Return of the Paladin

by Layton Green

  “No?”

  “I am offering you your life.”

  Rough laughter tumbled out of the old man’s mouth, shaking his time-ravaged frame like a child’s ragged doll. “You dare? We who have agents in every city on Urfe, who can strike in any location at any moment? You dare? We both know your manifestation is dependent on the portals and that you cannot harm—”

  A patch of darkness coalesced in Lord Alistair’s hands, flickering with the raw energy of Spirit Fire. When he turned, reaching out with both hands, black lightning lanced from his fingertips into two of the iron pillars. Instead of dissolving, they exploded into a million pieces, piercing the assassins in the path of the deadly shards.

  Azantite-tipped arrows flew across the cavern. Val cringed as the arrows ripped straight through his and Lord Alistair’s illusory images and struck the walls or those assassins unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. The Alazashin nearest Val snarled and tried to knife him in the back. Val forced himself to stay calm as the knife slashed through his insubstantial form.

  Chaos reigned until Lord Alistair magically projected his voice above the din and caused everyone to cease moving. “Spirit mages built this portal, you fools, we who search the heavens and bring the world of the unseen to life. Behold, King of the Alazashin,” he said, sweeping his hand across the rubble-strewn room filled with corpses, “a sliver of my power. I should kill you for the murder of our acolytes, but instead, I will let you barter for your life. I ask a final time: where is the Coffer?”

  The old man stood, quivering with fury. A slew of his subjects lay dead or dying in the throne room, filling the cavern with their moans. “I know not how this is possible, but no matter. You believe a threat on my life is enough to break our code? We are legion, spiritmancer. I am one man, old and weary, but thousands await my command, and the chance to take my place. Destroy me if you will, destroy this entire mountain, and we will rebuild and hunt your kind to the ends of the earth, to the very end of time.”

  “Such melodrama,” Lord Alistair mocked. “Please, accept my invitation to visit New Victoria at any time. I think your thieves and murderers would enjoy the outcome of that encounter even less than the travesty they have witnessed here today.” He raised a hand, palm up. “Again, I am not here to destroy you. But I will have my answer.”

  The old man made a slight movement, a twist of his wrist, and a cone of brown light shot out from a ring that had appeared on his finger during the melee. The light enveloped the silver portal behind the Throne of Daggers and melted it into a puddle of dirty liquid that dripped through the grate.

  “You think we are defenseless against wizards?” the old man inquired softly. He laid his arm across his lap, displaying the azantite bracelet. “Consider the accord terminated.”

  “Agreed. Though if you believe the destruction of the portal will stop me from leaving or returning as I wish,” Lord Alistair’s lips curled, “you understand even less than I thought. From this moment forward, be warned the Alazashin are not welcome in the Realm, upon penalty of death. I have no wish to engage in an unnecessary war, so I will ask one last time. Where is the Coffer?”

  The old man tightened as if ready to engage Lord Alistair in a fight, and Val wondered at the power of his ring, the azantite gauntlet, and whatever other magical items he possessed. Still, he would not bet against Lord Alistair, especially when not even present in corporeal form and seemingly impervious to harm. How had he used Spirit Fire?

  “If a client had engaged us to steal the Coffer,” the old man rasped, sinking back onto the throne, “we would let you and your whelp test the full might of Alazashin Mountain, and see how long your power would last.” After letting his statement sink in, he said, “As it stands, I can tell you that no one under my authority took possession. I do not know who took the Coffer or where it is. That is the truth, sworn upon my oath as Alazashin, and my final word on the matter.”

  Val cringed, waiting for an explosion from Lord Alistair, but instead the Chief Thaumaturge bore a satisfied, if disappointed, expression. “So be it. I will not insult your honor by inquiring further. Though if our students are ever again troubled by one of your kind, I will return myself, in a much fouler mood.”

  The old man’s eyes sparked with a lifetime of power and secret knowledge. “And next time, I will ensure you have a proper greeting.”

  Lord Alistair didn’t bother responding. Instead he stepped backward, nodding at Val to do the same. The mountain disappeared as they returned through the portal.

  Once Val emerged in the room beneath the Sanctum, he blinked, trying to orient himself. He didn’t know whether they had traveled in their mind or through spirit or both, but one thing was sure: his definition of reality was changing by the day.

  “You heard?” Lord Alistair asked, striding for the door. Everyone else fell into step behind him, the hulking form of Kjeld bringing up the rear, looking over his shoulder at the Alazashin portal as if ensuring the enemy was not going to pour through.

  “All of it,” Kalyn Tern responded. “I thought your hand well played.”

  Lord Alistair preened at the compliment.

  “A masterful stroke indeed,” Braden Shankstone said, “though it still begs the question of who stole the Coffer.”

  “The Alazashin are hardly the only thieves of note on Urfe. The outcome is disappointing, but we shall widen the search.”

  “You believe him?” Val asked, daring to comment. Though he knew his place at the moment was to watch and listen, he also knew one did not get ahead in life by sitting in the corner. “A professional assassin?”

  “There are two things sacred to the Alazashin, and two alone,” Kalyn said, surprising him by not pouring venom into her words. “The confidentiality of their missions, and their oath to the Alazashin.”

  Lord Alistair knew he wouldn’t get a name out of the old man. The trip hadn’t been made to gather information, though the knowledge was a bonus.

  The trip was a lesson: assault a Congregation wizard, even one in training, at your peril.

  Professor Azara was the only person who did not look pleased by the outcome. “Are you sure it was wise,” she said in her haughty and hyper-cultured voice, “to anger the Grandfather so? Your actions might destroy relations with the Alazashin for decades.”

  “The Realm has tolerated these assassins inside our borders for too long, unafraid to poke the hornet’s nest. I, too, wish for peace and prosperity in a kind and gentle world. But reality dictates otherwise.”

  “A statement had to be made,” Braden said.

  “The nature of man ensures that an empire which rests on its laurels,” Lord Alistair continued, “no matter how beautiful its streets or well-structured its policies, is an empire doomed to fall. To stay static is to wither and die. For this reason, at the next meeting of the Conclave, I will declare a new age upon the Realm, one led by the unequalled might and enlightenment of the Congregation of New Victoria. An age in which we will spread our prosperity and values to the rest of the world.”

  Lord Alistair’s chin lifted high as his voice rang throughout the corridor. “An age, my friends, of expansion.”

  As they exited the Sanctum, Lord Alistair asked Val to accompany him to his study, earning yet another resentful glance from Braden. When they had returned to the Chief Thaumaturge’s highest tower, glasses of granth in hand, the city a child’s bauble beneath them, Lord Alistair folded his hands in his lap. “You’re wondering why I have supplanted Braden so quickly. One might even say cruelly.”

  Val had been thinking about just that; he and Lord Alistair had the same instincts. In truth, Val assumed there was a good reason for his callous handling of Braden. The Chief Thaumaturge was too smart for petty politics.

  After a careful sip of granth, Lord Alistair said, “Leadership is not fatherhood, or even friendship. There is no place for sentimentality. I will talk to Braden, but he is learning a valuable lesson. That a ruler must exercise, above all, expe
diency. Power. Wisdom and empathy and charity are also important traits—unless one desires to rule a hell dimension—but the Realm has too easily forgotten its past, become too inured to the illusion of peace. Braden has never known the horrors of war or the threat of an invasion. Before we expand our borders, we must use the annoyance of the Revolution to strengthen the will of our populace. Remind them of what they have to lose.”

  “Garbind’s murder helped that cause,” Val said. “If the Revolution can reach an elder mage, they can get to anyone.”

  “Yes. Indeed. I’m glad you understand. Kjeld understands, too. He has traveled Urfe under the aegis of the Queen, with experience in innumerable conflicts. And Kalyn and Professor Azara are a century older than Braden. They remember war, though Professor Azara has philosophical differences that will . . . be addressed.” He stroked his chin with a finger bearing a ring of intertwined onyx and white gold. “Braden’s life has been one of privilege. Before he can progress, he must feel the sting of disappointment. He needs to understand that you will one day be a stronger mage than he, and that no one’s position by my side is assured.”

  Lord Alistair’s pointed stare told Val that he was also included in that statement. Val leaned back in his seat, expression unchanging. He understood the nature of the game, and it was nothing new. Not to this or any other world.

  Power.

  It was always about power.

  Lord Alistair opened a palm. “Understood?”

  “Perfectly,” Val replied, wondering if the entire speech about Braden hadn’t been meant for him.

  Lord Alistair reached for his granth. “It’s time to move forward with the search for the Coffer.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “To be honest, I’m surprised the Alazashin were not involved. I did not expect them to divulge their client, but there are other ways to glean information. I’ll send political emissaries to other kingdoms. I still believe a thief was hired for the job, and that is where you should focus. There will have been talk. Rumors. Perhaps bids for service in certain channels. To catch a thief, we must talk to another of their ilk. To the King of Thieves.”

  Val recalled a memory of a canvas yurt in the Goblin Market reeking of perfumed oil and incense, of a feeble glow orb illuminating a man in the shadows with patterned leathery skin and a slender tail coiled behind him. “Sinias Slegin,” Val guessed, remembering the name of the serpentus, or snake-man, who many said was the most powerful figure in the New Victoria underworld.

  “Not Sinias, though you raise a good point. Let’s consult him. His guidance might be beneficial with the one I seek. Are you familiar with Undertown?”

  Val had heard rumor of a section of New Victoria that lay below ground level, a ruined labyrinth of sewers, forgotten watery channels, and buildings that had long ago sunk into the swamp, reclaimed by nature and creatures unknown. “I know of it.”

  “A mermerus called Zagath lives in Undertown. Aboveground, he is called the King of Thieves. Due to the nature of Undertown, he is able to exert his influence in every part of the city where the sewers and swamp channels touch the surface. If the rumors are true—the Congregation does not consort with such types, as long as they stay underfoot—he has amassed an immense fortune and his standing in the underworld exceeds even that of Sinias.”

  “A mermerus?”

  “Forgive me. Sometimes I forget your origins. A mermerus is a merman, one who is half human and half kethropi. An advantage, of course, to surviving in those watery depths.”

  “Should I consult an aquamancer?”

  “Mermen cannot live underwater, and Undertown is not wholly submerged. I could send an elder aquamancer with you, but then the quest and the resulting political capital would not belong to you, would they?”

  Lord Alistair was always scheming, Val realized. Always playing the game.

  He realized something else, as well: that for all of Lord Alistair’s talk of a successor, Val was still an expendable asset, full of promise but unproven, in a way that an elder aquamancer was not.

  “Agreed,” he said. “And understood.”

  “Excellent.” Lord Alistair clapped his hands and rose. “I suggest leaving in the morning.”

  After the Congregation mages left Alazashin Mountain, the Grandfather called for servants to remove the remains of the shattered pillars, ordered the dead collected, sent the injured to the infirmary, and authorized the use of healing salves.

  Once a measure of order had been restored, he called for his closest advisers. Not for many moons had anyone dared attack the Alazashin in their home, and the mages he had hired to inspect the spirit portals had assured him the illusory appearances they facilitated could do no harm.

  Were the mages lying? Or had Lord Alistair somehow transcended the magic of the portals?

  It had also shocked the Grandfather that Lord Alistair had broken an accord that had stood for centuries, and the old man wondered whether the more reasonable voices of the Congregation had been silenced in recent years.

  They say there is no honor among thieves, but the old man knew that ambitious rulers were the most accomplished thieves of all. They stole kingdoms, precious resources, the hearts and minds of generations.

  As the present members of the Zashiri, twelve of the world’s deadliest assassins who would give their life at the Grandfather’s command, knelt in front of the Throne of Daggers, he felt the long and bloody history of the mountain, the storied legacy of his order, thrumming in his bones. The Alazashin had influenced world events for two millennia, deposing kings and emperors with the prick of a poisoned blade long before the Congregation had held its first Conclave.

  He pushed to his feet at the foot of the throne, quivering with barely restrained fury, the hundred and fifty years of his battle-hardened flesh held together by elixirs and force of will. “We know we have not the strength to oppose the Congregation in battle. Yet open conflict has never been our weapon. Our payment for this incursion, this desecration of our home, will be taken from the intruders a piece of flesh at a time, cut by cut, sliver by sliver. Over the years, the decades, or even the centuries, as need be.” The Grandfather paused to catch his breath, inhaling the smell of old stone steeped in sandalsmoke that wafted through the cavern from the braziers. “Has there been word?”

  A tall woman with charcoal skin and the unblinking eyes of a predator held up a bauble swirling with blue fog. “Not from Ferala, Grandfather. But Nagiro draws closer.” The woman spat. “He has the heretic in his sight.”

  The Grandfather had a thousand and more assassins at his command, but the best of the best were the twelve Zashiri. The two missing members, twins who had climbed Alazashin Mountain in their adolescence, legends in their own time, had been sent out on missions.

  Long ago, a tracking crystal had been implanted in the hilt of Magelasher, a priceless weapon crafted for another Grandfather by one of Urfe’s greatest relicmancers. When Magelasher reappeared in the Kingdom of the Mayans, the magic of the tracking device no longer interrupted by the powerful cloaking ward surrounding the sorcerer king’s pyramid, the Grandfather had sent Nagiro, the younger of the twins, in pursuit. The cat o’ nine tails had traveled to Freetown, and a spy reported that Mala of the Kalev clan held possession. This pleased the Grandfather greatly, since he had once sworn an oath not to pursue her—the only living person who had been offered a place in the Zashiri and refused. The Grandfather had to live with the consequences of the bargain he had struck. For a time, it had almost cost him his grip on power.

  Yet he had made no promise not to pursue the weapon. Mala would fight Nagiro when he came to take it, and the gypsy adventuress would die. The thought caused the old man a moment of grief, for he had once loved her. Yet mostly he was glad.

  The older of the twins, Ferala, had a more difficult task. No tracking device existed on the Coffer of Devla. Stolen by an unknown entity, the future of the mysterious artifact remained in limbo.

  Perhaps the
Alazashin could not field an army with the might to confront Lord Alistair. But the Grandfather could find and steal that which the arrogant mage desired most, and either keep it for the Alazashin’s own defenses, or sell it to the enemies of the Chief Thaumaturge. No one understood the power of leverage better than the Alazashin.

  Lord Alistair desired the Coffer?

  Then let the race begin.

  -9-

  At first, Caleb thought the two brown shapes moving swiftly down the steep hillside were some type of animal, perhaps an antelope or a mountain goat. It seemed like strange behavior, but what did he know about wildlife? The Brewer was riding a few yards ahead, his gaze focused on the waves crashing against the rocky shore on their right.

  “Bruce,” Caleb said, startling the older man. The sun had begun to set on the first day of their journey, and Caleb had not uttered a word all day.

  “Yeah, pal?”

  Caleb pointed towards the line of golden-brown peaks to the east, the foothills of the snowcapped Dragon’s Teeth. “What do you think those things moving towards us are?”

  The Brewer studied the hillside for a moment, frowned, and took out his spyglass. After taking a moment to focus, he scanned the hills and sucked in a breath. “Those are mountain trolls. They have excellent vision, and I think they’ve already seen us.”

  “Mountain trolls? What do we do?”

  “We ride, kid. As fast and as far as we can.”

  The Brewer flicked his reins and urged his dappled white mare into a gallop. Caleb had no choice but to follow, adrenaline gushing into his veins, cool air searing his face as his cloak flapped around him. Gripping the saddle with one hand, he turned and saw the shapes growing closer, materializing into a pair of long, angular humanoids atop muscular steeds. The distance rendered their size hard to judge.

  Caleb shouted as they rode. “Can we outrun them?”