Chapter 8. The Letter

endaran,

I hope this missive finds you in good health and well warded.  I regret to inform you that Mai Ling has evaded our attempts to deal with her.  I am informed that she now leads a guild registered in Lion’s Arch called Viper Nest.  The cape is said to bear a coiled snake upon a field of green.  Please be wary if you see such an emblem.  My sources agree that she wishes to gain revenge for the loss of the Red Lotus Clan and Kiku.

Had I the means, I would open a portal to you and draw you away from danger.  Please do not treat this threat lightly.  I fear for you.

Regards,

Bei Zhou An

Nandao sobbed in misery as he stared at the letter.  It had taken him the better part of an hour to decipher many of the characters for his grasp of Canthan was not as strong as he would have liked.  In the temple library he had sought refuge from blood and suffering and grief.  Now a primer on Canthan characters lay open before him on the table.  He should have translated it when Pendaran had asked him to.  It was his fault.  How could he have been so stupid? 

O Dwayna, how could he ever be forgiven for this?  How could he even speak of it to his friends?

Poor Pendaran.

He folded his arms on the table before him and buried his face in them, weeping quietly as another dawn softly set the skirts of night afire and sunlight brightened the little room.  The smell of the sea rode into the chamber on the morning wind and he heard the toll of the bell that summoned the devoted to the dawn rite, the most sacred of Dwayna’s rituals.  He considered going, seeking forgiveness but he thought of Revel, imagined her rage once he made his revelation.

Eight hours they had labored until at last the envenomed obsidian had been picked from Pendaran’s flesh.  Eight hours and two necromancers later, he still lay at the brink of death, his wounds closed now by the brute force of needle and gut.  He would not awaken.

And it was Nandao’s fault.

He copied the translation to a fresh sheet of paper and scrawled an apology at the bottom of it.  He did not need Sywno to tell him to leave. 

The bench screeched an imprecation at him as he rose.  Unseen, he walked down a shadowy corridor, pausing at the doorway to the little room where his friends had gathered around the bed of Pendaran.  His too pale figure seemed small and frail in the shadow of so much grief.  Nandao said nothing, moving away unnoticed as he sought the streets, vowing never to show his face among them again.