by James Wyatt
Aunn thought for a moment. If he asked, Lukas would send agents throughout the tavern and the rest of Chalice Center, listening for anyone who might be asking after Aunn or his party. But he doubted the other changeling would be so careless. "No, thank you."
"Very well. Is the rest of your party here?"
"Yes. I'll gather them. Thank you." He nodded a slight bow to Lukas and returned to the table where he'd left the others.
"Ready?" Gaven asked as he approached.
"Ready. Lukas will show us the room."
The dwarf led them outside and into a wide alley beside the tavern. A well-kept staircase took them above the dining room where they had sat before, and Lukas opened a door into a luxurious private dining room. It was little more than a table with benches on either side, but the benches were padded with upholstered cushions-and so were the walls, to keep sound from escaping the room.
Lukas bowed as they filed past him into the room. "I hope you find the quail satisfactory," he said.
"I'm certain we will. Thank you."
Lukas pushed the door closed, and the din of the tavern and the street faded away. Aunn collapsed onto one of the upholstered benches, overwhelmed with exhaustion and anxiety. The relief was so great that he felt his face begin to change under his hands, fading to its natural blank.
Make it solid, he told himself. He fixed Kelas's face in his mind and molded his face to match, hoping the others hadn't noticed the slip.
"Are you all right?" Gaven said.
Aunn took a deep breath and lowered his hands, Kelas's visage fixed firmly on his face once again. "I'm fine," he said. "And now we can talk."
CHAPTER 15
Right," Gaven said. "Let's talk. But can we talk to a different face?"
He saw Aunn stiffen. "What?"
"I'm sick of staring at his face. Could you be Darraun again, or Aunn, if you prefer?"
"I'm sorry," Aunn said, and Kelas's face was gone.
Gaven had never seen the changeling alter his appearance before, and he watched in fascination. First the features that most defined Kelas's face softened-the black hair lightened to gray, thick brows thinned and faded, and the dark, deep-set eyes lightened as their surrounding wrinkles smoothed. Gaven caught just a glimpse of a face that wasn't a face at all, just a blank gray surface waiting for shape and color, then it molded into the proud, commanding face the changeling called Aunn. That was his real name, he'd said, but it clearly wasn't his real face. Was this face somehow supposed to represent his true self? he wondered. Or was it just another disguise?
"Nice to see you again, Aunn," Gaven said.
Aunn didn't return his smile. He seemed lost in concentration, as if perhaps he were still shaping some part of his face or body. Gaven noticed that his clothes didn't fit this new form well-Aunn was taller and more muscular than Kelas. He wondered why Aunn didn't alter just his face, especially when he knew he'd be changing back into Kelas before long.
"So now what?" Ashara asked.
Gaven stared at the table. For a brief moment, his path had seemed clear to him, shining in the darkness, and he had accepted it with all its consequences. That clarity was gone, crowded out in all the scheming and intrigue going on around them, which Aunn seemed to understand so much better than he did. One thing burned like a beacon in his mind, though-he had to find Rienne.
No one had answered Ashara's question. Aunn still seemed lost in some aspect of his transformation, so Gaven cleared his throat. "I need to go to Stormhome," he said. "I have to find Rienne, and I want to find out why my father was corresponding with Kelas."
"Stormhome?" Aunn said. "Last time you were there, I had to break you out of manacles." His voice was deeper and clearer than it had been as Kelas.
"You were also part of the team of dwarves it took to get the manacles on me in the first place. They'll never capture me without your help."
"Rienne threw me into the kitchen. Believe me, I wasn't much help."
Gaven laughed, but it was strange to think of the man sitting across from him as the dwarf who had barged in through Thordren's back door, as well as Darraun, and also Kelas. The changeling could take any face, could be anyone. How could Gaven trust him?
"Nevertheless," Gaven said, "that's where I have to go."
"But there's so much we have to do here," Aunn said. "I have to make sure that the army takes Kathrik Mel seriously and prepares to meet him, instead of just fighting the Reachers. Kelas can do that. I need to figure out what Nara is going. And assuming Jorlanna doesn't give up on her plans just because the Dragon Forge is destroyed, we need to stop her from seizing the throne and stealing any more dragonmarks."
"So it seems our destinies lie along different paths," Gaven said.
Aunn frowned. "Nara said I should keep you here until the reunion, whatever that means. If you leave now, and she finds out about it, it's going to be very hard for me to explain."
"Are you thinking about locking me up after all?"
"Of course not. I'm just saying maybe you should wait, see what Nara has in mind-"
"And continue to be her pawn? No, I've done enough of that. Even when I thought I was doing what I wanted, I was playing into her hands."
Aunn leaned forward and opened his mouth, ready to argue, then slumped back on the bench. "What can I say to that?" he said. "Except that I'm sorry for the part I played in it all."
Gaven frowned. He had always liked Darraun, but he'd never quite understood his role in events so far. He had used his intelligence contacts to get himself invited along with Cart and Senya to free Gaven and Haldren-which meant that Kelas had arranged it, most likely. At Nara's command? When Gaven escaped Haldren's custody, it was Darraun that brought him back to Starcrag Plain, but not to help Haldren. Was Nara behind that as well? Then Darraun had faked his own death and disappeared. When Gaven saw him next, he'd just killed Kelas at the Dragon Forge. Presumably Nara had not ordered that, since she had addressed Aunn as Kelas without a hint of irony. He couldn't help it-he still liked Aunn, this new incarnation of Darraun, even if he couldn't think of a reason to trust him.
Aunn interrupted his musing. "Cart? Ashara?" The changeling's gaze flicked between the two of them, who had been listening in silence. "Where do your destinies lie?"
Ashara looked at Cart, and Gaven thought he saw her hold her breath.
"I was made to be a soldier," Cart said, looking at the table, "and trained to fight for Aundair."
Gaven smiled. "I'd be proud to fight the Blasphemer beside you, Cart."
"I hadn't finished," the warforged said. "Like you, Gaven, I think it's time to make my own decisions. And also like you, I need to follow my… heart."
"What?"
Cart turned his head so his gaze met Ashara's, and a smile spread across her face until it reached her eyes. "I don't know what the future holds for me," the warforged said, "but I know my destiny lies with you."
Gaven and Darraun had laughed at Cart's insistence that he was many-layered, and Gaven suddenly felt ashamed of his laughter. It was all too easy to think of the warforged as an automaton, with his expressionless face and his body formed of wood, stone, and metal. Whatever process House Cannith had used to imbue Cart with life, though, had clearly given him more than animation, more even than the capacity for reasoning thought. Gaven had been impressed before with Cart's loyalty, even when it seemed misplaced. At the Dragon Forge, the warforged had proven he had a moral compass after all, when he tried to rescue Gaven from Kelas's clutches. Why should Gaven be surprised, then, to learn that Cart was in love?
Ashara cleared her throat. "We'll help you stop Jorlanna, Aunn. I know the workings of House Cannith."
"Excellent," Aunn said. "I appreciate the help."
"So it seems I'll be traveling alone," Gaven said. It would be the first time in many years, he realized. But only until he found Rienne.
"I'll get you papers," Aunn said. "We'll get you on the lightning rail to Thaliost, get you there about midday tomor
row, then a ship to Stormhome-"
"I want to fly there," Gaven said. "An airship."
"I can't get you another airship," Aunn said. "At least, not quickly."
"So I'll buy a fare. There must be airships going to Stormhome daily."
"You want to travel right under the nose of House Lyrandar? Do you think that's wise?"
"It's faster. I'll cut my hair, and without my mark no one will know me."
"Few Lyrandars ever saw your mark," Aunn said.
"But anyone who's looking for me now will be looking for the mark. It was rather distinctive." Gaven put his hand on the pouch that held the dragonshard, fighting a sudden urge to look at the lines of his mark tracing through the crystal.
"Very well," Aunn said. "I'll get you traveling papers. Do you have identification?"
"Not any more." The papers Senya had secured for him were still in Rav Magar, or destroyed.
"Then I'll get you identification papers as well. Who do you want to be?"
The question caught Gaven off-guard. Aunn might be accustomed to changing faces and identities at a moment's notice, but Gaven found it harder to think of being anyone else. He wanted to be himself. More than that, he wanted to be the Gaven he'd been thirty years earlier-before Dreadhold, before he gained his dragonmark, before he attained the power of the Storm Dragon. He wanted Rienne back, and his father, and his family name. He wanted a clear conscience, without the weight of the dead Paelions on his shoulders. But Aunn couldn't give him any of that.
"I don't know," Gaven said. "I suppose I just want to be able to travel without being harassed."
"Is that all? I can give you a noble title, a military rank, a government post. You name it."
"I… I don't know. I guess I don't care."
"Very well, I'll take care of it. How about a name?"
Senya had made a good case to use a given name that was similar to his own. "Keven," he said. It was close enough that if someone shouted that name, he'd turn to look, and if he accidentally blurted his real name, listeners would hear what they expected to hear.
"Good choice." Aunn scratched some notes on a piece of paper he'd produced from a belt pouch, and sat back in the bench. "I'll need a few hours at the Tower of Eyes. It's probably best if I go alone, now that it's daylight." He opened another pouch and pulled out a handful of coins. "You don't have any money, do you?"
Gaven shook his head, and Aunn slid a small pile of coins, mostly gold galifars with a few silver and copper coins in the mix, across the table to him. "Thank you," Gaven said.
"Thank Kelas," Aunn said with a grin. "He's become uncharacteristically generous since his death." He turned to Cart. "Do you need any?"
"We're fine," Ashara said.
Aunn put his palms on the table. "Very well," he said. "Let's meet back here for dinner. In the meantime, everybody lie low, don't attract attention, don't get in trouble. Or start trouble. And Gaven-it's a nice day, and I don't think Fairhaven has too many more of those in store before winter. Don't ruin it."
Gaven laughed. "I'll try. No promises, though."
Jordhan lifted the airship gently up from its treetop mooring as Rienne and Kyaphar stood at the bulwarks, looking down on the gathered Eldeen defenders.
"The barbarians have moved quickly through the Towering Wood," Kyaphar said. "The people of those lands are so scattered that they couldn't mount an effective defense. Some fled, others made a valiant stand and perished. A few, I'm told, have joined the barbarians in order to fight against Aundair."
"Joined them?" Rienne said.
"Mostly shifter tribes, and a few of the Children of Winter. It appears that the Blasphemer accepted them under his banner just as he accepted all the warring Carrion Tribes."
"So this is the first time he's met concerted resistance."
"I believe so."
"So again, why here? What are you defending?"
"Look there." Kyaphar pointed over the bulwark and down.
Darkness draped the forest floor, but scattered bonfires spread rings of light here and there among the trees. Rienne couldn't see what Kyaphar was trying to show her.
"You see the cluster of three fires there?" he asked. "Imagine they're an arrowhead, pointing to your left. Now look for the shaft of the arrow."
Rienne squinted, and she saw it-a line of faerie fire, dim greenish-white light that stretched across the land. Trees blocked her view of it in places, but it continued for at least a hundred yards. "Now I see," she breathed.
"You begin to see," Kyaphar said. His pointing finger traced the line from the fiery arrowhead to a point just to their right. "Another line crosses it there, where those fires are. Do you see?"
The light of the bonfires hid the fey glow, so Rienne searched the area just above the fires, and quickly found the crossing line. This one was pale purple, and it crossed the first at a sharp angle then curved away from it before disappearing into the forest.
"What are they?" Rienne asked.
"Do you know the daelkyr?"
Rienne nodded as a chill ran down her spine. The gibbering hordes that had bubbled up from the ground at Starcrag Plain were the spawn of the daelkyr, kin to the hordes that ravaged the ancient goblin empire of Dhakaan thousands of years before.
"The armies of the daelkyr came through portals that led from the Realm of Madness to our world," Kyaphar said. "One of those portals was here."
"But it's sealed now. The druids-"
"The Gatekeepers were the first druids of the Eldeen Reaches, and they saved the world by sealing the daelkyr portals."
"And you fear that the Blasphemer will break the seal?"
"We know he will. Since leaving the Demon Wastes, he has led his horde from one seal to the next. So far he hasn't done irreparable harm, but the Depravation is spreading behind him. The influence of the daelkyr and their brood corrupts nature, twists it into unnatural forms."
"This seal is enormous," Rienne said. She could see the conclusion of Kyaphar's explanation. "If he breaks it, it will be much harder to repair."
"Exactly. The Reaches might take thousands of years to recover."
Rienne fell silent, memories of Starcrag Plain crowding her mind. What greater horrors might spill out of this portal if the Blasphemer managed to wrench it open?
Jordhan let the airship drift higher, clear of the tallest trees. The faerie fire of the Gatekeeper's seal was too faint to see at that height, but the bonfires gave Rienne some sense of its size-the glow and smoke of the fires suggested a circle large enough to encompass Fairhaven.
"Can he break the seal, do you think?" Rienne said.
"'When he speaks all doors are opened and all chains are broken, all law is repealed and chaos is unbound.'"
"What is that? The Prophecy?"
Kyaphar shrugged. "It is a prophecy, I suppose. It is what the spirits say about the Blasphemer."
"What else do they say? What do you know about him?"
"I know what I have seen." Kyaphar swept his arm out across the bulwark, drawing Rienne's eyes out to the west.
The farthest bonfires' smoke rose into a sky already choked with billowing gray clouds. The Blasphemer's horde was close, no more than a day away. Rienne saw fire and lightning flash in the midst of the smoke, like a storm out of nightmare, a harbinger of annihilation. The past few months, she suddenly felt, had been just one storm after another.
She imagined Gaven at the eye of that storm and tears sprang to her eyes. What had he become? His power at times seemed so wild, too strong to control. She thought again of the storm she'd seen over Lake Galifar, hurtling to bring Varna to ruin-had that been his power, broken free of his reins?
She clutched the airship's railing and tried to quiet her mind. The words of the Prophecy danced through her thoughts, the words she'd heard in her dream. She saw herself again on the battlefield by the river, saw the demonic face of the Blasphemer leering at her, and realized suddenly what she feared most about her dream.
Gaven wasn'
t there. She was going to face the Blasphemer alone. And she might never see Gaven again.
PART II
Dragons fly before the Blasphemer's legions, scouring the earth of his righteous foes. Carnage rises in the wake of his passing, purging all life from those who oppose him. Vultures wheel where dragons flew, picking the bones of the numberless dead. But the Blasphemer's end lies in the void, in the maelstrom that pulls him down to darkness. On his lips are words of blasphemy, the words of creation unspoken. In his ears are the screams of his foes, bringing delight to his heart. When he speaks all doors are opened and all chains are broken, all law is repealed and chaos is unbound.
CHAPTER 16
Nara jabbed her knife at the meat on her plate, just to see the blood well up and drip onto the plate. Her conversation with Kelas had ruined her appetite.
"Does the meal not please you?" the steward asked, a perfect mask of solicitude.
"It's terrible." She pushed the plate away and stood. "I'm going downstairs."
"Yes, madam." He bowed, then scurried to open doors ahead of her as she stormed down to her sanctum.
Nara reached the last door and glared at the steward until he left. No one else could open this door, and no one but her was permitted beyond it.
The steward departed, careful not to let the antechamber door slam behind him, and Nara turned her will to the wards protecting her sanctum. She touched her fingers to the whorls and lines engraved in the burnished bronze door and whispered Draconic words. The doors groaned and swung open to admit her.
The chamber beyond had been carefully chiseled out of the bedrock beneath her Aundairian estate and every surface plated in bronze. At a word, a brazier at the far side of the room burst into flames, filling the room with warm golden light. Her eyes ranged over the Draconic characters etched into the bronze. The words covered every surface, from floor to ceiling, recording key verses of the Prophecy.
She allowed herself a smile, remembering Kelas's report that Gaven had scribed the Prophecy in the walls, floor, and ceiling of his cell in Dreadhold. He had remembered.
