Gaist nudged him and nodded to a ramshackle shed set against the wall behind them on high supports. A network of rickety walkways spiderwebbed across the cavern’s ceiling from the door of the hut.

“That looks like a supervisor’s office if I ever saw one,” Kaitha muttered.

Gorm nodded. “Aye. Ye and Gaist check it out, and I’ll see what this so-called burn crew’s about.”

“Be quick. We may not have long.” Kaitha and the doppelganger peeled away from the Dwarf and made for the stairs to the office.

Gorm continued on toward the pack of acolytes near the cavern’s entrance. The closer he got to the crowd, the tighter he gripped the handle of his axe. Many of the nervous-looking Tandosians wore leather masks and green goggles of the sort that Scribkin often wore when tinkering with unstable machinery. A heavyset Human woman near the center of the circle was shouting instructions at the group. Behind her, an Elf dressed all in leather was seated on top of a lumpy, brown form, like a leather blanket thrown over a great stack of crates. His goggles were topped by a strange contraption, at the center of which was a large gemstone that roiled with crimson and amber light, like a ruby that was burning from the inside.

“Now,” the instructor barked as Gorm joined the rear of the group, “when Brother Laylo is good and ready, he can think that the beast should lift him, and the gem will transmit the instruction.”

Gorm looked around the group nearest him and found a likely looking stooge, a skinny Imperial Human who was trembling like a leaf. He nudged the young man in the ribs and asked, “Hey. I got in late. What’s she talkin’ about?”

The Human didn’t respond. His eyes, wide with terror, were locked on Brother Laylo and slowly rotating up. Gorm turned to see what had captivated the young man.

“Oh,” he said, watching Brother Laylo rise into the air on the back of a long, serpentine neck, just behind a reptilian head that stared at the acolytes with undisguised malice.

Chapter 13

“Perhaps this is what we’re looking for,” said Jynn, craning his neck. Across the street, a shifty-eyed Human in a long trench coat loitered outside the Heroes’ Guild office on the Fifth Tier.

Patches tugged on his leash to get closer to a tuft of weeds poking up between the cobbles. The suspicious man was likely not what Patches was looking for. The archmage’s dog was completely occupied with his perpetual search for things to sniff, eat, widdle on, or some combination thereof.

“I’m not sure if the royal archivist is a Human, especially not one so young,” Jynn mused. “His use of Sixth Age formalities in correspondence led me to suspect that he was an Elf, though now that I say it, it seems more likely to be an official tradition rather than a cultural idiom. Still, the man acts as though he has something to hide.”

Jynn wasn’t entirely sure what the royal archivist was out to conceal, which admittedly was a key part of the job description. Yet the recalcitrant official had cut off all correspondence with the archmage months ago, and none of his contemporaries would answer inquiries about the Leviathan Project or Detarr Ur’Mayan. Clearly, someone was hiding something.

The man in the trench coat perked up and smiled as a Tinderkin woman in a broad hat exited the guild office and nonchalantly walked over to him. They exchanged a surreptitious nod and, once around the corner from the office windows, a quick kiss.

“Oh,” said the wizard flatly. His lip lifted in a sneer of contempt at the banality of a secret romance. He’d brought Patches down to this street to allow the universe to unlock the secrets of his father’s work, and all that creation had taught him so far was that the Heroes’ Guild office on the Fifth Tier was a hotbed of interoffice trysts.

Patches happily pulled something from a gutter and ate it.

Jynn checked his sigils again with a tired sigh. They weren’t much; just simple lines of chalk and salt drawn at key points around the guild office. Using any low magic at all was dangerous; the greatest risk of inviting destiny was that it might accept the call. Still, he needed to tempt fate—quite literally—to grant him insights beyond the love affairs of lonely clerks. The sigils represented a small attempt to amplify the flow of destiny.

He tugged his dog along toward the nearest rune, but the leash suddenly went slack in his hands. The wizard glanced up to see a blur of gray and brown streak around the corner, and then Patches was gone.

Nobody can curse like a wizard, which is why they tend not to swear much. You have to watch your mouth when your language and gestures can warp reality or unleash blasts of eldritch energy. Still, Jynn had more than a few choice words for his dog as he ran down the street, one hand holding his robes up above his knees and the other waving the detached leash.

Patches was out of sight by the time Jynn skidded around the corner. The archmage felt a surge of panic as he looked around the busy street for some sign of the dog, but a joyous bark from his left put him on the right course quickly. He sprinted down two more streets in pursuit of the happy yapping—practically a marathon by the standards of the typical sedentary wizard—and so his lungs burned and his eyes watered by the time he found Patches seated by a park bench, furiously nuzzling a familiar woman in orange robes. Jynn backpedaled to a halt far too late to avoid her.

“Oh. Hello,” said Laruna, still scratching the dog’s ears. She gave the archmage a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I thought you must be around if Patches was here.”

“Ah. Yes,” said Jynn. He glanced around the street, noticed her smile was faltering, and only then realized that he’d failed to return it. He yanked his lips into a manic grin and barked, “Hello!”

“It’s good to see you,” she said, some measure of cheer returning to her face.

Jynn searched for the right words. Feelings were rising unbidden from the back corners of his mind, and it took a significant degree of mental exertion to keep them boxed up and where they belonged. After too long a pause he settled on an emphatic, “Yes!”

“What brings you out this way?”

“Uh…” Jynn wasn’t sure what the best thing to say was, but he was certain the worst was anything close to “using ancient magics to research the forbidden demonic sorceries that my father—a liche, if you’ll recall—spent his life and unlife developing for the purpose of raising the dead.” What would she think of him if she knew he was dabbling in Detarr Ur’Mayan’s studies, or trying to leverage the magic of the Sten? He looked around the street again for some excuse before his eyes settled on Patches, still trying to nuzzle the solamancer’s knees into submission. “Just… walking the dog!” he said, and thrust the leash forward like a talisman.

Her face fell, and he wasn’t sure why she was disappointed. “I see,” she said. “Well, if you’re busy⁠—”

“Oh, very!” blurted Jynn, reattaching Patches’ leash.

“Ah. Well, perhaps we could talk another time.” Laruna stood.

“Yes! Another time! I would like that!” Jynn’s inner self shrieked for him to reduce his use of exclamation marks, but he was too preoccupied with trying to control the maelstrom of unwelcome emotions raging through his mind.

“Good,” said the solamancer unhappily. With a nod and a final scratch of Patches’ ear, she turned and walked away.

Jynn watched the mage go, trying to organize his thoughts. It was some time before he shelved enough of his errant emotions to turn back. His stomach still roiled as he walked back to check on his sigils by the guild office, but he gritted his teeth and renewed his focus. The runes needed to be precise, the wizard reminded himself, if the universe was to show him what he needed.

“If there’s any one thing you need to know, it’s this: keep hold of the Eye of the Dragon,” barked the Tandosian instructor. “That gem’s all that’s keeping Brother Laylo alive right now. Or any of us, really.”

Most of the assembled Tandosians took a step away from the dragon-kin. Gorm remained in place, studying the beast and its Elven rider with curiosity. He often regarded claims about charms or crystals and magical protection with a healthy dose of skepticism, but he couldn’t think of any other reason for Brother Laylo to be comfortably reclining on the back of a Storm Drake while retaining all of his limbs.

“You lot may have heard that the gem lets you speak to dragon-kin or some such nonsense,” the instructor continued. “And maybe for your dragons of legend, it could work like that. But most drakes are dumber than a pile of rocks, and even if they could understand you, why do you think they’d care? When was the last time you worried what a chicken or pig was trying to tell you? Nobody listens to their breakfast.”

Regardless of its intelligence, the Storm Drake had developed an interest in the shouting woman by its side. Its reptilian eyes locked on her, and its brilliant blue dorsal crest rose up in unmistakable hostility.

The instructor didn’t pay the drake any mind. “What the gem does is allow Brother Laylo to exert his will on the beast. To feel as it feels, and to send his own thoughts back to it.”

A slight scowl appeared on Brother Laylo’s face, and the drake’s aggression paused. The creature looked confused for a moment, then conflicted, and finally its dorsal fin sank back down as it turned away sullenly.

“As long as the gem stays with Brother Laylo, we remain safe.” The instructor’s lips curled up in a wry smile. “Until, that is, we talk about the flame olive oil. Mounting your fuel on a Storm Drake is finicky business, which is why we usually use the Wind Drakes or Mountain Wyverns. But Stormies are faster and can go farther, so sometimes we have to use this fella here. The key to remember is that the lightning comes from their mouth or the underside of the wings, so the canister must be positioned⁠—”

Gorm was genuinely curious as to how the Tandosians mounted volatile explosives onto the back of a reptilian thunderstorm without vaporizing half of their secret fortress, but at that moment a commotion broke out across the great cavern. Bruised and disoriented Tandosians were staggering through the tunnel Gorm had entered by, several of them nude and all shouting to raise an alarm.

“Time’s run out,” he muttered to himself, looking around. The other Tandosians were momentarily distracted by the ruckus, but soon enough they’d focus on finding the interlopers.

Unless, of course, there was a bigger distraction.

He hefted his axe and hurled it expertly. The Tandosian next to him saw the attack, and turned to accuse the Dwarf. “You—!” the surprised student gasped.

Gorm grinned and pointed as Brother’s Laylo’s headgear clattered on the floor alongside the Dwarf’s axe. Brother Laylo himself was clutching a small gash across his forehead, apparently unaware that the cut was at the spot formerly occupied by the enchanted gemstone. By the time the dazed Tandosian realized what he had lost, he was staring into the cobalt eyes of a Storm Drake, its dorsal crest extended to full height and crackling with energy.

Gorm punched the accusing acolyte in the gut and dove into the crowd, moments before Brother Laylo disappeared in a burst of brilliant blue electricity. Searing light cast scattering Tandosians in stark shadow. Silhouetted students fled for the doorway. Carters began frantically rolling the wagons of explosive barrels away from the chaos.

Amid the mayhem, Gorm caught the eye of the Tandosian instructor as she scrambled toward his fallen axe. Something like recognition lit up in her eyes, and she began to shout something.

“Mistake,” muttered Gorm under his breath.

The other Tandosians were too distracted to pay attention, but the drake was working to isolate a target in the milling chaos around him. It found one in the screaming instructor. Before the Tandosian could finish her sentence, the drake grabbed her in its powerful jaws and hefted the woman into the air with a whip of its tree-trunk neck.