Cast In Secret (3 page)

She knocked. Waited a minute, counting slowly, before she knocked again; Evanton never moved quickly, and his temper soured greatly if the visitor was too stupid to realize this.

But before she could be
really
annoying, the curtains flipped back, and she saw a wizened face peering through glass. He didn’t look much older than he had the first time she’d met him – but then again, she doubted that was possible. The curtains fell back into place, black drape that was almost gray with sun. No stars on it, no moons, no fancy – and fake – arcane symbols.

The door opened slowly; she heard keys twisting a rusty lock, followed by creaking hinges.

“You really should get some help around here,” she muttered.

“Good help,” he said coolly, “is hard to find in this city.”

“You’ve tried?”

He grimaced. “Don’t force me to be rude, girl. You’re wearing the Hawk.”

She smiled. It wasn’t the forced smile of an officer of the law, either; she had walked back into his dusty parlor, with its long counter, its rows of shelves – a city, no doubt, for spiders – its odd books stacked here and there like so much garbage so many times she couldn’t feel uncomfortable here. If it was an odd place, it
felt
like someone’s home, and she was welcome in it.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Evanton added pointedly, looking up at Severn. As Evanton, bent, was about Kaylin’s height, he had to look up.

“No, sir,” Severn said, in a much politer – and cooler – voice. “But I am aware of your establishment.”

“Fame gets me every time,” the old man replied. “Who are you?”

“He’s Severn,” Kaylin answered quickly. “Corporal Handred is also – as you can see – a Hawk.”

“Aye, I can see that,” Evanton said. “I would have called him a Wolf, if you’d asked me.”

Severn raised a brow. It went half as high as Kaylin’s. “He was a Wolf – ” she began, but stopped as Severn stepped neatly, and heavily, on her foot. “What do you know about the Wolves?”

“Meaning what dealings have I had with them?”

“Meaning that.”

Evanton snorted. “You haven’t spent enough time with those Barrani, girl.”

“What?”

“That’s no way to get an answer.”

“I could threaten to break your arms if you want.”

He laughed his dry, low chuckle. “Aye, but they’re more subtle than that. I’m of use to them. It’s important in this business to be of use to people.”

Severn said, quietly, “We’re here on official business.”

“Dressed like that, you’d have to be. Although the uniform suits you.”

“You sent a message to the Hawks.”

Evanton shrugged. “I? I sent no message to the Hawks. I believe a message
was
sent, on the other hand. I know my own business,” he said at last, “and I know Hawk business when I see it. I prefer to keep them entirely separate, you understand, but we can’t always get what we want. You’ll want to follow me,” he added.

Kaylin was already behind him, because she always was in his store; he could bite your head off for going anywhere without him, and usually at length.

He led them behind his tall, sturdy counter. Its sides were made of solid wood that had the patina of time and disregard, not craft. It was impossible to see most of the wood, it was covered by so many things. Papers, bits of cloth, needles, thread – she had never asked why he wanted those because his answers could be mocking and gruesome. It looked more as if it belonged in a bar than a store, but then again, most of the things in the store looked as if they belonged somewhere else; the only things they had in common were dust and cobwebs, and the occasional glint of something that might be gold, or steel, or captive light – a hint of magic.

Wedged between two hulking shelves that looked suspiciously unstable was a very narrow door. Evanton took out a key ring that Kaylin could have put her whole arm through without trying very hard, chose one of three keys that dangled forlornly from its thin, tarnished metal, and unlocked the door. Like everything else in the store, it creaked.

He opened it slowly – he opened everything that way – and after a moment, nodded to himself and motioned for them to follow. Kaylin started forward, and Severn, with long years of practice, managed to slide between her and Evanton so smoothly she didn’t even step on the back of his feet. And not for lack of trying.

They entered a hall that was, like everything else in the building, narrow; they could walk single file, and if anyone had tried to pull a sword here, it would have lodged in the wall or the roof if they actually had to use it. Given Evanton, this was possibly deliberate. It was hard to say where the old man was concerned.

But at the end of the hall was another door, and judging by the jangle of keys, it, too, was locked. “Here,” he said quietly, “is the heart of my store. Let me tell you again. Touch nothing. Look at nothing for too long unless I instruct you otherwise. Take nothing.”

Kaylin bridled slightly, but Severn merely nodded. “How difficult will that be, old man?”

“Maybe you are a Hawk after all,” Evanton replied, eyeing Severn with barely veiled curiosity. “And the answer to that question is, I don’t know. I have no trouble.” He paused and added, “But that was not always the case. And I did not have myself as a guide, when I first came here.”

“Who did you have?” Kaylin asked, tilting her head to one side.

He raised a white brow.

“Sorry, Evanton.”

“Good girl. Oh, and Kaylin? I continue to allow you to visit here because of the great respect I have always felt for the Officers of the Halls of Law.”

“But I haven’t – ” She stopped moving for a moment, and then brought her free hand up to her cheek to touch the skin across which lay a tattoo of a simple herb: Nightshade, by name. Deadly Nightshade, she thought to herself.

If it had
only
been a tattoo, it would never cause her trouble. It felt like skin to her, and the Hawks had become so used to it, she could almost forget it existed.

But this mark was – of course – magical, and it had been placed on her cheek by Lord Nightshade, a Barrani Lord who was outcaste to his people, and oh, wanted by every division in the Halls of Law for criminal activities beyond the river that divided the city itself.

Lord Nightshade had marked her, and the mark meant something to the Barrani. It meant something to the Dragons. To the other mortal races, it was generally less offensive than most tattoos. But clearly, it meant something to Evanton, purveyor of junk and the odd useful magic. He understood that it linked her, in ways that not even Kaylin fully understood, to Lord Nightshade himself.

But if Evanton’s eyes were narrowed, they were not suspicious. “Here,” he told her quietly, “there is some safety from the mark you bear. He will not find you, if he is looking.” He pushed the door open so slowly, Kaylin could have sworn she could feel the hours pass. “Is he?”

“Is he what?”

“Looking.”

She shrugged, uneasy. “He knows where to find me,” she said at last.

“Not, perhaps, a good thing, in your case. But enough. You are clearly yourself.”

“You can tell that how?”

“You could not have crossed my threshold if you were under his thrall.”

She nodded. Believing him. Wanting to know
why
she couldn’t have.

Severn spoke instead. “You sent a message to the Halls?”

“Ah. No, actually, I didn’t. If you check your Records carefully, you will not find a single – ”

Severn lifted his hand. “Where
did
you send the message?”

“Ah. That would be telling. And probably telling too much,” the old man replied. “But people in power have an odd sense of what’s important. I imagine one of them took the time to read my elegant missive.”

“You expected this visit.”

“Of course. Forgive the lack of hospitality, but I don’t drink, and I can’t stand tea.”

And he held the door slightly ajar, motioning them in. Watching them both more carefully than he had ever watched Kaylin before. She wasn’t certain how she knew this, because he looked the same – eyes and skin crinkled in lines around his lips, the narrow width of his face. He wasn’t smiling, but he almost never did.

She meant to say something, but the words escaped her because from the width of the hall and the door she had expected the room to be tiny. And it was the size – and the height – of the Aerie in the Halls, where the winged Aerians who served the Hawklord could reach for, and almost touch, the sky.

Sunlight streamed down from above, as if through colored glass; the air moved Kaylin’s hair across her cheeks, suggesting breeze and open space. As a fiefling, she had had no great love of open spaces, but daylight had always suggested safety. There was a hint of that safety here, and it surprised her – magic almost always made her skin crawl.

The wooden plank flooring, often covered with carpets that made the floors look both older and more rickety, rather than less, had given way entirely to… grass. Blue-green grass, thick and short, that was so perfect she was almost afraid to take a step on it without removing her boots. She couldn’t see the far walls – she imagined this was because they were painted the color of sky – but she could see trees – tall trees – and the hint of water ahead, and to her left, the large curve of boulders seen between slender trunks.

A garden.

A magical garden.

“Yes,” Evanton said, as the door clicked shut at her back. She turned slowly to face him and saw that he had changed. His clothing was different, for one, and he seemed to stand slightly taller; the stoop in his shoulders, the bend, the perpetual droop of his neck, had disappeared. He was not young, would never be young, but age had majesty here that it had never had before.

“Yes?”

“It is a magic, of a type, Kaylin Neya. If you stand here for long enough, and you listen carefully, you might hear the sound of your name on the wind.” He paused, and then tendered her something shocking: A perfect, formal bow. “Lord Kaylin,” he said quietly, “of the High Court.”

“Don’t you start, too,” she began, but he waved her to silence.

“In this place, names have import, and there are rumors, girl.”

“Never bet on a rumor.”

His expression shifted and twisted, and for a moment she could see the man she had first met in this changed one. “Why not? You do.” He lifted an arm; blue cloth clung to it in a drape that reminded her of Barrani High Court clothing. It was not so fine in line, and it hung a little long, and perhaps a little heavily, on his scrawny frame – but it suggested… gravity. Experience.

Maybe even nobility, and
no one
sent Kaylin to talk to the nobles. Or the people who – far worse – wanted to be nobles and hadn’t quite made it yet, in their own minds.

“I bet small change,” she began. Severn snorted.

“Small change,” Severn told Evanton, unphased by the change in the man, “is all Kaylin ever
has
.”

“So you bet everything you have, time and again? You really should choose different companions, girl. But,” he added, staring at Severn again, “I don’t disapprove of this one.”

“You didn’t disapprove of Teela or Tain, that I recall.”

“It hardly matters, where the Barrani are concerned. And Teela is a slightly unusual case. I have known her for some time,” he added, almost gently. “She was the first customer I had in this store, when I finally opened it.”

“When you finally opened it?”

“Ah, yes. It took me some time to find my way back. From this place,” he added, looking beyond Kaylin, his eyes slightly unfocused. She knew the look; he was remembering something. Something she was certain he wasn’t about to share. “And she was waiting, with, I might add, her usual patience.” Which would of course be none at all.

“How long had she waited?”

“Quite a while, from all accounts. It was well before she joined the Hawks,” he added, “and she cut a formidable figure.”

Thinking about the drug dealers on the banks of the Ablayne – the ones who had been unfortunate enough to sell Lethe – Kaylin said, “She’s pretty damn formidable now.”

“In a fashion. She was waiting for me, and she was not with Tain. She did have a greatsword, however, a fine piece of work. It predated the Empire,” he added. “But I do not believe it was a named weapon.”

“Don’t believe? You mean you aren’t certain?” Kaylin felt her jaw drop. Luckily, it was attached to her face, or it would have bounced off the grass.

“Not entirely certain, no. There was something of a glamour on it, and since it looked like a serviceable, if old-fashioned, sword, the glamour clearly wasn’t there to make it look
more
impressive. But making it look less impressive, holding some power in reserve – that’s Barrani all over.”

She shook her head. “Teela doesn’t even
use
a sword.”

“If the sword she had with her that day were one of the named weapons, she wouldn’t – she wouldn’t insult the responsibility of ownership by using a lesser blade. What does she use, anyway?”

“Mostly hands or feet, but sometimes a great big stick.”

He nodded.

Severn, who was the model of studied patience, finally spoke, scattering the pleasant gossip to the winds that Evanton had mentioned. “Why are you showing us this?”

“A very good question. I’m surprised Kaylin didn’t ask it,” he added, frowning at her, although he spoke to Severn. “She always asks too many questions – they try what little patience I’ve managed to preserve.” But he said it without rancor. “This is not unlike the High Halls of the Barrani – and if I’m not mistaken, Corporal Handred, you are also entitled to be called Lord while you are in the High Halls.”

Severn nodded.

“This place is, however, older, I think, than the Halls, and one of the few such ancient places within the city that are not governed by either Barrani or the Dragon Emperor himself.

“Although when I was called to answer for my stewardship of this place, I will say the Dragon Emperor was a tad… testy. I’d advise you to stay on his good side when you do meet him.”

“You mean the side without the teeth, right?” Kaylin asked.