"They're real," I whispered.

"Who's real?"

"The golden goblins."

Chapter 36.

The legendary race of golden-skinned goblins was real.

At least they had been when Kansbar Nathrach had been in Nidaar.

Within minutes of the guard being carried off into the forest, the landing party had been surrounded and taken prisoner by heavily armed and armored goblins, their golden skin matching the color of their armor and weapons. After what they had been through, Kansbar felt that being the prisoner of a legendary sister race of goblins was infinitely better than becoming the next meal of monster insects-or being trapped alone with his traveling companions, whom he now knew to be a cadre of Khrynsani dark mages.

What should have been one of the most exciting moments of Kansbar's life, being in the presence of a legendary people whom he'd only read about, was overshadowed by the realization that he was part of a dangerous deception. Kansbar didn't know why the Khrynsani would come to Aquas posing as diplomats, but he knew it wouldn't end well for the golden goblins or himself.

The language the soldiers used was a version of the goblin language that hadn't been heard or spoken since ancient times.

Kansbar understood them. The Khrynsani mages did not. That would be his advantage, an advantage that could save his life.

The soldiers also didn't understand the Khrynsani, something that could save their lives, as well.

Dethis, the senior Khrynsani who was posing as the ambassador, told Kansbar that if he valued his life and very soul, that he would do the task the king had retained him for and no more. If he let these people suspect that he and his men were anything other than peaceful diplomats who wanted to reach out to their distant cousins, Dethis would kill each and every one of them.

Kansbar hoped the soldiers assumed that the tremor in his voice and his shaky smile were due to being attacked by giant insects, not that he was being threatened by a mage who could kill them all where they stood with a single word.

Kansbar would do his job. For now.

Being a historian of ancient cultures, Kansbar knew there was only one thing the Khrynsani could be after.

The Heart of Nidaar.

He introduced those with him as an ambassador from King Omari Mal'Salin and his diplomatic staff and guards, with himself as the official translator.

Rather than greeting them as long-lost relatives, the soldiers viewed all of them with suspicion and barely veiled hostility. Some among them voiced the opinion that they should have left the newcomers to the insects to devour. Kansbar pretended not to have heard those comments when Dethis asked what the soldiers had said. Part of him was glad the soldiers didn't trust the "diplomats," but if the Khrynsani suspected this, the soldiers' lives could be in danger. While Dethis's plan involved getting himself and his men into Nidaar under the guise of diplomacy, Kansbar knew that were their cover blown, they would simply use more direct and deadly methods.

The Khrynsani continued to play the hapless and helpless diplomats. Why should they not? They were being taken precisely where they wanted to go-the gold-filled city of Nidaar and its all-powerful Heart.

The insects had attacked them at the foot of a mountain range overlooking a great lake. Kansbar theorized that the city of Nidaar was located inside one of those mountains. He was unable to describe the exact entrance, though, because their captors tightly blindfolded them, walking them for hours before their surroundings changed to the cool and damp of caves. They were given a brief break to rest, but were not allowed to remove their blindfolds for many more hours.

They were in a vast cavern with gold covering every surface.

Seated on a gilded and bejeweled throne on a raised dais was their captors' queen.

She seemed to be of a similar age to Kansbar's mother, but her amber eyes belied an ancient knowledge. She was attired entirely in white. The queen's robes were simple, and they gave the impression of being just a setting, with her golden body as a precious jewel. Her intricately arranged hair was pure white, and woven within its coils was a gold circlet set with a single stone that flickered as if flame were trapped within.

The senior officer among the soldiers was speaking to her. He gestured Kansbar forward, and when Dethis moved to come with him, the officer sharply motioned the Khrynsani dark mage back.

Kansbar approached the throne alone and bowed deeply. When he raised his head, he was transfixed by the queen's amber eyes. He experienced a moment of disorientation and sank to his knees. He recovered almost as soon as he had been stricken and regained his feet.

The queen knew everything.

With one look, she had read his thoughts, knew what he knew.

The Khrynsani, the black magic, the deception, and the threat of widespread death if they did not get what they had come to steal.

The look she gave him was one of understanding, sadness-and pity.

Yes, she knew it all.

In return for the gift of his knowledge, she gave him her name. Baeseria. Her people called themselves the Cha'Nidaar, in homage to the name of their first queen.

Kansbar forced a polite smile on his face and introduced Dethis and his men as representatives from the goblin court in Regor.

The queen knew the truth. It was to be their secret.

For the first few days they were treated as guests, not prisoners, but they were constantly watched and never left alone. The Cha'Nidaar were a matriarchal society, ruled by a queen and her council, which did include a few men. Their hosts had powerful mages among their numbers, and Dethis knew it would only be a matter of time before the Khrynsani's own power was discovered. They had to act quickly to secure the Heart of Nidaar.

As they had discovered, the Heart was the only thing of known value in the city.

The gold that the Cha'Nidaar wore wasn't gold at all. Or at least not gold as it was known in the Seven Kingdoms. It was the same color and could be polished to nearly the same shine, but while Kingdom gold was relatively soft, the gold of the Cha'Nidaar was as hard as Kingdom steel, making for magnificent armor and weapons. Its monetary value was undetermined. However, the Khrynsani fully intended to take some back with them to Regor to have it tested by the mages in the royal treasury.

Meanwhile, the Khrynsani gem mage had used a questing spell to determine where the Heart of Nidaar was located. It was in the center of the city's mountain, but the ways to it were heavily guarded. The Khrynsani devised a plan to overpower and kill the Heart's guards and lock themselves in the chamber with the stone, confident that once the Heart was under their control, they would be able to apply the knowledge they had of the Saghred to access the Heart's power. Then they would bargain for their escape or force it outright.

The day the Khrynsani intended to carry out their attack and theft, Kansbar had hidden. The Khrynsani still had need of him to act as a negotiator to clear their way free of the mountain once they removed the Heart of Nidaar from its setting. Kansbar knew that once he had served their purpose, he would be killed. He also knew they couldn't risk wasting time to search for him, and instead would leave him to face the wrath of their hosts. Kansbar fled the wing of the subterranean palace they had been given for their use. He told the captain of the guards that had been assigned to them of the Khrynsani's betrayal.

Kansbar was taken before the queen and told her what the Khrynsani were about to do.

Since his last time in the throne room, he had overheard Dethis talking and determined that the goblin king Omari Mal'Salin not only knew of the Khrynsani's plans, but had orchestrated them himself. He told the queen that any future diplomatic overtures from Omari should not be believed. He had also heard Dethis speak of plundering the city's gold, and of the citizens to be brought back to the goblin kingdom as slaves.

Word came that the Khrynsani had gained entrance to the Heart chamber.

The queen beckoned for Kansbar to approach her throne.

When he and the Khrynsani had been brought to the city, the queen had read his mind with a mere glance. Now she reached out and touched his hand. With that touch, the queen determined that Kansbar was a good and noble man.

She told Kansbar that her people's skin color, the interior of the mountain city, and the metals mined there appeared to be gold due to their prolonged exposure to the Heart of Nidaar. Its power, leaching into the stones of the city, gave rise to the legend of a city of gold. But, she added, a legend was all that it was: its stones were mere rock, the metal was steel, and the skin of their people was once the same gray as Kansbar's.

She then assured him that the Heart of Nidaar was part of the mountain itself and could not be removed.

That was when Kansbar told her of the Saghred, its powers, and the ability of the Khrynsani's leader, Rudra Muralin, and his inner circle, which included Dethis, to use the stone to cause cataclysmic destruction.

The queen looked concerned, even afraid. She told Kansbar that out of respect for the Heart's connection to the earth, they only used the power the stone gave freely, never awakening it and, through greed and a desire for power, forcing it to give more.

There was another way into the Heart's chamber than the one that the Khrynsani had used. It was an emergency escape route should the guards of the Heart ever need it.

But the royal guards failed to reach the chamber before the Khrynsani activated the Heart. The dark mages paid for their arrogance with their lives and the lives of the five guards of the Heart. The Saghred had fallen from the sky. The Heart of Nidaar was part of the mountain that surrounded it. One consumed souls. The other fed from the earth itself. They could not have been more different, yet the power they could unleash was the same.

The Khrynsani mages lost control of the Heart and laid waste the land on the east coast of the continent, reducing that which was once green with life to rock and dust. The earth opened and drained every lake, river, and stream, leaving behind only cracked beds.

All this, and the Heart had been active for only a few seconds.

The mountain city of Nidaar remained undamaged.

The people of Nidaar mourned the loss of their paradise, their land now barren and desolate.

They knew what they must do.

The queen told Kansbar not to return, that neither he nor any of his people would ever find them again. The Cha'Nidaar would guard the Heart against future misuse by anyone. However, in gratitude for his warning of his companions' treachery, the queen gave him a ring and a pendant, each set with a small stone that had once been part of the Heart of Nidaar. These would protect him against the creatures that roamed between the Nidaar's mountain and the coast, enabling him to pass unnoticed.

They gave him enough food, water, and supplies to reach the coast, where the expedition's ship waited. Kansbar would tell them that the others were killed in the massive earthquake that shook the land and drained the waters. He told them that they had never found Nidaar, and that the rest of the party had perished when the earth had opened, swallowing them all, and only he had managed to cling to the edge of the abyss long enough to pull himself to safety. The ambassador and his staff and their guards had been lost. Kansbar's physical condition once he reached the coast reinforced the tale he told.

The ship had been damaged when it had been hit by an earthquake-spawned giant wave taller than the tallest mast. Additional quakes and aftershocks continued to rock the coast. Within an hour of Kansbar reaching the ship, the beach was swallowed and towering cliffs rose to take its place. So Kansbar's story of the landing party falling into an abyss was believed without much question.

One Khrynsani agent had remained on the ship in the guise of the ship's doctor. Kansbar had fallen into a fever soon after being taken out to the ship. The doctor had given him a sleeping draught and had gone through his packs, finding the ring and pendant. He knew of the mission and the description of the Heart, so he knew that Kansbar had lied when he said the party had never found Nidaar. He put the pieces back in the pack, vowing to reveal what he knew once they'd returned to Regor and leaving an official interrogation up to the Khrynsani experts in that art. The doctor befriended Kansbar and tried to get him to talk more about what had happened, but Kansbar insisted there was nothing more to tell...and that what had happened, he wanted nothing more than to forget.

Chapter 37.

The book's final words faded before my eyes as I read them, any secret information regarding the location of the city of Nidaar once again locked away.

I slowly closed the book, my eyes on the ring given to my ancestor by Queen Baeseria of the Cha'Nidaar herself nearly a thousand years ago-a ring that had sealed his fate with Rudra Muralin.

Agata's hand protectively covered the pendant.

We were all silent.

"So that ring of yours isn't gold," Jash noted, breaking the somber mood.

I turned my hand back and forth, letting the stone catch the lantern light. "That's what it sounds like."

My friend chuckled. "No gold in Nidaar. Phaelan is going to be so disappointed. Please let me be there when you tell him."

"And all of this happened while Rudra was still head of the Khrynsani order," I said. "That meant he hadn't yet used the Saghred to create the Great Rift." I smiled and shook my head. "Rudra must have told Omari what his Khrynsani had done with the Heart of Nidaar. That was when Omari dared him to attempt something similar with the Saghred. He did it, and it killed him. Justice will have the final say."

Kesyn snorted. "Dumb bastard. Too bad he didn't stay dead."

"Then Sarad did to Rudra essentially what Rudra did to Kansbar," I noted. "Justice served again." I mulled over what Queen Baeseria had told Kansbar about the Heart of Nidaar for a few moments. "Sandrina's read this book, so she knows that the Heart can't be moved, and that attempting to use it like the Saghred will destroy a quarter of a continent and kill you."

"Maybe these Sythsaurians know something we don't," Kesyn suggested.

There was a knock at the cabin door.

I tucked the book back into my coat pocket. "Yes?"

The door opened and the ship's telepath peered around the edge of the door. "Chancellor Nathrach, I've got a call for you from the Isle of Mid-from Archmagus Justinius Valerian himself."

The Conclave college's cryptozoology department had three preserved Sythsaurians in their basement.

When I'd contacted Mychael, I'd described what I had seen on the Nebian ship as well as what Sarad Nukpana had called them.

Justinius's face looked back at me from the cannonballsized crystal ball mounted inside of a rounded steel cage that had been forged to an exact fit. The cage could be opened and the ball removed, but as we were on a ship, that wasn't recommended. The cage was permanently mounted to a pedestal that had been built into the deck itself.

"They've got one of those ugly bastards on display in a lab," Justinius was saying. "And they found two more in preservation cases in the basement." The old man laughed evilly. "What I wouldn't have given to have seen Waere Josten's face when he wiped the dust off the face of that casket. Rumor has it he crapped himself."

"Who's that?"

"Assistant department chairman," Justinius said. "An insufferable ass. Knows his stuff, and isn't about to let the rest of us forget it. The department chair is overseeing the document search, and he put Waere in charge of looking for the bodies. What we've found indicates we acquired the things around seven hundred years ago, which coincides with the Timurus invasion."

"So they were here then."

Justinius nodded. "Probably scouting out their next conquest. We're lucky they never made it back home, or apparently reported their findings, since we aren't all speaking lizard right now. Now if we can just make the same thing happen to the rest of them."

"Plus any Khrynsani in their company."

"I wouldn't want to leave them out of any death wish. That'd be rude. We'll crack one of the greenies out of preservation and poke around in his insides to find out where they came from and, most importantly, what's the best way to kill 'em. They're still looking for the records of when they were found. The department chairman during that time wasn't the best for holding his staff to any kind of research standards. Some of the faculty didn't even bother to keep records. The department librarian assures me that if those particular records do exist, they have them, because nothing has ever been thrown away." He snorted. "Or even filed, judging from the mess I saw down in their archives. As soon as we have more for you, I'll be back in touch."

"I'd like to know where those Sythsaurian bodies were found," I said. "More than likely, there's a portal in that location-a portal that other Sythsaurians could know about. The Nebians had Sythsaurian sorcerers on one of their ships."

Justinius scowled. "So I heard. Imala wanted to kill their ambassador Aeron Corantine back during the peace talks. I wish now that I'd encouraged that behavior. That little gal's a go-getter."

I smiled. "That she is. I'm most interested in how the Sythsaurians were able to destroy the population of an entire world-and how they intend to do the same to us. Speaking of things that want to kill us..." I told him about the giant centipedes from Kansbar's account of the expedition.

"That's something else that doesn't need to be on this world with the rest of us. I won't mention those to the cryptozoo folks. They'll just pester me to get you to bring back a specimen."

"That's a souvenir that will not be coming back with me."

Justinius's expression grew serious. "How's Talon?"

"Once he got his sea legs, he hasn't had any problems."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."