He pulled the stone from his pocket and studied it. To all appearances, it seemed to be just a chunk of rock on a chain.
But is it? Did Denaos have something here?
Well, possibly not. It looks like just a piece of rock. But there’s no sense in being stupid about this. Rocks on chains are not something I trust netherlings with, considering what we’ve seen.
The stones, yes?
The red ones, right.
The ones that could achieve limitless power by avoiding the price-
Transferring. Transferring the price.
Apologies. The ones that could take your illness away from you. The ones that could make you the strongest, the most powerful, the most-
One moment. . am I talking to myself or is there someone else there?
He shook his head violently, throwing the thoughts from his head like gnats. He turned, teeth clenched and scowling at the pale figure standing behind him. Greenhair stared back impassively, glistening against the fire, a slight smile upon her lips.
“Damn it, stop doing that!” the boy demanded angrily.
“Apologies, lorekeeper.”
“Oh, good. At least you’re sorry.” He rolled his eyes. “What need have I for things like sanctity of thoughts when I have the apologies of sea-tramps?”
“I merely intended to-”
“Ah, good, because for a moment there I thought all I was going to get from you was apologies, invasion of thoughts, and convenient betrayals that sell me and my friends to perversile longfaced lunatics. But so long as I get intentions, I’m fine.”
“There’s no need to be-”
“There is every need.” Dreadaeleon held up a single finger. “You helped us once. Just once in a series of mishaps that have led us to nearly being killed and, in those moments when we’re not, you’re in my head, telling me things I don’t want to hear. You may have helped us out at Komga, you may have kept the Shen from killing us, but that’s no reason to trust you.”
“Reason and trust are squabbling siblings, often disagreeing,” the siren replied as calmly as though she hadn’t had a litany of accusations leveled against her. “That which demands trust needs no reason, that which possesses reason does not always require trust.”
Riddle-speak and cryptic gibberings. Dreadaeleon drew a sigh inward. But the logic is at least a little sound.
Thank you.
“I said stop that,” Dreadaeleon snapped. “I suspect you had a point in coming to me beyond making me hate my own tremendous brain.”
“A point, an offer, a promise.” Her eyebrows raised a hair’s breadth. “You are going to die tomorrow.”
“And is that a point or a promise?”
“Both, if a plan is not formulated.”
“Kataria has one.”
“I have doubts in her abilities. As do you. As does everyone. The thought echoes inside their heads, loud and screeching, begging for someone to draw upon a vaster intellect, a stronger knowledge.”
Watch yourself, old man, he cautioned himself mentally. The flattery is only slightly less subtle than that step she’s taking toward you. . that thigh sliding out of her silk. . that glistening, porcelain thigh. . He shook his head, forced his eyes back upon hers. You should protest, tell her she’s not going to get to you like that.
His eyes flickered downward. The silk rode dangerously upon her hip, as though just one more movement might send it slithering down her body completely.
Then again, maybe it’s enough that you know and that you don’t act on it, right?
“The Shen are strong, it is true, but the longfaces are stronger, more numerous, their powers unlimited.” Her smile was slight, suggestive, edged with just a hint of greed. “As yours could be.”
While he had been rendered speechless by many things ranging from a well-placed barb from Denaos to that one time Asper bent over a bit too far, rarely had Dreadaeleon been rendered thoughtless. And while he could certainly guess at what the siren was suggesting, he couldn’t quite bring himself to think of the specifics, of the implications.
Of the cost.
“No,” was the sole word he could manage.
“I have seen him, lorekeeper. I have watched him. He presumes the world, and all in it, bows to him as his warriors do. That is why your friend’s plan will fail. He cannot comprehend of a world that allows him to die.”
“No.”
“But the crown. . he covets it. He wears it constantly. He fears its loss. I have seen him remove it. I know it can be taken from him-”
“No.”
“-and given to another-”
“NO.”
“-that they might wield what he does.”
“ENOUGH!”
His roar, shrill as it was, drew attention from the encircling Shen who, at a glare from the siren, returned to the business of sharpening weapons and fletching arrows.
“Do you hear yourself?” Dreadaeleon demanded. “Do you know what you’re suggesting?”
“I know the crown gives power.”
“And do you know where it comes from?”
She nodded, solemnly.
“And do you know that it’s heresy in the eyes of the Venarium?”
“I know it’s necessary in the eyes of the Sea Mother and the world,” Greenhair replied firmly. “A world that breaks beneath our feet as Ulbecetonth begins to claw her way free from that dark place she was sent.”
“And I’m to stop it with the lives of. .” He laughed, slightly incredulous. “I didn’t even count how many were in that furnace, how many more there might be, how many they spent like kindling to keep their powers running far beyond the point they ever should.”
“As powerful as they are, you are more so. You have the vision, the drive. If only your limits were as removed as theirs are.”
“The stones transfer limitations. The price is still paid, but by someone else.”
“And with that burden no longer yours to bear, you could-”
“LOOK AT THEM.” He swept an arm out over the Shen. “Do you see how they look at you? With reverence? With awe? And you say I should sacrifice their kinsmen? Living beings who speak your name like it’s to be respected, people who don’t know that you’re saying I should eat them alive to commit heresy.”
“I say you should sacrifice some,” Greenhair said, voice raising a quaver.
“And when some isn’t enough? When we need more?”
“It will not come to that.”
“You can’t know that. It’s too high a price to pay to save just a few.”
“To save everyone,” she all but snarled. “Are you deluded with the idea that Ulbecetonth’s threat is contained to this island? The demons are returning. If Ulbecetonth breaks free, she will drown the world, return people to oblivion for the sake of making her children more comfortable. If the longfaces prevail tomorrow, they will deliver this world to darker hands still. You could stop them both if only you lacked-”
“A conscience?”
“Limits.”
For the first time, the porcelain of her face cracked, the melody of her voice broke. She became a creature of desperate stares, bared teeth, sweat-slick temples and urgent, pleading whispers. A greedy, hungry, weeping mortal thing.