The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

3 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Chult

Something banged shut with a ringing sound, and Harp opened his eyes. At first he thought it was the sound of the metal doors closing at the Vankila Slab. But when Harp opened his eyes, he was looking up at the apex of a pearly dome, not the gray stones of a prison cell.

Disoriented, Harp turned his head and saw the brass starscope gleaming beside him. He was in Majida’s observatory. But where had she gone? And how long had he been unconscious? Waking up in an unfamiliar place and missing a few hours from his memory was nothing new in his life. It was usually accompanied by the onset of panic and the sickness that followed too much alcohol. But Harp felt unexpectedly calm as he pushed himself upright. Sitting on the green rug, he stretched his shoulders, trying to get an uncomfortable kink out of his neck. He tried to recall the last thing that had happened. Majida had lit the heavily scented incense. They had talked about Liel.

“I can’t promise it won’t hurt,” Majida had said. “It depends on you.”

“I don’t care,” Harp had assured her. “Believe me. I don’t care.”

When Majida began her spell, and Harp’s vision slipped sideways, although he’d have sworn he hadn’t moved from his position cross-legged on the floor. And there had been pain, at least at first. But then his mind had reached for comfort the way a drowning man reaches for something to keep him afloat. He remembered his mother, brushing the hair back from his sweaty face when he was ill as a child. He remembered the time he’d ridden on his father’s shoulders, laughing with delight as they ran through a meadow filled with orange wild flowers. And there was Liel. Mostly his mind found its comfort with her.

In the early days on Gwynneth Isle, what he had felt for her was so fragile it seemed as if it would break if he thought of it too often. One night at sunset, they had climbed the Delmark, a stony plateau that rose above the treetops at the heart of the forest. Sitting on the edge of the rock with their legs dangling off the side, they watched the sun bleed into the distant ocean. It was windy on the hill. Chilly, but not unpleasantly so. Still, she leaned against him, and the warmth of her body was like a buffer against the cold. In that moment, he knew that she would be with him for the rest of his life, even in those times when they were not in the same place. It was as if she had become fundamental for him, an inextricable part of how he understood the world.

He wanted to touch her, to rest his hand on the small of her back or put his arms around her. But he was uneasy at the idea that their relationship had become anything but a diversion for both of them. He had not planned on falling in love with her. Considering she was engaged, it was inconvenient and complicated. He wouldn’t let it happen, he assured himself. He wouldn’t let himself love her. It would be enjoyable, and then it would be over. As if she sensed a shift in his mood, she turned and gave him a little smile. It was disarmingly sweet, unassuming in its beauty, and utterly innocent of the destruction that would follow in the wake of their affair.

“Do you miss the sea?” she asked, puzzled by his intensity. They had talked of him teaching her to sail, so her question was not unexpected.

“I miss you,” he said.

“You’re silly,” she said, lying down and putting her head in his lap. The first stars were appearing in the twilit sky. “I’m right here.”

He stroked the side of her neck where the delicate strokes of ink disappeared behind her ear. The artist had been a master-shaping leaves, vines, and flowers that were elegant in their simplicity yet somehow enhanced the beauty of an already striking woman. She sat up so she could lean her head against his chest and slip her arms around his neck.

“What?” she asked as he studied her face.

Telling her she was beautiful seemed trite somehow. That word would never convey the emerald color of her eyes, the curve of shadow under her cheekbones, or the way her upper lip was slightly fuller than her lower.

“You have a pointy little chin,” he told her.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” he said, kissing it. “And pointy little ears. And pointy little elbows.”

“Fortunately, you don’t seem to mind.”

“That’s true. I don’t mind at all.”

He kissed a spot behind her ear and moved down her neck. Lightly, he laid his hand on her belly, feeling the ridges of muscles in her stomach as she arched against his hand. He traced his finger to the hollow at the base of her throat, which was half-hidden by the neckline of her silver cloak. The light was fading, but he could see a break in the design of her tattoo. The silhouette of a crouching cat encircled by twisting vines, it was so small that he couldn’t believe the artist could capture the details down to its tiny eye, a splash of green among the other black stokes.

“You stopped,” she protested. “Don’t stop.”

“What does the cat mean?”

“Cat? What cat?”

“Here, under your chin.”

“Not now. It’s complicated.”

“Do you have somewhere to go?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then we have all night,” Harp assured her. “So go on, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What do the markings on your neck mean?” he asked. “The cat, the vines. They’re beautiful, but what do they mean?”

“Are you always so easily distracted? Or is it just me?”

“Believe me, I’m not distracted. My attention is utterly, completely on you. And soon, I’ll be happy to prove it. But for now, humor me.”

“Fine,” Liel said with mock exasperation. “But I expect due compensation.”

“With pleasure,” Harp said.

“It’s the story of my life,” she told him. “It was written before I was born.”

“Really?” Harp said, intrigued by her answer. “What does it say?”

“Oh, that I’ll save the world,” Liel teased him. “And fall in love with an ill-bred pirate.”

“Ill-bred pirates are the best kind. What does your pirate do?”

Liel took Harp’s hand and began stroking his palm with her thumb. “He buys me a mast ship. One with a dragon-head and a golden sail.”

“What a nice pirate.”

“Yes,” Liel agreed. “A very nice pirate.”

Before he went back to kissing her, Harp pressed his fingertip against the cat silhouette. He could feel Liel’s heart beating. “So they are a pirate, a green-eyed cat, and a golden sail.”

“What are?”

“The keys to your heart.”

“As if you need a key,” she said. Tired of waiting, she kissed him instead.

Shakily, Harp pushed himself to his feet, bracing his hands on his knees until a wave of nausea passed. His life had been simple before he knew Liel. He’d had an innate sense of right and wrong that drove his actions-like a hidden compass that always told him which way to go. And all he had to do was make his way toward the horizon and things would work out all right. Take the Marderward. It was the obvious thing to get Kitto off that ship, and to save Liel in the process. No one was going to give him a crown for being noble, but he helped where he could and watched out for himself and his friends no matter what.

Being with Liel had mixed up the compass. Even after his moment of clarity that night on the Delmark, he’d opted for simplicity over truth. Keeping Liel at a distance, turning himself in to the authorities instead of fighting the mutiny charge-those were things that went against his instincts. He’d followed the wrong path, and it had landed him in the Vankila Slab, the razor-sharp edge of death. And it had led him away from Liel, who took root in his mind as both the cause and the salvation of his eroded life. For the first time since he’d been chained to the floor in the Practitioner’s study, Harp’s directional sense had returned. Finally, he sensed true north.

If he were given the day on the Delmark again, he would tell Liel that he loved her-he might have lost her anyway, but at least she would have known. Harp paused in the center of the observatory, listening to the wind whistle through the hinges in the ceiling. The incense still burned in the earthenware dish, so Harp thought it must be the same day, the same moment almost, since he had come up the spiral stairs with Majida.

Reaching for the door handle, he jerked his hand back in shock. Slowly, he stretched out his arm again. His skin was as smooth and as unmarred as when he’d been a child. Majida had done it-she’d removed the scars. She’d healed him and erased the Practitioner’s brand. How that was possible, he didn’t know, but she’d done it.

Trembling, Harp flung open the door and stumbled down the staircase. With his heart pounding and his head spinning, he steadied himself against the wall. Harp couldn’t fight the feeling that something was missing, that he had misplaced something important. He doubled over, fighting dizziness. And then he understood. What he felt was an absence of pain.

Since the Vankila Slab, Harp had lived with constant pain, like the incessant lapping of the tide. Now he felt the beating of his heart, the cool air against his skin, and the hum of his muscles as they moved. But nothing felt like claws against his skin, or needles into his muscles-nothing hurt at all. Harp continued down the steps, enjoying the looseness of his joints and the fluid way his muscles moved. He felt like he could run for hours, move a mountain, or swim to Tethyr. But first, he was going to find Liel, no matter how small the chance that she was alive.

When Harp walked into the nearly deserted hub, Kitto and Boult were seated at one of the long tables eating breakfast with Zo. All three stared at him in silent awe as he sat down on the wooden bench beside Kitto. There was a tray of eggs and chopped pork, and Harp heaped the plate with more food than he would normally eat in a tenday.

“Where’s Verran?” Harp asked shoving the eggs into his mouth as the others gaped at him. “Come on now. Don’t stare. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

Boult recovered first. “What happened to your scars, Harp?”

“Majida’s healing touch,” Harp said casually. “I guess you know how fortunate you are to have her, Zo. I know mages in Waterdeep who would kill to have her study with them.”

“How did she do it?” Kitto asked, his black eyes abnormally wide as he stared at his friend.

“I’m not sure,” Harp replied. “Where is she? And where’s Verran?”

No one answered. They were still too busy gaping at him. Having seen his reflection in the sheen of Majida’s observatory, he understood their reaction. While he still had crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and creases in the center of his forehead, most of the signs of aging brought on by too much ale, hard living, and days under the hot sun were gone. He looked as if he’d been reborn a much younger man.

“Suddenly I’m not a scarred freak, and you all can’t stop looking at me.”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself,” Boult said, turning his attention back to his food. “But you are very much changed.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?” Harp said, perplexed by the undercurrents of emotion in the room.

“Sure it is, Harp,” Boult said, exchanging glances with Kitto. “We’re just …”

“Happy for you,” Kitto said with a little grin.

“Yeah,” Boult agreed. “Since you have new skin, it’s a great time to make a new start. You can stop being such an idiot.”

“Ah, Boult,” Harp said between bites. “You know how to make any occasion special.”

“You’re a drunken fool,” Boult said sweetly.

“And you’re a vengeful scoundrel,” Harp replied, just as sweetly.

“Last son of a fat goblin,” Boult said.

“Arrogant goat,” Harp shot back, and Kitto laughed.

“What’s so funny, boyo?” Harp asked Kitto amicably.

“Everything’s changed,” Kitto said, smiling down at his plate. “But nothing’s changed too.”

Zo had been watching the exchange curiously. “I have no idea what any of you are talking about,” he said, pushing back from the table. “But if you’re going to the ruins, we don’t want to get started too late in the day.”

“How far is it to the ruins?” Harp asked, finishing the last bite of his breakfast and standing up. He’d had enough of resting. In fact, he felt like he would never need to sleep again.

“It’s not far to the edge of the Domain,” Zo told him. “Beyond that, I’m not sure how far it is to the boundaries of the ruins itself.”

“Is that where you took Liel?”

“Majida took her to the edge. But I won’t leave the Domain. You’ll have to make your way from there by yourself.”

“So why doesn’t Majida take us?”

Zo scowled. “Because I’m taking you. Majida’s busy.”

“So, don’t make fun of me, Boult,” Harp said. “But I lost my sword. Again.”

“How many is that?” Boult asked, shaking his head in disgust. “Two in less than a tenday?”

“There’s an armory down that tunnel,” Zo told them. “You’re welcome to take what you need.”

“I’ll go round up Verran,” Boult said. “Pick me out something nice.”

“We’ll pay you, of course,” Harp said to Zo, as he and Kitto followed the dwarf into the armory. “You’ve shown us enough hospitality already.”

Zo shook his head. “Kill Scaly Ones. Kill the man you call the Practitioner. That’ll be payment enough.”

If Verran was shocked by Harp’s new appearance, he hid it well. Sullen and withdrawn, the boy trailed behind them as they followed Zo down the eastern tunnel. Harp’s pack was filled with supplies, and it felt heavy on his shoulders as they walked through the dimly lit tunnel. He’d picked out two stubby swords, a sturdy but diminutive shield, and a crossbow that would have fit a child’s hand. Not that Harp was going to complain. Even miniscule weapons were better than nothing.

“What do you know about the ruins?” he asked Zo as they walked.

“Hisari was the name of the city. It’s been hundreds of years since the earth swallowed it. From what Majida says, it’s still intact, just buried. Did you see the ruins when you were on top of the waterfall?”

“I saw the golden dome.”

“That’s the top of the palace. Until recently, it was covered by the jungle, but Cardew and his men cleared it away.”

“That’s what they spent their time doing?”

“Yes. But they couldn’t get into the palace. Fortunately, they didn’t know about our underground tunnels.”

“They couldn’t break through the dome?”

“They tried, but nothing worked. They weren’t able to dig down into it either. Probably because of then magical barrier that surrounds it.”

“Do yuan-ti live in the ruins?” Boult asked.

“They dwell above ground. There must be things living down there, but what, I’m not sure.”

Up ahead the tunnel made a sharp right. Zo stopped, lit a torch, and handed it to Harp.

“The Domain ends up ahead,” Zo said. “I’ve never been past that point, and I don’t care to go.”

“You said something about a barrier?” Verran asked.

“Yes, at the edge of Hisari.”

“It’s not a dwarven ward?” Boult asked.

“No, we have our own wards on the Domain,” Zo replied. “You’ll see our runes on the walls from here until you reach the edge of our territory. But the barrier around Hisari is something different. It’s ancient.”

“How did Liel get through?” Verran asked.

“Majida didn’t tell you?” Zo asked in surprise.

Harp shook his head. “She didn’t give us specifics.”

“She didn’t tell me either,” Zo said. “I know that she and Liel spent hours trying to bring it down. What finally worked, I can’t say.”

“Can you get us through, Verran?” Harp asked.

“I’ll try,” Verran said, his eyes darting away as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at Harp’s unscarred face. “If you need us, you know where to find us,” Zo said, clasping hands with each of them before he turned and headed back down the way they’d come.

“Well, men,” Harp said. “Any final thoughts before we head into the mouth of the beast?”

“I wanted to go back to the ship that first day,” Boult said, snatching the torch from Harp’s hand and stomping down the tunnel. “I said we should sail to Nyanzaru and sell the Marigold. If you’d listened to me, we’d be sitting on a pile of coin and drinking a pint.”

“Ah, but you’d never have seen a giant lizard.”

“It was dead,” Boult said over his shoulder as they followed him into the tunnel.

“You’d never have seen a dead giant lizard get eaten by ants,” Harp reminded him.

“Eh,” Boult said, shrugging.

“You’d never have jumped off a waterfall,” Harp said.

“Or been attacked by a creature made out of corpses,” Kitto added.

“Or seen the bones of a god,” Harp pointed out.

“It wasn’t a god,” Verran muttered, but everyone ignored him.

“And Harp would still have his scars,” Kitto said.

Boult stopped. At first Harp thought it was because of what Kitto had said, but Boult was staring at the wall. In tiny writing from floor to ceiling, black runes were scorched into the rock and glowing faintly in the torchlight. Boult held the torch close to them and peered at the wall.

“Are those the wards of protection?”

“Those are what has kept the dwarves hidden all these years,” Boult said in amazement. “But they’re more than that. They tell the dwarves’ history. Embedded in the writing are the names of everyone who’s lived here. How people died.”

“Like a genealogy?” Harp asked.

Boult read more. “No, more than that. Events are recorded too. The Spellplague. The history of the yuan-ti is probably written here as well, at least from the dwarves’ perspective.”

“Does it tell the future too?” Harp asked. “I’d really like to know if I’m going to die today.”

“Come on,” Verran said impatiently. “This isn’t the time for a history lesson.”

They moved slowly down the tunnel, with Boult trying to read as they walked. Finally, Verran lit his own torch and took the lead, moving much more quickly down the passage.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Harp asked Verran.

“Do you want me to take down the barrier? Or are we going to sit around and read about Grandma Bushybeard? If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.”

Verran stormed off down the passage while the others exchanged looks.

“He’s grumpy this morning,” Harp said. “Anyone know why?”

“Maybe he’s hungry,” Boult said “He didn’t eat breakfast with us.”

“Where did you find him?” Harp asked.

“I didn’t. He walked into the hub after you went into the armory.”

Verran had disappeared from sight, and Harp felt increasingly uneasy about the boy’s mood. When the tunnel veered right, they saw Verran crouched in the middle of the tunnel and staring at a white mesh that stretched across the passageway. Swaying gently as if blown by a light breeze, it had the appearance of an exquisite tapestry that was woven from fine, almost translucent threads.

“Is it wrong for me to hope that’s a spider web?” Harp said.

“It’s the barrier,” Verran replied. “It’s a type of ward.”

“It doesn’t look very magical,” Boult said doubtfully. “Can we just brush it aside?”

Verran reached into his cloak, pulled out a hunk of bread, and tossed it into the barrier. With a snap of light, the bread seared black and fell to the ground smoking.

“Toast anyone?” Boult said.

“My father’s mentor called it a shroud barrier,” Verran said. “He used them to contain dead bodies.”

“Contain them from doing what?” Harp asked.

“No, to preserve them for later use,” Verran said.

“Use for what?” Boult asked. “How come you know that?”

“I don’t know anything,” Verran said ferociously, and he covered his face with his hands. It was such a childlike gesture that Harp felt the urge to comfort him, but then he realized that Verran’s lips were moving behind his fingertips. His was not the stance of a penitent. Verran was casting.

A gust of hot air blew through the tunnel. It was dry and smelled like cinders, like air from the bellows of a distant forge. Faint rips appeared in the barrier as if an invisible hand were gently pulling apart the strands. Then red stains branched out from the separations, staining the white gauze with crimson. When all trace of white was gone, the barrier slid to the ground in a wet, bloody heap. Verran glanced at his crewmates with a self-satisfied expression.

“Do you even know how you did that?” Harp said in disbelief.

“Does it matter?” Verran said smugly. “It’s down, at least for the moment. Do you want to chat, or go find your elf? Or at least another husk of your elf?”

Beside him, Boult bristled, but Harp laid a hand on the dwarf’s arm. “Lead on, young master,” he said to Verran with no trace of sarcasm in his tone.

“When we get back to the Crane, he needs a lesson in manners,” Boult whispered to Harp as they stepped over the lumpy mass on the ground. When they reached the end of the tunnel, Harp stared at the scene in front of him with a sinking feeling in his chest.

“That’s if we get back to the Crane at all,” Harp said.