"Do you really believe that the half-orc Chagai recognized is in fact the partner of your former student?"
"I don't believe-I know." The old man glanced over his shoulder at Galharath. "Tell me, do your people believe in Fate?"
"Not by that name. Fate is far too simplistic a concept, but we recognize the existence of probability matrices that intersect with an individual's unique potential."
Cathmore scowled. "Forgive me for being so simplistic, but I have no idea what you just said. I believe that Fate is real and that it sweeps all of us along like the current of a vast river, and while we-the fish caught within its power-have some choice over how we swim, ultimately we are at the mercy of the river's force."
Galharath nodded his understanding. The metaphor was similar to something a kalashtar child might postulate but not altogether inaccurate. He was impressed anew by the keen intellect the old man possessed-for a human.
"I believe the river of Fate has swept both me and Diran to this point, and that soon we will be brought together to finish what we started so many years ago."
Galharath thought Cathmore had an exaggerated sense of his own importance in the complex and ever-shifting tapestry of events that made up what limited minds like his termed reality, but he could see no gain in bringing this point up, so he didn't. Galharath and Cathmore were not friends, and they weren't partners. Not really. They were two individuals currently working together for mutual advantage. Cathmore wished to repair and activate the psi-forge in order to create an army of unstoppable assassins-a goal Galharath found small-minded and ridiculous. Galharath was simply using the old man and his orc servant to provide him with supplies and protection while he studied the construction of the psi-forge. Galharath, like many kalashtar, was far more concerned with the advancement of his mind and the strengthening of his psionic abilities than he was in worldly achievements. The knowledge he would gain-had already gained-from helping Cathmore would prove invaluable in and of itself, but Galharath also had a practical application of his knowledge in mind.
Galharath's race, the kalashtar, had been born from a union of humans and quori, renegade spirits from Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams. The influence of the original quori spirits affected their descendants, so that while newborn kalashtar were distinct individuals, they possessed some of their ancestors' character traits and even fragmentary memories. They also possessed vast reserves of mental resources upon which they could draw, making them a race of powerful psionics, but the evil spirits that still remained in Dal Quor despised the kalashtar and sought their extermination. To further this aim, they possessed the bodies of physical beings on Eberron in order to operate on this dimensional plane, becoming a separate race of psionic beings known as the Inspired.
Galharath-or, as he thought of himself, Gal of the lineage of Harath, his original quori ancestor-had fought against the Inspired all his life. He had become a psionic artificer to discover and develop new weapons that might be used in his people's struggle for survival. When Cathmore approached him with an offer-working at a "site of singular interest to one of your kind," as the old man had put it-Galharath accepted without hesitation, especially since he'd been able to read the particulars of Cathmore's offer in his thoughts. Cathmore might have no greater vision for the psi-forge than producing mindslayers, but Galharath hoped to learn enough about the device in order to recreate it-or something very much like it-to construct beings that would fight the Inspired alongside the kalashtar.
"Do you think the stories are true?" Galharath asked. "Has Diran Bastiaan forsaken the ways of the Brotherhood of the Blade for priesthood within the Silver Flame? Or is it merely a ruse and he has come to Perhata to track you down and slay you once and for all?"
"Why do you bother asking questions when you already know the answers?" Cathmore said. "I hired you for your psionic abilities, and I have no illusion that you refrain from employing them on me. You'd be a fool not to."
Galharath's estimation of Cathmore went up a notch. "Then permit me to say this: I am well aware that yours is not the only spirit that inhabits your body. That much, at least, we have in common, but whereas my spirit is inextricably bound to that of my ancestor's, yours exists alongside a darker spirit that you allowed to be implanted within your body. Two spirits, connected but at the same time separate."
"So?"
"So your darker half knows that it has nearly used up your body and is hoping to find a replacement."
Cathmore turned away from the window again, but this time a darkness lurked in his eyes, and his smile was cold and feral. When he spoke, it sounded as if he did so in two distinct voices. "Of course. Why do you think we're so interested in being reunited with Diran-young, strong, healthy Diran-once more?"
Cathmore laughed, the sound dry and brittle as ancient bone, before returning his attention to the darkness that lay beyond the window, a darkness, Galharath thought, that was bright as the sun compared to what dwelled inside the old man.
"I have something to tell you." Cathmore's voice had returned to normal, though it was no less chilling for that. "The spirit within me is sensitive to the unseen world. It's one of the reasons that the Brotherhood of the Blade uses them, and mine is whispering to me that we are not alone in this room."
Galharath frowned, his psionic senses sweeping through the chamber, and while he was normally acutely aware of his surroundings, this time he paid far closer attention to its minute details. At first, he detected nothing out the ordinary, and he began to wonder if perhaps Cathmore's dark spirit hadn't corrupted his mind to the point where the old man was starting to take leave of his senses, but then he found it: the merest flicker of a mental presence, so infinitesimal that even the most skilled psionicist would have been hard-pressed to notice it without conducting a careful search. The physical nexus for the presence lay in the far corner of the observation chamber. Galharath got a firm mental fix on the presence to make certain that it couldn't conceal itself from him once more, and then turned in its direction.
"We know you're there, and there's no way that you will be able to hide from me again. Show yourself."
At first nothing happened, and Galharath was contemplating a psionic strike against the presence when the air in the corner rippled, and a hulking stone and wood being with numerous multicolored crystals affixed to its body appeared. Galharath instantly recognized what he was looking at, though he wasn't sure he believed it. This was an artificial being produced by the crystalline forge that lay at the heart of Mount Luster. This was a psi-forged.
"How interesting," Cathmore said. If the master assassin was surprised by the sudden appearance of the psi-forged, Galharath couldn't tell it from the calm tone of his voice. "I wasn't aware that the forge was ever operational."
Galharath was intrigued, for there was so much they could learn about the forge and its processes from this being that had been born within its mystic fires, but he was also cautious. It was clear that the psi-forged was powerful, or else it wouldn't have been able to cloak itself from Galharath's perception for so long, and if Cathmore's dark spirit hadn't detected it, allowing Galharath to search for the creature, there was a good chance he might never have discovered it. That meant the psi-forged was extremely strong-and therefore extremely dangerous.