Fortunately, before the conversation can turn violent enough to draw the attention of the entire tavern, the Sell-Sword dashes her drink to the floor, calls her compatriots some choice epithets, and all three of them angrily go their separate ways. Sensing a rare opportunity, you slip out of the Jeweled Remora and into the smoky streets of Lankhende after them.
I
The Sell-Sword has made her camp in the swampy mangrove forests that surround the walls of Lankhende. Though you keep a safe distance and stay in the shadows, still she must detect you, for she stiffens and places her hand on the sword at her hip as she calls you out. Knowing when you’re fairly caught, you step out with your palms held toward her, to show that you’re unarmed. “You don’t look like much, and you came alone,” she says. “You’re either very brave, or very foolish.”
“Any reason I can’t be a bit of both?” you ask.
After digesting that for a moment, she laughs a surprisingly unguarded laugh and tells you to start a fire while you explain why you’re following her. Once a couple of lizard-bats are roasting over the embers, you tell her that you know she seeks the Shining Trapezohedron — saying a silent prayer to all the gods of Lankhende that you pronounce it correctly — and that you know of someone who can help her to find it, if she’s interested in sharing the wealth.
She is, and she tells you her name is Vlana. You tell her your name, and lead her to the lair of the Seer with Many Faces, in a ruined temple high atop Mount Grond, the strange lone peak that stands to the south of Lankhende.
At first glance, the Seer appears to be a statue of greenish stone that sits atop a raised dais, human in shape but with numerous arms radiating out from the trunk of its body, its head carved with faces on three sides, the one turned toward you as you enter contemplative, serene. Each of its many arms has an upturned palm, and in each hand rests some strange object: a golden carving of the sun, the skull of a bird, a trio of ordinary pebbles.
Seeing that you haven’t completely misled her, Vlana places before the Seer a scrap of faded leather or hide onto which someone has drawn — or more likely tattooed, for on closer inspection the scrap appears to be of flayed skin — a portion of a map. For a moment there is silence in the temple, and then there is a sound like the grinding of ancient machinery, a loud clank that is equal parts metal and stone, and the Seer moves, each arm switching positions slightly, and the head atop its trunk rotating so that a facade of terror is suddenly presented to you.
“I know what it is you would seek,” the Seer says, its voice an echo coming from somewhere deep in a cave, “and on your life I warn you to turn back.”
Neither you nor Vlana can be dissuaded, and the Seer seems to sense it, for there is another grinding clank, another repositioning of arms and head, and now the visage that faces you is a mask of wrath. “Then go, but fairly warned. Your path will take you through the city of ghouls, to the throne of the Yellow King. There you will find your prize, and though you will return to Lankhende time and again, it will not be in your grasp.”
The road to Ghulende is a long one, and on the way Vlana teaches you the art of the sword. Her own blade is longer and of finer craftsmanship than the short one that hangs on your belt. She tells you that it is named Heartseeker, and that she forged it herself, as all warriors of her tribe must do before they can truly enter into adulthood.
As you draw nearer to Ghulende, the land becomes drier, the trees short and dead and twisted. Gravestones line the road on every side, canting off at odd angles. They are memorials from every era of the world’s history, and every nation with which you’re familiar — and many with which you aren’t — and you wonder if they’re drawn to Ghulende like iron to a lodestone.
The city itself looks as if some great metropolis like Lankhende was dashed to pieces by a giant hand. Gone are the cyclopean walls, the towering buildings with their many windows for trysts and burglaries. Here the walls lie in rubble, the towers rise a few stories and then terminate abruptly. It is a ruin, and what better place than a ruin for ghouls to dwell.
You have never seen a ghoul, though the old ladies in your village told you tales of them when you were a child. They were said to have skin and organs so translucent as to be virtually invisible, so that they appeared as living skeletons. They were also said to eat only human flesh, and that while they were generally content to feast upon the dead — for dead flesh was considered by ghouls the more succulent — they were more than happy to render living flesh dead, should the opportunity arise.
Before you have a chance to ask Vlana if she has ever seen a ghoul, you are suddenly presented, from every rubble-strewn alley and leaning doorway, with vivid evidence of the truth of your elders’ tales. At a glance, the ghouls that surround you, clutching in their bony fists odd weapons of blackened iron, would look exactly like human skeletons up and wandering about. The only thing to mark them out — besides their ambulation — is that instead of the white ivory shine of human bone, their skeletons are the green of tarnished copper.
One near the front of the pack barks something at you in what you assume must be Ghulese, but to you is simply nonsense. You glance at Vlana, but while she registers no more comprehension of the words than you do, she seems to understand the situation perfectly, for Heartseeker is already in her hand.
II
Though you believed that you knew Lankhende like the palm of your hand, no sooner are you out the door of the Jeweled Remora than you’ve lost the trail of the Cutpurse. You have ducked into a dark alley to collect your thoughts, when you feel the cold kiss of a dagger pressed to your neck.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t slice your throat,” the Cutpurse says from behind you.
You tell her enough to convince her that you know what she’s looking for and can help her get it, and she agrees to take you with her. She says that her name is Samanda, and that she has in her possession a clue that tells her where to seek the Shining Trapezohedron. There’s only one catch: in order to reach her destination, she has to travel to the bottom of the Western Sea.
You lead her to the strange hut of the Seer with Many Faces, built high in a tall tree in the swampy forests that surround Lankhende, accessible only by climbing a series of rickety platforms. As you both scale the trunk, you marvel at Samanda’s agility, her sure-footedness never wavering once, even as you ascend the highest and most precarious ledges.