“How interesting,” she said when she was through with her questions at last. She gestured toward one of the arena men. “While Gordof here is a sniveling coward who’d sell out his own mother to suck up to me, Nalden assures me he’s telling the truth.”
The advisor’s unsettling yellow eyes focused squarely upon Rajana. This must be Nalden, then. A priest of some kind, Rajana surmised, for he’d apparently thrown a lie-detection spell. That might make matters more challenging.
“This all means,” the Icehand continued, “that the fee for this incident falls squarely upon your shoulders.”
Rajana shook her head. “I can hardly be blamed if your people didn’t take better charge of the prisoners they purchased. And lest we forget, I was not involved in the arrangements. Those were made by my poor sister, who perished in the events herself.”
“I can tell you’re pretty broken up about it.”
“I find profound displays of emotion vulgar.”
Icehand grunted and crossed her arms. “I think you’ll find what I’m about to say very vulgar, then. Rajana, is it?”
“Correct.”
“Well then, Rajana, perhaps you can explain how someone dressed as a priestess of Iomedae came in to free these prisoners of yours?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
The yellow-eyed man leaned close to the Icehand and spoke, low-voiced. “Her confusion is genuine.”
“They had outside help,” the Icehand went on. “Someone got them free, and you can bet someone was waiting to pick them up when they got out of the tunnels. They’ll be long gone by the time the lazy-ass arena guards finally remember where the drain empties.” She waggled her finger at Rajana. “I’m guessing this means you know who that somebody is, and that you know a lot more about what’s going on than you’ve told me.”
“I do.”
The Icehand leaned forward and steepled her hands on the desk. “Why don’t we dispense with the bilge water and cut right to the good stuff. Who were these prisoners, really?”
“They were doing some work with my sister,” Rajana answered calmly. “Some salvage work, and they had a falling-out. Sylena was less accustomed to holding her temper than I, and when things went badly, she sold them into slavery. I would have had them killed.”
Icehand glanced to Nalden.
“She’s speaking truth,” he relayed.
More or less, Rajana thought. She knew how lie-detection spells worked. So long as she kept certain answers broad, she could maneuver the conversation as she wished.
“Let’s get to specifics. What kind of work were they doing for your sister?”
“They were salvagers.” Rajana thought quickly. “And there was a great deal of money involved.”
“How much?”
Rajana smiled. “How much do you trust your guards?”
“Any of these here would die for me. They know what I’d do to them if I didn’t like it. Answer my question.”
“I will. I just think it would behoove you to consider the rest of the people listening and realize what I’m about to tell you really shouldn’t be shared with anyone who isn’t a close confidant.”
The Icehand glared at her, but Rajana refused to look away. Finally, the governor muttered a foul curse. “Gordof, Mirok, piss off.” She pointed to the guards. “You two, outside as well. But Rajana’s guard has to go, too.”
The arena stakeholders departed, though they looked reluctantly over their shoulders. Rajana’s bodyguard eyed her questioningly. She gave him a nod.
He was the last one out, closing the door after the Icehand’s guards had left.
“I already know you can cast spells, Rajana,” Icehand went on. “So here’s a heads-up: I have any number of protections on me. You try anything fancy, and you’ll find it real hard explaining it away with your throat slit.”
Rajana made a sour face.
“Told you I was vulgar. Which is why I’ll come right out and ask you a question. Are you a Chelish agent?”
Rajana froze.
The governor waved a hand. “Don’t bother trying to find some half-truth. There are a dozen ways to get around a lie-detection spell, and I know them all. So now that we’ve cleared that up, why not tell me why Cheliax is interested in salvaging from our waters? There must be a lot of gold involved.”
Rajana made herself smile. “Very astute, Governor. But it’s not gold—rather, a hoard of gems. Enough to buy a small city. Or ransom a kingdom.”
Icehand’s eyes widened at that.
“Three allies of the prisoners went overboard during the dispute with my sister. They were far from shore, and she assured me they drowned, because two were badly wounded.”
“You think your sister was wrong,” the Icehand guessed.
“Yes. Two had equipment that allowed them to breathe underwater. I believe at least one of them made it back. Which means some of the treasure made it back with her.”
“Underwater breathing, huh?” The Icehand checked with her advisor, who nodded at her. “All right. Go on.”
“Who else would have known what my sister had done with the salvaging team? Or cared enough to intervene? It had to be one of them disguised as a priestess.”
The Icehand tapped her fingers on her tabletop. “It’s really not hard to guess things from here on out. You’re going to offer me a cut if I help you track them down. But why should I cut you in for anything? You think the frillbacks are still alive or you wouldn’t have been trying to leave the arena with the spear the one threw at you. Or at your dear sister, I guess. Whose body I understand you weren’t going to retrieve.”
Rajana couldn’t care less about Sylena’s body. Her sister had been an incompetent. “You may think you don’t need me, but you do.”
“How’s that? I have a wizard on staff who can use that spear to scry for the frillback.”
“I’m sure someone could. But what if word should get out that you intercepted money intended to pay off the Free Captains of the Shackles? Whereas if I recovered the money—supported by, say, a small band of mercenaries who happen not to be wearing your colors—it’s all on me.”
The Icehand stared at her, then her mouth turned up into something that was almost a smile. “I want eighty percent.”
“Governor, that’s hardly reasonable. You wouldn’t even have the treasure on your lands—”
“—if you hadn’t destroyed Crown’s End’s amphitheater.”
“It’s hardly destroyed. I say we split it.”
The Icehand snorted. “I can send my own mercenaries.”
“But you won’t be able to blame it on a Chelish agent if things go wrong. Fifty-fifty.”
“No. You can keep a fifth of it.”
“Sixty-forty.”
The Icehand muttered another vulgarity. “Seventy-thirty is as low as I’m going to go. Any more bargaining, and I might just decide to curry favor with the baron by turning over a Chelish agent for interrogation.” She gave a malicious smile.
“Very well. Thirty percent. So long as none of your seventy percent gets anywhere close to the Free Captains.”
“Oh, Crown’s End will pay its yearly tithe when it comes due. But no more and no less than usual. If the baron needs more money he can squeeze his damned nobles. I have plans for this treasure. So you’d best get with your casting. And you can leave your man behind. I’m sending my best officer with you. You’ll like Karvak. He’ll keep you safe.”
There were always challenges, but Rajana was certain she could best any presented by a soldier. “I’m sure. Now if you will be so kind as to return the lizardfolk spear?”
38
The Fortress of Fangs
Mirian
Mirian’s distraction had saved Jekka, but it had brought the city guard out in full force, and they were far more organized than Mirian would ever have guessed. They’d already completely shut down the harbor. If Gombe and his grandfather hadn’t arranged a backup plan, all of them might alread
y be in custody. Instead, they’d managed to slip out of Crown’s End on horseback and now rode into the wilds under cover of a morning rainstorm.
There’d been a little trouble getting the horse used to the scent of both Jekka and Kalina’s corpse. They’d overcome that by rubbing the lizard man down with horse blankets and wrapping Kalina’s body in them. That problem solved, they still had to address the challenge of Jekka’s distinct lack of riding skill, so one of the others always rode close beside him.
Mirian elected to keep them a mile in from the coastal road, knowing it was a haven for bandits and would leave them in easy sight of any ships. Fortunately, the coastal plain was fairly dry along the hundred-mile stretch between Crown’s End and Eleder, so going off-road in the daylight wasn’t particularly troublesome. There was no jungle terrain to contend with.
The skies grumbled threat but never delivered more than a wet blanket of mist. All the better, as far as Mirian was concerned. Limited visibility worked in their favor.
By evening the rain leveled off, though the sky was still overcast. Mirian could just make out the long spur of the Bandu Hills arcing eastward from the sea. The distant, higher peaks were shadowy outlines in the fog.
She motioned to Jeneta, and the young priestess guided her dun mare to Mirian’s side. “Jeneta, is the Fortress of Fangs still abandoned?”
The woman’s slim eyebrows shot up her high forehead. “That ground is dangerous, Mirian. Great lizards still stalk the hills, along with the Bandu themselves.”
“All the more reason to take shelter in the old fortress.”
“They say it’s haunted.”
In fact, Mirian had visited the ruins before as part of a Pathfinder expedition to investigate precisely those claims. But all she said was, “All the better, then. Ghosts worry me less than bandits.”
Jeneta nodded and said no more. The girl might be young, but there was an economy and dignity in her carriage and words that Mirian was coming to respect.
Mirian turned her horse’s head to face more westerly, and the rest of the troop followed.
Most wild animals seemed to have taken shelter from the approaching storm, but as they rode they saw hares and lizards and other smaller game. It wasn’t until nearly twilight that they came upon anything larger, and when they did they all started in amazement.
Mirian had seen herds of the great lizards before, but only in the deep jungles had she encountered any quite this large. There were dozens of the big horned brutes, each with armored, upswept crests and long trailing tails. Any was easily two or three times the size of a full-grown rhino.
The riders were downwind of the creatures, but as their mounts snorted in concern, the creatures looked up from where they rooted among the scrubby grasses. One of them roared a warning, and then all of the lizards raised their heads as one.
“Let’s give those a wide berth,” Gombe said softly.
“You’re a man of good sense,” Rendak said in a mock aristocratic accent, “and I concur without acrimony.”
“Acrimony?” Gombe said. “Can you even spell that?”
It was good to hear the two bantering again, but Mirian silenced them with a motion and led them east.
“How close are we to the ruins?” Ivrian asked. He rode like a champion, and Mirian expected he’d received riding lessons along with the sword instruction his mother had mentioned.
“Not as close as I’d like.” The bluffs were a darker shadow against the night and the clouds, and she guessed a least a half hour farther out.
She was wrong. It wasn’t until another hour had fled that Jeneta spotted the old stone road leading up the hillside.
They guided their animals along the weed-coated flagstones, and Mirian couldn’t help imagining again what the path might have looked like when the city was at its height. She’d drawn it once, and she supposed the picture existed still, in one of her old sketchbooks stored at the manor.
That put her in mind of her mother, who might even now be sitting at the courtyard fire. What would she say when Mirian came trotting back into the city with news that home and ship were safe, but Kellic was dead?
She shook herself out of her reverie and focused on the here and now. Just because the fortress was familiar didn’t make it safe.
The Fortress of Fangs stood at the head of the trail, in the mouth of a natural break in the hills that opened onto a low plateau. Long, slim horns and fangs projected from the crenelated height of its walls. The wooden gate had long since rotted away, but the stones remained, twice the height of a man. She and Finze Bellaugh, Pathfinder venture-captain for Eleder, had supposed the fortress must once have protected an important trade route. There were remnants of other buildings in the grasses beyond, including an ancient temple that remained partly intact. There had probably once been an entire town on the plateau, one of many time-lost settlements dotting the region.
Mirian dropped from her weary animal and stretched sore legs. “Jekka, let’s take a look around. The rest of you stay by the shadow of the wall. Rendak, post sentries.”
“Right.”
A half hour’s search showed the place empty of anything particularly dangerous, though Jekka found a snake nest in the southern tower.
The most defensible spot was the tower beside the front gate. The second floor was dry and sheltered and empty, apart from a few spider webs. Next to it was a squared, shoulder-high rectangle outlining what she and Finze had determined were once stables. Gombe blocked off the single entrance by stringing a rope across it so they could corral the horses for the night.
Jekka and Ivrian volunteered for first watch, on the tower height. Everyone else bedded down in the room below. They had precious little baggage—just a few days’ worth of food and Kalina’s blanket-wrapped body, preserved from rot by one of Jeneta’s spells.
Jekka hadn’t understood the necessity of bringing the body along, for lizardfolk looked on the dead as meat, even if they had no plans to eat it. But Mirian told him burial was the way her people honored those they valued, and he’d accepted the explanation.
Mirian knew she should lie down for a few hours with the rest of her expedition, but she was seized with nervous energy, and returned to the tower height.
Jekka and Ivrian sat back to back, the lizard man looking over the empty city, the young lord staring out through a broken gap in the tusk-encrusted merlons. The storm had blown out, and the stars were bright, obscured only now and then by tattered streams of cloud, as though shredded by a great clawed hand.
Jekka was whittling at a piece of ivory. Mirian wondered if it came from the tower’s adornments. “What are you making?”
“A calling horn,” the lizard man said.
Mirian squatted down to look closer. “I’m not familiar that concept.”
Jekka raised it, letting Mirian see. It was the size of a drinking horn, and hollow. “When you blow, it makes the sound of a thunder walker. Good for scaring off intruders. But only if you make it properly.”
“Really?” Ivrian turned around.
“You should be watching the trees, Writer Ivrian.”
Ivrian looked chagrined and turned back around.
Mirian grinned. “Jekka, that’s amazing. I had no idea you were a craftsman.”
Jekka’s tongue flicked out. “It is a thing a warrior should know.”
“That could come in handy. If you want to focus on it, I can take your watch.”
Jekka hesitated, then nodded. “I will go below. Others may have better tools.”
When he was gone, Mirian sat down on the cool stone and stared out through a gap in the tower at the city. The ruined temple sat nearby. As before, she didn’t have the time to make a proper study of it. She wondered if Finze had ever sent someone back to sketch the friezes they’d glimpsed upon its walls.
Ivrian addressed her quietly. “Mirian, what are you planning to do when we get back?”
If we get back, she thought, but she didn’t want to put doubts in h
is mind or dwell upon those in her own. “I haven’t had time to give it much thought.” Make sure that her mother still had a house, and that the ship was paid for. But who would be running the business?
Ivrian guessed her thoughts. “My mother said you were going to turn the business back over to your brother.” His voice faltered. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I guess I didn’t think the question through. I didn’t mean to bring him up.”
“He’s been on my mind. And so has your mother.” She spoke slowly. “And Tokello. And Kalina. And Heltan. And the living. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the Daughter, Ivrian. Maybe I’ll sell it to Rendak.” Yet even as she said it, she had a hard time believing herself. Rendak was capable and dependable, and practically family, but it still didn’t sit right. “What are you going to do when we get out of this? Work with the government, like your mother?”
“I don’t think so.” There was no missing the vulnerability in his voice. “I was wondering if you needed another salvager.”
Mirian was too startled to respond.
He continued, cautiously: “I think I’ve proven myself pretty dependable.”
Ivrian thought she still doubted him! “I’d be honored to have you,” she said solemnly. “I’m just not sure that I’m going to be salvaging.”
“You were born to this, Mirian.”
“I’m a Pathfinder. Before I came back I was in the middle of a cave dig.”
“Is your team there as good as this one?”
“Yes and no,” Mirian said, then decided to be honest with herself. “No.”
“Can’t you be a salvager and a Pathfinder? They both search for lost things, don’t they?”
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