A Dance of Cloaks

by David Dalglish

  The core of anger hidden in her breast flared. She had strode into her father’s house as cocksure as any other man might have. Had the chill of the cells stolen that away from her? She was the rightful heir, and after the embarrassment of five years worth of secret warfare against an inferior opponent, most members of her household would certainly be glad of a stronger, smarter leader. If any guard appeared, she would demand the loyalty of his sword.

  The sounds of a scuffle reached her ears, coupled with a single, pained scream that was cut off halfway through. She was afraid to look around the corner to see, but did so anyway. She saw several bodies lying in a bloody path that ended at another corner. She thought to give chase when a dagger pressed against her neck.

  “Where is my sister?” she heard a voice ask.

  “Are you Nava?” Alyssa asked, trying her hardest not to sound afraid. Her voice came out sounding weak but annoyed. Given the circumstances, she thought that was acceptable. The dagger shifted against her skin, and from the brief pause, she figured the woman surprised.

  “Not Nava,” she whispered. “Zusa. Now where is my sister?”

  “Eliora went ahead,” Alyssa said, telling no more than what was asked. She tried to remind herself that this was her home, and that she should ask the questions, but her logic was weak against the serrated edge pressed against her soft skin.

  “Little woman better not lie,” Zusa said. “False tongues are often split.”

  The dagger scraped across her neck. Alyssa was certain blood would run down her back, but none did.

  “No lie,” she said. “Now remove that blade. I am Alyssa Gemcroft, and it was your task to free me from my prison. Threaten harm upon me, and you risk the boon you were promised for this affair.”

  The dagger left her neck. At first, Alyssa felt pride at her handling the situation, but when she turned she saw that another of the faceless women had joined them. Disguised in their black and purple cloth, she had not a clue who it might be, but then she heard the soft whisper and knew.

  “Maynard is not in his room,” Eliora said. “Something is amiss.”

  “Find him quick,” Zusa said. “Time is our enemy.”

  The dogs howled louder as both faceless women turned to Alyssa.

  “Where is your father?” they demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she said, taken aback. “The hour is late; he should be in bed. Maybe something needed his attention, or his sleep was troubled and he took to wandering…”

  “Or he was waiting for us,” Eliora said. “May Karak damn them all. Move, while Nava still buys us time outside.”

  They hurried down the hall, Alyssa’s mind racing. She wondered if her father had any hidden rooms or safe places tucked away in corners of the estate, but she remembered none. She had been a rambunctious girl, and curious, too. If there had been any, she would have known.

  Unless father added them recently, she thought. With five years of secret war, he would have had plenty of time to build and remodel.

  Their path led them to the dining hall, which looked naked with the empty chairs, covered table, and unlit chandeliers. The shouts of the guards grew louder. The faceless women tilted their heads toward each other, as if sharing a thought. Guards were pouring into the mansion.

  “Alerted,” Zusa said. “But how?”

  Alyssa knew of no other way to describe it: the bare wall to her left exploded inward. What should have been solid stone crumpled and curled, red smoke wafting off it. Inside was a room of which she had no memory. The walls were gray plaster, undecorated and leading further into the mansion. Filling that room were more than twenty guards, armored in steel and armed with swords. Tabards emblazoned with the Gemcroft sigil covered their tunics.

  “We play the fool!” Zusa shouted, drawing her dagger and lunging toward the entrance. Eliora was quick behind her. The guards attempted to flood into the room, but they were held back at the narrow exit. Those in the front battled with the faceless women, but their movements seemed slow compared to the grace of their opponent. Alyssa thought their armor might be her companions’ doom, but the serrated dagger sliced through the mail like butter. The metal melted and smoked purple after each cut, helpless before the powerful magic.

  The women held strong, but they were pushing back a river with only daggers. Five died at their feet, but the rest pressed forward, shoving aside their dying comrades. As the guards spread out to surround them, the two assassins flipped back and away, their bodies curling around sword strikes as if their bones were water.

  “Run, girl!” Eliora shouted. Alyssa sprinted down the hall and into a long corridor. She glanced out the rows of windows, her heart shuddering at the sight. Pouring in through the front gates in frightening numbers were various mercenaries wearing the Gemcroft standard. Whatever her punishment would have been in the cell, Alyssa realized that her attempt to escape and supplant her father would increase it tenfold.

  Screams chased her down the hall. Escape was all that mattered now, she realized. There would be no grab for power, no careful bartering of life for rule. The thought of returning to her cold, drafty cell spurred her on. When she reached a door, she glanced behind. None of the faceless had come yet.

  Glass shattered, and Alyssa cried out as shards of it cut across her face. A figure crashed in through the window. She felt arms wrap around her body.

  “Worry not for my sisters,” said a deep-voiced woman that could only be Nava. “Your life is precious. Follow me into the night.”

  Alyssa’s breathing was ragged, frightened gasps. Her pulse was a war-drum in her ears. With trembling fingers, she took Nava’s hand. A painful lurch later, they tumbled through the broken window and onto the cool grass of the lawn.

  “No words,” Nava said, pressing a wrapped finger across Alyssa’s lips. “Not until we leave the gate. Understand?”

  Alyssa nodded.

  “Good. Come.”

  They were on the western side of the complex. The main gates were to the south, but instead of going there, Nava pulled her north. The stars were hidden behind clouds, and in the dim light Alyssa stumbled as she ran. Only the strong grip on her wrist kept her moving. More mercenaries spread around the house, and she heard their shouts behind her. They had not yet been spotted, but how long until they were?

  The tall gate loomed high to her left. She felt the tug on her wrist lead her closer and closer, until suddenly a hand clasped over her mouth, holding in her startled cry as they halted all movement.

  “Shhh,” Nava hissed into Alyssa’s ear.

  The faceless woman removed her cloak, the fabric making a soft sigh as it slipped through her fingers. A single word of magic and it snapped erect. Nava flung it across the bars, where it stuck like honey. The woman rolled through it, spun on her heels, and then reached back. Her hand pressed through the bars as if they were darkness, only darkness. Alyssa swallowed her fear and took her hand. A hard jerk forward, and then she was on the other side.

  Nava snapped her fingers. The cloak returned to cloth, glinting as if a thousand stars were woven into its fabric. She wrapped it across her shoulders and took Alyssa’s hand. Together they fled from the shouts of soldiers and mercenaries. Alyssa gave one last look at the mansion, knowing in her heart that it would never be hers.

  Deep within, Maynard stepped out from the gray tunnels winding throughout his estate. His advisor, the gray-bearded man with shaved eyebrows stood beside him. His name was Bertram Sully.

  “I knew the Kulls were desperate,” Bertram said, frowning at the mess the mercenaries were making as they stamped throughout the place. “But to hire faceless women? Have they gone mad?”

  “Perhaps,” Maynard said. “And I wonder what they could have offered, but that is not important, not now. The priests of Karak have sworn they would remain out of our war. It would seem that promise has finally been broken.”

  Bertram stroked his beard.

  “Perhaps not. The left hand does not always know the actions
of the right. If this is true, then we might have an opportunity here.”

  “And what is that?” Maynard asked. He kicked a nearby chair, knocking it to the floor. He had known the Kulls would try to rescue Alyssa, and he had hoped to capture a few of their kind in the attempt. How he would have loved to shave the head of that pompous Yoren and then hang him with his own golden locks. Instead, his daughter had escaped, and he had over twenty guards dead. From what he had seen, his own men had not scored a single cut.

  Bertram saw his master lost in thought and waited until Maynard’s eyes looked his direction.

  “Well?” Maynard asked impatiently. “What opportunity is there for us in this calamity?”

  “If we confront the priests about the faceless women, they have few recourses of action. They can punish the faceless for disobedience, thereby removing the only weapon the Kulls have against us. The priests may also try to atone for the broken promise by allying with us, perhaps even giving us the service of the faceless. We can smite the Kulls with their own weapon.”

  “You forgot a third option,” Maynard said. “The priests deny any involvement while secretly accepting whatever bribe the Kulls offered, and nothing changes.”

  “The priests would not be so foolish as to betray the Trifect,” Bertram insisted.

  “This war has made fools of everyone,” Maynard said. “But it will not happen to me again. Set up a meeting with high priest Pelarak. We will force the servants of Karak to break their neutrality, one way or another.”

  “And if they refuse?”

  Maynard Gemcroft’s eyes glinted with danger.

  “Then we expose their existence to the city. Let the mobs burn their temple and tear them limb from limb. We shall see if they remain neutral when that is the fate I offer.”

  4

  Gerand wound his way through the halls of the castle with an expertise acquired over the fifteen years of serving the Vaelor family line. Servants scuffled past him, and he listed off their names silently. Every new scullery maid or 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 begun fearing 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, and 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.

  Throbbing angrily, 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. Edwin’s spine seemed more akin to animal fat instead of bone, and he had been unable to execute his former teacher, no matter how estranged they might have become. Still, he would find ways to punish Robert for the blow his cane had struck him. Gerand would never say so, but he felt the castle was his, not Edwin’s, and he would command its workers and soldiers right underneath the king’s nose.

  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 quiet and 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. He removed the latch and flung it open. Inside had once been a spytower, but the strange contraption of mirrors and glass was long broken and removed. The room had also taken a stint as a prison cell, but over the past ten years it had fallen into disarray.

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

  “You’re late,” the man said, his voice spoken with each inhalation of air instead of exhalation, which gave him an ill, out of breath sound.

  Gerand shook his head, baffled 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 a soldier’s 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, even 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 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, 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 fantasy of assassination or burning buildings.

  “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 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.

  But only if the Worm speaks truth, he realized.

  “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 in his method of
departure, just as he did 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 rogues of the undercity. Her beauty was enough to keep her welcome, and her coin smoothed over things with those who still persisted in questioning. If she ever wanted something done without the denizens of the night knowing, it was 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 I must be 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.

  Kayla wasn’t sure what she expected of Thren’s safehouse, but the elegant mansion surrounded by steel bars was certainly not it. She asked for an explanation from Aaron, who kept making excuses to see her.

  “Some rich merchant fled to Mordeina,” he said, his voice much quieter than it had been during their flight from the soldiers. “All his helpers stayed to keep the mansion clean, warm, and safe. My father moved in shortly after. I’ve even heard he keeps a few business contracts with various men about the city while pretending to be a friend of the real owner.”