have opened it, but working one-handed, she’d never succeed before the spider charm failed.
She drew Steel. “What do you think? Can you carve a way through it?”
I see precious little to joke about, Steel said. Kundarak locking mechanisms and enchantments. Not a simple piece of work by any means.
Thorn sighed. “Some days I’d like to drown all dwarves on general principle.” The dwarves of House Kundarak bore the Mark of Warding, and she’d had to face their tricks and traps far too often.
“What’s wrong?” It was Drix’s voice, drifting from the hole in the board.
“Can you hear me?” Thorn said. “We’ve got a locked gate. I’m not sure we can get out.”
“For a shaft that size… a gate would need to have levitation charms. Something that would trigger when it was activated, to shift the weight.”
Yes, Steel said. To your left, there’s a circle carved into the stone. There’s a concentration of energies there.
“What about it?” Thorn said.
“Get over there. Hold me up next to it.”
“That’s me,” Thorn muttered. “Defeating all challenges with dagger and board.” Sheathing Steel, she made her way over to the carved disk. Holding the board in both hands, she positioned the hole by the circle. “Can you see it?”
“Yes, just hold it there.”
It was a strange experience. Thorn could feel Drix shifting around. It wasn’t the same as the motion of a body, but it was motion nonetheless. And she could feel the pressure of each moment, knowing that the spider charm would soon fade.
“Drix, I don’t want to rush you-”
“There!” he cried.
Thorn felt the rumble through the wall of the tunnel. The gate shifted up and out, moonlight breaking through as a crack formed between the two halves. Thorn darted up and through as soon as there was room, collapsing onto the soft earth and grass outside.
“Arawai be praised,” she murmured. “I’ve never been so happy to see a tree.”
She was in a field with moons above and a starry sky overhead. A few trees were scattered around, and she could hear the distant song of night birds. After the gloom of the Mournland and the stone of the pit, the color was a blessing.
“Thorn?” Drix’s voice was muffled. “You need to turn me over.”
“Oh.” When she’d dropped the board, she’d set the hole against the ground. She lifted it up and flipped it over, and as she did so, she caught sight of the beast that was watching them both, licking the blood from its claws.
“Hello, little one,” it said. “I have come to settle our debt.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Lhazaar Principalities B arrakas 25, 999 YK
The face staring down at Thorn looked oddly like the face of King Boranel. But where the king had a regal mane of gray hair, the creature standing over Thorn simply had a regal mane. And Boranel didn’t have a double row of bloodstained teeth. It seemed the manticore had fed recently… fortunate for her, she hoped.
Crimson wings sprouted from the muscular body of an enormous lion. The tail of a scorpion rose up over his head, a drop of venom gleaming on its barbed tip. His tawny paws were still soaked in blood.
“You’re a long way from home,” Thorn said. She’d met the beast before, in the back streets of the Calabas.
“I could say the same of you,” the manticore said, shaking the blood from its mane.
A pair of hands emerged from the hole in the board, and Drix pushed himself up through the opening. He caught sight of the manticore, paused for a moment, and dropped back down and out of sight.
“You’ll have to pardon my companion,” Thorn said. “So… just passing through?”
“Perhaps I came on behalf of the Daughters of Sora Kell, in search of a few wayward trolls.”
Thorn shrugged. “That would be a good reason, though a long way to come for it.”
“Too long,” the manticore replied. “Perhaps I just wished to see an old friend, to see if she was ready to repay her debt to me.”
“And are we friends?” Thorn asked.
“Friendlier than most,” it told her with a gruesome grin. “You remember that night we shared in Gray-wall, yes? The night you clung to my back as I soared through the air, carrying you from the scene of your sordid crime?”
“It’s not the sort of thing you forget,” Thorn said. Next to her, she could see Drix peering up out of his portable hole.
“You’d think not,” the beast replied. “And yet you’ve forgotten so many things, haven’t you?”
In that moment, that night in the Calabas came back to her, and she remembered the strange things the manticore had said to her. Are we strangers? it had asked her. And Have you no fear of my venom? My spite has laid dragons low.
“Sarmondelaryx,” she breathed. “You weren’t looking for me at all.”
“I told you,” the manticore rumbled. “I just wished to see an old friend.”
“I’m not Sarmondelaryx,” she said. “I’m Nyrielle Tam. I’m Thorn.”
“So you say,” the beast said, showing its bloody smile. “I can follow a scent across the length of the world, and I know dragon well. I heard the cry of triumph when you devoured Drulkalatar Atesh. Have you remembered the story I want to hear?”
“Try me.”
“No.” The manticore shook its massive head. “If you remembered, I would not have to ask. It is not our time yet. But we are close, yes. I smell the future on the wind, little one. And I will have my story soon enough.”
“I wish I could sit around and wait with you,” Thorn said. “Unfortunately I’ve got other things to do here.”
The beast raised its head, drawing a deep breath through its nose. “Yes. You’ve come searching for the fortress that lies in the woods.”
“As a matter of fact-”
“The woods are haunted,” it told her. “Filled with the dreams of those who came too close to the hidden citadel. Their bodies were burned, leaving only a last spark of hope, now turned ugly and sour, the one hope remaining to steal the life of another who might pass through.”
“Lovely,” Thorn said.
“In its way,” it said, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “I had a friend once who loved these woods. She’d come here from time to time, hunting these ghosts and swallowing them whole, savoring that last fading hope.”
“I’ve never had much of a taste for dashed hopes myself,” Thorn said. “We’ll manage somehow, I’m sure.”
“If only you had wings, you could cross the haunted wood on the night winds and glide over the walls themselves.”
“Why stop at wings?” Thorn said. “Perhaps I could have fiery breath that can melt stone and bring the citadel itself tumbling down.”
The manticore laughed, the sound a low rumble. “Were the walls made of stone, it would surely be that simple. But how long must we play this little game? How long until you ask for the strength of my wings again?”
“And what will I pay this time?” Thorn said. When she’d first met the creature, she’d thought its price of a story to be a gift; seeing it again, she was beginning to wonder what she had given up.
“You’ll only know if you ask.”
“Then tell me, my dear, old friend: Will you carry me through the air and to my destination?”
