The Hunter's Gambit

by Nicholas McIntire

  She looked up from the folded piece of paper she’d been studying, her green eyes wildly indignant that someone had entered without knocking. He knew she would hate to think that anyone might see her in a moment of vulnerability.

  Her face softened when she saw him.

  “Hello, Jonas. Have you just come for an idle chat or was there something particular on your mind?”

  Jonas noticed that as he approached she tucked the piece of paper away in one of the folds of her gown.

  “Something particular, I’m afraid.” he said softly.

  “Oh?” she said, standing and smoothing the front of her crimson silk gown.

  “Why are you sending Tamara south for the winter?”

  Her face quickly shifted into a gentle smile. “Well, I thought that things in Kalinor can get so stuffy during the colder months, and since we have that wonderful manor we might as well put it to….”

  Jonas held her gaze, but let the silence linger.

  Her smile wilted.

  “I am growing unsure of some particular nobles.” she admitted. “I thought it was better not to have the monarch, the heir to the throne, and the Prince of Ilyar in the same place at the same time. Just in case they decided to take precipitous action.”

  Jonas nodded, “That makes sense. Why such a small escort then?”

  The smile returned, now coy and self-congratulatory, “Jonas, if I sent her south with a hundred Legionnaires I would be announcing to the world that I fear for her safety within my own realm, that I fear some sort of organized attack. But if instead there are five people traveling south under the cloak of secrecy, isn’t that much more effective?”

  “It would depend on the strength of the secret.” he said softly. “If the wrong person were to hear it….” He didn’t have to finish.

  “It’s a risk.” she sighed. “But right now, I feel as though inaction would be worse.”

  Jonas nodded, “You may be right. And Tamara is the only one who can be moved at the moment.”

  Andariana looked sharply at her nephew, “What do you mean?”

  Jonas winced, realizing a moment too late that he’d said more than he’d intended. “I have matters of my own to attend to, Aunt. You know that.”

  She studied him for a long moment before finally nodding.

  He restrained a sigh of relief.

  And then she surprised him, “We have our pleasant little fiction, Jonas, and I’d be a fool to believe that you don’t have your own secrets and shades, the same as the rest of us.” He stared at her in surprise when she leaned forward and gave him a soft, motherly embrace.

  “Just don’t get too lost in yours.” she whispered.

  Jonas was so startled he had no words to return the sentiment. Instead he hugged her to him. She was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mother, and for all their posturing and scheming, he knew she was only looking out for him. He fought back tears as the realization struck. It was quite possible that she was the only person in the world who had ever truly cared for him like this, who had protected him.

  As they parted, both slipped into a comfortable silence, returning to their own thoughts and intrigues, the moment broken. Neither noticed the shadowed form in the far corner of the room smiling in satisfaction.

  “There now, don’t you look like a proper prince?”

  Bael stared at his mother, then back to his reflection in the faded silver mirror. It was one of the few possessions she’d been allowed by his father, though he cursed her vanity often enough. Rafael had ultimately allowed it as an indulgence, wicked but necessary, to remind her that only true devotion to the Dark God could erase the sins of her past.

  Bael saw nothing of the sort in his dull reflection. Rather, he saw a man in a fine sapphire silk coat and white wool breeches staring back, his burnished golden hair falling into an intricate braid draped across his shoulder. He saw himself reflected back and again the jarring images Darielle had forced into his head roared to the fore.

  For just a moment, the toad boy was gone, replaced by someone of worth, of power. Yet Bael was also keenly aware of how quickly it would dissipate. He had to be incredibly careful, had to pay attention, listen without speaking, keep control of his emotions and his abilities.

  These were considerations that would have seemed mad mere weeks ago. Mere weeks ago he’d been the Toad. And then his dear sister had decided to pay a visit, and it seemed like he’d been paying for it ever since.

  Except Darielle had miscalculated.

  Rather than be cowed or frightened by her fury, Bael had only become stronger. More confident, more powerful. His innate ability in the Great Sphere had manifested itself again and again. It had always been there, but he’d been afraid to touch it, afraid to make a mistake, to anger the Dark God or worse, his Lord Father. But once the Archanium had woken inside him, he’d seen something in his Lord Father’s eyes he’d never beheld before.

  A burgeoning glimmer of respect.

  It was for that very reason that he had been summoned to his Lord Father’s tent this day. It was for that reason that his mother had opened her meager chest of belongings and pulled forth the coat and breeches, relics from his grandfather, she claimed. The clothes of a king. The king he was born to be.

  Of course such thoughts were heresy, but since Bael had burned that scryer to ash it seemed as though there were suddenly more dangerous heretics deserving of punishment. Especially now that his Lord Father had declared Bael a vessel of the Dark God’s justice.

  But as surprising as this sudden change of station felt, Bael couldn’t shake the feeling that his Lord Father had been preparing for it for some time. The way the man suddenly spoke to Bael of secret matters regarding the Commune, confessions of his own conversations with the Dark God, and invitations to important meetings.

  Bael found himself trying to understand exactly what it was Aleksei Drago had left behind. He suddenly found himself with a father. Not a loving father like Henry Drago, but a father still, rather than just a judge.

  And he found himself to be a son, rather than a disappointment.

  Yet while his life in the Commune continued to improve, his connection to Aleksei Drago had all but vanished. He could still feel the man, shockingly close now, but when he tried to cast his voice into the farm boy’s head he received only a painful echo and a powerful headache.

  Granny Jorna had been particularly useless, claiming it had something to do with forest spirits and powers that were beyond her. Bael was quickly coming to suspect that Granny Jorna was not the paragon of magical authority he’d once imagined.

  He was also beginning to wonder if she didn’t prefer him to be her sweet little toad boy, who would comfort a crone like her when no one else paid heed to her penny prophecies. Perhaps she was trying to sabotage his efforts to gain acceptance, to claim his rightful place.

  Or perhaps he had finally seen her reach the limits of her abilities. Perhaps he needed to align with greater powers now that he was being noticed.

  That was why this meeting was so important.

  His Lord Father was meeting with one of his most loyal acolytes. A man with considerable power; political and magical alike. Bael imagined he might learn a good deal from such a man, given the chance. Such a man might even be able to help him best this other player. Or at the very least help Bael decipher who the other player could be. Even that much would be a boon.

  His mother brought out a tarnished silver brush and began to sweep the dust from the sapphire silk. He stood there, jostled from his thoughts of potential power, wondering if this was how lords felt every day, having underlings tend to their needs and appearance. Somehow he couldn’t imagine it and yet he knew it was part of his birthright.

  And besides, while many lords woke up with this sort of thing, how many had a queen prepare them? He wondered if this was a first, a fallen queen preparing her son for a meeting in a hide tent, serving him rather than the other wa
y around.

  He found the whole experience surprisingly to his liking.

  “There we are.” Marra said softly, replacing the brush in her chest with great care and snapping it shut. “You look the proper prince indeed. As you should.”

  He turned away from the mirror and flashed her a proud smile, “Thank you, Mother. I would never have been able to appear in the Dark God’s temple in anything less, saving as a supplicant. You have made me feel a proper lord, a man worthy of the Dark God’s notice and honor.”

  He hugged her close and she gave a rare laugh. “I try to do you justice, Son. The justice you are due.” she whispered. “I am here for you. Always.”

  Bael felt tears well up in his eyes and did his best to banish them with limited success. His mother so rarely spoke of her feelings that when she did, he often found it so shocking that she was long out of sight before he had a chance to react. But with all this recent activity and attention, there was no frog pond to crawl back to, no slime to cry into. Now his tears dripped onto the carefully preserved silk.

  “The Dark God preserve us,” he muttered, “I’ve ruined your coat.”

  She shushed him gently, kissing his cheek and pulling a cloth from her chest, “Hardly ruined dear, just a trifle damp. I shed my fair share of tears back in my day as a princess, certainly as Queen. But my maids were brilliant at hiding it. No reason you can’t benefit from their experience.”

  Bael vacillated between smoldering and grateful as his mother cleaned first his coat, and then his face, of any telltale tears. On the one hand, he appreciated her aid and compassion. On the other, he feared that she would make him appear weak in face of his Lord Father. He would hate to bash it all to pieces on the appearance of a silly coat just as he’d gained Rafael’s favor.

  “Thank you, again.” he managed before stepping out of her tent. He heard her say something, but the sudden bustle of the Commune drowned it out. If it was important, he’d hear it later.

  At the moment, he had more pressing concerns.

  Bael walked with a confidence he believed in, rather than felt, all the way to his father’s cathedral. In truth it was just a larger hide tent, the hides uncured and stinking. Smoking herbs inside masked some of the smell, but by no means all. Bael had wondered time and time again why the Dark God’s children were at once the ones chosen and the ones to suffer.

  Shouldn’t someone of his station be seated in luxury, judging those less pious than himself? Yet his Lord Father discouraged anything that could be construed as luxury or vice, claiming that the Dark God demanded they be supplicants to His rule. Bael was beginning to see the cracks in that fractured logic.

  The moment he entered the cathedral of Volos, he heard a conversation stop short. A man was kneeling before his Lord Father. The man had golden hair like his own, just a bit darker and cut short. He was older, possibly in his fiftieth summer. And he looked to Bael’s father as though the man were the Dark God himself.

  “Bael.” his Lord Father intoned as he entered the room.

  The kneeling man turned and gasped.

  The sound had hardly escaped the man’s lips when a whiplash flickered through the Archanium, throwing the man to the ground, “You will show respect in the presence of your betters.” Rafael snarled.

  The sandy-haired man righted himself and wiped the blood from the split in his lip, “My apologies, Master. I will seek penance with the Dark God for my transgression. I was merely struck by the…family resemblance.”

  Another crack and then sandy-haired man landed flat on his back a good twenty paces from Rafael. “I don’t give twelve damns where you serve the Dark God. If you bring blasphemy like that into my house again, I will abide by His rule and crush you into oblivion. My blood flows through that boy’s veins. That is the only blood of import in this congregation.” The sandy-haired man cried out. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes!” the man screamed.

  Bael cringed. The sandy-haired man had excited his Lord Father’s temper. That, and the vanity of Bael’s coat and breeches, the mere suggestion of the House of Belgi, seemed to have put Rafael on edge. Bael wanted to tell the sandy-haired man to stop talking or else wake a slumbering Salamander.

  Finally, Rafael relaxed his grip on his faith and the sandy-haired man was allowed to breathe for a moment.

  “Bael,” Rafael said offhandedly, almost as though he’d forgotten Bael was even there, “this is Sammul. He is refuse, but he serves the Dark God.”

  Bael stepped forward, “You said I bore a family resemblance. Tell me what you meant. What family?”

  Sammul appeared mystified by the question. He glanced at Rafael, but the man nodded reluctantly. Sammul bowed his head to Bael, “Master Bael, I only meant that I noticed some resemblance to your cousins, Jonas Belgi, Prince of Ilyar, and Princess Tamara, Crown Princess and Heir to the Ilyari throne. I meant no disrespect. Only that you favor the Belgi line. ” He cleared his throat, “Your mother’s line.”

  Feeling his father’s hard black eyes on him, Bael took a deep breath and looked down at the man, “What were you saying before I interrupted?”

  Sammul glanced to Bael’s Lord Father. Receiving another nod, he went on at some length about the schedule and the plan. That for the last three decades he’d done everything in his power to render Ilyar’s prized Archanium Magi little more than sad puppets without any real talent or efficacy.

  The previous generations of Magi had either fled or had met sudden but unfortunate ends while in the Voralla. It was all at once shockingly clandestine and painfully obvious. Yet thus far the plan had proceeded unopposed and unnoticed.

  In the end, it didn’t seem as though it had been difficult to dismantle an age-old era of magic practitioners, so long as they were denied certain texts and were led by someone who refused to teach them anything of value. Sammul had played an instrumental role since he’d been a boy, and all at Rafael’s behest.

  This had been generations in the making. And that was why Bael was supposed to be at the meeting. Should anything happen to Rafael, Bael was to carry on the flame of fanaticism and keep the plan in motion.

  “What about the older Magi?” Bael asked after a moment of silence.

  Rafael frowned, “What do you mean? The heretics?”

  Bael nodded, “Sammul, what happened to the Magi who lived in the Voralla before you became High Magus? The ones who would have put holes through your methods and lies to your words? Where are they now?”

  Sammul shrugged, “We were able kill many of them, though by no means all. Some scattered to the winds, but by the time we took over the training, things had fallen into such disrepair that it no longer seemed to matter.

  “We introduced an adapted curriculum and no one challenged it. Those who might have objected had long since gone from the Voralla, so it was simple enough.

  “My acolytes, begging your pardon Master Bael, our acolytes ensure that strict rules are always enforced for the smallest infractions, in accordance with Master Rafael’s teachings.” He coughed, wiping blood once more from his mouth. “None of the old guard has returned since those early days, Master Bael. And the new accept the new rule. My rule. My personal acolytes ensure that the discipline is meted out…appropriately.”

  Bael narrowed his eyes, “So there is no one currently in the Voralla who can send dreams? No prophets? Nothing of that sort?”

  Sammul froze. Rafael frowned, looking into the face of his creature. And then a look of understanding crawled across his face.

  “Sammul, what aren’t you telling me?” Rafael asked. No, commanded.

  “There is one Magus in the Voralla who has a limited talent for prophecy.” Sammul allowed.

  “And why have you left it alive?” Rafael demanded. “The ramblings of a heathen can only serve to muddy the words of the Dark God.”

  “Because she could be useful.” Sammul snapped back. “You have a prophet for a daughter. How useful is she to you?
Have her words served the Dark God? Why have you left her alive?”

  Bael expected to see Sammul burn hot and fast. Instead his father took a step back and hung his head in a rare display of personal shame, “I suppose you have a point, whelk. What other transgressions have you obscured from the sight of your God?”

  “The Prince.” Sammul said grudgingly.

  “Jonas?” Rafael asked, leaning forward. “What of him?”

  Sammul managed a shrug, “I don’t know what to say, Master. He has access to the Great Sphere, but I don’t know where his talents lay. I keep trying to scry it out of him but something is protecting him. Almost as though he has the protection of a powerful Bonded, though I know that to be false.”

  Bael felt a flush of fear. He was establishing a bond with the same man, wasn’t he? Jonas was the crack in the ice that Sammul couldn’t predict. At the same time, the Prince was in close proximity to a Magus who was also a prophet. It made the worst kind of sense.

  Bael felt a now-familiar rage boil up within him, but he forced it down. He could hardly cause a scene right now, certainly not here. But if this other Magus was the Prince of Ilyar, if this other Magus was Jonas bloody Belgi, then Bael had a new enemy.

  No, rather, a very old enemy indeed.

  His own cousin, a man he’d never met. A man who already had everything. A prince who was trying to steal everything Bael had ever dreamed of right out from under him.

  A prince who just might succeed.

  Jonas sighed, running his hands through his chestnut hair and glancing at the woman sitting across from him. She was watching his face intently, her pale green eyes, flecked delicately in gold, lit by concern in the firelight of his study.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “I feel like a fool.”

  Aya smiled sympathetically, “You’re doing the best you can.”

  Jonas arched an eyebrow, “Really? My best is apparently a string of barely coherent riddles. I’m manipulating this poor man and I can’t even tell him why. And then half the time he’s talking to someone else. Answering someone else’s questions.”