Soneste looked back to Tallis. Another Lion was down. The Karrn was grappling with Bratta, for he’d attempted to retrieve his hammer and the furious sergeant was fast upon him. With his wrists still locked close together, Tallis couldn’t maintain his grip and fend off attacks. He was forced to endure a mace blow to the shoulder from the remaining Lion.
“Just … get Jotrem!” Tallis growled through the pain without even looking back at her. He pivoted on his feet, swinging the sergeant’s body around to shield him from the next blow. The diamond-headed mace crashed into Bratta’s temple.
The Justice Ministry will have my head next, Soneste swore silently.
The imposter Jotrem had almost reached the avenue, but his steps dragged. The sleep poison was taking effect. Soneste paused only long enough to pull out her crysteel dagger.
The imposter reached the end of the street and turned.
And ran headlong into the large metal body of a warforged.
“Aegis!” she exclaimed. “Hold him!”
The construct grabbed the weakening man, who collapsed in his grip and hung there like a puppet. The false Jotrem wasn’t unconscious-not yet-but he struggled anyway.
Soneste caught up to them. “Thank you, Aegis. Drop him and help Tallis.” The warforged complied, and the imposter crumbled to the cobbled street. “Just don’t kill anyone!” she called out after Aegis tramped past.
She crouched down, turned the imposter over, and placed the razor edge of her dagger to his throat. “I know you aren’t Jotrem,” she said in the man’s ear and stroked the blade gently across his skin, “so tell me who you are.”
The man’s heavy-lidded eyes tried to focus on her.
“Let mmme go, Brel … saved you … from yyyowler …”
Yowler? This was useless. She couldn’t question him out here. Already she could see passers-by running off to summon another patrol of White Lions. This had to end now or she was as doomed as Tallis.
At the thought, she looked back. One of the White Lions dented Aegis’s shoulder with a sound blow from his battle-axe, for which the warforged pounded the man to the ground. Behind the construct, Tallis brought the hammer’s blunted end thudding into the sergeant’s stomach. Bratta fell hard. With seven White Lions lying unconscious on the street-Host, let none of them be dead-Soneste watched as Tallis set about searching for the key to his manacles. He looked up and offered her a weak smile.
What was the point? Innocent or not of the murder of ir’Daresh, Tallis was an enemy of the state, and Soneste had just firmly established herself as his accomplice. She thought of the Sharn skyline, her apartment in Ivy Towers, and the proud face of Thuranne d’Velderan. She would never make it home now.
Then Soneste looked to the imposter who lazed stupidly before her. He still shifted, drifting on the edge of consciousness. Therein lay her answers-and she was determined to have them out. If she was going to die for this, she at least wanted to know why.
Soneste stood and sprinted after an empty coach that trotted near. “Driver!” she called. “Five dragons to buy my friends passage across the city with no questions asked?”
Interlude
There had been more activity around him than usual, but the man in the chair was ignorant of his only visitor. A promise was made to him-a promise of freedom-but he continued to stare, unhearing.
Sverak stands at the railing, stooped over a panel of scrolls and creation schemas. One of the titans-Rejkar One, the same one to which I have devoted the last week-stands on the ground level below, but the twenty foot tall construct still looms above the railing. It was animated weeks ago, but its ability to take action, to reason at all, is minimal. It should be inoperable, situated at the other end of the hall to await further work.
Yet here it is, one arm raised and frozen in place. A block of granite, bolted between a metal vice, serves as the hand.
A group of workers has gathered near, afraid to approach, with Leonus at the front.
“Stop that!” my nephew shouts.
My eyes return to Sverak. At his feet are several broken slates. He holds a flat, wooden schema in one hand. I recognize it. It contains the recorded instructions for activating one of the creation pods of the forge below. Before our eyes, he takes the schema in both hands and snaps it in half.
Lord Charoth rushes forward, confronting my assistant. “Touch not one more!” he roars, pointing his wand at Sverak. “Back away from there now, or you will die today, warforged!”
These schemas are the lifeblood of the facility, magical possibility in its purest, recorded form. They allow the Cannith machines-especially the creation forges-to function. Sverak has already destroyed the worth of thousands of gold pieces.
“Sverak, please,” I say, hoping my assistant will reason with me. “What are you doing this for?” He does not understand the fury of Lord Charoth Arkenen. The director does not give empty threats.
In answer, Sverak holds up another schema before him-one he’d concealed behind his back. In the bright lights of the central hall, I recognize it as I know my superior must: a narrow slate of gold, in which are carved powerful sigils from ancient Xen’drik.
This particular schema is vital to the Orphanage’s work, the catalyst from which all of our research springs. It should have been guarded, under lock and ward. Only the director and I have access. How did Sverak get it? Why does he hold it?
“It would be unwise to discharge that wand,” my assistant says to Lord Charoth.
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Wir, the 11th of Sypheros, 998 YK
Verdax grunted irritably when he heard Tallis’s hammer upon his door again. He set the damaged darkvision lenses down and jumped down from the table, wondering if they had completed their mission. Perhaps the female was ready to talk about Sharn. He cheered himself with the thought of pulling Kapoacinth out of port and beginning the long voyage around Khorvaire to the city of Sharn.
He’d had that daydream many times.
Verdax didn’t bother checking the spyhole. He knew Tallis would be coming back to restock eventually. That’s what he liked about the warmblood. Unlike most of the surface-dwelling races, he didn’t lapse into stagnancy at the war’s end.
Which meant he kept the gold coming. Yes, Tallis was his best customer.
When the door cracked open, the half-breed elf pushed through with a body in his arms-and it wasn’t the female. Another stranger? Moody warmbloods! Verdax revoked his renewed admiration for Tallis.
“Who is you brought now?” he shrieked.
“Not now,” Tallis said, his face paler than usual. The half-breed’s tone was harsh, his words peremptory. Verdax didn’t like it.
Tallis and his burden entered the workshop, and the female came aboard behind him. Verdax moved to shut the door, but then the warforged pushed its way in. “Cursed warmbloods and constructs,” the kobold muttered in his mother tongue then sealed the door and followed them in.
The stranger showed evidence of a sound beating. Verdax said nothing, hoping he wasn’t expected to heal the man. The indignities heaped upon him this day were numerous enough, thanks to his “best customer.”
Tallis dropped the man unceremoniously to the ground. Verdax scrambled to clear away his most valuable tools from the area and hastily removed all glass devices. It looked like the Tallis was going to get rough. Apparently he’d forgotten whose boat this was!