James Wyatt - Storm dragon

“Ah, yes,” the sorcerer said, his voice hushed. “Probably best not to mention our last lodgings by name, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want to attract any undue attention.”

Gaven looked around. His eyes met those of a dwarf who quickly looked away. The pheasant suddenly did not taste so exquisite.

“Did you have pleasant dreams?” Haldren leaned forward as he asked it.

“No.” For an instant, Gaven remembered his dream about Rienne, but then darker images flashed into his mind.

“What did you see, Gaven?”

Gaven’s eyes fixed on the old man’s mouth, just as he had seen it through the shutters in their doors in Dreadhold. A dribble of pear-cider sauce stained Haldren’s white beard.

“I don’t really remember.”

Haldren exploded. “Damn you, Gaven, don’t get coy now!” His voice was a rasping whisper, barely able to contain his fury. “I brought you out of that place because of the information locked away in that twisted little brain of yours. If you suddenly get clever and decide to start withholding information, I’ll send you back there-or off to Dolurrh. Don’t think for a second that I won’t kill you if you stop being useful.”

Gaven glanced around the table. Senya studied her plate while Cart peered around them to see if Haldren’s outburst had attracted the attention of nearby patrons. Darraun watched the two of them with unconcealed fascination.

Gaven took a bite of his squash.

Clearly convinced that he was dealing with an idiot or a madman, Haldren brought his anger under control-to Senya’s visible relief-and tried a different approach. He made his voice light, conversational, and he lowered his eyes to his plate as he spoke.

“Did you see the hordes of the Soul Reaver again, Gaven?”

Writhing tentacles in the darkness, a blinding beam of light stretching up to the sky. Gaven tried to remember his dream about Rienne and found that he couldn’t. Her hair became a mass of writhing snakes, reaching for him.

“No,” he said.

Haldren saw his unease and pounced. “What is it, Gaven? You remember something else?”

“The Soul Reaver itself,” Gaven said, as if in a trance. Haldren leaned forward in his chair. “Falling or flying down from a great height, sinking into a chasm as deep as the bones of Khyber. Endless dark beneath the bridge of light. There the Soul Reaver waits.”

Besides Haldren, who wore a look of smug satisfaction, the other three stared at Gaven with varying degrees of surprise. Senya might have been awed-her mouth was partly open, and her eyes wide. Darraun smiled, but there was something else in his expression that Gaven couldn’t read. And Cart’s face, of course, was a mask, but he rubbed his chin in a way that looked thoughtful.

Well enough, Gaven thought, let Haldren think he won this one.

Better that than to reveal what he had really dreamed.

The meal finished, Darraun took charge of Gaven and Cart.

“The three of us need to stock up on supplies for our little jaunt to Aerenal and wherever else Haldren’s magic takes us,” he explained to Gaven as they left the restaurant. “Haldren and Senya are going to try to make contact with some people in Aundair who will be helping us later.”

“Helping us do what?” Gaven said.

Darraun arched an eyebrow at Gaven. That was the first time he’d heard the half-elf ask a question, and he was eager to see more of the workings of the mind behind Gaven’s recitations of the draconic Prophecy.

“Ah, I’m sure Haldren will explain it all to you later,” he said.

“I’m sure he won’t,” Gaven said. “He won’t let me in on his plans any more than is absolutely necessary to get information out of me.”

“What do you think Haldren wants from you?”

“He knows some of the Prophecy, and Vaskar knows more. But two years in a cell across the hall from mine made him think I know more than the two of them combined.”

“Wild nightmares and vague visions?” Darraun said. “He could get that from a raving madman on any street corner in Fairhaven. There has to be more to you than that.”

Gaven stopped walking and waited until Darraun turned to face him. “That makes two of us, then. I’m not the only one here concealing his true face.”

“Three of us, actually,” Cart interjected. “I’m really quite complex.” He turned his head to look at both of them. “Many-layered.”

Darraun gaped at the warforged then burst into laughter. Gaven’s eyes were still fixed on him, though, so he resumed a casual stroll in the general direction of the city’s mercantile district.

“Very well, Gaven,” he said. “Clearly you are more alert and perceptive than Haldren gives you credit for. Haldren is one of those people who believes he is more intelligent than he actually is. But what he lacks in reasoning, he more than makes up for in cunning and charisma. You will find that his most dangerous quality is his ability to inspire fierce loyalty in others.” He glanced at Cart and hoped that Gaven was perceptive enough to catch his meaning.

Gaven watched him for a long moment as they walked, then evidently decided against prying any deeper into his secrets, just as Darraun had hoped he would. He figured Gaven would renew the subject if he ever managed to catch him alone, so Darraun resolved to avoid being alone with Gaven. He decided to try what he hoped was a more innocuous approach.

“I understand you were quite an explorer, years ago,” he said.

“Of sorts,” Gaven said. “More of a prospector. I lowered myself into caves and fought monsters, looking for Khyber dragonshards for my house. The elemental galleons of House Lyrandar…” He trailed off, a scowl falling over his face. “My former house,” he muttered.

Darraun tried to shift Gaven’s thoughts away from the family that had disowned him. “Lyrandar galleons and airships require nightshards to bind the elementals that power them, correct?”

“Airships?” Gaven’s eyebrows shot up at the mention of them. “They were made to work? They were a dream of my house for a long time, but I never knew…”

This approach wasn’t working either. Darraun cursed himself. He was dredging up too many painful memories.

“House Lyrandar put airships into service about nine or ten years ago,” Cart said. “Just about every nation used them in the last years of the war, and now House Lyrandar operates passenger lines.”

Darraun saw Gaven’s eyes light up and decided that if Gaven ever ran off, the airship lines would be the first place to check. This, he thought, is a man that wants to fly.

“So the Khyber dragonshards bind the elementals to the vessels?” Darraun asked again, trying to bring the subject back around to nightshards.

“That’s right,” Gaven said. “They have a peculiar property of binding. With the right magic, they can hold just about anything-even a human soul.”

“Almost like some sort of possession?” Darraun asked.

“Sort of, yes.” Gaven’s face darkened again, and he didn’t elaborate further.

“So all your expeditions into the depths of Khyber-is that how you learned so much about the Prophecy?”

Gaven stared blankly ahead, showing no indication that he’d heard the question. A cloud passed over the hot noonday sun, and Darraun glanced at the sky. “We’d better get our supplies and get ready to go,” he said. “I understand it can rain pretty hard here in the jungle, though it usually comes in short spurts.”

He quickened their pace, and they found shelter in a provisioner’s shop. Heavy drops of rain started falling a moment later.

The shopkeeper was attentive to their every need, which meant Darraun was unable to keep up his line of questions. He stayed busy ordering the things they’d need for their journey, but at one point when the merchant had vanished into a back storeroom for a moment he found himself staring at Gaven’s dragonmark. The intricate pattern almost seemed painted on Gaven’s skin, fine tracings of blue beginning just at the ridge of his jaw, on his left side, covering the whole front of his neck, and extending down under his shirt. It probably covered his whole chest, and Darraun could see part of it extending out his short sleeve to reach his left elbow. The skin beneath the mark was redder than the rest of Gaven’s pale flesh, giving the whole ‘mark a purplish tinge. There was something vaguely draconic about the part that covered his neck, which must have been how the dragonmarks had earned their names.