by Cindy Dees
Gunther grunted and spoke up. “Can he be turned back to flesh from this adamant iron, same as Bekkan?”
The storm smiths exchanged looks among themselves, and Whitebeard spoke up reluctantly. “We have no knowledge of the working of adamant iron. But in theory, if someone still alive knows the working of it, the Dwarven King could possibly be unmade.”
Gabrielle looked swiftly at Bekkan. “Do you know where to find your king?”
The rokken frowned. “I have an idea, but perchance this is not the place or time to speak of it.”
His caution was probably wise. Many ears wagged in the clearing, and although their hearts might be willing to keep the secret, the Empire had ways of extracting information from even the most unwilling that did not bear thinking upon.
“Tell us more of your time,” she asked eagerly. Rare, indeed, it was to hear of the far past of the Kothite Empire. “You were speaking of Koth.”
“The Kothites came to Ymir, killed off the royal family, and took their thrones.”
“What royal family?” she gasped. Koth had always ruled. The Empire was eternal.
“The etheri, of course,” Bekkan answered.
Everyone stared at him, some with mouths agape in wonder, some in abject fear. A shiver passed across Gabrielle’s skin as an unnaturally chilled breeze whisked through the clearing. At the very edge of her hearing, a scream started, so piercing and painful that she clapped her hands over her ears. Many others did the same.
Which was why precious few weapons were in hands when the oblivi, flesh-colored serpentine beasts without eyes or ears or limbs, came rushing into the light, attaching their suction-cup mouths to the necks and skulls of their prey. The fight was short-lived as a wave of the memory-stealing creatures rolled through the clearing. One by one, the creatures attached themselves to someone, taking away whatever memory had triggered their appearance, erasing awareness of themselves, and sucking away any impulse to fight against them.
She’d seen these creatures before, in the cave where they’d rescued the coppervein rokken. But this time, the clearing was brightly lit by the bonfire, and she saw markings upon the oblivi—black, burned brands in their pink flesh. And she knew that mark. It was Iolanthe’s sigil. These creatures came from Maximillian’s consort, the high perceptor herself? What if Iolanthe had some sort of mental link to these beasts of hers? Was Maximillian’s closest advisor seeing this attack in her mind’s eye? Did she see the Queen of Haraland consorting with rebellious dwarves?
Gabrielle had no more time to register the horrible rapid-fire questions in her mind, because the oblivi were converging on Bekkan. Her magical Octavium Pendant, a gift from her contact in the Eight, protected her from the forgetting effects of the oblivi, and she cast magic frantically into the one that came for her, blasting it into dust as she spun to protect Bekkan.
Nonononononono. She raced forward as a huge serpentine oblivi wrapped itself around the rokken like a great, fleshy constrictor and greedily attached its rudimentary mouth to the rokken’s temple as she ran.
Terrified that they would lose everything they’d worked so hard for with the coppervein, she gathered a huge ball of force damage and slammed it into the pink creature by hand. The oblivi screamed and exploded as Bekkan stumbled into her. She caught his hefty weight and staggered under it, barely managing to right them both.
“Where am I?” he demanded, a wild look in his eye.
“You’re at the Great Storm Forge, where you were recently awakened,” she said quickly. “Don’t you remember? You were speaking of the etheri.”
“The who?”
Panic tore through her. His ancient knowledge, his memories, were priceless treasures that must be protected at all costs! She yanked the long chain she’d worn for nearly twenty years from around her neck and shoved it over his head.
“Remember the etheri! And remember the mark of Iolanthe!” she cried as something bit into the back of her neck.
Blankly, he lifted the green-jeweled pendant with its eight compass points surrounding the central gem. “What is this?”
She blinked up at him. What had just happened, and why were they all standing up, wielding swords and axes as if they had come under attack? The clearing was still, filled only with her friends and the cadre of dwarves that had come together to …
… to do what?
A great forge filled the entire bowl of the valley they stood in. The whole forge, even up to its roof, was soaking wet, black and cold. Obviously, nothing had been worked there any time recently.
A really big dwarf stared at her. “Who are you?” she asked blankly.
“I an Bekkan Kopathul, a coppervein rokken,” he answered impatiently. “All of you freed me from the statue I had become, using yon storm forge.”
She frowned, but for the life of her, she could summon no memory of such a thing. She reached for her Octavium Pendant and lurched to find it not in its usual place nestled near her heart.
“Do you search for this necklace?” Bekkan asked, lifting her compass-shaped pendant from his jerkin.
She answered in dismay, “I have worn that for most of my adult life without once ever taking it off.”
He started to lift it from around his neck, but she reached out hastily to stop him. His hands were rough and heavily calloused as a warrior’s should be. “Nay. Keep it. I would only have given it to you for some imperative reason.”
“You said I was to remember the etheri. Do you know what it means?”
The word slid off her comprehension as if a sheet of ice encased her mind. She shrugged. “I’m sorry. It means nothing to me.”
“What about a mark of Iolanthe?” he queried.
An image of Iolanthe’s distinctive sigil, a stylized letter I inside an eye-shaped design, came to mind immediately, along with a vague image of seeing it branded into pink flesh—the memory burst back into her mind all at once—Iolanthe’s mark had been upon some creatures … stolen memories … forgetting beasts … oblivi.
Gabrielle sucked in a sharp breath of alarm as all her previous fears and questions came roaring back. How closely linked was the high perceptor to her oblivi? Did Maximillian’s consort know that the Queen of Haraland conspired with the dwarven resistance against the Empire? If that was the case, not only was Regalo dead, but every single citizen of Haraland would be wiped out. Gabrielle’s horror was so great she could not breathe. She collapsed to a log, gasping desperately as a great anvil of panic landed on her chest.
She fumbled for a small cloth bag in her belt pouch and placed it over her mouth and nose, breathing in and out of it to help calm her lungs. It took a while, but eventually, her breath calmed somewhat.
“What is this pendant?” Bekkan asked her curiously.
That, too, she remembered. “The central gem is made of octavium. At all costs, you must not take it off. Swear to me you will wear it without cease.”
He looked up at her, confused.
“Swear to me!” she demanded.
“All right. I swear. I will wear this and never remove it. But … why?”
She stepped close to Bekkan to murmur urgently, “The Kothite Empire has ears everywhere. Do not speak of anything you know or remember to anyone, not even me. It is imperative that you keep to yourself whatever it is I gave you that pendant to protect.”
“I merely spoke of events in my time—”
Frantically, she pressed her hand against his mouth. “Say no more. Do not speak of anything from your past for any reason. Not until I can take you to someone who can protect and preserve your memories. We cannot afford to lose what you know. Surely, that is the reason I gave you my most prized possession. Do you understand me?”
“Not really, but I will do as you ask.”
She closed her eyes in profound relief.
“Who is this person who can protect and preserve my memories?”
“I have no idea, but I know where we must to go to find him or her.”
CHAPTER<
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3
Will woke, if that was what he could call the slow, groggy swim toward vague awareness of his surroundings. He registered dark first. Then cold. And wood pressed against his cheek. That made him crack one eyelid open. A rude wagon took shape around him.
He pressed his hands against the wagon bed, and something cold and hard bit painfully into his wrists. He tried to shake it off, and a telltale rattle of chains made him sit up in alarm.
Cold steel bit at his ankles, as well. He squinted at his feet in the gloom and was appalled to see that his boots were gone, which explained why his feet were freezing.
A canvas flap over the back of the arched wagon staves swung open, and Will instinctively cringed away from the blast of freezing cold air.
“Awake, are ye?” the big shadow in the doorway growled. “Our man said ye didn’t seem as drunk as the others.”
That would be Bloodroot’s influence. He’d made Will somewhat less susceptible to poisons, including strong spirits. “Who are you?” Will demanded. He thought he caught a glimpse of facial fur. Some sort of changeling maybe?
“Ye don’t know? Disappointed I am that my fame does not precede me.”
The changeling’s vowels were just slurred enough for Will to suspect he’d been taking a few too many nips from the flask hanging off his belt.
“Tell me of your fame, then,” Will retorted.
“Why, I’m the warrior who put down your precious Leland Hyland. And a broken-down old man he turned out to be, too.”
Rage, bright and sharp, erupted in Will’s chest. This was Hyland’s killer? It took every ounce of discipline he possessed not to charge the man. But Will’s tactical awareness informed him that the kidnapper prudently stood just out of range of the length of Will’s chains.
“Oh, really?” Will asked lightly. “So then it took no great prowess on your part to kill Hyland. I will keep your lack of skill in mind when I take my revenge.”
The fellow took an aggressive step forward, allowing Will to see him a little more clearly.
Rakasha. White tiger changeling. Male. Wearing no fewer than four edged weapons in his belt. Based on how he carried himself, Will judged him slow-footed but strong. He would rely on brute force and those thick bracers on his forearms to absorb and deflect any blows of fist or blade thrown at him. Not that smart. Braggart. Keep him talking.
The observations flashed through Will’s mind in a fraction of a second. “How’d you kill Hyland, then? Surely you didn’t take him down by yourself.”
“I did so!” the changeling exclaimed, pulling a foot-long, bleached-looking deer antler from his belt. “Didn’t even need a sword. I used this! Stabbed him in the throat and watched him bleed out like a stuck pig.”
Will did charge then, all but dislocating his shoulders as the chains violently pulled him up short mere inches away from getting his hands around the murderer’s throat.
The rakasha laughed, but Will noted with satisfaction that the whoreson did take a cautious step back.
“I’ve seen your face, and I will not forget it!” Will snarled. “You will pay for what you did to Leland Hyland, I swear it on the graves of my parents. You are a dead man. Enjoy each sunrise well, my friend, for one day soon, it will be your last. I and mine are coming for you.”
The rakasha blustered, “You and yours are headed for torture and death at the hands of your greatest enemy. You should be afraid.”
“Oh yeah? And who would that be?”
“Our true governor,” the rakasha declared.
“Syreena Wingblade? She likes me very well and has offered me a position in her militia.”
“No, you fool. Anton Constantine.”
Will knew full well that the rakasha referred to the former, and now fugitive, governor, but attempted to goad the cat changeling into revealing more information.
“That buffoon?” Will snorted. “Nobody’s afraid of him.”
“They should be. He has plans. Big plans.”
“Hah! Look where his big plans landed him the first time. Disgraced and deposed. He and his supporters are a bad joke for jesters to mock.”
“Why, I oughta—” The rakasha started forward aggressively.
C’mon. Let me get in range of one of those blades in your belt …
“Gorath! Enough!” a voice growled from outside the wagon. “Leave the prisoners alone. Anton wants them unharmed.”
The rakasha, Gorath, spit foul epithets in Will’s direction as he retreated from sight.
At least two captors, then. But how many more there might be, he did not know.
He tried unsuccessfully to wake up Rynn and Eben, but neither showed any sign of rousing as he shook them. Frustrated, he curled up with his back to Rynn’s to wait out the wearing off of the sleeping draught in his friends and share what meager warmth he could.
* * *
Princess Endellian looked around her father’s opulent golden throne room, bored enough to wish for some random victim to torture. Next on the list of servitors summoned today to report to His Resplendent Majesty, Maximillian the Third, Emperor of the Eternal Empire of Koth, was Captain Kodo of the Black Ship Victorious. The poor man had been sailing back and forth between Koth and Haelos at maximum speed ever since the previous governor, Anton Constantine, had decamped and gone on the run last year.
Kodo looked exhausted as he made his respectful obeisance to her father, bowing until his nose nearly touched the black nullstone steps leading to her father’s great nullstone throne carved in the shape of the Eternal Flame.
“Rise, Kodo,” Maximillian intoned. “What news of our colony in Haelos?”
“It is quiet for the moment, Your Resplendent Majesty,” Kodo replied.
She sensed he was pleased to be able to report that. And well he should be. It was he who had appointed the emergency governess to replace Anton and she who was responsible for any calm the previously turbulent colony experienced now.
“What do your spies report?” Max queried.
What had her father read in Kodo’s mind to elicit that particular question? For the thousandth time, she wished she had been gifted with her father’s keen ability to peer into the minds of everyone around him, discerning their thoughts and feelings before his subjects hardly knew they existed.
Only his fellow Kothite lords and ladies had any ability to shield their minds from Maximillian, not that any of them dared to defy him so openly. Even now, when she was merely acting as social secretary to her father, she was careful to think only thoughts she would not mind having her father pluck from her brain.
Kodo took a moment to formulate an answer, then said, “A spy in the north has brought me interesting news of an incursion into the Dominion colony in northeastern Haelos last winter.”
Max waited patiently, not deigning to beg for more details. Kodo knew better than to hold out on her father.
The Black Ship captain continued, “An attacking force of elemental creatures came out of a planar gate of some kind and attacked the Dominion capital. The force was ultimately destroyed, but not before inflicting significant casualties upon the Dominion.”
“Elementals?” Maximillian said alertly.
Endellian’s attention swiveled sharply to her father. So forcefully was he thinking that she actually caught a brief image of her former lover, Maximillian’s oldest and dearest friend, General Dikenn Tarses.
Stunned, she waited for more of her father’s momentarily unguarded thoughts. Did he believe Tarses was behind the attack? Was the general on the move once more, in Haelos? To what end? The world believed Tarses to be long dead. He could never return to Koth. Surely, he did not attempt to restore himself to her father’s good graces …
No. If anything, Tarses did the exact opposite, which was alarming to say the least. He had been her father’s most successful general by far, so much so that his charisma and the loyalty he inspired in his troops had become a direct threat to Maximillian’s throne.
“How
large was this elemental force that passed through the gate?” Maximillian asked, his voice restored to bland indifference.
She was not fooled for a second by her father’s bored tone.
“It numbered in the hundreds. Rumor has it that a much larger force was seen beyond the gate, though. Apparently, the Dominion forces were able to close the gate before the main body of the army came through.”
“Too bad,” her father murmured.
Indeed. An elemental army and a changeling army would be well matched to destroy each other. And why fight an enemy oneself if one could sic two of one’s enemies upon each other instead?
“My liege,” a new voice said from the other side of the throne. “If I might ask the captain a question or two?”
“By all means, Ammertus,” her father answered.
As always, the underlying chaos in Ammertus’s spirit grated on Endellian’s nerves. One of her father’s closest contemporaries, he was volatile and prone to fits of rage that made her cautious of him. No matter that his contrition and loyalty to her father came just as quickly as his outbursts.
“Tell me, Kodo, what news of Anton Constantine? Has he been seen? What is he up to?”
Of course, Ammertus would want to know of Anton, who had long been a protégé of his and was widely known as Ammertus’s man.
“Rumors abound of the former governor, Your Dread Grace. If even half of them are true, it is fair to say that Anton is out and about, and he seems to be pursuing plans of his own.”
“What plans?” Ammertus asked.
Kodo shrugged. “You would know better than I.”
Ammertus’s florid face flushed an ugly shade of radish pink that clashed with his carrot-orange hair. It was brash of Kodo to so openly provoke Ammertus by suggesting that he might be helping Anton work against the Empire’s goals.
Kodo said in a more placating tone, “My spies tell me that Anton appears to be setting up in private business as a merchant. He continues to elude the Haelan legion and is thought to travel the wild lands west of the Estarran Sea. It is only a matter of time, though, before he makes a mistake and is caught. With construction of Maren’s Belt well under way on the west coast of the Estarran Sea, the Imperial presence there increases. Someone will see Anton and apprehend him.”
