Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [94]
“I have it,” he said, his breath slow and labored. “I … I’m in control. Find Drego. There is work to be done.”
Thorn nodded. She’d dropped Steel when she was wrestling with the angel, and she called him back to her hand as she ran to where Drego had fallen.
Something’s not right, Steel whispered. Thorn’s attention was on Drego. He was stretched out on the floor, badly burned but still breathing.
“Never trust an angel,” he murmured as she knelt beside him.
Lantern Thorn! I believe there is danger.
“What is it?” she asked. She knew Drego had healing supplies, and she searched through his pouches to see if anything useful remained intact. She found a vial of cooling salve and began to rub it into his burns.
“If only I’d known …” Drego muttered. “I’d have tried this long ago.”
“Shush,” she said.
Fallen angels, also known as radiant idols, are a documented threat in Sharn. The Citadel has encountered such beings before—exiles from Syrania punished with imprisonment in our world.
“So?”
Every one is different, but all share the same punishment. They cannot fly. The air is taken from them. You saw the chains on Vorlintar’s wings.
“And?”
Vyrael was flying.
“Get up,” she told Drego. Though he was hurt, the initial shock had been the worst of it. Just the few minutes of rest had done wonders for him.
Vyrael wasn’t chained. She’d said it herself: I am the guardian of this gate. Daine told her she was a prisoner when he channeled Vorlintar’s powers. Powers which caused doubt and despair, twisting the truth.
Daine was kneeling before the throne. He had produced a number of tools from the bag of holding, and he was assembling a strange device. At the center was the shard-studded sphere she’d seen before, but he was connecting it to a set of crystal-tipped tubes. As she watched, his dragonmark flared and pulled away from his skin, momentarily forming winglike shapes along his back.
“What is that thing?” Thorn asked. Steel was in her fist.
Daine kept his attention on his work. “I told you. A weapon that will shut down all house operations in Sharn.”
A terrible thought occurred to her. “And how will it do that, exactly?”
He stood and turned to face her. She could see that his mark had spread to both of his arms, and shadows swirled within the crimson light. “This is the Cardinal Point. The heart of the connection between Syrania and Sharn. And this … this will sever that connection.”
“What does that have to do with the houses?” Thorn demanded. “They aren’t harvesting power from Syrania. That energy is what sustains the flying buttresses, and the skycabs, and the …” Her voice trailed off as she realized the truth.
“Yes,” he said. “When the connection between the planes is broken, the buttresses will fail. Skyway and the floating spires will fall onto the city below, and the remaining towers will collapse under their own weight. It will shut down all house enclaves in Sharn, because there won’t be any Sharn when I’m done.”
“Why would you do this?” she said. “You’ll kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people.” She could already guess at the answer. Now she understood the strange sorrow she’d seen in his eyes.
“There just aren’t enough of us,” he told her. “We can’t fight this war alone. We can’t defeat the Twelve. But this … this weapon is a Cannith creation. We’re deep underground. We’ll survive the devastation. And when you take this weapon to the Citadel, when you tell them that Cannith is responsible, all of Breland will rise up in arms. All of Khorvaire will see the danger they represent.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t. I won’t be a party to this. This is Vorlintar, Daine, poisoning your hope within you. There has to be another way. A way that won’t kill these innocent people.”
“They have to see!” Daine cried, and once again the mark flowed out from his skin, forming the brilliant silhouette of angel’s wings. “Don’t you understand? Cannith made this. Perhaps I’m the one who will trigger it. But it could have been them. And if you ignore the threat, someday it will be.”