The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [96]
A few of Sheshka’s vipers rose up around her shoulders. “You asked me for the Stormblade, and I have given him to you. I have lifted my gaze from him. What afflicts him is none of my doing. I have fulfilled my promise.”
Steel had taken a long time to study the serene knight, and he whispered in Thorn’s thoughts. This may have been the work of magic, but there is no ongoing mystical resonance. This isn’t a curse that can be broken. A spell isn’t clouding his thoughts—his mind has been taken away.
Taken away. Thorn thought about the stories her father had told her, the tales of the Shield of the Crown. The Stormblade. “What happened to his sword?”
“You see him as I found him,” Sheshka said. “Unarmed and helpless. I could not take him to Cazhaak Draal. There would have been no place for him there. But he was a brave warrior, and I did not wish him to be taken by the beasts of the land. So I changed him and I left him, another guardian among the stone ghosts of the Great Crag.”
“It’s the thrice-damned sword,” Thorn said. Three keys, and I found only one.
“What makes you so certain?”
“I read it in a book,” Thorn said. “‘Without his sword, he was bereft of his past, and so he met the Queen of Stone.’ It said that I’d need to find ‘his sword and his past.’ If you don’t know where his sword is, it seems like a lost cause.”
Sheshka’s serpents had risen around her head—not hissing, simply watching, tongues flicking out to taste the air. “Tell me of this book. I do not see how anyone could know of such a thing.”
“No need to tell when I can show.” The tome was still stored in her left glove; a thought brought it into her hand.
Sheshka’s reaction was as dramatic as it was unexpected. She took a step backward, and as she did so, all of her vipers spread out to their full length, baring their fangs and hissing. Venom dripped to the floor. Her eyelids flickered, and Thorn sensed that it took effort for her to keep them closed. “Where did you get that?”
“An acquaintance,” Thorn said. “No longer with us, I’m afraid. He didn’t give me any details.”
“His death is no surprise to me. You have carried this thing through Droaam and lived to speak of it! While standing before Sora Katra herself!” Her snakes were writhing wildly as if in pain.
“What is it?”
“I know the people of the east tell tales of Sora Katra and Sora Maenya. I’m sure you’ve heard how Maenya binds the souls of her victims to their skulls, and sleeps on a bed of the damned. But it seems you know little of Sora Teraza.”
“As I recall, she’s the one who’s not so bad—the one who gave me the helpful note.”
“She follows a different path from her sisters. That makes her no less dangerous. She is the oldest of the three, and her ways are mysterious even to them. It’s said that she has a library in the Crag, filled with the lives of heroes and prophets.”
Thorn frowned, more puzzled than angry. “There’s a room in the library of Wroat filled with the lives of prophets. What’s so strange about that?”
“Not accounts of their lives … the lives themselves. Until now, I have heard this only as rumor, and I could be mistaken. But the face on the book is just as I have heard. Teraza must have claimed him, taken his story from him—and left this shell behind.”
Thorn looked at the leather-bound book, the stern face staring up at her from the cover. Strength lay in that face, a sense of purpose that was missing in the vacant expression of the man standing behind her.
“Stealing from Sora Teraza …” Sheshka’s snakes were twisting about nervously.
“You said it yourself. I had the thing in my hand when Sora Katra was only half a room away, and nothing happened. But I don’t need a story. I need his past. I need his sword.” She considered the gilded tome again. The proud face. The silver sword gleaming on the spine. “You say she took his story away.”
“Yes.”
“But he’s missing his sword. And he’s Harryn Stormblade. His sword is his story. And his story is his past.”
Thorn turned to face the knight. He still stared at her, his expression vacant as ever.
“Take it,” she said. She thrust