The Spirit Rebellion (15 page)

“So,” he said, keeping too close behind her. “You’re the bear man’s what, servant? Lover?”

“Apprentice,” she answered curtly, leading him into the den.

“Ah.” She could see him grinning. “Thought you looked a little rough for a concubine, but we are pretty far out. Where are we, anyway? The boss wouldn’t tell me.”

“We’re in the Turning Wood,” Pele said, coming to a stop at Slorn’s workroom door. “That’s all I can tell you. Slorn’s location is a League secret.”

She opened the door to the workroom and led him inside. “I must ask you not to touch anything,” she said. “No spirit in this workshop may be touched by outside hands without Slorn’s strict permission.”

“Why would I want to touch this junk?” Sted growled, glaring at the scraps of cloth left over from Nico’s coat. “Where’s my sword?”

Pele stood aside and motioned to the black blade on the wall. Sted stopped in his tracks. He stared at the sword, eyes wide. “Is it magic?”

“It is awakened,” Pele answered, turning to look at the jagged-toothed blade as well. “Since you are spirit deaf, Slorn made the blade from a stock of ore with a very straightforward personality. This sword has only one desire: to destroy all that stand before it. Not a sophisticated weapon, but we were assured a straightforward blade would be best for a man of your”—she paused—“talents.”

If Sted caught the insult, he showed no sign. He reached out greedily for the blade, but Pele moved faster, gripping the handle right before him.

“As I said, no touching.” She met his angry glare. “The
sword doesn’t know you, and it would be happy to take your hand off. Before I can hand it to you safely, you’ll need its name.”

Sted snorted. “What do I look like, some duelist fop? I don’t bother with names for my swords.”

“No, you don’t name it,” Pele said crossly. “This is an awakened sword. It has its own name.” Gasping a little at the weight, Pele carefully took the sword down from its peg, wincing as she always did at the pure blood thirst that permeated the metal. “This is Dunolg,” she said, turning the blade so that the hilt was toward Sted, “the Iron Avalanche.”

Sted grinned, taking the sword with a steady hand. “A proud name.” He gave it a test swing, which was quite unnerving in the tiny room. “It fits,” he said, nodding. “Yes, this sword will do nicely. I can feel it. We’ll cut anything that dares stand before us.”

Pele stepped back as Sted swung the sword again, his scarred face lighting up with ghoulish delight as the wicked, toothed blade cut through the air. It whistled as it swung, a low trill of pure, violent hunger that made Pele sick to her stomach. When she had helped Slorn forge the blade, she hadn’t been able to imagine the kind of man who could form a bond with such a monster. Now, as Sted tied the jagged blade to his hip with a length of stained leather, she was sorry she’d found out.

Slorn and the Lord of Storms were waiting in silence when Sted and Pele exited the house. Sted started to say something about his new sword, which he wore proudly on his hip, but one look at his master’s face was enough to silence him. Without a word, he took up his place beside the Lord of Storms. When he was in position, the
Lord waved his hand, and then, without a good-bye or a thank-you, they were gone. There was no lightning this time; they simply vanished into the dark. The moment they were gone, the unnatural clouds began to roll away, retreating as quickly as they had come, and sunlight burst back onto the high ridge.

Only when the storm front was far in the distance did Slorn let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Father,” Pele said softly, “was it right to give that man
that
sword?”

“Right has nothing to do with it.” Slorn ran his rough hands over the fur between his ears. “It was work, Pele, nothing more.” With that, he turned and walked back into the house. “Let’s move.”

Pele sighed. When her father got like this, there was no point in asking for more explanation. She simply hurried after him, climbing the rickety steps as the house began to shudder. As soon as she was inside, the house took off down the ridge, heading north, toward the mountains.

T
he Spirit Court’s tower was not the only great building in Zarin. Across the city, past the dip in the ridge made by the swift Whitefall River, the white-painted stone and timber buildings that made up most of the city took a turn for the elegant. The roads steepened as they climbed up the ridge, cutting back and forth until they reached the highest arch of the city’s rocky backbone. There, perched like a coral on a jut of bare rock, stood the Whitefall Citadel, fortress of the Whitefall family, the Merchant Princes of Zarin, and official home of the unprecedented organization they had founded, the Council of Thrones. Though not as tall or as mystical as the Spiritualist’s white tower, it was nonetheless magnificently impressive. The castle stood apart from the city, separated from the steep road by a long bridge that stretched across a natural gap in the ridge. Perched as it was on an outcropping, the citadel seemed to float all on its own, a great, airy fortress of flashing white walls and soaring arches. But
most impressive of all were the famous towers of Zarin. There were seven in all crowning the inner keep, so tall they seemed to scrape the sky itself with their hammered gold spires.

Despite its grandness, these days the citadel was mostly for show. It remained the symbol of the Council, and its seven towers stood in proud relief on every gold standard the Council mint pressed, but the enormous bureaucracy that kept the Council turning over had long ago outgrown the soaring towers of its home fortress, spilling into the mansions and trade halls of the surrounding slopes. These days, the only people who actually stayed in the fortress were the Whitefall family of Zarin and any actual nobles who deigned to come to Council functions themselves.

On the fifth floor of the citadel’s inner keep, where everything was as luxurious as money and station could make it, one such man, Edward di Fellbro, Duke of Gaol, was having tea in his rooms. For most nobility, especially those with lands as rich as Gaol, this act would have involved at least three servants, yet Edward was alone, calmly finishing a modest plate of fruit and bread at the corner of his enormous dining table, which was covered, not in cornucopias of exotic fruits and sweetmeats, but with maps.

They were spread out neatly end to end, maps from every region in the Council Kingdom in different styles and time periods, some old and worn, some whose ink had hardly dried, yet every single one of them was dotted with the same meticulous red markings. Sometimes they were
X
s, sometimes circles or squares, and very occasionally a triangle. No matter the shape, however, the same tight, neat notation was listed beside each one,
usually a number and a short description, and always marked with a date.

Duke Edward stared at the maps intently, his thin face drawn into a thoughtful frown as he took a sip from his teacup only to notice it was empty. Scowling, he held out his cup, and an elegant teapot on four silver legs waddled over to refill it. The pot trembled as it moved, its worked golden lid rattling softly as it poured. The duke glared at the pot and it stopped rattling instantly, moving back to its spot in the tea service with murmured apologies and careful bows so as not to drip.

Edward saw none of it. His stare was already back on the maps, flicking from point to point in no discernible order. From his posture, he might have stayed like that indefinitely, but a knock on the carved door interrupted his contemplation.

“Enter,” he said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice.

The door opened, and one of the Council pages, dressed head to toe in the ridiculous white and silver finery Whitefall made all his servants wear, stepped timidly into the room.

“Spiritualist Hern to see you, my Lord,” the boy announced with a low bow.

Edward put down his fork and pushed his plate away. “Send him in.”

The boy stepped back, and the duke’s unexpected guest sailed into the room. Sailed was the right word. Edward had never met anyone as preoccupied with his appearance as Hern. The Spiritualist was in full regalia today, a tight green coat embroidered with blue and silver in the imitation of peacock feathers, with tall, turned, and
pointed cuffs hanging down over the glittering, knuckle-sized jewels of his rings.

“I swear, Edward,” he said, collapsing onto a cushioned lounge by the window as the boy closed the door, “your quarters get smaller every time you come to Zarin. And they’ve got you up on the fifth floor this time, with all those stairs.” He pulled out a handkerchief and patted his flushed face. “It’s intolerable. I never understood why you don’t just take a house in the city like everyone else.”

“I see no point for such a useless expense,” the duke said dryly. “Besides, the part of my Council dues that covers these rooms is too dear already. A rich lord does not stay rich by indulging in redundant expense.”

“So you like to say,” Hern said, helping himself to a cup from the tea service, which he held out for the nervous teapot to fill. “What’s that you’re working on there?” He nodded toward the spread of maps. “Plotting to expand your lands? Going to take over the Council Kingdoms?”

“Hardly,” the duke said. “They wouldn’t be worth the bother.”

“So what are these for, then?” The Spiritualist actually sounded fascinated, a sure sign that he was only trying to get Edward talking and comfortable. It was the same song and dance they went through every time Hern visited, and Edward had long since learned it was faster to just go along than try and force the Spiritualist to get to his point sooner. Besides, he hadn’t explained his system in a long while, and explaining something to others was a useful exercise for uncovering faults in execution.

“These,” he said, leaning forward and stretching out his hand to tap one of the red markings on the map in front of him, “are the movements of Eli Monpress.”

Hern blinked. “The thief?”

“Do you know any other Monpresses?” Edward gave him a scathing look. “You asked, so pay attention. Each red mark denotes where he’s been active since he first appeared five years ago.” He moved his fingers over the maps without touching them, tracing a path between the markings. “The
X
s are confirmed robberies, the circles are unconfirmed incidents that I believe were his work, and the squares are crimes attributed to Monpress, but which I don’t believe he had a hand in.”

“And how do you make that judgment?” Hern said, blowing on his tea.

“I look for a pattern.” Edward was pleased with the question. A chance to talk through his logic was always welcome. “All men have patterns. It’s human nature, even for someone as famously unpredictable as Monpress. Look here.” He moved his finger over the
X
closest to him, far south of Zarin, covering the dot that denoted the desert city of Amit.

“Monpress’s first crime we know of was here, the theft of the Count of Amit’s cash prize for the annual Race of the Dunes. He also stole the winning horse, which he then used as a getaway. He’s next seen a few months later”—his finger ran up the maps, heading far north to the very top of the Council Kingdoms—“here.” He tapped a red
X
in an empty spot of the map, somewhere in the wilderness between the Kingdom of Jenet and the Kingdom of Favol. “He ambushed the wedding procession of the Princess of Jenet and stole her entire dowry, including nearly eighty pounds of gold brick, fifty horses, a hundred head of cattle, and all of the bride’s wedding jewelry.”

“I’ve heard of that one,” Hern said with a laugh.
“The story I heard said he did it all by himself, but surely—”

“I think that was the case,” the duke said. “Before the swordsman and the girl came into the picture a little over a year ago, Monpress always acted alone. For the Princess of Jenet, witnesses say he talked the road itself into changing its path, leading the whole procession into a sinking mire that he could reportedly walk over like it was dry land.”

“Come, that’s impossible.” Hern waved his jewel-covered hand. “I’ve got two top-notch earth spirits, and even I couldn’t convince an entire road to move.”

Edward raised his eyebrows, tucking that fact away for future use. “Well,” he said, “however he managed it, the road story fits Monpress’s pattern.”

“Which is?” Hern said, slurping his tea.

The duke gave him a flat look. Even if he was only feigning interest, surely Hern wasn’t that dense. “Look at the history,” Edward said slowly. “Monpress’s crimes are always robberies, and not just robberies, but thefts on a grand scale, usually against nobility. They are never violent, save in self defense, and usually leave little question as to who the perpetrator was.”

“You mean the calling card.” Hern nodded.

“Indeed.” Edward reached up to the very top of his maps and unclipped the small stack of white cards he’d pinned there. They were all roughly the same size, and though a few were on cheaper paper, they all had the same basic look: a white card stamped at the center with the same fanciful, cursive
M
.

“They started out handwritten,” the duke said, shuffling through the cards carefully so as not to get them out
of order. “Then after his third crime, when his bounty was raised to five hundred gold standards, they were all printed. The early ones are still cheap, but for the past two years, he’s used a variety of high-quality stocks, though never the same one twice.” The duke smiled, tapping the cards on the table to line them up again. “Monpress is vain, you see. He’s a glutton for attention. That’s the way you can spot a fake Monpress crime.”