Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel (18 page)

Shel went straight to the table but didn’t sit down. Instead, she stood at the center of the table on the opposite side from the newly promoted lieutenants. She regarded each of them for a long moment before she spoke.

“I trust you're all clear on what you have to do,” she told them. “If any of you have doubts or questions, now’s the time.”

Peele and Collam exchanged a quick glance. Both men had been with Rez for years. Shel was depending on them, especially old Collam with his multitude of contacts here in the city.

“I'm not as popular as I used to be.” It was Collam who spoke first, after clearing his throat noisily. The old timer leaned on the table and fixed Shel with an even stare. He was a frail-seeming man with wispy white hair, a heavily wrinkled face, and watery blue eyes. Shel knew he played up the “old man” angle, but he’d never fooled her. He was sharp as well as connected.

“What do you mean?” she asked, although she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

“I write letters to my friends,” Collam explained gruffly. “Not as many write back as would've ten years back.”

“Thirty, better yet,” quipped Peele in an undertone. Collam heard it, of course, but rather than irritating him the joke twitched his lips up in the hint of a smile.

“Here,” said Collam, fishing a cheesecloth bundle from one of his deep coat pockets. He rested it on one palm and quickly unwrapped it to reveal a small assortment of hard candies which he held out to Peele. “Suck on one of these and pipe down, young'un.”

Collam and Peele were old friends, and they both chuckled at their own exchange. Another time, Shel might have joined in the pair’s comfortable laughter. Not now. There was too much on the line.

“Enough.” Shel’s command wasn’t harsh or angry, but both men caught the stern reprimand in the flash of her eyes. “Collam, how many of your friends‘wrote back'?”

The old man made a show of scratching his head and thinking. “On about twenty,” he finally said. “Between‘em, call it a hundred men.”

Shel nodded. The number was actually better than she had expected, if lower than she’d hoped. “That will have to do,” she said. “You're friends know what we want them to do?”

“Aye,” Collam said with a nod and a smile. He couldn’t resist a wry, sidelong glance at Peele as he added, “Thing about old thieves, you see, is none of‘em’s slow and none of‘em’s stupid either.”

Shel nodded in agreement. She’d been a thief long enough to know that if you were foolhardy you didn’t last long enough to get old. Neither of them pointed out that what Shel was asking from Collam and his friends was, by definition, foolhardy.

“Don’t worry,” the old timer added with a smile. “We'll keep the Suncloaks out of yer hair.”

“That’s all I ask.” Shel returned a brief smile of her own, then turned to Peele next. “Are your teams ready, Peele?”

Slouched in his chair and sucking at his lower lip, Peele nodded his head slowly. “Ready as they can be, I reckon,” he said. “I could use a few more experienced hands, but needs must, eh? I divided up the ones I've got best as I could. Not always the best match-ups, but they'll come through.”

Shel ignored the sneak-thief’s complaint. He already had the bulk of the gang, every single man she could spare. True, he had to split them six ways – one team for each archon’s palace.

“They all know what to look for?” she pressed. She had stressed to Peele several times on the journey to Solstice that his men were to get the soul gems and get out, nothing more. She wanted those gems – and the precious souls locked within – safe and secure.

“Reckon they do. They'll come through,” Peele repeated.

Shel nodded, mollified, and turned to Alban. “And you're clear on what I want from you?”

Behind the burly young man, Rori stiffened slightly. He reached up and squeezed her hand on his shoulder.

“My guys will be ready,” he promised Shel.

“Ready to get killed for you,” muttered Rori. The auburn-haired thief might have meant it to be inaudible, but they all clearly heard her.

“I'm not sure why you're even here, Rori,” snapped Shel. “I know it isn’t because you're one of our lieutenants sitting in on the strategy session, because you're
not
one of our lieutenants.”

Rori’s face flushed with anger, and she opened her mouth to shout back. Kal stepped forward and slammed her palms down on the table between them, glaring daggers at the redhead.

“I wouldn’t say anything,” Kal said. “Nothing at all. We're all risking our lives, understand?”

Rori snapped her mouth closed and nodded tightly. The redhead was obviously fuming, but it looked like she would keep it to herself. Kal held her glare a moment longer before straightening and moving back from the table to let Shel continue.

“We'll deal with Thorne’s armsmen, Shel,” Alban said, reaching up to squeeze Rori’s hand. He looked over to Kal briefly, then back to Shel. “You just get Rez back, all right?”

Shel and Kal exchanged a quick look, but said nothing.

At night, sprawling Solstice became three cities.

The busy streets of the lower market never slept. Light spilled from tavern windows and the open doorways of all-night shops. In the neighboring residential area, lanterns burned brightly over front stoops and neighbors went visiting or headed into the market for late-night purchases or to stop in for a pint. There was noise in all quarters; conversation, laughter, the various metal clinkings of coin changing hands or utensils tapping on plates in dining nooks and common rooms. The common people bustling to and fro on their nightly business unconsciously avoided the narrower streets and seedier alleyways closest to the Wall, where thieves and cutthroats tended to gather. Yet even there, where street corners were not so brightly lit, sounds of merriment or at least shared company drifted through heavily-shuttered barroom windows.

The High Market was, by contrast, almost utterly silent. Evenly spaced lamps on tall poles marched up and down the broad, cobblestoned boulevards. Here, the shop-fronts were as often stone as brick, and none were built of wood. There were no striped and patched awnings extending shade out over the sidewalk, no trestle tables or spread blankets full of goods. Here, the windows were all glass and most shuttered within by heavy, expensive curtains. Plaques of bronze or even gold, engraved with the names of shop-owners, gleamed in reflected lamp-light beside the doors.

On the upper floors, above the showrooms and inventory closets, rich proprietors dined from china dishes with real silver utensils. They slept on feather-stuffed mattresses or stayed up late counting their coins or drafting purchase orders and shipping manifests.

At the southern end, as divided from all the rest as if an imaginary branching of the Walls cut across the High Street just at the intersection where it became the Archons’Avenue, the Noble District stood aloof. Miniature walls surrounded the lavish mansions of the Nine Archons, the grounds and courtyards of seven of them brightly lit within. Armored guardsmen patrolled the streets of the Noble District at all hours, wearing the livery of the seven remaining archons. Soldiers in one house’s colors seldom greeted or even acknowledge armsmen of another house, though they passed one another frequently.

There were no shops or taverns, no storehouses or low residencies here. The streets were wide and lined with tall hedges behind which squatted the low, thick stone battlements that separated the highest lords of the empire not only from the common mass, but from each other as well. Within the seven lighted manses, armies of household servants bustled about their constant tasks. Flapping pennants blazoned with coats of arms announced from tall masts atop six mansions the presence of the archons.

Rare was the man, woman, or child who crossed one of Solstice’s invisible borders after night had fallen. When the shops of the High Market closed for the night, the inhabitants of the Noble District had no further reason to leave their enclave. Every great house might dispatch its lowliest servants to the lower market from time to time, but these excursions were always during the day, the servant sent forth without livery, and generally unacknowledged as taking place. Likewise, no denizen of the city’s other districts ever had good reason to visit the Noble District, and with High Market dark and sleeping there was no business there either.

Tonight, however, nearly a hundred men – the youngest of them rapidly approaching middle age – spread out from the darkest corners of the lower market and ventured into every corner of the subdivided capital city. They slunk through streets narrow and wide, crept into the counting houses of High Market, and lurked in the lowering shadows of the Noble District.

***

Idris Selban was the most successful soul trader in the entire lower market of Solstice. The paunchy, balding merchant took great pride in his success. He dressed in ostentatious fashions and wore jeweled rings on each of his pudgy fingers.

Selban liked to present a flashy impression to his fellow traders and customers alike, but he knew when to tone it down. That was, perhaps, the real secret of Selban’s success. When he was summoned to the great houses of the Noble District, he donned a simple cloak of dull brown wool and covered his sparkling rings with bulging brown gloves. It was important, he had long ago discovered, to avoid the appearance of thinking better of yourself than certain of your customers.

Selban never dealt with archons themselves, naturally, but even the lowest servant in one of the great houses was socially far superior to the likes of Idris Selban, trader in souls.

Take old Frudge, for instance. Olman Frudge worked for Archon Wyrran, purchasing souls on his master’s behalf. Each of the archons had agents such as Frudge, one in every city mansion they kept. Frudge was no better than his counterpart in Winterguard, or even his opposite number across the street right here in Solstice. But old Frudge, he thought mighty high of himself and mighty low of any soul trader not lucky enough to find himself employed by an archon.

The key to Frudge, Selban knew, was approaching the old goat with the awed respect of an apprentice for a venerated master.

Tonight, Selban had once again flattered old Frudge and begged for his wisdom and guidance. At the same time, he’d unloaded nearly sixty souls on the unsuspecting man and gotten near double their worth! It seemed that Archon Wyrran, just recently arrived for the upcoming Conclave, was short on his tribute for the emperor. Not that Frudge was fool enough to say it or even let on, but Selban had seen the clues in the old goat’s somewhat anxious attitude and pounced at the opportunity.

Loading the heavy chest of gold in the back of his wagon, Idris Selban patted it fondly before jerking a heavy blanket over it and shutting the wagon’s tailgate. He rocked once on his heels in self-satisfaction and walked around to the somewhat decrepit mare – no mule for Idris Selban! – that pulled the wagon. Patting the old girl fondly, he plucked an only slightly withered apple from beneath his cloak.

Three things happened so quickly that to Selban, they all seemed to happen at once. First, there was a muted thrumming sound in the shadows across the street. Second, or possibly third – Selban would never be sure – his mare snorted and reared her head, eyes rolling in fear. Last – or possibly second – a crossbow bolt speared the apple in Selban’s hand and plucked it violently away.

In the time it took Selban to connect two of the three events and spin around with his mouth open, ready to cry out for the guards, three wiry men loped out of the shadows and rushed across the street with sharp steel in their hands.

A blade found Selban’s throat in an instant, and a gruff voice spoke hotly right against his ear: “Don’t make a sound, princess.”

Idris Selban closed his eyes, which were already filling with tears, and clamped his jaw shut. He very nearly lost control of his bowels right there on the street corner. The knife at his throat was cold. In Selban’s imagination, it was so much colder than it should have been, as if chilled by winter magic. He whimpered as quietly as he could.

“We'll be having everything in the cart,” the gruff voice explained in what seemed an unusually reasonable tone coming from a cut-throat thief brazen enough to ply his trade on the well-patrolled boulevards of the Noble District. Selban nodded meekly, eyes still squeezed tightly shut.

“Better cut him,” said another voice, from somewhere near the back of Selban’s wagon. “Too much in this buggy to carry. Have to take the whole thing. Easy to spot if any knows to look.”

“No,” snapped a third voice curtly. “Collam said only kill‘em if we absolutely have to.”

“Looks a squealer to me,” said the second voice.

“You a squealer, soul-man?” The question was breathed right in his ear, and Selban felt the knife blade twitch at his neck.

“No!” he cried at once, and was dismayed to hear the fear distorting his voice into what sounded very much like a squeal. Selban knew he was going to die.

Quiet laughter in his ear, joined by the other two. Finally, the curt third voice spoke again: “Dump‘im in the bushes, then.”

Something very hard struck the back of Idris Selban’s head and after that there wasn’thing until a guardsman woke him up several hours later.

***

Jacin Verret adjusted the bright golden cloak on his shoulders, pushing it back from his left side so he could get at his sword easier if needed. His partner, Dav Hetters, chuckled at Jacin’s discomfort. Beneath his amusement, however, Hetters was just as uncomfortable as Jacin. Six years he’d been a Suncloak, and this was only the second time he’d been ordered to strap on a sword instead of the cudgel the city guards habitually carried.

Passing by the pile of water-soaked ash and charred wooden fragments that had been, up until the previous night, a soul trader’s stall near the southern edge of the lower market, Hetters shook his head at the reminder of why they carried swords today.

Four nights of ever-increasing lawlessness spreading through every quarter of the city. It was old Pedderson’s nightmare, figured Hetters. Every available Suncloak was pulling extra duty shifts. Armed parties of as many as a dozen gold-cloaked soldiers patrolled some of the neighborhoods. The still faintly smoking, burnt-out market stall he had just passed gave Hetters a pretty good indication of just how much good the extra patrols were doing.