The Sable City tnc-1

by M. Edward McNally

  The ink was already dry. It was dated at the top and written in formal Miilarkian in a surprisingly delicate hand. That actually made sense, Tilda realized, as of course John Deskata had been for all his early life the privileged son of a Great Island House, trained in calligraphy and other noble pursuits. The stilted words were bland, a dismissal of Matilda Lanai from all services and interests pertaining to the House of Deskata.

  Tilda stared at John over the paper, and he sighed again.

  “I was going to write more, to mitigate that. I have been sitting here for half an hour trying to think of something to say.”

  “What is this?” Tilda hissed.

  “Just what it says. You’re fired, Tilda. I’m kicking you out of the House.”

  Tilda stared, both her hands on the paper.

  “You can’t do that,” she said. “You don’t have any real authority.”

  John met her eyes, and green or not his flinty stare was as much authority as he needed.

  “I am Jonathan Malohan Deskata, the last man of the Deskata blood, and I am putting you out of the House, girl. Not that there is still a House to speak of.”

  John leaned across the table and held Tilda with his eyes.

  “It is over, Matilda. The Assembly will carve up the House, and all the assets will be divided. That includes the Guild, and the Guilders. If you return to Miilark as a Deskata Guilder in good standing, you get assigned to another Guild of another House. Is that what you want?”

  “I want to fight for my own House!” Tilda said. “My family has served yours for three generations.”

  John waved a hand. “They’ll be fine. The merchants always go smoothly.”

  “But the Guild will fight. As will the fleet!”

  “Not if nobody asks them to,” John said. Tilda stared.

  “Even if you don’t make the Assembly, there will still be time…”

  “Tilda, you are not listening. No one is going to fight for Deskata if no Deskata asks. And I won’t do that. I won’t.”

  “It is your House!”

  “The hell it is!” John said bitterly, banging a hand on the table so hard that the inkwell jumped and tipped on its side, drops of the viscous black fluid burbling out onto the wood. The two Miilarkians sat there with neither making a move to right the pot.

  “Then why go back?” Tilda asked. John stared at the inkwell.

  “Personal business,” he said. He held out a hand toward Tilda, and she slowly handed him back the note. He wet the quill from a blob on the table and signed the note in a flourishing hand. He put it back on the table in front of Tilda and stood, hoisting his shield to his back.

  “I want to go home too, John,” Tilda said quietly, keeping her voice still.

  “Wait a few months,” he said as an order. “Things will be quiet by then. Business will be back to normal.” He looked at Tilda, though now it was she who did not lift her eyes to meet his.

  “You are good at what you do, Matilda Lanai. You can have your pick of another Guild if you want it. Or do something else. Your life is your own. Goodbye.”

  John turned and walked with his long, legionnaire stride for the porch stairs. Tilda stopped him at the top of them.

  “Captain Block did not die for you, you know,” she said. “He died for the House of Deskata.”

  John froze, but only for a moment. He stepped down the stairs and moved onto the street, soon losing himself among many others making their way to someplace else.

  *

  Zeb tried to be nonchalant as he kept an eye on Tilda and John out on the porch, but Amatesu was not fooled for a second. His conversation with the shukenja had trailed off into silence for quite a while before he remembered to look over at her. When he did, Amatesu was smiling at him faintly.

  “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

  Amatesu lowered her eyes and sipped her coffee.

  “You should ask if you may go with her,” the shukenja said.

  Zeb blinked. “What?”

  “With Tilda.”

  Zeb stared at her. “I don’t even know where she is going.”

  Amatesu glanced at him with an eyebrow raised. “Do you care?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  Amatesu smiled again. “Then ask.”

  Zeb looked back out the window. Tilda and John were speaking intently, and Zeb thought Tilda looked troubled, or sad.

  “Do you think she would say yes?”

  Amatesu set down her cup. “I do not know, Zebulon. But I know that if she leaves and you have said nothing, you will regret it for the rest of your life.” The Shukenja’s smile faded. “One should not have regrets, if it can be helped. They are very burdensome, and the large ones never become less so.”

  Outside, John stood up at the table, slung his shield and turned away. Tilda said something Zeb could not hear through the window, and the man paused at the top of the porch stairs before he took them down and walked away. Tilda sat alone, staring after him.

  “Someone should take Tilda her coffee, at least,” Amatesu said.

  “What?”

  Amatesu pointed at Tilda’s untouched cup, sitting atop a polished board beside a seashell mounded with sugar, and a tiny glass ladle.

  “Tilda’s coffee grows cold. Some kind soul should take it to her.”

  Zeb narrowed his eyes at the shukenja. “You know, you are very cunning for a priestess.”

  Amatesu looked at him levelly. “I had bad training in my youth.”

  Zeb rose and balanced the board, made his way out the door and around to the table where Tilda sat. She saw him coming but hardly glanced over before staring again off into the crowd where John had disappeared. Her shoulders were slumped and her face, normally so expressive and warm, was only blank.

  Zeb set the board down in front of her, and Tilda thanked him absently.

  “Anything else, Ma’am? Buttered scone? Turtle soup? Pickled orc foot? Bucket of whiskey?”

  Tilda glanced up and Zeb straightened, snapping his heels.

  “Cheddar wheel? Sparrow shish kebab? Squirrel surprise? Groggy varmint?”

  Tilda broke into a smile despite herself. “Groggy varmint?”

  “’Tis how you know they are fresh, Ma’am.”

  Tilda laughed, and it was the best thing Zeb had heard all day. She finally noticed the coffee and clapped both hands, then started dumping sugar into the cup and stirring. Zeb sat down next to her as innocuously as possible.

  “You’re a very strange man, Zebulon,” Tilda said, taking a sip and closing her eyes with a contented sigh. It was very good coffee, Zeb had thought.

  Tilda opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were nut brown and a slight squint gave them an almond shape as well.

  “What happened to you?” she asked. “When you went through the gate?”

  “Was I less strange before that?”

  “Not really. I am just wondering.”

  Zeb frowned and scratched his head. “I don’t know if I can really say. I mean, one moment I was on the dais, then I fell into deep snow. A woman helped me up…”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes, in furs and a scarf. There was a man there, a one-armed mage with a staff, but only the woman spoke. She called me by name, told me to run through the next gate, and then pushed me through one standing in the snow.”

  “Through another gate?” Tilda asked.

  “Yes, it looked like the one in the tower but it was made out of giant tusks instead of metal. When I went through it, I fell out into woods. Nice woods. Trees, and flowers, and a blue sky above. I could hear water, like a stream, and it all seemed…familiar, somehow.”

  “It sounds like it was pleasant,” Tilda said, looking very earnestly at Zeb. He nodded.

  “It was. I think…I think I might have stayed. But the woman in the snow had told me not to, so I ran through a third gate. Shaped like the others but made from the trunks of trees.”

  “Why did you do what she told you?”r />
  Zeb shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. She seemed worried about me, and I trusted her. She told me to go, so I did. And then I ran back into the tower, and into you.”

  Tilda’s smile slowly returned at the left side of her mouth. “I remember,” she said. “That is what I mean. You’re a very strange man. That may be why strange things happen to you.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “Though really, that was only the fourth or fifth strangest thing that happened that day.”

  “Sure,” Tilda nodded. “Nesha-tari turned into about half a lion.”

  “Right. And a big Black Dragon yelled at us.”

  Tilda nodded. “Amatesu got shot by a demoness in skin-tight leather.”

  Zeb frowned. “Darn. I actually didn’t see that demon. I saw the big pig-ape. And an upstart Circle Wizard teleported us twice without killing us. You know, falling through two or three magic gates may have been the least strange thing that happened.”

  “Maybe so,” Tilda said. “I even think you might actually have hit one of the hobgoblins you were aiming at. Maybe.”

  “Hey!” Zeb said, and Tilda laughed again, white teeth showing brilliantly in the morning sun on the shaded porch. He had about gathered his nerve enough to touch her hand or maybe even try and kiss her, but was disturbed by heavy footfalls pounding up the porch stairs.

  “Heggenauer!” Tilda cried happily, and Zeb turned to find the blonde priest nodding at them, washed and cleanly garbed but with his steel breastplate all battered and dented.

  “Matilda. Zebulon.”

  “How is it a priest happens by the second you’re about to kiss a pretty girl?” Zeb whined.

  Heggenauer raised an eyebrow, but smirked. “Sorry, we learn it in the temple seminary. Matilda, is the Duchess Claudja about?”

  “Call me Tilda, and no. Still asleep.”

  Heggenauer frowned, but nodded at them both and stepped inside the inn. Zeb turned back toward Tilda, who was looking at him with her eyes soft, and a thoughtful purse to her lips that was quite distracting.

  “We’re you really going to try and kiss me just then?”

  “Um. Yes. It depends. How many daggers do you have on your person right now?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  Zeb blinked, but Tilda’s mouth widened into a lopsided smirk that made his stomach feel fluttery.

  She sat up straight, facing him, and folded her hands on the table.

  “Tell me one thing,” she said.

  “Anything.”

  “Just one thing, Zeb. One thing that is not a joke, or a jibe, or something silly. Just one.”

  She was waiting. Zeb took a deep breath, and straightened up on his own chair. He looked Tilda straight in the eyes.

  “The first time I saw you was in the inn across from the Dead Possum. I’d been choked unconscious by a Destroyer of Ayon, and I came-to sprawled across a table in the bar.”

  Tilda nodded that she remembered, but she did not interrupt.

  “The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was you, lying on a bench along the back wall. There was a square of sunlight coming through the window, shining right on your face. I thought for a moment that I had died.”

  “Did I look that bad?” Tilda asked, and Zeb shook his head firmly.

  “No. You were beautiful. I thought I had died, and gone to a better place than I have any right to expect.”

  Tilda stared back at him for what seemed a long time. She gave a short nod.

  “That will do,” she decided. “You may kiss me now.”

  *

  Phin was alone in the room when he awoke, the other fellows having gone off to somewhere. He washed up down the hall and dressed in his least-dirty plain clothes, for wearing the robes of a Circle Wizard here was probably not a good idea. Before he went downstairs to look for the others, his mind turned to other matters. Phin sat on the floor by his bunk and pulled out the leather satchel he had stowed beneath it.

  The book was inside, which still contained one teleport spell, but it was not on Phin’s mind at the moment. Instead he felt along the side of the leathery volume until his fingers touched the spiral shaft of the wand Phin now thought of as the Scepter of Kanderamath. He drew it from the satchel and sat looking at it for several minutes before there was a knock on his door. Phin jerked, startled, and crammed the wand back into the satchel.

  “Hello?” the Duchess Claudja’s voice called through the door. “Is anyone in there?”

  Phin climbed to his feet but instead of putting the satchel away he slung it over his shoulder. He hurried to the door and opened it, and the Duchess smiled up at him.

  “I thought you had all gone,” she said. “Where is everyone?”

  “I just woke up, and was going to look myself. My guess is the common room. Are you hungry…your Grace?”

  Claudja smiled again, and slipped an arm through Phin’s.

  “Famished. And if you please, do dispense with the title. It just seems silly after all that we have been through. Does it not, Phin?”

  “As you wish, Claudja,” he said, and the two walked arm in arm to the stairs and down, Phin hardly even thinking about the Scepter in his satchel.

  The others, minus Nesha-tari and Deskata, were grouped around a table and laughing, probably at something Zeb had said. Tilda saw them coming first and leaped to her feet to hurry toward them, beaming a smile. Claudja shook loose from Phin’s arm and hugged the Miilarkian fondly.

  “I ordered you eggs,” Tilda said. “Is that all right?”

  “Nine Gods, yes,” Claudja said. “Eggs and all the chickens that laid them.”

  Tilda turned to Phin, and to his surprise she hugged him as well.

  “You saved all of us, Phin,” she said, stepping back and smiling at him. “That’s why I’ve decided not to kick you in the belly for knocking me out with a sleep spell.”

  “Obliged,” Phin said.

  “Duchess Perforce,” Heggenauer said solemnly, standing up next to his chair. He bowed from the waist.

  “Really?” Claudja asked. “I have to curtsy in these trousers?”

  “Not necessary, your Grace. I only wish to say that I have arranged for you to meet with the Codian Grand Duke of Doon, as you wished. He shall await your convenience in the First Fort on the old Pirate Cove, anytime after the noon hour.”

  “Heggenauer, thank you,” Claudja said with such deep earnestness that Phin wished he had gotten up early and arranged such a meeting himself, not that he had any idea of how he would have done so.

  “What’s all that about?” Zeb asked, and Tilda gave him a look. He shrugged. “What? It’s a secret?”

  Claudja looked around at the others, and seemed to reach a decision. She took a breath.

  “I have come to the Empire on behalf of my father, Duke Cyril Perforce of Chengdea. The Emperor must be informed posthaste that our Duchy, and all the prominent citizens therein, are prepared to make formal acceptance of the Code of Beoshore. We petition his Imperial Majesty for assistance in our time of travail.”

  Everyone stared, Phin and Heggenauer even more stunned than the others as they were both Codians born.

  “You wish help against Ayzantium, your Grace?” Heggenauer asked.

  “And against the Kingdom of Daul,” Claudja said. “This news will anger the King on the River Throne greatly when it is known, which is why I traveled in secret. Or rather, why I tried to do so.”

  The Duchess looked around at everyone again, and reached out to squeeze Phin and Tilda’s hands.

  “I am telling all of you this now, only so that you may know how profoundly I mean my thanks. For getting me this far.”

  “I so should have charged you more,” Tilda said, and Claudja grinned at her.

  “I would have gone much higher, were you a better barterer.”

  The two of them laughed and hugged again, and cheers went up from the table as the doors behind the bar were pushed open by people bringing food from the kitchen, platters of eggs an
d great bowls of thick Soutermese sausage, spiced with Agintan pepper and wild chives. The party ate, together, and for an hour the thoughts of what came next for each of them were held at bay. It seemed that whatever was to come, it surely must be better than what had gone before.

  *

  The Ayzantine vessel sailed at first light so Nesha-tari left Souterm without returning to the inn, saying goodbye to no one but the Westerners and Zebulon. She did however stand in the stern as the ship left the docks, looking back at the skyline she had first seen little more than a month ago, though it already seemed much longer. She felt no Hunger as of yet, and so was unconcerned by the ship’s crewmen around her. Neither did they leer at Nesha-tari any more than they would have at any other woman.

  She had completed the task given to her by Akroya successfully, slaying Horayachus and keeping the Red Priest’s plans for the Duchess of Chengdea from coming to fruition. Nesha-tari still had no idea if the second thing had really been of any interest to the Blue Dragon, but she could not imagine he would have a problem with it. She had been bidden to sail to Roseille to meet with others in Akroya’s service after the task, and from there she thought surely she would be allowed to return home. Back to the high desert desolation of the Hakalya, and back to the life she had known now for more than a century. She had been waiting for that return since the moment she came down from the desert, and though she was moving toward it now Nesha-tari was still looking back, away from her future.

  The servants of Blue Akroya were a contentious lot, and their cut-throat rivalry for the Dragon’s favor often became literal. They were the only people Nesha-tari had ever known in her life, not counting prey, and they were her most dangerous enemies. There was not one among them who Nesha-tari could even tenuously consider a friend.

  Though Nesha-tari knew it was ridiculous for her to think of any of the people she was now leaving in that way either, she felt something like melancholy as Souterm receded in her sight. Amatesu and Uriako Shikashe had been her companions for months, and the shukenja had told the others their terrible story to demonstrate that they were not so different than was Nesha-tari herself. Little better, and perhaps even worse. The Jobian Kendall Heggenauer, despite his initial revulsion, had put himself between Nesha-tari and Balan, even as the Devil Lord was exposing her for what she truly was. Despite seeing her true form the party had stayed with her, and taken her with them when they escaped Vod’Adia.