The Iron Ring (20 page)

When Tyvian returned to the living room, he noted to his dismay that the fine, hand-­woven rug he had chosen for the center of the floor before the fireplace was stained maroon with the blood of the other Delloran. He scowled at this and was mentally calculating how much this particular home invasion would cost him when he heard a choked groan and remembered Myreon, who was still curled up in the fetal position before the couch. “I say, Myreon, are you all right?”

Myreon pulled herself slowly to all fours and looked up just to glare at Tyvian.

The ring pricked Tyvian, but he ignored it. If the goddamned thing wanted somebody to help up his old nemesis, it could bloody well grow its own arms and legs. “Sorry about the beating, but I needed a diversion and you were the most convenient one available.”

Myreon pulled herself onto the couch and lay back gingerly. “The other one's dead?”

“Sleeping, actually.” Tyvian held up the ring, “I'm still afflicted with bouts of ‘mercy,' you see.”

“Do I get a roommate, then?”

“Don't tempt me.”

The Defender looked down at the dead man in the center of the living room, eyeing a silver device on his crossbow. “These men were Delloran soldiers, and not expatriates either. They're wearing Delloran wool, and this fellow's crossbow has the imprint of a Delloran weaponsmith. Why would Sahand want to kill you?”

Tyvian nodded, confirming what Myreon had noticed. The broadsword, also, bore the mark of a Delloran bladesmith, and Dellor wasn't much for exporting weapons. “I've been asking myself the same question. I've never even been to Dellor. To be honest, his attention is quite flattering.”

Myreon raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Flattering' is not the right word. I'd pick
terrifying
.”

Tyvian smirked. “Funny, I never would have picked you for a coward.”

The Mage Defender only rolled her eyes. “That was simply juvenile.”

Tyvian shrugged. “My apologies—­it has been a long night and my wit is suffering. I shall endeavor to insult you more effectively in the future.

“In any event, Myreon, this is an interesting development. The only person who would have a concrete reason to try and kill me in my own home would be Hendrieux, and he certainly lacks access to a pair of Sahand's soldiers.”

Myreon stood up, still slightly hunched. “I've been assaulted enough for one night.”

“Sleep well. Oh, and Myreon?”

“What?”

“You wouldn't be attempting to escape from in there, would you?”

Myreon held very still, which was enough for Tyvian to know the answer. After a moment, the Mage Defender sighed. “What else would you expect? I may be caught, but I'm not dead.”

“Good to know. Good luck with it.” Tyvian nodded and grinned to his prisoner as she limped back to her room/cell.

After Tyvian heard the door close and the specters lock Myreon in, he took the briefest moment to admire her tenacity—­there could be little doubt the Defender was quite a woman. If she weren't such a . . . well, such a
Defender
, he might have considered . . .

No. He banished the thought from his mind—­it was completely idle, unproductive, and the result of a man who hadn't had the company of a woman in almost a month. There was work to do.

Tyvian went back to the dining room and stripped the slumbering mercenary bare. He then clapped his hands to summon the specters. “This is a side of beef I want packaged and wrapped for shipment immediately. I will summon a courier djinn for pickup in one hour—­have this meet it downstairs.”

The specters set about their work, and Tyvian went to his study, lighting the lamps as he went. He was never going to sleep tonight, so he might as well be productive. By telling Myreon that Hendrieux was the only man who had a concrete reason to kill him, he had stirred loose a rather odd possibility. He long suspected that Hendrieux hadn't acted alone when setting him up for the fall—­Carlo had intimated as much during their meeting—­and Sahand, it seemed, was the perfect backer. Sahand
would
have access to pure brymm, he
could
arrange for a gnoll to be boxed up on a spirit engine, and he definitely
did
possess a variety of proscribed sorcerous texts that covered biomancy and even more reprehensible topics. It would also explain Carlo's discomfort with the whole situation—­the Mad Prince was not to be crossed. The
why
of all this was still a mystery, but if his hunch was correct, there were several things he could do about it right then and there.

Taking up an autoquill, Tyvian spread out a piece of paper and wrote a letter, taking care to use his best handwriting. When he was finished, he put it in an envelope, put his seal on the wax, and addressed it to Prince Banric Sahand by name, but left the location blank. It might take a bit longer, but courier djinni could of course always deliver things by name alone, for an extra price. They would also move a good bit slower, which helped him a great deal.

He got dressed, belted on Chance, and fetched Myreon's seekwand and the mageglass ring with the farsight augury he had used back on the spirit engine. If he guessed right, he was going to see the look on Banric Sahand's face when His Highness got a certain late night package. He had no doubt the expression would be priceless.

M
yreon hadn't been sleeping when she was used as a distraction against the Delloran mercenaries; she had been trying to improvise a sorcerous ritual. Her fingers had now swollen to twice their normal size, and every tiny motion was agony, but still she tried. There wasn't much magic she could channel—­the wards on the room made sure of that—­but there was one energy the wards couldn't stop: the Astral. Known as the “universal energy,” the Astral was the glue that held all the other energies in check. It was inert, having no opposite energy and no influence over the ley of a particular area, and governed such weighty concepts as space, time, and fate itself. No ward could do much to slow it down, even other Astral wards, and it was an instrumental factor in most counterspells against such wards. It was also the primary energy used to send a wraith—­a method of long-­range communication that involved sending an image of herself to a distant location to deliver a message.

The drawback of the Astral was, of course, that it was notoriously intractable and reticent to be channeled or drawn from the surrounding world. With her magestaff in hand and in top condition, Myreon counted herself as a very talented manipulator of Astral energy. In her current condition, it was like trying to suck tree sap out of a sugartree with only her lips. She had gathered enough of the energy into a single candlestick to create a makeshift
sha
, but drawing the
veta
was extremely slow going. Since she had been interrupted and beaten, she'd had to start over. Now she was almost done . . . again. She only hoped her shaking, weakened fingers hadn't made any errors in the sigils she had marked on the floor in enchanted wax.

Though she tried to keep her doubts out of her mind, the fact that Reldamar basically
told
her that he knew the mage was trying to escape was driving her crazy. Why would he do that? Why not stop her? Why not put her back in those infernal casterlocks? Myreon knew—­she just
knew
—­that this had something to do with some elaborate plot the smuggler had concocted for his own purposes. Myreon admitted she couldn't imagine what such a plot could be, but she still felt as though every step closer she got to sending a wraith to signal for rescue was a step closer to fulfilling Reldamar's plans.

Forget it,
she scolded herself.
He's just playing mind games with you. This is the right thing to do. This is your only chance. Don't make a mistake.

Sorcerous rituals of every description—­and, indeed, all spells—­needed three elements to work: the
veta,
the sorcerer, and the focus. The
veta
was the physical framework meant to elicit the proper energies from the surrounding world. In the case of a simple spell, the sorcerer's posture, gestures, and even emotional state served this purpose, but in a ritual, the framework was drawn with an enchanted wax implement known as a
sha—­
or a weakly enchanted candlestick, as was the case now. If mistakes were made in the drawing of the
veta,
the energies would be misdrawn, and the spell would either fizzle harmlessly or be miscast with a wide variety of unexpected results, depending on the energy involved. Miscast an Etheric spell and you could rot from the inside out or fall into deep despair; miscast while channeling the Lumen, and ­people had been known to grow additional fingers or drop into fits of uncontrollable giggling that went on for months. Miscasts, it was said, gave wizards worldwide a healthy sense of humility. One did not channel the energies of creation itself without risk.

Mistakes when performing any sorcerous ritual—­where the energies drawn were typically larger than those simply channeled through the body—­were even more dangerous things, but the Astral had been known to cause some very peculiar effects when miscast. Some wizards had been frozen in time and space for weeks, months, or even years on end. Some had aged, while others had grown younger. Some had been flung miles away in an instant, while others were cursed with terrible luck for the rest of their lives. When fiddling with the energy of space and time, all manner of things could go wrong. This, also, Myreon tried to keep out of her mind.
You can do this,
she told herself.
You've done this ritual dozens of times.

In a simple spell, the other two elements—­the sorcerer and the focus—­were one and the same. The sorcerer enacted the spell with a word of power—­or series of words, depending on the complexity—­and the focus was the thing through which the
veta
channeled its power. This could be quite tiring and even painful for the sorcerer, and quite a lot of instruction in the Arcanostrum was devoted to ways to reduce sorcerous fatigue. In the case of a ritual, the energies drawn were often too powerful or intense for the human body to realistically manage, and therefore they would use something external for a focus. In the case of the Astral, objects made of sedimentary rock were best. For Myreon's makeshift ritual, the best she could manage was a pebble that had been lodged in the tread of her boot. It looked very small at the center of her thickly drawn, barely legible
veta.
She concluded she would be lucky if she could channel enough energy to even risk a miscast. More likely nothing would happen whatsoever.

It took her hours, but finally, with her semimagical candlestick worn almost to the nub and the first rays of dawn breaking over the horizon, she was ready to enact the ritual and send her wraith. She couldn't send it far—­only to that river-­inn along the Trell where Reldamar's gnoll had assaulted all the patrons. Assuming the spell worked, she only hoped the ­people who witnessed her knew what she was and what to do . . . and that somebody would be awake, at dawn, in the galley of a river-­inn. Myreon sighed; it was the long shot of long shots.

Fingers trembling with fatigue, body aching in every pore, she chanted the activation words under her breath, just below a whisper, and gradually increased volume to something just below a speaking voice. She tried to keep her mind balanced, calm—­the Astral reacted well to even-­tempered ­people . . . usually. Her tongue and lips carefully slid across the complicated syllables of the activation words with practiced ease, but the
veta
remained dark and the pebble didn't shudder. She was about to give up when, with a sudden flash, the wax
veta
sizzled like bacon in a pan and the tiny pebble grew dark as onyx and seemed to fade in and out of existence for a moment. The ritual was working.

She knew it wouldn't work for long, so Myreon lost no time in delivering her message. ­“People of the Wandering Fountain,” she said aloud. “Do not be alarmed. I am Mage Defender Myreon Alafarr of Galaspin Tower, and I require assistance.” If anyone was seeing her, she had no idea—­no one there was capable of sending a wraith back to her, she was certain. She had to hope they would listen, though. She was due for some luck.

“Please inform Galaspin Tower that I am a prisoner of Tyvian Reldamar in Freegate. He is holding me in a penthouse flat on Top Street, two or three blocks from the Stair Market.” Myreon imagined the patrons of the bar sitting around, looking at each other with wide eyes, as her ghostly form chattered on about such outlandish things as Freegate and Tyvian Reldamar and Mage Defenders. She hoped whoever was there wasn't so hung over they discounted this as a hallucination.

The spell was fading, so Myreon sped up her message. “There's a reward for this news being passed to Master Tarlyth of Galaspin Tower. Your ser­vice to the Arcanostrum will be appreciated. Please hurry—­I am in grave danger!”

Myreon felt the spell fade, and with it, a profound sense of weariness overcame her.
Please, Hann. Let someone have seen the message.

With the last vestiges of her energy, she pushed the bed over where the ritual had been performed and threw herself under the quilts. She had to hand it to Reldamar—­at least the bed was comfortable. She slept like the dead.

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

STALKING HENDRIEUX

T
he Blocks was a neighborhood in Freegate that lay at the very base of the Cliff District, just above the more industrious trade-­oriented quarters on the valley floor and just below the fashionable, wealthy, and comfortable areas above the smog layer. It was a place that had no real purpose beyond housing the teeming masses of human detritus that drifted through the Free City, and was widely considered to be the most god-­forsaken place in town, full of run-­down brothels, diseased tenements, and dank ink-­dens. It was a tangled warren of trash-­strewn streets, rickety catwalks, flimsy staircases, and narrow alleys built more to accommodate rats than ­people.

Hool crouched in the shadows of one such crooked alley, her nose testing the cold morning air. What Tyvian Reldamar had told her early that morning was not a lie—­Hendrieux was close. His smell was dirty and foul, like rotting garbage, and he was excited, perhaps afraid. Her nose and ears told her that he was within the filthy building that jutted into the street not twenty yards away, even though there was no sign that the place was occupied. It had a sign with a picture of some kind of snake coming out of a pool of water. Hool didn't like snakes, didn't like water, and thought the sign was ugly.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember the scents of Api and little Brana, her two missing pups. She imagined the open plains of the Taqar, alive with spring wildflowers, and the blue sky that went on forever. She remembered the feeling of bounding through the tall grass after an antelope, the smell of a brush fire on a dry summer evening, the warmth of her cubs, nestled against her as they slept beneath a million stars. Api would count them—­she was a good counter—­and Brana would ask Hool stupid questions. Where does the moon go? Why do we sleep? What is metal made from? Hool purred to herself, took a deep breath . . .

. . . and choked on the poisonous fumes filling the air of the foul, dark, human city—­the city where her pups were held, somewhere. The city she would tear apart until she found them.

If Hendrieux had been alone, she would have already gone into the run-­down building, found him, and broken his bones until he told her where Api and Brana were. Hendrieux was not alone, though—­Tyvian had told the truth about that, too. He had with him six men. These men wore armor and carried weapons, like the ones from last night. Unlike those men, though, these men were wary. Hool could tell by how still the ugly building was that they were waiting for something to happen. That meant she could not strike, not yet. She would have to wait.

In their meeting that morning, Tyvian had told her that she should simply follow Hendrieux to his hiding place, but Hool didn't like that plan. It was too slow, too uncertain, and she couldn't be sure that her enemy wouldn't just disappear again, like he had last night. Tyvian had said that was impossible; he had told her things like that were too expensive. Hool didn't believe him, though—­how would
he
know how much money Hendrieux had?

She decided instead to see if Hendrieux would
talk
about where he was hiding. Humans were always talking about things they did or were doing or wanted to do. It was like they all wanted the world to care about them for some reason. Hool reflected that this was probably a result of poor upbringing.

Being quiet in the city was much easier than being quiet in the country. There was so much noise in the city, Hool barely needed to look where she stepped as she crawled out of her alley and slunk across the street to the side of the ugly, smelly house. Even though it was morning, there were very few ­people around. Many of them, Hool knew, were sleeping in their dirty beds as their bodies worked off a whole night of drinking poison and doing wicked things. Many others smelled like fear; its oily scent seemed to stick to every building and house in this tumble-­down district.

Hool wedged herself between a barrel of rainwater and a pile of rotting firewood below one of the boarded-­up windows of the house and swiveled her ears to their best listening angle. Hendrieux and his six men were inside, but so was another group of men. These men smelled like the human poison called “beer” as well as something filthy and magical and not altogether different than Hendrieux. She could tell there were four or five of them, plus a few others farther away that smelled like they were dying.

“I'm not pleased, Tupa. I was expecting more from you.” Hendrieux's voice was clear as day through the flimsy boards on the windows. Hool had to restrain her urge to burst through them and tear his throat out. As it was, she curled her lips back and felt her hackles rise.

The man who was probably Tupa belched noisily. His voice sounded like he had stones stuffed in his cheeks. “So now you comes for me, eh? Every alchemist, talismonger, and thaumaturge in town has themselves holed-­up in their shops like they is under siege. Thought maybe, seein' as how I keep you wrist-­deep in the stuff, you'd might be makin' an exception. Guess you've finally got to the point where you're scrapin' the bottom, eh?”

“Don't make this bloody, Tupa Fat-­Hands. You can drug up cheap alley-­muscle all you want, but they'll never be a match for my boys here, and you know it.”

“You come one step closer, and me back-­alley muscle is gonna show you what they thinks of your Delloran stooges. You touch me, and it's a poison needle in the ear. I disappear, and the Phantom Guild will put the spot on you, they will. You'll have knives in every alley, poison in every drink, and don't think it won't happen! I've got connections, so don't come back 'round here, or I'll feather ye one between the—­
Aaaghghhh!
”

Hool cocked her head. She was pretty sure Hendrieux had thrown a knife, and it had stuck in Tupa's hand. She listened as the black market alchemist screamed and moaned, and then there was more fighting. Swords were drawn and men shouted curses at one another. Hool knew who was going to win long before it happened, though; men who smelled of beer and foulness didn't kill men who smelled of boiled leather and oiled metal. The metallic tang of blood filled the air, which made Hool hungry. She made a mental note to catch and eat a rat later—­the rats around here were as big as beavers.

“Here,” Hendrieux barked, “get Tupa and stuff him in that chest—­watch out for poison needles. You, get some of the wretches to do the heavy lifting.”

Tupa's voice cracked as he bawled, “No! No! You can't! I don't—­
Mmgghhhmmmpfff!
”

There was a thump and somebody locking something. Hendrieux barked some more orders and then said. “Let's go, and stay wary—­that gnoll could be out there somewhere.”

The door to the building opened and two men in long cloaks and carrying crossbows stepped out. They scanned the street carefully from side to side for a moment, and Hool was very still. They did not see her, and nodded to those inside. Four others came out, but these were not soldiers. They were skinny and smelled of sweat and deathly sickness, wearing only rags, a big chest slung between them that they labored to carry—­Hool's gnoll ears could hear Tupa sobbing and calling for help from inside. These men looked cold and in pain, and Hool wondered what was wrong with them. Finally, the four other guards came out with Hendrieux, who was wearing a suit of mail that hung off his sloping shoulders like an ill-­fitting second skin.

The procession set out down the street, and Hool watched them go without being noticed by the wary eyes of the armored men. Waiting until they had rounded the corner, she picked up the trail, following them easily while staying out of their line of sight. Even still, she kept to the shadows, using the murk and grime of the Blocks to her advantage as she stalked her prey.

The buildings around Hool did not improve much in quality, but they did improve in cleanliness. Instead of smoke and ash, she smelled liquor and sweat, as well as a fair amount of blood. Here the road ran close to a muddy ditch about ten yards across, through which moved a rapidly flowing flume of brown water. Along its banks were a series of mills, each one larger and more impressive than the last, their great wheels grumbling and clattering as they turned, filling the air with a mechanical riot of noise. It was here, in the awful racket and stink, that Hool lost the trail.

Laying her ears back against her skull, she doubled back and checked to make sure she hadn't missed a turn, then searched the area in gradually widening circles to pick up the scent again. She got it, and quickly, but it was different. She tracked it to an alley with another old door at its end. Ripping it open, she found it led to a dusty, empty storeroom with nothing but piles of empty crates and no other exits.

She snorted. “Magic.”

Hool checked the sky and guessed it was mid-­morning. She turned and left the alley, then, making her way toward the center of the city—­it was time for Reldamar to make himself useful.

I
mar's was a restaurant of the highest quality but not of the highest breeding. It was the premiere meeting place for the wealthiest businessmen, guild members, and merchants in Freegate, and Tyvian found its thick carpeting and ostentatious hardwood furniture the most crass and obvious display of tasteless wealth in the city. The potted plants were too large, the chandeliers too ornate, and the waiters strutted around in cartoonish imitation of their actual, nobility-­bound counterparts. The food, though, was excellent, and this, ­coupled with the opportunity it gave Tyvian to turn his nose up at the middle class, made it one of his favorite spots.

“It is a bit early for lunch, Tyvian.” Carlo diCarlo said quietly. Sitting across the table from the smuggler, he gazed over Tyvian's shoulder at a table full of Saldorian tailors splurging on expensive wine and roast duck.

Tyvian sipped his tea, admiring its delicate flavor while simultaneously sneering at the ridiculous pattern of the cup. “I had an early morning, Carlo. Not everybody sleeps until noon, you know.”

“You are lucky I came, with the way you treated me yesterday.”

“The invitation involved food and a business proposition. Why wouldn't you show up?”

Carlo snorted and reviewed his menu. “I am getting the lobster, just to spite you. What are you getting?”

Tyvian held up two fingers. “Firstly, I wouldn't tell you what I was getting even if I knew, since I know for a fact that one of the cooks here owes you a favor. Secondly, I haven't the slightest idea what I'm getting, since I don't know what they are serving today.”

Carlo pointed at Tyvian's menu, as yet untouched and unopened. “You could find out.”

Tyvian sneered at the menu. “The very idea that they expect me to
read
what food they have available is precisely why they will never attract anyone of higher social station than those tailors over there. I mean, why even
have
a servant if you are going to do all the work anyway?”

Carlo rolled his one real eye. “So speaks the man who showed up at my door yesterday in dirty furs with a gnoll by his side.”

“Tragedies of circumstance, Carlo, that's all. Tragedies that will be set right soon enough, by the way.” Tyvian smiled and sipped his tea.

Carlo put his eye back on the menu and spoke casually. “I heard you had some excitement last night.”

“Your rumormongers are talented, I'll give you that.”

Carlo nodded. “So now you know who you're dealing with.”

“Hendrieux.”

The Verisi pirate slammed his menu down. “No! Sahand!”

Several tables full of various blacksmiths and fur traders looked over in their direction. Tyvian, remembering his breeding, didn't return their gaze. Instead, he remarked coolly to Carlo, “You are not yourself, my friend.”

Carlo regained his composure rapidly. He removed his crystal eye and buffed it with a napkin. Tyvian watched, catching the simple cues; the secrets passed through innuendo. “Times have been stressful, and you are making everything worse.”
What you're doing is going to hurt Hendrieux.

Tyvian laughed softly. “Now Carlo, how can that be? I've only been in town for twenty-­four hours. Surely I couldn't have—­”

Carlo popped his eyepiece back in to complete a stern glare. “Stop playing coy with me, Tyvian. You know as well as I do that you are shaking things up. For Hann's sake, boy, you've done that your whole life. This time is different, though. This time it isn't a game.”

“Who said I'm playing, Carlo? That skinny ink-­thrall Hendrieux betrayed me, and I'm settling accounts. It's business, not games.”

“You can't settle accounts without getting in Sahand's way, and that's the kind of trouble you
don't
want, Tyvian. I tried to tell you this yesterday, but you had to go threatening me with that bloodthirsty monster . . .” Carlo shuddered. “You might be able to handle Hendrieux—­he's a fool, as you say—­but Sahand is out of your class, Tyvian. He's both brutal
and
intelligent, and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.”

Here, the implication was clear enough. Tyvian smiled broadly. “He's in town, or near enough, you know.”

Carlo choked on his glass of water. “How . . . how in blazes do you . . . wh-­where did you see—­”

Tyvian laid a finger beside his nose. “Tut tut, Carlo—­a secret of
that
magnitude will cost you
quite a lot
.”

The waiter arrived, and Carlo ordered the lobster, as threatened. Tyvian, after demanding a recitation of the menu, whispered his order in the waiter's ear and sent him on his way. Carlo shook his head. “I'm not going to poison you, Tyvian.”

“Yesterday's conversation would indicate the contrary,” Tyvian countered.

Carlo folded his arms. “Fine. What is your proposition?”