Acolyte's Underworld: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 4)

by L. W. Jacobs

  The woman was enough of a gossip that Ella was sure their conversation would spread. Good. She’d glimpsed a diminutive figure in black and silver through the sheets of falling water—Praet.

  Ella took a deep breath, steadying her thoughts on the mental filter as she wished to present it. Then stepped to the fourth stairway.

  Time to dupe a god.

  28

  Marea let the swell and titter of conversation wash over her. She’d gotten to the second tier of the Downs with money she’d looted from two thugs on the way here, but there was no way she could afford the five hundred moons to pass down to the third terrace.

  With any luck, she wouldn’t need to. There was no reason she had to be physically close to someone to attack with revenants—she just had to be able to see them. So she leaned against the open railing and split her attention between those on the lower tiers and those on their way down, trying to spot anyone without revenants. They would be her target—and if Uhallen was right, they wouldn’t be expecting her. While they were focused on a physical fight, she would attack shamanically, and with any luck walk away with their thralls.

  Marea shifted positions on the railing, sipping from her fermented ginseng tea. She felt out of place here, which was weird because she’d felt out of place in Ayugen too, and dreamed of getting back to Worldsmouth and the friends she’d grown up with. Some of those were here at the soiree, though they apparently didn’t recognize her. She didn’t seek them out. What would she say? What stories would she answer their gossips with—murdering innocent men and killing gods? It would only make her feel more out of place. Like usual.

  Maybe it was her curse to be out of place.

  Or maybe you always felt out of place once your parents were gone. The only other time she’d been to the Downs was with her father, on a meeting with a potential House ally. She remembered being disgusted with how much money he’d spent, feeling like they were pretending to be something they weren’t. Now she understood that’s what all of these people were doing—these high-nosed, silk-adorned House elites. She could see it—they all still had revenants attached. Still heard voices of doubt and fear in the privacy of their own minds. Probably believed them, for the most part. There was nothing fundamental that set them apart from poorer people, or darkhaired people, other than that they had less struggle. No wonder no one ever overcame their revenants up here.

  A hulking man in the white and violet of House Fenril passed through the tier, on his way to where a few other Fenrils mingled on the tier below. A bodyguard, no doubt, though you had to be of House blood to enter this kind of soiree. Probably a distant cousin trained for this type of combat, a brawler or wafter poised to access the watered-down version of his resonance that yura offered.

  How strange to think she could lay him out screaming without even lifting an arm.

  Marea smiled. Well maybe not strange. Kind of nice, really.

  A throat cleared behind her. “Miss Fetterwel?”

  Marea started from her reverie to find Daleb Mattoy. “Officer Mattoy,” she said, not pleased to see him. The Mattoy deal felt less important with each passing day. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping I’d find you here,” he said, and Marea was amused to see a bead of sweat rolling down his baby face. “You haven’t answered any of my riverposts.”

  Marea hadn’t even opened them. “To be honest, Daleb, you seemed unwilling to work with me during our meeting, so I’d planned to take my concerns to someone higher up.”

  “Please don’t,” he said at once. “I’ve made some arrangements, moved some money around. I can get you twelve thousand.”

  That was two thousand more than she’d asked for—he was desperate. Interesting. Marea eyed the knot of Mattoys behind him—Grennig was among them. “It’s twenty thousand now.”

  His eyes bugged. “Twenty th—but that’s twice what you asked for!”

  “Time is money,” she said, turning to him. “And I asked for ten thousand days ago. Unless you want me to call Grennig over and deal with him directly regarding your oversight?”

  Daleb paled, more sweat coming from his low hairline. “No! Ah—”

  But Grennig must have heard, because the stocky House leader turned, eyes lighting on her. “Fetterwel!” he barked. “Still trying to buy your uncle’s contracts back?”

  Marea put on a smile. “Afternoon, Master Grennig. No. Though Daleb and I were discussing a few errors he made in drawing up the contracts.”

  “Errors.” Grennig’s brows drew in, and Daleb actually yelped. Marea would have felt sorry for him if she wasn’t trying her best to scan the crowd in shamanic sight and figure out her angle with Grennig.

  “Nothing major,” she said sweetly. “About twenty thousand in difference regarding valuation for Fetterwel buildings that weren’t included in the original mortgage. Isn’t that right, Daleb?”

  “Ah, yes sir,” Daleb said, sweat running down his face. Marea suppressed a smile. That was the easiest eight thousand moons she’d ever made.

  “Hmph,” Grennig said, stroking his wiry beard. “And this makes you think we’ll discount the buyback on the full contract?”

  “Not at all, sir,” Marea said, still thinking. Grennig wouldn’t have paid for so many of his sons to come to a social event without a reason—he was anticipating the violence, too. Major Houses were often generous to minor Houses aiding in such situations, and House Mattoy had sons to spare.

  That was useful information.

  “Twenty thousand is more of a rounding error to either of us, I’m sure,” she said, making a quick decision. “I’d thought to just report it to the Board and leave it at that.”

  Sullying Mattoy’s reputation at a time when they were trying to ally with Fenril or Erewhin.

  Grennig’s eyes narrowed. He might have been a grumpy old man, but he was no fool. “Clever, Fetterwel. What was your name?”

  “Marea, sir.”

  “Allyn’s daughter,” the man said, eyes scanning the tier below. He wouldn’t actually pay five hundred apiece to send his sons down unless real trouble erupted. But a favorable alliance with Fenril or Erewhin would make the price well worth it if violence did break out.

  “I always liked your dad,” Grennig went on. “It’s your uncle that’s the cockwattle.”

  “I… can’t disagree with that, sir,” Marea said, and was rewarded with a wide smile.

  She would cinch this deal after all.

  Just then a shout sounded below, and like a flock of expectant vultures everyone on the terrace lurched to the railing. Marea spun, Grennig at her side, to see a circle clearing out on the terrace below, two men at its center. Or no—a man and a woman.

  “Heala,” Grennig grunted beside her. “Heala and Kerrol. Boys!”

  Heala Marea recognized—one of the two surviving daughters of House Fenril. Kerrol would be from Erewhin, maybe their eldest.

  It didn’t matter. As the two faced off, Kerrol offering insults intended to force Heala into accepting his challenge, Marea refocused in shamanic vision. It would have been easier if she was looking for something—an absence was harder to spot.

  Beside her, Mattoy was cursing. “Which side are you throwing your weight on?” Marea asked, still trying to find the man without a revenant. The Neverblade.

  Grennig grunted. “Fenril. Only honorable thing to do. Why?”

  “Thought I might lend a hand,” Marea said, distracted.

  The old man laughed, sons clustered around him. Other Houses on the tier were similarly bunching together. This could get nasty.

  “You!” Grennig said. “What are you going to do?”

  “You might be surprised,” Marea muttered. There! No—just an almost-translucent one. “Might be Fetterwel wants that alliance more than you do.”

  She needed to get closer. Marea pushed off before Grennig could respond. She didn’t have the moons to get down there, nor was she spry enough to leap the rail and land the ten pace fall. But she
did have something the rest of this crowd lacked: luck.

  Marea pushed toward the crowded stair, Downs stairkeepers struggling to hold back the crowd. As she did, she summoned an image in her mind—a single girl slipping through in the confusion. Imagined the bodies brushing past her, heard the shout as someone else caused a distraction, felt the teakwood creak underfoot as she skittered down the stairs beyond.

  Marea held it like an alternate reality in her head and struck resonance, just as she got to the thick of the stairwell crowd.

  Fate dilated, and a gap opened in the press. Marea slipped into it, and in two more breaths of confusion she was out the far side, stilling her resonance and descending the stairs, already scanning the crowd below. A man with no resonances. Or a woman. They had to be here somewhere!

  Because she’d realized this wasn’t just about getting the uai to save Rena anymore. If Marea was seen to materially aid Fenril’s survival, the House would likely buy her mortgage in thanks. Especially if they also owed Mattoy a favor.

  There! A rail-thin man in Ergstad colors stared intently at Heala and Kerrol, who had now stripped off finery and were choosing weapons. He had no revenants.

  Marea grinned and summoned a shamanic arm that disappeared into the floor, then started stringing revenants onto it, head to tail, like Uhallen had shown her. Just let him try to affect the duel. He wouldn’t know what hit him.

  29

  If the third terrace had been lavish, with its sheets of waterfalls and trailing azaleas, the fourth was outright gaudy. Scarlet puceleaf miniatures hung from the ceiling, servants wafted segfruit leaves in each corner to circulate the air, and dozens of waterfalls trickled over elongated statues in the Reformation style, cooling the air with essential oil-scented waters.

  It was outlandish. Then again, at a thousand moons just for entrance, the place had better look like it was made of money. The floor was literally covered in a carpet of flowers that pillowed around her feet with each step, and servants hovered on all sides, waiting with drinks and food meant to anticipate any need.

  It was ridiculous. Especially considering that her friends in Ayugen were huddled underground right now, threatened by mercenaries and surviving on wintergrass because of these people’s greed.

  She had always hated it, but her perspective was changing now that she knew it was largely the product of a single mind and ambition—Teynsley. Ella eyed the broad-shouldered man, accepting a deep green drink from a curvaceous woman in servant’s blacks. He was handsome in a weathered way, with a presence that seemed to command the attention of the House Sablos men around him—but still she’d expected more, somehow. Something like the aura of power that had surrounded the stone at Aran. More powerful—as archrevenant of wafters, this man commanded far more uai than Semeca had. Though of course he wouldn’t show it outwardly. He was trying to fit in. To continue guiding this political monstrosity he’d built toward domination over the other archrevenants, if Falena was to be believed.

  Tai was only a stepping stone to that.

  Well she would teach him to watch where he stepped. After she worked her way into his inner circle and found proof of his actions, that was.

  So Ella circulated, exchanging pleasantries here and there, waiting for a chance to catch the man alone. If Uhallen’s information was correct, and it was all she had to go on, he was an archrevenant hiding as head of a secret cell hiding as a Council House member. Uhallen may have sent her on a false trail, but she had to assume Praet was an archrevenant and dangerous until proven otherwise. Which meant extreme caution in how she revealed what she knew, or this could all be over much faster than she intended.

  There—Praet separated from the loose circle of Sablos and Jeltenets he had been talking to, headed for the privy. Ella followed as fast as she could, scattering flower petals in her haste. She caught his arm, heart pounding.

  He turned, and before she could think better of it, she whispered the phrase she’d chosen. “To defeat death.” They were the words ninespears spoke to open and close every meeting, according to Nauro.

  Praet’s eyes widened a touch, then went back to casual. “To overcome death,” he said pleasantly, as though these were normal greetings. “Miss?”

  “Merewil,” she said, and took the second gamble of her approach. “Ellumia Merewil.”

  A man like him would know her past. Further know that she was attached to the man who had killed an archrevenant, and lately retrieved that archrevenant’s power from the stone at Aran, defeating some of the world’s most powerful shamans.

  “The runaway knife herself.” It was the name the broadsheets had made for her. He sounded unimpressed. “I would have expected someone younger.”

  “I’m a timeslip,” she said, breaths coming short. She was committed now. “And events in Ayugen and Aran have required rather more of me than was likely wise. Which is one of the reasons I come to you now.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “You realize it is death to risk outing one of us in public?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not needing to fake the quiver of fear in her voice. She was talking to an archrevenant. And both of them dancing a careful dance between multiple identities. “I did not. For all that I’ve seen in the last few months, I am not well versed in your ways.”

  “And so you come seeking power,” he said amicably, taking her arm and strolling toward the far railing. “That motivation is common. Your history is less so, if you are who you say you are. But you spoke of a second reason.”

  “It is related,” she said, saying a quick prayer her mental filter worked. “But rather less common, too. I held Semeca’s spear in my hands. Felt the power.”

  He gazed out over the Ein and the city beyond. “And now you want it back.”

  “Tai always promised we would share it,” Ella said, working to sound the jilted lover. “Yours and mine, he said. Then he thralled the spear to himself. I barely escaped with my life.”

  Shouts broke out on the terrace above them and Ella glanced back. “More turnings of the wheel,” Praet said dismissively. “Fenril and Erewhin this time, I think. Pay it no mind.”

  “It may give us a few moments privacy, at least,” Ella said, finding with surprise she shared his perspective. House duels had once been one of the most dramatic things she could imagine. Now they seemed inconsequential.

  “So you think,” Praet said, leaning forearms on the railing, “that you are better positioned than one of us to strike at him?”

  “I know it,” Ella said passionately. “Whatever else he is, Tai Kulga is still the rebel I met when Ayugen was yet a protectorate. He still loves me. If power does nothing else, it isolates. Sooner or later he will want me back.”

  “And when he does,” Praet said, still gazing out over the city, mottled rooftops hazy in the afternoon heat, “you want our skills in your belt. You want to take it from him.”

  “You can see my thoughts,” Ella said. “You know who I am and what I want.”

  “Yes,” he said casually. “But such things can be faked.”

  A bolt of fear shot through her. Had he seen past the mental filter? Or realized it was there, implying secrets and powers not in keeping with her story? “I—assure you, sir. Those are the skills that I want, not the ones I have.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “Fortunately we have another way to ascertain the truth.” He turned, and a servant appeared at his side. “Fetch Arten for me, would you?”

  A second bolt of fear struck her. Arten Sablos—the man she had duped working as a double agent for the rebellion. Then held hostage in negotiations with the Councilate.

  He was here?

  30

  Marea held her shamanic arm straight down, seven revenants strung end-to-end on it, watching the other shaman. He was across the widening circle from her, his own shamanic arm held in plain sight, a single revenant in its grasp.

  Excellent. He obviously wasn’t expecting any other shamans. That, or he wasn’t skilled enough to handl
e more than one arm at a time. Either way, an easy target.

  In the widening ring a pair of lawkeepers had appeared, clearly anticipating the duel and trying to restrain the family members pushing in on all sides, Fenrils with shouts of “Unfair! Give her a woman to duel!” while the Erewhins, there in force, cried “Stand back! She’s accepted!” and “Out of the ring!”

  Heala held the sword in her hands like she knew how to use it. Her opponent had chosen a heavy axe, scroll and branch of Erewhin etched in the blade. Marea pushed closer, trying to keep both the shaman and the duelists in her sight over the heads of the people jostling around her. Shamanic sight helped some—she could see revenants through the press of bodies, as though they’d become slightly ghostly themselves—but the glow of living bodies impeded it.

  She broke through to the edge of the cleared space just as Heala and Kerrol clashed blades, the woman seeking a quick strike under his guard. Kerrol battered her strike away with such force Heala nearly lost the blade. Marea was no duelist, but she had sat through her cousin’s narration of practice bouts enough times to understand the basics. The first to draw blood would be awarded three points, with each subsequent strike earning another point until one or the other reached seven.

  Of course, either could kill the other and make the excuse of a slip or a misplay on the part of their opponent. That was part of the excitement and danger of true duels, when politics and money came down to weapons training and focus in the ring.

  Neither would matter much when the shaman slammed a revenant down on one of them, likely just at the moment they needed to defend against a lethal attack.

  Marea felt a moment of unease. There is nothing wrong in killing a killer, Uhallen had said. But was her foe assisting in a kill the same as killing? She had no idea who this shaman was—could she really kill him, even if Rena’s life hung in the balance?

  The duelists clashed again, Heala trying a jab for quick blood. Instead of defending Kerrol dodged, reversing his grip and spinning in a blow meant to sever the woman’s spine. She ducked with a speed impossible for anyone other than a brawler. The crowd gasped, realizing the implications. Again Fenril sympathizers surged in, pushing against Erewhin men, a dozen fights on the edge of breaking out.