by K. C. May
Tolia drew back, her face reddening into a mask of shock and embarrassment. “But... your First Royal said—” She put a hand over her mouth, and her eyes welled.
“The one who brought the journal? She told you I had feelings for you?”
She nodded, knocking the tears loose to spill down her face.
“That wasn’t a First Royal. She murdered one o’my guards and stole her armor and weapons. She left me the journal hoping I wouldn’t chase her down and kill her. I’m sorry she deceived you. I love my wife.”
With her eyes lowered, Tolia whispered an apology. “If you’ll pardon me, I’ll fetch it from the vault.”
Gavin nodded, and she curtsied before dashing away. He could guess how embarrassed she felt right then, and he didn’t want to make matters worse for her.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Daia asked, rejoining him in the foyer. “If we don’t disguise you somehow, you’ll never get close enough to Cirang for us to capture her.” She peeked through the curtains at the crowd outside.
“Disguise me how? I’ve never been a man who blended into a crowd.”
She let the curtain drop and assessed him thoughtfully. “You’re not the only tall man in Thendylath. We just need a way to cover your head. Your rain cloak isn’t going to do it — something like a cleric’s robe.”
“And cover my sword. People have surely heard about Aldras Gar, too. A cleric wouldn’t be walking around with such a weapon.”
Tolia returned empty handed with a flush on her face and eyes rimmed in red. “I— I beg your pardon. I must ask Mr. Surraent—”
“It ain’t there?” he asked.
“Perhaps he took it out.” She wrung her hands. “I’m sure it’s safe. Let me ask him.”
“No, I’ll do it.” Gavin started up the stairs. “He’s up here, ain’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
“If he has it,” he called behind him, “you’d better get some bandages ready.” Gavin reached the top with Daia on his heel. Thick red carpeting muffled his steps as he stormed past four closed doors to the one at the end of the hall. He opened it without knocking and caught Laemyr Surraent with two books open, and a quill in one hand, writing furiously.
The curator jumped with a surprised squeak. The pen scratched a line across the page he’d been writing. “Gavin! Er, I mean, King Gavin. What a—”
“Where is it?”
Surraent stood, setting the quill down on a wooden platter and pushing his spectacles up his nose with his free hand. “Where is what, my liege?”
Gavin approached the desk and pointed to the smaller of the two books, the one the curator had been copying from. “Is that it? Is that my journal?”
Surraent tried a dim smile. “Oh, is that yours? I found it in our vault and hadn’t seen it before. It was such an intriguing—”
“Whatever pages you copied into your encyclopaedia — tear them out.”
“Copied? Oh, no. You misunderstand. I was merely writing my own notes.”
Daia went around to Surraent’s side of the desk, nudged him aside and flipped through both the encyclopaedia and the journal. “Copied.”
“You can’t!” Surraent cried. “This is a part of history. I deserve— the people deserve to know about the wellspring.”
“The wellspring is gone,” Gavin said. “Do you hear me? It’s gone.”
He blinked his magnified eyes. “Wh—what do you mean ‘gone?’”
“It’s just a mud pit,” Daia said, tearing out two of the pages from the encyclopaedia. She crushed them into a ball. “The centuries haven’t been kind to it.”
Surraent’s face fell. “Then why do you care whether I write down the history?”
“He only copied the part about the wellspring. The rest isn’t in here.”
“Rest of what?” Surraent asked. “What is it you don’t want me to write?”
Gavin picked up the journal and tucked it under his arm. “Nothing. Not a damned thing. Nice to see you again, Surraent.” He started to leave and stopped short. “One more thing,” he said. “I need a disguise to move around the city without the people gathering around and calling attention to me. Do you have anything I can use?”
Surraent smiled crookedly. “What can you offer in return?”
“He’s the bloody king,” Daia shouted, her fists clenched tightly. “When your king asks for aid, you give it without hesitation, without bartering for trinkets.”
Gavin’s surprise was echoed in Surraent’s shocked expression. He was usually quick to tire of the curator’s evasiveness, but apparently Daia was even less patient.
“I beg forgiveness,” Surraent said, looking like a frightened rabbit. “Habit, you know.” He turned his wary eyes to Gavin. “Why don’t you do it the way King Arek did?”
The question tickled an old memory from Gavin’s distant past. From his years as Arek’s champion, Ronor Kinshield. “Explain.”
“Yes. King Arek was known to have used a magical disguise to enable him to walk around the city incognito.”
“In-what?”
Surraent gave him a superior smile. “Incognito. It means with your identity concealed. I wrote about it in my encyclopaedia.”
“I haven’t read the whole thing yet,” Gavin said. With Daia’s help, he could have explored his ancient memory and remembered what Ronor Kinshield knew, but it was easier to hear what Surraent had to say. “Go on.”
And he did. King Arek had found he could change most elements of his appearance, such as hair and eye color, skin tone, facial features and weight. He could even make himself look like a woman. The changes were only illusions, however, and so he couldn’t rely on anything but his own physical traits.
“Do you want to try it?” Daia asked. “If it works, it’ll solve our problem.”
“Can I make myself shorter?” Gavin asked.
Surraent flipped a page, shaking his head. “I don’t believe so. Height seems to be one characteristic he had no success with, though you could make yourself look frail or portly.”
“What about my scar? How many giant men with a long scar on his face are there in Thendylath?”
“Oh, now that you should be able to hide. You can give yourself different scars, in fact, or none at all.” Surraent picked up his encyclopaedia and beckoned Gavin to the room next door and the large mirror stand inside.
With a couple lamps lit to brighten the room, Gavin assessed himself from the knees up. At the moment, with his unshaven face, uncombed hair and dirty clothes, he looked anything but majestic. It was a wonder people recognized him at all, unless they expected their king to look like a warrant knight. Possible, he supposed. The mail shirt and gemmed sword might also have given him away.
“All right,” Surraent said, looking down at his book, “it says here you can change your hair color. Perhaps you’d like to start with that?”
He studied the reflection of his dark brown hair, thinking it should be easy to darken. Black, he thought. Nothing happened. Make my hair black. He flicked his gaze to the gems in the hilt of Aldras Gar, peeking up over his left shoulder, and then concentrated on pushing his will through them. Black hair.
“I see it,” Daia said. “That looks good.” He met her eyes in the mirror. “Try making it blond.”
He imagined hair like Edan’s, and the mustache, too, but thicker like the one he’d worn in his younger days. Blond hair and blond mustache. Shaven face.
“Ho!” Daia said. “That’s amazing. I wouldn’t recognize you at first. The scar does give your identity away though.”
Gavin couldn’t help but smile at his reflection. Seeing himself as a blond was amusing. No scar. The skin on his face smoothed to perfection, erasing evidence of the most traumatic day of his life. He touched his face, but his fingers felt the whiskers and bumpy skin, confirming the scar was still there. It just looked gone. Replace the tooth. His eyetooth was no longer absent from his smile. He actually looked like a fairly handsome buck now. “I c
ould amuse myself for hours with this skill.”
“Can you disguise me?” Daia asked. “Or is it limited to you?”
He shrugged, facing her. “Let’s try.” He looked her over, imagined a more feminine version of Daia, and then pushed that image towards her with his will. Her enormous new breasts bulged over the low neckline of her blouse.
She first scowled at her reflection then shot him an annoyed glare. “I should’ve known.”
Gavin doubled over with laughter. The image of her like that was amusing as hell, but her reaction was doubly so. Even Surraent stifled a laugh behind his fist, pretending to cough. Reaching towards the illusory breasts with both hands, Gavin wanted to squeeze them to see how they felt.
She slapped him away. “Touch me and you’ll lose your hands, king or not!”
“But they aren’t real,” he said through his laughter.
“Well, the breasts underneath the illusion are. Give yourself tits if you want to feel them.”
And so he did. Now all three of them guffawed at the sight of Gavin with his blond hair and mustache and gigantic, hairy tits bulging beneath a billowy pink blouse. To his disappointment, his hands passed through the false bosoms as he squeezed nothing but air.
They created such a rumpus, Tolia opened the door and leaned partway into the room. She gasped in horror and pressed one hand to her heart. “Gavin? Oh, my heavens. I don’t think I want to know what’s going on in here.” With that, she shut the door again, prompting renewed laughter from the three inside.
Chapter 41
With the journal in hand and a magical disguise for them both, Gavin and Daia sneaked out the rear door and threaded their way behind and between buildings away from the crowd waiting for the king to exit the museum. They’d sent Surraent out with a message to the armsmen requesting he take their horses back to the lordover’s manor. When they were at a safe distance, they shuffled along the street with Daia disguised as a stoop-shouldered old woman and Gavin her lame and lanky son. Aldras Gar looked like a wooden staff, hung on his back with a simple leather thong. He flagged down a buck in a wagon as it rumbled down the street.
“Can you spare a ride for me an’ my boy?” she asked. Gavin nearly laughed. She sounded like a noblewoman pretending to be a peasant. Maybe he should do the talking.
The man, a hawk-nosed fellow with stringy brown hair, looked them over. “Where’re you goin’?”
“The lordover’s,” Gavin said. “If it ain’t too much trouble.”
“Awright,” the buck said. “Climb in.”
Gavin helped Daia onto the back of the wagon, and then sat on it’s back edge with his feet dangling. It groaned under his weight, which made the man turn around in his seat to look at him with disbelief. “You’re heavier than you look.”
“I got a tumor,” Gavin said, and faked a cough.
Daia cocked an eyebrow at him and fought to suppress a smile. She patted his arm. “My dear, dear boy.”
When at last the wagon stopped across the street from the lordover’s front gate, they thanked the driver with a silver coin, and he continued on his way. The armsmen standing guard were very much fooled by the magical disguises and wouldn’t let them pass.
“Don’t salute,” Gavin told them. “I don’t look like anyone you’d salute to, but watch carefully.” He let his illusion fall for a moment to reveal his true appearance, and then put it back. The guards gasped, and then snapped to attention. “It’s how I’ll be moving about the city uncognito.”
“Incognito,” Daia said.
“That’s what I said.” He glanced at her disapprovingly, and she tucked her lips between her teeth. She’d grown so used to correcting him, he supposed she was bound to forget herself and do it in front of someone.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the captain, Rikard, replied. “Trip brought your horses a bit ago. They’re waiting for you in the stable. Shall I fetch them for you, sire?”
“No, we’ll go get them ourselves. We’ll be using different disguises when we come out, so don’t be alarmed. Is my wife still here?”
“No, sire. She left perhaps an hour ago.”
Damn it. He would have liked to provide her with a disguise as well, at least until she was safely inside the orphanage. He motioned Daia to follow him, and headed to the stable, letting their disguises disappear once they were on the manor grounds.
The thick-waisted stable master greeted him with several excited bows and showed them to the stalls where Golam and Calie were snacking on hay. “Didn’t take their saddles off,” he said, “‘cause Trip said you’d be comin’ for ’em soon. Hope that’s awright.”
“That’s fine,” Gavin said, stroking Golam’s thick neck.
“Gave ’em both a brushing and checked their hooves, though,” the stable master said.
“Good. My thanks.”
The stable master lingered with a silly smile and dancing eyes, like a dog waiting for his master to toss him a bit of meat.
“That’s all for now,” Gavin said. “Leave us.”
The portly man bowed as he backed away. “Yes, sire. O’course. Just holler if you need me.”
Without a mirror, Gavin had to focus more on altering his appearance by referring back to the memory of his reflection. Until now, he’d had little use for mirrors. He gave himself bushy red hair and a thick, scraggly beard. He used his finger to guide the placement of a scar through his right eyebrow and another beside his mouth, and hid his own bear-given scar.
“Try green eyes,” Daia said, assessing him. He did, and she nodded approvingly.
To Daia he gave blond hair to go with her natural pale-blue eyes, a crooked nose and a missing tooth in front. Though she couldn’t see her disguise, she would have approved.
Golam swung his head around to regard them, still chewing a mouthful of hay, and reached for Daia’s ear with outstretched lips. She pushed his big head away with a laugh. “You never give up, do you?”
Gavin wondered whether his horse could see the disguise and didn’t care, or if the illusion worked only on people. Maybe one day he’d visit the stable disguised as a woman to see if Golam tried his flirtatious trick. The horse had no preference for a particular kind of woman — blonde, brunette, heavy, slim, comely or homely — none of it mattered to Golam. Every woman had ears that begged to be nibbled.
“Hey, why don’t you look for Cirang again before we leave.” As much as Daia tried to reassure Gavin that the former Sister wouldn’t try to hurt his wife, he could see she merely masked her concern for his sake.
He nodded and connected with her conduit gift, and then sent his hidden eye up over the stable and speeding off towards the orphanage. Cirang’s dark haze wasn’t there, nor did he find it in the merchant district where Feanna had planned to go. He found his wife, however, and her haze glowed with joy. He moved on towards the Good Knight Inn, hoping to see Cirang still in the room or hovering between the hazes of Calinor and Brawna as they escorted her to gaol. She wasn’t there either. He moved his hidden eye higher to get a broader look at the city, but he didn’t find her anywhere in the city or outside its boundary. Her haze was gone.
Cirang was dead.
He returned to his normal consciousness, excited. Relieved. “They must’ve found her and executed her. Her haze is gone.”
Daia looked at him with hesitant disbelief. “Gone? Are you sure?”
“There’s no sign of her in the city, in the surrounding fields or on the roads leading away.”
“There’s another possibility. If she drank some of the water from the wellspring—”
“No,” he said. “The guardians said they scared her off afore she got to it.”
Daia smiled. Her disguise was gone. “Then it’s good news. I suppose there’s no need to follow Feanna now, though if you’re concerned about brigands or other malefactors, I won’t mind.”
“Did my disguise fall while I was soaring about?”
She nodded. “I suppose you can’t use your hidden eye
and keep up the disguises at the same time.”
“Damn. Maybe with practice I can do both. It’s good we found this out now instead of in the middle of a crowd o’people.”
They left their horses with two of the armsmen and wove their way through the crowd to watch Feanna with a half-dozen orphan children as they went about their shopping. She wore a genuine smile, and Gavin knew she was enjoying the outing as much as the children were. He admired her ability to lose herself in pleasant activities. He hoped for a day when he would have few worries to plague him. Life was supposed to become easier with wealth and power, but so far, he thought that to be a myth.
Around him were normal people, happy to have a glimpse of the new queen while she did her charity. They spoke kindly of her to each other, even spoke well of the king, whom they believed wasn’t present.
“He should’ve come too,” one woman said. She rose on her tiptoes to see the queen while patting the back of the infant in her arms. “What could he possibly have to do in that big palace all by himself?”
Gavin snorted. He supposed he might have wondered the same thing if he’d worn their boots. The lordovers didn’t always appear to do much but dine well and dance, at least from the perspective of a peasant trying to feed his family.
The baby was looking up at him with interest. With one chubby finger pointed at Gavin’s face and then touched her own cheek. Could she see through his disguise? He grabbed Daia’s elbow and moved her away, just in case. “Let’s move that way to get a better look.” The infant was too young to report what she saw, but he didn’t want any attention drawn to him.
The sun was low in the sky when Feanna returned to the orphanage. Gavin and Daia retrieved their horses and followed her. They waited for an hour outside while dusk settled. While they’d made no plans to dine together, Gavin had assumed they would. He needed time alone with his wife, and he hoped she wanted to talk through their differences.
He and Daia returned to the lordover’s guesthouse and waited in the common room, Gavin in brooding silence. When he heard a pair of footsteps approaching, he stood, expecting Feanna. He was disappointed when Calinor and Brawna entered, but he put his feelings aside for the time being. “She’s dead?”
