Aethersmith (Book 2) (72 page)

“Hey now,” Zell said. “Remember, I was the one passing those
messages back and forth. I know that this is far from over. You have one of the
most dangerous men in Tellurak riled, and likely wondering how he can track you
down. I don’t think I’m done protecting you by a half measure.”

“I might need a lot less protection if we could just hide.
You stand out a bit, my friend,” Wendell argued.

“Yeah, that whole standing on street corners and in
marketplaces and making magic birds appear … really bad habit of mine. Draws a
lot of attention,” Zellisan countered.

Wendell wondered if his own sarcasm was rubbing off. “I do
not
have
to perform, you know.”

“I’m not sure about that. It seems to be in your blood. I
have coin enough to hide us all somewhere out of the way. You don’t need to
perform to eat.”

“I need to wake him up,” Wendell said.

“And when it winds up with hired blades sniffing around for
us on Denrik Zayne’s coin, I’ll be here to do something about it.”

* * * * * * * *

After trying to find the manor first by Brannis’s memories
of what Kyrus knew of Scar Harbor, then of Soria’s best guess as to where it
ought to have been, the two eventually relented, and took a carriage to the
gates of the small manor home where Tomas Harwick abided with his father, at
least while Lord Harwick was staying in the city. Despite Tomas’s promise to
cover the expense of their transport, Sir Erund and Mrs. Soria Hinterdale were
world travelers, and not without the means of affording their own conveyance.
There was a way of acquitting oneself in society that Soria knew well: Tomas
making the offer was good form; accepting it would have been poor form, as
would either party mentioning the matter again.

Tomas and Abbiley greeted them at the door. Brannis felt odd
being in her presence. It was like spying on Celia without her knowing. Abbiley
gave him queer looks, but he suspected the matter of the painting was at issue;
she thought he looked like Kyrus. He got no sense that she realized who Soria
was, and if Celia was lurking just behind those innocent blue eyes, Juliana’s
twin ought to have looked nearly as familiar as Brannis.

“Dinner will be set out shortly. My father will be down
shortly thereafter. I believe my butler is helping him preen,” Tomas joked. “He
can be quite vain, our Lord Harwick.”

“Tomas!” Abbiley chided, smiling despite her tone. “Lord
Harwick isn’t even here to defend himself. You should at least give your father
the courtesy of poking your fun at him when he is here.”

Brannis found himself smiling as well, until he caught
Soria’s gaze, frowning slightly at him. He smoothed his features once more into
dignified politeness.

“He seemed quite eager to meet you. Once my father puts his
mind in a certain frame, it consumes him. You have the fortune of being named Hinterdale
at a time when my father is quite interested in the Hinterdale name. The whole
‘witch trial’ business reflected poorly on the kingdom, and he is rather intent
on patching up the holes it left.”

“Well, I am eager to meet him as well,” Brannis said in
reply. He did well to keep his apprehension in check. He and Soria were both
unarmored, and she unarmed. As a knight, it was socially acceptable for him to
be armed with Avalanche even at a polite dinner. Depending on the scope of the
conspiracy, he hoped that it would be enough. More than that, he hoped it would
not be needed at all.

Servants brought out a course of soups for them to occupy
themselves as they awaited the lord. Wine was poured for them as well, a
Takalish vintage some twenty years old. Brannis found himself trying to piece
together the contents of the soup and the origins of the wine, and make some
prejudgment of the lord, find some small thing he could deduce that could be of
use. He took a calming breath. He resolved to wait, and observe with a clear
mind instead.

Lord Dunston Harwick arrived just before the first course of
dinner. He was older than Brannis had expected by Tomas’s age, which he had
guessed at perhaps thirty summers—years, he reminded himself. The lord’s hair
was gone to grey nearly completely, with a few black strands to be seen among
them. His face was wrinkled and sagged, but there was something too familiar
about it to dismiss out of hand—something more than the rough resemblance to
his son.

“Tomas, you were not wrong,” Lord Harwick bellowed jovially.
“Sir Erund here is the very image of Miss Abbiley’s painting. It would almost
seem as if the painting had called him to her.”

“Father, allow me to introduce Sir Erund Hinterdale and his
wife, Lady Soria,” Tomas said.

Soria extended her hand, which Lord Harwick took delicately
in his own, but did not make the old-fashioned gesture of kissing it. Brannis
offered his own, and shook the lord’s hand, feeling a grip that he suspected
had never been crushing, even in the lord’s younger years. He met Lord
Harwick’s gaze straight on as he did so, looking for some spark, some flinch,
some sign of recognition, but found nothing.

Introductions passed, they took their seats for dinner.
After some tiny meat pastries, they were served a meal of roasted duck in a
sauce made with Kheshi spices. The servants refilled their wines, prompting
Lord Harwick to rise from his seat.

“I would like to propose a toast,” he called out. Everyone
else rose and took up their own glasses. “As they said in ancient Garnevia,
‘Play along, and we shall speak later.’”

The latter was not Garnevian at all, Brannis knew, unless
the ancient Garnevians spoke Kadrin.
Well, the conspiracy is real
,
Brannis realized.
I hate being right at times.

“Hear, hear,” all mumbled in rough unison. Brannis exchanged
a quick look with his “wife,” and her expression told him that she had been
paying attention as well.
Drat. I should have been looking for a reaction
from Abbiley, not Soria.

Brannis fumed at himself a moment, careful to keep any hint
of his turbulent thoughts out of his expression as the conversation turned to
pleasantries and amusing stories—the sort of things that people talked about
when they were not part of inter-world power struggles. Brannis played along,
as he had been told to do, but found himself fidgeting at the table as the meal
wore on.

At long last, after four courses and a dessert of pumpkin
pie, the meal was called to a close.

“Tomas, perhaps tonight would be a nice night for a carriage
ride. There is a clear sky, and I know how Miss Abbiley loves stargazing. It
will allow me to have some time to interview our guests,” Lord Harwick said.

“Father … always working,” Tomas mused with a slow shake of
his head. Still, the younger Harwick took his father’s advice, and departed
with Abbiley.

“We can speak in my study,” Lord Harwick said to Brannis and
Soria once Tomas and Abbiley were beyond hearing. With no further explanation,
Lord Harwick led them upstairs.

Up one flight and down a short hallway, Lord Harwick opened
a door. Soria, who had been walking with her arm twined with Brannis’s, pulled
up short. Lord Harwick, more observant that one might have expected of a man of
advancing years, took note.

“Yes, it is warded. I can explain inside.”

Soria glanced up at Brannis, her look telling him to be on
guard … or that she was suspicious … possibly that they were making a
mistake—Brannis had never quite gotten the hang of all the things he was
supposed to be able to infer from her various looks. He shrugged in reply, too
far committed to turn back, even if they might be walking into a trap. He
followed Lord Harwick into the study.

“Tomas does no real work, so the study in his home is mainly
for my use when I visit. Close the door, and we might converse without minding
our voices,” Lord Harwick instructed Brannis, who complied.

Lord Harwick seated himself behind the dark-stained oak desk,
and rummaged in the drawers as Brannis and Soria found chairs to pull up across
from him. Lord Harwick pulled out a pipe, and some pipeweed; it lit with no
need for tinder, to the surprise of neither twinborn. The lord also pulled out
three small glasses and a crystal decanter filled with an amber liquid.

“I never quite expected this day would come, Brannis,” Lord
Harwick said in Kadrin, not looking Brannis’s way as he poured them all drinks.
He slid two across the desk, and Brannis and Soria took one apiece, neither
drinking as they waited for the little drama Lord Harwick was playing out. “I
went to quite a bit of trouble getting you here, playing both sides, holding
the knife by the blade.” He looked up at Brannis, pipe clamped in his mouth,
drink in hand, and smiled.

“Caladris!” Brannis exclaimed. He had seen that same
expression on his uncle’s face, looking twenty summers younger than Lord
Harwick, and thicker of both face and gut than the somewhat stout lord.

“You?” Soria asked.

“Yes, me,” Harwick replied. “And
you …
” He took the
pipe from his mouth, and pointed the stem at Brannis’s chest. “… really are
Brannis Solaran. Fit me for a saddle if that boy Kyrus is not something
unnatural!”

“Wait, so
you
are behind this conspiracy? To what
end?” Brannis demanded.

“Conspiracy? Hah! Pick one!” Harwick scoffed. “Brannis, I
have petty schemes, wrapped around minor plots, disguising treasons. Where
would you like me to start?”

“Can you tell him whether his peasant girl here is Celia or
not? He’s been insufferable about it of late,” Soria requested.

Brannis turned to give her a scowl, but saw such an earnest
plea in her eyes that he nodded his agreement, and waited for his uncle to
answer her.

“Not. There are a few twists around that particular mystery,
but before you blame me for it, I must tell you it was the warlock’s idea. He
is wary of Kyrus, Brannis. The boy is raw as pheasant on the wing, but no one
has seen power like that, bottled up in just one body. He figured if Kyrus has
a sweetheart, he’d make a twinborn of her, and keep the Kadrin version close
when you were about.”

“But there were so many little details, things I never told
him,” Brannis said. “All I gave him that he could have used was her name and
likeness. How did he get Celia that information?”

“Well,
that
, I am afraid, I must confess to. A name
was all I needed, the likeness was just what Rashan needed to pick a girl out
to match. The fact that Celia looked so much like her was good fortune for
Rashan, but those tiny little flames you keep stamping on that you have for
Celia … that, I believe, was Kyrus’s influence on you.”

“Too convenient,” Soria said, crossing her arms and frowning.

“Lucky, perhaps, but had Abbiley and Celia not shared a
close enough resemblance as to perhaps be explained by those vain cosmetic
magics you ladies fancy—and I must heartily voice my support of them, Acardia
could use their like—well, Rashan would have found someone else,” Harwick
explained.

“Did she know?” Brannis asked. It was his turn to show
anger. Kyrus had promised to protect her. Had she been playing him for the
fool?

“Abbiley, no. I planted images in her mind that led her to
paint that portrait of you. Celia, yes,” Lord Harwick said, somberly at the
last. He knew that he might be condemning Celia, Brannis realized. He turned to
see Soria’s reaction. She stared ahead, not showing a response. “We could have
tried planting simple ideas in her mind, like I did with Abbiley, but Celia is
a sorceress; strong as I am, she still might have slipped free of the false
memories. Instead we took her into our confidence, and trusted that if she
could fool Jinzan Fehr when she was captured, she could keep up the act with
you as well.”

“Do I have to wake Kyrus up to keep you from killing her?”
Brannis asked Soria.

“You cannot kill her, Juliana,” Harwick said, choosing to
call her by the name he had long known her. “Rashan can know nothing of this.
He must believe that Celia is a deterrent to violence near him. If he does not
think that you would be hesitant to use strong magics near her, he will look to
some other method to leash you. Valuable as you are, he is likely to find a way
to kill you, or have you killed, if he thinks you are a threat. There is a
terrifying madness that lies just beneath that veneer of control.”

“Wait, I thought you were Rashan’s indispensible man, his
most trusted ally?” Soria asked, bewildered. She took a swig of the brandy in
her glass, blinking momentarily as the drink was stronger than she expected.

“He has to believe that. We lost three of our strongest
sorcerers in a fit of his rage. The rest of us he trusts like boys outside the
virgin cloister. He watched us, waiting for any of the others who had worked
closely with Gravis and Maruk to slip, and betray themselves. I made myself
valuable enough that I was able to take over that watch.”

“You mentioned Gravis and my father; what of Stalia
Gardarus?” Brannis asked, picking up on the omission.

“She was aware but not nearly so guilty as they. He killed
her as an example, since otherwise House Gardarus might have gotten ideas that
they were above Solaran and Archon. The heart of the emperor conspiracy were
Gravis, Maruk, Dolvaen, and myself,” Harwick explained.

“But why? Why are you going to all this trouble? If everyone
opposed Rashan, why not all unite against him?” Soria asked.

“They were scared,” Brannis said.

Lord Harwick closed his eyes and sighed. He nodded his
admission as he took a drink from his own glass.

“Dolvaen is resourceful. He has stayed out of trouble with
Rashan despite openly opposing him
and
secretly working against him. It
is the openness that has fooled Rashan thus far. The warlock is devilishly
clever, but admitting his opposition has made Dolvaen a known threat, a mere
political adversary. I think Rashan even admires him, after a fashion—the
principled stand against his stewardship and the purity of the imperial line …
all quite admirable.”