by James Wyatt
This was the sort of place that catered to people who would rather not present themselves at a hostel run by House Ghallanda, where they’d be required to show identification papers. A glimmer of recognition flitted across the face of the desk clerk when the man saw Haldren, but he bowed his head to hide it, taking the money Senya held out and handing over two room keys without a word. Haldren took one key and handed the other to Darraun, and they climbed a narrow flight of stairs.
“Senya and I will be here,” he said as they reached the room whose number matched his key. “Darraun, you and Gaven have the one across the hall. This is not the safest hostel in Whitecliff. We’ve had a long night, so get some rest. Cart, stay nearby. We’ll eat in a few hours, gather some supplies we’ll need for the trip, and get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
He opened the door to his room and pulled Senya inside. Darraun rolled his eyes and turned to the door across the hall, unlocking it with the key Haldren had given him. He pushed it open and stood back for Gaven.
The room was tiny, and the furniture worn, but it was mostly clean. Gaven walked in and sat gingerly on one of the two narrow beds. It felt a bit like his cell in Dreadhold, but he wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.
Darraun was still standing outside the open door, urging Cart to join them inside. “I know you don’t need rest,” he said, “but doesn’t it feel good to get off your feet once in a while?”
“No,” said Cart, and shuffled into the room. With the great bulk of the warforged, the room seemed much smaller. Darraun came in, pulled the door closed behind him, and threw himself down on the bed with a contented sigh.
“That was a long night,” he said. “Are you tired, Gaven?”
Gaven shrugged. Fatigue pulled at his limbs, but he didn’t want to sleep. Not really. Sleep for him was torment as often as rest. He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
“Well, get some rest,” Darraun said, closing his eyes. “We’ve got a grand adventure ahead of us.”
Despite his best efforts, Gaven’s eyes would not stay open. Listening to Darraun’s steady breathing, Gaven was soon asleep, and the dreams came.
The rope bit into his waist, under his arms and between his legs. Uncomfortable, but not agonizing. He swung in blackness, the light of his glowstone too feeble to reach any surface on any side of him. He had no idea if his rope was long enough to reach any kind of floor beneath him, or how far it might be to another wall he could use to aid his descent. He lowered himself as slowly as he could, straining his eyes to see anything-anything at all.
Rienne’s voice called to him from above, where his rope slowly coiled out through a series of pulleys. Her words were swallowed in the open expanse around him.
Then the light of his glowstone fell on a roiling cloud of darkness, and the cloud engulfed him-a cloud of silent black wings. He lost his hold on his rope, and he fell. He called out to Rienne, but the rope kept spinning out, never slowing his fall.
He was flying, broad wings outstretched in a darkness that was somehow not so dark. A churning river flowed beneath him, and he followed its course farther and farther into Khyber’s depths. He came to a cascade and swooped over the edge, then alighted on the bank of a pool at the bottom. He watched a series of images dance across the swirling water of the pool, and he saw a face-a great reptilian snout topped with a massive horn. A dragon’s face. His face. Then he turned, his snaky tail splashing in the water, and he saw the nightshard. Almost perfectly clear, the enormous crystal held a vein of pure purple-black color, pulsing with dim light in its heart.
He groaned, every inch of his body aching, the hard stone beneath him pressing against his wounds. He had a vague sense that he had been unconscious for a long time, and he wondered vaguely why he wasn’t dead. The nightshard, though, was pulsing with violet light. He stretched out a hand, bruised and bloody, and touched it.
His mind exploded with thoughts and memories-his own and the other’s. He fell back to the rock floor, his eyes glued to the nightshard, and could no longer determine who he was or how he’d arrived there. A distant voice echoed in the vast cavern above him, but it no longer sounded like anyone he knew.
“Gaven?”
For a moment the hand that was gently shaking him belonged to Rienne. Her head was on his shoulder, her silky black hair spilling across the bed, and they were twenty-five again. Then he woke, and there was Cart, leaning over him like a mother. When the warforged saw Gaven’s eyes open, he straightened up.
“Time to eat.”
Gaven shook his head to clear the dream from his memory, and sat up on the bed. The door stood open, and Darraun was not in the room. Gaven thought he heard voices from across the hall.
“Were you here the whole time I slept?” he asked.
“I was. Your faithful hound,” the warforged said. There was a smile in his voice, though his face wouldn’t allow it.
“Did I say anything while I was sleeping?” Gaven tried to make the question sound casual.
“Who’s Mara?”
“What?”
“I’m joking,” Cart said. “During the war, I knew a man who talked in his sleep. Usually about whatever woman had most recently claimed his heart. We used to give him a hard time.”
Gaven tried hard to imagine the warforged as just one of the men and women in a squad of soldiers. For a moment he saw Cart in battle, an axe raised over his head, strange, cold light glinting on his adamantine plating.
“No, you didn’t say anything,” Cart said, gently hitting Gaven’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “You snore when you sleep on your back, though.”
“Sorry,” Gaven said. Dreadhold had taught him to avoid confrontation, back down, apologize.
“Doesn’t bother me. And Darraun snores louder. Come with me. Haldren’s waiting.” Cart stepped aside and waited for Gaven to get to his feet, then followed him out the door.
Darraun stood in the doorway to Haldren’s room, speaking quietly to the old sorcerer. Gaven could see Senya behind Haldren, buckling her sword belt at her hip. Haldren saw Gaven emerge from the room, and cut Darraun off.
“Ah, Gaven!” he said. “I hope you are well rested. Shall we eat?”
Without waiting for an answer, Haldren swept out of the room and down the stairs. Cart followed Gaven at the rear of their little procession.
Haldren was willing to settle for substandard accommodations for the sake of privacy, but he had extravagant taste in food. He led the way to Whitecliff’s finest restaurant and ordered for everyone.
“It has been almost two years since I have enjoyed a fine meal,” he said, “with all due respect for our friend Darraun’s expertise at the campfire. Gaven, I can barely imagine how starved you must be for such a repast.”
Starved was the wrong word-Gaven couldn’t remember what a fine meal tasted or smelled like. He remembered the smell of the fish on the campfire, though, and his mouth began to water.
When the food came, it was overwhelming. Half a dozen aromatic smells blended together to form something exquisite. He attacked his plate.
“I am pleased to see you enjoying your meal so much, Gaven,” Haldren said. “It is far better than the offerings at our last lodgings, is it not?”
Gaven nodded and took another bite of pheasant.
“Pheasant can be both dry and dull in the wrong hands,” Haldren said, addressing the table at large. “But when prepared by my good friend Marras, it is never either.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “So, Gaven, how was your sleep?”
Haldren clearly hoped that the good food would help to draw him out. Gaven chewed slowly, considering how to respond, then swallowed and said, “Not so different than Dreadhold.”
“Ah, yes,” the sorcerer said, his voice hushed. “Probably best not to mention our last lodgings by name, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want to attract any undue attention.”
Gaven looked around. His eyes met those of a dwarf who quickly looked away. The pheasant suddenly did not
taste so exquisite.
“Did you have pleasant dreams?” Haldren leaned forward as he asked it.
“No.” For an instant, Gaven remembered his dream about Rienne, but then darker images flashed into his mind.
“What did you see, Gaven?”
Gaven’s eyes fixed on the old man’s mouth, just as he had seen it through the shutters in their doors in Dreadhold. A dribble of pear-cider sauce stained Haldren’s white beard.
“I don’t really remember.”
Haldren exploded. “Damn you, Gaven, don’t get coy now!” His voice was a rasping whisper, barely able to contain his fury. “I brought you out of that place because of the information locked away in that twisted little brain of yours. If you suddenly get clever and decide to start withholding information, I’ll send you back there-or off to Dolurrh. Don’t think for a second that I won’t kill you if you stop being useful.”
Gaven glanced around the table. Senya studied her plate while Cart peered around them to see if Haldren’s outburst had attracted the attention of nearby patrons. Darraun watched the two of them with unconcealed fascination.
Gaven took a bite of his squash.
Clearly convinced that he was dealing with an idiot or a madman, Haldren brought his anger under control-to Senya’s visible relief-and tried a different approach. He made his voice light, conversational, and he lowered his eyes to his plate as he spoke.
“Did you see the hordes of the Soul Reaver again, Gaven?”
Writhing tentacles in the darkness, a blinding beam of light stretching up to the sky. Gaven tried to remember his dream about Rienne and found that he couldn’t. Her hair became a mass of writhing snakes, reaching for him.
“No,” he said.
Haldren saw his unease and pounced. “What is it, Gaven? You remember something else?”
“The Soul Reaver itself,” Gaven said, as if in a trance. Haldren leaned forward in his chair. “Falling or flying down from a great height, sinking into a chasm as deep as the bones of Khyber. Endless dark beneath the bridge of light. There the Soul Reaver waits.”
Besides Haldren, who wore a look of smug satisfaction, the other three stared at Gaven with varying degrees of surprise. Senya might have been awed-her mouth was partly open, and her eyes wide. Darraun smiled, but there was something else in his expression that Gaven couldn’t read. And Cart’s face, of course, was a mask, but he rubbed his chin in a way that looked thoughtful.
Well enough, Gaven thought, let Haldren think he won this one.
Better that than to reveal what he had really dreamed.
CHAPTER 5
The meal finished, Darraun took charge of Gaven and Cart.
“The three of us need to stock up on supplies for our little jaunt to Aerenal and wherever else Haldren’s magic takes us,” he explained to Gaven as they left the restaurant. “Haldren and Senya are going to try to make contact with some people in Aundair who will be helping us later.”
“Helping us do what?” Gaven said.
Darraun arched an eyebrow at Gaven. That was the first time he’d heard the half-elf ask a question, and he was eager to see more of the workings of the mind behind Gaven’s recitations of the draconic Prophecy.
“Ah, I’m sure Haldren will explain it all to you later,” he said.
“I’m sure he won’t,” Gaven said. “He won’t let me in on his plans any more than is absolutely necessary to get information out of me.”
“What do you think Haldren wants from you?”
“He knows some of the Prophecy, and Vaskar knows more. But two years in a cell across the hall from mine made him think I know more than the two of them combined.”
“Wild nightmares and vague visions?” Darraun said. “He could get that from a raving madman on any street corner in Fairhaven. There has to be more to you than that.”
Gaven stopped walking and waited until Darraun turned to face him. “That makes two of us, then. I’m not the only one here concealing his true face.”
“Three of us, actually,” Cart interjected. “I’m really quite complex.” He turned his head to look at both of them. “Many-layered.”
Darraun gaped at the warforged then burst into laughter. Gaven’s eyes were still fixed on him, though, so he resumed a casual stroll in the general direction of the city’s mercantile district.
“Very well, Gaven,” he said. “Clearly you are more alert and perceptive than Haldren gives you credit for. Haldren is one of those people who believes he is more intelligent than he actually is. But what he lacks in reasoning, he more than makes up for in cunning and charisma. You will find that his most dangerous quality is his ability to inspire fierce loyalty in others.” He glanced at Cart and hoped that Gaven was perceptive enough to catch his meaning.
Gaven watched him for a long moment as they walked, then evidently decided against prying any deeper into his secrets, just as Darraun had hoped he would. He figured Gaven would renew the subject if he ever managed to catch him alone, so Darraun resolved to avoid being alone with Gaven. He decided to try what he hoped was a more innocuous approach.
“I understand you were quite an explorer, years ago,” he said.
“Of sorts,” Gaven said. “More of a prospector. I lowered myself into caves and fought monsters, looking for Khyber dragonshards for my house. The elemental galleons of House Lyrandar…” He trailed off, a scowl falling over his face. “My former house,” he muttered.
Darraun tried to shift Gaven’s thoughts away from the family that had disowned him. “Lyrandar galleons and airships require nightshards to bind the elementals that power them, correct?”
“Airships?” Gaven’s eyebrows shot up at the mention of them. “They were made to work? They were a dream of my house for a long time, but I never knew…”
This approach wasn’t working either. Darraun cursed himself. He was dredging up too many painful memories.
“House Lyrandar put airships into service about nine or ten years ago,” Cart said. “Just about every nation used them in the last years of the war, and now House Lyrandar operates passenger lines.”
Darraun saw Gaven’s eyes light up and decided that if Gaven ever ran off, the airship lines would be the first place to check. This, he thought, is a man that wants to fly.
“So the Khyber dragonshards bind the elementals to the vessels?” Darraun asked again, trying to bring the subject back around to nightshards.
“That’s right,” Gaven said. “They have a peculiar property of binding. With the right magic, they can hold just about anything-even a human soul.”
“Almost like some sort of possession?” Darraun asked.
“Sort of, yes.” Gaven’s face darkened again, and he didn’t elaborate further.
“So all your expeditions into the depths of Khyber-is that how you learned so much about the Prophecy?”
Gaven stared blankly ahead, showing no indication that he’d heard the question. A cloud passed over the hot noonday sun, and Darraun glanced at the sky. “We’d better get our supplies and get ready to go,” he said. “I understand it can rain pretty hard here in the jungle, though it usually comes in short spurts.”
He quickened their pace, and they found shelter in a provisioner’s shop. Heavy drops of rain started falling a moment later.
The shopkeeper was attentive to their every need, which meant Darraun was unable to keep up his line of questions. He stayed busy ordering the things they’d need for their journey, but at one point when the merchant had vanished into a back storeroom for a moment he found himself staring at Gaven’s dragonmark. The intricate pattern almost seemed painted on Gaven’s skin, fine tracings of blue beginning just at the ridge of his jaw, on his left side, covering the whole front of his neck, and extending down under his shirt. It probably covered his whole chest, and Darraun could see part of it extending out his short sleeve to reach his left elbow. The skin beneath the mark was redder than the rest of Gaven’s pale flesh, giving the whole ‘mark a purplish tinge. There was
something vaguely draconic about the part that covered his neck, which must have been how the dragonmarks had earned their names.
The Mark of Storm. Darraun glanced at a window spattered with rain and wondered if Gaven’s mark had anything to do with the weather outside. The rain was coming down hard now, so hard that Darraun could hear the drops splattering on the cobblestones outside and driving against the shutters of the shop. He sighed, glancing down at the fine clothes that would soon be pasted to his skin. Natural storms were one thing, but a storm caused by magic was a more unpleasant prospect. Would Gaven make it rain for the length of their time together?
All the more reason to get this over with quickly, Darraun told himself.
“Cart, what do you think of this?” Gaven held up a leather belt studded with wooden beads and decorative stones, supposedly made by one of the nearby lizardfolk tribes. He was aware of Darraun’s gaze lingering on him, but he chose to ignore it. Darraun had been asking a lot of questions, and Gaven wanted to get him away from Cart and ask some of his own before he submitted to any more interrogation.
“Interesting,” Cart said, taking the belt in his three-fingered hands. He looked down at the battered belt that held his battle-axe at his waist. “I could certainly use a new one, but I don’t know about this.”
“It would be a different look for you,” Gaven said. The shopkeeper had returned and engaged Darraun in further discussion. Darraun deftly avoided any question of their destination, planned activities, anything that might help pursuers track them down. “What’s your connection to this group, Cart?” Gaven asked. “How do you know Haldren?”
“He was my commanding officer,” Cart said.
“He was a sergeant?” Gaven was stunned. “I got the sense he ranked higher than that.”
“And you assume I was just a private,” Cart said. “Lord General Haldren ir’Brassek commanded the Third Brigade of Aundair, Gaven. I might have made colonel and commanded a regiment myself, but Aundair’s armed forces value a skill in magic that I completely lack. I was part of the general’s staff.”