by James Wyatt
Senya smiled. "Well, Mendaros Alvena Tuorren was born in 398, in Galifar's reckoning, just over six hundred years ago. He was born in Shae Cairdal, but by the mid-four hundreds he was wandering around Khorvaire, already sort of an outcast from the family. He was evidently very interested in the Prophecy of the dragons, and in 512 he was involved in the construction of an observatory in the Starpeaks."
"King Daroon's observatory?" Gaven said. As ruler of Galifar, Daroon had grown obsessed with predicting the future by studying the moons and stars.
"I suppose so, yes. It's not clear to me what his involvement with it was, and I don't know what his connection to the king was."
"I might have known once." Gaven wasn't sure how he knew about King Daroon. Was that something he had learned in his studies, or the echo of the dragon's memories in his mind? He shook his head.
"Mendaros only exercised his Right of Counsel once," Senya said, "and he brought a friend from Khorvaire-a human, or he seemed to be-with him. I assume that human was actually the dragon you described. Mendaros asked questions about the Storm Dragon, and received answers similar to what you and I heard on our visit. They went on to ask about the Time of the Dragon Between, and the Time of the Dragon Below. Mendaros, apparently, was particularly interested in the Blasphemer."
"The Blasphemer?"
"My ancestor, in her wisdom, perceived that, while Mendaros's human companion fancied himself the Storm Dragon, Mendaros imagined himself to be the Blasphemer."
"Dragons fly before the Blasphemer's legions," Gaven said, and visions of bone-white banners danced in his memory.
"And apparently, as dragons winged across the sea to attack Aerenal, Mendaros commanded a fleet of warships full of his mercenary legions."
Gaven sat back and ran his fingers through his hair. "And when was that?"
"That was in 537."
"So more than four hundred years ago. What happened? You said it was a devastating invasion."
"It was. Taer Senadal was burned to the ground, and both Var-Shalas and Shae Thoridor were in flames before the dragons were routed."
Gaven had studied maps of Aerenal before, but the names meant little to him. Taer Senadal was a fortress-he could figure that much from the name. He nodded for her to continue anyway.
"Mendaros made land near Var-Shalas," Senya continued, "and tried to bring his legions upriver to the town, but they didn't get very far. He was killed in the battle."
Gaven rested his forehead in his palm and tried to make sense of this information. The dragon had sought to become the Storm Dragon more than four hundred years ago, and then, when its memories found their way into Gaven's mind, he had followed along a similar path. Mendaros had set himself up as the Blasphemer four centuries ago, and now a new Blasphemer had arisen out of the Demon Wastes. Was the Prophecy fulfilled in cycles, so that every age had its Storm Dragon and its Blasphemer? Or were Mendaros and the dragon deluded, pursuing the Prophecy when the time of its fulfillment was still far off? Or perhaps they were all deluded-neither Gaven nor the dragon actually fulfilled the Prophecy of the Storm Dragon, and the warlord from the Wastes was no more the Blasphemer than Mendaros had been.
Senya got up and stood before Gaven, filling his nostrils with the smells of incense and spice. She held out a hand, and Gaven took it.
"Why did you come here?" she asked again.
Gaven's eyes stung. "I was hoping someone could tell me what it is I'm supposed to be looking for."
Senya nodded. "Come with me." She squeezed his hand, and he stood beside her.
Senya led him out of her room and back down the stairs, her hand soft and warm in his-so alive, in contrast to the death mask on her face. She led him to the tall doors across from the entrance, and there she released his hand.
"Just a moment," she whispered.
Gaven watched in silence as she busied herself around one of the braziers outside the doors. Scented smoke billowed up from the coals, and she moved to the other and sent another offering of smoke into the air. Then she stood before the doors and sang softly in Elven. Gaven caught only a few words speaking of honor, reverence, death, and wisdom. She touched a few of the carved images as she sang, and when she was finished with the song the doors swung open like arms reaching to enfold her.
She was smiling when she turned back and extended a hand to him. He stepped forward and took her hand, and she drew him into the interior of the temple. The doors swung shut behind him, and he was in darkness.
His eyes, growing accustomed to the dark, found the dim glow of coals just before they flared to life at Senya's touch. The tiny fires did little to illuminate the cavernous room, though. Gaven wasn't sure what he had been expecting-something more like the small tomb where Senya's ancestor had granted them an audience in Shae Mordai, he supposed. Instead, the room was the size of a grand temple of the Sovereign Host.
Senya took his hand again and led him to the center of the room. "Kneel," she whispered, and he obeyed. A woven mat of dried reeds offered a meager cushion between his knees and the stone floor.
As Senya drifted away again, Gaven found himself wondering how old the temple was. Shae Mordai was ancient-the elves had started its construction more than twenty thousand years ago, although surely not every building could be that old. But when had the population of Aereni in Fairhaven grown sufficiently large to support a construction project on this scale? It felt old, but he suspected that had as much to do with the burning incense and the presence of the deathless than with the actual age of the building.
Two more braziers flared to feeble light in front of him, where Senya stood in front of a carved altar. The altar looked as old as anything he'd seen in Shae Mordai, and Gaven wondered if it had been brought from Aerenal, perhaps as sort of a foundation stone for the whole community of Aereni here.
Senya turned and smiled at him, then sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the altar and closed her eyes. In the half-light of the flickering braziers, her face was an ornately decorated skull floating above her shoulders. When her eyes were closed, they could easily have been gaping sockets. He watched her chest rise and fall three times with slow, even breaths, and then her eyes shot open.
Her eyes, though, were no longer sparkling orbs of sapphire blue, but pale yellow flames that seemed to dance in empty sockets. And when she spoke, her voice had become the cold, clear voice of her long-dead ancestor.
"Gaven, Storm Dragon, dishonored child of Lyrandar, what do you seek?"
Gaven pressed his forehead to the ground as he had seen Senya do in Shae Mordai, surprised to find tears already welling in his eyes.
"I-" His voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it as he rose to look at Senya again. "I don't know."
"How can you hope to find it, then?"
"I thought…" Gaven peered at her. "Senya?"
"My daughter cannot hear you right now. Speak to me."
"I'm sorry. Senya's… you told me, in Shae Mordai…"
"The third time, you will finally find what you seek."
"Yes."
"And you hoped I could tell you what your desire is? Only you can name that, Gaven."
Gaven sighed. "There's so much."
"And you don't want to appear greedy? Is that it?"
Gaven frowned. "I suppose it is."
"I have not promised to grant you any wish you might voice, Gaven, and I cannot magically solve all the difficulties facing you. I offer you counsel, even though you have no right to claim it-it is my gift to you."
"Why do you offer this gift?"
"Three times you have come to me now," Senya said. "The first time, you were a dragon seeking the power of the Storm Dragon. The second, you were a man dreading that mantle, as the dragon's thoughts within you encouraged you to seek it. Now you are a man, and you have been the Storm Dragon, but you did not choose the path that the dragon before you sought. You have shown insight and restraint. I am pleased to offer my wisdom to aid you."
"I am gratefu
l." Gaven bowed to the floor again, trying to collect his thoughts. "The first time, though-that wasn't me. It was the dragon." The name surfaced in his memory. "Shakravar."
"And who are you?"
"I'm Gaven. Just the man, not the dragon anymore."
"Here, then, is my gift of wisdom for you. You cannot cut time with a knife, as if the present were utterly separate from the past and the future. Who you are now is who you have been and who you are yet to be. You are Gaven. You are the Storm Dragon. You are a dishonored child of Lyrandar, cut off from your line but still a product of it. You are Shakravar, and you are the murderer of the Paelion line."
Senya's words hit him like a blow to the stomach, and he bent forward to the floor again. "I wish that were not true."
"But you know that it is. However, you are also, in this moment, who you will choose to be, and that is a far better thing."
"How do you know? Is it written in the Prophecy what I will become?"
"You know the answer to that. You have read it in your own dragonmark."
"There are many paths traced in the lines of my dragonmark."
"Yes, there are many paths you could choose, many paths you might have chosen but did not, paths you have turned away from but could yet return to. The Prophecy, like the lines of your mark, offers many possibilities."
"Then how can you say what choices I will make? How can I already be what I have not yet decided to be?"
"Because who you will be in that moment includes who you are now."
"That moment? One particular moment?"
"There are many moments, past and future, that define who you are. There is one decision coming upon you soon that defines the shape of your destiny."
"What is that?"
"In the darkest night of the Dragon Below, storm and dragon…" Gaven joined his voice to the thin voice of Senya's ancestor. "… are reunited, and they break together upon the legions of the Blasphemer."
"But what-"
"The maelstrom swirls around him," the ancestor continued. "He is the storm and the eye of the storm. His is the new dawn, and in him the storm cannot die."
Gaven leaned forward, trying to imprint the words in his memory. His eyes fixed on Senya's face, he fumbled at his pouch and withdrew the shard that held the glowing lines of his dragonmark. Light spilled from it and spread to fill the enormous temple.
"His are the words the Blasphemer unspeaks, his the song the Blasphemer unsings."
Senya closed her eyes, and the lambent flames were extinguished. Gaven glanced down at the dragonshard, but it was glowing so brightly he had to look away. He looked up instead, and saw the lines of his mark etched over the ceiling and every wall, as they had been in the Dragon Forge.
All the lines of his mark, the paths that delimited the possibilities of his life-they were all laid out before his eyes. Layer upon layer of meaning was contained in the twisting patterns, and he lost himself in them as if he were walking the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor again.
"His are the words the Blasphemer unspeaks." He saw that path-that network of paths, that expanse of possibility. "His the song the Blasphemer unsings." He saw creation undone, reality unwoven, his power of creation and the Blasphemer's sword of annihilation rending the fabric of time and space.
He knew at last what he would do, and who he would become.
CHAPTER 29
Gaven stared at the lines of his dragonmark until the light faded from the shard and draped the room in shadow again, and then he stared at the ceiling until Senya, standing beside him, nudged him back to his senses.
"Did you find what you seek?" she said, holding a hand out for him.
"I believe I did." He took her hand and got to his feet. The braziers' fire had already died down, so the only light in the temple came in through the open doors.
"Where will you go now?"
Gaven looked back up at the ceiling as though the lines of his destiny were still visible there. He knew his destination, but he still had a choice of paths to get there.
"West," he said. She started to pull her hand away, but he gripped it with both hands. "Senya, thank you. Thank you so much."
Senya beamed at him, her blue eyes sparkling in the firelight. "The fact that I was able to help you is atonement for a great many past sins. You might not recognize it, but you have helped me as well."
Gaven released her hand and drew her instead into a tight embrace, which she returned. He closed his eyes as he held her, and for that moment he thought he saw the twisting lines of her destiny as well, all the mad rush of her past, but only serenity ahead, the peace of communion with her ancestors and service to her people.
"Now," she said, pulling out of his embrace. "I meant where will you go now? When's the last time you slept?"
Gaven laughed. "It has been a while since I had a good night's sleep."
"You'll sleep in my room tonight, then."
Gaven started to stammer a protest, but she cut him off.
"Don't worry, I'll leave you alone. You need sleep tonight."
He hadn't realized until that moment how tired he was. Without another word, he let Senya lead him back upstairs to her room.
"Sleep well, Gaven." She kissed his forehead and left him alone in the warm darkness as sleep reached to claim him.
The morning sun dazzled Aunn's eyes, accustomed as they were to the dim light of the cathedral. He scanned the sky for a storm cloud that might point him to Gaven, but the Storm Dragon was not making it that easy to find him. Aunn bit his lip and tried to think. Where would Gaven go?
As far as Aunn knew, Gaven had no papers. Aunn had promised to get him some and deliver them to the Ruby Chalice the night before. Without them, he would find it difficult, if not impossible, to board a Lyrandar airship, the lightning rail, or even an Orien coach.
He had done it before, Aunn reminded himself. Gaven and Senya had taken the lightning rail from Korranberg well into Breland. But that was before the skirmish at Starcrag Plain and the all-out war now being waged in the Eldeen Reaches. Security would be much tighter… unless…
Unless Gaven managed to talk his way onto an airship. It was unlikely, but if he found someone he knew, an old friend who'd be willing to take a big risk for his sake. Jordhan had done it, first ferrying Gaven and Rienne from Sharavacion to Stormhome, then taking them all the way to Argonnessen.
Drawing a deep breath of the wintry air, Aunn got his bearings, then set out toward Chalice Center. He had to find Gaven. The fate of much more than the queen might depend on it.
Harkin sighed. "Well, this should be interesting," he muttered as the pair approached the table.
"Ashara d'Cannith?" the tall human woman asked. The dwarf stood behind her, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at Cart.
"I suppose that depends," Ashara said. "My baron and the queen would have us say ir'Cannith."
"By the terms of the Korth Edicts, they would be wrong to give land and noble rank to heirs of a dragonmarked house."
Ashara smiled. "And your name?"
"Sentinel Marshal Mauren d'Deneith." She gave a slight, stiff bow. "And this is Ossa d'Kundarak."
The dwarf turned her gaze from Cart and smiled briefly at Ashara, then recrossed her arms and resumed her staring.
"This is Harkin," Ashara said, "also of my House, and this is Cart."
"Cart?" The Kundarak's gaze sharpened. "Haldren's Cart?"
That explained the harsh stare, Cart supposed. How did this dwarf know him?
"I beg your pardon?" Ashara said.
Ossa stood with her hands on her hips and brought her face unpleasantly close to Cart's. "Are you the Cart that belonged to the late Haldren ir'Brassek?"
"The last time I belonged to anyone, it was to the army," Cart said. "By the terms of the Treaty of Thronehold, it would be wrong to call me anyone's property."
Ashara beamed at him, but Ossa's face darkened and Mauren scowled as well.
"What's wrong, Ossa?" the Sentinel Marshal asked.
<
br /> "A warforged named Cart helped ir'Brassek escape from Dreadhold," Ossa explained. "I chased them from Cape Far to Stormhome."
"It's hardly an uncommon name for warforged," Ashara said. "This one has been with my House since the war."
"He has a very independent mind for a Cannith warforged," Ossa observed. It was true-the warforged at the Cannith enclave had been docile servants.
"But clearly you've grown very attached to him in that time," Mauren said, "which is part of the reason we're here."
Cart shot a glance at Harkin, who was leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, hands folded on one knee. He didn't seem inclined to betray Ashara's lie, but he wasn't leaping to Cart's defense either. His face had a bemused expression, as if he were interested to see how Ashara would worm her way out of the situation.
"You're here because I've become friends with a warforged?" Ashara said. "Surely the Sentinel Marshals have more important things to do with their time than chase down every soldier, artificer, and dockworker who's struck up a friendship with a warforged."
"We're not interested in every soldier, artificer, and dockworker, Lady Cannith," Mauren said. "We're interested in you."
Gaven awoke to sunlight streaming through a high window he hadn't noticed in the dark of night. He felt rested, for the first time he could remember. He wondered whether Senya had used magic to knock him out, and how long he'd slept, but he decided it didn't matter. He stood and stretched, and even then the complaints of his cuts and bruises were diminished, if not entirely absent. He felt good, and ready for what fate had in store for him.
He pulled his chainmail shirt back on and slung his scabbard over his back, wondering where Senya might be and whether his emergence from her room might arouse scandalized speculation among the other residents of the temple. As he stepped forward and reached for the door, though, glowing red lines flashed across his vision, part of his dragonmark as it appeared in the shard. He paused, trying to sort out a vague sense of imminent danger and make sense of the pattern he'd seen.
He felt a presence behind him an instant before he heard the soft rustle of silk, and he spun and ducked away. A blot of shadow in the streaming sunlight slashed past him, and a black blade cut across his arm, drawing a thin line of blood that burned even as icy cold spread from the wound. The shadowy figure spun to follow him, relentless in its attack. He yanked his sword from its sheath on his back as he dodged again and his eyes struggled to pierce the shadow that cloaked his assailant.
