“No, no,” she protested. She reached down to his elbow and gently guided him to his feet. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. You’re Cart, aren’t you? Haldren’s…”
“His advisor, yes.” He wondered what she was going to say. Slave? Part of him suspected that, despite the emancipation of the warforged with the Treaty of Thronehold, House Cannith still thought of them more as property than as people.
“I don’t know if you remember me, but I was at Bluevine with you and Haldren. I’m Ashara.” She held out her hand to him, as naturally as if she were meeting a new friend in a tavern.
“Lady, I-”
“Just Ashara.” She smiled, and Cart found himself warming to her.
She was a small woman-her head had collided with his chest, her shoulder hitting the bottom of his chest plate. The lyrelike shape of the Mark of Making swooped across her upper arm. Her brown hair was cut short, and her eyes were the same color, warm and bright in the pale magical light of the everburning torches that lit the halls. Her smile-once again, Cart marveled at the intricacy of the muscles. Her smile reached all the way to the corners of her eyes.
He clasped her outstretched hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Ashara,” he said.
“Likewise, Cart.” Still clasping his hand, she asked, “Were you on your way somewhere?”
“Out of here, that’s all.”
“Oh, good. Perhaps you could help me find the exit?”
“I’ll try,” Cart said. “I confess I often get lost under here. But I think it’s this way.” He pointed the direction he’d been walking, and they started walking side by side along the hall.
“I feel lost in this whole affair,” Ashara said.
Cart turned his head to look at her. She did not seem to be joking, which made her confession surprising both for its content and in the simple fact that she made it to him.
“But you’re essential to the whole operation,” he said.
“My House is essential. I am not. And this is the first time I’ve been in this position-negotiating for the House, mediating between Kelas and Baron Jorlanna. I wish they’d just talk to each other and leave me out of this.”
“I feel much the same way.”
“What’s your role in all this?”
“I’m not certain. I work for Haldren, and he keeps asking me for advice in matters I just don’t understand. Including,” he added, “how to get Baron Jorlanna committed to Kelas’s plans. What is it that Kelas wants from House Cannith?”
“Armaments, for one thing. But primarily, just the assurance of Jorlanna’s support in the… transfer of power.”
“And what’s he offering in return?”
“In the short term, a new facility. He says he has plans for a new kind of forge, one that will triple the House’s production capabilities and enable the creation of entirely new kinds of weapons.”
“The Dragon Forge,” Cart said.
“So you know about it.” Ashara seemed surprised. Tiny muscles lifted her eyebrows higher on her forehead and widened her eyes.
“Only the name. Haldren is accustomed to telling me only what I need to know.” Cart shrugged. “And underestimating what I need to know.”
“Sounds familiar. Except that Kelas tells me only what he wants the Baron to know. And Baron Jorlanna tells me what she wants him to know. Precious little passing in either direction. I have to guess the rest.”
“What do you know about the Dragon Forge? And what have you guessed?”
“Well, not much more than what I said-higher production, new armaments.” She frowned. “The work of artificers and mage-wrights depends largely on the ability to manipulate the magic that’s locked inside everything. We sometimes describe it as finding a knot, a tangle of energy in the heart of something and loosing it so the magic can flow properly. What Kelas promises amounts to an enormous knot and the means to open it.”
“Why is it called the Dragon Forge? Where do the dragons come in?” Cart asked.
“I’m not certain.”
“I would have thought we were done with dragons after the Starcrag Plain.” The memory of that defeat still stung. The bronze dragon, Vaskar, had led Haldren into it, lying to him all along. He’d promised Haldren a flight of dragons to guarantee victory, even as he was marshaling a flight of dragons to fight on the Thrane side of the battle as well. All to orchestrate the fulfillment of the Prophecy-a foretold “clash of dragons.”
“This world will never be done with dragons, I’m afraid.”
“They’ve been here since the beginning, I suppose they’ll be here until the end. But why do we have to deal with them at all?”
“It takes power to seize power. And the dragons have power to spare.”
They finally emerged from the old cathedral into a secluded alleyway. Ashara turned her face to the sun and basked in it.
“I hate it down there,” she said. “I should have been a Lyrandar, not a Cannith. I’d much rather spend my days on the deck of an airship than down in some forge.”
The mention of House Lyrandar made Cart think of Gaven, and he fell silent. At the end of the battle at Starcrag Plain, Cart had left Haldren’s side to fight with Gaven, helping him carve a path through the hordes of the Soul Reaver. Down in the Soul Reaver’s haunts, he had briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a god himself, imagining what it would be like to be god of the warforged.
From the threshold of immortality to the cellars of the abandoned cathedral. How he had fallen.
“Where are you going now?” Ashara asked.
“A fine question,” Cart muttered. There seemed nowhere to go but farther down.
“Would you care to accompany me to our enclave? You could meet the Baron.”
Cart had heard Haldren speak of disgust rising in his gut, or the taste of it in his mouth, and indeed he made the same face when he felt disgust at some person or idea that he made when he tasted something he didn’t like. Lacking a digestive system or any sense of taste, Cart had never understood the physical sensation of it, but disgust assailed his mind like a wave of unease radiating back from his face.
“No,” he said. He had no taste for the scheming, the maneuvering. And he had a sudden sense that even kind, pleasant Ashara was using him, trying to bring him into a position that would bring her advantage. “I enjoyed our talk, Lady,” he said, honestly. “I hope to see you again soon. But I must go.”
He put his back to the cathedral and the Cannith district and walked away.
He was a good twenty paces away when he heard Ashara’s quiet voice. “Good-bye, Cart.”
CHAPTER 7
Kauth’s first conscious awareness was of motion-back and forth, bouncing up and down. Slowly the sensation resolved into the gentle lurch of the Orien coach, continuing along the rough road to Greenheart. The light began to register in his vision, and he opened his eyes. Zandar crouched over him, wearing his habitual sardonic smile. “He lives!” the warlock proclaimed.
Full awareness of where he was rushed into his mind, accompanied by a surge of panic. He put a hand to his face to check-yes, he was still Kauth. He tried to roll himself sideways and nearly fell off the bench he was lying on. With some effort, he managed to prop himself up on one elbow. His body still screamed with pain, and he grimaced at Zandar.
“You have my thanks, Zandar,” he said. “But you’re about the last person I’d think to call a healer.” He fumbled at his quiver, reaching for one of the wands he used most often, one that held healing magic. It wasn’t there.
“Looking for these?” Zandar said, holding three wands out to Kauth. “You can thank them, not me.”
Kauth snatched them away. He didn’t like the idea of anyone rummaging through his pouches-especially the warlock, he realized. Even if Zandar had just saved his life, he wasn’t quite ready to trust the man. Choosing one of the wands, he extended his mind to touch the weave of magic it held, and felt a fresh wave of healing magic wash over his body like cool water against fevered skin. He took a deep breath and sat up.