Sourcethief (Book 3) (31 page)

Stalyart's smile faltered.  It was replaced by a
false smile which only held up briefly before succumbing to its more sincere
predecessor's fate. He waggled a finger in Tanner's direction. "Tonight, I
think not." He turned the waggling finger to point Tanner's way. "You
have had a bad day."

Stalyart nodded once emphatically, then headed for
the front door of the inn. The crowd's disappointment was palpable, but no one
was willing to openly question his bravery in public—that would have been
begging for a challenge to the accuser.

Tanner took the two coins securely in hand once
more. He was about to stuff them back into his coinpurse when he noticed one of
the men in the crowd wearing a pendant that marked him as the school's
proxy—the one who collected the offerings that were left. He was an elderly
Takalishman with a fringe of white hair and a bent frame that looked as if it might
have held some real muscle in bygone years. Tanner caught the man's eye and
approached him. He pressed the two coins into the man's palm, and closed his
hands around them.

"Thank you," Tanner told the old man,
using two of the only Takalish words he had learned from Rakashi.

* * * * * * *
*

The Katamic was in an angry mood, or so it seemed to
Brannis as he tried to read while the ship tossed and rolled. He found himself
in a near constant state of nausea, for as soon as the ship would hold still
long enough for his innards to acclimate,
Poet's Hammer
would drop once
more. Everything in the cabin was well-made to resist the habits of a fickle
sea except for him—even the desk's stool was nailed in place.

"You can't possibly be absorbing anything from
those," Soria commented. Brannis turned to see her lounging on the bed,
stretched out under the swinging lamp's erratic light. "You're dead tired
and the pages are moving more than your eyes are across it."

"I would let you read from Juliana's copy of
The
Peace of Tallax
, but you already said you needed time to set things in
order first. If you changed your—"

"No," Soria cut him off. "I was just
thinking that we might put these rough seas to some more pleasurable use."
She gave Brannis a wicked smile and patted a spot next to her on the bed.

Brannis lowered his head until he could just see her
from below his brow and stared. "You jest," he replied. Before the
protestation he knew was coming, he waved a hand in her direction. "I
know, you always jest but not about that. I just ... I have a demon who could
have my throat in his grasp at any moment. There is only so much Kyrus can do
with Rashan watching him, so it has to be me who learns all this." Brannis
gestured to the tubes filled with Lord Harwick's notes.

"Well, at least come get some sleep, then. You
can't deny you could use it," Soria said, propping herself up on an elbow.
Her armor lay discarded in a corner. It was cool in the cabin but she was
wearing nothing but her wrapped undergarments.

"Much as I would like to, if I sleep now I
would wake Kyrus."

"He should—"

"Yes, maybe he should be able to sleep through
it but probably not. Just ... let me work while I can and worry about sleep
when I collapse from exhaustion."

Soria let out a disgusted sigh. "Fine."

She crossed the tiny cabin and reached past Brannis
for one of the tubes, planting a kiss on his head as she leaned over him.

"What are you planning to do with that?"
Brannis asked. He watched her unstopper it and shake the contents out onto the
bed.

"You brought little else along that's worth
reading and hard as it may be to believe, I know this stuff too and I've been
at it longer than you," Soria replied. She started leafing through the
papers and shuffling them about the bed.

"Well, fine. Just use it to protect yourself
though. I do not want you thinking of coming to rescue me. There is nothing in
there that would have you kill Rashan for me, or Harwick would have mentioned
it," Brannis said.

"Hey, maybe it's you." Soria pointed to
Brannis—the actual Brannis sitting in the cabin with her and not the
Kyrus-Brannis that he kept referring to. "Maybe this big squishy pile of
muscles here will need saving, not the demon-hunting twig of a twin of
yours."

"Fine. You win. Be careful. Do whatever you
want—you always do anyway," Brannis said. "Thank you," he added
quietly.

Soria smiled and found a place to start reading.

Kyrus's quill scrawled over the pages with practiced
ease when he remembered to move it at all. The treatise he was penning was, at
worst, a ruse. At best it might serve as something more. His real task lay
entirely between his ears where a more elaborate workshop of scriveners was
busily recording as much of Lord Harwick's scribbled notes as Brannis had been
able to glean in a single seasick and sleep-deprived day of reading.

The early morning, with dawn fresh in the sky
outside, had felt wobbly. The floors of the palace were set as level as calm
water and were as solid as the bones of the world. Kyrus's mind however, insisted
on assuming a disturbing undulating motion. He had allowed the door to his room
to remain unwarded and had been bothered by an ever-increasing number of
pressing concerns as word of his availability spread. It was a calculated move
though, as all his decisions of late seemed to be. He wanted to maintain all
appearances of not being a threat to Rashan. Immersing himself in his duties
with the emperor seemed a logical step.

Kyrus had managed to write a few paragraphs since
his last visitor had come to complain about the way he was running the empire.
He had already heard complaints from the army about the aftermath of the
explosion at headquarters and from two separate lords about the treatment of
their daughters at the hands of the emperor.

So much of the empire is better
off running itself. If I can just let enough of them figure that out, maybe
they will stop bringing all their problems to me.

A knock at his door startled him. He looked down to
see a jagged scratch in the page where he had been writing, picked up his
progress, and hurled it in a crumpled ball at the door. Paranoia was making him
jumpy.

"Come in," he called out. He tried to keep
his temper out of his voice.

The door opened to reveal Varnus clutching his hands
in front of him as if at a loss for something to do with them. Since he wore a
sword at his hip, Kyrus could only assume he had the sort of problem where a
sword would be no help.

"Sorry to disturb you. I know the comings and
goings enough to realize how little peace you're getting," Varnus said as
he let himself in and closed the door, "but if you'd do me the favor of
warding this place up, we need to talk."

Kyrus set down his quill and pushed away from the
desk. "Well, you promise to be the most interesting appointment I've had
the morning." With a moment's thought Kyrus replaced the lapsed wards
about the room. He gestured toward a spare chair. "Sit down. Tell me what
troubles you."

The guard captain perched on the edge of the seat he
was given, resting his elbows on his knees. "Well, on the other side, I
heard Wendell up in the night, talking to Jadon. He was trying to get the boy
to give him information about Anzik Fehr."

"To what end?"

"Well, he had cast some sort of spell on the
boy. I'll be gutted if I can tell you what it did. I saw him put a hand on
Jadon's head though when he did it. He told him to ask about whether someone
was reading Loramar's books."

"Loramar? Why would he be asking about
Loramar?" Kyrus asked.

Varnus threw up his hands. "That's what I came
here to ask. This sausage tastes of rat if you ask me; Wendell is worried about
Anzik working necromancy, or trying to get him to, maybe."

Kyrus scratched his head. "No. What would he do
that for? I cannot envision that wisp of a boy defeating Jinzan, if that is
Wendell's aim. Anzik also obviously knows some necromancy already unless the
reports from the survivors of Zorren are false."

"Too many folk said so for it to be a
lie," Varnus said. "Might've been wrong, but not all lying about it.
Still, maybe he wants the boy to practice, use him as an inside man ... or boy,
rather."

"Leaving aside what he might do with the
knowledge, where would Anzik have access to Loramar's books? They were supposed
to have been burned after the Third War."

Varnus shrugged. "That's what they said, but
maybe folks were more interested in learning from those books than in burning
them."

"You think they might have been transported
here, to Kadris?" Kyrus asked.

"I didn't say anything," Varnus said,
holding up his hands to ward off blame. "Just think that maybe Faolen
knows something about those books that we don't. Why else would he ask about
them?"

Kyrus stood and moved to the window. He gazed out
over Kadris, stroking his chin. "Because someone asked him to."

Varnus stood and blundered across the room toward
Kyrus. A pitcher of water crashed to the ground as the burly guard captain
moved by. "Sorry," Varnus muttered, "didn't think I was that
close to it." He turned his focus back to Kyrus and the line of thought
consuming his attention. "You think this is at Rashan's prompting?"

"Think on this: if we communicate between
worlds, why not him? If he knows that Anzik is being returned to his father, he
might be trying to use any hints he can get from the boy to piece together
where he was taken."

"What do you want me to do?" Varnus asked.

Kyrus looked him over. The man was nervous, that
much was clear. Whatever he might be in Tellurak, Varnus was no spy.

"Pick up that pitcher you knocked over and go
back to whatever else you have to do around here. I want you safely out of
this, someone Rashan is unaware of. I need you watching over Wendell on the
other side. I might have an insight into Rashan from there."

"Brannis," Varnus said, emphasizing the
Kadrin persona despite knowing better. "If Faolen works for Rashan,
wouldn't he know I'm working with you?"

"It may be time to balance the ledgers again
and see what new tallies there are in our little game. I think I know more now
than he does but if he finds that staff first I might have to change my
assessment. Faolen having sold you to Rashan would be another mark against him.
What happened to that twinborn pact, not betraying each other between
worlds?"

"Just me, Soria, Tanner, and Rakashi. Wendell
was never one of ours."

Kyrus pondered that as Varnus took his leave.

It was only moments later, when Kyrus had run his
mind in circles over Faolen and Wendell's motives, that he noticed Varnus had
left the pitcher on the floor. Kyrus shook his head and bent to pick it up. He
saw that water had splashed all over and just a dribble remained in the
pitcher.

Kyrus crouched low and imagined the little puddles
as a chain of lakes. He was a mighty sorcerer, capable of feats of legend—or so
everyone would have him believe. Kyrus let a trickle of aether into the floor,
warming it, letting the heat build until his little lakes began to steam away.
I
could do this to a real lake. It still would not keep me from being undone by a
mad demon and petty betrayals.

Kyrus noticed with mild curiosity that steam was
rising from places where no water pooled. He curtailed the aether he was
supplying and touched his fingers to the spot where the mystery originated. He
pulled back with a start as he felt the scalding water, though his shielding
spell protected him from burns. His fingers had come away wet. There was a pool
of invisible water on the floor.

Faolen and his illusions?
Kyrus shook his head.
No,
illusions are magic. I would have seen him in the aether. Invisibility should
only work against normal vision.
It was just another mystery, and in a
world overflowing with them, it did not rank high among his priorities.

* * * * * * *
*

"This is a new tactic for you, Brannis. I find
this one refreshing," Rashan said. The warlock was standing in a disused
bedchamber that was in the process of being refurbished. Bookshelves were half
full, chairs log-jammed near the doorway, and straw-filled crates piled with
artwork. Whether the latter was being delivered or hauled away, Kyrus knew
not—it was not a room of the palace he frequented.

The feature of the room that caught Kyrus's eye was
the tables outfitted with grid patterns in the center. Eight squares by eight
and alternating light and dark colors, the tables were chess boards. There were
six in total and, to all appearances, there were games in progress at three of
them. Pieces were standing at the ready at the other three.

"To answer your question though, yes, I think I
have some idea where Jinzan Fehr might have fled with the staff," Rashan
confirmed. "If I might be equally blunt, how did you find out I
knew?"

Kyrus thought it over a moment. If his supposition
was correct, he was giving away information the demon already knew.

"Varnus. He was awake when Faolen made his
inquiries of the boy," Kyrus said.

Rashan shook his head. "I ought to have been
more discreet about it. Varnus is a good soldier, but he is not forged for this
sort of thing. I value him in the role of keeping Faolen's twin safe but I do
not want to involve him in the intrigues. I doubt he has the wits to keep up
his end of them."

"I, too, value him. I have known him a long
time," Kyrus said. He shook his head. "I fool myself sometimes; I met
the man a season ago. Still, there is no need to pit him between us in our
competition."

"Aha!" Rashan shouted. He pointed an
accusing finger at Kyrus but his grin put lie to his feigned anger. "You
admit you want to get to it first."

Kyrus looked away. "I thought ... perhaps ...
it might look good if I was the one to claim it. History books rarely mention
helpers and assistants. But the one who reclaims the Staff of Gehlen and ends
the Megrenn threat? Well, let us say that your place in history is already
assured, but I could still use a measure of help."

"Well, I can understand that. Of course, now
that you know where the staff is as well, the matter now becomes a question of
which of us ought to be the one to go get it," Rashan said.

"Would it not make sense for both of us to go?
If Jinzan Fehr is such a threat, what if whichever of us goes is
defeated?" Kyrus asked.
And, by the by, where might that be? Varnus
never did narrow it down.

"Perhaps, but I think it best not to take both
of us away at once. Jinzan knows the transference spell and has used it in
battle before. Should he take the battle to Kadris, it would be best if the
other of us is here to defend it. I figure that Lon Mai is perhaps three days
by airship, two if the winds are favorable."

"Why airship?" Kyrus asked. "Why not
just transfer?"

"Because of a few things. Because you are
reckless about it, and the deep aether is not as safe as you pretend, not even
for me. I like the thought of living eternally, and that trip is more dangerous
than I expect Jinzan to be—I succumb to the temptation too often as it is. And
it uses punishing amounts of aether at a time when I would rather be arriving
fresh and replenished. Also I might not find Jinzan straight away, and that is
the least subtle entrance you could imagine. I would give up all hope of
surprise if I did not arrive practically atop him."

"You talk like you are already determined to go,"
Kyrus noted.

"Ah, but I suspect I will be." Rashan
swept a hand out over the tables. "We are going to play for the privilege.
I thought that keeping a few games ongoing with promising players might be a
fun diversion, and help keep everyone's minds sharp. I already have games with
Fenris, Aloisha, and Celia, but I was hoping we might finish a game in a single
session to determine this matter."

Kyrus looked over the boards. He studied the
positions and relative strengths of the pieces. He took stock of what he knew
of the players. "Let me guess, you have the black pieces on these two
boards and white on the third." Kyrus pointed as he went. "And I
cannot decide between Aloisha and Celia, but I would wager this game here is
your match with Fenris."

"Close. You have the colors reversed in my game
with Fenris. He is a better player than the other two—a boon of age and
experience, no doubt—so I had to try some new tricks I learned."

"New tricks?" Kyrus asked. He took another
look at the board. Fenris's style of play certainly looked more like he was
accustomed to seeing from Rashan, if he had truly misjudged the sides.

"Have a seat. Take the white. Someone will be
along in a while with refreshments," Rashan said, indicating one of the
unused boards.

Kyrus set up the pieces for both sides with his
hands instead of magic. There was a comfort to it. He moved a pawn without
giving it much thought and took a seat at the table to await Rashan's response.

The opening few moves tell little of an opponent's
skill, so long as he or she sticks to standard plays. There was a camaraderie
in sitting across the table from a skilled opponent that made the fact that
Kyrus was plotting to kill Rashan seem almost incidental. Kyrus was trying to
outmaneuver a collection of obsidian-carved soldiers to get to the black king.
He was trying to outmaneuver Fenris, Celia, probably Faolen now, and a host of
who-knew-which other allies to defeat the demon. The two tasks seemed of
similar consequence—equally surreal, just puzzles to be solved.