“Excellent,” the pale man replied. “Bring us a flagon of your very best wine, my dear. None of that swill you normally serve, mind you; we are gentlemen of discriminating tastes.”
“As you wish, m’lord.” The servant bobbed her head and withdrew.
Rhovann stepped into the room, pulling the sliding door closed behind him. “Could you have found a more squalid tavern for our meeting, Valdarsel?”
“I know it’s not much, but they know me here,” the pale man replied. He offered a humorless smile. “The proprietor impresses me with the zeal of his service to the Black Sun. Inspired by his example-or, perhaps, simply fearful of losing their employment-his people do Cyric’s work readily enough. They understand my requirements, and they are careful to meet them. And, speaking of my requirements …”
Rhovann reached into his cassock and drew out a small leather pouch that jingled softly. He set it on the table and slid it over to the Cyricist priest, who weighed it in his hand then tugged the drawstring open to peer inside. The mage was all but certain that Valdarsel was in fact already in the pay of some other power with an interest in Hulburg, but he was prepared to pretend otherwise if the Cyricist thought it important. Besides, what did he care about Marstel’s money?
“It is the customary sum,” Rhovann told him. “Count it if you like.”
“I will later,” Valdarsel answered. He tied the pouch closed and slipped it under his own tunic. “My thanks, good mage. This should allow me to recruit and arm another fifty Cinderfists, although I’ll likely need to bring some in from the nearby cities. Naturally, I will see to it that the Cinderfists cause no difficulties for House Marstel.”
“Naturally, although the time may come when I ask you to arrange for some selective damage to befall unimportant Marstel assets. It wouldn’t do for my lord’s properties to remain completely untouched by your mob. Some might grow suspicious.”
“A wise precaution,” the Cyricist remarked. “Let me know when and where you would like the Cinderfists to strike.”
There was a knock at the door behind him. The serving maid slid it open and carried in a tray loaded with a jug of wine, two goblets, a loaf of black bread, and a wedge of cheese. She set it on the table between the two men, poured wine in both goblets, then curtsied and withdrew. Rhovann waited for the door to slide shut before continuing.
“I have news that will interest you,” he said. “Sometime after midnight two nights from now, the Black Moon Brotherhood will attack Hulburg. I understand that it will be a large raid, the greatest pirate raid in the Moonsea in a hundred years-five ships full of corsairs. I expect that they will cause much damage to the neighborhoods close to the harbor.”
Valdarsel stared at him for a moment before leaning back in his chair with his goblet of wine. “Indeed,” he murmured. “Have your magical divinations shown you this danger descending on the city?”
Rhovann smiled. “If you would like to think so.”
“And what leads you to provide me with warning of the attack?”
“In the wake of a devastating raid, there will be outrage and recriminations. The harmach’s inability to adequately defend Hulburg from the depredations of the Moonsea pirates will be plain for all to see. I wish the Cinderfists to run amok in the days following the raid, Valdarsel. Riot in the streets and scream for Harmach Grigor’s head.” Rhovann raised his own goblet and sipped at his wine. He heard the serving maid hurry past in the hall outside, her footsteps light on the floorboards, while in the common room of the inn someone began to strum a lute with little skill. “With the rule of House Hulmaster shown to be fatally weak and incompetent, the Merchant Council will have no choice but to wrest power from the harmach. The Cinderfists will enthusiastically support this measure, of course. Should the harmach resist, the combined might of the Merchant Council and the Cinderfists will force him out.”
Valdarsel nodded to himself, his eyes focused on the events Rhovann outlined. “It is easy to see what Lord Marstel gets from all this,” he said, “but it seems to me that the poor, honest outlanders of the Tailings and the foundries will simply exchange one master for another. The Cinderfists may go along with the idea of overthrowing an incompetent government, but they’ll turn against your council next. I have to have something more to satisfy the rabble.”
Rhovann shrugged. “Doubtless there will be Hulmaster loyalists remaining among the population after the harmach has been dismissed, especially among the so-called native Hulburgans who own most of the land in these parts. As those people are found to be conspiring to overthrow the council and restore the rule of the harmach, the council can deal sternly with them and confiscate their property. Reward citizens loyal to the council with Hulburgan land and goods, and I think you’ll find that the Cinderfists may become enthusiastic supporters of the new regime.”
“It wouldn’t take much for a wealthy Hulburgan to be found to be resisting the council’s authority, would it?”
“Some semblance of procedure should probably be followed,” Rhovann replied.
“Oh, of course.” Valdarsel grinned like a wolf. “It is said that wizards are subtle and dangerous, Lastannor. In your case, that strikes me as an understatement. A plan such as you propose warms the Black Prince’s heart, it truly does.”
Rhovann inclined his head, acknowledging what the Cyricist intended as a compliment. It was possible that the Merchant Council alone might suffice to oust the harmach in the wake of the Black Moon raid, but he needed to make sure that the Cinderfists would not interfere. In truth, he could not care less what became of the city or Valdarsel’s ragged mob once the Hulmasters were dealt with. He expected to shake the dust of Hulburg from his boots and never look back. Leaving the town to be torn apart among an idiot like Maroth Marstel, a viper such as Valdarsel, and the desperate gangs of foreigners who lurked in its poorer neighborhoods was one more little gift for Geran Hulmaster.
He returned his attention to the priest of Cyric. “The pirate raid depends on surprise. If you choose to move your Cinderfists out of its path or get them in place to strike during the chaos, make sure that you keep the reasons to yourself.” The mage wished he did not have to confide in Valdarsel, but if he failed to warn the man about the coming attack, the Cyricist might very well wind up unleashing his rabble to some counterproductive cross-purpose. He simply had to hope that the prize was tempting enough for the priest.
Valdarsel snorted. “I am not stupid.” He took another sip from his goblet then nodded to himself. “Best not to tell my people anything, I think. I’d rather make use of their unfeigned outrage in the days to come. In fact, I rather hope that the pirates do some damage to the Tailings and Easthead. A few deaths or abductions would be just the thing to stir up anger.”
“I consider that the safest option. You and I are the only people in Hulburg who know what is coming the night after next. I prefer to keep it that way.” Rhovann drank again from his goblet-the wine was exactly what he might have expected from a place like the Three Crowns-and stood. “We will speak again soon.”
He set his hand on the door and was about to let himself out when he heard a thump from somewhere behind the wall where Valdarsel sat. Someone in the adjoining room said clearly, “Ho, what are you doing there?” There was a muffled reply, another couple of thumps, then the speaker shouted, “Come back here!”
Rhovann wheeled on Valdarsel with sudden fury. “You had someone spy on me?” he demanded.
Valdarsel ignored him. The Cyricist surged out of his own seat and looked at the wall. The Three Crowns was rather shod-dily built; the interior walls were little more than a thin weave of wooden slats covered in plaster between the rough timber posts. Valdarsel angrily threw aside several spare chairs standing against the wall, revealing a coin-sized hole in the plaster just a little above the floor. “Not I,” the man spat. “It seems there was a mouse in the wall.”
Rhovann threw open the sliding door and hurried down the hall, only to find that the room he wa
s seeking backed onto the dining room from a different corridor. He snarled and rushed around through the foyer linking the taphouse to the inn, turned right, and found a hallway that paralleled the one in the taphouse. A gangly, teenaged servant lad stood in front of an open storeroom, a small keg in his arms. Rhovann pushed past him to look in the storeroom. Amid the clutter of casks and barrels, he saw the gleam of light shining through from the dining room on the other side, with a small space cleared by the spyhole. There was even a blanket on the floor.
He turned on the serving lad standing there. “Who was in here? Where did he go? Speak, boy!”
The youth gaped at him before he found his voice. “It-it was a woman, m’lord, with black hair and a blue cloak. I opened the door to fetch this keg and found her on the floor there, looking through the hole. She-she leaped up and ran out.”
“Which way?” Rhovann demanded.
The boy nodded down the hallway behind him. “There’s a door to the alleyway back there. I heard her go through.”
Rhovann ran to the end of the hall and burst out into the dark alleyway behind the inn. He looked left, then right, but he saw no sign of his quarry. A moment later Valdarsel appeared behind him. “No sign of our mouse?” he asked.
Rhovann shook his head. “No. She’s gone. The boy said she was a black-haired woman in a blue cloak.”
Valdarsel scowled. “That could be anybody. Damn it all to the depths of Nessus!”
“No one followed me here or knew that I was coming,” Rhovann said. He looked at the Cyricist. “Our mouse was spying on you, not me. Perhaps the folk of the Three Crowns have come to know you better than you would like.”
“Oh, trust me, I intend to question them rigorously.” The cleric kicked at the ground and walked in a small circle, composing himself. “How much did she hear, I wonder?”
“Assume that she heard everything until we have reason to believe otherwise.”
“We need to find her, then. Tonight.” Valdarsel took a deep breath and looked at Rhovann. “Do you have any divinations that might help?”
“Divinations, no. But I might be able to do something else.” Rhovann headed back inside with the priest trailing him and returned to the storeroom. The serving boy was gone; he’d fled back to the taphouse with his keg as quickly as possible, it seemed. He kneeled by the place where the spy had crouched, and spoke the words of a light spell to illuminate the scene. There was the blanket-an old saddle blanket, he saw-a small candle in a tin holder, and a few crumbs of bread and cheese. Whoever it was, she had waited for some time for Valdarsel to arrive. Then something glinted in the light. He reached down and retrieved a long, fine strand of black hair from the blanket.
“Have you found something?” Valdarsel asked.
Rhovann showed him the hair. “It may be enough. I must return to my chambers and make some preparations.”
“Go swiftly, then. We must catch this mouse before she squeaks.” The priest smiled cruelly. “While you essay your magic, I will find out what I can from the servants of the house. Someone besides that boy knew she was here.”
“Very well,” said Rhovann. He hurried outside to the alleyway and spoke the words of his flying spell. In the space of a moment he soared up over the rooftops, leaving the dark alleyway behind the Three Crowns behind him. This time he did not have to search out his destination with care; he could see the lights of the Marstel manor from the moment he rose above the rooftops of the Tailings. With all the speed the spell allowed him, he raced back toward Lord Marstel’s home, high above the town in the richest part of the Easthead.
He easily avoided the guards at the front gate by alighting in a little-used garden behind the grand house. Rhovann had appropriated the northerly wing of the Marstel manor as his own months ago, evicting the other residents. It gave him space to set up a library, a laboratory, and a conjury for his arcane studies, and also made it easy for him to leave or return to the estate without being observed. He knew he would have been wiser to keep his quarters right next to Maroth Marstel’s own chambers, but he detested the old man and wanted an excuse to keep him at some small distance when he could. Instead he made sure that Marstel’s servants and guards never left the old man’s side and knew to summon him the instant Marstel did anything he wasn’t supposed to.
The elf made his way into his rooms and went at once to his conjury. This room he kept sealed with a spell of locking, which he undid with a word and a gesture. In the center of the room a large, magical diagram of beaten silver was inlaid into the polished stone floor; shelves and worktables along the walls held a variety of arcane reagents and materials. When he entered the room, a hulking figure in a vast black cloak stepped into the light-a pale creature almost the size of an ogre, with doughy flesh and lusterless black eyes. It reached one great hand toward him.
“It is I, Bastion,” Rhovann said absently. The golem halted at once, its arm falling to its side. “Has anyone tried to enter since last I left?”
The creature shook its head in a slow, deliberate gesture.
“Good,” Rhovann muttered. He looked around the room and found the item he was searching for-a large, thick glass jar filled with dark liquid. Inside floated a small, malformed creature about the size of a cat. He carried the jar over to the center of one of his worktables then used a small chisel to break apart the old, brittle wax seal that fastened the lid to the neck of the jar. Bastion stood by and watched him at his work, its eyes dead and dark. A rank, briny smell greeted Rhovann’s nostrils when he pried off the lid.
Rhovann held his left hand over the jar then used a small, sharp knife to cut the tip of a finger. He squeezed a single drop of blood into the dark fluid where the creature floated. Nothing happened at first, but then the thing inside began to move slowly. Its limbs twitched weakly, and its beady eyes opened. “Come, little one,” he said to the thing in the jar. “I have need of you tonight.”
The creature-a homunculus, it was called-climbed awkwardly out of the jar and slid to the tabletop in a splatter of dark brine. It unfurled a pair of batlike wings and flapped them slowly, drying itself. Its motions were growing stronger, more confident, with every moment. Rhovann allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. Creating a homunculus was a tedious and unpleasant task, but now he was going to reap the reward of his own foresight from many months ago. He took the strand of hair he’d found in the spy’s nest at the Three Crowns and gave it to the creature.
“Find the woman whose hair this is,” he said. “Do not allow yourself to be seen. Then return, and tell me who she is, and where she may be found. If you do not find her by sunrise, return and tell me so.”
“Yes-s, mas-ter,” the homunculus said in a small, wheezing voice.
Rhovann went to the room’s window, opened it, and threw open the heavy shutter outside. “Now go,” he said to the homunculus. The creature hopped from the tabletop to the windowsill, tested its wings, and threw itself out into the night. It flew clumsily at first, but quickly grew stronger and steadier. When it flapped out of sight, it was flying as well as any big, heavy-bodied bird. The mage tended to the cut on his finger and then settled down to wait. Since there was little more he could do until the homunculus returned, he motioned for Bastion to withdraw and seated himself cross-legged on a low divan against one wall. The elf allowed himself to doze off into the half-memory, half-dreaming state that served as sleep for elfkin. His mind wandered and time passed.
A little more than an hour later, he heard a sudden fluttering and scratching at his window. He rose and went to let in the homunculus. The little creature scrabbled across the windowsill to the table nearby. “Well, let us see what you have learned,” Rhovann said to the creature. It could not truly understand him, of course, but it knew what it was supposed to do. It crouched down and held still. The elf mage reached out to rest his living hand atop its head and intoned the words of the spell that would reveal to him what his spy had discovered.
He closed his eyes, the better to foc
us on the images of the creature’s memories. He saw its wild, fluttering flight across the rooftops of Hulburg. It stopped frequently, clinging to the eaves of houses or prowling over the rough wooden shakes of roofs, snuffling and tasting the air as it sought the woman. At first it seemed to move more or less at random, a few hundred yards this way, then a few hundred yards back, but soon its movements became more urgent, more focused. It moved to the east side of the Winterspear River and headed to the north side of town, not far from the foot of the castle Griffonwatch, flapping past a handful of passersby and drunks staggering through the streets despite the late hour. The homunculus steered wide around any people it encountered. Once Rhovann saw a Shieldsworn guard by the castle’s battlements look up with a startled expression on his face, but no one else seemed to notice the winged monster. It soon alighted on an old split-rail fence by a small farmhouse in the middle of an apple orchard and crawled closer on its wings and feet. In his mind’s eye Rhovann saw the thing climb up beside a window and peer inside.
The woman he sought was sitting by the table in her kitchen, frowning as she fixed herself a cup of tea. The blue cloak hung on a peg by the door. Rhovann smiled coldly and lifted his hand from the homunculus’s head. He knew where she was. “What is her name?” he asked the homunculus.
“Mir-ya,” the creature hissed. It possessed no real intelligence of its own, but sometimes it could learn things about the people it spied on, things it didn’t necessarily observe or hear aloud. That was the nature of its magic.
The name sounded familiar to Rhovann. “Mirya Erstenwold? That is Mirya Erstenwold?”
“Yes-s,” the creature wheezed.
“Why would Mirya Erstenwold spy on me?” he wondered aloud. The homunculus just gazed up at him without answering; the creature simply didn’t understand. He knew that she was a friend of Geran Hulmaster, but he’d thought she was a simple shopkeeper. As far as he knew Lastannor had given her no reason to pry into his business … but he hadn’t been the only person in the Three Crowns, had he? She must have been there to spy on Valdarsel instead of him. Either way, he had to assume that she knew things she was not supposed to know. She might not have overheard much during the time she’d been spying on them-after all, she’d gone home instead of going straight to Griffonwatch-but he couldn’t take the chance that she had.
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