Haldren cut the dragon off. “We need your help, Gaven.”
Vaskar drew his head back on his long neck, lifting it high. Clearly, the dragon would not lower himself to asking for help, but Haldren had no such qualms.
“You know the Prophecy better than any dragon or mortal alive.” Haldren leaned forward, letting the light of the campfire dance on his face. “I’ve been listening to you for three years, and it’s clear I haven’t heard a tenth of what you know about the Prophecy. Vaskar has been studying it in Argonnessen for six human lifetimes, and there are gaps in his understanding-gaps only you can fill. Please, Gaven-please help us.”
Vaskar snorted, and a bright yellow spark flared at his nostrils. Gaven started, staring up at the dragon. The Storm Dragon, he thought. He wants the Prophecy, so he can be the Storm Dragon.
Gaven looked around their little camp. They had flown through the night, and the first glow of dawn was beginning to spread across the edge of the sea to the east. The rocky cliffs of Cape Far loomed dark in the west, blocking his view of the Ring of Siberys. Cart had built a small campfire on the rocky beach between the cliffs and the sea, and Darraun was cooking some fish that he and the warforged had caught. Gaven had not been starving in Dreadhold, but the fish smelled better than anything he’d tasted in over twenty years.
He was free! The thought struck him for the first time. The dawn sky, the dancing flames, the cooking fish-he had not seen and smelled and felt these things in years. He could walk where he pleased, and no one would herd him back to his cell when the sun set. He could-he looked up at the slowly brightening sky-he could bask in a storm, and no one would wrestle him to the ground and shove him back into confinement. A gust of wind brought a salt smell off the sea, and Gaven had a sudden longing to sail again.
“Gaven?”
He turned his gaze back to Haldren. The elf woman had washed and cut the old man’s hair and beard, and he’d put on a new set of clothes-tall boots, warm breeches, a shirt with just a hint of a frill at the collar, a short jacket, and a heavy traveling cloak. He looked twenty years younger. His pale blue eyes were striking, almost hypnotic. Compelling. Gaven found himself nodding.
“What… what do you need to know?”
Haldren sat up and flashed a triumphant smile at Vaskar.
The dragon lowered his head to speak to Gaven again. “The Time of the Dragon Above, Gaven,” he said. “It is beginning. The sun is approaching the center, spring is dawning, and I saw the moon of the Eternal Day waxing in the sky. Irian draws near, and the Storm Dragon is rising. Tell me what you know about the Time of the Dragon Above.”
Gaven recited the words he had spoken to Haldren earlier that night, back in Dreadhold. “When the Eternal Day draws near, when its moon shines full in the night, and the day is at its brightest, the Time of the Dragon Above begins. Showers of light fall upon the City of the Dead, and the Storm Dragon emerges after twice thirteen years.”
“Yes,” Vaskar hissed, “for two cycles of thirteen years I have been withdrawn from the world, and now I have emerged.”
The blond man, Darraun, approached with a wooden plate loaded with fish and some dry bread. He handed it to Gaven. Gaven took a piece of fish in his fingers and put it in his mouth. It tasted even better than it smelled, and he ate with relish.
“What else, Gaven?” Haldren asked. “What is to happen during the Time of the Dragon Above?”
Gaven closed his eyes again and lost himself in a sea of memories-words mingled with images that had haunted his dreams. What is to happen? he thought. So very much. Vaskar wanted to be the Storm Dragon.
One memory surfaced in his mind: his hand traced twisting Draconic letters carved into stone. Was it his hand? Had he been there, or was it the other? Or was this a dream, a figment, and not a memory at all? He opened his eyes and stared at the crackling fire. This is what’s real, he thought. This is what’s now.
Still staring into the flames, he read the words from the carving in his memory, if the memory was his: “In the Time of the Dragon Above, Siberys turns night into day. Showers of light fall from the sky. The Eye of Siberys falls near the City of the Dead.”
Vaskar glanced up at the Ring of Siberys, shining brightly in the night sky. “The City of the Dead,” he murmured. “In Aerenal.”
Haldren looked at Vaskar, then back at Gaven. “The Eye of Siberys, Gaven,” Haldren said, leaning toward him again. “What else can you tell us of the Eye of Siberys?”
New words sprang to his mind almost unbidden. These he had read by firelight-torchlight-and he thought he remembered Rienne at his side as he read them. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her beside him, and it made his heart ache even as rage surged in it. He spat the words out of his mouth-they tasted bitter. “The Eye of Siberys lifts the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor from the land of desolation under the dark of the great moon, and the Storm Dragon walks the paths of the first of sixteen.”
“The Sky Caves of Thieren Kor!” Haldren said, the excitement in his voice undisguised. “They are in the ‘land of desolation,’ Gaven? The Mournland, do you think?”
A nightmare. Gaven remembered waking up in Dreadhold, stumbling to the door, and whispering to Haldren how he had staggered across a land where nothing lived. And then he’d found words to anchor the vision, words with their cold solidity, only hinting at the terror of his dream. He repeated the words, savoring them as a shield from the nightmare. “Desolation spreads over that land like a wildfire, like a plague, and Eberron bears the scar of it for thirteen cycles of the Battleground.”
Haldren furrowed his brow and looked to Vaskar.
“Shavarath, the Battleground, draws near to us every thirty-six years-that is its cycle,” the dragon explained. “So thirteen cycles of the Battleground would be four hundred and sixty-eight years.” He did not pause to perform the calculation.
“Four hundred and sixty-eight years?” Haldren repeated, ignoring the food that Darraun had set before him. “That is how long the Mournland will persist?”
The dragon snorted softly. “If those words refer to the Mournland.”
“It seems the most likely candidate,” Haldren said.
“One can never be certain,” Vaskar responded. “Your century of war is not the only desolation this world has known. You humans are too quick to assume everything in the Prophecy applies to your works. Some dragons would argue that the Prophecy doesn’t even acknowledge your existence, though of course I think they are mistaken. Nevertheless, we will seek the Sky Caves in the Mournland.”
Gaven watched as Haldren and Vaskar dissected the Prophecy, ignoring him now. He was glad for the respite from questions. He stared at the dawn as it reddened the sky.
“But first we need the Eye of Siberys,” Vaskar rumbled. He looked at Gaven again. “The City of the Dead in Aerenal, when Siberys turns night into day.” He turned his beaked snout toward the sky.
Another image flashed in Gaven’s memory, another dream-yellow crystal pulsing with veins of golden light, carved to a point and bound to a blackened branch, plunging into a body that was shadow given twisting form. He shuddered.
“What is it, Gaven?” Haldren had seen the shudder. “What did you see?”
“The Eye of Siberys,” Gaven said. “A dragonshard, a huge one, the size of my hand. Formed into a weapon, a spearhead.” He shook his head, trying to dispel the image from his mind.
Haldren looked up at Vaskar, who lowered his head close to Gaven again.
“A weapon?” the dragon said. “To be used against what foe?”
The endless dark, Gaven thought, where he waits. “The Soul Reaver.”
A look of triumph flashed onto Haldren’s face, and Gaven suddenly understood what was happening. The dragon knew a great deal about the Prophecy already, and he wasn’t sure Gaven was worth the trouble. Haldren had probably used Gaven as a bargaining chip in negotiating his own rescue. And Gaven had just proven his worth, providing their first glimpse of a real hope of victory. Probably they knew the Storm Dragon would have to face the Soul Reaver, but this was the first they had heard of a way to win that fight.
The part of his mind that had kept him alive in Dreadhold reminded him to dole out such valuable insights slowly, to keep himself useful as long as possible.
“So the Eye of Siberys will raise the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor under the dark of the great moon,” Vaskar said. “And it will serve as a weapon against the Soul Reaver.” His eyes narrowed. “Is there anything else?”
Gaven didn’t want to remember any more. He wanted to taste the smoke in the air, savor the fish Darraun
