The Mirrored City (33 page)

Maddox pondered this. He’d witnessed a little of their abilities in person but knew from his books that the First Mages were a class of power second only to the mysterious Guides themselves. The only reason they didn’t rule the world was because they were so dysfunctional they no longer cared for anything outside their own pet obsessions.

“I need to find the Sword first,” Maddox insisted. “Then I kill the Seedmother. Deal?”

She rolled her eyes and turned away. Mumbling some incantation, she tipped her head back and shut her eyes. Her eyelids fluttered and then opened. She grabbed her glass and smiled. “The Sword is with a woman named Daphne.”

Maddox glared, said nothing, and sipped his wine.

“You know more than you did. Daphne wasn’t lying,” the Libertine explained. “Heath knows the bookstore she was talking about.”

“I don’t need Heath,” Maddox said.

She shrugged. “Be that as it may, he’s standing right behind you.”

Maddox nearly spilled his glass as he whipped around. Heath stood, arms folded across his chest, silver eyes practically boring a hole in Maddox. “Maddox. Good to see you up and about on your own. Libertine, a pleasure as always.”

“Well, I am always about pleasure.” She nodded graciously. “Might I say that the silver suits you. You look more… distinguished.”

“Go away, you lying, murdering asshole,” Maddox said angrily.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Titus walk out of the back room with a bottle, catch the conversation, and then turn around.

“Maddox,” Heath said gently. He reached a hand to touch Maddox’s shoulder as he recoiled. “I know you must think terrible things about me, and this is the first time we’ve talked, really talked as two people, in a long time. But I’m your friend, and I care about you. Sword had to have shown you that.”

“Bullshit,” Maddox said. “You lied to me from the day we met. You were never a spice merchant. You were a fucking assassin working for the Guides-damned Inquisition. And your friend Catherine was possessed by an ancient Sword, the same one you shoved into my hands when the Invocari tower fell into the Trident River.”

“I wanted to keep that life separate from my personal affairs,” Heath assured Maddox. “Clearly that was an error in my judgment. You are an intelligent young man, capable of making your own decisions. I should have trusted you with the truth instead of pushing you away.”

Maddox laughed. “Pushing me away? I came to you because I was hurting, and you wouldn’t open the fucking door. You let me drink myself into oblivion and let me wake up in the street. I passed out on your porch, Heath.”

“Try to see that series of events from my perspective. You were piss drunk, literally, and you nearly ripped my front door off,” Heath said.

“You could have
sobered
me with your Light,” Maddox insisted. “Instead, you did nothing.”

“I didn’t force that bottle down your throat. I think we can both agree we could have handled that situation better.”

“Can you believe this shit?” Maddox looked over at the Libertine, but her chair was empty and the only sign of her was an empty wine glass. Maddox’s shoulders sank. “Of course.”

“Look,” Heath said, “we can get the Sword back from Daphne. She’s tricky, but she’s not a threat to us if we work together. I have a plan, but I’m willing to listen to any ideas you have. From here on out, we’re equals. No more secrets.”

Maddox peered at Heath. “You always know what to say. That’s your thing isn’t it,
Inquisitor
? Tell me, were you always this good at manipulation or did you learn it from Daphne? Because I’ve bought that bullshit once before.”

Heath sighed. “Growing up on the docks, I was a violent man. I put so many people in the river I stopped counting. Daphne showed me another way, to use words to achieve my objectives. But what needs to happen now is not about negotiation. I warned her to stay out of my business. She needs to pay for what she’s done here and what she did to you in Rivern. You’re owed blood.”

Maddox drank. There was no mistaking his feelings. As the Sword, he had harbored love toward the assassin. But Maddox, on his own, pretty much hated the guy. Still, they had a friend in common who needed help. “Fair enough.”

“We need to get back to Freedom House. I have allies who can help us.”

“Fine.” Maddox snatched a bottle from behind the bar.

He was about to yell back to Titus when he noticed a glowing shard of crystal next to the Libertine’s wine glass. A raw prismite shard that size was worth a small fortune. More than all the liquor in the bar itself.

“Damn right, you respect my bartender,” Maddox grumbled as he took a swig from the bottle and left the bar.

Heath snuck Maddox in past the staff in the lobby by distracting the attendant on duty. He slipped his way upstairs to the suite on the second floor, knocked in the pattern Heath had mentioned, and waited for the door to open. After a moment’s pause, the door creaked open.

A blue-eyed Turisian woman with a thick halo of curly black hair peered out from the opening. “Who are you?”

“Maddox,” he said. “I’m a ‘friend’ of Heath’s.”

“He mentioned you.” The woman let him into the suite.

A bald woman with vivid blue eyes reclined on the bed, picking grapes out of a large wooden bowl. “Who is this, Lyta?”

“He’s the one Heath calls Sword or Maddox.”

Maddox walked in and chugged from the bottle he carried. “Guides, you could be Soren’s twin sister.” The resemblance was unmistakable; she was as beautiful as Soren had been handsome. Even with no hair.

She perked up and slid off the bed. “You know my brother?”

She reached out for Maddox as she approached. He held up his hand and pushed her back gently with his seal. “Back off, lady. I don’t want to know what happens when
you
touch me.”

He spun on Lyta, remembering Daphne’s warning. “So what’s your deal? Are you the Protean?”

She crossed her arms. “I am Lyta. This is my lover Shannon.”

“Pleasure to meet you. I almost slept with your brother,” Maddox said, starting to finally feel the effects of the alcohol.

“Oh… How is he?” Shannon asked.

“Kidnapped by a religious zealot who has abandoned her religion to pursue zealotry full time.”

“The Abbess?” Lyta asked. “I defeated her.”

Shannon’s blue eyes were wide with excitement. “What’s he like? Is he special?”

“Not the sharpest tool in the box,” Maddox said and then regretted it. He could be a mean drunk. “He grew up badly. Not much education. He lived on the streets for a while. Ended up working in a whore house, or whatever you’d call the Palace of Keys, as a doorman. His gift was more of a curse.”

Shannon frowned. “Hmm. I would have thought a life in Dessim would be better than Baash. But no matter, I have wealth.”

“Some wealth,” Lyta added. “Which grows smaller by the day.”

Maddox shrugged. “Baash is a sanctimonious cesspool of ignorance, but it’s clean and no one goes hungry as far as I can tell.”

“A valid point,” Lyta agreed.

Shannon replied, “Well, that may be the unfortunate case that
some
people are treated poorly in Dessim. However, in Baash
all
women are treated like chattel.”

The door to the room opened, and Heath strode in, smiling. “I hope Maddox is behaving himself with you ladies.”

“Perfect gentleman,” Maddox slurred. “We were just discussing—”

Shannon folded her arms. “How women are treated like property. Also, men are always interrupting us.”

Heath slapped his hand on Maddox’s shoulder. His pleasant buzz evaporated as Light flowed through his body, replacing euphoria with harsh reality.

Heath whispered in Maddox’s ear, “I’m glad there are no longer secrets between us.”

Maddox shook the empty bottle in his hand.

Heath addressed them. “Daphne has given us her location. It’s an Inquisition safehouse, but it’s poorly defended. We have to assume that is no longer the case and she has set a trap. She also knows I would anticipate this, so there is no predicting what will happen in there. Unfortunately, there is only one entrance into the inner sanctum through the storefront. She’ll spring her trap when we all enter. She knows Maddox’s and my weaknesses. By now, we should assume she knows something of Lyta’s. That leaves you, Shannon.”

Shannon raised her chin. “Whatever it takes. We need to hurry.”

Maddox said, “We don’t need to hurry. Sword can’t die, and Soren is already dead if she wanted to kill him.”

“No!” Shannon said. “I know he’s alive.”

“I agree,” Heath reassured her. “From what Maddox told me on the way over, Soren’s ability is too useful in her quest to eradicate the Stormlords. She wants to see if he can mimic my abilities so she can use him as a countermeasure. Her main objective will be to subdue me and use Soren as a weapon against Jessa.”

“Why would Soren help the woman who captured him?” Lyta asked.

Maddox piped up, “Daphne can be
very
convincing, especially to people who are vulnerable.” He looked to Heath. They had both been victims of her indoctrination in different ways.

Heath looked at his feet. “She’s dangerous. Our objective is to get Soren out and give me a clean shot at her. She thinks she’s stood toe to toe with a Tempest, but I don’t think Satryn was even
trying
to kill her. Daphne’s smarter than us, though, and we shouldn’t underestimate the lengths she’ll go to.”

“She’s not smarter than I am. Let me go back to the Magesterium and get another Fire Seal,” Maddox said. “I can melt stone when I’m pissed off. We won’t even have to go in.”

Heath raised an eyebrow. “They already saw you get one. If you show up missing permanently bound seals, it will raise questions about your immortality—unless you want to reveal that knowledge to the world. I won’t stop you.”

Maddox tapped his foot. “No.”

Heath continued, “We need to strike fast. Daphne is counting on us to be impulsive. If we take too long, she’ll know we have a plan and she’ll change the venue.”

Lyta asked, “We have a plan, right?”

Heath grinned. “Always.”

T
HIRTY

Skin Walker

S
HANNON

The lips you kiss will never be mine

though they may twine from time

to time—

It’s just an altered state of mind—

sublime

and passing, boldly as it came

into the oblivion of memory.

—THE SUCCUBUS,
AUTHOR UNKNOWN

SHANNON CLOSED HER
eyes and let her senses wander. Most of her awareness was drawn to Baash. Everyone she had ever touched was like a node floating in a vast emptiness around the city. Heath was the closest. Lyta remained invisible to Shannon’s secondary senses. But she had worked with the homeless of Dessim and had a few connections there as well. She reached her senses out to a beggar woman around the corner from Freedom House.

The woman shook as Shannon assumed control. She felt every ache in the woman’s frail body. Her lungs felt burned and her breath was shallow. She scrambled to her feet, shambling past the beggars next to her and out onto the street. She glanced at her reflection in a mirror that had been set in one of the shrines that encrusted the streets.

Her wizened eyes had gone completely white, just as Lyta described in the Asylum. Shannon could control a body but could not hide the effect.

A pair of Patrean sentries patrolled the streets. She shuffled over to them and brushed against their skin. She released her primary awareness from the old woman’s body and drifted into the soldier as a passenger. It was like moving from room to room in a vast estate, except each room had its own windows. Each chamber had a different decor to it.

The Patrean body was sturdier. Although the guard was female, her body felt strong and hardy. Her partner continued walking beside her as they made their rounds. Shannon watched the streets through borrowed eyes. Street performers sang and played instruments. Children ran through the streets, shrieking.