Chapter 63
63
I N THE BOWELS of the Shrivenkeep, Wryth leaned over the shoulder of his fellow Iflelen brother. Skerren sat at a narrow table, its surface covered with rusted bits of arcana, twined copper, vials of caustic compounds, crucibles of both metal and stone, and items that defied Wryth’s own considerable knowledge.
Skerren had summoned him here to reveal a discovery, something his brother believed was significant enough to interfere with Wryth’s own schedule this morning.
Wryth glanced back into the depths of Skerren’s personal scholarium. It stretched off into a maze of chambers, closets, and sealed rooms. Wryth recognized a tall stack of curved copper sheets leaning high against a back wall. They were part of the copper shell that had preserved the bronze artifact deep in Chalk’s sunless tunnels. Skerren had spent the past two moons carefully dismantling and shipping it from the mines.
The laborers had been killed afterward. None could know what the Iflelen had discovered, what they hoped to learn from it. Wryth suspected Skerren’s discovery came from that same collection.
“Show me,” Wryth said.
Skerren reached to a leather cloth that hid something beneath. He slid the covering away, revealing a wonder that drew a gasp from Wryth. It was a perfect cube of crystal, veined through with copper threads. But what squeezed Wryth’s breath was the mass of golden fluid at its core, pulsing and undulating.
“I found it in a hidden chamber behind the copper shell,” Skerren explained.
“What is it?” Wryth came around for a closer look.
Skerren leaned possessively over it, his eyes narrowed. “I think it serves like a tiny flashburn forge. A source of unknown power. I’ve performed some tests with intriguing results.”
“What tests?”
Skerren waved absently at the two halves of a glass sphere resting atop his table. It was all that was left of the instrument that Wryth had used to track the bronze artifact. The cracked orb had been drained of the clear oil, and its tiny copper-wrapped lodestones were meticulously lined up in a row.
Skerren explained, “I believe, with this tiny forge, I can build a more powerful version of the instrument that I gave you before. The new device should be capable of detecting emanations from the bronze artifact over a far greater distance.”
Wryth breathed heavier, desire burning through him. He could barely speak. He did not know if anyone had escaped the ruins of Dalal?ea, but he was plagued by the sight of a swyftship diving into the clouds as he fled.
With such a new tool, I might learn the truth.
“Do it,” Wryth ordered. “Set aside all other inquiries except for this.”
Skerren nodded and glanced back. “How goes your own labors?”
Wryth straightened, reminded of his schedule. “We are close,” he answered. That was all he would admit. “I must be off. There is another who wishes to confirm my progress, and his temper is foul at best, even when he’s not left waiting.”
Wryth rushed off. He swept out of Skerren’s scholarium and headed toward another, one belonging to a dead brother. Once he was close enough, torchlight revealed two figures waiting in the hallway by the door. Wryth’s guest was accompanied by a tall Vyrllian Guard named Thoryn. The visitor stood stiff-backed. Torchlight reflected off his silvery armor. It was said he rarely removed it anymore, fearful of another attack.
Wryth closed the distance and lifted an arm. “Prince Mikaen, thank you for coming all the way down here.”
The prince turned, revealing the silver mask covering half of his face. Its surface was inscribed with a sun and crown, the Massif family sigil. When the light struck it just right, that sun would blaze like the Father Above. Right now, it reflected the angry flame of the torch.
Wryth also knew what lay hidden behind the silver. He had seen it once, shortly after Mikaen’s face had been stitched together. Or at least the little of his face that was still salvageable.
Mikaen grumbled, his voice still hoarse from all his pained screaming, “Show me why I came down here, so I can be gone from this wretched place.”
Wryth slipped past the prince and keyed open the door to Vythaas’s scholarium. “Do not draw too close,” he warned, and entered first.
The iron-walled chamber was as hot as a furnace. Chains jangled and snapped. Mikaen and his guard came behind him. Both gasped at the sight ahead. With his back to them, Wryth simply smiled.
“How…?” Thoryn asked, speaking out of turn.
Still, Wryth answered him, “Poison. It took more than you would imagine.”
Mikaen stepped nearer. “Can you control it?”
“Soon,” Wryth whispered longingly, unable to hide his raw desire.
Skerren’s discovery might hold the promise to track any bronze artifacts, but Wryth now followed in the footsteps of Vythaas, the brother who rightly feared the Klashean Vyk dyre Rha. Wryth’s labors were intended to purge that threat, to forge a weapon against her, to plant a seed of corruption in her very garden.
The chains thrashed and clanged in front of them.
He stared across at the large bat, with its wings wrapped in leather, its body subdued with steel—but what truly bound it was copper.
From its shaved skull, a score of bright needles stuck out, suffused with the alchymies extracted from Vythaas’s journals.
Wryth stared silently at the creature. Soon you will be mine.
Dark eyes glared at him, challenging him. It opened its jaws and screamed savagely, madly, at the world.
Wryth smiled at that song, one of pure hatred.
Yes, that’s a good place to start.