Wynston’s lips thinned into a serious line. “Very well, M’lord.”
Ian descended the stairs and strode into his sitting room. It was unexpectedly empty. “Where is everyone?”
Wynston entered behind him and began fluffing the pillows. “After Captain Caleachey and Sir Lumist Tunney carried you upstairs, they left for the docks. I believe they are both seeking out some liquid refreshments. Lady Cuci Kindacaid expressed concern about the coming storm and returned home and Lord Glavinas Roth snuck into the wine cellar while we were preoccupied with you and I found him passed out on the stairs clutching two empty bottles of some rather fine Gyunwarian Red. Denton and a few of the larger guards lugged him into one of the guest rooms. He’s sleeping still, snoring like a sick valley ox.”
Ian shook his head. “Sadly, I’m not shocked by Glavinas’s behavior, but I am surprised by everyone else leaving so abruptly.”
Wynston cleared his throat. “I believe I may have encouraged their departures, M’lord.”
Ian shot him a quizzical look.
“I was not rude about it!” Wynston said in a huff. “I knew you would insist upon seeing the king, despite Sebastian’s orders for you to remain in bed so I simply told them you needed to rest before your royal visit and that you would call upon them tomorrow or at your earliest convenience.” Wynston finished fluffing the pillows. “And,” he continued after a brief pause, “truth be told, Gertrude refused to make dinner for everyone.”
“I see.” Ian tried not to laugh.
“She was in a mood.”
“She has more than one?”
Wynston coughed politely, but Ian thought he saw a hint of a smile crinkle the old man’s solemn face.
“Have you arranged for a coach?”
“Of course, M’lord.” A gentle chime sounded in the foyer. “That would be it.”
Ian collected his cloak, adjusted his sword and checked to make sure it was clear in his sheath.
“You look like a proper villain dressed like that,” Wynston said with a shake of his head. “A cravat would add elegance-”
“I’m serious! I will burn those damn things if you keep forcing them on me.” Ian started for the door. “Now don’t forget, old man, I put Tyran in charge of you while I’m gone.”
Wynston snorted. “At least the boy has been known to wear proper attire and occasionally listen to my advice!”
Ian pulled his hood up to hide his smile and stepped out the front doors. Rain lashed the dark world around him, slicing through the sky at a sharp angle. Lightning crackled, briefly turning night to day and the deep thunder that followed drowned out all other sounds. Ian ducked his head and rushed toward the waiting coach. Cold rain water seeped into his right boot when he sloshed through a deep puddle.
He made a mental note to have Wynston send them out to a cobbler in the morning.
Ian reached the coach and was about to climb inside when a sudden gust of wind slammed into him, causing him to slip on the metal step. Lurching sideways, he fell against his injured shoulder, banging it against the door. Pain shot down his arm and his hand went numb.
“Careful, M’lord,” the driver called down to him, “the steps get darn slippery on nights like this.”
Ian’s face burned, and he gave a quick nod. Straightening, he climbed cautiously into the coach and settled back against the cloth seat. Rain drummed loudly against the thin walls. He massaged some feeling back into his hand and then lowered his hood and wiped the moisture from his face.
At least the castle would be warm and dry. King Henrik’s private chambers had a huge stone fireplace which he kept permanently lit. He could already taste the sweet Dardynian wine the king would offer him and smell the pungent aroma of the king’s pipe smoke.
Ian inhaled. Someone else had been smoking the same spicy blend inside the coach recently.
“Driver,” he shouted above the rain and thunder. “Take me to the castle.”
From the thick, black shadows beside the Weatherall estate’s main door, Gylfalen watched the coach circle the drive and head for the street. He smiled to himself. His little trick with the wind had nearly knocked the Gyunwarian Ambassador over. He’d have to try harder next time.
He called out to the winds again and waited for them to gather. Of course, if Lord Ragget’s plan succeeded, there wouldn’t be a next time.
Chapter 56
The man licked his fat thumb and index finger as he waddled to the next candle in his opulent bedroom. He paused after pinching out the dancing flame and listened to his saliva sizzle. Velvety shadows deepened with each candle he extinguished, until only three remained, the three illuminating the scroll on his desk. Even from across the darkened room, he could see the blood-red wax seal and the all-too-familiar crest. He hesitated, his attention drawn away momentarily from the scroll to the dying plumes of smoke as they curled playfully in the air, rising toward the black void of the ceiling.
Like souls drifting toward heaven, he thought, morbidly.
He pulled his fingers away from the last candle and sucked on the burnt tips. The pain barely registered as his pale green eyes returned to the scroll. When he had first seen it, minutes before, resting innocently on his desk as if it had been there all along, he had realized it was much too bright in his private chamber. The room needed to be darker, much darker for this kind of message.
Now, with only three flaming dancers left gyrating rudely upon their wicks, he found himself unable to go on. He waited. For what he waited on, he couldn’t describe in words or even in thoughts, but somehow, he knew when the time was right, he’d walk across the room, break the wax seal, and read the scroll.
Seconds grew into minutes. A bead of melted wax eased down the tapered side of the nearest candle and pooled at the base, congealing. The time was almost at hand. He could sense it, as if it were somehow a tangible object.
Lightning snaked across the sky outside the window and for a split second the wax seal looked like a brilliant drop of spilt blood. Spurred forward by sudden clarity and the juxtaposition of stark whiteness and velvety blackness, he stalked across the room and snatched the scroll off his desk. Thunder shook the room and rattled the panes of glass as he broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. There were only three words on the page. No signature. A delicious rush of adrenalin spurted through his veins. Three simple words and yet with those three words the world would change. Forever.
Kill him tonight!
He closed his eyes and found he could still see the words like golden letters etched in flames on the backs of his eyelids. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly between his clenched teeth. Now that it was finally upon him, he wasn’t sure if he should continue, if he could continue. He fought against the momentary pangs of fear. It was only natural to be afraid of change.
Kill him tonight!
He opened his eyes and stared at the scroll again. The more times he reread those three words, the less daunting they became. He steeled his will. This was not a time for doubt. This was a time for action. He touched the edge of the scroll to the flames and watched as the fire devoured the parchment hungrily. By tomorrow morning, the people of Belyne and eventually the rest of the world would know the truth.
Well . . . at least the truth they manufactured for them.
Chapter 57
“C’mon boys, put yer damn backs into it!” Lipscombe shouted over the rumbling thunder and the pounding waves. “We have jus’ one more wagon t’unload.”
“I don’t understand why we keep movin’ these crates around,” one of the men grumbled. He pushed his rain-plastered, greasy hair back off his face. “Mesbone never made us work like this!”
Lipscombe strolled over to the group of men and glared at the speaker with his good eye. His left one stared at another man beside him. “Why don’tye shut yer trap ‘nd get back t’ work?!”
“I ain’t a damn pack mule, y’know!” the man continued. “First we put the crates in one warehouse then we move them
to another and now we’re switchin’ them-”
Lipscombe’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. Instinctively, the speaker took a step back and raised his hand as if to ward off an impending blow. Lipscombe’s backhanded swipe sliced the ends of the man’s extended fingers off and carved a narrow red line from his chest up to his left cheek. Blood sprayed in a graceful arch as the man clutched at his ruined throat with his wounded hand. He blinked once, his face a mask of confusion and fear, and then he fell over and died in a bloody pool of rainwater.
“Anyone else wanna speak up?” Lipscombe asked. He turned slowly, regarding each of the remaining men on the dock. A soupy blood-rain mixture dripped from the edge of his drawn sword. “Anyone else got a problem wit’ me?” Lightning split the sky as he stepped over the dead body. “Anyone else tired o’workin’ ‘nd wanna take th’ long nap here wit’ Johnnie?”
No one spoke.
“Good.” Lipscombe lowered his sword and pointed it at Johnnie. “Someone put him wit’ th’ others, ‘nd th’ rest o’ye, get back t’ work. Now!”
Chapter 58
Gylfalen watched as the damp winds collected outside Ambassador Ian Weatherall’s estate. With the added element of rain, the currents had more substance, but it also made them more difficult to control. Water was not opposed to wind magic, but it did not aid his cause either. He focused his concentration, found his center, and opened his murky eyes.
The winds followed his whispered command and whipped past him, slamming into the estate’s front doors with such force they flew open and nearly ripped free of their hinges. The damp gust spiraled around inside the foyer, extinguished the candles in the chandelier and left the entryway shrouded in darkness.
Gylfalen did not hesitate to admire his handiwork. Instead, he drew the shadows close around him and stepped inside. Though he could not achieve true invisibility, he could blur his outline enough so in most instances he could move short distances undetected.
The manservant, Wynston, and a handful of guards rushed toward the flapping doors and struggled to close them. Gylfalen smiled to himself as he followed the curve of the wall around the foyer’s edge and fled to the rear hallway unnoticed.
He encountered no one else as he worked his way toward the back of the estate and he didn’t slow until he reached the spiral staircase. He called upon the winds again and dove over the railing. Forty feet below, he landed on cat paws and quietly slipped away before the magical balance of the recoiling air could strike him.
Moments later, after traversing a short maze of corridors, Gylfalen found the antechamber outside the Weatherall vault. Heavy footfalls thundered overhead, and he hesitated only long enough to verify they were moving toward the front of the estate and not the rear. A wide smile split his face.
He had the vault all to himself.
Gylfalen pulled a long, thin gold key out of his vest pocket and twirled it around on his right index finger. It was the key Ragget had acquired from Cecily. Whether Ragget had stolen it from her or if she had given it to him freely didn’t matter, but in either case, the key’s dark twin would need to be created.
The wind mage stopped short of the towering vault door and studied the blue-tinged light radiating around the massive door frame. It would activate a magical wind designed to blow a potential thief away from the vault door if a special password was not uttered.
Gylfalen reached out and passed a hand through the light. The magic was still strong, pulsing vibrantly. He curled his fingers and pulled his hand back. The blue light arched outward as if it were a sinuous vine and not light at all. Stepping back, and tugging harder, more light pulled free from the vault until suddenly, with a low hiss, the light lost its shape and pooled in the palm of his hand.
He laughed softly as the magical, moldable air tickled his skin. It was a wonderful creation, great for constructing believable illusions or building small objects. He concentrated on the shimmering mass and the light dimmed and its shape changed. Within moments, a second key lay in his palm. As it solidified, it lost its blue glow and turned black. The dark twin. He held both keys up to the light. They were identical in shape and size, but when the magical dark key was inserted into the proper lock and in the correct sequence, its shape would alter once again to fit the secret combination required to line up the tumblers.
Gylfalen glanced at the vault door and found the three keyholes. That was another ingenious idea and one that usually impressed the vault owners. A common thief encountering three keyholes might try to pick all three locks, which in this case would be a grave mistake.
Gylfalen put the gold key in the center keyhole and the dark twin in the left one. The third keyhole was always designed to trigger the alarm, release a trap, or both. He turned the keys to the left, the gold one first, then the dark twin. The tricky part about the third keyhole was, even if a thief suspected the truth, he wouldn’t know which one of the three triggered the trap. If a thief opened the door improperly, he would be captured or killed immediately.
And there was no way of knowing which of the three would lead to certain disaster.
The vault unlocked.
With a grunt, Gylfalen pulled the heavy door open.
There was no way of knowing which of the three would lead to certain disaster unless you were the owner, Gylfalen amended, or unless you had installed the entire system, which he had done about two weeks earlier while posing as a locksmith. Lord Ian Weatherall had been so pleased with his meticulous work he’d paid him a handsome bonus. The Thief of Belyne laughed at the irony of the situation.
What a trusting, gullible fool!
Gylfalen strolled into the enormous vault and allowed himself a moment to examine the extensive collection of wealth inside. Dozens of locked chests were stacked neatly in one corner. Gilded portraits of Gyunwarian conquerors decorated the walls. Suits of armor and hundreds of statues, some made of marble, others carved out of some dark, rocklike substance he didn’t recognize, crowded the center of the floor. A few opened chests near the door momentarily caught his eye, a jeweled necklace spilled over the wooden lip of one, but despite all the treasure, Gylfalen’s attention was inexplicably drawn toward a gigantic skull of some unknown creature mounted on the back wall. Gauging from the size of the head alone, he guessed the rest of the monster would have more than filled the massive room a few times over. Its jaw bone was easily twice his height, and each of the twin rows of serrated teeth was larger than his dagger with a few of the larger fangs standing taller than a common sword. A thick ridge of bone hung over the large empty eye sockets, both of which faced forward in the skull, another sure sign if it weren’t already obvious the monster was once a mighty predator. A cold chill swept up Gylfalen’s spine. Had this creature once roamed Gyunwar? He backed away slowly. Who in the Weatherall family had slain it? He frowned. And how had they managed to get this mighty skull into Belyne and down into the vault?
Slightly unnerved, Gylfalen reached for his black handkerchief and tossed it onto a bare spot on the floor. While he waited for it to expand, he glanced warily at the skull again. It had belonged to a creature straight from a nightmare and it vaguely reminded him of the descriptions he’d heard of the fierce dragons which allegedly had once ruled the world.
But those had just been myths, legends used to scare little wizardly boys and girls into behaving.
Like the lethal Fallerian Sentinels . . . or the bloody Gyunwarian Peacewalkers and Deathstalkers . . . or the-
Gylfalen shuddered and returned his attention to the handkerchief, which now resembled a large, black, furry rug.
What he hadn’t seen was a lithe figure slipping out of the rug, ducking behind a row of statues, and racing toward the open vault door. In fact, Gylfalen was so unnerved by the massive skull he didn’t notice anything was wrong until the vault door banged shut.
His head snapped around at the noise and his dangerous eyes widened with alarm. Dammit! He was trapped inside the vault!
Chapter 59
Garett Navarro slammed the vault door closed and leaned against it to catch his breath. His stomach growled, and his eyes would not stop watering from the intense light. Shielding them with his hand, he looked around the unfamiliar chamber and frowned.
Delila, my love, where am I?
His frown deepened when she did not respond. Delila?
And then he remembered!
Lord Ragget had tricked him! The crossbow bolt had contained a trapped water elemental and when the two opposing creatures had touched, they had annihilated each other immediately.
Delila was . . . no more.
Garett sagged to the floor. The source of nearly all his magical power was gone. Without Delila, he was no better than any other simpleton capable of the most basic pyrotechnics. He raised his right hand, palm up and curled his fingers into the familiar claw.
Delila!
The liquid-like warmth he had come to rely upon did not fill his callused fingertips. She was truly gone. A strange emptiness filled him instead and he shivered at the thought of living without her inside him. They had been inseparable for . . . for . . .
Garett struggled to remember when she had joined with him. He had been young, perhaps twelve or thirteen. It was just after he had joined the Belyne Military Academy.
He heard a faint noise coming from inside the vault. It had to be his mysterious captor, the one who had shot him with the wind-dart. Garett rubbed the side of his neck. Even now, the poison still made his stomach sick.
Or perhaps it was the lack of food.
He hadn’t eaten for . . . days? Trapped within the grayness of the purgatory-like world, he had lost track of time. Night and day did not exist within the strange oubliette created inside the furry rug, but now he was free, he had escaped, and he was famished.
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