The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER NINETEEN

2 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Chult

That’s not a god,” Verran said. “That’s just some monster.”

Zo’s eyes widened, and he sputtered harsh words in Dwarvish, but Verran didn’t look abashed at all. Harp thought he looked defiant, and a little pleased, as if he took pleasure in angering the dwarven chief.

“You know, Verran,” Harp said as gently as he could. “You shouldn’t judge something you don’t know anything about.”

“It’s not a god,” Verran repeated. Furious, Zo turned bright red under his beard.

Majida sighed. “Zo, would you ask Lethea to prepare a place for our guests to rest? And food for them to eat?”

After Zo had stomped out of the cavern and down a tunnel in the wall behind them Harp glared at Verran.

“We’re guests here …” Harp began irritably, but Majida interrupted him before he could chastise the youth.

“You’re right, Verran,” she interrupted, staring intently at the boy. “It’s not a god. But there’s no use trying to dissuade someone from their beliefs, is there?”

“What do you mean by that?” Verran asked petulantly.

Harp and Boult exchanged glances. Ever since the waterfall, Verran had been touchy. Harp wanted to attribute it to hunger and tiredness, but Majida’s fears about the boy were worrisome. And there was the strange emergence of the the creature in the pit. Without proof, Harp didn’t want to think that Verran had anything to do with it. But considering how he had melted Bootman, it was hard not to wonder.

“The Captive is not unrelated to you,” Majida told them. “The Practitioner is searching for the Torque, which was created from one of the broken links of his chains.”

“What does the Torque do?” Kitto asked.

“The Domain’s legends say many things,” Majida said with a touch of amusement. “Various myths assign it powers from dismemberment to the utter extermination of the dwarves.”

“Can you narrow that down?” Harp asked.

“Only to a guess,” Majida said. “I think it gives the wearer heightened protection. Like a shield, it gifts them with the Captive’s endurance, if not his strength.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” Boult asked.

“I am unraveling our legends in search of answers,” Majida said. “And as you know, in the realm of myth, truth is always suffocated by fear.”

“If the Torque is so powerful, why don’t the yuan-ti just use it themselves?” Boult asked.

Majida shook her head. “The Scaly Ones can’t use it.”

“Why?” Harp asked.

“I don’t know how the magic was ordered around the artifact, but in their hands, it’s simply a twist of metal. Since they can’t use it, I believe it’s safest in their keeping.”

While they talked, Verran became more and more agitated. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, and his eyes darted around the cavern as if he were watching the flight path of some invisible bird. Harp raised his eyebrows and frowned at the impatient youth.

“What is wrong with you?” Harp asked. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m hungry,” he said, jutting out his chin as if he expected someone to disagree with him.

“Go down the tunnel into the hub and ask for Lethea,” Majida said. “She’ll find something for you to eat.”

Before she finished speaking, Verran spun on his heel and hurried down the tunnel and out of sight. Watching him, Harp had the unpleasant feeling that Verran was like a pot of water, waiting to boil.

“We should go to the ruins and look for Liel,” Harp said to Majida when her dark eyes found his. “Liel thought the Torque was important. Cardew and his patron obviously think it’s important.”

“Not until you’ve rested. Kitto looks as if he’s about to fall over.”

“I’m fine,” Kitto insisted.

But Majida was right. Kitto looked tired and pale. On closer inspection, Harp saw that the boy was shaking, probably from hunger.

“Agreed,” Harp said. “Come on, Kitto, let’s go get some food.”

“All right, you,” Boult growled at Majida when Kitto and Harp were gone. “Talk.”

Majida laughed softly. “Abrupt, aren’t you?”

“You inscribed my name in the trees in the colony, as part of the ward.”

“Yes,” Majida admitted.

“Why?” Boult demanded.

“I’ve dreamed about you, that you were coming to the jungle. My dreams are puzzling at best. Horrifying at worst. I thought you were the key to the puzzle.”

“And now you’re not so sure?” Boult prompted.

“And now I’m not so sure,” Majida agreed.

“What’s changed?”

But Majida didn’t answer. They stood in silence in the warm circle of air around the urn, and Boult marveled at the spectacle of the skeleton immortalized in the shiny rock. At first glance, the bones had looked like pure white crystal, but he could see veins of color-rosy beige, copper, and light blue-that reminded Boult of the inside of a seashell. The thin bones branching from its back showed a wingspan that was impressive, even for the creature’s gargantuan size. Splints of metal jutted out from the remains of the shackles. The splints looked as if they had punctured the skin of the Captive and fused to his bones while he still lived. It must have been incredibly painful, and Boult wondered if the fire was a way to honor the massive creature that had suffered at the hands at the Scaly Ones.

“Is the urn’s fire natural or unnatural?” he finally asked.

“Unnatural and perpetual,” she said, the corners of her lips turning upward slightly.

“It’s never gone out?” Boult asked.

“Not even when a young scamp snuck in and doused it repeatedly with water,” Majida replied. “Still it burned.”

“Were you the scamp?” Boult asked after a pause.

Majida looked momentarily surprised. “That secret dies with me,” she said good-naturedly.

Boult took a closer look at the metal urn. Fashioned from unadorned bronze, the shallow urn had a wide, circular base. Inside the urn, the flame burned on a plate of opaque glass.

“I once heard a story about a man who turned against his patron god, going so far as to deny the god’s existence,” Boult said. “One night, the man realized that he had made a grave error and begged for the god’s forgiveness. The god forgave the man, but all he promised him in return was suffering.”

“Suffering is the nature of the world,” Majida said. “Honor is not.”

“I used to believe in honor. When I was a soldier, I lived to serve my queen and country-my masters-faithfully. Do you know what my masters did to me?”

“They betrayed you.”

“They forced me to suffer for someone else’s crime.”

“Humiliation is the backbone of evil. That doesn’t make your honor a mistake.”

“My honor is dead.”

“And what has risen up in its place? Revenge?”

“It has brought me so far,” Boult pointed out.

“It has determined the company you keep,” Majida said gravely. “It has brought you to the ends of the earth. And for what?”

“If Cardew wants something, I want it more,” Boult growled.

“Then you are serving a master, whether you realize it or not.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Maybe not. But I know that you and your friends are close to finding the Torque, and that gives me pause,” Majida said.

“Because you want it to stay hidden in the ruins?”

Majida gave a little shrug. “I’m going to tell you a secret. One that most of the dwarves of the Domain don’t know.”

Boult’s eyes narrowed. “ You don’t know me. Why trust me with it?”

“Because you will appreciate the irony.”

“That’s a very poor reason,” Boult pointed out.

“Hence the irony,” Majida said. “Will you listen?”

“Secrets are the commerce of revenge, Majida,” Boult said. “I’ll listen, as long as you know what business I am in.”

“I know what you are,” Majida said. “And I’m telling you anyway. For centuries, people have died trying to get the Torque. The Scaly Ones have bent their will around protecting it. It has been the nexus around which life and death have spun. And it’s powerful, no doubt.”

Majida stopped. Boult raised his eyebrows. “Don’t stop now. I’m more than curious.”

“All that time, the dwarves of the Domain have had something more powerful. Something that overshadows the Torque and all it has done.”

“What?”

“Him.” Majida gestured to the Captive and looked at Boult with a resolute expression on her aged face. “I don’t understand.”

“His blood. There is a vial beneath the urn filled with an elixir made from his essence. The flames keep his life force alive, and the wards around the Domain keep him hidden. As you have seen for yourself, both the Scaly Ones and the Practitioner have the skill to bring him back to life and to dominate his will, at least for a short time.”

“Create a husk of the Captive,” Boult said incredulously, staring up at the towering skeleton that dominated the cavern. “In the history of bad ideas, that sounds like the worst. Huh. I’m not sure that’s information I wanted to know.”

Majida smiled. “Yes, but it’s information that Cardew- and his patron-would kill to have, is it not?”

Boult nodded slowly.

“You don’t have to be his chattel anymore.”

“I’m not-”

“Boult!” Verran called, surprising them both. Neither had heard the boy approach. “Harp is looking for you.”

“You are very puzzling,” Boult said to Majida. But he said it in a kindly way, in a voice he was not accustomed to using. Then he left with Verran.

“Just as long as someone has all the pieces but me,” she murmured to herself when they were gone.

Someone shook Harp’s arm roughly. He and his crew were sleeping in a narrow dormitory where Harp had shoved multiple cots together to make something long enough for him to lay in comfortably. Harp was well fed, clean, and warm-all the things that made a perfect night’s sleep. Or they would have, if someone wasn’t still shaking his arm.

Irritable at the disruption, he sat up and saw Majida standing by his cot. His exasperation disappeared. He couldn’t imagine the elder dwarf disturbing him for something trivial. The room was dark, but the door was ajar and the torches lit in the corridor outside. In the shadows, he could see her motion for him to follow her. Kitto and Boult were snoring, but Verran stirred restlessly as Harp pulled on his boots and shouldered his pack.

So far, Harp hadn’t seen much of the layout of the Domain except the common room, which was like the hub on a wheel with a series of tunnels rotating off it like spokes. With multiple fire pits and clay ovens, the toasty, cedar-scented room was where most of the day-to-day living took place. Harp had met a handful of the other residents the night before, but hadn’t gotten a sense of how many dwarves actually called the Domain home. Apparently, the dwarves kept goats on the open passes between mountains, and it was the time of year that many dwarves were away tending the herds. They crossed through the common room where small fires still smoldered in the fire pits. In the dim light, Harp could see wisps of smoke rising into slits cut in the rock ceiling. When he passed under one, he could see a slice of the starry night sky high above him. Harp couldn’t imagine how the dwarves could have carved such long narrow shafts in the rock.

“Are those shafts natural?” he whispered to Majida.

“We have built everything you see,” she replied, pausing to light a torch in the fire pit. “Everything except the chamber of the captive.”

At the end of the tunnels, Majida stopped at a plain wooden door, which she unlocked with a key from the chain that hung from her belt.

“So much for communal living,” Harp remarked, nodding at the key.

“My kin think books should be used for kindling,” Majida said, pushing open the door with her hip. “And the only use for metal is for swords.”

They stepped into a cramped chamber at the bottom of a tall, narrow shaft with spiral stairs leading up through the rock. As Harp followed Majida up the stairs, his head brushed the bottom of the steps above him. At the top, Harp climbed into a dome that was built on the top of a rocky peak. The walls of the mountaintop observatory were almost translucent-Harp could see the ridges and formations of rocks on the outside. The color and sheen reminded him of an ivory plate that was so delicate it seemed his breath alone could sunder it.

“What is that?” Harp asked, brushing his fingertips against the smooth walls, which felt cool under his touch.

“Actually, it’s metal,” Majida said. “I made some adjustments to it.”

Majida turned a crank and half of the domed ceiling opened with a squeak that sounded very metallic. The little room was open to the air, and Harp had an unhindered view of the night sky. The observatory was the closest he’d ever been to the stars, and their vastness made him feel light-headed.

“Are we on top of the Crown?” Harp asked, staring out at the moonlight.

“Yes. I built my observatory on a drake nesting site. But they leave the mountains at night to hunt, so they shouldn’t trouble us. Although a young bull tried to stick his snout in here once.”

“What happened?”

“I left a scar, and he never came back.”

Harp turned his attention to a brass contraption on the far side of the room. Almost as tall as Harp and twice as wide, it had a circular bronze base that held a series of concentric brass rings attached on the same axis inside a metal skeleton. Harp had seen similar devices-although on a much smaller scale-used for navigation on ships. Their purpose had something to do with shadows and angles-Boult had explained it once, but Harp had forgotten the extensive equations and numerology necessary to understand how it worked. Harp preferred to navigate with his own eyes and the polar stars. Of course, as Boult pointed out, that didn’t work so well when there was cloud cover.

A low cabinet housed hand-held navigational devices, such as a metal quadrant and a handful of hourglasses, each with different colored sand. Shells and fossils were neatly labeled and ordered in a glass box with many small compartments, and there was a half-empty potion chest open against the wall.

“Your observatory is impressive,” Harp told Majida. “Have you learned all there is to know about the stars?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Majida replied. “I am coming to believe that the answers I seek are found inside the body rather than the vast planes.”

Harp shuddered. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Have you?” Majida said, not sounding surprised at all. She lit a stick of incense in a wooden bowl on the table, and the scent of flowers floated through the air. Majida sat cross-legged on the green threadbare rug in the center of the floor and waited until Harp sat down across from her.

“When the sun rises, we’ll go back down. Zo will show you a hidden tunnel that will take you to the entrance of the ruins. There’s a magical barrier around the ruins, but Verran will be able to get you inside. I don’t know whether you’ll find Liel or not, but I can tell you that the Torque is below the entrance hall of the golden dome. It won’t be easy to get.”

“If we get the Torque, should we bring it to you?” Harp asked.

Majida was quiet for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “If you get the Torque, drop it in the deepest ocean you can find.”

“I can do that. I just happen to have a ship.”

“I know.”

“Liel told you about my ship? When we were together on Gwynneth Isle, we talked about getting one. But I didn’t think she knew that it happened.”

“She knew.”

“Why did she never contact me? I know her father helped get me out of Vankila, and I was grateful for that. But I don’t even know if that was his sense of honor or hers.”

“She asked him to help you. He didn’t stop until it was done.”

“Still …”

“Cardew threatened your life if she tried to see you.”

“The Husk-Liel said some things. Things that only Liel knew, but they were twisted.”

“Seeds of truth, Harp, but the fruit of manipulation,” Majida said quietly. “Did you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she know that?”

“I hope so,” Harp said emphatically.

“I hope you get another chance to tell her.”

The sun was inching over the horizon, casting the sky in deep purple and rose. A salt-scented breeze swept in from the opening in the roof, and Harp wished he were on the Crane listening to the crack of the sails and feeling the swell of the water rock the boat under him.

“I can rid you of your scars,” Majida told him.

Harp shook his head. “Like I told you before, I’ve tried everything. I’ve been to casters up and down the coast. No one can get rid of them.”

“Then I have something they don’t.”

Harp closed his eyes. Majida waited a long time for him to speak.

“I’m not offering because they are horrifying, Harp,” she finally said. “I am offering because they were inflicted on you, like a brand. If you want to keep them-”

Harp’s eyes flew open. “I want you to take them off. I want you to make me what I was before.”

“Then what gives you pause?” Majida asked.

“I wonder when Liel saw me. I wonder what kind of man she saw.”

It was four against one, and Harp was too drunk to defend himself.

“Ghoul,” the biggest one said, slamming his fist into Harp’s face. Harp fell back into another man, who held his arms behind his back while the big one punched him in the stomach. “So ugly they had to sew you back together.”

When they had dragged Harp out of the pub into the back alley just minutes before, Liel had lost of them in the crowd. She caught sight of them from the street and strode down the alley to them. By the time they saw her approaching, a blast of fire had shot from her hand and singed the big man’s shoulder. He stumbled back against the wall, clutching his arm and moaning while his friends backed away. They dropped Harp to the cobblestones. The four men bolted down the alley leaving Liel alone with Harp.

The narrow alley was filthy, and she could hear the rats scurrying behind the rubbish bins. It reeked of alcohol and rot, and was the last place she wanted to be. It was the last place she wanted Harp to be. She crouched down beside the body at her feet. Unconscious, Harp lay in a twisted heap, his breathing shallow and labored.

She had been trailing Harp through the city for a couple of days, trying to figure out what to do. She thought about talking to Kitto, but he was always with Harp or the gaunt dwarf, whoever he was. Liel had seen Harp’s scars from a distance, but it was the first time she’d seen them up close-thick, red lines crisscrossing his face and hands like a grotesque jigsaw puzzle. His shirt was tangled around his chest, and she could see the scars on his back and stomach.

Cardew had done that to him. Her husband’s threats had been real. The Branch of Linden had spies everywhere, and if Cardew even knew she was in that wretched city, he would come after Harp. Liel had never felt so trapped. She didn’t know how far her husband’s reach extended. If she left Cardew, he might focus his ire on her father and the elves of the Wealdath. Besides, she and Harp had parted in anger. For all she knew, Harp hated her. The safest thing she could do was to leave Harp in the safekeeping of his friends.

She pulled him close so his head rested against her chest. If she didn’t help him, he would die in the alley, drunk and bleeding. She couldn’t let that be the culmination of his life.

How the human had managed to take root in her soul, she would never understand. Until that moment, she had told herself that what she felt for Harp was just a construct of desire, something easily shattered or sacrificed. But she’d never been good at lying to herself, and as she held him, there was no denying what she felt for him.

She forced herself to block out the stench of the alley, the wretched buildings, and the filthy city that corrupted the force of life. With his warm body in her arms, she could finally hear the rustle of leaves, the call of the birds, and the pulse of the faraway forest. She found her strength to mend his broken ribs and to heal the shattered bones in his hands. The gash on his forehead closed, but still the scars remained. When his breathing was deep and even, she pulled him to his feet.

She half-carried him down the road to the dodgy boarding house where he was staying with Kitto and the dwarf. She lowered him onto the doorstep, knocked loudly on the door, and disappeared into the shadows before anyone saw her. Still, there was something else she could do. Liel headed to the docks, where she had seen Harp talking to a fat man about a boat called the Crane. That ship might be his best chance for something that resembled happiness.