Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel (19 page)

“Nearly second watch,” said Hetters, glancing up at the sky. The first hints of twilight were spreading over the busy city. “You on with Kracas again?”

“No,” answered Jacin Verret, with a tight shake of his head. He didn’t look at his partner, blue eyes constantly scanning the passers-by for signs of danger. He was really on edge, Hetters noted. “Pedderson switched me over to Wallem’s party.”

Hetters whistled appreciatively. “They're over in High Market, ain’t they?”

“Aye.”

“Well, you don’t have to sound so excited about it, Jacin,” Hetters muttered. “Lord Commander’s got me stuck with Fubbin’s squad nights. We get to make the rounds of every tavern and drinking house in the lowest of the lower market. Ten of us in full regalia, smashing heads in crowded common rooms. Dunmir’s mercy, but it’s a way to spend an evening. Fancy trading?”

Jacin Verret looked at his partner and shook his head slowly. “Not a chance,” he said without a trace of humor.

“Didn’t think so.” If Hetters was disappointed, he kept it to himself. “Come on, we’d better get back to barracks before the second watch muster.”

The two Suncloaks turned at the next intersection, winding their way back out of the lower market toward the massive city barracks near the center of Solstice. Ten minutes later, they were passing through the granaries and storehouses that took up most of the central district; they were almost back to the barracks, and the first shadows of evening stretched across the dusty streets.

A group of five men, laborers by the look of them, came around a corner just ahead of the two gold-cloaked men and came to a dead halt in the center of the street. The one out in front, an older man with a grizzled salt-and-pepper beard and the dark complexion of a northerner, pointed an accusatory finger at the guardsmen.

“Looks like we start early, tonight, boys,” he crowed, and all five of them drew slender daggers and advanced.

***

Murdrek Thorne stood at the window of his study, watching the fires in High Market from this comfortable distance. He smiled, appreciating the dancing glow reflected back by the clouds overhead. He could just hear the clanging of bells in the distance, the Solstice fire brigade rushing to contain the blaze. Shops would be destroyed and lives would be lost. Thorne found all of it…stimulating.

“My lord.” It was Stazzik, the archon’s steward in the capital. Absurdly tall and slender, the Solstice native had always been pallid and morose. Thorne hated the man, but he was so efficient, so useful that the archon always found some excuse for not killing him. Turning from the window, Thorne decided Stazzik would no longer be necessary when he took the throne.

So soon now…

“Yes, what is it, Stazzik?”

“My Lord Commander Pedderson of the Imperial Solstice City Watch awaits you in the small receiving room, my lord.” Stazzik’s tone was laconic, almost bored, but Thorne knew his steward was itching for the Conclave to end and the archons to scatter once more. Then he could play at lord of the manor, bossing the servants and managing Thorne’s affairs in the capital without what he thought of as “interference.” Thorne’s smile slipped into a malevolent sneer.

“Calling at this hour?” he mused. “The fool must be getting desperate. What does he want?”

Stazzik frowned, no doubt thinking that if Thorne wanted to know the answer to that he should take himself to the small receiving room and ask the Lord Commander himself. The steward suppressed the frown at once.

“I believe my Lord Commander has come to request the loan of some of your armsmen to bolster the City Watch, my lord.”

Thorne snorted derisively. “I believe you're right, Stazzik,” he said, turning his back and the steward and returning his attention to the far-off fire in High Market. “Send him away.”

“My lord?” Stazzik had a nasty habit of sometimes questioning orders. Thorne gritted his teeth and reminded himself to wait. Once he took the emperor’s throne, he would devour Stazzik’s soul and destroy the body. Until then, the steward was necessary.

“I'll not have my soldiers wearing Suncloaks,” the archon declared in a harsh tone. “If that fool Pedderson can’t keep order in the capital, then perhaps it is time he was replaced. You may tell him I said so, Stazzik. Leave me, and see to it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Thorne didn’t turn from the window to see the steward bow his way out of the chamber. The archon was already deep in thought. So, Pedderson’s Suncloaks couldn’t keep the peace? That was obvious enough, just look at that raging fire.

Lawlessness was on the rise. A crime wave the likes of which had never been seen was sweeping the streets of Solstice. Daring robberies, armed hold-ups, and even murders struck every quarter of the city with ever-increasing frequency. Honestly, it was no wonder Pedderson was making the rounds to beg help from the visiting archons.

Thorne’s smile returned. His force was far and away the largest of any archon’s personal armsmen. His men could take those of any two or even three of his peers without undue strain. He was certainly not about to let his strength bleed away propping up something as useless as the City Watch. But he certainly wished Pedderson luck with the others. Yes, let them send their personal guardsmen to help the Suncloaks with this crime wave. Let them weaken themselves.

Murdrek Thorne was no fool. He knew what this rash of thieving and violence signified. He could guess what was coming.

Idly, he wondered if that gutterweave girl had found her way back to her friends. Perhaps she had. Or maybe she was dead in the woods somewhere, and the daring gang of thieves acted without her. Either way, he knew who was behind the crime spree and he knew what their ultimate goal must be.

Thorne laughed in dark anticipation.

Passing yet another heavily armed Suncloak patrol, Kal resisted the urge to avert her eyes or change direction. Instead, she forced a cheery smile and nodded to the officer leading the band of eight gold-cloaked men. He ignored her, as did his men.

“Dunmir, Kal,” said Shel, pausing in front of a fabric-seller and running her hands over the bolts of cloth displayed out front on one of three cheap, wooden trestle-tables. “You're as jumpy as a hare.”

Schooling her features, the honey-haired thief stepped out of the street and leaned forward to examine the same bolt of cloth. Her eyes darted from side to side in a sweeping check of the sidewalk, then fixed on Shel irritably.

“There must be five hundred guardsmen on the streets,” she said in a hissed whisper. “I'm a little nervous about that, okay?”

“They're right where they're supposed to be,” said Shel with an unconcerned shrug. “Collam’s friends have the Suncloaks on edge, maybe, but they're also got them
occupied.
That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah,” muttered Kal. “And any minute now, the floodgates are going to open. Shouldn’t we be getting in place, not standing around gawping at fancy cloth?”

Shel straightened, turning away from the displayed fabrics with a small, indulgent smile. “There’s plenty of time, yet, Kal,” she said. “But, very well, let’s continue on for a while. I remember a goldsmith’s on the Street of Wonders…”

“You want to go
jewelry shopping?
” hissed Kal, incredulous.

Shel’s tinkling of laughter sparkled with genuine amusement, and she slapped playfully at Kal’s shoulder. “Be serious,” she said. “I'm not going to
buy
anything.”

***

Rori hunkered down at Alban’s side in the thick hedge. They were both uncomfortable, having crouched in the same cramped position since before sunrise. The occasionally thorny stems and branches of the hedge prodded and scratched them whenever they shifted. Alban had told the redhead to go wait with the others, behind Archon Messuren’s abandoned mansion, but she was glued to his side.

“Not long now,” the burly young man said now, peeking through the dense leaves of the hedge. Concealed in this particular bush, he had a perfect line of sight on the front gates of Archon Timbek Norres’palatial estate.

“Alban.” Rori leaned closer to speak in an anxious whisper. “It still isn’t too late to back out of this. It’s never going to work, and you know it. Why get yourself killed for her?”

Alban’s features crinkled in irritation. When he answered her, there was a distinct sneering tone in his reply: “If you want to run away, Rori, no one will stop you.”

The auburn-haired young woman clenched her fists in frustration. She wanted to grab Alban by the shoulders and shake the nonsense out of his head. But the first of Archon Norres’guards had appeared across the street, coming out of the front gates in pairs. She knew she couldn’t risk shaking the entire hedge and giving them away. She gritted her teeth, and tried reasoning with him again.

“This plan is suicide,” she hissed right in Alban’s ear. “We can’t take on the Suncloaks and every single archon all at once! Think about it, Alban. How’s this really going to end?”

The look he turned on her made Rori draw back. His narrowed eyes blazed anger, and his lips were curled down in a contemptuous scowl. “Do you really want to abandon Rez?” he demanded in a hoarse stage-whisper. “Do you? After everything he did for us, you want to turn your back on him?”

“What makes you think he’s still alive?” Rori asked in a small, cowed voice.

“Why would they kill him?”

“Alban.” Rori closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, they glistened with anxious tears and desperation. “We're thieves, not revolutionaries. Does any of this seem like something thieves would do? Shel’s using us. I don’t know what she’s up to, but please listen to me. You can’t go through with this!”

Alban smiled, but the expression was cold and humorless. “I thought about that all week,” Alban revealed. “Do you know what I realized, Rori?”

She shook her head slowly side to side.

“We were never thieves,” Alban said. “Not once we hooked up with Rez. Don’t you see? Rori, who steals
souls?
Dunmir! The only people who have a collection worth stealing are the archons…and the emperor himself! It should have been obvious. This was what he was after all along!”

The burly young man’s callous smile had transformed into a grin, his eyes alight with a mixture of enthusiasm and admiration for their missing leader. Alban had finally put it all together, and he was amazed by what Rez had done. His pride stung a bit at first, wounded by the deception and the implied lack of trust. But upon reflection, he realized Rez couldn’t possibly have told everybody in the gang. There were too many of them. At the same time, he’d needed a big gang to pull off his scheme.

He wasn’t sure why Shel seemed to have inherited his position, gradually edging Kal out of leadership ever since they arrived at the Midnight Grove. Alban had seen Shel’s powers, of course, and he had to admit she was formidable. In the end, Alban accepted that Kal – as one of Rez’s chief lieutenants – knew the captured leader’s mind better than anyone else; she wouldn’t simply bow out and stand aside to let Shel call the shots without good reason. As far as Alban was concerned, Shel’s decisions had Rez’s blessing – even if it was once-removed through Kal.

“An uprising?” Rori was stunned. But now that it was spelled out for her, she saw all the same connections Alban had. She realized he was right. Rez had always been steering them toward something like this. But she still couldn’t accept Shel’s suicidal plan. “Madness!”

Alban shook his head firmly. “Do you remember where we were before Rez found us?”

Rori bit down hard on her lower lip, refusing to speak. Alban knew she remembered. He said, “Rori, what kind of empire is it that treats its people so? The say the Long Summer is a paradise. They say the Golden Empire is the greatest civilization the world has ever known.”

Alban inclined his head forward and very deliberately spat in the dirt to show what he thought of that.

Rori bit down even harder on her trembling lip. Deep down, she knew Alban was right. But what good was being right when it was going to get him killed?

Nearby, a twig snapped audibly. It was a signal. Alban turned his attention back to the Norres estate and schooled his features. “Let’s go,” he said quietly.

***

All across the city, skirmishes broke out between armed parties of Suncloak guardsmen and surprisingly well-organized mobs of shabbily dressed citizens, most often led by a handful of grizzled old troublemakers and thieves.

Every man of the City Watch was on duty, thanks to the recent crime wave, and now every Suncloak fought for his life. In many quarters, particularly the lower market, it seemed as if the entire city had taken up arms against the guards.

It would be a bloody day for the city of Solstice.

***

Yet the Noble District sat wreathed in quiet peace. Chaos had broken out in every other district of the city. Distance-muffled sounds of fighting and strife drifted on the air, but here amongst the lavish mansions of the archons all was clam.

Armsmen, gathering in the courtyards and near the gates of seven estates, heard the far-off ring of clashing swords and glanced around in nervous confusion.

Today their lords and masters were to gather at the imperial palace, beyond the walls of Solstice. The men forming up in the courtyards had expected a tedious day of marching. From the sounds carried on the air from the rest of the city, most of them were revising their expectations.

None of them expected what happened next.

Bellowing hooligans burst forth from places of concealment, brandishing swords, daggers, and heavy clubs. They rushed forward, weapons raised high. Quick-thinking guards at three of the estates hurried to close the heavy gates before the attackers could breach the walls, but the onslaught was too sudden.

Screaming rebels poured through the gates and onto the grounds of all seven of the occupied mansions. Rattled armsmen rushed forward to stop them. Men crashed together. Swords sliced through the air and collided, throwing sparks as they ground against each other. Reinforcements poured from the barracks of each estate, but the response was disorganized and confused.