The fading dream tob-3

by Keith Baker

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Pit B arrakas 25, 999 YK

  Thorn hadn’t stood idly by while the Deneith captain and his crew prepared the amputation. She knew an opportunity when she saw one, and with her invisibility about to expire, she had to act quickly. She traced a circle on Steel’s hilt.

  You are not being observed by magical means, Steel told her. Although I fail to see what difference that makes at the moment.

  All the difference in the world, she thought. Returning Steel to his sheath, Thorn quickly wove a second spell, one that fortunately required no words of power to invoke. She could feel the tingle across her skin as the mystical disguise took hold. She couldn’t see the results while she was still invisible, but there was nothing for it but to trust to the Sovereigns. As the troll bellowed its rage, she made her way next to one of the other imprisoned brutes.

  “Say nothing,” Thorn whispered, trusting the Pyrial amulet to work its magic and translate her words. As she spoke, she worked on its bindings, using her tools to weaken both physical and magical restraints. “The Daughters of Sora Kell have sent me to end your suffering and grant you your revenge. On my command, you may deal with those here. Free your companions. Then we shall speak further.”

  She was finishing her work on the last bond as the captain’s axe fell. The troll’s cry of pain echoed across the room. As the Vadalis savant studied the wound, Thorn felt the familiar tingle of magic fading away-her cloak of invisibility finally running its course. She’d done her best to position herself so the others wouldn’t see her, but there were too many people in the room, and they were moving around; she saw a halfling nurse’s eyes widen as he caught sight of her. There was no more time.

  “Now!” she whispered into the troll’s ear.

  The troll burst from its bonds before the halfling had a chance to cry out. It moved with astonishing speed for a creature that seemed so large and ungainly, and its hand was wrapped around the captain’s head in the blink of an eye. A moment later and it had torn the man’s head from his shoulders.

  What are you-? was all Steel managed to say as she drew him and threw him, one smooth motion burying him in the back of a mercenary’s knee. If the man was smart, he’d stay down; the trolls might ignore a fallen foe. The savants fled for the door, but the troll was more cunning that Thorn could have hoped; it grabbed a heavy table and flung it across the room as if it were a toy. Thorn wasn’t worried about a few healers, but she didn’t want anyone to get out of the room. The remnants of the table blocked the door, and the spell of silence intended to mute the sounds of torture would mask the noise of the battle.

  The three surviving soldiers had surrounded the troll and were harrying it from all sides. It was an impressive display of skill; as soon as the beast turned its attention to one of the three, the other two would redouble their efforts, causing enough pain to let their companion back out of the troll’s reach. Impressive, yes, but futile; the troll’s power of regeneration healed the minor wounds mere seconds after they were made. And sooner or later, the troll would catch one of the men and crush him. Thorn was watching the savants.

  Two broke from the panicked mob. The Vadalis woman drew a wand, leveling it at the raging troll. Unfortunately for her, Thorn also had a wand-the weapon she’d taken from the Orien guard. A thought sent the savant tumbling to the ground, every muscle frozen. Still, that gave an opening for an unlikely champion to dart forward-the old Jorasco healer. The gray-haired halfling laid his hand on the troll’s leg, and blue light burned along his palm, the radiance of a dragonmark. The Jorasco bloodlines carried the Mark of Healing, but his touch did anything but help. The effect on the troll was immediate and shocking. The beast dropped to the ground, its howls of rage fading to pitiful whimpers. It tried to push itself up, but it seemed to have lost all strength. Emboldened, the soldiers darted forward, thrusting with their blades. Before, the wounds from their weapons healed mere seconds after they were made, but black pus oozed from the new injuries, which seemed to spread instead of sealing, as if the troll’s regenerative powers were being turned against it.

  If not for Thorn, the fight would have surely ended there. Thorn almost felt guilty; the halfling was barely the size of the troll’s head, and she had to admire the courage of an old man willing to grapple with the beast. But she had a mission to accomplish and no time for mercy. Steel flashed through the air, tearing through the little man’s flesh. Thorn had pierced a lung-not instantly lethal but certainly enough to take the fight out of an old halfling. Or so she thought. The little healer staggered, but he kept his grip tight on the troll’s leg. When Thorn pulled Steel back to her, the halfling reached back with his free hand and laid his palm across the bloody wound. There was another pulse of blue light.

  He’s healing himself, she thought.

  Thorn was amazed. A normal man would have been in shock within seconds, but the little healer wouldn’t fall. The troll still writhed beneath his grasp, barely able to move. One of the soldiers snatched the captain’s axe and raised it above his head. The runes began to glow, power building for a decapitating strike.

  Axes it is, then. Replacing Steel in her glove, Thorn charged forward, calling out the long myrnaxe. She swung the axe as she ran, smashing the flat of the blade into the side of the halfling’s head. She wasn’t sure if it would kill him, but the sheer force of the blow knocked him away from the troll and left him crumpled on the floor. Reversing the weapon, she leaped over the troll, jabbing at the axeman with the silver spearhead. He jerked back but not fast enough; the point of her spear sank into his arm, and he dropped his weapon. Before he could recover, Thorn drove the haft of the spear into his throat, and he collapsed to the floor.

  The troll rose to its feet, mottled flesh already healing. The surviving guards turned to flee, but the door was blocked, and the troll was upon them before they could shift the blocking rubble. Thorn looked away, walking to the next troll and working on its bonds. She did her best to ignore the brief screams, but it wasn’t easy. Her experience with the Son of Khyber might have left her with a deep distrust of the dragonmarked, especially those with secret facilities hidden far from the eyes of the Thronehold monarchs. And it seemed that she was in a place where torture was an everyday occurrence. Nonetheless, it was difficult to hear a halfling being torn apart by a hungry troll, knowing as little as she did.

  She drew Steel back to her hand. He was silent.

  “Don’t think at me that way,” she muttered. “We’re trying to stop the Mourning, aren’t we?”

  I just hope you know what you’re doing.

  “So do I,” she murmured. “So do I.” She tucked Steel into his sheath and gathered her thoughts. She’d woven a magical disguise before the cloak of invisibility had faded, and that was all that was keeping the trolls at bay. She’d seen a number of changelings at the court of the Daughters of Sora Kell in Droaam, and when the troll invoked the “vengeful daughters” the idea had come to her. She wore the face of a changeling, with pale skin and snow white hair. The triune symbol of the Daughters was traced over her breast in gray thread.

  “Children of the Shadow!” she called to the trolls. The two that were free turned to look at her. “The glorious Daughters have heard your cries echoing across the land to the Great Crag itself, and they sent me to release you from this bondage. Transport awaits you beyond the walls of this place, and you will feast for a dozen days on your return!”

  She knew nothing about troll customs, but she’d never heard a story that spoke of the great intelligence of a troll, and those four seemed to be no exception. They roared their approval, praising the Daughters of Sora Kell.

  “Yet no gift comes without a price!” she roared. “Sora Maenya respects only strength. If you would prove yourselves worthy of her trust, you must show that strength still remains in your limbs!”

  “Tell us, changer,” the first troll snarled. He held the body of the old halfling in his hand; the healer was missing an arm, and he
would not be rising again. “What must we do?”

  She glanced at the others. “You must make your way out yourselves. Earn your release with tooth and claw.” She drew them close with a gesture. “I have a mission of my own on behalf of Sora Katra, and I will need you to leave me be as I do what must be done. This is the face I will be wearing. Study it well.” She released the spell of disguise, restoring her natural appearance as if she were a changeling shifting faces.

  The trolls grunted, sniffing at her. “We remember, changer.”

  “You two. Release your brothers. Gather your strength. Once I leave this room, remain here for the time it takes to shatter every piece of furniture here, to break every bottle and chain. Then emerge and show your captors what fear truly is.”

  The trolls roared their approval. Thorn felt another pang of guilt about unleashing the creatures against an unsuspecting populace. Then again, if they hadn’t dissected trolls in the first place, it wouldn’t be a problem.

  She glanced around the room, searching until she found a man who was still alive. He was one of the soldiers, the guard she’d crippled with Steel. As she’d hoped, he’d dropped to the ground and was simply watching, remaining as still as possible. She knelt next to him.

  “With one word, I can have you strapped to one of these tables with these beasts seeing if your guts grow back when they pull them out,” she murmured. “Do as I say and you might live through this. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “How many more of you in this place?”

  The man hesitated for a moment. Then one of the trolls bellowed in triumph as it was released from its bonds. Whatever courage the soldier had broke. “Eight more in my unit. About as many again in support and research.”

  Prepared to handle a single troll, certainly. Against four at once, with some element of surprise… it should suffice. “What’s the quickest way out?”

  “The teleportation circle, of course.”

  Thorn drew Steel. “I can hurt you myself before I give you to the trolls. What’s the quickest way out aside from the circle?”

  “That is the only way out,” he said. There was a flutter in his voice, and the spreading stain on his breeches suggested that the fear was real. “I mean, there’s the Pit shaft, but that’s for airships and there’s none here at the moment.”

  “Can it be climbed?” she said. Surely even the Twelve wouldn’t build a base that only members of House Lyrandar and Orien could leave. Would they?

  “I guess,” he said. “I don’t know. How did you get in-?”

  She silenced him, pressing Steel to his throat. “No questions. Just tell me where to find this shaft and where to find the barracks.”

  It took the sounds of a hungry troll eating one of the dead savants to completely loosen the man’s resolve, but he gave her the directions she wanted. She knocked him out with a blow from Steel’s pommel; she didn’t want the trolls to kill him, but she couldn’t have him raising the alarm the moment they were gone, especially if he’d lied to her about anything.

  I don’t know if I approve, Steel said. But I have to admire the improvisation.

  “I try,” Thorn murmured. She turned back to the trolls and raised her voice. “Children of the Shadow! Are you prepared for your vengeance?”

  Their roar of hungry approval would haunt her for years to come.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Pit B arrakas 25, 999 YK

  I hope you’re prepared for a long climb,” Thorn said as she entered the gate chamber.

  “I love climbing,” Drix responded. He appeared to be disassembling the dragonshard mosaic. “When I was younger, my father would take me to the cliffs of Seaside, and we’d climb for hours. I always wanted to design an extra pair of hands, something that could hold a book and turn the pages so I could read while I was-”

  “Wonderful,” Thorn said. “Any moment now, a group of trolls are going to turn this place into Shavarath. I want to give them enough time to draw all the guards, and then we’ll be making our run. I don’t know who’s going to be left standing when this is all done, and we’re not going to wait to find out.”

  “Trolls?”

  “Yes, trolls,” Thorn said. “I found savants from Vadalis and Jorasco carving bits off of them. Arms, actually. Any idea why they might do that?”

  Drix contemplated that as he stuffed dragonshards into his pouches. “Vadalis is always interested in studying the unnatural abilities of wild beasts,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d imagine they were trying to replicate the troll’s powers of regeneration.”

  Thorn nodded. “So Vadalis and Deneith could make their own immortal soldiers? That’s just what we’d need. Perhaps we should show them your stone-”

  A roar interrupted her. The trolls were in the hall. Thorn hoped they’d remember the directions she’d given them and that the guard hadn’t lied to her; as long as he’d told the truth, the beasts were on their way to the barracks. She’d left the wards of silence active; they might have been designed to muffle the sounds of torture, but they’d done an admirable job covering the noise of the battle. The trolls were in the hallway, however, and they could likely be heard throughout the rest of the workshop, which served her purposes just fine.

  She waited until the snarls and roars had faded slightly and until she heard the first human voice raised in terror. “Now. Follow me!”

  Previous missions had taken Thorn to subterranean cities with miles of tunnels stretching beneath the earth. Fortunately, the place they found themselves in wasn’t nearly so complex: a storeroom, a barracks for the guards and a dormitory for the savants, a simple dining facility-not much to see. The only question was if there would be guards stationed in the tunnel shaft leading to the surface. Thorn was certain there would be more bloodshed before the night was through, but she was just as happy to leave it to the trolls; at least they had a right to their revenge.

  There was blood on the white tiles when they reached the intersection of two halls. “This way,” Thorn hissed. Drix paused, listening to the roars and the whine of some of magical weapon, and Thorn grabbed his arm and pulled him along. A ramp brought them to the pit itself.

  “That’s higher than Seaside,” Drix remarked. “I wish I had my arms. And a book.”

  “And a ladder,” Thorn said. They were standing at the base of a tunnel that rose up out of sight. Crates were scattered around them, and she noticed posts and hooks she recognized as the mooring and charging facilities for a small airship. A set of stairs rose up about forty feet off the ground, up to where someone would need to be to board the airship. But as for stairs or rungs rising to the top of the shaft itself, there was nothing.

  She heard a sharp howl-the sound of a troll in agony. “If those guards can subdue four trolls, we don’t want to be here when they’re done,” Thorn said. “Any ideas?”

  “I could probably weave a levitation charm into one of these crates,” Drix said thoughtfully, studying the boxes and pulling a few dragonshards out of a pouch.

  “How long will that take?” Thorn said.

  “I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t tried it before. Ten minutes? An hour?”

  “I don’t think we have that sort of time,” she said, listening to the sounds of battle. While she could still hear the snarls of trolls in battle, she guessed that a few of them had already fallen, and it was possible the guards had another savant capable of stopping their regeneration. “Wait… what about that hole of yours?”

  “What about it?” Drix said.

  “If you were to climb inside, could I fold it up and carry you?”

  Drix shook his head. “You can’t fold it up all the way when someone’s inside it. And if you spread it out, it’s got to be on some sort of surface.”

  Thorn tried to remember that moment in the Mournland, Drix closing up the opening. She pulled the lid off of a crate and set it on the ground. “What about this? If you put the hole on it and climbed inside… would I be able to lif
t it?”

  Drix looked at the lid dubiously. “I suppose so,” he said. “But how are you going to climb while you’re carrying me? Do you have an extra pair of arms?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Thorn said. “You just get inside. Quickly.”

  Drix spread the black cloth over the lid and lowered himself inside, disappearing into the dark opening. A moment later he drew it tighter until the black spot was merely the size of Thorn’s fist.

  Thorn picked up the lid. It was heavier that it should have been, but she could manage it, and more important, the hole stayed fixed in one place. The last thing she needed was for it to slide off while she was climbing. Balancing the lid against a crate, she sorted through her pouches, finally finding a small vial. Flipping the cork off of it, she quickly swallowed the spider inside.

  “Shalitar,” she whispered.

  Thorn had already drawn on a considerable amount of magical energy, between invisibility and the changeling disguise. Grasping the power for the spider charm was like trying to hold water in her hands while she made a fist. She struggled with it, refusing to let it go, and at last she felt the energy flow into her. Grabbing the wooden lid and tucking it under an arm, she began to sprint up the shaft.

  The spider charm had served her well over the years, saving her life in Sharn and Droaam. As long as the enchantment lasted, she could walk a sheer cliff as easily as cross the floor. It took only a few minutes before she could see the top of the shaft. Elation came with an entirely new challenge.

  Of course, she thought. A door.

  There was a massive double gate sealing the shaft, and it was closed. With time and tools, she likely could have opened it, but working one-handed, she’d never succeed before the spider charm failed.

  She drew Steel. “What do you think? Can you carve a way through it?”

  I see precious little to joke about, Steel said. Kundarak locking mechanisms and enchantments. Not a simple piece of work by any means.