City of Towers_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [115]
“There are some things I can’t say.”
Darkness….
Daine jerked upright. The light of morning was struggling through the thick layer of dust on the windows. Lei was still sleeping on the pallet beside him. Jode’s body had been wrapped up in the preserving cloak and was set against the wall. Daine climbed out of bed and touched the cloth-wrapped bundle. There was no movement.
“There are some things I can’t say,” Daine murmured.
“Captain?”
Daine jerked upright and spun around. It was only Pierce, but it took a moment for Daine to recover from the shock. Lei stirred. “Mmm?”
“I know you were built as a scout, Pierce, but try to make more noise first thing in the morning, will you?”
“I will do my best. You appear agitated.”
“Bad dreams. I suppose it’s to be expected when you’re sleeping in the same room with the body of your best friend.”
“I wouldn’t know.” The warforged did not sleep or dream.
A few galifars had secured the room at the Manticore for another week and also convinced Dassi to produce a heartier meal for the general and his men. The morning’s gruel was supplemented with red sugar and sagal powder, and she was able to produce three small hardboiled eggs and a pitcher of tribex milk. When Daine returned to the room, Lei was fully awake.
“Here,” he said, setting the platter on the ground. “I think they’re lizard eggs, but anything solid sounds good to me.”
Lei shrugged. She picked up one of the eggs and cracked its green speckled shell.
“Do you need more sleep?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“And the work?”
“You’ve got two. I had to break up the third. And it’s a hasty job. I can’t promise how long the enchantments will hold.”
“Well, two is better than none.” He tried the gruel. “Hmm. Not bad, once you add the sagal. Remind me to get you some of that next time we’re in the field.”
Lei said nothing. Here eyes were still on Jode.
Daine sighed, embarrassed by his own attempts at levity. “Let’s get started. When we arrived in Sharn, Alina Lyrris hired us to find her dragonshards, which had been stolen by Rasial, her courier. Rasial, once a city guard and windchaser, left the guard shortly after developing an aberrant dragonmark, which may or may not have been responsible for his racing accidents.”
“Such a mark could also jeopardize his social standing and would be the source of considerable pain and suffering,” Lei said.
Daine nodded. “But even though he was adopted by a group of people who shared his … affliction, he didn’t seem to fit in with them. They believed he was working behind their backs. We know he was. Working with Alina and someone in High Walls—possibly Hugal or Monan.”
“Daine, we know all this,” Lei said. “Why are you—”
“Just thinking out loud,” he replied. “Bear with me. Three nights ago, Rasial brings a shipment of contraband shards in, but he fails to deliver them to Alina. He’s our first corpse. The next day, the Tarkanans send a half-orc looking for Rasial—in High Walls—and he ends up as our second corpse. Yesterday, Jode disappears, for reasons unknown, and is”—he paused, swallowing his emotion—“also killed. Finally, we have the fourth body, which we know nothing about. All of these bodies were dumped in the sewers beneath High Walls. At least three of the four should have had dragonmarks, but none of them did. What am I missing?”
“If the marks were removed, I think the dragonshards Rasial was carrying were the key, though I’m still not sure how this could be done,” Lei said.
“We were attacked by a group of humans that had been somehow altered and enhanced,” Pierce said. “They appeared to want to capture Jode alive.”
“True,” Daine said. “However, the leader of the group was a changeling. At this point, we don’t know if his ‘twin brother’ is a human or a changeling, but he remains at large.”
“As for Jode,” Lei said, “if they can remove dragonmarks, they may have needed him alive in order to extract his dragonmark. We know nothing about the process involved.”
“True. What about Rasial?”
“Well …” Lei said. “Perhaps he