Aoth grinned. “In other words, in your opinion he’s just a big, strong dragon. But Chessenta needs him, so it makes sense to humor him.”
“Pretty much. At this point, I’m actually more vexed by the same thing that irked you. Why didn’t he tell everyone about the abishais? At first he seemed so interested, and now it’s like he doesn’t care at all.”
“I can’t explain it,” he said. “He gave me a couple of reasons, but none that made a lot of sense.”
“Do you think he’ll investigate? We still don’t understand the reason for it all.”
He shrugged. It made her breast bounce ever so slightly where it rested against his chest. “He said yes, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Cera glowered. “That’s … unacceptable! Somebody has to find out what’s really going on!”
“If there’s one thing I learned growing up in Thay, and during my time as a sellsword, it’s that someone always has some sort of secret agenda or scheme. You could go mad trying to unravel it all.”
“But Amaunatorwants it unraveled. Or else he wouldn’t have showed us the assembly of dragons.”
“With all respect, my sweet sunlady, you don’t knowthat’s why your ritual went awry, or that the gathering had anything to do with the abishais.”
“I don’t understand. One moment you’re upset that Tchazzar isn’t going to do anything. The next it’s like you agree with him that what we discovered isn’t even important.”
“It’s not that exactly. But I have a war to fight. It won’t matter who wanted to blacken the name of the dragonborn, or why, if the Great Bone Wyrm and his troops slaughter us all.”
Frowning, she studied him for a time. Then she said, “I think you’re perverse. Your truesight gave you at least one vision to warn you that something mysterious and dangerous is happening.”
“I don’t know that that’s what it meant,” he interjected.
She continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Then the Keeper gave us both a sign indicating the same thing. That would make many another man moreeager to search for the truth. But I have the feeling it made you more reluctant. Why?”
He sighed. “You mean above and beyond the intelligent, practical reasons I’ve already given you?”
“Yes. So tell me.”
He hesitated, as he supposed most men would hesitate to admit any sort of fear or weakness to a woman. But his instincts told him it wouldn’t make her think any less of him. Mustering his thoughts, he ran his palm over the top of his head. His calluses scratched his hairless scalp.
“I told you where my visions led me before,” he said. “To that mountaintop in Szass Tam’s artificial world. Where, until my comrades showed up, it was just me against Malark Springhill and all the undead horrors under his control.”
“Where you saved thousands of lives,” she said. “Perhaps even all the lives there are.”
“Yes! That’s exactly the point! I didn’t really feel the weight of the responsibility at the time. You can’t allow yourself to feel things like that in the midst of battle or they’ll slow you down. But I’ve felt it over and over in the months since. I feel it in my nightmares.”
“I don’t understand. By your own choice, you’ve always carried a lot of responsibility. You’re responsible for the welfare of your company. For the fate of the lords and realms that hire you to fight.”
“That’s different. Battle sorcery and leading the Brotherhood suit me. I understand them. I’m big enough to handle them. But what happened on the mountaintop …” He shook his head. “It was too strange, and too much.”
“Throughout the centuries,” she said, “Amaunator, either as himself or in the guise of Lathander, called many champions to serve the cause of righteousness. Some of them protested that the burden was too heavy for them to bear. Yet they acquitted themselves nobly in the end.”
“That’s one reason I like worshiping Kossuth. He doesn’t have stories like that.”
She scowled. “You’re impossible.”
“Just let me work on driving Alasklerbanbastos back into his hole. I promise we’ll all be better off.”
“All right. If that’s what you think is best.”
They lay in silence for a while.
Then, when he’d begun to wonder if she’d drifted off to sleep, and if she’d start snoring the gurgling little snore he liked, she said, “I can’t go back to Soolabax with you tomorrow.”
“No?”
“No. Daelric wants me to report what I know about the raids out of and into Threskel, Tchazzar’s return, and all the rest of it. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
Aoth scrutinized her. But if there was more she wasn’t telling him, his fire-kissed eyes failed even to hint at what it might be.
To Balasar’s relief, no one remarked on the knife hidden in his boot. Many warriors carried an extra weapon in a similar fashion, particularly if, like him, they made a habit of patronizing Djerad Thymar’s seamier taverns and entertainments.
When he was naked, Patrin picked up a steel helmet. For a moment, Balasar couldn’t see what distinguished it from an ordinary one. Then he noticed the lack of eyeholes, and the U-shaped piece intended to fit under the wearer’s snout.
Patrin put it over his head and so deprived him of sight. The locking mechanism clicked shut. The chin piece was snug enough to dig uncomfortably into the spot where a dragonborn’s lower jaw joined his neck, but not quite tight enough to choke him.
“Now,” Patrin said, “your pilgrimage begins.” A hand, perhaps the paladin’s, perhaps another initiate’s, shoved Balasar stumbling forward.
He groped to keep from running into whatever was in front of him. He found an empty space that was presumably the mouth of another passage leading away from the pentagonal room. He headed down it, once again running his hand along the wall to steady and orient himself.
The voice whispered. Eerie though it was, he supposed he ought to be glad. It should keep him creeping in the right direction.
He tried to slow his breathing and so quell the fear nibbling at his mind. He’d heard of secret societies initiating their recruits via nerve-racking ordeals. His current state of extreme vulnerability didn’t mean anything was going to happen to him. To the contrary. The members of the Platinum Cadre wouldn’t bother with this game if they realized he was here to spy.
Somewhere in the blackness, the voice breathed his name.
Then somehow he lost contact with the cool, granite surface he’d been touching, and instinct told him he’d entered a much broader space. Still, he judged that the most sensible way to traverse it was to work his way along the wall. But when he groped, first to the sides and then behind him, he couldn’t find anything solid.
All he could do was walk toward the whisper.
It grew colder with every step. Something crunched beneath his naked feet, chilling them. He realized it was snow. A frigid wind rose and, howling, tried to shove him back the way he’d come. He leaned into it.
This can’t be here, he thought. It’s some kind of trick. But it felt real. It felt like he was outdoors traversing some bitter winter landscape.
Then he heard something else moving through the snow. But the sound was a continuous slithering drag, not the rhythmic crunch of footsteps. He felt a malicious scrutiny, and then the wind roared.
No, not the wind, not this time. A blast that stabbed cold into his very core. He reeled off balance, and something swept his feet out from under him. He crashed down on the ground.
He scrambled to his knees, then lashed out with his claws. They didn’t connect with anything.