Chapter Six: Weathering the Storm
A/N: And now we had on to Part Six, wherein our favorite assassin discovers more about the world he's landed in (and how much he doesn't want to be in it) and Oceanus earns the right to be kicked in the teeth.
What? He's a jerk.
Five minutes ago…
Slightly outside the eastern border of the largest forest in Tethyr, there was a magical stone tower. In it, like with many such towers, lived a wizard.
And, oddly enough, a little halfling woman.
Perched on a windowsill, hanging on to the stone by her fingertips, the halfling said, "Hokiide, did you see that?" When he didn't answer, she poked him in the side of his head.
Her wizard friend, his long nose having been buried in a book, blinked up at her. "What?"
Irolima huffed—aside from her "balancing on a windowsill while trying to do something else" tendencies, she was at least more observant than Hokiide ever was. Sometimes she doubted that he'd survive a week without her. He'd probably die by tripping down the stairs and breaking his neck, all because he couldn't stop reading something. "The fireball."
Hokiide glanced out the window, putting down his book for the first time in six hours (and Irolima promptly hid it behind a jar of flour). Staring as the stars faded and the sky brightened as though the sun had risen ten hours early, they both watched something like a massive fireball streak across the sky above the Wealdath. Hokiide tapped the window's glass with a gloved hand, making the image shift from inland Tethyr to the coast shared by Tethyr and Amn, and they saw the fireball smash into the sea and a ship burst into flame.
Irolima shook her head as Hokiide tapped the glass again and the window returned to normal, walking back over to the heavy earthen oven he'd made for her a long time ago. She also checked the kettle and the cauldron on the fire nearby, glad that her wizard friend's mastery over heat made cooking in the tower bearable. The fires wouldn't burn living flesh, and the magic in the room automatically steered the excess heat and smoke out the chimney. Otherwise, the entire room would have probably baked their bones long ago.
"That was the third such spell in the last few weeks." Hokiide said quietly, writing in a small notebook he had apparently conjured from his sleeve. Irolima resisted the urge to say "I told you so."
The halfling sighed and focused on the food, pulling the lid off the cauldron and dipping a ladle into the depths of the soup. Well, dinner was almost ready, but…glancing back, Irolima had to stifle a groan—Hokiide had disappeared again. And he was probably going to skip meals, again. And then she'd find him fainted in the library, having to drag him up the damn stairs to his room for the fiftieth time.
There was a papery crash on the next floor down.
Irolima sighed theatrically and put the iron lid back on the cauldron. It was just like Hokiide to do something stupid like get buried in a book avalanche. Still, she left the room and walked down the stairs until she found the library, then began the arduous task of fishing her wizard out.
Unnoticed by either of them, the magic-detecting devices in the wizard's study all started shrieking. About a second later, they both felt it when a massive magical shockwave slashed through the tower, making a hundred tons of enchanted stone shudder.
Several minutes later, Altaïr sat as close as he dared to a roaring hearth fire, waiting for his clothes to dry. After another minute, hearing the water hiss in his robes and boots, he sighed and leaned back against a huge gray rock that had been placed in the room for some reason. Still, for the first time in a while, he was comfortable.
Riyaz had dismissed the walking tree stumps as soon as they'd arrived in the rocky den, which turned out to be a huge cave system with tunnels leading in every direction. The widest part of the cavernous lair seemed to be the first chamber, which was lit by little orbs of light hovering near the ceiling and was decorated almost entirely by rocks—or more particularly, statues. They were all of humans and animals, all recoiling in horror of…something, but they seemed exceptionally well-made. There was also a statue of a squat, snake-like creature with eight legs, but Altaïr didn't ask about that. Nearby plants—strange vine-like ones with leaves shaped like hands—waved in greeting as they entered.
It struck Altaïr that the name "Riyaz" meant "garden." So he could make plants move?
A surly female voice had ordered Riyaz to take Altaïr, Oceanus, and Ash to a smaller room off to the side, which turned out to be almost like a house in itself. There was only one bed, which Riyaz had unceremoniously dropped Oceanus onto, and a desk with a chair, as well as a bookshelf stuffed with tomes and various small objects Altaïr assumed were mementos, but no windows. Altaïr sat on the desk as Riyaz rushed to and fro from a nearby cabinet, pulling out bandages and something that smelled strongly of alcohol. Finally, the flurry of activity had ceased and Riyaz began to work.
He had started with Altaïr. First, he had to convince the assassin to strip to the waist and hold still for a few minutes, and then there was the actual treatment.
Riyaz chanted under his breath as he carefully cleaned the assassin's blade wounds with alcohol-soaked cloth (whatever it was, it definitely wasn't wine and it stung a lot) and blew on them. The slashes and punctures disappeared under his care, so quickly that Altaïr could watch it happen even in the dim light afforded by a nearby candelabrum.
"Was this Oceanus's doing?" Riyaz had asked while sealing the slash on Altaïr's back with a final wave of his hand.
From a certain point a view, no. However, Altaïr couldn't read Riyaz's impassive expression, so he opted for the vague approach. "I would not have been injured if not for his actions." Altaïr had replied carefully, trying to judge the druid's reaction.
But Riyaz had just sighed and said, "I see. In that case, when he is fully awake and healthy, I think you deserve the first punch."
Altaïr had made a noise of agreement, but decided to wait and see if the strike was still deserved until the priest woke. He might have learned his lesson. But if Oceanus agreed to spar with him, Altaïr planned to make the lesson painful.
At that point, Riyaz had started to work on Oceanus, starting from the rather nasty-looking swelling on the side of the priest's head. Ash had sat nearby, whining all the while, as the druid (What was a druid, anyway?) cast his healing spells. Once that was done, he had shooed Altaïr out of the room, citing something about privacy and Oceanus's temper problems, but he'd been kind enough to provide the assassin with a second set of clothes and three blankets, and direct him toward the baths.
So, about two hours later, Altaïr had settled in front of the fire to wait. He wasn't sure if he dozed off at some point after that, but even if he had it didn't seem like anything had changed.
He yawned as he was joined by Ash, who curled up on the ugly bearskin rug next to the fire with his nose tucked into his tail fur. Altaïr wondered if he was going to fall asleep before the priest was going to be able to take a thoroughly-deserved whack upside the head, but that was about when he heard the door to the other room opening.
Riyaz walked out, dragging the white-haired priest along and dropping him next to Altaïr. Like the assassin, he was in another outfit entirely—a clean robe, in fact—and, if Altaïr's eyes weren't deceiving him, wrapping in a dozen feet of linen bandages. He was also still unconscious, which meant that the assassin couldn't hit him yet. Sighing, he decided it could probably wait until morning. Still, he glanced at the priest as Riyaz wrapped him in another set of blankets and Ash moved to lie next to him. Altaïr looked at Riyaz for an explanation.
After a minute under the assassin's unblinking stare, the druid said quietly, "He should be awake within a few hours. Until then, I will leave you to rest." As Riyaz stood, he seemed to wince and rub his hand reflexively, and if Altaïr wasn't mistaken, he limped as he walked. Just a bit, but it was there.
"Fine." Altaïr responded, immediately thinking of the aches that some of the older, retired assassins carried until they died. The elders spent a lot of time mentioning how their old bones—old breaks and old joints, usually—ached on cold mornings, whenever Altaïr had tended to them when he was still a novice. Nothing but herbs and hot baths ever seemed to change that.
Riyaz promptly disappeared as Ash wandered over, nudging Oceanus with his snout until the priest moved slightly and the huge dog was able to arrange himself around his companion more comfortably. As he did so, though, Ash gave Altaïr a strangely intelligent look out of his single eye and pulled the blankets back from the priest's side.
What little of the priest's arm wasn't covered by bandages was marked by horrible burn scars, blotched and dark. As Altaïr tried to make sense of it, Ash yawned widely and tucked the sheets around the priest and turned the boy's face away from the fire. Oceanus seemed to stir, but Ash promptly shifted and managed to arrange himself so that the priest was partially lying on him. He didn't move again, except to breathe.
"What are you scheming, dog?" Altaïr murmured, rubbing the creature's ears. Ash leaned into his touch, closing his eye.
Almost immediately, there came a roar from the lower tunnels—the sound of a distant door opening, then a woman's voice, but harsh and rough—making Ash's black-tipped ears stand alert. "He bit you? By Falazure's claws, why do you associate with that little—what is it now?"
There was a brief, unintelligible murmur.
The woman sighed. "Ignore my warning at your peril. I have dealt with his like before. Orn vur aujir darastrix dartak yth."
"I know. Thric pothoc."
"Then move along," the woman said coldly. "Get them out of here as soon as hospitality and practicality allow and then get back to work. We will have words about this, you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Good. Go now."
Altaïr sat back and waited as Riyaz reappeared, this time with a nasty slap mark standing out against his cheek and a long weapon—a black scythe—in his hand. The assassin decided not to ask, even as the druid sighed, sat down on the statue of the stumpy serpent, pulled out a whetstone, and started patiently sharpening the curved blade of his strange weapon. With the gentle crackling of the heath fire and the persistent, quiet grinding noise, it was peaceful. If Altaïr closed his eyes and ignored the harsh smell of the swamp and soap that had recently scoured the stone, he could almost pretend that he was still in Masyaf, teasing Malik and Kadar in the moments before they all fell asleep.
Altaïr blinked rapidly—those days had been gone for years. Kadar was dead; Malik was crippled. There was no way to bring back the innocent days they had spent together, but he couldn't let go of it. If not for him, neither of those things would have happened, even if they had grown apart over time even before then. Malik had forgiven him, but Altaïr knew it would take much longer for him to fully forgive himself.
Ash whined and pressed his nose against the assassin's arm. Altaïr rubbed the dog's ears, but otherwise didn't respond.
The night passed in contented silence.
Breakfast was a quiet affair, consisting only of polite inquiries about things like the location of the salt bowl, and there was no sign of the woman Altaïr had heard the previous night. They both murmured their own prayers over the food, each trying not to disturb the other's mealtime ritual, and then began to eat. Oceanus entered the room about halfway through the meal, still trying to pull his tunic over his head to hide the bandages and burns. This probably explained why he blundered around—he couldn't see a damn thing.
He promptly tripped over Ash's tail and ended up falling face-first down the stairs. There was a series of thumps and "Argh!" sounds.
Altaïr ignored it, as did Riyaz, and both of them took synchronized drinks from their cups. Ash stole a loaf of bread and knocked over the honey pot. All of them sighed.
Then, much louder, came a series of shouts and snarls.
First, Oceanus. "What are you doing down here? It smells like you dug up a graveyard!"
Then the woman, furious. "What do you think I was doing, you ignorant little rat of a child? I was raising ghasts!"
"Why?"
"Because otherwise the humans will come back," the woman snapped, "as you have so kindly demonstrated for me. I should have told my idiot apprentice to let you get eaten…"
"You actually think he would listen to an order like that?"
"Yes. She gave him to me to use as I see fit. She knew my version of the arts should not be allowed to die with me. And you know him better than that."
"…You are a wretched creature."
"So I am. What, if anything, do you think you can do about it?"
"I…"
There was silence.
"Exactly. Get out."
There was a loud cracking sound.
About a minute later, Oceanus stumbled back up the stairs, rubbing his jaw.
"As things go, that was probably one of the gentler reproaches I have heard from her." Riyaz mumbled around a thick slice of some unnamed meat Altaïr had decided against eating. It was probably safer if he could identify what it was before trying it.
"Hah." Oceanus grumbled. Altaïr saw the priest's fingers glow white briefly. He rubbed it again and said with a sigh, "She probably could have done worse than nearly break my jaw, I guess."
"Most likely." Riyaz replied mildly.
Oceanus pulled out a chair and sat down, immediately grabbing a small bread roll from the central basket. Altaïr glanced at Riyaz, who just shook his head. Some people did things differently. Ash wandered over and stole a fish from the table, which everyone had long since given up on getting him to stop—he was too tall to keep from snatching anything he liked.
"So, what have you been doing since you were sent here, Ronan?" Oceanus asked, putting fruit jam on a roll.
Riyaz shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the fact that the priest had called him something other than his name. "I have been completing my objectives."
That sounded flat, even considering that Riyaz had about as much emotion as a stone.
"Have you already learned most of what you need to know, or are you still working on it?" Oceanus asked quietly.
"Yes." Riyaz replied.
That was possibly the most banal way to answer a question Altair had heard since his own time as a novice. Mostly because it managed to be technically correct while not explaining a damn thing. It was how he had used to talk to al Mualim during his delinquent days, right before his reeducation.
Oceanus sighed. "Ro, you can be honest with me. Are you happy being here with her?"
"No." Riyaz replied immediately.
"Why?" The way he said it seemed to imply that he already knew the answer.
"I have no interest in undergoing an apprenticeship to a woman who acts like a Host Tower master." Riyaz replied dully, turning to look at the statue of a man who stood as though raising a sword to strike, his face frozen in fury, as though it were a window.
Oceanus nodded to himself. "I understand. I will send a message to Lumina as soon as I can. Why in the world you would just let her deck you like that…"
Altaïr had several opinions on this, and most of them very loud and emphatic, but he decided not to say anything. He still didn't quite understand how the social system worked here. So far, it seemed as thought everything he had known at home was turned on its head.
Maybe that was a good point to start from.
"Is it that common for women to strike their men?" he asked, testing the waters.
Oceanus and Riyaz both looked at him like he had grown a second head. They exchanged incredulous glances.
After a moment, Oceanus explained carefully, "It is a master and apprentice behavior. Some teachers believe that students have to be beaten in order to learn. Yttress happens to be one of them."
This was still not quite adding up. Altaïr began, "But you…"
"That is my decision." Oceanus interrupted harshly, making Altaïr blink at his vehemence.
After a moment of uncomfortable silence between the three of them (and Ash), Riyaz said in an undertone, "Did you ever explain the…?"
"No," the priest growled, "why?"
"Never mind." Riyaz muttered, shaking his head and returning to his slice of unidentifiable meat.
Oceanus snorted. He turned his attention back to Altaïr. "As it stands, we are more than seven hundred miles from where we should be heading. That failed teleportation spell…" He sighed. "It was supposed to take us out of the city, not this far." He pulled the extremely crumpled map from Ash's side bag and tried to smooth it out against the table.
Riyaz shrugged. "Teleportation spells can always go horribly wrong."
Oceanus gave him a sharp look. "Do we need to hear about the time with the drunken wizard and the dwarf and trying to teleport underground?"
"Probably, since you seem to have forgotten."
It gave Altaïr the strange feeling that everyone at the table knew what the hell that was supposed to mean, but wouldn't deign to tell him about it. This was precisely what was happening.
Finally, after a minute-long staring contest between the two, Oceanus groaned and said, "Yttress wants us to leave before sunset. She neglected to mention how. Would you mind providing us with some non-magical transportation…?"
Riyaz appeared to think about it. "Perhaps. We should talk to her about this."
Oceanus nodded and then glanced back at Altaïr. "Wait outside. This should be over shortly, one way or another." Ash stood up, having devoured two plates of fish, and promptly grabbed the assassin's pants to drag him away.
Riyaz paused. He turned back, pointing at a different alcove marked by strange symbols. "If you go that way first, you will find that your clothes are dry, and I made sure to pack spare clothes and supplies for both of you. Blade will show you how to avoid the traps."
"Blade?" But even as Altaïr asked, something huge and brown began to materialize out of mist that seemed to appear from nowhere. After a few seconds, the mist solidified into a light brown creature nearly ten feet long. Ash immediately started growling.
"Blade is a dire weasel, and my animal companion." As if understanding that it was being talked about, the beast reared up on its hind legs and nuzzled Riyaz's neck. It wasn't even standing up straight and still was more than five feet tall. Riyaz tweaked one of its ears and the beast settled down. "Go."
The stubby-legged beast trotted off down the hall, its long tail smacking Ash in the face and prompting him to growl even more fiercely. It yawned, displaying fangs that seemed almost too large for its head, and Altaïr suddenly noticed that its brow, shoulders, and hips were all tipped in spiked bone ridges. And that it had sharp white claws on all of its feet.
Altaïr sighed to himself and followed Blade down the hallway, Ash growling at his heels.
Then he turned around, caught Oceanus by the shoulder, and punched the unsuspecting priest in the face.
Then he left with Blade, leaving the priest sputtering in impotent rage and hearing something that sounded a little like a laugh from Riyaz.
Keras was bored.
It didn't happen often—he was an expert at stirring up trouble and fun and always had been. But for the past three days, he'd rifled through all of the scripture in Spirit Soaring, talked to a pair of crazy gnomes who were trying to create a golem that could shoot little bits of lead instead of swinging a mace, helped Danica look after the twins and the pair of dwarf brothers who didn't seem to have a single scrap of navigation sense between them, and pestered the priest Cadderly for hours on end. While the man was getting younger, regaining the life force he'd sacrificed in the name of Deneir to build Spirit Soaring in the first place, he still didn't have the patience necessary to deal with Keras when the swordsman was looking for entertainment.
Not a lot of people did.
Keras dozed lightly on the roof of the cathedral, at a loss as to what else he could do other than soak up the remaining sunlight. Lumina had ordered him to stay in the region, even if it started snowing and the passes got blocked up before Oceanus and his mysterious companion arrived. He didn't always listen to her, preferring to act on his own whenever practical, but staying in the Snowflake Mountains was giving him an opportunity to see Oceanus again. He could deal with orders for that.
Still, in the panicked minutes after seeing his mother's ship go up in flames, Keras had frantically gotten Cadderly to call Lumina. After calming him down, his boss had told him what she knew about Oceanus and Zahara and the mission she'd given him out of the blue. Keras didn't know what a Piece of Eden was, and neither did Lumina, but she had told him that his mother had discovered writings about powerful items from Mulhorand. Maybe they weren't from the desert nation, exactly, but Lumina had been sure that Zahara knew what she was doing.
He doubted that—his mother had a tendency toward doing things on a whim—but whatever the case, he'd been more focused on the last tidbit of information Lumina had revealed about her quick check-in with Zahara. Seemingly at random, Immersa had picked this as the moment to get involved with Lumina and Zahara's pan-continental scheming.
Keras wasn't sure why the ocean-dwelling witch would choose to be useful now of all times, but he supposed it wasn't his problem. As long as she didn't try to pull the same manipulative tricks that Lumina and Zahara specialized in, he'd be fine. Otherwise there would probably be a fight.
So, all that left him to do was to follow orders. But that didn't mean he was confined by them. Keras sat up, rubbing his eyes, and then began to climb down the building as he heard Cadderly starting to wake up from his afternoon nap. If his mother wasn't going to be answering any messages for a while, he could still call someone else.
Besides, the fireball his mother had been struck by was not a lone occurrence. According to Lumina and, later, Hokiide and Irolima (whose job it was to watch over Tethyr and other nearby nations for signs of trouble), there had been single-target attacks up and down the coasts all month. If the fireball strikes were working their way inland, Keras wanted to know. Somehow, it felt like the precursor to a major attack of some sort, even if he didn't know by whom. Whenever someone started a war, Lumina's people got caught up in it just like everyone else.
"Hey, Danica." Keras said as he saw the woman resting on a bench, with the twins and the dwarves nowhere in sight. He could hear them traipsing through the hedge maze outside, though.
She looked up. "Yes?"
"When Cadderly has time, can you ask him to try opening a scrying conversation with a woman named Immersa? I think I need to ask her about these attacks I've been hearing about, and maybe a bit about a magic device."
"So, you want to play packhorse for those two fools?" Yttress asked him not all that long afterward, the scorn in her voice evident.
He didn't bother to defend his position. She would just argue him to pieces over it, and in the end he'd end up doing what he wanted anyway. Even if she threatened to rip him in half every single time. She couldn't follow through. She wouldn't risk it.
There were, after all, far worse things than death.
But that didn't mean she would leave him in peace. That wasn't in her nature.
And she could make things hurt. All he could really say regarding her treatment of him was that he'd had worse. Much, much worse, and from people he now knew he should have been able to trust much more than he would ever trust her. At least she didn't expect him to like her, either. That wasn't what either of them was there for.
Still, she'd agreed that he could take them as far as the edge of her territory. No farther, but since her land was comprised over five hundred square miles of swamps, rivers, forest, and remarkably difficult bog, it would probably save them two or three weeks of slogging through the muck. Even if he didn't really know Altaïr that well, he did owe Oceanus that much. Oceanus had seen and done far worse for his sake before.
It was just a little unfortunate that this particular favor required him to take off all his clothes. And on top of everything, Yttress wouldn't go away. Even half-submerged in the water of the exit pool Yttress had once designated for emergency escapes only, he did realize that this was probably one of the more awkward non-life-threatening situations he'd ever been placed in. It didn't help that she'd taken all of his clothes and folded them neatly some distance away and was now giving him her best flat stare.
Maybe to someone else, it would have been creepy to the point of intimidating him or her into doing whatever she wanted. He stared back, unfazed. She didn't know his entire history—Lumina had deliberately avoided mentioning much of his adolescence and the events therein when she had sent him here. Maybe that was why Yttress didn't fully understand his own brand of stubbornness.
"Tell me, why would you think this is a good idea?" Yttress asked, and he felt her sharp nails draw a line of blood parallel to one of the many scars along his back. They weren't from her, but sometimes she speculated too much. He didn't even remember where he'd gotten half of them, to be honest, but so far she hadn't left a permanent mark.
This was going to hurt when he got back… "Some things are just that important," he replied tonelessly, walking deeper into the water so he could concentrate. It was so much easier when he didn't skip it for three days…oh well. There were some things worth giving up comfort for.
Yttress's mildly annoyed expression didn't change even as his perspective did, not even after the flash of blue-green light strong enough to sear through human eyelids.
"Well then, Riyaz, you had better leave before I become impatient. It is only a warning sign," she said coldly, her fingernails briefly lengthening into jet-black claws. A dull pattern of scales appeared on her brown skin. "You will not like me when I get angry." She grinned suddenly, showing off a mouth full of sharp gray teeth.
He left as fast as he could swim out of the escape tunnel. That was fast indeed.
Yttress smirked to herself as her foolish apprentice fled. "I wonder, will you ever be worth my time? If you cannot even see that your little friend has had almost all of his power blocked…perhaps not."
It turned out that Riyaz had provided spare outfits for both of them, and enough provisions for two weeks. That alone had marked him as more practical and probably more considerate than Oceanus was. Granted, Oceanus had wandered in while Altaïr was changing, apparently wondering what was taking so long, and had helped the assassin with the strange new garments, but still. And Altaïr still didn't know what all the damn belts were for.
Still, whatever the odd circumstances, they were waiting outside with Ash and Blade when the nearby lake started shuddering. And then the surface of the water exploded.
Altaïr wasn't soaked, but he looked away instinctively. Oceanus was already yelling, "What in the Nine Hells was that about?" by the time the assassin opened his eyes again and finally got a chance to take in what he was seeing.
It was larger than any creature Altaïr had ever seen. It was probably forty feet long, with scales in a dozen shades of dark blue and green and huge wings with a total of five "fingers" keeping them tightly folded. It had a face like a crocodile that had run face-first into a wall and had all of its facial bones heal crooked, topped with a craggy green horn that was almost met by those jutting lower teeth. It moved then, turning to face them with its tiny black eyes staring, and Altaïr found that he couldn't move. Four long, muscled legs, two wings, one thick tail lined with what looked like heavy scale armor, large ears that flicked like a massive dog's, huge spinal frill and long, thick neck and it was looming over them mouth wide open…
Oceanus coughed. "Altaïr, this is one of Riyaz's powers."
"What?" He gaped at the priest, looking back and forth between the pair. The monster was allowing Blade to crawl onto its head, not protesting as the weasel's sharp claws found holds in the crevasses of its scales. Then the dark eyes focused on him again.
Oceanus ignored him. "Riyaz, the harness is on backwards."
The beast turned its head this way and that, looking at the heavy leatherwork. It opened its mouth and spoke in Riyaz's voice, saying, "So it is. Could you help me rearrange this, then?"
Oceanus sighed. "Sure." And the priest started pulling at the buckles around Riyaz's ribcage, undoing most of them in seconds.
"…What are you?" Altaïr asked after a moment, immediately after which Oceanus gave a shout of triumph and the leather harness fell to the ground once Riyaz shook himself.
Riyaz turned back to the assassin, lowering his huge head so he could meet his eyes. "I am a dragon."
"Thank you for stating the obvious." Oceanus growled, trying to pull the harness into a more useful shape out of the mess of tangles it was at the moment. "Gods-damned ridiculous contraptions…" There was a faint "argh!" when said contraption proceeded to entangle him.
Riyaz tilted his head, one ear lashing the air. Hesitantly, Altaïr raised his hand and realized that Riyaz's eyes were the same. Larger, of course, and in a different face, but there was no malice there.
"I am of mixed bloodlines." Riyaz said, allowing Altaïr to touch the craggy horn mounted between his eyes. There were vicious gashes in the bone that gave it its jagged appearance, and when Altaïr looked, he noticed that there wasn't a square foot of scales that didn't have some sort of scar on it. Some of them were large enough that he shuddered to think of meeting whatever owned such teeth. "One half green dragon, one half blue, hated by both."
"Dragons may be the strongest creatures on Toril," Oceanus said from Riyaz's back as he tightened the rearranged harness—it looked a little like…a saddle?—and Blade almost bit him, "but they have the same prejudices as humans." He tightened the last strap and slid down Riyaz's back as the dragon closed his eyes and shook himself. The leather didn't budge.
Altaïr didn't say anything. He knew better than to try and pry this mess apart—it wasn't his business. He knew what it was like to be hated by both sides of his heritage, but he wasn't about to pour his heart out to a forty-foot flying lizard.
"It should be secure." Oceanus muttered, grabbing his and Altaïr's packs and stowing them in a pouch under Riyaz's sternum. Ash climbed into a different pouch under his belly, curling into a huge furry ball. Blade disappeared in a burst of gray mist that swirled around them, and then there were only three of them standing there.
It took some convincing, but eventually Altaïr managed to steel himself for the idea of flying on the back of a giant magical lizard. Riyaz pulled his tail out of the water and allowed Oceanus and Altaïr to climb onto his back from there.
Normally, Altaïr would have insisted on sitting in front to take the reins and have Oceanus hang on, but this was no horse, and there wasn't any way to force Riyaz to do anything if he didn't feel like it. And even if Altaïr had entertained the delusion that controlling a dragon was even half of a good idea, he didn't have the slightest idea how. So, as Riyaz began to turn and the assassin realized he was preparing to take off at a run, Oceanus sat in front, closest to the base of Riyaz's neck.
And sidesaddle, for some utterly incomprehensible reason.
"Altaïr, have you ever flown before?" Oceanus asked as Riyaz began to speed up from a walk that covered more distance in three steps than most people could jog in the same amount of time, to a trot that was faster than most horses at a canter.
"No." Altaïr said, trying to avoid saying something like, "of course I have never flown before, you idiot!" He was pretty sure the priest was trying to help. Maybe.
Oceanus poked him in the shoulder and Altaïr felt a rush of warmth flood his body. Blinking, he turned back to the priest, who was regarding him with a strangely calm look. "Did you feel that?"
"What was it?" he asked, rubbing his arm. "It was…like new blood. Like fire in my veins."
Oceanus shrugged. "It was a spell for protection against the cold air up there." He jabbed a finger skyward. "Otherwise you might freeze to death."
"I see." And he hadn't asked about the fact that he'd been given thicker clothes and extra layers thereof, or the fact that his normal gloves and hood and boots had all been replaced with different articles of clothing that would stand up better to the bitter cold.
Oceanus didn't seem to be wearing half as much, but maybe that could be chalked up to the fact that he was a foot shorter than Altaïr was and much, much, smaller overall.
Riyaz's huge head turned to face them, pivoting on that massive neck, and he said calmly, "We should be able to travel thirty miles in an hour. It may take us up to three days to get out of Yttress's territory."
"And after that, you should head to Lumina." Oceanus suggested. "We can walk or join up with a caravan."
Riyaz shrugged and nearly threw both of them off when the muscles connected to his huge wings shifted. "Ah, sorry." He thought about what Oceanus said and replied placidly, "I might end up taking you up on that offer…"
Oceanus rolled his eyes and pulled his scarf up over his nose. "If you ever wanted to scare Yttress off, you could always just…"
"That is for another time." Riyaz interrupted, and this time he really moved. It was like being jolted continuously, or like trying to sit on a wave. The dragon's body rocked and he moved like a huge, scaled cat and pounded along the soft marsh earth, causing both of his passengers to grip the edges of the saddle for dear life, but then they were going up, up, and up…
It settled, a bit, after the first wing-beats. Then there was just the sensation of freedom.
And bitter, bitter cold.
"It moved?" the shadowed sorcerer shrieked, outraged.
His two employees, amused, merely nodded.
"How?"
"We have no idea!" said the female, quite cheerfully. "Teleportation always seems like an option, but then your prize might be splattered across three kingdoms!"
"Listen, you…you." Apparently, there was still an edge of fear in the air. He couldn't afford to insult them. "I already promised to give you everything I had for this…"
"So you did," the male remarked. "That is not enough."
"Then what is?" the sorcerer demanded. "The archmages in Luskan and Neverwinter already conspire against me, and I have no other options!"
The male rolled his shoulders. "When we track this device down, use it to destroy your enemies. Bring Luskan to its knees. But after that…"
"We own you," the female finished happily.
"I…" He didn't have any other options that presented themselves as good ideas. He'd made too many enemies, killing everyone who had ever gotten in his way. And now he faced two monsters who couldn't be negotiated with or destroyed without dying in the process.
Miserable or not, he liked living. More importantly, he liked his heart where it was.
He swallowed. "I…I agree."
Two sets of fanged grins. "Good."
Six hours later, on the ground, Altaïr decided to ask about something that had been bugging him ever since he'd first heard that strange woman talk, "What does "Orn vur aujir darastrix dartak yth" mean?"
Oceanus, who had been busy trying to brush dried mud out of Ash's thick fur, looked up and said with a frown, "Where did you hear that?"
Altaïr glanced at Riyaz, who seemed to be sleeping less than ten feet away. "It just came up."
Oceanus looked at Riyaz, too, and said, "It means, roughly, "Silver and bronze dragons hate us." I think it might have been a proverb, if there was a better Common translation for it. Or just advice." He gestured at the mountains that had appeared in the distance about an hour ago, visible through the swamp fog. "The further we head that way, the more territories Ro is going to end up crossing. If he stays too long, a lot of dragons are going to be very, very angry at him."
"What dragons live in the mountains?" Altaïr asked.
"Silver and red, both of which will probably attack Ro for being here." Oceanus said, starting to pry the mud out from behind Ash's ears with a bone comb. It snapped. "Damn." He stuck the pieces back in his pocket and added, "Well, bronze, copper, and black dragons are more likely to live around here. Some of them might live in the foothills, or they might be trying to edge in Yttress's territory or something."
"Yttress is a dragon." Altaïr said flatly. It wasn't even a question, really. He knew.
Oceanus shook his head. "And if you met her face-to-face, it would be even more obvious. She has horns growing out of the sides of her head."
"Horns." Right. Because there hadn't been any way for this journey to get any stranger.
"Even when she pretends to be human." Wait, yes there was. It could have only gotten weirder if every person they'd met wasn't human. Arrgh. "Even so, it is probably for the best that you did not. I imagine that your world disapproves of her making corpses walk."
Altaïr felt like beating his head against a wall.
Ash yawned, his long tail lashing and splattering them all with mud.
A/N: And that ends part 6 for now.
Tethyr: the mostly-landlocked region north of Calimshan (which is a little like a cross between the Middle East and Muslim Spain) and east of Amn (think 15th-century Italy). Has issues with both, and pirates. Seems to contain the Snowflake Mountains only because no one else cares enough to fight them for it.
Druid: one of the two most powerful D&D core classes, the other being an optimized cleric. Always involves nature worship—usually of Chauntea or Silvanus.
Thric pothoc = Draconic for "I'm not stupid."
Teleporting when impaired (in any way) usually results in getting tele-fragged.