Emerald Sceptre (12 page)

Grozier sniffed. “I think not,” he said, and Bartimus wondered why his employer would choose to make a stand right then, with the odds arrayed against them.

At that moment, all went to chaos. Falagh flung his glassful of beverage at Grozier’s face. As the man threw up his hands to ward off the attack, Falagh grabbed a dagger from inside his tunic and raised it high, ready to plunge it into Grozier’s back. Grozier, stunned by the sudden attack, shouted in pain and staggered away, pawing at his eyes.

Bartimus opened his mouth to shout a warning, then changed his mind and decided on a quick spell to hurl at Falagh, then changed his mind once more and began reaching for a wand he had hidden away, but he was not fast enough. The Mestel scion leaped forward and plunged the blade squarely into his foe’s back. Grozier grunted and arched his back, but

instead of penetrating the man’s flesh, the dagger glanced off to the side with an audible clank.

Falagh stared at the dagger in surprise as Grozier whirled on him, pulling a dagger of his own. “Fool,” Talricci sneered, waving his blade in front of himself, threatening his opponent. “You’re not the first coward who’s tried to plunge a blade into my spine.”

Ah, Bartimus remembered, the ring I crafted for him. I forgot about that.

The two men crouched, both their expressions grim, but before the skirmish could truly begin, ‘,Lobra pounced. Bartimus thought she would go for Grozier, expecting that she was attempting to aid her husband, but instead, she grabbed Falagh by the arm and flung him sideways, twisting his wrist as she did so and forcing him to drop the weapon. The woman’s strength was remarkable, and Falagh smacked into a tapestry-covered wall head-first, then slumped to the ground with a groan.

Bartimus stared in amazement, wondering why the woman would turn on her own husband. Lobra began to shift, becoming the changling in its natural form. The wizard smiled, feeling the fool. “Very clever,” he said.

At that moment, a Pharaboldi House guard entered the room, perhaps to see what the commotion was about. Upon witnessing the violence taking place, he yanked his sword free and began screaming for reinforcements as he took a step forward.

Avoiding his previous hesitation, Bartimus withdrew a small crystal rod from a pocket inside his robes. The hollow rod was filled with glowing moss that gave off a very faint greenish light. Bartimus gestured rapidly at the guard with the crystalline object. A swirling, undulating curtain of colors sprang up, catching the man in its midst when he

put one foot in the room. The shimmering coalescence writhed in place, filling the doorway. The guard stopped and stood still, staring dumbfounded at the colors surrounding him.

Bartimus slipped the rod back into its protective pocket and turned toward Grozier, who was wiping his eyes with the hem of his doublet. The wizard moved to the man and muttered, “We must leave right now,” hoping the shapeshifter would help him convince Grozier of the prudence of departure.

A gasp and a cry of dismay sounded out in the hall, and Bartimus turned his attention that way once more. Two more guards stood mesmerized in the middle of the swirling curtain of color, enraptured with the shifting veil all around them. On the far side of it, unable to circumvent the enchantment, three others watched in dismay. One of them spun and ran in the opposite direction.

“Wizard!” the guard yelled at the top of his lungs as he disappeared. “I need a wizard right now!”

Bartimus, knowing they were running out of time, turned back just in time to spy his employer plunging Fa lagh’s own dagger into the downed man’s back. Mestel jerked and cried out, shuddering. Grozier stood over the man, a sneer on his mien, and raised the blade high for another blow.

“No time!” Bartimus shouted, already preparing the last of the magical doorways at his disposal. “The whole House is coming!” And with that, he conjured the blue, shimmering portal.

Out in the hall someone shouted, and Bartimus glanced over long enough to see that his swirling halo of magical light had vanished. The guards who had been ensnared in its effects were regaining their bearings, and the rest pushed past them, trying to

get into the room and at the perpetrators. The wizard scurried to his blue doorway.

Not waiting, he thought, as he launched himself at the portal.

Grozier gave a quick kick at Falagh, snapping the man’s head sideways, just as the shapeshifter grabbed him and hustled him toward the magical exit. All three of them reached it at the same time. They plunged as one through the passage, which vanished just as three guards closed in on it.

• • •

When Darvin arrived at the Generon, it took him a few minutes to track down Eles. Though the Sammardach celebration had dwindled to small groups of partygoers gathered in nooks and crannies of the palace, talking earnestly, it still took the assassin some time to wander through the halls, searching. Periodically he would stop and ask guards if they had seen their lord about. He finally caught up with the man standing on a balcony on a high level of the palace, looking out over the gardens and into the warm, humid night.

Lavant was there already, and the look on the high priest’s face told Darvin that they already knew at least part of the situation in Reth.

Darvin strolled up to the two men and cleared his throat. Lavant looked up with annoyance clear on his face, but when he saw who it was, his frown changed to a gleeful smile. “Have you heard?” the Grand Syndar asked, almost chortling. “It’s begun.”

“Yes,” Darvin said, nodding. “I just came from there. But all is not shiny and wonderful in dear Reth,” he said. “We have a problem.”

“What problem?” Eles Wianar said, turning and scowling. “Now is not the time for problems.”

Darvin took a deep breath. He did not relish bringing such unpleasant news to the most powerful man in Arrabar. “Rodolpho is not being as cooperative as we would like.” Then he shook his head. With others, he could deliver bad news in a roundabout way, smooth the edges, sugarcoat the nuggets. But with Eles, it was better just to speak plainly. He had a way of seeing exactly what others did not want him to see. “He made the plague too virulent,” Darvin explained, “and refused to create a cure. He apparently still harbors some resentment over his forced involvement with your plans.”

Lavant clucked his tongue. “Not surprising,” the high priest said. “There are ways around that. I can formulate a cure in a matter of hours. I’m sure of it.”

Darvin shook his head, not so sure. “It may be too late in a matter of hours,” he replied. “Half the city is engulfed in flames, and bodies are rising on the streets before they’re even cold.”

That description wiped the largest portion of, Lavant’s smile from his face. “Truly?” he said, his voice less exuberant than it had been before.

Darvin nodded. “As I said, I was just there moments ago. I saw it myself. And Rodolpho was painfully clear about his intentions.”

“I’m sure he was,” Eles said, though the tone of his voice was not terribly humorous. “He was the one biggest wrinkle in my plan,” the Shining Lord mused. “I thought he might be reticent about cooperating. Twelve years is a long time.”

Darvin started to ask Eles why he had chosen his cousin if he had had misgivings, but he thought better

of it. Instead, he said, “In the interests of preventing a total disaster, I took the liberty of redirecting some of our forces a little earlier than we had planned. I had Havalla turn some of his troops around and lay siege to Reth. Maybe that way, we can contain the plague as long as necessary to devise a solution.”

Lavant made a slightly strangled sound. “Why do you keep taking it upon yourself to change things without consulting us?” he demanded. “You may have just ruined our chances of swooping in at the right time.”

• Darvin shook his head again. “Trust me, there will be plenty for you and your temple troops to clean up. Even with that change, it may not be enough to keep the disease localized. All of Reth may be a graveyard or worse by morning.”

“You exaggerate,” Lavant said, his eyes wide.

It’s about time you understood the true magnitude here, Darvin thought. “I don’t,” he said. “Half the city was in chaos, burning. This was a calculated acceleration on Rodolpho’s part. He intended for it to get out of hand. I don’t think he even expects to survive.”

Lavant’s loss of composure was brief. “Nonsense,” he said, drawing himself up. “I will still arrive at the head of Lord Wianar’s army, prepared to deliver defeat to Arrabar’s enemies and blessed healing to the ravaged people of Reth. You will have your city back, my lord.”

Eles shook his head. “Don’t be cocksure.” he told the priest. “I trust Darvin’s judgment as much as I trust anyone with anything, and if he’s concerned, then I am too.”

Lavant looked wounded, but he recovered. “Then I am at your disposal to handle this however you see fit,” he said, bowing slightly. “Though I still assert

that I can generate an effective cure for the plague rapidly enough to prevent disaster.”

Eles waved a hand, dismissing Lavant. “Then go and do so,” he ordered, “and let me know as soon as you have something definitive.”

Lavant bowed again and departed.

Once the Grand Syndar was out of earshot, Darvin turned to Eles and said, “He is too sure of himself, my lord. This plague that Rodolpho cooked up is horrific. I don’t think you should place all of your trust in the Waukeenar. You need a second option.”

“Of course I do,” Eles answered, smiling that smile that always made Darvin’s skin crawl. “You’re going back to Reth to wring a solution out of Rodolpho.” -

Darvin sighed. “I don’t know if that’s possible. When he said he hadn’t created one, I got the impression he was sincere. I think he somehow knew this was the last great thing he was going to do with his life, and he took great delight in thwarting you.”

Eles’s scowl became a glower. “Lesser opponents do not thwart me,” he said. “Deal with this.”

Darvin nodded in resignation. Somehow, he had known all along that it would come down to that. “All right,” he said at last. “But I can’t get back there on my own. Laithe will have to help me.”

“Fine,” Eles said. “Take your sister along.” “Half-sister,” Darvin corrected, then immediately regretted it.

“Darvin,” Eles said, his face a mask. “Don’t think that just because you are my flesh and blood that you can fail me in this. I will have Reth.”

Darvin nodded. “I know, Father. I’m on my way.”

• •

“Can you heal her?” Vambran asked.

Arbeenok shrugged, trying to imitate the human gesture. It still felt strange to him to do so, even after several years among humans. “I do not know,” he said, “I can try.”

“Do it,” Vambran said, forcefully, but Arbeenok understood that he was asking, pleading, not ordering. The alaghi understood, and he did not object, but the man’s intense drive was remarkable. There was a fire in his eyes, a fierceness to act, to succeed, burning inside him at all times.

And there was conflict.

Arbeenok could see that Vambran questioned himself with every decision he made. The soldier scrutinized all his choices, never satisfied that he had selected wisely or had done enough. Arbeenok wondered where in his life he had failed. He wondered what had convinced the man that he was not capable of choosing the wise course.

His passion is admirable, the alaghi thought, but he will burn himself up if he cannot find balance.

Arbeenok turned from the soldier and examined the woman, Elenthia. She stared back at him with wide, frightened eyes. He understood her fear, too. Hers was far more defined. She was dying, and she knew it. “Try to relax,” he told her.

Then Arbeenok began to sing.

The druid sang to the wind and the stars, to the earth somewhere below, calling to the natural soil that lay beneath the carefully aligned stones, down past the unnatural layer of the garden. He sang to the ocean that he could smell but could not see. He sang to them all, asking them to restore the balance in Elenthia, to cleanse her of the perverse disease that infested her.

They could not aid him.

Arbeenok’s song turned inward, seeking some energy that he could harness within himself, from the spirits of the animals that resided in harmony in him, hoping perhaps to drain away the woman’s sickness into himself and dissipate it.

The sickness was too strong.

Arbeenok opened his eyes and looked at his companions. Both were watching him intently. He had seen such looks before by those who had never heard him use his magic. He paid their stares no mind. “It cannot be cleansed by my magic alone,” he said. “It is too unnatural for my healing skills.” Arbeenok watched Vambran’s face turn stony, as though bracing for the inevitable. “I can arrest it, though,” the druid said, hoping that the two of them would understand. Sometimes, finding the words to explain things to outsiders was difficult. “Slow it,” he added.

“Do it,” Vambran said again, once more in that forceful, demanding tone. For him, failure was a fate too horrible to contemplate. Arbeenok could see that.

“It will not cure her,” Arbeenok warned, wanting the soldier to understand that it was a temporary solution and would hold for a day at most. “She will still be ill, but the sickness will not … progress.”

Vambran began nodding even before Arbeenok finished speaking. “Buy us time, that’s good enough,” he said. “And we’ll go to the bottom of the Reach, burrow into the rock if we must in order to find whatever it is we’re supposed to find.”

Arbeenok smiled, glad that Vambran was ready to accept the alaghi’s vision, to follow their entwined fates to their logical conclusions. “Yes,” he said. Then

he closed his eyes and began to sing once more, a different song, one to slow the poisons in Elenthia’s body rather than drive them out. He felt the contagion begin to slumber, fall dormant. Satisfied, he finished the song, locking the magic in place for as long as he was able.

When it was done, Arbeenok opened his eyes and nodded to tell his companions so. The relief on both their faces was clear. “We must rest,” he said.

“There’s no time,” Vambran argued, his intense eyes looking away to some distant place, not just in space but also in time. He was peering toward the future, always toward the future, trying to catch up to it and yet never seeing it as it went by. “We have to go, get out of the city. People are dying.”