“I’m ever so glad,” hissed Kaitha.
“Why are ye sayin’ it like you’re angry, then?”
The Elf snorted as they arrived at the storage room. “We finally got the whole invocation right! We could have actually made it past a guard peacefully, and you knocked him out!”
“I needed to get out of those robes,” Gorm said. “’Sides, what’s one more guard knocked out at this point?”
He pulled open the door to the storage room, which at present was primarily used to store unconscious Tandosians.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” said Kaitha, working to maneuver the latest victim into the room. “Gods, at this rate we’re going to take down every guard in the thrice-cursed building.”
“That’s what I bloody said we should do,” grumbled Gorm.
“Well, I guess you got your way!” the Elf snarled back. A prone Tandosian started to groan something, but she silenced him with a swift kick. “Can we just get back to finding out whatever it is they’re hiding here?”
The trio quickly returned down the now-familiar passage to the unfortunate Dwarf’s station, where they adopted a posture of purpose and walked determinedly into the adjacent hallway. The new corridor was long, bathed in golden light by glowing crystals set in wall sconces, and otherwise empty. The sounds of bustling crowds grew as Gorm and Kaitha made their way through the passage, punctuated by an occasional growl or roar. Gorm rested his hand on his axe as they stepped up to the next guard station.
“Praise Tandos,” Kaitha began with a wave to the two guards stationed at the doorway.
“Yeah, yeah. Go on through,” said a Human guard with a wave of her mailed hand.
Their sudden nonchalance was enough to give Gorm pause. “Uh, but the invocation—”
The two guards shared a knowing look and a derisive snort of laughter. “Look, I can tell you must be new,” said the senior guard.
“Yes,” said Kaitha.
“Which means the only reason you’d be coming to the dens is if you been assigned to the burn teams,” the guard continued.
“That’s us,” said Gorm, eager to avoid her suspicions.
The guard nodded and held up two stubby fingers. “Right. So first of all, your orientation has already started on the other side of the dens. And second, you probably ain’t got enough time left on Arth to waste on the invocation! Ha!”
“So how’s about we do you a favor and skip it?” the second guard chimed in.
The pair of Tandosians shared a good cackle at the joke. The heroes feigned concern and scurried on through the doorway.
The cavern beyond was bigger than a city square, and brimmed with almost as much activity. Grubby attendants wheeled carts loaded with the corpses of farm animals across the rough-hewn floor. A small army of acolytes carried brooms, buckets, and raw cuts of meat between six large cages carved into the sides of the stone. Across the way, the cavern sloped up toward a wide mouth, through which gray light and a dull drizzle seeped in from outside. Near this entrance, Gorm could see a pack of people standing around something large and indistinct.
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.
