Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Leryn stared at the fortune glittering in his hands. His gems, returned to him. Ah, gods, now he could start over, and not waste the life he'd been given!

  Suddenly it was all too ridiculous. Leryn burst into laughter, gasping, "I—I've come a long way just to find the—the path back to myself. And I could have managed without the hardships, thank you! But," he added, bending to stroke the baby's furry head, "I think everyone's happy with how things worked out."

  "Everyone sssave the banditsss," the gryphons murmured, and gave their churring laugh.

  The Salamander

  by Richard Lee Byers

  Richard Lee Byers worked for over a decade in an emergency psychiatric facility, then left the mental health field to become a writer. He is the author of 7776 Ebon Mask, On A Darkling Plain, Netherworld, Caravan of Shadows, Dark Fortune, Dead Time, The Vampire's Apprentice, and several other novels. His short fiction has appeared in numerous other anthologies, including Phobias, Confederacy of the Dead, Dante's Disciples, Superheroes, and Diagnosis: Terminal. He lives in the Tampa Bay area, the setting for many of his stories.

  By my reckoning, the arsonist might strike in any of fifteen places. It was sheer luck, if that's the right term, that I'd chosen to guard the right location.

  When it happened, it happened fast. One moment, I was prowling the cramped recesses of the tiring house of the Azure Swan Theater. Painted actors frantically changing costume squirmed past me, glaring at the intruder obstructing the way. Their ill will didn't bother me half as much as the flowery rhetoric being declaimed on stage. That night's play was The Bride and the Battlesteed, a tragedy that blends mawkish sentimentality with a flawless ignorance of life on the Dhorisha Plains. Suffering through a particularly lachrymose soliloquy, I wished that the theater would catch fire, just to terminate the performance.

  Try not to think things like that. One never knows what gods are listening.

  An instant later, I heard a boom. Some of the audience cried out, and the forty-year-old ingenue ranting on stage faltered in mid-lament. Something began to hiss and crackle. I scrambled to the nearest of the rear stage entrances, looked out, and saw that a patch of thatch on the roof of the left-hand gallery was burning.

  Then the straw above the royal family's empty box exploded into flame. The two fires raced along the roof like lovers rushing to embrace. At the same time, they oozed down the columns into the topmost of the three tiers of seats. I peered about, but could see no sign of the enemy I'd been hired to stop.

  Shrieking people shoved along the galleries toward the stairs. Others climbed over the railings and dropped into the cobbled courtyard, where they joined the stampede of groundlings driving toward the exit at the rear of the enclosure. In half a minute, the passage was jammed.

  It was plain that not everyone would make it out that way. There was a stage door in the back of the tiring house, but none of the audience had come in that way, nor was it visible from any of their vantage points, so none of them thought to use it.

  Abandoning my efforts to spot the incendiary, I ran forward past two wooden columns painted to resemble marble to the foot of the stage. Though the blaze had yet to descend past the highest gallery, I could already feel the heat. "This way!" I shouted. "There's another exit!"

  Nobody paid the least attention. Perhaps, between the roar of the fire and the panicky cries, no one heard.

  I jumped off the platform, grabbed a strapping, tow-headed youth with bloodstained sleeves—a butcher's apprentice, I imagine—and tried to turn him around. "Come with me!" I said.

  He snarled and threw a roundhouse punch at my head. I ducked and hit him in the belly. He doubled over. I manhandled him toward the stage. "I'm trying to help you," I said. "There's another way out. Go behind the stage. The door will be on your right. Do you understand?" Evidently he did, because when I let him go, he clambered onto the proscenium.

  I induced several other people to head backstage. Eventually, others noticed them going, and followed.

  Which soon threatened to create a second crush, at the rear stage doors. I sprang onto the platform and dashed back there to manage the flow of traffic as best I could, with pleas when possible and my hands when necessary.

  By now the air was gray with smoke. I kept coughing. The Heavens—the machine room above me, the underside of which was painted to resemble the sky—started burning. Sparks and scraps of flaming debris rained down.

  At last the stage was clear. My handkerchief pressed to my face, I scurried toward the exit. The ceiling burst. A windlass, used to lower the actors portraying gods and their regalia, plummeted through the breach and struck where I'd just been standing. The impact shattered the floorboards.

  When I escaped the playhouse, I trotted some distance away, not only to make sure that I was out of danger but to better survey the overall situation. Turning, I noticed something strange.

  Fortunately, the Azure Swan stood on a spit of land that stuck out into the river. It wasn't close to any other structure. For a while, the flames enveloping the building swayed this way and that, as if groping for some other edifice they could spread to. At times they appeared to move against the breeze.

  Two candlemarks later, those of us who had sought to defend the theater regrouped in a private room in a nearby tavern. This council of war included several blades of the Blue political faction, which vied with the Reds, Yellows, Blacks, and most bitterly with the Greens for control of Mornedealth, an equal number of their retainers, Draydech the sorcerer, and myself. And a singed, grimy, malodorous, and surly lot we were, too. Also present was Lady Elthea, widow of a middling prominent Blue leader, owner of the three businesses that had thus far burned, and my employer. Though elderly and infirm, she'd insisted on venturing forth from her mansion to view the site of the latest disaster.

  "All right," I said, "we searched the Swan beforehand, without finding any incendiary devices. Did anyone see a figure on the roof? Or any flaming missiles?" The other men shook their heads. "Then it's magic kindling these fires, Lady Elthea. That's the only logical explanation." I looked at Draydech. "Do you concur?"

  The warlock was a short fellow in his late thirties, younger than I, though with his wobbling paunch, graying goatee, and the broken veins in his bulbous nose, he looked older. He'd served his apprenticeship living rough with the nomadic Whispering Oak wizards of the deep forests. Afterward, he'd embraced the amenities of civilization with a vengeance. I'd never seen him eat a raw piece of fruit or vegetable, drink water, or go out in inclement weather. Nevertheless, he'd lost none of the skills he'd mastered in the wilderness. He was particularly adept at sniffing out mystical energies, and, despite his exorbitant fees and extortionate habits, I retained him whenever that kind of witchy bloodhound work seemed likely to be in order.

  Now, however, raising his eyes from the chunk of amber he'd been staring into while the rest of us glumly guzzled our wine, he said, "Certainly it's magic. Judging from the appearance of the conflagration, someone's conjured a salamander, a being from the Elemental Plane of Fire, to do the job. But I can't find it."

  I scowled. "Old friend. This is not the time to angle for more gold."

  Lady Elthea extended her trembling hand. Her skin was like parchment, her knuckles, swollen with arthritis. "Sorcerer, I beseech you. Some of our fellow citizens died tonight. More could perish tomorrow. If you can help prevent this, don't hold back."

  Jarnac, one of the Blue blades, rose from the trestle table. "I'll take care of it, Lady Elthea," he said. He was a lanky, sandy-haired youth, dressed lavishly but not tastefully in a sapphire- and ruby-studded particolored doublet with intricately carved ivory buttons. At his side hung the latest rage, one of the new smallswords, this one sporting a golden hilt. Smallswords looked elegant, and were adequate for fighting another gentleman similarly equipped. But they were apt to prove too flimsy against a heavier weapon or an armored foe, which was why I was still lugging my broadsword around.

  As might have been
inferred from Jarnac's ostentation, he was New Money, with a parvenu's eagerness to parade his wealth and sense of style; unlike most of his cronies in the room, he couldn't claim kinship with one of the Fifty Noble Houses. Not that that mattered to me. My birth was considerably humbler than his.

  He dropped a fat purse on the table. Coin clinked. "Take it, magician," he urged. "And rest assured, there's plenty more where that came from."

  Draydech gazed longingly at the money. I fancy he came close to licking his lips. But at last he shook his head and said, "I can't take it, sir, because I'm not sure I can earn it. Despite Master Selden's slander—" he shot me a reproachful glance, which, given our shared history, failed to inspire any remorse, "—I wasn't trying to inflate my price. Rather, I was attempting to explain that something odd has happened.

  "We all should have seen the salamander. They're not invisible, quite the contrary. Even if its summoner veiled it in a glamour, I should still have spotted it. But I didn't.

  "What's more, I've been sitting here scrying, and I can't pick up its trail. Apparently someone's developed a cunning new type of cloaking spell."

  Sensing that he was telling the truth, I said, "And until you work out how to pierce the charm, you can't banish the spook, or guide us to its master either. Is that about the gist of it?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  I sighed. "What more can you tell us about salamanders?"

  "A sorcerer enlists the aid of an elemental by opening a Gate to its home plane, then bartering for its services. It was probably fairly easy to recruit a salamander to start fires. They love to do it anyway. The trick will be to keep it under control, to make sure it only burns what the summoner wants it to."

  Fire is a threat to any town. In Mornedealth, built all of wood, the menace was all the greater. Remembering how the theater blaze had flowed against the wind, the beginnings of a headache tightening my brow, I wondered how our problem could get any worse. The answer was immediately forthcoming.

  Pivor, Lady Elthea's grandnephew and closest living kin, sprang up from his bench. He did belong to the Fifty, and no mistaking it. He had the kind of exquisite features and supercilious carriage that only generations of controlled inbreeding can produce. "Enough of this prattle," he said. "The mage has already admitted he can't aid us, so we'll have to help ourselves. We know who to blame for our troubles: the Greens." The company murmured agreement. They'd all seen the unsigned threat, written in emerald ink, that someone had tacked to Lady Elthea's door the night before the first fire. "So I say we strike back at them at once."

  "No," Lady Elthea said. "I don't want—"

  Pivor ignored her. "A lot of them drink at The Honeycomb. We can lie in wait in the alley that runs—"

  "That's a bad idea," I said. "My gut tells me that not all the Greens are involved in this. We need to identify the ones who are. Indiscriminate slaughter would only compound our difficulties."

  "If we kill enough of them, the ones who remain will be afraid to send the spirit out again."

  "No, they won't," I said. "They'll merely seek to butcher you in turn."

  Pivor's lip curled "I heard that when you founded your fencing academy, you swore your days as a hire-sword were over."

  "You heard correctly," I said. "Twenty-five years of soldiering was enough. Unfortunately, I have a penchant for losing horses and needy friends. When the combination depletes my coffers, I accept commissions of a certain sort. Pray tell, why are we discussing this?"

  "I was just conjecturing that you gave up the mercenary life because you've turned coward. For, truly, you seem afraid to fight."

  No doubt he said it to shame me into supporting his strategy. But of course there was only one proper response to such an insult, and that wasn't it. Simply because Jarnac was near me, I turned to him. "Sir. Would you do me the honor of acting as my second?"

  One of Pivor's friends said, "That figures. One base-born fellow looks to the other."

  Jarnac colored. "It would be better if you asked someone else, Master Selden, because I agree with Pivor. Not in his assessment of your character," he added hastily, "but about what's best to do. We shouldn't waste time trying to ferret out one man from the mass of our foes. We should wage war on them all."

  Balm, one of my more promising students, said, "I'll stand for you, Master Selden."

  "Thank you," I said. I gave Pivor my best killer's glare. "Then perhaps we can arrange this straightaway."

  I'll give him credit, I couldn't stare him down, but he grew pale, no doubt in belated remembrance of my reputation. "Verrano, will you act for me?" he stammered.

  "Stop this!" Lady Elthea said. "Didn't you all come here for the same purpose? To succor a poor old woman who needs your help desperately? Then I beg you, please, don't fight among yourselves!"

  This time, Pivor chose to heed her. "You're right, of course. Moreover, this is your affair, and if you think this man should be in charge, so be it." He bowed to me. "Master Selden, for my grandaunt's sake, I apologize."

  I bowed back. "And for her sake, I accept."

  "If we aren't going to massacre the Greens, what are we going to do?" Draydech asked.

  "The gentlemen of the Blues will keep guarding my lady's properties," I said. "Perhaps one of them will spot our human foe, lurking about the scene. You'll try to devise a magic that will locate the salamander. I'll nose around and see what I can uncover through more mundane channels. And by working together, we'll put an end to this outrage." I wished I were as confident as I was trying to sound.

  I contrived to approach the house from the rear, then hid behind the stable. After a while, a maid trudged out the back door and started tossing feed to the chickens. The birds were plump and lively; she, thin and lethargic. Their feathers shone white in the morning sunlight, while her gown was drab and threadbare. In short, they looked better cared for than she was.

  Which was more or less what I'd expected. Her employer was famous for the sumptuous banquets he gave for his fellow Greens, but, provided one talked to the poor as well as the prosperous, equally notorious for his miserly treatment of his servants.

  I checked the windows of the four-story dwelling, making sure no one was peering out, then stepped from concealment. "Hello," I said.

  The girl jumped. "Who are you?"

  "A friend." I showed her the trade-silver in my hand. "With a proposition."

  She looked yearningly at the money, reminding me fleetingly of Draydech. But then she scowled and said, "I'm not that kind."

  "You mistake me," I said. "I just want to ask you some questions, about things you may have noticed or overheard. Though I must admit, there's a chance that something you say could embarrass your master. So I'll understand if you decline."

  She glanced over her shoulder at the house, then snatched the coin. "What do you want to know?"

  The racket in The Honeycomb was deafening. The tavern was packed, most of the patrons were roaring drunk, and two lunatics were playing bagpipes. We lads at the corner table had to bellow with the rest to make ourselves heard.

  "And that was that," said one of my companions, a burly hire-sword with a forked beard, a broken nose, and a Green favor pinned to the sheepskin collar of his jacket. "When they saw that, armed only with a soup ladle, I'd killed eight of their band in half as many seconds, the rest of the bastards turned tail."

  "Amazing," I said. I was trying to sound admiring, and truly, I was impressed by his powers of invention. I stroked my false whiskers the way I always do when I wear them, to make sure they aren't failing off. "Of course, if what we hear in Valdemar is true, it's no wonder you men of Mornedealth are master warriors. Folk say you keep in constant practice fighting one another. For instance, you Greens are at odds with the Silvers, isn't that so?"

  "The Blues," someone corrected.

  "Pardon me, the Blues. What's that all about, anyway? And who's winning?"

  Smiling slyly, the fellow with the broken nose said, "I'm afraid that's a very long sto
ry. And my throat's already parched."

  Taking the hint, I waved for the barkeep to bring another jug.

  Lithe and lightning-quick, Marissa flowed through the gloomy practice hall, a dagger flashing in either hand and her short black hair flying about her head. When she finished the exercise, I said, "Your high guard is a hair too high."

  "Says you," she replied. If she'd kept to her usual schedule, she'd been practicing hard for a candlemark, but she wasn't even slightly winded. "Good evening, Selden. Stop by to sign up for some lessons?"

  "Who could afford your rates?" I said, sauntering from the doorway into the hall. "Well, perhaps I could if I could stay away from the hippodrome, but that's by the by. I need information about the Greens."

  She shrugged. "I don't belong to any faction, any more than you do."

  "But most of the Greens who study swordplay do so under you, just as the majority of the Blues train with me. I know you hear things."

  "Suppose I do. Why would I betray my students' confidences to the likes of you?"

  "To prevent a full-scale blood-feud. To keep the city from burning down. Either one would be bad for trade."

  She smiled crookedly. "Why not say, to keep the sun from turning to dung while you're at it? You'll have to do better than prophecies of doom."

  I put my hand on my purse. "How much do you want?"

  "At present, I don't need money. It's been a good season. But is it true that you learned sword-and-cape fighting up north?"

  I winced. A fencing master needs to hold onto a few martial secrets if he hopes to shine among his rivals. "You're a bloodsucking bitch, Marissa. You know that, don't you?" I unfastened my cloak. "All right, grab a wrap and a longer blade, and I'll give you a lesson."

  And so it went. As myself or in disguise, I roamed the city, gossiping, flattering, cajoling, bribing, and occasionally threatening. Questing for information. Coming up empty. Meanwhile, Lady Elthea lost a lumberyard and a warehouse full of bolts of linen. The latter fire spread to a pair of tenements belonging to an inoffensive gentleman of the insignificant Reds. Another thirteen people died.