by A. C. Cobble
“Convince him…” she babbled.
“Convince him that working with us is for the good of the people,” explained King Edward. “By joining us, he can bring balance. He can help our people thrive. That is what I want you to convince him of. He is my child, but he does not listen to me.”
“And if I cannot convince him?” asked Sam.
“Preventing rot in the empire, removing the dead wood, that will always be an important task,” replied the king. “It is what you were born to do, what your mentor trained you for your entire life. I can help you fulfill your destiny. You can still play the role that Thotham’s prophecy foretold.”
“Oliver will not follow you onto the dark path,” said Sam. “When he finds out who — what — you are…”
The king laughed. “You have no idea who or what I am, girl. From the beginning, you have been wrong, and you still are, but that can change. You can learn. You can know. All I ask is that you convince Oliver to join us first.”
Sam frowned.
“And if he cannot be convinced,” continued the king, “then he is an obstacle to Enhover’s future, and like any obstacle, he’ll need to be removed.”
“You’d kill your own son?” gasped Sam.
“I told you if that was what I wanted, then I could have done it nearly any day since his birth,” said the king. “It is not what I want, but if he leaves me no choice…”
Sam released her daggers, her hands still curled into claws. She stalked over to the table where he’d sat her wine glass, and she picked it up. She finished half of the glass in one gulp.
“Walking the dark path is a difficult journey, fraught with danger, and costly in ways that most women cannot imagine,” said King Edward. “Oliver, the son of a king, the son of a sorcerer and a sorceress, a man who has trod the underworld in his dreams, a druid… His life and his death hold immense potential. His seed, or his blood, would be of great value to one upon the path who knows what to do with it.”
“You… I don’t…”
“Oliver will help us or hinder us, depending on what you can achieve,” declared King Edward. “His seed or his blood, that is the price I ask from you.”
“You’re making the assumption I will join you,” growled Sam.
King Edward shook his head. “You are on the dark path, girl. It is a walk that I know well. It’s too late for you to turn. You’ve made your choice, and now, Oliver must make his. Go to him. Let him choose.”
“And if I do not?” challenged Sam, setting the wine glass down.
“I released the rest of the reavers,” said the king calmly, toying with his own glass. “Those creatures are hungry, mindless, and they will not stop. You recall the emblem you embedded in the druid keep across the river, the one calling to them? I infused a bit of my son’s spit into the creation, and you assisted me with your own. The reavers will be called to the emblem, and from it, they will know you. They’ll track you like a hound chases a fox. I would guess that by a turn of the clock after midnight, they’ll be in the city. You cannot face them as you are. Only with the power you can gather from my son may you survive the night. He’s down in the baths. I made sure he’d be alone there. His blood or his seed, girl. Let him choose. Then you do as you must to save yourself. I will be waiting.”
The Cartographer XXI
Oliver shook himself like a dog, droplets of water flicking off into the thick clouds of mist that hung over the thermally warmed waters. His body was finally relaxed, muscles nearly limp.
Following the meeting with his father, he’d been tense, like a spring pressed too tight. He’d taken that energy to the practice yards, thrashing several marines with a wooden blade before their stifled curses and sullen looks had driven him away. Reluctant to strike at a member of the royal family or surprised by his vigor, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. They weren’t the outlet he was seeking. He’d needed release, some way to vent the boiling froth of… of what?
Confusion, he supposed. His father had twisted him like the lines of a river across a plain, forcing him down turns, coming back on himself, and losing sight of where he’d been, where he was going.
The old man had a point, though, didn’t he? The awful might of Enhover was paid for in blood, but was the value the empire brought worth that terrible cost? There was no more bickering between the United Territories. Children in Archtan Atoll were given schooling, something that hadn’t existed prior to the Company’s occupation. Even the Southlands, with its deeply imbedded culture of privateering, was a safer place than it used to be. The world, arguably, was better off because of what King Edward Wellesley and their ancestors had wrought.
Oliver poured himself an ale from a cooled pitcher and walked through the silent caverns of the baths. It was strangely empty, at that hour, but there was only one entry and one exit. He’d spoken to the guards just a quarter hour before to order more ale, and there had been no threat, no concern. Perhaps everyone was at the new show which was getting such rave reviews down at the theatre. John had asked if he’d attend, but Oliver couldn’t. Not tonight.
“Fancy sharing that ale?” asked a voice.
He nearly spilled the mug, jumping and almost slipping on the damp tiles of the steam room floor. “Sam?”
She emerged from the fog, naked.
“Ah…”
She took the ale from his hand, her wrist lingering a moment against his. She sipped deeply then handed it back, licking her lips. “That’s quite good.”
He nodded.
“This is my first time in the palace baths,” she said. “They’re… expansive. Care to show me around?”
Nodding again, he took her to where the pools were. The baths had several of them with varying levels of warmth. He showed her different rooms where attendants could give rub downs, where a barber would be stationed during the day, where one could rinse with chilled pitchers to wash away the steam sweat. Sam walked beside him, close, and he felt a bit of apprehension. What was she doing there? Trying to make up with him after the argument about sorcery? Was she up to something else?
Sam was as strong-willed as they came, and he had no doubt she would push the limits of his command, but from what he’d heard, she hadn’t practiced the dark art against his wishes. She’d kept quiet, meeting with the king, training with her blades, and avoiding the seer.
She’d avoided Oliver as well, which had stung, but he understood. He had been harsh with her when they’d argued in Northundon. He’d used his authority as a royal for the first time with her. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that with a friend, though, and it always destroyed the relationship. Unfortunately, there’d been no choice. If he’d said nothing, she would have ventured too far. Without his intervention, she would walk the dark path and be no better than those she sought to stop.
Why was she there? Had she come up with a new angle, a new way to talk him into relenting?
As they walked back into the steam chamber, he asked her, “Come to convince me to change my mind?”
“Convince you?” she asked, stumbling.
He caught her. Her naked body was slick from the steam that billowed all around them, and she slid against his own bare skin.
She righted herself, half a hand away from him, and shivered. “That’s not what you meant, was it?”
“What I…” he mumbled. “About pursuing the dark path, trying to contact Ca-Mi-He, I won’t change my mind, Sam. It’s too dangerous.”
“Ah, of course,” she said, taking his ale from him again.
“There’s more in the steam room,” he said and led her there, where the mist hung thick, obscuring anything more than ten yards away.
The room was set with benches scattered around the floor where one could rest while sweat poured out, leeching away the toxins. The chamber was normally filled with sweating men and women, but tonight, it was quiet. Oliver refilled the ale and turned to find Sam standing behind him, close again.
“Ah, here you go.” He handed
her the ale.
He walked around her, conscious of his nudity. In the steam room, both men and women walked around with nothing more than a towel to wrap around their waists, if they were so inclined. Tonight, with the room empty except for the two of them, it felt uncomfortably intimate. He sat on a bench and stretched his arms in front of him, moving his legs awkwardly, unable to find a comfortable way of hiding his middle bits from her.
She walked around the room, drinking the ale.
“I met with your father,” she said, her voice muffled by the heavy moisture in the air.
He grunted.
“The old man’s quite sharp, isn’t he?” she asked. “He said some things I hadn’t considered. Some things that made me, well, change my mind a little, I think.”
“He said some things to me today as well,” admitted Oliver. “I’ve been wrestling with it ever since, but I’ve decided that he’s wrong. He says because we’ve given medicine and technology to the Vendatts, we’ve improved their lives. But did we? We brought new cures as well as new diseases. We have technology that changed their industry and destroyed the old. We’ve opened doors that perhaps they’d already elected to keep shut. Despite what he said, he isn’t considering a campaign into the Darklands to help those people along the river. He wants the levitating stone, and that is it. He’ll kill everyone, tear down that city, to get what he wants. My father is a wordsmith, a silk-tongued debater, but I see through him.”
“You’re thinking of Imbon,” responded Sam. “You’re letting it sway you. What happened there was not our fault.”
Oliver shook his head. “But it was. If it wasn’t for us, thousands of people would have lived. It was my discovery of the pool, Towerson’s breaching of that tomb, which set in motion the catastrophe that killed every man, woman, and child on that island. Without our involvement, they’d still be alive.”
She kept circling the room, sipping her ale and peering into the quiet steam hanging around them. Finally, she said, “You seem tense.”
She walked behind him and sat her ale on the bench he was seated upon. She began rubbing his shoulders.
He shifted. “Ah, you don’t need to—”
“It’s no bother,” she said. “You can do the same for me, after.”
Her fingers, strong from constant practice with her daggers, dug into his flesh, kneading and stroking his neck and his shoulders. He had to admit it felt rather good.
“It was our fault in Imbon, Sam. My fault,” he said, trying to think of anything other than her standing so close behind him. “Before the rebellion, we brought as much sorrow as we did improvement. The fact that they were willing to sacrifice it all is proof enough what they thought of our presence.” He snorted. “They’re all dead now. All of them. How can we argue we improved anything?”
“They sacrificed for sorcery, Duke,” she responded. “Their rebellion was over the horrific choices they’d made with the uvaan, not Enhover’s rule. They had the option to live within your empire, to lead better lives, but they chose the dark path.”
He grunted and picked up the ale mug. After another moment of her massaging, he shook his head and stood. “That’s enough. It, ah, it felt wonderful. Let me return the favor.”
Smiling at him, she turned and sat on the bench, pulling her jet-black hair over her shoulder to expose the smooth skin of her neck and back.
Putting his hands on her shoulders, feeling the warmth of her damp skin, he began to massage her, watching his fingers and hands move over her pale skin, over the black lines of her tattoos. “I’ve never given anyone a massage before,” he admitted. “I’ve had plenty from the servants, but, ah, I never thought of how they did it. Is this right?”
“It is,” she said. “A little more pressure?”
He stepped closer, working his hands from her neck, down her shoulders, trying to mimic the techniques she’d used on him.
“That feels good, Duke,” she murmured. “You know, with a little time, I can show you how to make a woman feel really good.”
He coughed on the thick mist in the air and tried to pull away from her.
She reached up and gently grasped his wrists, pulling him against her and his hands down to her breasts.
Jerking his hands away like he’d touched a hot kettle, he barked, “What are you doing?”
His wrists still in her grip, she turned and planted her lips on his hip, kissing his bare skin.
Pulling his hands free and stumbling back, Oliver touched his side where she’d kissed him. “What— what was that for?”
She stood slowly. “You know what that was for. We know each other well enough by now, Duke. That’s not the first time you’ve been kissed. Come on. We’re both here, and no one else is. Let me show you some things. I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
He frowned at her, his head swirling, and not from the heat in the room or the ale he’d drank. “You, ah… Do you not prefer women?”
“I do,” she acknowledged. She looked him up and down. “I prefer chicken to steak, ale to wine, bread to salad, but if it’s on my plate and seasoned right, I’ll take any of them in a pinch.”
“This isn’t… Something isn’t right here,” he worried. “This is not like you.”
Half a year ago when they’d first met on that rail car, he wouldn’t have hesitated even for a breath. She was beautiful, and standing there amidst the steam, the clouds of vapor rolling around her glistening, naked body, he felt himself responding. She was willing. She was there, but… but something wasn’t right. It felt wrong. Terribly wrong.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.
She walked around the bench, coming toward him, mist swirling around her like she was wading through a dream. He stood his ground as she approached, and she put a hand upon his chest.
“I’m ready,” she whispered. “That’s all you need to know.”
“This isn’t right,” he repeated.
“Is it Isabella?” questioned Sam, smiling coyly at him. He fought to keep his eyes on her face. “Do you think she would be jealous? Maybe, but she doesn’t seem the type. What if we sent the guards to go fetch her? We can get started, and she could join us. I bet you’d like that, the two of us, slick with sweat—”
He put his hand over her mouth, silencing her.
She opened her lips, pressing her soft skin against his, and then her tongue traced the lines on his palm.
“Sam!” he cried, stepping back, bumping against the brick wall at the side of the room. “What’s gotten into you?”
She reached for his groin, but he blocked her.
Pouting, she said, “That should be what’s getting into me.”
“I’m not going to do it,” he said. “This isn’t… this isn’t you. Tell me what’s going on.”
She crossed her arms underneath her breasts, pushing them higher.
He squirmed against the wall, unable to keep his eyes entirely on her face.
“You won’t do it, will you?” she asked. “I’m surprised and disappointed.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” he whispered.
“Your father released the reavers at the druid keep,” she said flatly. “They’ll find our scent there, and they’ll come right for us. We have a few turns of the clock. With your seed, or your blood, there are rituals I can perform that will help. I can consecrate our weapons to be effective against the creatures, like that crown your brother used against the first one. It won’t destroy them, but it will send them to the underworld. With the power I can get from you, we have a chance.”
“The reavers!” gasped Oliver. “Wait, my blood or my seed— You said my father?”
“King Edward,” she agreed. “He’s the one behind this. He sacrificed Northundon; he sent us to Harwick; he was the one in the Coldlands; he led us to Raffles, Yates, and his brother; he killed Goldthwaite; he’s known it all this entire time. Duke, he’s been playing us since the day we left for Harwick. The curtain is pulled back, though, and his secr
et is revealed. We’ve one more test, and then we can join him.”
“Join…” stammered Oliver. “My father, you’re saying my father is a sorcerer?”
“Keep up, Duke,” she chided. “We don’t have much time.”
He stared at her, finally able to ignore her naked body, but he couldn’t comprehend what she’d said. The words jostled inside of his head, bumping against each other, not making sense.
“My father,” he muttered. He frowned at her. “Why are you saying this? What happened?”
“He told me,” she said earnestly.
“I’m going to talk to him,” he said, shifting along the wall, trying to edge around her.
“That’s a bad idea, Duke,” she claimed.
“Why?” he demanded. “You don’t think he’ll back up what you’re saying?”
“No,” she replied. “I think if you go looking for the man, we’ll lose our opportunity to get in front of the reavers. We’ll lose the little time we have. He told me they are coming for us, and I believe him. Duke, without the strength I can gain from you, I don’t think we’ll survive tonight.”
He shook his head, refusing to believe.
“Duke, think about it,” said Sam. “He’s the one who had the uvaan. He’s the one who wouldn’t let anyone else see the tablets that were found with them. Your father gave the lock and key to me, knowing that fool Adriance would stumble into releasing the creature. Or maybe he killed Adriance and did it himself, I don’t know, but who else could have possibly been able to fashion the circlet to stop it? Who would have given it specifically to John? Who danced your brother Philip like a puppet to get us into this in the first place? Every time we’ve acted, your father has been guiding us from the shadows. You know it’s true. It’s been true this entire time. He’s the other your uncle warned us about. We just couldn’t see it.”
The reavers released by his father, a sorcerer? There was no reason… no reason why.
