The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (26 page)

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The shape shifter continued her search, but
she had underestimated Lain's skill. In more than ten days of
scouring the countryside, not once did she turn up the malthrope.
All the while, Myranda trudged toward her own goal. She had no
horse, and no way to get one, but it didn't matter. Over low
mountain, icy field, and thick forest the human marched. She slept
only when she had to and ate while on the move. Myn faithfully by
her side, the girl pushed herself toward an indistinct point in the
mountains to the east. She didn't know what she would find there,
but she didn't care. With each step she grew more determined and
more convinced that ahead lie something, anything, that could help
her. That was all that mattered.

She now stood a short distance from the last
town she would find before the mountains began in earnest. In truth
the path was already steep and rocky, but beyond here she would
have to climb. To this point Myranda had avoided the towns. Indeed,
Grossmer’s mining village had been the last semblance of a town
that she had set foot in. She thought long and hard. Hunting had
been difficult for Myn, and the bag she held had been stripped of
provisions days ago. The mountains were nearly bare. Myn would be
hard pressed to turn up enough food for one, let alone two, among
the rocky cliffs that stood intimidatingly between herself and the
target she sought. She would need to enter the town. The risk was
small that she would be recognized. After all, only the Elites and
Epidime knew what she looked like, and Epidime alone seemed to
still be interested in her capture. Of course, there were still
concerns.

Myranda looked down at Myn, who gazed
pleasantly back. As well behaved as the little dragon was, she
would not be able to join her in the town. It was a shame. The
thought of a bed had appealed to her, but she would rather spend
the night by Myn's side than in comfort. Not that it mattered.
Regardless of what she needed, she hadn't a single coin to buy it
with. She patted the little creature beside her on the neck.

"Well, another night out in the cold for the
two of us . . . " Myranda began, before something she felt stopped
her.

There was a dip in the scales of her neck,
the place where the nearman had grabbed her. Her thoughts drifted
back to Desmeres gathering up her discarded skin. He claimed it was
valuable. She rummaged through her bag and found the trio of smooth
red scales. As her stomach growled and she stared with concern at
the rocky mountainside she would have to climb, she made her
decision.

"Myn, meet me on the other side of the town.
I will be there soon," Myranda said.

The little dragon quickly took to the air.
Myranda had nearly forgotten the creature could fly. She shook her
head as it flitted directly over the town. She should have told her
not to be seen, but it was too late now. Myranda headed into the
town, unsure of how much success she would have there. A
frosted-over sign proclaimed this place to be Verneste. When she
entered, she realized that, for a town, it was rather small. The
streets were utterly deserted, the people indoors, away from the
harsh and constant winds. No one had seen Myn fly by, at least.
Squinting against the biting wind, Myranda attempted to determine
what type of markets were lining the one and only street in town.
Not until she scraped the icy snow from the fourth sign she
encountered did she find something that might help her. In faded
blue on ancient gray wood was painted a set of scales, an assayer
or appraiser. They were common in places such as this. Miners were
certainly the only regular visitors to this place, and the services
of an assayer are quite essential to determining the worth of their
mine. At the very least she could find the value of what she had to
bargain with.

The heavy door swung closed behind her and,
for the first time in too long, she enjoyed the heat of a fire and
shelter from the wind. As she warmed herself by the low flames in
the fireplace, she slowly took in her surroundings. There were
scales of various sizes, ranging from a small one on a desk at the
far side of the room to one large enough to weigh bags of grain.
Cases with jars and pouches containing samples of various
substances lined two walls, while a third case sloppily held an
incomplete set of reference texts. There was no purveyor in sight,
though beside the scale on the desk was a large chime with a small
hammer tied to its base. When Myranda had warmed enough that she
had stopped shivering uncontrollably, she gave the chime a
ring.

After a second and third ring, heavy
footsteps could be heard above, and soon a door was pushed open by
a weary looking older gentleman. He wore furs that had yet to see a
tailor, still in the shape they had been in when they left the
skinner. His face was unshaven and weathered looking, with wiry
gray hairs scattered among the black. Plodding over to the desk
with a pronounced limp, he slapped both hands down, cleared his
throat loudly, and looked her in the eye.

"What have you got?" he asked.

Myranda dropped the three dragon scales on
the counter. He glanced them over.

"Dragon scales. Haven't seen many of these in
a while," he remarked, picking one up. "The dragon these came from
was young, eh? Baby scales are hard to come by. Usually the hand
that drops them on the table is missing a few fingers."

He smelled them.

"Fresh," he remarked.

He scraped at one with a fingernail.
Satisfied at whatever it was he was trying to determine, he placed
them on one end of the balance, placing small pieces of brass on
the opposite side until he was satisfied here as well. After
thumbing through the appropriate book, he scratched a few figures a
scrap of paper with a quill.

"An alchemist would give you forty silver for
the lot. Good luck finding one. I will take them for fifteen, if
you can afford the loss," he said.

"That will be fine," Myranda said, happy to
get anything.

"I thought you might feel that way," he said
with a grin that showed teeth at least as poorly kept as the rest
of him.

As she picked the coins off of the table, she
noticed a rather official document among the scattered papers
there. It bore the seal reserved for statements from the king
himself, and judging from the state of wear the other papers
showed, it was quite new.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Eh? Oh. I was supposed to hang that outside,
but I thought the king would be better served by a message that
would last longer than the next stiff breeze," he said, handing the
paper to her.

It was indeed an official announcement. As
she deciphered the excessively elaborate wording of the document a
slow realization dawned on her. The words proclaimed that, due to
recent escalations on the battlefield, all large labor facilities
would be hereby transferred in their entirety to emissaries of the
throne to be owned and operated by the Alliance Army in order to
assure strong and reliable supply lines. The owners, it claimed,
would be rewarded handsomely with both gold and exemption from
military service. Not only that, but recently dissolved mines,
plantations and similar places would be re-formed and re-staffed to
bolster supplies. It went on to list the harsh and numerous
consequences that would result from the attempted sale to those
unaffiliated with the Alliance Army.

It was madness to suppose that such actions
were called for, or even worth consideration. The one thing that
the army had in spades was military supplies. Virtually all of the
iron in the world was pulled from northern mountains like this one.
The one thing that was in truly short supply was leadership, and
the administration of dozens of enormous enterprises would take all
that the Army could spare and more. At first glance there seemed no
justification, but Myranda quickly realized one.

Epidime had scoured her mind, and though he
didn't manage to break her, he did claim that he had learned all
that he needed. He must have learned what Lain's motivations were,
that he spent every copper he earned to free those who were forced
to work in the very places that were now forbidden to change hands.
This was a blatant, heavy handed, desperate attempt to smoke Lain
out . . . and it bore the official seal of the king. It was still
not clear why the army was so interested in the Chosen. There was
still the possibility that the military wanted their help, but from
what she'd seen of those in command, the motives were likely far
more sinister. The fact that a dispatch from the king himself was
serving their interests chilled Myranda, as it meant that even he
was not beyond their influence. Or worse, that he endorsed their
methods.

She pocketed the coins, replaced the page,
and tried her best to force the maddening thoughts from her head.
With the transaction complete and silver jingling in her pocket,
Myranda reluctantly returned to the frigid street. There was a
surprisingly well stocked general market that replaced her ragged
boots and provided her with a few days rations of salted meat. The
addition of a canteen, a pair of gloves, a blanket, and a more
appropriate bag left her with five silver left. There was no reason
to save any, so she fetched a few things that she didn't so much
need as desire. A small knife with a sheath was a shade more useful
than the dagger Deacon had given her which, until now, had managed
to do little more than perforate the bag. That too was fitted with
a sheath that best fit it. She dropped the last of the money into
the keeper's hand in exchange for a small bag of potatoes. Myn
would be pleased. It had been a peculiar discovery back in Entwell
that the little creature positively adored potatoes, and was even
willing to tolerate visits from Deacon in exchange for one or
two.

The dragon was fairly prancing with delight
as Myranda tossed her one of the treasured treats. The new boots
made the difficult task of scaling the icy slopes a fair amount
easier, and the pack that hung on her shoulder freed her hands for
the task as well. With the aid of her staff, she and the dragon
were covering twice the ground that they had before. Periodically
Myranda would stop to determine where the thing she sought could be
found. It was drawing nearer. When the wind stopped whipping long
enough for the blown snow to settle, a pass between two peaks could
be seen ahead. She felt certain that what she was looking for,
whatever it was, was on the other side. If the weather calmed at
all, she just might make it through within the day.

Alas, weather is seldom obliging. The winds
grew steadily as the hours passed, and though it was difficult to
differentiate fresh snow from blowing snow, by the time the light
began to fail Myranda knew that she was in the midst of a steadily
growing snowstorm. The nearest thing to shelter was a
claustrophobic alcove beneath an over-crop that would at least keep
the snow from their heads. There was nothing to burn for a fire, so
once again body heat would have to suffice. They slept huddled
together, Myranda's cloak and blanket wrapped around them both.
Myn's snout was the only thing exposed, thanks to the over-sized
garment. She could have pulled it inside, but her reason for
leaving it out became clear when she huffed out the first of
several bursts of flame over the course of the night. The heat that
surged through her body afterward lingered in the warm folds of the
cloak, likely the only thing that made the night survivable.

#

Elsewhere, the shape shifter dropped down to
the ground and slowly shifted to her human form. Spending time in
the form of wind was taxing, and she felt as though if she
maintained the form for much longer she would be spent. Lain was
near, she was certain of that. He had slipped into one of the human
settlements, so it was just as well that she entered as one of
them. She scanned around her. In this form her senses were as
frustratingly limited as any other human’s. Virtually no light was
to be had, save the weak glow from windows, rendering the only
moderately effective means of observing the world that humans had
at their disposal, vision, even less adequate than usual. Wind
whistled away her hearing, and all touch told her was how laughably
fragile these things were. They were actually endangered by the
cold. She shook her head, rid herself of the annoying sense, and
began to alter one of the other senses into something that could
reveal Lain to her. Unfortunately, without some sample of a
creature to work off of, she was having limited success. Her mind,
though, remained sharp, so long as she maintained a form that
wasn't much more complex than the one she now occupied. She quieted
her thoughts and felt for the essence that had allowed her to
follow Lain this far. She felt him tantalizingly nearby, but
something still closer drew her attention.

It was a spirit black, twisted, and
parasitic. It was one of them, a D'karon, trying valiantly to
escape notice. It failed. She turned her eyes to the source of the
corrosive essence. Surrounded by four of the empty cloak creations
was a scrawny, mild-looking human male with an out-of-place look of
intelligence and confidence on his face. In his hand was a halberd
identical to the one wielded by the remarkably powerful wizard she
had faced when she first revealed herself. He smiled at her. As she
surveyed her opponent, he surveyed her. She would have little
trouble with this one. There was barely a trace of the energy that
was present in the last halberd bearer.

"Attention, people of the fair city of Fleer.
I represent the great General Epidime. What is to transpire is of
interest only to the Alliance Army. Enter your homes and remain
there until morning. Any individual who disobeys will be guilty of
treason!" the young man announced.

At the sound of the last word, the handful of
residents who remained on the streets scurried quickly inside. When
all doors were shut, the man spoke again.