“I’m still getting used to that,” I said, passing through into an expansive ninety-foot-long chamber filled with casks of wine, mead, and other spirits. If nothing else, the governor and his masters were well stocked for parties. “The powers of a god are amazing. I don’t have that kind of strength, not even with magic.”
“I’m still not sure why you don’t have it,” Regina said, stepping in after me. “Shouldn’t we be able to, I dunno, snap our fingers and change reality? That’s what being a god means, isn’t it?”
“The Old Humans altered the nature of reality to bend to their will like a child finger-painting. We don’t possess that kind of power.”
“Yet,” Regina said, smiling.
“Yet.”
The wine cellar was absent any servants and there were no signs it had seen much use the past few months. I was surprised by this, since one would think Hellsword and Redhand would have been enjoying the fruits of such an expansive collection of spirits. Then again, that was a quality of the Nine Heroes that mystified me. They were dedicated, resourceful, and utterly without the ability to enjoy their conquests. Parties and feasts were the pleasures of other conquerors while only the next triumph awaited our foe. I wondered if that was part of the reason they were such bastards. The sober, clear-thinking monster was a far more insidious threat than the drunken, lecherous one.
Interesting thought.
Looking around for the exit, I found a staircase leading up to the main floor quickly enough. “I think the study of magic is the key. Magic uses the same principles as the gods’ own abilities. It’s just they tap into the power directly while magic uses some form of system as an intermediary.”
“I’ve never had a head for magic,” Regina said, sighing. “Too much philosophy and not enough practical application. I’m fine with the mathematics and science, always had a head for both, but I never quite understood the symbolism and other rot.”
“Yet, you used healing magic and mind-control magic today.”
Regina shrugged. “I have been getting…help.”
I knew who she was referring to. “The Trickster.”
“Yes.”
“I am horrified and yet not so hypocritical to condemn you for it.”
“I keep my wits about me, Jacob. He is a lying, scheming, and evil snake, but he cannot control me any more than he can control you. We need power to be able to defeat the Nine Heroes and the Lawgiver, which he is able to provide.”
“At a price.”
“No price yet.”
“The price of accepting his help. We are deeply embedded in his and his brother’s web, fighting a war of their design.”
“It will be the last one.”
“Let us hope.” I paused. “The one thing that confuses me is, if my theory is right, then why can’t the Lawgiver just…will us away? If he can alter the universe with, as you say, a snap of his fingers, why not make us disappear?”
“Unless he can’t,” Regina said, “and he’s less of a god and more of a magician.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “We don’t know what’s going on.”
“You think it’s because we’re still following his plan.”
“Defiance may not be possible.”
“I refuse to believe that. We’ll stop the Nine then the Gods Above. We are not the Lawgiver’s slaves.”
The Trickster chuckled.
The pair of us reached the door at the top of the cellar stairs. It was a heavy wooden square with a large golden hoop, an old style of architecture versus the empire’s elaborate knockers and handles.
Regina gripped her sword pommel. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Truth be told, I would have been a lot more confident if Serah was present but if wishes were fishes then the Merrow would rule the world. It would be a tragic end to our story if we both ended up dying here.
But an epic conclusion to Hellsword and Redhand’s story, the Trickster said. Everyone is the hero in their own tale.
And death is the ending to all, I rebutted. Even you.
Perhaps.
I couldn’t help but ask the question that was weighing on my mind, though. “Which is our priority, though, killing Hellsword and Redhand or rescuing your cousin?”
Regina was silent.
“Regina…”
She closed her eyes. “My head says that killing them should take priority and Gewain would agree. My heart says he is my family and I would let them go to get him back. It’s foolish of me.”
I made a—perhaps foolish—decision. “He should take priority.”
Regina stared at me. “Truly?”
“Jealous as I may be, I am comfortable sacrificing military advantage for your peace of mind.” Besides, the earlier channeling I’d felt around the magical reservoir was absent now. Whatever they’d been planning, they’d stopped.
Or were already done.
Perhaps Serah is dead, the Trickster said, and you’ve already lost.
I refuse to believe that.
As you wish.
“Thank you.” Regina walked past me up to the door, keeping a lookout for any wayward servants of guards that might be about. “Are your sure our cloaking spells will hold against someone like Hellsword?”
“No.”
“You are a terrible partner-in-crime.”
“I know.”
Regina paused. “You know, you have no reason to be jealous of me and Gewain. I had a silly infatuation—”
I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Another time.”
Regina nodded. She then closed her eyes and reached for the door handle. “We will kill Hellsword and Redhand unless my cousin is in grave peril.”
“Agreed.”
The two of us headed through the boggan-run kitchens, the four-foot-tall pudgy-faced workers working in complete silence. They did not notice us but they did not act in a natural manner either and a quick look at their auras confirmed they’d all been ensorcelled. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the future envisioned by Hellsword, an entire world of slaves not only in body but in mind.
Of course, it was also possible this was a recent development, too, with the lords of the palace not trusting the boggans not to poison their food with their families being presently under siege by the army. That, of course, just called into question why they didn’t fire the nonhuman staff before they began their persecution.
Have you tried boggan cooking? the Trickster asked. It’s to die for.
Eventually, we passed out of the unsettling servants’ ward into the great hall of the palace. A relic of the ancient Terralan Dominion, the great hall possessed a grandeur that humanity was only now returning to. Its cathedral-like interior was four stories tall with grand staircases and gilded glass elevators leading to much-smaller rooms where the hundreds of bureaucrats that managed the city operated from.
Two grand statues, twenty feet high each, of Empress Anessia and her daughter, Empress Tianne, were present with the former looking every inch the great warrior in her scale-armor while the latter wore a robe and held a book. Like all such statues in the empire, I knew it to be a permanent illusion with two nameless Terralan celebrated underneath.
A great fountain in the center of the chamber was original, though, with a statue of a beautiful platinum-haired woman holding a spear riding on the back of a gryphon in battle pose. The illusion around this statue was tremendously detailed, showing pure-white skin, crystal-blue eyes, the hint of elf blood around the face, and a determination matched only by her will. She, honestly, bore more than a passing resemblance to Regina.
“Empress Morwen,” Regina muttered, taking a moment to bite her thumb at the statue.
I raised an eyebrow. That was an incredibly rude gesture. “Really?”
Regina bit both her thumbs simultaneously at the statue. It was an extremely rude gesture and slightly immature. Regina then turned to me and gave me a big smile
“Point taken.” I smiled back. It was times like this when I fo
rgot just how much younger Regina was than me.
And that, sometimes, it was good to take a little humor from life. That was when I sensed a presence. It was powerful and furious. It made me sick just to be in its vicinity.
“Redhand,” I whispered.
Redhand’s presence was like a torch held to the chest, burning and gnashing at my very existence. If there was any doubt in my mind he was the child of the Lawgiver, anthetical to my nature, it was resolved as I approached him. Less powerful, but no less formidable, was that of Hellsword. I prayed our cloaking magic was enough to keep our presence secret from them. We needed to kill them but I wasn’t about to sacrifice surprise when faced with either. We needed every advantage we could get.
My dear Jacob, are you scared? the Trickster asked.
Terribly. I am scared of losing Regina, of losing Serah, of perishing so I can’t spend more time with them, and of failing all of the people counting on me.
Shameful, the Trickster said.
I disagree. Those who have nothing to lose have nothing to fight for.
The Trickster, curiously, fell silent.
“The entrance to the dungeon is this way,” Regina said, staring at several of the perfumed Imperial city-born bureaucrats we passed by unnoticed. They were dressed in various shades of soft blue and white, the colors of the empress, and it was kind of dissonant to know those colors had become feared throughout the nation.
“How do you know?” I asked, wondering if she’d picked up on something I’d missed.
“I just do,” Regina said. “There’s no sewer entrance and it’s in the middle of the palace rather than below it.”
“A curious design choice.”
“Everything about this place is curious.”
She had a point.
“Redhand and Hellsword are between us and the dungeon,” Regina said, her voice still betraying uncertainty. “It looks like fate has decided who our primary objective would be.”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“I do. Something not even the Lawgiver can defy.”
“On that we agree.”
We came closer and closer to our targets, moving from the entrance hall to a series of large, luxurious chambers full of uniformed officers, rich merchants, and bureaucrats. Listening into their conversations talked of the northern continent’s richness and bounty—timber, gold, iron, tin, and more. I found myself surprised they were speaking of dividing it up given Hellsword’s earlier conversations about a peace treaty between us but perhaps shouldn’t have been. The Nine had come to power on the backs of military victories, advantageous marriages, gross bribery, and the sudden deaths of many powerful noblemen. They needed a war to unite their followers.
A short victorious one.
They wouldn’t get it.
My enhanced senses picked up the sound of Hellsword’s voice trailing down from the end of a hallway that led to a metal doorway that I suspected was the entrance to the palace dungeons. The voice wasn’t coming beyond, though, but the next door over in a series of them. Hellsword and Redhand were right by us now, just waiting to be assassinated.
We just had to pick the right moment to attack.
“I am growing sick of you, Thermic, and things I grow sick of have a way of suffering for it,” a voice, elegant but forceful, said from a nearby room.
“I am immortal, Hellsword,” the guttural voice of Redhand echoed out to my ears. “You are not the first popinjay full of piss and vinegar to threaten me. The rest of them are all lying in the grave now, raped, skinned, beaten, or worse.”
I looked to Regina, who looked ready to draw her sword and charge into the next room to begin stabbing everyone inside. I shook my head and gestured to the room immediately beside it. We needed to know what sort of defenses they had, if any. Regina, reluctantly, nodded, and we headed in behind me. Inside there was a boggan maid straightening a portrait inside but she didn’t see us and departed almost immediately. After closing the door behind her, I locked it.
The room was some kind of operations chamber with stacks and stacks of maps spread about the room. Nothing was of particular strategic significance but there were markings and notations that indicated they were keeping track of my armies’ movements in the Northern Wastelands. Also, that the Imperial Army was spread thin across the continent and many units were engaged in constant movement with little strategic reserve.
“I am not limited in killing you,” Hellsword said. “Imagine, for instance, me bestowing upon you a conscience and a bit of good sense! What were you thinking trying to incite a massacre against the Fir Bolg? We had a plan!”
Gone was Hellsword’s cool, calculating nature from our earlier conversation. He sounded desperate and worried now.
An attitude I rejoiced in.
“A plan I decided to alter,” Redhand said. “You and the others are too soft hearted. It comes from believing your own propaganda. Nine Heroes? Bah! Morwen truly believes you can unite the twelve nations into a single Imperial state without spilling oceans of blood. Bloodthorn, at least, understood you needed to make examples. His death has left you all weak. What were you thinking, talking to Riverson?”
“I was thinking of peace,” Hellsword said.
Redhand snorted. “While we prepare to annihilate him.”
“Yes,” Hellsword said. “Convincing him we meant no harm would have bought us valuable time to finish our plans.”
I gritted my teeth at that revelation.
“Ha!” Redhand said. “Now I remember why I like you.”
“I might have agreed to a truce, actually, but Morwen would never consent. She mourns Bloodthorn more than she ever did her husband,” Hellsword said. “Her father was of House Rogers and their deaths left her with a rage that threatens to consume the empire. The only way the Triumvirate could piss her off more would be to harm her sons.”
“With good reason,” Redhand replied. “I’m genuinely surprised those children are the old emperor’s, though I thought he was terrified of sex because it imperiled his soul or something.”
“They’re Emperor Stephen’s,” Hellsword said. “Though I doubt they ever shared each other’s bed again after the second child was born. Stephen’s death was fortuitous and I sense the hidden hand of Jassamine at work. She wants these fools destroyed every bit as much as Morwen.”
“And yet you argue for peace and half-measures here,” Redhand said.
I exchanged a look with Regina, we needed to know more. It wasn’t every day your enemies talked about their plans in front of you. I waved my hand over the tapestry-decorated marble walls with air slits to reveal the contents of the room beyond. Before a roaring fire, Redhand was standing across from Hellsword and the two were looking decidedly irritated with one another. Hellsword looked much the same from my earlier encounter with him, holding a golden goblet filled to the brim with a black-colored wine. However, he was nervous looking and entirely absent of the confidence he’d earlier possessed.
Also half drunk from the looks of things.
“Once this is done, you need to disband your forces,” Hellsword said. “We can’t let the race hatred and horrors you planted here infect other lands—however effective they were in getting things done.”
“I’ll do what I must,” Redhand said, smiling. “Always play your enemies off against one another. The blade stuck in your foe’s throat by another is two less aimed at you. If we make the nonhumans and humans hate each other enough, both sides will beg for us to intervene.”
“That is not our cause,” Hellsword said.
Redhand looked at him with disdain. “Our cause is victory and I’m the hammer bringing it about. You’re just the man who sweeps up after me.”
“I am a surgeon’s blade, you are a cudgel.” Hellsword took a long drink from his goblet. “We’ve been doing just fine uniting the provinces without your games. You and your fucking thugs create more trouble than you put down!”
Redhand shrugged. “Jassamine wants
a single united faith, a single united culture, and a single united law. All of which means change and change means blood. Do you think the King Below and his whores—”
Regina had her sword half drawn before I gestured for her to put it away.
“—will be put down by soft words? Is that why you are planning to animate those great statues? No, you need blood magic to power those machines and that requires lives. Just not a few dozen sacrifices here and there but an entire half of a city to burn. I am giving you it. Quicker, faster, and without the need to arm traitors.”
“We could have ferreted out the traitors in the city,” Hellsword said. “This will simply be a massacre.”
Thermic grabbed Hellsword’s goblet and drank its contents down in one gulp. “Tell me, how many millions will be killed by your magic statues? Was it not our instructions to wipe out all of Everfrost and its provinces? To destroy a nation? You condemn me for a little Stagmen and Treekiller murder but plan the end of nations.”
Millions? What?
Regina’s eyes widened.
“Three million, seven hundred thousand, and sixty-three to destroy the Gods Below’s Iron Order as the minumum amount of dead necessary to win,” Hellsword said, knocking away the goblet from Thermic’s hands. “I’ve done the math. Someone…someone reminded me I should do so.”
They were going to use the reservoir to wipe us out.
All of us.
I hated being right.
Regina whispered, “Now can we take them?”
“What would you do to save the world?” Hellsword said, his voice low. “I have done many terrible things in my life, but this? This? This is good. It is what is necessary and righteous so that there shall be a future for us all. To avert the prophecy, I will do what has to be done.”
“There is no prophecy,” I muttered.
“Says you,” Redhand pulled out a cigarra from a pouch at his side and lit it with a flame he conjured in the palm of his free hand. He took a deep puff and blew a cloud of smoke in Hellsword’s face. “My father believes. I’m a cudgel, like you say. A monster. I kill, rape, and pillage because it’s all I know how to do and it’s all I want to do. The thing is, when you’re good at something, you should learn to master your talent at it. To direct it. There will always need to be people who do awful things for the rest of society to go on. One’s other people point to say are monsters even as they sleep better at night because said monsters are there to get rid of troublemakers and force people to behave. The problem is, Fel, you think you’re not that guy. That there’s a parade waiting for you at the end of this. There isn’t. We’re the bad guys—we’re just the ones the world needs.”
Wraith Lord Page 28
