The Dagger of Trust

by Chris Willrich

  He paused. When I run the Shadow School?

  They had made it. They were on the roof of the barber's shop, which was good because the roof of the place they'd started from was engulfed in red-illuminated smoke.

  "I'm never doing this again," Corvine said.

  "We're not quite done. We need an open window. Ah."

  They entered a bachelor's shadowed living quarters, and nearly screamed when they tripped over the bachelor.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Gideon rolled the man over. On the young side of elderly, the frail fellow had been stabbed in half a dozen places.

  "Is this Waxbill?" Corvine said. "How long's he been dead?"

  "I don't think he is." Gideon didn't trust his eyes or ears under these conditions, but he remembered the lessons of the Master of Steel and Sinew and felt for a pulse. He found one, faint.

  Corvine murmured an incantation and put her hand on Waxbill's chest. A faint glow rose from her palm, and slowly faded.

  "I don't know how much that helped," she said.

  Gideon considered a moment, then pulled out Albercroft's vial. He poured the weird liquid down the man's throat.

  "Are you certain you want to use the potion?"

  "I'm not certain I could have made myself drink it."

  Now Waxbill was coughing. Gideon took a moment to look around the room. He had a brief impression of disturbing details: a horned statue bearing a scroll, a mirror whose frame extruded fangs, a wall map of Bellis with pins emphasizing dozens of locations.

  Corvine was looking over something else. "Gideon, he hasn't just been stabbed. He's been burned."

  "Burned...how?"

  "Devil..." the man said, and the word turned into another series of coughs. "Ukobach. Backstabbers..."

  "Did an ukobach betray you?" Gideon asked.

  "Don't blame them. They are what they are. I blame my colleagues."

  "Who are your colleagues?" Corvine asked.

  "Who're you? Who sent you?"

  Corvine looked to Gideon as if to say, You're the secret agent here.

  And yet perhaps it was time to show a card. "We're with Taldor."

  "Ah...Well...I may work for Cheliax...but there are some things I won't do...you hear me?"

  "What won't you do?"

  "I won't...wipe out a town...with the damned fog."

  "Who would?" Corvine asked. "Who did this to you?"

  "You really don't know? You're Taldan government, then."

  "What else would we be?"

  "Never mind...You want to stop this thing?"

  "Yes," said Gideon.

  "Then you need to kill Karcuna, and his ukobach...they must be out there now...probably by the statue of Alysande...I...so tired." Waxbill closed his eyes.

  "Is he...?" Gideon said.

  "I think he's out of danger, Gideon, but it was a near thing. We should get him help."

  "He infiltrated my country, and meant us no good. Even if he balked at the scale of harm, he's got blood on his hands."

  "Let the gods judge him. We have our own work to do."

  "Yes."

  They descended a stairway and entered the barber's shop. Lit only by the town's fires, the place looked like a chamber of horrors. Gideon thought of trusting his neck to the blade of an enemy agent, and scratched at his chin. It occurred to him that for all of his patriotic anger, from an Andoren perspective he too was a foreign agent. Life was a strange thing.

  They peered out the shop door and spotted a bronze statue in the distance. It portrayed a woman on horseback, blade extended.

  "I've never liked statues," Corvine said. "Every statue in Death in Cassomir animates and tries to kill people."

  "I don't have statues in Dreams on the Sellen. Rock monsters, though ...after Arenway there'll be rock monsters."

  "I think I'll add a burning town."

  "Me too."

  They exited and crept up to the statue. Fortunately the frothers were elsewhere. They saw that the illumination came not entirely from distant fires. There was a flaming brass cone clutched by a diminutive red figure sitting between the bronze horse's front hooves. Another figure, this one in black, stood before the statue with crossed arms. He looked a trifle familiar.

  "The ukobach," Gideon said, "with his devil's blowhorn."

  "And somebody with him."

  "I think they're talking."

  "Let's listen."

  With fog all around, and darkness, and the sounds of shouts, screams, and breaking glass, sneaking up behind the statue proved quite possible.

  "You're being too merciful, Karcuna," came the voice of the devil they'd heard in Cassomir. "Let me burn the headquarters, and Waxbill with it. Your men put the bog strider in the basement; it can burn too. No loose ends."

  "You're just worried about the Eagle Knights," came the answer. Gideon recognized it as belonging to the Chelaxian he'd dubbed Scarsmile.

  "Why shouldn't I be?" replied the ukobach. "Stubborn, incorruptible, dangerous—"

  "And only a few," said Karcuna-who-was-Scarsmile. "The others will handle them."

  "And that ship?"

  "You know the ship isn't a worry."

  "I don't trust that captain. He's a half-elf. They have mercurial tempers."

  Karcuna was silent. Then: "Are you trying to use that bullhorn on me?"

  "Never! That's for directing the mobs supplied by our friends with their delightful fog." The devil laughed. "How they mocked me in Phlegethon for trading my infernal fire poker for one of these. But the mortal world is changing. Inciting mobs to arson is so much more rewarding than doing it yourself."

  Karcuna thought a moment longer. "Burn the place."

  Gideon nodded to Corvine, readying his harp. She did the same.

  "Make sure Waxbill and the bog strider are inside," the Chelaxian was saying, "I don't—"

  Gideon and Corvine rushed to opposite sides of the devil, and thus flanking him, blasted away with their spells of sound.

  Both the devil and the scarred man staggered.

  "The ukobach!" Gideon said. "It'll get away—"

  "Got it—"

  It was an ugly scene, and Gideon couldn't be proud of it. He and Corvine dropped their harps, drew their daggers, and jabbed and slashed with desperate energy. Before their flurry of attacks, the ukobach fell, dropping the fiery bullhorn. As the devil gasped its last rattling breath, the horn disintegrated with a flash, leaving only cinders and ash behind.

  "Damn," Gideon said. He'd been hoping to recover the bullhorn and somehow use it against the frothers. But ukobach fire pokers were said to perish when their owners died, and so it was with this. "Back to whatever fires spawned it—"

  "You, too," said Karcuna.

  The Chelaxian had regained his wits, and Gideon and Corvine now paid a price for ignoring him. Magical vapors flowed around the bards, a noxious cloud smelling of rotten eggs. Gideon felt violently ill, and began retching. Corvine fared no better.

  "I recognize you, Andoren," Karcuna said. "From Oppara. You've followed me all this way? Congratulations. You've caught up with death at last."

  "I think not!"

  Through watery eyes and vapors, Gideon saw Merrigail Hannison in her uniform, sword raised. In the firelight she looked like an angel of vengeance.

  Karcuna staggered back from her blow, but he was not yet done, and began incanting in a furious voice.

  Gideon and Corvine weren't done either. Gideon couldn't concentrate to cast a spell or fight, but he could still get in the way. Corvine clearly thought likewise.

  Karcuna flexed his fingers, and what resembled a small lightning stroke flashed across the air. Corvine ducked, but it hit both Gideon and Merrigail. Gideon staggered, his hair standing on end, his breath exploding from his body, every nerve feeling as though it were on fire.

  Merrigail had dodged much of the blast. When she rose, uniform rent and smoking, she only seemed angrier.

  "Fools!" shouted the wizard. "It is not just me. I have men—"<
br />
  "Not anymore!" Merrigail roared back. "Thanks to my comrades' sacrifice! I swear they won't die in vain."

  Before her wrath Karcuna called out, "Mercy!"

  "Mercy is for the gods! This is justice for Bellis!"

  The Chelaxian's end was not a pretty one.

  Merrigail hauled Gideon up by one arm. Grateful as he was, Gideon was ready to ask for mercy, too.

  Corvine leaned against him, still nauseated. Gideon, for his part, found that having magical lightning coruscating through him, while not a pleasant experience, took his mind off his stomach pain.

  "The other knights?" he asked. "Jandor? Drayper?"

  Merrigail stared at Bellis's fires. Her words were clipped. "Drayper went mad with battle fury. The mob got him. Jandor fought two Chelish wizards and won. He died of his wounds. I'm glad I found you. What have you learned?"

  "We need to return to the barbershop."

  "The barbershop?" She sounded doubtful, but she followed.

  They discovered the groaning Waxbill, who'd recovered enough to sit up against a wall. From his mumbled explanations, they found their way to the basement.

  There were many empty metal barrels. Amid them rose a shadowy shape bound to a chair. Merrigail's eagle figurine glowed and illuminated the prisoner.

  A nightmare sat before them.

  It was an insectile monster with elements of humanoid and beetle, four long limbs supporting a vaguely centaur-like body. Its exoskeleton was the color of oiled cedar, but its scent was of river-mud, algae, and fish. Vast green multifaceted eyes looked unblinkingly back at him, as Gideon recognized the sort of creature that once sheltered him as a boy.

  "Uh—" he said.

  The bog strider was more articulate.

  "Greetings, Gideon Gull."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Traitor's Waltz

  The bog strider's mouth possessed huge mandibles, a fact all the more noticeable with Gideon gaping at the entity's words.

  "You know me?"

  There was a delicate clicking trill accompanying the bog strider's speech. "We have known of you since the fog first afflicted this place. Since the mind within it first touched you. Will you free me?"

  Gideon had a number of questions of his own. He picked one. "Will you eat me?"

  "I do not intend to. Do you wish it?"

  "No."

  "Then we are in accord. I have answered your question. You have not answered my own. Will you free me?"

  Gideon took his dagger and began slicing at the ropes that bound the bog strider. Corvine did likewise, while Merrigail guarded the stairs.

  Freed, the bog strider flexed its limbs. It chittered deep within its throat. Gideon hoped that was a happy sound. It said, "We should leave this landwalker hive."

  "Where do you want us to go?" Corvine asked, visibly trying to control her revulsion.

  "To Tok-Tshka. A place of safety."

  "A place of your people?" Gideon asked.

  "Yes."

  "I can't abandon Bellis," Merrigail said.

  Gideon couldn't stop staring. There had been horror that terrible night in Bellis long ago, but he knew also that the bog strider by the river had indeed protected him, had even tried to soothe him with its clicks and chitters. He forced himself to breathe evenly. "What did you mean, 'the mind within the fog'?"

  "The seer-queen has said you are a good spirit, Gideon Gull, even though you are linked to the fog. But I will not speak in this place of dry stones. I will speak in Tok-Tshka."

  Gideon nodded. "Corvine, Merrigail—I think I have to go. To...Tok-Tshka. We'd better take Waxbill back to the ship."

  "I won't leave Bellis," Merrigail repeated, "but returning to Sebastian seems wise. I recommend you gather any documents you can find in this place, as evidence."

  "You're thinking like a Lion Blade, Commander."

  "No need to insult me, Mister Gull." But she smiled a little.

  Upstairs, Waxbill had gotten to his feet. He'd begun gathering satchels, which made the job of securing evidence much easier. He complained, but not loudly, when Merrigail flung him over her shoulder.

  "Remind me never to arm-wrestle her," Gideon said to Corvine as they made their way back to the ship. They moved cautiously, and most of the time they couldn't even see the bog strider skittering through the darkness and the fog. But some of the fires had gone out, and there were fewer shouts and screams. The fog seemed thinner. Perhaps the worst was over.

  Gideon relaxed, seeing Riposte ahead at last. "There it is! We're...oh no."

  The fog had billowed up beside the ship and disgorged a sight Gideon had previously suspected was an artifact of his own madness.

  "Demonwake."

  The ghost ship nosed out of the fog, dwarfing Riposte, its gargoyle prow bearing down upon the figurehead of the mermaid with the dagger in her teeth. The flag of a horned skull and crossbones flapped above the tattered sails and the skeletal captain and crew. With them stood the maiden Desdimira, the only spirit with the seeming of flesh, though the flesh was pale, and glowed.

  "Do you see it?" he asked the others. "The ghost ship?"

  "No..." Corvine said. "I see a second Riposte, as if in a dark mirror. Not a mermaid at her prow but a sea witch. Not privateers on her deck, but Chelish wizards. And a twin of Captain Tambour whose face is burned, and who wears a cape of fog. At his side stands a spectral elven woman who rather resembles him."

  Waxbill chuckled. "None of you sees what's really there."

  "What's really there, man?" said Merrigail. "I see nothing but shadows."

  "The future."

  "He rants," said Merrigail. "Whatever's there, it's trouble. Quickly!"

  They hurried toward the pier. Gideon no longer saw the bog strider behind him, but he did have the uncomfortable sense that many other shapes were converging on the wharf.

  But he had no time to look. Riposte cast off in what seemed a desperate bid to evade the monstrous vessel, whatever it truly was.

  Gideon knew the act was desperate because Sebastian had abandoned four crew members on the dock—the sailors Asta and Dymphna, plus the Andoren sailors Hammerton and Briar. As Gideon, Corvine, and Merrigail arrived, Asta whirled upon them and said, "Madness! The captain sets us all to guard the wharf, then that draug-ship appears and he leaves us here. In the middle of a fight!"

  "Perhaps he believes himself doomed," Hammerton said.

  "He might be right," muttered Briar. "I swear, that's the accursed Night Terror—"

  "Where're your eyes, love?" Hammerton asked him. "That's the bleedin' Wanderloss, right out of the opera."

  "Whatever she is," Dymphna said, "she's firing a siege engine!"

  The ghost ship—which to Gideon's gaze was still clearly Demonwake, Captain Crookwing grinning skeletally in his swooshing black cape—was now indeed employing a shipboard weapon, one resembling a steel dragon head. And firing was an apt word, for a gout of burning liquid spewed onto Riposte, setting sails and deck ablaze.

  "A firedrake!" Merrigail gasped.

  Riposte replied with ballista and crossbows. Gideon heard Sebastian bellowing commands. But if the response had an effect upon the enemy, Gideon couldn't see it. Meanwhile, the foe employed a second siege engine, this one a catapult launching what seemed a pile of bones.

  Where the bones hit Riposte, a half-dozen skeletal warriors sprang into being, like puppets pulled up on their strings. Leothric would have appreciated the effect.

  Through fire and bone and steel, Gideon saw the ghostly Desdimira smiling at him, and heard the familiar voice in his mind.

  Ever will you warm the lost

  Gathered here by fate and frost.

  For a long, strange moment, it seemed to Gideon that Captain Crookwing also stared at him, raising a skeletal finger to point his direction. When Desdimira turned her head to look at him, Crookwing swiftly lowered his hand.

  "Doomed," said Waxbill upon Merrigail's shoulder. "We're all doomed..."

  "You feel l
ike swimming?" said Merrigail. "No? Then be silent."

  Waxbill shut up; Merrigail set him down upon the pier and withdrew her sword. Maybe holding a weapon made her feel better.

  "There must be something we can do," Gideon said.

  Dymphna knelt in prayer. He heard her utter the word Dawnflower, and understood now some of her furtiveness, if she were truly a devotee of Sarenrae, whose worship was forbidden in Taldor. He appreciated the thought, and made the sign of the antlers on his own chest.

  But he didn't believe in waiting for the heavens.

  "Spells? Our sound attack was effective earlier."

  "Gideon," Corvine said, looking toward the wharf, "I think you may need your spells for something else."

  When he turned around he almost envied the crew of Riposte.

  Hundreds of Bellis's citizens had gathered on the wharf, muttering and yelling, frothing and clawing at the air. Some force seemed to have leashed them together, waiting, as if at some signal they would charge like racehorses toward their victims on the pier.

  Just then, the barrage from the ghost ship stopped.

  Gideon looked over his shoulder to see the skeleton-troops aboard Riposte frozen at attention. Fires still burned, but the firedrake had ceased to spew.

  "Gideon!" called Sebastian's voice. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes! Something's made the fog stop!"

  He saw Sebastian at Riposte's railing, Viridia beside him. Nearby, Adebeyo and Grizzendell were directing the squelching of fires and the smashing of skeletons.

  "I may have something to do with it!" Sebastian said. "I have certain powers I'm not authorized to reveal. But we stand on a knife-edge, Gideon!"

  "You don't say!"

  "I need you now—with Corvine's help, but especially you—to sway that mob! Before the fog regains strength."