“And why should I help you?” Tristam asked. “So I get to be an accessory to murder?”
Marth sighed. “I do not care if you help me, Tristam,” he said. “I do not want you to help me. You are my friend, Tristam. I just want you to find your own destiny, and stay out of mine.”
“What if I say no?” Tristam asked. “Will you kill me like you killed Kiris?”
Marth’s grip tightened on his amethyst wand. “Zamiel was right,” he said sadly. “This was a foolish luxury.” He pointed the wand at Tristam.
As Seren pounced, she prayed to Kol Korran that Marth’s magical shield didn’t protect him from steel as well. Her prayers were answered. She felt steel sink into the changeling’s back and heard him cry out in pain. Green fire sprayed wildly through the core chamber as Marth staggered into the wall. Seren rolled away, losing her knife.
Tristam darted in front of Marth, seizing and holding his wand ready.
“Your magic doesn’t harm me, Tristam,” Marth sneered, looking for his own lost weapon.
Without a word, Tristam turned and fired a bolt of energy into the ship’s housing chamber. A guttural roar, full of triumph and anger, echoed through the Kenshi Zhann. Marth’s eyes widened in fear as a creature woven of fire and rage rolled over him. The changeling vanished as the elemental filled the room. Tristam ducked under the blast, shattering the glass floor with his wand.
He leapt into the swirling void with Seren in his arms.
CHAPTER 25
For several minutes the storm winds howled around them. Tristam held Seren’s waist tightly, so she gripped him firmly in return. Though she always thought she wasn’t afraid of heights, she discovered she was quite afraid of falling from thousands of feet up. They didn’t plummet as they should, but drifted, a feather. Seren didn’t open her eyes again until she felt the ground beneath her feet.
Finding herself alive and standing on the soft grass of the Talenta Plains was a most welcome surprise. Seren relaxed her grip on Tristam, though she did not release him yet. She looked around in numb surprise, still shivering from the chill of the storm and the terror of their fall. In the sky far above she could see the twin rings of the two airships. One ring sped away across the sky at extraordinary speed. The other flickered and wavered as she slowly drifted toward the ground. Blue fire also crackled within the ring, as the angry elemental wreaked its vengeance on the Kenshi Zhann. The storm was swiftly dwindling to a light drizzle. The eastern sky glowed red with the haze of the coming sun.
“I doubt that when he gave me that ring, Orren intended me to use it like that,” Tristam said, looking up sadly at the plummeting corpse of Ashrem’s flagship.
“You could have reminded me about it before you jumped,” Seren said, finally catching her breath enough to speak. “I didn’t realize you could carry two people with it.”
“Neither did I,” Tristam said.
“What?” she said. She took a step back and glared at him.
“I’m joking!” Tristam said, holding his hands out defensively. “Mostly joking. I mean, theoretically I knew it would support the weight of another light person, but I never really had a chance to test it, and I thought stopping to ask what you weighed wouldn’t have been wise.”
“What would have happened if you were wrong?” she asked.
“I dunno,” he said, tucking his wand back into his coat. “I guess I would have given you the ring and let go.” He looked at her seriously.
“So what do we do now?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“I don’t know,” Tristam said. “It looks like Karia Naille escaped.” He pointed at the point of flame in the sky. “The others hopefully found Dalan and got back on board. If we can make our way to some sort of civilization and make contact with them, everything should be fine.”
“But what about Dalan?” Seren asked. “Marth said that Dalan had been working with him.”
“I’m not in the habit of taking lunatics at their word, even if they used to be friends,” Tristam said. “Though I will admit it makes a certain amount of sense. If Dalan wanted to crack the secrets of the Legacy, it would make sense for him to turn to one of Ashrem’s old partners. I guess when Marth proved to be a little too ambitious, Dalan turned to me instead. Wroat makes a great deal more sense to me now.”
“How do you figure?” Seren asked.
“The way I see it is like this,” he said. “Dalan was working with Marth, but turned his back on him when he realized Marth was a killer. Later, he realizes that Marth is a great deal further along in his pursuit of the Legacy than we are. Dalan spreads rumors that he knows a little more about the Legacy than he ever let on, in the hopes that Marth will take the bait and give us a chance to track him. Marth is suspicious, so he hires Jamus to take the fall.” Tristam sat down in the grass and smoothed his hair nervously. “Of course that’s just a theory, but it looks like we’ve been lied to from the beginning. I need to talk to Dalan.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Seren. Sorry to have gotten you involved in this.”
Seren looked up at the sky. “Do you think Marth is dead?”
“No,” Tristam said. “I think he teleported away when the fire came for him. He’s still out there, Seren. Still looking for the Legacy.” Tristam shook his head slowly. “I have no idea how to stop him.”
“We still have Kiris’s notes,” Seren said. “There has to be something to be learned there. Not to mention Dalan spent a good amount of time on Marth’s ship. He must have learned something, especially if any of the soldiers made the mistake of talking to him.”
Tristam chuckled. “That’s true,” he said. “Of course none of this solves our most pressing and immediate problem.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The others probably think we’re dead,” he said. He looked around at the vast plain, then back at her. “We have no idea where in Talenta we are. All I know is that the Valenar are to the south, the mountains are to the east, and the Mournlands is to the west.”
“Then my suggestion,” she said, standing up and offering her hand. “Is that we head north.”
Tristam smiled, took her hand, and stood. Together, the artificer and the thief began their march across the plains.
EPILOGUE
Two Weeks Later, the City of Fairhaven
Shaimin loosened the garrote and let the old woman fall on the floor with a wet thud. He leaned back in the elegant mahogany chair where she had been doing her knitting only a moment before. The slim elf rested his chin on one hand as he looked at the corpse. It was almost disappointing. None of the guards had been paying attention. The windows had not been sealed, warded, or locked. He even gave the old woman a chance to see his reflection in the mirror. She didn’t yell for help. She didn’t have a knife. She only gaped in surprise. Now it would likely be several hours before anyone even found her.
In. Out. Eberron has one fewer duchess. Shaimin’s bank account anonymously receives enough gold to feed a poor family for two years.
The gold didn’t matter, of course. He had enough to live quite comfortably for the rest of his life. That was all most assassins dreamed of, but then most assassins had no sense of style, no understanding of why they killed. Their greed drove them to prison or to early graves. They had no appreciation for the hunt, no appreciation of the skills required to perform a task well.
Shaimin drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair. All that time wasted brooding, and still no guards had arrived. Well, he refused to make any more purposeful mistakes merely to make his evening more interesting. He had a reputation to maintain. That didn’t make the boredom any less galling. If these assassinations didn’t swiftly prove to be more challenging, Shaimin feared that he might well have to enter a more interesting line of work. Perhaps politics? He already had plenty of contacts.