The Face of Craven
The living city did not know them.
That became obvious long before they reached the Sanctum of Serenity.
Kaylor chose the Commoners Gate because it offered the least conspicuous approach. Merchants, laborers, servants, carts, and travelers moved steadily between the poorer districts beyond the walls and the great avenues within.
The others kept their cloaks drawn close.
Even so, people noticed.
A human face here.
The point of an elven ear there.
A glimpse of Nethnarel's skin beneath her hood.
No one screamed.
No guard raised an alarm.
But conversations stopped when they passed.
People crossed the street.
Children stared until parents pulled them away.
Fendor noticed first.
“We're attracting attention.”
Kaylor kept walking.
“Not enough.”
Isamu glanced at the crowd.
“Comforting.”
“You're alive.”
“That continues to be your answer to everything.”
“For today, yes.”
The city returned to Kaylor in fragments.
A road bending toward the river.
The bridge beyond it.
The wealthy heights.
The markets.
The walls protecting the king's castle.
Then the towers of the Sanctum.
Every step made the memories sharper.
Not complete.
Never complete.
But no longer absent.
He had walked these streets before.
He had trained here.
Bled here.
Served here.
And somewhere in the future, he had died defending it.
They reached the gates of the Sanctum of Serenity near midday.
The guards noticed Kaylor immediately.
Not because they knew his face.
Because they knew his armor.
Two straightened.
A third stepped forward.
The dragonborn wore markings similar to Kaylor's, though the design was subtly different.
Older.
Kaylor understood why.
He had seen that pattern when he had first entered the order.
Years before the rank he now wore.
The realization landed strangely.
He had not merely returned to his lifetime.
He had arrived before the version of himself these men should have known.
Perhaps five years.
Perhaps more.
The guard looked at the insignia on Kaylor's armor.
Then saluted.
Kaylor returned it without thinking.
The movement came from somewhere deeper than memory.
Training survived even when names did not.
“Lieutenant,” the guard said. “How may the Sanctum serve you?”
Kaylor had reached that rank before the war.
The guard saw the uniform and accepted what it meant.
Kaylor wondered whether somewhere in this city a younger version of himself was currently drilling with a sword, unaware that his dead future self had just walked through the gate.
He decided not to think about it.
“I am Kaylor,” he said, “Guardian of the Sanctum of Serenity.”
The guard waited.
“I need to speak with Ishgar.”
That changed his expression.
Not fear.
Respect.
“The Sanctum Master?”
“Yes.”
The guard studied the strangers behind Kaylor.
Their cloaks hid most of what made them impossible.
Most.
Kaylor met his gaze.
“They are under my protection.”
The guard bowed slightly.
“Then follow me.”
They passed through.
The Sanctum was almost exactly as Kaylor remembered it.
That hurt more than the city.
Training courts.
Stone passages.
Prayer chambers.
The smell of oil used on armor.
Weapons arranged in disciplined rows.
Ravenfolk guards watched from posts along the interior halls.
Clerics and attendants crossed open galleries.
Everything lived.
Everything functioned.
Everything Kaylor had believed in was still whole.
Or appeared to be.
The heroes were escorted deeper.
Toward the chambers of the man who led it.
Kaylor remembered the name.
Ishgar.
He had served beneath him.
Not directly.
A lieutenant did not spend his days taking orders from the highest authority in the order.
But Kaylor knew who Ishgar was.
Everyone did.
A wise leader.
A powerful spellcaster.
A dragonborn whose judgment had guided the Sanctum for years.
A man spoken of with respect.
A good man.
The doors opened.
Ravenfolk guards stood along both sides of the chamber beyond.
At the far end, seated above them, was Ishgar.
Kaylor slowed.
Fendor nearly walked into him.
“What?”
Kaylor did not answer.
He knew the dragonborn.
Not personally.
Not well.
But he recognized him.
Ishgar looked younger than the man Kaylor remembered from the years before the war.
More vigorous.
His features were unusual for a dragonborn—finer, almost delicate, his face carrying softer lines than the heavy draconic structures Kaylor was accustomed to.
But there was no doubt.
This was Ishgar.
The real Ishgar.
The man Kaylor had always believed led the Sanctum.
Then Grazim stopped.
Nethnarel stopped beside him.
Hexen's hand tightened around one of his spears.
Fendor stared.
Isamu said nothing.
Because they recognized the face too.
They had seen it in bronze.
A dragonborn wizard standing above the dead.
Bodies piled beneath him.
Victims twisted and opened.
Craven portrayed not as a criminal hiding from history—
but as a master proud of his work.
Kaylor felt the room narrow around him.
Ishgar.
Craven.
Not someone wearing Ishgar's face.
Not some creature that had recently murdered the leader and taken his place.
Kaylor knew enough of his own past to understand that.
Ishgar had led the Sanctum when Kaylor was young.
He would still lead it when the war came.
The man before them was exactly who Kaylor expected to find.
Which meant the other truth was worse.
Ishgar had always been Craven.
The leader of Kaylor's order had another life beneath the city.
A hidden house.
A laboratory.
Abducted victims.
Torture chambers.
Experiments.
Mountains of bones.
Kaylor felt something inside him shift.
Not break.
Not yet.
But move.
A foundation settling beneath weight it had never been meant to carry.
Ishgar looked down at him.
The dragonborn smiled.
“Approach.”
Kaylor obeyed.
Every instinct told him to draw his sword.
He did not.
This was Ishgar's hall.
Ishgar's guards.
Ishgar's priests.
Ishgar's institution.
If Kaylor attacked him here, he would not expose Craven.
He would become a mad lieutenant assaulting the respected leader of his own order.
And Craven would win.
Kaylor followed the protocols he remembered.
He bowed.
“Ishgar.”
The Sanctum Master studied his armor.
Confusion entered his expression.
“You wear the uniform of one of my guardians.”
“I do.”
“And yet I don't believe I know you.”
“No.”
Ishgar leaned forward slightly.
“Then perhaps you should explain.”
Kaylor had prepared the lie on the walk there.
Not entirely a lie.
That mattered.
“I have traveled far. I was investigating rumors of a coming calamity.”
Ishgar's expression became more serious.
“What sort of calamity?”
“A war.”
No reaction.
Not the reaction Kaylor had hoped for.
The war had not begun.
There was no reason Ishgar should know it was coming.
Kaylor continued.
“Not a war between kingdoms. Something greater. Something involving another realm.”
Now Ishgar listened.
Kaylor told him enough.
Not Craven.
Not the Vault.
Not the tortured dragonborn Grazim had raised from death.
He spoke of the future.
Of the invasion.
Of fiends crossing between worlds.
Of battles that had not yet been fought.
Of Kaylor dying defending this land.
Ishgar did not laugh.
He did not order guards to seize them.
Instead, he began to work magic.
A focus before him caught faint light.
His attention moved somewhere beyond the room.
Scrying.
Divination.
Trying to determine whether some threat was already approaching.
When he finished, he looked troubled.
“I sense no immediate danger.”
Kaylor held his gaze.
“I didn't say it was immediate.”
Ishgar considered that.
“What do you believe should be done?”
Kaylor almost laughed.
Craven was asking him how to stop the catastrophe that would destroy their world.
The absurdity was so complete it became terrifying.
Kaylor looked back toward his companions.
Time for the second proof.
“Come forward.”
They did.
The cloaks remained around them.
Kaylor faced Ishgar.
“You asked why I believe another realm is involved.”
“Yes.”
“These are my companions.”
The heroes removed enough of their coverings for Ishgar to see them.
Human.
Human.
Elf.
Tiefling.
Beings that did not belong on this plane.
The guards reacted immediately.
Weapons moved.
Ishgar raised one hand.
They stopped.
His eyes moved across the heroes.
Fendor.
Grazim.
Hexen.
Nethnarel.
Isamu.
For the first time, the composure of the Sanctum Master broke.
Not much.
Enough.
He summoned several spellcasters.
Magic passed over the heroes.
Not hostile.
Testing.
Seeking illusion.
Transformation.
Deception.
The result disturbed the assembled clergy more than any illusion could have.
The heroes were what they appeared to be.
They came from somewhere else.
Ishgar sat back.
“So.”
Kaylor waited.
“You are telling the truth.”
“Enough of it.”
Ishgar did not catch the distinction.
Or pretended not to.
He granted them sanctuary.
Rooms.
Food.
A place to recover.
More importantly, he offered the resources of the Sanctum to investigate the coming war.
“The library may contain something,” Ishgar said. “Records. Prophecies. Older texts. If there is a danger to this realm, we should find its source before it reaches us.”
Kaylor looked directly at Craven.
“That is exactly what I intend to do.”
Ishgar smiled.
“Then we shall work together.”
Kaylor bowed.
He managed not to reach for his sword.
The door to their private quarters closed.
No one spoke.
Kaylor listened until the footsteps outside receded.
Isamu was the first to break the silence.
“So.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“That is Craven.”
“Yes.”
“Not someone who looks like Craven.”
“No.”
“Not someone who replaces your leader later.”
“No.”
Isamu nodded slowly.
“That seems bad.”
Hexen leaned both spears against the wall.
“That is your religious order?”
Kaylor turned toward him.
“Yes.”
“And the man leading it has people kidnapped from the city so he can cut them apart beneath his house.”
“Yes.”
Hexen sat down.
“That seems worse.”
Kaylor did not answer.
Nethnarel paced.
“What do we actually know?”
Fendor looked at her.
“We saw him.”
“We saw a carving.”
“We saw his laboratory.”
“We saw victims.”
“We saw his face carved above them.”
“Yes.”
Nethnarel stopped.
“But if we walk into that hall and say Ishgar is Craven, everyone in the building kills us.”
Grazim nodded.
“She is right.”
Kaylor hated that they were right.
His entire order trusted Ishgar.
Kaylor remembered that much clearly.
He had been respected.
Admired.
Considered righteous.
A leader who had guided the Sanctum through difficult years and would later lead it into war.
No dark rumors.
No whispered accusations.
Nothing.
Everyone had been fooled.
Or—
Kaylor looked around.
“We don't know that everyone was fooled.”
The room became quieter.
Fendor understood.
“Some might know.”
“We don't know how deep this goes.”
Isamu folded his arms.
“Then find someone you know didn't know.”
Kaylor looked at him.
The answer came immediately.
“My commander.”
“Someone you served directly?”
“Yes.”
“Someone you trusted?”
Kaylor nodded.
“Completely.”
That word carried more weight now than it had that morning.
Isamu heard it.
“So we start there.”
Kaylor stood.
“Viran.”
The name had returned with the Sanctum.
His teacher.
His commander.
One of the men responsible for turning an inexperienced young dragonborn into a guardian.
If Viran served Craven knowingly, Kaylor did not know what would remain of his old life.
They found him in the library.
The Sanctum's archive was enormous.
Stone galleries rose several stories around a central reading chamber. Shelves disappeared into alcoves. Ladders climbed toward texts stored beyond ordinary reach.
At one of the research tables sat a triton.
Blue-green skin.
Broad shoulders.
The bearing of a soldier even while surrounded by books.
Kaylor stopped.
Viran looked up.
Recognition appeared instantly.
Then confusion.
“Kaylor?”
Kaylor nearly lost his breath.
Viran stood.
“My friend.”
The triton crossed toward him.
Then slowed.
He studied Kaylor's face.
“What happened to you?”
Kaylor knew what Viran saw.
The Kaylor his commander remembered was younger.
Much younger.
Perhaps only beginning his serious training.
The dragonborn standing before him had lived years Viran had not yet witnessed.
Years of war.
Death.
A thousand years of absence.
And another life afterward.
“You look as though life has not been kind.”
Kaylor managed a faint smile.
“It hasn't.”
Viran looked toward the others.
“Who are your friends?”
“I need to speak with you privately.”
Something in Kaylor's voice erased the humor.
Viran dismissed the other researcher working beside him.
The door closed.
Kaylor told the story.
Not all of it.
Not yet.
He told Viran about the war.
The invasion.
The future.
His own death.
The impossible return.
The companions from another plane.
Viran listened without interrupting.
At first, disbelief was obvious.
Then Kaylor revealed enough of what only he should know.
Events that had not happened.
Things about Viran.
Things about the Sanctum.
The triton's skepticism weakened.
He looked at the others.
At their impossible faces.
Their impossible races.
Finally, Viran sat down.
“What do you want from me?”
Kaylor asked a question instead.
“Who can you trust?”
Viran frowned.
“What?”
“Inside the Sanctum. Who can you trust?”
“All of us.”
The answer came easily.
Kaylor's stomach tightened.
Viran continued.
“The command structure. The guardians. The senior clerics.”
He looked confused by the question.
“Ishgar.”
There it was.
Kaylor sat opposite him.
“The reason I asked is because you cannot trust Ishgar.”
Viran stared.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then he laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was impossible.
“Kaylor.”
“I know.”
“Do you understand what you're saying?”
“Yes.”
“You come to me with stories of the future, other worlds, your own death—and now you accuse the Sanctum Master?”
“Yes.”
“On what evidence?”
Kaylor told him.
The hidden house.
The Vault.
The experiments.
The torture rooms.
The bodies.
The carving.
Craven.
The dragonborn wizard standing above his victims.
Then he described the face.
Ishgar's face.
Viran shook his head.
“No.”
“I said the same thing without speaking.”
“You could be mistaken.”
“We could.”
Nethnarel watched him.
“We aren't.”
Viran looked toward her.
“You have known him for what? Hours?”
“No.”
Nethnarel's voice became quiet.
“We knew Craven before we knew Ishgar.”
That stopped him.
Kaylor leaned forward.
“I gave my blood for this order.”
Viran looked back at him.
“I know.”
“I died for this city.”
“I believe you.”
“You trained me.”
Viran said nothing.
“If there were any possibility I had mistaken the man who led everything I believed in for a murderer hiding beneath the city, I would take it.”
Kaylor's voice tightened.
“There isn't.”
Viran studied him for a long time.
Then something in the triton changed.
Not belief all at once.
The beginning of it.
The willingness to consider something he desperately did not want to be true.
“What evidence remains?”
“The house.”
Kaylor stood.
“Come with us.”
Viran did not come alone.
He brought guards.
Not many.
Enough.
They returned along the same roads to the house beneath which Craven had hidden his Vault.
Or where the house had been.
The structure had collapsed inward.
Walls leaned into a shattered center. Part of the roof had disappeared. Water filled the lower levels and continued pooling beneath the ruin.
Viran stared.
“That happened today?”
“Yes.”
“What did this?”
“The Vault.”
Nethnarel looked toward the water.
“Technically we helped.”
Kaylor gave her a look.
“What?”
“We did.”
Hexen approached the flooded opening.
The stairs were gone.
Collapsed rock and broken masonry filled the route that had descended toward Craven's chambers.
Viran walked the perimeter.
“There is no entrance.”
“There was.”
“Can you prove it?”
Hexen looked into the water.
“Yes.”
His body changed.
Human became something streamlined.
Large.
Predatory.
A shark dropped into the flooded ruin.
Nethnarel sighed.
Then magic wrapped around her.
Her form changed as well.
A second shark entered the water.
Viran stared.
Grazim folded his arms.
“You become accustomed to it.”
Below the surface, Hexen and Nethnarel explored what remained.
The passage had collapsed.
Completely.
Stone filled the stairwell.
Debris packed the lower route.
Water moved through cracks but offered no traversable opening into the Vault.
Craven had destroyed the evidence.
Almost.
The two returned.
Nethnarel resumed her tiefling form first.
“The entrance is buried.”
Hexen changed beside her.
“But something was there.”
Viran looked at the imploded structure.
He had seen enough not to dismiss them.
Not proof for the king.
Not proof for the Sanctum.
But enough for a man who trusted Kaylor to begin asking dangerous questions.
“If Ishgar is involved,” Viran said slowly, “he cannot be doing this alone.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“That's what we think.”
“People are disappearing from the city.”
Viran began pacing.
“Victims have to be selected. Watched. Taken without drawing attention.”
“Robed figures took Krill,” Grazim said.
Viran turned.
“Krill?”
“A tavern worker we found in the Vault.”
“Alive?”
Grazim hesitated.
“Eventually.”
Viran decided not to ask.
He thought.
Then looked toward the river districts.
“There is a place.”
Kaylor waited.
“Freeport.”
The name returned another fragment of memory.
Not respectable.
Not lawless either.
Trade made its own rules near the docks.
Goods entered.
People entered.
Some left.
Some did not.
Viran continued.
“We have been watching a warehouse near Hunter's Landing. Smugglers. Thieves. Informants. Maybe worse.”
“You haven't raided it?”
“No reason to. Not yet. Better to watch an underworld network than scatter it before you know who it touches.”
Fendor understood.
“And now you want to know whether it touches Craven.”
Viran nodded.
“If someone is supplying victims, information, materials, or transportation, that is where I would start.”
Kaylor looked toward the distant Sanctum.
Ishgar—Craven—would be returning to his ordinary duties.
Perhaps already meeting with counselors.
Perhaps already wondering why Kaylor had arrived from nowhere wearing the uniform of a future lieutenant.
Perhaps already planning how to deal with them.
“We go tonight.”
Viran nodded.
“I'll research the Vault. The clockwork dragon. Craven. Anything I can find.”
Kaylor stepped closer.
“Act normally.”
Viran looked at him.
“If we're right, we don't know who else is involved.”
The triton's expression hardened.
“I understand.”
Before they separated, Viran saw to it that Isamu received a simple rapier.
The monk tested its balance.
Better than the torture-room whip.
Not ideal.
Good enough.
The whip remained with him.
Isamu looked at both.
“I am developing a collection.”
Hexen smiled.
“Keep the whip.”
“It is temporary.”
“Of course.”
They approached Hunter's Landing after dark.
Moonlight lay across the warehouses.
The river reflected it in broken lines.
The building Viran had described was large, low, and deliberately unremarkable.
Exactly the sort of place no one remembered unless given a reason.
A small stone tower rose near one end.
Another entrance stood partly open beside what appeared to be stables or animal pens.
Kaylor studied the building.
“No frontal assault.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“Growth.”
Kaylor ignored her.
They circled toward the stable entrance.
The door stood slightly open.
Darkness waited beyond it.
Kaylor peered inside.
Stalls.
Hay.
The smell of animals.
Manure.
Nothing moved.
Isamu stood beside him.
“You see anything?”
“No.”
Fendor watched the roofline.
“That's usually when something attacks.”
Kaylor stepped inside.
Isamu followed.
So did Hexen.
The stable looked empty.
Then the ceiling moved.
A small figure dropped directly onto Isamu.
Fur.
A narrow snout.
A flash of steel.
Ratfolk.
The blade struck before Isamu could fully turn.
He twisted and tried to deflect it.
Not fast enough.
Steel opened his side.
Across the stable, another ratfolk dropped onto Kaylor.
The dragonborn took the attack harder.
A blade found the seam in his armor.
Pain shot through him.
“Ambush!”
Nethnarel was already moving.
Magic Missiles left her fingers.
The bolts divided.
Some struck the ratfolk attacking Isamu.
The others hammered Kaylor's assailant.
Both staggered.
Neither fell.
Then a crossbow bolt came from outside.
Kaylor did not see the shooter.
He felt the impact.
The bolt hit his back with enough force to drive him forward.
Pain exploded through him.
The shot had found an opening with almost impossible precision.
Fendor turned toward the darkness.
“Outside.”
Kaylor ignored the crossbowman.
He wanted one answer.
The ratfolk in front of him had it.
Kaylor drew his sword.
“Alive.”
The creature snarled.
Kaylor struck.
Once.
Then again.
He turned the final blow at the last instant.
Not the edge.
Enough force to drop the rogue without killing him.
The ratfolk collapsed.
“Got one.”
Isamu attacked his own opponent.
The new rapier moved cleanly.
The first thrust missed.
The second struck.
Then Isamu changed his grip and drove a focused blow into a nerve point.
The ratfolk froze.
Stunned.
“Got another.”
A second crossbow bolt flew from the darkness.
This one struck Hexen.
The druid grunted and turned toward the opening.
“Found them.”
Fendor had already seen the muzzle flash.
The Oathbow rose.
Two arrows crossed the night.
Both struck the hidden shooter.
The ratfolk dropped somewhere beyond the stable.
Hexen called his wolves.
Magic gathered.
The pack appeared around him.
One instant, empty stable.
The next, wolves.
Isamu looked at them.
“You do this often?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Hexen pointed toward the darkness.
“Crossbows.”
Fair answer.
Hexen followed with Frostbite against another attacker.
Cold formed across fur and leather.
The ratfolk survived.
Barely.
Grazim moved toward the doorway.
He could not reach the shooter immediately.
He raised one hand.
The bell sounded.
Toll the Dead.
The ratfolk resisted the magic.
Grazim frowned.
“Apparently alive people are more difficult.”
Nethnarel took another angle.
She saw one of the attackers.
Lightning connected them.
Witch Bolt.
The ratfolk convulsed.
Outside, the remaining rogues scattered.
One disengaged from the wolves and rushed Hexen with a flurry of knives.
One blade got through.
Not enough.
Another attacked Isamu.
The monk turned the strike aside.
Fendor fired again.
One attacker fell.
The Oathbow sent a pulse of healing through the party as the fight narrowed.
Kaylor's wounds eased.
Isamu's side closed enough to keep moving.
Nethnarel shifted position and saw the last ratfolk trying to hide beyond the doorway.
Too many companions blocked a clean shot.
She smiled.
Magic Missiles did not care.
The glowing bolts curved through the opening.
They struck.
The final ratfolk dropped.
Silence returned to Hunter's Landing.
The wolves prowled the stable.
Fendor kept the Oathbow ready.
Hexen listened for another crossbow.
Nothing.
Isamu looked toward the creature he had stunned.
It was dead before he reached it.
Kaylor's prisoner was different.
Breathing.
Unconscious.
Alive.
“Good.”
They tied the ratfolk.
Then dragged the bodies into the stable before anyone outside could notice them.
Doors closed.
Kaylor crouched beside the prisoner.
This was the first living piece of Craven's network they had managed to keep.
Maybe the ratfolk knew nothing.
Maybe he was only a thief protecting a warehouse.
Or maybe he knew who selected the victims.
Who paid for them.
Who moved them through the city.
Who served the respected master of the Sanctum after dark.
Fendor looked at the prisoner.
“What now?”
Isamu leaned against one of the stalls.
“We ask questions.”
Hexen looked toward Kaylor.
“Nicely?”
Kaylor stared at the unconscious ratfolk.
The image of Ishgar returned.
The trusted leader.
The good man.
Craven.
“No.”
The ratfolk stirred.
Kaylor waited for his eyes to open.
Behind them lay the flooded ruins of Craven's Vault.
Ahead waited an enemy protected by Kaylor's own faith.
The Vault had given them the truth.
Now they needed proof.
And somewhere in the Sanctum of Serenity, Craven still believed they were working for him.