Servant of the Crown

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Dal Ruisseau Noir smiled. “There are nearly five thousand people working up at the palace.”

  Gill raised his eyebrows. “Really?” In all his time at the palace, both in the Royal Guard and in the Silver Circle, he’d never known that. Good servants were invisible, and the ones close to the king were very good.

  “Indeed. The palace employs more people than anything else in the realm. A few unfamiliar faces aren’t going to be noticed or remarked upon.

  “I have appropriate clothing for that part of the job already, so we’ll be able to move through the palace via the servants’ passages until we get to the Tower of Forgetting. That’s where our ruse will have to be abandoned. Access to the king has been severely restricted, so at that point we’ll likely have to fight our way past the guards, then get the king out and back to the quarry shaft as quickly as we can. From there it’s back to the boats, and to a safe house until we can get the king out of the city.”

  The plan was streamlined, and Gill didn’t see any opportunity for him to get to Amaury and the Cup. Amaury’s offices were on the other side of the palace from the Tower of Forgetting, so they’d have to split up at an early stage.

  They were going into a very dangerous situation, and would be stirring up not one but two hornets’ nests. There was a chance trouble in two different parts of the palace would cause enough confusion to work to their favour, but it would also separate them, and might bring down on their heads every soldier Amaury had at his disposal. If he was going to ask someone to face additional danger on his account, Gill was at least going to be honest about it.

  “There’s something else we have to do when we’re there,” Gill said, his decision made.

  “What do you mean?” dal Ruisseau Noir said, his face turning dark.

  “The Prince Bishop is in possession of something that could give him a great deal of power. He hasn’t used it yet, so far as we kn—”

  “He has not,” Pharadon said.

  “Thanks,” Gill said. “He hasn’t used it yet, but when he does, he’ll be all but untouchable.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s something ancient that doesn’t belong to him. A cup. We need to take it from him before he uses it.”

  “And what do you plan on doing with it?” dal Ruisseau Noir said.

  “Return it to where it belongs, and make sure it isn’t used by any man or woman. Then kill him.”

  “Not tempted yourself?”

  “Not even remotely,” Gill said. He could feel Pharadon’s gaze burn into him. He’d happily forego the Cup’s wonders if it meant not having to fight another dragon. Truth be told, it hadn’t even occurred to him to try taking the Cup for himself. Considering all the bad choices he’d made in life, he liked to think he’d become adept at spotting them. It didn’t always mean he had the presence of mind to avoid them, but in this instance, he wasn’t even tempted. The sooner it was out of the hands of the human race, the better.

  “This is why you really came to me, isn’t it? Not simply to kill the Prince Bishop.”

  “Yes, it’s what we’re here in the city to do. I thought if our objectives were aligned enough, we could help one another.”

  Dal Ruisseau Noir stood up and sighed. For a moment, the strain that was on the man showed, but his inscrutable mask returned as quickly as it had disappeared. Gill reckoned he felt that the fate of the king, and the entire kingdom, was resting on his shoulders. For all his sinister Intelligencier ways, he was quite a young man, less than thirty years old, and he had a lot to deal with now that Amaury had destroyed his chain of command.

  “You’re telling me the truth?” dal Ruisseau Noir said, then answered before Gill could. “Yes, I think you are. Why hasn’t he used it, though? Why is he delaying? If it can give him that much power, all the problems he faces now will be like chaff on the wind.”

  “We’re not sure,” Solène said, “but probably because this is a one-time opportunity for him. If he gets something wrong, there won’t be another chance. I’m sure he’s tempted, but he’s being prudent. We have no idea when he’ll take that step, though. It could be tomorrow. It could be a week from now.”

  “Well, he has to be stopped,” dal Ruisseau Noir said. “That much is clear, and all things considered, it falls to us to do it.”

  “There’s no one else,” Gill said. “No one else even knows he has it.”

  “We’ll need to work the details out carefully,” dal Ruisseau Noir said. “Ideally, we’ll take the king and you’ll deal with the Prince Bishop and the cup at the same moment. I presume this item will be with the Prince Bishop, or close to him?”

  “I expect so,” Gill said. “The truth is, we don’t know exactly where it is, but it can be sensed, and we’ll be able to pinpoint it once we get closer.”

  “Within a hundred paces, I should be able to determine exactly where it is,” Solène said.

  “That means you’re going with Gill,” dal Ruisseau Noir said. “And what about you, my silent friend? What unique skill do you bring, and where might it be most usefully employed?”

  “My interests lie with the Cup,” Pharadon said. “I will accompany Gill.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” dal Ruisseau Noir said. “So, we gain entry together, then your party proceeds to take the cup and kill the Prince Bishop, while mine goes to rescue the king.”

  “Agreed,” Gill said.

  “Good,” dal Ruisseau Noir said. “We’ll be ready to go at first light. We’ll meet at pier four on the south docks at dawn.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  It had been a long time since Gill was last in a boat. Pharadon had never been in one. They had both stepped into it at the same time, and very nearly gave their mission a wet start. Considering the citizens of Mirabay used the river for waste disposal, it wouldn’t have been a particularly pleasant one either. As though the gods favoured their endeavour, a mist had descended on the river and spilled out over the banks. As propitious as it was, river fogs were common in Mirabaya, as the water, chilled in the distant mountains, met the warmer air of the lowlands.

  A boatman—another undercover Intelligencier, it seemed—rowed them up the river, dodging the traffic of other fishing boats and ferries, which was heavy even at that early hour. The current wasn’t strong at that time of year, the spring thaws being long past and the winter rains not yet come, which meant the water was fouler than at any other time of the year. As various pieces of flotsam and jetsam floated by, Gill felt doubly glad he hadn’t ended up in the water. It was heartening to see the water get clearer and fresher as they put more of the city behind them, until they were in the veritable wilds of the upper reach, with the Isle behind them, open ground and fields on the left bank, and the forested slopes and cliffs of the hill on the right.

  While dal Ruisseau Noir stood at the back of the boat with a fishing rod, seemingly unperturbed by the boat’s rocking, Gill scanned the shore for the quarry shaft’s entrance. He’d never seen it from this vantage point—he’d always been on the inside, letting people through the gate. He expected that the entrance had become heavily overgrown, and the task of spotting it was made even more difficult by the fog.

  Pharadon personified discomfort. He sat on the narrow wooden bench beside Solène, gripping the bulwark with both hands. It made Gill wonder how vulnerable the dragon was while in human form. He certainly looked far frailer as a human, and he had already alluded to the fact that he could only shape very limited magic while in this form. Like as not, he would be no easier or harder to kill than anyone, but for a creature as ancient and mighty as him, the vulnerability everyone else took for granted must be a shocking proposition.

  “I think that’s it,” dal Ruisseau Noir said.

  Gill tried to follow his gaze and eventually spotted a shadow on the cliff face, partly concealed by bushes. He looked up the cliff, trying to get a sense of the location by checking the position of the palace walls and towers, but the structure was
completely obscured by fog.

  “Looks like it,” Gill said, shrugging.

  Without needing instruction, the oarsman turned the boat toward shore, and continued his rhythmical movements, accompanied by the gentle creaking of the rowlocks and the splashing of the oars. The day was wearing on, and Gill hoped the fog wouldn’t burn off under the day’s sun—it would be a gift when it was time to make their escape. Still, he had long since learned not to rely on the things he couldn’t control. Which is pretty much everything.

  The boat juddered and there was a crunching noise as the oarsman drove the craft onto the shore, far enough out of the water that they could hop out without getting their boots wet. Best not to leave a trail of wet footprints through the palace, Gill thought.

  They got out quickly and hurried to the shelter of the cliff, where they would be out of sight of anyone up on the walls. Dal Ruisseau Noir delayed, shoving the boat back out into the river and giving the oarsman a salute before joining them. Returning the gesture, the boatman then resumed his steady motion, heading for the left bank, where he would wait out of sight.

  Pushing aside some of the overgrowth revealed a passageway that sloped upward for a few paces before terminating at the impassable seal. Gill wondered for a moment if the engineer was still alive, and in a flare of twisted humour, considered sending the man a note letting him know they’d gotten through. Assuming they managed it, of course.

  Enough light made it in to show that the surface of the steel had taken on a rough, rusty quality, but it still looked impenetrable. He placed his hand on the cold, damp, and gritty metal and gave it a push, just to be sure, but there was no movement. It was as solid as the rock that surrounded it. To be fair to the engineer, Gill didn’t think there was any way through it without magic, and even then, seeing and feeling it, he wasn’t entirely sure magic would be enough.

  “What do you think?” he asked Solène.

  She shrugged and gave him a hopeful smile.

  Val, Pharadon, and the unnamed Intelligencier remained outside the passage, but dal Ruisseau Noir joined them.

  “How does this work?” he said. “In truth, if it’s not going to then we can’t afford to waste much time on it.”

  “I don’t know yet,” Solène said. “I have to decide what result I want, then work out a method of achieving it. That’s the starting point. It’ll require a little time and a lot of concentration…”

  “Understood,” Gill said. “We’ll leave you to it.”

  He placed a guiding hand on dal Ruisseau Noir’s shoulder and led him back to where the others waited. Making small talk was not something Gill was usually inclined toward, but he could see how pale Val had gone, and he felt sorry for Pharadon, who was likely wondering why the hell he’d agreed to this instead of flying in, burning the place to the ground, and picking the Cup out of the ashes.

  It spoke well of Pharadon’s character, and to the quality of being enlightened, that he was willing to risk death to minimise the death and destruction caused in retrieving the Cup. Gill found himself in quiet admiration.

  “Stay close to dal Ruisseau Noir,” Gill said to Val. “I’d have you with me, but he’ll need the help. You understand?”

  Val nodded.

  “Don’t worry. Dal Ruisseau Noir’s a Banneret of the White. I’m sure you’ll be in safe hands. Just keep your wits about you and don’t try to be a hero.”

  The lad gave a forced smile and didn’t say anything. He looked more nervous than he had before the dragons, but Gill knew that was often the way of it. Your first battle, you don’t know what to expect. You’re too ignorant to be afraid. Once you’ve seen all that death and misery, had a taste of it, that changes. Your second battle, you’re scared witless. You’ve seen friends you’ve known since childhood die in the mud, holding their guts in their hands and calling for their mothers, and you know it could just as easily be you this time.

  It was the best argument for being a farmer or a merchant that he could think of. There was an academy full of headstrong young men who’d sneer at that attitude—Gill had been one of them, once upon a time—but he wondered how many of them still would in a decade, after they’d seen some of what it meant to be a banneret and a soldier.

  “Where’s this safe house of yours?” Gill said to dal Ruisseau Noir.

  “Better you don’t know,” he said. “If you get captured…”

  “Of course,” Gill said. “I’m new to this type of thing.”

  Dal Ruisseau Noir gave him a sympathetic smile. “I don’t think any of us expected ever having to do anything like this.”

  “Can’t say I did,” Gill said. He peered into the passageway to take a look at Solène’s progress. She was standing with her back to him, staring at the steel barrier. He wondered if she had given up and was simply making a show of things. It was a big ask of her. Powerful or not, she’d only been learning to properly wield that talent for a short time. He felt bad putting so much pressure on her, but he reckoned the circumstances justified it.

  * * *

  Solène stared at the steel, feeling daunted. Surrounded by rock, she had access to far less magical energy than she’d had only a few paces back. The Fount is such a curious thing, she thought, knowing that she was distracting herself from doing something people claimed could not be done.

  Magic was no longer something she feared the way she once had. She knew its dangers were ever-present, but since encountering the storm surge of Fount energy at the temple, she had come to realise that even at its most potent, raging force, it was usually completely benign. It was a dichotomy that she’d never have been able to wrap her head around had she not experienced it firsthand.

  The thought that she found most unsettling was that she was doing this in plain view of two Intelligenciers. While she was not especially worried about them, the experience brought on an odd feeling, like stealing in front of a watchman, or picking her nose as a child in front of her father, after he’d just told her to stop.

  She cast a furtive glance back down the tunnel; the men standing there abruptly turned around, as though caught in the act of trying to sneak a glimpse of her doing magic. It made her want to laugh.

  Turning her mind to her problem, Solène studied the door. It was an incredibly thick barrier and there wasn’t much Fount present for her to draw on. It felt similar to the way the Fount was choked off by the rock surrounding the archive beneath the cathedral. Although she could see glowing blue tendrils of Fount energy tease around the entrance to the tunnel, very little made it in.

  She stared at the lightly rusted steel and chewed on her lip before realising she was looking at the problem from completely the wrong side. She’d allowed one aspect to dominate her thinking to the exclusion of the other possibilities, and chastised herself before walking outside.

  “Is there a problem?” Gill said.

  “No, just considering the options,” she said.

  “We really need to get a move on,” said dal Ruisseau Noir. “We can’t spend too long here or we’ll be seen. Do your thing, and please do it quickly.”

  Solène smiled. “Last time I checked, incitement to do magic was as serious a crime as the doing itself. Being seen isn’t the only thing you have to worry about now.”

  Dal Ruisseau Noir smiled, nodded, and mimed tipping a hat he was not wearing.

  “You might want to step back a pace or two.” She took a deep breath. Out in the open, there was Fount aplenty, and she could still see the barrier. She focussed her thoughts and pushed everything else—the magnitude of the challenge, the Intelligenciers watching, the task that awaited them once she’d bored through—out of her head. She couldn’t simply wish the barrier away—she needed to decide on an approach that would work, and shape the magic to that end. A blow large enough to smash through would likely bring down half the cliff, and perhaps a section of the palace. Even if it didn’t, it would alert everyone in the city, possibly the whole county.

  She needed to be mor
e subtle. She didn’t know of any magical way to drill through a barrier. It was too complex an idea to shape without instruction, or a huge amount of incremental experimentation to get right. Then it occurred to her: all metal melts.

  The idea of heating the steel wasn’t difficult to hold in her mind—it was no different from the process of creating a flame or a light. It was only the power required that was different. Very different. She channelled the Fount through herself, drawing in the raw, formless energy and converting it to the shape of her desire.

  Something inside the tunnel started to glow, illuminating the dark maw of the entrance. It grew ever brighter, until it felt like she was staring at the sun. Hot air billowed out, at first a warm caress, then a constant blast of roasting heat. All the while she fought to hold on to one single thought—the focus of the magic she desired.

  This was among the most powerful magics she had shaped. It was not the most complicated—healing would always take that accolade—but the sheer energy she was using was tremendous, daunting. The intense heat and light made it so hard. Solène wanted to shut her eyes, to step away, but knew she couldn’t. Even acknowledging the discomfort was straying into dangerous territory, so she shut it out.

  She forced herself to ignore the searing heat and blinding brightness, until finally she felt the resistance to her magic give way. Solène released the Fount, and then her focus. The relief was tremendous, and she took a step to steady herself. She felt drained and light-headed, and as though she’d been standing in a gale-force wind, but took satisfaction in her success. Even a few weeks earlier, she wouldn’t have been able to shape so powerful a piece of magic. She also knew that had she tried, the effort would certainly have killed her.

  “The way is clear,” she said.

  * * *

  He’d shied away from the overpowering heat and light, until it all ended abruptly. Gill walked up to Solène as she staggered sideways one step.