Return of the Paladin

by Layton Green

  “How do you know it’s not?”

  He clutched his head. “You would do this? To your own child?”

  Mala pressed the knife tighter, looked into his eyes, and made him a believer.

  As the old man reeled, she forced him to perform the rite that would release her from her death oath to the Alazashin. As far as she knew, the rite had never been used in the order’s long history.

  There was a first time for everything.

  After the rite was complete, Mala forced him to reveal his decision in front of the Zashiri, though she allowed him to keep the reason for her release unknown. She could tell it gravely wounded his pride, though his eyes kept slipping to her stomach, longing for a child that did not exist. A proper heir, born from a member of the Zashiri.

  It was a cruel trick, but the Grandfather was a cruel man.

  She had left the mountain that very day. The Grandfather kept his word, and she knew he would never reveal the truth for fear of losing face. For her part, she had gained a wealth of knowledge of the dark arts, a greater appreciation for her own life, and a vivid and rather revolting memory of a night of passion that had never actually occurred.

  The towns between the Barrier Coast and the Dragon’s Teeth were friendly to the Roma. At Talintock, the caravan was able to stable its horses and take shelter in a pair of inns near the center of town.

  Of course, the local people had no clue that a dhampyr stalked the caravan.

  After lunch, Mala approached Danior in the common room of the inn. “I’m leaving,” she said.

  Altruism alone did not spur her decision. The caravan would never be able to outdistance the dhampyr, and he would pick them off one by one, at his leisure.

  Danior’s face darkened. “You would leave us to face the dhampyr? I suppose the rumors about you are true.”

  When she was younger, the comment might have wounded her. “Stay the night,” she said, with quiet authority. “In the morning, continue your journey as before. The dhampyr will follow me.”

  “Why? And why would you do this?”

  She crossed her arms, her jewelry gently chiming. “Because it knows me.”

  Danior’s eyes widened. Though she refused to elaborate, she gave him a physical description of Nagiro, so they could spot him during the day. “Do as I say and barricade your rooms tonight. Post a guard as you travel for the next week, just in case. Remember to keep fire on hand at all times.”

  After gathering her belongings, she paid good coin for the caravan’s fastest horse and snuck out of town through an emergency escape tunnel that burrowed beneath the ten-foot wall. The town alderman was all too happy to help.

  Under a sinking tangerine sun, Mala took flight on the plains, praying she had bought herself enough time. She had left a note on her bed, taunting the dhampyr, hoping it would divert his attention from the caravan.

  Yet if he decided to drink from a few gypsies before he tracked her, that blood would be on her hands.

  So be it. It was a harsh world with harsh choices.

  At least that was what she told herself.

  Spurring the horse into a gallop, dark hair flying in the wind, she considered the dhampyr’s presence on the Barrier Coast.

  Why had he come? What did he want?

  She thought she might know.

  The Grandfather would never break his oath that afforded Mala his protection until the fictional child’s eighteenth birthday. Of that she was sure. Once that day came, not too many years in the future—that was something she would address if the Grandfather lived that long.

  Why, then, the presence of his best assassin?

  Magelasher. It was the only conclusion she could draw. Her suspicion was that the weapon contained a tracking device. Perhaps the cloaking power of the sorcerer king had interrupted the signal. The retrieval of the weapon must have alerted the order somehow.

  The thought stopped her cold. She reined in her horse and gave it water while she inspected the cat o’ nine tails. A typical weapon of this sort possessed a two-foot long handle an inch in diameter. Nine strands of tightly-braided cotton or leather cord typically extended from the hilt, whip-like thongs whose lashes caused intense pain.

  Magelasher was similar in size and appearance, but had a black-and-red bloodstone hilt that gave it extra heft. Instead of cotton or leather, ultra-thin black wires of unknown material formed the thongs, tipped by azantite barbs with enough magically-enhanced power to pierce the shield of a majitsu.

  She ran her hands over the weapon. Her eyes narrowed as they moved to the worn leather wrapping the bottom half of the hilt. After checking her spyglass to ensure the dhampyr was not in sight, she unraveled the leather, cutting into the adhesive with her dagger. It took some time, but she managed to remove it all, exposing more of the bloodstone.

  As well as a tiny crystal embedded into the underside of the hilt.

  Mala used her dagger to pry it out, recognizing a common device of the Alazashin. Tracking crystals were pieces of a larger crystal, ensorcelled by a geomancer to connect the pieces of the stones over long distances.

  Mala started to grind the crystal to dust with the hilt of her sword, then gave a thin smile and carried it to a nearby stream. She set the crystal adrift on a small wooden barge and wished it a very long journey.

  Breathing a little easier, she drank from the stream and spurred her horse forward. The dhampyr did not know her destination. If she were lucky, he would lose the trail. She checked the spyglass until night fell with no sign of her pursuer, ate a handful of dried beef and coffee beans, and kept moving.

  The dhampyr did not know her ultimate destination and, without the aid of the tracking device, might lose interest in the chase. She rode swiftly southeast, still heading for the pass. Once she cleared the southern edge of the Dragon’s Teeth, she had a long ride through the desert, many days of scrounging for water and cactus fruit, before she reached the treacherous, wide-open vistas of the plains.

  Her reprieve didn’t even last until the afternoon. During the horse’s midday rest, an hour before the Shoehorn pass, Mala raised the spyglass and glimpsed the dhampyr riding a horse in the distance. He was close enough that she could recognize the untamed dark hair and cold, Oriental, flat-faced features of Nagiro.

  By the Queen! How had he found her so quickly?

  At this rate, she wouldn’t last the night. Once darkness fell, the dhampyr would change form and quickly outpace her. He would have to rest during the day, but she would never make it to the next dawn.

  After a moment of panic, she reached into her Pouch of Possession and withdrew a map of the Ninth Protectorate. The atlas contained a number of villages, trading outposts, and other locations of interest she had discovered on her travels. Yet what could help against a dhampyr?

  As her hopes began to dim, she focused on a place she had visited only once, but which had seared into her memory. A place of great power, known as the Crater of the Snow Moon. It was a land of stark and exquisite beauty, sacred to the nearby tribes for millennia untold. No one lived permanently in the valley except for a shaman rumored to understand how to harness the power intrinsic to the red and cracked earth. Though Mala had met him once, she did not know if he could help—or if he would. But it might be her only chance.

  She thought the valley could be reached by nightfall. If darkness came too soon or the horse gave out or the shaman refused to help, then the dhampyr would find her, and she would likely die.

  Mala lowered the spyglass and affixed Magelasher to her belt. With a snarl of anger at feeling so helpless, she flattened on her horse and rode for her life.

  -12-

  Adaira leaned forward to clasp her hands atop the blue quartz table. “Let me go with you.”

  Behind her, a line of arcing glow orbs illuminated the bend in the Great River. Lush vegetation surrounded the table for two in the city’s most renowned pleasure garden.

  Val enfolded her hands in his own. “I’m not the one who made the
decision.”

  “My father doesn’t control me.”

  He adjusted the cuff of his high-collared white shirt. “No, but why anger him? He believes I should do this myself. I agree. We’ve talked about this, Adaira.”

  “I just . . .” She caressed the inside of his palm with her finger, frustration swimming in her turquoise eyes.

  “Don’t want to miss out on an adventure?”

  She removed her hands and cupped a tabletop glow bauble. It changed color to match her eyes when she touched it. “I can accept that for now. I need to finish my studies.”

  “Then what?”

  She pressed her lips together and, after a moment, said, “No one knows much about Undertown. It’s never been mapped or studied. Why doesn’t my father just send for Zagath?”

  “I’m not aware of a line of diplomatic communication with the sewer.”

  “My father has ways,” she muttered.

  “I gather the journey itself is part of the plan to let me prove my worth to the Congregation.”

  “As if you haven’t already,” she said sharply. “We almost gave our lives in pursuit of Tobar.”

  “Which secured my release from wizard prison, and kept you out of it. Heavy lays the crown, Adaira.”

  His comment caused her to stare off into a hedge of vivid tropical flowers, artfully entwined with streaks of Spanish moss. A pattern too dazzlingly intricate to be anything other than the work of a floramancer.

  The intoxicating scent of the blooms, combined with her perfume, made him light-headed. He reached for her hands again. “I’ll have a guide,” he said gently. “Someone who’s dealt with Zagath before.

  “I thought it was a solo adventure.”

  “Your father wants me to be the only wizard. He never said I couldn’t use help.”

  “Who are you taking?”

  “Sinias Slegin. Though he doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Lovely,” she muttered. “Another thief.”

  He didn’t quite understand her concern. Though dangerous, a guided trip to Undertown should not elicit this kind of response.

  As if responding to his unspoken question, she fingered her black choker and glanced around the pleasure garden, probing for unseen eyes. “I don’t trust him,” she said finally.

  “What do you mean?” Val asked, knowing she meant her father and not Sinias. He had to tread carefully here. Both in case someone was watching, and because familial relationships were delicate things.

  “It’s not that I think he means you harm. On the contrary, I think he genuinely respects you, and wants you by his side. But he always has an agenda and is not exactly known for . . . let me just say I believe he’d put the interests of the Realm above yours.”

  “Welcome to politics,” Val said wryly, though he squeezed her hands, moved by her concern. As she bit her lip, he admired the pale curve of her neck, revealed by a diamond circlet that swept back her hair. The worst part of his upcoming journey was leaving Adaira behind. He told her as much, and she reached up to cup his face.

  “Val, I’m a little afraid of admitting this, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  Her words stirred something inside him that he was unused to feeling. Something much deeper than simple attraction. As their gazes met in the soft light of the glow bauble, he felt intoxicated by the milky smoothness of her skin and the hidden depths in her turquoise eyes, and in that moment, he realized things had changed.

  Changed very much indeed.

  He traced her lips with a finger. “You’re not falling alone.”

  The next morning, Val strode through the front entrance of the Goblin Market, head high and eyes sweeping the crowd. On this occasion, he did not desire to blend, so as to avoid the grasping hands of pickpockets.

  He wanted people to clear the way.

  And part for him they did. From the moment he passed through the creaking wooden gate marking the entrance of the city’s largest bazaar, a dizzying collection of stalls and smells, grimy tents and babbling vendors, the bystanders in his path hurried to give way to the wizard with the azantite-tipped staff striding purposefully into their midst.

  I’m a spirit mage now. An emissary from the Chief Thaumaturge of the Congregation, on a mission for the Realm.

  Following in my father’s footsteps.

  Despite his confidence, the swarms of buyers and the patchwork of canvas roofs hovering over the labyrinth of narrow lanes, combined with the thick clouds of incense from the braziers, felt smothering. Val was not naïve enough to believe that all of the cutpurses were dissuaded by his appearance. With a grimace, he pushed away a growing sense of claustrophobia, trying not to breathe in the nauseating aroma of animal dung and roasting meat and exotic oils that swirled in the air like a noxious cloud. Gripping his staff, he burrowed into the heart of the market, moving largely on memory. Yet he quickly grew lost, and sensed the position of the lanes had shifted since his last visit. Perhaps they changed on a daily basis. He hated to appear vulnerable but was forced to ask directions from some of the vendors, an unsavory collection of lizard men and ferret-faced humans and short, wart-covered tuskers.

  Relief flooded through him when he finally left the chaos of the market behind and stepped into a familiar beige yurt. Yet the calm interior felt more sinister than welcoming, as if the rest of the market dared not intrude.

  A pungent and unsettling aroma, tropical flowers soaking in grease, caused his stomach to lurch. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the insipid yellow light leeching out of a glow orb suspended from the apex of the yurt.

  “I know you, yesss?”

  A lithe figure in a silky black robe was watching Val from the rear of the enclosure, legs crossed beneath him. Though Val knew what to expect, the sight of the flat nose and manicured pincers, the patterned scales and slender tail coiled behind the serpentus, still unnerved him.

  “I was here once before,” Val said. “With a few friends of mine. We purchased a Shadow Veil from you.”

  The slit-orbed, jaundiced eyes of Sinias Slegin narrowed even further, followed by a flash of recognition and then distaste. He made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a purr. “Ah, yesss. I remember. You came with the daughter of Alissstair.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What isss it that you now ssseek?”

  The flap to the yurt must have magical properties, Val thought, because not the faintest sound from outside could be heard.

  “Guidance.”

  “Ah.” The forked tongue of the serpentus flickered. “The most precious commodity of all.”

  “Not that type of guidance,” Val said. “Actual guidance.”

  “I do not appreciate sssubterfuge.”

  Val spread his hands. “None was intended. Are you aware of a mermerus in Undertown called Zagath?”

  “Of courssse.”

  “Do you know how to reach him?”

  “There isss only one way.”

  “Which is?”

  “A persssonal audience in Undertown.”

  Val nodded. He had figured as much. On any world, kings of the criminal underworld tended not to venture far from their lairs.

  “You wisssh a guide procured?”

  “No. I wish you to guide me.”

  The serpentus gave a prolonged hiss before he spoke. “I choossse when I leave my home, human. Not you. And I certainly do not ssserve as a tour guide, not even for apprentice wizardsss.”

  Val gave a thin smile, then reached for his magic and caused a spark of Spirit Fire to play across his fingertips. “An apprentice no longer, Sinias. I’m a full mage now. A spirit mage.”

  The serpentus gave a supple roll of his neck that Val couldn’t interpret. “Isss it, then? Very well. I do not often receive requesssts from membersss of the Congregation. Yet it doesss not change my reply.”

  “I’m not requesting a favor. I’ll pay well, and in advance.”

  “For an entire day of my ssservice? With sssuch danger?” Hi
s tongue flicked. “Expensssive.”

  “I can offer you one hundred gold pieces.”

  “Enough for a different guide, perhapsss.”

  Val frowned. “Two hundred, then.”

  “One hundred platinum, wizard.”

  Val laughed and shook his head. “Robbery, Sinias. And you know it.”

  “Perhapsss a handful of other guidesss could lead you through Undertown, but no other can asssure an audience with Zagath. We have done busssinesss, he and I.”

  Val considered the offer. Each platinum piece equaled five gold coins, and his treasure chest was running dangerously low. A very hefty sum—far too hefty for the service on offer. Still, Val did not calculate on present value alone. If he completed his mission and one day joined Lord Alistair, rising to the very top of the wizard food chain, then a hundred platinum pieces would be a pittance.

  “Three hundred gold, a meeting with Zagath, and guidance there and back,” he said. “Final offer.”

  The tongue of the serpentus flicked greedily. After a seated bow of acceptance, he turned to the side, exposing a burn scar warping the scales on the left side of his face. He called out in a string of hisses with varying pitch. A female voice responded in the same language from behind a curtain in a corner of the yurt.

  After their conversation, the serpentus said to Val, “A pleasssure doing busssinesss. When do you wish to leave?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  Sinias conversed with his unseen assistant again. “We will leave tomorrow at dawn. From here.”

  “Dawn?”

  “I have businesss to conduct, yesss? The daylight hoursss are more expendable.”

  “Fair enough. There’s just one more thing.”

  “Yesss?”

  “I came alone today, but I’m acting under the aegis of Lord Alistair. Not only that, but my visit to Zagath is of utmost importance to the Congregation. Should anything . . . untoward . . . happen to me in Undertown, or our bargain dishonored, it will not go unnoticed.”

  Sinias’s shrewd eyes narrowed almost to a close.