Don Bassingthwaite - World of traitors

He spared one last hostile glance at Ashi as she pushed past him, then she was off the spiral stairs and back in the open. Aruget stayed at her back. “Keep going,” he said in that strange deep voice. “Remember you’re my prisoner.”

They made it down only a few steps before a call came back to them from above. “You!” It was the large hobgoblin again. Ashi felt Aruget stiffen but he kept pushing her onward. “You can’t take her by yourself. She could get away from you. You better let me help you.”

“I can handle her,” Aruget growled. “Go back to your men.”

“They can open a door.” The other hobgoblin’s footsteps closed on them. Aruget paused. “Yes,” said the hobgoblin. There was ambition in his voice. “Enough muut in this to share-”

Aruget’s hand left her arm as he whirled. The other hobgoblin’s words ended in the sound of ripping flesh, a slight wheeze, and the clatter of a falling body. Ashi spun around-and froze, staring.

Not at the hobgoblin sprawled with his throat slashed open, but at the other hobgoblin on the stairs. The one who carried Aruget’s bloody sword and wore Aruget’s armor, but who didn’t wear his face.

He looked back at her for an instant, then his features blurred and reshaped themselves until Aruget faced her again.

Ashi’s voice almost caught in her throat, but she forced it out. “You’re a changeling?”

28 Sypheros Not the place for explanations.” Aruget took her hand and tugged her down the stairs. As soon as she was moving, he let her go and opened his stride, jumping down two and three steps at a time. When they reached a floor with access to the back stairs they had climbed on the way up, he led the way to them-then off again only a few floors down. The same floor where Tariic had his quarters.

“This isn’t a good place to stop,” Ashi said.

“It’s the last place anyone would look for us.” He walked with light steps down the corridor, selected a dusty looking door, and tried the handle. The door was unlocked, the hinges stiff. Aruget eased it open a little way and slipped inside, beckoning Ashi to follow.

She hesitated.

He frowned. “Trust me,” he said. He slipped through the door. Ashi grimaced and followed.

The room beyond had a musty smell, and by the light that leaked in from the corridor, she could make out fabric-draped bundles. Aruget pushed the door shut a little ways, leaving only enough of a gap to allow a thread of light into the room. He stayed close to it so that the glow fell across his face. Ashi had a gut feeling he did that deliberately, as if it to ease some of her fears.

Then he did something completely unexpected. He bent his head and his features melted and reformed. His entire body shifted in stature and bulk. When he looked up again, he had red-blond hair and the fine features of a young half-elf. A young half-elf woman.

A young half-elf woman that Ashi knew. “Benti?” she asked as softly as she could manage. “Benti Morren?”

Benti smiled. “Hello, Ashi. It’s been a while-for you, at least.” Hard, cunning eyes narrowed. “You understand now, don’t you? I’m on your side. You can trust me. You must trust me.”

The urge to sit down washed over Ashi, but she didn’t trust any of the dusty bundles in the dark room. She and other friends had encountered the half-elf-or at least the person they had all assumed to be a half-elf-in the city of Sharn almost a year ago. At the time, Benti had been posing as a renegade member of House Lyrandar selling her services as an airship pilot. After she had aided them-and they’d aided her in return-they’d discovered that she was more than she seemed. In fact, she was an agent of the King’s Citadel of Breland, one of the so-called Dark Lanterns. In short, a spy.

And it seemed that hadn’t been her only secret.

“How?” Ashi asked. “Why? When?”

Benti held up a hand. “Fast answers,” she said. “We don’t have time. Let’s start with when: I’ve been Aruget since the night you were attacked by Gan’duur raiders on your journey from Sterngate in Breland to Rhukaan Draal.”

“I remember that. We found you-Aruget-with a bashed skull after the attack. We thought the raiders had knocked you out.” Ashi pressed her lips together. “Where’s the real Aruget?”

“Buried under a collapsed sandbank near the spot where you camped. The scalp wound was self-inflicted. The raiders”-she shrugged-“a coincidence.”

The cool detachment in her voice made Ashi shiver. “Why?” she asked again.

Benti made a strange expression, as if her face was straining to move in a way it wasn’t meant to. Her lips twitched and she put fingers to one slightly pointed ear. “Spend too long as one race and you forget how other bodies work,” she said. Her hand fell. “Why? Because the King’s Citadel was suspicious when we discovered Tariic was returning from a diplomatic mission with two ladies of House Deneith and a wandering shifter carrying an artifact sword of Dhakaan. I knew both you and Geth, so I was assigned to investigate.” Her eyebrows twitched. “It’s turned into quite the assignment.”

Confusion churned in Ashi’s belly. “You couldn’t have told us earlier?”

Benti’s voice went cool again. “I shouldn’t be telling you now, but it seems to be my only choice. You have information I need. I’ve put together almost all the pieces of the puzzle.” Her green eyes met Ashi’s, and Ashi felt like they were looking right through her.

“The Rod of Kings,” Benti said, “tries to make its wielder into an emperor of Dhakaan. I heard Geth tell you that the night Haruuc died. Chetiin killed Haruuc to prevent a war, but when Tariic brings that war to life, no one tries to stop him. Instead, you, Geth, Ekhaas, and Dagii go to a tiefling artificer and have-what? a copy of the rod?-made with the power to enhance Tariic’s presence. Geth tries to pass the copy of the rod to Tariic at the coronation. Tariic discovers the substitution and sends Daavn to arrest Geth. Daavn fails, or so I assume, and Geth is replaced with a changeling to keep his disappearance quiet. Now Makka, who previously wanted to kill you, is trying to capture you-”

Ashi’s lips curled back. “Wait. How long have you known that wasn’t Geth?”

“I had my doubts since the evening after the coronation, but I wasn’t sure. Kill us and we return to our true form, but changelings can’t recognize each other on sight any more than you can tell what color smallclothes another human is wearing.” She flicked her hand. “Let me finish. Makka is now trying to capture you, probably because of something you know or something that Tariic thinks you know.”

“Like where Geth might be,” Ashi said, the idea coming on her like a blossoming flower. “And whether he has the true Rod of Kings.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Benti. “Which leads to the missing pieces of my puzzle. One”-she held up a finger-“where would Geth be? And two”-she held up another-“why go to so much trouble for the rod when ambition and history books can show any ruler how to be a tyrant?”

Ashi shook her head. “I don’t know where Geth is. He might not even be in Rhukaan Draal anymore. We thought about running with the rod at one point. He might have done that. And the rod-”

She hesitated before saying anything more. Could she trust Benti with the ultimate secret of the rod? What if she couldn’t escape Tariic’s grasp? Benti knew everything else-and as long as they were conspiring against a throne, as Vounn had pointed out, a spy seemed like a good ally to have.

“The rod doesn’t just show its wielder how to behave like an emperor, it gives him the power to become one,” she said. “The wielder of the rod can force people to obey his commands. The magic Tenquis put in the false rod is just an imitation of the true rod’s power. The true rod is irresistible. My dragonmark can block its power and Geth is immune because of his connection with Wrath, but those are the only defenses we know. When we found it, the rod was used against us. Its power crushes your will.”