though it might well mean your own death. Why?'
The small man was so terrified, he had to struggle to force out an answer to Solus's question. 'Buh-because Diran's my friend.'
Solus probed the small man's surface thoughts and found no deception, only fierce affection and loyalty to the priest. If Diran Bastiaan truly was the monster Galharath had made him out to be, how could the priest have inspired such deep feelings of friendship in this small man, feelings so strong that he had fought to overcome his paralyzing fear to protect Diran, even at the cost of his own life?
Solus realized that he had made a terrible mistake. He reached into Diran's mind which, while in the process of dying wasn't quite dead yet, and reactivated the priest's heart. Diran's eyes flew open and his body spasmed as he drew in a deep, gasping breath.
Satisfied that the priest would live, Solus turned to regard the trio watching him from shore. He fixed his gaze upon Galharath and sent a simple thought to the kalashtar.
You lied.
Galharath smiled. So I did.
The psionic artificer furrowed his brow, and Solus felt a wave of energy surging toward him. He attempted to erect a mental barrier to defend himself, but he was inexperienced at psionic combat, and Galharath's attack broke apart into a dozen different streams of energy that snaked around Solus's barrier with ease. The streams coalesced as the psychic energy streaked toward the small green crystal that Galharath had embedded in the psi-forged's forehead. Solus felt the crystal grow hot as energy suffused it, then the shard exploded, taking a good chunk of the psi-forged's head with it, and Solus knew no more.
Diran came to with his head in Asenka's lap. She gazed down at him, smiling with relief as a single tear slid down her cheek.
'For a moment there…' She trailed off, leaving her thought incomplete.
Diran frowned. He knew something had happened, but he wasn't quite sure what. He'd been having a dream in which a silver flame burned bright and warm in the darkness, a flame that called to him in a soundless voice to come toward it… to come home. It had been such a pleasant dream that he was almost sorry he'd awakened.
He felt weak as a kitten, and when he tried to sit up, he needed Asenka's help. He looked around, trying to remember what had happened before he'd lost consciousness. He saw Hinto grinning at him, and behind the halfling stood a warforged whose body was covered by colorful crystalline shards. For some reason, Diran thought the shards should be glowing, but no light came from them now. The warforged's back was to him, and he stood with his arms held out in front of his face, as if trying to ward off some sort of attack. The construct stood motionless, and Diran had the impression that at the moment he contained no more life than a statue. He didn't think the warforged was dead, but why he should have that impression, he wasn't sure.
He turned to look seaward and saw Tresslar rise to a sitting position farther down the dock. The artificer grimaced and rubbed his temples. Diran had a vague memory of healing Tresslar, but he couldn't recall the specific injury that the man had suffered. Whatever it had been, it appeared the artificer would be all right, and for that Diran was grateful. Another memory came back to him then, an image of three men standing on the shore, watching as… as the warforged attacked.
Diran's full memory returned to him in a sudden rush, and he looked at the shore where Aldarik Cathmore had been standing, alongside an orc and a lean man Diran took to be a kalashtar, but no one stood there now. Cathmore was gone.
A splashing sound to his right drew Diran's attention, and he turned to see Ghaji haul himself out of the water and onto the dock.
'Sorry it took me so long to get back, but I dropped my axe, and the damn thing sank to the bottom.' The half-orc looked around. 'So… what did I miss?'
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thank you for allowing us to bring the warforged to the Sea Scorpions' barracks,' Diran said.
'Baron Mahir ordered me to conduct a full investigation into the warforged's attack,' Asenka said, then she smiled. 'Besides, it's the least I can do for you after you healed my people who were harmed during the construct's rampage.'
'Why are we doing anything with him?' Ghaji said. 'Aside from disassembling him, that is. He nearly killed you, Diran.'
'Actually, I believe he did kill me, but then he changed his mind and returned me to life.'
Diran gazed down upon the warforged. The construct lay upon a table in the barracks' common room, eyes dark, body frozen in the same position it had held on the dock: arms held up as if to ward off an invisible assault. Diran's companions-with the exception of Makala, who still slumbered aboard the Zephyr-stood around the table looking at the creature that had come close to slaying them all.
'Solus,' Hinto said.
Everyone turned to look at the halfling.
Hinto explained without taking his eyes off the warforged. 'That's his name: Solus.'
'How could you possibly know that?' Tresslar asked.
Hinto shrugged. 'I don't know. I just do.'
Tresslar snorted. 'Nonsense.'
'I'm inclined to believe you, Hinto.' Diran examined the warforged's injuries more closely. His right arm was singed from the fire caused by Ghaji's axe, and the weapon had cut out a small wedge of wood as well, but by far the most serious damage had occurred to Solus's head. The explosion, whatever its cause, had blasted a fist-sized hole in the warforged's forehead, but where such an injury would've revealed ravaged brain tissue in a fully organic being, only solid rock was visible within Solus's head.
Hinto looked up at Diran, a worried expression on his face, but a hopeful look in his eyes. 'You're a priest. Can't you do anything for him?'
'I'm sorry, my friend, but my abilities don't extend to healing damage done to constructs. Such work is the province of artificers.'
Everyone turned to Tresslar.
'Don't look at me!' the artificer said.
'You told me once that you used to help repair the warforged that served on the Seastar!' Hinto protested.
'Yes, but I merely patched over a few holes, filled in some cracks, occasionally refit an eye or finger… but this-' Tresslar gestured toward the huge divot in Solus's forehead-'is another matter entirely. Such damage would require the attention of an artificer who specializes in warforged… assuming this construct can be revived at all.'
'We don't have a specialist,' Diran said. 'We have you. You admit that you worked on warforged during the time you sailed with Erdis Cai. You must have had the opportunity to increase your knowledge during your years at Dreadhold. Surely there were some warforged among the prison populace.'
'A few,' Tresslar admitted. 'Though warforged tend to commit fewer crimes than others.' He leaned over Solus to examine more closely the warforged's head injury. He scratched his beard thoughtfully. 'Warforged's internal workings are very different from ours. Their minds aren't physical things, and their personalities don't reside in organs like our brains. Their… selves, for lack of a better term, exist as an intricate matrix of mystical energies.'
'It sounds like you're speaking of souls,' Yvka said.
Tresslar shrugged. 'If you like. The point is that while an injury like this-' he gestured to Solus's forehead-'would kill you or me, it isn't necessarily fatal to a warforged.'
'So you can fix him!' Hinto said.
'I didn't say that!' Tresslar snapped. 'I've never seen a warforged like this before.' The artificer paused, and when he spoke next, his tone was apologetic. 'I wouldn't know where to start.'
'That's not the point!' Ghaji said. His voice was tight, and his complexion a darker green than usual, the
