“The throne has got a new crowned head, but the sun is still the same,” Lamond smiled when Lena sat next to him at the Volcanic Springs. “To your health, cos.” He took a swig of the Newt Liqueur that she brought him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Need to talk to you, brother,” Lena said, not looking at him. “Need some advice. Life’s been tough lately.”

“And you think I’ve got anything useful to say?” He smiled thinly. “No one even remembers I used to be an Arisen.”

“You did a pretty good job disguising your scar with tattoos,” Lena smirked, her own chest tattoo catching the sun.

“Well, you know how it is, sis…” He took another swig of Newt Liqueur. “I missed the chance to kill my dragon, but you killed yours, yet here you are… It’s not what it’s been hyped up to be, is it?”

“My pawn’s been taken,” Lena forced herself to say, still not looking at Lamond. “Abducted. Imprisoned, tortured, if the oracle is to be believed. He’s got warts on his body and a dark patch which the oracle refused to talk about. ‘Inflicted by a learned hand with a particular purpose,’ she said. She also said he’s lost and there is no way back…”

“You’re quite attached to that pawn, aren’t you?” Lamond looked at Lena sideways. “That’s why he’s been taken, but I imagine you figured that… Well, what can I say… Don’t kill yourself, cos, for that’s what they are trying to achieve.”

“I figured that out,” Lena nodded. “Well… someone helped me to figure it out,” she blushed. “I want my pawn back though. The Sphinx thought you could help…”

“The Sphinx!” Lamond laughed. “You got her to do you a favour! Well, well! Just what would you not do for your pawn?”

“Not much,” Lena agreed. “May be nothing.”

“You know who got him?”

“A certain Lord Phaesus,” Lena shrugged. “We’ve got the name, but the man is a mystery.”

“Lord Phaesus!” Lamond whistled. “That figures. Oh yes, I do know him. Your pawn is in real danger.”

He fell silent and just sat there, sipping his liqueur. Lena waited for him to continue.

“He should have been dead long ago, Lord Phaesus is very thorough,” Lamond finally spoke. “What sustains him?”

“What do I know?” Lena looked at him in surprise. “I don’t even understand what they are trying to do… or why… Kill him outright to get to me? They could have just killed me, why torture him?” A tear glistned in her eye but she brushed it away.

“You know the answer to all of that,” Lamond said softly. “Stop hiding and say it.”

Lena said nothing. She pulled another bottle of Newt Liqueur out of her pack, uncorked it and took a swig. She’d never tasted the stuff before. It was sharp on the tong, it tickled her throat and gave her a buzz which settled after a while. It also gave her courage.

“He’s a part of me as I am a part of him,” she said pulling out a pendant from under her clothes – a hand with the mark of a pawn. “Last time around… in Gransys… he left me… and I jumped off a cliff. But this time, I feel, my suicide would be just that – it would be death, not an escape.”

“An Arisen isn’t much without his pawn,” Lamond said softly. “I was never the same after mine perished…”

“What happened?”

“Petrification.” His face looked gaunt as the memory filled his mind. “But I refused to give a piece of my soul for a pawn. That spelled my undoing.”

“How did you know?”

“About you? I’ve seen you together,” he smirked. “And also – what’s that on your finger? I know the signs.”

“So, what do I do? I have to get him back.” Lena drew herself up and turned to look at Lamond, but he didn’t speak straight away.

“Relax, cos… Enjoy the hotsprings,” he smiled at her. “Recover your strength. Reshuffle your party. Whatever works for you. Take stock of what really counts…” He fell silent, looking at Lena’s pawns waiting for her at a distance. “The sun will rise again tomorrow, also for your pawn.”

The volcanic spa was getting busy with people coming and going, taking a soak in the pool, then rushing out again, back to the buzz of their lives. Lamond moved to a quiet corner and resumed watching bubbles rise up through the water sipping his liqueur as he had been doing for ages before that day.

…

“Come with me, cos,” Lamond said to Lena the following morning. “Bring your pawns… monsters got fierce of late. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

He walked out of the Volcanic Springs spa and into the road leading North, and Lena noticed just then that his body wasn’t that of a man idling his days away. Lamond was a warrior, she realised, still carrying his greatsword as if it were but a feather. “I wonder what he does in between watching the bubbles rise in the pool?” Lena mused.

Lamond led them to a rocky beach with a structure rising from the sea. The view was nice but Lena couldn’t see anything of importance. “Go talk to that mage,” Lamond pointed at a person in richly embroidered robes standing on an elevation. It was only then that Lena noticed a dozen masked guards spread out throughout the beach looking for something in the shallow waters.

As soon as Lena came close to the mage, he called out to her.

“Hey, you! Who are you and why are you here?” He scowled. But then, without waiting for Lena’s response, he continued. “In fact, never mind. I care not who you are. Join the search and find me blue crystals, the larger the better. I’ll pay you, of course.”

“Err…” Lena was taken aback, but the mage would not say anything else until she brought him some crystals. Sensing that it was important, she looked around, and sure enough, blue crystal shards were strewn all over the beach. She picked up a few.

“That’s no good, these are too small!” The mage flung the shards that she brought into the water. “I need big ones! Lord Phaesus will stand for nothing else!”

The mention of Lord Phaesus’ name grabbed her attention and she asked politely what those shards were good for.

“The small ones are good for nothing,” he sighed. “It’s Godsway… but these are too small.” When Lena did not respond, he continued. “Oh, that’s right, you would not know. Godsway is a substance made from such shards. It allows to control the pawns. The power of an Arisen on the end of a staff! Lord Phaesus is really close now. He means to control the dragon and put an end to the never ending Dragon-Arisen cycle! Our world will be rid of the Dragon’s Dogma, free to pursue a destiny of its own making!” The excitement in his words was unmistakable. It made his face look even gaunter than it did at first, with his eyes burning with fever. “But to achieve it we need larger shards than these here. We are not sure what they are, exactly… or where they come from… why here… all this is a mystery still, but what does it matter if we can find larger shards! Lord Phaesus achieved so much already! With every pawn that he studied, he made advances towards his goal. The death of a pawn is a sight to behold! Pawns can be killed, I bet you didn’t know that! Not merely sent back to the Rift! And pawns are linked to the dragon, if we can master killing pawns, the dragon will surely follow!” He stopped talking, casting his eyes around the beach, as if looking for pawns to kill. “The damnable creatures are hard to capture, but we have ways… Godsway is the key.”

“Godsway is used in brothels to compel pawns behave in ways they would normally not behave,” Lena said with disgust. “It is smuggled across the country… Is it your doing?”

“That was a part of Lord Phaesus’ plan!” The mage laughed. “Capturing pawns for experimentation is hard, you see, but they live in Vermund quite freely, and often earn coin as escorts. And everyone wants a compliant escort, n’est pas? There’s endless demand for Godsway, endless ways for us to observe the effects and refine and improve the product. It is our luck that here in Battahl pawns count for naught, so me telling you this puts me in no danger.” He grinned smugly. “You can make good coin with larger blue crystals, so bring me what you can find, as long as they are bigger than these. You will find us under the Flamebearer Palace.”

Completely bewildered, Lena walked off.

“I see Ambrosius was talkative as usual,” Lamond grinned when she rejoined her companions. “Learned something nice?”

“Nice? No. Useful – yes.” Lena shook her head as if trying to rid herself of the dirt that’d been poured over her person. “They are making Godsway from such shards, they are located under the Imperial Palace of Battahl, and they capture pawns for experimentation and murder! Which is where we are going!”

Fuming, Lena turned to march in that direction.

“To do what?” Lamond cried after her, but didn’t move. “What is your plan?”

“To have a song and a dance!” She yelled back at him. “What did you think?!”

“Come back here, sis,” Lamond said without shouting. “There’s more.”

But Lena shook her head and continued walking. Their fighter ran after her, Mason hesitated but Rook remained with Lamond.

“I’ve seen them at the excavation site,” he said. “I’ve seen Ambrosius summon a lesser dragon and control it with a Godsway staff… at least to a degree. They expected to find a heart inside…” He smirked. “Makes you wonder… they can’t tell one dragon from another. They took noxious dragonblood back to the lab, and I suspect that’s the source of the dark patch on Scorpio’s body. That is bound to kill him.”

“Normally, yes,” Lamond was watching Lena slow her march as Mason caught up with her. “It depends what she is willing to do for her pawn this time around.”

Noticing that Rook wasn’t following her, Lena stopped. Perhaps she should be more careful. “Rushing head on into danger unprepared is inviting an early grave!” Scorpio’s voice echoed in her mind. She could not afford an early grave, she had a job to do. She turned around and walked back to Lamond.

“I don’t think your pawn is held on the premises,” Lamond said quietly when Lena came close. “He is not just another subject. They would have given him a special treatment. And then there’s a matter of the warts – you need to find out what they are, and, more importantly, how to remove them.”

“And the dark patch,” Lena reminded him.

“And the patch… well… start with the warts,” he smiled.

…

The Flamebearer Palace was the name of the Imperial Palace of Battahl. It consisted of a temple, royal chambers, servants’ chambers, guest chambers and a guarded passage going into the depths. The passage led to well equipped laboratories housing several dragon specimens, magical, chemical and alchemical experiment rooms, torture rooms, a library, mages’ quarters and a dark corridor leading further into the depths of the red rock. As expected, that corridor connected to the city gaol ensuring a never ending supply of subjects.

To Lena’s surprise, she could walk freely in most of these rooms with no one questioning her presence. It appeared that the Forbidden Magic Laboratory had a reputation of a place of no return, which was sufficient to discourage anyone from visiting. She found notes on Godsway experiments detailing the methods of inserting it under the skin of a subject so as to keep them under perpetual control. While the surgical technique appeared to be perfected, the results were mixed: the pawns usually suffered such a severe headache induced by Godsway being on their person, that they were physically unable to execute any commands. “Get to Scorpio and cut open all the warts,” she decided. “Remove every last bit of Godsway. That’s easy.”

As Lamond expected, Scorpio was not in the cells of the Forbidden Magic Laboratory, and eventually Lena stopped looking for more cells but focused on searching for documents. She found a letter from Queen Regent of Vermund promising continued shipments of “helping hands” in exchange for a quantity of Godsway sufficient to command thirty or fourty pawns… The coronation rose in Lena’s memory, pawns kneeling to her command without her commanding them… That would have been Godsway… but why..?

That, however, was no longer important. The important part was to find Scorpio, and here was proof that pawns working at the excavation site were there on Lord Phaesus’ orders. “Scorpio must be there,” she decided. “That is the beginning that the Sphinx wanted me to find… the prison to which I got teleported from Vaermina’s shrine, the place where Rook found me… We have to return to the beginning. The next chapter will play out there.”