They split us up, and unceremoniously dropped me into a little holding pen. Before long, a Spriggan pointed me to the door on the far side, which I shrugged and walked into. I could hear drums off in the distance, probably being beaten in a choir loft above the stadium.
I entered the door, and found myself in a well-used corridor, hewn in a circular fashion to a size that would probably accomodate a Fomorian if it hunched down a bit. The tunnel around me was dark and slick, with plenty of smeared grease to make the way, I suppose, “simpler.” At the end I could see in the dark a figure standing at the end of the passage, standing to one side.
As I got closer I could see it was Mahar, grinning in the dark. His teeth and his eyes were the only things I could really make out, although the crawling filigree on his horns glimmered on occasion. He held something out to me. “Take this, you’ll probably want it very soon.” The door before me was closed, and I had nowhere else to go.
I looked down, baffled. A small wooden whistle. I stuffed the rattling toy into my pocket, confused. Looking up, he’d already vanished.
With a grinding shudder, the door pulled to one side and I was greeted with my first sight of the coliseum.
Scattered boulders on a tight-packed sand floor were dominated by four great metal walls, two short in length and two longer, both graced with many spikes and some sort of reservoir of flame at their tops. The two longer ones – which ran parallel to my hallway, while the short ones were perpendicular – mounted on tracks set in the floor and moved ponderously back and forth. Around the floor were various portal circles, each crackling occasionally with violet fire.
In the center of it all, an enormous glowing ruby, I could feel it from where I stood – some sort of draining magic on it. Its glow felt like the opposite of sunlight – the side of my face towards it adopted a distinct chill. I made a mental note not to approach it too closely.
I stepped out on the sand to hear the cheering of the crowds, some sixty feet above the stadium on bleachers set around the entire coliseum.
A day ago I wondered how I ended up in this mess…
- * *
The darkness of Zur Nav’s compound was matched only by its silence. As he moved his pieces around on the skin maps of his game table, the gold rings on his hands – emptied of gems from their settings – glittered in the dim light of his lantern.
“I apologize for your restriction to this compound, my friends. You do understand that it is mostly for your own safety, yes?” He looked up from his game to me. I had been playing him for a bit, just to occupy my mind.
“Well, I had assumed that there was at least a little bit of self-preservation involved, and preventing us from being killed or taken would fall into that consideration.” I shrugged. Come to think of it, I’d have been tempted to run. Veyd, when I saw him, didn’t look like someone I’d particularly enjoy going toe to toe with.
I have to point out – I’m not a coward, by nature. On the other hand, realistically I’m not a front-line combatant either. I don’t have the strength to throw down with the big weapons, and my arcane abilities work best in support of others and from a distance when I’m practicing my aggression. I am also a trained combat pragmatist – and as such I recognize that a battle avoided is usually as good as a battle won. Sometimes fights are unavoidable, but most times there are ways of diverting hostility. Usually by diverting it onto someone else.
“Yes, that is a danger,” the enormous fellow said. He’d replaced the bandage on his eye, but it still leaked. It had taken him the better part of an hour after our march back to the fortress for him to calm enough to speak to us without verging on hysteria. The stress was obviously getting to him. As he spoke to me, a few of the others around the room perked up and watched the conversation.
“A danger I’d rather not suffer.” He continued. As he spoke he drew a large coin from his robe, eight-sided gold, with a square hole through it. “Also, of course, to prevent second thoughts on your part. Oh yes,” he looked around at us all, “I have no doubt you have thought of the consequences of your entering into this bargain with me.”
“And I needed certainty. I am sure thoughts of the daylight streaming through the windows of your keep in Al’Veydra are passing through your wishes even now,” he again glanced around at us. I kept my face still, although I was quite surprised that he’d gained that much knowledge about us. Never let it be said that Fomorians aren’t sharp. Out of their minds and crazy, yes, but dull-witted? No.
“I wanted to be clear with you,” the coin danced across the back of his knuckles, “this is the last remnant of my fortune. The very last coin in my possession. If you win, I will give it to you.”
Althea muttered, a little sharply, “One coin is a lot less than the fortunes we were promised for saving your life a few days back.” Although I thought it a bit harsh, I found no flaw in that logic.
“Yes, I understand your disappointment. But believe me, you will need this coin.” His implication caught everyone’s attention now. “For it will buy you freedom from a nightmare. It is possible, perhaps likely, that even now, a bearer of ill tidings, who could be riding a bat purchased just today, wends his way towards your village.”
“How many infants can be slain in a night, as their parents sleep? Cattle poisoned? Fences broken? Sheep scattered? Bachelor farmers hamstrung or impaled on their own implements? One Spriggan can cause so much mischief to a town. Enough that the people might think of the place as cursed. Indeed, an apt name might be Curse Nail.” His expression was cool as he saw our reactions.
“And such a Spriggan, were he not paid for his troubles, with this very coin,” he held it up between thumb and forefinger, its dinner-plate-sized surface reflecting the light of the lantern, “would have very little reason to stop a great amount of woe from falling upon Al’Veydra.”
“Such action was not necessary, Zur Nav.” Sered had obviously taken umbrage at the thought that he could even conceive of abandoning a task he had promised to fulfill.
“Oh, I claim no action was taken. If I had, it would only have been because I do not yet know your natures. In time, yes, I might learn them and even come to trust you. But time, alas, is something I, and now neither you, have.” As he said this, his hand wiggled and the coin vanished.
“As I said. When this is over, if you fight well, the coin shall be yours. Toss it down the hole outside of your village, the hole that leads to the refuge of your elvish allies, the forsaken ones led by the former spider-priest, and call the name of Curse Nail. I am a superstitious type, and I think taking such action would be prudent in avoiding unnecessary ill luck.”
I suppose I could see his point.
- * *
The roar of the crowd reached deafening levels as I looked up around me and unslung my bow. Taking stock of my surroundings I saw the coliseum was roughly square, with four doors on each side of it. I was on a corner door, on what my mind assigned to be the North wall, with three more doors out to my right. Each of them was in process of opening as well.
As I observed, the one immediately beside me disgorged Althea, and out or the one far down on the end emerged Bingo, arrows at the ready. The third door glimmered for a moment, and like a disgusting parody of a goose’s nethers, it disgorged a floating, flaming egg, that dripped gobbets of burning fluid from its oversized toothy maw. The tiny stalks atop its surface wiggled in a parody of flowers in a breeze, each with a little eye that gleamed through its sheath of combustion.
The burning Eye. The same one we’d met with Shal Rava before, I had no doubt of it.
With a shout I moved away from the huge globe, winging a frost-rimed arrow at it – and missing. “Everyone, on the Eye!”
Bingo heard me, and his own eyes widened while he cleared distance between himself and the flaming creature. He sank two arrows in it before it even finished turning to face him with its single central eye.
A moment of confusion swept me as Althea charged over towards me. “No! Not to me – get the Eye, it’s a perfect setup!”
She drew up close, and said to me, “Of course it is, and I’m going to get the eye, my darling morsel! I’d like both of them, in fact, both of yours!” I knew that voice. Dread hit me like a weight as I recognized her.
Liss.
Her own eyes exploded at me in a wave of tiny biting insects as her voice dissolved into racous laughter. I felt the blood welling up on my face and hands as many of the tiny things bit into me. Somehow, her little beetles even managed to secrete some sort of fast-setting glue all over my feet and legs, and before I knew it, I had been glued to the floor.
Anger swept over me, and more than a little fear as well – every time we’d been split up, things had gone badly, very very badly for us.
The other doors around the stadium began to open, and although I could not see everyone, I could hear shouts and voices I recognized.
The door to the immediate left of my own rolled open, and Rhogar came stumbling out into the light. Facing Liss, I could not see what or who emerged from the door adjacent to him, but based on the arrow that embedded itself in his thigh and the hiss I heard behind me, I figured it was either Natha or her male counterpart. The suddenly slack look on Rhogar’s face (well, slacker than usual) confirmed it for me – he’d caught the eye of whichever it was.
Which probably meant I was about to take an arrow in the ass.
I whipped one of my runecarved arrows at Liss, and although she tried to dodge, it hit her full on – she laughed for a second as it slowly sank towards the ground, as if her form were made of melting wax.
She actually reached for it to pull it out, before the amber nock detonated.
Electrical arcs danced across her form for a second, and her voice took on a juddery note. She stood for a few seconds while it ran its course. I saw Bingo leading the Eye away towards the center of the room.
Over the metal wall on the opposite side I could see the head of a Fomorian looking down at something beneath it – one of my companions, I supposed – and off to the right of Bingo’s door a strange faceless human-shaped thing floated in the air just on the other side of that great wall, chains dripping from its form. I could hear fighting from all sides around me.
Where was Veyd?
I thought I was answered a second later, when an enormous roar from across the room dragged my eyes to it. I saw something that looked an awful lot like a Balor stomp across the field through the gap in the walls…this one trailed mist, however, not smoke. Something silvery flittered inside its ribcage. It almost looked as though someone had frozen the thing and then turned it loose. A flash of light and a strobing effect on it told me Dei or Sered or both were over there, dealing with it.
In that moment, I felt a rumbling shake in the floor. Looking down, I started to try to pull my feet free of Liss’ glue. Then I realized.
She’d glued me to the tracks of the enormous, spiked wall.
Small favor, it seemed to be heading away from me for now, but for all that is holy I had to get free of this or I’d be squashed like one of Liss’ bugs.
Right about then I heard a whistle, blown rapidly and harsh, coming from down the side of the wall to Rhogar’s left. Remembering my own, I fished it out of my pocket, strung the loop around my neck and crammed it into my mouth – and started blowing to call everyone to me. At least, I hoped that’s what they would figure. I might just end up calling everyone else to me.
Which would have been…unfortunate.
Liss was beginning to look lively again, so I pinned her with another sparking arrow, just in time to see Bingo come racing around the end of our shorter wall towards me, the big flaming globe right behind him. His hair was on fire, as was his left shoulder, but I could see he was grinning like he’d stolen something. Guess he must have pulled something off that I wasn’t able to see. As it beamed something across his back, I heard Rhogar let out a roar behind me and the clang of steel. Taking a quick preemptive shot at the Eye, I managed to nail it with not only one of my sparking arrows, but also a refined bit of enchantment I’d been working on – the arrow hit sent out concentric rings of light, literally painting a great target on its bulk. I actually found it in me to laugh at the image.
Bingo saw me, saw me laughing, and did a quick take over his shoulder at the thing. Almost tripped over his own feet when he did, and I heard him bust out with a quick giggle as he sank two more arrows to either side of mine.
That’s when I heard the voice in my ear. The words were laced with rage and not a little pain. “That’ll be enough of that, poppet, I’m going to take the secrets from your pretty brain now!”
I’d forgotten Liss in all the confusion. She’d recovered from my arrow shot and had come up just beside me. Looking over, I could almost smell her she was so close. The air around her vibrated with the thousands of wings beating inside her.
And she exploded on me. For what felt like an eternity, I was awash in biting insects of every variety. I dared not let myself scream, for fear of inhaling her spore. I vaguely heard the sounds of battle ringing around me, and for a moment I saw a great flare of light beyond my vision.
Then, as suddenly as she’d flooded upon me, she was gone, standing fifteen or twenty feet away from me, laughing hysterically and soaking tiny flecks of blood – my blood – from her “skin” and into her face.
Which was about the time the wall hit me.
As I stood there, shaking, looking at her laugh at me, and observing the flaming wreckage of the Eye – Bingo or Arn had killed it, and its explosive demise left it looking like the burnt-out skin of an orange – motion entered my field of view just to the left of my left eye. Thinking it to be another of Liss’ bugs gone astray, I recoiled fast – to see it was the tip of a long metal spike.
The other end was attached to the wall, which proceeded to slam into me, ripping my anchored feet from the ground and shoving me forward five, then, then fifteen feet before stopping. I could barely move after Liss’ attack on me, but I managed to contort my form to avoid being impaled and slain by the spikes. One did go through the meat of my right calf, which set a new record for “pain experienced” for the last month or so.
I heard Liss’ laughter catch up short as Bingo sank another arrow into her. In spite of her loosely-packed nature, I could tell that hurt her, and she began moving away, towards the great gemstone in the center of the room. I smiled grimly as I took stock of what else was going on. Don’t ask me how I stayed upright, my feet were still solidly stuck together.
The wall came to a halt and began to retreat a bit, and I could tell there was some major action going down at the opposite end of it from all the roaring and noise. The Fomorian head I’d seen earlier had moved up the wall a bit to dig into that fight, and I could see great ragged wings from the huge frosted Balor or Balrog or whatever it was flapping around. It had a flaming whip and some sort of huge sword, but that’s the best I could make out.
Rhogar had freed himself up, but was still toe-to-toe with the male medusa, who had slung his bow and drawn a black longsword that seemed to drip strangely…great, just great. Poison or acid or something. I had never got the thing’s name, unfortunately. While I was watching it slapped Rhogar’s weapon aside and caught his eyes, and I could see the gaze working. Fortunately, medusae don’t turn you to stone when they look at you – that’s a myth – they slow you down significantly when they look at you.
You turn to stone later. Sometimes it takes, sometimes it doesn’t. But it isn’t the gaze alone that does that.
I couldn’t see Natha anywhere, so I put an arrow full of current into the back of the medusa. It sparked gratifyingly, and the fellow proceeded to jerk and shiver like he was freezing cold. Which he actually was, courtesy of my own personal touch.That strange creature with the chains had started to float over the wall and head towards the big fight, and Liss made a detour to mesh up with it. I could see the thing now, it was mildly humanoid, as if you took a human, stripped away all its hair and all of its face but the eyes. Next, wrap it up in thin black leather and drape heavy chains all over it, like robes. Had to be some kind of other-worldly thing. Didn’t really matter to me, so long as it stayed away from me. I kept trying to free my feet from the big clump they had become.
Right about then something detonated down at the other end of the big wall. Something big. Black smoke, red fire, and some form of silver light went up in a flash. When I realized the roar of the ice-rog had gone, I figured it must have somehow exploded when it died. I caught sight of Arn picking himself up off the ground and shouted to warn him of the approaching phantasm and Liss.
Liss saw this, and turned to run away, crossed by the gem again. I packed all the vicious hate I could into an arcane curse, and shouted it at her. “Down to the earth with you, insect, and return only as jewel and stone!” I felt the attack take hold, and she must have already suffered some grievous hurt. I would not have expected it to do so much, but her bugs started going off like a string of firecrackers, in great ratchety pops. Before I knew it, her body had lost its coherency, and her bugs were falling dead, smouldering in a trail of pieces behind her. She took one last look at me from where she was running, a whispering shriek escaping her. I could see for just a moment into those empty vacant holes where her ‘eyes’ went, and she fell completely apart. Those few pieces that landed on the great gem smoked for a moment before evaporating.
The crowd above us went wild. Over the crash of the falling body, their roars went up to a volume I was afraid might bring the roof of this cavern down on us. I could see Zur Nav in there now, as well as his siblings. Zur had a strangely calm look on his face, arms crossed in front of him.
Rhogar came around me and joined Bingo, and the two started heading up behind the chain thing, trying to intercept it before it got to the rest of our team.
My feet were obviously enjoying themselves inside their little casing of bug glue. They refused to break free.
In spite of our enemy’s fall, I could see plainly that we were hurt. I still hadn’t seen Althea yet, I only assumed she’d fallen to something where I couldn’t make her out, and those I now could see – Sered, Bingo, Arn, Dei, none of us looked in good shape. Sered was staggering about with a gash across his forehead that looked like he might lose his brain if he tilted his head the wrong way, and the chain-creature was coming up fast.
Then I finally saw Veyd.
He came barreling around after Sered, climbing over the corpse of the ice-rog thing like it was no more than a pile of stones to cross a river, an enormous axe over his head. He didn’t even have a scratch on him yet.
And the two medusae, Natha and her counterpart, were right behind him. The male had shaken off my affect and slid back down the wall to the major part of the fight with Veyd. Natha was wearing the whistle I’d heard around her neck, and as I noticed that, she buried an arrow in Sered’s chest which dropped him like a sack of dirt.
Fortunately I had just enough reach with my arcanist’s touch that I could send a healing whisper his way, and even as he fell his left arm shot out to catch him before he landed. The other arm pulled the arrow free and dropped it on the sand beneath him. He looked up with a snarl.
For a moment, as if we were two waves drawing back from each others’ shores, our people drew themselves up and prepared to come down upon each other. Veyd looked up into the stands.
He looked at Zur Nav, who nodded.
And Veyd swung his great stone axe at the medusa pair.
He caught the male full in the side, and I definitely heard bones crack even from where I was, some sixty or eighty feet away. The creature went sailing off through the air, black sword tumbling uselessly like some flag-thrower’s worst toss, and he came down hard probably ten or twenty feet from the stroke, while Natha ducked cleanly underneath it. Sered rose up, looking at Veyd confusedly. In the crowd, I heard one distinct voice, a woman’s, screaming bloody murder – probably Flay.
Natha made a quick calculation and leaped onto one of the flickering portals, vanishing from my view, while the male staggered to its hands and crawled onto another. He appeared directly before me, giving me a quick glance and recoiling, then vanishing again.
Bingo drew down on the chain-bearing spectre, and plunged an arrow deep into its back. I saw him glance my way, another arrow nocked and ready. His face darkened in alarm, looking past me – I followed his line of sight, turned around…
…and came face to face with another troll, its club raised in the air, swinging down at me.
I heard the crunch, and everything went dark.
I don’t suppose I was out long, when I came to I found myself still in the arena, watching that big wall slide rumbling to one side and then another. I smelled burnt marshmallows and blood. It took me a moment to bring everything into focus and remember where I was. There was a detached troll arm, still clutching a club, sitting across my legs. My feet were free of the resin that had bound them. My chest ached as if an elephant had stepped on me. The chain-thing was dead, laying in pieces on the sand, the Fomorian was down, and neither medusa was in sight.
I looked around and saw Sered and Arn face-to-face with Veyd, engaged in a desperate fight. Yet, Veyd seemed to be attacking weakly, his strikes missing their targets due to sudden changes in his swing. He had arrows sticking out of him in various places, and the ghostly socket of his eye glimmered with hatred.
In the end, he fell.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was final. I staggered to my feet to see the burning corpse of Veyd, glittering oil across it, and to hear the sound of the crowd going absolutely berzerk. The drums had stopped, and three Fomorians with great horns – which sounded like **** tubas – blew a distinct set of notes.
Hobbling over to the others, I saw Althea limp out from around a wall as well. By my count, we were all still alive. Assuming I was as well.
In the stands, Zur Nav stood calmly, straightening his ruined finery, and strode with purpose over to Flay. Around her, space had mysteriously opened, as if she had adopted a stench in only the last few moments. She was screaming from her richly appointed seat and waving frantically at the now-quiet battlefield. I don’t speak giant, and come to think of it, I don’t know if there is even a Fomorian dialect of it, but I was able to guess the nature of her words.
“No! This can NOT BE! This is BULLSHIT!”
Zur Nav got to her, and she finally seemed to notice him when he reached to her neck. Eyes full of fear, she recoiled from him, to find he had gripped her necklace of pearls. He shouted in the common tongue – for the benefit of everyone watching, I have no doubt:
“This is MINE.” Pearls scattered across the stones.
He ripped off the left sleeve of her robe. “MINE!” The wig of eladrin hair came free from her head, revealing scabbed and scarred skin beneath it. Onto his own head it went, crookedly. “MINE!” With a foot cocked back he shoved her roughly from her seat, toppling her to fall on the stone floor of the stadium. “MINE! ALL MINE!”
I saw Hak watching this. His face gave away nothing, but his knuckles were white where his hands grasped his belt. Gazull and his angels made no move, but the great giant had an apprehensive look on his face that even his lazy insane eye could not hide.
The crowd murmured appreciatively as Flay was pushed roughly out of the stadium. The small group of trolls that had accompanied her there watched the procession without saying much. Zur muttered something their way, and they turned as a group and left.
In the stands then, I caught sight of Mahar. He held up a cup, a satisfied smile on his face, and saluted me. I nodded back, and did my best to straighten up and return the salute.
We, Fellbane, victors and beneficiaries of betrayal, helped one another off the field.
- * *
In the coming day or two, we discovered that Zur Nav’s poverty belied a greater strength behind his canny exterior.
Where others had focused their wealth on strength of arms and force, Zur Nav had spies. He had spies everywhere – deep infiltrators in every one of his sibling’s confidence, even spies that had tracked down information on us and Al’Veydra. He knew Droil was already dead and had only days before being exposed. He knew the ice-balrog or whatever it was actually was gifted to Flay by Gazull – it was a husk of a balrog, driven by bound angels.
He’d made a back-room deal with Veyd – Veyd, who knew in the end Flay couldn’t afford to let him live if she looked like she would ascend to the throne. Veyd, whose people had suffered indignity and dishonor (new concept for me, trolls with a sense of honor) at the hands of her Torog-inspired followers. Veyd, who had run out of places to hide and whose options were far thinner from the start than we’d ever considered.
Veyd who, as king of his trolls, surrendered finally to the Black Queen to bargain for a safe haven for his people.
Veyd had agreed to throw the fight to us. Had we come out on top, there would have been no need for his betrayal of Flay, but seeing that we were close to losing, had cashed his chit with Zur Nav to tilt the balance in our favor. In return, Zur Nav gave Veyd’s people their freedom – they had all taken leave of Ihnbharan and moved into the Murkendraw swamps, inside the territory of Rain of Tears.
And now, in addition to his vast network of agents, Zur Nav had Flay Gaz’ army and her fortress. Her riches. Her contract with Shal Rava had a transfer clause and was considered an asset of her house. I wasn’t sure about her arrangement with Rain of Tears, but I was fairly certain the dragon didn’t particularly care which giant gave it a mission, so long as it had something to hunt.
We all followed Zur Nav through the city as he took his victory march, straight up to the steps and into Flay Gaz’ fortress. I had a few moments of sympathy for her, thinking of the ceremonial stripping of her and her expulsion from the city. A Fomorian, even naked and unarmed, is a formidable creature, but this is the Feydark. Formidable creatures simply fall into the web of eat-and-be-eaten here.
I had dinner with Mahar that night in Flay’s fortress, after we’d cleaned up.
“You helped us against your own. Why?”
“Technically I wasn’t helping you. I was simply following the rules. Natha was given a whistle as she entered, it wasn’t something she chose to take with her.”
“So you were keeping it even.”
“Yes indeed.”
“So…Zur had Veyd in his pocket the whole time, and he kept a pretty tight lid on it. I never would have guessed it.”
“So it would seem. More wine?”
“Ohhh, yes. My apologies for the loss of your Eye of Flame, by the way.”
He looked up as he poured. “Consider us even for your comrade back in Moss Kag. Oculis was always a little too eager to charge into a fight, she was going to get herself killed sooner or later. Besides, she had a thing for your little halfwise.”
“Seriously?”
“Mmhmm. He shot her in that fight back there, apparently ruined an eye she’d been grooming for a few years. She was going after him regardless. Probably would have taken leave of service to pursue him if she hadn’t died there.” He grinned.
“What’s so funny?”
“You realize it’s not a loss to me, don’t you?”
“How do you mean?”
“Oculis had a particularly intricate contract. She’s not lost to me, she’s just changed which of my armies she’s fighting for. She still owes me forty-seven years, and dying here doesn’t relieve her of that obligation.”
Realization dawned on me. “Ahh, I see. Well played.” I nodded and held up a cup.
“Thanks. One learns to exploit one’s position in the natural order.”
“Speaking of exploits, and to return to the topic of Zur Nav, could he have had any influence on your team, perhaps? Was there wiggle-room in your contract for that?”
He thought about the question for a moment, then smiled broadly. “Guess we’ll never know, will we?”
I grinned back, admiring the evasion. “Guess not. Good pig here. Never thought you could raise pigs in the dark and have them taste good.” I thought for a second. “This is pig, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I haven’t adopted that sort of taste. At least, not yet.”
We talked more about old times. It’s funny, he treats me a lot less formally than I treat him – it’s only been a little while since I left the army, and old habits die hard. Yet he talks of things which for me were only last year as if they were long lost stories of antiquity, or of a misspent youth gone by.
We’re both right, I guess. I’m going to have to get used to that. I gave him the other two bottles of Turathian wine I had with me, and collected a few good bottles from Flay’s…I mean Zur’s, cellars to replace them – she had some good Eladrin wine in bottles that were friendly to persons of humanish size. Fomorians might look funny, and they might be batshit crazy at times, but their nobles have excellent taste in wines.
The plan is for us to leave here in a couple days, once we’ve had a chance to recover and resupply. We’ll be heading back to the surface, to return and pronounce our victory to the town of Al’Veydra. Zur Nav invited us to stay, perhaps help with “a few other niggling details” as he put it. Though I was tempted, the others were ready for daylight, and we deferred.
I thought things were going to settle down at that point, that we might finally get some sleep. Flay had some seriously nice beds in her guest rooms, and they were the right size and height for a tired Turathian scion.
The night before we were to leave for Al’Veydra, I woke in my bed. In spite of the soft warmth all around me, and the silence of my room, something had tripped my senses to alarm. I sat up in bed quickly and realized that I had Sybarron clutched in my left hand. Its sheath was still on the beureau, next to the fireplace. The glowing embers were the only light in the room, but they were enough for me to see clearly. The sword flickered with a deep indigo inside its blade, and the flicker pulsed faintly as it spoke in my mind.
You’ve done well, and I appreciate that. I can work with material like you. I think it is time we had a little talk.
