by Matt Forbeck
"The spirits balance the scales in strange ways,” Monja said with a shrug. She grasped the changeling’s shoulder. "Can you still contact Espre?”
Te’oma nodded. "Doesn’t that mean I’ll be saving your life again?”
Monja smirked. "Don’t fool yourself. You’re saving your own skin this time. I’m just along for the ride.”
"They’re alive!” Espre said.
Kandler let out a sigh of relief. The girl had been walking around on knives, hoping for some kind of contact from Te’oma. She’d paced the length of the ship countless times, nearly in tears. Only when she’d frozen in her tracks had Kandler held out any hope.
The justicar’s cynical side told him that Monja was dead and that Te’oma had probably run off at the first sign of the assassins—assuming she hadn’t brought them here in the first place. If that had been the case, maybe she’d just hovered overhead until she saw the killers get slaughtered and then flown away.
Not a small part of him wished the changeling gone forever. True, she’d helped them track down Espre and even to defeat the dragon, but she’d also stolen the girl from his home in the first place and just about destroyed Mardakine—a village he’d helped found—in the process. He didn’t think he could ever forgive her for that, much less forget.
"Both of them?” Burch asked, rushing up the gangplank. After dispatching the hidden assassin, he’d made a point of sweeping the area for any others who might be hiding, and he’d pressed Krangel and his fellow dwarves into that service.
The white-haired host of the inn had apologized a dozen times over for the failure of his lookouts. When word had come back that those dwarves were missing from their posts, though, no one had any doubt what had happened to them. A few of the dwarves had wailed at the loss, and more than that number had shot murderous looks at their guests, blaming them no doubt for their friends’ misfortune.
Espre nodded at the shifter. "They’re on a shelf way down the wall.”
"Is it stable?” Kandler asked. "Can they hold on for a while? ”
Espre’s eyes unfocused for a moment, then she nodded again. "They’re well, although they want us to come for them as soon as we can.
Kandler wrapped an arm around his stepdaughter and gave her a hug. "Just as soon as we’re ready,” he said. He shouted for Krangel.
The dwarf poked his head out of the inn’s front door and scowled at Kandler. "What?”
"How fast can you get us loaded up?”
The dwarf’s face split in a tight grin.
Chapter
10
Forget Aerenal," Kandler said. "We’re going straight to Argonnessen.”
The others stared at him. Sallah, Espre, and Monja gaped at him. Even Xalt’s jaw dropped. Duro grinned as he thumbed the edge of his axe.
Kandler couldn’t read Te’oma’s face at all, but if changelings were good at anything it was hiding their true selves. Even if he thought he could have picked up on how his words made her feel, he couldn’t have trusted his assessment.
Burch didn’t say a word. He just spat on the ground. From long experience, Kandler knew that meant the shifter was with him, whether he thought they were heading in the right direction or not.
"That’s madness!” Sallah said. "You can’t possibly be serious.”
"You want to sail straight into an entire continent full of dragons?” Monja said.
"It’s the stuff of legends,” Duro said. "Bards will sing of our deeds for generations to come!”
"Assuming we don’t all get killed,” Sallah said, shaking her head. "Who will sing a dirge for us if none survive to tell the tale?”
"Maybe the dragons will make up a song about us,” Burch said, smiling.
"It’ll be called, 'What I Had for Dinner,’ ” said Monja, who didn’t smile at all.
Xalt stared at Kandler with his unblinking ebony eyes. "Why have you changed your mind?” he asked. "Would we not have a better chance against the dragons if we had the help of the Undying Court?”
Kandler looked down at the body of one of the assassins. Burch had hauled it up on to the bridge so that they could all take part in the discussion, even Espre who had taken the wheel when they’d left Durviska behind. Kandler had wanted Sallah or Monja at the wheel, but Espre had pointed out that, since she was in telepathic contact with Te’oma, she was the best choice. He’d had to agree.
As the dwarves toted the new supplies on to the Phoenix, they’d also brought the bodies of the assassins along and deposited them on the deck. "Consider it a way to repay the discount I’m giving you,” Krangel had said.
Kandler could only agree to that too. The crew of the Phoenix didn’t have a great deal of gold among them and little else to barter with. Krangel had given them a good deal on enough supplies to take them to the southern shores of Khorvaire, which would have to be enough for now.
Besides, Kandler had wanted to get a better look at the killers. He pointed down at the corpse on the bridge now. The blank eyes of the assassin he’d stabbed in the neck stared up at the open sky. Kandler reached down and removed the body’s gray hood.
Under the fabric, the corpse had a shaved head that— like his face—had been tattooed with white inks and darker
shadings to resemble a bleached skull. The ears stood up straight and proud and bore fine points on their tops. "Elves,” Sallah said. "Are they one and all?”
Kandler glanced at Espre and saw that she’d taken one hand from the wheel to feel the tops of her own ears. They bore points just like those on the corpse.
"They’re Stillborn,” Burch said from where he’d perched on the bridge’s rear railing.
"Look like adults to me,” Duro said, tugging at the roots of his beard.
"It’s a cult,” Burch said, "made up of a bunch of young elves who think waiting to die takes too long. They want to take the short path to the most elite club in elf society: the Undying Court.”
"They’d rather be dead than alive?” Espre said.
Monja looked up at Kandler. "Haven’t you taught this girl anything about her heritage?”
Blood rose into Kandler’s cheeks. "Her mother came with her to Khorvaire when Espre was just an infant. She knows about elf ways, but . . .” He looked Espre wistfully.
Should he have taught her the ways of elves? When Esprina had been alive, he hadn’t worried about such things, and since then such things hadn’t seemed all that important. Carving out a life on the edge of the Mournland had always taken precedent over running through the details of distant land filled with people who hadn’t seemed to care about them at all.
"I know about the Undying Court,” Espre said. "It’s just, well, why would anyone be in a hurry to die? To me, that’s one of the best parts about being an elf: the long life you can expect, unless something horrible happens to you.”
Kandler could tell her mother had crossed her mind with those words. These days, so many things weighed so heavily on the girl. She reminded him of those months right after Esprina had died. She’d been so morose he had wondered if she’d die of a broken heart as well.
Caring for Espre during those dark days had been the one thing that had kept Kandler going. If she hadn’t been there, he probably would have fallen into an abyss of despair himself. Her needs, her grief, had burned so much hotter than his own, and he’d used that as the light he’d needed to guide them both out of the darkness. If not for her and the never-shaken support of Burch, he might have lain down and died himself.
"Elves hope to ascend to the Undying Court when they die,” Burch said. "That’s the ultimate power for them, and they only get it after a lifetime of service to their people.” He spat at the corpse, and his spittle landed in the open eyes. "These clowns think the world owes them a shortcut.”
The shifter swiveled his head to focus his yellow eyes on Te’oma. "I hear they’re in bed with Vol.”
The changeling squirmed when she realized everyone was staring at her. "I’ve heard that too,” she said, "b
ut I don’t know that it’s true. Vol rarely did more than give me orders. I didn’t know many of her others servants outside of Tan Du and his crew.”
Xalt stepped into Te’oma’s face. She flinched away from his stony eyes. "Did you bring them here?” he asked, voicing the question on everyone else’s mind.
Te’oma’s pale pink tongue licked her thin, white lips. She seemed ready to bolt, and Kandler tensed, hoping he could strike her down before her wings carried her away.
"No,” Te’oma said. "I’ve quit the Lich Queen. I want nothing more than to kill her. Since there’s little chance of that, I’ll go for the next best thing.”
"Which is what?”
The changeling’s white-eyed gaze fell on Espre, who shivered in it.
"Keeping from her the thing she wants most. If I can’t be her killer, I’ll settle for being her spoiler.”
Kandler put a hand on Espre’s shoulder. "This just makes me more sure. We can’t go to Aerenal. If Vol can send so many Stillborn assassins to find us in the middle of nowhere, we wouldn’t last a moment in the elf homeland.” Burch nodded. "Chances of finding help there weren’t much anyhow—even if we got an audience with the Undying Court.”
"Now you’re against that plan?” Sallah asked, exasperated. "Why did you side with it before?”
Burch bared his teeth in what Kandler hoped was a smile. Sometimes with the shifter it was hard to tell—on purpose. "I stand with my friends.”
Sallah’s face flushed with anger at this. "Are you implying that I have anything than the best interests of Kandler and Espre at heart? ” Her hand rested on the pommel of her sword. Kandler wondered if it might burst into flames right in its scabbard with her so infuriated.
"Let’s just say I’m less conflicted. I don’t have a god I answer to.”
Kandler winced at the comment, then stepped forward and put his hand on Sallah’s. She had her sword halfway out of its scabbard.
"I’ve gone through too much here—lost far too much—for anyone to question my loyalties.”
Sallah shoved her blade back into its scabbard and tore her hand away from Kandler’s. "As much as I care for you and your daughter, I can’t watch you do this,” she said to him. "I can’t just sit here while you sail off through the sky with her toward certain death.”
"I’m all she has in the world,” Kandler said, angling his head around so he could look into Sallah’s eyes. "I have to do what I think is best for her.”
Sallah brought her head up and glared at him. "How could you possibly think that taking a young girl into the dragon homeland is what’s best for her?”
Kandler started to speak, but then shut his mouth. He’d had doubts of his own about this course of action, but he didn’t see any better choice. He knew that Espre’s dragon-mark would only grow stronger as time progressed, and the people who wanted to control her for it would only become more desperate and bold.
"She has to take a stand sometime,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even and low.
"Then let it be in Thrane,” Sallah said, clasping her hands around Kandler’s. "The Silver Flame will protect her. We knights can keep her from harm.”
Burch opened his mouth but Kandler shut him up with a stern glance.
"That would only bring the troubles to Flamekeep,” Kandler said. "We have to do this. We can’t wait for the troubles to come to us, to fight us on their terms. We need to set the conditions of the contest ourselves, not let them do it for us.” He looked deep into Sallah’s eyes. "Espre is an elf. She’ll outlive me by hundreds of years. I only have a short time in which I can help her. We have to take matters into our own hands, and we have to do it now.”
Sallah dropped Kandler’s hands and stepped away from him. "Very well,” she said. "You go ahead and get yourself and your girl killed on your terms. I won’t stay to watch it. When this airship next lands, I’m getting off.”
Chapter
11
Battlefield romances never last anyhow,” Monja said, clapping Kandler on the butt. He nearly leaped over the railing in surprise.
The justicar had been wrapped in thought, and the others had chosen to give him his space as he watched the sunset, considering everything that had happened since the day the Knights of the Silver Flame had come to Mardakine. It now seemed so long ago. So much had happened since then.
Kandler arched an eyebrow down at the halfling, who winked up at him and patted the decking next to her. "Sit on down here and tell Monja all your problems,” she said with a smile.
Kandler searched that look for some hint of sarcasm, but she seemed sincere. He let himself down next to her and grimaced at her. "I thought shamans only dealt with religious matters.”
Monja snorted. "Out in the Talenta Plains, we all ride many different mounts. Shamans serve as healers, leaders, counselors, even cooks. You should try my roast beetles.”
"I think I’ll pass.”
Monja patted Kandler on the knee. "She would have left you eventually,” she said. "You know that.”
Kandler shook his head. "I guess I didn’t.”
"A Knight of the Silver Flame? Setting up a tent with a Brelish spy?”
"Agent of the Citadel, and I gave all that up years ago.” "Are the knights even allowed? Don’t they have some sort of vows of chastity?”
Kandler stared back across the length of the airship at Sallah, who stood behind the wheel. Her crimson hair whipped behind her in the rushing wind as the airship sailed south, toward the sea. Her eyes blazed with the light of the dying sun.
"I hope not,” he said.
He hadn’t considered the question before, and now, he realized, he might never have a chance to learn the answer. Sallah had kept away from him since storming off, not an easy trick on a craft the size of the Phoenix, but she had managed it.
"Not a lot of pretty girls where you come from?” Kandler laughed, despite his sour mood. "Not many,” he said. "I think Espre’s beautiful, of course, but I’m biased.” His gaze shifted to where she and Xalt and Duro huddled together near the port rail.
They had nothing on the ship to use for a cookfire, and Espre had wanted a hot meal. Xalt had managed to rig up a long wooden arm, which he’d stabbed through a hunk of beef they’d gotten from the dwarves in Gaptown. He stood now with his arm extended, holding the steak as close to the airship’s elemental ring of fire as he dared, and it had already started to brown.
As Kandler watched, the ring of fire flared angrily at the warforged, engulfing the food. Xalt drew back the flaming food instantly and blew out the flames with a blast of air from his lungs. This set Espre to nearly hysterical giggling, and for the first time in a long while Kandler saw her happy.
"She reminds me so much of her mother,” Kandler said.
"What about Sallah?”
Kandler shook his head. "They’re nothing alike. You wouldn’t have caught Esprina dead in a temple. She was the most even-tempered person I’d ever met. Sometimes . . .”
He wondered why he felt compelled to tell Monja anything. Had she worked some kind of spell upon him? He hadn’t known her all that long, but maybe that was the reason he felt he could unburden himself on her. That, and the fact that she’d asked for it.
"Sometimes she’d look at me, and there was this horrible sadness in her eyes. I just knew it came from the fact that she thought she’d live on for hundreds of years after I died. To her, loving me must have seemed like trying to hold on to summer. Eventually you know autumn has to come, but you ignore it as long as you can and try to enjoy the best days of the year the most you can.”
"And that’s different from how Sallah looks at you?’
Kandler shook his head. "No. That part’s exactly the same.”
Her belly full of scorched beef eaten from the tip of a sword, Espre wandered over to where Kandler sat chatting with Burch. She’d been dreading this for some time, but she didn’t see that waiting to take care of it would make it anything but worse.
The su
n had long since set, and the night would have been crisp, cool, and filled with stars and moons had it not been for the ring of fire that kept the airship aloft and had cooked her meal so well. As it was, she could make out a few of the constellations out beyond the ship’s prow, off toward the southern horizon, and the heat from the ring of fire forced the chill far away.
"Hey,” Kandler said as Espre came closer. "You get enough to eat?”
She nodded and rubbed her belly. "I’m sure I’ve had better, but I can’t remember when.”
"Leave any for us?” Burch said, licking his lips.
Espre felt mortified. "I’m sorry,” she said, happy that with the ring of fire to her rear her face was shrouded in shadow. "I didn’t think—”
"Relax,” Burch grinned. "I’m only joking. I can see from here that Xalt’s already got another steak on that stick of his.”
"I’m sure it will be even better than the first,” Espre said. "He’s a fast learner.”
"What’s on your mind?” Kandler said.
"Does anything have to be on my mind?”
Kandler smirked. "I know you, Espre. Don’t try to hide who you are, not from me.”
The fact that Kandler knew her so well frustrated Espre, and at the same time, it comforted her. It felt good to realize that there were people in her life who had been around her enough to know how to read her intentions, her moods.
"I—I just wanted to say that I think we’re doing the right thing.”
Kandler’s smile shed as much warmth as the ring of fire. "Thanks,” he said. "That means more to me than you could probably know.”
"I just . . she started. Then she stopped and took a deep breath. She wanted this to come out right.
"Yes?”
"I just don’t know if I need everyone to come with me on this—this . .
"Quest?” said Kandler.
"Suicide mission?” said Burch.
"Whatever. I just don’t see what good having a lot of people with me will serve. I’ll be facing down a horde of dragons, right? All together we barely managed to kill one dragon.”
