by James Wyatt
No, he reminded himself-or the Messenger’s velvet whisper reminded him. There was nothing pure about the magic fueling the forge. Every mote of its power was polluted by the fiend’s incalculable evil. That Dania’s sacrifice was connected to this abomination made him sick. Slowly, he stretched his fingertips to touch the silver ring of her torc.
He jumped as twin crashes of thunder boomed behind him, followed by the sound of wrenching metal. Then a monstrous roar made him wheel around in sudden terror.
Gaven had managed to wrench the roof over the forge open, and steam billowed up where rain fell into the open furnaces. The roar had come from a red dragon, small compared to Malathar, that had emerged from the furnace and was trying in vain to redirect its fiery breath at Gaven. Its wings grabbed at the air, flapping wildly, but the wind buffeted the dragon and would not let it fly. A second dragon leaped up from the furnace and well into the air, unfurling its wings as it reached the apex of its mighty leap, catching the wind and soaring away, jerking in the turbulent storm but unharmed. Then a third followed the second, just as the first dragon crashed down onto the jagged wreckage of the metal roof and lay still. A blast of lightning pinned the third dragon for an instant, but it flew on, quickly disappearing behind the lip of the canyon to the west.
Aunn drew a steadying breath and felt calm flow through him again, soft and warm. The wind raged at his back, but his mind was still and silent. Once again he stretched his fingers to touch the ring of the torc. He closed his eyes and let the web of silver threads trace themselves on his mind.
He was in the Labyrinth again, utterly lost and bereft of hope. A fiend stood close at his back, her arms wrapped seductively around his chest. “Why do you fight me?” she whispered, her breath hot in his ear. “Don’t you want me beside you?” She ran her hands over his body, seeking some response, but receiving none.
Her gentle breath became a roar of fury in his ear. “You dare threaten me?” The fiend’s face was now the horned bear of the Demon Wastes, fearsome in its rage. The hands on his chest were massive claws, and they tore into his chest. He threw his head back and screamed.
A voice called to him within the Labyrinth, “Over here, Aunn.” The pain faded and he turned his head to see Ashara, her hands pressed to the blue crystal. Cart stood behind them, trying to shield them both from the storm. Aunn looked around, but saw no fiend. He looked down, and to his surprise saw no blood on his chest.
A shadow moved within the crystal as he stepped beside Ashara, keeping his fingers on the silver tracings. The fingers of one hand met hers, and suddenly he saw the latticework in its entirety, spread like a map before him. Ashara had been working to unravel the threads at one end, and he knew at once he should do the same at the other, near the opposite reservoir. The torc and the blade-those would come last.
Aunn stepped out from Cart’s protection and the wind blasted in his face, hot and dry like the air of the Labyrinth, then frigid like the wind in Frostburn Cut. The bear-thing loomed before him out of the driving snow, then reared on its hind legs to tear at him.
“No,” he said, and the fiend fell back before him. Still holding the entire network of silver threads in his mind, he found the place opposite where Ashara stood and he mirrored her work, thread by thread, with painstaking precision. The calm-the promised presence of the Messenger, he believed-settled into his mind and kept the fiend at bay.
Aunn and Ashara worked more quickly together. Their minds and hands were joined in the lattice, so each could follow every movement of the other. They worked like expert weavers, hands darting over the loom, barely conscious of the work. The earth rumbled and the sky roared behind them as Gaven’s storm continued in its fury, but they worked on, moving from the outer edge in until they stood side by side before the Torc of Sacrifice and the Ramethene Sword.
A crack of thunder so loud it might have split the world Ashara sliding the sword out of the crystal The torc of sacrifice falling into his outstretched hands In a single instant the Dragon Forge was unmade and the Keeper of Secrets imprisoned once more.
Silence.
Aunn looked around wildly, trying to take it all in, everything his eyes could tell him. He floated in an ocean of silent, still air. No breeze brushed his face, no sound reached his ears. Dust and sand settled slowly onto the ground in the wake of the storm, while clouds parted and drifted off and faded into a perfect blue sky. Cart shifted beside him, turned to look at him, and his metal jaw opened, but Aunn could hear no voice. Ashara was curled on the ground, leaning against the column of blue-gray stone that had once been clear crystal, and Cart bent to tend to her.
Aunn wandered to the wreckage of the Dragon Forge, the gravel silent beneath his feet. The metal roof lay bent and sundered, a horse-sized dragon impaled on one jagged edge. The eldritch machine itself was a pile of rubble, half-collapsed into the trenches and furnaces beneath it. Clouds of steam still billowed up from the furnaces, and broken pipes here and there shot silent jets uselessly into the air.
He could see no sign of Malathar’s bones-the wind must have scattered their dust across southern Aundair. He also couldn’t see Gaven, and that started his heart pounding with fear. He scanned the rim of the canyon above him, then hurried into the wreckage of the forge, dreading what he might find.
He shifted rubble that made no sound, tossed aside pieces of metal that bounced silently against stone. He saw Cart move in alongside him, joining the search, and then a pale and frail-looking Ashara. He saw tears streaming down her cheeks, but could not hear her weep.
A gleam of red stone caught his eye-there! He gave a silent cry and pointed, then hurried to where he’d seen it. Gaven was on his knees, his back turned to Aunn, his shoulders and his head drooping, curled in around his gut.
Gaven? Aunn tried to speak, but if he had a voice he could not hear it. Gaven didn’t respond.
Aunn glanced over his shoulder at Cart and Ashara. They’d seen him come this way, even if they couldn’t hear his cry. He stepped closer to Gaven, trying to see his face, and his eyes fell on the dragonshard clutched to Gaven’s chest. Gaven was rocking ever so slightly, forward and back, his head bowed, his glassy eyes fixed on the bloodstone.
Aunn put a hand on Gaven’s shoulder. “Gaven, look at me.” Still no sound, and Gaven didn’t respond to his touch. He shook Gaven’s shoulder, gently and then fiercely, he rocked Gaven’s body from side to side, but Gaven didn’t look up from the dragonshard.
Cart and Ashara stopped just behind him, and Cart put a hand on Aunn’s shoulder.
For a moment, the stone in Gaven’s hands was gold, not red. Ashara was a lovely elf, and Haldren was hurrying through the Aerenal jungle behind them. The whole mad adventure had just begun, and for just an instant he dreamed that he might have the chance to do it all over again, to do it right, to be true to Gaven this time.
But this time, Gaven was not coming out of his stupor. In Aerenal, he had looked up from the Eye of Siberys with a startling new clarity in his mind. Now, Gaven seemed lost in the depths of the stone, trapped in the coiling lines of his dragonmark.
Aunn fell to his knees, and the first sound to penetrate his ears was his own howl of grief.
Rienne stood at the railing of Jordhan’s small airship and gazed at the placid waters of Lake Galifar below.
From Thaliost to Varna, everywhere they had seen signs of brewing war. They had crossed the broad peninsula of Thaliost, claimed by Thrane, and seen Thrane soldiers marching toward the Starcrag Plain, anticipating another Aundairian attack. On the second day of their journey, they saw a great storm far to the south, and Rienne thought of Gaven. She almost made Jordhan turn south, but the march of war drew her on to the west. They crossed all of Aundair, and saw most of Aundair’s forces marching westward. On the sixth day, drawing close to the Wynarn River, they saw another storm arise in the south, but this one sped across Lake Galifar, growing as it came, until it was a hurricane tearing into the Eldeen city of Varna. Jordhan kept well clear of t
he storm until it waned.
They crossed the Wynarn the next day, and saw streams of Eldeen refugees fleeing the wreckage of Varna. They turned southward then, and saw the ruins for themselves. The city walls had crumbled, the buildings were leveled, the forest for a mile around was strewn with fallen trees, and half the city was under the surface of the lake. The soldiers of Aundair were picking through the ruins, assaulting refugees, skirmishing with scouts and rangers in the forests-but mostly they were massing on the road that led west from the city, along the lake shore, to Greenheart. One by one, more and more companies joined the body and melted in, row upon row upon row of soldiers in perfect lines.
Jordhan kept them high above the army, well out of bowshot. The brilliant noonday sun, blazing in a perfect autumn sky, gleamed on the helmets of the soldiers, glinted off their spearheads, sparkled on their armor. Their boots were a distant rumble of thunder on the road.
EPILOGUE
Vultures soared in the air, riding the updrafts along the edge of the Shadowcrags.
Magnificent birds, thought Kathrik Mel.
His gaze swept along the snow-capped mountains, which for so long had stood as a barrier between him and his destiny. He shook his fist at them, cursing them, and then laughed. He turned, and his eyes took in the grandeur, the majesty of his horde.
They swept down from the foothills and into the forest, killing every living thing they saw in a frenzy of bloodlust. The forest was ablaze, fire leaping in the dry autumn leaves. They had achieved their first victory-a trivial matter-and already the chants were gaining strength and drawing closer. “Sacrifice for Kathrik Mel!”
The prisoners were tall and slender, hideous with perfection, their faces serene. He would cut the placid stares from their faces. He spat, whirled, and sat on his throne, lashed together from the bones of his enemies. He slid the sword, Bloodclaw, from its sheath and admired its gleaming blade.
A rustle of scales arose behind him, and the dragon’s neck snaked out around the back of the throne.
“Tell me again,” Kathrik Mel demanded, and the dragon did.
He traced his finger absently up and down the edge of Blood-claw’s blade as the dragon whispered in his ear. Midnight blue sparks flared to life where he touched the sword, proof that the sword was fully his at last. The blood of the Maruks had sealed it, as he had hoped.
“Dragons fly before the Blasphemer’s legions,” the dragon hissed, “scouring the earth of his righteous foes.”
Scouring the earth-he liked that. Not just washing or cleansing. Scouring meant attacking a stain, a pestilent blot, burning it away or cutting it out. He would scour the earth.
“Carnage rises in the wake of his passing, purging all life from those who oppose him.”
“Yes…” he murmured, biting his lip and tasting blood.
“Vultures wheel where dragons flew, picking the bones of the numberless dead.”
There would be dead beyond counting. Kathrik Mel stood again, unable to contain his excitement.
The Blasphemer had come, and all the armies of Khorvaire could not stand against him.
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