Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (65 page)

In an effort to hasten the serpent’s rotation once it
stopped fixating on the young man twelve feet away, Marik attempted to set a limit
on the distance it should seek.  As in Celerity’s workroom, he concentrated
while instructing the serpent, asking it to search no further than ten miles
distant.  After a held breath, he watched the serpent, visible to him alone,
spin far faster on its axis than previously.

On the fifth attempt a different image surface within
the glass.  A nondescript man with trimmed beard, thinning hair and plain brown
clothing sitting alone in a room.  He wrote on parchment at a small table. 
What the words might be were hidden by his hunched posture.  Marik had paused,
wondering if this man were the one he sought or if the working had gone awry.

They all four watched for several minutes until the
man folded the parchment and sealed it with a daub of wax.  He rose, collected
a large sack from under the table, then stepped to the door.

“That’s a crossbow,” Landon proclaimed.

“In the sack?” Dietrik asked.  “Are you certain?”

“Look,” Landon gestured as the man in the glass
adjusted his grip.  “See how the bottom end is stretched wide?  That’s from the
bow, I am positive!”

“So I suppose that makes him our man.”  Dietrik
glanced at everybody.  “What to do, then?”

“I do this,” Marik informed them, and the moving
picture in the mirror vanished.  From his angry cursing the others guessed he
had not intended that to happen.

With this sixth attempt he took greater care. 
Exhaustion wracked him.  Sweat rolled from every pore.  His vision doubled when
it did not waver.  The sweat saturating his clothes had chilled so he nearly shivered
with the cold.  He blessed Ilona that he had thought she might enjoy this small
mirror.  Not a chance in the hells he could have set this working in motion six
times using Tollaf’s old massive glass.

If he failed this time, he only had enough stamina for
one more effort.  Perhaps twice.  In the mirror the man settled into a
different room.  The four had watched him deliver his parchment to a portage
service, presumably to deliver it to whomever the man intended to receive the
letter.  With greater experience Marik might have retargeted the working to
follow the delivery man, seeing whom the assassin archer corresponded with.

Their crossbow archer settled into a residential
room.  Hopefully this would prove to be the man’s living quarters.  Marik tensed
while he prepared to draw the view back, the second half of the scrying Tollaf
should have helped him with in Kingshome, the act that had shattered the
working and ended the fifth attempt.

He felt a cool hand stroke his neck.  Marik spun,
nearly severing his channels.  Ilona looked down at him.  Her expression was
far from what Marik would call caring, but less sharp than her usual edge.  For
an instant he had forgotten her presence and thought Dietrik or Landon owned
the caressing hand.  After years in the male dominated mercenary hometown,
where the few women were as masculine as the men in attitude if not body as
well, her presence still caught him off guard.

Her cool touch, feather-light, made him realize how
taunt his tendons were.  With an effort he forced them to loosen.  Mage talent
required no demands on his physical strength.  Bunched muscles served only to
add tension to his mental state, which would only hamper his ability to
successfully complete the working.

Body looser, he focused his mind on the simple
commands Natalie’s book told him would force the view in his mirror to
retreat. 
Back.  Slowly.  Back.  Up.  Up.  Up!
  Not so different from
drifting the etheric plane as an insubstantial ghost.

Thoughts and intentions, incorporeal substances that
influenced magework more than all the swords ever made.  Especially this
particular working of magecraft.

Gradually the scene within the mirror shifted.  The
view pulled back through a nonexistent window, through a solid wall, rising
slowly as a newborn bird must first struggle its way into the skies.  From
above, the whole building clarified, then they could see the street it
bordered.  Higher it rose, new streets becoming visible, until finally Ilona
decisively announced, “Ah!  Yes, that’s the Seventeenth District.”

“You are certain?” Dietrik asked.

“No question.  That’s Dilltock Square, and there’s one
of the alchemy shops we visited.”

“So you can tell us how to get to this building,”
Marik announced.

“Of course.”

“Good.”  He cut his channel, allowing the etheric
circle to collapse.  Despite feeling tired beyond measure, he rose to his
feet.  He could use the stamina technique during the walk to regain the better
part of his spent strength.  “Then we’d better go before he moves.  Dietrik, I
think you’d better stay to look after Hilliard.  Your arm, you know.”

Dietrik raised the limb, free from his second sling on
a single contract.  He flexed it slightly and winced at the tenderness in his
sword arm.  “I think I will need to lodge a complaint with somebody over this. 
I keep missing out on all the jolly moments lately.”

Landon interjected, “Kerwin had better stay as well.”

“He won’t like that.”

The archer shrugged.  “The Healer will need a strong
pair of able hands to continue aiding her.  Dietrik would try, I have no doubt,
but his arm has not yet fully recovered.  It would not matter how much Dietrik
wanted to help.”

Marik nodded, glancing at Dietrik who refrained from
defending his capability.  He fixed his gaze on Ilona.  She responded, “Not on
your life.  I’m going with you.”

“What?  No you’re not.  We’re walking into a fight!”

“Did I offer to jump headfirst into a war with you?” 
Her eyes flashed fire at him.  “Not that I recall!  But you need me to lead you
there.  And if he moves, you will need to find him again in that mirror, and
then you will need me to lead you
there
!”

Marik scowled, while Landon added, “She has the truth
of it.”

“Fine!” he snapped.  “Dietrik, you guard the door and
leave Kerwin inside to help.  We’re going to grab this bastard and I’ll hang
him out a window until he sings, ‘Sartha’s Dirty Linen’!”

Dietrik nodded.  Marik packed the mirror away.  Landon
adjusted his sword since he had left his bow at the Swan’s Down.  The three
travelers entered the fray.

Ferdinand Sestion received a clap upon both shoulders,
his father beaming on him as he delivered it.  “A fine showing today, I hear! 
Planning to hang that sword by your side, aren’t you?”

“If I can,” Ferdinand replied, smiling with
excitement.  “I showed Keegan the proper way to handle a lance!”

“Knocked that upstart clean to ground I heard,” Baron
Santon Sestion grinned, giving his son’s shoulders a firm grip before releasing
them.  “Oh, how I wish I had been there to witness that!”

“We only have the duels remaining.”  Ferdinand bounced
on his heals, thrusting an invisible sword forward with one hand.  “Hah!  I’ll
have the reach on that stunted rascal!  I should advance through the first two
rounds at the very least!”

Santon nodded.  “My son, you have shown yourself adept
at the ways of the warrior.  You do me proud.”

Ferdinand flushed a light pink.  “Swordsmanship will
be toughest.  Only one will win this round.  All the contenders are well versed
in its practice.”

“Win or lose, few can say they have accomplished as
much.”

The younger Sestion nodded.  Heady exhilaration still
coursed through him, demanding action, dissatisfied with remaining stationary. 
“I’ll make sure Walthers has my training gear arranged properly.  Then I need
to practice with the new blade you had crafted for me.”

Baron Santon nodded fondly as his son dashed down the
hall, understanding the restless energy in the youth.  If Walthers had so much
as placed a flower vase atop a lace doily off center by a half-inch in the last
sixteen years, he did not know of it.  Still, Ferdinand needed to move, to act,
to work off his excitement.

The sun descended on Thoenar to end a very successful
day.  Santon stepped into his office which sported massive windows.  Glass
enough to nearly fill the entire western wall.  Through these panes he
commanded a view of his back garden, so large and sprawling and filled with a
magnificent sylvan kingdom that he could easily dismiss his property’s far wall
in the distance.

Gloom shrouded the corners while warm golden velvet
painted the oiled wood floor in shades of sunset.  The baron crossed to his
cherrywood desk to light the fluted chimney-lamps against the coming night. 
His eyes missed the man sitting in one of the two chairs before the looming
furniture piece.

Santon jumped when he realized he was not alone. 
Discipline kept him from yelling out.  Instead, “How dare you enter into my
office, my
home
, uninvited!  How did you get in?”

“Your man at the gate was too busy unloading your
son’s training equipment from the carriage to notice us walk in.  I thought we
should have a conversation.  A talk just between us.  Words I thought you might
wish kept private.”

“Private?”  Santon’s gaze narrowed.  “If you have
issues you feel need come to my attention, then you may address me through the
proper channels.  Be gone before I summon the cityguard!”  He punctuated the
announcement with a sweeping gesture at the door.

The uninvited guest rose.  He made no move to exit. 
“I find this curious,” he said conversationally.  “You discover a man dressed
like this,” he glanced down at his attire, the quality of which would be passed
over by Walthers even for use as rags to polish the servants’ furnishings, “in
your home, but did you call for help on the spot?  No.  Could that be because
you have an inkling why I might be here?  Or what business brought me?”

Sestion’s normally affable manner vanished.  He donned
a cloak of harder nature stored in a secret interior closet until needed. 
Calculation narrowed his eyes, decreasing his mouth to narrow line.  “You have
a point at that.  I must have been mistaken.  I will call for my men.”

He moved for the door when he suddenly found cold
steel against his neck.  Santon shifted his startled eyes to discover a second
man standing behind him.  This one appeared at ease, his back to him, hilt
resting on his shoulder as the blade protruded rearward, bumping against his
jugular in a seemingly careless manner.  It was clearly a threat…without
directly being a threat.

A sweat bead formed near Santon’s eye.  He could sense
the menace concealed under the casualness.

The first interloper bent to retrieve his own sword,
an oversized blade too long to hang at the hip.  Santon noticed the straps
crossing his chest that reveled a sheath fixed to his back.

“I suggest that making any loud sounds would be a bad
idea,” the second man offered, twisting the hilt so the bare steel scraped
along Santon’s neck in a parody of shaving.

Santon held his ground, unafraid, though no fool
either.  “You doom yourselves, threatening a noble thus.”

“Threaten?  Us?  Never.  But I expect us to reach an
understanding before the night falls,” the first replied.

“Do you?”  The baron raised a fingertip to the sword’s
point, easing it away from his skin with a cocked sneer.  He faced the speaker. 
“And what, pray tell, gives you the notion you have any chips to bargain for
your ‘understanding’ with?  Do you believe you can threaten me into giving you
whatever you desire?”

The speaker ignored his words.  “Do you know what your
biggest mistake was, Sestion?”

Santon frowned at this presumptuous barbarian. 
“Mistake?”

“For a man who dabbles in the black markets and
illegal goods, you used the same underling for all of your dirty work.  I
suppose he earned your trust, but that left him with a good deal of knowledge
concerning your dealings among the dark guilds.”

When the baron remained silent, the man continued. 
“He didn’t remain very loyal once we grabbed him.  We only wanted to ask about
who hired him to kill Hilliard Garroway, except he was so terrified he was
positively eager to spew a mountain of interesting facts.”

*        *        *        *        *

Marik saw comprehension illuminate the baron’s eyes. 
“Ohhh.”  He stretched the word, sounding more amused than fearful.  “You struck
me as vaguely familiar.  So you were a bodyguard for the baron of the rock
pile, were you?  A pity.  Perhaps you can escape with your skin intact.  Or
perhaps you are seeking new privileged employment?”

“That won’t be a concern, seeing as he’s still
alive.” 
Or was when we left.  Ercsilon, let him still be when we get back!

“Alive?”  Santon barked this in disbelief.

“Very.  I assumed that was what your man wrote in his
dispatch to you.  You should have taught him to double-check his kills before
closing the job.  Too bad you won’t be able to discuss it with him.”

“You killed my man.”  Flat, cold orbs glared at
Marik.  Cold unlike Ilona’s frosty glares.  A chill gaze utterly lacking in
mercy.

“No, we didn’t.  But if he stops running before he
reaches the Stygan, I’ll be surprised.  He might jump in without waiting for a
ship and swim across.”

Santon snorted a lung-full of air through his nose. 
“If you expect threats and promises to weaken my knees, prepare for
disappointment.  Of the three of us, I have least cause to worry after keeping
my head upon my shoulders.”

He walked across the room, rounded the desk and sat in
the carved rosewood chair.  Marik watched him settle as another man might
prepare to discuss an ordinary business proposition.  “Isn’t it amazing how a
problem can perplex you so thoroughly, but seem so obvious in hindsight?”

Santon raised a questioning eyebrow in reply as he
pulled a tumbler of scotch from a drawer complete with a squat crystal glass. 
He poured a measure without offering any to the two mercenaries.

“It should have been obvious after the attack by your
woman assassin in your own home.  We kept asking how she knew Hilliard would be
anywhere near the women from the brothel she eeled her way into.  All we could
come up with was that Ferdinand might have a hand in that.”

“Ha!”  Santon scorned the very notion.  “My son has
many qualities, but a honed mind for business is not among them.”

“I thought as much,” Landon stated, stepping beside
Marik before the massive desk.  “He seems too much an honorable young man to
fall in with such underhandedness.”

Sestion gazed back blandly.  He refused to allow the
archer to rile him with indirect insults.  “An aspiring idealist, hopeless at
accepting the facts of life.”

“The facts as you see them, you mean.”  Santon
shrugged.

“You suggested to Ferdinand that he host a ‘barons
only’ gathering when you weren’t at home, didn’t you?” Marik demanded.  “After
setting your viper in place.”

“Not mine,” the baron revealed.  “I had little to do
with any of these machinations.  Since Darteel undoubtedly already informed
you, I’ll say that I have a great many business enterprises pending in
Spirratta which that righteous fool Tilus continually interferes with.  The
raggedy Dark Father there also has his reasons for wishing Tilus to cease his
meddling.  He makes his own plans in those regards.  The local guilds secured
their woman assassin a place through their own ends.  I had nothing to do with
their plotting.”

“That does not hold water,” Landon countered.  “You
may have held a social event in your home as a favor to the local guilds, for
an equal favor in return I am certain.  You may have informed them of our
location at the One Soul’s chapter house after we carelessly told you during
Hilliard’s registration.  But today’s assassin was employed by you alone.”

“That’s right,” Marik picked up the thread.  “That’s
hardly standing aside while others work their schemes!  Why did you do that?”

Sestion studied them with scorn.  “You expect me to
tell you?”

“Why not,” Landon asked.  “You are planning to have us
killed at the earliest opportunity in any event.”

The baron actually laughed.  “And you stand there bold
as brass accepting it!  Very well, out of respect for your brashness and since
you think you know more than you do.  The local guilds came to me, knowing of
those very interests in Spirratta I mentioned.  They knew I wish for the duke
to stop interfering.  I had no intention of exposing myself, but the plan had
merits.  After those incompetents failed to make your deaths look like the work
of cutpurses in the alleys, I had to help them find you.  When they failed
again
,
as you surmised, they came up with that foolish plan to strike when least
expected.”

“Foolish?” Marik responded.  “It almost worked.”

Sestion waved his glass.  “Over-elaborate.  Proof only
that even pigs can pull carriages under the right circumstances.”

“We destroyed the thieves from the foreign guild,”
Landon said.  “None were left to fulfill the Dark Father’s plan.  Why risk
exposure in a fourth attempt?”

The baron swallowed deeply of the liquor, elbow
resting on a sweeping armrest.  His glass glowed in the pooling sunfire.  “Why
waste a golden opportunity?  You were supposed to assume you missed a few
during your daring raid.  Whoops, looks like they killed our barely-baron after
all.  More the fools us.”

Marik burned with a growing rage at this callous man. 
He struggled to control his temper.  They had come to rattle
his
cage
but the court baron refused to acknowledge his tenuous position.  “Doesn’t
attacking one of your own bother you?” he growled.  “I thought you nobles saw
it as the worst injustice if you were so much as jostled in the road!”

With a renewed laugh, Sestion replied, “One of my own,
is it?  The barony of Stonescape is a commoner’s joke!  Not an acre of tillable
soil, not enough bodies under Garroway’s rule to fill this room.  Needs a
subsidy from the crown every other year to afford his own taxes.  Provides not
a single worthwhile benefit to the court.  Garroway has about as much right to
nobility as the two of you.  One less purported aristocrat dragging down the
rest of us.  One less base pretender to challenge my son for a prize unworthy
of rabble.”  He raised his nearly empty glass in a toast.

Landon sidled near to prevent Marik from leaping.  He
need not have bothered.  As much as Marik would like to kill this man, Sestion
knew they did not dare.  Hence his apparent unconcern of their lethal nature. 
“I assume that is why Hilliard was the chosen target,” Marik fumed.  “
You
hold no qualms about killing a Garroway, so you would only help the thieves as
long as they went after him.  But you’ve been found out.  I’ll say this
straight since we aren’t ones to play games of politics like you.  Cry off your
schemes.  You can’t afford to continue playing for Hilliard Garroway’s life.”

“Or what?”  Sestion rose and returned to Marik’s side
of the desk, nose-to-nose with the mercenary.  “My word versus the wild story
of a common sword swinger?  The cityguard would never let you near the lowest
magistrate with so simple a tale as that!  You have no evidence to implicate
me, and would require ironclad proof by the cartfull before anyone would so
much as consider opening an inquiry.  Neither can you kill me.  If my body were
found without a handy assassin nearby to take the blame, as you fortunately
had, the magistrates would move the heavens to learn my fate.  Every
investigative mage the cityguard could call upon would work their magics to
determine what happened in this room.  You two could have caught me raping your
daughters but you would still hang for murder in the first degree.”