Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2)

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “Huh. Alright.” I turned my head so that my nose didn’t end up in Suri’s hair, and watched the street as we cantered by. “You’ve never met this guy before, right?”

  “No. Just one of the pit bosses and some of his lieutenants.”

  “Were they all Meewfolk?”

  “No. Pretty diverse lot, actually. That’s normal for syndicates... Champion fighters and coaches come from all over the world.”

  I chuckled. “Did you have a name in the ring? All fighters have ring names, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, they do.” Suri replied. “They called me Libiwat Asada, the Red Lioness. You don’t speak Dakhari, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “’Al-Asad’ means ‘Of the Lion’. The lion is the Sultir’s Clan symbol, and they named their dungeon after it. It was a bit of an in-joke.”

  “Nice. How’d you avoid the authorities in a city of that size?”

  “Dalim’s underworld is literally underground. Nearly all the crims are Fireblooded,” she replied. “They took me in, and for most of that first month of freedom, I was too scared of the sky to go outside much.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s two things that scare the piss out of me: wide open spaces, and giants.”

  “Giants?”

  “Yeah. I hate big things, you know. Shit that towers over you. Gives me the creeps.”

  Cat Alley – officially known as the International District - was easily the shittiest and most heavily policed part of Taltos. The neat cobblestone roads and clean apartments gave way to a ramshackle sprawl of huts, crooked stone buildings, stalls, and lean-tos. On the way through the gate, we saw soldiers harassing a group of sour-faced Meewfolk. The humans were making them turn out their backpacks and pouches onto a table, searching for stolen goods and weapons.

  Even so, the area was lively. Street vendors sold baked fish, live chickens, rats, and ducks. Preachers held small crowds on street corners. Surprisingly clean Meewfolk children played games in the mud, or by the edge of the sluggish canal that ran underneath a series of bridges in the middle of the district. Wherever we passed, people stopped to stare at us. We weren’t the only humans here, but we were well in the minority.

  Suri reined Cutthroat to a slow walk as we turned down one broad curving street, which ended in a dingy walled courtyard. The spike-topped wall was covered in faded notices and wanted posters, graffiti, and moss. Five guards - three Meewfolk, one Mercurion in a battered mask, and a human - lounged beside a heavy oak and iron door, or played cards at a rusted metal lattice table nearby.

  “Easy, girl.” Suri murmured to the dinosaur as she snorted and grunted, eyes darting from one face to another.

  “Telling Cutthroat to calm down is basically an exercise in futility. You know that, right?” I whispered to her.

  “Sure, but it’s worth a try. Let me handle this one.”

  “Oh, look. It’s the dragon man and the Dakhari bounty hunter,” the human called out. He was a big rough scar of a man, with a twisted lip, a big crossbow, and a bandoleer stacked with ammo for it. “Heroes of Taltos, renowned across the land. Not that you’ve done much about the Slayer. What’s your business here, kingsmen?”

  “My business is with your boss,” Suri replied. “I’m Suri Ba’Hadir, the Lioness of Dhul Fiquar. Me and Hector need some face time with the King of Cats.”

  “Dhul Fiquar? The man squinted at us both. “That supposed to fuckin’ mean something to me?”

  “Yeah, it should. And if it doesn’t, this will.” Suri brandished her hand with the gold Nightstalkers ring. I lifted my hand to show the same.

  “Come back at night. There’s no rousing in the morningsss.” One of the Meewfolk rasped. He was relaxing on one of the chairs at the table, his hand of cards folded against the top. Unlike the human, he carried no weapons other than his own claws, but he looked tired and strung out.

  “We’re not here to rouse. We’re here to shift bluff,” Suri said.

  “Shift bluff?” I asked her by P.M.

  “Trade information,” was the terse reply. “A rouse is a fight.”

  The human grunted. “Give me one good reason the king would want to see you.”

  I urged Karalti forward a step. “Because Red made me an offer, and we decided to take her up on it.”

  Suri looked over sharply. The guard’s thick brows arched with intrigue. Red’s involvement with the Nightstalkers had been an educated guess on my part, but it seemed I’d hit the nail on the head.

  He jerked his head to one of the Mercurions. “Glick, go in and give the boss their names. See what she says.”

  Glick bowed their masked head, then opened the gate and paced inside.

  We dismounted, and I lay a hand on Karalti’s shoulder. “I need you to stay out here and watch Cutthroat for us. Alright?”

  “Alright. You don’t need to tie her or anything. She’ll follow me.” Karalti looked down at the guards, flaring her horns.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m bigger now, so she listens to me.”

  Suri started to lead Cutthroat to a hitching spot, but I caught her arm and shook my head. “Karalti says she’ll take care of her.”

  Suri shrugged, then nodded.

  Another ten minutes or so passed before the Mercurion returned. He beckoned us forward with two bony fingers, and we followed him through the gate into a compound that was similar to a Chinese hutong. The path turned left, and we passed under an Asian-style hip-roofed gateway that opened into a courtyard. There were a number of houses here, all of them in bad shape. Some of them were clearly relics of an older Taltos, built out of worn black limestone. Others were distinctly foreign, with steep gabled roofs supported by carved wooden pillars. There was little in the way of walls and rooms. Meewfolk lounged on the bed-sized windowsills of these houses, sleeping in the open air, or watching us suspiciously as Glick led us to the biggest house in the compound.

  This house was in better condition than the others, but you could smell the old booze and sweat from the doorway. The Mercurion opened the door ahead of us, walking with a light, dancing step, and came to a stop at the bar where he flourished and bowed to the only person there.

  Red was dressed almost exactly the same as she had been at the party. She reclined elegantly against the edge of the long wooden counter, her body a study in sharp points and long, lanky curves. She was wearing a different mask today: instead of a serene Mona Lisa smile, this one had the grimacing face of a Japanese demon. Her head swiveled toward as we approached.

  “Hi, Red,” I said through clenched teeth. “You really know how to throw a party, you know that?”

  Suri frowned and stared at us. “Wait. Do you know each other?”

  “Hector and I met at a party once.” Red pushed back from the bar and beckoned us to follow her. “Come. The king is expecting you.”

  Chapter 35

  Red led us through the building and down a flight of hollow wooden stairs, as graceful and quiet as a ribbon of smoke. The hall had the dreary, grimy look of a shuttered nightclub, with dirty floors and clusters of empty, dirty tankards, paper, and straw. The refuse was being swept up by the morning cleanup team.

  “What’s this place called?” I asked Red, following behind Suri. We naturally fell into letting her take point - she was the tank, and I was the guy who could almost see behind his own head. It was natural that I followed up the rear.

  “It isn’t called anything,” Red rasped. She still had that gravelly, pack-a-day voice. “If someone wants to drink and find a fight, they know where to come.”

  At the bottom of the stairs was a basement lined with kegs and barrels. Red strode to the far wall and vanished right through it.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Illusion.”

  “Yeah.” Suri nodded her agreement. “Probably keyed to these rings.”

  She passed through, and I followed. The illusory wall had to have been fairly solid, because there was a noticeable temperature
drop on the other side. Behind the curtain was another part of the Lethos Cellar complex - what looked like an ancient mineshaft. Clusters of brightly colored glass lamps hung from the ceiling, illuminating a path that led down to an ancient cistern. A solid beam of light shone down from overhead, illuminating the center of what had once been a round, shallow reservoir for water. Now it was a fighting pit with a fence built around the edge.

  “Does fighting pay well?” I asked Suri.

  She eyed the ring with an odd expression on her face. Nostalgia. “If you’re good at it.”

  “To the death, or...?”

  “Depends. Death matches pay better than anything else, though.”

  I smiled faintly as we cut around the arena and headed down a narrow stone passage. “I’m guessing they didn’t call you ‘Lioness’ just because you came out of Al’Asad.”

  Suri chuckled. “Nooope.”

  Red strode to a door at the end of the tunnel and knocked twice before opening it. I nodded to her, and paused as my HUD chirruped. I had a message - when I glanced across, my heart jumped when I saw who it was from.

  [You have one unread private message from Rin Lu]

  Dammit. Talk about shitty timing. I pushed the notification back with a thought, and followed Suri into the room while Red held the door.

  The office beyond was cool and sweet smelling, offset by the soft sound of trickling water. It was beautifully furnished, with antiques from every part of Archemi blended into one seamless artful composition. A purple divan was partly hidden by jade and pearl-inlaid ebonwood screens; fringed colored lanterns lit the dingy place with blue, red, and yellow light. At the back was a firepit, which burned high and clean behind a large mahogany desk and the lean, tall figure who sat behind it. As we crossed the floor, he stood and came around to greet us. He was almost six and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, and dressed like an assassin in layers of dark, soft leather. His face was thin and handsome, and even with a short salt-and-pepper beard altering his features, the resemblance to Andrik Corvinus was unmistakable.

  “You’re looking pretty good for a dead man, Your Majesty,” I said, with a bow.

  “Your… Majesty?” Suri’s head turned sharply toward me, then she looked back to Ignas, the King of Cats, and her eyes widened. “Ignas? Ignas Corvinus?”

  Ignas gave us a sad, small, thin-lipped smile. “I can count the number of people who know my name on one hand. That’s because all the others are dead. I say this to you only because you enter my residence carrying my brother’s mark, so you must pardon this old man for his concern.”

  Red had stayed by the door, and crossed her arms as three Meewfolk rogues materialized from the shadows, lingering close by. I hadn’t seen them, hadn’t sensed them, and my HUD hadn’t picked them up until they revealed themselves.

  “No problem, Your Majesty. And don’t worry about your safety: your brother’s a dick,” I said to him. “I signed up with him to catch a murderer, not become one.”

  Suri made a choking sound in the back of her throat.

  Ignas’ mouth quirked to one side. It wasn’t exactly a smile. His white-gray eyes were very level. Wise, cold… and as Andrik had said, disciplined. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t tell you because he swore me to a pact,” I replied. “Take a guess.”

  “He hired you to kill me?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Fair enough.” Ignas blew away a strand of imaginary hair, then chuckled and shook his head. For a moment, he almost seemed like the wise, good-natured man Matthias had described, but the fleeting humor was very short-lived. “So - I have been up all night, and as I’m sure you understand, I’m quite tired. I will make this short and simple. You have come to me about ceasing my activities now that Andrik’s evangelical council is all but dead. The answer is no.”

  “What? Just like that?” I said.

  “Yes.” Ignas replied. “Just like that.”

  Suri stepped up, but I held a hand up. Eyes narrowed, she jerked her chin, then stood back.

  “Well, good thing I’m not here to try and stop you. Red over there made me an offer the other night,” I said, motioning back over my shoulder. “I’m interested.”

  “Then you should have listened to her during the event.” Ignas shrugged his shoulders minutely. “It’s not a light-hearted offer I make in accordance with your whims.”

  “No. Defeating the monster you made out of those people at the party wasn’t a light-hearted decision, either,” I said. “But when Andrik tried to bind me to an ancestral vow to get me to kill you, I started having second thoughts. I had an older brother I owe my life to. Fratricide is way beyond my comfort zone.”

  “But the persecution of my people is tolerable?” Red snapped from behind us.

  “Ebisa.” Ignas’ eyes flicked up past my shoulder. “You know as well as I do that personal grievances surpass societal concerns in all men, Mercurion or otherwise. Come here and join us.”

  Red - Ebisa - stalked over to us and slouched against the edge of the desk, her arms and ankles crossed.

  “We worked out the pattern to the assassinations,” Suri said. “You were having those men killed to mock the virtues of the church.”

  “Virtues none of those men adhered to in their pursuit of power and self-interest. Abel and Darko were despotic theocrats. Toth, Orban and Erik were hypocrites and perverts.” Ignas lifted his chin, then turned his face to look back at the fireplace. “Khors, the Forge Father. God of artists and crafters, the builders and smiths and potters who make any nation great. He is a good god, worthy of worship. And yet, Khors is only one of the Nine. Without the others to balance out the material power of his church, he quickly becomes an overbearing patriarch mired in tradition. The crafting done in his name becomes soulless, or worse - bent toward nothing but war and control.”

  “The last two virtues left are discipline and honesty,” I said. “My guess is that the Duke is discipline, and your brother-”

  “Is honesty,” Ignas finished. “Well, at least he hired astute investigators. But were you astute enough to be able to deduce that he has no intention of rewarding you? The men he hired you to protect are now almost all gone. Even if they had survived and you bought Andrik the Slayer in chains, he would have turned on you in the end.”

  I grinned and shrugged. “Now that you mention it, I had wondered.”

  Suri folded her arms. “So the affair, the suicide, everything was faked?”

  “Of course,” Ignas replied. “Andrik’s assassins were hounding me within hours of my framing and disinheritance. Friends of mine helped me source a body from the morgue, which we spirited into the castle and used to fake my death while I escaped.”

  “How did he frame you?” Suri asked.

  “It is commonly believed that only the Royal Family can use Corvinus Rubies - that is not true,” Ignas replied. “Anyone with magical ability can use them, but the Words of Power are jealously guarded family secrets. They are conveyed only to the heir of the throne on the day he achieves adulthood. My brother spied on us during the ceremony between me and my father and learned the words - using a Mercurion-made automata, ironically.”

  “Kanzo’s listening devices?” I frowned.

  “Indeed. It was that device that convinced my brother to become Kanzo’s patron,” Ignas said. “Once he knew the command words for our family jewels, my dearest brother hired a Dakhari magus to ensorcell a ruby with lurid illusions. Andrik had tried to dig dirt on me for years, you see. He had failed to unearth anything that could have me disinherited, so he settled for making something up. When the recording was shown to my father, he believed that only I had the Words required for the rubies, and I’m sure you know the rest.”

  “I’d wondered why you were using Kanzo,” Suri mused.

  Ignas reached out, and lay a hand on Ebisa’s shoulder. “That is not the only reason.”

  As one, we both looked at the masked Mercurion woman.
/>   “Andrik used Kanzo’s listening device to take the throne,” Ignas said. “And in the process, Kanzo not only gained a great deal of wealth, he gained the Words for his own use. Andrik is a boor and knows nothing of sang’ti’tak, Mercurion artificing, and naively assumed that Kanzo would not be able to do anything with his knowledge of the rubies. Instead, Kanzo used this and his new-found fortune to commit a grave sin against his own kind.”

  “Why didn’t he just marry and do things the normal way?” I spread my hands. “I mean, he’s a Mastercrafter, maybe the best Artificer on the mainland... that has to make him an eligible bachelor, doesn’t it?”

  “Two reasons,” Ebisa said stiffly. “For one thing, he is nearly thirty-six years old. He is elderly by the standards of our race.”

  I scratched my head. “Thirty-six is elderly?”

  Ebisa nodded. Her sculpted porcelain mask gave no hint to her expression. “We are born adult, self-aware, and invested by the knowledge of our clan - ideally. But the mana which animates us decays; our lives are fleeting, and thus we are driven to make all that we can, to leave a legacy of our sang’ti’tak to our descendants. He has perhaps eight months of life left.”

  “And the second reason is that he is clanless, right?” Suri asked.

  “Yes. He is from Tlaxi’ca Tisaksa, the House of the Wasp, but was stripped of his House name and title for stealing blueprints for sang’ti’tak from the Clan vault,” Ebisa said. “There are Tisaksa in Taltos. His clan status is a matter of public record, and a clanless juchi cannot marry.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “So the 'kicked out of my clan because of my love and peace' thing is bullshit?”

  Ebisa looked down, clutching her arm with a thin hand. “Somewhat. He refused to fight in the Zaunt Civil War, but not because of his ideals. The only things Kanzo cares about are himself and his creations. Not even them. His entire life, everything he has done, is to protect and gratify himself and his pride. Everything.”