James Wyatt - Dragon forge

Cart looked down. “We parted on good terms, Gaven.”

“I think that changed when I found you in league with the people who captured me, the ones who’ve been starving me and beating my head in.”

“I had nothing to do with your capture.”

“But here you are. What’s happening, Cart?”

“Haldren only just told me, this evening. I swear, if I had known before, I wouldn’t have let them-”

“If you’d known what?”

“What the Dragon Forge is for.”

Gaven’s breath caught in his chest as a vague memory of dreams full of fire and pain stirred in his mind. “And what’s that?” he asked.

“They intend to harness the power of your dragonmark. To strip it from you-”

“They’re siphoning the power of the things imprisoned here in order to harness the power of my mark? Then what? Use it to get power from something else?” Cart’s words finally caught up with Gaven. “Strip it from me?”

“I told you, if I’d known-”

“Cut it from my skin, like they used to do with excoriates?” Gaven shuddered with the memory of pain, the excruciating pain of his dream. “And then use it…”

“As a weapon of war.”

“When?”

“I’m not certain. I don’t think Kelas is either. They’ll use the weapon as leverage with the queen-”

“I mean when are they taking my mark?”

Cart hesitated. “Tomorrow.”

“So we have to get out of here tonight.” Gaven’s chains rattled again.

“I’m sorry, Gaven.”

“What?”

“I told you before, my place is with Haldren.”

The pang of disappointment Gaven had felt when he first saw Cart returned, accompanied by a sick feeling in his stomach. “You could be so much more than Haldren’s aide.”

“Why do people keep telling me that?”

“Because it’s true. Once you stood on the threshold of godhood-”

“And like you, I turned away.”

“Yes, and now you need to take your destiny into your own hands. As I did.”

“I have.” Cart’s voice was quiet and low. “I’ve chosen to do my duty.”

Gaven’s disappointment soured into disgust. “Duty? Duty is a soldier’s excuse for his crimes, a coward’s excuse-”

“You call me a coward?” Cart’s voice was more incredulous than offended.

“-for not doing what he’s too afraid to do. It’s the master’s hold on the slave, the father’s claim on his son.” His father’s face flashed into his mind, the forced smile he wore after Gaven’s failed Test of Siberys. Gaven had always failed to live up to his duty.

“Duty is what holds society together,” Cart said.

“That’s what the generals, queens, and fathers want you to think. Duty’s what keeps you from protesting when they enslave you.”

“The words of a true fugitive from Dreadhold.”

Gaven bit back a retort about Haldren and shook his head. He was making no progress, and he wasn’t sure why he was trying. “Why did you come here, Cart? Why warn me? Is that part of your duty?”

“You were never a soldier,” Cart said. “Let me tell you something. Sometimes in the war we fought the Brelish, sometimes we marched beside them to fight the Thranes. Once I met a war-forged soldier from Breland, Dodge was his name. We fought the Thranes together at Harrow’s Pass in the Blackcaps-not too far from here, actually. We talked in the camp while the others slept.”

The Blackcaps were not too far-that was Gaven’s first hint of where they were.

Cart’s voice grew hard. “A month later, the tides of war shifted and Breland was our enemy again. At the battle of Silver Lake, I met him on the field. Now, we were enemies. That didn’t mean we hated each other. We saluted each other with the greatest respect. He had been my friend. But duty demanded that we fight, because the victory of one of us could mean victory for his nation. So I killed him.”

“And did Aundair win the battle?”

Cart stood and looked down at Gaven where he lay, still in chains.

“You completely miss my point,” the warforged said. “But yes, we did.”

“What is your point, then?”

“I salute you, Gaven Storm Dragon-with nothing but respect. I hold no hatred for you. I am proud to have known you.”

“And Dodge returned your salute, did he? Faced death like a dutiful soldier?”

Cart stared down, impassive as always.

“Well forget that.” Gaven spat at Cart’s feet. “The war’s over, Cart. You’re as much a criminal as I am, and a more cold-blooded killer. I used to respect you, but I don’t any more.”

Cart’s unblinking eyes fixed him for a long moment, then he turned away without another word.

A crash of thunder brought two guards running to knock Gaven out again.

He stood on a floor like glass, traced with coiling lines of light. He walked along the twisting path they formed, and they rose up behind him as he walked, a tangled spiderweb hanging in the air. Recognition slowly dawned on him. The lines were his dragonmark, the Siberys Mark of Storm. Suddenly the path was not a line of light anymore, but a round tunnel carved through rock. He trailed his fingertips along the rough walls as he walked, and the winding tunnel spoke to him of the Prophecy and his place in it.

The dream-words made no sense to his sleeping mind, but they made him sad. He was lying in a swinging cot, and Rienne’s fingertip was tracing the path on his skin, and he kissed her forehead. Her eyes, full of tears, looked into his, then she was wrenched away from him into the darkness.

He slowly surfaced toward consciousness, dimly aware that he had not said good-bye to Rienne and he might not have a chance to. Then a kick to his stomach jolted him fully awake.

It was the Thuranni, Phaine, standing over him, wearing a malicious grin. “Wake up, Gaven,” he said in his whispery voice. “It’s time to play your part.”

His head still muddled from his dreams, Gaven allowed himself to be lifted to his feet. They led him on a winding path to reach the rim of the canyon. Phaine followed behind until they reached a spot directly above the Dragon Forge. The dragon-king was there, head high as it looked down on the completed forge. Kelas, looking somber and suspicious, watched Gaven approach. Haldren watched him too, but Cart did not look his way. There was a woman at Cart’s side, whispering to him and pointing down at the forge, but Cart seemed oblivious. A few others Gaven didn’t recognize filled out the knot of people.

“It begins,” the dragon-king said, and a burst of fire rose up around the forge below. In the distance, a horrible rumbling howl arose, starting with a single voice and growing into a ghastly chorus before fading away again. The guards led Gaven to the cliff edge and he saw the forge complete and ready for him.

He was back in his dream-the vision he’d had months ago, as he and Senya rode the lightning rail out of Zil’argo. In stark contrast to his first view of the canyon, the earth around it was desolate, and the canyon had taken on the appearance of a gash torn into the earth. At the heart of this gaping wound was a cloud of smoke and steam billowing up from the canyon floor, from the trenches dug into it, from the base of the Dragon Forge.

The dragon-king’s neck swung around and its burning eyes took in the people gathered at his feet, lingering longest on Kelas. “You suspect the significance of this moment,” he said, “but you know only a glimpse of it. To you, the completion of the Dragon Forge is the climax of your plans and schemes, or this stage of them. It paves the way for the next, greater stage.”

Gaven wondered how many of the assembly understood the dragon-king’s words. Kelas, certainly. How would he react to the revelation that his mighty schemes were a tiny part of Malathar’s much larger plans?