Tyvian hedged his bets on the more likely of the two and stole back toward his own bedroom. The lack of light was no hindrance, since he had personally laid out every square inch of his abode according to his own specifications. Nothing would be out of place since the specters, who never slept, would never allow it. He glided silently and quickly through the pitch-blackness of the night and didn’t trip on a thing.
The invaders were not so lucky. Tyvian heard a clatter that he knew was the end-table just inside his bedroom door being knocked over. He grimaced at his own good luck—had he been asleep in bed, that noise would have woken him, but too late for him to do anything about it.
Coming up to his door, Tyvian lay flat against the wall just outside. Inside, he heard a man curse. “Kroth! ’E’s not ’ere.”
“Shhhh!” a second man hissed.
“What?” the first man muttered, “If he ain’t here, then it ain’t a problem.”
“This bed’s been slept in.”
Tyvian placed the accents—Delloran, or very rural Galaspiner. Hired thugs, he guessed, but exactly who hired them wasn’t immediately clear—he had several guesses, though. Not that it mattered at the moment.
“Let’s ’ave a light, eh?” the first man said, and shortly thereafter the soft blue glow of an illumite shard emanated from within Tyvian’s room.
This was the moment Tyvian had been waiting for. He stepped into the door frame, cleaver cocked back. Inside, he saw two men—one squat and broad-shouldered and the other somewhat taller, but equally as heavyset. The squat one held a well-oiled broadsword while the tall one cradled a loaded crossbow. Tyvian aimed for the larger target and threw the cleaver at the tall man’s chest. It spun through the air and ought to have cloven straight through the assassin’s breast bone, but instead Tyvian heard the sharp clink of chain mail being tested and saw the cleaver bounce off. The tall man clutched his chest. “Ow!”
“It’s ’im!” the squat man roared, and charged. Tyvian ducked back as the tip of the broadsword sliced through where his head had been and embedded itself in the door frame with a meaty thok.
As the assassin struggled to free his weapon, Tyvian quickly stepped inside his guard and thrust a thumb into the man’s eye as far as it would go. The man cried out in pain and released his sword to cover his face. “Oy! Kroth!”
The tall man had recovered from the shock of being struck and brought his crossbow to his shoulder. Tyvian slammed the door as he fired, serving the double purpose of trapping the broadsword and blocking the quarrel, which punched a full three inches through the other side of the door, stopping only a hairsbreadth from Tyvian’s throat. Activating the lock, Tyvian smirked. “Pure oak—worth every penny.”
At that moment the door shuddered as the men inside attempted to get out. Backing away, Tyvian estimated he’d bought himself two minutes, maybe more if they were now unarmed. The appearance of an axe-head through the door’s heart revised that estimate to something more akin to thirty seconds. Running through his contingency plans for this situation, he found few that didn’t result in him fleeing his home in his robe during a rainstorm, meaning they were entirely unacceptable. However, with his sword in the room with the killers, he was left with only an array of kitchen knives to defend himself against two heavily armed and armored men.
“Get our guest out here!” Tyvian yelled to his specters as he ran back toward the kitchen. He snatched up a small double-edged dirk in a sheath and stuffed it in his pocket, where his hand brushed across the sleeping draught.
With a violent crash, Tyvian’s pure oak doors were reduced to splinters and the two assassins emerged, roaring. “Oy, Reldamar!” one bellowed. “Come out and die like a man!”
Tyvian snorted at the notion. Apparently, to them, “men” were supposed to die like idiots. He remained hidden and heard them thumping around the flat, yelling for him, but they didn’t yet come to the kitchen. They were sticking together, which was smart, and searching systematically, which was also smart. These men were well trained—not thugs, not assassins, but soldiers. Delloran soldiers came in two varieties: mercenaries who once worked for the Mad Prince Banric Sahand or mercenaries who currently worked for the Mad Prince Banric Sahand. Troubling . . .
Finally, Tyvian heard the sound he had been waiting for. Myreon Alafarr was half asleep and sputtering as she was dragged into the living room. “Here now, what nonsense is this? Unhand me, you wretched constructs!”
Both mercenaries immediately homed in on Myreon’s protests. “You!” one yelled. “Where’s Reldamar! Where is ’e, ye whore?”
The ring gave Tyvian a sharp jolt as he heard the two Dellorans strike Myreon to the ground. Clenching his teeth, he hissed, “I’m on my way . . . all part of the plan, you wretched thing.”
Tyvian stole quickly to the living room. The squat one, sword in hand, was kicking a prone Myreon Alafarr next to Tyvian’s hand-carved Verisi sofa, while the tall one scanned the surrounding gloom with his crossbow reloaded and recocked. Choosing his moment carefully, the smuggler leapt out of the shadows and threw the dirk, embedding it in the stock of the tall one’s crossbow, just in front of the string.
The tall mercenary looked down and smiled. “Missed.”
“I did nothing of the kind.” Tyvian advanced as the mercenary pointed the crossbow at his chest.
When the tall Delloran pulled the trigger, the string intercepted the blade of the dirk, which cut it as it fired. The result was a crossbow bolt that flew only halfheartedly across the room at a speed and awkward angle that Tyvian found easy to catch. Already close to the stunned mercenary, Tyvian flèched, the bolt held in his hand like a short rapier, and pierced the mercenary’s throat just below his chin. Eyes wide in shock, the tall man fell backward, blood bubbling through his lips.
Tyvian whirled to face the squat one, who had stopped kicking Myreon as soon as the smuggler appeared. He held his broadsword blade down—a defensive stance. The barrel-chested Delloran chuckled at Tyvian as he retreated. “Yer pretty smart, eh? Captain told us yer fulla tricks.”
He slashed at Tyvian, who retreated and winced as the mercenary’s blade cut through a crystal candelabra. “I really wish you would focus on killing me and not damaging my property.”
“Told us you was funny, too.” The Delloran chuckled and dropped a downward cut designed to spit him in two. Tyvian darted to one side, narrowly avoiding the blow. The squat man displayed a set of mostly decayed teeth in a wicked leer. “What? No other knives? No fancy tricks? Ye can’t run for always, mate.”
Tyvian retreated before the armored mercenary, letting him gloat and leading him into the dining room. He scrambled over the top of the table, placing it between him and the Delloran. “Perhaps we can talk about this?” Tyvian asked, pulling out a chair and gesturing toward it.
“Sure, come on over ’ere and we’ll ’ave a chat, you an me.” The Delloran laughed, clearly pleased with himself. He circled toward Tyvian around the table, and Tyvian circled away.
“I meant in a more civilized fashion. Would you like something to drink?” Picking up on Tyvian’s cues, the specters rushed in a pair of crystal glasses and a pitcher of chilled wine from the kitchen.
“Yeah—yer blood,” the mercenary spat. He and Tyvian had now completed a one-hundred-eighty degree circuit of the table, with the Delloran standing right in front of the chair Tyvian had pulled out.
Tyvian smiled. “Won’t you sit down?”
The specters pressed the chair against the back of the mercenary’s knees, and the man stumbled back into it. He was pushed up against the table, his sword trapped underneath. Tyvian scrambled atop the table, the sleeping draught in his hand. Popping out the stopper, he stuffed it in the mercenary’s mouth mid-bellow and upended it. The squat Delloran ejected the small vial with his tongue, choking on the oily black liquid and trying to spit it out, but it
was too late. Tyvian knew even if he had spit out six of the eight hours’ worth of sleeping draught, there was still a full two that had slipped down his throat.
The mercenary’s eyelids drooped shut and, in the middle of a curse, the man’s head fell on the table. He snored like a bear.
Tyvian sighed. “Well, there goes any hope of getting my own beauty sleep.”
He wrestled the heavyset Delloran out of his chair and pried the broadsword out of his hand. Laying the soldier on his back, Tyvian held the tip of the heavy blade over his neck. The ring shot spiderwebs of agony through his hand and up his arm, and he retracted the sword as though stung. “Oh, very well, very well. I’ll just have to kill him when he wakes up, though, you bloody stupid trinket.”
When Tyvian returned to the living room, he noted to his dismay that the fine, hand-woven rug he had chosen for the center of the floor before the fireplace was stained maroon with the blood of the other Delloran. He scowled at this and was mentally calculating how much this particular home invasion would cost him when he heard a choked groan and remembered Myreon, who was still curled up in the fetal position before the couch. “I say, Myreon, are you all right?”
Myreon pulled herself slowly to all fours and looked up just to glare at Tyvian.
The ring pricked Tyvian, but he ignored it. If the goddamned thing wanted somebody to help up his old nemesis, it could bloody well grow its own arms and legs. “Sorry about the beating, but I needed a diversion and you were the most convenient one available.”
Myreon pulled herself onto the couch and lay back gingerly. “The other one’s dead?”
“Sleeping, actually.” Tyvian held up the ring, “I’m still afflicted with bouts of ‘mercy,’ you see.”
“Do I get a roommate, then?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The Defender looked down at the dead man in the center of the living room, eyeing a silver device on his crossbow. “These men were Delloran soldiers, and not expatriates either. They’re wearing Delloran wool, and this fellow’s crossbow has the imprint of a Delloran weaponsmith. Why would Sahand want to kill you?”
Tyvian nodded, confirming what Myreon had noticed. The broadsword, also, bore the mark of a Delloran bladesmith, and Dellor wasn’t much for exporting weapons. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. I’ve never even been to Dellor. To be honest, his attention is quite flattering.”
Myreon raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Flattering’ is not the right word. I’d pick terrifying.”
Tyvian smirked. “Funny, I never would have picked you for a coward.”
The Mage Defender only rolled her eyes. “That was simply juvenile.”
Tyvian shrugged. “My apologies—it has been a long night and my wit is suffering. I shall endeavor to insult you more effectively in the future.
“In any event, Myreon, this is an interesting development. The only person who would have a concrete reason to try and kill me in my own home would be Hendrieux, and he certainly lacks access to a pair of Sahand’s soldiers.”
Myreon stood up, still slightly hunched. “I’ve been assaulted enough for one night.”
“Sleep well. Oh, and Myreon?”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t be attempting to escape from in there, would you?”
Myreon held very still, which was enough for Tyvian to know the answer. After a moment, the Mage Defender sighed. “What else would you expect? I may be caught, but I’m not dead.”
“Good to know. Good luck with it.” Tyvian nodded and grinned to his prisoner as she limped back to her room/cell.
After Tyvian heard the door close and the specters lock Myreon in, he took the briefest moment to admire her tenacity—there could be little doubt the Defender was quite a woman. If she weren’t such a . . . well, such a Defender, he might have considered . . .
No. He banished the thought from his mind—it was completely idle, unproductive, and the result of a man who hadn’t had the company of a woman in almost a month. There was work to do.
Tyvian went back to the dining room and stripped the slumbering mercenary bare. He then clapped his hands to summon the specters. “This is a side of beef I want packaged and wrapped for shipment immediately. I will summon a courier djinn for pickup in one hour—have this meet it downstairs.”
The specters set about their work, and Tyvian went to his study, lighting the lamps as he went. He was never going to sleep tonight, so he might as well be productive. By telling Myreon that Hendrieux was the only man who had a concrete reason to kill him, he had stirred loose a rather odd possibility. He long suspected that Hendrieux hadn’t acted alone when setting him up for the fall—Carlo had intimated as much during their meeting—and Sahand, it seemed, was the perfect backer. Sahand would have access to pure brymm, he could arrange for a gnoll to be boxed up on a spirit engine, and he definitely did possess a variety of proscribed sorcerous texts that covered biomancy and even more reprehensible topics. It would also explain Carlo’s discomfort with the whole situation—the Mad Prince was not to be crossed. The why of all this was still a mystery, but if his hunch was correct, there were several things he could do about it right then and there.
Taking up an autoquill, Tyvian spread out a piece of paper and wrote a letter, taking care to use his best handwriting. When he was finished, he put it in an envelope, put his seal on the wax, and addressed it to Prince Banric Sahand by name, but left the location blank. It might take a bit longer, but courier djinni could of course always deliver things by name alone, for an extra price. They would also move a good bit slower, which helped him a great deal.
He got dressed, belted on Chance, and fetched Myreon’s seekwand and the mageglass ring with the farsight augury he had used back on the spirit engine. If he guessed right, he was going to see the look on Banric Sahand’s face when His Highness got a certain late night package. He had no doubt the expression would be priceless.
Myreon hadn’t been sleeping when she was used as a distraction against the Delloran mercenaries; she had been trying to improvise a sorcerous ritual. Her fingers had now swollen to twice their normal size, and every tiny motion was agony, but still she tried. There wasn’t much magic she could channel—the wards on the room made sure of that—but there was one energy the wards couldn’t stop: the Astral. Known as the “universal energy,” the Astral was the glue that held all the other energies in check. It was inert, having no opposite energy and no influence over the ley of a particular area, and governed such weighty concepts as space, time, and fate itself. No ward could do much to slow it down, even other Astral wards, and it was an instrumental factor in most counterspells against such wards. It was also the primary energy used to send a wraith—a method of long-range communication that involved sending an image of herself to a distant location to deliver a message.
The drawback of the Astral was, of course, that it was notoriously intractable and reticent to be channeled or drawn from the surrounding world. With her magestaff in hand and in top condition, Myreon counted herself as a very talented manipulator of Astral energy. In her current condition, it was like trying to suck tree sap out of a sugartree with only her lips. She had gathered enough of the energy into a single candlestick to create a makeshift sha, but drawing the veta was extremely slow going. Since she had been interrupted and beaten, she’d had to start over. Now she was almost done . . . again. She only hoped her shaking, weakened fingers hadn’t made any errors in the sigils she had marked on the floor in enchanted wax.
Though she tried to keep her doubts out of her mind, the fact that Reldamar basically told her that he knew the mage was trying to escape was driving her crazy. Why would he do that? Why not stop her? Why not put her back in those infernal casterlocks? Myreon knew—she just knew—that this had something to do with some elaborate plot the smuggler had concocted for his own purposes. Myreon admitted she cou
ldn’t imagine what such a plot could be, but she still felt as though every step closer she got to sending a wraith to signal for rescue was a step closer to fulfilling Reldamar’s plans.
Forget it, she scolded herself. He’s just playing mind games with you. This is the right thing to do. This is your only chance. Don’t make a mistake.
Sorcerous rituals of every description—and, indeed, all spells—needed three elements to work: the veta, the sorcerer, and the focus. The veta was the physical framework meant to elicit the proper energies from the surrounding world. In the case of a simple spell, the sorcerer’s posture, gestures, and even emotional state served this purpose, but in a ritual, the framework was drawn with an enchanted wax implement known as a sha—or a weakly enchanted candlestick, as was the case now. If mistakes were made in the drawing of the veta, the energies would be misdrawn, and the spell would either fizzle harmlessly or be miscast with a wide variety of unexpected results, depending on the energy involved. Miscast an Etheric spell and you could rot from the inside out or fall into deep despair; miscast while channeling the Lumen, and people had been known to grow additional fingers or drop into fits of uncontrollable giggling that went on for months. Miscasts, it was said, gave wizards worldwide a healthy sense of humility. One did not channel the energies of creation itself without risk.
Mistakes when performing any sorcerous ritual—where the energies drawn were typically larger than those simply channeled through the body—were even more dangerous things, but the Astral had been known to cause some very peculiar effects when miscast. Some wizards had been frozen in time and space for weeks, months, or even years on end. Some had aged, while others had grown younger. Some had been flung miles away in an instant, while others were cursed with terrible luck for the rest of their lives. When fiddling with the energy of space and time, all manner of things could go wrong. This, also, Myreon tried to keep out of her mind. You can do this, she told herself. You’ve done this ritual dozens of times.
The Iron Ring Page 20
