Chapter 10 - Part 12

Delegado’s mouth was dry as they waited for the halfling.

They were in Pienna’s suite. Thomas had been unbound, although he had not been given his armor or weapons back. Those lay in a tidy pile behind Missy, who bared her fangs at the stormstalk as it swiveled about curiously.
The appendage made Delegado ill. The toys of the daelkyr were abominations that should be swiftly destroyed as far as he was concerned. He used to think Pienna felt that way as well, but the druidess was the one who had ordered the stormstalk unbound once Thomas had promised that he could control it.

But it wasn’t the symbiont that made Delegado’s mouth feel so dry.

Iron Orphan stood off to the side, tapping his fingers quietly against his legs. The warforged made Delegado angry, and he did not want to admit why. It wasn’t that the thing had bested him in combat, or that Pienna showered it with such affection when he, Delegado, should be honored by the Gatekeeper. Others had bested Delegado, although not many in recent years, and further he was no longer a youth eager for praise. He only wished that either were the true reason, petty and immature as they were.

Can it be? Delegado wondered. Can the machine be more alive than me?

But it was not his self-doubt that made his mouth feel so dry.

Pienna came out of the halfling’s room, holding the door open for the small creature. Drorin looked like he had aged ten years in the few hours since Delegado had last seen him.

“Is everyone prepared for fire?” Drorin said in a loud, hoarse whisper. “I have prepared, have you?”

“I had already sown my magics for the day,” Pienna said. “I have some protection,
but not much. I have alerted Tippish to have ditches of water prepared.”

“It will not be enough, of course,” Drorin said. “I know this, although I do not know why. I am more cursed than blessed, more blind than seer.”

“Why do we have to be here for this?” Delegado snapped. His terror was growing. He did not want to hear what this little nut had to say!

“Because you MUST be here!” the halfling said, in a deep voice not his own. A smell of ozone seemed to spring up in the air. The stormstalk on Thomas’ neck whipped around and hid behind its master’s body. The halfling’s eyes rolled up until only the whites showed. “Because the Prophecy has touched this one of the small people!”

Everyone flinched.

“Are you still Drorin?” Pienna asked.

The halfling slumped, his eyes returning to normal, and the ozone smell fading. The stormstalk peeked out from behind Thomas. “I am,” he gasped. “It left a piece in my mind, a piece that kills me even as it holds me together.” He shuddered. “I am not long for this world.

He straightened and faced them, coughing a bit, and then growing very serene. “Hear me, heavens, give ear to me, earth. Syberis, Eberron, and Khyber, attend and exhibit.

“Delegado, the hunter, the finder, the unhappy man who should be happy. Face your demons, lest they become physical ones in the place where they dwell and reminisce. Do not follow Vuchen’s wounded pride, for Thomas has a part to play. Your path is a hard one to feel, for feeling is hard, and it is so much easier to not join, not think, not care. But you do.”

“I’d kill you if you weren’t so sick already,” Delegado snarled.

“My words would still live in your ears, Delegado,” the halfling said. He turned and stared at Thomas. Again the stormstalk hid. “So strong, so intent, and so tortured. Your knack for manipulating prepared and stored magic may be a gift from your father, but you can use it to defeat an evil greater than him, in the place it calls its own. Get to Oalian, and beg to serve him by taking the Branch of Water and Air. The first riddle is with the prisoner. Oalian will know what I mean.”

“I will never live long enough to approach him,” Thomas said bitterly. “Delegado has reason to hate me. Vuchen has reason to destroy me. Have I really avoided suicide just to continue to be a pawn?”

“I did not think you a coward,” Drorin said. “You have fought many voices in your head, many physical and mental enemies.”

“I only want peace!” Thomas said, tears leaking from his alien, glowing eyes.

“And if you fight and struggle enough to preserve what is good, you will find a permanent peace on the ship of one who permanently wanders.”

“For a flesh and blood enemy to fight!” wept the half-daelkyr.

“Flesh you shall fight soon,” Drorin said, turning his attention to Iron Orphan. “Or a semblence of flesh, with no blood to speak of. Are you familiar with this, Iron Orphan?”

“You speak in riddles because to precisely tell the future would enable us to avoid it, and thereby change it,” the warforged said. “And of course because you only know what you see.”

“I see that your race will be free, if not loved,” Drorin told him. Iron Orphan froze, his attention fixed more than ever, his tapping fingers now still. “Note well,” the halfling told him. “You and Thomas and Delegado form three of the four, and with you there is hope. Accompany Thomas to Oalian. Follow the mission even if the others do not. You will do what is right and what is inalienable law, and you will even retrieve a things that chaos and evil stole from good, the artifact of the Balanced Palm.”

“It is not a myth?” Iron Orphan asked.

“No more than death itself is,” Drorin said, sighing. “I will know that within the hour.”

“Can’t speed it up at all, can you?” Delegado asked, forcing moisture into his mouth.

“Delegado!” Pienna said, shocked. “You cannot say such –”

“F’test your morality!” the half-orc yelled at her.

“There is no hope,” Thomas said.

“Attend!” Drorin cried. Against their will they did. “Delegado, You must make a choice or be shriveled. Iron Orphan, life means problems, only furniture is truly uncaring. You will face death from those who prefer not to think today, perhaps your words are weapons as much as sais or kamas. Thomas, this is your last chance to believe in hope. When will hope come? When those who first tried to kill each other become comrades, hope truly appears.”

Drorin then began to chant and wave his hands. He touched Thomas, then Delegado. Both flinched, but were aware of a force around them, protecting them. “Thomas, arm yourself,” he commanded. The man began putting on his breastplate. “Delegado, go do as you will.”

The half-orc stared down at him. “Just a decision about who to kill first, really.”

“She would not fall for that and neither will I,” the halfling told him. “Pienna, protect Iron Orphan with your spells now.”

“F’test all of this!” Delegado snarled. He spun around and walked out, shoving the door open. The stairs went by in a blur, and he cut through the kitchen to the stables.

Five minutes later he was mounted, and Feather flew above him as he headed out of town on the Orien road.