Bardian's Redemption: Book Four of the Guardian's Vambrace (The Guardian Vambrace 4)

by H. Jane Harrington

  “What do you mean by spying on us like this?” Dailan commanded.

  “I wasn't spying,” Emmi argued, insulted. “I was checking to see if you were awake. Didn't want to barge in and bother you if you were sleeping like him.” She pointed to the peeky hole in the nook that aimed at the bed on the far side of the chamber.

  Dailan shoved Emmi aside and stuck his eye to the hole. His Majesty was still out sound. Shunatar's chair was empty so he must have still been with chatting with the Magister. Or doing other things with her, judging from the time he'd been gone. “Pirates don't know how to knock?”

  “I did. Five times. You didn't answer so I figured you were napping.”

  “I'm not the napping type,” Dailan said. “Your ankle looks better.”

  “Hessalin's a good healer,” Emmi shrugged. “She said I should stay off it for a day or two, but it feels fine to me. I was thinking we could go after your sword. If you can keep up with me.”

  “Keep up?”

  “You're slow as molasses in a blizzard,” Emmi taunted.

  “Am not. I can run circles around you.”

  “Only takes me ten minutes to get home from Maylen Green. Took you close to thirty yesterday.” Emmi's cheek bulged like she was funning him, but Dailan didn't know her well enough yet for that kind of familiar ribbing.

  “That's 'cause I was lugging a gimpy wenchlet on my back. You try making it from Maylen in ten with a red sack of pig iron slung across yours.”

  Emmi's face matched the color of her hair and she looked like she was fixing to haul off and slap him, but her jaw clenched instead of her fist. “You shrimpy dullard! I bet I can beat you to Maylen. I'll even give you a head start.”

  “You're on.”

  They bolted through the servieways, hellbent for the Green.

  Even with the head start, Dailan made it to Maylen at the same time Emmi did. She knew short cuts up other streets. Dailan only knew the path he had taken the day before, so she had an advantage. They panted and leaned against the back wall of the laundry to catch their breaths.

  “I kinda won,” he said between pants.

  “We got here the same,” she countered. “And you started first. So that means I'm faster.”

  “It means you know the area better than me,” Dailan said.

  “Fine. It's a tie,” Emmi said with a triumphant smile. She was thinking in her mind that she was still the winner.

  The crafty wenchlet could go on believing whatever delusions suited her. It wasn't worth wasting breath over. Deynartrial was the important thing. “So where'd you stash my sword?”

  “Cut your tow line. I'll tell you. Just let me rest my ankle for a minute.”

  “I thought your ankle was fine.”

  “It is. I just need to rest it is all. Hessalin told me to keep it up today and I just did the opposite, running all through White Tower for you.”

  Dailan ignored the obvious goad and shrugged. “You're not in much of a hurry to give my sword back. You courtalelihs may not have much else pressing to do, but there's them of us gotta make a living. While I'm sitting here killing time with you, I could be out lifting our next meal.”

  “Don't fret on that. I have it on good authority you'll be staying at Chalice House. For a little while, at least. Bressalin told me this morning your Master Tosh agreed to it.”

  “Makes sense, I reckon. Tosh is almighty worried for his brother. This is the best care he's got since we came to Havenlen. Sure beats a roof for a bed.”

  “Good thing you met me,” Emmi joked, but she was serious, too.

  “Good thing we were pinching the same pouch, you mean,” Dailan corrected. “Why do you need to be a nabber, anyway? You got it made at Chalice House, being a courtalelih. I doubt you want for nothing if you just ask for it.”

  “I'm a pirate,” Emmi reminded him.

  “Not without a wavebuster. And by the way, the Magister called you Emerald Bounty last night. You told me that's the name of your father's ship.”

  “It is.”

  “You're named after a ship?”

  “Nope. Cappah—that's my father—he named her after me,” Emmi said with a grand falutin smile. She blinked her shiny green eyes to remind Dailan where the Emerald came from.

  “You're peculiar, even for a pirate. Especially for a pirate,” Dailan breathed, running his hand through his hair. “What do you do with your stash? Give it to the needy like your Cappah?”

  “Not usually. I'm not all so noble as my Cappah,” Emmi said. She looked like she wanted to share something but wasn't sure if she should. She glanced down at a bulky leather pouch that swung at her hip. She rubbed it between her fingers for a minute, and the simple act made the decision for her. “You're right, I don't really need to be pinching when I have it so good at Chalice House. Truth is, I've been needing the lorans for my collection. I'll show you, if you want to see. But you can't tell anyone.”

  “I won't.”

  Emmi held her pinky toward Dailan. “Swear it?”

  “Fine,” Dailan huffed. He wrapped his little finger around hers and chanted the standard vow. “Cut off my finger, punch til I die. I'll swallow a thousand needles if I lie.”

  Emmi tugged the cord and slipped her hand inside the pouch. It came up with a brass and copper trinket, about as big as his whole open palm. It was round with two flat ends. It reminded Dailan a bit of a giant acorn. Emmi twisted the middle crease and the thing opened up. It unfolded in thin layers like the petals of a flower, each one carved with details of grass and cobbled roadways. Small structures like buildings, trees, towers and a fountain folded upwards from each level until the whole thing looked like a miniature landscaped town. In the very center of the contraption was the largest building, a towering spire of a palace. Dailan imagined forest pixies could live quite comfortably in the thing. Emmi pushed a button on the underside of the hull and a tiny key popped out, which she wound a few times. The brass layers took to swirling and moving, as if the town was alive and dancing to some music that was too small for Dailan's ears.

  “That's pretty fancy! I never seen nothing like it,” Dailan said. He couldn't stop himself from being awed.

  “There's not a scrap of lumanere or magic in this,” Emmi reported. “It works on its own mechanisms. You wind it and the gears inside move.”

  “I just hit up a mechanology convention not long ago. I seen lots of crafty stuff there. Things like this. And I heard talk of ancient gear clocks. They say those old timepieces could run for days without a lick of magic or lumanere in them, just by winding them like this,” Dailan said, gesturing to Emmi's trinket.

  Emmi nodded. “I've seen winder clocks like that before. Not ancient ones, but newly crafted ones. You can buy them in some markets in Havenlen. There are some mechanologists who make them to sell. They have to be quiet about it. Mechanology is a growing movement here, but it's not all that popular in some circles. Since the Keepers of Magic have gone into hiding, it's not so bad anymore and some of the mechanologists at the university are starting to get bolder. But it's still dangerous. You can't flash mechtech around without risking your name going on the Keeper list. They've been known to terrorize good people, just for being pro-mech.”

  “Yeah, I had some run-ins with a few of them cloakers myself. That's probably the best thing Soventine ever done, branding them traitors,” Dailan said without thinking.

  Emmi nodded like she agreed, but she kept her opinion on the matter to herself.

  “So you buy mechanology with the graft you pinch?” Dailan asked.

  “I guess I'm a bit of a collector. Or, I want to be, anyway. Cappah brings me a mechtech piece every year when he comes to Chalice. I got this one discounted, on account of it being broken.”

  “What's wrong with it? Looks like it worked good enough to me,” Dailan noted.

  “It's supposed to play music as it moves. Ivory Dreams on Color Canvases, I think. A professor I know bought it
on the darket as a gift for his daughter, but since it was broken, he sold it to me at a discount.”

  Dailan took the trinket from Emmi's hand and turned it around in his own a few times, looking it over for a feel. “I might could fix it for you,” Dailan offered. “I gotta open it up, though.”

  “Plucking a mechanology convention doesn't make you an expert.”

  “I've always had a knack for mechanisms and such. Came in handy. I'm damn reliable when it comes to springing escapes. I sprung from my last master few years back. Real wencher, that one. He made me sell fraud and pick pockets. Then he'd gamble and drink it all away. He'd beat me if I didn't bring in enough. Sometimes he'd beat me even if I did. On account of me being too shifty-footed to suit his comfort, he'd chain me to his bedpost every night with an old mech lock. But he made the big mistake of teaching me the anatomy of lock innards so I could burgle for him. He took the lock apart, showing me the workings, making me practice cracking it. I guess he was too chuckleheaded to figure I'd pick my own. First chance I got when he was sloshed, I lit out...” Dailan realized his trap was moving more than was good for him, and he clamped it down before it spilled too much. “Anyhow, I ended up with Tosh and Rel and it all worked out.”

  “Why are you still with those two? If you're so good at escaping, why not dump them and head for Hili? That's where all the escaped slaves go. You'd probably eat better down there than you would with a loser like Tosh and his dimwitted brother.”

  The way Emmi had suggested it wasn't meant to be mean. It was blunt and true, and Dailan usually appreciated such. But the insult to His Majesty wormed up under Dailan's skin. He would have considered returning the insult in the form of his knuckles to her cheek. His months of brawl training with Saiya Kunnai had made Dailan pretty good in a scuffle. Lucky for Emmi, he wasn't inclined to deck wenchlets.

  “Don't you talk that way about Tosh and Rel!” Dailan snapped. “You don't know nothing of 'em, or what they been through. Keep your trap shut about them, or I'll shut it for you.”

  Emmi looked like Dailan had just slapped her in the face with his words. “Sorry. I didn't mean anything. Just seems like you could do better is all.”

  “Tosh and Rel are my family. They're the best anyone can do.” Dailan calmed his boiling down to a dull simmer.

  “Okay then. I just saw you as an independent man of the world who wouldn't be happy in a collar for the whole of his life. I thought maybe you might want more for yourself.”

  Dailan couldn't tell Emmi that he wasn't really a slave. That the collar he wore was just for show. It's power had been killed so it didn't strangle what little bitty crumbs of magic he had. He had to keep up the act. “I do. But for now, they're what I got, and I'm what they got. I owe them. Loyalty is a stronger collar than a lumanere one.”

  Emmi nodded. “I get that. They're lucky to have you, Dainn.”

  “You don't hold for collars, do you? The Dimishuans at Chalice House don't seem like servies.”

  “They're not. They're courtesans, same as the rest. We've never had servies,” Emmi shrugged like it wasn't important, but her manner said otherwise. She thrust out her prize. “So, are you going to fix my trinkabob?”

  Dailan was happy for the change of subject. He checked the base of the music box and found the split where it opened to the inner workings. It was pretty easy to figure which gear turned which layer. Dailan traced them back to the central hub. There was a coil and spring that fed motion to a clinker box. He wasn't sure how he knew. All the parts made sense, almost like they talked to him. The problem was pretty obvious—it was a bent spring that didn't connect into its holey part. It would be a simple fix, but Dailan's fingers were too big to fit down that deep inside the gear compartment.

  “You got a needle or something tiny and thin like that?”

  “I keep a hair pin for lock picking. Would that work?”

  “That'll do.”

  Emmi fished the pin from inside her ponytail and handed it over. It only took a second for Dailan to slip it through the workings to the spring. He worked it back to its housing and tapped it deep. The gear compartment fit back onto the upper casing with a clink that locked it together. Dailan handed the trinkabob back to Emmi.

  “Easy as blusterberry tarts.”

  Emmi turned the key a few times and the levels took to spinning and twirling, complete with the tinny, clanky music that had been missing before.

  “Dulcet! You made that look so easy,” Emmi cheered.

  “It was. Just gotta know how things work together, that's all.”

  “You could be a mechanologist, you know. You're a natural. Maybe you could go to the university someday. The Magister has connections.”

  Dailan raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous notion. “I'm thinking maybe you're collar-blind. In what world do servies school?”

  Emmi opened her mouth like she knew the answer for sure, but she shut it again and shrugged. “Maybe the world's going to change someday.”

  “You talk like the Underground's gonna rise up and become the Aboveground or something,” Dailan scoffed, hoping Emmi couldn't read his face. She couldn't know a word of what Dailan was safeguarding. The world was going to change for collared Dimishuans if His Majesty and Saiya Kunnai got their way. There was a lot standing between their way and the facts.

  “The... the Underground? What makes you bring them up?” She sounded so innocent that it clued Dailan in. She knew something of the super-secret organization, and considering the way Chalice House conducted business, it would stand to reason that the Magister might know how to contact them. Ulivall had told them to find a contact with the Underground, and that would be a way to get word to Hili about where they were. How could he ask without making himself obvious?

  “Well, since you're so concerned about the affairs of us collared and all—”

  Emmi shrugged. Her eyes drifted past Dailan's shoulder like they were looking for an answer on the brick wall. They must not have found it, because they kept on cruising down the alleyway.

  Dailan didn't think Emmi's eyes could get any bigger, but she proved him wrong right about then. She gasped at something happening on the street. “By Brenderia, no!”

  He turned to look, but before Dailan could ask what had caught up her attentions and fits, she bolted down the alley. She skid to a stop in the street, staring after a departing airskiff. The open wagonback was loaded down with barrels, and there was a business name, Raall's Refuse Incineration, painted on the tail hatch.

  “What's got you all flustered?” Dailan called as he tailed her.

  Emmi pointed to the airskiff and grunted. “I stashed your sword in the laundry's rubbish bin. I didn't think the service ran today.”

  “You mean, my sword's in one of those barrels?”

  Emmi's head sunk into her shoulders and she nodded with a wince.

  “Then we gotta stop that skiff!” Dailan shrieked. His voice was much higher pitched than usual. It was probably just his vocal chords imagining what Saiya Kunnai would do to him when she found out Deynartrial was fixing to be melted down.

  -20-

  Beacons of Past and Future Horizons

  “Should there be ghosts upon the plane of our existence, perhaps they

  be the shadows of abandoned memories too heavy to carry abroad.

  For certainly the journey beyond the veil boasts door frames too

  narrow and pathways too steep for the soul to bear their burden on.”

  - Toma Scilio, Master Bard

  Kir blinked and rubbed away the sting of her eyes. She was tired, sure, but enough to be hallucinating? She shook her head, inhaled, then gathered in the strength to look again. Inagor was gone. There had been nowhere for him to run and no nearby tent to shield him.

  Ghosts were a fantasy that Kir had never put stock in, but there had been times her trick-playing mind had teased her with the potential. Inagor had died in Aquiline. It stood to reason that if ghosts we
re real, his would be tied here. The harsh look in his eyes had been scolding, menacing. Hateful, even. It reminded Kir of the bitter reality she had been shoving deep down in her well of avoidance. Inagor had tasked Kir with Palinora's protection before he had died. She had failed him in that vow. All this time, Kir had been using Inagor's imagined strength as a talisman. She hadn't wanted to entertain the reality that he would not have been happy with her, and in fact, would have been in his right to request vengeance.

  Kir knew it wasn't Inagor's ghost she had seen. It was a shadow of her own precious guilt. She crunched her molars on the side of her mouth to grip composure. It was easier to focus on that kind of pain.

  Lili poked her head through the flap. “We're about to play a hand of Spades Down before we retire. Are you coming in?”

  Kir cleared the agonies from her throat so they wouldn't betray her. She ducked her head through the flap and sat beside Lyndal for the hand.

  However accomplished Kir was at donning her royal mask for the masses, Malacar could see through it without blinking.

  “What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

  “Thought maybe I did,” Kir said sheepishly. “Just saw Guardian Arrelius'.”

  They all stared at her like she had been harvesting cuckoo nuts.

  “I don't mean really. You know how firelight can play tricks on the eye. That's all it was. The man I saw was bare-chested. I never knew Inagor to go about in public that way, even alongside the Hilian warriors who do. No, I probably caught a glimpse of Eshuen on sentry duty.” Kir threw in a chuckle for good measure. It sounded nervous and twitchy despite her best efforts.

  Lili and Lyndal seemed appeased, but Malacar's troubled brow stayed heavy over his eyes for the whole game. He always worried too much over Kir's sanity. True to Master Kozias' teachings, she'd only yield to crazy when all else failed.

  Another few days dissolved away under the droning monotony of hoofbeats and footfalls that clipped along the dusty road. They nodded in passing at other wagons and merchant caravans and once in a while would pause to make trade before pressing on. Sometimes when step and spirit lagged, Borloh or Amari would lead the caravan in upbeat old sea shanties to mark the ideal pace.