Eye of the Labyrinth

by Jennifer Fallon

  The man thought about it for a moment and then broke into a broad grin and offered Dirk his hand. “My name’s Davros. What’s yours?”

  “Little Antonov,” Dirk replied with a grin, accepting the handshake. “What’s the stake to play?”

  “Ten dorns.”

  “I’ve only got five,” Dirk lied. He wasn’t going to gamble every last dorn he owned. It seemed only fair that Davros share some of the risk.

  Davros patted his pockets with a frown. “I’ve not got a purse on me at present. Here! This should make up the stake.” He pulled a slender silver chain from the pocket of his vest and held it up for Dirk to examine. At the end of chain was a tiny bow and arrow, wrought of fine silver.

  “It’s very pretty,” Dirk remarked, not sure of its value.

  “It’s just a trinket, really,” the older man shrugged. “I made it for my niece, but she’s got so much jewelery now she’ll not appreciate it. Tell you what—if we win, you can keep it and I’ll buy her something really impressive with my share of the winnings.”

  “That seems fair.”

  “Are you sure you want to try this?”

  Dirk nodded.

  “Let’s do it then,” Davros agreed with a laugh.

  It took Ingo another three or four moves to beat the young scribe and his friend. The two young men walked from the table, looking forlorn and rather surprised that they had been beaten. Ingo rose to his feet and accepted the applause of the crowd in a manner that reminded Dirk sharply of Marqel, back when she was just a simple acrobat on Elcast. It was something to do with performers, he thought. They all had that same manner, that same hunger for acknowledgment, for public acclamation.

  “So who’s next?” Ingo called to the crowd.

  “That’d be me!” Davros called back, stepping up to the podium.

  Ingo turned and smiled benevolently at him. “Ah, my old friend Davros the Silversmith! Haven’t you suffered enough public humiliation?”

  “Apparently not,” Davros replied. The crowd laughed and applauded him as he took the seat opposite Ingo and began to reset the board. Dirk moved around behind his chair and studied the placement of the pieces carefully.

  “I see you’ve brought reinforcements this time,” Ingo said, glancing at Dirk as he resumed his seat.

  “This is Little Antonov,” Davros said, by way of introduction. “He’s from Avacas.”

  “Then this shouldn’t take very long at all,” said Ingo. “Your move, Davros. White always goes first.”

  Chapter 43

  Alenor had never seen a corpse before. She had never seen a body so devoid of humanity or eyes so blank and lifeless. The dead man was laid out on a slab in a small room at the back of the cells in the detention block that the Queen’s Guard used to hold criminals awaiting the queen’s justice. This was the first time she had been in this part of the barracks. The roughly dressed stone walls stank of stale urine and fear, which was only partly masked by the sharp smell of lye soap.

  She was a little surprised that the smell of the mortuary or the sight of the cadaver didn’t make her swoon. Wasn’t that the appropriate thing for ladies of good breeding to do when confronted by something so brutal?

  Alenor didn’t know who the corpse was. The freshly dead body had been provided by the Brotherhood in exchange for concessions from the Queen’s Guard that Alenor was sure she didn’t want to know about. The man had been in his late thirties, she guessed. His hair was dark brown, his half-open, lifeless eyes an unusual shade of green, but other than that, there was nothing remarkable about him. He had died badly, though, obviously the victim of some terrible torment at the hands of his executioners. She wondered what he had done to run afoul of the Brotherhood.

  “Who is he?” the Lion of Senet asked.

  Alenor looked to Alexin for the answer.

  “His name was Jules Stark,” the captain informed him. “He was a petty thief, a gambler and a drug runner. We captured him during a raid on a dust den near the wharves.”

  Alenor had heard of dust dens. They were usually hidden in out-of-the-way places in the seedier parts of the city, and provided a haven for those who craved an illegal dose of poppy-dust, along with those who traded in it.

  “And why do you think that this corpse would be of any interest to me?” Antonov asked.

  “Because we found this on him, your highness,” Alenor said, handing him a small envelope.

  Antonov accepted it from her and examined the broken seal before opening it. He pulled out the folded sheet of parchment inside and took a few moments to read the contents of the letter, his expression betraying nothing. Alenor knew what the letter said. She had helped Alexin compose it. It had been quite a chore to come up with the right words—vague enough to make the letter appear genuine, yet specific enough to convey exactly what they wanted.

  Antonov looked up at her. “You’ve read this?”

  Alenor nodded. Over and over, she was tempted to say. “Yes, your highness.”

  “And what do you think it means?”

  “I wasn’t sure, your highness. That’s why I ordered my guard to interrogate him.”

  Antonov looked down at the broken, battered corpse. “Your guard is as ham-fisted as they are incompetent, Alenor. They killed him.”

  “But not before we learned what we wanted to know, your highness,” Alexin pointed out, looking a little offended.

  “Which was?” Antonov prompted impatiently.

  “Stark is Damitian. He’d just arrived in Kalarada when we apprehended him. It turns out he’s been supplying poppy-dust to a select list of customers in Kalarada for years. Most of his clients were merchants, even a few palace functionaries. Some of the names we extracted from him were Senetian, your highness.”

  Antonov did not look pleased. “And the others?”

  “Nobody really important. Except for one name.”

  “Do you have a particular taste for the dramatic, Captain, or are you trying to drag this out for as long as possible just to irritate me?”

  “The name he gave was Neris Veran,” Alenor blurted out, suddenly fearful for Alexin.

  Antonov turned to look at her. “Neris Veran is dead.”

  “Not according to this man,” Alexin said. “He claimed to know him; claimed that he’d seen him as recently as a few weeks ago. In Damita. According to Stark, he fled to Damita at the end of the War of Shadows and has been enjoying the protection of Prince Oscon ever since.”

  It was not an unreasonable scenario. Oscon of Damita had been the only ruler of means to side with Johan Thorn, although since being defeated on the battlefield, the old prince had retreated into exile, leaving his son Baston to rule his principality. Damita was still nominally an independent nation, but with Baston on the throne, it was hard to tell where Damita ended and Senet began.

  “And you expect me to believe that this man was supplying Neris Veran with poppy-dust?”

  Alenor shrugged helplessly, her innocence all the more convincing because she was genuinely afraid of what she had got herself involved in. “I don’t know, your highness. I don’t even know if the information is genuine.”

  “It might be a clever ruse by the pirates to throw me off the scent.”

  “Really?” she asked, suddenly feeling faint. This is never going to work. He’s going to realize this man has been dead for too long. He’s going to know that he didn’t die here under interrogation. Somebody probably saw them bringing in the body. He probably knows everything and is just toying with us, to see how deeply we’re involved ...

  “You’ve been duped, Alenor,” Antonov announced suddenly.

  “Your highness? I ... I don’t understand.”

  Antonov smiled at her indulgently. “Of course you don’t understand, my dear. That’s why you should have come to me as soon as you arrested this man, not let your bumbling Guardsmen handle it.”

  “Sire, we interrogated the man for hours,” Alexin objected.

  “And learned precisely
what he wanted you to hear, Captain. Interrogation is an exact science, and I seriously doubt that any of your men has the experience to do it properly.”

  “But why would someone try to do such a thing?” she asked, her confusion quite genuine.

  “You’re to be married soon, Alenor. There are any number of people who’d like to prevent that from happening.”

  “But the letter—”

  “A carefully worded plant designed to pique my interest. It’s obviously not genuine. The grammar is far too exact, the language much too fluent, to be the work of a barely educated petty thief.” Antonov looked down at the corpse again with a frown. “I suspect the intent was to make us think this man knew where Neris Veran was, in the belief that I would drop everything and go charging off to Damita to search for him.”

  “But what if the information is genuine?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Neris is dead, Alenor. For years Johan Thorn was able to distract me by making me think otherwise. This is simply proof that they have nobody with even a fraction of his wit to lead them now.” Antonov laughed softly. He appeared genuinely amused. “As if I would fall for anything so clumsy.”

  “What should we do?”

  Antonov smiled at her. “There’s no need for you to worry about that, Alenor. I’ll take care of it.”

  She nodded slowly and lowered her eyes so he could not see her fear. Fortunately, it made her look submissive, rather than deceitful. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring this man to your attention sooner, your highness. I’ll know next time.”

  “I’m sure you will. Come now; let’s return to the palace. These gloomy dungeons are no place for a young lady.”

  Alenor nodded meekly and accepted the arm the Lion of Senet offered her. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on Antonov, afraid that if she caught Alexin’s eye, she would betray them all.

  Antonov had not believed them, but according to the message the Baenlanders had sent her, that didn’t really matter. It was not actually Antonov this intrigue had been designed to trap. All she could do now was wait and let the seeds they had planted sprout in more fertile soil.

  In fact, nobody would know if their ploy had been successful until Antonov had a chance to speak to Belagren.

  Chapter 44

  Tia had developed a theory about human behavior over a number of years, mostly based on her observations of Neris. As far as she could tell, the human brain had a finite capacity. You could only fit so much into one head and, according to her theory, high intelligence came at a price. A person’s intelligence, she hypothesized, was in direct proportion to his common sense, and the more you had of one, then the less you seemed to have of the other.

  She felt her theory had been totally vindicated when she emerged clean and contented from her bath, only to learn from the innkeeper that her “brother” had left a message saying he was going for a walk to have a closer look at Bollow’s unique architecture.

  Tia was quite willing to accept that, like her father, Dirk Provin had one of those odd minds that saw things nobody else could see. She had overheard enough of his conversations with Neris to know the two of them shared a love for something most people could not even comprehend (although in truth, it was the conversations she had not overhead that really worried her). Neris had tried to explain his fascination with numbers to her once. He had spoken of the elegance of mathematics, of the beauty and simplicity of something so pure that it could never be corrupted.

  To Tia, he had sounded like a man in love.

  But having the ability to calculate in your head how much the world weighed did not excuse one for acts of blind stupidity, which was what Tia considered Dirk’s little excursion to be. A few hours before, he had been diving into alleys to avoid the Sundancers, and now he was off on a trip to see the sights. The sheer idiocy of it left her gasping.

  What if he was recognized? What if he inadvertently ran afoul of the City Guard? Or worse, what if he was up to something? Suppose at this very moment he was betraying her? Perhaps, any minute now, the City Guard would come marching through that door to arrest her ...

  It’s my fault, she realized. I should never have let him out of my sight.

  “Your brother’s back, miss,” the innkeeper informed her, pointing to the entrance of the taproom. He was a heavyset man with a barrel chest and quick eye for the needs of his customers. Since she had inquired about her “brother’s” whereabouts, he had been watching the door almost as closely as Tia.

  Tia’s head spun round to find Dirk standing in the doorway, looking around the room for her. She waved to get his attention. As soon as he caught sight of her, he headed across to the small table she had commandeered near the kitchen door.

  “Where have you been, Little Antonov?” she hissed as soon he sat down on the stool opposite.

  “I thought I’d visit the Lord of the Suns and ask him to send a message to the High Priestess informing her of our plans,” he told her blandly, raising his hand in the direction of the innkeeper to indicate he wanted a drink.

  Tia glared at him. “You just can’t give me a straight answer, can you? You’ve always got some glib, sarcastic come-back.”

  “Well, what did you think I was doing, Tia?”

  “I thought you were probably ...” she hesitated and then shrugged, feeling a little sheepish, “ ...doing something like sending a message to the High Priestess informing her of our plans, actually.”

  Dirk smiled. “Well, there you go. I didn’t let you down.”

  She sighed heavily. “Where did you really go, Dirk?”

  “I went for a walk.”

  “We’ve just walked four hundred miles,” she reminded him. “And we’ve another two hundred to go. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  “It’s a different sort of walking. I like new places. I like getting a feel for different cities.”

  “We’re supposed to be saving the world, Little Antonov, not broadening your horizons.” She stopped while the innkeeper placed a foaming tankard in front of Dirk and then waited until he had returned to his counter before continuing. “Just because you’re highborn and you missed out on your grand tour of the mainland when you turned eighteen, doesn’t mean you can use this little expedition to make up for it. What you did was stupid.”

  “And to think I was hoping you’d be in a better mood once you’d had a bath,” he remarked, taking a sip from his ale.

  “Don’t try making this my fault. My mood was just fine until I discovered you’d gone sightseeing.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You damn well should be,” she agreed.

  He was silent for a moment, looking suitably chastened. Then he reached into his pocket. “Would you forgive me if I gave you a present?”

  His question stunned her. “You bought me a present? Why? ”

  Dirk placed a small pendant on the table, attached to a fine silver chain. She picked it up curiously and discovered it was a tiny bow and arrow, wrought of fine silver wire.

  The necklace was exquisite, and he had probably wasted their last coin on it. “How much did this cost?”

  “Not as much as you think.”

  “That’s not an answer. Did you steal it?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  “Do we have any money left?”

  “Lots, actually.”

  Tia fingered the delicate bow for a moment, thinking she had never seen anything so pretty. Then she frowned. “What have you been up to, Dirk?”

  “I discovered a delightful new game called Rithma. Turns out I’m quite good at it.”

  “You’ve been gambling?”

  “Not really. Gambling implies taking a chance. I was pretty sure I could win, so it wasn’t much of a gamble at all.”

  “Don’t split hairs. How much did you win?” she asked suspiciously. “Exactly.”

  “One hundred and eighty-seven silver dorns,” he told her. “And the necklace.”

  Tia was speechless. That would buy more than a few su
pplies. For that money, they could hire a coach and four to drive them to Omaxin. “I can’t believe you’d do anything so damn stupid! Suppose you’d lost?”

  “I told you. I knew I could win so it wasn’t really gambling.” He held out his hand for the pendant. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take the necklace and the money back.”

  Tia glared at him. “That’s right. Go back to the game and offer to return your winnings. Then they’ll be certain not to remember you.”

  “Good point. I guess you’ll just have to keep it.”

  He looked far too smug. He must have known there would be no way to return it without causing a fuss.

  “I don’t understand why you thought I’d want this. I’m not some silly girl with nothing better to do than preen herself in front of a mirror all day. I don’t wear jewelry.”

  “I doubt if wearing a simple necklace will cause you to start swooning, Tia.”

  Tia got the feeling that somewhere behind those steel-gray eyes he was laughing at her. “What else did you buy?” she asked, deciding it might be safer to change the subject.

  “Nothing yet. I thought we could go through the markets tomorrow before we leave and replenish our supplies. And unless you expect me to work out everything with a stick in the dirt, we need to buy some writing materials, too. Parchment and ink, maybe some charcoal sticks.”

  “Now that we can afford to,” she snapped, jiggling the tiny bow and its chain in front of him.

  “Look, if it annoys you that much, I’ll get rid of it,” he suggested. “I might be able to sell it ...”

  “No,” she declared, slipping the chain into her pocket. “You’re not going to do anything of the kind. You’ve caused enough trouble already. I’m not going to allow you to compound the damage by trying to make it better.”

  Dirk took another sip of ale and made no further attempt to argue about it, which Tia thought a little strange. She sometimes thought Dirk quarreled with her just because he could.

  “Why don’t you go take a bath? You stink.”

  He took a large swallow of the ale, and then nodded and climbed to his feet. “Good idea. You’ll be here when I get back?”