The world turned white.
Smell came back to her first. The odors of the warehouse – Stale dust, blood, sweat, and the piney smell of the cheap green wood used to make crates – as well as two new smells: the sickly sweet odor of roasted flesh and the acrid stench of…. burnt hair? Next vision returned, and the world ceased being a wall of white and quickly gained contrast. Vague blurs resolved themselves into Razze and Sam, staring at her in open-mouthed astonishment. Her hearing stayed gone, however, and though she saw their mouths working, she couldn't hear the words they were desperately screaming. They began to run towards her. All of this happened in the space of a dozen heartbeats.
"Whuh?" She asked. The sound of her own voice thundered in her head. She didn't hear it through her ears – they still weren't working properly – but directly through her sinuses. She felt hands on her person, and then she was moving backwards, and then—
Whump!
—there was a sound she felt in the pits of her teeth, and a massive, coruscating ball of orange flame erupted in front of her. Her eyes watered and the smell of burning hair intensified. The ground directly in front of her crisped and blackened, and the soft dirt floor of the warehouse split and cracked until it looked like a riverbed after a three year drought.
The next thing she knew, she was on the floor in a completely different place, and Sam and Razze were both kneeling over her. There were tears in Sam's eyes. Neana felt her back pressing against a wall of crates. "Whu…" She cleared her throat, which was more hoarse than usual. She could hear herself now, although she also heard a painful, high-pitched keening that seemed to underlie the whole world. "What's that smell?"
"Fried half-elf," Razze said cheerfully. His whole body seemed alive with undirected energy, and he couldn't stop grinning. He had looked like this back on the boat, just before they had begun to duel.
"Are you all right?" Sam asked fearfully.
"And the… burnt hair?"
"Don't worry," Razze said. "You don't really need eyebrows. They're strictly ornamental."
Sam shook her shoulder. "Are you all right?" In her absolute desperation she had lost control of her shape-shifting. Sam had walked into the office wearing her half-elven face, the green eyed, copper-haired form she often wore because she knew that it pleased Neana. Now she wore her naked Changeling face: her thin lips were so pursed that they became invisible and her milky white eyes were wide in stark terror.
"I'm fine," Neana said, and then betrayed herself with a fit of parched coughing.
That sound happened again – the muffled inrush of air being displaced by a torrent of magical flame –but this time it was accompanied by the splintering of wood, and Neana felt the crates there were hiding behind shake with the force of the explosion.
"Fireball," Razze said, grimly and unnecessarily. They'd all seen firewands before, in the hands of enemy battle-magi. They were rare, but incredibly powerful, magical artifacts. A half dozen fireballs could scour a ship's deck clear of life, or set the sails and rigging ablaze, or melt every scrap of metal that wasn't tempered steel.
"I guess he had two wands."
Whump! This time some of the upper crates broke open, showering the three of them with wispy silk scarves in every color of the rainbow. They could smell smoke now, and the crate Neana was leaning against was growing hot.
"How do we stop him?" Razze asked. And just like that, they were professionals again. Razze looked sober and attentive, although his hands tapped restless rhythms on his thighs. Sam passed a hand over her face and left it, if not calm, then at least half-elven again. She even managed a nervous smile. Neana pulled herself to a sitting position and discovered that, while she was probably injured, she was still too charged up with battle rage to really feel it.
"This is a magical problem . We need magic to solve it. Can any of your spells stop him?" Sam asked.
"Not unless I can see him," Neana said grimly. "I know a handful of spells that would cut him to pieces, but I don't know any that will reveal the invisible." She sighed, and then admitted. "At least, I've never bothered to memorize any. I have the scrolls back in my cabin on the ship."
"Can you teleport us away?"
"No," Neana said.
"That's not right," Sam said. "I've seen you send people all over the place!"
"Only for very short distances. I could probably send you to the other side of that wall," Neana pointed, "but without knowing what was out there, you might emerge right in the middle of another person. Or a ton of solid rock."
"Oh." Sam snapped her fingers. "I've got it! You could 'port us to the roof! There's nothing up there. You send us up there, and then teleport yourself, and then we could climb down and… tactically retreat."
"No," Neana and Razze said at the same time. This instant agreement startled both of them into silence.
Whump! They all ignored it.
Neana went first. "No, I'll be damned if I run from a mere fucking Clanker."
"What she said, but without the implied bigotry," Razze said earnestly. "Tactical retreats are one thing, but I don't run from a fight I know I can win. He started this, but we'll finish it."
Sam looked from determined face to determined face. She sighed. "All right, then. What else can we do?"
"Nothing useful. I can fly for short distances, or channel the raw elements through my hand or sword, or paralyze with a touch. I know a word of power that would stop it in its tracks, but I need to see it to direct the magic." Neana followed this with a curse so foul that Sam and Razze, both veteran sailors, looked shocked. "If I had brought my scroll case, we wouldn't be in this…" Neana stopped.
"What?"
Neana didn't respond. She was too busy pawing at her belt. She cursed her thick, gauntleted fingers as she spilled the contents of a spell pouch onto the floor. Loose soil, feathers, beads of amber, and dried cricket legs went everywhere. Finally, she found it. "Here!"
It was a thin, translucent blue shard of stone, criss-crossed with indigo veins. "Very pretty," Sam said hesitantly, "what is it?"
"A spellshard." Neana grinned nastily. "I forgot I had this. I found it in the cabin of that Valenar Wingship we took in the Thunder Sea. It's a Khyber dragonshard with a spell imprinted in it. If I break the binding on the shard, the spell will cast itself." And as she turned it to catch the dim warehouse light, they could all see flashes of golden script seemingly embedded within the stone's heart.
Razze brightened. "And that will let us see the Warforged?"
Whump!
A crate fell off the top stack and shattered to the left of them. They covered their heads as splinters of smoldering wood filled the air.
"No, this is a different spell. Extremely concentrated abjuratory magic. It strips away magical defenses. If I can lay my hands on Brute, this will turn it visible," Neana murmured. "Help me to my feet."
Sam knelt immediately and took her arm. After a moment's hesitation, Razze joined her, and together they dragged Neana to an awkward leaning position. She was a short woman, with a merely average build, but her armor made her very heavy. She breathed loudly and hung on their arms, but eventually she was certain that her knees would support her. "Thank you."
They stared at her.
"What?"
"I'm just not sure that I've ever heard you say that before."
Whump!
This time the whole wall of crates creaked alarmingly. Razze darted around the corner to check, and called back "There's hardly anything left up front. I don't think they'll take many more blasts."
"I have a plan," Neana said. She spoke quickly and quietly, and the other two had to draw close to hear her over the crackle of burning kindling. "The invisibility spell cloaks the caster and its possessions, but nothing else: any spell he casts will be completely visible. And I know how firewands work: every time you activate one, it launches a fire-seed that blossoms into the pyroblast. The seed is bright and easily visible. If we watch carefully, we can see it in flight and trace it back to its point of origin."
Sam shook her head. "He'll just displace. If he's smart, he'll move every time he fires. That's how we did it in the Border Sentinels."
"I know. That's where you come in, Sam. The next time he fires, I need you to tag him with an arrow. The arrow won't be invisible, and we can use it to locate him. You'll have to hit Brute after it fires, but before it relocates. Do you think you can do it?"
Sam whistled. "Maybe. How fast does this fireseed move?"
"About as fast as an arrow."
She hesitated. "Yes. I can do it. I think. But I'll never be able to spot the seed, loose, and duck behind cover to dodge the blast. I'm not that fast."
Razze grinned. "This is where I come in, isn't it?"
"Yes. I need you to be a decoy. Draw its fire. You're quicker than me, and I need to be ready with the dispelling shard. Is that—will you do it? I have to be honest: it will be absurdly dangerous. And I have no authority to give you orders."
"I love it. Of course I will." He took off his hat and placed it on Sam's head. "Take care of this for me, will you?" She nodded. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some attention to draw. It's what I do best."
They took their places. Sam perched precariously on a tall stack of boxes. Razze stretched his legs. Neana drew a cricket's leg from her pouch and, while muttering the ancient arcane syllables, delicately snapped it in half. She felt coils of boundless strength fill the muscles of her legs. She peeked around a corner, until she could see the whole of the warehouse. Not that there was anything to see, except some smoldering patches, charred wood, and an absurdly pristine writing desk.
"Go!" she croaked.
Razze darted out from crate to crate. An expanding ball of flame filled the area where he had just been. Neana missed glimpsing the fireseed, but Sam apparently didn't, because she loosed an arrow. Neana never noticed if Razze was injured, never noticed if Sam successfully displaced. Her eyes were on the arrow, half of which was now sticking out of a patch of empty air. She leapt.
She crushed the spellshard in mid-arc, and felt veins of pure renunciation course through her fingers. She also gripped Sharneth in her other hand, but she didn't need i: she only had to touch the Warforged. The barest physical contact would do it, the brush of magical aura against magical aura, and the spell would discharge.
She landed awkwardly – she could really feel the pain from her burns now, and she suspected that the arrow wounds on her back had re-opened – but didn't miss her stride. She was almost to the arrow when she saw it snap, and the visible half of it clattered to the floor. The bastard had broken it off at the point of impact! She ran, feet pounding, and swung her pulsing, glowing hand at the patch of air where she hoped that Brute was standing.
It wasn't.
She didn't waste her breath on curses, she just kept running. Blind instinct told her to jump and she leapt. The magical force of her leap caused the floor to shudder, but not as much as the explosion that rocked it a heartbeat later. Neana hadn't planned her leap, and so she came to a crashing halt in a crate full of crumbling, dusty tapestries, behind a pile of moth-eaten rugs. She ended up face first in an intricate Altsen patterned weave. She pulled herself out of the rug-pile and slumped behind cover.
I didn't pray, she realized. My god. I forgot to pray to Szorawai. She clapped a hand over her heart, where her pendant dangled.
"Hey," Sam whispered.
Startled, Neana spat out a mouthful of cobwebs. "How did you get over here?"
"I'm quick. And pretty sneaky. Anyway, Razze is hiding behind a hogshead of dwarven spirits – which, now that I think of it, is a terrible place to hide from fireballs – but I don't think he's injured. How are your wounds? Did you lose the spell?"
Neana held up her one glowing hand. "Still there."
Sam nodded in relief. "Good. If you can think of a way to get a message to Razze, I think we can try again."
"Hey!" Someone shouted, and with a sinking feeling they both realized that it was Razze. "Hey, you iron-plated coward! Fight me!"
They peered over the top of the pile together. They saw Razze dart out from behind a barrel of rum, his long legs flashing as he shifted from cover to cover. As they watched, ball of fire enveloped one of the barrels, which creaked alarmingly but thankfully did not explode.
"What's that idiot doing?"
"Drawing fire," Sam said proudly. She touched her fingers to the tip of his hat in salute.
"Put down the wand, you hunk of cracked granite, and face me. You want to be treated like a man? Then fight like one!"
"I don't care how immortal he thinks he is, he's going to get killed."
"He's buying us a second chance, dear. We ought to use it," Sam said. And then she kissed her, the briefest brush of lips against her cheek, and was gone.
Right. Neana drew a breath, held it, and released it. Szorawai, grant me strength. And velocity.
She heard the sound of bowstring slapping wood, and she leapt. As she cleared the pile of rugs, she saw Sam scrambling for cover. She saw the arrow vibrating in the middle of nothing, and she noticed, with a stab of piercing fondness, that Sam had tied an arms-length of red silk around the tip. Even if Brute broke the fletching off again, the trailing strand of color would give it away.
Neana's fire-frazzled hair brushed the roof of the warehouse as she reached the top of her arc, and she landed right beside the scarf with a force that shivered her bones. She thrust out one arm and felt the stinging pain as her hand slapped stone and steel. Neana was instantly aware of the streaming flows of magic, the hidden currents of fire that coursed through every particle of the physical world. She even felt, for a moment, the impossibly complex web of shining lines that made up the Warforged's person; the strands of raw magic that made it something more than inert stone, wood, and metal. She concentrated until she found the signature of the illusory shroud hiding within the shifting miasma of magic, and, drawing on the raw power in her fist, she severed it.
Brute stood exposed in the center of the warehouse, a slim red wand in one hand, and the shafts of two arrows sticking out of its side. It pointed the finger of its empty hand at its chest. It's going to turn invisible again, she thought. I don't have another spellshard. Her hands didn't bother to think, they just swung Sharneth with all the surprising strength in her small body. The shock when she connected was so great that she almost lost her grip. It was like chopping wood with an axe and discovering that the tree had an iron core.
Her blade had buried itself deep within Brute's forearm, nearly severing its hand. She saw purple actinic fire gushing out of the wound and she realized that, for once, she wasn't the source. She had hit the wand embedded within its wrist-sheath and destroyed it, releasing all of its stored magic in gouts of arcane flame. Brute's left arm was a blazing torch with a sword stuck through it.
She watched its featureless face intently. It raised the firewand in its other hand in what she judged to be a threatening manner. "Do you feel pain?" she asked it.
It lowered the wand. "Yes. Not as you do, but I do sense something like personal discomfort when I am damaged."
"Is it pleasant?"
Brute considered. "No. In no way is the sensation pleasant."
"Then. Drop. The. Wand."
The firewand clattered to the floor.
Sam and Razze emerged from hiding, both of them singed but essentially unharmed. They gathered around the defeated Warforged, who had slumped to its knees while clutching the guttering ruin of its right hand.
"Can I see that arm?" Sam asked. She reached out tentatively. "I might be able to fix it."
"There is no need. I am capable of self repair."
"Oh. Well, that's good. I wish I was."
Neana sheathed her falchion. She felt something less than her usual primal joy at this victory. Perhaps her lack of bloodlust was because her foe had no blood to spill. Perhaps it was because she had just wounded something that was, at a certain remove, a Cyran soldier. Perhaps it was because she had lost an enormous quantity of blood and was on the verge of fainting. Regardless, she just wanted this sordid business over with.
"Where's the stash," she asked.
Brute rose to its feet. It let out a long, theatrical, artificial sigh. "It is in the desk. In the third drawer from the bottom, on the right side, there is a lever. Pull it."
They pulled it. A panel slid aside on oiled hinges. There was a heavy wooden chest inside.
"Great!" Sam unspooled a roll of metal lockpicks. "I'll have that open in a—oh, it's unlocked." She flipped off the top. "What's this? Paper?"
"Deeds." Brute collapsed into the heavy leather chair. "And some promissory notes and writs of exchequer. And a few shipping manifests. Why, what did you expect? Bags of gold coins with the portrait of King Galifar on them?"
Razze was leafing through the contents. "What are these, contracts?"
"Yes. I employ several barristers and moneymen. What did you suppose I would possess? I am a businessman. This is, essentially, a business, if an illicit one. I don't hoard gold: I invest it. I buy property and businesses. I lease half the houses in Sharpside, for instance, though few of my tenants suspect the real nature of their landlord. "
"Damn it."
"I did attempt to warn you. Did you really think that you would find a vast stockpile of gold bullion in my office just because this is a thieves' guild?"
"Well, yeah," Sam said sheepishly. "We're more used to pirates, see? Privateers. They go in for small holds full of portable goods. Sometimes gold and silver, sometimes spices and dragonshards."
"This is the land. We do things differently here. Now, will you leave? Please? Before you do me any more irreparable harm?"
"Damn it!" Neana swore again, and kicked the stupid chest. Its loose rolls of paper went flying, as did its cunningly hidden false bottom. With a tinkle not unlike chimes, a stream of platinum coins and tiny, cut gemstones spilled out onto the floor. They made a small but tidy heap.
"Of course," Brute observed, without a trace of embarrassment, "There is also something to be said for keeping a small amount of portable wealth around. In case of emergencies."
They left, with Neana leaning on Razze's shoulder and Sam cheerfully lugging her small but heavy sack. She claimed that she could spiritually commune with large quantities of wealth. She also hesitantly appraised the contents of that little bag at a sum large enough to purchase and outfit a brand new Mother Bear.
"We'll just drop this off with Captain Klein, and have Kiana look at your wounds, then we can meet up with Chandra. And then we're jungle-bound."
But as it happened, Chandrasitari found them first. She met them in a crowded marketplace in downtown Newthrone, with a hulking figure trailing just behind her. At first Neana took it to be an extraordinarily ugly human man, but after a moment's thought she decided that it was a hobgoblin. Perhaps it was quite handsome, by hobgoblin standards. They tended to prize hairy faces and gleaming white fangs. He made a sharp contrast with the tall, delicately featured, incredible beautiful Kalashtar woman at his side.
"This is Victor," Chandra explained. "He is an accredited member of House Tharashk's Finder's Guild. He will be our guide through the jungle."
He knuckled his forehead. "Sir. Ma'am. Ma'am." He looked closer. "Have you all been in a fire?"
Sam just grinned.