Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  Mariscal, shivering with more than the cold, began to turn away.

  “What if,” Nycos asked softly, “I could solve the Quindacra problem while I was at it?”

  The margravine stiffened. “How in the name of the gods,” she hissed between clenched teeth, “would you even imagine you could do that?”

  “I’m… just considering a few wild ideas,” he hedged, mentally lashing himself for bringing it up. It’s not as though he could explain even if he wanted to!

  “You seem to have a lot of those. When you want to go into detail, we’ll talk. Until then, don’t do anything foolish. Consider that a command from a margravine as much as a personal plea, Baronet Nycolos.”

  She swept from the garden, her servants rushing to follow, and Nycos let her go. He knew her anger was a mask for her fear—for him, for them. It was a fear he shared, at least in part. And perhaps she was right. He didn’t want to go, didn’t want to take the risk, didn’t want to face the consequences.

  But neither did he wish to face the consequences of his ignorance.

  Ignoring the cold, ignoring the layer of frigid slush, Nycos found the nearest of the garden’s marble benches and sat, staring at the stone walls and feeling nearly as lost now as when he’d first awakened, his body a strange and foreign land, in the slavers’ wooden cage.

  ___

  “I am a great believer in seeking knowledge wherever one may find it, Sir Nycolos. But I rather doubt that these particular walls have anything more to tell you.”

  Nycos blinked and looked around for what felt like the first time in hours. The sky had gone dark, with only a few brighter patches in the clouds suggesting the presence of the moons. The snow fell more thickly, in spinning flurries. He discovered that his boots, his knees, and his shoulders were well coated.

  And standing before him, tightly wrapped in several layers of cloaks and shawls, was the old astrologer.

  “Time appears to have gotten away from me,” Nycos admitted, rising politely.

  “It’s slippery that way, yes.”

  “I, um. I didn’t realize you enjoyed the garden.”

  Balmorra gave him a flat and vaguely pitying look.

  “Or,” he amended, face flushing, “you might have been searching for me.”

  “Considering the weather, and the absolute lack of visible plant life, that does seem a rather more probable motive for me being here, doesn’t it?”

  “So what can I do for you, Mistress Balmorra?”

  Despite her earlier comment, it was her turn, now, to stare blankly at the far wall. “The stars and the signs,” she said slowly, “tell me that you have a momentous choice before you.”

  “Do they?” he asked in a dull monotone.

  “I’ve seen few specifics—and they aren’t necessarily mine to know, anyway—but I see bits. Pieces. And more importantly, I see the ripples made by your choice, spreading out to mar the image of Kirresc itself, and perhaps even beyond.”

  Nycos’s throat closed tight. “What…” He tried again, each word an act of will. “What should I do?”

  “If you choose the path of greater danger, you will lose much. We all may.”

  “Oh.” Nycos felt a weight, a tension in his shoulders, begin to fade. “Well, that seems—”

  “Choose the easier, safer path, and we stand to lose far more. Everyone will suffer for it.”

  Nycos cursed, long and loudly, at one point pounding a fist into the statue of an old knight that topped a tiny fountain. As though responding to his frustration, the snow fell more thickly still, so that the far side of the garden became invisible.

  “That,” he spat, his brief fit of temper spent, “is not much of a choice, Balmorra.”

  “No, it isn’t.” She had all but disappeared behind the curtain of white, and her voice sounded somehow more distant as well. “It’s an awful, discouraging choice, and that it lies on you to make is unfair in the extreme.

  “But that’s all a part of being human, is it not, Sir Nycolos?”

  She was gone before the question could penetrate the veil of his anger, before he thought to wonder at the implication of her words. Again Nycos stood alone in the white-cloaked garden, unanswered questions and impossible decisions weighing on him far more heavily than the snow.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He’d taken a day to ruminate, or perhaps to hunt for some excuse. It had changed nothing, as he’d expected. He’d known what he would do since Balmorra’s warnings had passed her lips.

  “I intend no offense by this, Master,” Smim whispered as they slunk through the largely empty and, at this hour, poorly lit halls of Oztyerva’s outer wing. Each carried a small sack of supplies, the last of several batches they’d been hiding beneath the straw of the stables throughout the night. “But you’re insane.”

  “For future reference, Smim, I’d be more inclined to believe you meant no offense if this weren’t the ninth time you’d said that to me.”

  “Forgive me, Master. One must sometimes belabor the point when speaking to lunatics.”

  Nycos snorted and continued on his way.

  Stone halls led to a hefty wooden door with—thanks to the goblin’s earlier efforts—newly oiled hinges. Only a few guards patrolled near the stables, and it was simple enough for Nycos to listen at the portal until the sound of footsteps crunching on the thin carpet of snow passed out of range. He and Smim slipped swiftly through the door, keeping to the darkest shadows of the curtain wall, and scurried across a few dozen yards of the bailey.

  “Ready, Smim?” They would have to work quickly and quietly to saddle Avalanche and Smim’s chosen mount, and load their supplies in the saddlebags, without being caught. Not that Nycos was by any means forbidden from taking his own steed out on a late-night ride, but it would certainly raise questions—questions that couldn’t be avoided, but might at least be delayed.

  “It’s not too late for us to return to our nice warm beds and forget about this,” Smim replied.

  Nycos chose to take that as a yes, unbolted the outer door of the stable, and darted inside. The goblin followed a half-step behind.

  “I thought you gentlemen were never going to arrive. What did you do, stop for drinks?”

  Nycos’s sabre leapt to hand in a flash of steel lightning. Smim uttered a high-pitched wheeze and dropped into a crouch equally suited to springing toward or away from whatever appeared.

  A soft chuckle ended in the scrape and spark of flint on steel. A small candle caught, the wick dancing as though it, too, shivered in the cold. It wasn’t much light, but enough to make out a fully saddled Avalanche, alongside not one but two other mounts, equally equipped and ready for travel.

  Leaning against the extra, a dappled grey not much smaller than Avalanche himself, was Silbeth Rasik. She wore a fur-lined coat, Wenslirran or Ktho Delian in style, and belted slightly open to allow her easy access to her sword.

  “Um,” Nycos commented.

  “Astute, Master.”

  For all that he’d longed for the opportunity to speak with her, this wasn’t precisely how Nycos had envisioned the conversation taking place. “I’m, uh… Mistress Rasik…”

  “Silbeth, please, Sir Nycolos. We are going to be working together, after all.”

  “Um,” Nycos said again, possibly unsure she’d properly understood him the first time.

  “She’s saddled herself a horse, Master. I think she’s planning to come with us.”

  Silbeth grinned. “Astute, goblin.”

  Nycos finally got a hold of himself, forcing his startled bewilderment aside for later examination. “Silbeth, I don’t know how you found out I was planning on a journey—”

  “Margravine Mariscal. She hired me. Didn’t even balk at the price.”

  Things fell into place with a series of clunks so loud Nycos was surprised they didn’t spook the horses.

  “And you’re here to…?” He let the question linger.

  “Accompany you. Assist you. Make
certain you return in, if not one piece, then at least usable condition.”

  Nycos breathed a bit more easily and sheathed his blade. “I’m a bit surprised,” he admitted, “that your orders weren’t to knock me senseless and drag me back inside.”

  “Oh, we discussed that.” It was the casual, even offhand way she said it that convinced Nycos she wasn’t remotely jesting. “She came quite close to it a time or two. Ultimately, though, she recognized that wouldn’t have been a good idea. You’d just try again later.” She shrugged. “She knows that once you’ve decided that something needs doing, you’re going to do it. She’d rather you not get horribly killed in the process.”

  “We’ve been around the humans too long,” Smim grumbled at a volume only Nycos’s hearing could possibly have picked up, “if you’re getting this predictable.”

  For a long moment, Nycos said nothing, stroking Avalanche’s nose as he pondered. He found himself moved by Mariscal’s actions. Nor was he remotely displeased with the thought of spending some time in the mercenary’s company, getting to know her, possibly watching her skills in genuine battle.

  However…

  “I’m grateful,” he said at last. “To both of you. But what Smim and I have planned is not only dangerous, but private.” Indeed, her presence would make it exceedingly troublesome for Nycos and the goblin to converse freely, to ask the necessary questions, or for him to draw upon many of the abilities he might require. “So I’m afraid I must decline your company.”

  “I’m afraid you misunderstand, Sir Nycolos. This wasn’t an offer. I was hired to do a job. I will do it.”

  “I can’t permit you to come with us,” he insisted.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “You would have to physically force me to stay. Kill me, or injure me so badly I can’t follow. I don’t think you’re prepared to do that.”

  “I—”

  “After our match at the tournament, I don’t think you’re capable of doing that. But even if you are, do you believe you can outfight me without your efforts drawing the attention of every guard walking patrol?”

  Nycos growled something that would have been unintelligible no matter what body he wore.

  “Wonderful!” Silbeth swung into her saddle in one smooth motion. “Shall we be off, then? I think I packed everything you had hidden in here, but you might want to take a quick pass just to be sure. And,” she added, gesturing at the long, leather-wrapped bundle she’d tied across the back of Avalanche’s saddle, “you’re going to have to explain to me at some point what those are for.”

  In no mood to explain much of anything, Nycos hauled himself into Avalanche’s saddle and rode toward the stable doors.

  Departing in complete secrecy, as Nycos was well aware, had never been an option. In these pre-dawn hours, the gates of Oztyerva were firmly shut, and only his rank as a knight of the realm granted him the authority to order that one be opened long enough for the trio of riders to make their exit. Doubtless the sentinels had many questions—why he and his companions had to leave at such an indecent hour, why they were so heavily laden with supplies—but none had the right to question his order. The tale of his departure would spread, particularly once these soldiers’ shift had ended, but by then he ought to be far enough away that it wouldn’t matter.

  Between the white flurries and the black of the night sky, the streets of Talocsa were all but deserted. A very few passersby, wrapped in kaftans and coats, studied the trio with curiosity before going on about their business, but none chose to pause in the bone-deep cold to exchange polite greetings. A barking dog ran and pranced alongside the horses for a few blocks before returning, shivering, to the warmth of his den.

  Even Nycos lacked the authority to order the city gates opened once they’d been shut for the night, but he had accounted for that, too. By the time they’d crossed the length of Talocsa, less than an hour remained before dawn. The three riders huddled together in a small side street, hunched against the cold, until fingers of shadow crept from the east, pursued by the diffuse light of an overcast sunrise. The gates clanked and clattered open for the new day’s business, light as it might be this time of year, allowing Nycos, Silbeth, and Smim to depart as the vanguard of the morning’s traffic.

  The highway itself yet saw sufficient use, and the early winter precipitation had so far been light enough, that little snow marred their path. Splotches lingered here and there, like a mildewy growth, and heaps of murky sludge lined the roadway, churned up and kicked aside by hooves and grinding wheels. So long as the weather held, they ought to make good time.

  Smim had retreated into a shallow sulk, and Silbeth seemed content, for the moment, to ride in silence. Since the horses needed little guidance to follow the highway as it meandered its way between east and south and back again, Nycos found himself with plenty of time to think.

  He remained torn by Silbeth’s presence, a gnawing hesitation and dissatisfaction. He wanted to speak to her, yet he hadn’t the first notion of what to say. He knew she could be of great help, yet his need for secrecy and privacy was intense.

  More than once, in those early days, he gave genuine consideration to leaving her behind. He couldn’t just sneak away in the night. He suspected she was far too alert, too light a sleeper, for him to get far. Traveling alone, and boosted beyond human, he had the speed to match the horses and the endurance to outlast them, but that would mean leaving Avalanche behind, along with a sizable portion of his supplies. It meant leaving the goblin behind as well, and Nycos wasn’t yet prepared to make this journey, take these risks, entirely on his own.

  And, well, he did want to get to know this woman, this predator in human form, almost—to some extent, anyway—dragon-like in her own right.

  To Vizret’s hell with it. Let her come along. He could always try to lose her later, if the situation required it.

  Their pace remained brisk, swift enough to chew away the miles, not so fast as to endanger the horses. Still they spoke little, save to discuss matters of immediate import: where to camp, who had what duties, and so forth.

  On the third day, however, Nycos tugged on the bridle, steering Avalanche off to the left. “I’m taking us cross-country for a bit,” he explained. “We’ll return to the highway up ahead.”

  “That’s going to slow us down, Master,” Smim pointed out.

  “Aldsolca,” Silbeth said.

  “What?” The goblin sounded confused and vaguely irritated, but Nycos was nodding.

  “The highway takes us directly past the city of Aldsolca,” she explained. “On the off chance King Hasyan or Mashal Laszlan have anyone out looking for him, they could have sent a messenger pigeon or other word out to the major cities.”

  “And even if not,” Nycos added, “I might be recognized here, and I’d rather not have to explain my presence, or deal with any formalities. It’s probably an unnecessary precaution,” he admitted, spurring Avalanche off into the slush-covered grass and frigid mud, “but it’s worth a few hours and a little discomfort.”

  “You know,” Silbeth said after a few moments of squelching hooves and shivering splashes of muck, though at least they’d gotten no new snow that day, “this reminds me a little of one of my earliest hired missions for the Priory. We had to get into Mahdresh—I mean the city-state proper, not just their territories—but the criminal guild we were supposed to strike at knew we were coming, and they had a lot of the city guards on their payroll…”

  It was as if the brief conversation about Aldsolca had jarred something loose, though Nycos suspected her sudden loquaciousness was more about distracting them from the unpleasantness of off-road travel. And indeed, he found himself captivated by her tale, even though there wasn’t really much to it. The miles of uneven terrain, unsure steeds, and chilly muck seemed to pass far more swiftly than had the far easier miles of the road behind.

  For him, at least. Smim just hunched deeper into his coats and glow
ered as though all the world had offended him.

  The tales continued, now that the dam had been breached, even after they rejoined the main road beyond Aldsolca. With seemingly endless breath and enthusiasm, Silbeth segued from the infiltration of Mahdresh to bodyguard duty for a low-ranking but highborn priestess of Uldamboros, god of the mountains—and thus of gems, metals, and wealth in general—on a pilgrimage from Wenslir. “And make no mistake,” she insisted, “a lot of people have a bone to pick with the clergy of a god they feel should have made them rich, and didn’t.”

  “I can imagine…”

  And from that story, she’d gone on to describe a fierce four-way battle at the border of Quindacra, between two different robber-barons, the soldiers of the king, and an uninvolved mercenary company whose ill-luck had them passing through at just the wrong time, and whom each side assumed was working for one of the others.

  By that point the sun was threatening to dive off to sleep and the snow was falling once again, though in flurries and spurts as light as dandelion fuzz. The trio made camp in the shelter of some trees, and Nycos, in thanks for Silbeth’s storytelling, offered both to cook and take the first shift at watch.

  For a time he sat, back up against a heavy bole, the fire crackling softly off to his right, and gazed into the empty dark. Something about this night, in particular, made him miss the open sky, the rush of air over his wings, the earth scrolling beneath him like an endless tapestry. He wished, if nothing more, that the overcast would part enough for him to see the moon and stars.

  He didn’t turn or even glance aside as Smim carefully picked his way through the camp to come crouch at his side. He knew well the sound of the goblin’s movement.

  “Something on your mind, Smim?”

  “Master…” The pause that followed was startling. Usually Smim was quick with his thoughts, and not remotely shy about sharing them. “How much longer are you going to humor this woman?”

  Ah. He’d been expecting this, sooner or later. “And what would you have me do?”