Sourcethief (Book 3) (3 page)

"My Aunt Faeranna is still alive," Kyrus
observed in a grim tone.

"Well, it is not
my
conjecture about
your uncle's contingencies; blame the blood scholars or your uncle. In any
event, aside from the Gardarus girl or deciding to knock the scion of some
other bloodline into the mud to take his betrothed, that would leave ...
widows," Emperor Sommick said.

Kyrus barely thought. It sort of just happened. One
moment the emperor was outlining an ambitious but perhaps ill-conceived plot to
marry into the sorcerous bloodlines from the comfort of his throne, the next
moment, the ruffled collar of his doublet was bunched up in Kyrus's fists, his
toes the only thing keeping him from being held up entirely by his royal accoutrements.

"Ah, you ... you see," the emperor
stammered, "this is why I wanted to speak with you first. I ... I would
not want there to be ... to be a misunderstanding between us. If ... if you
would just see fit to ... to you know ... put me down, I can explain."
Kyrus looked into the emperor's eyes for a moment, seeing fear in the dilated
pupils, the sweat forming at his brow; he could feel the emperor trembling and
dared not look down for fear of finding that the emperor had wet himself.

"Explain," Kyrus ordered, letting out a
deep breath to regain control of his temper. He loosened his grasp and floated
the emperor back to his throne as gently as he was able. "I apologize. You
seem to have found a sensitive subject for me." Kyrus turned aside to allow
both of them to compose themselves with a bit of dignity.

"Brannis, I am new to much of this whole
business, but if I have learned one thing in my life it is to judge men—and
women—by more than just their words. I see a lot more pass between people than they
intend to reveal. Your own courtship of Sorceress Celia, for example, seems to
be rather ... dutiful. Her affections seem genuine, if I am any judge, but you,
my friend, seem to be playing at it for the audience."

Kyrus turned to look at Emperor Sommick, wondering
just how much he might have underestimated the man.

"You seem to have confirmed my
suspicions," the emperor continued, "which makes me glad of having
noticed. My thought would have been to take the warlock's widowed oathdaughter
as my empress, but now I see that you still think to pursue Sorceress Juliana
yourself."

"I would advise against it," Kyrus
cautioned.

"Indeed. I need allies, and you are much more
valuable as such than any possible alliance by marriage. I have had the blood
scholars go though their archives and find the best matches with
me
in
mind, and she was foremost among eligible sorceresses. However, I did not
restrict them to those that were available in the traditional sense."

"You are not considering Celia Mistfield as
your alternative, then? I had assumed that was the choice you implied when you
mentioned 'widows' and not merely 'a widow.'"

"No, too lowborn. The Mistfields are barely a
scrawled note in the margins of the blood scholars' records. That was fine for
you
,
who truth be told, I think they feel could use his own blood thinned a bit in
future generations. But I seek to start a bloodline from noble stock on one
side."

"Who then? I have been shown the same records
and can think of none who could be made to fit your criteria."

"Of course not," Sommick said with a
nervous chuckle. "I think I would like to marry Aloisha Solaran."

"My
sister
?" Kyrus shouted in
reply. He was amazed how quickly his outrage came, despite her being of
Brannis's blood and not his own. "She is married already."

"Yes, and not happily. Arranged marriages often
are not, but hers is a rather vexing case for the blood scholars. Eleven
winters and no child, nor the pretense of real effort. She maintains her birth
name. They do not share a home together —"

"Juran lives in Naran Port and is the senior
Circle member there," Kyrus sought to excuse his oathbrother. Juran
Destrier was a good sort, by Kyrus's measure—or rather, had been by Brannis's.

"Yes, and Aloisha could have easily joined him
there if she chose. As I told you, Sir Brannis, I consider myself a keen
observer of people; sorcerers are not so different in that regard. Your sister
may one day relent and bear him a child or two, but it would not be eagerly.
She is ambitious, covetous of her new position in the Inner Circle. I think she
might like the chance to become empress."

"What about Juran? I do not see him as the sort
to stand idle for such an affront. Fenris Destrier is Inner Circle as well, and
I cannot envision him taking his grandson's cuckolding in stride, which is what
this would amount to."

"Oh come now, this is why I need your aid. You
have played it masterfully thus far, but your plan to remove Iridan from your
path has not fooled me. I need that same ingenuity for my own plan. Find a way
to clear the path between me and your sister."

"I had nothing to do with that," Kyrus
objected. He wished he believed it, but as much as he placed the blame for his
friend's death on the hands of Warlock Rashan, he could not acquit himself so
easily of failing to send aid.

"Of course." Emperor Sommick's smile was
sly and condescending. Kyrus realized no argument would convince the emperor
that his guess was mistaken.

"Why her? If you do not limit yourself to unwed
sorceresses, why not pick an easier target?"

"Think a while on that one, Sir Brannis. The
answer should be easy enough for you to figure out."

"Shall I take that as a dismissal?" Kyrus
asked.

"You may take it as you choose. Everyone else
around here seems to treat my words that way." Emperor Sommick sighed,
giving the ceiling a melodramatic look. Kyrus decided to ignore the emperor's
theatrics and nodded his acknowledgement. He took his leave, watching as the
eager throngs in the corridors filed back into the audience chamber to resume
whatever waste they put their days to. Kyrus was glad of the wards that
protected the throne room from eavesdropping. Despite a reasonable
understanding of their workings, he always wondered who might be capable of
peering through them.

* * * * * * *
*

The
Starlit Marauder
hung in the sky over the
lightly forested region east of Munne. The ship drifted along, not obeying the
current of the springtime breezes. At the helm, Juliana Archon guided their
way, using the runes on the ship's wheel to steer and propel them. The whole
arrangement was a masterwork of aethersmithing. Until the coming of Kyrus
Hinterdale, there had been no one with a Source strong enough to activate so
large and intricate a device since the early days of the empire.

Men lined both railings, looking below for signs of
Megrenn forces that had scattered after the recapturing of Munne. There had
been reports of raiders in the area and the
Darkstorm
had been lost
after being dispatched to investigate, with no word of any survivors. Thus it
was with some trepidation that the
Starlit Marauder
and her crew now
combed over the same bit of woodlands.

"No sign of anyone, captain." The call
came from the crew on the left railing. It was echoed by the crew on the right
railing. Juliana had rules about airships; they were not boats. There were no
ports and starboards on the
Starlit Marauder
, by her decree. The ship
had a left and a right, a nose—which could also be properly called the
front—and an arse end, or back. The bottom of the ship was the belly, inside
and out. The top was, regrettably, still called a deck, since all other terms
seemed to fit it poorly.

"Keep looking. The
Darkstorm
might have
crashed of its own accord, but my guess is someone had a hand in helping it.
They can't have disappeared. They're down in those woods somewhere,"
Juliana shouted. The ship's runes parroted her voice down to the lower decks.

It would have been an easier search to conduct in
the barren seasons. The stretch below them was deciduous forest, sparse but in
full foliage. They were hoping to catch enemy soldiers as they moved about.
Were they to remain undercover, there was little they would be able to see from
the air. Juliana considered using her aether-vision to aid the search, but with
so many Sources in the wilderness, her aether-sight was not keen enough to make
out humans unless they drew dangerously close to the treetops.

"Captain, I think I've got them!" one
spotter yelled from the right-arse end of the railing.

"Where?" Juliana shouted back. Her hands
were already moving at the controls of the viewing panel, its glass surface
magically displaying images of the forest below.

"Just behind us, a couple of dung-eaters.
Prob'ly more of ‘em somewhere down there, too."

Juliana gritted her teeth, reminding herself that it
was not the time to be tossing her own men overboard. She hated that epithet
for the Safschan people. It was jingoistic nonsense that the army encouraged.
It was hard to demonize the Megrenn as a people, since many of them had as much
Kadrin blood in them as the soldiers of the empire. The Safschan though, with
their dark skin making them stand apart, were far easier targets.

"Prepare the grapples!" Juliana ordered.
She began lowering the
Starlit Marauder
in among the trees where she
could find room. It was not large by sea-ship standards, but it was still a
snug fit for a forest. She found something close enough to a clearing for her
purposes and brought them to within twice the height of a man off the ground.

With the touch of another rune, the sides of the
ship opened down into ramps. Grappling hooks flew from the sides of the ship,
snagging tree branches to all sides of the
Starlit Marauder
and
anchoring her in mid-air. Ropes dropped down to ground level as well, allowing
the soldiers on deck to disembark without having to jump down and risk an ankle
injury or worse.

Her men poured into the forest in pursuit of the
Safschan troops they had spotted. Her first instinct told her to go with them,
but she had her plan already set and kept to it. She remained on board the
Starlit
Marauder
, rendering the grapples a needless precaution; so long as she was
at the helm, the ship would not drift off.

She bided her time, panning the scene in the
view-glass for signs of returning soldiers. After a time, Juliana grew bored of
her vigil and went down to the belly for something to eat while she waited.

"Surrender!" a voice shouted from outside
the ship. It was Kadrin being spoken, but with a hint of a Safschan accent to
it. Juliana rushed up to the main deck to see who was awaiting her. The voice
sounded familiar. It seemed that twenty of her men had not been enough to
hinder him.

"Surrender yourself, Tiiba, or I'll just cut
the lines and fly off without you!" she shouted down once she saw who it
was. For over a week, Rakashi had been hinting to Juliana's twin, Soria
Coinblade, that his twin was hiding in the Kadrin countryside, too proud to ask
for rescue. The dark-skinned Safschan blade-priest with mismatched eyes—one
brown, one milky white—stood below the railing of the
Starlit Marauder
with three Safschan soldiers. "Will you vouch for those three?"

"I will. Please, allow us aboard."

Juliana lowered one of the ramps to the ship and
threw down a rope. Tiiba came up first, his lean, hard body well suited to
climbing. He, embraced Juliana briefly before any of his men arrived in the
hold to see them.

"We'll talk in private," Juliana assured
him in a whisper.

Tiiba informed her of her crew’s demise. With
Tiiba's magic and skill with the blade, Juliana knew her men stood no chance.
Had it been just any rabble among the Safschan army hiding out in those woods,
she would have liked her men's odds against them, whether she joined them or
not. If it was Tiiba ... well she could not very well lend aid to a
blade-priest over her men's objections. There would have been a mutiny, and she
likely would have had to kill them herself. The thought of
not
helping
Tiiba was not even considered among her options.

Juliana took the ship above the scattered clouds and
guided them north as fast as she dared fly it. By nightfall they had gotten out
to sea, putting the Aliani beneath them as protection against being spotted by
the forces of either the scattered Megrenn Alliance or the Kadrin Empire. She
left the ship as stationary as the winds allowed—its magic resisting much of
such motion on its own—and went below to see about her guests.

The Safschan soldiers had taken over one of the crew
quarters, preferring to bunk together in the unfamiliar surroundings. They
seemed wary of her, but were polite enough when she inquired about their
comfort. She found Tiiba waiting when she returned to her own cabin.

"Thank you," Tiiba stated simply. From the
proud, self-sufficient warrior, it spoke volumes.

"These eyes of mine have never seen you before,
yet I'd know you anywhere, Rakashi," Juliana said, preferring to call him
by his more familiar Telluraki name. "You're most welcome."

"I am sorry it had to cost you your crew to
save me—to save us. Will you be able to return to Kadrin after this?"