The Queen of Stone: Thorn of Breland (17 page)

He was a giant.

No mere ogre, but a true giant … a creature Thorn had only heard of in the tales explorers brought back from Xen’drik. As Thorn had seen, the ogres—and even the oni—were quite bestial in appearance; no one could mistake them for humans. The newcomer had no such fearsome demeanor—no fangs, no claws, no horns on his forehead. His skin was jet black, his hair the brilliant red of a bonfire, and he was extremely muscular. Setting aside the color of his skin, at a great distance he could easily have been mistaken for a dwarf of the Mror Holds, a proud miner baron. Up close, it was obvious that he was over three times the height of a man, and that he could crush Thorn’s head between his thumb and forefinger. Even sitting on the floor, he towered over the table.

“I am the Warlord Gorodan, called the Ashlord,” he said. His voice was bass thunder, and the wine in their goblets shook with the sound. “I am to be your host for this miserable evening. Ask what you will of me … but be warned.” He set a massive hand on the table, shaking everything on it. “I am hungry and I am cold, and I have
no patience for the foolish questions of little men. Now let us EAT!”

The last comment was directed to the room at large. Gorodan’s speaking voice was loud enough; when he shouted, Thorn could
feel
the force of it. The command sent the goblins scurrying, and within moments food began to arrive.

After her earlier experience with the pixie sticks, Thorn chose to avoid anything she couldn’t identify, but that still left many options. She knew that gorgon was safe, and it wasn’t an easy dish to find in Breland. The sauce was a savory blend of wine and firepeppers; Thorn wondered if the Daughters had imported chefs who understood human tastes, or if they ate such food themselves. Beren’s tale of Sora Maenya rose in the back of her mind, and she had a vision of the hag preparing a wine glaze for the three children she had just killed; she shivered and tried to force the image away. Suddenly she wasn’t hungry any more.

Her companions were pleasant enough. Munta was surprisingly good company; hobgoblins were known as warriors, but Lhesh Haruuc of Darguun had chosen his envoy well. Soon everyone but the giant was laughing at Munta’s tale of the goblin smith trapped inside the suit of plate mail. Councilor Sarin surprised them with a war story; not a tale of the Last War, but an account of a battle fought deep within the Seawall Mountains between kobolds and gnome jewel miners. Sarin had begun his political career as a foreman in the mines.

Councilor Dorian had a talent for weaving illusions, and as Sil Sarin told his tale, she recreated it with shimmering figures of light; even the sullen giant was drawn in by the show. At the end, as everyone cheered the clever victory, Sarin scattered a handful of rubies across the table, gems from the very mine of the tales. The councilor asked everyone to take a ruby as a memory of the evening. Even Toli seemed pleased as he took a ruby; while he hated the
Thranes, the gnomes of Zilargo had been strong allies of Breland in the last years of the war.

Clever play, Thorn thought. Beren placed his ruby in his belt pouch, and Thorn slipped it out as he reached for the flagon of wine. Such an object was an ideal target for scrying magic. Assuming the gnomes had a diviner in their party, this friendly gift would allow them to monitor the activities of anyone who kept a ruby. She’d dispose of them later.

Beren and Jen Dorian attempted to draw out the giant. Though still sullen, the warlord’s mood had improved as he filled his stomach. “My tale begins in Xen’drik,” he rumbled, “far across the Thunder Sea.”

Thorn was sure it was a fascinating tale … but it was also an opportunity. All attention was focused on the giant. Dropping her hand beneath the table, she carefully drew Steel.

Confirm: the envelope at your seat is addressed to Thorn?

She tapped the blade once with her forefinger.

We’re in luck, then
.

The warlord Gorodan was explaining how he’d violated a taboo of his people, something he considered to be a foolish, primitive superstition. Thorn used the opportunity. “I’m not sure I understand—could you elaborate on that?”

Sora Teraza is an oracle. It’s difficult to determine the full extent of her power—like all the Daughters, the truth is tangled with centuries of legend. We’ve lost agents in Droaam before due to her prescience. It’s not surprising that she’d know your identity. The point is that they know who you are, and you’re still alive
.

Meaning what? There was a chance they’d have me killed? She had no way to ask this question without raising eyebrows, so she waited for an appropriate moment in Gorodan’s story and said, “That is very interesting.”

The Daughters had to know the nations would send spies
.
They’re probably counting on it. They want to make sure that whatever happens here is heard across Khorvaire. So they know who you are and what you are. But if they knew about your secondary mission, they’d probably have taken direct action by now. Have you looked inside the envelope?

Looked inside? She tapped the blade twice. It hadn’t even occurred to her. But Steel was right. They weren’t just place cards—there was little reason to use an envelope if not to put something inside.

Obviously you shouldn’t open it now, since it’s not addressed to you. But you’d best take it with you. In any case, about your companions—

Steel’s speech and Gorodan’s story were both cut off as the floating lights flared and then dimmed, drawing together to create a single pool of light between the tables. A single figure was silhouetted by the spotlight.

Sora Katra. Mistress of the Mires. The crone who wove curses on her loom. Subject of a hundred stories … all of which ended badly.

“Let us begin,” she said.

T
hough Sora Katra stood below the light, it didn’t touch her. It was more than a trick of illumination. Thanks to her ring, Thorn could see in darkness as clearly as day, yet the figure remained in shadow. Sora Katra’s voice was equally mysterious. It was firm, clear, commanding. Feminine. Authoritative. The voice of a queen, of a matriarch who has dominated a family for generations. And yet, the moment she stopped speaking, Thorn had trouble remembering the precise sound of that voice. Surely she had the voice of an old woman—but when Thorn looked back on the evening, she heard a younger voice—a voice she’d always associated with her mother.

But when Sora Katra spoke, all questions vanished. Hers was a voice that could not be ignored.

“None of you have met me before. Yet all of you know me. I was with you in your bed when you first heard the tale of Lord Koltan and the story of the Stone Tree. I spent my youth in the Shadow Marches, but I also moved among you; whenever you told my stories, you brought me to your door.” Her shadow shifted; Thorn could
almost
make out her shape, but not quite. “We live in a world filled with illusions, a world of changelings and hidden fiends. I
myself have worn a thousand faces and more, for each story calls for something new. We have long known each other, yet this is the first time that we truly meet, and I wish you to see who I am.”

Her shadow shifted again, and the magical lights faded further.

“So remember that first story. Remember what you feared in the night. Remember … and be welcome.”

As she finished speaking, she stepped back and fully into the light. A gasp passed through the assembled envoys, and Thorn couldn’t help herself; she stiffened, her grip tightening on Steel’s hilt. The figure standing before her had stepped out of her nightmares.

Sora Katra was just as Thorn had imagined from hearing the tale of the Forgotten Princess. She was an old woman, and her skin was as pale as her hair, milky white with a touch of green that hinted at rot. Her skin was wrinkled and her flesh withered, but her back was straight, and her movements were smooth and graceful. She wore a cloak of long black feathers over a rough gray robe, bound by a belt made of finger bones … trophies from those who’d made foolish deals with her. Her own fingers were unnaturally long, each one tipped with a raven’s talon. Despite the distance, Thorn could see her eyes—greenish-white and glowing in the dim light. “Eyes that saw your death as soon as they passed over you,” her father had told her. “Saw it … or set it in stone.”

It’s not real
, Steel whispered.
She said it herself… illusion, and a powerful one. Everyone here is seeing something different
.

Steel’s words were comforting, but the unease remained. Though she knew it was a trick, Thorn still remembered lying awake in the middle of the night, clenching her fists every time she heard a bird land on the roof. A young girl terrified that those pale eyes would appear at the window, coming to claim a bone.

“Yes, we know each other, you and I.” Sora Katra glanced around the silent room, and it took all of Thorn’s resolve to meet her pale gaze. “But do you know this place? Do you know where you are, and why?”

Sora Katra raised her right hand and a medusa appeared in the shadows at her side. Venom dripped from the serpents coiled around her head, and her eyes were wide open; though most knew it must be an illusion, there was a commotion as many of the envoys looked away or shielded their eyes. And Katra wasn’t done. She raised her left hand and a troll stepped out of the darkness—a muscular beast, slime and boils glistening on its rubbery green skin. It held a human child in one clenched fist, and it raised the girl to its mouth and closed its jaws around her neck. With that, both images froze, leaving Sora Katra flanked by terrors.

“For a thousand years, you claimed this land as part of your kingdom of Galifar,” she said. “But it was never yours, and you knew it. You have numbers, discipline, ingenuity; you have crafted fantastic tools and powerful magic over the centuries. But you have always feared those beings that have powers you can never master. The petrifying gaze of the medusa. The troll’s gift to spurn the touch of steel. You fought these creatures in the past, slaughtered them when you could, pushed them away when that was all you could do. You carved out your peaceful sanctuary in the heart of the land, but you never drove the horrors from
this
land. Occasionally, your warriors would cross the Graywall, seeking to make a name, a new legend, to return as heroes of a new story. But you know as well as I how many returned.”

Katra lowered her hands and the images vanished. But something lingered in the shadows where they had been … a ripple in the darkness.

“Just over a century ago, you tore your great kingdom apart. You have spent decades killing one another, and the heart of Galifar is lost forever. And as you
squandered the work of a thousand years, we created something new.”

She raised her hand and was flanked by massive figures … the bestial ogre guards, and trolls that looked even more fearsome than the one seen a moment earlier—trolls wearing armor and carrying vicious axes.

“My sisters and I each have our strengths. I am the voice. Sora Teraza, the vision. And Sora Maenya is our bloody blade. Alone, we are terrifying. Together, we are far more … and that is the lesson we brought to this place. Harpy, medusa, minotaur—any one of them a creature dreaded by your kind. But together, they could be a power this world has never seen. Every fear your people have—standing side by side, using their remarkable gifts in ways never conceived by those living in savagery.”

She raised her arms and the walls around her faded away. Harpies and gargoyles filled the air above her. Snarling dire wolves and minotaurs now stood among the ogres and trolls, and Katra was flanked by medusa archers.

“This is where you are. This is Droaam. An alliance of those you fear, of the monsters of your tales. Three years ago we came to you and asked that you recognize our sovereignty. You dismissed us. You had greater concerns, and no interest in the savages to the east. Surely we’d turn on one another within a year … or one of you would take it upon yourselves to eliminate this blight once and for all. Yet here we stand.”

Sora Katra lowered her hands and the perspective suddenly changed … a dizzying, disorienting effect. Thorn felt as if she were rising into the air, looking down upon the army of ogres, trolls, and other beasts … an army that grew larger and larger as she gained a greater perspective.

“Three years have passed, and we have not fallen. We are stronger than you ever imagined, and our power grows by the day. We are the nightmare of humanity. And so you
have come, in answer to our call. To see for yourselves what power we truly possess. To see the mistake you made years ago. Ignore us, insult us, and this is what awaits you.”

Wyverns and manticores joined the beasts in the air, and divisions of gnolls and goblins took positions alongside the ogres and their kin. The army stretched for miles …

And then it was gone. Sora Katra stood alone in the pool of light.

“Droaam is the terror that has lingered in the shadows since your civilizations began. Yet we did not destroy your great kingdom. You did that to yourselves. We are easy targets for your fear, but it is time to set aside your primal superstitions and see the world as it truly is.”