Lady Ruin

mastering a symbiont, I can’t-”

Osten interrupted her. “Hear me out, Captain. I’m not asking for a second chance simply to redeem myself.” He paused. “Well, not only for that reason. Believe me, after what I’ve been through, I’d be only too happy never to hear the word symbiontagain, let alone have one of the damned things attached to my body. But as you said earlier, I did manage to successfully bond with the tentacle whip, and I was able to maintain control for several days before it finally succeeded in dominating me. I know what it’s like to resist a symbiont’s influence. I’ve done it, even if for only a short time.” He turned away from the fire to look at Lirra once more. “Besides, if Elidyr’s process works, the whip won’t be able to dominate me.”

“And what if the experiment is a failure and the whip takes control of you once more?”

Osten shrugged. “Then you’ll just have to cut the thing off of me again. Look, I know better than most just how powerful a weapon a symbiont can be. After all, I was bonded to one. Can you imagine the contribution a division of symbiont-enhanced warriors could make to Karrnath’s defenses. Five divisions? Twenty? That’s worth the risk to me.”

Lirra understood how Osten felt. After all, it was the same vision that had motivated her to join the Outguard in the first place.

“Very well. I’ll discuss the matter with the general-if he allows the experiment to go forward. All right?”

Osten gave her a smile-a real one, this time. “Thank you, Captain.” He then turned back to face the fire once more.

Lirra sat with him in silence for a few more moments before taking her leave. Osten needed to rest … especially if he was going to attempt to bond with a symbiont again the next day.

She just hoped her uncle knew what he was doing.

“So now that I’ve promised my brother I’ll work a miracle tomorrow, I need you to help me deliver, Sinnoch.”

The dolgaunt made a liquid rattling in his throat, a sound Elidyr had learned was the equivalent of a sigh. “Ideally, we could use another two weeks to prepare, but I suppose we could be ready in three days if we pushed ourselves. But in less than twenty-four hours?” The creature shook his head, his mane of tentacles writhing slowly like a nest of half-asleep serpents. “I don’t see how we can do it.”

The two stood in Elidyr’s workroom in one of the lodge’s lower levels. Wooden tables lined the wall, their surfaces covered with books, scrolls, and bits of parchment arranged in seemingly haphazard piles. Everbright lanterns resting on the tables provided illumination, and while Elidyr appreciated the lanterns’ convenience- unvarying light, no wick to burn down-he missed working by candlelight, as he had during his student days at Morgrave University. There was something romantic and mysterious about it, as if one were reading in some hidden chamber, delving into ancient and forbidden lore.

One table in the workroom was reserved for Elidyr’s artificer’s tools, devices both small and large, mundane and arcane, from simple hammers and screwdrivers to etheric energy aligners and thaumaturgic rebalancers. And in the middle of the table rested a square metal framework constructed from two-foot lengths of focusing steel, an extremely expensive material designed to collect and channel various types of energy. There were three flat panels inserted into the framework, and upon each was fastened a row of crystalline objects even more expensive than the focusing steel. Some were translucent with pulsating veins that made them seem almost alive, while some were a glowing blue and green.

“The dragonshards and psi-crystals are in their correct places,” Elidyr said, sounding more defensive than he liked.

“But they haven’t been properly attuned to one another,” the dolgaunt pointed out. “If you tried to activate the device now, at best it wouldn’t function, and at worst it would fail catastrophically and destroy half the lodge in the process.” The creature’s leathery lips stretched into a smile far wider than a human could manage. “Although now that I think of it, that could be amusing.”

Elidyr knew the dolgaunt wasn’t joking-he would find the devastation amusing-but the artificer chose to ignore the comment. Sinnoch’s mind was sharper and more focused than others of his kind. That was the only reason Vaddon had agreed to allow the dolgaunt to assist with the Outguard’s work. But in the end Sinnoch was still a creature of chaos, and thus periodically given to bizarre and unsettling turns of thought. However as long as the dolgaunt chose not to act on those thoughts, Elidyr didn’t worry about them-much.

Elidyr had dubbed the device the Overmantle, a rather elegant name, he thought, for a somewhat unimpressive-appearing piece of equipment. But he’d always been more practical than artistic-the Karrn in him coming through, he thought with some amusement-and he really didn’t care what the device looked like, as long as it worked. The Overmantle was designed to help humans bond with symbionts while leaving the hosts in complete control. The psi-crystals would form a psychic barrier in the hosts’ minds to protect them from symbiont influence, while the dragonshards would open a miniature portal to Xoriat and channel a small measure of its chaos-based energies into the hosts in order to create a kind of “chaos inoculation” to help further shield them from the symbionts’ psychic contamination. If the Overmantle worked as designed, hosts would have complete control over their symbionts and be able to use them as safely and effectively as any other weapon, without fear of succumbing to the aberrations’ corruption.

“The basic attunement of the shards and crystals shouldn’t take more than a few hours,” Elidyr said. “My major concern is making certain the dragonshards we configured to open a portal to Xoriat will be able to do so safely.”

The portal in question would be smaller than a pinprick, but that would still be large enough to draw the needed amount of the realm’s energy into Eberron’s plane to allow the Overmantle to complete its work. So far all their tests in this area had proven to be failures-sometimes quite spectacular ones. The last such had created a portal to Xoriat the size of a man’s fist, and a slime-covered green tentacle had slithered through. There had been a tiny toothless mouth on the tentacle’s tip resembling an infant’s, and it crooned a wordless song in a woman’s voice. Sinnoch had managed to close the portal, severing the tentacle, and Elidyr had hacked the still-writhing monstrosity to pieces with an axe he kept close at hand. Pieces which Sinnoch had disposed of by devouring them. Elidyr shuddered as he remembered the satisfied moaning sounds the dolgaunt had made as he’d feasted.

Needless to say, Elidyr had decided not to report the result of that particular test to his brother. But it pointed out the reason why they needed to proceed with extreme caution, and Elidyr had been determined to do so-until Bergerron’s recent ultimatum that they shut down the project and vacate the lodge. But he couldn’t do that without at least trying out the Overmantle, not when they were so close.…

Elidyr had first become fascinated with Xoriat during his early days at Morgrave University. His homeland had a long and proud history of military service, but at the beginning of the Last War the nation had become a military dictatorship, and still was. Martial law remained in force, and unlike the rest of Khorvaire, instead of following the Code of Galifar, Karrnath followed the more rigid Code of Kaius, a set of laws restricting many rights in the name of national defense. Men and women like his brother saw nothing wrong with this system, or if they did, they accepted it as a necessary evil for the protection of Karrnath and its people. But there were those like Elidyr-freethinkers who chafed under the Code of Kaius. And so even with the Last War still raging, Elidyr had left his homeland to study in Sharn. At Morgrave University he studied the craft of artificing, telling Vaddon that he planned to use the skills he gained in service to his country when he graduated. Which was true enough-though admittedly Elidyr hadn’t been in any great hurry to graduate.

Elidyr had studied many subjects at the university, but he’d found himself most fascinated with the subject of Xoriat, the Realm of Madness. At the time Elidyr hadn’t understood the strange attraction he’d felt toward Xoriat, but in the years since, he’d come to believe it had something to do with how different the dimension of madness was from Karrnath. While Karrnath was tightly structured-Elidyr often ironically used the word regimented to describe life there-Xoriat was the exact opposite: total freedom reigned in that realm … so much freedom that even the basic laws of nature held no meaning there. The very existence of Xoriat had posed a compelling question for the young scholar. Was there such a thing as too much freedom? Without some sort of structure to give it form, like water given shape by the cup that held it, could existence truly have purpose?

Elidyr read everything he could about Xoriat and its denizens, of the daelkyr, and of the aberrations they