Within a few turns of the stairs, she could see him coming down behind her, his eyes shining like pockets of angry quicksilver. She knew the base of the tower was flush with the roof. On the last floor before the descent into the larger palace, she veered directly toward the wall, praying she had her orientation right and wasn't about to fall down the side of the palace. She emerged through the wall onto a flat stretch of roof. Tucked behind a row of shrubs, she returned to the world.
Hands shaking, she caught her breath, smoothing out her dress—she'd chosen something court-worthy, just in case of a contingency like this, but also unencumbering enough for her to work with if it turned out she needed to do any climbing or tumbling.
Not a hundred feet away, partiers exchanged witticisms and compliments, flattering each other like idiots, their drunkenly healthy faces aglow in the pool of light cast by the lanterns. A stone block rose behind them, housing the stairwell down to the interior. Raxa checked her hair with her hands. Seemed relatively intact.
She straightened her spine, tipped back her chin, and walked forward. Nearing the wash of light, she beckoned to a servant carrying a tray of goblets. He hastened to bring her one. Prop in hand, she slowed to an unhurried pace, meaning to draw as few eyes as possible on her way to the stairwell.
The door to the stairs banged open. Two soldiers spilled out, scanning the mingling courtiers. Down on the grounds, a guard yelled out an order, his voice echoing through the courtyards.
Walpole had already spread word throughout the palace. They'd be stopping anyone of lower birth than a prince.
The rooftop garden was fenced on one side by an iron railing overlooking a lawn of trees, grass, and flagstones. Raxa made her way to the rail. Keeping her hand inside her pocket, she folded the pages into a tight packet. She leaned over the railing, as if drinking in the cool night breeze, and let go of the creased parchment. They fluttered on the way down, threatening to snag in a tree, then landed on the paving stones by the base of the wall.
She lifted her glass of pink wine and took another drink.
Smiling, she moved toward the door to the stairs. One of the guards moved in front of her.
"Ah," he said, as if he hadn't thought about what he'd actually say until this moment. "There's been…an incident, milady. No one can leave unless they've been…checked."
"Checked?" She arched her eyebrows. "For what?"
"I don't know," he admitted with tangible relief. "Just come with me. Please. Milady."
Raxa did some requisite scoffing, then followed the soldier downstairs to the front hall. A business-like servant with the imperious bearing of a minor lady took Raxa into a side chamber and asked her to turn out her pockets. Raxa protested just enough to make it look like she cared about her dignity, then relented. Finding nothing on her more suspicious than a jackknife, the woman delivered her to the palace doors.
"Please wait here," the servant said. "I'll find a soldier to escort you home."
"No." Raxa's denial had been a little too fast. Her wit put a knife to her brain's throat and demanded it provide a reason. "I couldn't possibly. You need all your men here to help you in your search."
"But Lady Yera—"
"I live at the Fabians. If I can't walk from here to there without being assaulted by brigands, then I don't fear for myself. I fear for the city."
She'd been around the nobility long enough to inject this with enough arrogance that the servant had no choice but to smile tightly and let her go on her way. Raxa strolled across the mall. Soldiers were posted in a loose ring around the palace, holding lanterns up to watch the night. Was Walpole always this paranoid? Or were the secrets in his quarters just that serious?
She reached the facade of the Fabians, then turned and walked alongside them until she provoked a rat out of hiding. She pointed at it. A black bolt sizzled from her finger to its head. As it spun away, she was afraid she'd blown it to pieces, but it was still mostly intact. Crouching over it, she called to the nether. It hung back, then dislodged from its hiding spots, reluctantly filling her hand. Gathering the dregs of her strength, she sent it into the rat.
The rat shuddered. It lifted itself to its feet, collapsed, then forced itself upright, gazing at her with its dead and glassy eyes. Feeling disgusted with herself, yet powerful, she sent the rat scampering across the mall.
Watching through its eyes made her want to barf. She sent it onward, past a stationary guard, who glanced at the rodent and shook his head, muttering something foul. The rat crossed a paved space, approaching a high wall. Raxa searched for ten minutes before she found the folded papers. The rat picked them up in its mouth, then trotted back across the mall. When it returned, Raxa pocketed the papers, went upstairs, and collapsed into bed.
~
"Eventful night?"
Raxa looked up from her breakfast—breakfast in the sense that it was her first meal of the day. By the bells' reckoning, it was eleven in the morning. Maura had appeared to her right, gliding across the carpet without making a sound. At least not one that Raxa had been able to pick up over the clamor of her own chewing.
Raxa dabbed egg from the corner of her mouth. "Should it have been?"
"I couldn't say myself. There were some who considered it the event of the month."
"You mean the party. The one on the roof."
Maura rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me there was more than one."
"I couldn't sleep. I had the window open and I could hear them laughing. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me—I just wanted to ask what it was for. I didn't think they'd invite me up."
"The only thing you have to apologize for is thinking I wouldn't want to go with you. Next time, yes?"
Raxa smiled. She spent the day convinced someone was about to kick down her door, tear her room apart to the floorboards, and drag her off to a dungeon. Instead, it was as quiet as the morning after Falmac's Eve, when hungover farmers stayed huddled under their covers, emerging only to grumble at their children to go see to the chickens.
She didn't bother to copy Walpole's order sheet. There was no point trying to return the original to his desk. After the last night, it was so creased and rat-nibbled that its return would be more obvious than its absence. Anyway, whatever it was for, it was too big to cancel just because someone else had found out about it. She tried to read it, but the combination of cramped handwriting and fancy words was too much for her.
At last, midnight. She put on her trousers and doublet, tucked the orders into her pocket, and shimmied down the balconies to the ground. The night before had been a tough time. The kind of thing that would scare some people into lying low for a while. She'd always thought that if you gave into the fear too often, one day, you'd go to ground and never find the guts to come up again. The only thing was to get back out there the very next day and prove that the last time was nothing. That the world should be afraid to run into you.
On the off chance someone had been watching their meets, she and Sorrowen had arranged to rendezvous at a different park not far from his monastery. As usual, he was already there waiting for her. Without a word, she handed him the two sheets of parchment.
As he read, raw glee spilled across his face. Raxa made a note to invite him to play cards with her some time; he had so little control over his expressions she'd take him for every penny in his pocket.
Finished, he jerked his head up from the orders, waving them around like they were on fire. "This is it! The order!"
"For what? Weapons? Mercenaries?"
"I don't know."
She gave him a pained look. "I thought you said this was the order."
"Yeah, but it doesn't say what it's for. Other than so much money that these people should be ashamed they're spending it on a war and not a cathedral to the glory of the gods. But it does tell us where the goods are supposed to be delivered." He peered down at the page. "Keller's Pier. Three nights from now."
"They're making the exchange during the night?"
Sorrowen bobbed his head. "Two in the morning. That's…weird, isn't it? Sounds like something you'd do."
"And I deal in things I've taken from other people. Makes you wonder what they're buying that they don't want anyone else to see it?"
"Camp followers?"
Raxa was too exasperated to smack him. "What about you? Heard any prime dirt? Or just the usual stories of the gods being awful to each other?"
Sorrowen looked perturbed by her borderline heresy, then rolled back his eyes in thought. "There is one thing. But it's a little strange. The masters have been preaching about the return of Daris—and the need to kill him." He chuckled heartily. "Can you believe it?"
"What's a Daris?"
"Raxa! Have you never even set foot in a church?"
"Not since I learned to walk on my own."
He swayed back from her, as if afraid of breathing the unclean air that surely surrounded her, then sighed. "If Dante hears I had to tell you this, he'll make sure you spend the next decade locked in a seminary. The story of Daris is told in both Mallon and Narashtovik. Do you at least know about Carvahal and the fire?"
"Who's Carvahal?"
"Oh, for the love of—!"
"He stole the fire from Taim," Raxa said. "Who was keeping it for himself like a greedy asshole. Carvahal's the one who brought it down to humans."
"Correct. Except for the part where you called Taim an asshole. Although I guess in this story he kind of is, because the first thing he did when he saw the theft was gather up his army to go kill Carvahal. Carvahal could see he was going to get clobbered, so he passed the torch of flame to Eric the Draconat, the greatest dragon-slayer in the world, so he could climb up to the heavens, fight Daris—Daris being a dragon, you see—and make Daris join his side."
"Why the hell would Daris join Eric if Eric was trying to kill him?"
"Because…I mean…that's how honor works."
"Oh," Raxa said. "No wonder I've never thought much of it."
Sorrowen blinked, then plunged onward. "Eric beat Daris, so Daris and all of his other dragons had to help Eric and Carvahal go fight Taim. After the biggest fight the world had ever seen, Taim slew Daris, and the whole world tilted. But just as Taim was about to win the day, take the fire, and thrust humans back into darkness, Eric stabbed him in the heart, forcing him and his allies back into the heavens.
"So we kept the fire. And it's kept us warm and defended us against the night ever since. Eric is the big hero of this story, but as you can see, he couldn't have done it without Daris' aid. I mean, doesn't this seem weird to you?"
"That the father of time went to war against a giant lizard to get back his torch?"
"Daris was a hero. But when the masters discuss his coming return, they warn us that we'll have to stand against him. Now why would they think that?"
"Because they love Taim?"
"I think it's because of his origin. Before he died and Jorus took over, Daris was the sole ruler of the northern kingdom. Which, given what the people down here think about the north, marks him as untrustworthy at best, if not downright evil. I think the priests are trying to get people used to the idea that they have to fight the north—to fight Narashtovik."
"Mallon can't even beat Collen in a fight. So you think that for their next move, they're going to declare war on Collen and Narashtovik?"
"Maybe they're going to retake Collen, then turn against Narashtovik for helping Collen. That's what Dante's afraid of. That's why it's so important for us to stop them in Collen."
"I know what we're here to do," Raxa said. "But I don't know anything about your holy books. You'll have to run all this past Galand. Anyway, let him know we might be about to break open Mallon's plans. I'll scout the pier where they're dropping off the goods. Meet me back here at midnight in three days."
With her night's work expanding before her, she jogged east toward the river. As she neared the docks, the smell of cool fresh water drifted through the streets, along with chatter from the wharfside pubs. She entered the first she found, ordered a drink, and asked where to find Keller's Pier. She had a story all cooked up about what her business there was, but the drunk next to her didn't care about anything except that she was sitting next to him.
She stayed a few minutes in gratitude for the information, then headed north along the mile-wide river. Most of the piers were silent and dark, but at a handful of them, stevedores wheeled goods into waiting warehouses. Keller's Pier was blocked off by the bars of a tall iron fence. A dozen docks extended into the lapping black waters. Raxa toured around the fence to the other side. Several big warehouses occupied the grounds. Big enough to hold just about anything you could ever want to buy.
As she turned around for another pass, a watchman wandered out from one of the warehouses. Raxa headed on past and didn't come back.
~
Back at the Fabians, she kept her head down. Three days went by like nothing. The evening of the deal, she sat down to supper without much appetite. She didn't know what was going to go down that night. Could be they'd stumble into bad luck, have to run out from Bressel and not look back.
She found her eyes kept drifting to Maura. Raxa knew the score. A mark was a mark. When you were done with them, you tossed them aside like a spent corn husk or a shoe too worn to mend. The night before, she'd kept Maura up late drinking so the lady wouldn't bat an eye when Raxa planned to say she was tired from the previous day's festivities and meant to bed early.
They'd gone through a bottle of good wine apiece. In the middle of making good headway on a third, Maura had leaned back in her chair—or, more accurately, lolled back in it—and the typically arch if currently sloppy look on her face had been replaced by something thoughtful.
"I have a confession to make." Maura pronounced each word carefully, separating them from each other like she was plucking bay leaves from a stem. "When you first came here, I didn't come to your aid because I am a nice person."
Raxa moved to object, but Maura waved her off. In the dim candlelight, she suddenly looked too small for her chair. "No, Yera, I am an effective person, and the core of being effective is understanding your limitations. Mine include the fact that I'm not nice. But since you've been here, I wish that I were, because perhaps it would cause more people like you to be a part of my life."
Now, sitting at the dinner table a night later, Raxa felt an unexpected sadness. Tonight might be the last night she heard Maura's proper modes of speech, her crooked little sense of humor. Raxa had always hated the nobility, but if she'd been born into it like Lady Yera was supposed to have been, she and Maura would have been friends.
She stayed at the table a while longer, stretching out the moments, then stifled a yawn, smiling in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I think I had a little too much fun last night."
She excused herself to her room, undressed, then blew out her candles. Sitting in the darkness, she was terribly tired, but she made herself stay up until it was time to climb down to the street and get her ass to the park.
That night, with a mission on the line, she was the first to arrive. Sorrowen showed up five minutes later, looking mildly spooked.
Raxa assessed him. "You're nervous?"
"No," he said. "Yes."
"Good. We're about to put ourselves in danger. You work with someone who isn't afraid of that, and they'll put you in danger. But the enemy won't know we're there—and if they find us, they'll have no idea what we're capable of."
The strain on his face eased marginally. "I keep the loon in a hole in the oak tree up the lane from my monastery." He described the exact spot and how to use her blood to active it. "If anything happens to me, you'll need it to speak with Dante."
They headed toward the river. Sorrowen was dressed in the clothes he'd traveled to Bressel in, plain sturdy coat and trousers. They didn't look like predators or prey and drew no attention. At the docks, rats scurried for spilled grain and scraps of fish. She and Sorrowen each killed one, returned them to whatever
weird not-life the nether provided them, and pocketed them.
Lanterns were already glowing from the docks of Keller's Pier. Guards patrolled, swords on hips, but rather than the blue of the king, they were wearing plain brown clothes. Raxa hunched beside a warehouse, watching them make their rounds. Nobody seemed to be patrolling outside the iron fence.
They circled around the back of the neighboring warehouse. Raxa helped Sorrowen climb up to the roof. He was terrible at it. Almost dashed his brains out twice. She prayed they wouldn't have to make a daring escape. They crawled across the gently sloped rough wooden shingles, setting up against a stone chimney with a vantage of the docks.
They'd left their rats down on the ground. They sent them meandering through the iron fence, moving from shadow to shadow until they were positioned near the base of the piers. Raxa still couldn't hear much through her rat's ears, but at least she could see everything that it could.
They waited, listening to the wash of the river, the crunch of the guards' boots, and the thunderous peals of laughter from the pub down the way.
An hour later, carriages clattered through the darkness. Three vehicles arrived at the rear gate to Keller's Pier and were allowed inside. The carriages stopped at the front of the warehouses and disgorged a surprising number of men. A tall man got out, broad-shouldered, folding his arms as he watched his soldiers arrange themselves across the grounds and his servants unload heavy boxes from the backs of the carriages.
"That's our man," Raxa whispered. "Walpole."
Sorrowen nodded, so earnest that she had to look away or burst into laughter. As another man scooted out from the carriage, arranging his gray robes around himself, Raxa's grin died on her face.
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 132
