Two soldiers posted at the entrance turned at the sound of the door, hands reaching for their swords. They were all that stood between him and freedom, but how was he going to get past them? They had orders not to let him out-not Kelas nor anyone else who might be a changeling, which meant anyone at all. There wasn't a face he could put on that would convince the guards to let him through the doors. He fingered the wand in his hand, toying for just a moment with the idea of blasting the guards out of the way.
No, he thought, I'll leave killing soldiers to Vec.
He changed his face quickly, before the guards could get a good look at him in the hall's lantern light. 'He tried to kill me!' he shouted, finding and slowly settling into Thuel's pitch and clipped accent. He was breathing hard, out of breath, bleeding-the guards wouldn't think twice about his voice not sounding quite right. He pointed at the door he'd just burst through. 'The changeling!'
The guards got their swords out and hurried toward him.
One stammered, 'Sir, I–I thought you left the tower…'
'I came back,' Aunn barked. He wasn't dressed like Thuel, and the other guard was thinking a little too hard about the situation, from the look on her face.
'We didn't see you-' she said.
'You don't think I have ways of getting in my tower that you don't know about?' he roared. 'Now get ready to stop that maniac!'
The guards positioned themselves between Aunn and the swinging door, and Aunn heard Vec's steps coming down after him. They were uneven, as if Vec were half stumbling down the stairs. Aunn edged back from the soldiers, toward the beckoning freedom of the tower's exit, but the suspicious guard shot a glance at him.
'Haunderk!' Kelas's voice roared from the doorway, sending a lance of cold fear though Aunn's heart. He knew Kelas was dead-he'd stripped the clothes and armor from the dead body himself-but he couldn't forget a lifetime of lessons so painfully learned.
When Vec appeared in the doorway, he did not look like Kelas anymore. The burst of fire had burned his clothes and seared his skin, leaving pinkish-gray welts across his face and chest. His hair was white except where it was blackened by fire, and his face was frozen somewhere in between a horribly disfigured Kelas and his true changeling visage. The soldiers recoiled in horror, and Aunn used that moment to bolt for the door.
Am I leaving them to their death? he wondered. Letting Vec kill them so I didn't have to dirty my own hands?
'Stop him, you fools!' Vec called behind him.
'Come back here!' the suspicious guard shouted.
Well, they'll get through this all right, Aunn thought. Another few steps, and he felt the cold night air on his face. He ran across the broad, well-lit street that radiated out from the palace and past the Tower of Eyes, chose the narrow mouth of an alley and ran into it, letting its darkness close around him.
He ran through dark alleys and across bright streets until his breath failed him. He stopped, tried to quiet his breathing enough to listen for the sounds of pursuit, and heard nothing. He sank down against a wall and sat in the darkness until his breath came more easily.
He unfastened one of Kelas's belt pouches, opened it, and dumped the contents out onto the ground. A glowstone clattered on the cobblestone, shedding a faint light that let him see the rest of his and Kelas's belongings he'd dumped out-a ring of keys, a small knife with its blade folded into its hilt, several sets of identification papers, his wands. He found the wand he needed and touched its tip to the wound on his back, then his shoulder. Tingling warmth spread through his body, knitting his injured flesh back together and restoring some of his flagging energy.
He removed another pouch and dumped its contents out with the rest. More papers, the shard of masonry he'd taken from Gaven's cell, the silver torc he'd removed from Dania's body and then taken from the wreckage of the Dragon Forge. He found a tinder box as well, and set it in his lap.
He had one more pouch, which he removed and dumped out, and then he unbuckled his sword belt and took off his clothes as well. Naked but not feeling the cold, he changed-he let his body relax into no form at all. It was hard at first, to resist shaping himself and instead just let his body be what it wanted to be, but once he began letting go, his flesh gladly slid from his control. Shorter than Kelas, slender and smooth, gray-skinned and white- haired. He tried to look at his face in the blade of Kelas's sword, but he didn't have enough light.
'I am Aunn,' he murmured.
He crouched back down to the ground and began to sort the things he'd dumped out of his pouches. Everything that belonged to Kelas went in one pile, everything that was his in another. Using Kelas's identification papers as kindling, he started a small fire in that pile, then one by one, he added his own belongings-starting with his own sheaf of identification papers, showing half a dozen different names and faces he never wanted to wear again. He fastened Dania's torc around his neck, rubbed the masonry shard between his fingers, and watched his old life and Kelas's slowly burn away in flame.
'I am Aunn,' he said again. 'This is who I am.'
CHAPTER 22
The turning of the age?' Ashara said. 'That's what Havrakhad said.'
Cart nodded. 'Yes. And now I understand it.' He strode through the streets, forcing Ashara to hurry her steps, half running, to keep up.
'What are you talking about?' The pace was making Ashara breathe heavily again, and her words came out between deep gasps for air.
'He could explain it better than I.'
'But he didn't, did he? Cart, what's going on?'
'I saw something,' Cart said. He wasn't sure he could describe it, or in any way help Ashara understand what was suddenly clear to him. 'We live in an age of darkness, but it's drawing to a close.'
'You sound like Gaven now.'
Cart slowed his pace just slightly. 'Do I? Interesting.'
Ashara caught up and took his arm. 'The Time of the Dragon Below he was talking about, and the rise of the Blasphemer-is that the end of this age?'
'Perhaps it is.'
'So what does the next age hold?'
Cart looked down at her and was struck again at the expressiveness of her face. Shadows and lines beneath her eyes, which he hadn't noticed before, told him how tired she was. Creases in her brow spoke of worry and anxiety. The hint of a smile at one corner of her mouth, and something in the warm brown of her eyes whispered of what he was coming to recognize as her affection for him, mixed with something else-something else that made her want to smile, or made her think of a reason to smile.
'I think that's largely up to us,' Cart said. 'Now come on!' He stepped up his pace again, and Ashara had to let go of his arm as she hustled to keep up.
'What's the hurry? Do we have to save the world right now?'
'We might.'
Ashara gave up asking questions after that, saving her breath for running as he led the way back to Havrakhad's apartment.
As he walked, Cart imagined his footsteps-the steady beating of the metal and leather in his feet against the cobblestones-as one beat in a larger cadence, as if he were part of an army marching toward the kalashtar's home, an army of truth and light marching forth to do battle against the darkness. It comforted him to think in those terms, as if the axe at his side could help him against the nightmare monster he'd seen, as if the age of darkness were an enemy army he could stand against. As if he and Ashara were not alone in the dark streets of Fairhaven, cut off from what few allies they had.
But if his steady strides were a marching cadence, a steady drumbeat impelling him forward with determination and resolve, Ashara's steps were a fluttering descant that lent a hint of panic to the march. They reminded him of the frightened mobs he'd seen fleeing from the quori or screaming at the barbarians' approach in
