by James Wyatt
“Did you know he was a changeling?” Rienne asked.
“No idea. I remember that almost from the beginning I knew he was hiding something. He didn’t quite fit in with the others-he was the only one who would even think of challenging Haldren, for one thing. And Senya thought he had some connection to the Royal Eyes. But a changeling?” Gaven shook his head, remembering the dwarf who had released his manacles-the same one who had barged through Thordren’s back door and landed in a pile of cooking pots-and struggling to find any similarity to the familiar human artificer. “No, I can still hardly believe it.”
“It sort of makes you think, doesn’t it? Anyone you talk to could be a changeling, really-even someone you think you know. How can you ever be sure?”
Gaven had no answer for that.
Rienne watched him for a while, her eyes following the slight movements of his arms as he steered the airship over the sea. “So you’re flying an airship,” she said at last, a smile spreading across her face, gleaming white in her dark skin.
Gaven returned the smile. “I am,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”
“Is it hard?”
“Not in the least. She’s really not very different from a ship on the water. And the elemental does most of the work.”
“It seemed to be plenty of work for Darraun.”
“Oh, it was. These wheels are made to channel the power of a dragonmark-they’re the same ones they use on the seagoing galleons. They won’t work for just anyone.”
“It’s fortunate he was able to do it at all.”
“Yes, but not altogether surprising. Artificers are good at making magic work the way they want.”
Rienne ambled a few steps toward the prow. Gaven watched her as she stared ahead for a moment, then to the right, then to the left. She searched the horizon for a long moment, then turned back to him and asked the obvious question. “So where are we going?”
He gave her a sad smile. “If you don’t know what you want, you’re sure to do what someone else wants.”
“That’s my line,” she said with a grin, but then her face grew serious, and she stepped closer. “So what do you mean by that? Are we still talking about you and your destiny, or are you making some kind of comment about me?”
“I mean it’s time for me to decide. I’ve spent my whole life squirming under the pressure of other people’s expectations, without ever deciding who I want to be and what I want to do. It’s time for me to grow up, to stop defining my life by whining, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ ”
Rienne laughed at his exaggerated voice.
“Do you know,” Gaven continued, “before my Test of Siberys I must have prayed to each of the Nine Sovereigns a hundred times, asking that I wouldn’t show a dragonmark?”
Rienne frowned. “You never told me that.”
“It’s true. And I always felt like my father knew it, or at least blamed me for failing the test. I think he always figured that once my mark manifested, I’d come around-I’d be the dutiful son he wanted me to be, and follow in his footsteps. I guess I must have figured that if I did get a mark, I would pretty much have to. And that’s why I wanted so badly not to get one.”
“I don’t want to do that.” Rienne mimicked Gaven’s whining voice.
“Exactly. I never wanted to do what I was supposed to do.”
“And yet you served your house well, all those years with me.”
“By working around House Tharashk to get better deals on dragonshards. By working outside the system.”
Rienne stepped closer. “Very well, you rebel. So now you’re fighting against expectations again. Some ancient dragon inside your head wants to become a god, but you’re not going to do that. Haldren wanted you working for him, but you weren’t about to do that. You’re supposed to go back to Dreadhold and rot like a dutiful prisoner, but I note we’re not sailing east to Dreadhold. We’re sailing west. So what are you going to do?”
Gaven’s brow furrowed, and he looked away. “I think I’m going to be a hero.”
“Really?” Rienne almost laughed, but she reined it in when she saw the seriousness of his eyes.
Gaven blinked back tears. “The elder son of Arnoth d’Lyrandar could be nothing less.”
She closed the distance between them and placed a hand on his chest. “He was proud of you, you know.”
Gaven nodded, but he stared down at the wheel. “The memories of him that come most readily to my mind are the stern father, judging and distant and gruff. I don’t know why those are so much easier to remember than the kinder moments, the times he made it clear how much I meant to him. The way his eyes would shine when he talked about me, positively beaming with pride.” He looked up and found Rienne’s eyes. “That’s an expectation I suddenly find that I want to live up to.”
She held his gaze, then reached an arm behind his neck to pull his mouth down to hers.
The changeling was dreaming-he knew that much, but the knowledge did nothing to help him navigate the chaos. A jumble of identities, names and faces and personas, stumbling through one unlikely crisis after another. At last he stood in his true form in the awesome presence of a goddess.
“The Traveler,” he said. “Bless your ten thousand names.”
But the Traveler wore the face of his paladin acquaintance of recent months-a tall half-elf with short red hair and blue-gray eyes-and she glowed with an argent radiance like the Silver Flame of the Thranes.
“Who are you?” she asked him.
“Auftane Khunnam,” he said, and he was a dwarf, all black and brown and sturdy, strong.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“Haunderk Lannath.” Human, sandy hair, scheming.
“Who are you?”
“Darraun Mennar.” Prying, planning, blond.
“Who are you?”
“Caura Fannam.” Poor Jenns. Compassion, care.
“Who are you?”
“Baunder Fronn.” Simple, stout, stupid.
“Who are you?”
“Vauren Hennalan.” Brave, honorable, prig.
“Who are you?”
“Natan Durbannek.” Another dwarf. A killer.
“Who are you?”
“Aurra Hennalan.” Mischievous elf.
“Who are you?”
There were so many, and the Traveler seemed unwilling to accept any answer he gave.
“Who are you?”
He awoke, sweating and shaking, panic racing through his veins. He was in a swaying bunk in a pitch-dark cabin, and he couldn’t remember where he was or-most importantly-who he was supposed to be. He put his hands to his face and felt his features: male, human, thirties. Aboard an airship. Who was with him? Kelas? No. Janik and Dania? No. Haldren? Closer, but no. Gaven, of course.
Real memories started taking shape in his mind, crowding out the confused memory of his dream. His most recent dwarf persona, Natan Durbannek. Helping to capture Gaven in Stormhome, and then helping him escape. Piloting the airship from one end of the island to the other, which made him tired just to remember it.
What in the world had he done? He had revealed himself to Gaven and Rienne, tripling the number of people in the world who knew that he was a changeling. And why? Had it been essential for his mission?
He tried to roll out of his bunk and ended up in a heap on the floor. He curled inward, clutching his head. What was his mission? What in the Traveler’s ten thousand names was he doing here?
“Make it solid,” he whispered. This was not like him at all-he had never in his thirty years questioned a mission or lost his grip on an identity. He struck his head against the floor and reverted to the training disciplines of his youth. “Who are you?” he said. “I am Au-Au… What the blazes is my name?”
“Darraun,” a woman’s voice said. He scrambled on the floor, turning himself to see the woman standing in the open hatch of the cabin, silhouetted in front of a night sky dimly lit by the Ring of Siberys. “Or that’s what Gaven calls you, an
yway.”
“Rienne,” he said. He felt like a child just learning the names for everything in the world.
“That’s right. I’m Rienne.” Her voice sounded bemused, but her face was still in darkness. “Are you all right?”
“Am I…? No.” He started to get to his feet. “That is, I think so.” He reached out and grabbed another swaying bunk, trying in vain to steady himself.
“Do you need more sleep?” Rienne took a step farther into the room, and her features began to resolve in the darkness. “Do you want me to help you back into bed?”
“No! Not more sleep. No, thank you.” He managed to stand, and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Good, because Gaven wants to talk to you before we get much closer to Haldren’s camp.”
“Haldren’s camp? What in the Ten Seas does he think he’s doing?”
“You’ll have to ask him that.”
“All right,” the changeling said. Darraun, he thought. Darraun Mennar. “You go ahead. I’ll be there in a moment.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.” Darraun Mennar. Darraun was polite, friendly. “Thank you.”
Rienne turned, halfway out of the cabin, and smiled back at him. “You’re welcome.” Then she was gone.
He buried his fingers in his hair, ran them down his face, wrapped himself in his arms, ran his hands down his legs. He knew this body-he’d worn it for months. He knew Darraun. He was ready. He started out the cabin door.
But Gaven and Rienne knew he was a changeling. He stopped dead. What would that mean? How would they treat him now? Did it matter if he acted like Darraun or not?
Best to appear familiar, reassure them that he was the same Darraun that Gaven knew. He took a deep breath, and wished that Darraun were a little braver. Vauren Hennalan could face dangerous and uncertain situations like this with ease. Darraun had been worried about finding himself lost in the Aerenal woods.
Shuddering at the memory of a city filled with the undying, Darraun climbed the stairs to the main deck.
“Have you seen Haldren’s camp?” Gaven demanded as soon as Darraun’s head came above the level of the deck.
To his credit, Darraun answered without hesitation. “Not the camp where he is now. His forces marched after I left.” As he spoke, he climbed the rest of the stairs and came to stand near the helm.
“Why did you leave?”
“Haldren discovered me spying on him.”
Gaven arched an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you got out.”
“That’s because you know more about Haldren’s capabilities than about mine. Haldren makes a show of his power. I do not.”
“Fair enough. I’ve always known there was more to you than you let on.”
Gaven remembered Cart interrupting their conversation in Whitecliff, insisting that he, too, was “quite complex.” He chuckled, and noticed Darraun doing the same. Their eyes met, and at the same time, they said, “Many-layered.” Then both men burst into laughter.
“Clearly, I missed something,” Rienne said, folding her arms and smiling.
“I’ll explain later,” Gaven said. “What can you tell me about Haldren’s movements since he left Paluur Draal?”
“He was quite distressed at your disappearance-or at Senya’s, really. He was convinced you had pulled her out of the circle to use as a hostage. From that point on, your knowledge of the Prophecy meant nothing to him. He would have tracked you down and killed you, or tried to, to get Senya back.”
“How touching,” Gaven said. “If only Senya shared his devotion.”
Darraun raised both eyebrows. “If only. So we met with Vaskar on the shore of Lake Brey, and Haldren gave him the Eye of Siberys.”
“Vaskar has it?”
“As far as I know he still does, yes.” Darraun paused. “From there we went to Lathleer, in Aundair, and laid low for a few days. When we were in Whitecliff, Haldren sent word of his escape to a few of his closest friends in the army, and that blossomed into a meeting with seven of them in Bluevine. He swayed them to his cause, promised them a flight of dragons to assure their victory and sent them off to gather troops.”
“A flight of dragons?”
A clash of dragons…
A sense of doom gripped Gaven’s heart.
“That was Vaskar’s end of the bargain, in exchange for Haldren’s help in getting the Eye of Siberys and extracting whatever other information he could get out of you. Vaskar persuaded a fairly large number of dragons to come and form the vanguard of Haldren’s army.”
“And by the rumors of war I heard today, I assume that Haldren has amassed his army, gathered his dragons, and begun his march toward Thrane.”
“That’s right.”
Gaven thought over what the changeling had told him. Darraun’s manner had seemed perfectly straightforward-he could read no trace of deception. The story all made sense, and fit with what little he already knew about Haldren’s movements. He couldn’t help himself-he liked Darraun, he always had, and knowing that he was a changeling and a spy did nothing to diminish that.
I’ve got no choice but to trust him, he thought.
He glanced at Darraun and broke his silence. “Do you know where they’re camped?”
“No. The original plan was to strike down the coast into Thaliost, but Haldren changed the plan after he discovered me.”
“How do you know?” Gaven asked.
“Before I escaped the camp, he gave orders to march, a week ahead of schedule. After I got away, I spent some time in Flame-keep, where I learned that Thrane is concentrating its defense on an old battlefield called the Starcrag Plain.”
“The plain that lies in the sunset shadow of the mountains of stars,” Gaven said. Again the dread gripped him, and he took a deep breath.
“What?” Darraun said, but then he nodded. “Yes, it’s to the east of the Starpeaks.”
“They’re attacking there in order to fulfil the Prophecy. Sovereigns,” Gaven said, “it’s going to be a bloodbath.”
CHAPTER 44
While Darraun and Rienne slept, Gaven was left alone on the deck. The Ring of Siberys shone bright overhead, and the approaching dawn stained clouds in the eastern sky red. To his mind, they whispered warnings of doom: the shining ring of dragonshards that lit the night foretold the consummation of a prophetic cycle, the emergence of the Soul Reaver and the revelation of the Storm Dragon, while the bloody signs of dawn spoke plainly of the cost that would be paid in human lives.
He turned the airship inland, and absently guided her between the darkness of the Whisper Wood on his right and the shadows of the Gray Wood on his left, following a narrow strip of grassy land between the two forests. He was grateful that the navigation didn’t require more attention-his vision seemed to keep slipping between the reality that presented itself to his senses and something deeper, the language of creation.
The Prophecy was written everywhere. Everything he saw spoke of its past and its potential. As he piloted the Eye of the Storm between Aundair’s primeval forest and its younger offspring, making his way to the jutting Starpeaks, he saw the words that had made them and heard distant echoes of the language they strained to speak. And images of his nightmares flashed through his mind, tastes of the horrors those lands would see.
Vultures wheeling over fields strewn with corpses. The howling hordes of the Soul Reaver boiling up from Khyber and spreading out across the land. Legions of soldiers beneath the banner of the Blasphemer. Dragons in the sky.
The visions blended and blurred together, weaving themselves into a tapestry of horror in which he could no longer discern individual threads. Haldren’s march to war would not be the end of the nightmare.
Rienne emerged from below decks at dawn, and Gaven watched with a tired half smile as she stretched and practiced with Maelstrom at the keel. Darraun came up a little later, rubbing his stomach.
“Do you think Thordren had any supplies stashed away?” he asked no one in particular.
“You’re welcome to look below,” Rienne said, “but don’t get your hopes up.”
Darraun disappeared back down the forward hatch, and Rienne hopped up onto the bulwarks’ railings, keeping perfect balance as she practiced complex sequences of lunges, parries, and ripostes. Gaven watched carefully, and chose a moment when her balance seemed most tenuous to jerk hard on the wheel, making the ship lurch to port.
Rienne didn’t miss a step in her exercise, but Darraun let out a cry of pain from the cargo hold. A moment later his head appeared in the hatch.
“Everything all right?” he called to Gaven.
“Fine, sorry,” Gaven said. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Just cracked my head on a beam.” He rubbed his scalp, then checked his fingers for blood.
“Maybe you should go back to being a dwarf,” Rienne suggested.
Darraun scowled and dropped below again.
“Do you think I hurt his feelings?” Rienne asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Aha!” Darraun yelled from below. “We’ve got breakfast!”
Rienne stepped lightly from the railing to peer down the hatch. “What did you find?”
Darraun emerged with an armload of small boxes and a strip of dried beef dangling from his mouth. “Lady Alastra,” he mumbled around the meat. He left his sentence unfinished as he began setting out the foodstuffs he had gathered-pickled vegetables, dried fruits, nuts, and salted beef. When he had swallowed, he addressed Rienne again. “Lady Alastra, I hope that we have the pleasure of traveling in each other’s company under better circumstances so that I can cook you a proper meal. But for the present, please enjoy these… erm, trail rations, with my compliments.”
Rienne and Gaven laughed. “He really is quite a cook,” Gaven added. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“There are many men to whom I would entrust my dinner,” Rienne said, bowing slightly to Darraun. “There are precious few to whom I would entrust my life. I don’t know if I can bring myself to entrust both to the same man, but it would be an illustrious honor indeed.”
