The Silent Guide, page 16
Ellie exchanged glances with Tabitha, whose expression had shifted to one of alarm. This matched what Threndale had told them about the Crown Gates and the Apex Gate at their center.
“The ancient builders were too clever by half,” the Servant continued. “They knew that absolute barriers would eventually fail under their own strain, so they built in a method of controlled release—a way to temporarily open passages between realms without breaking the entire structure.”
“And Jerath thinks he can use this mandolin to do that?” Karishel’s skepticism was evident in his tone.
“He knows he can,” the Servant replied. “The question is whether your friend Zaren will cooperate in showing him how.”
“Zaren would never help the Servants,” Ellie said with absolute conviction.
The man’s expression was pitying. “Everyone breaks eventually. It’s only a matter of finding the right pressure point.” His gaze shifted to each of them in turn. “For some, it’s pain. For others, it’s the threat of pain to those they care about. For the most principled, it’s the greater good—convince them that cooperation prevents a worse outcome.” He shrugged. “Jerath is very good at finding those pressure points.”
“We need to move,” Karishel said, his expression hardening. “Every moment we delay gives them more time with Zaren.”
“The Echoing Hall,” Ellie repeated, fixing the name in her memory. “You’ll guide us there.”
The Servant laughed, a sound without humor. “I think not. I’ve told you its location. That fulfills our bargain. I’ve no interest in returning to a place where I’m now considered a traitor.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Ralen said. His tone brooked no argument.
“Actually, he does,” Tabitha interjected. Her tone carried surprising firmness. “We made a deal. Information for medical care. He’s kept his end.”
“Tabitha, we need—” Ellie began, but the scholar cut her off.
“We need his knowledge, yes. But we don’t need him physically present to guide us.” She turned to the wounded Servant. “I assume you can draw a map?”
The man nodded slowly. “I can.”
“Then do so,” Karishel said, producing a piece of parchment and a small stick of charcoal from his pack. “Every detail you can recall.”
As the Servant began sketching, his movements cautious to avoid aggravating his injuries, Ellie pulled her father aside. “Do you know this Echoing Hall?”
Karishel’s expression was grim. “I’ve heard rumors. During my time with the Arbiters, there were reports of a Servant stronghold somewhere along the Whispering Coast. A place where they conducted experiments on the boundaries between realms. We never found it.”
“But you believe it exists?”
“I do.” He glanced at the wounded man, his eyes narrowing slightly. “What concerns me is how easily he’s giving up this information. Either he’s truly broken with the Servants, or…”
“Or it’s a trap,” Ellie finished.
“Possibly.” Karishel’s gaze returned to her. “But it’s the only lead we have. And if Zaren is there, if he truly has Garridan’s mandolin…”
“We have to try,” she agreed.
The Servant completed his map, a detailed rendering of the coastline with the location of the Echoing Hall clearly marked. He had included notes on guard rotations, entrance points, and known defenses—information that would be invaluable if accurate, and deadly if false.
“There,” he said, handing the parchment to Tabitha. “That’s all I know. I suggest you leave quickly. Jerath will have sent others to check on me by now, and when they find I’ve survived and spoken to you…”
“We’ll leave supplies,” Ellie decided, overriding Ralen’s look of protest. “Enough to last a few days. What you do after that is your concern.”
The wounded man inclined his head in acknowledgment. “A fair bargain. Better than I expected from a Blade.”
“I keep my word,” she replied, gathering her pack. “Something Jerath should remember.”
They left the clearing shortly after, the wounded Servant watching their departure with an expression Ellie couldn’t quite interpret. When they weren’t using it, the map was securely stored in Tabitha’s pack, alongside her collection of scrolls and research materials that never left her side.
“Do you think he told us the truth?” Ralen asked as they made their way back toward the lighthouse, intending to circle around it and head inland along the coast.
“Some of it,” Ellie replied. “Enough to be useful, I hope.”
“And the rest?” Tabitha asked.
Ellie glanced back over her shoulder, though the clearing was already lost from view among the dense trees. “The rest we’ll have to discover for ourselves.”
As the lighthouse came back into view, its silent tower still watching over the coastline, Ellie felt a strange pressure against her awareness, like an invisible hand pushing back. Whatever secrets Threndale had shared, there were clearly many more he had kept to himself.
Her father studied the map the Servant had drawn, his experienced eye noting details that might have escaped the others. “This journey won’t be easy,” he said finally. “The terrain is difficult, and if this map is accurate, the Echoing Hall is well protected.”
“You’ve been there before,” Ellie said, not a question but a realization based on the way he studied the map.
Her father hesitated before nodding. “No, but I tried to. Before I left the Arbiters. We were tracking a group of Servants who had raided an archive in Thornwatch.” His expression darkened with memory. “We lost the trail at the edge of the Whispering Coast. Now I understand why.”
“You don’t like that we have to go there,” Ralen observed.
“I don’t. The Echoing Hall isn’t just a stronghold—it’s a place of power. The Servants didn’t choose it randomly.”
“But we’re going anyway,” Ellie said. Her tone made it clear this wasn’t open for debate. “Zaren needs us.”
Karishel looked at her for a long moment, something like pride mingling with concern in his gaze. “Yes,” he agreed finally. “We’re going anyway.”
They continued their journey, leaving the shadow of the lighthouse behind as they set course for the Echoing Hall—and whatever awaited them there.
The time for caution had passed. Now was the time for action.
Chapter
Sixteen
The coast emerged from the morning fog like a wound in the world, its harbor bristling with the masts of ships that flew no flags and answered to no nation. The smell hit them first—a nauseating mixture of rotting seaweed, tar, and something sweetly chemical that made Ellie’s eyes water even from a distance.
She stood at the rail of their vessel, watching the chaos unfold before them as they approached. The harbor teemed with more energy than she’d ever witnessed—not the orderly bustle of Busal’s port or even Threndale’s merchant quarters, but something wilder, more desperate. Ships of every size and configuration jostled for position, their crews shouting in a dozen languages she didn’t recognize. She could pick out fragments—curses in Rosark dialect, what might have been prayers in old Inarak, and something guttural that reminded her of the tongues spoken in the far northern wastes. A fight had broken out on one of the nearest vessels, two sailors grappling while their crewmates placed bets, coins changing hands with practiced ease.
The air tasted of brine and rot, tar and spices, with an underlying metallic tang that made her corruption marks burn beneath her sleeve. She could feel fabrications everywhere, but they weren’t the ordered, purposeful energies she knew from Busal or even the ancient patterns they’d encountered at the ruins. These were wild, uncontrolled, like music played by someone who had learned the notes but never the rhythm.
“Charming place,” Ralen said beside her, his hand resting on his sword hilt. His knuckles were white with tension, and she noticed how his eyes tracked every movement on the nearby ships, cataloging threats with the methodical precision of his Arbiter training. “Remind me why we’re here again?”
“You know why we are here. This is going to be the only place we can find him.”
“If he is anywhere, it’s going to be here,” her father said. “And a place like this could also be dangerous to a person like you, especially given all that you have been through. I don’t want you to take this journey too lightly, especially as where we are going, and what we are doing, is already incredibly dangerous.”
“I’m taking nothing too lightly,” Ellie said. “I take all of this seriously. And if there’s a way to find Zaren, to find a way to stop the Servants and deal with all of this, then I want to. We need to. I’m tired of delaying.”
“And what if this is why you ended up where you did?” Her father watched her, and for a moment there was almost a knowing look in his eyes. It seemed as if he wanted to make an accusation, but then that look disappeared.
Their ship navigated past a narrow-bodied vessel where sailors with sun-darkened skin and scarred arms leered at them. One made an obscene gesture that needed no translation. Another spat over the rail, the glob landing dangerously close to their deck.
“No colors,” Tabitha observed, studying the surrounding ships. “No national flags, no guild markers, nothing.”
“The Coast recognizes no authority but coin and blade,” Karishel said. “Ships that fly flags here tend to catch fire in the night. It’s considered… presumptuous.”
The captain guided them smoothly along, though Ellie could tell that he seemed unsettled, much more so than he ever had before. This was a man who had seen much, experienced much, and if this troubled him, then she knew better than to take it too lightly.
They were passing the main wharfs now, where larger vessels discharged cargo under the watch of armed guards. The guards wore no uniforms, just leather and mail cobbled together from different sources. Some carried fabricated weapons that hummed with unstable energy, others bore simpler implements—clubs studded with nails, rusted cutlasses, crossbows that looked more likely to explode than fire. They watched everything with the flat, emotionless gaze of those who’d seen too much violence to be troubled by more.
Ellie noticed the complete absence of military ships—no naval vessels, no harbor patrol, nothing that suggested any form of legitimate authority. The Whispering Coast existed outside the reach of kingdoms and empires, a festering pocket where law was whatever you could enforce with blade.
A scream echoed from one of the warehouses on shore, cut short with disturbing finality. No one even looked in that direction.
“We wait for the harbormaster,” Karishel said, pointing to a platform ahead. “And whatever you do, don’t lie to him. He’ll know.”
A tall, dark-haired man stood there, notebook in hand, his gaze tracking each vessel with the intensity of a hawk studying mice. His clothes were expensive—real silk, not the fabricated kind—but worn carelessly, stained with ink and what might have been blood. A fabrication hung around his neck, a pendant that pulsed with a sickly green light. As they approached, Harwick adjusted their speed, and the ship slowed to a crawl.
“Duration?” the harbormaster called out. He didn’t bother with pleasantries. His voice had an odd quality to it, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well.
“Two days,” Ralen replied.
The man’s eyes narrowed, studying their vessel and its occupants with an assessment that made Ellie’s skin crawl. She felt a subtle probing, not quite magical but something adjacent to it—as if he were measuring them against criteria she couldn’t fathom. The pendant at his throat grew brighter, and she had the uncomfortable sensation of invisible fingers rifling through her thoughts, not reading them, exactly, but testing their weight and shape.
“Purpose?” The question came unexpectedly.
“Trade,” her father said with practiced smoothness. “Seeking rare texts and translations.”
The harbormaster smiled, revealing teeth that had been filed to points. “Translations. Of course.” He made a note in his book, the scratching of his pen somehow audible even over the harbor’s chaos. “Dock thirty-one,” he said finally, pointing toward a channel that led away from the main harbor. “Don’t make trouble.”
The last part wasn’t a request. As they pulled away, Ellie saw him make another note, then gesture to a boy who’d been lurking nearby. The child took off running toward the city, and Ellie had the uncomfortable feeling that their arrival was being announced to interested parties.
They navigated down the narrow channel, and Ellie noticed how the other ships grew progressively shabbier the farther they went. Some were barely seaworthy, their hulls patched with whatever materials were at hand—sheets of metal, planks from other vessels, in one case what looked like a door from a house. Their crews were equally patchwork, missing limbs replaced with hooks and wooden legs, faces scarred by violence and disease.
By the time they reached their assigned dock—a questionable structure of waterlogged wood and rusted iron—they were essentially alone, isolated from the main harbor by a warren of deteriorating piers and abandoned warehouses.
“This feels like a trap,” Tabitha whispered. “We’re completely cut off from the main harbor. If something happens…”
“Everything here is a trap,” Karishel replied, securing a line to the dock. “The honest criminals dock in the main harbor where everyone can see them. It’s the ones with nothing to hide that get sent here.” He paused. “The trick is knowing which ones to spring.”
The dock felt spongy beneath Ellie’s boots as she disembarked, each step producing a wet squelch that suggested the wood was more rot than timber. In several places, she could see straight through to the dark water below, where things that might have been fish—but moved wrong—circled in the shadows. The smell here was overwhelming, a mixture of dead fish, human waste, and something chemical that burned her nostrils. She had to breathe through her mouth to keep from gagging. Even then, she could taste the air, thick and oily on her tongue.
“I’ve been in cleaner crypts,” Ralen muttered, testing each plank before putting his full weight on it.
“Nobody goes anywhere alone,” her father said. “Stay in groups of at least two. Keep your weapons hidden but accessible. And whatever you do, don’t let anyone get their hands on you or in your pockets.” He pulled his own cloak tighter, and Ellie noticed he’d moved his sword to his left hip, making it easier to draw in tight quarters. “One more thing. Don’t eat or drink anything here unless you’ve seen someone else consume it first. The Coast has its own ideas about hospitality.”
The transition from dock to city was like stepping from one world into another. Even the air changed, becoming thicker, laden with smoke from fabricated fires and the sweet-sick smell of rotting possibilities.
“Stay close,” her father warned as they made their way up from the questionable dock. “The Coast doesn’t recognize outsiders kindly, and it has a way of swallowing the unprepared whole.”
The wooden planks gave way to packed earth, then uneven cobblestones that seemed to have been laid without plan or purpose, creating patterns that made no logical sense. Buildings loomed overhead, so close together that they blocked most of the morning light, creating a perpetual twilight at street level. Water dripped constantly from somewhere above—not clean rain, but condensation mixed with substances Ellie preferred not to identify.
Her father led them through a rotting archway marked with old symbols: three interlocking circles with a blade through the center. The marking was weathered, almost invisible beneath years of grime, but Ellie recognized it immediately from her training with Ralen.
“This was an Arbiter outpost?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Once,” her father replied without looking back. “Long ago. The Coast tolerated us because we kept certain elements in check without imposing too many rules. But things changed.” He paused, and Ellie saw something flicker across his face—regret, perhaps, or darker memories. “We’re heading to the currency exchange first. Coast traders don’t accept conventional coin.”
The exchange was little more than a hole in the wall, a narrow storefront wedged between a tavern that reeked of fermented fish and a shop selling what appeared to be human body parts preserved in jars of amber fluid. The proprietor, a gaunt woman with skin so pale it seemed translucent, sat behind a counter reinforced with iron bands. Her eyes were covered by a blindfold, but she turned unerringly toward them as they entered.
“Karishel,” she said, her voice surprisingly warm. “It’s been years.”
“Merevale,” he acknowledged with a slight bow. “Still blind, still seeing.”
“Always.” Her thin lips curved in what might have been a smile. “And you’ve brought companions. Interesting companions.”
Ellie felt the woman’s sightless gaze sweep over her, sensing rather than seeing. There was power there, but nothing like the fabrications she was accustomed to detecting. This was older, more primal.
“We need exchange,” Karishel said, placing a small pouch on the counter. Metal clinked inside, the sound of gold and silver coins from Busal and other kingdoms. “Current rate?”
“For you? Three to one. For them?” She gestured vaguely toward Ellie and the others. “Four to one. The marked one changes the equation.”
Ellie stiffened. Marked one. The woman couldn’t see her, yet somehow knew about the corruption that had spread through her.
Karishel didn’t react to the comment, simply nodding. “Fair enough. Give us thirty markers, mixed denominations.”
Merevale reached beneath the counter and produced a small wooden box. When she opened it, Ellie saw what appeared to be carved pieces of bone arranged in neat rows. Each was inscribed with symbols that seemed to shift when viewed directly, as if refusing to be cataloged or remembered.
