He looked at the rogues.
“How many of them have guild-houses?” he asked.
Annia and Mel looked at each other.
“Well, all of the cities have one, of course,” Annia said. “On top of those ten, there are, what, five more in the largest towns?”
“Six,” Mel corrected her. “Everyone seems to forget Sordeck for some reason.”
Annia grimaced.
“Sordeck. Right. Silly little town. Why we ever built a chapter of the guild there in the first place is beyond me. Waste of resources if you ask me.”
“Because it's right on the very edge of the empires' borders, that's why,” Mel replied. “According to the history that I've read, it was constructed to act as a sort of early warning system in case of invasion. The deep road has one branch there that leads up to the surface. Well, it used to, a thousand years ago. I have no idea if it still does or if it was blocked by earthquakes and rock slides over time.”
“I can't believe that our ancestors actually believed that humans would invade our realm,” Annia said, shaking her head. “What kind of a supply line would they have had to maintain to descend hundreds of miles beneath the earth? Gods, the old dwarves were paranoid back then.”
“An overabundance of caution is more likely,” Larin told them. “While we have more often been allies than enemies, humans and dwarves have clashed from time to time. And of course, the human race was allied with the elves as well, once upon a time. That caused tensions between us, naturally.”
“Are we not past that by now?” Mel asked with a touch of exasperation. “Dwarves and elves both serve the Light, each in our own way. Why our ancestors clashed is lost to history. Each side has blamed the other for that animosity, but I doubt that we'll ever know the truth. Let it go, I say.”
Larin smiled at her statement.
“I agree with you,” he said. “Whatever turned our races against each other is long passed. And we dwarves aren't the power in the world that we once were. I would like to meet with some humans, though. Some day. Especially their mages. It could be a fascinating exchange of knowledge.”
Annia stared at him with surprise.
“Is that likely?” she asked. “I know that the king had dealings with them back when the humans were at war with the dragons and their queen, but that was resolved. Wasn't it?”
“It was. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't stay in touch. I spoke with Shandon about this briefly,” Larin told her. “And he seems to be amenable to the idea, once we sort things out with his son. Unfortunately, that could take some time, so I suppose that I'll have to put off my meeting with my human counterparts until then. A pity.”
He shifted in his seat and smoothed out his robe.
“Getting back to what we were discussing,” he continued. “I was thinking that, if the various guild-houses agree, we might assign a mage to each one of them, temporarily of course, to keep an eye out for magical spying or daemons or whatever else Cindra might have up her sleeve. It wouldn't do to think that, just because we stopped her here, she's given up. That is not in her nature.”
“A mage at every guild-house,” Annia muttered thoughtfully. “Hmm. That's not a bad idea, Larin. Of course, we'd have to contact the master of each house, to explain what the situation is and to get their permissions, but I don't see that as a problem. We're a pragmatic lot, we rogues, and if it means protecting ourselves and our people, I don't think that any of my fellow masters would object.”
“But such a request would have to have my father's weight behind it,” Mel told them. “If we could tell the masters that Hallic Barston approved of it, that should convince those who might be somewhat reluctant to work with mages.”
“Good idea,” Larin said. “Once we get back to Kingstone, I will mention it to him.”
“Speaking of which, when will you be heading back?” Annia asked them. “I assume that you'll be...” she made a flapping gesture with her hands and Larin winced.
“Zapping back to the capital?” she finished.
“Mages don't zap,” Mel told her with a broad grin at Larin. “But I suppose we will. Do you need to rest up a bit before we go?” she asked the mage. “You've been working steadily since we got here.”
The mage nodded.
“If it isn't too much trouble, I should try to get a few hours of sleep. My energy levels are rather low and Gating is quite a drain on the system. Is there a free bed somewhere that I could use?”
The master sprang to her feet.
“Of course, my friend,” she exclaimed. “Please forgive me for prattling on when you should be resting. Come with me and I'll show you to one of our guest rooms. And I'll have food brought to you as well. You really need to eat something more substantial than a few pastries if you're to regain your strength.”
“I don't want you to go to any trouble,” Hallic protested.
“It's no trouble at all. This way.”
Mel watched the two of them leave the room, smiling at Annia's sudden display of concern for the mage.
She's become fond of him, she mused. So have I, now that I think about it. Larin and his kind may come to be the deciding factor in this conflict with the rebel prince. Amazing. Who could have predicted such a thing? But I'm glad. He's a good person and he cares about the empire. I'm just grateful that he's on our side, because I doubt that Cindra is done with her attacks on our guild. I wonder what she'll try next?
Chapter 17
Hallic had spent his entire career training his skills. He had honed his reflexes to such a degree that his reaction speed was nothing short of miraculous, according to some. But he knew that it was mostly hard work that made him the rogue that he was. And he also acknowledged that sometimes luck had as much to do with his success as his skill did. And it was just luck that allowed him to save Shandon Ironhand's life when he was attacked a few days after Mel had left for Cindercore.
The two of them had been walking through the palace, discussing the potential for war amongst the dwarven population. The king had shook his head at Hallic's assertion that Corbin's sudden wealth could influence a large number of dwarves to turn on the throne and back the traitor.
“You have very little faith in people's basic decency, do you know that?” Shandon told the rogue as they walked outside and entered the private gardens.
The gardens were walled off from the rest of the grounds and contained a vast array of colorful fungi and glowing plants that were arranged neatly in rows of large vases and urns. Their scent was sweet and hung in the air, delighting the noses of visitors.
The pair walked slowly around the grounds, not paying much attention to the artful displays.
“I've seen too much to depend on innate decency,” Hallic replied dryly. “Most people are motivated by self interest. It's one of the most basic drives that we have. It is built in, as it were. And if people believe that it's in their best interests to oppose you and support your son, then I believe that many of them will do so.”
“You're a cynic, my friend,” Shandon told him.
“I am a realist, sir.”
They stopped in front of a towering fungal growth. It had been trimmed in such a way that it spiraled up a dozen feet over their heads, its colors changing from dark to light blue as it went.
Both dwarves stared at it, the king smiling at the display.
“Lovely, isn't it?” he asked the rogue.
“Seems like a lot of work for no real purpose,” Hallic replied dismissively.
Shandon looked at him and shook his head.
“And that is the difference between us, I suppose,” he said. He waved at the tall growth. “You see a waste of time, while I see a labor of love.”
Hallic shrugged indifferently.
“I know that you are a warrior, my lord,” he said as they began walking again. “But somehow you've managed to hang on to your optimism and your delight in life's simple pleasures. I no longer look at the world like that.”
&nb
sp; He glanced at the king and smiled wryly.
“I don't consider that a weakness, by the way,” he added. “As a ruler, it is probably better that you have such hope for your people. But it is also wise that you have cynics like me around you to accept the world as it is, rather than how you would like it to be.”
Both dwarves laughed together at that statement and then Shandon stopped walking abruptly. He muttered irritably and looked down at his boots.
“One of my buckles has come loose,” he said as he knelt down to adjust it.
And that was when it happened. An unseen bolt whistled through the space that the king had just occupied a moment before. If he had still been standing upright, Shandon would have been skewered. He was only wearing a simple tunic, not the royal armor that he wore when he was on official duty.
Hallic's training took over at once. He knew from the sound exactly where the bolt had come from and he knocked the king over as he leaped past him.
“Stay down!” he called out as he raced across the garden.
A dark figure, hunched atop a wall overlooking the area, turned away and dropped off on to the other side. Hallic never slowed down. He jumped up, grabbed the top of the stone wall and vaulted over it. He landed on the other side and rolled, staying on the move to present less of a target.
And then he stopped abruptly, looking around in confusion. Whoever had attacked the king was gone. Hallic scanned the area, a wide open stretch of ground covered in cobblestones, and saw nothing. About a hundred feet away a lone guard was standing next to a narrow door leading into the palace, but that was the only other person that the rogue could see.
Hallic stood up and held his breath, listening intently. Then he sniffed the air, trying to locate any strange odors. But there was nothing. If he hadn't seen the shadowy figure jump from the garden wall, he might have thought that he'd imagined the entire incident. But the sound of that bolt had been very real and now he had been handed another problem. If assassins could get into and out of the palace so easily, was Shandon's life really safe even here?
When he rejoined the king, Hallic told him what he had found. Or more specifically what he hadn't found. Shandon nodded as he watched the rogue looking for the projectile that had almost hit him.
“Magic?” he asked the rogue.
“I assume so,” Hallic replied. “There is no other explanation. No one could have escaped that quickly otherwise. This is a new twist and, quite frankly, it worries me.”
Shandon grinned at him.
“Worries you?” he asked with a laugh. “What about me? I was the one that almost got shot through the chest.”
Hallic finally found an iron bolt deeply embedded into the trunk of one of the towering plants. He slipped a shiv out of his boot and dug it out.
“Hmm. A rather ordinary-looking crossbow bolt,” the rogue said as he weighed it in his hand. “Deadly at close range, but useless beyond twenty yards or so. Whoever shot it was quite skilled.”
He handed it to Shandon, who examined it closely.
“And we both know that you weren't really in any danger from this thing,” the rogue added.
The king gave him back the bolt and then tapped his own chest. The sharp sound of metal could be heard through his tunic.
“Better safe than sorry, that's always been my belief,” Shandon stated. “Besides, if I'm not wearing any armor at all, I feel naked. Now, if whoever shot that thing had aimed for my head...”
“From that distance, they would have missed,” Hallic assured him. “When in doubt, always aim for the body. That's what we teach our youngsters, and whoever shot at you seems to have learned the same lesson.”
“Come on,” the king told him. “Let's get back to my quarters. I want to speak to one of the mages about this.”
“Good idea. This is their area of expertise, after all,” Hallic agreed. “And I think that from now on it would be prudent for one of them to stay near you even when you are with me. A little magical assistance might have caught that attacker.”
“And here I thought that just having you around would keep me safe,” Shandon said with a twinkle in his eye.
“No one's safe when you add magic into the mix,” Hallic replied soberly. “We've definitely learned that today.”
Back at the king's quarters, Shandon asked the page stationed outside of his door to find Falder.
“I need to speak with the seneschal immediately,” he told the young woman.
She bowed gracefully.
“I will find him right away, your majesty,” she replied.
“And see if you can find Odella while you are at it, would you?” Shandon added. “I would like to see her as well.”
“Yes, your majesty.”
As the page ran off, the king looked at the two guards.
“Any disturbances?” he asked them.
To the left of the door, the older warrior standing there looked surprised at the question.
“No, my lord,” he said gruffly. “All is quiet. Is there a problem, sir?”
Shandon glanced at Hallic, who shook his head slightly.
“Not all at,” the king assured the guards. “Just checking.”
Both of the warriors saluted and the king opened the door and entered his quarters, with Hallic following him closely.
Once they were back in the lounge, Shandon sat down with a sigh and gestured for the rogue to do the same.
“You didn't want me to mention the attack?” the king asked.
“No. Why stir them up when the assailant is long gone?” Hallic replied as he sat down at the table across from Shandon. “They won't be able to stop a magical attack, so let them concentrate on what they can do and let the mages handle the other stuff.”
Shandon grunted as he began fiddling with the beads braided into his beard.
“We warriors are simple people,” he mused. “Show us a target and let us do our jobs. That's how we operate.”
Hallic shook his head as he watched the king.
“Sir, you are no longer just a warrior. You must see beyond the physical now. I understand that you miss your old life, but as the king, you cannot limit your view of reality. We now live in a world where magic is real and we must respond accordingly.”
Falder was appalled when he learned that the king had been attacked on the palace grounds. He wanted to double the guards around Shandon, curtail his movements and even cut back on his schedule. The king was having none of it.
“For the tenth time, I am fine,” Shandon told the seneschal firmly. “I'm not disrupting my life and habits just because I'm in danger. That would play right into the hands of my enemies. Now try to relax, Falder.”
The seneschal was nervously pacing around the lounge, while the king drank some ale and Hallic sipped hot tea. The two of them were still sitting at the table and exchanged an amused glance at Falder's reaction.
“But you could be dead, your majesty!” the seneschal exclaimed. “Dead! Just like that. And then the empire would have absolutely been plunged into civil war. No one in the palace would accept your son as the new ruler. No one. Your death would tear our society apart.”
“Well, it's nice to know that I can have some sort of impact on my people,” Shandon said glibly.
Falder stopped pacing abruptly and stared at him. The king grinned back.
“I'm joking,” he assured him. “Now for the sake of my sanity, sit down, would you? We need to discuss this calmly and rationally.”
After a brief hesitation, the seneschal took a seat at the table next to Shandon. He looked over at Hallic with a worried expression.
“You didn't catch whoever shot at the king?” he asked the rogue.
“No. They got away cleanly,” Hallic replied, sounding disgusted. “That's why I think magic was involved. There is no way that they could have escaped me that easily. I was literally only a few steps behind them when they jumped over the wall and disappeared from my sight.”
“An interesting tho
ught,” someone said.
The three dwarves looked over at the door and saw Odella, the eldest of the mages guarding the king, walk into the lounge.
“Gentlemen,” she said with a nod. “And your majesty. I was just coming on duty when your page found me. She told me that you needed to speak with me at once.”
Shandon stood up politely and pulled a chair over to the table.
“It is good to see you, Odella,” he told her. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
She sat down gracefully and settled her yellow robe around her. She leaned her thin staff against the table and then looked at the king curiously.
“You were attacked?” she asked him.
“You heard us talking about that? Yes, I was. Someone shot a crossbow at me in the royal gardens and then got away. Hallic gave chase, but the assailant vanished.”
“And you think that they were Gated away?” Odella asked the rogue.
“Well, either that or they were fast enough to cross a hundred feet or so of open ground in the space of about five seconds,” he replied with smile. “And I do not believe that anyone is that fleet of foot.”
Odella nodded and pursed her lips in thought.
“Tea?” Hallic asked politely.
“Oh. Yes please. That would be lovely.”
The rogue got up and walked over to the bar where a tea service sat on a silver tray.
“Don't you think that his majesty should have a mage with him at all times now?” Falder asked Odella anxiously. “I know that Hallic was with him today, but if someone can get on to the palace grounds so easily...”
The mage accepted a cup of tea from Hallic and took a delicate sip as the rogue sat down again.
“Yes, that would probably be for the best,” she said slowly.
Shandon grimaced and Odella cocked her head to the side slightly.
“Do you have a death wish, your majesty?” she asked him. “You came close to dying today, apparently, and yet you are still adverse to being as well protected as possible? That is, if you will excuse my saying so, both foolish and reckless.”
The Dwarven Rebellion Page 22