Keith Baker - Son of Khyber

As consciousness returned, Thorn realized that she’d been moved. She wasn’t in the passage in Fallen. She was lying on the floor of a vast cavern. Or was it a cavern at all? Now she could see that it wasn’t stone beneath her. It was glass or crystal, dark purple in color. As if the entire chamber had been carved from a massive Khyber dragonshard. Even as this information clicked into place, she realized something else. She was naked.

A voice echoed through the room. Drego. “So this is where you keep them. It’s touching.”

Thorn’s first thought was to cover herself, but she pushed it from her mind. She’d been a soldier before she became a spy, and on the battlefield, privacy was a luxury. It was anger that drew her to her feet. “Where are you?” she snarled.

“Here.” Now the source of the sound was easier to track. He was standing just behind the enormous dragon skull. “Just admiring your collection.”

She stalked around the skull, armored in her fury. What she found was enough to break her angry resolve. Drego had his back to her. The wall before him was covered with niches, scores of alcoves of various sizes. Each alcove held a skull, and for a moment it seemed that the sightless sockets were all glaring at Thorn. The bones came from creatures of many races. The polished, slender skull of an elf sat alongside the remnants of a human skull that had been split apart by a blade. A narrow silver crown sat atop the shattered remains. Drego was examining what appeared to be the skull of a massive tiger, though there were certain elements of jaw and skull that seemed more human than bestial.

“He’s certainly seen better days,” Drego said, resting a hand on the skull of the great beast. He glanced back at Thorn and smiled. “You, on the other hand, look lovelier than ever.”

Thorn didn’t return the smile. “What is this place? And what have you done with my clothes, you twisted bastard?”

Drego laughed. “There’s no knots in my lineage, I assure you of that. As for your clothing, it’s just waiting for you to claim it.”

He pointed. Following his gesture, Thorn saw the gown standing just beyond the skull, supported in midair as if worn by an invisible woman. The red silk was the color of wet blood, set against panels of black so deep it seemed more like shadow than silk. Long gloves of red leather rose almost to the shoulder, seemingly filled by unseen flesh. She’d seen it before. In her dreams.

“This isn’t real,” she murmured.

“Perhaps,” Drego said. “Or perhaps this is the one thing that is real. Don’t you want to see how it fits?”

“No,” Thorn turned back to him. “Who are you, really? What is this place?”

“I may be the only friend you truly have,” Drego told her, running his fingers along the top of the tiger’s skull. “And this is a place you carry within.”

“If you’re such a great friend, give me answers instead of questions.”

Thorn knew that she couldn’t trust anything in this place, but the man was a perfect match to Drego-from the gleam in his eye to his mischievous grin. “Perhaps I could. But you aren’t asking the right questions.”

It’s a dream, she reminded herself. Punching him won’t solve anything.

“Oh?” she said. “What should I ask?”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I know the answer to that,” she said. “Nyrielle Tam. Thorn, of the King’s Dark Lanterns.”

“That’s two answers,” Drego said. “You began as one. You became the other. And how did that happen?”

It was a surreal conversation to be having, all the more so while surrounded by skulls. But if it was a dream, there was no reason to hide from it. “My father.”

“How so?”

Memories rolled through Thorn’s mind. The few images of her mother, before she’d returned to Aerenal. Her father, dressed in his red cloak and armor. And the man who came to tell her of father’s death. “He was a hero,” she said. “He loved Breland, and he died for it. Breland is part of us. And in the service to the king… I guess it just seemed like the only way to be close to him again.”

Drego brushed an imaginary tear from his cheek. “And so we know how Nyrielle became Thorn. But what brought you to this place? You’ve got all the pieces. You just need to put them together.”

“Well, my true and only friend, perhaps you’d like to get me started?”

He shrugged. “Why are you here with the Son of Khyber?”

“It’s my mission. To learn what he’s doing. To kill him, if need be.”

Thorn didn’t fully believe her own words, and it was no surprise that Drego didn’t either.

“Really?” he asked. “All of this is for Breland? No doubts about yourself? You’re not concerned about, oh, killing people with a touch?” He looked over his shoulder, studying the racks of skulls. “Good to know.”

“What do you know about that?”

Drego met her gaze, and his eyes gleamed like silver. “It’s not about me. It’s about what you know. But you don’t want to face it. You’re afraid that you have an aberrant dragonmark. That you belong with Daine. And maybe you do, mark or no.”

Thorn could feel her anger growing within her. The fire was burning in her blood, the heat she felt when the strength surged through her. But this wasn’t a swift burst. It was slowly building, threatening to burst through her skin. The air grew even colder. Or did it just feel that way because of her feverish heat?

“What do you know?” she asked.

Drego raised his palms. “I’m not your enemy. I can tell you this: you have no dragonmark, but you have been marked. Look around you. Tell me what you see.”

“A lot of skulls, and a Thrane asking for a bloody nose.”

“Not simply skulls,” Drego said. “Remains of the fallen. You remember Drulkalatar, don’t you?”

He ran his fingers along the enormous tiger’s skull, and now Thorn realized what the strange proportions reminded her of. The demon. Drulkalatar Atesh, the tiger-headed fiend she’d fought in Droaam.

“But he was… swallowed,” Thorn said. By a dragon.

“I imagine so,” Drego replied. “But look beyond the trappings and to the room itself. Where are we?”

A cave. She looked around, searching for anything unusual. The chamber was quite large, but now Thorn realized that there were no exits. They were sealed inside. Within walls of purple crystal. A giant “Khyber shard,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Drego said.

He reached back to scratch his neck, and that’s when Thorn realized that the pain was gone. The shard in the back of her neck was missing. The Khyber shard in the back of her neck.

“Yes,” Drego said, even though she hadn’t spoken. “Why do you think it hurts?”

Earlier, Thorn had thought that the skulls were glaring at her. Now she realized that they were. Every skull had shifted in its alcove, so the sockets were facing her. Drulkalatar’s eyes glowed with emerald flames, and she could feel his malevolent thoughts pressing against her mind. Now there were whispers, faint voices speaking just beyond the range of hearing.

“Prisoners yearning to be free,” Drego told her. “And quite a collection it is.”

The whispers were growing louder. She could hear pleas and promises, tormented cries and vows of vengeance. “But I didn’t kill all these people,” she said. “The shard was an accident.”

“Was it?” Drego said. And now his voice changed, becoming an echo of her own. “Come now, Thorn. What do you really know about what happened that night?”

“Who are you?” Thorn asked. The skulls were howling now, the chattering chorus hammering against her thoughts and threatening to drown out her words. “Who are you?”

“The answer lies below,” Drego said in Thorn’s voice. When he spoke again, it was with his words. “Are you hurt? Nyrielle?”