The Kingdoms of Evil (44 page)

The instinct had been a good one. A smile twisted the side of the queens mouth. "Is my son good at dancing, Zathara?"

"He is."

"And he is strong and clever?"

From the tone of the queen's voice, she might have been asking for odds on a particular ogre in a death-match. But Zathara thought she understood something of the motivations behind the question. "I think he will survive until we rescue him, Malevolence."

"That is well." Tinesmurk looked at her again. "Zathara. Did you know that I gave birth to Feerborg in The Rationalist Union?"

She means Freetrick, boys and girls.
"No, Malevolence."

"My plan was to raise him myself until the time was right then present him to my enemies in the court when he was fully grown." Tinesmurk stopped walking for a moment and turned to look east. There, past the treetops, Zathara could see the dark mantle of the Skrean Maelstrom, hovering above the mountain peaks. "Then, when Wrothborg died and control of the Maelstrom passed to my son, we would be able to root out our enemies." She began walking again, and Zathara followed.
Control the Maelstrom?

"I made contacts in The Rationalist Union," Tinesmurk continued, "created a false identity for myself, gave that identity money out of the royal treasure trove."

"And the Rationalist government allowed this?" Zathara could not help but wonder.

Tinesmurk smiled. They were approaching the gate in the camp's stake wall now. A pair of ogres saw them coming and leaned down to grab and lift the enormous log gate.

"That was my mistake." Tinesmurk said. "I failed to approach the academic government as a whole. Instead I dealt personally with a Tenured man in Byblos. That is how we operate in Skrea, you see. Personally corrupting Despots, moving them into your camp."

Zathara nodded.

"We make no
contracts
," Tinesmurk's mouth twisted on the word. "We make no publicly notarized agreements."

Owch.
Thought Zathara.

Tinesmurk sighed. "Now I realize that you can only keep a so-called Do-Gooder honest by keeping records of everything they say."

As they passed through the gate, two man-sized goblins shambled into position on either side of them. The hairy, long-armed bodyguards loped behind them down the path away from the camp.

"What was the deal supposed to be?" Zathara asked.

"A promise we would return to the old profitable war between The Rationalist Union and Skrea," said Tinesmurk. "We get food, you get rid of your young hotheads. You kill a few of our monsters…"

Zathara glanced at their goblin body-guards. But the monsters were ignoring them.

"…we remind you what Good and Evil mean." Finished Tinesmurk. "The Betweeners had agreed easily enough."

That surprised Zathara enough that she stopped walking. "You made a deal with the Betweeners?"

"Of course. How else could I have crossed the Bulwarks into The Rationalist Union?" Tinesmurk twitched her head and Zathara found herself hurrying to catch up.
What a wonderful trick. I shall have to remember that for when I am queen of Skrea.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Betweener leaders are driven by the same motivations as the Betweener nation," Tinesmurk lectured.
Aha. So that's where Freetrick gets it from.
"There are Paladins who realize that if the war between Skrea and The Rationalist Union ends, whether because of peace or decisive victory of one side over the other, their way of life will end. Yes. They were willing enough to play the game. Unfortunately," Tinesmurk grimaced. "I only realized later that the rulers of The Rationalist Union are not interested in playing the game. They do not care about individual pieces. The minds behind this 'Rationalist Union' plan to simply steal the entire board."

And
thought Zathara, thinking of guns, locomotives, and siege engines,
they may even have the power to do so.

"And so they came for me just as the labor began." Tinesmurk said. "I could not keep the baby from them. I could barely arrange my own escape. And by the time I had sent word and requests for aid back to Clouds-Gather…things had changed."

"The Sangboise?" Zathara had gleaned from other conversations that Sangboire was a vassal state of Skrea, one of the three Kingdoms of Evil. Recently, the highest-ranking Sangboise aristocrats had banded together to infiltrate the Skrean government at its highest level. And now one of them was hopefully butting her head against Freetrick's Rationalist sexual inhibitions.

Tinesmurk nodded. "Yes. DeMacabre made sure no help would come to me. He killed my sister Batwing, and then most of the rest of my supporters shifted allegiance to Feerix, my nephew. Soon, I realized I could not even safely return to the castle. So I came back to my own home." She gestured at the trees on the slopes of Bulwarks, "and I began to build a power base here."

"How is it that you haven't been discovered by the Rationalists?"

From Tinesmurk's expression, Zathara knew it had been the wrong question to ask.
The queen is withholding tactical information. She still doesn't entirely trust me, boys and girls.
But after a moment, the queen nodded and answered. "We have allies among the Betweeners, as I said. In fact, that is the nature of the favor I wish to ask from you, Zathara."

"I would love to help in any way I can," said Zathara carefully.

Tinesmurk nodded again. "Good. Then I can tell you that, earlier this morning, I received a communication from a man named Kendrick Fairheart."

"
Kendrick
?" Zathara stopped. "Kendrick
is here in these woods?" And then, more cogently. "
Kendrick
is part of your deal with the Naoblites?"
Impossible! Kendrick, you wouldn't allow us to make
jokes
about Skrea. How could you ever aid them?

And indeed, Tinesmurk was shaking her head. "He is not. That is the problem, Zathara." She had stopped, too, and now gestured toward the forest on the northern side of the path. "He was supposed to be taken prisoner when our side took control of a military convoy from The Rationalist Union. We had agents in place to turn him, but…ah, I see you could have told me your friend would never have bowed to argument."

"Not even if you got a Paladin to convince him," Zathara said. "Kendrick has the most rigid system of morality I have ever seen in a human being."

Tinesmurk made a rueful gesture. "Such is obvious now. Unfortunately, we did not have that intelligence when we sent our Paladin to him."

Zathara saw the grimness in Tinesmurk's expression and made a connection. "He killed the Paladin, didn't he?"

"Merciless One, did he ever." Zathara turned. The new voice, as deep and harsh as gravel pit, belonged to a stocky man clad in the forest-colored leathers of a Naobelite ranger. Something about his eyes was wrong, though. He stared like a hungry predator at Zathara. A wendigo.

"He escaped into the forest," continued Maulrag. "Now, he has somehow managed to gather a band of men---escaped Rationalist soldiers and renegade Naobelites and monsters---and turned them into a major thorn in our ass."

"Zathara," said Tinesmurk, "this is Captain Maulrag. He is the wendigo responsible for the fiasco with your friend Kendrick."

"May the fibers of this humble monster's skin be torn apart if the Do-Gooder is not captured," said Maulrag.

"They will be," Tinesmurk replied. "I trust your patrols have at least prevented him from getting word back to his superiors in The Rationalist Union."

"We would be knee deep in runes and gunfire by now if not, Malevolence."

Tinesmurk's eyes narrowed. "Are you being flippant with me, monster?" She raised a hand, fingers curled.

"No, Malevo---"

Before he could finish the sentence, a cloud of black vapor burst from Tinesmurk's hand. Maulrag gasped, then moaned.

"I am affecting a transformation in this monster's nervous system." Tinesmurk said, apparently to Zathara. "Are you familiar with the placement of sites that interpret the sensation of burning pain? Oh, I suppose not."

Of course not. Zathara was not a necromancer.
Which means that I am just as vulnerable as this poor monster to the effects of necromancy. Thank you, Tinesmurk, for reminding me of that.

The queen waved her hand and the black vapor disappeared. Maulrag shuddered. "Speak again, monster."

"They have been trying to escape, Malevolence, but we have been moving to block them."

After he killed the envoy sent to get him and fled into the woods? Oh Kendrick,
thought Zathara,
what is it that is wrong with you?

As if sensing her thought, Tinesmurk asked. "Zathara, what more can you tell us of

this man? His motivations are unclear to me."

Zathara thought of the burning look in Kendrick's eyes when he wanted to attack the Proctors. She thought of the tight rein Madene kept on him. She thought of the wendigo in camp, and his mice. "I think," she said slowly. "I think Kendrick enjoys hurting people."

Maulrag grinned.

"But he doesn't want to enjoy it," Zathara continued. "His needs frighten him. So he turns to others for guidance. At Eldritch he followed around this girl. Madene. I thought at first it was some sort of weird romantic relationship. But now I think she was his conscience."

Maulrag stopped griming as Tinesmurk raised an eyebrow at him. "It seemed obvious he had imprinted on the Paladin in the same way," the wendigo muttered "How were we to know he wouldn't join us when his people's hero told him to?"

"Well of course," said Zathara. "If the Paladin was taking orders from the Queen of Evil he must be corrupt. Meaning no offense, Malevolence."

Tinesmurk waved the apology aside. "So what told him to kill the paladin and side with his Rationalist commander?"

"His own moral code," said Zathara. "He has no altruistic instincts so he's terrified of deviating from the rules he has memorized."

Tinesmurk turned to Maulrag. "A moral sadist? Is this plausible?"

The wendigo looked sour. "Yes, Malevolence."

"The question," Tinesmurk glanced at Zathara, "is whether he will accept your...advice in place of this Madene girl?"

"Is that the help you need from me?"

"Indeed," said Tinesmurk. "What we require of you is for you to lure him out of his hiding place…" she nodded at the trees around them. "Then convince him that he should ally himself with us. And with his friend Freetrick."

Zathara frowned. To her trained ear, it sounded very much as if Tinesmurk was speaking for the benefit of an audience. Was Kendrick out there in the trees now?

"What will you offer him?"

"Between, of course," said Tinesmurk. "When I wrest control of Skrea out of the hands of the Sangboise and return us to the Skrea of the Covenant, I will need a strong arm in Between to hold off the Rationalists. And from what you told me, Kendrick Fairheart will make a fine Paladin."

What? No he won't.
Kendrick was a fanatic, a moral cripple driven by dogma in the place of a conscience. He would only
ever
fight against Tinesmurk and her plans, regardless of his personal best interest. But of course, Zathara did not say so.
Kendrick. What if I make you
my
tool, instead of the queen's?

"Yes," Zathara said for the benefit of the boy she knew was listening. "If he were a Paladin
and I were Freetrick's consort
…
we
would be powerful indeed."

Tinesmurk's lips curved in a cruel smile. "Indeed."

Zathara blinked.
But why offer alliance if Tinesmurk knows his sense of Good and Evil will force him to betray her?

"I can see well that Kendrick is a man of iron-bound honor," Tinesmurk continued.

She can't be stupid enough to think that he'll trust this deal just because I'm the one who tells it to him.

"Inflexible," said Tinesmurk.

"Predictable," growled Maulrag.

"Even if he sees a trap," Tinesmurk whispered, "he will rush in. To save a damsel in distress."