by James Wyatt
“You thought I was trying to manipulate you.”
Cart nodded.
“Isn’t it funny?” she said, looking away. “We get so used to deception that we see it everywhere.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“I don’t blame you. You trust me now?”
“You took my side against members of your own House.”
Ashara smiled up at him, all warmth and affection. “You were in the right.”
They walked together around the perimeter of the camp until the second watch of the night.
The excavation progressed quickly. The miners extended the head of the canyon from the top down, slowly revealing the bluish crystal, like a great glass monolith jutting up from the ground and leaning out into the canyon. Cart began to worry that if they cleared the stone around it all the way to the canyon floor, it would topple forward, but Ashara assured him that it extended at that angle deep into the earth, far deeper than they would dig.
As more and more of the crystal came into view, Cart started thinking he saw movement within it. At times it seemed like a faint light shifting inside, at other times like a dark smear. He tried to get a clear look, but it seemed to resist his gaze, vanishing into the azure depths as soon as he fixed his eyes on it. He hated it, somehow-looking at it made him inexplicably angry.
He wasn’t alone in feeling perturbed by the crystal. Arguments broke out more often among the workers and soldiers, sometimes escalating into violence. As Cart broke up the fights, he had to keep a tight rein on his own anger to make sure he didn’t injure the people he was trying to calm. Energy flagged, work on the excavation slowed dramatically, and the night was filled with the moans and whimpers of tortured dreams.
“Do you feel it, too, Cart?” Ashara asked. They stood together, looking up at the crystal from the greatest distance possible as the crimson sun of another day sank below the horizon.
“Anger, unease. At least I’m spared the nightmares.”
“Be grateful.”
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“It’s them.” She pointed to the crystal. “The Secret Keeper and the Messenger.”
“The imprisoned fiend?” Cart said.
“And the spirit that binds it. They’re both angry. The Messenger fears that we’ll release the fiend, and the Secret Keeper is furious that we haven’t done so yet. I think it also suspects what we actually plan to do.”
“Which is what?”
“You don’t know?”
“Haldren only tells me what he needs me to know.”
“They’re going to power the Dragon Forge. They’re the enormous knot of magical power our artificers will tap. And we think we can do it without breaking the bonds that hold them.”
“You think? What if you’re wrong?”
“If we’re wrong, it will be disastrous. So we can’t be wrong.”
Cart felt tired. Not in his body-muscle fatigue was alien to his construct body. But his mind was weary, sick of the schemes and plans and ambition. He shook his head.
“I hope you’re right,” he said.
The situation grew bad enough that Haldren got involved. He put his own force of personality to work to counteract the influence of the imprisoned spirits and even used magic to soothe the emotions of the soldiers and workers. The pace of the work increased again and fewer fights broke out, but the nights still seemed disturbed. Cart circled the camp while the soldiers slept in shifts, and the things he heard made him jump at shadows in the dark-fevered whispers and fearful whimpers, soft groans and sudden shouts.
Cart walked in his own nightmare, though his body needed no sleep. Shadows seemed to stalk at the edges of his vision, shapeless figures lurking behind corners or flitting across the sky. At times he wheeled to confront an approaching attacker, sure he’d seen the flash of steel in the darkness, but he found nothing. Whispered voices nagged at the limit of his hearing, wordless murmurs that seemed to threaten pain and destruction. All the soldiers, miners, and artificers he passed on his patrols looked suspicious or actively hostile until Cart fixed his eyes on their faces.
Disaster struck on the ninth day after Kelas’s arrival. A miner’s pick struck exactly the wrong place, as far as Cart could determine afterward, and a sheet of rock split away from the crystal beneath. Its collapsing weight caused a landslide that swept away the scaffolding and buried a dozen workers under a cairn of boulders. Cart felt the earth rumble, saw the rock begin to crumble, watched workers fall and then disappear beneath the rocks, but before he crossed three paces toward the scaffold it was over. A cloud of dust hung like a stormcloud over the ruin left behind.
He was thunderstruck. As he stared at the wreckage, though, a movement in the crystal caught his eye-the black smear within seemed to grow, or to surge to the surface. For a moment he thought he saw the shape of enormous hands pressed against the glass of the crystal column. He heard a sound like the beat of a muffled drum, quiet but clear, and a howl arose in answer-then another, then a chorus of faraway howls, as though the worgs were responding to a distant call. There could not have been many worgs left in the canyon, but they must have all joined that sinister choir.
Cart saw soldiers he knew as brave and battle-hardened fall to their knees and cover their heads, crying out in prayer or despair. Others just sank to their knees in silence, overwhelmed by the combination of grievous loss and the possibility of a renewed assault. He knew he should take command, get the soldiers doing something-anything-to get their mind off the cries of the wolves and dealing with the disaster at hand. But he was as frozen as the others.
Kelas emerged, took stock of the situation, and began giving orders. He sent soldiers to the palisade, to prepare for another worg attack. Miners and more soldiers started picking through the rubble, hoping against hope to find any survivors, and others carried the rubble away to fortify the palisade.
Kelas was no more forgiving than Haldren when a soldier, overwhelmed with grief and horror, walked away from her work for a moment or fell to his knees at the discovery of a comrade’s crushed body. There was work to be done-work that would take their minds off the horror.
CHAPTER 27
The dragons came one at a time into the presence of Malathar the Damned, dragon-king of Rav Magar. Copper Aggrand flew to a high window in the audience chamber and perched there like a dragonet, and black Surrun wormed his way in through a small back passage. A red dragon, Yavvaran, strode through the main entrance like nobility, shoving the dragonborn guards aside. Green Forrenel, last to arrive, came along a higher passage to appear at an arch ten feet above the floor.
When they were all present, Malathar turned his skeletal head to let his gaze fall over each in turn.
“I sent Vaneshtra ahead to prepare our way,” he said. The silver dragon had been his messenger to Kelas ir’Darran, the human who dared build the Dragon Forge.
“The bronze is dead,” Yavvaran announced. He was too bold. His tone was a challenge.
“Yes.” Vaskar had been a fool.
“The Time of the Dragon Above draws to a close.” The high voice was Aggrand.
“Our time has already begun,” Malathar said. He stretched his wings, fingers of bone linked by tatters of desiccated skin. “The first blood is shed.”
All the dragons showed their surprise, except Yavvaran-too proud by far. Aggrand even gasped.
“Three drops of blood mark the passing of the Time Between,” Malathar whispered.
Forrenel was first to pick up the chant. “The three dragons are joined together in the blood.”
Aggrand joined in as well. “And the blood contains the power of creation.” Yavvaran grumbled the last four words.
Malathar silenced them all with a hiss. “One drop is shed where the Dragon Above pierces the Dragon Below, the Eye stabs at the Heart.”
“What has happened?” Aggrand asked. “What blood was shed?”
“The Storm Dragon found the Eye of Siberys and
used it to pierce the heart of the Soul Reaver, the Heart of Khyber.”
“But the blood-what about the blood?” Aggrand was so enthusiastic, so excitable. A useful trait at times, but more often irksome.
“The Eye passed through the Storm Dragon’s hand when it pierced the Heart,” Malathar said.
Forrenel repeated the Prophecy. “One drop is shed where the Dragon Above pierces the Dragon Below, the Eye stabs at the Heart.”
Even Yavvaran spoke the next words with the others-“Blood joins them, and so begins the Time Between.”
“One drop unites Eberron with the Dragon Below,” Malathar said. The others waited in breathless expectation. “Blood is drawn from a serpent binding the spawn of Khyber and the fiend that is bound. Bound they remain, but their power flows forth in the blood.”
“The Dragon Forge,” Forrenel said.
“One drop unites Eberron with the Dragon Above. The touch of Siberys’s hand passes from flesh to stone, held within the drop of Eberron’s blood.”
“You have found the Siberys mark,” Yavvaran said.
Malathar glared at him, and the red dragon actually stepped back from the baleful magic of the undead dragon’s burning eyes. He would have the satisfaction of announcing his triumph. “I have found the Siberys mark,” he said.
For a moment Gaven thought he was in Dreadhold and his taste of freedom had all been one fevered dream. He lay in a stone cell, crumpled on the floor where his captors had thrown him. There was no bunk, no furnishing of any kind. A high window let in some feeble light, but shadows pooled in the corners of the room and closed in around him.
He ran a hand over the bumps on his head, still tender, and slowly the events of his capture came back to him. Lissa had betrayed him-but why? Why bother winning his trust at all? And Rienne-the dragonborn hadn’t seemed to have any interest in her. That suggested to him that either his facility with Draconic or his dragonmark had drawn their attention, and he strongly suspected it wasn’t his language skills.
Gaven got to his feet, aching in every joint, and stumbled to the door. It was windowless and almost perfectly joined to the wall. He sagged against it and turned to take in the whole cell. He could touch the walls on either side by stretching out his arms, and the far wall was only three paces away. A blast of lightning might knock the door open, he reasoned, so he stepped forward.
Before he reached the opposite wall, the shadows took shape. A slender man loomed in the corner where no one had been a moment before, then he emerged to face Gaven. The shadows seemed to cling to his long, dark hair and black clothing, contrasting with his pale skin. His long, pointed ears and high cheekbones marked him as an elf, but his eyes were lifeless pools of darkness. The Mark of Shadow began on his cheek, ran down his neck, and disappeared beneath his leather armor.
“Welcome to Rav Magar, Gaven,” the elf said. “I have waited a long time for the privelege of meeting you.”
Gaven didn’t move. The elf was either a Thuranni or a Phiarlan, and either way he had good reason to hate the man who had helped orchestrate the schism between the two dragonmarked Houses. He fully expected a knife to appear in the elf’s hand.
“I am Phaine d’Thuranni,” the elf continued. He watched Gaven’s face closely-did he expect Gaven to recognize his name? Or did he expect some reaction to meeting a Thuranni?
“What’s a Thuranni doing in Argonnessen?” Gaven said, still on his guard.
“One might ask the same about a Lyrandar. Or perhaps not, when the Lyrandar is an excoriate and a fugitive. You thought you could hide here, did you? Safe from all pursuit?”
“Pursuit? Are you telling me you followed me here from Khorvaire? Just to put me back in Dreadhold?”
Phaine chuckled, and Gaven’s eyes dropped to the elf’s hands again.
“You’re going to kill me, then?” Gaven asked. “Get your revenge for what I did to your House?”
“I will kill you-eventually. But not until I’ve seen you suffer. And not until you’ve played your part in this drama.”
Gaven felt blood rush to his face in anger. “My destiny is in my own hands, Thuranni. I won’t be manipulated.”
“Tell me that again when you’ve found your way out of this cell.” As he spoke, Phaine faded into the shadows again. His mocking grin and cruel black eyes were the last to disappear.
Too late, Gaven lunged at him, but his hands hit the wall. Wheeling in frustration, he let a blast of lightning flow through his body to the door. It hit with a resounding crash, scouring the stone wall, spraying gravel in all directions, and rebounding to course harmlessly through his body. The door didn’t move. He slid down the wall to sit on the floor, his dragonmark stinging and fury burning in his chest.
In fits of rage, he blasted the door and the walls with lightning until he collapsed in exhaustion. He slammed his fists against the door until they left trails of blood along the stone. He summoned a wind to lift him up to the window, but he found it barred with adamantine that proved as resistant to his lightning as the door was. He slept only moments at a time, propped in a corner or curled on the stone floor. He stood poised, waiting for the door to open so he could blast his way out.
The door didn’t open. Out of either fear or cruelty, his captors gave him neither food nor drink, and he didn’t see another guard after Phaine’s brief appearance. Phaine had said he wasn’t interested in killing him, but after what must have been four or five days, Gaven sat in the corner-arms limp at his side, legs splayed out in front of him, eyes half-closed. If the door had opened, he couldn’t have responded except perhaps to beg for water.
Rienne seemed to step through the door then. Lines of concern creased her lovely face, and she fell to her knees beside him.
“Oh, Gaven,” she said. “Please don’t leave.”
“I didn’t mean to, Ree.” His throat was parched, and his voice was little more than a harsh croak.
She cupped his cheek in her hand, but he couldn’t feel anything. “You need to stay alive, love.”
“Why?”
“You have to save the world, remember? That’s why we came here.”
“I could have been immortal, Ree. I could’ve stepped into the Crystal Spire and been a god. Do you know why I didn’t?”
“Tell me.”
“Because of you, Ree. I wanted to be with you.”
Tears streamed down her face, and she clutched him to her. “So don’t leave now. I love you.”
He still couldn’t feel her touch. “You’re not really here, are you?” he murmured, his eyes drooping.
“No, love. You’re all alone.”
A dragonborn stood in the open door, and Gaven waited for his latest hallucination to deliver its message. Chains rattled in her hands, and she stepped close, cautiously, to clap a manacle on Gaven’s wrist. When he didn’t move, she rolled him over and pulled his arms behind him, binding his hands together. A longer chain went on his ankles, then Lissa tried to pull him to his feet. He couldn’t stand.
She breathed a hiss or a sigh from the corners of her mouth. “Stop the river, and the city will fall,” she said. “Perhaps we let the siege go on too long, but we thought you a worthy and dangerous foe.” She lifted him over one shoulder. “We couldn’t risk your escape.”
Gaven’s head turned enough as she walked to give him a vague sense of stone halls, dimly lit with oil lamps, but mostly he saw her back or closed his eyes, expecting at any moment to wake up in his cell.
Lissa set him down on his feet, but he slumped back to the floor-smooth, polished marble, rich black laced with veins of purest white. He saw Lissa drop down beside him, pressing her face to the floor.
“He is weak.” The voice sounded like bones rubbing together, a whisper.
Lissa raised her head only slightly, still facing the floor. “He has been denied food and water for six days,” she said. “We had to be sure he would not try to escape.”
“There certainly seems to be no risk of that.”
&nbs
p; Gaven tried to raise his head to see the one speaking, but he couldn’t.
“Is he strong enough to endure the Dragon Forge?” the whisper asked.
Lissa brought her face lower again. “I fear he is not.”
“My lord.” Another whispery voice, this one familiar-the Thuranni. It took Gaven a moment to remember his name and his face. Phaine. “If I may be so bold, I suggest that we transport him to the Forge in his weakened state and bring him back to a semblance of health once we arrive.”
“You may not be so bold.” The whisper grated harshly. “You suggest nothing I have not already planned. You will remember your place, randravekk.” Giant-slave-a harsh word recalling the ancient history of the elves among the giants of Xen’drik. Phaine didn’t respond.
The voice grew closer. “Let me see his mark.”
Lissa stood and lifted Gaven to his knees, and he looked for the first time on the dragon-king of Rav Magar. No flesh covered the bones of the enormous dragon, except for tatters of leathery skin between the bones of its wings. Its bones were blackened as though by fire, but deep violet light shone in the grooves of arcane lettering carved into nearly every surface. Purple fire danced in its eye sockets, set deep between two long horns curving forward around its tooth-filled snout.
The skeletal head came close and the burning eyes peered at his neck, his bare chest, and his arm. Gaven’s dragonmark tingled, a faint memory of his agonizing dream. He remembered Rienne’s finger tracing the lines of his mark and the glimpse of his destiny he’d seen.
“Why does the Prophecy mock us so, writing itself on the flesh of these creatures? Is it not defiled when it is written on meat?”
The dragon-king stretched out a bony claw and scratched a bloody line down Gaven’s chest. “No matter,” the dragon said. “The Dragon Forge will purify it.”
CHAPTER 28
Farren led the Ghaash’kala back to Maruk Dar, unerringly choosing a path through the twisted and branching canyons of the Labyrinth. When they neared the city, Aric was surprised to see another band approaching the city from the opposite direction and still another group already inside the walls.
