he was upon the source of the golden fire, and he stopped running.
The wind billowed around him, lashing the ferns and the leaves of the overhanging trees like a tiny cyclone, then it blew itself out. Gaven looked down at the Eye of Siberys where it lay, nestled in the tiny crater of its impact, where the earth had formed a sheltering hand to hold it. Blackened ferns lined its bed, burned from its heat, still blowing out wisps of smoke that twisted and danced in the dying wind. He fell to his knees and stretched out a trembling hand to touch it.
It was warm, not hot as he’d feared. Its yellow surface shone with light reflected from the Ring of Siberys high above, and veins of gold in its heart pulsed with a light of their own. He scooped it up with both hands, holding it in front of him like a chalice full of holy water. As he stood, he heard thunderous footsteps behind him, and he pulled it close to his chest as he turned to face his companions.
Darraun reached him first, wild amazement in his eyes. He was breathing too hard to speak, and he bent over double to catch his breath before Haldren and the others reached them.
Gaven cradled the Eye of Siberys close. Its warmth spread through him and set his dragonmark tingling.
CHAPTER 10
That was quite a run,” Darraun said, trying to smile as he panted.
Gaven ignored him, his gaze fixed on the pulsing veins of gold in the heart of the dragonshard.
“Gaven?” No answer.
Darraun shot a nervous glance over his shoulder at Haldren, who ran as fast as his old legs could carry him. He was still a bowshot away, though Senya and Cart were closer.
Stepping closer to Gaven, Darraun tried to get a good look at the crystal, good enough to analyze the magic in it. “Gaven, if you’ll let me look at that…”
Gaven turned away, shielding the dragonshard against his chest, his eyes still glued to it.
Darraun put a hand on Gaven’s shoulder. “Gaven, look at me.” He shook him gently, then harder. Gaven pulled away but didn’t raise his eyes.
“This is not good,” Darraun muttered. “I’m sorry about this, Gaven.” He swung his fist at Gaven’s chin as hard as he could, hoping to snap Gaven out of this trance.
A deafening clap of thunder shattered the air, and Darraun found himself on his back two strides away from Gaven, gasping for breath. His ears rang, but he could still hear the footsteps approaching.
Senya and Cart stopped dead near where Darraun lay. Cart fell to one knee beside him.
“Are you injured?” the warforged asked, his voice heavy with concern. Darraun shook his head. “What did he do to you?”
Darraun sat up. Gaven still held up the hand he had used to block Darraun’s punch, but his eyes remained focused on the dragonshard in his other hand. Senya stood behind Cart, staring at Gaven as if she were entranced. A clap of thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I think the dragonshard is enchanting him somehow, so I tried to wrench his attention away from it. Evidently he’s got some attention to spare-enough to defend himself anyway.”
“Evidently,” Cart said. He lifted Darraun to his feet and shifted his shield on his arm, his right hand coming to rest on the head of his axe.
“Do we need to take him down?” Senya whispered.
Darraun turned around just as Haldren caught up with them, breathing heavily from the exertion. “I don’t think-” he started to say, but Haldren cut him off.
“Gaven!” Haldren stepped forward, extending a hand to Gaven. “Give me the Eye of Siberys now!”
To Darraun’s surprise, Gaven looked up at the sorcerer, holding the dragonshard in his left hand, as far from Haldren as possible.
“Not until you tell me exactly what is going on,” Gaven said.
Seeing the Eye of Siberys and touching it, Gaven’s mind flooded with memories. There could be no doubt that it was the dragonshard of his visions-he had seen that crystal shard carved to a point and bound to an ash-black staff to form a spear. He’d seen it plunge into the twisting shadow body of the Soul Reaver, in fulfillment of the Prophecy-
There among the bones of Khyber the Storm Dragon drives the spear formed from Siberys’s Eye into the Soul Reaver’s heart.
As he continued gazing into the dragonshard’s liquid depths, Gaven found himself very aware of the present. The Eye had earned its name. Staring into it was like opening a great eye onto the world. He saw Darraun approach, with the others straggling behind. He saw Darraun pulling his hand back for a punch, and it took little more than a thought for him to react, blocking the punch and knocking Darraun away, without ever looking up from the dragonshard. He saw as he had never seen before-he saw every living thing nearby, from the gibbons in the trees to the ants crawling along the ground. He saw each tree, the orchids nestled in their branches, the lianas coiled around their trunks, and the ferns shielding the earth.
And then he saw himself, far more clearly than ever before. He remembered who he was, the man he’d been before Dreadhold, before the memories of the other came and coiled in his mind. And he saw the man he’d become, stumbling along behind Haldren’s lead in a fog of confusion or madness. He realized that he did not want to be that man any longer. It was time to confront Haldren, who had reached him and demanded the dragonshard.
“Not until you tell me exactly what is going on.” Gaven stared into Haldren’s pale blue eyes, which were open wide in surprise.
“Very well, Gaven,” the sorcerer said. Gaven enjoyed seeing Haldren caught off guard. “Very well. We have no secrets here. What do you want to know?”
“You think Vaskar is the Storm Dragon of the Prophecy,” Gaven said. “You’re helping him raise the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor so that he can walk in the paths of the first ascendant and become a god. What’s in it for you?”
“A noble enough goal in itself, don’t you think?” Haldren had recovered his wits, and his voice was smooth.
“I don’t know about Vaskar, but most people don’t aspire to seize godhood out of a benevolent desire to make the world better,” Gaven said.
“On the contrary, Gaven, most of us believe that the world would be a better place if we had the power to shape it according to our will.”
“I’m sure you’d like the same power. How do you plan to get it?”
“In exchange for my aid in acquiring divine power, Vaskar has agreed to help me acquire power that is more temporal in nature.”
“Which throne do you plan to seize?”
Haldren smiled. “The only throne worth holding.”
Something gnawed at the edge of Gaven’s mind-a fragment of the Prophecy, a flash of a vision or a nightmare, but he banished it. He would not be the madman any longer. “Thronehold?” he said. “A new Galifar?” Before the Last War, all Khorvaire had been united in a single empire ruled from Thronehold. The scions of old Galifar had warred for a century over the right to sit in that throne.
“Something like that, yes. You know that I appreciate your assistance, Gaven. I can assure you of a position of power in the new world.”
“Why were you in Dreadhold?”
“For no worse crime than yours,” Haldren whispered. Gaven could tell that he had struck a nerve. “I disagreed with our Queen Aurala over the way the war should be prosecuted.”
“Sounds like you should have been stripped of your command, maybe thrown in an Aundairian jail. Why Dreadhold?”
Haldren’s voice dropped to an urgent whisper, and he stepped closer to Gaven, speaking right into his face. “You were already imprisoned at the time, Gaven, but at the end of the war the nations decided they could put the horrors of the war behind them if they locked some people up. I was a scapegoat-they locked me up so they could believe that all the death and destruction was the work of criminals. I was fighting a war, damn it!”
