An instant of blackness laced with silver, then green, then they stood in a lush forest alive with the droning of insects, the songs of birds, and the screeches of monkeys greeting the dawn. In sharp contrast to the windswept coast they’d just left, the air was warm and heavy with humidity. The ground rose sharply in one direction, and peering through the broad leaves of the forest, Gaven caught a glimpse of white-capped mountains in the distance.
Haldren looked quickly around the little circle, then dropped Gaven’s hand.
“Welcome to Q’barra,” he said with a broad smile. “Whitecliff should be a short walk.” He glanced around to get his bearings, then waved his hand at a thinner patch of forest. “Downhill.”
“What are the chances someone will be looking for us there?” Senya asked. “Looking for you, I mean.”
“It’s almost inconceivable,” Haldren said. “They’ll be expecting us much closer to Dreadhold.”
“They know you’re a sorcerer,” Darraun said.
“True, but they can’t search a thousand-mile radius.”
“How many major settlements are there within a thousand miles of Dreadhold?” Senya said. “It seems likely they could narrow that search quite a bit.”
“Most of eastern Karrnath would have been in my reach. They don’t know our destination, so they have little reason to look in Q’barra.”
“Except that it’s been a haven for refugees and fugitives for seventy years,” Darraun said, frowning.
“True enough,” Haldren said. Gaven could see that he didn’t like having his pronouncements questioned, but he remained gracious. “We will exercise caution as we approach the town. They know what Gaven and I look like, of course, but they don’t know any of you. They’ll be looking for a dragon and people on wyverns. We have no dragon and no wyverns, so I do not anticipate any difficulty.”
The memory of Vaskar killing one of the wyverns flashed in Gaven’s mind.
Haldren started walking, ending the discussion by turning his back on Darraun—rather pointedly, Gaven thought. Senya followed without a moment’s hesitation, and Darraun trailed after. Cart lingered by Gaven.
“So you’re my faithful hound,” Gaven said to the warforged.
“Hound?”
“It’s your job to keep an eye on me, make sure I stay with the group?”
“It’s my job to keep an eye on everyone,” Cart said with a shrug. Gaven was struck at how human the warforged managed to seem, despite a face that was essentially a featureless plate of metal with a hinged jaw. Gaven nodded, and they walked shoulder to shoulder behind Darraun.
* * * * *
For all the concerns Senya and Darraun had expressed, the group walked out of the jungle and into Whitecliff with little difficulty. Apparently this frontier town was accustomed to people appearing out of the forest and strolling into town. Had they been lizardfolk of the sort that infested the jungle, Gaven was sure they would have been given a very different reception. A wall of white stone surrounded the town, presumably quarried from the cliffs of the Endworld Mountains just to the north and west that gave the town its name. The guards at the gate wore coats of metal scales and bristled with weapons. Each one carried a halberd and wore a sword, a dagger, and a crossbow. The sentries asked a few questions about their business and the length of their stay, but Haldren handled them with ease.
After a quarter-century in Dreadhold, Gaven felt overwhelmed by this first taste of civilization. The morning streets, lined with buildings made of the same chalky stone as the town’s walls, were crowded with people—thronging the marketplace, visiting the temples, opening shops for the day’s business. Considering the town’s location near the eastern edge of nowhere, it seemed awfully crowded to Gaven. Any one of these hundreds of faces could have been someone looking for them—a Sentinel Marshal or a Tharashk inquisitive. The dwarves made Gaven most nervous, reminding him of his jailers and making him wonder how many had ties to House Kundarak. The freedom he had tasted and savored at the campfire began to sour in his mouth. Looking constantly over his shoulder hardly seemed like freedom at all.
Haldren led them through the streets, leading Gaven to wonder how the Aundairian knew the place so well. That thought made Gaven realize he had no idea of the crime that had brought Haldren to Dreadhold. Had he spent time as a fugitive, hiding in the frontier of Q’barra before he was captured and imprisoned? What had he done that made them hunt him to the farthest reaches of Khorvaire? And to what lengths would they go to recapture him?
Probably the same lengths they’ll go for me, he thought, quickly surveying the faces in the crowd around him.
They reached a section of town where the stone buildings were dingy gray, and Haldren stepped through the doorway of a small hostel. A faded sign above the door showed only a unicorn that might once have been gold, but now looked dull brown. The door had been painted green a long time ago, but knives, fists, and armored shoulders had chipped away much of the color. The wooden floor inside was adorned with a frayed rug that displayed another yellow-brown unicorn marred with stains that made up a rainbow of unpleasant colors.
This was the sort of place that catered to people who would rather not present themselves at a hostel run by House Ghallanda, where they’d be required to show identification papers. A glimmer of recognition flitted across the face of the desk clerk when the man saw Haldren, but he bowed his head to hide it, taking the money Senya held out and handing over two room keys without a word. Haldren took one key and handed the other to Darraun, and they climbed a narrow flight of stairs.
“Senya and I will be here,” he said as they reached the room whose number matched his key. “Darraun, you and Gaven have the one across the hall. This is not the safest hostel in Whitecliff. We’ve had a long night, so get some rest. Cart, stay nearby. We’ll eat in a few hours, gather some supplies we’ll need for the trip, and get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
He opened the door to his room and pulled Senya inside. Darraun rolled his eyes and turned to the door across the hall, unlocking it with the key Haldren had given him. He pushed it open and stood back for Gaven.
The room was tiny, and the furniture worn, but it was mostly clean. Gaven walked in and sat gingerly on one of the two narrow beds. It felt a bit like his cell in Dreadhold, but he wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.
Darraun was still standing outside the open door, urging Cart to join them inside. “I know you don’t need rest,” he said, “but doesn’t it feel good to get off your feet once in a while?”
“No,” said Cart, and shuffled into the room. With the great bulk of the warforged, the room seemed much smaller. Darraun came in, pulled the door closed behind him, and threw himself down on the bed with a contented sigh.
“That was a long night,” he said. “Are you tired, Gaven?”
Gaven shrugged. Fatigue pulled at his limbs, but he didn’t want to sleep. Not really. Sleep for him was torment as often as rest. He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
“Well, get some rest,” Darraun said, closing his eyes. “We’ve got a grand adventure ahead of us.”
Despite his best efforts, Gaven’s eyes would not stay open. Listening to Darraun’s steady breathing, Gaven was soon asleep, and the dreams came.
* * * * *
The rope bit into his waist, under his arms and between his legs. Uncomfortable, but not agonizing. He swung in blackness, the light of his glowstone too feeble to reach any surface on any side of him. He had no idea if his rope was long enough to reach any kind of floor beneath him, or how far it might be to another wall he could use to aid his descent. He lowered himself as slowly as he could, straining his eyes to see anything—anything at all.
Rienne’s voice called to him from above, where his rope slowly coiled out through a series of pulleys. Her words were swallowed in the open expanse around him.
Then the light of his glowstone fell on a roiling cloud of darkness, and the cloud engulfed him—a cloud of silent black wings. He lost his hold on his rope, and he fell. He called out to Rienne, but the rope kept spinning out, never slowing his fall.
He was flying, broad wings outstretched in a darkness that was somehow not so dark. A churning river flowed beneath him, and he followed its course farther and farther into Khyber’s depths. He came to a cascade and swooped over the edge, then alighted on the bank of a pool at the bottom. He watched a series of images dance across the swirling water of the pool, and he saw a face—a great reptilian snout topped with a massive horn. A dragon’s face. His face. Then he turned, his snaky tail splashing in the water, and he saw the nightshard. Almost perfectly clear, the enormous crystal held a vein of pure purple-black color, pulsing with dim light in its heart.
He groaned, every inch of his body aching, the hard stone beneath him pressing against his wounds. He had a vague sense that he had been unconscious for a long time, and he wondered vaguely why he wasn’t dead. The nightshard, though, was pulsing with violet light. He stretched out a hand, bruised and bloody, and touched it.
His mind exploded with thoughts and memories—his own and the other’s. He fell back to the rock floor, his eyes glued to the nightshard, and could no longer determine who he was or how he’d arrived there. A distant voice echoed in the vast cavern above him, but it no longer sounded like anyone he knew.
* * * * *
“Gaven?”
For a moment the hand that was gently shaking him belonged to Rienne. Her head was on his shoulder, her silky black hair spilling across the bed, and they were twenty-five again. Then he woke, and there was Cart, leaning over him like a mother. When the warforged saw Gaven’s eyes open, he straightened up.
“Time to eat.”
Gaven shook his head to clear the dream from his memory, and sat up on the bed. The door stood open, and Darraun was not in the room. Gaven thought he heard voices from across the hall.
“Were you here the whole time I slept?” he asked.
“I was. Your faithful hound,” the warforged said. There was a smile in his voice, though his face wouldn’t allow it.
“Did I say anything while I was sleeping?” Gaven tried to make the question sound casual.
“Who’s Mara?”
“What?”
“I’m joking,” Cart said. “During the war, I knew a man who talked in his sleep. Usually about whatever woman had most recently claimed his heart. We used to give him a hard time.”
Gaven tried hard to imagine the warforged as just one of the men and women in a squad of soldiers. For a moment he saw Cart in battle, an axe raised over his head, strange, cold light glinting on his adamantine plating.
“No, you didn’t say anything,” Cart said, gently hitting Gaven’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “You snore when you sleep on your back, though.”
“Sorry,” Gaven said. Dreadhold had taught him to avoid confrontation, back down, apologize.
“Doesn’t bother me. And Darraun snores louder. Come with me. Haldren’s waiting.” Cart stepped aside and waited for Gaven to get to his feet, then followed him out the door.
Darraun stood in the doorway to Haldren’s room, speaking quietly to the old sorcerer. Gaven could see Senya behind Haldren, buckling her sword belt at her hip. Haldren saw Gaven emerge from the room, and cut Darraun off.
“Ah, Gaven!” he said. “I hope you are well rested. Shall we eat?”
Without waiting for an answer, Haldren swept out of the room and down the stairs. Cart followed Gaven at the rear of their little procession.
Haldren was willing to settle for substandard accommodations for the sake of privacy, but he had extravagant taste in food. He led the way to Whitecliff’s finest restaurant and ordered for everyone.
“It has been almost two years since I have enjoyed a fine meal,” he said, “with all due respect for our friend Darraun’s expertise at the campfire. Gaven, I can barely imagine how starved you must be for such a repast.”
Starved was the wrong word—Gaven couldn’t remember what a fine meal tasted or smelled like. He remembered the smell of the fish on the campfire, though, and his mouth began to water.
When the food came, it was overwhelming. Half a dozen aromatic smells blended together to form something exquisite. He attacked his plate.
“I am pleased to see you enjoying your meal so much, Gaven,” Haldren said. “It is far better than the offerings at our last lodgings, is it not?”
Gaven nodded and took another bite of pheasant.
“Pheasant can be both dry and dull in the wrong hands,” Haldren said, addressing the table at large. “But when prepared by my good friend Marras, it is never either.” He gestured toward the kitchen. “So, Gaven, how was your sleep?”
Haldren clearly hoped that the good food would help to draw him out. Gaven chewed slowly, considering how to respond, then swallowed and said, “Not so different than Dreadhold.”
“Ah, yes,” the sorcerer said, his voice hushed. “Probably best not to mention our last lodgings by name, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want to attract any undue attention.”
Gaven looked around. His eyes met those of a dwarf who quickly looked away. The pheasant suddenly did not taste so exquisite.
“Did you have pleasant dreams?” Haldren leaned forward as he asked it.
“No.” For an instant, Gaven remembered his dream about Rienne, but then darker images flashed into his mind.
“What did you see, Gaven?”
Gaven’s eyes fixed on the old man’s mouth, just as he had seen it through the shutters in their doors in Dreadhold. A dribble of pear-cider sauce stained Haldren’s white beard.
“I don’t really remember.”
Haldren exploded. “Damn you, Gaven, don’t get coy now!” His voice was a rasping whisper, barely able to contain his fury. “I brought you out of that place because of the information locked away in that twisted little brain of yours. If you suddenly get clever and decide to start withholding information, I’ll send you back there—or off to Dolurrh. Don’t think for a second that I won’t kill you if you stop being useful.”
Gaven glanced around the table. Senya studied her plate while Cart peered around them to see if Haldren’s outburst had attracted the attention of nearby patrons. Darraun watched the two of them with unconcealed fascination.
Gaven took a bite of his squash.
Clearly convinced that he was dealing with an idiot or a madman, Haldren brought his anger under control—to Senya’s visible relief—and tried a different approach. He made his voice light, conversational, and he lowered his eyes to his plate as he spoke.
“Did you see the hordes of the Soul Reaver again, Gaven?”
Writhing tentacles in the darkness, a blinding beam of light stretching up to the sky. Gaven tried to remember his dream about Rienne and found that he couldn’t. Her hair became a mass of writhing snakes, reaching for him.
“No,” he said.
Haldren saw his unease and pounced. “What is it, Gaven? You remember something else?”
“The Soul Reaver itself,” Gaven said, as if in a trance. Haldren leaned forward in his chair. “Falling or flying down from a great height, sinking into a chasm as deep as the bones of Khyber. Endless dark beneath the bridge of light. There the Soul Reaver waits.”
Besides Haldren, who wore a look of smug satisfaction, the other three stared at Gaven with varying degrees of surprise. Senya might have been awed—her mouth was partly open, and her eyes wide. Darraun smiled, but there was something else in his expression that Gaven couldn’t read. And Cart’s face, of course, was a mask, but he rubbed his chin in a way that looked thoughtful.
Well enough, Gaven thought, let Haldren think he won this one.
Better that than to reveal what he had really dreamed.