The City of Towers

CHAPTER 38

Daine jerked upright. The light of morning was struggling through the thick layer of dust on the windows. Lei was still sleeping on the pallet beside him. Jode’s body had been wrapped up in the preserving cloak and was set against the wall. Daine climbed out of bed and touched the cloth-wrapped bundle. There was no movement.

“There are some things I can’t say,” Daine murmured.

“Captain?”

Daine jerked upright and spun around. It was only Pierce, but it took a moment for Daine to recover from the shock. Lei stirred. “Mmm?”

“I know you were built as a scout, Pierce, but try to make more noise first thing in the morning, will you?”

“I will do my best. You appear agitated.”

“Bad dreams. I suppose it’s to be expected when you’re sleeping in the same room with the body of your best friend.”

“I wouldn’t know.” The warforged did not sleep or dream.

A few galifars had secured the room at the Manticore for another week and also convinced Dassi to produce a heartier meal for the general and his men. The morning’s gruel was supplemented with red sugar and sagal powder, and she was able to produce three small hardboiled eggs and a pitcher of tribex milk. When Daine returned to the room, Lei was fully awake.

“Here,” he said, setting the platter on the ground. “I think they’re lizard eggs, but anything solid sounds good to me.”

Lei shrugged. She picked up one of the eggs and cracked its green speckled shell.

“Do you need more sleep?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“And the work?”

“You’ve got two. I had to break up the third. And it’s a hasty job. I can’t promise how long the enchantments will hold.”

“Well, two is better than none.” He tried the gruel. “Hmm. Not bad, once you add the sagal. Remind me to get you some of that next time we’re in the field.”

Lei said nothing. Here eyes were still on Jode.

Daine sighed, embarrassed by his own attempts at levity. “Let’s get started. When we arrived in Sharn, Alina Lyrris hired us to find her dragonshards, which had been stolen by Rasial, her courier. Rasial, once a city guard and windchaser, left the guard shortly after developing an aberrant dragonmark, which may or may not have been responsible for his racing accidents.”

“Such a mark could also jeopardize his social standing and would be the source of considerable pain and suffering,” Lei said.

Daine nodded. “But even though he was adopted by a group of people who shared his … affliction, he didn’t seem to fit in with them. They believed he was working behind their backs. We know he was. Working with Alina and someone in High Walls-possibly Hugal or Monan.”

“Daine, we know all this,” Lei said. “Why are you-”

“Just thinking out loud,” he replied. “Bear with me. Three nights ago, Rasial brings a shipment of contraband shards in, but he fails to deliver them to Alina. He’s our first corpse. The next day, the Tarkanans send a half-orc looking for Rasial-in High Walls-and he ends up as our second corpse. Yesterday, Jode disappears, for reasons unknown, and is”-he paused, swallowing his emotion-“also killed. Finally, we have the fourth body, which we know nothing about. All of these bodies were dumped in the sewers beneath High Walls. At least three of the four should have had dragonmarks, but none of them did. What am I missing?”

“If the marks were removed, I think the dragonshards Rasial was carrying were the key, though I’m still not sure how this could be done,” Lei said.

“We were attacked by a group of humans that had been somehow altered and enhanced,” Pierce said. “They appeared to want to capture Jode alive.”

“True,” Daine said. “However, the leader of the group was a changeling. At this point, we don’t know if his ‘twin brother’ is a human or a changeling, but he remains at large.”

“As for Jode,” Lei said, “if they can remove dragonmarks, they may have needed him alive in order to extract his dragonmark. We know nothing about the process involved.”

“True. What about Rasial?”

“Well …” Lei said. “Perhaps he just wanted to find a way to get rid of his aberrant dragonmark, in the hopes that he could go back to his old life. He met someone who promised they could help him-if he obtained the shards. Though I imagine he didn’t expect to be killed in the process.”

“It does explain why there’s only been a few deaths so far.”

“If they really are stealing the power of a mark … well, the Mark of Healing would be a very important one to have for this sort of work. And a small, disorganized group like these Tarkanans would make easier prey than the great houses. Being outcasts, they can’t even go to the law for assistance.”

“All right,” Daine said. “Assuming this is correct, the next question is: Who was Rasial dealing with?”

“If you accept that the person dealing with Rasial was the same person who wanted to kidnap Jode, we’re dealing with Hugal or Monan.”

Daine nodded. “What else do we know about the two of them?”

“They lived at the tenement called Dolurrh’s Doorstep. According to that man Doras, they had few friends, but I would say that his testimony could be considered untrustworthy at best. Although … at dinner, what was it Hugal said about the destruction of Cyre?”

Pierce answered. “He suggested that the destruction of Cyre would provide a weapon that could be used against the rest of the world.”

“That’s right,” said Daine. “Supposedly, he was in Cyre when the disaster came. Even though we searched for months and never found any survivors.”

“Also, that old seamstress with the eye in her palm … that happened recently, so it wasn’t a result of the Mournlands.”

“So we still have some unanswered questions. But this much seems clear. Rasial made a deal with Hugal and his unnatural friends. They took his shards, took his mark, and killed him. They did the same thing to the Tarkanan half-orc, then they got Jode. But how? Why did Jode put himself at risk?”

Lei considered. “Well, he left right after we’d seen Alina. Before that, we’d spoken with the medusa and the sphinx.”

“What was it the sphinx said to him?”

Again, it was Pierce’s memory that came to their aid. “She emphasized urgency, then she said, ‘There is a key that only you can find, hidden between two stones that only you can move. You must find it alone, but you will pay a terrible price to do so.’”

“So presumably he determined the location of this key and believed he had to act alone.” Daine rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Didn’t you say that he reacted to something Alina said?” Lei asked.

The images from his dream came flashing back, and Daine struck his forehead. “Of course! ‘There are things I cannot say.’”

“I don’t understand,” Pierce said.

“Who have we met in the last two days who can’t speak?”

“Yes!” Lei said. “That girl-Olassia?”

“Olalia,” Pierce said, “whose mouth had been turned to stone.”

“Exactly.” Daine said. “Councilor Teral found her in the ruins of Cyre-along with Hugal and Monan. While the twins were at dinner, she seemed terrified. She must know the truth about the twins, but she couldn’t speak because her jaws have been petrified. The secret-the key-is trapped between two stones.”

“Then the sphinx was mistaken,” Lei said. “He went alone, just like she said, but he was still killed.”

“She did say that he would ‘pay a terrible price,’” Pierce pointed out.

“Who knows what the sphinx wanted? Why didn’t she just say ‘go talk to the woman with the stone teeth?’ I’ll never trust an oracle.” Daine shook his head. “There’s one last piece to this. The closest tunnel that connects the sewers to the surface comes out in Togran Square where the tent town is. Alina said that whoever was performing these mystical operations probably has a base underground, possibly in this Khyber’s Gate.”

“How do we proceed?” Pierce asked.

“We find Olalia. If we find Councilor Teral, we explain the situation to him. But we go in carefully. Yesterday, Jode was stolen from us. Today, we’re going to make the thieves pay for what they’ve done.” Daine drew his dagger and slammed it into the floor. “Today, we finish this.”