The City of Towers

CHAPTER 20

Greykell met them at the Cyran infirmary in Togran Square. The floor of the tent was lined with pallets, and people of all ages were spread out across the floor. The smell of blood and gangrenous flesh was strong in the air, and moans and low cries filled the chamber. Most of the patients were veterans of the war. Some were recovering from physical injuries, but others were victims of magical attacks or the Mourning itself. One man was missing his right arm and leg. It seemed as though his right side had been transformed into wax and then exposed to tremendous heat. A young woman was sitting up and gesturing with her right hand, making the same complex gesture over and over again, but her eyes were vacant and blank. Greykell stood in the back of the tent, looking down at an immobile figure with dead-white skin and lank silver-gray hair-the changeling.

“Good to see you up and about, Daine,” Greykell said, looking over at him. “So far, no signs of life from our friend here. Hulda took another look at him this morning. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell if he’s just playing possum.”

“I can try to do something about that,” Lei said. Her ability to channel and weave magical energy was limited, but after a good night’s rest she was ready to get back to work.

“Do it,” Daine said.

Lei produced a small disk of polished red marble from her belt pouch. An eye was engraved into the surface, and Daine was reminded of the symbol on the pommel of his borrowed sword. Lei traced the lines of the eye, whispering incantations, and after a moment the eye began to glow in the wake of her touch.

A minute later, she was done. “Shall I?” she asked, looking at Daine. He nodded, and she held the stone above the changeling’s head. She closed her eyes, reaching out to study the surface of the changeling’s mind. Eventually, she opened her eyes again. “Nothing,” she said. “He’s completely empty. There are no thoughts left at all.”

“Keep at it,” Daine said. He turned to Greykell. “Jode told me that you knew the people who attacked us. Can you explain any of this?”

Greykell shook her head. “Not at all. Philan, the fat man-now the fat statue-just the other day he was out in the market telling the children stories of Cyre. Sarris, the woman with the claws, served as a scout under my command. Overzealous, maybe, but I never saw her claws before.”

“Did they know each other?” Jode asked.

“Everyone here knows each other,” Greykell said. “But did they spend much time together? Not that I know of.”

“What about the other twin?” Daine said. “Have you found him?”

“Not yet. But Daine, you’re dealing with a changeling. This may not have anything to do with Hugal and Monan. They could be as innocent as you or I.”

“Or there may never have been a Hugal or Monan.”

“My guess is that one has always been a changeling and the other is human,” Jode said. “Changelings aren’t inherently evil, but few people trust them.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Daine said.

“They’re just people, Daine. This Monan could have met Hugal at an early age. They took a liking to one another and decided to be ‘brothers’. It’s not that uncommon, from what I hear. I’ve heard that other changeling communities have a set of identities that they share, so you could have six changelings who take turns being Lei, Jode, or Daine.”

“Or Hugal or Monan.”

“Exactly.”

Daine scowled. “So Greykell, you don’t know anything about this, what these people were up to, or why they might have attacked us?”

“Well …” She pondered a moment before continuing. “If you assume it was Monan you were dealing with, there are a number of factors to consider. You are all members of the Cyran army, but so am I, and I haven’t been attacked yet. Your companion has the Mark of Healing-speaking of which, Jode, would you mind helping Hulda over there? She’s got four more cases of flameworm fever. And then there was that friend of yours from the sketch. I’m putting my money on one of the last two. So, seeing as I’ve taken it on myself to maintain order in High Walls, would you like to tell me what that’s really about?”

“What do you mean?”

She tapped her good eye. “Only half-blind, Daine. Your Jode is a smooth talker, but I don’t believe that ‘second cousin’ story for a minute. The way I see it, either Monan and his strange friends were working with this Rasial and were trying to protect him from you-or they want him dead, and you happened to be more convenient. You want to tell me about it? And while you’re at it”-she turned to look at Lei, who was sitting quietly with her eyes closed-“you want to tell your friend here to stop trying to read my mind? If you’ve got questions, just ask.”

Daine blushed and tapped Lei on the shoulder. She blinked and dropped the carved stone. “She’s telling the truth,” she said.

“I could have told you that for free,” Greykell grumbled.

“All right, Captain Greykell,” Daine said. “But I’m not comfortable talking here. Come back to our room at the Manticore and I’ll tell you what we know.”

Greykell grinned. “Sounds good. I’ve always wanted to try their gruel. I hear it’s top notch.”

Daine shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of gruel in my day, and honestly, it’s just fair.”

“Aberrant dragonmarks?” Greykell frowned. “As in, ‘Eat your candied jask roots or the Lady of the Plague will steal you away in the middle of the night?’”

Daine nodded. “You said you’d seen Rasial talking to Hugal or Monan, right?”

“I think so … but it’s just a vague memory. A discussion in the marketplace, maybe a week ago.”

“That might be about right. Rasial was supposed to be transporting contraband goods for my employer. He returned with the goods two days ago but never made his delivery. I wonder if he was working another deal on the side.”

“Or two,” Jode commented. “The Tarkanans seemed eager to find him. It may just be family bonds, or there could be more to it.”

“What was the delivery?”

“Some sort of rare dragonshards.”

“But none of the attackers had dragonmarks,” Greykell said. “What possible good could the shards do for them?”

“Different types of dragonmarks have different purposes,” Lei explained. “These are Khyber dragonshards, and they can bind the energies of dragonmarks and other sources of magical power. Thinking about it, I can see the value. I don’t know how, but someone seems to have woven unnatural abilities into these people, the same way I can place enchantments into objects. Perhaps these dragonshards can streamline the process. If the dragonshard was grown up and suspended in a liquid medium … I don’t know. It’s all theoretical. Is there a skilled artificer in the community, Greykell? Or possibly a transmuter?”

“Sure,” Greykell said. “Old Jol, who lives in the tent with all the holes in it and wears his skillet as a hat.” She snorted. “No, we don’t have a skilled artificer around. Do you think the place would look such a mess if we did?”

“What about the woman with the basilisk eye in her palm? How’d that happen?”

“Well, Old Hila was a war widow-and lost both her sons in battle as well. I remember having dinner with her at Teral’s a few months back. She was surprisingly energetic and spent most of the time complaining about Breland feeding us table scraps after destroying everything we have. I remember arguing the point with her. As I was saying last night, it’s not going to do any good to hold onto that sort of anger.”

“And then she turned you into stone?” Jode said.

“No. And I’m certain her hands were normal then. She’s a seamstress. I remember seeing her with that bandage a few weeks ago, but I assumed that she’d cut herself in her work.”

This troubled Daine. “So much for this being an effect of the Mourning. So you’re saying that sometime over the last month, she had a basilisk’s eye stuck in her palm?” He looked at Lei. “I know they say ‘if you can buy it, you can buy it in Sharn,’ but I didn’t realize that extended to living body parts.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing, Daine.”

“Hmm. What about that girl with the stone teeth? Could the two be related?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Lei. “I’ve never seen such a focused petrifying effect before.”

“There’s no connection,” Greykell said. “I met Olalia the first time I had dinner with Teral, and that was almost four months ago. I think she really is a casualty of the Mourning. We’ve seen a lot of horrors come out of our homeland. There are at least six people in the infirmary in far worse condition than she is.”

“Jode … you seem to be the expert on changelings,” Daine said. “They reshape their own bodies, right? Could a changeling twist someone else’s body … plant a basilisk’s eye in Hila’s hand?”

“No.” Jode and Lei answered at the same time. They looked at each other, and Lei continued. “Changelings have a very limited ability to shift their appearance. A changeling couldn’t even place a functioning eye in its own palm, let alone an eye with magical powers. It’s like dragonmarks-a changeling can place the design on its skin, but it doesn’t actually get the powers of the mark.”

“All right.” Daine rubbed his forehead. “Let’s go over this one more time. We’ve got a group of people in Sharn with aberrant dragonmarks, which channel dangerous energies. One member of this group is a former guardsman, who can kill people with a touch. He starts working behind the back of his new friends. In the process, he begins dealing with either Hugal or Monan, who may or may not have been a changeling at the time. Monan-if it was Monan-has his own group of friends, the acid-spitting-extra-eye-and-claw club. We have dinner last night. Monan discovers that Jode has the Mark of Healing and that we are looking for Rasial. He proceeds to gather together a group of his friends and attacks us. Why?”

Lei spoke up. “Rasial might not have anything to do with it, actually. Clearly these people are twisting their bodies in unnatural ways. That’s got to be dangerous work.” She looked over at Greykell. “Have there been any mysterious deaths recently?”

“Disappearances, certainly … but it’s not the safest place or time to be a Cyran.”

“Implanting monstrous organs … I imagine that for every working basilisk eye you end up with a corpse. Whoever is doing this may simply have wanted Jode’s services to keep their subjects alive. The real question is how many more of these people are out there. Did we encounter all of them last night, or are there more?”

“I imagine Hugal could tell us that,” Daine said.

“We’re looking for him,” Greykell said. “The Sharn Watch tends to ignore us. Either we’re not worth their time or they’re afraid to enter the district. Believe what best suits your ego, but I’ve pulled together a few friends to help maintain order. We’ll see if we can turn him up for you.”

“Thank you, Captain Greykell.”

“I told you, I’m done with that. And don’t think I’m doing it for you. I just don’t want anything happening to Jode while we’ve still got flameworm going around!” She laughed and struck Daine on the shoulder. “How about you? Any ideas?”

“Only one,” Daine sighed. He looked over at Lei. “Ready to go back to Malleon’s Gate?”