Aethersmith (Book 2) (55 page)

“Well, pleasant as the sea air smells, I think I am going to
retreat belowdecks. I rescind my previous boast,” Brannis said, still
shivering.

“Wait up!” Soria called after him as Brannis headed for the
stairs that led down below, away from the winds. “I’ll help you keep warm.”

Without even having to turn back, he could hear the
mischievous grin on her face.

* * * * * * * *

“Why does he just stare like that?” Zellisan asked. “It
isn’t natural.”

The wagon rumbled amiably along down the Tradeway,
continuing westward. There was no sign of the caravan they had started out
with. Even though they were likely outpacing it, the caravan had half a day’s
lead on them. It would be unlikely for them to close that sort of distance
before reaching Naia, their destination by default, not by design; it was the
next city along the Tradeway.

“It will take some time for him to get over his apathy
toward this world. Anzik lives a much more engaging life. In Megrenn, his
family is wealthy, and he is surrounded by magical wonders, including those he
can work himself. He has little incentive to pay attention to this world,
beyond the physical discomforts he suffers by ignoring it,” Wendell explained.
“I grew up much the same. It was not until my own master discovered me that I
found something in Tellurak that I cared about enough to pull my attention away
from Veydrus.”

The two spoke openly in Kadrin. If either the driver or
Jadon understood a word of it, they did not let on. The driver likely could not
tell the difference between their otherworldly speech and any other of the more
exotic tongues he knew not a word of. Of course, Jadon might have learned
plenty of Kadrin through Anzik, if the boy was well educated, and still not
given any hint that he understood them.

“How much time, you think?” Zell persisted. He looked at the
boy like an unlucky uncle who had been pressed into child-watching duty, and
could not be done with it quickly enough. He shifted in his seat, his aging
back protesting both the hard wooden bench of the wagon, and lending support to
his general irritation with the whole situation. “I want to get done with
whatever business you and Brannis are up to.”

“Oh, believe me … I am more eager for a resolution to this
than you are,” Wendell promised, giving a tenuous little smile. Zell noticed
that Wendell looked awful—he had not paid much attention to the magician’s
appearance before then, spending much of his time avoiding conversing with the
street-performer.

“Are … you all right, Wendell?” Zell ventured tentatively,
trying to look concerned. “I know you and Brannis wanted to keep this whole
business secret, but if there’s something I need to know, tell me.”

“Things are going better here than in Veydrus, shall we
say?” Wendell allowed. He turned away from Zell after that, fixing his
attention on the boy, Jadon. Zell watched one broken, spooky magical creature
stare at another one.

“Is … Naia … nice?” Zell asked, trying his pidgin Takalish
in an effort to strike up a conversation with their driver. The wizened old
Takalish twisted in his seat to look back at his passengers, making an
inquiring little noise, as if he had forgotten that his cargo could speak.

The driver garbled something in reply in the casual patois
of one who does not realize how to soften his speech to the understanding of a
non-native speaker. Zell imagined he caught enough to gather that indeed it was
a nice place. He gave a satisfied grunt, and nodded sagely in lieu of
continuing a verbal exchange.

Zell slumped back into his seat as the driver returned his
attention to the road, which hardly needed it. The horses were the ones keeping
the wagon from veering off the road, maintaining a steady pace they had learned
over many such crossings of the Tradeway.

“Anything I could maybe ask Brannis about for you?” Zell
offered.

“No. No, I do not think that would be helpful,” Wendell
replied, shaking himself from whatever musings were occupying his thoughts just
long enough to form a reply before giving all appearance of heading right back
to them.

That settled it in Zellisan’s mind. His next opportunity, he
would talk to Brannis about whatever mysterious problem Wendell did not want to
discuss.

* * * * * * * *

Denrik did not enjoy taking his crew’s coin. The easiest way
to maintain loyalty among cutthroats had always been to establish a belief that
you were the key to their future wealth, he had always believed. Distracted as
he was, it was no trouble at all avoiding impoverishing his common sailors. Bad
cards came his way in plenty, and saw more play than they probably should have.
Good cards came his way occasionally, and earned him little, as he testily
overplayed them, scaring away players before pots grew large.

He was beginning to wonder when he ought to call off the
game, risking sounding like a sore loser if he did so when he still had a pile
of coins on the table in front of him that were frequently heading to his men’s
piles. The decision was made easier by a shout from on deck. A ship had been
sighted!

Denrik threw in cards that might have had some potential to
win the hand, but he had mainly been biding his time. He gave his pile of
coins, paltry though it had become, a meaningful look. He ran a finger over
them, making it look like he was taking a count. He had no time to actually
count the varying currencies in the pile to take a proper accounting of them,
but the worry that he
might
have done so ought to have been enough to
stay greedy hands.

Denrik took his hat from the back of his chair, and set it
on his head slightly askew. The angle was just enough to make the Acardian
captain’s hat look less than properly naval. He felt more a proper pirate
captain by the day, worry over Stalyart’s absence excepted, looking the part
played into it. He was no longer wearing the castoffs of the ship’s previous
captain, but had a full wardrobe of tailored clothes, new pistols, a jeweled
sabre. He strode out onto the deck of the
Fair Trader
as a king of a
small, floating kingdom, prepared to watch the return of his favored knight.

The ship on the horizon had been too far to identify when he
first arrived on deck. He took his own personal spyglass from a case that hung
at his side, and watched the ship approach. It was heading straight for their
position—either a good sign or a very bad one. With just a head-on view, he
could not get a full count of sails, but he could at least rule out—

Kthooom. Kthooom. Kthooom. Kthooom.

Both broadsides of the unidentified ship opened fire at
once. Plumes of thin, grey smoke rose from either side of the ship. Denrik smiled,
and a cheer went up from the
Fair Trader
’s crew.
A waste of
munitions, to be sure, but the man has style
. The shots splashed harmlessly
into the Katamic, launching cascades of water into the air.

The tension of the ship’s approach immediately changed to
eagerness and preparations to greet the returning
Merciful
. Captain
Stalyart offered no further theatrics as he piloted his ship in, and slid it up
next to the
Fair Trader
, then threw a pair of gangplanks between the two
vessels. Stalyart himself was the first to cross the gap.

“Captain Stalyart, I was beginning to think you had gone and
gotten yourself sunk,” Denrik called out loudly enough for both crews to hear.
It was a public event, and needed a public greeting to go with it.

“Ahh, Captain Zayne. I think my tale will put thoughts of
lateness very much to the back of your mind. I have two little newses for you,
and someone new whom you need to meet,” Stalyart replied in a somewhat more
reserved volume. From a showman like Stalyart, it boded ill.

“Let us talk it over in my cabin while the crews catch up on
old times,” Denrik told him, keeping the tone light until he could get his
former first mate somewhere private. Stalyart followed him as he returned to
his cabin.

“I see you have played Crackle without me. I am hurt.”
Stalyart feigned offense at the sight of the hastily adjourned game still
occupying a table in Denrik’s cabin.

“Worked like magic, getting you back here.” Denrik smiled,
his mood rather lighter than normal despite the foreboding he had picked up on
from Stalyart upon his arrival. He was a good man to have around, and bad news
from him was better than no news without him. “So what had you to tell me?”

“Well, I have determined that Mr. Hinterdale has departed
Denku Appa, and seems to have no interest in pursuing any sort of vengeance
against you. In fact, he has arranged for a replacement for himself as Kadrin
ambassador aboard the
Fair Trader
, should your offer of such still
stand. I have the man in question, who goes by the name of Tanner, on board the
Merciful
right now.”

“Well, those were not such bad ‘newses,’ now, were they?”
Denrik said, giving a chuckle to put Stalyart at ease. The man seemed to have
had a rough go somewhere along the way that he had yet to detail, and Denrik
did not want Stalyart to think him upset with the idea of another try at the
“floating embassy” idea.

“Oh, my pardon, Captain. If you consider those separate bits
of news, then I have three,” Stalyart amended, his face grave.

“What is the third, then?” Denrik’s eyes narrowed.

“By rather fantastical means, it appears that our Mr.
Hinterdale has escaped Denku Appa via Kadrin. He has traded places with Brannis
Solaran.”

“Could you repeat that please, Mr. Stalyart?” Denrik asked,
declining to form a proper reaction until his mind wrapped that sentence up
into a package it could digest. He pushed his hat up a bit so that it gave a
clearer view, with no corner overhanging any part of his field of vision—as if
that would somehow allow the information to make more sense as it reached him.

“Kyrus Hinterdale is in Kadrin. I dropped Brannis Solaran
off in Takalia, Daisha to be precise. He travels with four other Kadrin
twinborn,” Stalyart said, speaking slowly and deliberately.

“That was not what you said the first time. That was worse!”
Denrik snapped. He squeezed his eyes shut, and rubbed them with thumb and
forefingers, willing the news to make sense, or to somehow be less awful. “Sit.
I need to get through this, and I am going to have a lot of questions, I
think.” Stalyart obligingly pulled up a chair, straddling it backward with his
arms crossed atop the back.

“Before you ask, I know your first question. It is
not
Kyrus I met. I do not see the aether well, but Mr. Hinterdale stood out quite
clearly to me. Brannis Solaran is a ghost, as close to Sourceless as I can
remember seeing.”

“A trick. Some way to hide his Source,” Denrik proposed.

Stalyart shook his head. “I think not. You said you met
Brannis Solaran at Raynesdark. You described him in resplendent golden armor
with a sword that practically radiated magic. When I encountered Mr. Solaran,
he was on a ship the
Merciful
attacked, singlehandedly fighting off my
crew in a golden suit of armor that shrugged off all blows, and wielding a
sword that crushed all in its path. He is Mr. Hinterdale’s height, and has his
face, but he is built like Mr. Reggelend, perhaps a bit thinner.” Stalyart drew
the comparison to the largest of Captain Zayne’s “crew” from his imprisonment
on Rellis Island. Tawmund Reggelend was a street enforcer for a land-based gang
of thieves; he was the sort who broke legs when debts went unpaid.

“Magic?” Denrik suggested, lamely, optimistically.

“Captain. You may ask me a thousand questions if you like,
but I think Mr. Tanner would be more helpful,” Stalyart suggested. He looked
over at the cabin door. Denrik could not recall seeing the man seem so
discomfited.

“Very well, but before you go fetch him, what sort of man is
he?” Denrik asked. “Who am I going to be hosting as a Kadrin ambassador?” He
had visions of a man of middle years to all appearances, but older than most
toothless greybeards. Perhaps a sorcerer of the Imperial Circle, if not even
the Inner Circle. Surely if there were as many twinborn among the Kadrin as
Stalyart’s claim of four in Kyrus’s immediate company indicated, sorcerers
would be prominent among them.

“He fits in well with the crew, I must admit. He is a
coinblade and a quickblade. A saw a bit of him fighting during a boarding
action he was, at the time, on the other side of. He is at least my equal with
a sword. He knows a touch of magic, just enough that it makes him feel
important. He can hold his drink, and pisses away his coin at Crackle like a
merchant’s son.”

“Hmm.” Denrik gave it some thought. “Could be worse, I
suppose. Go along, then, and send him in.”

Stalyart did not need goading. He was gone from the cabin as
quickly as dignity allowed.
He is either nervous about this whole Kyrus
business, or he has something he does not want to tell me. You are an excellent
Crackle player, Robbono, but I know you too well.

The man who entered Denrik’s cabin looked like he had lost a
fistfight, and never quite recovered his looks. A flattened nose hunkered
between an overhanging brow and a jutting chin. He strutted in as if he was
considering buying the ship from Denrik. He looked about at the decor before
settling his gaze in Denrik’s general direction.

“Nice ship. I guess it will look a bit more pirate once
you’ve had it longer. Still smells navy to me,” Tanner commented, rubbing his
chin with one hand while the other rested on his hip.

“You must be the one Stalyart called Tanner,” Denrik said by
way of greeting. “I am Denrik Zayne, Captain of the
Fair Trader
.”

“Wasn’t just Stalyart; everyone calls me Tanner. Keeps it
simpler. Looks like we’re going to be stuck with each other a while.”