24.
Aisling
“You seem surprised that I know your real name, Yalina,” the dark elf said, smiling lightly at her.
“No one knows my real name,” Aisling said, the chill of the mountain air creeping in through her cloak and seeping onto her skin.
“Oh, that’s a terrible thing to say,” the man said, grimacing. “Your parents know your real name, don’t they?”
“But they don’t know the name Aisling Nightwind,” she replied, tension running heavy across her shoulders.
“It was a rather poetic choice,” the man said, nodding. His eyes glittered, like he was in on a particularly clever jest. He stood shadowed in the alley’s shade, the eaves of the shops on either side keeping the daylight above from revealing him totally. “How did you come to it?”
“How do you know about it?” Aisling asked, ready to spring. The smell of rosewater reached her nose, as though the man were lightly perfumed.
“I know many things,” he said. “Like the predicament you find yourself in. I’m fully apprised of your problems.”
“Are you aware that my biggest one at the moment involves a stranger confronting me in an alleyway in a threatening manner?”
“I’m not threatening you,” he said, holding his hands out. “I didn’t let you stab me, but I have no threats. No ill intentions.”
“Is that so,” Aisling said.
“That is so,” he said, sincerely. “In fact, I’ve come to help you.”
“Help me with what?” she asked, taking a sideways step, never turning away from him.
“Well, first of all,” he said, with an incline of his head in deference, “let me give you my name, since I have all of yours and you have none of mine. Maybe that’ll put us on slightly more even footing. You may call me Genn.”
“Never heard that name before,” she said, not daring to look away from him, even to blink.
“I’d never met anyone who chose the name Aisling before today,” Genn said lightly. “Yet here we are, Genn and Aisling. Unless you’d prefer I call you Yalina. I could, I suppose, but it seems a bit odd since you’ve done everything you could to leave that name behind—”
“What do you want?” Aisling asked, feeling an uncontrollable quiver run through her body.
“I told you, I want to help you,” Genn said, spreading his hands wide. He smiled. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, sandwiched as you are between—oh, let’s just list them—Yartraak, Dagonath Shrawn, Cyrus Davidon, Sanctuary … This could go on for a while, actually …”
“How can you help me?” Aisling asked. He can’t possibly know everything. He’s just trying to get me to talk, looking for information.
“Well, I think you need a friend, first of all,” Genn said, “but I suspect you wouldn’t simply accept my friendship if I offered, so let’s put that away for a bit.” He took a step to the side, causing her to mirror him, then did it again, grinning at her. “Shall we keep circling each other?”
“I could try and stab you again if you want to just get closer.”
“And I could throw the attack right back at you—again,” he said indifferently. “If you want to try, go ahead. It’s not an illusion; your attacks are not going to find their mark with me. And … honestly, would you want them to? I’m the only person who’s offered to actually help you in years. What does it say about you that you’re in a hurry to kill me if you could?”
That I don’t trust you, Aisling thought. That I don’t think you’re here to help me at all. But that was not how she answered. “That I’m careful. That I’ve been burned before—”
“Ah, yes.” Genn nodded. “Shrawn’s got great big claws in you. Yanked you around for years, made you do … unspeakable things.” He twisted his lips in disgust. “And now, now you’re right in the line, aren’t you? Had a big meeting with Yartraak this morning? They’ll never let you go now, and you can feel it, can’t you?” He took a half step toward her and she did not move, though she tensed. “It’s like the table odds in a game of gvarante, they just doubled against you with a move of the pieces. Now you’ve got to find a way to extricate yourself from Shrawn’s paw with the Sovereign sticking his ugly face into the situation.”
“I do as I’m told,” Aisling said, ready to spring back if he took so much as another step toward her.
“The sad part about it all,” Genn said, his hands fastened behind him now, a comically tall and thin statue, his sharp features perfectly carved out of blue skin, “is that if you weren’t spying on Sanctuary, they would be the perfect allies for you in this situation. They’re the natural enemies of your current masters, with more than a few reasons to want to give Yartraak and the Sovereignty a bloody nose, but because you’re actively betraying them, it’s rather unlikely they’d help you, isn’t it?”
“There’s not a lot of help anywhere for people like me.”
“There are no people like you,” Genn said, serious. “Believe me. I’ve looked.”
She took that step back, widening the circle between them. Genn did not move to match her. “Who are you?”
“An interested party,” Genn said.
“Interested in what?”
“Helping you break out of your predicament safely,” he said, keeping his hands behind him. “I want to see you get out of Shrawn’s grasp. I want you to have that revenge you’ve been hiding away in your heart, barely daring to believe in.” He leaned forward slightly, stooping as he whispered. “I want to help you carve Dagonath Shrawn’s head from his neck.”
“That’s madness,” Aisling said. “Shrawn is the most powerful man in Saekaj.” Who is this … Genn? Someone who Shrawn pissed off in the Shuffle?
“He is now,” Genn said, breaking into a smile once more. His teeth were white and even. “He doesn’t have to be forever, though.”
“What did Shrawn do to you?” she asked, watching him with a canny look.
“Shrawn didn’t do anything to me,” Genn said, straightening back up. “It’s you and Saekaj and Sovar he’s stepped all over.”
“So you want to help me out of the kindness of your heart?”
Genn looked down the alley toward the back, where the rocky side of the mountain sloped up, then past her toward the road in front of the shops. “I see you’re in trouble, and I don’t see anyone else offering help. I wouldn’t call it the kindness of my heart, exactly, but I’m not asking for anything from you. And I’m not asking you to do anything you weren’t going to do anyway.”
“You’re one of Shrawn’s spies,” she said, shaking her head.
“If Shrawn suspected who you were,” Genn said, “he’d have your family dragged into the Depths before the end of the day on made-up charges just to be sure that he had every point of leverage against you covered. You’re too important to him at the moment to leave anything to chance. He’s certain he has you entirely figured out, and it absolutely tickles me that he has not the slightest idea how badly he’s misjudged you. It’s all the more amusing because it’s a mistake that Dagonath Shrawn never makes. The man with eyes and ears everywhere fails to realize you grew up not a thousand meters from his front door because he thinks you come from a place far from him, a place he watches but does not truly understand. A place he fears.”
“Sovar,” Aisling said.
Genn tapped his nose and then returned his hand behind his back. “I don’t expect you to trust a stranger in an alley. You and I, though, we’re more alike than you think. Let me play this out for you, because you have three choices, as I see it: first, you can ignore me and continue to do whatever you think Shrawn wants you to do, hoping that someday you’ll worm your way out of his service. Perhaps he’ll let you go, but I think we both know that’s … unlikely.” He put enough sarcasm into it that to tell her exactly what he thought of that option. “Second, you could turn yourself in to Sanctuary, hoping for their good graces. You could, after all, produce Verity, which would perhaps give you some favor or forgiveness, and pe
rhaps help convince Cyrus Davidon of the sincerity of your repentance. Of course, after such an admission, he would be unlikely to help you, and thus Norenn would suffer a terrible death.”
A silence fell over the alley, and Aisling looked over her shoulder toward the street behind her. No sound came from the avenue, the road quiet as it had been when she walked along it moments earlier. When she turned back, Genn was only inches from her face. Burying her instinct to jump, she simply met his gaze. “And third?”
“Third is really two options,” Genn said, his breath cinnamon and light, filling her nostrils with its pleasant scent. “You try and kill Shrawn and free your friend. Without my help, you will almost certainly die. It will not be short. It will not be kind, nor in your sleep. There will be blood, there will be torture, and pain, and agony of the sort that Yartraak and Shrawn revel in.”
“How does that change with your help?” she asked, scarcely believing she’d asked.
Genn studied her carefully. “Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps there is no help for you.”
“Then I’m no better off with your help than without it—” She turned to leave, and he swooped alongside her silently, cutting off her retreat.
“I’m being honest with you,” Genn said, bowing his neck to put them eye-to-eye. He wasn’t terribly tall, but it still required some stooping. “I doubt you hear much of that these days. My help—it might mean your survival, or it might not. I’m hardly a seer of the future. But I know you’ll have a better chance with it than without it.”
“And if you’re really just one of Shrawn’s spies?” she asked. The mouth of the alley was only feet away; she could reach it in seconds.
“If I worked for Shrawn, he wouldn’t be living in a manor house,” Genn said. “He’d be sitting on a throne.”
What did Shrawn do to you? she wondered again. “How can you help me?” she asked.
Genn smiled. “Well, I can warn you about some dangers you’re going to face, for one. I can give you a plan, for second.”
“What do you get out of being my co-conspirator?” she asked, and her eyes flicked to the mouth of the alley again.
Genn paused before answering. “Right now you’re the slave of a cruel, sadistic, evil man who is the loyal servant of the God of Darkness, and they’ve exerted control over your will, your spirit, your life and your body. Honestly … what do you imagine that I could ask that would be worse than all that?”
I can imagine quite a lot. “You don’t want to quibble over the price of your assistance?” Aisling asked.
“I will not ask anything of you, when it comes to price,” Genn said. “Though when the moment comes, you may ask more of me. That will require a different sort of payment.”
“The consultation is free,” she said, looking toward the sky beyond, “but the help will cost me. Is that it?”
“Something of that sort,” Genn said with a smile. “What do you say?”
He doesn’t work for Shrawn. She chewed her lip, trying to make it look like she was trying to decide. So, who does he work for? Or what does he represent? He could betray me at any moment, and seems to know my very thoughts, things I would never dare to speak aloud. Her eyes flitted to the side, though her decision was already made.
“Do you wish to continue the charade of thinking it over?” Genn asked. “Or shall we get down to the business of planning your next move?”
“I could use some help,” she agreed reluctantly. And if you are who I think you are … you might just be the kind of help I need.
25.
J’anda
This is perhaps the maddest scheme I have ever participated in, and under the guidance of a man so singularly untrustworthy that if he had not just saved my life, I might have ended his given half an opportunity.
J’anda’s thoughts ran in a continuous spiral, spinning almost uselessly in circles that grew ever tighter, permitting no thought to stray far from the track. No chance to deviate from this spin that I am, which is rather hilarious, given that being deviant is what got me into such trouble here in the first place …
He walked down the main avenue of Saekaj, the luminescent ceiling of the cavern glowing softly overhead and Terian’s plan rattling in his head. He had his task, and the first phase was a simple enough one. What is the most insane part of this? That I’m taking cues from the dark knight who betrayed Sanctuary by trying to kill our General? Or that I think he’s correct in his plan, in his assessment of the Sovereignty’s weaknesses?
Or perhaps it’s being here, in this place, with my destiny wedded to the Sovereign once more.
He raised his eyes and saw the markets ahead. It hadn’t been but an hour or two since he had last passed this way, trailing his string of guards. He wondered how that had worked out for them; hopefully not too poorly. I would hate to think I caused their deaths.
Though the way things will go from here on … it is quite likely that theirs will only be the first of the deaths I am responsible for.
He looked to the Gathering of Coercers, a mighty building carved into the wall against the side of the cavern of Saekaj. It held the emblem of the guild above its double doors, and was built directly into the rock, giving it room to expand into the solid backing of the chamber. J’anda had not been here in a hundred years, had not seen this symbol above the doors, had not wanted to remember anything of it—not the swelling happiness of the best of times, of the triumphs, nor the gut-clenching horror of the last day.
You took everything from me, Vracken. Everything. And I let you have it.
Now you think you will take the rest … and I have to let you.
He came to stand before the stone doors, keeping his head down, not looking up at the carved symbol. He knew every line of it in any case, and he knew it would fill him with the same disgust as looking at the wax seal on Coeltes’s letter had.
We come to it at last. No more cowardly delays; no more running, no more illusions. He cracked a smile. I have no illusions remaining, in any case. All the ones of my youth have disappeared.
He pushed against the door and found it more solid than it had been in his youth. It moved subtly, heavy stone carved with lines to give it texture, outlines of angles and forms. It was hardly art; it was more the idle efforts of a craftsman with little imagination trying to make the doors something more than plain. The ridges felt hard against his hand, but J’anda shoved against them and entered the quiet foyer of the Gathering of Coercers.
The lamps burned with their sweet, oily smell. J’anda took it all in, allowing just enough of his memories to serve as a guide. It was larger than the foyer of the house of Ehrest and able to house over a hundred enchanters in training easily. His eyes settled on Vracken Coeltes, who waited in the middle of the room alone.
The Gathering’s guildhall was quiet, ordered. J’anda sensed the hand of a tyrant at work. It was hard to imagine that anyone lived in this place. J’anda had seen more life in the dead city in the Realm of Darkness when last he had been there.
“Here you are,” Coeltes said, holding a staff to his side. It was a familiar thing, the weapon. J’anda had seen it before, more times than he could count—the staff of the Guildmaster, passed from each head of the Gathering to his successor.
“Here I am,” J’anda agreed, giving Coeltes what he wanted. He wants me to see it now, in private, where he can enjoy imagining the jealousy that burns inside me at his possession of that which should have—by all rights—been mine. And so he stared at the long staff, a hardwood that came to a tip with metal edges that clenched an orb in the middle. “I report for duty, Guildmaster.”
Coeltes smiled, thinly, without a hint of genuine pleasure. “The Sovereign has plans for you. Of this you are aware, yes?”
“I submitted myself to his use,” J’anda said, placing his hands into the sleeves of his robe, hiding them from Coeltes’s view. The meaning of gesture was obvious—concealment, of intentions, of words. I will give him what he wants, what he expects. Trying
to convince Coeltes I am loyal to the Sovereign would be a failing endeavor in any case. Loyalty matters little to him; he would never view me as anything other than a rival to be destroyed as expediently as possible. “I imagine he would come up with some thoughtful endeavor for me to partake of.”
“And so you shall,” Coeltes said, nodding. “You will return to Sanctuary immediately to listen in on them. You will stay there until tomorrow, at which point you will return for judgment by the Sovereign.” At this, Coeltes appeared immeasurably pleased. “He wants to … insure that you’ve mended your deviant ways.”
J’anda held back his immediate reaction. I was expecting this. This is planned. It was to be, all along.
Now I merely have to cope with the challenge.
“Repeat your orders,” Coeltes said, using the staff of the Guildmaster to make a gesture at J’anda.
“Return to Sanctuary,” J’anda said. “Spy. Come back tomorrow and present myself for judgment to the Sovereign, and prove myself … changed.”
Coeltes chuckled under his breath. “Yes. Of course we both know that a cave cress cannot change its scent, but I imagine it will be quite the entertainment to see you try, at least for poor Zieran’s sake.”
J’anda caught the hint. “I will see you tomorrow, I suppose.”
“I suppose you will,” Coeltes said, sweeping away, his robes behind him, the staff of the Guildmaster high in his grasp, “because if you don’t …” And he walked up the stairs without needing to finish. The meaning was plain enough.
Because if I don’t, J’anda finished it with a surprisingly cool lack of worry, Zieran will be killed—slowly, painfully … and it will be all my fault.
26.
J’anda
The Sovereign’s red eyes glared at J’anda out of the red darkness of the throne room. The enchanter’s breath was caught in his throat, and bile hung on the back of his tongue where he’d lost the battle against his nerves less than an hour earlier, when he had been escorted through the streets of Saekaj with thirty guards arrayed closely around him, a mix of warriors and spell casters, with a few rangers at a distance, bows drawn. While it had hardly been the most humiliating experience of his life, neither had it been one he would recall fondly.
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