by Rich Wulf
“This d-doesn’t involve you, Arthen,” the tower master said, stuttering in fear.
“I’m only trying to help you, Hareld,” the man said, tapping out his pipe and tucking it into his coat. “She’s right, you know. You are an idiot,” He looked at Seren with a sly grin. “You can’t even see her hands. Kol Korran knows what sort of weapon she’s hiding under that cloak. The boy’s no threat. I won’t argue that, but look at the girl’s eyes. She’ll kill the first man that makes a move. Who will be first? Hesitate at all, and at least one of you won’t walk away from this. Of course, that’s your best-case scenario. That assumes that I don’t plan to help them. That shifts the odds considerably.”
“Help them?” one of the others said, meekly.
“They are my clients,” Arthen said. He plucked a chair from a nearby table and effortlessly wrenched one of its legs free, hefting it as an improvised club. “Shall we begin?”
The tower master lowered his crossbow and gestured for the others to do the same. “No, no, that’s not necessary,” he said, stumbling over the words. “We’ll … we’ll just go.”
Arthen stepped away from the door, pointing the way with his club. The thugs nearly fell over each other in their haste to depart. When they were gone, Zed dropped the table leg on the floor and looked at Tristam with an unpleasant expression.
“So I’m nothing, Sir Arthen?” Tristam asked, snapping his sword into its scabbard. “I am honored to have risen so highly in your estimation.”
“Don’t start, boy,” he said, leveling a dangerous glare at the artificer. “Don’t call me, ‘Sir.’ ”
Tristam’s face darkened, but he looked away quickly.
Zed looked to Seren, expression softening only marginally. “Zed Arthen, professional inquisitive,” he said, flourishing his long coat in a half-bow.
“Seren Morisse,” she answered, noticing the many pouches and small tools that hung from Arthen’s belt and within his coat. “We’ve been sent …”
“I know who sent you,” he interrupted. “Normally I wouldn’t mind keeping Dalan waiting, but we should get you back to your ship before dark.”
“What happens here at night?” Tristam asked.
“The village is perched on a pit into the deepest hells of Khyber. Do you really need details?” Zed said. “Now let’s go.”
Seren and Tristam filed back out of the tavern with Zed only a step behind. The streets were empty now, long shadows stretching across the road. The inquisitive hurried past them, his pace brisk as he kept a nervous eye on the setting sun.
“Could be nothing, mind you,” Zed said as they jogged to keep up with him. “It’s usually nothing. One night in twenty. Of course, that night is well worth worrying about the other nineteen.”
“Criminals and demons. Why do you live here, Arthen?” Tristam said, shaking his head as they pressed on.
“Fairly preferable to your own circumstances,” Zed said. “Incidentally, Miss Morisse, I know we don’t know one another and I hesitate to give advice to strangers, but I’d avoid becoming tangled up with Dalan d’Cannith.”
“Arthen,” Tristam said in a warning tone.
Zed ignored him. “Whatever reason you have to work with him, whatever reason you think you need him, forget it. He’s either lying to you or not telling you everything. Probably both. Leave him behind.” He paused for a moment. “Once you reach a port safer than Black Pit, just leave. Don’t even say goodbye; just go.”
“Like you did?” Tristam asked, leaning close to whisper the password at the tower door.
“I’m serious,” Zed said, ignoring Tristam. “Don’t give Dalan a chance to talk you out of it.” He grasped her shoulder, stopping her at the tower door and looking earnestly into her eyes. “D’Cannith has a way of endearing himself, of making the unreasonable seem reasonable. You do what he wants and you even think it’s your idea.”
“Zed, stop,” Tristam said. He gently took Seren by the arm, pulling her away from the inquisitive. She didn’t resist. “Dalan doesn’t have any sort of magic. All his dragonmark can do is fix things.”
“Magic?” Zed laughed. “I’m not talking about magic. Dalan has never needed magic. The human mind is all he needs. Why do you think he sent you two into a dangerous place like this, unprotected, just before sunset? Because he knew I’d see the ship land. He knew I’d watch whoever came out, and he knew you’d be in danger. He knew I wouldn’t leave Tristam to die, and that it was the only way to draw me back to Karia Naille. I suppose he told you some nonsense about how he trusted you not to get into trouble.” Zed shook his head. “And now here I am, walking right back into his ship. Dalan knows people, Seren.” He tapped his temple with two thick fingers. “He gets into their heads. Probably knows me better than I do.” The inquisitive sighed as he looked up at the hovering airship. “Just think about what I’ve said, all right?”
“Seren, ignore him,” Tristam said, shoving past Arthen through the tower door. “He’s a lunatic.”
Seren followed Tristam, only stopping briefly to look back at Zed. The shadows of Black Pit now crept across the streets. Arthen was looking back over one shoulder, into the darkness. It looked almost as if he were considering facing the dangers of being caught in the village at night rather than board Karia Naille.
Then, slowly and methodically, Zed Arthen closed the door behind them and made his way up the tower stairs.
What are you doing in here?” Tristam asked, pushing open the door of his cabin with an annoyed frown.
Seren looked up with a friendly smile. She sat on Tristam’s cot, her feet kicked up on the chair nearby. A thick book lay open beside her, and the homunculus sat in her lap, staring blankly as she petted it on the head. “Just reading,” she said. “The door was open.”
Tristam looked at her intently.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Surprised I can read?”
“I didn’t say that,” Tristam said. “It’s just that—”
“I didn’t steal anything.”
“I never thought you did,” he said, looking more amused than annoyed. “I’m just amazed you’re still conscious. I left the door open because I was airing out the fumes from my last experiment. It didn’t go very well.” Tristam hung his jacket on a hook behind the door. Omax stepped into the room as well, ducking to pass through the small threshold.
“What are you reading, Seren?” the warforged asked, squatting in the corner and looking at her book. His blue eyes shone with curiosity as he extended one hand toward her.
“Karrnathi myths and legends,” she answered, handing him the book. “Seemed interesting. Pherris didn’t have anything for me to do, Gerith is off exploring, and Dalan has locked himself in his chambers again.”
“Careful with that book, please; it was my mother’s,” Tristam said, gently kicking her feet off the chair and sitting down. “So you just invited yourself into my cabin, then?”
“Not the first time a man’s been surprised to find me in his room. But surely the first time he’s complained.”
Tristam looked at her with blank surprise and even Omax glanced up from the book.
“That’s a joke,” she said, rolling her eyes at them. “My cabin is depressing. It’s so empty. When I gathered all my things out of that hole where I lived in Wroat, there was almost nothing. Just some clothes, some tools, some broken furniture I’d taken from someone’s garbage. I was actually glad to leave most of it behind. My room is like someone’s closet now. It doesn’t feel like a home. Sorry I intruded, Tristam.”
“Apology accepted,” he said. “Now get your dirty shoes off my bed.”
She laughed, kicking her heavy shoes onto the floor.
“I hope you didn’t touch any of this,” Tristam said. He began fidgeting over his table, checking the various vials, crystals, and reagents.
“I know better than to mess with a wizard’s experiments,” she said.
Tristam peered back at her. For the first time since he caught her
in his room, he looked truly annoyed. He returned his attention to his work with a sigh.
“Tristam is not a wizard,” Omax said, folding the book closed and handing it carefully back to Seren. “A wizard merely manipulates the forces of magic. An artificer gives magic form, life, and persistence. They are as much different as a poet and a sculptor. Both are masters of their respective art but the results are not comparable.”
“I see,” Seren said. “So what about Zed Arthen? Is he an artificer as well?”
“Arthen?” Tristam said, giving her an incredulous look. “Khyber, no. Arthen is nothing, just a washed-up exile. A former Knight of Thrane who fancies himself an inquisitive.”
“Then why do we need his help?” Seren asked.
“Because Zed knew old Ashrem,” Tristam said. “Ashrem had a habit of taking in strays, and ‘Sir’ Zed was a member of Karia Naille’s crew for a while. They shared a weird penchant for riddles and code, the same fascination that makes Ashrem’s books nearly impossible to read.”
The homunculus took the storybook from Seren, carefully opened it to the page she had been reading before, set it down beside her, and returned to its place on her lap. She stroked the clay creature’s head absently and frowned as she turned over Tristam’s revelations in her mind. If Zed really knew so much, why hadn’t their mysterious rival, Marth, hunted Arthen down as he hunted all of Ashrem’s other colleagues?
“If Zed knows so much about Ashrem’s codes, why didn’t Dalan hire him earlier?” Seren asked.
“Who says he didn’t?” Tristam asked.
She thought back to Zed’s arrival on the ship. Pherris had seemed to know Arthen, though he only nodded in greeting and returned to his work. She remembered the odd look of reflection, the sense of peace and serenity that she had seen in Arthen’s face the instant he stepped aboard. It had only lasted for a moment before Dalan called the inquisitive to his cabin. She only saw him briefly later, hurrying back off the ship early the next morning, returning to his home in the village.
“Four days,” Tristam grumbled, setting a glass vial down so hard she heard glass crack. “Four days that traitor’s been studying that lens. Dalan even gave him one of Ashrem’s encoded journals so he could try to break the cipher. The Host only knows what he’s done with them by now, or if he’s even still in Black Pit. He could be in Wroat by now for all we know.”
“Not without an airship,” Seren said.
“Don’t underestimate him,” Tristam retorted. “I wouldn’t put it past Arthen to hit the local speaker’s station. The speakers can send a message anywhere. He could arrange for a ship to come pick him up. An airship could sneak in under the cover of the forest, drop a ladder, pick him up, and we’d never know.”
“Or he could board that ship across the street,” Omax said, nodding toward the porthole.
Seren and Tristam looked through the porthole simultaneously, out at the darkened streets of Black Pit. A sleek red airship, half again the size of Karia Naille, now hovered in port at the opposite sky tower. A proud kraken crest was emblazoned upon the hull.
“That’s one of House Lyrandar’s,” Tristam said.
“Another dragonmarked house?” Seren said. “Are the Lyrandar after the Legacy too?”
“I doubt they’d care, if they even knew about it,” Tristam said. “The Lyrandar are neutral by nature, merchants and sailors. That’s a charter ship.”
“Then anyone could be onboard,” Seren said. She set the homunculus aside and moved closer to the window for a better look. The little construct closed the book and carefully placed it back on the shelf, sitting down beside it as an improvised bookend.
“It has been docked all evening,” Omax said.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Tristam asked.
“It is night,” the construct said. “The city is dangerous at night. I feared you might do something rash.”
“We’d better go check this out,” Tristam said, rising from his seat and reaching for his jacket.
“My point exactly,” Omax said dryly. The warforged rose with a weary metal creak.
“What do you plan to do, Tristam?” Seren asked. “Sneak onto the ship?”
“No,” he said. “I plan to find Arthen. I’m willing to bet he’s meeting with whoever came in on that ship.”
“You have no idea where he is,” Seren said. “You haven’t been in the village since we found him.”
“But I can track him,” Tristam said. “The same way I tracked you, Seren. If he’s carrying that lens, I can find him.”
Omax folded his metal arms across his chest and looked down at Tristam. “You truly believe you could put a magical tracking device on Zed Arthen and he would not discover and dispose of it?”
“He’d better not have disposed of it,” Tristam said, smirking up at Omax before he pulled his jacket over his shoulders and left the cabin. “It’s the damned lens.”
“You enchanted the lens?” Omax asked, impressed. “You only had it for a moment.”
“And I know Dalan,” Tristam said. “I wanted to be able to find it again if I needed to, and knew I might not have another chance. Now let’s go find him.”
Omax looked at Seren. She imagined she saw a long-suffering look in his mechanical eyes. The construct certainly seemed more human the longer she was around him. “Please help me keep him alive,” he said quietly.
Seren nodded and hopped off the bed, kicking her oversized shoes onto her feet. Something about what Tristam said bothered her, though she couldn’t quite figure out what it was just yet. The two followed Tristam into the hallway. He was already in the cargo bay, opening the lower bay doors and gathering a rope ladder.
“Shouldn’t we wait until morning?” Seren asked.
“What better time to meet secretly with someone in a place like this than when everyone else is hiding in their houses?” Tristam asked. “Besides, remember what Arthen said. One out of twenty days it might be dangerous—and I feel lucky. Besides, Omax can protect us.”
“I am flattered, Tristam,” Omax said, with perhaps a hint of sarcasm.
“Pardon me, Master Xain,” said a stern voice from above. “What is it that you are doing there?”
The trio looked up to see Captain Gerriman standing at the top of the deck ladder. He glared down at them, fists fixed imperiously upon his hips. Though he was half their height, Seren could not help but feel somewhat embarrassed and intimidated by the tiny captain’s outrage.
Tristam stuttered for a moment before answering. “We’re going into the village, Captain,” he said quietly, not meeting Pherris’s eyes.
Pherris looked over his shoulder, toward Dalan’s cabin, then glared back at them. “Without your captain’s permission?”
“We thought you might disapprove,” Tristam said.
“Oh, I might!” Pherris said. “And one might think that you should wish to seek my approval or lack thereof, considering that I am in fact the captain of this ship! Now. The reasons for your departure are irrelevant. I can easily guess what they are, and thus your excuses are of no interest to me. Could you answer one question for me, Master Xain?”
Tristam nodded.
“How did you plan to raise that ladder back up after the three of you had climbed down?” he asked. “Or did you plan to leave it dangling there so that any manner of demon or thief could climb onto my ship?”
“I thought maybe Omax would pull it back up and jump down unharmed?” Tristam asked.
Omax laughed.
“I’ve seen you take worse,” Tristam said, “and I can fix you.”
“And I can make a fine splint and tourniquet,” Pherris said acidly. “By your logic, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind Omax breaking your arm.”
Tristam looked at Omax. The warforged seemed to grin. Seren had to work very hard to restrain a laugh.
“And this is not even to consider that Master Dalan will be most displeased when he finds you’ve left without his knowledge,” Pherris sai
d.
Tristam looked up at Pherris now, his nervous confusion suddenly gone. “Dalan made a mistake trusting Zed Arthen, Captain,” he said. “I have to fix it, or everything we’ve done will have been for nothing.”
Pherris looked at Tristam steadily for a long time, then nodded and stroked his moustache with one hand. “Very well,” he said, hopping down into the hold. “Climb on down. I’ll pull up the ladder.”
Tristam looked at Pherris, confused. “But …”
“Do not question the Captain’s orders,” Omax said, resting a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder.
The gnome cackled and waved them toward the ladder. Tristam climbed down first. By the time Seren landed beside him, he had already drawn his sword and wand. The wand shimmered with white light, illuminating the road around them. She quickly pushed his arm down, covering the wand with his cloak.
“Put that away,” she whispered. “The light will just draw anything that’s sees us. The starlight is enough to get by.”
Tristam looked about to argue.
“Are you going to tell me how to sneak around, Tristam?” she asked.
Tristam shrugged and put the wand away.
“Can you sense the lens?” she asked him, looking up at the Lyrandar airship.
Tristam nodded. “It isn’t on that ship, at least.” He pointed toward the northern end of town with his sword. “It’s that way, somewhere. I can narrow it down if we get closer.”
A heavy thud sounded beside them, causing Tristam and Seren both to jump. Omax rose to his full height again, having jumped down without the ladder, and chuckled.
“I thought you said the fall would damage you,” Tristam said.
“I said it might,” Omax said. “It’s your fault for making me curious.”
“I thought it was against a monk’s vows to frighten people,” Tristam said, smoothing his coat over his chest with one hand.
