Lord Dantian took his leave. Another six guards took his place, and Zaehr could smell their hostility. Clearly Dantian was prepared to make good on his threat. Zaehr hoped that the old man knew what he was doing with this elemental heart.
“So did your family have anything to do with it?” she whispered to Tolar, as they made their way up a spiral staircase.
He said nothing, but the disappointment in his expression was answer enough.
“Just asking,” she said, keeping her voice low and an eye on the nearest guard. “We’ve had troubles with your cousins in the past. If there’s something I need to know—”
He cut her off with a curt shake of the head. “Lord Dantian’s delusions are just that. There are no ties between my family and the druids of the west, especially the more violent sects. Though it is curious that he has formed a link in his mind between dragons and druids.”
“They don’t mix?”
“Not now. It’s said that it was a dragon who first brought the secrets of natural magic to the orcs, who later shared it with humanity. But that was thousands of years ago—and a legend at that, not a tale I’d expect a rather spoiled Lyrandar lord to have heard.”
“So you’re not planning on destroying this magic heart?”
His eyes widened in fractional surprise. “Even if I possessed the means to do such a thing, why would I?”
Zaehr shrugged. “You say that as if you’ve never sprung a surprise on me before. If it does come to a fight, I think I can bring down six of these sentries, but I’m leaving the rest to you.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to be on my best behavior,” he said, with a faint smile. “But I must say I’m disappointed. A year ago I would have expected eight. Are you finally learning restraint?”
Zaehr grinned. “Ask again tomorrow,” she said.
Kestal Haladan led them to a small chamber high in the tower. Zaehr stepped in first to examine the room. The western wall was dominated by a massive octagonal window, and she realized that this was one of the eyes of the sculpted kraken atop the tower. This room was a sharp contrast to the luxurious appointments they had seen so far. The walls and floor were completely bare, and there were only three pieces of furniture in the room: a sturdy densewood table and two stone pedestals. One of these pedestals was currently empty. The other held a steel sphere roughly the same size as a human head. Drawing closer, Zaehr saw that it was actually a complex metal latticework laid atop a large chunk of crystal. The table was empty, but the scents told a tale. Two half-elves wearing leather and steel had brought the sphere into the chamber within the last two hours. A gnome had followed—male, young, accompanied by scents of ink and paper. He’d sat on the table, no doubt scribbling notes. Moments ago, one of the original guards had returned and approached the gnome, and the two had left together.
Zaehr turned to explain this to Tolar, but he stepped across the threshold and into the room.
The wind howled.
It was a mighty gale… or so it seemed. The sound was that of a hurricane wailing through a canyon, a storm that could flay flesh from bone.
But there was no wind. Just sound.
Zaehr and the guards had drawn their weapons, but Tolar was as calm as ever. He opened his mouth and produced an astonishing noise—a loud hissing and spitting not unlike the sound of the storm itself. The wailing dropped in volume. Tolar continued his choking diatribe, and soon the storm faded completely.
Zaehr and the guards stared.
“Auran,” the old man said. “Difficult on the throat and agony to learn but rewarding in its way.”
Zaehr glanced around the room, sliding her daggers back into their sheaths. “That was a conversation?”
“Of course.” Tolar gestured at the sphere of crystal and steel. “Normally the spirit is dormant, barely aware of its surroundings. But between the recent disaster and being separated from its ship, it’s frustrated and awake.”
“What’s it got against you?”
“Nothing. I suspect it was just the number of people in the room at once that disturbed it. It doesn’t perceive the world in the same way that we do, and it doesn’t understand our reality. As far as it’s concerned, we are small masses of water. It’s uncomfortable around any element except air.” He turned to look at Haladan. “I need those lists your lord promised me, as quickly as possible.”
Haladan frowned but gave a short bow. “I’ll see to it. Captain…” He glanced at the commander of the guards, a half-elf woman who might have been beautiful if not for a ghastly scar gouged down the left side of her face. “You heard Lord Dantian. If our guests do anything to threaten you or the heart… act decisively.”
The woman smiled. Half of her smile was a wall of gold. She’d lost a few teeth when she bought her scar. Zaehr smiled back, drawing her own lips away from her long canine fangs.
As Haladan turned to go, Zaehr caught the faintest trace of a familiar scent. “Were you onboard the Pride today?” she asked.
Haladan shook his head. “Not at all,” he said, mopping his brow with perfumed silk. “I’m embarrassed to say I am quite afraid of heights. I stay indoors whenever possible. Why do you ask?”
“It’s not important,“ Zaehr said. Surely it was the scent of rain, confusing her senses.
Tolar had already turned his attention back to the crystal orb, and now he spoke again in the strange language of the winds. The sphere howled in response, and Zaehr saw faint arcs of lightning crackling around the steel cage.
The conversation continued for a few minutes before Zaehr’s patience wore thin. “What is it saying?” she asked.
Tolar was annoyed, as she’d expected, but he indulged her curiosity. “It’s frustrated. It doesn’t understand the nature of the binding, but it hates not being in the air. When it was part of the ship, it was still in motion and that kept it content. I’m trying to learn about the people on the ship, but as I expected it simply thinks the ship was full of water.”
He proceeded with a new series of rasps and wheezes, and the caged wind responded with moans. “Ah!” he said with a note of triumph. But instead of explaining, he launched into another throat-rending exchange, brushing aside Zaehr’s inquiries. Finally, both Tolar and the sphere fell silent. The old man blinked and rubbed his throat. “Could I get a goblet of water, fair lady?” he said to the guard. “And you can inform Master Haladan that our business here is done.”
“So?”
They were back on the streets of Oak Towers. It had taken a little longer for Haladan to provide Tolar with the information the old man had required, but they had eventually made their way out of Stormwind Keep and back into the sunlit streets of upper Sharn. Tolar had refused to discuss his conversation with the elemental while they were in the building, but Zaehr wasn’t about to give up now.
“So…?” Tolar echoed.
“What did it say? I know that ‘ah.’ That was a ‘just as I expected’ ah.”
Tolar smiled. “I suppose it was. I told you it thought the ship was full of water. But there were a few exceptions. It could sense the presence of the other elemental—the ring of fire. It told me that there was an ‘older fire’ that frequently came and went and that it was this older fire that destroyed the ring of flame… that ordered it to explode, apparently. The skycoach that crashed into the Pride held ‘sparks’—most likely some sort of lesser fire elemental.”
“But the dragon?”
Tolar stroked his beard. “Dragons have strong elemental ties themselves. They were among the first creatures born on this world, and they are creatures of primal energy—magic and nature, fire and water. The elemental said that it felt a powerful wind close by… before the skycoach struck.”