by Damien Lake
“Who said anything about the entire kingdom? If you can’t be bothered to walk two candlemarks for me, then you’re hardly a man worthy of my time.”
This made not a shred of sense to Marik. “What are you talking about?” Only then did he notice the slightly amused sparkle behind the stern countenance.
“Mother still has reservations, but it’s time to expand the Spell. I want to open a new location. Trying to break into the market in a different city would take years, and we might never gain a greater share anyway. Since I don’t feel like fighting the existing houses, I opted to run the new branch in an unclaimed local.”
“You’re going to run a brothel?”
The instant the words left his lips, he regretted them. Their tone sounded completely wrong. He could see the amused sparkle harden to a dangerous glacial lance. “A gentleman’s establishment,” she enunciated through clenched teeth. “Not some back alley whorehouse!”
“I didn’t mean—”
“And why not me?” Her question rang with challenge. “I’ve spent my life learning how to run the Spell! I can manage a new location perfectly and without help!”
“Where, uh…” Her gaze fixated on him, making him stumble a moment. “If not a city, then where? Are you going to set up in a larger town and wait for it to grow around you?” He thought that made sense after a fashion. It would allow the new Spell to dominate the business by knee-capping competitors as they arrived.
“A town is worse,” she informed them in a tone which clearly stated any fool should have known that. “Townsfolk always glare with that same holier-than-you scorn so they can feel worth more than the shit sticking to their heels.” Marik flushed when a passing group of well dressed, middle-aged men turned toward them after they overheard Ilona. She paid no heed to them. “And no town boy can afford the Spell’s fees! They’d all pass by to find a plague-wracked harlot dropping her bloomers for twenty coppers a toss!”
He hated it when she galloped at full froth. Landon glanced at him with interested speculation. Marik ignored the man. “What, then?”
“I’ve decided to jump to the far corner of Galemar. Mother and I can spread between the two depending on how the new Spell prospers. Your gambling friend says nearly seventy percent of the nobles riding into your little town come from the west along the Southern Road. The wealthy merchants travel the road year-round as well, especially once the Nolier border opens up again.”
“Kerwin?” Marik nearly shouted the name. “What’s he have to do with you?”
Ilona snorted. Landon turned away to hide a suspicious quirk of his mouth. “It so happens he’s my new business partner. He’s agreed to expand his fancy inn and give me the space I need in exchange for the extra draw it will provide to wealthy visitors.”
“You…what?” Where was the head or the tail to this? Marik struggled to find them.
“It works well for both of us. We compliment each other’s businesses. Wealthy or noble travelers who stop to visit the new Spell will be able to spend the night in his inn, so needn’t worry about traveling after dark once their evening is finished. Mostly likely they will spend a pouch full of coin at his games while they visit. Or if they come to play at his gambling paradise, many will drift over to rest from the games. A less wealthy man who beats the odds to win a small fortune will have something near at hand to spend his new coin on, and find the rare experience of the Spell’s entertainments well worth the expense.”
“But…Kerwin? Why?”
“Opportunity knocked,” she responded simply. An enthusiastic light overcame her coldness. “And only a fool allows her opportunities to pass her by. I’d been discussing this with mother for a year already, then your friend popped in with all his questions and dreams of building his personal utopia. I could see his vision at once, and how it fit with mine.”
Jealous thoughts of Ilona and Kerwin scheming together disintegrated as what she planned suddenly struck him like a slap. “So you’re coming down with me!” His heart took wing to soar beyond the clouds. “You’re coming down to live with me!”
“Trust me,” she informed him in a flat tone, arms crossed, “you were the least of my considerations. Don’t go getting a fat head.”
“But if you’re that near Kingshome, I can come see you whenever I’m in town!”
She continued watching him sideways while they walked. After a moment she relented on him. With the smile she rarely ever gifted him with, which always made his heartbeat skip, she told him, “You better, or else I’ll have to find another man. But I’ll be spending considerable time shuttling back and forth between the new Spell and Thoenar for the first year at least.”
Marik watched her, adoring her every line and curve before he finally faced front, wondering that he did not march through every obstacle before them. He felt as though nothing could stand in his way, could hold before the thriving bliss overflowing his body. As though the gods had blessed his path as Truth and all in his way must either yield to his footsteps or shatter upon contact with him.
He caught sight of Landon, and the true meaning behind the hidden smile thundered through him. “You knew about this?”
“To a degree. Kerwin asked me to retire from the Kings with him and act as his chief guard for the inn.”
“But you knew about her?” Marik swept a hand to gesture at Ilona.
Landon shrugged. “Kerwin mentioned it. I figured you would learn of it in due time.”
“There you go again, already knowing these things and watching me fumble my way through the dark to find them!”
“You’ve succeeded so far. It’s good to use your brain to work out your problems.”
“Yes,” Ilona added unnecessarily. “We wouldn’t want you getting dull and slowwitted, would we? Or,” she turned to Landon, “is ‘dull-er’ a word?”
“It’s not worth wasting strength getting angry over,” Landon continued. “If you want to spend your mental energy, worry about Hilliard instead.”
The thought sobered Marik instantly. It brought him down from the clouds to ground his feet firmly in the present. “Yeah. If that Healer couldn’t work her miracle, we’re all hip deep in it. How long do you think it will be before he can travel?”
“No guessing. I understand Healing only starts you on the path to recovery. She might be able to reform the bonds, tie the greater veins back together, but his body will need to heal naturally in order to recover fully. The Healing is merely the glue and paste that holds the body together while it reforms damaged tissue.”
Marik nodded. “A house made of nails and glue alone would fall apart at the first good shock. That’s what Delmer told me when I asked why the priests couldn’t have Healed me completely. They only undid the irreparable damage and left the rest to me.”
“In all likelihood they could not have done more for you anyway. You didn’t look human, and they nearly depleted themselves to the point of death to repair what they could.”
“Let’s hope this lady Healer manages the same for Hilliard.”
Landon nodded. Nearly a month after summer’s first day, they discussed a return to Spirratta depending on Hilliard’s various possible states. Ilona followed mostly in silence while they fretted, praying the youth would survive, debating whether they should tell Hilliard of Sestion’s role and wondering how he would take the news that the Arm of Galemar had left him behind.
* * * * *
The view of multi-hued blossoms trailing from winding trellises had long since faded to gloom. They were shadows lurking within a darker blackness cast by the night. Santon Sestion, baron of the court of King Raymond Cerella of Galemar, peered through his office windows, seeing nothing. Lost in his mental wanderings, twin candlemarks passed without notice.
Puppies. Egotistical commoners who believed themselves cleverer than their betters. Did they actually think him so vulnerable?
That one who spoke the most, there lived a man blinded by his inexperience. He believed Darteel to be t
he only man whom he, Baron Sestion, utilized? The fool truly believed him to be so careless?
His eyes narrowed in the gloom. No one dared threaten him so! That they had entered unbidden into his dominion to speak thus to him…that alone would sign their execution orders.
And they had discovered too much. That, above all else, demanded their deaths. Let them posture and plan. It would be no proof against their fate.
The first order of business would be Tallior. Better skilled than Darteel anyway, he would clean this garbage from the world. Santon would send the man to the inn housing the sham of a baron, there to learn all there was to know about him and his men. How many they were, who they knew and, most importantly, who they had trusted with the information gleaned on Baron Sestion.
Then Tallior would eliminate them all.
A faint knock sounded on the door. It broke him from his angered reverie. Out from the mental closet in his mind he withdrew the mask of genial affability, fitting it carefully to conceal his anger.
Ferdinand stepped through the door. He glanced around at the unlit lamps. “Is anything amiss, father?”
Santon laughed softly. “Not in the least. I find that cool darkness aids my thoughts at times when I have matters to consider.”
The younger man shrugged. “I can’t find my new sword. I thought it was to be delivered today.”
“It should have been. I had the swordsmith’s solemn word on that.”
“Walthers says there were several packages delivered this afternoon. Most are in your storage room.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t keep you from your practices. I will come see if it has become mixed in with my own parcels.”
Ferdinand beamed while his father followed him into the hallway. Sestion beamed back at his son, making a last note to contact Tallior by midnight.
* * * * *
Enough was enough. Over a month in this city of whipped dogs and what had he accomplished?
Colbey had taken satisfaction with the ease in which their pathetic watch force died under his surprise appearances. He made a token effort to disguise his increasingly frequent assaults, but gradually he cared less about whatever they might think when discovering the bodies. Let them know themselves for the prey they were; let them search the shadows for knives aimed at their necks.
Six eightdays had passed since summer’s first day. In all that time he had wandered occupied Tullainia, intent on uncovering his enemies secrets through stealth. He learned many aspects of his enemy’s nature, yet it amounted to little in the face of what he still did not know. Why had he wasted so much precious time? Why?
Striking the watchmen satisfied his need for action in the beginning. Feeling the blood course across his hands that he had so long thirsted for fed the empty void within as a starving beggar finding himself at the king’s own table. Those anathematized men and women he killed were the first to pay the forfeit of their lives for their indescribable crime.
But the dark pleasure in their deaths had not lasted long. Sheep, dying with their stupid, dull eyes staring at him. It satiated the greater hunger less each time. After last night’s bloody assault he had stared at the four bodies lying twisted on the balcony, realizing what a waste of his time they were.
Why, prompted the faint voice in his mind, the one that sounded like Sylvia, do you expend your efforts to so little gain? Little gain? Yes, he admitted while he stood in the charnel house of splattered blood and entrails trailing from sliced open stomachs.
Little gain. He walked among enemies he could not understand. He could not, for all his skill, close the distance between him and the leaders of their outland army. He had not been able to uncover any knowledge related to the creatures kept by these murderers other than what he could observe with his eyes. It reduced him to killing gnats by night, cowering in a market corner by day.
It filled him with fresh rage, boiling and churning within the black fire of vengeance he clung to. Shudders gripped him as the dark fog swelled over all he saw, a phenomenon he now ignored. He had taken every medicinal curative familiar to him in an effort to purge his body of this strange illness, yet still it clung fast. Colbey decided to ignore what he could not be rid of, using his iron will to persist, refusing to allow an ailment to slow his quest.
He needed information. Eightdays upon eightdays had passed yet the knowledge he knew he needed to bring about their endgame eluded him. Looking down on those corpses’ pain-twisted expressions, he acknowledged that he could continue in this vein for years without ever gaining it. The cries from the murdered villagers urged him to action. Stealth had proven inadequate. Time now to take what he needed from these craven butchers. Anyone who slaughtered the innocent without warning deserved to have the same fate revisited upon them.
All day he followed a wandering soldier who was accompanied by a local translating through Traders. This man led him to still others until Colbey marked the one who seemed most promising. A soldier with alien insignia displayed on his chest. An officer of meaningless rank. Colbey cared not what function he served, only that he must be privy to information kept from the common fighter and that he spoke Traders.
This murderer displayed little interest in finding local fare when the day waned. He eschewed the taverns his blood-craving soldiers frequented. Instead he kept a pair of soldiers by his side as he rough-checked the different outposts stationed in this district. Colbey recognized each, serving to garrison the patrol forces that left and entered the city constantly throughout the day.
His patience snapped while he followed the officer. The man seemed intent on continuing endlessly, visiting any or all of the sixty-seven other barracks Colbey knew of. He had already waited too long for answers.
Silent as the breeze sweeping through the narrow alleyway his quarry traversed, Colbey descended. Panther slashes tore the throats from the two guards, destroying their ability to cry a warning, regretting only that he could not eviscerate their stomachs and watch them squirm in agony as he had the watchers in their balcony perches. He leapt on the officer. With one arm wrapped around the man’s neck, he gripped the top of the head with his other hand. Colbey tightened the pressure until the lack of air finally forced the outlander into unconsciousness.
The scout’s focused rage drove him to hasten the Enemy back to his pre-selected safe house with little caution for who might notice them. Savage joy surged through him; he felt Liam’s presence, and Sylvia’s and Farr’s and Orlan’s and all the other villagers crowding near his shoulders, lending him strength to easily carry his burden without regard to the armor-encased weight. He sensed their presence more clearly than since awakening from the Summerdawn dream populated by rotting corpses of the restless dead. It heartened him. Surely they could foresee this night’s outcome. This night he would attain the information needed to destroy these execrable vermin!
In the storeroom once belonging to the merchant who distributed poisoned food supplies, the house abandoned while his family suffered imprisonment, Colbey bound the Enemy securely with rope and chain. He lit no candles or lamps, relying instead upon his Guardian skills to discern what he needed to in the gloom.
Questions in the Traders Tongue met the savage upon awakening to discover himself at the mercy of a shadow. He offered no reply other than threats in a halting command of the language. Slaps to the face only returned scoffs, the slamming of his head against the metal doors bringing only promises of retribution. It took the shattering of two fingers under Colbey’s grinding boot heel to elicit the first answer. Stray moonlight glinted from the scout’s feral grin as he felt bone fragments twist against each other, cutting into the flesh surrounding the onetime digits.
The fiery pain, intense, outshining the sun, loosened the lips of this source for a time. After his body released chemicals to dampen the pain, he regained enough bravado to resist his captor’s inquisition. Colbey solved that problem by bending one of the Enemy’s legs forward with all his strength, forcing the unnatural angle until he fel
t the kneecap break free from the cartilage. A quick blow with a wagon axle left behind in the storeroom ensured its destruction.
Colbey interrogated this cowardly murderer for most of the night, demanding resolutions to the mysteries that had plagued him, expanding on partial knowledge gleaned from his scouting, learning what he could think to ask regarding the invaders. Hesitation on the part of this reference tome with a mouth resulted in a brutally efficient attack against its anatomy.
Near dawn, Colbey felt he had learned what he needed. The urging presence of his people faded. It was time to gather the resources he would need for the assault. He glanced at the ruined shell curled on the floor. He felt no pity. Let it suffer the pains of the many deaths it had mercilessly inflicted. It, too, could know what it meant to suffer. Colbey left it to fend for itself.
He would leave Kallied that very moment, travel nonstop until he crossed into Galemar. His instructors’ voices ceaselessly urged him to proceed with caution, to never charge recklessly into the beast’s maw. Two could succeed where one would fail, yet even two stood little chance of victory. Better to gather as many useful allies as possible for the strike against the Enemy.
Colbey listened to the wisdom, except his patience had frayed to a few bare threads. An army of these outland fools could flock to him and they would avail him little. The mage would have to be enough, would be enough. He would heed his instructors, return for the mage, and make his strike.
The heads of this invading army were his primary target. Orders for the movements of these beasts, these Taurs, always originated with them. So his source had informed him. That they had appeared in his village proved they had been ordered there by a military leader.
But he could not get close to them alone. Here the mage would serve him well. Colbey would bring him as close as possible. He would hurl the mage into the nearest force of soldiers. Surely the mage would cause enough of a ruckus to disrupt the Enemy’s structure as soldiers ran to combat the threat, siphoning off any personal guards the leaders might retain. Given what the mage had accomplished along the Nolier border, he should create an opening before he died, enough of one that Colbey could slip through the defensive ring surrounding his targets.
