by J. S. Morin
Now he awoke with a sense of purpose, but no clear direction. He had survived, against all odds, against all reason. He had three choices as far as he could figure them: he could seek out Faolen—should he still live—and rescue him; he could continue the mission, and try to contact Anzik Fehr to bargain for the staff; or he could sneak back to Kadrin-held territory with his tail between his legs, informing Rashan that the mission had failed.
Aelon propped a large shard of a shattered mirror against the stone wall. Huddling beneath the protective canopy offered by the beam, he took a sharp knife, and began carefully scraping away at the hair on his scalp. Someone had recognized them, had reported about them, knew about them. With no more of Faolen’s magic to hide him, he needed to become someone else.
None of the three paths he saw would matter if he was identified and captured.
* * * * * * * *
“Your plan was approved, Tiiba,” General Rozen said. “Councilor Fehr has sent along two additional instructions, however.”
The general and the blade-priest stood together on a balcony overlooking the central square of Munne. Foot traffic was brisk, both among Kadrin citizens and Megrenn occupiers. The general looked out over the city as he spoke, but Tiiba’s attention was focused solely on Rozen.
“What conditions has the Councilor attached to the plan?” Tiiba asked. He stood with his feet spread, arms clasped behind his back.
“He will not honor the bargain, if it is accepted,” General Rozen began.
“I am not concerned about that. It is the Council’s prerogative, and I shall abide their decision. It will not change the plan.”
“He also requests that, if at all possible, Warlock Iridan Solaran be captured alive.”
“Does he give any indication of how he will accomplish the feat of caging a warlock?” Tiiba asked, a scholarly curiosity bubbling to the surface.
“You can ask Dembeck Drall, if you want to know. I did not delve into the details of the magic, but Councilor Fehr has instructed him on how to manage exactly that feat.”
“Hmm, I may do just that.”
* * * * * * * *
“Sir Brannis,” Kyrus heard behind him. He was still in a haze of mental overflow, unable to put a name to that voice, perhaps able to put too many names to it. His mind threatened to rebel at the double thinking required of a twinborn; it would have preferred a nice game of chess.
“Sir Brannis,” the voice persisted.
Kyrus was almost back to his own quarters. He could have easily made a dash to the safety of a well-warded room where he could collapse into his bed, and try to sort out everything that was going on.
Some sense of duty, stuffed away in a resilient corner of his mind, forced Kyrus’s head to turn, and identify the speaker. It was Varnus. Varnus knew important things. Blast it! Varnus was someone he had to stop and talk to.
“What is it?” Kyrus said, no energy in his voice.
“Not for talking about out here. Too many ears. Let’s get us behind those wards of yours,” Varnus replied.
That was my plan. I would have had you out there, too, though, Kyrus thought wearily.
A few moments later, the two men were sealed up safely in Kyrus’s chambers. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he ought to have a separate office in the palace, apart from his bedchamber. It was growing unseemly the number of people who saw his soiled clothing and disheveled bed linens.
“What is it?” Kyrus asked again.
“It is Wendell. He’s acting strange.”
“Strange how? I hardly know him well enough to judge. What makes you say so?” Kyrus pressed.
“Well, he seems distracted. Not talking much. Usually he’s looking around too much, talking constantly. He seems … creepy.”
“Could it be something related to his mission for Rashan?” Kyrus wondered. “Has he given any indications of his progress?”
“Well, we found a boy who speaks Megrenn, and can see aether. Wendell picked him up at the Pious Grove Sanctuary.”
“Anzik Fehr,” Kyrus said, drawing a surprised look from Varnus.
“So that’s what we’re up to?” Varnus fumed. “We’re takin’ twinborn boys hostage?”
“Calm yourself. No. We are bargaining with a twinborn runaway for a stolen staff. Find out what is going on in Megrenn. I do not care whether Wendell or Faolen wishes to divulge it. Wring it out of him somehow, preferably—and I mean preferably, not exclusively—without violence. Wendell and Faolen both seem too comfortable with dissembling. Both work at it professionally. He cannot keep such crucial information to himself, though. He should have already told you his plan once the two of you were alone and away from Rakashi.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on now; Rakashi is one of us. Anything you say in front of me or Tanner, you can say in front of him. Er, and a fair portion of what you say to Juliana or Soria, but don’t get carried away on that count. But what I mean is: you don’t have to go sneaking about behind Rakashi’s back. He has a knight’s soul in him, and a scholar’s eyes. He can keep his mouth shut about things that shouldn’t go beyond Tellurak.”
“Maybe one day, I, too, can trust him like you all do, but I do not know him yet. Tanner I barely know, but he is an officer in my army. You, I have known for summers, since Brannis was a young man. Rakashi’s twin is Safschan, which means if he fights, he fights for Megrenn. I cannot let him in on the key to their undoing. The man would have to be made of stone to sit by for that.”
“He is.”
“No man is. He has a heart and a conscience. He will decide using those, like any man would. Perhaps he will make the decision that favors us, perhaps he will break the bargain you have made for the benefit of his people.”
“You are a smart fellow, Kyrus. You’ve set it up so Tanner and I can’t get to Rakashi and Soria doesn’t know any better.”
* * * * * * * *
Kyrus was poring over written petitions from the nobles and merchants, tasks that had until recently been within Rashan’s domain, when the knock came. It startled him from his glazed viewing of complaint after complaint, laying bare the pettiness of Kadrin’s upper class.
Kyrus stood, leaving the papers scattered about his desk, and released the wards. The door opened by telekinesis, a spell he felt he was finally growing comfortable with silently.
Celia stood there outside, having dressed for the occasion. The simple black dress she wore for her official duties had been replaced with the dress he had first seen her in at Raynesdark. She had let down the tight, elaborate knots that kept her hair out of her way while she wrote. It fell loose about the bare skin of her shoulders and back.
“I suddenly feel underdressed,” Kyrus greeted her, smiling without having to think about it.
“Nonsense. You are the most powerful man in Kadris at the moment, after the emperor, of course,” Celia said, punctuating the last bit with a roll of the eye that none outside in the hallways could have seen.
She seemed about to enter when Kyrus waved her away, heading for the doorway himself. “I have had my fill of this room for a while. We can dine in the eastern sitting room.”
“Will that be safe enough to talk?”
“Rashan held meetings there. It is warded, after a fashion. It allows servants in and out, but nothing can pass undetected. So long as we mind our tongues while our courses are brought, and our wine refilled, we may speak freely,” Kyrus replied.
The eastern sitting room was cozy by palace standards. Twenty might have talked over drinks in the space it provided, but the lone table was set for two. They were surrounded by priceless heirlooms of the Empire, dating back hundreds of summers, a few possibly thousands. Celia sat in her chair as if afraid to touch anything beyond the confines of the table linens.
“Brannis, this is too nice. Emperors used to take tea here with their empresses or concubines. If I broke something here, I could not replace it with a lifetime’s salary.”
“I suppose that th
ere is an emperor to take offense now, should we wreck the place,” Kyrus replied. “No more of Rashan’s inspirational acts of vandalism.”
“How do you know about that?” Celia asked, her face scrunching up in a frown. Kyrus tried, unsuccessfully, not to find it adorable. “I thought I was supposed to be briefing you on the little background dealings of the Empire.”
“You must either not be very much of a spy, or you must be continuing to act so, if you thought that was why we were dining together tonight,” Kyrus replied.
“Oh, really? Why do you think we are having dinner tonight?” Celia asked, slathering on the sarcasm, lest Kyrus miss it.
“Two reasons. The other is that I need to know a few things about your dreams,” Kyrus answered.
“‘Other reason,’ huh? Before I go any further with that, which of you started that annoying little word trick, you or Rashan?”
“I have not kept track. Him, I think.”
“So what was the reason too obvious to name?” Celia demanded. “Pretend I am too dumb to guess it.”
“You are not stupid. You are witty, beautiful, and resourceful. I find myself drawn to you for those reasons and more, despite my obstinate resistance due to having been prodded toward you at every turn. I dislike being manipulated, and I react poorly to it. I might … might … be able to get past all that, because for all the reasons I should push you away, none truly matter in the end. What if our meeting was all arranged, our times together plotted, your dogged pursuit of me according to orders? What of it, if in the end we would choose each other anyway?”
Celia was speechless for a moment, blushing from forehead to neckline.
“Just answer me one thing first, truthfully. You accidentally called me ‘Kyrus’ earlier, when you left Caladris’s office. Where did you hear that name?”
“I remembered you from my dreams.”
Chapter 32 - Freedom and Adventure
Nestled in the foothills of the Cloud Wall mountain range, on the eastern side, sat an unusual dwelling. It had a flat wooden roof and steel walls that echoed as the rain beat against them. The sides were slitted with narrow windows at regular intervals, too skinny to reach so much as an arm through. The two doors on each side opened downward into ramps, and lay open as the inhabitants busied themselves about putting the place in order. On the whole, it looked large enough to house twenty or more. In the right frame of mind, one might describe it as shaped like a sailing vessel that was missing its sails. The name on the side identified it as Daggerstrike.
The captain and crew of the Daggerstrike had set down in the rolling high hills of the Cloud Wall for the night after Captain Juliana’s ill-fated attempts at aerial acrobatics made a shambles of the crew quarters. There were repairs to be made. It was nothing complicated, but they were in the wilderness with no shipwright among them, so the work would take time. Men also needed a good long feel of the ground beneath their feet once more, after a harrowing flight.
Captain Juliana had won herself few friends among the crew with her antics in testing out the Daggerstrike’s capabilities. Going off with a pair of crewmen, and killing a mountain goat for their dawn feast helped a ways toward making amends.
“Captain Juliana, is a fire wise? What if we are spotted by Megrenn forces?” Lieutenant Trosh Garrist asked. He was the senior member of the crew assigned to her. He might have been five winters older than Juliana, six at the most, with blond hair and dark eyes that accused when they looked at her.
“We should still be far enough south that they won’t see us,” Juliana replied, the title of “captain” before her name still echoing oddly in her ears. Owning no sort of military uniform, she was dressed in her riding leathers with a white tunic, with matching leather gloves and boots. She wore the harness for her dagger sheaths openly, outside her tunic, the blades having already been bloodied once in the appropriation of dawn feast. “Besides, how else would we cook our meat?”
“They might have scouts in the area,” Lieutenant Garrist persisted, to all appearances unconvinced that his captain knew anything about what she was doing. Heads nodded along with him.
“Look around. See any roads here?” Juliana asked. A general grumbling of “No” answered her. “Does this look like easy terrain? If they manage to spot us, and sneak up for a look, so be it. They won’t catch us off guard in any numbers. By the time scouts could make any report at all, we will be airborne again and long gone.”
“Still—”
“Your name is Trosh, right? Look, Trosh, you boys are soldiers, not sailors, and I am a sorceress, not a ship’s captain. We are all going to be learning as we go here,” Juliana said to Garrist.
“I am properly addressed as Lieutenant Garrist, Captain.” Trosh Garrist set his jaw and stared down Juliana, or attempted to. He was met with a smirk.
“Oh. I see how it is. New girl isn’t good enough for you. You don’t like being bossed around by a sorceress,” she said, nodding to herself as she said it.
“You do not have any qualifications to captain a ship or lead a crew, a platoon, or any other assemblage of soldiers. If you would be so good as to keep the ship on course, I think it would be best if I took command,” Lieutenant Garrist replied.
“Fine. I’ll make you all a deal. Line up, any of you who think you’d rather have someone other than me as captain. I’ll give you each a shot at me, bare fists, no magic. First one who bests me can decide who gets to captain the Daggerstrike. When everyone who wants a shot has had one, if I am still captain, everyone who tried to throw me off my own ship can walk home,” Juliana offered. Though among the tallest of the Daggerstrike’s complement, Juliana gave up at least five gallons to the slimmest of them.
“No magic?” Trosh Garrist asked, skeptical. “How can we be sure?”
“How would any of you take me seriously if I cheated?” Juliana drew her daggers, and tossed Freedom and Adventure hilt-deep into a tree trunk, well out of casual reach.
Lieutenant Garrist removed his sword belt, along with the dagger sheath it also bore, and removed a concealed boot dagger as well, tossing it to the ground out of the way.
“I don’t like the idea of hitting a woman, but everyone heard you ask for it, real clear,” Garrist called out, pointing his finger, and sweeping it across the crew, making sure everyone heard him. He took up a brawler’s pose, fists up, forearms framing his head as he tucked his chin low.
Juliana relaxed into a fencer’s posture, one foot leading, turned sideways, but with her arms hanging loose at her sides. She flexed her fingers, clenching and stretching them alternately. She locked her gaze on Garrist’s.
Trosh Garrist took a tentative step in, knowing better than to rush someone who clearly came prepared to fight. He threw a quick, probing jab, but provoked no flinch from Juliana. He threw another, long enough to land, but Juliana turned aside, and Garrist felt his world tilt as his feet did not follow him as he advanced with the punch.
“Hey, you all saw that,” Garrist said from the ground, pushing himself to hands and knees, and scrambling to his feet as quick as he could manage. “She just used magic on me!”
“Haw, Lieutenant, she tripped ya!” someone called out. “You wasn’t even lookin’ at her feet.”
Juliana shrugged and smiled.
Garrist gritted his teeth, and resumed his fighting stance, his face reddening. Whether it was anger or embarrassment, Juliana could not say. He rushed forward, not recklessly, but at least imprudently, pulling up short of bowling Juliana over to throw a hard overhand right.
A slim hand closed over his wrist, guiding it wide of Juliana’s face. At the same moment, a delicate knee drove itself into the space just below the center of his rib cage. Juliana pulled the blow, putting no aether behind it; she could easily have ruptured his stomach, lungs, or both. Off balance, and with the wind knocked out of him, Trosh Garrist was in no position to defend himself when Juliana took her free hand to his shoulder, and pushed.
It was a hilltop they
were fighting on. Though it was far from a sheer drop, it was a long way before Garrist stopped rolling and sliding through the underbrush. The crew rushed to the edge of the drop to see what had become of their lieutenant. Groans and far-off cursing wafted up from below, prompting jeers and laughter among the men.
“Someone throw down a rope,” Juliana shouted over the cacophony.
Rope was a wonderful material, impervious to the damaging effects of being dropped to the ceiling when it and the floor switch places. There was rope aplenty in the stores, provisioners of ships having yet to grasp that the Daggerstrike had no rigging to repair, and little need for more than a token amount of the stuff.
Trosh Garrist could not meet Juliana’s eye when he was finally hauled up from where he had fallen. The blow to his gut obviously still hurt him as well, keeping him from standing upright.
“What now?” he asked.
“What, indeed,” Juliana replied unhelpfully. “Well, I cannot take Lieutenant Trosh Garrist back onto my ship. That was part of the deal. The lieutenant can make his own way back to Kadris, or whatever part of Kadrin he wishes to settle in.”
There were mutters among the men but no one spoke up. Juliana walked over, and picked up Garrist’s weapons, giving them an appraising look as she brought them over to return them. She stopped short, though, doing a circuit of the lieutenant, giving him an appraising look as well.
“Of course, I do see some potential here. It would be a shame to waste it. If only you were not Lieutenant Trosh Garrist anymore …” Juliana took Garrist’s dagger, slid it behind the golden lieutenant’s emblem pinned to his uniform, and gave a flick of her wrist. The emblem fell to the ground, and disappeared among the weeds.
“In fact, I see a lot of potential in this crew, but I don’t think this is a job for a bunch of infantrymen and archers, led by a sorceress. Do you know what our mission is?” Juliana waited as a lot of noncommittal answers were bandied. “No, our mission is to harry Megrenn supply wagons, to strike at weak garrisons, to pick off scouting parties. We are not planning to return to Kadris or any other friendly territory except rarely; we will live off what we take from Megrenn. Do you know what that makes us?”
