The four companions left the room, closing the door behind them. They headed down a stone hallway, and then down a flight of stairs to the ground floor. Yvka led them to the southwest corner, and they stopped before what Diran hoped was Tresslar’s door. Diran knocked, and when there was no answer, he knocked harder. They waited several moments, and just as Diran was about to knock for a third time, a muffled voice came from the other side.
“Who is it?” Tresslar’s voice.
As an assassin, Diran had been trained to imitate voices, and though he was no genius at it, he was a passable mimic. He pitched his voice low, in a fair imitation of a dwarf’s. “Gizur wants to see you. He’s made an alarming discovery about those two visitors you had today.”
Tresslar didn’t respond right away, and Diran began to think they would have to force their way in and risk waking everyone up. Then came the sound of a lock being disengaged. The door swung open and Tresslar poked his head out.
“Who-” The artificer’s question died away as Diran pressed to the tip of a dagger to his throat.
“Step backward slowly,” Diran said, “and be careful not to stumble. You wouldn’t want my hand to slip.” Diran had no intention of hurting Tresslar, but he couldn’t afford to let the artificer cry out for help.
Tresslar nodded, his eyes nearly crossing as he tried to look down at the blade being held to his throat. He did as Diran commanded, taking slow steps backward into the room. Diran followed, keeping the point of the dagger pressed to the artificer’s neck, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough so that the man couldn’t forget it was there.
As they backed into the room, the others followed, and when they were all inside, Yvka closed and locked the door. Tresslar’s room, while no larger than the one upstairs, had a human-sized bed, a desk and chair, and a small bookcase filled with volumes. A lantern on top of the desk lit the room with a soft orange glow. A book lay open on the desk, and the chair was pulled back and sitting at an angle. It appeared Tresslar had been doing some reading.
Tresslar frowned when he saw Yvka and Hinto. “Let me guess. These are your apprentices.” The artificer’s joke was belied by the quaver of fear in his voice.
“As you’ve undoubtedly guessed by now, we aren’t scholars. I am Diran Bastiaan, priest of the Silver Flame, and the man carrying the axe is my companion, Ghaji. The others are Yvka and Hinto. We regret the necessity of invading your quarters like this, but we are on a rescue mission, and it’s vital that we discover where Erdis Cai makes his home port.”
Diran went on to give Tresslar a truncated version of the Black Fleet’s raid on Port Verge, along with their belief that Erdis Cai, now a vampire lord, was the one ultimately behind it. Diran kept the dagger against Tresslar’s throat the entire time he spoke, but when the priest was finished, he pulled the knife away and returned the blade to its sheath on his hip.
“Now that you know the truth,” Diran said, “will you help us?”
Tresslar stood there for a moment, moving his gaze back and forth between his four visitors. Finally, he walked over to the edge of his bed and sat down. He hunched over, hands clasped beneath his knees, and stared down at the floor.
“For forty years I’ve lived and worked on this island without once setting foot off it. I came here to hide… from him. I figured if there was anywhere in the world where I’d be safe, it would be within the walls of Dreadhold.” He looked up at them. “So the captain became a vampire, eh? And Onkar too. I’ve heard rumors about the Black Fleet, and I’d wondered if it might have some connection to Erdis. Now I know.”
“If you didn’t know what Cai had become, why did you feel the need to hide yourself from him?” Diran asked.
“I might not have known the captain’s exact fate, but I knew the last time I saw him that if he survived his final quest he would become a creature of evil. I feared he would come in search of me because the captain didn’t take kindly to deserters. Not at all.
“I was a young man when I joined the crew of the Seastar. I was already a skilled artificer, but I was a callow youth with much to learn about the ways of the world, and Erdis…” Tresslar shook his head but fondness came into his tone. “Erdis was like something out of a folktale. Larger than life. Confident, daring, brave. He was everything I wanted to be. Erdis took me under his wing, and I became like his younger brother. The adventures we had… let me tell you, I’ve read most of the accounts of our voyages that have been penned since, and none of them come close to the reality. My time on the Seastar was wondrous beyond belief.”
“What happened?” Ghaji asked. “How did someone like Erdis Cai become what he is now?”
“It was his appetite for adventure,” Tresslar said. “He’d done so much in his life that by the time he reached his forties, he’d become jaded. He began seeking out new and more dangerous challenges. He became rash and gambled with his life and the lives of his crew simply to stave off boredom for another day, but Erdis’ boredom wasn’t solely to blame. The Last War had been going on for nearly eighty years by that point, and while the Seastar never fought on behalf of any nation, we saw a fair bit of action. The senseless ravages of war began to wear on Erdis’ spirit, and he became disillusioned and filled with despair. No longer able to believe in the goodness of mortals or the presence of beneficent gods, he began searching for anything to believe in, and one day that search led him and the crew of the Seastar north to the frozen isle of Farlnen. Erdis had heard stories that a dark goddess lived there, and he was determined to find out if they were true.”
Diran knew what goddess Erdis Cai had found on Farlnen.
“Vol,” Diran whispered.
Tresslar nodded. “The closer we came to Farlnen, the more frightened I became. From some time I’d been concerned about the change that had come over Erdis, but whenever I tried to speak to him about it, he’d wave the matter aside. So many of the crew had perished during those last few months, and I began to fear this would be the final voyage for Erdis Cai and the Seastar. I decided I had to jump ship, but when I spoke to some of the other crew to see if they felt the same way, they hinted that I was talking mutiny. I rigged a longboat for myself, attached firestones to keep me warm, a lodestone compass, and bound a small water elemental to the stern for propulsion. Then one night I took some food and water, got in the boat, lowered it over the side, and watched the Seastar continue northward while I began slowly heading south. That was the last I saw of Erdis Cai.
“During the voyage back to the Principalities, I had time to think. I knew that if Erdis survived, he might come after me one day to punish me for deserting him, and that he might be… changed. I decided to come to Dreadhold and offer my services as an artificer. Luckily, the warden at the time took me on. I never told him or anyone else on Dreadhold about my time with Erdis. I honestly never expected to remain here for so long, but one year led to another, and now I’ve served on Dreadhold longer than anyone else. Forty years.”
Tresslar shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
Diran felt sorry for the man. What was it like to be so afraid of something that you would isolate yourself from the rest of the world-in effect, sentence yourself to exile-for four decades?
“Tell us where Erdis Cai is,” Diran said, “and I promise as a priest of the Silver Flame that I will slay him, and you will never again have to live in fear.”
Tresslar leaned back on his bed, palms on the mattress, arms held straight to prop himself up. He smiled in amusement. “While he was mortal, Erdis Cai was a legend. Now that he’s immortal, no one can stop him. If I tell you where he is-or at least, where I think he is-he’ll know who gave him away, and then he’ll seek me out for certain. That’s something I’d prefer to avoid, if it’s all the same to you.”
As Tresslar spoke, his left hand had inched closer to his pillow, and now he reached under it and pulled out a metal wand with a golden dragonhead on the tip. The dragon’s eyes were made from red rubies, and its teeth from glittering crystal.
“Now maybe you people are who you claim you are, and maybe you aren’t.” Tresslar’s gaze flicked back and forth between them, and a line of sweat beaded his forehead. “Either way, I can’t risk having Erdis find me, especially if he’s become-” Tresslar shuddered-“what you say he’s become. I’d prefer not to hurt any of you, but I will if I have to. If you’re sincere about rescuing those people from Erdis, then I wish you luck. I truly do. Now go, before you’re discovered. You don’t want to spend time with the master interrogators in the dungeons below Dreadhold, believe me, and that’s where they’ll take you if you’re captured.”
“We can’t leave,” Diran said, “not until we know where we can find Erdis Cai.”
He felt his frustration beginning to edge over into anger. Emon Gorsedd taught his students many ways to extract information from someone who was reluctant to talk. When Diran had made the decision to become a
