The Cycle of Galand Box Set

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Well, she started to climb up to her roof. I remembered I didn't have any blood on hand, so I poked myself in case I needed to call the nether—"

  "Where?"

  Sorrowen furrowed his brow. "To my hands?"

  "Where do you cut yourself?"

  "Right here." He tapped the left side of his chest. "I know they recommend the back of the arm, but sometimes it leaves a bit of a scar. I got to thinking, what if I ever go back to Mallon and one of the priests sees me with a bunch of cut-up arms and thinks, 'Hmm, that fellow looks like a nethermancer'?"

  Dante nodded, mildly impressed, and made a note to mention the idea to the monks who trained the acolytes. "Did Cee make it to the roof?"

  "Yep. There was some moonlight, so I had a clear view of her. She was all alone on this flat part of the roof—and then this guy in a cloak seemed to step out from nowhere."

  "You mean it was hard to tell where he came from?"

  Sorrowen shook his head. "I mean that one second, Cee was the only person on that roof. And then it was like someone walked out of an invisible door."

  Dante twisted to raise his eyebrows at Blays, who nodded.

  "And then he just stabbed her!" Sorrowen's eyes were wide. "He drew back a knife and was going to stab her again, but I threw a shadowbolt at him. Right before it hit him, he vanished as fast as he'd shown up."

  "You reacted that fast? From across the street?"

  "I was supposed to be looking out for her, wasn't I?"

  "Then what?"

  "Cee was bleeding. Bad. So I closed her up as best I could, yelled for help, and stood watch. Nothing else happened until Nak and the monks showed up and got her down from the roof."

  Dante leaned forward at the table, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Anything strange leading up to the attack? Or during it?"

  "That's all I can remember."

  "Question," Blays said. "Are you sure the attacker was a man?"

  Sorrowen shrugged his shoulders tight. "I guess not. He—they—were wearing a cloak. And I couldn't see their face."

  "Thank you," Dante said. "Close the doors behind you."

  The boy stood, bowed to Dante, then seemed to think he should bow to Blays too, which apparently required a second bow to Dante. He walked quickly from the room, clicking the door shut behind him. Dante waited for the boy's footsteps to fade down the hall.

  He turned to Blays. "Shadowalker?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Does that disturb you as much as it does me?"

  "Because the next question is whether this was one of the People of the Pocket?"

  Dante nodded. "Is there any chance we've done something to offend them?"

  "Well, we have kept one of them away from her husband, who the rumors hold is as dashing as he is brave. Such an offense is truly worthy of death."

  "But the real answer is no, right? They don't get involved in outside affairs. They're not even supposed to leave Pocket Cove. And we haven't done anything to them in the first place."

  "I'll check with Minn." Blays folded his arms. "But if they are involved, they might hide it from her so she wouldn't tell me."

  "If she did know, are you sure she'd tell you?"

  "I'd like to think so." Blays headed for the door. "But I'd like for a lot of things to be true."

  While he went to find Minn, Dante headed for the chapel where the theft had taken place. At his request, they hadn't changed anything since then, not even to replace the drapes or sweep the floors. The only major thing they'd done before Nak had contacted him was to remove the boot from the wall.

  As such, after weeks of intentional neglect, the place was a colossal mess, full of grit, dried leaves, cobwebs, and mouse droppings. Dante went over it bit by bit. Nothing stood out as suspicious.

  He picked his way across the dingy floor to stand in front of the sealed rock wall. As far as he could tell, the stone was undisturbed except for the small triangular divot where the boot's heel had been captured. More evidence they were dealing with a shadowalker rather than someone capable of moving the earth. Although most of the People of the Pocket were both.

  Just in case someone was playing a bizarre trick on him and hiding the book right under his nose, he moved his mind through the rock, feeling for empty pockets or hidden compartments. Nothing there. He hadn't expected to find anything—it had been over a month since the theft, and Somburr, Nak, and Cee had already been over the room multiple times—yet his failure was still disappointing. Every failure took them one step closer to running out of options.

  Lastly, Dante inspected the boot. It seemed worn and ordinary. If the wearer had left some blood in it, or even a stray hair, Dante could have tracked them down with a quickness, but the only hairs he found on the boot belonged to the people who'd handled it. He severely doubted any of them was a secret shadowalker, but he had them try it on anyway. It was too small for all of them.

  All of this took Dante close to three hours. Even so, he still had to wait for Blays to return from his "conversation" with Minn.

  When Blays finally arrived, he sprawled in a chair, putting his feet up. "Minn says she doesn't know of any schemes from Pocket Cove."

  "Hmm."

  "Come on, why would they steal the Cycle? Think they got bored of staring at the ocean and decided they needed some new bedtime stories?"

  "Maybe they want to use it to identify new recruits. Same way Samarand did."

  Blays considered this, then shook his head. "The People of the Pocket don't have any interest in growing their numbers. The only thing they care about expanding is the freshness of their fish."

  "Even if it wasn't them as an institution, that doesn't mean it wasn't one of their number acting on her own. Ask Minn if she knows whether anyone's left recently."

  Minn didn't, but she promised to ask. With the People of the Pocket lacking loons—unless they were deceiving Dante about that, too—that meant dispatching a messenger, meaning any answer was weeks away. Still, that was all the more reason to set it in motion at once.

  The rest of the day was eaten up by Council business. By the time Dante finally got to his own room, he was so tired that he almost didn't notice that his sword was missing, too.

  He sat on his bed and thought about screaming. The theft of the sword was somehow far more personally humiliating than the stealing of the Cycle. To the point where he was almost tempted not to say anything about it to anyone else.

  That, however, was stupid, and completely at odds with his overall goal of getting it back. Somburr was off spying in Setteven and Cee remained unconscious, meaning the active head of security was…well, he didn't know; he'd been gone too long. He decided to burden Olivander with the information, trusting his second would deliver it to the appropriate parties. After that conversation was over, Dante was so tired he was starting to regret turning down Hopp's offer to wander away with the Broken Herons.

  Still, in the morning, it felt good to wake up in his own room in his own city. To be surrounded by familiar faces in a familiar building. He ate breakfast, then returned upstairs to head a formal meeting of the Council. Dante gave them a full account of Collen's rebellion against Mallon, including the particulars of his and Blays' involvement in it.

  There were questions. Lots of them. Dante answered without flinching, satisfying them by making it clear that Narashtovik's involvement would end as soon as they'd secured the agreement between Alebolgia and Collen.

  Dante glanced around the table. "Anything else?"

  "One small matter." This came from Tarkon, the oldest member of the Council, and one of the few remaining from Samarand's time. Like many old men, he no longer cared about being polite—or, maybe, had forgotten how. "Why in the shrieking hell do you think this is a good idea?"

  Dante laughed. "If you'd told me from the beginning where this was going to lead, I might not have gotten involved. But if you knew what was going to happen before it did, I'd do whatever you say, because you must be a god. As for me, I'm sti
ll a human—"

  "Despite your best efforts to join the Celeset."

  "—and as a human, I didn't know what was to come. I had to make my decisions as things played out. It got messy. But if I'd walked away, it would have gotten even messier. That made it hard for me to pretend I had no responsibility to the people in need."

  Tarkon stroked his beardless chin. "There are troubles here, too. If we cleaned up every mess that happened a thousand miles away, we'd never have any time to deal with our own."

  Dante didn't try to argue with that. He wrapped up the meeting. As soon as he entered the hallway, he was intercepted by Gant, who looked much sunnier than the day before. With good reason: Cee was awake.

  Blays accompanied him to the mending chamber at the monastery. Cee was sitting up in bed arguing with a bald old monk. Seeing Dante, the monk bowed and left the room.

  Dante moved to the side of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

  She rubbed the faintly visible line on her throat. "Better than most who take a knife to the windpipe. How did I make it out of there?"

  "Sorrowen drove off the assassin before they could finish their task. Then healed you enough to hold on until the monks arrived."

  Cee grunted. "Sorrowen did all that?"

  "Talking to him, he comes off like he couldn't talk to a girl without breaking into full-fledged retreat. But he's quick on his feet. Hard to teach that."

  "What about the assassin? Did you catch her?"

  Dante nearly smiled. Cee always got straight to business, tossing all of the social niceties aside like the froth they usually were. "She got away. But we're going to find her. You know it was a woman? Did you get a good look at her, then?"

  "Couldn't see. It was too dark. And then I was too stabbed."

  "Nothing at all? The color of her hair, whether she was younger or older?"

  "Nothing." Cee smiled weakly. "But I could tell you her name."

  Blays cocked her head. "You know her name? What, did she write you a signed apology?"

  "I've been hunting her for weeks. Ran into her once before, but it was down in the dungeons. Too dark then, too. Her name's Raxa Dosse. She works with an outfit called the Order of the Alley. Typical thieves' guild. The word on the street is that Dosse comes and goes as quietly as a shadow. What they don't understand is that she is one."

  Dante added the name to his notes. "Is this related to all the thefts from last summer?"

  "Right. Seemed like they were robbing a different noble every week. Hit us, too. Took the Jerrelec Collection."

  "And my sword."

  Cee swung up her head. "They took that, too? I'm sorry, sir. I swear to you I'll get it back."

  "Wrong. You're staying here."

  "Don't trust your healers' own work? Finding things is my job. That's why I'm here."

  "I don't remember hiring you to fight sorcerers and volunteer for impromptu throat surgery. This woman is insanely dangerous. It was your job to find her. You did that. Now it's our job to take care of her."

  Cee gave him a hard look, then relaxed into her pillows. "Isn't fair to be born like this."

  "Like what?"

  "Normal. Trying to compete against people like you. Who can tear me apart with a thought."

  Dante made a thinking noise. "Am I supposed to feel guilt for that? It's the way I was born."

  "I know that." Cee smiled grimly. "Nothing's fair. And that's why I work as hard as I do to keep up."

  "Why was Dosse trying to kill you?" Blays said. "Because she knew you were coming after her for the book? Or did you forget to invite her to the last cotillion?"

  "After the Order robbed the Citadel, I turned one of them traitor. Guy named Gaits. With his help, we set up an attack on the Order. Pinned it on their rivals. The idea was they'd wipe each other out and we'd mop up whatever was left."

  "Nice plan," Dante said.

  "Thought you'd like it. At first, it went great. Thieves, thugs, and killers were cutting each other down every day. Meanwhile, the citizens were safe. So were our troops. But Dosse bit her teeth into investigating the attack and wouldn't let go. When it looked like she was closing in on the truth, Gaits came up with a plan."

  Cee paused, lowering her gaze, then made herself look up at Dante. "It wasn't pretty. Dosse has these kids. Gaits wanted to put them somewhere she couldn't get to them, then use the threat of hurting them to make sure she wouldn't try to hurt him."

  Blays bit his lip. "You helped him to kidnap her children?"

  "If it matters, I don't think they were hers by blood. Gaits made it sound like they were street urchins. She was looking after them or something. I didn't like it, but Gaits thought she was too dangerous to go after unless he had a trump card. He was more right than he knew. He never came back. And she headed straight for the kids. She must have tortured the answer out of him, then killed him."

  "If she hadn't rescued the urchins, would you have hurt them?"

  "What would that have accomplished?"

  Blays shrugged. "People do all sorts of unpleasant things that don't accomplish anything besides satisfying their spite."

  Cee stared him down. "Do you think I'm one of those people?"

  "Oh, we all are. But I'm glad you weren't in this case. Even so, it's no wonder this woman's hot for our blood."

  Dante pressed a knuckle against his temple. "Do you know where we can find her?"

  "That's been tough," Cee said. "A lot of her people went underground during the fighting. Isn't easy to get the people who know about them to talk. They're afraid of getting knifed. Or they just hate us. Most of the info we get turns out to be a wild goose chase."

  "We can't let this woman go. If the streets are too afraid of her, we might have to teach them to be more afraid of us."

  "We do know some of the Order's buildings. I can get you the addresses."

  "One of your people can do that. I want you to rest for another day. We'll have work for you tomorrow."

  "Doubt it. Now that you're here, she'll be dead by dawn."

  Dante and Blays walked out. The bald monk walked in and resumed his argument with Cee right where they'd left off.

  Blays closed the door. "What's our move? Deploy the moths and wait for one of her people to lead us to her?"

  "We'll try that," Dante said. "But if she's at all smart, she'll be insulating herself. I think we need to hit the streets."

  "Just stroll up to the den of villainy, knock on the door, and let them know the high lord of the land would like a chat?"

  "I'm not going to send anyone else out there. Not after what happened to Cee."

  It was the dead of winter and bugs of any kind were in short supply, especially the flying kind best suited for reconnaissance. Fortunately, Somburr had foreseen this eventuality long ago, and had tasked one of the monks with setting up a creche of darkling beetles.

  This was a small wooden structure attached to the stables. The air inside it was warm and smelled a little foul and a little sweet. Dante slew a dozen beetles, reanimated them, and sent them buzzing over the walls toward the addresses in Cee's logs.

  He was still dressed in the formal garb of the High Priest overseeing his Council. He changed into dark trousers and a long wool coat. The coat's hem hung past his knees, but that was the only thing about it that adhered to proper Narashtovik style. Otherwise, it was as plain and shabby as the mugs in a public house in the Sharps.

  Similarly attired, Blays joined him and they struck out for the city's livelier neighborhoods. It was near noon, but the sun was blocked from sight by a thick tarp of clouds. Snowflakes skirled from above. The temperature likely hadn't been above freezing in weeks and the streets were bedeviled with hard-packed patches of ice. An icy wind gusted from the bay on the north end of the city.

  But people still required food and homes and so forth, which meant they required the money to buy them with, which meant they required forms of employment. And so, for all nature's efforts to convince people to stay indoors until the outd
oors wasn't actively trying to kill them, the streets bustled with people going on about their business.

  Though the city continued to grow with each year, Dante still knew most of it. He headed for a public house near the inner wall of the Pridegate. Years back, with Narashtovik's coffers growing fat following the surge of trade from their allies following the war, Dante had funded a project to invest in those who wanted to start businesses but lacked the coin for the initial costs.

  With the aid of a pair of monks who'd been trained as interrogators by Samarand, the project's choice of partners had hit the mark often enough to make the program self-funding. For a while, at least; recently, it had been struck with increasingly cunning forms of fraud. During the salad days, though, when Dante had been personally involved in the selections, he'd approved the city's investment in a public house called the Stagger Home, run by one Lanina Ock.

  The Stagger's emblem was a man leaning so heavily that it looked like he was about to tumble off of the sign. Icicles the size of a man's arm hung from the eaves. Inside, the main room was welcomingly warm, dense with the scents of beer, damp wool and leather, and the beef stew that seemed to exist in every land that had a proper winter.

  Several of the patrons stared at the two of them, trailing off mid-sentence. For a moment, the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the clink of crockery on a serving boy's tray. As Dante headed for the bar, conversation resumed, though more softly than before.

  The man behind the counter hustled to the back, then returned to tell Dante that Lanina would be happy to see them. They walked to her office. Seeing them, Lanina rose from her chair, grinning.

  She ran her eyes up and down Dante's frame. "Where've you been off to this time? The ass end of the world and back? You look ten years older!"

  "You're one to talk," he said. "You're grayer than Blays' face the morning after you tell him drinks are on the house."

  "That's what happens to you when all your customers are drunks. Did you want something? Or did you just come here to insult me?"