Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [3]
The lantern burst to life, crackling and sputtering. A thin mattress was set across a small table, with a chamber pot to one side. Shelves held salted meat and an assortment of weaponry. A safehouse, and not much of one.
Thorn drew Steel. “I don’t know what you’re playing at with your talk of a new home. I don’t know who you are. But I assure you, I’m not about to start a twisted little family with you here.”
The dry chuckle echoed off the walls. “Calm, sister. We are family already. And this is a place of trial, not a destination.”
Thorn kept her blade leveled at the halfling. “Tell me what this is all about.”
“No. I am not the one on trial here, and I need say nothing.”
“Trial?” Thorn said.
“I know what you are, and what you have been … Lantern Thorn.”
There it was. The success of her mission—and possibly, the length of her life—depended on these next few moments. “How do you know that name?”
“Do you deny that it is yours? That you are an agent of the King’s Citadel, one of the deadly eyes of the king?”
Thorn looked away. “I was. For years. Not anymore.”
“Yes … so I have heard.” He gestured at the mattress on the floor. “Put away your blade. Sit. There are many questions you must answer, if you are to earn a place in our family.”
“Family …” Thorn echoed. “You’re Tarkanan, aren’t you?”
The halfling smiled slightly, but Thorn could feel the intensity of his gaze. “Yes. I am Fileon, of the House Tarkanan. Were you looking for us?”
She had been. And she’d been watching this Fileon these last few days, even as he’d been shadowing and stalking her. But she needed him to believe otherwise, to trust her. I’m exhausted, she thought. Afraid. Betrayed. She embraced these feelings and let them flow through her voice and into her posture.
“No,” she said. “I was running. I just wanted to find a place to hide. And everyone knows that the towers of Sharn cast long shadows.”
“Then you are fortunate to have caught my eye, sister.” He ran his hand along his withered arm. “And I have never been one to trust in luck. Put away your blade, and tell me of the one you killed.”
Careful, Steel told her. His touch can kill. If he suspects you, this could be a ploy.
Thorn was all too aware of the danger. Steel had worked with dozens of Lanterns over the course of the past century, and his advice to her was often annoyingly patronizing. This could be a trick, but it was a chance she’d have to take. Keeping her eyes fixed on Fileon’s, she slowly sheathed her blade. “I’ve killed many.”
“You know the one I mean,” Fileon said. “Your first true kill, slain with the power in your blood. The one whose death drove you from your life as a Lantern, changed you from a trusted servant of the king to a common cutpurse in the slums of Sharn. How did he die, your first kill? A helping hand, as you reached out in the heat of battle? Or was he your partner in more ways than one, slain in the height of your passion?”
“Damn you to Dolurrh,” Thorn growled. She let her fingers rest on Steel’s hilt but left the weapon sheathed.
“I am no stranger to the realm of the dead.” The halfling drew back his cloak, exposing his withered arm. “Born to House Jorasco, I was taught to preserve life. I studied the healing arts, learned the seven signs of grayroot fever and three ways to prevent infection in the deepest of injuries. I dreamed of the day that the mark of healing would appear on my skin, when the power of life itself would flow through my blood.”
Thorn said nothing.
“There is power in my blood,” Fileon said, “but it is no force of life. My first was a soldier. He was dying, but I knew strength remained within him. I fought the healer’s battle, trying to pull him back from Dolurrh’s door by will alone. I pounded on his chest and then pain tore through me, as if I had thrust my arm into the fire.”
Fileon brushed his fingers across his maimed limb, and for a moment