The Conqueror's Shadow (40 page)

“No charge.”

Jassion grinned, slammed the dagger back into its sheath, and began absently to twist the signet of Braetlyn on his right ring finger. The movement was vaguely hypnotic; Rollie forced his gaze from it. “We've got them now, though,” the baron said happily. “Once they hear about this, Lorum should find it a lot easier to whip the bastards into line.”

“Maybe, my lord,” Tyler cautioned. “We have no proof. Only the word of a badly injured soldier who's been down with a head wound for months. I mean no offense to you or your integrity, Captain Garras, but there are many who won't be convinced on the strength of your report alone.”

“No offense taken, sir. But you
must
convince them!”

“We'll do what we can, of course. But—”

“It doesn't matter!” Jassion crowed. “It doesn't matter if it's true. I'm barely half convinced myself, but as long as the Guildmasters
think
it's true, they'll react as we need them to. It shouldn't be too difficult to whip up a few eyewitnesses if we need them.”

Tyler frowned. “My lord, I'm not sure that's—”

“And while they're busy assembling their armies,” the baron continued, his voice freezing over, “I'll go out and look for Corvis myself.”

“You'll
what?”
Tyler shouted, stunned.

“I'll look for him myself. And when I find him, he'll wish he'd died in the war seventeen years ago. I've waited most of my life for this opportunity, Tyler. I'm bloody well not letting it slip by me now.”

“And how will you find him, Jassion?” inquired a new voice.

The baron and the duke's knight both went for their swords, each twisting about, trying to find the intruder. Rollie rose and stepped to the side of the man on the bed, determined to protect his patient.

“Who's there?” Tyler demanded. A quick sweep of the room detected nothing more menacing than dust on the wardrobe and a large spider crawling across the ceiling. “Show yourself!”

“Why my dear Sir Tyler, of course. How rude of me.”

The spider dropped, dangling by a thin strand of webbing, and began to spin. The web grew quickly, weaving itself into intricately
detailed, ornate shapes as it fell. In less than a minute, a life-sized full-body portrait of an attractive woman in a leather jerkin hung suspended, perfectly straight, from the laboring arachnid.

Before their awestruck eyes, the image bulged. Though it had no depth at all, the thickness of a single strand of webbing, it writhed as though a figure moved within.

And then it tore, and from the two-dimensional image stepped a dark-haired woman. She was beautiful, if somewhat more buxom than the current fashion, her bearing regal. She wore a dark leather jerkin and leggings, a red tunic and matching hooded cloak, and an amused smile quivered fleetingly at the corner of her lips.

“I pray you'll forgive the theatrics, gentlemen,” she told them, her voice throaty. “I'm afraid my sense of style has quite crossed the line into melodrama. One of the dangers inherent in the profession.”

“Who …” Tyler shook his head as though trying to physically dislodge his confusion. “Who are you, lady?”

“Her?” Jassion said darkly. “That's Rheah Vhoune, Tyler. Did you really have to ask?”

The knight's eyes widened and he loudly crashed to one knee, his armor ringing like a gong. “My lady.”

“Oh, get up, Tyler. I hold no title, so your genuflection is quite inappropriate. Besides, you'll scuff the floor.” She smiled, a genuine expression of affection, toward the bed where Rollie stood beside his nervous patient.

“Relax, good healer. If I'd intended you or your charge any harm, do you think you'd ever have known I was here?”

“I—suppose that's true, my lady,” Rollie acknowledged, forcing his arms back down by his sides. Though it was clearly contrary to his mood, he plastered a sickly grin across his face. “You'd not begrudge a fellow
some
bit of uneasiness, would you, my lady?”

Rheah's laughter was light, a refreshing break from the gloom that permeated the manor. Tentatively, the physician's smile grew more genuine.

“Come, my lords,” Rheah commanded, facing Sir Tyler and the baron. “We've matters of some urgency to discuss, and I fear our continued
presence would tire this good fellow here. Let us go about our business and permit Rollie to return to his.”

Rollie watched the door close from his post by Garras's side, pondering long before he once more riveted his attention on the wounded man before him. So wrapped up was he in caring for the old soldier, so eventful had the day been, that it was only that night, in those last few weightless moments before sleep claimed him, that he thought to wonder idly about one tiny detail.

The colors of the ensign of Braetlyn were deep red and dark blue. It was curious, then, that Jassion's signet ring should be such a brilliant emerald green.

Lorum, Duke of Taberness and Regent Proper of Imphallion, strode as rapidly away from the assembly chamber as courtesy permitted, literally in the midst of a huge, shoulder-slumping sigh of relief, when the voice called to him from behind.

“Your Grace? A word or two, if you've the moments to spare.”

Gods damn it!
He'd thought it was
over!

Still, he forced a polite smile to split his new growth of beard before turning to face the newcomer. “Something on your mind, Lord—ah …”

“Jassion, Your Grace.”

“Right, of course.”
The new Baron of Braetlyn
. “I was sorry not to be able to attend your ascension, Lord Jassion. Your cousin had no qualms about giving up his regency?”

“None he expressed to me, Your Grace.” The young baron was a man of intensity, constantly in motion, eyes that gleamed with perhaps an excess of passion and a voice that seemed unable to bear modulation.

“Delighted to hear it. What was it you wished to talk to me about that couldn't be said in chambers?”

Jassion's expression, barely civil to start with, suddenly twisted. He looked less like a man enraged than like a child
preparing to throw a tantrum. “What in the name of all the gods were you
thinking
, Lorum?!”

My, he's a polite one
. “That's still ‘Your Grace' to you, Baron.” There was, perhaps, just the slightest emphasis on the title.

“You gave them
everything
they demanded, ‘Your Grace'! You didn't even
try
to negotiate with them!”

Lorum couldn't quite repress a second sigh. “Mecepheum needs the Guilds thriving at the moment, Baron. You know full well, if you've studied your history, that I'm no great friend of the Guilds. But if this turns into a mercantile standoff, as they've threatened, well, they're the ones with the resources. They can wait this out a lot longer than the citizens of Imphallion can.”
Or the government, for that matter
, he added silently.

“Well, that's just fantastic, Your Grace. In the interim, your tariff exemptions are going to impoverish the smaller provinces. Many of them
still
haven't fully recovered, you know. Mecepheum was never hit
directly by
the war.”

“Neither was Braetlyn,” Lorum noted mildly.

“You can't shore up the kingdom if you let pieces of it waste away, Your Grace,” Jassion insisted. “It's like trying to heal a man whose limbs are gangrened.”

“I won't let the Guilds go
that
far, Lord Jassion, I promise. I—”

“May lack the power to stop them, soon enough. I know that you're not a king, Your Grace, but maybe you need to start acting like one anyway. If you don't find the strength to bring the Guilds in line, someone's eventually going to have to do it for you.”

“Someone like you, perhaps?” Lorum's voice remained calm, even, but his expression was suddenly ice. “Are you threatening my position, Lord Jassion?”

“Of course not,” the young baron replied, finally calming just a bit, “though I can easily foresee a time where you very well
might
wish someone like me was wearing the regent's tabard. No, I meant someone like Corvis Rebaine.”

“What? What do you know about—”

“I know, Your Grace, that Rebaine came as close to succeeding as he did because we were too weak to stop him. And so long as
we
remain
weak, someone very much like him is sure to try again. I hope that you're able to take control of your own damn nation before it happens.”

Lorum staggered as though physically struck. His face grew flushed; his jaw gaped once, then twice. But Jassion was already gone, leaving only the echoes of his boot heels behind, before the regent could once again draw breath to speak.

“I'M GOING TO ASSUME,”
Jassion said as the door to Tyler's office snapped shut behind them, “that you heard everything?”

“Yes,” Rheah replied, idly smoothing rumples from the left sleeve of her tunic. “Actually, I was there longer than you were.” She frowned, as though an unpleasant notion had crept up on her. “You've no idea at all how strangely spiders see the world,” she told them sincerely. “Those faceted eyes.”

Tyler nodded in sudden understanding. “You healed Captain Garras, didn't you?” It was almost accusatory. “Rollie mentioned how unusual his recovery was.”

Rheah shrugged. “I helped. I don't know that we need to let Rollie know, though. Not that I think he'd disapprove, but why complicate the matter?”

“Why?” Jassion demanded. “Why help this man, out of so many others?”

“You know, Jassion, you're a positive sinkhole of paranoia. Does everything have to have ulterior motives?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. For a moment she hesitated, her gaze scanning some of the titles on the shelf above Sir Tyler's head.
I may have to ask to borrow that one …

Then, “The truth is, my mistrustful baron, that I didn't particularly have a reason. I was here anyway—certain individuals with whom I'm acquainted wanted a firsthand assessment of the situation—and I happened to stumble across Rollie making his rounds. I followed him,
from idle curiosity, and he led me to Garras.” Her mouth twisted into a sardonic smile.

“The funny thing about us—sorcerers, wizards, mages, whatever name you care to pin on us like a cheap brooch—is that when you deal with magic long enough, you begin to manipulate the world around you without even realizing it.” She paused, as though groping for words to properly express her thoughts. Or, perhaps more accurately, groping for the proper thought to express. “Sometimes, it seems, the world manipulates us right back. This wouldn't be the first time I've done something on whim, only to learn that it was of no small importance later on. I had no idea when I gave Garras a nudge that he would deliver such a fascinating little tale.” Her smile returned as abruptly as it faded. “If either of you happens to notice some strings attached to my head and shoulders, you'll be sure to let me know, yes?”

“What about that ‘fascinating little tale'?” Jassion asked gruffly. “Is it true?”

“Do I look like an oracle to you, Baron? Even my sight has its limits.”

“I think we'd better assume that the Terror
is
involved,” the older knight suggested. “I abhor swinging at shadows, but it seems we'd be safer preparing for a phantom threat than ignoring a real one.”

“I don't know much about this Audriss,” Rheah admitted. “I've found it nigh impossible to scry on him. He's got his own magics to aid him, and they're powerful. And quite similar, come to think of it, to what I felt seventeen years ago …” Her voice trailed off.

It was odd, Tyler thought, to hear her speak of the war in such familiar terms. Rheah looked to be in her middle twenties. It took substantial effort to remember that she was far older than she appeared.

“If Rebaine
has
come back,” she said finally, “we're facing a danger far greater than either of you can imagine. I know something of his objectives the last time he attempted this. If he's accomplished now what he was working on then, he may be unstoppable.”

“No one is unstoppable,” Jassion snarled, a caged dragon pacing the room. “If it's Rebaine, I'm going to kill him for what he did to—”

The Baron of Braetlyn came abruptly to a halt. His fists clenched inside
thin black gloves, and his expression gradually melted, the ever-present mask of anger exposing, if only briefly, the widened eyes of a frightened child.

“Can …” Jassion's voice cracked; he swallowed once and licked his lips. “Can you tell me what happened to Tyannon?”

Gods, how she wanted to! The baron had rarely spoken about his sister in the days after he was pulled, trembling and blood-coated, from the pit of corpses in the Hall of Meeting. After a few months, he never mentioned her at all. For him to open up now, to ask that question, represented a vulnerable spot in the wall he'd painstakingly constructed around his soul.