The City of Towers

CHAPTER 24

Daine turned to Pierce. “Find Jode. Quickly. If you can’t, head back to the Manticore, and we’ll see you there.”

Pierce sprinted away, and Daine turned his attention back to Lei and the stranger. She was slightly younger than Lei, and there was no questioning her wealth. Her beautiful green gown was made from Zil dreamsilk, sprinkled with gold and platinum threads that recalled the patterns of the stars in the sky. A rainbow of gems adorned her golden headdress, scattering the light into a thousand shards. She was staring disdainfully at Lei, and she did not speak.

Then Lei hit her.

This was no elegant slap. Lei had been in the battlefield for years, and although she was part of the support corps, she’d been in more than one brawl. The blow caught Dasei completely by surprise. The woman staggered back, nearly knocking over a display of fine hats. A stream of blood trickled from her nose, and her eyes were full of fury. Rising again, she reached into one of her billowing sleeves and produced a crystal-tipped wand of black oak and leveled the slender rod at Lei.

Daine knew he couldn’t reach Dasei in time to stop her from releasing the spell, but he charged anyway. Better late than never.

He needn’t have worried. In the split-second it had taken Dasei to draw the wand, Lei was already in motion, spinning the darkwood staff. A low, sweeping blow caught Dasei just behind her left knee. She howled in pain and collapsed. A second blow smashed her hand and sent the wand flying. Daine snatched it out of the air and tucked it into his belt.

Lei stood over the fallen woman, the darkwood staff leveled at her throat. Surely it was a trick of the light, but it seemed to Daine that the face carved into the shaft of the staff was smiling a little wider than usual. Lei’s expression was grim.

“Lei, what are you doing?” he said.

“Stay out of this, Daine.”

Her opponent glared at Lei from the ground, clutching her bruised fingers.

“I have endured more pain in the last three days than you have in your entire life, Dasei.” Lei flicked her staff toward Dasei’s face, pulling back at the last minute. The injured woman flinched and cried out. “Perhaps it’s time to change that.”

“Lei?” said Daine, and he took a careful step forward. Was it the staff making Lei act this way? Could it have done something to her?

“I said stay out of this!” she snapped. She set the tip of her staff against Dasei’s throat. “I’m adapting. I’ll survive. But to have you-you! — not even speak to me …” She pressed on Dasei’s throat, pushing her back. “If you think I’ll put up with that, you don’t know me as well as I thought.” She drew back the staff, and the woman gasped. “Now, let’s try this again. Dasei d’Cannith, you don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

For a moment, Dasei held Lei’s gaze, and Daine could see the same fire in her eyes that he’d seen in Lei so many times before. Then it went out, and she looked down at the ground. “You shouldn’t be here, Lei. Just go.”

“And where should I go, cousin?”

“Dolurrh for all I care!” Dasei glared up at her. “You’re not my cousin anymore. You have no place in the family or Sharn.”

“I think that I can live with two of those three.” Lei’s voice was calmer, and she lowered the staff. “But I’d just as soon our final conversation didn’t end in the street.” She held out her hand. “Get up. Surely you can find it in your heart to buy a last meal for your departing cousin?”

Dasei said nothing, but she took the hand and let Lei pull her to her feet.

“Lead on,” said Lei. “As this may be my last meal with a member of House Cannith, I’ll trust to your generosity.” As Dasei led them to a waterhouse, Lei looked back at Daine. “Where are Pierce and Jode?”

“Jode vanished on some errand. I sent Pierce after him. What’s going on here?” He nodded toward Dasei. “That was a rather … surprising display back there.”

“As I recall, you’re the one who throws dwarves off lifts. I’m not allowed to express my anger?”

“It just didn’t seem like you.”

Lei looked down at the ground for a moment. “I know. I shouldn’t have hit her. It’s just … after our history, I couldn’t believe she was standing by this excoriate claim.” She shook her head and smiled slightly. “Did you see her expression when she hit the ground? I may have lost my family fortune, but that’s a memory I’ll treasure.”

Daine chuckled and slid his dagger back into its sheath. “There is that. And speaking of priceless, it looks like it’s time for lunch.”

The waterhouse drew a wealthy crowd. At a table in the corner, a Mrorian banker was entertaining a group of dwarves and gnome merchants with a colorful story about the relative values of sovereigns, crowns, and golden galifars, and a burst of laughter echoed throughout the room.

Daine sniffed his mug. “Gnomes. It’s one thing to have the innkeeper water down the ale, but only a gnome could get people to pay even more for straight water.”

Dasei rolled her eyes.

“It’s not just water,” Lei explained. “It’s infused with various herbs, and the mug itself is made from fragrant clay to add to the overall aesthetic experience.”

“Right. So our little friends say. But have you tried it yet?” He took a long pull. “If you ask me, you’re paying good gold for water in a smelly mug.”

Lei shrugged. “Which is why Dasei is paying. So, cousin, are you ready to talk?”

There were daggers in Dasei’s stare, but she had regained her composure. “And if I’m not? Do you plan to start another brawl?”

“Is that why you chose a restaurant where they hold weapons at the door?”

Dasei looked away.

Lei looked down at the table. “Das, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. But the last few days have been very difficult. Put yourself in my position.”

“How can I?”

“How can I? This whole mess is still a mystery to me. What have I done to deserve this?”

Dasei’s expression softened. “You mean you really don’t know?”

“Why would I lie? I’ve been fighting in the war for the last three years. I spent the last five months digging through the wreckage of my homeland. It’s been over half a year since I’ve even seen another member of the house, and he was just a supply courier. How could I have betrayed the house? When could I have done it?”

Their meals arrived, drifting through the air in the hands of an invisible servitor. Daine had been dreaming about a bloody piece of meat, but it turned out that the specialty of the waterhouse was bread, which was just as exotic and carefully prepared as the water.

“I … I don’t know,” said Dasei “You weren’t the only one to be ousted, and I didn’t press for details. These last few months have been difficult for everyone.”

“I think my difficult tops your difficult.”

“You don’t understand.” Dasei drained her mug and set it down hard; a moment later, it was snatched away by an invisible servant. “You grew up in Cyre. Metrol was the heart of the house, and it was the council that held us all together. These last few months … it’s been chaos, Lei. Supply lines have been shattered. Business is uncertain. They’re saying that the Council of Thronehold may outlaw the use of warforged-or at least their creation. Half the barons want to lead the next council, while the other half don’t even want a council. There’s been hoarding of goods and materials, even some talk of sabotage within the house.”

“What’s this have to do with me?”

“Merrix is one of the aspiring leaders. He’s been trying to purge the house. He says he’s removing traitors and enemies of the house, but he may just be flexing his muscles.”

“I still don’t understand. How am I an enemy of the house? Doesn’t he have to justify this to someone?”

Dasei nodded. “He had to explain his case to the regional arbiters, yes. I don’t know the answer, but I do have a little information you may not have. Among other things, you’re not the only person he’s driven from the house.”

“I’d gathered that.”

“What you may not know is that two of the others he excoriated were your parents, Aleisa and Talin.”

“What? But … they’re dead!”

“Apparently he’s not taking any chances. Perhaps your fate is linked to theirs. He may have simply accused your entire family.”

Lei finished her water and slammed the mug down on the table. Daine was surprised that it survived the experience. Looking around, she grabbed his half-full mug and took another swallow. Daine put his hand on her shoulder.

“Blaming the dead is always easier than challenging the living,” he said gently. “It sounds to me like this Merrix is just trying to make the best of a bad situation, and he’s willing to sacrifice the memory of your family to improve his own situation.”

Lei blinked back tears, but her voice was steady. “What were they accused of, Dasei?”

“I don’t know. I told you, they only gave names, not reasons. With all the upheaval, it didn’t seem like the time to ask questions. Although …” She shifted uncomfortably, rubbing her bruised fingers.

“What?”

“You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”

“What were you going to say?”

“Do you know what happened to Cyre?”

“I told you we spent the last six months there. I’ve seen it. It’s … more disturbing that you can imagine.”

“I’ve heard.” Dasei looked around and lowered here voice. “But what I meant was, do you know what caused it?”

“Does anyone?”

“That’s the question of the hour. A lot of people are blaming House Cannith. It’s common knowledge that the house had a strong presence in the region, and the magewrights and sages are still trying to make sense of it. I don’t know for certain, but I think that Baron Merrix has claimed that your family was involved in some way.”

Lei leaped to her feet and her chair crashed to the floor. Daine was up and had grabbed her arm before she had a chance to strike the blow.

“I’m just telling you what I heard!” Dasei cringed against her seat. The fire in her eyes had gone out again.

Lei pulled against Daine’s arm, but he held fast. She stopped and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. She exhaled slowly then opened her eyes again. Daine let go of her arm.

“I take it you weren’t involved in the Mourning, then?” Dasei said.

“I was there. It’s a miracle I survived at all. And even I don’t know what happened.”

“So how can you be certain that your parents-”

Daine grabbed Lei’s arm again, before she could wind back for another blow.

Dasei raised her hands defensively. “Look, Lei, I’m not saying that they did anything wrong. I’m just asking-”

“I think you’ve said enough, Lady d’Cannith.” Daine pulled Lei out of her chair. “I thank you for the”-he gestured at the remnants of bread and water-“meal, but I think we should go our separate ways now.”

Dasei nodded, and her relief was easy to see. “I’ll settle the cost.”

Lei seemed calm, but Daine kept hold of her hand. “Shall we depart, my lady?”

Lei whirled her staff and struck at the air, venting her anger on flies and shadows. While he’d sooner have seen her happy, Daine actually preferred the angry Lei to the distant, emotionally drained Lei he’d been living with the last few days.

“She was only repeating what she’d heard,” Daine said.

“I know. It just makes me angry. How could anyone think that we-that they-could do such a horrible thing?”

“Someone did it.”

“Really?” She stopped and turned to face him. “Then why haven’t they done it again? There’s nothing to prove that any human agency was involved. Perhaps some sort of epic conjunction of the planes opened a gateway to Kythri.”

“Covering an entire nation?”

“Well, we don’t know, do we? You used to follow the Silver Flame, right? How do you know it wasn’t the work of one of those fiends bound by the Flame?”

“Maybe because they’re bound by the Flame?”

She glared at him. “You know what I’m saying. There’s nothing proving that humans had anything to do with it-let alone House Cannith, and certainly not my parents.”

“Well …” Daine began walking again.

Lei followed on his heels. “Well, what?”

“Do you remember our last battle at Keldan Ridge?”

“How could I forget?”

“We never did find out who those ’forged were fighting for.”

“So?”

“Come on, Lei. An army of strange warforged? You know as well as I do that they don’t build themselves, and they weren’t wearing any insignia. What were they doing in Cyre? And then there’s the stormship. Someone had devoted a tremendous amount of resources to protecting that area. What was going on there?”

Lei looked away. “You’re thinking of Whitehearth, aren’t you?”

“C an you blame me?”

Lei sighed and shook her head. They had reached the lift. Surprisingly, it was empty. “I know. You’ve got no reason to trust my-er, House Cannith. But I refuse to believe that my parents had anything to do with this.”

“What did they do during the war?”

“They spent most of their lives working on the warforged. They worked with Aaren d’Cannith on the first true warforged thirty-one years ago. It’s a long story, but we weren’t that close at the end. It’s my fault, I suppose.”

“Hmm. What was it the sphinx said? ‘You must forget your house and focus on your family?’”

Lei nodded, thoughtfully. They stopped at the next district, and a patrol of the Watch came aboard. “You’re right. But how could I-”

“Well, well!” The harsh voice came from behind them, ringing out as the lift began to descend.

Daine turned. There were four halberdiers blocking the gate of the lift. Standing before them was a dwarf-Sergeant Lorrak, whom Daine had thrown off a lift.

This lift.

“Looking to get to the ground, boy?” the dwarf said. “I know a faster way.”