The door slammed behind him. Artus didn’t look at Hool or Brana. He kept staring at his feet, waiting for the churning tempest in his stomach to subside. He took long, slow breaths.
Brana’s head butted him gently from behind and he felt the gnoll’s tongue lick the back of his neck. “Ah! Brana!” He turned around to see the spitting image of his older brother smiling at him with his tongue hanging out. “Gods! What the hell?”
Hool nodded. “See—I told you those things were disgusting.”
CHAPTER 6
THE FIRST MOVE
Tyvian sat in a corner booth of the well-maintained taproom of the Bastard. It was high-backed, solid oak, and about as comfortable as a church pew. Still, it kept his back to the wall, made it hard for people coming in to see him before he saw them, and it was not, at present, coated with any kind of errant fluid originating from carelessly handled tankards or, as case may be, carelessly treated human bodies. Given the celebrations following the Earl of Derby’s victories in the field, this was no mean feat. Even now a barmaid with a mop and a bucket was making the rounds, giving each patron a quick assessment of their current state of inebriation and their likelihood of baptizing the floor with their vomit. As mentioned, it was a well-maintained taproom.
Tyvian hated ale and didn’t feel up to drinking oggra, but this was not a night for wine. This was a night to get quickly inebriated and forget about his problems for a few hours. He ordered Verisi rum and they brought him a cup of something no doubt labeled as Verisi but with all the flavor of the conjured swill packed up in Ihyn and shipped all over the Syrin at bargain prices. Tyvian scowled but drank it anyway.
Artus complaining wasn’t new—the boy was desperate for more independence. Tyvian might not have been the boy’s father, but he wasn’t an idiot. If he were looking out for Artus’s happiness, he probably would have extended the lad a bit more consideration, but he wasn’t in the adolescent-development business. He was in the staying alive, free, and wealthy business—three things that the ring seemed intent on ruining for him.
Even though the Defenders weren’t pursuing him as aggressively anymore, there were any number of bounty hunters looking to collect Sahand’s reward for his capture, dead or alive, not to mention those assassins in the employ of Angharad tin’Theliara, who would love nothing more than to stab him in bed. If word got out about his involvement in robbing Cameron Thystal of Draketower, he could even imagine complicated political machinations that would make him a wanted man in any peerage or county in Eretheria, which of course meant all the good camping spots this side of Akral were now off-limits, even assuming camping was an acceptable state of existence in the first place.
Then there was the money. All of it, more or less, sunk to the bottom of a damned lake in the middle of nowhere. They were paupers. He now had a little shy of one hundred marks to get them from the north of Eretheria to the city of Saldor on the shores of the Syrin. He’d just pawned the Heart of Flowing Sunlight—for all the grief and effort it had caused him—so he could get a pair of Eretherian party shrouds for two gnolls from an enchanter who never would have given him the time of day had he not waved letters of introduction from a backwater peeress under his pointy nose. It seemed each day brought a new kind of low.
Worst of all, his quest to excise the thrice-damned ring from his life had also hit a dead end. He’d spent a king’s ransom on every ancient book of history, mythology, and sorcery he could get his hands on, searching for some mention or clue as to the location or identity of the Yldd, and he’d come up completely empty. Granted, he hadn’t finished all those stupid books, but still, if he hadn’t found any reference yet, he was beginning to think no such thing as the Yldd existed. The Artificer had probably been lying to him.
That brought him back to Sir Banber’s gossip, and that brought him back to Myreon. He could still remember the feeling of her cold lips against his as the ring poured him into her, bringing her back from the brink of death. The memory was always there, not far from his thoughts. Myreon, it seemed, had taken up permanent residence in his thoughts and made herself as obstreperous and frustrating as possible. How very like her.
Nevertheless, the Myreon rumor still bothered him—it seemed too convenient, too tailor-made for him. It was as though somebody had planted it as a ploy to draw him back to Saldor, and he could think of only one person in Saldor who would go to such lengths. For that reason alone he should have had every intention of steering well clear of Myreon’s petrified prison, assuming it existed.
The thought of it burned, though. Tyvian could picture her on the floor of Keeper’s Court, head held high, while the rabble booed. He remembered the icy calm of those blue-gray eyes—the eyes of a woman that always knew what should and should not be done. He imagined her staring injustice in the face, knowing she was soon to become so much stone in some penitentiary garden. It made him surprisingly angry.
And knowing somebody had done that to her on purpose just to lure him made him want to stab something. Maybe several somethings.
Then again, maybe he could turn this Myreon lure to his advantage. Maybe there was a way to turn the scheme back upon the schemer and perhaps restore a little bit of his self-respect. Maybe . . .
While he sipped his bad rum and thought dark thoughts, a man slid into the booth across from him. At first Tyvian scarcely noticed—the man was without clear edges, without recognizable form. A shadow shaped like a man. Gradually, though, Tyvian’s mind caught up and he dropped the rum, a dagger flying into his hand.
The man did not move or react. He wore a thick black cape with a heavy hood that covered half his face in darkness. His chin was poorly shaven, his skin sallow in complexion. He wore fingerless gloves; above the corner of his mouth was a small tattoo of a button. The rest of him seemed to drop away from Tyvian’s notice, no matter how he tried to focus. He was wearing . . . clothes. He was of average height and build . . . maybe. It was hard to say.
The hair on the back of Tyvian’s neck stood up. He kept the dagger in his hand and tried to focus on the man’s hands as best he could. They had callused, chipped fingernails—the hands of a back-alley cutthroat. Tyvian took a deep breath. “You’re far from home, aren’t you?”
The hands folded together and then opened, as though the man were about to release a trapped butterfly. Instead, nestled in the hands was a paper note. It read, in a blocky, functional script: Do not go to Saldor.
Tyvian used the tip of his dagger to clean beneath his thumbnail, doing his best to appear nonchalant, but his pulse was racing. “Pardon me, sir, but since when do the Mute Prophets send a Quiet Man to an Eretherian bar to advise me on travel plans?”
The Quiet Man’s face revealed nothing. His hands closed again and then opened. The note had changed: There is nothing you can do to help her.
Tyvian froze. That statement had many implications, none of which he liked one bit. “Do I strike you as the kind of man who rescues damsels in distress?”
The filthy hands closed and then opened: We know what you plan to do.
Tyvian frowned, running dates in his head. How long would it take a Quiet Man to get all the way up here? A week, at minimum, probably closer to two. Very few augurs could scry individual behavior that far out—they were acting on a hunch, not actionable prophecy. “Just because your masters think they see the future, that doesn’t mean they’re right. Auguries aren’t destinies. After this conversation, I might change my mind.”
Another note, the writing much smaller this time: We are prepared to make you a generous offer to stay here instead.
Tyvian’s spine literally tingled. He cast an eye around the room, checking if there was anybody else watching him. Nobody. They were completely ignored. “And if I refuse this offer?”
Death. Right now.
Tyvian grimaced. “You can’t kill me here. Even with your . . . talents,
let’s call them, you couldn’t stab a man in a crowded bar without attracting attention. Don’t you think I’ll cry out?”
The Quiet Man’s lips pulled into a rare smile, the button tattoo tugging up almost into the shadows of his hood. He presented another note. Your drink is poisoned.
Tyvian felt his blood pounding in his ears as he looked down at the cup. He’d watched the barkeep pour the cup himself, watched it as it was brought to his table. The Quiet Man wouldn’t have had any chance to poison it until it was sitting in front of him . . . not until he had slipped into the booth across from him. He must have poisoned it right under his nose, and he’d been too blinded by sorcery and his own dark musings to notice.
Still, he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even distressed. It could be a bluff. “I suppose you’re offering the antidote, then? This old dance? Say I don’t believe you. Prove it—let me see the poison and let me see the antidote.”
With a flourish, the filthy hands produced a small pouch from which he shook some finely ground black leaves. Then, in the other hand, a small vial of blue liquid suspended by a lanyard around his neck. Tyvian recognized both materials immediately. He pointed at the poison. “Arbol de sombra, correct? Very nasty, indeed. A full dose of that and I should be dead in an hour.”
The Quiet Man let the antidote drop back into the invisible obscurity of his clothing. He laid a note on the table and pushed it towards Tyvian. It read: Decide.
This time Tyvian did smile. “You know, I almost feel sorry for you.” He caught up his knife in a flash and slammed it through the closer of the Quiet Man’s two hands—the one holding the poison. The knife pierced him between the tendons of his index and middle fingers and bit deeply into the thick wooden table beneath, pinning the hand in place.
The Quiet Man’s mouth opened into a perfect O, but no sound came out. No sound could. His free hand dropped the antidote and struggled to remove the knife, but Tyvian grabbed him by the wrist and forced his hand to the table. Around them, nobody seemed to notice. Tyvian chuckled. “You see, the problem with becoming a silent sorcerous abomination is that you can’t call for help. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I just have to hold out a few minutes and Tyvian Reldamar will be on death’s door from the arbol de sombra, right?”
The Quiet Man tried to wrestle himself free, but Tyvian used his body to push the table back against him, pinning his torso between it and the high-backed booth. The button-tattooed mouth continued to scream silently. Nobody noticed.
Tyvian tsked through his teeth. “What a very rotten poisoner you are. I’m drinking rum, you dunce. It is no doubt pretty terrible rum, but it is rum for all that. While arbol de sombra works fine in ale and water and even certain weaker wines, the alcohol present in rum would neutralize the poison before I ever drank it. That’s the trick with arbol—very deadly, very subtle, very quiet, retains its potency for weeks, but you can’t poison a drinker worth a damn. That antidote you’ve got there? It’s just pure grain alcohol with a bit of blue tincture to make it look special. It’s the oldest alchemist’s trick in the book.”
The Quiet Man struggled again, but Tyvian had him. Unless the man decided to rip the knife out with his teeth, he was stuck holding hands with Tyvian until he opted to let go.
Blood ran across the table in little crimson rivers. Tyvian took care not to dip his shirt in it. “Enough lecturing, though—let’s to business. I choose to decline your invitation to remain here in this dreary old town on the edge of nowhere. I’m certain your masters will get the message—they hear and see what you hear and see, don’t they? Goodness, your fellow Quiet Men are experiencing this pain at this very moment, aren’t they? How unfortunate for them.”
The Quiet Man did not respond. He thrashed and tugged at Tyvian’s grip but couldn’t get loose.
Tyvian shrugged. “Well, I’m sure they’ll get over it. Now, what to do with you? I can’t very well have you trying to poison me every day from here to Saldor, now can I?”
Holding onto the sorcerous assassin’s free hand with his left hand, Tyvian used his right to scoop up the pouch of arbol de sombra. The ring pulsed a warning. Tyvian knew he had to kill this man, right here and now, but he couldn’t so long as the ring thought he was in no danger. Damned thing. The two of them sat there for a moment, holding hands like lovers.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said at last. “I let go of your free hand, and we’ll see who grabs my knife first, right? On three: one, two, three—”
Tyvian released the Quiet Man’s free hand, which darted over to the hilt of the knife and began worrying it out of the table, his mouth frozen open in agony while the blade ate at the flesh of his injured hand. Tyvian merely opened the poison pouch wide and got ready. The ring kept pulsing in warning; he wouldn’t be free to act until the Quiet Man was on the verge of attack, and so he waited.
The knife came free with a fleshy squelch. The Quiet Man slashed at Tyvian’s throat, mouth still open wide.
Tyvian ducked the attack; the ring fell silent. Quick as a viper, he leaned across the table and stuffed the entire pouch full of poison into the assassin’s open mouth.
There was no sound, no gurgling or spitting. The Quiet Man put his ruined hand to his throat, but too late. Enough arbol de sombra to poison twenty people had slipped down his throat, undiluted by any liquid. He was dead in a matter of seconds.
Nobody noticed.
Tyvian got up and left a gold mark on the table, for when the waitstaff eventually discovered the body—whenever that would be. Even as he stood up he found it difficult to focus on the slumped, shadowy form of his would-be killer. He left the rum, too—he didn’t feel like drinking anymore. He felt like getting the hell out of there.
He retrieved his knife, rubbed his face. Gods—a Quiet Man. That settled things: Myreon had been framed.
The game of couronne he had just described to Artus had begun. The pieces were on the board, and his opponent had just made her first move. In a way, it clarified things for him. He was thankful for it. He was going to Saldor and he was going to beat her at her own bloody game. He was going to teach her to never meddle in his affairs again.
And this time his mother was going to listen to him.
CHAPTER 7
A (MOSTLY) PLEASANT JOURNEY
The journey south through Eretheria was a pleasant one, especially now that the gnolls could be taken with them anywhere they pleased and Tyvian didn’t have to worry about the constabulary being called out and Hool eating anyone. They traveled in the daylight, stopping at roadside inns when they wished, and were able to pass for country gentry without anybody raising any eyebrows. The money from Tyvian’s wagering got the best food most places could offer, and the best rooms, too. There were a few featherbeds along the way and it didn’t even rain very much. If he believed in such things, Tyvian would have thought that Hann was smiling on him for once.
Hool, unfortunately, was not as well pleased. She despised wearing her shroud, and every compliment paid or hat tipped by a passing traveler made her angrier. “It’s just because they want to mate with me,” she grumbled, her rich baritone thundering up from her elegant human neck.
Tyvian frowned. “Now Hool, give these gentlemen some credit. They’re simply being polite to a lady, not trying to seduce you.”
Hool snorted. “Then why aren’t they as polite to the ugly ladies?”
Tyvian considered this. “You may have a point there, I suppose. Of course, all that is different if you have money; money trumps looks every time.”
“That just makes humans stupider.” Hool wiggled her head a bit, which Tyvian inferred might have been her shaking her mane were she a gnoll. In her shroud, it simply looked like she was having a seizure.
“Remember your poise, Hool,” Tyvian said, yanking on his horse’s reins to keep his mount on the trail. Even with the shrouds in place, the horses still did
n’t like Hool much. There was something about a human being that could run as fast as them that they found disconcerting.
Hool grumbled something unintelligible but held her head high instead of low and thrust forward, as was her typical gnollish preference.
While Hool grumbled over her human appearance, Brana found the entire affair to be hilarious. He spent a lot of time mimicking men he saw on the road and listened in on human conversations intently. His Trade improved a good deal, though he was still prone to peppering his speech with a variety of barks, growls, and yips. He squatted on chairs rather than sat in them, and his table manners remained atrocious. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Brana didn’t bother using utensils—half the Eretherian peasantry ate with their hands anyway. The problem was, he didn’t even eat with his hands—he simply pressed his face to the plates, wolfing the food down in alarming gulps. Once, at an inn near the border of the Viscounty of Courmalain, onlookers had watched in horror as Brana cleaned a turkey leg to the bone in a matter of three bites. After that, Tyvian took to telling people Brana was an escaped circus performer. Disgusted by the whole affair, Hool was constantly scolding Brana and did her best to keep the pup away from people. Brana, of course, took his mother’s disapproval with an obedient whine, but then would sneak off to do somersaults for people at the next possible opportunity.
They traveled south along the Laiderre Road, which led from Derby across the gap to Courmalain and through the Whispwood before it turned east into Lake Country. If northern Eretheria had been scenic and pastoral, Lake Country was like something out of a fairy tale. Here, the lush vineyards and orchards of some of Eretheria’s richest fiefdoms clustered around pristine, royal-blue lakes and glittering castles of alabaster and gold. Knights in armor so heavy with magecraft they glowed more than shined could be seen riding along the roads on a regular basis, embarked upon this or that quest or fulfilling all manner of oaths to their liege.
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