The Conqueror's Shadow (58 page)

Slowly, at the far end of the table, Nathaniel Espa shifted in his seat. Stealthily, his fingers stretched downward, closing about the pommel of the throwing dagger in his right boot.

“Baron Jassion of Braetlyn,” Corvis said abruptly, continuing to pace, “is many things. As the Lady Rheah pointed out, he's violent, short-tempered, brutal. Trust me on this last one, he's as brutal a man as you'll ever meet.” He winced in remembered pain. “But he's not Audriss, although I was supposed to
think
he was.” The warlord smiled, his stride unwavering. “The fact that you've been deceived into believing the same thing is entirely secondary. The evidence was aimed at me. A fallback plan, as it were. Audriss seems to be good at those.”

“What evidence?” Rheah asked softly. Her lips bent downward, as though the question itself tasted sour. Clearly she recognized that
something
was afoot here, something she just knew she wasn't going to like—and just as clearly she'd decided, though she might have choked on the very notion, that Corvis might just know what it was.

The dagger was halfway from its sheath when Espa felt a grip on his shoulder. “If she were the closer to you,” Seilloah told him in a whisper, indicating Ellowaine with her free hand, “you'd be dead. I'm a
little
less bloodthirsty, so I'm giving you the opportunity to hand me the knife before I carve you into steaks with it.”

“Do you really think you could stop me if I wanted to use it?” the old knight challenged, equally quietly.

The witch shifted her grip just slightly, so that her thumb rested against the exposed flesh of the man's neck. “In my palm,” she told
him, “I'm holding a thorn tipped with a fascinating combination of herbal extracts. If I prick you with it, you'll be quite paralyzed. You won't be able to move, but you'll be quite conscious when I start to carve.”

Scowling, he handed her the dagger.

“Good. Now pay attention.”

“… very subtly done,” Corvis was saying, without breaking stride. “It was smart, skillful. Nothing obvious, just enough to make me think I'd figured it out for myself. Remember, I've met Audriss face-to-face, so I've seen him in pretty clear detail. He wears a ring—emerald on pewter—that serves as the host talisman for the demon who grants him his power. I saw the ring again, in the dungeons beneath His Grace's castle. It was Jassion's signet.”

A low murmur stalked through the assembly. Rheah frowned, but Corvis continued before she could speak. “Furthermore, Jassion always seemed to hold a personal grudge against me. Granted, this can probably be attributed to, let's say, past transgressions. But if I was interfering with his plans—Audriss's plans—it made so much more sense. Then, of course, there's the fact that Jassion vanished off the battlefield just now in a cloud of fog, a last-minute addition to the picture, as it were. And Audriss knows too many things only a man in Jassion's position should know. Including the fact that you,” and here he looked directly at the sorceress, “have in your possession a certain item we've discussed in the past.”

Rheah blanched.

“That's why he's come here personally, in secret, rather than attacking the town with his soldiers and the Endless Legion, as he normally does. He wants to get his hands on it first, rather than risk it being lost in the chaos.”

“Even if we believe all this,” Rheah asked, “all it does is suggest that Jassion really
is
Audriss. What makes you so sure he's
not?”

“Because Audriss isn't stupid, Lady Rheah. I've dealt with enough demon-inhabited baubles in my time to know how they operate. They're more than capable of changing shape.
And color
. If Audriss and Jassion are wearing the same ring, it's because Audriss
wants
his ring to look like the baron's.”

Things change. Sometimes when you want them to …

“Then there was this.” Without quite drawing it—no point in panicking the council when they were actually listening—Corvis half lifted Sunder from his belt. “Most of you have heard of the Kholben Shiar. You've heard the legends that they change their own shape to best match the persona—the soul, if you will—of the wielder. It's not something you can choose. Any one of the Kholben Shiar that I pick up becomes an axe, even if I'd prefer, say, a spear at the time.” Corvis allowed the axe to fall back into its clasp. Once again, he swept the entire table with a deliberate gaze. “When I was a prisoner here, Jassion made a point of bragging that he'd been a participant in every part of my capture. He attacked me, he brought me here. And he,
with his own hands
, stripped my equipment and weapons from me and stuck them ‘in a safe place.' When I retrieved Sunder during my escape, it wasn't an axe, but a rather hefty sword. But I'd seen Audriss pick up a Kholben Shiar before—as a dagger. If Jassion was the last one to touch Sunder, as he claimed, then he couldn't be Audriss.”

… sometimes when you don't
.

“This is ridiculous!” Duke Lorum snapped with a dismissive wave of his hand. “This man is the enemy and a known liar! He's just trying to protect his ally! Magic shapeshifting jewelry and weapons. I hardly—”

“He may be telling the truth,” Rheah interrupted, a clenched fist resting against her chin. “At least, it's possible. What he's said, about bound demons and about the Kholben Shiar, is accurate.”

“Oh.” Lorum didn't seem impressed. One hand ran idly through his growth of beard. “Well, then, Lord Rebaine, if you're so bloody positive Jassion
isn't
Audriss, why don't you tell us who
is
?”

Like an iron trap, Corvis's gaze locked onto the regent's own. The sheer intensity of his stare, the sudden ice in his expression, was enough to silence the room. Nothing moved, nothing at all.

“It's rather presumptuous for
you
, of all people, to be asking me that,” the Terror of the East said slowly to the Regent Proper of Imphallion. “Don't you think … Audriss?”

“No! Absolutely not!” Lorum leaned across the desk, fists planted on heaps of parchment strewn across the surface. Had he turned his gaze downward, he might very well have set them all ablaze.

“Your Grace … Lorum.” Nathan shrugged his broad shoulders, trying to settle his formal garb more comfortably across his chest. Damn, but even his
armor
was more comfortable than this nonsensical getup! “Lorum, please. Be reasonable—”

“Reasonable?
Reasonable?”
Fists clenched, parchment crumpled. “Tell me what's reasonable, Nathan. Tell me why I should give in to the whining demands of a bunch of corpulent, useless pigs!”

“Maybe because the Guilds are the economic backbone of Imphallion, Your Grace? You can't afford to make enemies of
all
of them.”

“Watch me.” Lorum turned, pacing beneath the crossed swords that hung on the brick-faced wall, blades that—thankfully—had seen no use since the Terror's war. “They're
not
the power in the kingdom anymore, Nathan.
I
am. And you can't possibly tell me that the past years haven't been better for it!”

The knight shook his head, moved around the desk, and took his young protégé by the shoulders. “It's not your power, Lorum.”

The regent merely snarled and smacked the older man's hands aside.

“It's not,” Nathan continued, his own eyes going flinty. “So far, they've cooperated—no matter how grudgingly—because you keep throwing the specter of Corvis Rebaine in their faces. And yes, I'll be the first to admit that you've rebuilt a lot more of Imphallion than the Guilds would have, left to their own devices.”

“Then why—”

“Because this can't continue! You've already almost exhausted their resources, and it's not going to do you any good to rebuild the cities if they can't support themselves. You can't rule a nation when there are no taxes to collect. There's only so much capital available, Lorum, and the Guilds generate more than the rest of us could dream of doing.”

“Then they'll operate under my control.”

“And you're going to enforce that how, exactly?”

Lorum stared, jaw going suddenly slack. “You're not serious.”

“Very serious, Your Grace. There's been talk, for months now. You don't have anywhere
near
the military might to stand up to the Guilds. And remember, you're the regent, not the king. As long as they get even a little noble backing, it's not even treason.”

The young regent slumped back toward his chair and missed it entirely, finding himself sitting, legs sprawled, on the thick carpet. Slowly, he allowed his face to sink into his palms.

“All right,” he said finally, voice muffled by emotion as much as by his trembling hands. “All right, Nathan. Tell the Guildmasters I'll be in to see them shortly. Tell them they can have their damn Guilds back, free and clear.

“But you tell them, too, that they damn well better not make me regret it.”

DUKE LORUM THREW HIS HEAD BACK
and laughed as though he hadn't a care in the world. Every last individual in the room, save Corvis, gaped as tears of mirth ran down his face to vanish into his
faded gold expanse of beard. The regent looked as though he might be forced to sit, lest he topple over completely.

Finally, however, the fit died away in a final burst of chuckling.

“Are you quite through?” Corvis asked.

“Rebaine,” Lorum said through gasping breath and reddened face, “you're absolutely mad!”

“Well, one of us is.” Corvis grinned, and Lorum's own smile vanished. “It was a brilliant scheme, Audriss. I almost didn't see it. But you made just a few tiny mistakes, enough to tip your hand.”

“What, exactly, are you talking about?” Rheah asked, ignoring Lorum's murderous glare.

“Lorum held on to his power seventeen years ago, remember. It took the Guilds three years to recover the authority they'd handed over. For a brief span, Imphallion had a king again, in fact if not in name.” Corvis pointed a black iron finger at one of the assembly, a scrawny fellow who wore the latest finery, now absolutely drenched in sweat. He blanched visibly at the sudden attention. “You. What's your name?”

“Ah … Bidimir Vrenk, O dread lord. I represent the august yet humble assembly of the Minstrels' Guild.”

/Dread lord?/
Khanda snickered.

Corvis ignored him. “Tell me, Master Vrenk, how exactly has Duke Lorum dealt with the current crisis? What is it he's been trying to accomplish since the moment the Serpent appeared over the horizon?”

“Why, he's been trying … Trying to consolidate power.” Vrenk's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Under his authority.”

A low mutter swept through the Guildmasters.

“So what?” Espa demanded, rising to his feet (after a careful glance at Seilloah, who was blandly cleaning her nails with his dagger). “Combining our forces was the best way to deal with the crisis!”

“But we
offered
to join forces!” Salia Mavere announced, armor clinking beneath her robes as she shifted in her seat. “We were more than willing to have our troops fight beside his own! But that wasn't good enough! It had to be under a single authority! Your Grace, I'd very much like to know why.”

“It prevents confusion,” Lorum said, his voice rising. “It's more efficient! It—”

“It puts power back in your hands,” Corvis told him flatly. “I'm not going to sit here and guess at your motives. Maybe you just enjoyed the taste of power you got after the last war. Hell, maybe you actually thought you were doing your best for Imphallion, at one point or another. But either way, you hit on the perfect way to go about it. It was a win–win situation for you, Audriss.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“After all, whether you succeeded in conquering Imphallion as the Serpent, or whether you talked the Guildmasters into handing over control, you end up in command. And because the nation's just gone through a massive war, nobody would remain with strength to oppose you.”

Lorum drew himself up, his expression frosty. “Unless you purport to have some evidence to back up these ridiculous claims, I refuse to hear any more of it.”

“Oh, but I do.”

The regent seemed to deflate.

“I've already explained why Audriss has to be someone in power in Imphallion. Someone in this room, in fact. He—you—knew too much. You knew of Rheah's acquisition. You were too well able to avoid the patrols that
were
put out to intercept you.

“Tell me, how else could Jassion's team have gotten through Audriss's forces to attack my little army this morning? I seriously doubt the Serpent's scouts just
happened
to miss an entire battalion sneaking past them. Unless they were ordered to let it pass. And Audriss would only have given that order if he
knew
they were attacking me, not him!”