The Korranberg Chronicle had painted an intriguing, colorful picture of the man. If he’d been truly offended by Tallis’s refusal to work for him, it seemed to Soneste that Charoth wouldn’t need to go to such lengths to take revenge. Perhaps if she asked some members of the house about Charoth, she could learn more.
“Let’s try House Cannith,” Soneste said, pointing up at the enclave. “They’re obviously the most likely to know about what kind of creature can live in animate armor.”
“No,” Tallis answered. “The dragonmarked enclaves are quickly notified when criminals of a certain caliber are at large. I’m one of those. Besides, Verdax is one artificer I know I can trust.”
So this Verdax was probably an outlaw too. Lovely.
They walked the streets in silence, winding slowly down the district tiers of the city. Feeling sleightly on edge, Soneste imagined the eyes of every White Lion upon her. She knew the soldiers had been shown portraits of Tallis and were told to keep their search for him as discreet as possible, but whenever she glanced up at him, she was impressed with his new disguise.
In his green coat and hat, few gave him a second glance. He conveyed nobility without the flagrant extravagances she saw among Sharn’s elite. They even passed unscathed through two White Lion checkpoints. The city’s security tightened with each passing day, especially in the upper districts and the palace of Crownhome. Tallis’s papers, identifying him as Findel d’Lyrandar, held up each time. Whoever had forged his papers and his new appearance had done an amazing job.
Even so, they couldn’t have hidden the grief that tightened his quicksilver eyes or the rage that pursed his previously wicked grin into a fierce scowl. She reached out and squeezed his hand, surprised to feel how warm it was. He was the only Karrn without ice water coursing through his veins.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Soneste said quietly.
Tallis didn’t answer right away. They walked two blocks before he acknowledged her intrusion at all. “I know.”
Soneste was surprised when Tallis led them down to the waterfront. A profusion of masts and half-collapsed sails filled the docks. Workers of every race and social class walked this way and that, carrying rigging, ordering inferiors around, and arguing. She searched the mass of people, hoping on a whim to spot Aegis, but the only warforged she saw were hauling cargo to and from river vessels. The din of the crowds and the cadence of dockworkers’ song swallowed all other noise. The latter sounded more like battle hymns than river shanties.
“Your artificer is down here?” Soneste shouted to be heard. She noted a crowd of roustabouts loitering outside a nearby alehouse.
“Pray join us, Bluebird!” one of the men called to her. One of his mates held up a bottle and made a lewd gesture with it.
Angry words came unbidden to her lips, and her face flushed. “Keeper’s swine-”
“Come on, Bluebird,” Tallis said with a half smile, taking her hand in his again. “We’re almost there.”
The Karrn steered her out onto the furthest pier at the east end, passing into the shadow of the bluffs that rose high along the city’s edge. The pier itself cried out for repair and some of the pilings looked ready to break free from it altogether. A cluster of damaged ships crowded the dock. Soneste knew very little about seamanship but was fairly certain none of these ships would sail again. Some of them didn’t even have masts and were too ramshackle to be elemental-powered vessels.
“Watch your step,” Tallis said, pointing out broken planks in their path. He stepped up to what Soneste first assumed was an oddly-shaped dockhouse. It resembled a miniature barge with a rusted iron protrusion serving as the pilot house. She could barely make out the name written on the hull, Kapoacinth, amidst thick layers of mildew.
“This was a salvage tug during the war,” Tallis explained when he saw her scrutiny.
“Was,” she concurred.
Atop a short ramp, they stepped aboard and Tallis rapped the head of his hammer against the vertical hatch which passed for the door. Soneste winced at the jarring sound. She eyed the hand-sized porthole on the door when she caught a flicker within the thick glass. As they waited, Tallis unbuttoned his coat. Buffeted as they were by the bitter riverside winds, Soneste thought him mad.
When there was no response, Tallis hammered again.
A massive reptilian eye filled the porthole, flicking left and right. Its vertical pupil dilated against the daylight behind them. A hellish red glow limned the great eye.
Soneste she reached for her dagger. “What in Khyber …?”
Tallis chuckled, removing his jacket and tucking it under an arm.
An illusion, perhaps. Many arcanists employed fearsome, if harmless defenses such as this in their shops and homes. Soneste found it difficult to believe this floating piece of junk housed a legitimate workshop.
“Who is you?” a harsh voice issued from the door, the sound amplified through invisible pipes.
“You know who, Verdax,” Tallis answered. “Let me in. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Bringing ssstranger?” the voice accused, the eye fixing on Soneste. She looked around to see if anyone else noticed the shrill voice. None did.
“Yes. Just open up.”
“No!”
“Very well.” Tallis withdrew the metal case that housed his identification papers, propped it open, and cleared his throat.
“Verdaxensoranec!” he said in a loud voice. A few heads near the crumbling dock turned their way at the sound. The angry red eye widened and swiveled around. “You are hereby ordered, in accordance with the Justice Ministry of Korth and the Code of Kaius, to submit to an authorized search of the Kapoacinth as requested by the Windwrights Guild of House Lyran-”
There came a furious hiss, followed by the metallic pop of the ship’s door as it unsealed and swung ajar. Tallis clapped the metal case together. “Better let me go first. He hates people he doesn’t know.” Soneste made a face. “What? You wanted to come, didn’t you? By the way, you might want to take that coat off.”
On the other side of the door she saw a protruding eyehole at waist level, inlaid with a thick lens that disappeared into the metal. Tallis led her by hand through a cramped and dark walkway that smelled like lamp oil and snake skin. A ramp brought them into the belly of the small ship, where a sudden, stifling heat enclosed them. She removed her coat quickly and folded it over one arm.
The air remained uncomfortably warm and was as black as night until Tallis triggered something upon one wall. Yellow-globed lanterns flared to life with cold fire, illuminating the space. Distaste and wonder both warred for her favor as she looked upon the room.
Soneste had seen arcane workspaces before, had visited magewright shops in Sharn and even glimpsed research chambers in Cannith Enclave. The interior of this boat looked like it comprised the leftover parts from those places. Every horizontal surface was littered with a perplexing array of tools and inorganic parts. Hooks and chains jutted from the ceiling and walls, holding whatever failed to fit anywhere else. Tucked in an alcove beside her was a sheaf of legal documents. Against the far side of the shop, a large storage bin was propped half open by something covered in a filthy tarp. She felt an aqueous murmur somewhere beneath her feet, as though the boat itself was powered by churning water.
Soneste’s gaze settled at last upon a small, reptilian figure that stood fuming up at her like a tiny bull. For a moment she thought the creature was stuffed, until its glowing red eyes narrowed. No taller than a halfling, most of its scaly, gray-brown skin was covered by a suit that combined a workman’s smock with studded leather armor. A pair of oversized goggles perched atop his head, contesting with the two black horns that sprouted there-a kobold.