Terms of Surrender (8 page)

Cardinal Accorsi walked along a dank stone tunnel, the rock seeping wet and stinking of raw sewage. Torches flickered from black iron wall sconces, guttering smoke and casting barred chambers in baleful orange light. It was like some painter’s fever dream of the Barren Fields, he thought—and a distant, shrill scream reminded him that for some of the residents, it might as well have been the real place.

“Don’t get many men of the soil down here,” the jailer at his side said. A ring of heavy keys jangled on his belt. He tugged the belt up, under his bloated gut.

“A mission of mercy,” Marcello replied. “I understand you have a prisoner due for some…harsh chastising this afternoon.”

The jailer chuckled and ran a hand along his sweaty, stubble-ridden jaw. It was an ugly sound.

“That one, yeah. The Holy Father’s direct orders. It’s no easy thing to cut out a man’s tongue and chop off his hands and still keep him alive. Gotta cauterize each cut fast and with just the right heat. Some people use a torch for that. Amateurs. A coal, heated to glowing, that’s the right tool for the job.”

“Charming. Well, I’d like to take the man’s last confession, while he’s still capable of giving it.”

They stopped at a narrow cell door. The jailer fumbled with his keys, finally finding the one that threw the lock with a thudding
clank
. The door groaned as it swung wide.

“Kind of you. Well, hope it gives him a little solace. Just let me know when you’re done. I’ll be up front.”

“Much obliged,” Marcello said and stepped into the cell. It was barely bigger than one of his closets, the hard stone floor strewn with straw that stank of piss. And there was Iago, Livia’s pamphleteer, beaten senseless and propped up in one corner like a discarded doll. His wrists were shackled to a long iron chain, ending in a ring bolted to the back wall. Marcello didn’t see the point; with his puffy eyes and rasping breath, the prisoner wouldn’t be a threat to a kitten.

He crouched down and put on a fatherly smile.

“Iago. Your name was Iago, yes? Do you know who I am?”

Iago squinted with his one good eye and gave a tiny shake of his head. Marcello took one end of his green stola, embroidered with elegant golden thread, and held it up to Iago’s face.

“I’m a cardinal. A servant of the pope.”

“
Which
pope?” Iago rasped.

Marcello glanced over his shoulder. Purely theatrical, he knew they were alone. Still, he gave his voice a conspiratorial pitch as he replied, “The
true
one. Pope Livia.”

Iago let out a relieved sigh. “Are you…here to get me out?”

“I am. But first, we have to debrief you. I’m secretly working for King Jernigan, keeping an eye on Carlo. He sent you, too, didn’t he? With those letters?”

“He did.” Iago swallowed. “I’m just the first. There are others.”

Marcello struggled to keep the smile on his face. He’d expected as much, but hearing it from the man’s own lips was a grim confirmation. Soon those letters branding Carlo a bastard would be plastered all over the Holy City and beyond.

“And were you given any other orders?”

“Not this time. Last time…watch Lodovico Marchetti.”

The cardinal furrowed his brow. “Marchetti? Why?”

“Month before the attack on al-Tali…he rented a warehouse. In his own name, not his family bank’s. Filled it with trade goods from the Caliphate. Things that will be impossible to get in the west, now that the crusade is underway.”

“War profiteering,” Marcello said.

Iago gave a weak nod.

“A month before the war,” Marcello added.

Another nod.

Marcello felt the scales falling from his eyes. From the Banco Marchetti’s early support of Carlo during Pope Benignus’s last days, to the hired killers masquerading as knights and occupying the papal manse, it all led to a singular conclusion.

Lodovico Marchetti wasn’t just profiting from the war. He’d
started
the war. And ensured he had a pliable, brain-addled pope under his thumb when he did it, to bless the crusade that everyone knew Emperor Theodosius wanted so badly.

Marcello had his suspicions. Proof that Lodovico knew the crusade was coming was the final confirmation he needed. There was only one problem.

“It’s too small,” he said aloud. “One warehouse? Just one?”

“That’s what King Jernigan said,” Iago replied. “Nobody would go to that much trouble just to sell a warehouse of goods at marked-up prices. If he had ten warehouses, maybe. A hundred. But it’s just the one.”

Marcello leaned closer. “Where was this place?”

“Mirenze.” Iago lurched into a wet coughing fit, shoulders shaking, and took a rattling breath. “Fourteen—fourteen Strada di Rocce Rosse.”

“Good, good. And as for our true and righteous pope, what’s her next move?”

“She’s coming.” Iago nodded, his good eye distant. “She’s coming to overthrow Carlo and purify the Holy City. She’s going to save us all.”

“When?” Iago didn’t respond, and Marcello gave his shoulder a hard shake. “How many men? Stay with me, son, this is important.”

“Don’t—don’t know. King Jernigan’s men. On loan. He’s backing the invasions.”

“Plural? More than one?”

Iago nodded again. “Mirenze, too. Promised Dante Uccello the city. Lerautia first, then Mirenze. Wipe it all clean. With Carlo gone, the Empire will have to bend its knee to Livia.”

Marcello contemplated the spy’s words. He patted Iago’s shoulder.

“You did well, son. Well indeed. This is valuable information.”

“Will…will you get me out of here now?”

“Of course.”

Iago didn’t see the cardinal reach casually under his cassock, or the thin, bone-handled knife strapped to his calf.

“Here,” Marcello said gently, taking his manacled hand. “Let’s get these off you.”

One quick cut sliced him open from wrist to elbow, one hand clamped over the battered spy’s mouth. It wasn’t hard. Marcello clung to him, holding him close as he wheezed and kicked and his veins spilled free.

“Shh,” Marcello whispered in his ear, “almost done now, almost…there we go.”

He pulled his hand from Iago’s dead lips and let the spy’s arm slump to the floor. The back of his hand lay flat in a spreading puddle of blood. Marcello stood, checking his cassock with a critical eye, making sure he didn’t get any on him.

He shut the cell door behind him on the way out.

“You,” he shouted, storming up the hall and barging into the jailer’s tiny office, “are in serious trouble. Don’t you search prisoners before you bring them in here?”

“He
was
searched. Why? What’s wrong?”

“What’s
wrong?
” Marcello gaped at him. “What’s wrong is that he had a knife. Man tried to kill me with it and nearly succeeded. Then he said he’d die before betraying his mistress and slashed his own wrist.”

The jailer jumped to his feet, kicking his stool over. “Is he dead?”

“As a stone, no thanks to you. If I were you, I’d get rid of that body and come up with a good story about an escape. If the Holy Father finds out that he died because of your incompetence, well…
somebody’s
losing his hands and tongue today. Might well be you.”

The jailer wrung his hands, pacing.

“I’ll…I’ll take care of it. Please, don’t say anything. I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“A lot to ask?” Marcello said. “Yes, lying to my lord and master and the sainted head of this Church is
a lot to ask
. Fortunately for you, I’m a man of charity and mercy. I will hold my silence, for your family’s sake.”

*     *     *

Mirenze was two days’ ride from the Holy City, and the velvet-padded bench of his personal coach didn’t make Marcello’s back ache any less by the end of it. Every bump and jolt in the road felt like a mule kick to the base of his spine. His traveling companion wasn’t much for scintillating conversation, either. Cotton-Eye Vinz had come by his nickname fairly—one eye rheumy and white, the other sharp and black—but by the end of the trip Marcello thought “Mumbles-to-Himself-Incessantly Vinz” would have made a better moniker.

“Never did get to ride in one of these fancy coaches before,” Vinz muttered for the eightieth time that morning.

“My largesse is boundless,” Marcello replied. The streets of Mirenze rolled by outside the window, teeming with foot traffic and pushcarts, merchants calling out above the din.

“Still don’t get why we gotta go all this way to check out some warehouse.”

“It’s not
some
warehouse, Vinz. It’s a warehouse that doesn’t seem to have a reason to exist. And that intrigues me. As for your role, well, I don’t expect they’ve left the front door unlocked and wide open for me.”

“Never go in by the front door,” Vinz said sagely. “You get spotted that way.”

“There, you see? You’re a veritable criminal mastermind. What ever would I do without you?”

They were close enough. Marcello rapped the roof of the coach and the driver reined back the horses. As they jolted to a standstill, Marcello leaned toward the window and gave the street a hawkish stare.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Vinz told him, “for a man of the soil, you get up to some shady business.”

“All for the greater good. Besides, I don’t hear you complaining about the money. Come on. We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

He swung open the coach door and stepped down onto the street, waving for the driver to stay put. Marcello had traded his formal greens for humble, homespun clothes and left his gold and jewels in Lerautia. In a crowd he could have passed for an old farmer or a traveling peddler. He strolled with his steps brisk and chin held high, and Vinz hobbled along in his wake.

The warehouse was right where Iago had promised. A box of unassuming pale brick, with high, barred windows and a sturdy loading door wide enough to accommodate a wagon train. Vinz led the way now, scouting down an alley and waving for the cardinal to follow. A door, recessed in a narrow alcove, sported a black iron padlock the size of a man’s fist.

“Keep an eye out.” Vinz crouched and fished out a handful of jagged picks from a concealed pocket under his belt. Marcello watched the street, trying to look casual. Soon enough, the opened lock tumbled to the cobblestones with a clatter.

“All right,” Vinz said, “let’s see what this hidey-hole is hiding.”

Wonders.

Gold glinted to the rafters, hammered metal catching the light from the high windows and casting it across the dusty gloom. One tall rack bore coils of Oerran carpet, ornate tapestries that took years to weave. Vases and pottery, picked from the finest of Caliphate artisans. While Vinz limped from shelf to shelf, his mouth gaping, Marcello strolled the racks with a discerning eye.

“It’s amazing,” Vinz said. “This stuff is worth a fortune!”

Marcello nodded, contemplating. “It is. But it’s not what I’m looking for.”

Vinz popped up on the other side of a shelf. “What is?”

“A reason.”

Vinz held up a brooch of polished gold, shot through with delicately spun silver. “Can I have this?”

The cardinal shrugged. “Call it a tip for good service.”

A half-open crate caught his eye. A suit of armor nestled in a bed of wood shavings. Lacquered and new, with the conical helm and brass lion mask of an Oerran outrider. Out of place here, amid the finery. Quality armor wasn’t cheap, but only a rare and dedicated collector would want to buy it outside the Caliphate.

Then he found the folded sheaf of parchment. Letters in several hands, distinctive broken wax seals and—in more than one place—the stamp of Minister Zellweger, one of the emperor’s advisors. The letters told a story. Painted a picture.

“Vinz,” Marcello called out, “do you still have friends in the, ah, creative shipping industry?”

“The what now?”

“Smugglers, Vinz. Do you know any reliable smugglers?”

He hobbled over, nodding. “Sure, I can round up a few. What’s the plan?”

Marcello held tight to the papers, gesturing with them as he took in the warehouse. “This. We’re taking it. All of it.”

Vinz’s eyes went wide. “So when you sell it, do I get a cut? I mean, as a finder’s fee sort of thing?”

“We’re not selling it. We’re
moving
it. I believe we’ve just found Lodovico Marchetti’s weapon of last resort.”

He smiled.

“It would have served him well. It will serve
me
even better.”

A cabin stood in the Verinian wilds, a few days’ travel from Mirenze and close to a riverbank. It was a homey, clean place, with copper pans and strands of garlic cloves dangling over a neat stone hearth. A quiet place.

Quiet, until a hole in the world ripped open and bared the howling void beyond.

Nessa leaped through the hole with a wild, delighted cackle, yanking Mari by the wrist. Behind them echoed the crackling of flames, shouts of rage, screams of agony, until the tear in the world whipped shut and vanished at their backs.

The women leaned against each other, panting for breath. “Wait,” Mari gasped, “the others—”

“Have their own escape routes.” Nessa was already on the move, sheathing the Cutting Knife and rummaging through cupboards. “There’s a knapsack at the foot of the bed; bring it here. Quickly now. Nobody
should
know this place, but there’s no guarantee. We need to move.”

“Where are we?”

“My home,” Nessa said. “Congratulations, you’re the first guest I’ve ever had. I’d put on a kettle of tea, but, again, time is an issue.”

“Even Despina and Vassili haven’t been here?”

Mari rushed over, holding open the empty pack as Nessa filled it. She tossed in rolls of linen, tiny bundles wrapped in butcher paper, sachets, and herb-stained pouches with the scent of dried spices.

“A witch,” Nessa said, “values her privacy.”

“So what do we do now?”

Nessa’s sapphire eyes gleamed behind her glasses, narrowing in concentration.

“Now we murder the Dire,” she said, “which won’t be easy. She’s old. Centuries old. And she always did hoard the best tricks for herself. Once that’s done and the last of her followers are put to the knife, we can rebuild the coven. And do it
properly
this time.”

They stepped out onto a wooded path, the winding trail leading down to the river’s edge. Bright sunlight filtered through the trees, and a blanket of scarlet and gold leaves crunched under their feet.

“How will we do it?” Mari asked.

“With help. I need advice from my teacher.”

“Your teacher? Was she at the coven glade?”

Nessa shook her head. “No, she died many years ago. A few of my kind, though,
true
witches, worthy of the name…they linger.”

An hour’s walk upstream along the fast-moving river, and Mari saw the hills rising in the distance. Tall, rocky, and green as emeralds. A distant hissing sound slowly grew to a deafening tumult as a majestic waterfall loomed into view. Water coursed down from the cliff top to feed the river below, roaring with the voice of a great bear, splashing in a thick curtain against the polished rocks.

And beyond that curtain, inky blackness. A cave behind the waterfall.

Standing on the bank, Mari felt pinpricks of icy cold spatter her face and arms, a kiss from the curtain of mist that swirled on the open air. Her tongue brushed her lips and tasted cool, fresh water.

“Stay here,” Nessa told her, “and stand watch. If you see anyone, kill them for me. I’ll be right back.”

*     *     *

Nessa eased her way along a thin outcropping of rock, the stone slick and treacherous under her feet. The roar of the water drowned out the world and left her dress icy damp in the spray. She cupped protective fingers over her glasses and felt her way with the other hand, slipping into the cave beyond the waterfall.

A shaft of sunlight streamed from a jagged crack in the cave’s ceiling. Stalactites aimed downward like stone spears, and fuzzy green moss clung to the walls. A peaty, muddy smell hung in the air.

In the heart of the cave, just a few feet left of the splash of sunlight, a shrine awaited. Human bones had been nailed to rough wooden boards with thin black iron nails: a skull, half a rib cage, a fractured pelvis, even individual finger bones, like some demented mortician’s anatomy exhibit. At the foot of the grisly totem stood a polished slab of granite, chiseled with savage sigils, all turned the color of rust from the ghosts of old bloodstains.

Nessa stripped off her dress, letting it pool around her feet. Then she stepped forth and knelt before the altar stone.

A ceramic pot painted in bands of brown and scarlet sat beside the stone. She picked it up and raised the lid. The cream inside was ice white and flecked with remnants of finely chopped herbs in a poisonous rainbow of colors. Deadly nightshade, henbane, sniperoot, and hemlock. Nessa scooped up a dollop of the ointment in her curled fingers. She smeared it across her neck and the curve of her bare shoulders, fingers trailing across the swell of her breasts and down to the small of her stomach, rubbing the salve in. Her skin tingled, then burned, and by the time she’d reached her ankles it felt like the cave was slowly spinning around her. Her nostrils stung when she inhaled, with a smell like strong spearmint.

She sat, cross-legged with her upturned hands on her knees, and closed her eyes. Breathing slowly, letting her consciousness slip and subside, drifting toward the world between worlds.

“Well,” said a woman’s voice, “look who comes to grace me with her presence after all this time.”

Nessa’s eyes flicked open. A gray-haired woman in a ragged dress crouched beside her, her face concealed behind a bone mask fashioned to resemble a muskrat. She was no ethereal specter. She didn’t glow or float; she was simply
there
, when she hadn’t been a moment before.

“I built my cabin here, so I could be closer to you,” Nessa said flatly.

“You could have moved
into
the cave.” Muskrat waved her hands, taking in the space. “Plenty of room.”

“Nothing’s ever good enough for you, is it, Mother?”

“The words
good enough
betray shockingly low standards. I taught you that. Now come, tell me what you’ve been up to.”

Nessa shrugged. “Started an insurrection. Now I have to kill the Dire. Was hoping you could help.”

“Kill
Gertie?
” Muskrat clasped her hands together. “Oh, darling, you’re supposed to kill the old Dire and
then
take over. Now she knows you’re coming. Makes the job so much harder.”

“Yes, well,” Nessa replied, “it was a heat-of-the-moment sort of decision.”

“These things happen. So who’s that lingering outside my cave? She seems interesting, if a bit raggedy. New apprentice?”

“Coven knight.”

Behind her mask, Muskrat’s pale blue eyes widened.

“Really? That old tradition?”

“I’m bringing back
all
of the old traditions,” Nessa said, her voice firm. “This coven has become an embarrassing farce, a shade of its old glory. We’re going to get it right this time. And I
will
lead the way to Wisdom’s Grave.”

Muskrat shrugged. “You’d be the first. Well, more power to you. Hmm. You know, we stopped using coven knights because so few of us could admit we might need some protection beyond our own magic and guile. Is that a bit of uncharacteristic humility I detect?”

“She’s mine, and I can do with her as I like. That pleases me.”

Nessa could hear the teasing smile in Muskrat’s voice as she leaned closer.

“Really? Is that the
only
reason you chose her? There’s no other motivation involved? You’re certain?”

Nessa folded her arms and glowered. “
Mother
.”

“Fine, fine.” Muskrat waved an idle hand. “Well, I hope she’s good at fighting, seeing as you just picked a battle with
that
old monster. I think there’s really only one chance at taking Gertie down. You need the Misery.”

Nessa stared at her.

“The Misery,” she said. “Which kills anyone who touches it.”

“Not necessarily.”

“It killed
you
.”

“Details, details.” Muskrat shook her head. “Honestly, dear, I’d think you’d be champing at the bit to prove you’ve exceeded my skill.”

“Normally? Yes. But I am neither reckless nor suicidal.”

“Given that you just declared war against our own coven, I question that statement. Old Gertie has forgotten more about the craft than you’ll ever learn. The only way you’ll survive a confrontation is with the Misery in hand. It’s not all bad news. I do understand
how
it killed me. I’ve certainly had plenty of time to think about it. I believe I can help.”

“Good.” Nessa sighed. “
Thank
you.”

“Though it may not matter in the end.”

“Hmm? What do you mean by that?”

Muskrat stood. She paced the stone floor on bare and silent feet, her tattered dress swaying around her ankles.

“Abandoning one’s mortal flesh is remarkably liberating. I’ve drifted from my tether. Seen things you wouldn’t believe. And…I’ve become a bit of a prophet in my later years.”

“Are you going to tell my fortune?”

“In a way.” She stopped pacing. “And I wish I didn’t have to. But it wouldn’t be fair not to give due warning. I’d hoped I was wrong, but when you said that girl standing outside the waterfall was your knight, not your apprentice…I knew.”

“What?” Nessa frowned. “What is it?”

“Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been here before? That everything happening
has
happened?”

Nessa shrugged. “Everyone does, now and again. A trick of the mind.”

“Will you open your thoughts to me? Telling’s not enough. I need you to see as I see.”

“See
what
, Mother?”

Muskrat’s voice was suddenly grave.

“Your doom.”

Nessa’s skin still burned from the herbal ointment, but that didn’t stop an icy chill from rippling down her spine.

“Show me,” she said.

Muskrat glided over to her on silent feet, leaned in, and clasped her fingertips to the sides of Nessa’s forehead.

“Fall into me,” Muskrat whispered, “and
witness
.”

*     *     *

Nessa fell, tumbling from her skin and bones into a whitewashed, silent void. The universe turned into a silver-white blur and then burst into fire.

So much sound, overwhelming her. Crackling flames, a cheering crowd, an unfamiliar man’s voice shouting over the din.

“
Don’t do this! She’s lying to you!
”

Nessa’s vision was a spinning, nauseating blur, like she’d slipped into the body of a drunken hornet. Flitting this way and that, only giving her split-second glimpses in its maddened dance. A funeral pyre—no, not a funeral. An execution. A wooden stake, iron manacles, a pile of kindling feeding a growing flame. Muddy, jeering faces in the crowd. A pale arm splayed on the smoky wood.

And Mari, dressed in strange and ill-fitting armor and drenched in enough blood to fill ten men’s bodies. Seething, her fury birthing a maddened shriek as she swung the rapier in her hand.

The hornet’s eye spun. Sunlight glinting on steel. Screams of pain, of fear, frenzied shouting and the clash of blades.

Then a meaty thud, and silence.

The hornet shot up into the sky, then turned its gaze downward.

Mari’s ragged corpse lay next to Nessa’s own, her head in the crook of Nessa’s lifeless arm. Then the flames spread and took them both.

*     *     *

Nessa slammed back into her own body, taking a long and shuddering breath as if she’d been held underwater.

“Do you see?” Muskrat asked, her eyes holding a rare mingling of sorrow and gentleness.

“You call yourself a prophet,” Nessa gasped, catching her breath, “but do you speak of things that might be or must be? Tell me the truth!”

“Neither. Worse. What you saw was your past.”

“That makes no sense. Stop speaking in riddles.”

“In an age gone by, an age older than sun and moon, a story was told. A
special
story. And it left a scar upon the wheel of worlds. Part of that scar is shaped like you. You and your knight. This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.”

Nessa pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, groaning. “Stop it, stop it,
stop it
. This cryptic nonsense was infuriating when you were alive, Mother, and death hasn’t made it any more amusing. If doom is on my heels, help me to defeat it! Otherwise, what good are you?”

Muskrat shook her head. “There are…limitations upon me. I can’t speak of all I’ve seen. All I can do is offer this warning. That, and a word of advice.”

“I’m listening.”

“Train your successor,” Muskrat told her. “Perhaps you’ll have the cunning to give death itself the slip, but if you love our craft—and I know that you do, it’s the only thing you ever
did
love—train a successor. Just in case.”

“And the Misery?”

Muskrat languidly gestured to the shrine of bones.

“Take me with you. We’ll sort it out on the way.”

*     *     *

Mari jumped to her feet and hoisted Nessa’s pack on one shoulder, catching the glimmer of movement behind the roaring curtain of water. It was Nessa, her dress damp and hair matted, blinking behind droplet-spattered glasses. Mari’s gaze dropped to the yellowed skull in her hand.

“I’ll explain on the road,” Nessa said before she could get a word out and gestured for her to open the pack. “It’s a long journey, no time to lose.”

“The road? Can’t we just use your knife to get there?”

Nessa stored Muskrat’s skull safely, nestled between soft herb pouches, and closed the flap.

“A Cutting Knife has to be carefully taught how to open a door, and mine only goes two places: the coven glade, and my cabin. I’m afraid we have to do this the hard way.”

“Where are we going?”

“North,” Nessa said. “We’re going to Winter’s Reach.”