Honor Among Thieves (10 page)

Avidan glanced at Vishni. “I am equally
surprised.”

“A pleasant surprise, I trust.” The Veldooni man
bowed. “Shavin Insa’amid.”

“An honor, Master Insa’amid.” He returned the bow. “I
follow the Sevrin custom of a single name. Avidan.”

The man’s dark brows rose. “A common name among my
family, though I have not heard it elsewhere.”

“Shall we sit?” Vishni said. “I’m famished, and those
little pies smell wonderful.”

They took their places around the small table. Vishni
kept up a spate of entertaining chatter as she poured wine and
heaped food onto small plates.

“I hope you don’t mind me inviting Avidan to join
us,” she told her guest. “He has been longing for news from home,
so I thought I’d surprise you both.”

“How long has it been since you left our homeland?”
Shavin asked.

“I have not been in Veldoon for generations.”

Shavin laughed. “How well I understand that
sentiment! Though I left but four moons ago, it seems years have
passed. Do you plan to return home soon?”

“I hope to. But I no longer consider Veldoon to
be--”

Vishni kicked him under the table.

He took a deep breath and chose one of the questions
Fox had bid him memorize. “What brings you to Sevrin, brother?”

“Oh, the fame of the adepts, of course! I have the
honor of conferring with one of Sevrin’s masters tomorrow. Do you
know the adept Muldonny?”

“I am familiar with his work and reputation, but
since we are not on the same level of accomplishment, there is
little call for us to confer.”

“You are too modest, I’m sure.”

“Not at all. Muldonny’s attempts to achieve alkahest
are far from—”

Another sharp kick warned Avidan away from that
particular precipice. Vishni sent him an innocent smile and reached
for the wine bottle.

“Alkahest!” Shavin said with a smile. “That was my
great-grandsire’s study. They say he was determined to solve the
alkahest conundrum. Do you know it?”

“A universal solvent cannot be formulated until one
discovers a container it cannot dissolve.”

The Veldooni man slapped his knee and beamed. “That’s
it precisely!”

“A dragon’s tooth.”

Shavin’s smile faltered. “Pardon?”

“The container,” Avidan said. “Dragons are not
creatures of this realm of existence. The great Palanir limits the
definition of ‘universal’ to substances known to the mortal realm.
Thus, alkahest can be contained by immortality.”

The Veldooni’s eyes brightened with the excitement of
a swordsman meeting a worthy foe. He gestured to the tapestry. “Ah,
but can an immortal being be slain?”

“More importantly,” Vishni broke in, “can the people
who wove that tapestry be slain before they weave again?”

Shavin chuckled and Avidan found the corners of his
own lips turning up in agreement.

“If the old tales hold fact as well as truth, gods
can die,” Avidan said. “Would you deem them mortal, as well?”

The Veldooni’s eyebrows rose. “Palanir again! A
classic rhetorical argument, one I have not heard in years. So few
men of our years bother to study the Philosophers. Alchemy has
become the art of mixing and measuring.”

“Like a guild of bakers.”

“Just so!” Shavin slapped his knee again. “If it were
in my power to do so, I would invite you to accompany me tomorrow.
Muldonny has expressed an interest in my pursuit of alkahest. I
fall well short of my great-grandsire’s knowledge on this subject,
but what I know I will gladly share with him.”

Vishni poured the last of the wine into her cup and
tossed it back. She reached for the bottle and turned to Avidan.
“Do you think you can take it from here?”

“I believe so, yes.”

The fairy rose, the empty bottle in her hand. She
raised it high and brought it down hard on Shavin’s head.

His eyes glazed and his jaw fell slack. The grape
he’d just popped into his mouth dropped out and rolled off the
table.

“He’s not falling,” Vishni said. “Shall I hit him
again?”

Avidan reached out and gave the man’s shoulder a
little nudge. He slumped and fell face down into the smoked
fish.

The fairy pouted. “You’re not much fun.”

“Oh, I think you’ve amused yourself quite enough for
one day.”

Vishni beamed. “That was fun, wasn’t it? For a minute
there, you looked like you’d seen a ghost. When Shavin and I came
in.”

“Highly diverting, I’m sure.”

She waited for more. When none was forthcoming, she
shrugged and turned toward the hearth. “I’ll call Fox and
Delgar.”

“Wait.”

He reached into the neck of his tunic and found the
chain holding his most prized and dreaded possession: a tiny bottle
shaped like a green teardrop.

Vishni caught her breath. “Is that—”

“Nepenthe,” he said. “The potion of forgetfulness.
The fairies’ last and kindest gift.”

He pulled the tiny stopper and reached for Shavin’s
goblet. Vishni caught his wrist before he could empty it.

“That vial holds enough to remove a hundred years
from a mortal’s memory. A single drop will empty Shavin’s mind of
everything that occurred since he left his homeland.”

Avidan took a needle from his bag and dipped it into
the vial. The tiny drop that fell from the slender dipper would, he
hoped, steal no more than a few days from his kinsman’s memory.

He pushed Shavin upright and let his head fall back.
While Vishni held the alchemist so he would not fall from his
chair, Avidan fed him the drugged liqueur little by little,
patiently spooning oblivion down the man’s slack throat.

When the task was finished, Vishni regarded Avidan
with something akin to compassion in her dark eyes.

“There’s enough left to take the memory of faerie
from you. You could drink and forget.”

“Would you drink? Would you choose to forget?”

He turned away without waiting for her reply and
tapped his foot twice on the flagstone portal.

The stone swung aside. Delgar and Fox hauled
themselves into the room and took in the scene.

“You can take him right to his chambers,” Avidan
said. He held up the teardrop bottle. “He will not recall anything
that transpired here.”

“Believe him,” Vishni said firmly.

“Well, that’s good enough for me,” Delgar
murmured.

Avidan recognized sarcasm in the dwarf’s voice. It
occurred to him that he had heard Delgar use this tone before. In
fact, it was exceeding familiar, perhaps even habitual. When time
permitted, he would reconsider the dwarf’s past comments in the
light of this new insight.

Fox looked skeptical. “I suppose I can sit with him
until he wakes up. If you’re right, I can give him some story about
saving him from street thugs. One look at my face, and he’ll know
I’ve been fighting someone. If you’re wrong, I can hit him again
and we’ll go back to the original plan.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Delgar said. He bent down and
slung the man over his shoulder. “You go first. I’ll hand him down
to you and then I’ll take it from there.”

“Clothes,” Fox reminded him. “Papers, jewelry.”

The dwarf grimaced and lowered the unconscious man to
the floor. He and Fox made short work of stripping him of his
Veldooni finery.

Avidan traded clothing with Shavin Insa’amid and slid
his kinsman’s rings onto his fingers. The fit could not have been
better if they’d been made to his measure.

Fox’s gaze slid from Avidan to the unconscious man.
“The resemblance is remarkable. Good thinking, Vishni. This makes
things easier.”

“Considerably,” Avidan said. “Go about your business
now. I will meet you in the Fox Den later tonight.”

He stood a little taller than was his custom and he
spoke with an authority he had not assumed for three generations.
It did not seem strange to him that Fox and the dwarf did as he bid
them.

Nor did it feel as strange as he might have expected
to be wearing the layers of embroidered silk that still
characterized the clothing of his homeland. In a land of ancient
ways and ancient arts, styles changed but little with a single
passing century.

Vishni eyed him with approval. “You look like Master
Insa’amid now.”

The alchemist returned her gaze steadily. “I always
did. As you well know.”

“Crazier than three caged squirrels,” Delgar muttered
as he pulled the stone door shut behind him.

* * *

Delgar and Fox returned to the den shortly after
moonrise. They did not speak of the hour or the moon, but Honor
knew. She could sense the rising of the moon despite the tons of
earth and stone between her and the Silver Lady.

She could do this despite whatever it was that
Rhendish had done to her.

Her joy in this discovery was, however, swiftly muted
by her concern for Avidan’s absence.

Midnight came and went before the alchemist returned.
Honor, who had been pacing the tunnels, pulled up short at the
entrance to the mirror room. The alchemist stood before the strange
glass, his gaze lost to lands far beyond the woodland pond
reflected in the mirror.

The scent of night air clung to the alchemist’s silk
garments, a delicate note amid the chorus of sandalwood and herbs
perfuming them.

“You were out walking,” she said. “Did you run into
Fox and Delgar? They went out looking for you a couple of hours
ago.”

Avidan turned toward her. His face, backlit by the
soft sunrise glow coming from the mirror, was haggard and drawn,
twisted with emotions she understood all too well.

“You do not sleep. I envy you.”

She did not require an explanation. Her one
experience with dreams was nothing she cared to repeat.

“I’ve completed the research you requested,” she
said. “There are many descriptions of what Muldonny’s liquid
weapons can do, but very little about how they are made.”

Avidan dismissed this with a flick of his fingers.
“Give it to Fox. The information may be of use to him.”

Before Honor’s astonishment had a chance to turn to
indignation, he added, “The solution you requested is ready to
test.”

He strode from the room without waiting for her
response. Honor trotted to his side and fell into step.

They made their way to Avidan’s workroom without
further speech. He placed a small glass beaker on his table and
pushed it toward her. Beside the beaker he placed a small, sharp
knife.

Honor used it to make a shallow cut on her wrist. She
held it over the beaker and let the blood drop into the
container.

After a few moments Avidan nodded. “That is
sufficient.”

She took the strip of cloth he handed her. While she
wrapped her wrist, Avidan inserted a thin glass tube into the
beaker.

A narrow crimson thread rose toward his hand as blood
flowed up the tube.

“Capillary action,” Avidan said. “Liquid will flow
upward in a narrow opening.”

She tipped her head toward the vase of wild carrot
blossoms, now nearly as red as the liquid in the vial. “Just like
in the meadow flowers.”

“Precisely.”

“And the solution you made will react with my blood
even when it’s dry?”

“Wait and see.”

Honor watched as the thin line crept toward the top
of the tube. A faint glow dawned in the heart of the tiny bulb.

“Enough?” Avidan asked.

The elf shook her head. “I need a more dramatic
effect.”

“A stronger solution is possible, but dangerous. It
would become unstable when combined with blood.”

“That’s not a deterrent,” Honor said. “If you can
give me a few seconds, I’ll make it work.”

Avidan studied her as if he were beholding her for
the first time. “You are placing a great deal of confidence in the
ability of a madman.”

She took a few moments to choose her words. “Suppose
I was offered two swords and told to pick one to take into battle.
One of these swords new and gleaming and perfect, the other nicked
and dulled through countless battles yet strong enough to hold an
edge. Which do you think I would choose?”

“The analogy does not hold. I am no elven blade.”

“You,” she said firmly, “are beyond doubt the
strongest and sanest man I have ever met. Anyone else would have
shattered long ago.”

The alchemist’s gaze dropped to the beaker of blood.
A long moment passed. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes held
clarity, determination, and an expression that Honor had only seen
turned upon her sister the queen.

“For that--”

He broke off, shook his head, and began again. “For
you
, I would craft a substance that can turn the night sky
to flame.”

* * *

Fox spent the night in fitful slumber, waking up
again and again from dreams that explored ways tomorrow’s
enterprise could go awry. Somehow he doubted a single night was
sufficient to cover all possibilities.

Long before sunrise, he gave up any attempt at sleep
and sought out Avidan. The alchemist was already awake and at work.
A faint red glow came from a small beaker on the table.

“Working on a new source of light for the
tunnels?”

Avidan looked up, a thoughtful expression on his
face. “That might be a useful application. I suppose we could make
a deal with that butcher on Redcloak for supplies.”

Fox grimaced. “I don’t want to know. Ready to
practice?”

They spent the next two hours going over signals,
memorizing questions, running scenarios that might occur and how
best to deal with each. The trip to Stormwall Island occupied
several hours more, but shortly after midday Fox and Avidan
presented themselves at the gate to Muldonny’s domain.

The adept was famous for using only clockwork guards
and servants within his inner walls, but a small battalion of armed
men patrolled the outer bailey.

A grizzled old soldier took the papers Avidan
proffered and gave the alchemist and his servant careful
scrutiny.