Aethersmith (Book 2) (45 page)

* * * * * * * *

“None may enter,” the guard informed Kyrus as he approached
the door to the chambers of Sommick Highwater, the man who would be emperor in
a few days’ time. “Warlock Rashan’s orders.”

“Those orders were not meant for the likes of me,” Kyrus
replied. “I would prefer to abide by the niceties, have the wards released for
me, and for you two men to stand aside.” The guards held halberds crossed
ceremonially in front of the door. It was a poor tactical position, intended
less for defending the doorway, and more to imply that they were really not
letting you in without a fight. A sorcerer was stationed nearby, idling away
the hours ogling the chambermaids as he minded the door wards to let food and
drink be delivered. “However, I will be going in to see the emperor-in-waiting
regardless of how it befalls.”

It might have been the polite, casual tone he used that
convinced them that he was unconcerned about their ability to block his
passage, or the knowledge that Rashan would deal with any fallout from the
incident in his own fashion should “Marshal Brannis” have overstepped his
authority, but the sorcerer un-warded the door, and the guards stood aside to
let him pass. Kyrus gave them all close scrutiny in the aether, shutting out
his light vision briefly to better see any aether constructs that might be
about their persons. None were afflicted like Celia’s maid had been.

“Marshal Brannis, how wonderful!” Sommick greeted him once
the door closed behind Kyrus. “I have been shut up in here for far too long
with no visitors, but Warlock Rashan said it would not be safe to have
visitors, but—”

Giving lie to the statement Sommick seemed about to make,
Kyrus suddenly felt a sharp impact against the shielding spell he had kept
constantly active since learning it. Reflexively, Kyrus drew more aether and
reinforced the shield. Something flickered where the stabbing sensation had
originated, and a man appeared, dagger in hand, trying to stab him in the back.
He was “dressed” just like the assassin at Iridan and Juliana’s wedding, naked
but for the elaborate runes painted all across his body, and carrying a runed
dagger. Brannis had been the one to see the wedding-day assassin, so Kyrus was
mildly surprised to note how strong this one’s Source was.

The man cried out wordless surprise, and drew back. A
moment’s panic passed through his eyes before he turned his attention to the
would-be emperor, and made a lunge for him.

The assassin never made it halfway there. A vice-like grip
closed about him as Kyrus’s silent (and probably spectacularly inefficient)
telekinesis spell took hold. Kyrus noted with a detached curiosity that the
aether within the man’s Source rushed to and fro as he struggled against the
spell that held him; he might as well have been encased in stone for all he was
able to move.

Kyrus checked to see that Sommick Highwater was unharmed.
The successor to the throne was speechless with shock, but in all ways
physical, he was whole. Kyrus remembered to look him over for signs of magical
tampering, and discovered to his relief that all was well.
For all their
other crimes, at least Rashan and Caladris are not planning to mind-control
their way to power over the emperor.

“If you will excuse me, Your Highness—I might as well begin
calling you that, I suppose—I think I must deal with this matter presently. I
am sorry my visit was so brief,” Kyrus excused himself. He left by the door he
came in, startling the guards and sorcerer who waited for him outside. They
shouted questions after him, and rushed inside to check on the well-being of
Sommick Highwater. Kyrus did not answer and continued down the corridors, the
assassin towed telekinetically behind him, wrapped in a coverlet from the
emperor’s bed.

* * * * * * * *

There were just three of the cells left, but Kyrus was well
aware of their location within the lowest level of the palace dungeon. Shortly
into their journey down, he had realized that his prisoner could not breathe
for how tightly he was being held. Kyrus had recast his spell and gripped the
man by the limbs alone, allowing his chest room to expand and contract enough
to draw breath. The man had not spoken a word.

Kyrus left the blanket for his attempted killer as he dumped
him unceremoniously into the middle of one of the sorcerer cells.

“What you do with me?” the man asked, his Kadrin accented by
a language Kyrus did not know well enough to identify. The paint obscured his
features and made his appearance—such as it might have been in his natural
state—difficult to discern. He could have been thirty or forty winters, by his
voice, which was gravelly with worldly wear.

“Me? Nothing. This is one of those things that I will be
glad for someone else to do, but which I would rather not see,” Kyrus informed
him. The look on the man’s face before the door slammed shut between them was
wide eyed with fear.

Good enough for him. Better than he probably deserved
after trying to kill me—oh, and kill the emperor, too, I suppose.

* * * * * * * *

“So what are you going to do?” Juliana asked, smiling. “You
going to like having a new boss in two worlds?” She sat across a small table
from Varnus in an empty room in the Archon Estate.

Varnus scratched his chin, and twisted his face up as he
pondered. “I guess this must have been his plan all along, sending me off with
Faolen’s twin. Makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose. Faolen’s all the way
out in Megrenn with no way to communicate. Brannis is pretty clever. How come
we never thought of it?”

“Don’t know that it ever came up. We travel together.
Really, this will be our first time truly being apart since I met you,” Juliana
mused thoughtfully, her gaze wandering upward as if trying to see into her own
thoughts.

“’Spose not,” Varnus agreed. “Can’t say I like the idea of
quittin’ on your family, though. It’s been years and years.” Varnus could not
quite recall just how many it had even been. He had been a young man when he
entered the Archon family’s service and he was no longer a young man.

“Well, like it or not, we’re getting caught up in politics
and warfare. I think my father will understand; palace guard captain is
undeniably a promotion, and refusing to let you leave his service would cast us
in a bad light with the regent,” she reasoned.

“… who is also your father now,” Varnus continued on her
behalf. He knew she was not fond of the warlock, but there were certainly perks
of being his oathdaughter.

“Oathfather, that is. I can be glad I wasn’t sired by that
madman,” Juliana spat. There were times that Varnus got to see a bit of Soria
in her, when they were the only two around. She seemed so much happier when
there was no expectation of propriety placed on her.

“Oh, he may be ruthless but I doubt he is a madman. Those
are just slanders that build up when someone unlikeable has been gone a while,”
Varnus said, waxing philosophical, at least by soldiers’ standards.

“Oh, I think I have reason to believe he just might be,”
Juliana stated cryptically.

* * * * * * * *

By the time Kyrus’s day allowed him the peace to return to
his room for sleep, he was past exhaustion, and into the realm of activity
normally left to the animate dead. The stir the assassin had caused had kept
him up well past midnight answering questions from Rashan, Dolvaen, Caladris,
and many others whose authority was far surpassed by their persistent
curiosity.

The door swung shut behind him as if by its own accord,
though Kyrus had gotten used to doing it with magic, and had been the cause
that time. He reactivated the wards that granted him privacy, and lit a soft
blue glow to see by as he changed into his nightclothes.

Upon doing so, he noticed something on his bed, cast oddly
in the surreal bluish light. It was a book. Its cover proclaimed it
The
Warlock Prophecies.
Kyrus opened it, and flipped through a few pages to see
what it was about. A slip of paper fell out.

You should read this. He wrote it. —SC

The note was written in Acardian. “SC” could only have been
“Soria Coinblade.” “He” most assuredly meant that Rashan was the warlock
mentioned on the cover. Kyrus let the note slip from his grasp and fall toward
the floor. It never made it to the stone, however, turning to a puff of ash on
the way down. The ashes made their way neatly to the fireplace.

I can stay up a while longer, I suppose.

Chapter 25 - Meanwhile

A light rain wetted the air of Zorren, warm and smelling of
the turn of spring. The scent was not quite enough to hide the fragrance of
brine wafting off the Aliani Sea. The seagulls—dense, stubborn birds that they
were—circled the harbor anyway, looking to pillage the treasures of the fishing
boats as they returned with the morning’s catch.

“Stuff this,” Tod griped, wiping his mouth on the back of
his sleeve, and passing the flask over to Jodoul. “How we supposed to get
anywhere now?”

Jodoul shrugged in reply, already taking a swig.

“I mean, we all come up here together, you think we’d have …
you know … finished up together,” Tod continued. He gave his friend a lost,
plaintive look.

“Not the first time we got done by someone didn’t need us no
more,” Jodoul replied, licking his lips clean of the Halaigh wine they had been
drinking. He upended the flask, and watched for any sign of further liquid to
emerge, but the flask was empty.

“I mean, we done our part, right? We got the kid to come see
him. We oughtta have gotten looked after a bit better, I think. That’s all,”
Tod continued.

“Deserved better. Yup. Deservin’ didn’t do us no good,
though,” Jodoul agreed. “I reckon we gotta figure the rest out on our own.”

“Rest of what?” Tod asked, a note of hope sounding in his
voice.

“I ain’t dead. Neither are you. Rest of livin’ through this
whole mess, that’s all.”

“You got some kinda plan?”

“Yeah,” Jodoul answered, declining to elaborate.

From their vantage on one of the low rises north of the
city, they watched as a transport ship unloaded. Scores of dark-skinned Narrack
soldiers filed down the docks and into the city: Megrenn reinforcements.

Tod waited for a time, watching Jodoul for signs that he
might volunteer his insights. Jodoul’s gaze hung obstinately on the small
military procession, ignoring his compatriot’s quizzical look.

“What is it?” Tod asked when he could stand waiting no
longer.

“You ain’t gonna like it,” Jodoul told him, still staring
off into the distance.

“Anything’s gotta be better than moping around waiting for
some Megrenn to sniff us out and hang us,” Tod countered. “Spit, even walking
back home would be better, taking our chances that the army don’t see us.”

At that, Jodoul turned and glanced sidelong at Tod with a
half smile.

“What? What’s that look for?” Tod asked.

“We’re enlisting.”

* * * * * * * *

The shushing hiss of steam drowned out any hope of
conversation for the brief moment it lasted. Chains clattered through pulleys
in rhythmic jerks as workers hauled something out of the chest-deep bath. The
thing that emerged took on a sinister look in the reddish lighting of the
foundry as water ran off it in a mass of small waterfalls, revealing a
yellowish-brown metallic surface. Zorren was the first city in Megrenn to have
a proper goblin foundry.

The bronze cannon barrel that they proceeded to set down on
a pair of wooden cradles bore some resemblance to the works of art the goblins
had brought to Raynesdark, but only so much as a child’s drawing approximates
the human form. It was ragged and irregular, with a pitted surface.

“Leave that one to cool. Now next one,” K’k’rt directed, his
voice stronger than it had been in many winters from having spoken so much
Megrenn of late. He still used a megaphone to make himself heard over the din
of the workers, but they snapped to obey when they heard him.

The goblin tinker trusted the workers to perform such a
simple task without his aid, and walked about the rest of the workshop to see
how things progressed. An ox-driven rig of leather belts and wheels was
spinning one of the cannon barrels axially while a pair of human workers ground
and polished the surface. A similar contraption was set up for reaming the
bore, with a human working at the inner surface with a file, and one of
K’k’rt’s few goblin workers taking measurements, and directing the work.
Woodworkers put together carriages, made ramrods, and helped repair and replace
the numerous wooden fixtures that were used and battered throughout the
workshop. A smaller table in one corner was surrounded by goblin artisans who
were casting the small components of the pull-chain sparkers using a crucible
the size of a teacup.

“How are today’s deliveries?” asked Lieutenant Daimin
Kladds, K’k’rt’s nemesis, the Megrenn Alliance Army’s junior assistant
logistics officer. The title “junior” denoted rank rather than age, for
Lieutenant Kladds was bald and greying in the moustache. The human was always
disrespectful of K’k’rt on his frequent visits, standing close and towering
over him. His own workers had been trained to either speak to him from three of
their paces away or to go to a knee to talk to him.

“There will be twelve today,” K’k’rt promised. He had begun
with eight per day as his quota, but as the workers improved, he got more and
more out of them. He hoped to be up to fifteen per day within the tenday.

The junior assistant logistics officer harrumphed, but had
no grounds for complaint. K’k’rt met his deadlines without fail, and the
quality was approaching what his own people had managed with the early
prototypes.

“We have a lot of debts to pay off,” Kladds remarked,
telling K’k’rt nothing he did not already know. “See that they keep coming.”

Debts … Yes, I have a debt to repay as well,
K’k’rt
thought.

K’k’rt nodded slowly in reply, not looking at Daimin Kladds
at all.

* * * * * * * *

It was a cloudless night in Scar Harbor, the stars shining
clear as the new moon gave them reign over the heavens for the evening. The
lamp-lit streets muted the majesty of the night sky, but the side roads and
byways bore no such hindrances. The carriage had been eschewed as well, in
favor of a stroll through the brisk Seawatch air. It was a fleeting time of
year, for by Greywatch, the nights would be too cold to enjoy at leisure.

“Do you think he will approve of me?” Abbiley asked, a note
of doubt in her voice.

Tomas Harwick turned to face the girl whose arm was entwined
with his, and smiled, finding her earnest self-consciousness endearing. He
patted her arm with his free hand.

“I have had many an argument with my father over the years.
I think he finds them to be an exercise of the mind more than a true quarrel.
Lord Harwick has a keen mind, and widely acclaimed judgment and wisdom. He
would put lie to all that, should he find anything to disapprove of about you,”
Tomas reassured her. She smiled back at him. “But if he does … well, we shall
have our quarrel at a later date about that, in private.”

They continued their walk in companionable silence. Abbiley
kept her gaze largely skyward, allowing Tomas to guide them along the
roundabout route to his estate. Tomas had initially had doubts about the wisdom
of allowing himself to become enamored of a tradesman’s orphan. It was a trap for
the heart, surely, for when the families became involved, and practical matters
came into play, things were bound for ruin. He had been pleasantly astonished
upon discovering that his father had no objection.

Tomas’s home was modest by the standards of Acardian
nobility. Tomas lived alone, except for his servants and the occasional guest.
The two-story manor house of granite walls and slate-tile roof suited his
needs. The gate was open when they arrived; the carriage they had ridden to
dinner had preceded them back to the estate by nearly an hour.

Lord Harwick was awaiting them in the back drawing room when
they arrived. His lordship had been passing the time in contemplation, smoking
a pipe, and drinking some of Tomas’s best brandy as he looked out into the
darkness of the gardens. There was no mistaking that the two men were related.
Though stouter of build, and with greying hair too short to tell if it would
fall into curls like his son’s did, the facial features were strikingly
similar.

“Tomas,” the elder Harwick bellowed upon noting their
arrival. He extracted himself ponderously from the high-backed chair in which
he sat. “Your letters do not do your lady justice, it seems. I am Lord Dunston
Harwick.”

“I am honored to meet you, your lordship. My name is Abbiley
Tillman,” Abbiley replied, curtseying with unpracticed grace. Tomas had
schooled her on what to expect, but she had never dealt with nobility before
meeting him.

“Indeed, you could be none other.” Lord Harwick took her
hand and kissed it. “Might I offer you a drink?”

Abbiley looked askance of Tomas, who gave a tiny nod of
encouragement, smiling the whole time.

“Of course, your lordship,” she said.

“Tomas, if you would be so good as to pour,” Lord Harwick
said, looking to his son. The younger Harwick went to the liquor cabinet, and
retrieved an excellent vintage, pouring glasses for all three of them.

They chatted for a long while, plodding through the
necessary banalities of making formal acquaintance. Tomas heard nothing from
either of them that he had not already known, and his mind wandered. He knew
his father’s presence was only partly social. Abbiley’s involvement in the
witch scandal had been far more prominent in his father’s letters than any
concerns about her station or character. Thus it was no surprise when—

“Tomas, if you would be so good as to allow us a time in
private. I am afraid that my duties to the king must intrude upon our social
gathering. That whole nonsense about a witch, and the events that followed it
were botched so badly that the records have been expunged, and I have taken it
upon myself to set the official accounting in order,” Lord Harwick said.

“Father, is this really the best time to have at this bone
of yours? Gnaw on it come mid-morrow, if you must,” Tomas replied.

“It’s all right, Tomas. I have answered questions about
those events enough times now to no longer take offense. I have nothing to
hide,” Abbiley said, putting a hand on Tomas’s knee.

“Indeed, there is no aspersion at all directed toward Miss
Tillman. Her involvement, however, is a matter of some speculation after the
obvious incompetence of the previous magistrate was brought to light. It is an
unfortunate matter, and I believe one that will get no more pleasant with
aging.”

Tomas knew that his objection had been noted and overruled.
He could do no more. Despite being in his own home, he was very much subject to
his father’s jurisdiction. Tomas graciously bowed and took his leave,
adjourning to his study.

Attempting to lose himself in literature proved not so
effective a pastime. Tomas found himself checking his pocket watch, an heirloom
from his grandfather. While of excellent repute in its day, the old Sterle
& Forthwright piece lost minutes an hour. His inquiries to the Errol
workshop to refit it with workings of their own make had been met with polite
refusal—the master insisted his logo be prominent on any piece of his. Thus
Tomas kept uncertain track of how long his belle had been under questioning.

While tempted to eavesdrop, it was below his station as a
gentleman. Nearing distraction at having re-read the same two pages of
The
Honor of Arghus
a dozen times without absorbing a word, he was finally
granted a reprieve from his isolation.

When he escorted Abbiley to the carriage that would deliver
her safely home, she seemed nearly asleep on her feet. Her eyes were glassy and
focused poorly. She leaned against Tomas for support as he walked her out to
the front gate, muttering sweet words of appreciation for the aid.

After the carriage departed his view, Tomas turned and
stormed as politely as possible back into the house to find his father.

“What manner of treatment is that for a young lady?” Tomas
demanded, finding Lord Harwick back in the same chair as when he and Abbiley
had first arrived. “You would not have treated a highborn girl in such a way.”

“Tomas, sit,” Lord Dunston Harwick instructed, his voice
flat, calm, even. “I am a progressive man, champion of the lower classes,
overseer of His Majesty’s reform movement. It is not often I am accused of bias
against the lowborn, and tonight will be no exception.”

“Well, you certainly—”

“I was not finished,” Lord Harwick snapped, forestalling
Tomas’s fountain of spewed indignities before it even had a chance to begin.
“While the girl seems pleasant enough, comely, and with a working mind between
her ears, there will still be troubles if you pursue her seriously. I am of a
mind to help considerably with cobbling over those difficulties, should you
indulge me in a not-inconsiderable favor.”

“What sort of favor?” Tomas asked in a huff, trying not to
give ground against his father.

“There are things you do not understand. There are matters
of witchcraft that ought not come to light, which, due to several recent and a
few upcoming events, will require discretion. You are in line to learn of these
matters, and your discretion is crucial.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Father?”

“Tell you? I will do more than just tell you.”

* * * * * * * *

The sounds of slippered feet on carpet and the wheezing
breath of ancient lungs were periodically interrupted by a hollow clatter of
steel. Though nearly blind, Axterion could hear well enough, and the echoes
were leading him back to their point of origin. When he found his youngest
grandson, Danilaesis was in Brannis’s room, sparring with the Kadrin Imperial
Grand Marshal’s old, disused suit of plate. The steel armor hung in midair,
wobbling from the latest blow of Danil’s broom-handle sword.

“Cease that cacophony at once!” Axterion ordered, bringing
the two masses of wrinkles that passed for hands up to cover his ears as Danil
slammed the wooden dowel hard into the chest of his imaginary opponent.