“And the man?”
Her color deepened, and she spoke as if to get the painful truth out as quickly as possible. “He had no papers.”
“He had no papers,” Bordan repeated, his voice flat.
“He was an heir of Siberys! He hardly had to prove his identity. I could see the dragonmark right there!”
“Calm down. I’m not here to challenge your decision. I’ll leave that to your house. What was their destination?”
“They bought passage to Vathirond.”
“Did they say why?”
“He said he was going there to see his family. He came here to work for his cousin, he said, but something happened between his cousin and the woman, I think, so they were going home. Or that’s what he said.”
Bordan found what he sought on the parchment pages. “Is this her? Senya Arrathinen?”
The woman leaned forward to see where Bordan pointed. “Yes, that’s the one.”
Bordan picked up his pen, jabbed it into the ink, and scrawled what little information the log held into his notebook. Senya Arrathinen, citizen of Aundair, residence in Fairhaven.
“This shows her destination as Vulyar,” he said.
“Does it? Hm. Well, that makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Certainly. When traveling papers show a destination on the other side of the Mournland, I don’t pay much attention. We’re obviously not carrying you across on the lightning rail, so I assume whatever your destination may be is just your next stop on the way to where you’re going. And Vathirond makes sense, being just this side of the Mournland.”
“But he told you Vathirond was their final destination.”
“He did, but that was after she bought her passage. Didn’t register in my mind.”
“I see. So they’re on the lightning rail, bound for Vathirond. Where does that cart stop?”
“Zolanberg first, then Sterngate, where Breland will check the passengers pretty carefully. Then up to Starilaskur, then Vathirond.”
“Four stops. That should be more than enough. They can’t run like that every time.”
CHAPTER 19
The steerage cart grew dark as the sun sank over the forests of Zilargo. No lights would come on, Gaven knew-ever-bright lanterns might shine in the other carts, but steerage passengers went to sleep when the sun went down and rose at dawn. Or else they sat awake in the dark.
Gaven sat up through the first watch of the night, thinking they were probably the longest three bells of his life.
The lightning rail came in to Zolanberg at the start of the second watch. Gaven sat on a bench, cradling a gnome woman on his lap as if she were his young child. He tried to remember her name as he stared at the cart door, waiting for it to open. Lightning flashed along the length of the car as it came to a slow stop, and Gaven allowed himself a quick glance at Senya. She was mostly hidden behind Vond’s huge, hairy body, but he could see her legs draped along the bench on one side. This was the best plan Senya could come up with. Her idea was that a man traveling with a small child would not be suspect, and a woman traveling with the minotaur would be carefully avoided. For his part, Gaven had been too sore and tired to think of anything better. He shook his head, trying to prepare himself for what would probably turn into a terrible fight-or at least another headlong flight.
It seemed to take forever for the door to open. Gaven supposed that made sense. If they were searching for him, they wouldn’t want a rush of passengers disembarking all at once. There were many travelers, mostly gnomes, standing by the door, waiting to get off, and if Gaven hadn’t been twice the height of most of them he might have tried getting lost in that crowd. It would have been a mistake. When the door finally opened, the people standing nearby agitated toward the door, but a loud voice commanded them to form a single line to get off and have identification papers ready.
Gaven’s heart beat a rhythm of panic. He still had no identification papers. What would he do if someone asked to see them? It would have been smarter, he reflected, to bluff the staff at the Sivis enclave into giving him papers instead of bullying the Orien agent. Probably harder, but safer.
The disembarking passengers filed off slowly. As their numbers thinned, Gaven could see past them to the gnome guards who scanned the faces of each passenger. Gaven let out a cautious sigh. Zil soldiers were one thing-one he suspected he could deal with. Medani inquisitives or Sentinel Marshals would have been another matter. The guards mostly waved the passengers through with no more than a cursory glance at them and their papers, though Gaven did see one gnome who looked like she might be scanning for magical auras. They paid more attention to the few orcs and humans who got off the cart, staring closely into their faces and checking their identification.
When all the departing passengers were off the cart, a gnome with a lantern climbed in and walked around. He made a wide circle around Vond, though Gaven saw his eyes linger on Senya’s legs for a while. He peered more closely at the remaining tallfolk on the cart, pausing to harass a half-orc with completely irrelevant questions. Then he stood in front of Gaven, shining the light into his face.
“That your child?” the soldier demanded.
“Yes.” The gnome in his arms gave a small cough, sounding very much like a sick child. “She’s not feeling well.”
“Poor thing, crowded into the steerage cart. What’s her name?”
Gaven swallowed hard, then blurted out the first name that popped into his head. “Rienne.”
“Pretty name.” He leaned in close, trying in vain for a better look. “You have your papers?”
Gaven jerked his head toward the bench he sat on. “In my pocket.”
The soldier chewed his tongue, trying to decide whether to insist on seeing the papers. Then he laid a gentle hand on the gnome woman’s shoulder. “Feel better, sweetheart,” he said. Then he was gone.
Passengers were finally allowed to board, and the steerage cart grew crowded. Only when the new passengers were getting settled, the door was closed, and the lightning rail finally started moving did Gaven release his hold on the gnome in his arms, setting her down on her feet beside him.
“Rienne?” she said. “That is a pretty name.”
Gaven shrugged. “Thank you so much for your help. You probably saved my life.”
“Yeah, me and the fact that the guy they sent in to look for you was a family man.” She no longer sounded like a child, but like a streetwise woman of middle age. “Whew! It was getting hot in there.” She fanned herself with one hand to emphasize the point. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s been a good long time since I had a pair of strong arms around me.” She noted Gaven’s discomfort, and put a hand on his arm. “Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, you’re not my type.” Her eyes widened. “Way too big.”
He stood overlooking a blasted canyon, desolate of life, like a wound that refused to heal ripped into the earth. Wolves that were not wolves howled, too close at hand, but he did not move. The only sign of life was a churning cloud of smoke and steam that billowed up from a rift in the floor of the canyon.
He fell until he was in the canyon, peering through hot smoke to a great furnace below. He felt a steadying hand on his shoulder. He clasped it in his own hand without tearing his eyes from the eldritch machine, the source of all the smoke. Dragonfire fed the furnace, and fiendish figures tended it.
Beside the great machine, whose great canisters and ichor-filled tubes were too bizarre for his mind to comprehend, a mass of crystal jutted up from the cavern floor. A silver serpent writhed and coiled in the heart of the crystal, as if it were the largest dragonshard ever seen. Caught within its coils was a smear of darkness. Gaven could feel the serpent’s rage, a palpable fury radiating like heat from the crystal far below him.
A quiet voice came over his shoulder, words lost in the noise of the furnace like the haziness of dream. Words sprang to his lips in answer-
“Two spirits share one prison beneath the wastes, secrets kept and revelation granted. They bind and are
