The Crimson Vault (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (38 page)

"How may I serve you, my lord?" she asked.

Indirial looked vaguely uncomfortable. "Get up, woman. Seriously, get up. I never can get used to that."

Olissa rose to her feet, still looking flustered. "I should get my husband. Yes. My children need to meet you."

His eyes widened as though she had threatened him. "No, no, don't do that. They would only make more of a fuss."

Her eyes moved to Simon, and then they widened. "Simon. Is he working for you? With you? But he—" She clicked her mouth shut, but Simon could have finished the sentence for her.
 

But he kills Damascans.

Indirial sighed and shook his head. "What a mess. Listen, I am well aware of Simon's past. But he is working with me now, not against me, and therefore he will have the opportunity to make up for his past crimes. Such is the decree I received straight from King Zakareth himself. Do you understand?"

"Absolutely clear, my lord," Olissa said. She looked upon Indirial as though he was the Maker himself, and Simon just a step short.

The looks made Simon uncomfortable. They reminded him too much of the way people treated Alin.

"Yes, well, let your family know," Indirial said. "I know your daughter was chosen to bear a Dragon's Fang—you are to be congratulated. When she's ready, she'll have an honored place in the Kingdom."

She looked as though Indirial had offered her a house full of gold.

Indirial held up the mask. "For now? Hold on to this. Don't give it to anyone, especially not one of the Nye. It was an honor to meet you, Mistress Agnos. Let's go, Simon."

As they walked out of the room—well, Indirial walked, and Simon sort of staggered along behind him—Simon asked a question. "Shouldn't you have hidden the mask? If the Eldest wants it, he knows right where to find it."

"I would have," the Overlord responded, "but there's no point. I couldn't hide it from him anyway, so I might as well leave it where I can keep my eye on it."

"Okay. Where are we going?"

Indirial looked at him in surprise, his eyebrows raised. "Well, I'll have to go as soon as the King contacts me. But until then...it's been far too long since I've spent any significant time in the House. It's about time I settled in for a long-overdue workout."

He clapped a hand on Simon's shoulder, almost causing Simon's still-weak knees to collapse. "And you, my friend, will get to see some
real
training."

***

Alin was just beginning to relax when, for the second time that day, a Grandmaster called him to work.

He was sitting between Shai and Ilana, tearing into a roast pork sandwich, listening to Shai tell a story about how she had managed to find her way into the Tartarus Travelers' barracks. Tamara spent half her time chuckling and the other half shaking her head, as though trying to decide whether to be an amused older sister or a disapproving mother.

Then Shai cut off mid-sentence, and Alin put down his sandwich. He didn't have to look up to know why she had stopped. He had been lucky to get this much time to himself.

He barely stopped to marvel at how much he was changing; only last week, he would have been overjoyed at the idea of one of the Grandmasters needing his help.

A Helgard Traveler—unmistakable with his thick fur-lined coat, his long beard, and the string of sharpened bones he wore around his neck—placed one gloved hand on Alin's shoulder. "The Grandmaster would like to speak with you," the man said. His glove still had bits of frost on it, which melted and trickled down Alin's neck.

Alin stood, bidding his sisters good-bye, and followed the Traveler out of the room.

"You are not dressed as you should be," the Helgard Traveler said disapprovingly, once they had left the dining room.

Alin responded as he felt a king would have: "I am dressed as I wish," he said.

The Traveler grunted, unimpressed, but Alin felt good. That was what King Zakareth would have said, he was sure. Well, that was what he imagined, anyway.

Alin followed the Traveler along what seemed like miles of twisting corridor, all the way to the Helgard quarters. These were rougher than most of the palace, made largely out of undressed stone or undecorated metal, and he would have sworn that he saw patches of actual snow in some of the corners.

The man led Alin to a huge arch of a door, made of a metal that looked like pewter, carved with the snarling face of some horned bear-like beast. Without knocking, the Traveler pulled the door open, then pushed Alin inside.

The room inside was larger than Alin had expected, larger even than the Grandmasters' war council room. It was surrounded with packed bookshelves and comfortable furniture, and one wall was nothing but high windows. The windows had curtains drawn over them now, and the only light came from a series of candles sitting around the room. They were placed well away from the books, Alin noticed.

Someone had hastily cleared out the center of the room and placed a round table there, surrounding it with chairs. All of those chairs, save one, were now occupied.

Grandmaster Avernus sat at the end of the table, her long gray hair hastily tied back. Judging by her casual robes, someone had woken her for this meeting. She stared at a man Alin didn't recognize; he was tall and well-muscled, with blond curly hair framing a face that said he was bored with these proceedings, and was already looking forward to more important business later in the day. His hands were bound to the arms of his chair, and a sword—presumably his—lay on the table in front of him. The sheath was pulled down slightly, to expose a few inches of bright red steel.

The prisoner's calm was even more impressive considering his circumstances. A fat, fluffy owl, with eyes that gleamed unnaturally bright in the room's candlelight, perched on the table across from him, staring fixedly into the bound man's eyes. Or, possibly, he could have been watching the serpents crawl all over the man's clothes.

The serpents looked like two-foot-long snakes, except they each had four or five pairs of spindly claws that helped them grip and pull themselves along the prisoner's skin. When they passed his head, they stopped to flick a tongue inside his ear and hiss something that sounded disturbingly like a secret whisper.

"What is going on here?" Alin asked.

Grandmaster Endross stood next to Avernus, his dark eyes fixed on the prisoner. His hands rested on the hilts of his swords as though he was looking for an opportunity to use them. Upon hearing Alin speak, he glanced over, but he didn't say a word.

It was the last Grandmaster in the council who responded. Grandmaster Helgard glared at the prisoner over his bushy beard, one hand curling almost unconsciously into a fist. He spoke to Alin, though.

"Eliadel, this man claims to be Talos, firstborn son of Zakareth the Sixth, and Heir to the Damascan throne."

Before Alin could say anything—before he could even decide what he wanted to say—Talos spoke.

"You can stop testing me, now. You know I am who I say I am, and you know that what I offer is the truth."

He leaned forward, looking from Grandmaster to Grandmaster before finally settling his gaze on Alin.

"I want to help you," he said.

***

Leah pushed her bleeding hand to the silver doors of Ragnarus. The doors, marked with the visage of the bearded, one-eyed king, swung silently open at her offering.

Not for the first time, Leah pressed a handkerchief against the slice in her hand and wished there was some other, more civilized way to gain entry to the Crimson Vault. She was getting sick of pinpricks.

Her father stood within, for once wearing his tall, black-and-gold crown, a ruby set just above his forehead. He held a blunt mace in one hand and the hilt of a long sword—slightly curved and sharp along only one edge, like Simon's—in the other. He seemed to be comparing the two, looking from one to the other.

Leah had expected to find him here. He liked to spend his time in the Vault. Somehow, examining the weapons soothed him or set his mind at ease. This was as relaxed as she ever saw him: rigidly looking from one deadly weapon to another, as though trying to decide which to unleash first.

He looked up as she entered. "Leah. You have something to report?"

"I do, father." As usual, she had to fight the urge to bow or curtsy in his presence. "The crystal I planted in Enosh has gone dark. I have no more eyes in the city."

His crimson eye flared. "Discovered?"

She hesitated, but shook her head. "I don't believe so. I doubt it's been destroyed, only...blocked, somehow. I suspect Grandmaster Lirial or one of her lieutenants has created interference on the Lirial side."

The King nodded, carefully replacing his weapons on their labeled marble shelves. "Will it be useless to us, then?"

"Possibly," Leah allowed. "Grandmaster Lirial may know some tricks I do not. But if she hasn’t discovered the exact location of the crystal, any block she creates will be temporary. It will be all but impossible to maintain as the moons shift.”

"Keep me apprised," her father said.

Leah bowed her head a fraction and turned to leave.

"You've never tried to have me killed," King Zakareth said suddenly.

Leah froze with her back to the King, afraid to move. Her father never spoke idly. His every word had a purpose. Was this a trap? Had she walked into an ambush?

"Nor have you ever attempted to secure your succession by eliminating your competition," he continued. "At first, I assumed that was because you lacked the stomach to do what was necessary. But I know longer believe that to be the case. So, why?"

Warily, she turned to face her father. Never, in her entire life, had her father asked her such an...intimate question. He had asked her to provide him with information, had questioned her about her decisions or her motivations, but he had never asked about
her
.

So she had no choice but to assume this was a trap.

"An attack on you would have destabilized the realm," she said carefully. "And an attack on my brothers or sisters would have jeopardized the succession, which could result in panic, or a lack of confidence in the royal family. As the Cynaran law code states, ‘no noble may take actions that advance personal gains at the risk of national stability, on pain of—’"

King Zakareth laughed. It was a short, bitter, bark of a laugh, but it startled his daughter so much that she stopped, her mouth practically gaping open. She couldn't recall ever having heard her father laugh. He didn't even laugh sarcastically, mockingly, or for emphasis; it just wasn't something he did.

"I don't want the law code's answer," he said. "I want yours."

It took Leah a moment to answer. "I wasn't sure the prize was worth the cost," she said at last.

Zakareth nodded, as though he understood. Maybe he did.

"I had intended your sister Cynara to take the throne, before her...accident...in Asphodel. She had your intelligence, but she had the spirit, as well. The drive to do whatever it took."

"She was ruthless," Leah said. "Cruel."

"Yes."

Zakareth stood for a moment, ruminating. "Once, I thought those things virtues. Even after Cynara became unsuitable for the throne, I had Talos in mind. He hates me, but that means little. The day my father died was the last moment of true joy I have known."

How should she respond to that?

"But Talos is twisted inside. Broken. He and Lysander have been planning against me for years now."

Leah tried to cover up her surprise, but she was afraid she only partially succeeded. Had he known the entire time?

The King saw her reaction and gave her what could, on another man's face, have almost been a smile.

"Like so many others, Talos underestimates me. Very little goes on that I do not see. You would think he would remember that, since I have a bright red glowing eye."

He paused, as though waiting for her to laugh. She wasn't even sure if she was breathing. Had he just tried to tell a
joke?

This meeting with her father was becoming so surreal that part of her wondered if this was even the same man. Maybe she had died, and this was some bizarre afterlife reserved for Travelers who had trespassed against their parents.

As the silence became uncomfortable, she opened her mouth to change the subject, but he forestalled her.

"In any event, I am running out of options. Adessa is not wise, but she has a shrewd strategic mind and a keen grasp of politics. She's almost as charismatic as Talos, in some ways. With her around, I had still hoped to foster a sense of healthy competition among you, but I was unable to tolerate this last of her little...pranks."

Highly public attempted assassinations were pranks, now. The standards of her family fell ever lower.

"Surely you have considered it," Zakareth said, running a hand across his short beard. "I now only have two options for my Successor: Talos, or you."

When Leah was a little girl, her mother had taken her to Lirial for the first time. They sat, together, on a smooth cliff made of crystal, and watched the moons spin and glide overhead. Her mother had spent that time filling Leah's head with visions of someday ruling Damasca as Queen, of all the things that Leah could someday do for the people, of all the privileges she could enjoy.

As a little girl, Leah's mind had burned with the possibilities. They had seemed fresh and enticing, like a piece of candy or a new toy. But what she had really enjoyed, even then, was not the far-off possibility of inheriting a kingdom. It was the time spent sitting next to her mother, watching the moons dance.

When her mother died, Indirial had been one of the few to offer her any form of sympathy. Even her father had barely mentioned her mother’s death, only referring to it again when he sent Leah off to live with her mother’s family.

She had given up any dreams of the throne then. Not only did it seem like an unlikely possibility—she was, after all, fourth in line for the throne, and her father could technically have picked anyone he liked to succeed him—but the cruel necessity of politics seemed overwhelming.