Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  No one remembered why the ancient highlords created the tempest, although some scholars had made vague reference to an ancient enemy. The highlords quickly, and occasionally brutally, squashed any such rumor whenever it surfaced.

  Jareen cast off any musings about the tempest or Nibbenar’s highborn. The only history he was interested in was the one he was going to write.

  Several military airships took up positions around the Voulge as it drew near, although none came within half a mile of their vessel. Even in the most heated combat games between overlords, no one ever attacked a principal city. Such an aggressive act was forbidden and would invoke the highlords’ wrath.

  “Pilot, set us as close to the shipyards as you can,” Jareen ordered.

  The pilot nodded and guided the Voulge toward the massive shipbuilding complex sprawled out near the mooring cradles. The shipyard was huge, taking up a large portion of Nibbenar’s overall real estate. If added to the mooring yard, nearly half the city was dedicated to accommodating airships.

  The Voulge settled in a cradle nearest the shipyard. Jareen would have to conduct his search for Rayna Dushane from there, a task that made his feet ache just thinking about it. With no time to waste, Jareen descended the debarkation stairs and hurled himself into the chaotic frenzy of the shipyard.

  He navigated the open streets crowded with cranes and huge wagons loaded with materials pulled by teams of rammox. Unless he got very lucky, it was bound to be an exhausting search. The shipyard cradles were up to a quarter mile apart, and there were nearly a score of them in total. Most, somewhere near a dozen, were busy refitting and repairing existing airships, but Jareen had counted, what looked to him when he flew over, four brand new airships under construction.

  Jareen had no idea whether Rayna would be busy overseeing repairs or new construction, so he started his search at the nearest construction cradle and worked his way deeper into the complex. With his luck, Rayna was not even in the yard, perhaps enjoying a day off. After two hours of fruitlessly searching half a dozen worksites, he was beginning to think that might well be the case.

  Jareen picked out who he thought was likely the next site’s foreman, an overweight man holding a rolled-up work order in one hand while he oversaw a crew replacing some of an airship’s outer hull.

  “Rayna Dushane,” Jareen said, pitching his voice over the constant pounding of numerous hammers.

  The rotund man turned with a grin. “No, Arlen Fitzgerald. Rayna has nicer breasts.”

  “Smaller though,” a man standing nearby quipped.

  “Shut your gob, Scott!”

  “I am looking for Rayna Dushane,” Jareen clarified.

  The jovial smile slipped from Arlen’s round face as he took in Jareen’s porcelain slave mask. “What for?”

  “I want to commission her for a job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “The kind that I need to speak only to her about.”

  Arlen looked Jareen up and down before pointing with his double chin. “Try cradle nine. I’ll warn you now, you best not waste her time. She hates that.”

  “I am sure my project will interest her.”

  Arlen grabbed Jareen by the arm as he turned away. “Hey, don’t say nothing about my breasts wisecrack. It was just a joke, but she’s not known for her sense of humor.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  Jareen continued his trek through the yard and found cradle nine after another half hour of searching. Picking Rayna out of the work crew was a much easier task. Not only were women a steep minority in the shipyard, her high voice cut through the air as she barked orders at the crews performing a major refit of an older airship.

  She wore a head wrap typical of the populace, its face covering dangling over her shoulder. Cropped brown hair stuck out below the headdress and brushed her shoulders. She was middle-aged, perhaps a few years younger than Jareen, and quite attractive even with a hard day’s worth of dirt covering her face.

  Jareen walked up behind her. “Rayna Dushane?”

  The woman turned and scowled. “What?”

  “I would like a moment to speak with you.”

  “I don’t talk to people whose face I can’t see.”

  Jareen sighed and slipped off the mask that felt as much a part of him as any appendage. “Better?”

  Rayna shrugged indifferently. “What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you about a job.”

  “I have a job, and five more after this one. Get in line. Maybe I can get to you in a couple of years.”

  “I’m afraid this one has some urgency to it.”

  “They all do. Let me guess, your master needs his yacht spruced up to host some gala.”

  Jareen shook his head. “That’s not it at all. I think you will find this job particularly interesting.”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “I would rather not discuss it here. Can we meet privately?”

  Rayna’s scowl deepened. “Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you have a ship job, then spit it out, but like I said, there’s a queue, and I don’t have control over it no matter what I think.”

  Jareen leaned closer. “Even if it means a blow against the highborn?”

  Rayna took a step back. “Who are you?”

  “That’s not important. What is important is that we share the same views when it comes to the treatment of the lowborn.”

  “We don’t share a damn thing. Now, get out of my sight. I have work to do.”

  Jareen tried to chase after her when she turned away. “If you would just hear me out.”

  Rayna spun back around, pulled a spanner from her belt, and raised it threateningly. “I said we’re done!”

  Three men nearby jogged over. “This guy giving you a problem, Rayna?” one asked.

  “No, he was just leaving.”

  “You heard her,” the man said. “Git, before you accidently get a timber dropped on your fancy landlubber head.”

  Jareen cast Rayna a pleading look. Knowing he would get nowhere with her now, he turned and walked away. He slipped his mask back over his face, partly because it felt so comfortable to him, but also to hide his smile. She had reacted precisely as he had expected.

  CHAPTER 20

  Nibbenar’s populated sector was much smaller than Velaroth’s, greatly decreasing the number of taverns Jareen had to search, but his unfamiliarity with the city created its own delays. Jareen narrowed his search to the taverns located near the shipyards, those frequented almost entirely by construction workers and devoid of any highborn patronage.

  Pausing outside the latest of just over half a score of similar establishments he had thus far visited, Jareen glanced at the emblem carved in the doorframe before entering. It was the fourth meeting house he had located in the past few hours, but none had yielded results.

  It was getting late, and the taverns were just starting to empty, the workers exhausted from a hard day’s labor and reaching the limits of their meager income. As usual, all eyes flicked to the stranger when he entered, but they seemed to linger just a little longer than usual and appeared a bit more unwelcoming than the looks Jareen had received on his previous visits. It gave him a good feeling that he was in the right place.

  Despite the vast differences between his city and Nibbenar, it appeared as though all taverns shared nearly identical building plans regardless of location. He passed between the long tables and made his way toward a back room. As he expected, a pair of large men stood up near the door and blocked his way.

  “Nothing back there for you,” one of the men said, stopping Jareen by pressing a meaty palm against his chest.

  Jareen glanced from the big hand to the man’s face. “Spanner,” he said, using a passphrase he had decoded from his wife’s journal.

  “That one’s long past.”

  Jareen shrugged and smiled. “It has been a very long trip.”

  The man looked at the mask hanging from Jareen’
s belt with obvious suspicion. Highborn slaves had no business being in this part of the city.

  “What do you want?”

  “I have urgent business I need to discuss with Rayna. Arlen told me I should meet her here,” Jareen added when the sentry looked about to rebuff him once more.

  The man’s eyes flicked to his compatriot before nodding. “All right, but if Rayna doesn’t want to talk to you, my friend and I are going to take you out into the alley and break both your legs.”

  “I expect nothing less.”

  The man opened the door and ushered Jareen in ahead of him. “Rayna, this fellow says you wanted to talk to him.”

  Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned toward Jareen, none of them friendly, least of all Rayna’s.

  “I said everything I had to say to you,” Rayna said, her voice matching the hostility in her eyes.

  “There was still more I had to say,” Jareen countered.

  The door guard glared at Jareen. “Looks like we’re going out back.”

  “Hold on a minute, Gregor,” Rayna said. “You can beat him after he answers a few questions. Sit,” she ordered Jareen.

  Gregor grabbed an unoccupied chair and slammed it before Jareen with a loud clunk. He clamped a strong hand painfully onto Jareen’s shoulder and forced him to take a seat.

  “How did you find us?” Rayna asked.

  “It wasn’t that hard. I just went from bar to bar until I found the one that was least welcoming.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “As I said, I need you and a few people of your choosing to help build me an airship.”

  “Why me? There are no less than a dozen shipwrights in Nibbenar. Why does it have to be me?”

  “Because your name seems to keep being mentioned. It makes me certain that you are the one I need.”

  Rayna narrowed her eyes. “Mentioned by whom?”

  “Atin Cienne, for one.”

  “And how do you know Atin?”

  “His name was mentioned the first time I heard yours.”

  “Again, by whom?” Rayna asked once more, the tone of her voice growing increasingly dangerous.

  Jareen raised his hands before him, palms up, “Chief Inquisitor Quinlan.”

  The faces in the room flashed between a mix of fury and fear. Heads whipped around and eyes sought out every shadow as if Quinlan might suddenly crawl out of a crack in the wall and strike them all down.

  “You idiot!” Rayna shouted. “You probably led him right to us!”

  “I made sure I was not followed,” Jareen replied.

  “Your master is one of the most powerful sorcerers in the empire. Do you not have a clue as to how magic works?”

  Gregor cracked open the door, peered through, and slammed it shut again. “We got gendarmes coming!”

  Rayna glared at Jareen, who did not budge from his chair. “If they don’t kill us all, know that I will murder you! Quickly, everyone out the back.”

  Rayna darted across the room with the others close behind her and opened a secret panel in the wall. Instead of running through to freedom, she stopped and backed away. Quinlan appeared with several gendarmes at his back and stepped into the room with a wide smile spread across his face.

  Rayna jerked a knife from the sheath at her hip, but instead of trying to kill the inquisitor, she threw herself at Jareen. Quinlan made a brushing motion as if to shoo away a pesky insect. Rayna’s feet left the floor and she crashed into the wall hard enough to daze her.

  “Come now,” Quinlan said. “I shall be very displeased with anyone who would deny me the pleasure of hanging a traitor.” He looked at Jareen still sitting with an expression that bore no more concern than if Quinlan were his waiter. “Jareen, you seem to have more trouble making friends than any man I have ever met.”

  “It does not appear to be one of my talents,” Jareen replied.

  The door crashed open and another dozen gendarmes shoved into the room with weapons drawn. No one tried to fight them. Taken by surprise and greatly outnumbered, the workers knew it to be a futile gesture. The only act of defiance they could raise was to cast looks of hatred between Quinlan and Jareen, both men receiving silent promises of death should the opportunity arise.

  ***

  Jareen found himself in a familiar room. Apparently, taverns were not the only buildings to share a similar design. Other than the type of stone used in its construction, Nibbenar’s gendarmerie was almost identical to the one he had visited in Velaroth. Being interrogated by the same inquisitor gave him a severe case of déjà vu.

  Quinlan did not even attempt to hide the smugness in his smile. “I have you this time, Jareen, and not even your master, no matter how valuable he might think you are or how much he impresses the highlords with his powder, will be able to save you.”

  Jareen gave the inquisitor a look of feigned innocence. “Save me from what exactly?”

  “You met with a group of known dissidents. Do you deny it?”

  “I do not deny meeting with the people with whom I was arrested, but that is not the real question.”

  “Please, enlighten me as to what the real question is.”

  “The real question is to whom were they known? Certainly not to me.”

  Quinlan’s smile slid from his face until it drooped into a scowl. “If you did not know they were dissidents, then why did you meet with them? Why did you specifically approach Rayna Dushane at the shipyards and later at the tavern?”

  Jareen shrugged. “She was the only shipwright I knew by name, a name I got from you. I asked you then if you suspected her of having done anything wrong and you evaded the question. Sah Auberon sent me to Nibbenar to find a shipwright in order to complete his task for the emperor, and that is all I am doing. But once again, you are interfering in my duty, delaying not just me, but Sah Auberon, Overlord Caelen, the highlords, and Emperor Arikhan himself. You told me that I seem to have the most trouble making friends of any man you have ever met, but I think you have me beat. You are about to displease Eidolan’s entire ruling class if you continue to interfere.”

  Quinlan stood straight and tried to appear more confident than he felt. “I am fully within my rights to detain you on suspicion of treason and conspiracy. I will message Phaer with my evidence and build my case while I await their reply.”

  Jareen smiled and nodded. “You can do that. It is six weeks each way by airship, three if you use fully staffed courier vessels. You are looking at a minimum of a month before you receive an answer, time during which I should be doing the emperor’s bidding, time lost that can never be recovered. If the highlords disagree with your conclusions, which are based entirely upon circumstantial evidence, they are fully within their rights to reduce you to a bubbling pile of offal.”

  Quinlan dropped into the chair opposite Jareen and drummed his fingers on the table’s metal surface. “Perhaps I have acted rashly.”

  “That’s all right; it happens to the best of men when they are passionate about their duty. You and I are not dissimilar in that regard.”

  “That does not mean that I think I am wrong about you. You will make a mistake, Jareen, and I will be there when you do. However, I must focus on what I have now, and that is a cell full of suspected dissidents. Nibbenar’s gendarmes, under my direction, have been keeping a close eye on that bunch, along with others, for some time, but as you said, our evidence is circumstantial. Were they run-of-the-mill lowborn, it would be enough to convict them. But seeing as how some of them are shipwrights, the overlord requires a bit more certainty. Perhaps you overheard them plotting treasonous activity. If you testified to such, I would be inclined to agree that your meeting with them was pure happenstance and played no part in their conspiracy against the emperor.”

  Jareen nodded, seeing where Quinlan was leading him. “You have seen the documents of procurement in my satchel that Sah Auberon and Overlord Caelen drafted.”

  “I have. What of them?”

  “I need shipwri
ghts. You need to make a conviction. If I can get at least some of them to confess or turn on the others, will you sentence them to the mines instead of hanging? That way, they are no longer a threat to the empire but still of use. I have my workers and you have your conviction. Everyone wins, except for the traitors who would probably prefer death over spending the rest of their lives in the mines. What say you?”

  Quinlan pondered his options a moment before speaking. “I say you are leading me by the nose, and I do not like it one bit. However, I cannot argue the benefits of such an arrangement. Very well, I will forward your master and Overlord Caelen’s request to Overlord Donas, but remember what I said. When you misstep, I will be there to witness it, and I will take great pleasure in the misery I will draw from your body and soul before you die.”

  “It sounds as though we have an accord.”

  ***

  Rayna looked up from the metal table at the sound of the door opening. The torturing would likely take place in a room better suited to such a gruesome task, so she assumed it was Chief Inquisitor Quinlan returning to further interrogate her. Her eyes betrayed a brief moment of surprise when Jareen walked in and sat before her as she cast him a baleful glare.

  “I knew you were with them,” Rayna said with a look of disgust.

  Jareen glanced over his shoulder and waited for the door to shut before speaking. “Do you know if we are being eavesdropped on?”

  “What?”

  “You are not just a shipwright. You could pilot an airship if you had to. As you said, my master is one of the greatest sorcerers in the empire. I have learned to identify people with magical talent.”

  Rayna stared at Jareen a moment before closing her eyes and concentrating. “Not that I can tell. My gift is not strong, barely enough to warrant a status elevation.”

  “But still sufficient, so why relegate yourself to a freeborn shipwright?”

  “Because unlike you, I am not willing to betray my kind for the sake of personal luxury.”

  “You make a great many assumptions as to my character as well as my motivations.”