Chapter 14 - Part 8

“Do you worship anything?” Orphan asked. He did not mean to put it so bluntly, but he had been thinking about it and knew of no other way to bring it up.

“Are you about to try and convert me to that stupid twinkly fire?” Delegado asked harshly.

Orphan cocked his head to one side. “I don’t understand.”

“Are you a Silver Flame worshipper?”

“Absolutely not,” Orphan said. “What gave you that idea?”

Orphan was watching closely, so he saw Delegado’s cheek and shoulder muscles relax. “Nothing, just when you knew what the first of Sypheros – you know, forget it.” Orphan got the impression that something about the Thrane state religion caused the half-orc pain.

“I have engaged in study of various religions,” Orphan said. “I have yet to find one that satisfies me, but I am curious about spirituality.”

Delegado grunted, and another long pause ensued.

“So you met Pienna after your casting?” Delegado asked suddenly. It seemed as if he wanted to wipe away the previous conversation with a new topic.

“Yes, her cousin asked her to come to Cyre,” Orphan said. “I was the latest in a problem that they were having. Several warforged were not as obedient as they expected.”

“Most warforged aren’t like you,” Delegado said. “I hate to tell you this, but there’s a lot of warforged that don’t seem to have any ability to think for themselves.”

“And there’s a lot of orcs up in the Mror Holds that are bloodthirsty savages with no connection to the druidic cultures in the Marches,” Orphan told him. He got a certain sense of satisfaction from watching Delegado flinch.

“Okay, good point,” Delegado said. “Culture determines a lot of it, I suppose. I haven’t hunted constructs, so I guess I wouldn’t know what your world is like.”

“We are more than constructs,” Orphan said. “I know it. I feel it. We are alive.”

Delegado was silent about it. “So what are you going to do about that?”

“I don’t know,” Orphan said. “I just – I don’t know.”

“Breland says they’ll be freeing their warforged,” Delegado noted. “I don’t see Cyre doing it, the warforged are the only reason they haven’t been totally overrun. Other countries either.”

“The warforged in Cyre may be taking matters into their own hands,” Orphan said. “There’s a – I guess it’s a cult or a religious movement. Warforged in high places who are outwardly loyal and obedient, but they have their own agenda. They tried to recruit me. They may have even had a hand in creating me.”

“Hunh,” Delegado said. “There’s a lot of them?”

“I don’t know.”

Another long silence followed.

“So what made you go through Aundair after you got off the airship in Wroat?” Delegado asked. For all of his protestations about cliched conversations, he seemed to enjoy talking to Iron Orphan.

“Sensei Visha was pursuing rumors of an artifact,” Orphan said. “The one Drorin said I would find.”

“What is it?” Delegado asked.

“A headband,” Orphan said. “It seems to be a simple corded bit of leather, like to hold back hair or sweat. But hidden on it are thousands of miniscule runes.”

“What does it do?” Delegado asked.

“It contains knowledge,” Orphan said. “Centuries of study. Knowledge of a mystical nature, to understand both arcane and divine abstractions. It will only work for a monk who has a sufficiently trained mind, and who already has some knowledge of his or her own.”

“No thunder, no lightning, no splitting of rock to create lush forests?” Delegado asked. “Just knowledge?”

“Just knowledge,” Orphan said. He felt slightly defensive, but something told him that Delegado was not entirely dismissive of the matter.

“There’s a lot of power in knowledge,” Delegado said. “I once captured a bugbear murderer who had magical boots that left no footprints. I was familiar with some lowers that didn’t bloom unless they were stepped on, and that told me which way to go.”

“You caught him I take it,” Orphan said.

Delegado nodded. “Humans and goblinoids are the ones I’ve studied the most, so yeah, I got him. I got sidetracked by a rabid dwarf named Chubat, but I got my bounty in the end.”

“That’s when you met Pienna.”

“Yeah. Only she didn’t call me a gnome. She healed me with her magic and started giving me a lecture.”

“About Chubat or about the bugbear?”

Delegado laughed. “How should I know? I wasn’t listening!”

Orphan found himself wishing that he could truly smile.