One of the newcomers, a broad-shouldered man with a blond beard, appeared to be the leader. He looked around the room, taking the measure of its patrons, and then said, 'I bring you greetings from your neighbors across the Gulf of Ingjald! The Coldhearts have just made port and we have a ravenous thirst for some fine ale, but since the best drink can only be found in the taverns of Kolbyr, I suppose we'll have to make do with the piss-water you people serve!'
Blond-Beard's companions laughed as if their leader had just made the funniest jest in the history of the Principalities. But none of the King Prawn's customers came even close to smiling.
Diran looked at Ghaji. 'How long do you think it'll be before a fight breaks out?'
'Less than a minute. Better get ready.' Ghaji drew his axe, though he didn't activate its flames. Diran's hands disappeared beneath the tabletop and remained there, out of sight. Ghaji knew the priest had drawn a pair of daggers and was ready to use them should the need arise.
Tresslar sighed. 'I'll say one thing. My life hasn't been dull since I joined up with you two.' The artificer left his dragonwand tucked beneath his belt-for the moment, at least. Tresslar wasn't one to expend magic unless it was absolutely necessary.
Ghaji glanced at Hinto, but the halfling showed no signs of panic. He was a sailor, and to him this was just another tavern fight in the offing. Nothing out of the ordinary and thus nothing to fear.
Yvka leaned close and whispered in Ghaji's ear. 'First a thoroughly invigorating greeting, and now a swordfight in a seedy tavern. You sure know how to show a woman a good time.'
'What can I say? Only the best for my girl.'
That's when the first drunken fool leaped up from his table, drew his sword, and ran at the leader of the Coldhearts, bellowing a battle-cry.
'Let's go,' Diran said.
As Ghaji and the priest jumped to their feet, the half-orc was glad to see that his friend smile grimly. Whoever Aldarik Cathmore was, they could worry about him later. Right now they had work to do-the kind they did best.
Weapons in hand, the two companions rushed forward, side by side.
CHAPTER FOUR
It's cold.'
'Nonsense. This chamber is directly above a thermal vent. If anything, it's sweltering in here.'
Cathmore drew his bearskin cloak tighter around his cadaverously thin frame. He didn't reply to Galharath because he knew the kalashtar was right. Though he couldn't feel the heat himself, he could see the sweat running down the other man's slightly angular face. Cathmore was envious. It had been a long time since he'd felt warm, and he almost couldn't remember what it was like.
Galharath possessed the physical traits common to kalashtar men-tall, slim, clean-shaven, and handsome. He wore his long brown hair in a braid with crystal shards of various colors woven in. Open-fingered leather gloves covered each hand, with eight more crystals affixed to the knuckles. Yet another crystal-this one large and emerald green-was embedded in the center of the black leather vest worn over his gray tunic. Cathmore didn't fully understand the nature of the crystals or how they aided Galharath in his work, but then he knew little of magic and even less of the psionic artificer's craft-and he didn't care to learn. All that mattered to him were results.
The two men stood surrounded by the darkness of a vast mountain cavern, awash in an island of pale green light cast by a series of everbright light-poles bolted to the stone floor. The light-poles surrounded and illuminated a large spherical structure twenty feet high and ten feet wide. The object was fashioned from thousands of hair-thin crystalline strands woven together to form a solid, gleaming surface. Four large crystal struts extended from the top of the sphere and stretched up into the darkness where they were embedded in the ceiling's rough stone. A dozen smaller struts protruded from the sphere's base, curved downward, and penetrated the cavern floor. Though Cathmore had never asked, he assumed these smaller struts connected the sphere to the thermal vent that was making his kalashtar associate sweat so. In the middle of the sphere was an eight-foot by four-foot opening, and visible within-for the sphere was hollow-lay a crystal table with a series of indecipherable runes carved into its sides.
Galharath stood before the sphere's entrance, eyes closed, hands held out before him, his thin, graceful fingers moving through the air as if he were a musician delicately plucking the strings of an invisible, silent instrument.
Cathmore disliked being near Galharath when the kalashtar was working, which was why he stood a dozen feet away from the artificer at the edge of the pool of light. The atmosphere always felt charged like after a violent thunderstorm, and there was an irritating insect-like drone in the air that Cathmore sometimes thought seemed to issue from inside his own mind. These visits often left him with a headache, but Cathmore had made an investment of both time and resources in this project-a great deal of each, as a matter of fact-and he was determined to oversee its progress.
'So? Have you managed to repair it?'
Galharath didn't open his eyes as he replied. 'I've fixed the outer shell, but that's the easy part. There's also a lattice of psionic energies that must be perfectly aligned in order for the forge to function. Adjusting this lattice is painstakingly delicate work, requiring as much instinct as skill, and despite what you might think, that process isn't sped up by you constantly looking over my shoulder as I work.'
Cathmore clenched his jaw in anger. There had been a time when someone who spoke to him like that would've been well advised to hire himself a food taster, but though the kalashtar was technically employed by Cathmore, the psionic artificer viewed himself as an equal partner in this endeavor, and since Cathmore had need of the man's undeniable expertise, he chose not to make an issue of Galharath's impertinence. This time.
Forget the fool, you don't need him. You don't need anyone or anything… except me.
The voice that whispered in Cathmore's mind was a familiar one, and he knew it as well as he did his own, in many ways better.
It would be so simple. All you'd have to do is remove the vial of yellow death-spores from your doublet pocket, pry out the cork, and release a few into the air. You took the antidote years ago and are immune, but Galharath isn't. All the kalashtar's psionic abilities couldn't prevent the spores from seeking him out, finding their way into his lungs, and swiftly beginning to reproduce. In only a few moments, Galharath would die gasping for air, his throat and lungs filled with newly born spores.
Without even realizing he was doing so, Cathmore's hand reached toward the pocket of his brown doublet.
Galharath's hand motions stopped. He opened his eyes and turned to face Cathmore. 'Don't do it, old man. I'm well aware of the dark voice that speaks to you and what it urges you to do. It would only take me an instant's thought to reduce your brain to steaming jelly.'
At first Cathmore had no idea what the artificer was talking about, but then he realized his fingers had slid inside his pocket. It took an effort of will, but he withdrew them and allowed his hand to drop to his side. Though Cathmore's hands weren't visible beneath his bearskin cloak, Galharath nevertheless relaxed.
'You're bluffing,' Cathmore said. 'You don't possess that kind of power.'
The kalashtar gave him a thin smile.
They locked gazes for several moments, but it was Cathmore who looked away first. 'I… apologize, Galharath. It was a momentary lapse of control on my part. It won't happen again.'
The kalashtar's smile took on a mocking edge. 'It will happen again, and more frequently. Hosting an entity such as the one that dwells within you comes with a price. Just look at you. How old are you? Sixty? Seventy? You look closer to a hundred, and not a very healthy hundred at that.'
Cathmore was fifty-nine, but he knew Galharath wasn't overstating the case. He was a skeleton of a man, little more than parchment-thin skin stretched tight over brittle bone. He had only wisps of white hair clinging to his bald pate, and a patchy white beard that refused to grow any fuller. Most telling of all were his eyes. They were a sour yellow-green, like pus-filled wounds ready to burst at any moment. Cathmore was struck anew by the irony that he, a master of poisons, had been infected with a toxin. That this toxin wasn't derived from a chemical but was
