by H. M. Clarke
“Ah... no. I think I’ll pass on that.” Ryn could feel her cheeks beginning to turn red in embarrassment. “So, those three had been here a lot then, to see the same man. Is there anything else you can tell me?” she rushed as she heard Donal snigger behind her.
“Honey, I could write volumes about the goings on in here.” The woman gave her a stiff smile which then turned mischievous. “Unless you want to know their favorite positions and what they call out at climax, then I think you have all the information you need.”
“Where can I find Janin?” Banar asked, and Ryn could hear in his voice how much control it took him to say it civilly.
“Janin lives on premises. Upstairs, second room from the left.”
Banar was on his way to the entry doors before the woman had finished speaking and it was left to Ryn to give her thanks before chasing after the three men.
She came through the doors and collided into Ashe.
“What the…” she began to say but stopped as she saw what had stopped the others.
The room beyond the parlor was a large, open room that occupied all three stories of the building. Three chandeliers were suspended from large golden chains from the ceiling and hung down to the height of the second story. Everything was decorated in white, gold and red with large panels of landscapes and half-naked people adorning the walls encased in ornate frames of bright gold and silver. The ground floor was not the usual tavern or inn that Ryn had ever been in. For one, it had a thick red carpet and the furniture and countertops looked like it had never been used in a bar fight. Heavy oak tables surrounded by matching chairs were scattered around the floor with a large bar occupying the entire back wall of the ground floor. Everything in this room looked like it would be at home in the King Regent’s house and even this early in the morning there were people sitting, playing cards and drinking around those tables. There was a large group of people gathered near the bar around a table where five men were seated playing an intense game of Queen’s Gambit. One of the players looked up at them as they stood staring and Ryn could have sworn that he winked and then smiled at her.
“Wow…” The words that slipped from Donal’s lips would have been echoed by Ryn if she could close her mouth enough to speak.
“All very nice, but we’re here to find Lily.” Banar grabbed Donal’s arm and pulled him in the direction of one of the ornate staircases that lead up to the second floor. After a moment’s hesitation, Ryn followed Banar, dragging Ashe along with her.
Once on the second floor, Banar headed straight to the door that was supposed to be this fellow Janin’s room. Ryn just hoped that the worst they would find there is Lily still asleep in the man’s bed, though that would not explain why Banar could not ‘feel’ Lily through the Link. Again she opened herself up to the Link she had with Dagan and felt a flood of annoyed consternation flow into her. He was still at the Keep, but somehow she could sense that he was on the move. The man was upset, and a little worried, that she wasn’t waiting for him in the Dining Hall.
“Banar, wait!” Ryn hissed as Banar’s hand went to the latch. “Let me go in first. You are a little tense at the moment; we don’t want you punching the man out before he can tell us anything.”
Banar gave her a nod and stepped back from the door allowing Ryn to step forward to give it a gentle rap. But she did not wait for a response before opening the latch and walking in.
A half naked man was just finishing making the bed and had his back to them as the four came into the room. The room itself was just as opulently appointed as the other rooms they had seen and Ryn began to wonder just how much money the people working here actually made.
“Hello, you’re Janin right?” Ryn asked as she came through the door followed by the other three.
Janin looked at them, raised a manicured eyebrow and then turned back to neatening the bedclothes. “I don’t accept group bookings this early in the morning.”
“We are not here for that. We need to ask you a few questions.” Ryn stepped further into the room as she spoke, more to see if there was any sign of Lily than to keep an eye on Janin. “Do you remember talking to or entertaining a Blackwatch constable called Lily last night? There might have been three other Blackwatch girls either with her or before you saw her.”
Janin stopped his work and raised his finger to his lips in thought. “Lily? Hmmm, that name doesn’t sound familiar.” Janin was tall, and well-built with shoulder-length blonde hair and dressed only in a pair of loose linen trousers. Though not to her tastes, Ryn could understand why women, and maybe some men, might want to see him for his services.
Ryn frowned and bought her thoughts back to where they should be. She was never one to turn her head after a handsome face. Why was she noticing him now?
“Do your clients like this dumb act of yours? It must get dreadfully tiresome for you after a while,” Ryn said the first words that popped into her head and she felt a brief flash of panic at the back of her mind. And then it was gone, like a light being shut out by a closing door.
“Wh-whatever do you mean?” Janin spoke his words slowly and layered them with enough honey to make even the best female seductress green with envy at his skill. He sat carefully on the bed and moved his hands slowly on top of the covers. “Questions are boring, and I don’t want to do any thinking, especially this early in the morning. Why don’t we have some real fun?”
As the man spoke, Ryn felt a strange sensation start to settle over her. She shook herself to try to get rid of the feeling.
“Ryn, maybe we should go easy on him,” Banar said from behind her.
“You should listen to your handsome friend,” Janin said in that low, seductive tone of his, his hands still moving slowly over the bed covers.
“Banar, what’s your problem? We have to ask questions to find Lily,” Ashe asked though his voice did not sound right in Ryn’s ears.
“Yes, Yes. But certainly, there’s no harm with mixing a little pleasure with business is there?”
Ryn gave Banar a quizzical look from the corner of her eye. The man sounded drunk. What was going on here? “I’m here on business. Just tell me about Lily and the other three, we need to find them.”
“Answer my questions first and I will answer yours. Who told you about someone as inconsequential as me?” As Janin spoke he looked straight into Ryn’s eyes and she felt something dart between them.
Ryn wanted to tell him to stop playing games and just answer her questions, but the words stuck like gum in her head, and those words did not come out of her mouth. Instead, she heard herself saying that the lady in black seated out front had told them where to find him and that he was a regular for the Blackwatch girls.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?" Janin said, his voice still soft and smooth, his eyes still locked with Ryn’s. She tried to move and found that her body would not respond to her commands. She was frozen in place. “So, the door bitch sold me out did she? That drab, pathetic little sewer rat. She will pay soon enough for her loose tongue.” Janin moved his hands over the bed covers again and this time Ryn thought she could see a red glow coming out from under the bed.
Janin pointed a finger seductively at Donal who was standing just behind Ryn. “Now, can you just do one more thing for me?” Ryn felt more than saw Donal nod. “Please draw your little blade.” Ryn heard the metallic ring as a dagger was pulled from its scabbard. “Now, lean forward and bring the blade gently across the front of your friend’s throat.” Ryn felt an arm slide over her shoulder and then felt the cold feel of metal press close to her throat. Terror flooded through her and as Ryn watched, she could see Donal’s hand shake as if he was trying to resist pulling the dagger deep into the soft flesh of her neck. She could not move.
“There’s a good fellow. I’ll have you all put each other out of the way in a fit of jealous rage over your friend here coming to visit me. Won’t that be scandalous?” The man smiled as he closely watched Donal’s dagger.
It was only Donal’s sheer will
that was keeping her a blades width from death. The only thing she could do was pray to Bellus that she had enough willpower to force her voice to work.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Ashe, make him stop!”
Ryn’s voice came out as a croak as if it was being forced through broken glass.
“What?” Ashe’s voice sounded strained, and from the corner of her eye, Ryn could see him shudder. He then stepped forward while drawing his own blade. “Let go of my friends.”
Bam!
The door to the room rocked on its hinges and was then blown open to slam hard against the wall. Filling the doorway stood the large man who had smiled at Ryn earlier from the card table. In his hand, he held a small metal rod that glowed brightly with orange runes.
“Oh shit!” The words slipped from Janin’s mouth as the large man finished casting his spell. A wave of power flashed out from the rod and swept over everything in the room.
Ryn suddenly had control of herself again and jerked back from Donal’s dagger. At the same moment, Donal pulled his dagger safely away from her throat and turned its point on Janin.
“Is everyone okay? The magic working in the room should be cleared by the dispel I just cast.”
Ryn and the others nodded. And then she took a second, hard look at the man still standing in the doorway. She recognized that voice.
“Vannik?”
The man nodded and Ryn had to hide her shock. The man she remembered as having his grey hair and a beard full of burrs looked unrecognizable now that he had cleaned himself up. She turned her attention back on Janin. The terror she had felt moments before had now turned to anger.
“What foul magic was that?”
“Answer her man, or it won’t just be my magic you’ll face.” Vannik held up a clenched white-knuckled fist and the runes on his rod flickered a dull orange. Though his long gray hair was neatly pulled back into a braid and he was dressed in an ornate damask waistcoat and white linens, he was still large and imposing enough to block the entire doorway. There would be no escape for anyone that way.
The noise of running boot heels outside the door was silenced as Ryn heard Bron’s voice speak up. “Now, now there is nothing to be worried about. Just a little disagreement among friends, it’s all sorted now. Let’s go back downstairs and I’ll pay for the repair of that door plus a little something extra for your trouble.” There was the clink of a shaken coin bag and then the sounds of several pairs of heavy booted feet walking away down the corridor.
Janin slipped to the edge of the bed. Gone was the calm seductive confidence, now there was only resignation and fear. “It was a weave to play on your mind, one of desire and control. It’s a natural Talent I have.” He sighed and dropped to his knees before Ryn, reaching out to clasp loosely at the hem of her scale tunic. Tears now came from his eyes and his face looked more like a frightened boy than a grown man. “Please, don’t kill me.”
The face may look like that of a boy, but Ryn still remembered the cold feel of Donal’s blade against her throat. She took a step back out of his reach and then felt Donal’s hands on her shoulders.
“Are you okay? I’m so sorry…. I-”
Ryn waved away Donal’s apology. “I’m fine. We were all under his spell, he even had Banar wanting to put aside his search for his Pair. You have nothing to apologize for. I saw you resisting, and that is why I am still alive.” She turned hard, grey eyes back to the man sobbing on the floor. Ashe and Donal still had their daggers drawn, and both now held them pointed at Janin.
“You are going to answer all my questions and if there is even a hint of magic…” Ryn glanced at both Donal and Ashe. “I will have Donal do to you what you would have had him do to me. Understood?”
Janin quickly nodded and sat up from his crouch, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to stifle his sobs.
“Now, tell us what you know about where Lily Brenker and the other Blackwatch recruits are.” As she spoke, Ryn placed her hand on the hilt of her own dagger. She was not going to take any more chances, not this time.
“I’ve been enchanting the three recruits over the last three months, under instructions from a woman called Leeta. Then last night the three were sent from here to the Farmhouse. Your friend Lily? She walked in on them being taken, she had the mind control charm cast on her and was taken with them. I don’t know what happened to them from there.”
“Tell me about Leeta.”
“She paid me a lot of coin to get her some Blackwatch recruits. She wants to mold them to become part of her network. She wants to build up a spy network that can rival the best out of Kaldor. Knowledge and control is power, and Leeta wants them both. She is working with someone out of Kaldor though. I have no idea who that is.” Once Janin started speaking, the words flowed out of him and as he spoke Ryn couldn’t help staring at him in disbelief. The story sounded insane. But if it was true…
“This farmhouse of Leeta’s? How many mages are there? Any other defenses?” Ryn asked.
“From what I hear people are going in and out of there all the time. I’ve only been there once. There are traps, but there is a hidden switch at the front of the entrance that turns them off. Th-That’s all I know.”
A muffled bang came from downstairs and then shouting and the sounds of footsteps rushing up the stairs. Ryn gripped her dagger hilt a little harder and now wished that she had bought her sword, whoever was coming up the stairs did not sound friendly. Janin looked up to the doorway with hope erupting in his eyes. Ryn and the others watched silently as Vannik stepped back into the hallway to face whoever was coming up the stairs.
“Vannik. Where is she?”
The voice was deep and commanding and Ryn released the breath she had been holding as she recognized it. It was Dagan.
“She’s inside, she’s safe.”
Ryn opened herself up to her Link with Dagan and was nearly overwhelmed with a jumble of mixed emotions, fear, worry, sorrow. But those emotions quickly retreated as their owner locked them away securely behind a barrier. The only emotion Dagan left for her to see was anger.
“Let. Me. Through.”
No one moved outside in the corridor
“Let me through Vannik.”
“Dagan, you need to calm-”
“MOVE Vannik!”
The big man quickly retreated back down the corridor, leaving the way free for Dagan. But the mage did not enter. He stood in the doorway, dressed entirely in black with his staff gripped tightly in his hand with the glow of its activated runes bathing the room in an eerie blue light. He stared. Stared at those in the room, stared long at her. And then his eyes fell to the crouching Janin and narrowed.
“Kathryn. A word with you.” Dagan stepped back out into the corridor.
Ryn gave a worried glance to her friends. “Donal, Ashe, you know what to do if he so much as twitches the wrong way,” she said pointing her finger at Janin. Both men nodded and Banar drew his dagger and sat on the bed behind the cowering man, effectively surrounding him. She then quickly followed Dagan out of the room.
As soon as she stepped out from the doorway, Dagan rounded on her.
“What in Bellus’s name did you think you were doing? You nearly got yourself killed.”
Ryn was taken aback. He was angry at her?
“Banar asked for help to find Lily. She went missing last night, so since he asked nicely without being an ass about it and we said that we’d help.”
“So you went off without telling anyone? A missing Blackwatch Constable should have been reported to one of the Knights Sergeant. The only reason I found you at all was because we are linked… I felt it. I felt it all.” The last was said as a whisper and Ryn grew a little uncomfortable at the intensity of emotion burning in his eyes.
After a moment, Dagan seemed to compose himself and now that he was reassured that she was truly safe he slipped back into his usual annoying persona.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Ryn q
uickly told him all the events leading up to Dagan finding them.
“You were lucky Vannik was here. If he hadn’t cast that dispel…”
“We would have four dead Blackwatch,” Vannik finished for Dagan.
Ryn jumped at his voice. She had forgotten Vannik was there behind her. She slowly turned back around to Vannik and looked him up and down. “What exactly are you doing here Vannik?”
Vannik’s cheeks quickly flushed red, and he started to fidget a little under her gaze. “Well… Bron had a hankering to get himself a woman, and I thought I could spend my time waiting for him by playing a few hands of Queen’s Gambit. Nothing High Stakes though Dagan.” He finished quickly holding up a hand to forestall any ill word from the Magister.
“Don’t worry Vannik. I won’t report you for disobeying your Conditions of Parole. I’ll assume that you weren’t counting cards. Not this time. You did me a service and I will pay that back to you.”
Dagan’s eyes slid back to Ryn’s, and she thought she saw the anger in them soften. A little.
“I’m glad you’re alright.” The runes on Dagan’s staff winked out, and he threaded his arm through its strap and slung it over his back. Though Ryn noted that the staff could be back in his hand at a moment’s notice. “I should have been here,” he murmured.
“But you weren’t, and I’m still here even if it was due in part to a little luck. If Vannik hadn’t appeared, then Ashe had it handled. He had regained control of himself and was about to stop Janin. We Blackwatch are quite capable of looking after ourselves.”
Vannik’s muffled chuckle drew a hurt look from Ryn but she quickly composed herself and turned back to Dagan.
“Yes. Thank Bellus that you had a Jdari with you.”
“A Jdari?” Ryn’s tongue stumbled a little over the unusual word.
“Yes. A Jdari. Jdari is a word from the Old Tongue that is now used as a term for someone who can resist or fight magic. Magic will not work on them or at least won’t work well on them.”
“Oh? Are you saying that Ashe is a Jdari then?” Ryn’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and then realization. “Now that you say it that would explain a lot. None of the Cadet Mages were ever very successful in stopping Ashe in our practice sessions. They would slow him down, but that’s about it.”