by Victor Milán
Jaume nodded and kissed her forehead. Which she realized was covered with sweat that the air had at last begun to cool.
“I understand. It’s a partner dance, after all. And I can see why you still need time to recover. You’ve seen things that would have a veteran of years drinking constantly in the hope of driving away the waking memories and the dreams.”
That reminded her of Karyl as they fled the Grey Angel Horde, waking himself and the Fugitive Legion night after night with his screams. I can’t compare myself to him, she thought. In any way.
Besides, it seemed to her that it was somehow more than Paradisiacal terrors that haunted his sleep. Especially given the almost relaxed disregard for personal danger he displayed when awake.
She laid her cheek on Jaume’s clavicle. “Thank you,” she said.
Her self-control broke into sobs that shook her entire body. She clung to him, her cheek pressed to the hard-muscled heat of his bare chest. Her tears slicked the skin between.
“But how will I get my sister back?” she wailed.
“When I know, my love,” he murmured into her hair, “I’ll be doing it. As I suspect you will. Until then, all we can do is hope, and pray—and try to keep from making her chances of coming home safe worse.”
Chapter 39
Baraja de los Creadores, La; Creators’ Cards, Creator’s Deck.…—A deck of 72 cards: 8 Trigram cards, each representing one of the Eight Creators, and 64 Hexagram cards. They are commonplace throughout much of Paradise in a variety of designs of both faces and backs. The Creators’ Deck is used for divination, in casting the Yijing, reading Tarot, or in other techniques; and, most often, for playing a wide variety of card games.
—A PRIMER TO PARADISE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG MINDS
“I’m that glad you found me, Your Duchessness,” Rob told the woman into whose imposing presence he had just been ushered by a solemn youth in a brown silk gown trimmed in silver thread. “It’s my first time in La Majestad, sure and you see. I was a bit at sixes and sevens before your emissary found me and Little Nell. My hook-horn, she’d be.”
When the young woman in gold-and-scarlet Imperial livery appeared at his knee and called him by name, he’d been gawking like a rube as he rode into the great city amid a profusion of pedestrians, random running urchins, nosehorns grunting and bleating, and the creaking wheels of the wagons they pulled. Even though he’d seen greater, for a fact. Lumière, for one, with its fabled million lights and mirrors. Although for all its reputation as a capital of the arts, he’d found it cold and unwelcoming. It turned out Lumièrois artists had a narrow definition of the word art, and it definitely did not include him, a mere pub-haunting hack of a minstrel, his playing and singing no closer to their music than the bowls of pickled compito eggs on a tavern counter came to their vaunted cuisine. La Merced, with its happy hedonism, appealed to him much the more, although he found the Mercedes’ propensity for switching from “solid burghers” to “violent street rioters” at the drop of a feather mildly unnerving.
Still, the famous roof gardens of the Imperial capital, where even pitched roofs were often terraced to hold growing foodstuffs as well as herbs and flowers to fill their city with bright and never-ending colors and perfumes, had impressed him properly. As did the three-story building of polished dark granite not far from the main street to the Palace to which the woman had escorted him. The dash of color added by the orange trumpet-flowers that fairly dripped over its crenellations from its own roof garden seemed to emphasize its austere dignity rather than contradict it.
Perhaps most of all he was impressed by the large, handsome, painfully Alemana woman with the ice-white hair wound in a braid around her head who greeted him without rising from her dark-blue velvet divan in the third-story chamber to which the solemn household functionary he’d been handed off to had guided him.
“Your seneschal, Bergdahl, sent word ahead that we might expect a visit from you, Baron,” the Dowager Duchess Margrethe von Hornberg said. She was a remarkably well-set-up older woman to Rob’s eye, if a bit large in every dimension by his standards. Even reclining on one elbow, she looked to be a good half head taller than he. She was clearly a lady of mature years, though he couldn’t tell if the hair was age-whitened, just that pale blond, or a combination of both. “As you may recall, it was my dear son, Duke Falk, who offered his personal manservant to help you adjust to the complexities of ruling a barony.”
“And it’s powerfully grateful I am to His Grace.” In times of stress Rob often caught himself talking in a preposterous parody of an Ayrish brogue—even when he was speaking Spañol, as he was now. It was a habit long ingrained. It made him seem harmless to the great and powerful, who were in a position to have him drubbed or to make him disappear forever.
Despite his recent elevation, he felt little doubt that situation still applied. Even laying aside her rank or status as mother to the very hero who saved Felipe’s Imperial arse at Canterville, she projected power. Which Rob’s well-honed senses detected no sign of shyness about using.
A pale hand gestured him to a chair upholstered like the divan and placed next to it. A low, round table with a green-veined black marble top stood between them. Silver goblets and several decanters of fine Lumière glass, faceted like gems, rested on a silver tray. Like the decor and the structure itself, it all but screamed discretion, dignity—and wealth. He wondered if she owned the place.
“Sit, please. Refresh yourself. I’ve laid in wine and brandy to ease your thirst from traveling across this dreadful, dusty land—so different from the lush green landscape of home.”
“Thank you.” He sat and poured himself some dark red wine. The brandy sounded tempting, but he didn’t want to dull his wits, at least until he had some idea what this affair was all about. He’d had not a drop of aught but water on the three days’ ride here, and it had made him oddly conscious of how much drink Bergdahl had plied him with at home. The man was so confounded hale-fellow-well-met when the mood struck him that Rob found it hard to refuse when he offered. Not that Rob was in the habit of resisting overhard.
“Quite the setup you have here, Your, uh, Grace,” Rob remarked, waving around at the rich but blatantly tasteful decor, all muted tones and earnestness. If I can tell it’s meant to be tasteful, the real word is likely “blatant.” “What is it, anyway? It has the air of a bank to it.”
“Similar. It’s a bourse.”
“A bolsa?” He frowned. “A … bag? A purse?”
She smiled. She had a warm smile—he had to grant her that. Also one that tickled him along the bottom of his man parts. An impulse he stomped on hard; this one was dangerous to play with, if nothing else. And not in a tempting way.
Still, her white silk gown was cut so low in front that he was genuinely curious to see if she could manage to stand up without one of her substantial boobs popping out. He wondered what twist of Northern prudery demanded she wear the garment on the one hand, yet allowed it to conceal so little on the other. On an afternoon as warm as this, one of your Southern ladies would have thought nothing of welcoming to this clearly private parlor a visiting grande wearing just a loincloth or even nothing.
“It is a place where financial instruments are created, modified, and exchanged,” she said.
“So, like pens and ink and ledger books and such?” He sniffed but smelled only whatever they applied to the wooden panels on the walls to make them so darkly shining and an unfamiliar hint of floral fragrance he took for her perfume.
“Something of the sort.”
She sipped wine, holding his eyes with her pale blue ones. “Bergdahl tells me that you have a problem, Baron Korrigan. How might I help you?”
It was as if his thick skull had turned to lead the way its sudden weight made his head fall forward. A trebuchet stone seemed to be settling in his gut at the same time.
So there it is, he thought. Out in the open, then. Well, isn’t that what I came for?
He sighed. He supp
osed it was, indeed. That’s what you get for setting out in haste, sans plans, and utterly failing to hit upon a decent one the whole trip here. I may be a Baron all legal and proper now, but of fools I’m a veritable Prince.
But his cunning, so ground in from earliest childhood as to be reflex, kicked in. “What have you heard, specifically? Uh, Your Grace?”
“Several weeks ago Bergdahl reported a rumor to me that a Faerie had appeared to Karyl during a visit to his newly installed count of Crève Coeur. He told me of your unnerving observation of what you suspected was Karyl directly trafficking with one in his ducal castle. And that he apparently asked you to approve his dealings with them. Did he report correctly?”
Managing, barely, to suppress a smirk at the sizable—but more stout than pretentious, like Little Nell—former farmhouse of Séverin being called a “castle,” Rob considered his options. He liked the taste of none of them.
To be honest, for a change, I’ve always tended to ask myself, Why tell the truth when a charming lie will do? But for once he could find no lie that served him better.
“It’s true enough,” he said miserably. “All of it.”
It occurred to him for the first time to wonder whom Bergdahl was really serving. Well, he’s been so confounded useful—and such a jolly companion—why should the question bother me unduly?
She leaned forward. Distressed as he was, Rob did not hold back from covertly eyeing her décolletage. Which burgeoned but did not burst, to his outright disappointment. He could use a bit of diversion here, as much as he knew he couldn’t afford to stray from the terrible task at hand.
“Let me help you, Baron.”
He felt his brow furrow.
“Why?”
“Duke Karyl has proven himself a great hero. The Empire always needs such men, and, in the current crisis, now needs them more than ever. For whatever reason, the Fae have caught his eye and led him astray. I feel it’s my duty to the Throne to help you help him recover his path.”
He sat and stewed in that. It didn’t strike him as entirely likely.
“Please,” she said. “Something tells me that you, of all men, know keenly just the kind of peril he’s in.”
He looked up sharply. What, does everyone now know my great and awful family secret—that the very word “Korrigan” means “touched by the Fae,” in a language so old it was never brought here from Old Home?
But no. This bloody great Corythosaurus of an Ahlmayn duchess hasn’t a mortal way of knowing that. Hard as it is to credit, there may be such a thing as too suspicious, even of bluebloods, Rob my lad.
And besides, it’s still not as if I’ve any choice but to grasp at what straws are offered me.
“What do you propose, Your Grace?”
“To free him.”
“And how exactly would you go about that?”
He saw a quick furrow to that milky brow that suggested the Dowager Duchess was none too accustomed to being questioned closely by her inferiors and little willing to learn the knack. But the hard look melted away as he watched.
“Enchantment by the Fae is a terrible and dangerous thing. They have the means of influencing one’s actions in a way so subtle that the victim never notices.”
“So I’ve heard.” All my bloody life, haven’t I? And don’t I know from my own bad experiences? “Can you cure him? Or free him from their power?”
“Yes. But we must work discreetly. It would be ruinous for the Empire if it got about that a man so renowned, so recently made Duke by the Emperor’s own hand, had been trafficking with the Fae. And would likely cost your friend his life.”
“And that means…” What I fear I know already. But I still have to hear it. For penance, if naught else.
“We must take him up and spirit him someplace where he can be isolated and treated. I have extensive contacts, even here. I can find experts who can free him.”
He hung his head again. Here’s no good choice, he thought miserably. And I cannot doubt what the less-bad one is. Much as I fear to seal that fate.
“How can I help you, then?”
This time her frown struck him as one of calculation. “It will take me time to make the arrangements. It will be a … delicate operation.”
Before he could stop it, he laughed. She looked more shocked than angered.
“That’s a bloody understatement, Duchess—and pardon my Francés. The man’s a killing machine.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He’s like a clockwork soldier, isn’t he? Once you wind him up and let him go, you can only pray you live until he stops by himself.”
“I see,” Margrethe said. “Well, that’s all the more reason I need your help so badly. You have to get him to a place where he can be taken up discreetly—and persuade him to give up without a fight.”
“That’s a tall task.”
“Yet if anyone is up to it, it’s you, his friend and trusted lieutenant.”
Well, there it is, bald as an egg. Judas goat is not a role I thought I’d ever accept.
He remembered the peculiar nature of that blue glow from Karyl’s room, like steady-shining lightning. And the dreadful, crackling sibilance of the voice he thought he’d heard whispering to Karyl.
“If needs must,” he began, before realizing with a start that the rest of the chestnut ran the Faerie Queen drives.
“So you’ll do it, Baron?”
For once his vaunted silver tongue—vaunted by himself, at any rate—failed him. He could only nod.
“Splendid,” she said. “It is a very great service you are doing for your friend and for the Empire. As I said, it will take me a day or two to make the necessary arrangements. Maybe more. In the meantime, I think it best you not go to the Palace. We’ll want to introduce you quietly when the time comes.”
“Can you recommend an inn? Serviceable, but not too dear.” I’d think an Alemana would know good ale, but probably not the places that brewed it. So no point asking there.
“By no means! You shall stay in a private apartment and enjoy all the amenities the capital has to offer: the best in food, drink, and smoking herbs. And women, if you like. Have you any preferences in the matter, Baron?”
“Well, clean is good.”
She laughed. “Of course. Nothing but the finest. Discreet?”
“Not needed. I’m never that. Beautiful’s a plus, though.”
“Then beauty you shall have,” Margrethe said. “The most beautiful—short of the Emperor’s daughter, of course.”
Rob went cold.
She saw it in his eye, that quick. “I have offended you,” she said matter-of-factly, setting her wine goblet on the table with a clink. “I had no intention of doing so. Please tell me how I can make amends, Baron.”
It’s not just that Melodía’s a friend, though I think I dare consider her such. She worked under me as captain of the scouts, and a bang-up job she did.
And under her worked Pilar, once. She loved me. Then she died.
He no longer blamed the Princess for that; she’d done enough of that. And likely hadn’t stopped, nor ever would. He could not have said why the joke revolted him so completely. But it did.
“May I presume to remind you of the urgent duty you have to your friend and the Empire?” the Duchess asked. “I regret the necessity of bringing it up. But if my own inquiries confirm your fears, the matter’s simply too great to allow other considerations to sway us.”
He shook his head. “I’m with you, still. It brought up a bad memory, nothing more.”
He put hands on bare thighs and rose.
“So, if that’s the way it’s to be, let’s be about it!”
She raised her goblet in toast.
“Spoken like a man after my own heart. To a fruitful relationship, Baron Korrigan!”
Chapter 40
Iglesia Santísima de los Ocho Creadores, La; The Most Holy Church of the Eight Creators, Church of Nuevaropa.…—Our Creators, in Their wisdom, gave u
s few commandments as to what or how to believe, other than that we all must believe in and worship Them. Our Nuevaropan branch of this worldwide faith is the Most Holy Church of the Eight Creators, also known as the Church of Nuevaropa. The Pope from La Casa de los Creadores (Creators’ House) in La Merced. Sects and clergy can be dedicated either to all Eight, or to single Creators. So, of course, can individual persons. Among the rites offered by our holy Church is confession of our sins, to cleanse our souls of their burdens, and thus our minds, and to obtain spiritual and even practical guidance from one wiser than ourselves.
—A PRIMER TO PARADISE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG MINDS
A curious stream began to run through Karyl’s uneasy dream.
His life in the dream world took two main forms: horrific nightmares, and prosaically inscrutable dreams roiled by undercurrents of apprehension about when the terrifying visions and sounds and sensations would begin.
But now he felt something he seldom encountered in dreams or in the waking world: intense pleasure. He found himself in the midst of an erotic fantasy in which a beautiful woman’s mouth gave skillful pleasure to his hard cock.
Awareness of how utterly unusual it was shocked him from sleep. He opened his eyes.
To see the blue-glowing figure of a creature like a woman but indescribably more beautiful, nude and straddling his bare legs, sucking on his penis with her dark-blue lips. Her hair was a dark-blue nimbus that moved as to a wind that was absent from his windowless chamber within the Corazón Imperial.
He yelled and kicked with his heels against the yielding mattress. The sensation as his cock slid out of the inhuman mouth was of pleasure excruciatingly delicious. He did not fail to feel a sting of regret.
But then he was crouched nude on this pillow with his staff-sword in his hands, also nude.
“Get away from me!” he snarled.
