by James Wyatt
"You're looking for information you can use against Jorlanna?" he asked.
The Sentinel Marshal nodded.
"Then you need to know that she's part of something larger."
"Larger?"
"At minimum, it's a plot against the queen, but I fear it's more than that."
"I'm listening," the Sentinel Marshal said.
"Should we go someplace more private to discuss this?" Gaven said.
Ossa scoffed. "So you have a chance to lose us in the city streets?" she said. "I don't think so."
"Here is fine for now," the Sentinel Marshal said. "Let's hear what you have to say, changeling."
"My name is Aunn." It still felt strange to say it aloud. "I was with the Royal Eyes."
"That much I knew," the Sentinel Marshal said. "The Royal Eyes issued a warning to the city watch about you. I'm Mauren d'Deneith."
"Mauren," Aunn repeated. It was a name he might have used for one of his faces. He had been a Vauren, a Maura, and a Laurann in the past. He felt a sudden strange pang-he missed them, somehow, or grieved the life they represented. It was followed by a sudden stab of suspicion: What if Mauren was the changeling, Vec? Vec had used one of Aunn's faces, appearing as Haunderk. Might he also use a name similar to one he would use?
"Mauren, forgive my impertinence," he said, "but could I please see your dragonmark?"
Mauren's mouth quirked in a funny smile. "You don't want to see my papers or my badge? Just my mark?"
"I'm a Royal Eye, Sentinel Marshal. I know how easy it is to acquire papers and badges."
"You're also a changeling," she said. She fumbled at a buckle near her shoulder as she climbed the steps. "And you know how hard it is to imitate a dragonmark."
"Exactly."
"It is not easy to show," Mauren said, still smiling, her fingers working at a different buckle. Ossa climbed the stairs behind her.
Aunn tensed. That could be a convenient excuse, though Mauren didn't look like she was preparing an attack.
Mauren slipped her leather coat down off her shoulders and turned partly away from Aunn. "Come here," she said.
Aunn stepped beside her, feeling awkward.
"There's a flap at the shoulder you should be able to open," Mauren said.
Aunn reached out and pulled at the chainmail that covered her shoulder. As Mauren had said, a flap of mail attached to leather and backed with cotton pulled away, revealing bare skin beneath-and the tracings of the Mark of Sentinel, a bit like a rampant dragon, with its head, tail, and wings forming a sort of cross shape. If she was a changeling, she had mastered a talent he found impossible.
"I'm sorry I doubted you," he said quietly. It was a strange moment of intimacy.
"I'm glad you're satisfied. Maybe now we can work together from a position of trust." She pulled the armor flap back over her mark and her coat back over her shoulders as Aunn stepped back. "You were going to tell me about Jorlanna's involvement in a plot against the queen."
"Yes. We believe that Nara ir'Galanatyr is behind the whole scheme, though almost everyone else involved thought that the mastermind was Kelas ir'Darren."
"I know the Galanatyr name," Mauren said. "She was head of the Royal Eyes during the war, right?"
Aunn nodded.
"But I don't know ir'Darren."
"He was my superior in the Royal Eyes. He brought together Jorlanna, Arcanist Wheldren of the Arcane Congress, former Colonel Janna Tolden, and a few financial backers to overthrow the queen."
"You said you feared it was more than just a plot against the queen. What more did you mean?"
"I'm not sure yet." He turned to Gaven. "Listen. You know how the Prophecy confuses me. But I realized something this morning."
"Is this the time to talk about it?" Gaven said, glancing sidelong at Ossa and the Sentinel Marshal.
"We don't have much time left, Gaven. Listen. Nara's been masterminding this whole affair, from breaking you out of Dreadhold"-he saw Ossa stiffen-"to the Dragon Forge. When I talked to her she was excited about the 'storm and dragon reunited' line. But that's crazy. That means that she knew you were the Storm Dragon, even when Haldren thought it was Vaskar. She knew you would face the Soul Reaver but you wouldn't become a god, because you had to be around for the Time of the Dragon Below. Each time you've thought you were taking control of your own destiny, you were doing what she expected you to do. You were fulfilling the Prophecy in the way she planned for it to be fulfilled."
Gaven scowled. Aunn could understand why he might not want to think along these lines, but he had to convince him.
"So she's planning to overthrow the queen, but now Kelas is dead and her plan is in a shambles. Or is it? Maybe she's counting on someone else carrying it out-she already has another changeling lined up to stab the queen, and Janna Tolden is snooping around Kelas's office in the old cathedral. But maybe she's planning for them to fail as well, because she knows that we're aware of her plot. Maybe the Prophecy says she's going to fail-but that means it's not a failure! It's what she wants to happen, because it's not her true goal."
"So what is her real goal?" Mauren said.
"I have no idea!" Aunn put his hands on Gaven's shoulders. "You're the only other person who could possibly know. There has to be something in the Prophecy that's her real goal, something that's supposed to happen in the Time of the Dragon Below. Or maybe something that's supposed to happen years from now."
Gaven frowned. His eyes were focused somewhere behind Aunn's head, and his lips moved without forming words. For a moment Aunn was afraid that Gaven was sinking back into the catatonic state he'd entered at the Dragon Forge.
Then Gaven gave voice to the words on his lips. "His are the words the Blasphemer unspeaks, his the song the Blasphemer unsings."
"What is he saying?" Ossa demanded.
Gaven whirled on her. "You, Kundarak, have been chasing me for months, since I first set foot outside of your family's impenetrable prison. And all this time, here is what you have failed to understand: My destiny does not lie in Dreadhold."
"Any common thief might make that claim."
"That's what Bordan said. But I am not a common thief. My fate is woven into the verses of the Prophecy."
"And what is that fate?" Mauren asked.
"I must face the Blasphemer."
Mauren cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Aunn, since Gaven's gaze was still fixed on the dwarf.
"The leader of the barbarian horde," Aunn explained.
"And what?" Ossa said. "You're the one who kills him? You save Aundair from the rampaging barbarian menace? Is that what the Prophecy says?"
"No." Gaven's voice was quiet, distant. "The maelstrom swirls around me. I am the storm and the eye of the storm." Thunder rumbled again, but it too seemed far off.
"What does that mean?"
"In the city by the lake of kings, the city scourged with his storm…" Gaven's voice trailed off.
"I don't understand," Mauren said. "You say your fate is to face the Blasphemer, that it's part of the Prophecy that ir'Galanatyr has been trying to fulfill. But you're not saying that you're going to defeat the Blasphemer-in fact, as far as I can make out you might be saying the opposite. So you're saying we should let you go so that you can go get yourself killed by the Blasphemer, which might be exactly what Nara wants to happen."
Aunn frowned. Mauren was right-Gaven's words didn't exactly fill him with confidence about a potential confrontation between the Storm Dragon and the Blasphemer. "What happens in the city, Gaven? Is that Varna?"
"Who is Nara?" Gaven whispered, his eyes wide.
"Gaven!" Mauren grabbed Gaven's shoulders and shouted into his face. Thunder rumbled and Aunn winced, but the explosion of wrath he feared didn't come. "We need you to talk to us, explain what's going on!"
"It is simple," Gaven said. "In the Time of the Dragon Above, the Storm Dragon arose after twice thirteen years, he walked the paths of the First of Sixteen in the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor, and he faced the So
ul Reaver and blocked the bridge to the sky. In the Time Between, the pivotal moment of history, the touch of Siberys's hand passed from my flesh to Eberron's blood at the Dragon Forge. Now the Time of the Dragon Below is upon us, and both history and prophecy flow toward the city by the lake of kings, the city scourged with my storm, where storm and dragon will be reunited, where the Words of Creation will be sung and unsung, where the Blasphemer will meet his end. I will be there-you will not stop me. You might as well try to stop the world from spinning."
"Simple?" Mauren said. She looked utterly bewildered.
Ossa crossed her arms and glared up at Gaven. "Four of us came before the Lord Warden when you escaped, you know. Four representatives of four dragonmarked lines. Sentinel Marshal Evlan d'Deneith. Bordan d'Velderan of House Tharashk. Phaine d'Thuranni. And me. You killed the other three. Now I'm the only one left. I'm the-"
Gaven interrupted her. "Killed Bordan?" he said. "I didn't kill Bordan."
"Then who did?" Ossa demanded. "He chased you when you fled Stormhome. I followed with my team, but he outdistanced us. By the time we caught up to him, his lifeblood was soaking into the sand."
"I never saw him again after I left the city," Gaven said. "I wouldn't have wished him dead."
"The Sentinel Marshals you killed, though? And now Phaine?"
Gaven turned away.
"Anyway," Ossa said, "the point is that I am now the only one who can restore my family's pride and honor as the keepers of Dreadhold. And I can do that only by returning you there, because even Haldren ir'Brassek is dead now, I'm told. I can't tell you how much it would please me to lead you back to Dreadhold in chains, slung across the back of a manticore and wracked with its poison."
"You can't take me." The threat was gone from Gaven's voice, and no thunder underlined his words-it was a simple statement of fact.
Ossa dropped her hands to her sides and her shoulders slumped. "No, I can't. But maybe I have to live with that. Perhaps there is more at stake than the honor of my family. If what you say is true, this is about more than bringing a fugitive to justice." Her hand rubbed absently at a spot beneath her left collarbone-Aunn guessed that was the location of her dragon-mark. She looked as though she were torn between her duty to her House, symbolized by her Mark of Warding, and the thoughts she was straining to put into words.
Aunn glanced at the Sentinel Marshal, who looked similarly uncomfortable. Both of them seemed to be contemplating what could be seen as a serious dereliction of their duty, in service to a higher purpose. Aunn could understand why they found it so difficult.
"Your duty is to capture Gaven," Aunn said. "But your duty isn't always the right thing to do." He thought of Sevren Thorn and Zandar Thuul, screaming out their last breaths in the Demon Wastes, because Aunn had done his duty. He thought of Vor Helden, cut down by the giant's blade in the Labyrinth, because Aunn had done his duty.
Kalok Shash-the Silver Flame-burns brighter.
"You could not understand, changeling," Ossa said. "Even Gaven might not understand, because his mark was the touch of Siberys. For those of us who bear the more common dragonmarks, the mark is our destiny, not just our duty. It is how we fit into the symphony of the world, the part we play. I carry the Mark of Warding." She put her hand on the spot she had rubbed earlier, confirming Aunn's hunch. "It is not a decoration-it's who I am. I'm sure it is no different for Mauren with the Mark of Sentinel. I am a warder, a Ghorad'din. It is written in my very being. And yet…"
"And yet Jorlanna could strip that mark from your skin and your soul," Gaven said. "And yet the Blasphemer comes-the Blasphemer, whose words are the antithesis of what is written in your dragonmark, the negation of all being. My destiny, too, is written in my dragonmark. Not service to House Lyrandar, but…" He seemed at a loss for words. "I must face the Blasphemer."
Ossa nodded slowly. "Gaven, excoriate of House Lyrandar," she said, "House Kundarak renounces its claim on you. You are free."
"Free?" Gaven looked as surprised as Aunn felt.
"Not entirely," Mauren said. "Other Houses have claims on you as well, and not just for the crimes that sent you to Dreadhold in the first place. But if Ossa chooses not to pursue you now, I will not either. I suggest you find yourself a fast horse and make for Varna."
Gaven turned to Aunn. "But I still have no papers."
Mauren pulled a sheet of parchment and a small writing set from inside her coat, glanced at the sky with a look of relief that the rain had passed, and quickly scrawled something on the page. Aunn noticed that the paper already carried an arcane mark placed by House Sivis, along with the three-headed chimera seal of House Deneith. "This will get you to Varna," she said as she handed it to Gaven.
"You're coming with me, aren't you?" Gaven asked Aunn.
Aunn shook his head, unable to speak.
"Your destiny lies elsewhere," Gaven said.
"Here, at least for now," Aunn said. "I intend to stop Jorlanna and protect the queen, even if that is exactly what Nara wants and expects me to do."
"Ossa and I would welcome your help," Mauren said.
Gaven clasped his hand. "Aunn, Darraun, dwarf with the manacles." He smiled. "I owe you my life and my freedom, such as they are. Thank you, friend."
Tears sprang to Aunn's eyes and words failed him again, so he pulled Gaven close and embraced him.
"Farewell," Gaven said.
"I hope you find what you seek," Aunn said.
"I already have."
"Give Rienne my best when you see her."
"She's very fond of you, you know. I will."
"Then I'll see you when this is all over," Aunn said, releasing him.
Gaven gave him a weak smile and turned away.
CHAPTER 38
Rienne started down the hill at a run, focusing all her energy toward greater speed. She heard confused shouts behind her-her troops expected orders, she realized, not their leader tearing off alone.
Well, she thought, they chose to follow me. They had better get used to me.
The droning of the insects grew louder as she approached, as did the cries of their victims. The creatures formed a black cloud that surrounded the fleeing Reachers, swirling in giant eddies and clinging to exposed skin and hair. People in the front of the group ran with their arms over their faces, heads down, blindly seeking an escape from the horror as winged monsters the size of their hands bit into skin or sawed through leather with enormous mandibles.
Rienne drew Maelstrom as she ran, though it was hard for her to imagine even her legendary blade causing much harm to the swarm. She could kill hundreds of the insects and leave the swarm undiminished. Nevertheless, she drew the blade, and she felt the energy flowing through her body focus and extend through her blade, as if it were part of her.
Then she was in the midst of it. The droning of the insects' wings surrounded her, and the creatures-as if smelling her unprotected skin-swarmed close around her. She didn't give them a chance to approach. Maelstrom sprang to life in her hand, whirling around her, slicing through chitin and diaphanous wing and forming a barrier of swirling wind.
Inspired by her presence, a few of the nearby farmers pulled out battered swords-most of them probably handed down from a parent or grandparent who fought in the Last War-and tried to imitate her example. She saw one fall to his knees, screaming in pain, his sword clattering to the ground.
"No!" Rienne screamed. "Keep running!"
The breath and energy she spent shouting lowered her defenses for a moment, and one of the insects sank its mandibles into the back of her neck. The pain was excruciating, far worse than the bite alone as venom spread up and down her neck and back. She snatched the creature and wrenched it free, causing a fresh jolt of pain as it tore flesh away in its jaws, then crushed it in her hand. Violet blood oozed between her fingers, distinctly unnatural, and revulsion welled in her gut. She fought it down and continued Maelstrom's whirling dance.
She drew a slow, deep breath as Maelstrom whirled, an
d the cloud of insects around her darkened, drawn into the vortex of wind she created. She held the breath, and flames burst from Maelstrom's blade, trailing along behind the steel like a banner. She let her breath out slowly and the flames formed a curtain around her, then widened inch by inch to encompass more and more of the swarming horrors.
When her breath was expended, the flames faded, but the ground around her was littered with the charred bodies of the swarm. The air was still dark with them, though, as Maelstrom's whirlwind drew them in toward its flashing blade. Rienne glanced toward the camp and saw perhaps a dozen people running clear of the swarm, almost to safety. More were still trapped within the cloud, though. For a moment she wondered whether rushing headlong into the midst of the swarm had been wise.
A burst of fire erupted in the air above her. She threw herself to the ground and rolled beneath the flames, springing to her feet as the flames died and a shower of blackened insect corpses fell to the earth. She looked around for the source of the flame and saw a dark figure standing outside the cloud, dressed in hide armor and a tattered green tabard. Kyaphar!
Another insect found its way to her arm and bit through her clothes, sending a lance of pain down to her hand. Her muscles convulsed as poison coursed through them, and Maelstrom fell to the ground. She faltered in her whirling dance, and more insects attached themselves to her flesh, wracking her body with their painful venom. She stooped to retrieve Maelstrom, but as she did an insect bit and her leg buckled beneath her, sending her sprawling. Before she could draw a breath her body was covered with writhing and biting insects, their wings still droning as they cut into her skin.
Another burst of fire erupted around her, washing over her with a strangely pleasant warmth. The insects around her shriveled and burned in the flame, but the fires only soothed her skin and eased the pain of the poison. Rienne grabbed Maelstrom's hilt and sprang back to her feet, waving her thanks in Kyaphar's direction. Maelstrom flew back into motion as Kyaphar hurled smaller bursts of fire into the diminishing remnants of the swarm.
Once again Maelstrom whirled around her until it formed a great funnel of wind-