She knocked.
A moment later Vaddon opened the door. He was still fully dressed, and he gave her an amused smile.
“What took you so long?” He stepped aside so she could enter.
“Am I that predictable?” she said as she walked past him and into the room.
“Would it hurt your feelings if I said yes?” He closed the door and walked over to join her.
The room was lit by an everbright lantern sitting on the nightstand next to the bed, and an open book lay facedown on the slightly rumpled bedclothes.
Ksana nodded toward the book. “Another volume of history?”
“The Collected Letters of Galifar.”
“This is, what? The third time you’ve read it?”
“The fourth.” Vaddon smiled. “But who’s counting? So … do you want to sit on the bed or the chair? Or is this something that can only be discussed while standing?”
Ksana walked over to the writing desk, pulled the chair out, and turned it to face the bed. She then sat. As much as Ksana admired Vaddon, there had never been any hint of romance between the two of them, and she felt perfectly comfortable being alone with him in his bedchamber at night. But even so, she felt a bit … awkward at the thought of sitting on his bed. Vaddon walked over to the bed, picked up his book, noted the page he’d been reading, then closed it and placed it on the nightstand next to the lantern. He then sat on the edge, facing Ksana.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Have you decided to allow Elidyr to go through with his experiment tomorrow?”
He sighed. “Yes, though reluctantly so. We have some time before Bergerron wants us out of the lodge, and I see no reason why we shouldn’t put it to good use. Elidyr can conduct his experiment while the rest of the Outguard are packing everything up in preparation of our leavetaking. And my brother made a good argument when he pointed out how much Bergerron has invested in our project-especially considering the cost of the dragonshards and psi-crystals Elidyr’s built into this latest contraption of his …”
“He called it the Overmantle,” Ksana said.
“I don’t know if Elidyr will be able to get the device functional in time, but the man’s brilliant-though if you ever tell him I said so, I’ll deny it-and if anyone can get this Overmantle working, he can.”
“You sound convinced to me. So why did you say your decision was made reluctantly?”
“For the same reason you’ve come here, I’m sure,” Vaddon said. “I’m a soldier, not an expert in magic, but from the way Elidyr described the experiment, I have no doubt it would be dangerous under the best conditions. My brother may be a master artificer, but a rush job is still a rush job. How much more dangerous will his experiment be because the Overmantle was completed in haste?”
Ksana thought of her earlier hesitation to speak with Vaddon, and she couldn’t help smiling. She should’ve known the man’s thoughts would’ve been running parallel to her own. Although now came the moment for those lines of thought to diverge.
“I believe you should reconsider allowing the experiment to take place,” she said. “I’ll grant that Elidyr’s reasons for why the experiment should be allowed to go forward were persuasive enough, at least on the surface, but in the end they all boil down to the same thing-Elidyr wants to prove that symbionts can be used successfully as weapons. You know better than I how obsessed he’s been with Xoriat and its aberrations all these years. That obsession has blinded him to the risks involved with attempting to control symbionts. We all saw the results of those risks today, and it nearly cost Osten his life-Lirra too. They both might have died if things had gone differently. As you said, the Overmantle, assuming Elidyr can finish it in time, will be completed in haste. But even if it does function perfectly, do you really think it’s wise to open a portal to Xoriat, regardless of how small that portal may be or how short a time it may be open? Who knows what sort of chaotic forces we may unleash and what sort of havoc they might wreak?”
“We are soldiers, Ksana,” Vaddon said sternly. “Taking risks is our duty.”
“Taking risks, yes. Taking foolish ones, no. A wise soldier plans before heading into battle. She knows the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses as well as her own, knows the terrain upon which the battle will take place. And she knows when a battle simply isn’t worth the cost. Over these last few months, I’ve come to see that Elidyr’s view that symbionts can be used as weapons is based on a false premise. Symbionts are creatures of chaos, and chaos-by its very nature-cannot be controlled. And the more you attempt to control it, the more disastrous the outcome. Elidyr’s experiment is doomed to failure. If not tomorrow, then later, when those soldiers who become bonded to symbionts are inevitably corrupted by them. Please, Vaddon. Do not allow Elidyr to test the Overmantle tomorrow.”
Vaddon had listened to Ksana without expression, and when she finished speaking, he did not reply for several moments. When he did finally speak, his voice was calm, but firm.
“There’s a line in one of Galifar’s letters: ‘Some see duty merely as a task to perform, while others see it for what it truly is-placing the good of one’s people above one’s own desires.’ If there’s even the slightest chance that Elidyr’s right about using symbionts as weapons, then we have to give him one last try to prove it. It’s our duty.”
Ksana sighed and nodded. If Vaddon truly believed he was acting in the best interests of Karrnath, there was no use arguing with him further. She decided to change the subject.
“I checked on Osten before coming to see you. He told me he wished to volunteer for tomorrow’s experiment and that Lirra was going to ask you to allow him to do so.”
“Lirra came to see me earlier, and she did indeed tell me of Osten’s desire to attempt bonding with a symbiont once more.”
“You’re going to let him, aren’t you?”
“Yes, though I admit Lirra didn’t have to work hard to convince me. In a way, Osten is the perfect subject for Vaddon’s experiment. We know that he could not control a symbiont on his own, but if he can do so after having been exposed to the magic of the Overmantle, that will be proof the device works.”
Ksana frowned. “You sound like Elidyr.”
Vaddon chuckled. “Don’t insult me.”
Ksana wanted to argue with Vaddon, to try and convince him to deny Osten’s request, but she knew it would be fruitless to do so at this point. After all his talk about risk and duty, Vaddon’s mind was made up and there would be no changing it. The experiment would take place, Osten and a number of other soldiers would volunteer, and she’d be there to put them back together as best she could after everything went hideously wrong, as she feared it was bound to.
Sinnoch continued work on the Overmantle while Elidyr slept in a wooden chair, slumped over in a position that looked exceedingly uncomfortable to Sinnoch. Humans had so many frailties, the dolgaunt thought, the need for sleep chief among them. As soundly as Elidyr slumbered, anyone could sneak up on him and slit his throat before he had a chance to defend himself. As the dolgaunt worked, he amused himself by imagining the patterns the resultant blood spray would create in the air along with the desperate gurgling sounds Elidyr would make as his life rapidly bled out of him
Despite Sinnoch’s earlier skepticism that the Overmantle would be ready in time, the work had gone rather well, and the device was almost finished. Actually, it was complete as far as Elidyr’s design was concerned, but Sinnoch had a few touches of his own to add before tomorrow, so it was just as well that the artificer slept. Of course, it helped that an hour ago the dolgaunt had offered to fetch Elidyr a cup of water-and that the water had somehow managed to get a sleeping draught mixed into it before Sinnoch had served it to the human. The dolgaunt grinned. Life was funny that way sometimes.