Chapter 7 – Part 1

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, ENEMY FRIEND DANGER ALLY

The Town of Cree, in the Eldeen Reaches, on the third day of Vult, 993 Y.K., in the mid-morning.

The first impression that customers got of the station was one of tidiness. There was not a speck of dust to be found, and the multitudes of cubbyholes and shelves were uniformly maintained. Each had just the right amount of wood polish, and the ones that held messages had the papers tied with the same exact length of ribbon, and each was inserted at exactly the same angle.

The Speakers Guild office may have been in the rustic town of Cree, but its standards were uniform across the continent. The gnomes actually competed at being fussier than one another.

To the left of the entryway was a long, low counter, meant for smaller folk, and to the right was a higher, human-sized counter. A large clock hung over the gate that joined the two counters. The markings on the clock were words in the gnome language for numbers, and each hand bore a stylized etching of a bird with leathery wings – a cockatrice, symbol of House Sivis.

A gnome in a long-tailed tuxedo stood precariously atop a tall stool of polished pine. The stools feet ended in tiny balls of elemental air that allowed it to rise up and down, slide sideways, or rotate clockwise. It was supposed to also rotate counter-clockwise, but the artificer who had last ‘fixed’ it had been in a rush, and as he was the office supervisor’s second cousin, no one was allowed to mention that little flaw. The gnome in the tuxedo had mentioned it. He was new. Now he was examining every square inch of the upper shelves for dust – and woe betide him if there was any to be found.

The bell over the door jingled, and the gnome turned to see who the visitor was. Or he tried to, since he first attempted to turn counter-clockwise. In any event, only a second or two passed before the gnome realized who was before him.

A humanoid of about three feet in height, plus or minus a few inches, came trundling through the door on feet that barely made a sound. It was a goblin. He was of a size with the gnome on the flying stool, but there the similarities ended. The gnome had carefully styled and greased hair, and perfectly trimmed mustaches. The goblin had a shaved head – or so it seemed, since a soldier’s leather helmet covered most of the things pate. A rough shadow around the jaw said that the goblin wasn’t much for shaving, either. The gnome had a fancy, long-tailed tuxedo, with shining brass buttons, and boots that gleamed. The goblin had ragged clothing, leather armor over a tunic so worn and stained its original color was only a guess. The gnome smelled faintly of cologne, and bathed at least three times a week. The goblin smelled of living in the woods. The gnome had a bearing of intelligence and decorum (or so he thought, from his practicing a professional demeanor in front of a mirror), but the goblin looked like it could barely string a paragraph of nouns together.

“We have no available lavoratories,” the gnome said huffily, sliding the stool so that it hovered above the counter to the left of the entryway. He enjoyed towering over the filthy creature. “And we do not encourage solicitors, beggars, or loiterers! Be gone, then!”

“Huh?” blinked the goblin.

The gnome sighed. “We are a message station, and we are not for –”

“Brezzy send message here?” the goblin asked, pulling out a bag and emptying some coins on the polished counter. Four silver coins, three coppers, and two gold galifars rolled out.

“Yes,” the gnome said, re-evaluating the creature. “You are someone’s servant?” The goblin nodded, a stupid smile spreading across its face. “Well then, you want a message sent I expect.” The gnome reached down and scooped up all of the coins. The idiot thing was over-paying, and there was no need to let it know that. “You have just enough here to use our dragonmarked agent here, he possesses a least mark, so it will travel at a mile a minute, it may take some day for the message to arrive. Where and to who, then?”

“Sharn,” the goblin said. The little wrinkled humanoid squeezed its eyes shut, concentrating so hard that its fangs slipped from its lips. The gnome shivered in revulsion. Even shifters were more civilized. “Ummmm…ummm…yeah!” The goblin’s eyes snapped open. Homer the half-orc! With Tharashk. Have to tell him about prospecting!”

“Ah, you found a mine, lovely,” the gnome said. “There are many Sivis stations in Sharn, which one –”

“Cogs,” the goblin said.

“Ah.” There was only one station in the Cogs. The deepest underbelly of Sharn invited all sorts of disreputable types. Likely this Homer fellow was looking for a private strike that he wouldn’t have to share with the rest of his House. No matter, not Sivis’ concern. “What’s the message?”

The goblin fumbled in another pouch, and finally drew out a nugget of some kind. The goblin turned it over, showing a spiraling pattern of quartz on the bottom of the nugget. “Describe this to Homer, yes? Homer will say if this is good value?”

The gnome barely kept from rolling his eyes. The idiot gnome had found pyrite! Fools gold! And it was attached to a geode of simple quartz! No doubt the filthy creature thought it was a dragonshard! “I will gladly describe it,” the gnome said.

“Get the pattern exactly right?” frowned the goblin.

“Exactly right,” said the gnome. He took a blank sheet of paper, produced a pen that conjured its own ink, and scribbled down a short message. The he looked up. “You can go now,” the gnome said. The goblin nodded, took his nugget back, and padded out of the station. The bells rang, and the door opened and closed, and the thing was gone.

The gnome shook his head, sniggering at the fool goblin, even as he cast a minor spell that cleaned the floor where the goblin had been standing.

An hour later the gnome was done inspecting the shelves and cubbyholes, and an hour after that the gnome with the least dragonmark of scribing came in, read the description, and sent it into the speaking stone. Twenty-two hours later the message arrived in Sharn, in the Cogs station.

And the following day, a changeling spymaster who carried great rank within the Dark Lanterns (a changeling who frequently pretended to be Homer the half-orc of House Tharashk), read the message, and passed the meaning of the nugget’s description on to King Boranel’s chief adviser. Bresbin Delavane was alive, and he was with Pienna.

Chapter 6 – Part 5

“So we are one day out from Blood Crescent,” Orphan said again.

“Yes,” the Captain replied patiently, holding the ship’s wheel steady. In the two days since the warforged had woken, he’d asked the Captain the same series of questions in different ways, trying to find a lie. The fiend, who according to Ois really wasn’t evil after all had patiently answered some, and ignored others.

“We appeared back in time in the year 994?”

“You call this day the tenth of Zarantyr, yes,” the Captain said. Again. “Thomas caught me off guard due to Delegado’s arrows, and the ship’s ability to move reality around itself suffered. We jumped out of time. We barely made it back.”

“You think someone opened a window.”

“I think someone left me a beacon. Maybe it is one of your gods.” The Captain seemed totally uninterested in how they had all survived. “I don’t care. I do care that in less than 24 hours you will all be off my ship.”

“How did you find us?” Orphan asked. The Captain ignored him. It was one of the questions that would not be answered. Similarly the captain had ignored requests about why, if he was so connected to waterborne travel, he did not worship the Traveler. The Captain spoke little about himself, merely stating that like all fiends he was trapped by his nature, but that he had chosen a nature of travel rather than evil or good, and that he had made his peace with the dragons long ago. “It’s because you are attracted to conflict, right?”

“It is my price,” the Captain said. “One that my passengers usually pay. I am not used to being a combatant.”

“Of course,” Orphan said. “And you think that the fiends of the Wastes think us dead?”

“For now,” the Captain said. “Doubtless they were looking for you when we jumped through time, and doubtless they concluded that you were dead. They will know eventually, and one day they will seek revenge on you, have no doubt of this.”

“Joy,” Orphan said. “We were in their city, you know.”

“You told me,” the Captain said sarcastically. “And I wish that you had not. I prefer not to know. I refused to participate in the building of Ashtakala, and I really do not wish to hear about it at all. Please stop.”

Orphan considered this, quickly running through the index in his mind. He’d gotten used to the headband, and realized that its potential was enormous. It seemed to add to his natural level of perception and intuition, and to expand his monk abilities, even as it functioned as a great library for all things arcane or religious. He had no idea how much knowledge it held, but he was getting better at accessing it.

“What do you want to know?” Orphan asked. “I would feel better if I traded knowledge for knowledge with you, to repay your generosity.”

“Quit trying to flatter me,” the Captain replied. “You have not the gift for it.” Orphan heard that, but he waited there. Something told him that this time the Captain would give, if only somewhat. The wait was a long one, nearly an hour. Orphan stood next to the Captain, watching, waiting. The Captain watched the sea as the sun began to sink to the horizon behind the Crimson Ship. Whispers of conversation between Delegado and Ois, who were at the other end of the ship, sometimes drifted forward.

Orphan thought about those two. Both were in great pain. Both would not talk if he was around. Ois would not let Delegado touch her, or come in her cabin. Orphan had heard both weeping in the late of the night. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. He now spent his nights on deck, usually alone. Feather stayed below, comforting his master, and guarding the body of Delegado’s father. Orphan did not know what to say, so he stayed away. At least everyone seemed fully healed and mobile now.

The only company that Orphan had was in the one-sided conversation with the Captain. Most of the ship was off-limits to passengers, so if there was any other crew the monk did not know of them. This left Orphan quite alone when the captain went below decks (presumably to sleep, but who knew for sure).

“Alright,” the Captain said finally. “I will answer one question of yours, then I will ask a question of you, and then you will go below decks to the storage room that I allow you all to use until we dock. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes!” Orphan said. “Hm, one question. Very well, do you know, other than a sense of territory, what the fiends were trying to protect by keeping Bartemain prisoner?”

“The fiends have never been very united,” the Captain told him. “And less so now that you disrupted the plans of the one who sought to get the rod of power from the ghost of the coutal Sentry. They are convinced that some of their own number smuggled you in, and now their plans have slowed down tremendously.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” accused the warforged.

“You didn’t understand my answer,” the Captain replied. “And your question implied that the fiends themselves know why they always do things, did it not?” As Orphan considered this he asked his own question. “Tell me, new body for an old soul, what is it like to be touched by prophecy every day?”

“Are you referring to my actions based on what the halfling sorcerer told me?” asked Orphan. “As I told you when I was trying to interest you in our origins –”

“And as I told you, I don’t want to know all that,” interjected the Captain harshly. “Just answer my question.”

“My answer would be ‘I do not know,’ quite honestly,” the warforged responded.

“That tells me more than you know it does,” smiled the Captain. “Now get below.”

Orphan studied the fiend, then turned and went below. He looked briefly at Delegado and Ois, noting their pain as he went down the stairs.

The darkness of the storage room comforted him as he wondered how one healed a broken spirit.

Chapter 6 – Part 4

The cold was his succor. He would return. He would.

A small piece of him, the smallest piece that there could be, no bigger than a river trout, wiggled its way down into the depths. Unable to see, it could nonetheless trace the eldritch energy of its anchor source.

He moved quickly. The crimson Ship was far behind. The dead half-daelkyr and his thrice-damned axe were far behind. He would return to the place of cold, rebuild himself, and then alert the fiend lords that the intruders to their lands had survived after all.

He would survive again, he would!

Something large loomed ahead. He sent his senses ahead and detected cold, but not his cold, not a friendly cold.

“And there you are,” said a deep voice, first in Draconic, then in Aquan.

He turned to flee, he could not. The white dragon druid was faster underwater than he was in his present form.

Her jaws caught him, and then he knew no more.

Chapter 6 – Part 3

Delegado hid behind the mast as the beam of cold went by. It looked similar to minor frost rays that he’d seen student mages cast at enemies, but this one was thicker, and its very passage sought to stiffen muscles. The Cold Mage had come out of the water blasting spells in a spread, hoping to catch the half-orc.

But Delegado had lived most of his life in wildernesses where the slightest change in sound meant life or death. He’d heard the Cold Mage return, and fired an arrow before dodging.

The Cold Mage had been hurt, but had kept flinging round balls of ice. Unlike the explosive cold balls fired earlier, these were shot at the deck to make little squares of slippery ice. Clearly the Cold Mage was intent on boxing in his prey.

“Screw that,” Delegado muttered, waiting for the whistle he’d used to have an effect. Feather had been sent out earlier to scout around the Crimson Ship, to find something, any reference point. The hawk needed the air after the reality-twisting that they’d all gone through, anyway. Now the bird was about to return.

Time it, Delegado thought. He knew his animal companion. He carefully fit two arrows to the bow and listened.

The Cold Mage let out a startled oath. Delegado jumped around the mast and fired, noting with satisfaction that Feather was trailing water from his talons. The hawk had caught the Cold Mage off guard and distracted him. Delegado’s arrows fired. The Cold Mage’s shield broke one apart, and diverted the path of the other, but the second arrow still scraped a watery shoulder.

The half-orc had been hoping that the Cold Mage would be too distracted to return fire, or that the hobgoblin’s spell concentration would be thrown off. No such luck. A net of ice sprung from the Cold Mage’s outstretched hand, flying quickly towards Delegado.

And it was cut open but a thin line of fire. Snow and water fell harmlessly around Delegado.

“Take me on then!” roared Thomas, charging up the stairs from below. The deck quivered before him, shaking loose any patches of slippery ice that the hobgoblin had cast down. Delegado stared in shock. Thomas was naked, he’d shaved his ehad, he was covered in tiny cuts, and he had fresh bruises all him.

Bruises of a size and shape that Delegado had seen on those who fell before Orphan’s fists.

“What is this?” asked the Cold Mage, sneering. “A puppet?” Delegado then realized that the stormstalk was gone, and in its place were two thin quivering lengths of supple wood, apparently wood from the Crimson Ship itself, connecting Thomas to their vessel. “The Captain many tricks it seems.” He raised his hand and fired a cold ray at Thomas.

The half-dalekyr dodged, hefting his greataxe. “The Captain is not!” snarled Thomas, blood leaking from one eye, while the other one, which was swelled shut, seemed to leak tears. Dried blood also rested underneath Thomas’ nostrils and ears. More blood had traced thin lines down his torso, past scars old and new, and resting into his pubic area. Delegado fired another three arrows at the Cold Mage, trying not to think why the half-daelkyr was in the state he was in. Two arrows got batted aside, but the third sank into the Cold Mage’s thigh.

“I will have this ship!” gasped the Cold Mage, diving off of his pedestal back into the water, presumably to heal.

“The ship is mine!” Thomas growled. He extended a hand, and waves of something rippled the air. Red lines appeared around the Cold Mage, stopping his fall. The Cold Mage growled, and extended his own hands, slapping away the red lines with his own lines of blue. Sparks flew where they touched.

Delegado fired two more arrows, then ducked behind the secondary mast. The Cold Mage howled in pain as he was struck in the torso and then the face. The second arrow shattered the icy nose, and remained half-lodged in the hobgoblin’s skull.

Thomas grunted, and his hand shook. A fingernail fell off, and more of his blood spilled on the deck. The red net was touching the Cold Mage’s skin now, making the hobgoblin snarl with pain. Slowly the Cold Mage was being drawn closer, until he was right by the railing. At this point the blue lines thickened and redoubled themselves.

Delegado fired another arrow, but the flashing energy between the conjured red and blue lines shattered it before it could touch the Cold Mage.

Thomas grabbed his greataxe in both hands and pointed the end at the Cold Mage. “Do I finish him, then?” he asked the half-orc.

“What?” Delegado asked, shocked. “Keeper’s arse, yes!” The half-orc could see the Cold Mage straining. Behind the electrical arcs it was apparent that the hobgoblin was working his way free, planning on dropping back into the water where he could heal, and then return.

“I can tap no more from the Crimson Ship,” laughed Thomas. “Else I undo the repairs below. You can’t shoot him. His magical fields prevent almost any weapon from harming him, stopping most damage. Stopping, stopping, stop, she screamed stop, I wouldn’t.” The half-daelkyr hefted his greataxe. “But this, this was fashioned by my father’s people. It hurts goblinkind. This water-merged wizard, he won’t survive it.”

“Then use it!” snapped the half-orc. Delegado fired two more arrows, but the half-daelkyr’s assessment was correct. They pained the Cold Mage, but they did not kill him. The hobgoblin was even now oozing out of the net of red lines. “Do something!”

“Only if you forgive me,” Thomas sighed. “Only then, yes?”

“What?” Delegado said. “Fine! Forgiven! Kissy-kissy!” The half-orc ran the length of the deck, dodging the few remaining icy patches, to get his sword. Adamantine had a way of cutting through anything.

The wood of the deck suddenly animated, wrapping around Delegado’s ankles, stopping him in place. The half-orc swore, and looked over his shoulder to see Thomas pointing at the entrapping wood. Beyond Thomas was the Cold Mage, now half out of the net of red, magical force.

“I mean it,’ Thomas said. “This axe of my father’s people, the daelkyr that you hate, the half of me, all of me, that you hate. Hate it so much, despite our halves. Forgive me and I use it. Refuse, and I let you both go, yes, both of you fight each other. We die.” Thomas’ visible eye was glowing with some inner light, something was happening. His face was twitching oddly, sagging a bit, half-paralyzed.

And there was something on the half-daelkyr’s privates that was an encrusted fluid, but it was not blood.

Delegado swallowed the sinking thought that threatened to overwhelm his conscious mind. Forgive him or die, said the half-orc’s survival mechanisms.

“I forgive you,” Delegado forced himself to say. “But you will never tell me what you did. I can only forgive you in ignorance.”

“I’ll take that,” Thomas said, making an odd, half-paralyzed smile. He then turned and howled himself into a primal rage, hefting his greataxe above his head in both hands as he charged the Cold Mage.

The wood wrapped around Delegado’s ankles melted back into a normal deck. The Cold Mage burst the red lines around his body away, and they melted into nothingness. The Captain lifted his head weakly.

And, howling with rage and self-hatred, the man called Thomas leaped into the air over the railing, the trailing lengths of wood attached to his neck snapping off as he cleared it. His greataxe swung with the force of his charge, and he buried it into the body of the watery hobgoblin. Both shrieked in pain. Both had their voices cut off suddenly.

Both limply hit the ocean below, but the hobgoblin’s body was in two separate pieces.

Delegado grabbed his sword, then ran back to the railing and watched the ocean.

Nothing. Just waves.

The half-orc fitted arrows to his bow and looked around, expecting the Cold Mage to return, expecting Thomas to come crawling up the side of the ship.

Nothing.

“It is over,” coughed the fiend. Delegado spun around, sighting an arrow on the Captain’s chest.

“Don’t move,” the half-orc said.

“I am trying not to,” grunted the Captain. “I am in a great deal of pain. But I do have control of my ship again. Your friend Thomas is gone, as is the Cold Mage.

Delegado stood there, trying to think. Feather flew down, landing on the half-orc’s shoulder.

“Thomas is dead?” the half-orc asked.

“He was dying when he came above decks,” the Captain said. “But yes, he’s dead.”

“And the hobgoblin?”

“The hobgoblin was a wizard who wanted immortality, but didn’t want to be undead,” coughed the Captain. “About three centuries ago he stole some magic from the gnomes of Zilargo and merged himself with elemental powers of water and cold. Unfortunately for him the process that he used involved a certain undersea portal to Risia which he could never travel more than a hundred leagues from.”

“And how do you know all that?” the half-orc asked skeptically.

“Because I took him there,” the fiend said. “Look, I am not dangerous to you. I am a creature of travel. I am a prisoner of my own nature, like all fiends, but by nature is not an evil one. I have my path and I am content with it.”

“Why’d you mind-f’test me then?” asked Delegado.

“Oh, you would have come on board without fighting me?” the Captain asked, bemused. “I was rescuing you from my admitted kinfolk, and you would have trusted me? I needed distance, I hurried you below. Didn’t think you break free of the conditioning. You’re a rare fellow, son of Tharashk.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Delegado said, his mind racing. “Is the Cold Mage dead?”

“I certainly hope so. But if he is not we should be out of his range before he can recover.” The Captain stood slowly, rubbing his back. “Do you have to point that at me?”

Delegado frowned, then lowered the weapon. “Where are we and where are we going?”

“Some three hundred miles west of the mouth of Crescent Bay,” the Captain told him. “We are now headed east, towards the Tharashk outpost at Blood Crescent. And before you ask, no I am not double-crossing you, I normally an go wherever I wish with my ship, but the Demon Wastes still has a hold on me, to an extent, and I am very worn out from the mental battle for control with your late friend the half-daelkyr. He nearly killed us all, playing with the magicks that bind this ship.”

Footsteps on the deck. “I take it that he was trying to manipulate it, and he pushed us through time,” said Iron Orphan, coming to stand beside Delegado. At this the half-orc returned arrow to quiver and bow to shoulder. Orphan’s mind was too strong for the Captain’s mind tricks. Or at least the half-orc hoped so.

“Very good,” the captain replied. “Did you know that or did your headband tell you?”

“I don’t see why I have to answer that,” the warforged responded. “And you can quit trying to read my mind. You won’t get in.”

“Habit,” the Captain shrugged, lifting his hands and then lowering them. “You are an interesting creature, I desired to know more of you. Is the changeling asleep?”

“What happened to Ois?” Delegado demanded. The rush of adrenalin had faded, and his stomach began to twist. He turned to Orphan, fear and anger in his voice. “What happened to Ois?”

“The stormstalk got loose and paralyzed her,” Orphan said. “She managed to restore me and I killed it. I ran topside to find you fighting the Cold Mage. You sent me below, and I found Thomas assaulting her. I pulled Thomas off of her, and I cleansed her and wrapped her in blankets as best I could.”

The encrusted fluid. The insistence on forgiveness. The man’s nudity. The blood. “Assaulted her how,” Delegado asked, his voice seeming to come from far away.

“Sleep now,” the Captain said. Something soft covered Delegado’s mind, and he was lost into unconsciousness.

Chapter 6 – Part 2

The pain was deep, everywhere, all-encompassing. There was no retreat, no salvation, no shelter, nothing but pain. Not even the Flame touched the pain. She had been tortured by Droaam’s best, but that had been pain of the body. Not the soul. Not the mind.

He was in her. He was taking her vows from her. Her vows of chastity.

Vows that she had been planning on breaking with Delegado anyway. Was this why the Flame would not help her?

“Stop,” she rasped. She wanted to scream it. She could not. She wanted to fight him. She could not raise her arms. His pet had seen to that.

She’d squeezed her eyes shut, at least not having to look at him, to see his bleeding face, his dazed and crazed look.

His stink filled her senses. His body on top of her, crushing her, taking everything from her. Invading her. Killing her in all ways.

Tears ran freely, mixing with his sweat. He was faster now, getting ready to climax. Revulsion fileld her more, self-hatred, a desire to die, to die forever and be away from this.

Rape. A word that she had feared, but seemed applicable to others only.

Rape. She had been threatened with it once by a pair of drunks when she was very young. She had turned herself into a visage of an old crone with sores. They’d run off.

I am being raped.

If she could kill herself, she would. If she could do anything, she would. But there was only helplessness.

Only pain.

Thudding feet, air, the pressure was gone. He was off of her! A thunking sound, striking flesh. Someone else wa screaming, not just her. Someone else was in pain, not just her.

She was free. But she could not move. He was not on her, in her, anymore, but the shame and stink seared her soul to an empty insignificant powerless dot in a never-ending darkness.

She opened her eyes to help make sense of the noise.

The warforged was pummeling the half-daelkyr, his hands a blur. Thomas was jerking back and around, feebly attempting to stop the assault.

“You filthy scum!” Iron Orphan was yelling. “You filthy, disgusting scum!” She heard real rage in his voice. The warforged hadn’t even displayed such emotion when he was furious with her back in the Demon city.

“Stop!” the half-daelkyr finally gagged out between broken teeth. He sheathed himself in some crimson energy, making a shield that Orphan’s fists bounced off of. It seemed to be energy growing from the walls of the ship. “I didn’t mean to do it!”

“And Khyber never meant to be hot and dark!” snapped the warforged.

Thomas looked at her with one good eye. It leaked blood. The other was swollen shut, a gift from Iron Orphan. “I’m sorry,” he said to her.

She closed her eyes. Years of teaching wanted to force recited expressions of forgiveness and piety to her lips. But she could not. The Flame had turned from her, for only one moment of passion, one plan to seduce Delegado. There was no Flame for her here. There would be no Flame for Thomas either. Let them both die. Let her pain and shame go.

The warforged and the half-daelkyr were fighting, arguing. Something about a cold-empowered hobgoblin, and how the ship would be sunk if Thomas did not take his greataxe and get topside.

“Get out of here,” she heard the warforged snarl. She heard Thomas’ feet move.

Flame, if you are still there, have mercy and kill me! Ois had never projected such spite into a prayer, mental or spoken, but she meant it.

Strong hands picked her up as if she was a child, held her gently. Hands made of stone, wood, metal, something not flesh, but something with pity, empathy, and mercy.

“I will take you to your cabin and wash you,” Orphan said softly, carrying her. “I know that females have taboos on males touching them, but I am not really a male. I will be respectful. I promise.”

“Can’t hide the evidence from Delegado,” she whispered hoarsely. “He’ll know, he can track anything, notice the smallest clue.” She could barely get words out, but the monk heard her nonetheless.

“If Thomas does not stop the Cold Mage, we are all dead anyway,” Orphan told her. “And I have little to offer in the fight. You restored me, but my frame is very weak, very vulnerable. I can help you, though. I can at least make you comfortable.”

You can never give me back what I had, she thought, but did not say.

Chapter 6 – Part 1

LET THESE WATERS PASS BY

Mid-morning, date unknown, a cold sea believed to be near the Demon Wastes.

Delegado let his sword go, and slid down the rippling, tilted deck. The ball of cold exploded, but he was already outside of the blast radius. He hit the railing, and immediately began groping for his longbow.

The cold flattened out, and frost rose from the impacted wood. Aside from an irregular circle of white, the immediate effect was to stop the rippling. Whatever magic had been trying to trip the half-orc up was gone, and the deck returned to normal.

At the other end of the main deck, the Captain rose to his knees, grabbing his head in pain. He clenched his eyes shut, and the surface of his face rippled. A clambering was heard below-decks, and the ship slowly righted itself with the sound of timbers being returned to their place. Blood sprung from the Captain’s nose and ears, and after the ship righted, he collapsed anew.

While this was happening, Orphan was jumping from mast to mast, avoiding rays of frost from the hobgoblin formed from water and ice. He threw a few shiruken at one point, but again the hobgoblin was protected by summoned water.

“I am the Cold Mage,” sneered the watery being. “Your discs of metal cannot harm me.”

“Only because they are not enchanted,” Orphan responded, running down a yardarm. He jumped into the air. “But my ki empowers my body, vessel and soul within are one!”

The wave of water came up again, but Orphan passed neatly through it, and kicked the Cold Mage so hard that water and icy teeth flew in a burst from the hobgoblin’s mouth. Immediately the chair dropped, and both water-formed goblin and warforged monk dropped into the ocean.

“Devourer spit them back!” snarled Delegado. The half-orc found his longbow and quiver, and he rushed to the side of the ship. Once in the water the hobgoblin started to heal, but Orphan was not giving up. The warforged was attempting a wrestler’s gab, and he quickly worked an artificial arm around the hobgoblin’s throat. The hobgoblin aquatic seemed to have no problem breathing water along with air, but he did have a problem with breathing while his trachea was being crushed.

A swell erupted around and under the pair in the water, hurling them upwards. The warforged monk was thrown off of his opponent and tossed into the rigging. The Cold Mage rose up on his column of water, massaging his neck and snarling at Orphan with murderous intent.

F’test, that thing was a hobgoblin magician once, Delegado thought. Had to be some magic-user that merged himself with elemental forces. But if he was a hobgoblin then, he’s still partially a hobgoblin now. The half-orc sighted his longbow carefully, instinctively aiming for the pain points of his most favored prey. Which means this should really hurt.

The arrow went right through the hobgoblin, sending sprays of water and ice all around, and the Cold Mage roared in pain. The water holding him up collapsed and he fell backwards into the ocean again.

“Del!” the warforged called, dropping down from the rigging to land by his friend. “It is good to see you! But that hobgoblin, he regenerates when in water, and he will attack the ship again!” The warforged cocked his head to the side. “I seem to have a lot of knowledge now, and I feel more at one with myself. This headband’s potential was only fully unlocked when –”

Delegado grabbed his friend in a bear hug. “Shut up, would you genius?” After a bare fraction of a second of surprise, Orphan hugged back. “Okay,” the half-orc told him. “That thing is still a hobgoblin enough that I could put a special hurt into it, got it?”

“Because you know human and goblinoid physiology better than any other, yes?” Iron Orphan asked. “Right.”

“Right, and he’s healing in water so he’ll be back,” Del said. “And I spent my fire arrows on our Captain.” He jerked his head towards the unconscious fiend.

“He saved us?” Orphan asked. “Why? And then why did you fight?”

“Your headband can figure it out later,” Del said. “Right now you need to get Thomas. He wouldn’t come out of his cabin for me, maybe he will for you. That axe of his, daelkyr make from centuries gone. The daelkyr had to stand against goblinoid empires, so they made lots of goblinoid-bane weapons.”

“Yes, he mentioned his weapon was goblin bane,” Oprhan said, tearing off. “I will fetch him!”

“Good,” Delegado said, scanning the waves below. Satisfied that the Cold Mage was not about for the moment, the half-orc turned and trotted over to the fallen fiend. Probing fingers of strength found a pulse, albeit a weak one. “Hmph,” the half-orc muttered around his tusks. “And what do I do with you, eh?”

A rushing sound of water behind the half-orc informed him that he had more immediate problems.

Chapter 5- Part 8

Bresbin stood watch as the sun set on the second of Vult, his mind racing. Pienna had told him only some of it the day before, and finally today she had told him all of it. For once he had not needed to put on an act with her. His eyes grew big and stayed that way.

Wheels within wheels, Bresbin fumed, turning the matter over in his mind for the hundredth time. Medani gave – ha! – sold the Dark Lanterns the information that set me off on this mission, but even the Dragonmarked House hadn’t understood it fully. Every scrap that came our way, from Phiarlan, from Thuranni, by Fernia even the scraps that the Halfling inn masters had pieced together, nothing approaches the whole picture!

Even Pienna would not have known the whole thing, save for her cousin who was worried about selling his tinkertoy warforged.

Was Pienna right? Did the fate of the world rest on some half-understood quest involving an odd group of a half-orc dragonmarked scion, a warforged built and programmed with something that no one would admit to, a half-Khyberspawn mystic ex-criminal hermit, and a Silver Flame preacher that Thrane had lost track of? What was next, a group of halflings were going to drop a magic ring in a volcano and thereby heal the lame, the blind, and those afflicted with hemorrhoids?

“F’test,” the goblin muttered. And to think his Grandfather Delavane’s biggest worry had been that some forgotten cousin in Darguun would feel shame that a Delavane would swear allegiance to a human king.

Missy rolled over and fixed the goblin with a baleful stare. Pienna may have fallen asleep, but the panther hadn’t. Bresbin shrugged and dropped his eyes, a tacit acknowledgement that he’d broken sound discipline.

He was not foolish enough to drop his simple goblin act in front of a druid’s animal companion. The panther was a good deal more intelligent than any other cat, and more than some people.

His façade worked yet again. Missy dropped her head down next to her mistress’. Bresbin pursed his lips and went on mulling things over as he stared at the lake.

They were back in warmer climes, which meant that it was merely damned cold rather than freezing. According to a nearby mile marker they were one hundred miles south of a town called Niern. Pienna had come down this way via her plant-traveling because she’d needed to turn into a fish to check a seal under Lake Galifar. She’d come back up saying that it held just fine.

Except for the seal that Ama’shay had been watching, there seemed to be no urgency about the places that Pienna visited. It was likely that she had felt the sting of the criticism from the druid named Aruunis and she was overcompensating as a result. Bresbin was trying to figure out how to get her back in the fight, away from the tedious if exotic travel to muck-encrusted stone slabs. It suited Breland’s needs for the Reachers to beat back Aundair, and Pienna was a most powerful druid. As far as Breland was concerned, her time was far better spent blowing apart Aundairan wizards.

Of course if this half-assed prophecy was correct, he needed to get her back with Delegado’s band. Which meant that he needed some intelligence on the Tharashk scion’s whereabouts. Which meant he needed to be somewhere with more intelligence resources than this lakeside campsite in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

I need to get back in the game, he thought to himself. I need to get this intel to Breland, and quickly. I’ve no more time to be wasting with a leaf-worshipper and her pet cat.

Missy opened one eye again to look at him, then closed it.

A cat that would like to eat me, no doubt.

Bresbin fingered his bow. The tension of going deep-cover around such a powerful nature priestess was getting to him. One slip, and he would be done for. Maybe ebtter to get out now. One arrow into the cat’s skull while it slept. Another into Pienna’s. If she wouldn’t go fight Aundair again, that might solve a lot of problems.

Or cause more.

The goblin figured at the very least he ought to leave her alive until she transported him to somewhere civilized.

Chapter 5 – Part 7

The arrow whistled past Carl’s head, and he heard the man next to him gasp and gurgle as he lost his throat. The Brelish infantryman lowered his head as he charged with his halberd. Ahead of him an Aundairian arose from a trench, frantically trying to work a crossbow. Carl was faster, and the blade of his halberd found the elbow joint in the man’s cuirass. The Aundairian’s arm separated with a sound like wet meat falling onto a tabletop, and the crossbow was never fired.

A lightning bolt blew apart a great bear that staggered towards the Aundairan defensive line. Hawks dove down, clawing at the eyes of wizards who cast spells. Druids cast spells that burned knights alive inside of their armor.

And skeletons fired great longbows while zombies in heavy armor hacked skulls with longswords.

In the pre-dawn hours of the second day of Vult, Brelish and Reacher forces had swarmed across the river. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, even though no one had asked Carl. Aundair’s advance had been blunted a month earlier, and it was thought they were still off-balance. The Brelish forces that had gathered in Riverweep, including the pitiful remains of units like Carl’s, had needed a rallying point, some victory to give them morale. Something to make the Reacher’s see the Brelish as something beyond a necessary evil. Intelligence had shown that the Aundairans were digging in, making fortifications for the winter.

Intelligence had not shown that Karrnath had made a mutual defensive pact with Aundair, and boosted Aundair’s numbers by more than fifty percent, mostly with undead warriors who did not fear, and did not tire.

Carl jumped out of the trench, leaving the crossbowman to bleed to death. His left arm bore a buckler shield, and it barely deflected a heavy stone pitched from an Aundairian sling. Carl bolted to the right, halberd shaft gripped tightly in both hands, around a makeshift barricade.

A thing came around the corner. A thing of bone and hate that wore armor and enmity. Carl shivered, his mind reeling at the red sparks in the skull that faced him. The skeleton opened its mouth, sharp and yellow teeth wanting to tear living flesh, even as it lifted its great bow of yew.

Carl was a soldier, and an experienced one. He knew that an edged weapon did little to a thing of bone with no flesh or organs to slice through. But it would do fine on wood.

The skeleton fitted broad-tipped arrow to its longbow, ready to put the shaft through Carl. Carl was faster though, by just a hair. His halberd shattered the longbow before it could fire.

The skeleton dropping the kindling that its bow had become, and lunged forward with powerful hands of bone. Fingers reached to take out Carl’s eyes, and the Brelish infantry man spun his halberd shaft as a club, taking a splinter from the thing’s face.

The skeleton was upon him, its hands going for Carl’s throat. Calr dropped the halberd, now useless with the undead thing so close, and scrambled to pull out a small club from his belt.

The walking bone thing was clever. Its ankles twisted about Carl’s. The two fell on the ground. Carl’s breath left him for a moment. The skeleton had no such problem.

Bone tightened on his throat. Fingers long dead sought to take his life. The sounds and screams of the battle faded to a soft din. Carl kicked, fought for air, but there was none. His sight dimmed, and the evil face of bone before him began to fade.

A white light shone, and the skeleton screamed without breath. The tightness on his throat vanished, and air rushed into his lungs as the fingers of bone turned to dust and then nothing. Pitted, rotten armor fell apart as the skeleton unraveled, the fell magic that had given it motion and power dismissed by something sacred that would not abide a mockery of life.

Carl scrambled to his feet, finding his halberd again. He nodded his thanks to Chaplain Butemain, cleric of the Sovereign Host, and charged back into the fray.

The sun was not yet fully over the eastern horizon, and it stabbed into Carl’s eyes as he hurled himself over a barricade. Four men with swords awaited him on the other side. A half-minute later Carl was alive, if bleeding in the three places. His opponents were all dead, his halberd was smashed, and he was wielding a stolen longsword.

“Reachers, to me!” Carl screamed. “Breland, press on! Their ranks will not hold!”

An elf with a rapier in each hand leaped past him, yelling some woodsman’s oath. A shifter with claws extended came up on his other side. They closed with the Aundairans and their undead allies yet again.

And they died.

It took Carl a moment to realize what was happening. Chaplain Butemain had been torn apart but a quivering orb of acid that had taken out most of the holy man’s chest. Other clerics, along with druids who had been destroying zombies and skeletons, were being specially targeted.

A half-elf stood atop a small wooden tower, hastily erected the night before with a barricaded platform. The most dangerous of the battle mages, he wore studded leather armor with a bright red sash. He seemed to have to end of spells to throw, and it was he who made sure that the clerics and druids who might stop the undead would fall.

Carl climbed the side of the tower, stopping briefly to slice open a young woman with a wand. She was a young girl, perhaps seventeen years of age, a wizard’s apprentice no doubt, and she shrieked as her entrails fell out of her.

Carl slipped, scraping himself badly as he fell. He moved up again, his wounds leaking, and he crested the top.

The half-elf turned, and fanned his hands outwards towards Carl. Fire danced on his fingertips as he chanted.

“For Chubat!” Carl screamed, his longsword out, charging towards the Aundarian.

Flame met blade.

Chapter 5 – Part 6

On the first day of the month of Vult, Bresbin found himself in a snow-dusted forest of tall pine trees. A wind bit at him, causing him to draw his coat tighter about himself. By now he was used to the jumping sensation of traveling through plants, but the sudden change in weather caught him off-guard.

It had been a brisk autumn day when they’d left Ama’Shay and arrived near Eldeen’s southern border. They’d spent three days traveling, checks old places. Bresbin had remained on guard, but the sites had not been disturbed. The closest they’d come to any real danger was a viper that had nearly bitten him, but Pienna had convinced it to slither on.

Now, they had arisen shortly after sunrise, and after a cold, quick breakfast, she had taken him and the overgrown cat through the plants again. As before, there was a heaving, a joining of warmth and life that lasted a split-second, and then a jumping sensation. The end result may have been the same as an Orien teleporter, but the effect felt quite different.

Now they were in this place. Higher altitude, taller trees, and a half-inch of snow on the ground. Ground that was broken by little more than game trails.

“This is a place with no people again, lady?” Bresbin asked carefully. She was sharp, this one, and he could not be complacent that his demeanor was accepted. The less he said the better. But he had to know where he was.

“With very few, really,” she sighed, absently-minded stroking her panther’s neck. The great cat rumbled its approval. “We’re still in the Eldeen, if in its most distant part. If that set of trees wasn’t in the way, you’d see the western edge of the Icehorn Mountains.” She cast a spell into her panther, and it bared its teeth in eagerness. “One dwells here, and she is not someone who I seek willingly. Nor is she someone to be ignored.”

“She is dangerous?” Bresbin asked, already with an arrow at the ready.

“Very,” Pienna said. “But she is not the one I fear, I fear the ones who sometimes some for her counsel.”

She did not elaborate, and Bresbin asked no more. He wanted to, but he knew it would not fit the meek persona, so silent he was.

The druidess snapped her fingers once, and Missy darted ahead to scout. The great cat was larger than a pony, but made less noise than a chipmunk. Bresbin made less noise than a falling snowflake. For her part, Pienna stepped lightly for a human, even if her steps were thunderous, but her druid powers prevented her from leaving marks in the snow. The only footprints were Missy’s and Bresbin’s.

The goblin stuck to stepping on rocks and tree roots whenever he could, and gritted his teeth.

Missy halted and let forth a low growl. She then bounded forward, and Pienna waved at Bresbin to hurry and follow.

It was a half-minute after they broke into a dead run, if that, that Bresbin smelled the smoke as well. A second later and he was following Pienna into a clearing with bodies and destruction.

Bresbin spun around, eyes darting, looking for a target for his arrow. He took in the hut, fallen off its stilts. The blood on the ground, some of it under the snow, some of it on top of the rocks. The marking that showed more bodies had fallen, and then been dragged off. Burnt spots on tree trunks where spells had missed their mark. The stilt feet that had been carved to look like chicken feet, and someone had hacked one of them in half.

There was a body in the remains of the hut. Humanoid, but of a make Bresbin could not pick out. Not that much of it was left. Pienna kneeled by the body, not touching it, merely examining the marks. Missy turned this way and that, nostrils flaring, teeth bared.

“Torture marks,” Pienna said quietly. Bresbin came up behind her, trying to see the remains of the face. He thought he could make out horns on its head, albeit small ones.

“What was he?” the goblin asked.

“She,” the druidess corrected gently. “She was a tiefling, a devotee to trickery, a malicious and cantankerous spirit who loved to cheat those who courted her. She was a diviner of great skill and powerful magic who could not be surprised, and was more than capable of holding her own. She was much wasted potential and could have done much good in her life.” Pienna swallowed. “But she did not deserve this.”

Bresbin examined the marks again. Maybe a day old. The body was at best twenty-four hours dead and there were no scavengers about, not even insects. Something had marked this place.

Bresbin turned around again, looking for a foe. Beside him, Pienna chanted softly. The goblin did a soft perimeter scan, moving quickly about the area. Missy joined him, the big cat looking for something to tear apart.

Pienna continued with her spells. Long minutes passed.

“Come,” the druidess said, standing. The panther bounded to her side in an eyeblink.

“What has the Lady learned?” the goblin asked, catching up to the great cat to stand by the human woman.

“I’ve talked to trees, wind spirits, and the rocks themselves,” she said. “The Chamber came by, and shortly after that a tiger-man and his fodder.”

The Chamber? Bresbin thought. He caught himself before voicing it. The Dark Lanterns had heard of a group calling itself the Chamber, but knew not what it portended. Clearly this woman did. He would have to ask about it later, when his curiosity would not be unseemly. So much of this job is patience. “Are there more about?” the goblin asked, playing the part of the frightened retainer.

“No,” she said. “He was here with men of metal and stone. Warforged. She set on them with fire and trickery, but her spells did not touch the tiger-man, for he is one of the fiends. They questioned her for nearly a day entire, but she had no answers for them.”

“What questions?” Bresbin asked.

“I know not,” she said. “The spells I used, they are limited by what the listeners understood. One thing I know is this. The fiends of the Demon Wastes do not enter the Eldeen lightly, for the might of Oalian gives them pause. What was it that they needed from her? What information did they expect her to give that they could not get in their own lands?”

They must not trust the information that they have been getting, Bresbin thought, but did not say. The goblin pursed his lips, and watched Pienna’s face. She looked like a woman crushed, whose hopes were gone.

A woman who was vulnerable.

The time was now. “Sister of nature,” Bresbin said gently. “May Brezzy be told all now?”

She stared at him with great, wet eyes. “Bresbin’s life is already at great risk. I do not care to cause more death.”

Be reached his hands out and took hers. His green fingers, long and dirty, grasped her light human ones, medium-length, clean and smelling faintly of rosewater. “Bresbin will die someday, and Bresbin hopes to know what part he played.”

A long moment passed. He itched to say more, but did not. He was a patient hunter, and he waited for his prey.

She finally blinked, then nodded. “Yes, I will tell you. I will tell you everything. But not here. Not in this place of death.”

Chapter 5 – Part 5

Parnain d’Medani cinched his gloves again, making sure that they were firm and tight. His face betrayed nothing, and the ragged stubble around it may as well have been made from blonde stone. Only his eyes had anything in them, as they never stopped scanning the room. He would note broken yellow teeth of the dead changeling on the interrogation slab, the quivering lip of the nauseous guard wearing Brelish colors, the polished nails of the shifter who was currently paying his house, and the well-polished nature of his gloves. Parnain hated leaving blood on him. It was sloppy. The half-elf did not belive in sloppy.

“You pushed him too hard,” the shifter noted, crossing his arms. It was a male, stocky, but powerful in the shoulders and chest. He’d not given a name when he’d first made contact with Medani, but they knew who he was. They’d prevented two assassination attempts on Gorka in the past six months.

Parnain didn’t care what the man’s name was – if Gorka was in fact a real name and not an alias. Nor did he care (much) that Gorka was a disgusting shapechanger. Brleand paid, so Parnain worked with Breland’s agents. But that didn’t mean that the half-elf was about to listen to warrantless criticism. “I pushed him hard enough to find out that he believes a tall man named Wir who favors bastard swords is the one who his contact answered to. That’s what’s important. The filthy wax baby didn’t know anything else that was useful.”

The shifter considered this without cracking the slightest expression, but Parnain could read the body language. The half-elf had grown up hating shapechangers of any type, and spent his life tracking them. “You’ve confirmed this independently?” the shifter asked.

“Phiarlan dancing troupe in Cyre,” the half-elf said. “A tall man named Wir has had contacts with Thuranni, and through the Thuranni some unknown element within Cannith. This element has been trying to find a runaway warforged while screwing up Eldeen recruiting. So wax babies like the corpse here are told to count warforged along with other military resources.”

“And why would Cyre care about frustrating the Reachers’ ability to fight Aundair?” asked Gorka. He answered his own question before Parnain could. “It’s a false flag operation. This Wir fellow doesn’t answer to Cyre.”

Parnain shrugged. “I don’t look at the big picture, I’ll leave that to you. You have my services for six more days, with an option to renew. You want me to use my mark to check your food for poison again?” Parnain wore gloves in all weather for many reasons, primarily to avoid leaving evidence of his fingers, but also because he had a lesser dragonmark on the palm of his left hand. The cold, blonde half-elf preferred not to be noticed, so he hid his mark.

“Check our ambassador and the Reacher he is negotiating with,” Gorka ordered. “Then I need you to find a pair of changeling saboteurs down by the docks. Breland is sending alchemical weapons, and Aundair is paying those two to make sure they can’t be used.”

“Musky and Lusky,” Parnain said. “Twin sister changelings who openly worship the shadow, and have clerical spells in addition to their years of espionage work. High price on their head. You sure they’re after your boat full of glass vials that go boom?”

Gorka smiled a smile with no humor. “I am sure, and I am sure that they’ve been hired through Thuranni. Beyond that I know little that I can rely on.”

“You want them dead or alive?” Parnain asked as he walked out.

“Alive, preferably,” Gorka told him. “You enjoy killing changelings too much, and I want to make sure you got the right ones.”

Parnain turned, and gave the Breland intelligence chief a cold stare. “Not just changelings,” he sneered. Then he turned heel and left.

The guard let out an exhalation, then blushed out how loud it was. Gorka raised an eyebrow. In theory the guard was there to protect Gorka or Aundairan (or Reacher) assassins, but they both knew that the guard was also there in case Parnain decided he didn’t like working for a shifter.

They also both knew that the guard would barely slow Parnain down.

Chapter 5- Part 4

The people of Varna moved with a purpose. The largest town in the Reaches, and the only one that could properly be called a city, Varna moved with a pace like no other place in the Eldeen. Portion of the streets actually were paved, and the buildings tended to be more permanent-looking affairs than the thatched huts found scattered throughout the great wood.

The buildings also sported damage not found elsewhere in the Eldeen. Varna may have been a city run by a Dragonmarked House, but it was also a city that moved thousands of troops for the Eldeen, and tons of supplies for the war. As a result, every kingdom involved in the war considered Varna a fair target. Lightning bolts and fireballs from Aundair wizards, as well as siege machinery of a more mundane nature had all left their mark.

The western edge of town had a whole section of the wall missing, with large burnt marks near where the Orien trade road came in. The collapsed gate and wall sections had been moved so that the road traffic could enter and exit the city. The wall was being rebuilt, but it went slowly, and for now the city guards let foot traffic pass freely through any wall gap that was not actually dangerous. The cold rain made the ground loose and treacherous, and the travelers and locals had to step carefully across ground that had not been meant for so many feet.

A pair of elves wearing bright pastel robes totally unfit for the weather stood beneath parasols, trying to keep the colorful paint on their faces from being disturbed by the inclement weather. Across from them, wearing heavy armor with an upturned face plate that dribbled rain, was a grizzled man with heavy mustaches and a badge of rank on his tunic.

“Dunno if I can have you folk go so far southwest down the road,” the man was frowning.

“There’s a whole company of soldiers waiting to be entertained!” exclaimed one elf. She had green marking on her face in the shape of a five-headed serpent, standing boldly against the white paint beneath, and her long hair was in braids that were dyed a twirling mixture of orange and purple. “Our company is small, but the prospect fo such an audience!”

“Plenty audience in the city,” snorted the man in armor.

“And they have seen our performances so many times!” sighed the other elf. He was male, or seemed to be. He wore even more jewelry than the elf woman. The five-headed serpent motif was found on his robes, his face paint, and the three thick rings he wore on each hand. “A new audience, can’t you feel the attraction, sir commander?”

“I’m not a commander,” the weary human in the armor was saying. “I’m just – look, can’t you just stay in the city?”

The stern-faced elf standing under an overhang was affecting to read the latest copy of the Korranberg Chronicle, but he was listening to the conversation between the two painted elves and the armored human most carefully. The stern-faced elf wore leather armor beneath frayed robes, and an eagle sat carefully on a perch nearby, scanning the area for enemies. The stern-faced elf wore no accoutrements that announced who he was, but the docility of the eagle next to him, and the ring of holly leaves around his neck told anyone who cared that he was a druid.

The human in armor was asking the two painted elves if they planned to count soldiers are something, and the elves responded in shocked tones that House Phiarlan were merely entertainers, whatever was he implying?

Aruunis snorted. What idiot would believe that these two were merely entertainers? The stern-faced elf looked over the human in armor. The man clearly did not believe the two under the parasols, but clearly also did not want to offend them.

One of the elves turned ever so slightly, the effeminate male, and caught Aruunis’ eye. The druid affected to still be reading the Korranberg. Then he decided to actually read it, in case the elf later queried him.

It bore today’s date, the 26th of Aryth. There were front-page articles about new warforged models that were killing thousands, and undead legions that were killing thousands more. A small blurb announced strange weather patterns in the Barren Sea, another discussed new security arrangements for the peace talks in Thronehold, while some letter to the editor protested supposedly biased coverage of House Cannith’s new weapons.

“Look,” the human said. “I will ask again, and I think that a meadow can be prepared, but I do not control the answer.” The elves thanked him, and the human turned away and began walking off. The female elf watched him go, the male elf watched Aruunis openly.

Aruunis sighed. He tossed the paper into a large puddle and beckoned the two painted elves to him. A few passersby gave him funny looks for throwing away the paper, but most ignored him. The painted elves raised all four of their eyebrows, but came over anyway, stepping around the puddles in their slippers – slippers!

“Inquiring about where you may find a performance by House Phiarlan, my friend?” the woman asked him in elvish, as she and her companion approached.

“I might be,” Aruunis answered in elvish, resting a hand on the sickle hidden beneath his robe. He gave a soft whistle, and his eagle alerted itself. He opened his mouth to say more, but waited until they joined him with no other around. “That is, I might be interested in a performance of Phiarlan’s, but given that you aren’t actually members of that House, it isn’t really relevant then, is it?”

The two painted elves stopped, their eyes going briefly to each other. “Good sir, good –” Eyes with lavender paint on the lids took in the holly and the eagle. “Good druid, you insult us if you think we are some second-rate pretenders.”

“Oh you were both born into Phiarlan, of that I have no doubt,” Aruunis said. “But your accents are Thuranni to my ears.” He stared at them carefully, ready to hurl forces of earth and fire at them if they attacked.

He’d been watching for it, so he saw it. The flicker in the eyes, the tensing of muscles, the initial reach for daggers or garrotes hidden beneath the ridiculous entertainer’s outfit. But they were cautious, these two, and they clearly decided not to attack a druid of unknown power.

“We’ve not time for riddles nor for insults,” said the woman. She sniffed and beckoned her companion.

“I have taken the shape of an eagle, many times,” he told them, reaching into his robes and pulling out the black dragon symbol of the Gatekeepers. “My companion and I have seen much with sharp eyes. Including recent disposition of troops. Including the regrouping of Brelish infantry. Including berths built to accommodate new warships on Lake Galifar.” He hid the symbol. “You’ll get better information from the sky than you will on the ground, especially when dodging the few true members of Phiarlan in the Reaches.” He grinned a cold grin. “I’m willing to bet that the bodies of the agents whose identity you stole won’t be found for years yet.”

“You make powerful accusations, friend,” the male elf said. His hand was in a pocket of his robes now. “You make powerful promises, too. Maybe you talk too much.”

“Maybe you take your hands out where I can see them and you don’t end up as ash,” Aruunis said.

The woman elf waved a hand somewhat imperceptibly, and the male held his hands out in the open. “What do you want?” the woman asked, putting a false smile on for any who saw. Her parasol had wavered, and rain drops had made emerald tears on her face.

“A potion,” he told her. “Specifically a potion of glibness. The kind that lets the speaker lie so convincingly that it fools even magical detection. I figure you keep several on you, in case you run into some serious trouble. I only want one.”

“You need to fool someone,” the man said, twirling his parasol slightly. “Someone close to you. One of your own.”

“You know what that’s like,” he told the other elf. “So then you know what I need.”

“Can you trust us to give it to you?” the woman asked.

Aruunis leaned forward, and his eagle leaned with him. “I. Am. Not. Someone. You. Want. To. Cross.”

The two painted elves considered this for a moment, and then the female looked at the male and nodded. The male slowly reached into a pocket and handed a potion to Aruunis. The stern-faced elf took the small vial and cast a detection spell on it.

“So,” the woman said. “Let’s start with the ship berths.”