She changed her course, walking instead toward her hovel of an apartment. It was in the poorest section of the plateau, amid the housing where even the poorest students refused to dwell. It suited her well enough. She had nothing of value, so she didn’t fear being robbed. Her wards kept the place safe enough while she slept.
But where would she go next? Perhaps Wroat. Dalan might return to his home there eventually. Assuming Tristam didn’t find the clues she had left for him at Morgrave, she could explain everything to them there.
An uneasy feeling came over her as she reached her apartment door. She traced the doorway and studied the wooden grain. Though the door was unharmed, all of her mystical protections had been removed. She backed away. Who could have found her home and unraveled every one of her wards? None of her meager possessions were worth finding out. She turned to run, to flee far from Sharn before her pursuers found her.
A small monk in a shimmering copper robe blocked her path.
“Hello, Norra Cais,” the man said. He smiled at her, but there was no joy in his smile. He looked upon her with peculiar metallic eyes. There was something vaguely reptilian about his appearance and demeanor.
Norra pulled another bead from her necklace and hurled it at the man. It exploded in a sphere of searing flame. The monk lunged through the smoke with an irritated snarl. He moved fast, quicker than Norra could avoid. He seized her by the shoulders and thrust her back against the wall so hard that her head cracked the wood.
The monk stepped away and smoothed his robes with one hand as Norra slid to the floor. She touched the back of her head with one hand. Her fingers felt warm and sticky.
“As a teller of tales, there is one thing I disdain,” the monk said. “Do you know what it is?”
“You’re Zamiel,” Norra said, looking up at him in terror. “You’re the one who started all of this.”
“Endings,” Zamiel said, ignoring her. “I abhor endings. In telling a tale, one lives the tale. With each revision it is told over and over in the author’s soul. As you construct it, you see the ending. It is ever-present in the author’s mind. By the time it comes to a conclusion, the ending, to me at least, seems obvious. Redundant even. Bringing that ending to execution is oftentimes rather tedious. Don’t you think?”
“Why did you do this?” she asked, struggling to sit up.
“And yet an ending is required,” Zamiel continued. “Without it, the rest of the story is for nothing. Without closure, the story lingers forever and ceases to be a story at all. So it is a terrible irony that all who create must, inevitably, destroy their creations. If they do not. then they have created nothing.”
“Stop babbling and answer me,” she said.
Zamiel cocked his head. “Such arrogance. Strange that you should demand answers. You understand more than any of them and still you do not see the truth? I am no player in this game. I am the game. Sadly your part in my story is at end, Norra Cais.”
“You’re too late to stop me, Zamiel,” she said defiantly.
The prophet’s eyes hardened.
Norra reached desperately for the dagger in her boot. She had just enough time to watch the blade shatter on the little man’s flesh before he snapped her neck.
ELEVEN
Though they had set out early in the morning, the forest was quite dark. The crowns of the trees were woven so thickly that the area was cast in a perpetual twilight. An unsettling, musty odor hung in the air. Zed’s expression was troubled as he studied a nearby tree.
“What is it?” Eraina asked, moving beside him.
Zed pointed. A crude triangular metal amulet hung from a low branch. A swirling flame was carved upon its surface.
“That looks like a symbol of the Silver Flame,” Eraina said, peering at it closely.
“What is that doing here?” Shaimin asked, riding back to them. He frowned. “Holy ground?”
“The opposite,” Zed said. “Remember the legends about these woods being haunted?”
Eraina nodded.
“Knights of the Silver Flame leave symbols like these,” Zed said. “They serve to warn travelers that the area is infested with undead, and to offer the Flame’s protection to any bold enough to travel further. Look.” He pointed at some of the nearby trees. At least a half dozen other crude holy symbols were visible dangling from the branches.
“If the knights are aware of trouble, why wouldn’t they just send in their exorcists to deal with it?” Shaimin asked.
“During the war, our forces were often spread too thin to take the risk, especially here on the borderlands,” Zed said. “If the walking dead were content to mind their own business, we were content to leave them alone until we were ready to deal with them.”
“In Karrnath this sort of thing is not uncommon,” Eraina said. “Undead can be powerful and unpredictable foes. More often than not, they merely wish to be left alone. I will not deny they are dangerous and often evil, but sometimes it is better this way.”
“Do you believe this warning is genuine?” Shaimin asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps this was left by Marth’s troops to turn away superstitious locals. I didn’t notice anything unusual when I came here earlier, but admittedly the messenger was riding swiftly.”
“There is a sense of something evil in the air,” Eraina said. “I do not think this warning is false.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Marth to establish his headquarters in an area known to be haunted,” Zed said. “With his kind of power, he wouldn’t have a lot to fear from most undead. He might even have found a way to control them-or at least ward them off so that only intruders would have to deal with them.”
“We will not arrive upon any useful answer by wasting time here with pointless theories,” Shaimin snapped, then strode off through the woods. “We should keep moving. The truth will present itself when it is ready. We shall be prepared to face it.”
“Boldrei will protect us from the undead, Arthen,” Eraina said. “Come. We have to keep moving.” She hurried after the departing elf.
Zed looked back at the dangling amulet. Something about it unnerved him. Was he more disturbed by the warning it presented or by the memories it conjured? There was a time when a symbol of the Silver Flame much like this one was one of his most prized possessions. As a paladin, it had symbolized his connection to his god. He’d left his flame in the mud at Vathirond years ago, on the day he realized justice was dead and the gods no longer protected their people.
Now he felt differently. The idealism he had clung to so firmly in his youth was long dead, but it had been replaced by something stronger. Perhaps the world was not a perfect place. The gods might not take a personal hand in the lives of their faithful-but there were heroes if you searched for them. They were imperfect heroes, but heroes all the same. Justice was not dead, but it could not live without sacrifice.
“Arthen, are you coming?” Shaimin whispered.
“Aye,” Zed replied. He pulled the symbol from its branch and slipped it into his pocket.
“The Cyran messenger took a path parallel to this one,” Shaimin said, gesturing toward the woods to his left. “I’d prefer not to take an identical route, lest we encounter patrols.”
“Afraid you can’t handle a few soldiers?” Zed said, hoping to annoy the smug elf.
“Killing without compensation upsets my delicate stomach,” Shaimin replied, smirking.
“Shaimin is right,” Eraina said. “We should avoid fighting if we can.” She studied the thick forest uneasily. Hints of broken stone walls could be seen here and there amid the undergrowth. “It looks like this was some sort of outpost.”
“Thrane knights?” Shaimin asked.
“Smugglers or mercenaries, more likely,” Zed said. “I don’t recall any Thrane outposts this deep in the Harrowcrowns.”