Lee opened his mouth and clamped it shut. Grandma looked pained. Up until now, some of them probably thought they could take care of Declan if it came to that. Now they knew that all of them put together could slow him down, but killing him would be another matter entirely.
Adele leaned forward. "We would hear about Casshorn," she said. "If it's at all possible, Lord Camarine."
Declan leaned forward. "What I say here mustn't leave this room. If it does, I'll have to return, and I won't be alone," he said.
Heads nodded around the table.
"It goes back to the Empire of the Sun Serpent," Declan said. "In the Broken, settlers from the Eastern half of the world came to the West and killed the native tribes, who lacked technology and the means to effectively resist."
Lee looked like he was about to say something but thought better of it.
"In my world, the opposite was true. This continent was home to a powerful empire. Its people called itself tlatoke, and they called their realm the Kingdom of the Sun Serpent. Their magic was born in the jungle, and it was extremely powerful and difficult to counter. About sixteen centuries ago they crossed the ocean and began raiding the Eastern continent, terrorizing the coast of Anglia and what is now the Gaulic Empire, all the way south to Etruria. They killed, raped, stole slaves, and demanded bowls of gold dust in tribute. This continued for approximately two hundred years, until they abruptly stopped. Usually raids die down gradually, but the tlatoke simply vanished."
Declan paused.
"Something screwed up the kingdom of the shiny snake," Tom Buckwell said.
Declan nodded. "The raids had spurred research. A century later, the peoples of the Eastern continent had developed the means to cross the ocean, but the fear of the tlatoke was so great that almost three hundred years passed before the first voyage took place. When the first war fleets arrived at the Western continent, they found no tlatoke. Plenty of ruined cities and temples, but no people. More, a lot of the magic-saturated flora and fauna one would expect was gone. The woods were young. Even now it's difficult to find a thousand-year-old tree. The species of plants and animals that did survive had developed great defenses. Western animals are bigger and stronger than their Eastern counterparts, and something as sluggish as a vampire vine has evolved into an active predator."
"What killed the tlatoke?" Jeremiah asked.
"It is unclear. The searches of the ruins didn't provide any definitive answers. If something did kill the inhabitants, they were consumed, because no intact skeletons remained. But the researchers did find signs of struggle. Broken furniture. Holes in the walls. Claw marks."
"The hounds," Grandma said.
Declan continued. "Eventually survivors were found, isolated bands hiding out in the wilderness. They were almost unrecognizable. Legends said the raiders had worn steel armor and brightly colored robes, but their descendants had regressed into primitivism. The use of magic and cultivation of crops were forbidden. The former tlatoke lived in small nomadic groups, wore furs, and hunted with bows and spears. In three hundred years, they managed to fall from a glorious, advanced civilization to people who no longer remembered how to read the writings of their ancestors. Their oral traditions persisted, however, and their legends spoke about a gift from the Sun Serpent, which then turned on them and destroyed their kingdom. Even in the Weird, gods don't actually interfere in the lives of the mortal men. We pray to them, but we have yet to see definitive proof they exist. So nobody was quite sure where this gift came from. Perhaps it was manufactured by tlatoke priests. Perhaps it fell from the depths between the stars as meteorites do. Perhaps it was an artifact of a forgotten nation. Whatever its origin was, the gift destroyed the tlatoke civilization and vanished."
"What happened?" Rose asked.
"The continent was settled. New countries sprang up. Some, like Adrianglia, won their independence from their mother states. The tlatoke became a bizarre historical mystery. Then, about three hundred years ago, the great-grandfather of the current Duke of the Southern Provinces decided to drain a mire pond. As the pond was drained, a strange egg-like object emerged, sheathed in clay. It was too heavy to move, and so His Grace ordered the shell broken. Under the clay lay ceramic, followed by a layer of pure iron, then more ceramic, then lead. Finally when all the layers were cut through, His Grace found a strange device. As soon as the device was touched, it came alive and produced the first hound. The hound killed one of the workers. The magic it absorbed then streamed back into the device, and a second hound was born."
"You should've destroyed it," Emily Paw said.
"We tried," Declan said. "The device absorbs magic. It's impervious to fire. Attempts were made to crush it and encase it in molten metal, but they were unsuccessful. It's made of a material not found in the Weird. As far as we know, its function is simple: it pulls magic from its environment and produces hounds, which then collect magic and return it to the device. We don't know why it does what it does. We know human beings are the hounds' preferred prey. We know it can't be stopped."
"Is that what killed the Weird's Indians?" Tom Buckwell asked.
"That's what some believe. The device was classified as an 'imminent threat to the realm.' A bunker was built, mimicking the original object: several layers of iron, lead, ceramic, and glass were arranged in such a way as to provide maximum isolation from the environment. The device was placed into the bunker. Its existence was kept secret from the general public to prevent panic or terrorist acts."
Lee Stearns snorted. "Of course."
"The bunker is located in Beliy Forest," Declan said. "It's an ugly, inhospitable place, and nobody in their right mind trespasses there. The structure itself sits on a slab of ceramic, and the forest is burned, salted, and fenced off for a mile around the bunker. Once every two weeks a crew made up of members of a secret branch of the Duke's personal guard travels to the bunker and destroys any encroaching plants or animals to prevent the device from accessing environmental magic. Approximately two weeks ago, Casshorn Sandine, brother of the current Duke, broke into the bunker and stole the device. It was brilliantly done: he had been secretly cutting a narrow trail into the forest for the last year and a half, ending it about twelve miles from the bunker. He then compromised the bunker and airlifted the device twelve miles to the trail by means of an Airforce wyvern he had stolen from a local armory. The device killed the wyvern but not before it got Casshorn to his escape route. He loaded the device onto a cart and drove it out of Adrianglia into the Edge."