The Aundairian ambassador looked as though he had been dragged from bed and brought before the Cardinals—which, Vauren supposed, was not far from the truth.
Silver Flame, he thought, I feel much the same way.
Vauren’s path away from the Whisper Woods had led him to the border of Thrane, Aundair’s neighbor to the east and south. He’d been far enough ahead of Haldren’s marching armies that he had little trouble slipping across the border without papers. Within three weeks of leaving Haldren’s camp, he’d found his way to the city of Thaliost, where he managed to secure identification and traveling papers for his new identity. He had also used a contact in Thaliost to get a message back to Fairhaven, though he didn’t expect any kind of response.
Armed with a letter of introduction provided by the same contact, he had made his way to Flamekeep and found his way into the livery of a Knight of the Flame, which made him distinctly uncomfortable. On the one hand, he knew he was by no means the first foreign spy to infiltrate this chamber and this supposedly holy order. On the other hand, it shaped Vauren’s personality in unfamiliar ways. He wasn’t accustomed to piety, but he was becoming pious. He had even started cursing like a Thrane. He feared it would interfere with his work.
He stood, stony-faced, at the great chamber’s edge, as the ambassador hurried forward and bowed before the Diet of Cardinals. Vauren could see the man trying to compose himself as he held the bow a little longer than strictly necessary.
“Revered Lords,” the ambassador said, absently straightening the folds of his robe, “to what do I owe this honor?”
One of the cardinals seated near an end of the crescent-shaped table got to his feet. “Ambassador,” he said, “we have received some very disturbing reports from the north, and we hoped you could shed light on their significance for us.”
“Reports from the north?” the ambassador repeated. Vauren pitied him. He was an aging diplomat, his hair thinning and his waist spreading, and he clearly had no idea what he was in for at this meeting.
“I will not waste your time weaving shadows, ambassador. Aundairian troops are marching north of Thaliost. What is their purpose?”
The ambassador was obviously stunned, and he stammered a reply. “I—I have not been informed of any troop movements.”
“Are you quite certain, ambassador?”
“Yes, of course! I am sure it’s nothing, just training exercises or war games.”
“War games,” the cardinal said gravely. “Tell me, ambassador, what kind of war game involves large numbers of dragons?”
“Dragons?” For the first time, the ambassador smiled, if nervously. “Revered Lords, someone is playing a terrible joke—”
“This is no joke, ambassador. We have not heard anything from you to suggest an explanation other than the one that seems obvious: Aundair is planning an imminent violation of the Treaty of Thronehold, in an attempt to reclaim the lands of Thaliost.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“I might be inclined to agree with you, ambassador, were it not for the dragons. I wouldn’t presume to guess what damning bargain your queen has made to secure the assistance of dragons, but I assure you that Thrane takes this threat very seriously. We have already notified our ambassadors in Breland, Karrnath, and the Eldeen Reaches in order to secure the assistance of those nations in protecting ourselves from this violation of the Thronehold accords. Aundair’s arrogance will not be ignored. We hope you will urge your queen to reconsider this brash move before all Khorvaire is once again engulfed in war.”
“I assure you, Revered Lords, Aundair is not planning an invasion. They would have notified me, recalled me. Unless …”
The ambassador fell silent. No one needed to finish his sentence for him—Vauren knew that everyone in the room could think of one very good reason for Aundair not to recall its ambassadors. A sudden departure of diplomatic personnel would alert Thrane to the imminent invasion. If a handful of aging diplomats had to be sacrificed—well, that was the smallest price Aundair would pay in a renewed war.
Vauren stared blankly at the ambassador, careful not to let any of his thoughts register on his face with even the slightest twitch of muscle. Some part of him—the Knight of Thrane part, he supposed—wished he could help the poor man, leap to his defense and Aundair’s, explain the whole situation. He wished he could put a stop to Haldren’s madness before it cost any more lives. But he knew that was not an option.
I’m as much a slave to my orders as Cart is, he thought.
He was surprised to realize that the thought of the warforged brought a twinge of sadness. Would Cart’s be one of the lives lost in Haldren’s scheme? What about Jenns? Had he survived alone in the wilderness, or starved to death, or perhaps been rounded up again by Haldren’s marching armies? And Gaven? Had the Sentinel Marshals tracked him down yet and dragged him back to Dreadhold? Or killed him?
Vauren suddenly felt light headed. In his min d, the grand chamber became the center of a swirling vortex of history—events unfolding inexorably around him, dragging him and everyone whose life he had touched into annihilation. Haldren and his armies marched in the north, dragons winging overhead. He’d last seen Gaven far to the south, but he imagined Gaven and Senya making their way northward, drawn by some unalterable destiny to reunite with Haldren on the same terrible battlefield. The fate of Khorvaire seemed bound up in the strands of these people’s lives—caught in the maelstrom.
A pair of knights led the ambassador out of the room. Vauren assumed they were not escorting him back to the embassy. He’d be a hostage in the upcoming conflict, another life dragged under by the storm.
* * * * *
Vauren tried to relax. He was no longer dressed in the uniform of a Knight of Thrane, but he still felt the role constricting him. He leaned on the counter at a busy Flamekeep tavern, keeping an eye on the people coming and going without appearing to do anything but study his drink. He let the laughter and curses of the other patrons wash over him, hoping to absorb some of their freedom and coarseness. He felt altogether too clean and pure after his time in the Cathedral of the Silver Flame, and in danger of becoming a prig. Self-righteous morality didn’t sit well alongside a career built on duplicity.
He had considered simply discarding Vauren and starting afresh on a new identity, but something held him back. Perhaps it was just the fact that he’d been three different people in such a short span of time. He had barely had time to get to know Caura, and he didn’t want to discard Vauren so quickly. It was still early, he told himself—there was still time to shape Vauren’s personality and keep him from priggery.
There was little else he could do in Thrane. He’d stayed in the Cathedral just long enough to learn where Thrane’s generals expected to engage Haldren’s forces—an old battlefield called the Starcrag Plain—and the size of the force they expected to marshal. Of course, if Breland or Karrnath decided to get involved, the number of troops could increase significantly, but by the time Vauren had left the service of the Knights of Thrane, those nations had made no commitment to Thrane’s cause. If they did, that would be important information, but there were other spies who would probably hear the news first.
Finding Gaven, though, was something that no other agent was likely to accomplish.
A combination of a careful reading of the Korranberg Chronicle—the most widely read source of news in Khorvaire—and a thorough roundup of gossip had given him a sketchy idea of Gaven’s movements. There was the chase through the lightning rail station in Korranberg. The Chronicle hadn’t reported the identity of the fugitive, but it was easy enough to guess that it was Gaven. From Paluur Draal, Korranberg was the closest major city and lightning rail station. Then the lightning rail disaster in Breland. The Chronicle painted it as a freak storm, but the rumormongers spoke of Sentinel Marshals killed in the incident. Vauren had spoken to a pair of travelers who had been aboard when the carts stopped in Sterngate, who had told him about the Sentinel Marshals searching every cart, looking for someone. Clearly, Gaven had been traveling north from Korranberg.
The disaster had occurred near Starilaskur, he knew, which lay in northeastern Breland. The lightning rail line ran from there to Vathirond, then north into Thrane. But Vathirond also stood at the edge of the Mournland—not far at all from the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor, according to the map they’d found in Paluur Draal. And Vaskar had spoken, in Haldren’s tent, of meeting Gaven at the Sky Caves.
And there was the lost airship. A man attached to House Lyrandar had gotten too far into his cups and told Vauren that an airship had failed to return after leaving Vathirond under unusual circumstances. Someone had bribed or persuaded the captain to take the ship on an unscheduled voyage, and she had flown out of town to the east, toward the Mournland.
Could Gaven have persuaded members of his family to let him borrow a ship, or to carry him into the Mournland? It seemed unlikely. He was an excoriate as well as a fugitive. By aiding Gaven, the captain would have been risking excoriation himself, as well as criminal charges. Someone very close to Gaven might have taken that risk, Vauren supposed. Perhaps Gaven had seized control of the airship? Again, unlikely—but not impossible.
He pondered the mystery of the lost airship as he ordered another cup of wine—or the vaguely wine-flavored water this place served. On a positive note, though, he could drink it all night without worrying about clouding his wits. While he waited, he leaned back against the bar and surveyed the crowded tavern.
A group of dwarves tramped in, and Vauren studied them. They were travel-worn, their cloaks dusty and their boots caked with dried mud. That wasn’t unusual—at least half the patrons of this tavern looked much the same. Vauren had chosen a tavern near the southern gate of the city for just that reason: it was popular among travelers newly arrived in Flamekeep. He turned back around as the barkeep set his wine down with a grunt.
Something caught Vauren’s eye as he turned, and he considered the implications as he sipped his wine. One of the dwarves, sporting a fine silk shirt of brilliant red, had revealed a signet ring as she pulled off her gloves. If Vauren’s brief glimpse had been accurate, it was the snarling manticore seal of House Kundarak.
That could mean many things. House Kundarak maintained banking operations across Khorvaire, so some of its members traveled constantly from enclave to enclave. These dwarves did not look like bankers, though—they were battle hardened and armed to the teeth. Well, Vauren supposed that traveling bankers would have to be well armed and ready for combat, to protect against the threat of bandits. Still, House Kundarak also operated Dreadhold. Who would House Kundarak employ to track a fugitive from Dreadhold?
Vauren closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the tavern, trying to locate dwarf voices amid the din. No luck, but that didn’t surprise him—they hadn’t struck him as a boisterous group. Holding his cup, he turned around on his stool, leaning against the bar again, to all appearances a handsome elf searching the crowd for companionship. He saw them arranging themselves around a table across the room. There were five of them, and they grumbled as they tried to fit their broad bodies comfortably at a hexagonal table. Vauren spotted burn marks on the clothes of at least three of the five.
There was no way Vauren could hear their quiet words at six paces, not with four other tables full of much rowdier drinkers between him and the dwarves. He concentrated on watching their lips. That meant he had to stare more intently than he would have liked, but the dwarves weren’t looking around much. It was a risk he was willing to take.
The table’s attention seemed fixed on the one in the red shirt, so Vauren pegged her as the leader. Unfortunately, Vauren stared at her back, watching the heads of the others bob in agreement but getting no idea of what she had said. Finally one of the other dwarves said something Vauren could read, and he knew he’d found a trail to follow.
“Couldn’t we seize her family land in Stormhome?” the dwarf said.
That question told Vauren a great deal. Although House Lyrandar owned the island of Stormhome, the dwarves were clearly discussing a noble, not an heir of the house. Even House Kundarak couldn’t seize an estate that belonged to another dragonmarked house. The question probably related to someone who had aided a criminal or a fugitive—seizing land would be a way of putting pressure on such a person. It was by no means a certainty, but it seemed probable that they were talking about Rienne ir’Alastra, Gaven’s former betrothed.
He watched for a while longer without attracting the dwarves’ attention, but he couldn’t make out any more words to confirm his hunch. He needed closer access to these dwarves. When one of them got to his feet and made his way outside, Vauren saw his chance.
He left his drink on the bar with a silver coin, and slipped through the crowd to the door. Stepping outside, he looked up and down the street. Dark and quiet—perfect. Light spilled out the tavern windows, forming little bright pools on the cobbled street, but the other buildings were dark, and no one else walked the street. A splashing sound from the alley next to the tavern alerted him to his quarry’s location. He wrinkled his nose in disgust—he expected better manners from House Kundarak.
He untied the length of silk rope he wore as a belt and tied a knot in it as he hurried to the alley. The dwarf leaned his forehead against the wall of the tavern as he relieved himself. In one smooth movement, Vauren stepped behind the dwarf and slid the rope around his neck, pulling it tight.
He cursed the hardiness of dwarves as he waited for the air to give out and the body to fall limp. The dwarf struggled hard, trying to work the fingers of one hand under the silk as he reached behind him with the other to gouge at Vauren’s eyes. Vauren kept the pressure constant while keeping his own vulnerable spots out of reach, and finally his patience was rewarded—the dwarf fell first to his knees, then face down in his own puddle of urine. Vauren released the rope, and a wracking breath reassured him that he hadn’t killed the dwarf.
That’s strange, Vauren thought. Why didn’t I kill him?
“My descent into priggery is complete,” he muttered aloud. He pulled a dagger from his belt and bent to slit the unconscious dwarf’s throat, but again he found something staying his hand.
“Oh, Vauren, you weak-willed Thrane.” He dropped the dagger on the ground. “Only one thing to be done.” He rolled the dwarf over, looking closely at his face. He glanced toward the street, making sure he was well cloaked in shadow. Then he changed.
He pulled off his clothes as he worked on his face, transforming it into a perfect copy of the dwarf at his feet—chiseled features, neat beard, shaven pate. Then he pulled off the dwarf’s armor as he compressed his body to dwarven stature. He liked dwarf bodies—solid, strong. The skin firm, almost like marble.
He put on the unconscious dwarf’s armor and checked himself over. He found identification papers and traveling papers in a coat pocket and studied them carefully. He repeated the name softly to himself several times: “Natan Durbannek, Natan Durbannek.” He always preferred choosing his own names, but it was useful in this case: taking someone else’s name helped him become someone more unlike himself. He didn’t know Natan Durbannek, but he knew what House Kundarak’s elite agents were like. So as he shaped his body, he also sculpted his heart—hard, sharp.
Ruthless.
He picked up the battle-axe that lay at the dwarf’s side. Without a moment’s hesitation, he brought it down hard on Natan Durbannek’s neck.
* * * * *
The young Sentinel Marshal ran through the streets of Stormhome as fast as her feet could carry her. Watching Arnoth d’Lyrandar’s house had seemed like the most boring assignment imaginable, and before the lightning rail disaster she had spent countless hours in her hiding place, wishing that she was with Evlan d’Deneith instead of sitting on her ass. After the lightning rail disaster, she had spent hours wishing she’d never entered the Sentinel Marshals, wishing she could be anywhere in Khorvaire other than that street in Stormhome.
But the assignment suddenly seemed anything but boring. She had to get word to someone before it was too late. She only hoped that someone could act on the information in time. She burst into the little message station operated by House Sivis, out of breath, her legs and lungs burning.
“Quickly!” she panted. “Send a message to Karrlakton! The Lyrandar excoriate, the fugitive from Dreadhold—he’s here!”