The building was long, five stories high with a clawlike chimney rising from the center of its crenellated walls. From within this architectural grasp dark vapors churned into the sky.
Jotrem’s presence proved more than useful. Among other Karrns, he was persuasive and commanding. Without needing to display Hyran’s writ, he gained entrance to the factory and convinced one of the senior workers to lead them directly to Lord Charoth. Soneste had to admit, Jotrem certainly had knowledge of his city, and she found herself wondering if she ought to have included him more in her investigation. But how would he have handled the Midnight Market? And she really didn’t want Jotrem to meet up with Tallis again. That couldn’t go well for either man.
No. She’d been right to go her own way.
The only caveat had been denying Aegis entrance. The man at the factory doors had made an incredulous expression when he first laid eyes upon the warforged. He was emphatic about the construct remaining outside the building. Aegis complied after Soneste instructed him on what to say if anyone troubled him.
“Everyone who knows of Lord Charoth also knows he has no love of warforged,” Jotrem said quietly to her as the worker led them through a series of chambers.
Soneste recalled Charoth’s quote in the Korranberg Chronicle: “Had I been present during the peace talks, I would have pushed for the destruction of all existing warforged. They are obsolete in this time of peace and remain only as a reminder of the weapons of war the Five Nations have inflicted upon one another …”
They entered a room larger than any Soneste had ever seen. Engines of glass production filled the factory floor, manned by scores of workers. At the far end of the hall, two enormous, brick-walled cylinders rose halfway to the ceiling, capped with spinning blades that funneled thick, acrid fumes into the vents above. Attached to the base between the two monstrous machines a metal furnace roared with fire. The air was filled with the drone of churning machinery. Metal walkways stretched across the room on several levels.
A team of men in protective gear were busy repairing the brick wall of one of the vats. Behind them, facing the nearest vat, a glasswalled room had been built into the wall overlooking the factory floor. An open-air metal bank of stairs led up to its door fifteen feet above the ground level. The room’s size and prominence told Soneste this was Charoth’s own office.
Looking for his robed and masked appearance through its transparent wall, Soneste was surprised to hear the wizard’s sonorous voice much closer at hand.
“Just one moment,” their escort bade them, approaching a knot of workers who had gathered around the former Cannith lord.
It was strange to see Charoth outside the sterile silence of his manor. Although he looked exactly the same, stately in his dark robes, metal-shod boots, and painted mask, here in his factory and among his employees he seemed more animated. His presence commanded respect.
Soneste pictured Charoth in the subterranean levels of the Orphanage, with magewrights and artificers operating under his orders as did the glassworkers she saw before her. Having never been to a Cannith forgehold, her imagination supplied the details: Spike-armored warforged stood as sentries as more of the living constructs emerging from a yawning creation forge. Charoth, unmarred and unmasked, stood in observance-a stern director with eyes like a hawk, searching for flaws among the facility’s creations.
“Ahh, Miss Otänsin!”
The vision faded away. The nearby workers quieted and turned to look at Soneste, an audience of dozens. This was his world, she reminded herself cautiously. “Good morning, Lord Charoth.”
“It is a pleasure to see you again,” the wizard said, his mask turning sleightly as he looked at Jotrem, “and a surprise. But I fear your presence suggests that there is yet a killer to be found.”
Soneste flushed. “Yes, there is.”
Jotrem spoke, breaking the tension. “It is an honor to see the inside of your factory, my lord. I have always admired it from the outside.”
“Thank you …?”
“Major Jotrem Dalesek, my lord,” the older inquisitive said, casting his head down with respect.
“Would you mind if we spoke with you?” Soneste asked. “We ask for only a moment.”
Charoth tapped the base of his cane firmly upon the ground. “Of course,” he answered then waved his gloved hand to the workers around him. “Give me some privacy.”
“Lord Charoth,” she began when the men shuffled away. “I have seen a good deal more of your city now. I merely wish to ask you some follow-up questions, now that I have … context.”
Charoth nodded. Soneste found herself staring at the narrow lenses that filled the eyeholes of his mask. She wondered what color his eyes were. “Have you found your prime suspect yet?”
“Briefly,” she answered, remembering her first meeting with Tallis in the alley-not far from here, in fact. “But I’m wondering why he hasn’t yet left the city. You would think a guilty man would run. I know from experience now that he is resourceful.”
“He is at that,” Charoth responded, his voice unreadable. “I would not easily be able to locate him for you, if that is what you intended to ask. I suppose I could attempt to have him contacted.”
A man like Charoth had the influence and-no doubt-a sizable network of informants. In her experience, even the most upstanding nobles had eyes in the underworld.
“There is no need, but thank you.” Soneste slung her haversack from her shoulder, unfastened it, then fingered the cloth-wrapped bundle of the assassin’s hand. “I wanted to ask you about a piece of evidence I acquired.”
“Of cour-” he began. Charoth turned, lifting his glass-eyed gaze beyond her. “Excuse me,” he said with unexpected venom in his voice.
A team of men approached led by a well-dressed, middle-aged dwarf with a long silver beard partially braided and bound with small crystal beads. Between the exotic stones and his stiff, even stride, Soneste pegged him as Mrorian noble. He walked with a sleight limp but eschewed any means of support. Dwarves from other parts of Khorvaire didn’t carry themselves with quite the level of smug pride as those from the Holds. His team of laborers included well-muscled dwarves and a pair of particularly enormous men.
“Why were my workers given such resistance at the door, Lord Charoth?” the dwarf demanded. His accent confirmed Soneste’s suspicions. “My papers are good!”
“Master Doragun!” Charoth bellowed, startling Soneste and arresting the attention of everyone else in the vicinity. “You misled me!”
The Mrorian stopped, his ruddy cheeks darkening. “I have done no such thing!” he answered with mounting anger.
Charoth struck the floor with the base of his glass cane. Electricity gathered at the stroke, then faded away. “Your men are no doubt respectable, honest workers, Doragun, but you said nothing of those!”
The wizard pointed with one gloved hand and all eyes turned to the pair of men at the back of Doragun’s team. Clad in oversized workman’s clothes, the “men” were, in fact, metal-plated juggernauts who made even the enormous Aegis appear slim. They stared back with flickering crystalline eyes, awaiting their employer’s defense.
Soneste tensed when an eight-foot-tall figure bristling with coarse brown fur padded onto the scene. A bugbear! Taller and cleaner than most, the tall goblin’s body was clad in a leather jerkin. A long black chain wrapped several times around his muscled frame like a piece of armor. One end hung over his shoulder, weighted with a thick metal spike. The creature’s lips twisted with obvious bloodlust, prominent incisors slick with saliva. He moved to stand beside Charoth, evidently quite willing to attack at his lord’s command.