were moving as fast as an earth sled, and had both more maneuverability and a larger carrying capacity. She revised her opinion of Brannan’s parsimony; the man wasn’t cheap, he was just brutally efficient.

  Inside the covered wagon, she was free of the worst of the sand’s assault, though the heat beat through the white canvas with no wind to temper it, and Sabira was soon sweating again in the close environs. Thankfully, warforged didn’t perspire, so it wasn’t like being confined to the Defenders’ barracks after a morning of tough drills. Yet. She had a feeling it wouldn’t take long for her, Greddark, and Skraad to do a fair imitation of said barracks—especially the orc, who likely didn’t make a regular habit of bathing, so would exhibit the effects of too much sweat with too little air circulation much sooner than either her or the dwarf. She felt a momentary pang of envy as she glanced over at Guisarme and Jester—warforged couldn’t smell either.

  Sabira was sure she’d be envying them for a lot more than just their lack of olfactory nerves before this journey was finished. Warforged didn’t sweat because they didn’t drink water, so they were ideal companions in the desert, unlike their flesh and blood counterparts, who wouldn’t last more than a few days without the precious substance. Just thinking about it made her thirsty and she found herself mentally calculating how many barrels of water there were versus how many would need to drink from them. Here again, though, she had to admire Brannan’s efficiency, for the bulk of his men were warforged who needed neither water nor food on the long trek, and who also wouldn’t be as bothered by the heat or the sand. Aside from the “fleshlings” in her wagon, she’d only seen two other groups comprised mainly of non-constructs—probably treasure hunters seeking to plunder the depths of Tarath Marad. Or else scholarly types from Morgrave University or the Library of Korranberg, who were also seeking to plunder the depths below the Menechtarun, but with somewhat less mercenary intentions.

  “So, you want to tell us who the Defender was?”

  Sabira blinked at the dwarf’s question, uncomprehending.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The Defender who survived the marilith attack,” Greddark supplied pleasantly enough, though there was a calculating glint in his eye. “Seemed like you had a little more venom than usual in your voice when you were talking about him, and somehow I don’t think it was for the Keeper or the demoness.”

  Host damn it. She’d known the inquisitive was too observant for his own good; she should have kept that part of the story to herself. Though if he really thought he had any idea of her normal amount of virulence, he was going to find himself not only sadly mistaken, but badly in need of antivenom.

  Sabira considered her options. She could ignore the question or try to brush it aside, but she doubted Greddark would let it go. The dwarf had been chewing on it since they’d left the djinn’s refuge; he’d only become more insistent the longer he went without a satisfying answer.

  She could bluff, but he not only knew she was a card player, he played himself. He would be expecting that, and it would only serve to whet his appetite further.

  Or she could do what she always did on the field of battle, whether she fought with words or with weapons: Meet the blow on the axe-end of her urgrosh, turn it aside, and follow up with the spear tip to her opponent’s gut.

  “My father,” she replied shortly. “Who should be safely back in Dreadhold now, where—with any luck—he’ll rot for the rest of his miserable life.”

  Her answer caught Greddark—not to mention her other companions—by surprise, but she didn’t give him time to regroup before she countered with her own attack.

  “So,” she said, mimicking the dwarf’s earlier tone precisely, “you want to tell us why you stole a book from the library in the Catacombs?”

  She’d wanted to ask him before now, but he’d holed up in the engine room of Kupper-Nickel’s airship for most of the trip, supposedly helping the warforged Wayfinder improve the vessel’s efficiency. Probably trying to avoid being asked this very question.

  Greddark smiled and inclined his head appreciatively at the reprisal.

  “Not stole. Borrowed. That is what one does at a library, no?”

  “Not when that library is under the control of the Silver Flame, no,” Sabira answered. “Unless, of course, you happen to be a Flamer yourself. Or an agent of theirs.”

  She waited a beat.

  “Are you?”

  Skraad leaned forward to hear the dwarf’s answer, a frown forming around his long tusks. Sabira wasn’t surprised; he’d incapacitated one of the Silver Flame guards and was likely now wanted in Stormreach as a result. She imagined the orc wouldn’t be too happy to learn it had all been some ruse on Greddark’s part.

  Not that she really thought the dwarf was working for the Church. Though the Flamers would sometimes commit a lesser evil to thwart a greater, she didn’t think that pragmatism stretched so far as to include working with a suspected murderer and the c
ousin of an Aurum member. And even if it did, Aggar would never have sent Greddark to help her if he’d known his cousin was freelancing for some Archbishop or another when he was supposed to be working for her.

  If he’d known.

  Greddark snorted derisively.

  “Despite my friend Andri’s best efforts—no, I am most decidedly not one of the Purified, and my temporary appropriation of one of their sacred texts was done without the Church’s knowledge, or approval.”

  “Not quite without their knowledge,” Skraad growled, rubbing the spot on his arm where he’d taken the Flamer bolt. But the orc seemed satisfied with Greddark’s answer and settled back into his seat on the long bench with a minimum of grousing.

  “Fine,” Sabira said, not willing to let the inquisitive off so easily. “So you did steal a book. The question remains. Why?”

  He hesitated, and she imagined he was going through the same list of options that she had earlier. She wondered what his choice would be.

  Surprisingly, he went with honesty.

  “It’s a dictionary of ancient Draconic,” he said, withdrawing the tome from inside his shirt and passing it to her.

  Sabira took the slim volume from him and carefully examined it. The writing on the leather cover, though unfamiliar to her, was crisp and utilitarian, with none of the gilt, scrolling embellishments she would have expected from such a valuable tome. Inside, the pages were thick and yellow with age, and smelled vaguely of old, stale incense. She closed it and offered it to Skraad and the warforged in turn. Only Jester accepted, taking the proffered book and leafing through it, turning the pages almost reverently.

  “Still doesn’t answer the question.”

  “It’s that fragment of prophecy ir’Dayne was looking at—the one carved on the chunk of obsidian. Something’s bugging me about the translation. When I heard there was a Flamer library in Stormreach, I figured Olladra was giving me an opportunity to figure it out.”

  “You read Draconic?” Skraad asked, though whether it was surprise or disdain that colored the orc’s words, Sabira couldn’t be certain.

  Greddark nodded. “Pretty well. And speak a little. You hang out with a paladin of the Silver Flame for a couple of months, you’ll learn it too. Whether you want to or not.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You remember words from a rock that you glanced at for all of five and a half heartbeats—written, I might add, in a language with which you’re not entirely conversant—well enough to later look them up in a reference book to ascertain their precise meaning? Because you think a Wayfinder with years of experience doing exactly that got it wrong?” She must have raised her voice, because Xujil glanced back from the front of the wagon, his dark face impenetrable.

  Greddark shrugged.

  “More or less.”

  “More or less,” she repeated, making an effort to keep her tone even. “So what is it about the translation that you don’t like?”

  Greddark cleared his throat and recited the lines.

  “When the Anvil next is silent

  The Book is closed, the Warder dreams.”

  He looked at her expectantly.

  “Yes, that’s what it said. It’s referring to when those three moons are dark. So?”

  “So, it uses three different words—‘silent,’ ‘closed,’ and ‘dreams.’ But there’s a specific word in Draconic for that phase of the moons. Why not just use that word, if that’s what was really meant?”

  Sabira shrugged.

  “Poetic license?” She looked over at Jester, who nodded.

  “It does add to the verse’s lyricism.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it was a mistranslation, and those words don’t mean what we’ve been told they mean. That’s why I needed the dictionary—to find out for sure.”

  Sabira scoffed.

  “Wonderful. I’m sure once I explain that to Archbishop Dryden, he’ll completely understand the need for removing it from the library. Oh, and for skewering one of his guards in the process.”

  “Well, if you really think he needs to know. About the book, I mean. I’m sure he’ll hear about the guard—though I should point out here that that wasn’t technically my fault.” He glanced over at Skraad, who was beginning to frown again. It wasn’t a particularly reassuring sight.

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t know about the book? Isn’t that why the Flamers were chasing you?” Sabira had to work hard to keep her voice from going up a half-octave again out of sheer frustration.

  Greddark actually had the audacity to look affronted.

  “Please. Not only am I a master inquisitive, an artificer, and a security specialist, I am also a member of the House that bears the Mark of Warding. I could have removed half that library’s inventory without anyone being the wiser.” He moved his hand to his chin, then checked himself. Sabira imagined he’d been going to pull at the beard that was no longer there—or at least not of any length to facilitate worrying. “That’s not what triggered the pursuit.”

  Sabira raised her eyebrows and waited expectantly for him to continue, but the dwarf was still in a huff over her questioning his thieving skills and refused to do so. She bit back a longsuffering sigh and prodded him.

  “So what did?”

  The inquisitive-artificer-security specialist-book thief actually looked sheepish.

  “I’m pretty sure I killed one of his pets.”

  Archbishop Dryden had two huge iron defenders who followed him around like the dogs they were modeled after. She was pretty sure he’d even named them—Tira and Jaela, after the paladin who’d merged with the Silver Flame and the girl who served as that Flame’s current Keeper.

  “You killed one of the Archbishop’s dogs?” Sabira asked slowly, making sure she’d heard the dwarf aright.

  “They’re not dogs. They’re constructs—and not even particularly useful ones. I can’t understand why the artificers here in Stormreach insist on churning the things out like everbright lanterns. They should try something a little more challenging, like those furry little flying messengers. At least those can talk. I use one myself—a customized and improved version, of course.”

  Of course. Sabira watched as Skraad’s frown turned to a scowl. His right hand was flexing ominously. She wondered if he would attack Greddark.

  She wondered if she’d bother to try to stop him.

  “I don’t understand what the fuss is, frankly. It’s not as if they’re warforged—they don’t have souls. Easy enough to rebuild the thing from its original schematics. Maybe use some adamantine in the teeth this time—they break much too easily.”

  “I’ll be sure to mention that to the Archbishop,” Sabira said acidly. “Maybe over tea.”

  “Look, the Hostforsaken thing jumped on me for no reason. It was self-defense, plain and simple. Barristers would fall all over themselves to take this case, it’s so cut-and-dried. Easy money.”

  “Did the iron defender attack you before or after you took the book out of the library?”

  Sabira and Greddark both looked at Jester in surprise.

  “After. But I disabled the alarm spells at the library entrance,” the dwarf replied, somewhat defensively.

  The red-armored warforged held the book up, with the inside of the back cover facing them. A small sigil was sketched on the flyleaf, glowing a faint red.

  “Yes, but did you disable the one in the book?”

  “Onatar’s impotence!” Greddark swore as the warforged closed the book and handed it back to him.

  “Well,” Skraad quipped, no longer scowling. If anything, he looked amused. “I’d guess the Archbishop knows about the book now.”

  They rode in silence for some time after Greddark deactivated the rune. The wind was beginning to pick up, and Sabira was considering cutting a strip off the bottom of her cloak to use as a mask against the blowing sand when Greddark leaned forward suddenly, peering out the back of the wagon with a frown on his face.

  “Hey, Jester. You still have
that spyglass handy?”

  The warforged nodded and produced the instrument from a pouch tied to a metal loop built into his hip plate, handing it over to Greddark.

  “What, you like the sand so much, you want to see it close up?” Sabira asked skeptically as the dwarf extended the telescoping glass to its full length and placed it up against his eye. “Don’t worry—even moving as fast as we are, I have a feeling it’s going to catch up with us sooner rather than later.”

  Greddark ignored her.

  “The clarity with this glass is amazing—where did you get it? I used to have one—got broken in a tussle with some shifters back in Thrane—but it didn’t have near the distance this one does. Some truly fine craftsmanship went into this.”

  Oh, for the love of Olladra’s weighted dice! Was the dwarf really waxing poetic about a spyglass, of all things?

  “I … acquired it in the Cannith enclave, from an artificer there,” the warforged admitted, not sounding particularly sheepish about it.

  “Well, next time you’re there, maybe you could acquire his schematics for it too,” Greddark commented as he pulled the glass away from his eye so he could examine its exterior appreciatively. “I’d be willing to pay handsomely for them.”

  Sabira stared at the dwarf for a moment, not quite sure she’d heard him right, but figuring she probably had.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just try to solicit a burglary in front of a Sentinel Marshal,” she said.

  “Good idea,” Greddark replied, bringing the spyglass up to his eye and peering through it at the approaching dust cloud. “Since you don’t technically have any jurisdiction here in the desert and you can’t arrest me for a crime that I haven’t actually committed yet, anyway.”

  Sabira narrowed her eyes. Greddark, looking through the glass, couldn’t see her expression, but the others in the back of the wagon could, and they all moved surreptitiously away from the dwarf.

  “Actually,” she said, casually unharnessing her urgrosh and laying it across her lap, Siberys spear tip pointed at the dwarf, “my jurisdiction is wherever my shard axe and I say it is. Something a confessed thief who is also wanted by House Medani might want to keep in mind before he starts planning additional crime sprees in my presence. Especially since Medani bounties are notoriously generous—even better than Marshal fees, sometimes. Don’t make me curious to find out how much better, hmm?”