Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

by David Dalglish

  “You’re right,” Thren said, his fury subsiding. “Just a child you were, yet you killed without hesitation.” Thren looked to Robert. “Killed his own brother, even. That is the level of his loyalty, that he would remove that brash, unworthy fool so he might become my proper heir. I do not want him coddled, not anymore. When you teach him, teach him the truth, no matter how painful.”

  Thren put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

  “Though you disappoint me with your trespass, part of the blame is mine. From now on, you will be at my side at all times. My life is not safe, Aaron, as you will soon discover. But know that regardless of the risk, I will bring you with me.”

  “I’m not scared,” Aaron said.

  “Even I am sometimes afraid, as will you often be.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Scared or not,” he said, “I’ll never show it.”

  A foolish boast, one Robert had heard a thousand times. But looking at that child, seeing his resolve and courage, Robert knew without a doubt that he believed him.

  CHAPTER

  9

  The message had come yet again, and this time James Beren was tempted to shout out his Ash Guild’s response at the top of his lungs. At least that would get Thren off his ass. Either that, or a dagger stabbed into it, but by this point he might have preferred the brutal attempt of force over the sickeningly sweet diplomacy Thren seemed prone to lately.

  “Shall we give our usual answer?” asked Veliana, his right-hand man … although since she was a woman, he figured he should change her title, but crude amusement kept him from doing so. She was a pretty thing with cream-colored skin, red hair tied in a long ponytail, and dazzling violet eyes. Several daggers were clipped to her belt, her skill with them almost legendary, especially for one her age, and she was rumored to have a bit of magic in her as well. A few had murmured about how the little girl of eighteen had slept her way to James’s side, but that was all hogwash. Her mind was as sharp as her dagger, frightening in its deadliness.

  “His plan is suicide,” James said, pacing within the warmly lit study. They were holed up in a safe house deep within the slums of Veldaren. Hundreds of families provided ample cover for their coming and going, and a bit of well-placed coin and occasional bread did wonders to ensure those families’ discretion. A few hanging bodies had helped as well.

  “Perhaps such a risk must be taken to end this,” Veliana said. “He writes that we are the last holdout; all the other guildmasters have signed on.”

  “That’s because he’s killed everyone who disagreed,” James said, a bitter edge creeping into his voice. “And the rest he cowed with a few subtle threats dripping with poison. He’s grown desperate and delusional. Surely you can agree with me on that?”

  Veliana smiled at him, a practiced smile that hid any of her true emotions from James. He felt her watching him as he paced. He also felt every bit of his forty years graying his hair and wrinkling his face. The Ash Guild was the smallest of all the thieves’ guilds, but it was certainly not the weakest. With small size came added secrecy and stealth. They did not need to pad their numbers with riffraff and lowborn drunkards who couldn’t steal a diaper from a suckling babe. But despite that core strength, they could not challenge the Spider Guild. Not yet.

  “I’m not sure I can agree,” she said, not revealing whether she meant with Thren or with James. “But we’ve entered the fifth year. We’ve tried hurting their wealth, and the gods know we have, but it’s like bailing water out of a river. It all just runs back. We steal from the Trifect, and then our men spend it on wine, food, clothes, and petty trinkets, and who do you think supplies every one of those?”

  “But all of us?” James asked. “This plan, this assault during the Trifect’s Kensgold, will certainly result in bloodshed, but I fear the bulk of it will be ours, not our enemy’s. Does Thren really think with all the thief guilds combining together that someone won’t leak word to the Trifect? His plan requires an almost impossible level of secrecy. One errant word and we’re all hanging from nooses … if we’re lucky.”

  “If he’s only contacted the guildmasters,” Veliana said, “it is possible to keep silence, at least as long as necessary.”

  “And those guildmasters will tell advisors or close friends, just as I have told you. And then they will tell their close friends, and then one of them will leak word to a turncoat for Connington or Keenan, and then we’re all fucked.”

  Veliana laughed.

  “Then tell him no,” she said. “Stop asking for delays.”

  “Do that and I become just another body at Thren’s feet,” James said. He sounded tired. “I didn’t live this long, clawing and climbing my way past friends and enemies, just to watch it all vanish in smoke and ash.”

  “Ash is what we are,” Veliana said, tossing the note from Thren Felhorn into the fireplace and watching it be consumed. “And ash is what Veldaren will be soon. Do what you think is best, regardless of whether I agree or not, but at least make sure you do something. Waiting for Thren or the Trifect to act will get us killed.”

  “You’re right,” James said after a length. “Either we aid him, or stop him. He is either friend or enemy. The question is, can we afford Thren as anything other than a friend?”

  “That,” Veliana said, “is a very dangerous question, and worse is the answer. Thren doesn’t have friends, James. He only has men he hasn’t yet sacrificed.”

  Her guildmaster let out a sigh.

  “Then we stand firm, regardless of the wrath Thren brings down on us,” he said. “Hopefully his plan erupts in his face, freeing all of Veldaren from the bastard’s presence. But what do we do until the Kensgold?”

  Veliana smiled at him.

  “What we’ve always done,” she said. “Whatever is necessary to survive.”

  Gerand wound his way through the halls of the castle with an expertise acquired over fifteen years of serving the Vaelor family. Servants scuffled past him, and he listed off their names silently. Every new scullery maid and errand boy had to be vetted by Gerand personally. If something seemed the least bit off, he sent them away. Ever since the thief war had begun, King Edwin Vaelor had feared poison, a death that could come from even the youngest of hands. Personally, Gerand found the whole ordeal exhausting. Edwin jumped at shadows, and it was Gerand’s duty to hunt them down. It never mattered that he always revealed dust gremlins and empty corners. The monsters would come back, acid dripping down their chins and dried blood on their dagger-like claws.

  The bruise on Gerand’s forehead pulsed with every beat of his heart. He touched it gingerly, wishing Edwin had listened to his advice and outright killed Robert Haern instead of imprisoning him. The Felhorn whelp had escaped because of the meddlesome old man. But Edwin’s spine seemed more akin to fat than bone, and he had been unable to execute his former teacher, no matter how estranged they might have become. Still, Gerand would find ways to punish Robert for the blow his cane had struck him. He’d never say so, but Gerand felt the castle was his, not Edwin’s, and he would command its workers and soldiers right underneath the king’s nose if he must.

  Up the circling stairs of the southwest tower he climbed, ignoring the creaking of his knees. The night was dark, and although the lower portions of the castle were alive with men cutting meat and women tossing flour and rolling dough, the upper portions were blessedly deserted. At the very top of the stairs Gerand paused to catch his breath. He leaned before a thick wooden door bolted from the outside. Tired, he lifted the latch and flung it open. Inside had once been a spytower, but the strange contraption of mirrors and glass was long broken and had been removed. The room had briefly been a prison cell, but over the past ten years it had fallen into disuse.

  Waiting inside was a wiry little man wrapped in a brown cloak.

  “You’re late,” the man said, speaking with inhalations of air instead of exhalations, which gave him an ill, out-of-breath sound.

  Gerand shook his head, ba
ffled as to how his contact always made it up the tall tower without being spotted. Unless he had the hands of a spider, he surely could not climb the outer wall. No matter how, every fourth day at an hour before dawn, Gileas the Worm waited for Gerand in the cramped room, always smiling, always unarmed.

  “Matters have gotten worse,” Gerand said, rubbing the bruise on his forehead without realizing it. “Ever since our involvement with Aaron Felhorn, King Vaelor has grown even more fearful of his food and drink. He has suggested rotating his cooks and keeping them under watch at all times. I’ve told him a food taster would be a much simpler answer, but for a cowardly son of a bitch, he can be so stubborn…”

  The advisor realized just how out of place his speech was and halted. He glared at Gileas, his warning clear, but the Worm only laughed. Even his laugh sounded sickly and false.

  “As amusing as informing the king of your candid talk would be, I’d only earn myself a noose for the trouble,” Gileas said.

  “I’m sure you’d hang just as well as any other man,” Gerand said. “Worms pop in half when squeezed tight enough. I wonder if you’d do the same.”

  “Let us pray we never find out,” Gileas said. “And after what I come to tell you, you may discover my presence easier to bear.”

  Gerand doubted that. The Worm was aptly named, for his face had a conical look to it, with his nose and eyes scrunched inward toward his mouth. His hair was the color of dirt, another detail that helped enforce the adopted name. Gerand didn’t know if Gileas had come up with the title, or if some other man had years prior. It didn’t matter much to Gerand. All he wanted was information worth the coin and the trek up the stairs. Most often it was not, but every now and then…

  The gleam in Gileas’s eyes showed that perhaps this was one of those times.

  “Tell me what you know, and quickly, otherwise Edwin will soon believe me to be one of his lurking phantoms.”

  The Worm tapped his fingers together, and Gerand did his best to suppress a shudder. For whatever vile reason, the man had no fingernails.

  “My ears are often full of mud,” the ugly man began, “but sometimes I hear so clearly, I might believe myself an elf.”

  “No elf could be so ugly,” Gerand said.

  Gileas laughed, but there was danger in it, and the advisor knew he should choose his words more carefully. In those cramped quarters, and lacking any weapons or guards, the Worm had more than enough skill to end his life.

  “True, no elf so ugly, but at least I am not as ugly as an orc, yes? Always a light of hope, if you know where to look, and I pride myself in looking. Always looking. And I listen too, and what I hear is that Thren Felhorn has a plan in motion to end his war with the Trifect.”

  “I’m sure it’s not his first, either. Why should I care about his scheming?”

  “Because this plan has been sent to the other guildmasters, and all but one have agreed.”

  Gerand raised an eyebrow. To have so many guilds agree meant this was not some farfetched fantasy of Thren’s, but something significant.

  “Tell me the plan,” he ordered. The Worm blinked and waved his finger.

  “Coin first.”

  The advisor tossed him a bag from his pocket.

  “There, now speak.”

  “You command me like I am a dog,” Gileas said. “But I am a worm, not a dog, remember? I will not speak. I will tell.”

  And tell he did. When he was finished, Gerand felt his chest tighten. His mind raced. The plan was deceptively simple, and a bit more brutish than Thren most likely preferred, but the potential was there … potential for both sides to exploit.

  Only if the Worm speaks truth, he realized. But if he does, come the Kensgold, we might finally end all of this…

  “If what you speak of comes to pass,” he said, “then I will reward you a hundredfold. Tell no one else.”

  “My ears and mouth are yours alone,” Gileas said. Gerand didn’t believe it for a second. He left the room and shut the door behind him, for Gileas demanded secrecy for his departure, just as he did for his arrival. His head leaning against the splintered wood of the door, Gerand allowed himself to smile.

  “You finally erred,” he said, his smile growing. “About bloody time, Thren. Your war is done. Done.”

  He hurried down the steps, a plan already forming in his mind.

  Veliana waited in the corner of the tavern, a small place frequented more by soldiers than by rogues of the undercity. Her beauty was enough to keep her welcome, and her coin smoothed things over with those who still persisted in questioning. If she ever wanted something done without the denizens of the night knowing, she arranged for it in that tavern.

  The door opened, and in walked Gileas the Worm. He saw her at her regular seat and smiled his ugly smile.

  “You are as beautiful as you are intelligent,” he said as he took a seat.

  “Then you must think me a horrible sight,” she replied.

  Gileas scoffed.

  “Forget it,” she said. “Tell me, did he believe you?”

  The Worm grinned, revealing his black, rotting teeth.

  “Every word,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  10

  The temple to Karak was a most impressive structure cut from black marble and lined with pillars. A roaring lion skull hung above the doorway. The priests within were quiet, subdued men wearing black robes and with their long hair pulled tight behind their heads. They wielded powerful cleric magic, and had done all in their power to further the cause of their dark god of order. They played no part in the policy of the king, not officially, but Maynard Gemcroft knew that the priests had informed the royal crown of the dangers involved in exposing their presence to the city. If war was ever waged between the priests of Ashhur and Karak, the streets would soon be cluttered with the dead.

  Maynard Gemcroft, in disguise and escorted by two of his most trusted guards, arrived at a building that looked nothing like the temple. Instead it looked like a large though plain mansion, with hardly a light lit within.

  “I see you for the truth you are,” Maynard said, putting his hand upon the gate, and then the image changed, the vision broken to reveal the temple in all its ominous glory. When he lifted his hand, the gate opened, and inside they went.

  “Pelarak will see you shortly, Maynard,” one of the younger priests said to them as he opened the double doors leading into the temple. Maynard did not respond. A bit of annoyance at not being called Lord in such a formal setting rumbled in his chest, but Pelarak had explained long ago that the priests would refer to no one as Lord other than Karak.

  The hour was late, but inside the temple, routines went on as if it were midday. Younger men, boys really, traveled from corner to corner, lighting candles with thin, long punks. Purple curtains were draped across hidden windows. Following their guide, Maynard and his guards stepped into the great congregation room. Maynard had never considered himself a religious man, but the statue of Karak always made a deeply buried part of his mind wonder if he was in error.

  Chiseled in ancient stone, the statue towered over those bowed before it. Its image was of a beautiful man with long hair, battle-scarred armor, and blood-soaked greaves. The idol held a serrated sword in one hand, the other clenched into a fist that shook toward the heavens. Twin altars churned violet flame at his feet, yet they produced no smoke.

  Many men knelt at the foot of the purple flames, crying out heartfelt prayers for forgiveness. At any other time Maynard would have found the noise annoying and somewhat embarrassing to the wailer, but before that statue it seemed perfectly natural. In awe as he was, he was glad when Pelarak approached from the middle aisle and shook his hand. With his attention diverted, the statue seemed to lose a bit of its power.

  “Welcome, friend,” Pelarak said, smiling.

  “After last night, it is good to hear you call me friend,” Maynard said. He didn’t know what to make of Pelarak’s puzzled expression. Perhaps it was an act, but he d
idn’t think so. If he was right, then everything he’d hoped for was true. The actions of the faceless women were unknown to Pelarak.

  Surprise is on my side, Maynard thought. I had best use it wisely.

  “I’m not sure what else you would be,” Pelarak said as he led them off to the side of the aisles, where his own private room was attached. “If anyone should be worried about our loss of friendship, I should think it us. A man’s heart and his gold sleep in the same bed, and the Gemcroft estate has been very … heartless in recent years.”

  The rebuke stung, but Maynard kept his tongue in check. Let Pelarak think he was in control. When the truth of his minions came to light, those stings would be forgotten.

  “Times are harsh,” he said. “Trust me, when the rogues are defeated, your coffers will be filled with the gold no longer needed to fill the pockets of mercenaries and sellswords.”

  Pelarak shut the door. Maynard’s two guards remained outside. The room was small and sparsely furnished. Maynard sat in a small, unpadded chair while Pelarak crossed his arms and stood beside his bed.

  “You speak truth, Maynard, but you did not come here wearing that amusing wig and beard to talk to me about tithes. What is the matter, and why do you worry about Karak’s friendship?”

  That was it, no dancing around the matter, no more stalling. Maynard let the truth be known while he carefully watched the high priest’s reaction.

  “Last night, three of your faceless women assaulted my mansion and kidnapped my daughter.”

  Maynard was in no way prepared for the cold anger that flooded Pelarak’s eyes.

  “I would ask if you were certain, but of course you are,” the priest said. “You would not be here if you were not. Women of darkness and shadow, their bodies wrapped in purple and black? Who else could they be?”

  Maynard felt a bit of fear bubble up in his throat seeing how tightly the priest clenched his fists. So much for thinking he was in control, the one with all the surprises. In truth, he knew very little about the faceless women other than that they existed, and that they were deadly. He had never actually sought their aid, and knew of no one else who had.