by James Wyatt
What if I let them take me? she wondered. Will they bring me to Gaven? Then I might not be able to help him, but at least we’ll be together. But what if they don’t?
The guards inched forward around her with wide eyes. Rienne dropped her hands and ran.
The streets of this tier were wide, and no narrower alleys ran between buildings. Unencumbered by armor, she had a speed advantage over the dragonborn, but she kept slowing to avoid colliding with bystanders who stepped into her path and reached their clawed hands to grab at her. For a moment she imagined she felt the wind hurrying her along, as it had when she and Gaven ran through Stormhome, and tears sprang to her eyes again.
She reached a branch where another wide road wound up to the fifth tier, and she sped around the corner, praying to the Sovereigns that she’d find someplace to hide. Instead, less than a hundred paces up the street, she found her path blocked by another group of guards, pointing heavy-bladed polearms at her. She glanced over her shoulder and confirmed that the other soldiers were still behind her. Trapped.
Rienne struggled to quell her panic and quiet her mind, reaching for the still point of energy within. It eluded her. She stopped running, mindful of the positions of both groups of soldiers, closed her eyes, and drew a deep breath. Letting it slowly out through pursed lips, she found her focus, and the still point rippled out through her body. With a sharp burst of breath, she resumed her run. One foot landed on a carved stone dragon by a doorway and she leaped.
She turned once in the air, then landed on her feet on a peaked roof, looking down at the astonished soldiers. Another slow breath, then she turned and ran. She dropped from her perch to another roof, crowning a building on the street where she’d first met the guards. Turning then, she ran up the sloping roofs and down the other side, leaping from building to building without breaking her stride. When she neared the far end of that street, she was confident that she had eluded the guards, and she dropped down into an enclosed garden behind what might have been a temple or another shrine of the Prophecy.
Her hand on Maelstrom’s hilt, she stood silent in the garden, listening for any sign of approaching movement. An emerald green dragonet screeched at her and flew away, and then all was still.
As her pulse slowly calmed to normal, she sat with her back against the smooth stone wall and wept.
For three days, she huddled in the shadows of Rav Magar. She ate from the magic journeybread that had sustained her and Gaven since they made land and wondered what Gaven was eating. She wrapped herself in her silk, trying to cloak her appearance, perhaps pass as a withered and elderly dragonborn shielding her skin from the sun. By day, she slept fitfully in gardens or courtyards, starting awake at every sound. At night, she skulked in the darkness, avoiding any contact with the dragonborn and working her way slowly up to the highest tiers of the city.
Rav Magar was quiet and mysterious at night. In contrast to a busy city like Stormhome or Fairhaven, where any hour of night saw some people about on business, whether legitimate or not, the streets of Rav Magar were all but deserted by a few bells after sundown. The dragonborn marked the onset of night much as they did the dawn, with strange songs and what seemed to be simple household rituals conducted at window-side shrines. Dragonets crowded the air, jostling for the scraps of meat offered to them in these rituals. As the dragonets flew off, satiated, lamps winked out and the city drifted into silence.
In the silent night streets, Rienne drifted as well, thinking of Gaven and staring up at the ten full moons that began to wane as the two others waxed to prominence. Slowly, she navigated the maze of streets to the highest tiers of the city. Only once in three nights of wandering did she encounter another patrol of soldiers. She crouched beside a large dragon statue and watched them pass, drowsy-eyed and completely unaware of her presence.
On the third night, she reached the pinnacle of the city, where the dragon-king’s palace raised its single tower to the sky. Every entrance was a great archway large enough, she realized, for a dragon to pass through. Four entrances opened onto the street, and three more yawned in the walls up the entire tower’s height. She saw dragonborn guards, clad in armor made of blackened bone, posted at all seven arches. Staying to the shadows, she watched the palace for the rest of the day and through the night, noting when the guards switched shifts, observing the few dragon-born who entered and left the palace.
Sneaking in seemed impossible. When the guards changed, there was no lapse in the watch-the guards didn’t leave until their relief was settled in place. The guards searched all who sought to enter the palace, confiscated their weapons, and questioned them extensively. There was no entrance that had fewer than four guards, and the ones she could get to without sprouting wings all had at least six.
She could fight her way through six or eight guards with little difficulty, but then what? The alarm would be raised, wave upon wave of guards would arrive to block her way. Gaven would get extra guards-they would know she was there to find him. Assuming he was actually in the palace and not in some prison elsewhere in the city.
Three more days passed in watching, waiting for something to change, some opportunity to arise, some sign to appear. On the morning of her sixth day of watching, something like a sign appeared. A dragon flew overhead, its scales gleaming copper in the sunlight. Its wings rippled rather than flapped as it swooped down and landed in one of the high arches of the palace. It perched there like an enormous bird for fully half an hour before jumping down into a chamber below.
Rienne wanted desperately to be that dragon, to spread great wings and fly to an open archway, to peer down and see, she imagined, Gaven on the floor of the chamber below. She would jump down beside him, let him climb on her back, feel his hands on her smooth scales, and then she’d fly back up and out, far away from Rav Magar-she’d fly until Argonnessen was a distant memory and the lands of Khorvaire spread out before them, until the towers and docks of Stormhome came into view.
A rumble of thunder jolted her from her reverie. The sky was clouding over, clouds forming from nowhere, directly over the dragon-king’s palace. Gaven was inside and alive! And in danger.
She sprang into action, tossing aside the tattered rags that wrapped her. Maelstrom had already begun its deadly dance by the time she reached the guards at the nearest gate, and two of them fell before they knew what was happening. Thunder rumbled again, and she lifted her voice in elation. Two more guards lay dead. Lightning struck the palace, very near, shaking the ground and walls around her. She was past the guards, but more were charging down the passage toward her.
She heard rain on the roof, and she laughed as she cut through the guards. He’s here! she thought. He is the Storm Dragon, and his storm will lift us out of here, together.
Another blast of lightning shook the palace, and wind howled through the passage, blowing at her back as though Gaven were calling her to him. The second wave of guards was dead or dying, and she ran unhindered with the wind. It led her unerringly through a maze of corridors until the passage opened into a chamber. Lightning struck again as she hurtled toward the archway. She saw the wind lifting dust and rubble into a whirlwind, and she knew that Gaven stood at the top of that column of air.
“Gaven!” she cried, but the wind swallowed her voice.
A flash of copper broke the whirlwind and brought Gaven to the ground. A shimmer of white light filled the chamber. She was almost there-in a moment she would be with Gaven again.
An enormous slab of stone fell from the roof of the chamber and crashed to the ground. The wind died, and she peered through a cloud of dust to the empty chamber beyond.
CHAPTER 32
Aric spent the remainder of the afternoon in the only form of meditation he knew-concentrating on every part of his body in turn, top of the head to soles of the feet, fixing the details in his mind. Seeking perfect focus, but constantly struggling to banish memories of Kelas, thoughts of his companions on this journey, and worries about the ceremony ahead.
“Who are you?” he asked himself.
“Aric,” he answered, unsure what else to say. “From the Carrion Tribes, but I don’t know the name of my tribe. I’m about to join the Ghaash’kala, because the alternative is death. I’m a coward, a soft-hearted fool, and a travesty of a spy.”
Once more, head to toe. “Who are you?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I care anymore. I’m dead.”
His head felt light. He realized he’d been speaking aloud-pathetic. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head, find his focus. Instead, he fell asleep, eventually slumping to the floor.
“Deep in meditation, I see.” Farren’s voice jolted Aric from sleep.
Aric scrambled to his feet, but Farren seemed more amused than angry.
“Are you ready?” the paladin said, clapping him on the shoulder.
He nodded, too tired to speak, and shuffled behind Farren down the tower steps to the plaza.
Just like the night before, orcs of the Ghaash’kala crowded the plaza, but this time there were humans scattered through the crowd in small clumps as well. The Carrion Tribe converts apparently participated in the recommitment ceremonies, but not the memorials. Aric wondered whether they had their own ways of honoring the dead.
A clear path opened up before him, leading to the center of the plaza where the same orc priestess stood waiting, though today her robes were yellow. There was one other person waiting to take his vows, an orc boy of perhaps twelve or fourteen-ready, among the Ghaash’kala, to pick up a sword and fight the evils of the Labyrinth.
As he stood before the priestess, he felt the eyes of the crowd on him, and he felt naked. His heart pounded, and his eyes darted around as if he could somehow find a way to escape. He had never been more trapped or more exposed. How could everyone present not recognize him for a sham, even as a spy?
“Maruk Ghaash’kala,” the priestess said, her arms lifted and spread wide. “On this third night of gathering, we come as a tribe to witness the vows of these two men and welcome them among our ranks, warriors who will fight beside us. Hearing their vows, we will remember our own-our promise to serve Kalok Shash and participate in its work. Many of our tribe have fallen, but tonight we celebrate the replenishment of our numbers.”
Replenishment? Aric thought. How many names were lifted up the night before? How many of the Maruk had died in the past three months? Farren alone had listed a dozen. And now two men came to fill their places. The Maruk Ghaash’kala were dying out.
“Ghaarat,” the priestess said, standing before the boy and looking solemnly into his eyes, “today you die. As a ghost, you will fight the demons of the Wastes and their human servants, the foul beasts and mighty warlords. You will fight until at last you have proved yourself worthy of joining Kalok Shash. Are you ready?”
“I am,” young Ghaarat said, no hint of fear or hesitation in his voice.
“Do you swear, before Kalok Shash and all the Maruk Ghaash’kala, to fight against evil in all its forms?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear, before Kalok Shash and all the Maruk Ghaash’kala, to permit nothing, living or dead, to pass through the Labyrinth, either to leave the Wastes or to enter them?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear, before Kalok Shash and all the Maruk Ghaash’kala, to fight without fear, to fight until your foes are dead or you join Kalok Shash?”
“I do.”
The priestess turned, and a warrior stepped forward from the encircling crowd, a sword clutched in both hands.
“Ash Ghaal,” the priestess said to this man, “do you swear to guide Ghaarat in the ways of the Maruk Ghaash’kala, so that he might be found worthy to join Kalok Shash?”
“I do,” the man said, his voice choked with emotion.
The priestess turned back to the boy. “Ghaarat, you die this day.” She nodded to the man.
Ash Ghaal stepped forward and swung his sword at Ghaarat’s neck. The boy didn’t flinch, and the sword stopped a finger’s breadth from his flesh.
“Ghost of Ghaarat, join the Maruk Ghaash’kala.”
The man embraced Ghaarat-his son, Aric realized with a start-and drew him back into the encircling crowd. Aric stood alone before the priestess. She came and looked into his eyes. Her eyes were rich brown, and he lost himself in them, aware of nothing else. Her brow furrowed for a moment, as though she were troubled by what she saw in his eyes, but she continued with barely a pause.
“Aric, today you die. As a ghost, you will fight the demons of the Wastes and their human servants, the foul beasts and mighty warlords. You will fight until at last you have proved yourself worthy of joining Kalok Shash. Are you ready?”
Am I ready? Aric wondered. Will I ever be worthy of joining Kalok Shash?
“I am,” he said, but he did not believe it. His voice was a croak, and he cleared his throat.
“Do you swear, before Kalok Shash and all the Maruk Ghaash’kala, to fight against evil in all its forms?”
Aric opened his mouth, but he could not speak. He could see only the priestess’s brown eyes, darkness closing in around them. “I-” he managed, but then the darkness swallowed him.
He was running, leaves lashing his face, thin branches grabbing at him as he passed. He was hunched, looking for something on the ground, and he had no face. He caught a glimpse of her-a doe rabbit bounding through the brush-and then she was gone.
Then he was a rabbit, fleeing a hungry fox. He ran as fast as he could, but the fox was faster, and no matter how many times he darted in a different direction, the fox always seemed to be drawing nearer. With one great pounce, it hit him, its claws pressing against his skin, its great fanged muzzle staring down into his face that was not a face.
“Why do you run?” the fox asked.
He was pinned beneath a boulder, part of an avalanche, and he stood at the top of a sheer slope and knew he had caused the rocks to tumble. He saw the swallow he’d been chasing swoop and swerve as it flew away, forever beyond his reach.
A gust of wind came up the slope and lifted him into the air, and he was in a whirlwind, lightning flashing all around him. An airship circled with the wind, and Gaven stood on the deck, reaching an arm out to him. Rienne walked to him, straight across the whirlwind, smiling. As she drew near, she extended her arms to embrace him.
Her two arms became four, and then six, and she grinned cruelly as her legs became a long, snaky tail. There were swords in her hands, and they whirled and flashed like the storm, they cut and cut and cut and he screamed “Plaguebearers,” said a voice whose source he could not see. “They were trying to infect him, and he lifted one of their weapons.”
The demonic figure fell on top of him, and her face was no longer Rienne’s face but Dania’s. Her six arms were two again, and her legs straddled him. Her body moved against his, and she smiled down at him, her short red hair falling into her face. She reached up to push it back, and said, “Why do you resist me?”
Then she was the Plaguebearer lying on top of him, leering at him, infecting him, and he pushed the body off and stood in a deserted cathedral, like the one in Fairhaven but larger, and dozens of doors lined the walls of the enormous sanctuary. He walked across the mosaic floor, leaving footprints in the dust, and grabbed a door handle at random. The door swung open and a skeleton tumbled toward him. He stepped over it to enter the dark hallway beyond.
He walked in darkness, sure that his destination lay at the end of the hall. There was no light, nothing leading him onward except his certainty that the object of all his desire lay ahead. He couldn’t even imagine what it might be, but the thought of finding it at last filled him with joy and excited anticipation. On and on through the darkness he walked, untiring. The hall began to slope upward, and he walked, and he climbed, and then he saw light, but it was overhead, and the hall was too steep to climb. The floor was smooth, then slick with blood, but he clawed for purchase, he refused to let it slide him back.
A coolness spread th
rough him, quenching the fires that burned in his veins, and the darkness dissolved into soft red light. He floated, warm and comfortable. He couldn’t see his body, he tried to lift a hand to his face but saw nothing-he was no longer sure that he was in his body.
“Aric,” came another voice. “Or whatever your name is. Can you hear me?”
He could not answer, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Who are you?”
The water pressed in around him, squeezing the breath and life from him, and he kicked furiously to reach the surface. His lungs screamed for air, but the water was so deep, so dark, he was no longer sure he swam in the right direction. Was there a hint of light above him, a faint glow in the blue? He kicked harder, but something tangled his legs, seaweed or He drew a great gasping breath, but the tentacles still held him, drew him in, then he was looking into a single great staring eye.
“Why do you struggle?”
A mace appeared in his hand and he swung it over and over, beating back the tentacles. Vor stood over him, hacking at tentacles as they appeared through the portal. “I’ll hold them back,” Vor said. “You seal it.”
He kneeled beside the portal and laid a hand on it, trying to feel the knot of magic inside. It was too complex. His mind couldn’t fathom its intricacies. It was a labyrinth And he was walking it, smooth crystal walls stretching as high above him as he could see. Straight corridors crossed and branched, and again he knew that everything he wanted was waiting for him at the exit from this maze. He wandered and wandered, then the maze was the Labyrinth, and he stumbled along, weak from hunger and thirst, half-blind from sun.
He fell, gravel pressing into his cheek. He didn’t think he could stand again. Feet crunched the gravel and rolled him over. A field of blood red sky, framed by canyon walls.
