Dragon War: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Three, page 9
Havrakhad, it turned out, wasn’t concerned about thugs, either. He carried himself through the dark streets like a proud warrior, though he held no weapon. Still, there was fear in his voice, fear that took root in Cart’s mind as well.
“The turning of the age draws near,” Havrakhad said. His eyes scanned the sides of the street. “The dreams of your people grow dark indeed.”
Cart shrugged. “I don’t sleep,” he said. Ashara’s tight grasp on his arm, though, suggested that the kalashtar’s words resonated with her.
“But you have felt the tumult of fear when those around you dream in darkness,” Havrakhad said.
Cart remembered long nights during the construction of the Dragon Forge, and he nodded.
“Are you saying there’s some kind of epidemic of nightmares?” Ashara asked.
“You do well to compare it to a disease,” Havrakhad said. “It’s a symp-tom—a sign, a harbinger of the evil that is coming.”
“What do you see in your dreams?” Cart asked him.
“My people, like yours, do not dream, though we sleep. We are exiles from the Region of Dreams, for the masters of that place are our enemies.”
“Who are they?”
“The quori. Ensconced in human vessels, they rule Riedra. But in their true form, as creatures of nightmare, they are the lords of Dal Quor. My people are kin to them, but we have chosen to fight against their tyranny and guide the world into the next age of light.”
“Are they responsible for what happened to Gaven?” Cart asked. “These nightmare lords?”
“No—at least not directly. There was a fragment of an evil presence in the dragonshard that bound him. But without question the quori were aware of it and drew sustenance from it. Just as they are feeding now on all the nightmares in this place.”
Something in the way the kalashtar’s eyes ranged over the city around them, just above the streets, set Cart on edge. The fear that had gnawed at his mind seized him in a surge of panic, and he felt suddenly beset by enemies on all sides—foes he couldn’t see. He drew the axe from his belt, just to feel the comforting weight of it in his hand. Havrakhad chuckled.
“You sense it, though you can’t possibly understand it,” he said, resting a hand on Cart’s shoulder.
Then Cart saw what Havrakhad’s eyes had seen. The buildings that lined the streets rose from solid foundations but faded into smoke and mist as they approached a nightmare sky. The stars were gone, along with the Ring of Siberys that stretched between them, and in their place was a roiling storm of angry red and violet clouds. Blue and green lightning streaked in silence across the sky, shedding lurid flashes of light on scenes of nightmare.
Mobs of people screamed and ran through the haze, falling beneath the swinging clubs and cleaving swords of onrushing barbarians. Shadowy buildings erupted in flames, adding pale firelight to the underbellies of the clouds. Close by, an unspeakable horror crouched over a trembling human form, clutching one arm in an enormous claw as glittering insect eyes examined the body.
“That is a quori,” Havrakhad whispered in Cart’s ear. “It must not see me. Come!”
The kalashtar removed his hand, and the city returned to normal. At Cart’s side, Ashara looked at him with wide eyes as the kalashtar started along the street again.
“Did you see it too?” he asked.
“You have seen it, I believe,” Havrakhad said over his shoulder. “You visit the Region of Dreams nightly.”
Ashara nodded. “I have seen it. I don’t need to see it again.”
Cart took a few quick steps to catch up with Havrakhad, shaking his head in a vain effort to dispel the memory of his vision. “Why?” he said. He wasn’t sure what he meant.
“The turning of the age draws near,” Havrakhad said again. “The light must die before it can be reborn.”
Ashara fell into stride beside him and clutched his arm, and Cart decided not to ask any more questions.
CHAPTER
11
With Havrakhad safely returned to his little apartment, Cart and Ashara walked in silence back to the Tower of Eyes. Ashara’s hand on his arm was a comfort, but her furrowed brow told him that her thoughts were as troubled as his.
“Ashara!”
Cart felt Ashara jump and her grip on his arm tighten, and he yanked his axe from his belt. They had almost reached the tower, but the shout had come from behind them, near the palace. Cart whirled, planting himself between Ashara and whoever had called out to her.
A man hurried toward them. The hood of a cloak hid his face from the glowing dragonshard lamps that bathed the broad street in pools of golden light. His hands were empty, but Cart saw a scabbard slapping against the man’s legs as he ran.
“Do you know him, Ashara?” Cart asked. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her shrug. “Stop where you are and announce yourself,” he called out.
“Tell your warforged to stand down,” the man said, but he stopped and lowered his hood. Cart recognized him from the Cannith enclave—one broad streak of white hair identified him as the man who had tried to persuade Aunn to hand Ashara into his custody. The man held up his open palms. “It’s Harkin. I just want to talk.”
“He’s not my warforged,” Ashara said. “He’s my friend. And we’ll relax when you’ve shown you’re not a threat. Last night you tried to hand me over to Jorlanna.”
Harkin took a few slow steps toward them, keeping his hands up. “I’m sorry about that, Ashara. I had to keep up appearances.”
“Hand Cart your sword and your wands,” Ashara said, “and we’ll talk.”
Harkin chuckled, but started unbuckling his sword belt as he walked closer. “Cart, is it? I suppose you used to carry your squad’s whole camp on your back?”
Cart expected some condescension from members of House Cannith, and as recently as a few months ago he would have accepted it without a second thought. Meeting Ashara had changed that. He decided he didn’t like Harkin at all.
“They called me Cart because I always brought the wounded back,” he said. “Alive.”
“Fancy yourself a war hero, then?” Harkin said. He tossed his sword at Cart’s feet and started on a second belt, the one that held a quiver full of wands.
Cart didn’t answer. He had never thought of himself as a hero, but as a dutiful soldier. Ashara had changed that, too.
“Listen, Ashara.” Harkin was close enough now to hand Cart his wands, treating them much more carefully than he had his sword. Cart took them but left the sword where it lay. “I never wanted to hand you over to Jorlanna. I want your help.”
Ashara stood with her arms folded across her chest, no hint of a smile in her eyes. “My help with what?”
“Stopping Jorlanna.”
Ashara stared at him for a long moment.
“Look, this isn’t the time or place to talk details. But I’ll tell you that I’ve been talking to Merrix, and he’s promised his support as well.” Cart recognized the name of Merrix d’Cannith, one of three barons who vied for control over House Cannith. Merrix oversaw the House’s operations in the south, from his headquarters in the Brelish city of Sharn.
“Of course he has,” Ashara said. “With Jorlanna out of the way, he’ll have two-thirds of the House under his thumb, and Zorlan won’t be able to oppose him.” Zorlan was the eastern baron, who lived in the Karrnathi capital.
“Would that be so bad? Better that than to be a ministry of the Crown, or divided like the Phiarlans.” Harkin took another step closer to Ashara, ignoring Cart entirely, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, Ashara. We were friends once, and more than that. Can I count on your help, for the sake of that old … friendship?”
Ashara looked at Cart, her face a little flushed. “We’ve already set ourselves against Jorlanna’s schemes,” she said.
“I knew I could count on you,” Harkin said. He had assumed Ashara was still talking to him, Cart realized, liking Harkin even less. “I’ll be in touch again soon.”
Harkin snatched his wands from Cart’s hands and held out his hand for his sword, still smiling at Ashara. Cart turned his back on the Cannith and walked toward the Tower of Eyes. A moment later, Ashara’s hands were on his arm again, and he felt his anger ebb.
* * * * *
Aunn sat in Kelas’s chair with his feet on the desk and his chin on his chest, but Gaven didn’t want to sleep. He paced the small room, feeling trapped, his mind circling around thoughts of his father and Kelas, his disturbed dreams, and Havrakhad’s parting words: Use your freedom as if you deserved it.
Aunn had spoken of making restitution for the wrongs they had done, but how could he do that? He couldn’t bring the Paelions back, not any more than he could bring his father back.
A gauntleted fist knocked at the door, and Gaven pulled it open. Cart shuffled inside with Ashara leaning on his shoulder, looking too tired to support her own weight. Gaven glanced at Aunn and saw him fighting to open his eyes, still surfacing from his dreams.
“You all need sleep,” Cart said.
“I don’t,” Gaven said. “There’s enough room in here to put two bedrolls on the floor. You and I can keep watch, Cart, while these two sleep.”
“Don’t try that on me,” Cart said. “Sleep is no weakness, and you’re not some kind of great hero if you can fight it off for a few hours or days.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I used to see it all the time in the army—soldiers would decide that they were as tough as a warforged, try to go without sleep, and nearly every time they ended up dead.”
“I don’t need to sleep now—I’ve been dreaming for the better part of a day.”
“And you’re afraid of dreaming again, is that it?”
“I’m not—” Gaven broke off. Actually, he realized, Cart was exactly right. He didn’t want to dream again of Paelion ghosts, or of Rienne. And after being trapped in his dreams, he was afraid he might not wake up again.
“We can go to Kelas’s home,” Aunn said. “In fact, we should. It’s what Kelas would do.”
“Does he have any family?” Ashara asked.
“No. There’ll be a servant or two, but I can handle them. And we can all get a good rest in a warm, soft bed.”
A bed. Gaven hadn’t slept in a bed since he and Rienne boarded the Sea Tiger in Sharavacion. Without Rienne, though, he feared a bed would seem painfully empty.
“How far is it?” Ashara asked. She looked as though her only concern was whether she could make it all the way to a bed before she fell over.
“Not far,” Aunn said. “A few blocks.”
“I’ll help you,” Cart said, and Ashara smiled up at him.
Aunn stood. “Let’s go, then, before the sun rises.”
Gaven lifted the sheaf of papers from Kelas’s desk, his fingers scrabbling to get the bottom page off the smooth wood. He glanced around the room to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything, but his only possessions were on his person—the armor and sword that Cart and Ashara had secured for him while Phaine held him captive. He clutched the papers to his chest.
Aunn led the way out of the quiet white tower and onto the street. Crown’s Hall rose in stately majesty just off to the left, and Gaven saw a pair of royal guards watching as Aunn led his friends away from the palace. Gaven imagined that the guards stared particularly keenly at him, though he knew it was unlikely they’d recognize him. Following Aunn’s lead, he ignored them and walked with the others down the wide street, kicking at the dry leaves on the cobblestones.
Kelas’s house was everything his study in the Tower of Eyes was not—large and well lit, with tall, glass-paned windows offering a pleasant view of the tree-lined neighborhood. Aunn produced a key, but the door swung open before he could turn it in the lock, and a pretty young woman smiled at him.
“Welcome home, Master Kelas,” she said. “We weren’t expecting you back so soon.” To Gaven’s eyes, her smile seemed forced.
“Plans change,” Aunn said. He was gruff, aloof. The woman gave way as he stepped through the door and into a long entry hall. “We haven’t slept, and we mean to. Are the guest rooms ready?”
“Of course, master.”
“And send some wine to the rooms as well.”
“The vintage?” She didn’t look at Aunn when she asked that, but at Cart.
Aunn hesitated. The servant’s eyes fluttered back to him. “Bluevine ’92,” he said, and she seemed to relax.
“A fine choice,” she said. “Will you be needing anything else?”
“Just sleep.”
“As you wish.” She bowed deeply and withdrew.
“This was a terrible idea,” Aunn whispered. “We should just leave.”
Gaven looked at the shadows beneath Aunn’s eyes. Ashara was leaning heavily on Cart, and despite Gaven’s earlier protest, he felt the weight of exhaustion. “We need to rest,” he said.
“We’d have been safer at an inn,” Aunn said, glancing around the hall.
“Why?”
“Kelas was a spy master. He had so many precautions in place—” The sound of footsteps cut him off. “The guest rooms are this way,” he said, louder, and he led the way through a door into another hall.
“Like the business with the wine?” Gaven whispered as they climbed a flight of stairs.
“Exactly. I think I said the right thing, but I’m not positive. It’s probably best not to drink the wine.”
They reached another hall, and Aunn pushed a door open. “Here’s one room,” he said, “and the next two doors. I, unfortunately, will be at the other end of the house.”
Gaven looked into the open doorway. It was large for a guest room, with space enough for a low table and two upholstered chairs in addition to the soft-looking bed. The first morning sunlight streamed in through a tall window on the far side of the room.
“Avoid conversation,” Aunn added in a whisper. “The servants will hear everything you say.”
Cart led Ashara down the hall to the next door and opened it for her. Gaven didn’t wait to see them say good night. “Get some rest,” he said to no one in particular. He tossed the papers onto the bed in the first guest room, closed the door with a last nod to Aunn, pulled off his boots, and squirmed out of the chainmail shirt Ashara had given him in the cave temple behind the Dragon Forge.
Pain flared from a dozen scrapes and wounds on his chest and arms. His shirt was in tatters, thanks to Phaine’s ministrations, and some of his cuts oozed fresh blood when he pulled the mail away. He wished Aunn had ordered the servants to draw a bath, and briefly toyed with the idea of summoning them himself. He remembered Aunn’s warning, though, and decided to avoid the servants. He fell into bed, and immediately sleep reached to enfold him.
“No,” he said, and he heaved himself to a sitting position, propped against the elegant headboard. When he closed his eyes, the darkness was like the blackness of his dreams, pulling him down and holding him captive. Best not to close his eyes, then. He grabbed the papers from Dreadhold, straightened the pages on his lap, and started to read.
Tumult and tribulation swirl in his wake: The Blasphemer rises, the Pretender falls, and armies march once more across the land.
The Storm Dragon, Gaven thought. He couldn’t remember the rest of the verse, but it was something to do with the Storm Dragon.
He ran a hand over the tender skin where his dragonmark had been. Am I still the Storm Dragon? he wondered. He reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out the dragonshard that held his Mark of Storm.
Or is this the Storm Dragon now?
Turning the shard in his hand, he thought for a moment that he saw in his mark the same words he’d just read on the page. Something about the Blasphemer, anyway.
He placed the bloodstone on the skin of his chest and balanced it there as he turned to the next page in Kelas’s papers.
The cauldron of the thirteen dragons boils until one of the five beasts fighting over a single bone becomes a thing of desolation.
The twentieth day of Olarune, 973 YK. Gaven had scrawled those words on the wall of his cell twenty-one years to the day before the Mourning, when Cyre became “a thing of desolation.” They were transcribed without comment—surely no dwarf at Dreadhold could have guessed in 973 how those words might be fulfilled. Gaven remembered that verse and its conclusion:
Desolation spreads over that land like wildfire, like plague, and Eberron bears the scar of it for thirteen cycles of the Battleground. Life ceases within its bounds, and ash covers the earth.
Apparently the Mourning had been foretold in the Prophecy. Did that mean it had to happen? Were the deaths of millions of Cyrans somehow necessary, because the Prophecy predicted it?
Or had someone brought the Mourning about in order to fulfill the Prophecy? No one knew for certain what had really happened on the Day of Mourning. Perhaps some dragon or sorcerer, obsessed with the Prophecy, had decided that killing all those people was the best way to fulfill those words, words found written in the the depths of the Dragon Below or encoded in a dragonmark, or signified by the movement of the moons and stars. Where had Gaven learned them? In a nightmare?
What nuance of meaning was obscured by the bald translation he’d scribbled in his cell? All the verbs he’d chosen seemed clear, painfully direct, making it hard to imagine any other possible interpretation. Could the Prophecy have been fulfilled in a less devastating way? Could Cyre have been spared?
He closed his eyes as he thought, then jolted awake as sleep tried once more to claim him. He scowled, shook his head to clear it, and turned the page.
Thunder is his harbinger and lightning his spear. Wind is his steed and rain his cloak. The words of creation are in his ears and on his tongue. The secrets of the first of sixteen are his.
Malathar had echoed those words back to him during their final battle—why? Was the dragon-king seeing his own doom in the Prophecy? And then Malathar said another verse. Gaven looked at his dragonmark again, and saw it:
