The Powder Mage Trilogy: Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic

by McClellan, Brian

  “Is that the last of them?” Nikslaus said.

  “No telling. With our man dead, we don’t know how many men Ryze brought with him. I suspect we have them all.”

  “Don’t underestimate that brigadier,” Nikslaus snarled. “He was one of Winceslav’s best. He’ll have had outriders in case anything happened. Leave two Wardens to hunt.”

  “We had to dodge patrols. They’re looking for Tamas.”

  “We’ll be gone before they reach us. Go help the others. We leave within the hour.”

  With powder mages on his trail, Nikslaus would be in a hurry to get away. Tamas’s mood began to rise, only to plummet as logic set in. They had been hours away from the hunt. Half a day from Adopest. Sabon might not even know he was missing yet. And that was all based on the possibility that Nikslaus let the others get away. How many Wardens did he have with him? Did Nikslaus send them after Olem, Charlemund, and the rest?

  Tamas gave a weary sigh. Even if they were to find him, what was he? Just an old man now. No more a powder mage.

  CHAPTER

  26

  Adamat spent nearly a week investigating Ondraus the Reeve before making an appointment to interview the man. He almost canceled the appointment due to wild speculation that had reached the city that morning: Tamas disappearing from the Orchard Valley Hunt the day before, a rogue brigadier, sorcery in the King’s Forest. None of the rumors could be confirmed, so Adamat went on with the interview, though he had an unsettling feeling that he might no longer be employed.

  He arrived at the reeve’s home at five past the hour, late for his meeting because he’d passed the house four times without finding it. The house itself was behind a hedgerow, wedged between two manors and easily mistaken for some kind of servants’ quarters. There was a small garden between the hedgerow and front step, meticulously cared for, not a blade of grass or flower petal out of place. The house was utilitarian—a simple A-frame made of fine, but not expensive, brick.

  The door opened as Adamat lifted his hand to the knocker. An old woman peered up at him. She wore a drab maid’s frock, a simple wool shirt that went all the way down to her ankles.

  “I’m here to—”

  “See the reeve,” she cut him off. “You’re late.”

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t find…”

  The old woman turned and hobbled away in the middle of his sentence. Adamat trailed off. He swallowed his annoyance and followed her into the house.

  The inside was as unremarkable as the outside. The mantelpiece was clear of knickknacks, the shelves freshly dusted and also empty but for two rows of bookkeeper’s volumes. A single chair sat before an empty fireplace. There were three doorways. One led to an alcove of a kitchen, where the only sign of use was a fresh loaf of bread on the table. The second door was closed—presumably the bedroom—and the third door was open, showing the reeve sitting at a small desk in the corner, spectacles balanced on the tip of his nose as his finger ran across the page of a book of numbers.

  The housekeeper clucked to herself and went into the kitchen, leaving Adamat to show himself in to the reeve. Adamat watched her for a moment, and wondered if the kitchen was used at all—there was no smell of baking, or undue heat from a cooking fire, so she must have bought the bread somewhere else. She turned and caught him watching her and shut the kitchen door.

  Adamat turned his attention to the little man sitting at a desk. He’s more than he seemed, Ricard had warned. Well, what did he seem? A dusty bookkeeper. An accountant—though admittedly the finest one in Adro. So what more could he be? Anything, Adamat supposed.

  “You’re late.” The reeve didn’t bother to look up from his book as Adamat entered.

  “My apologies. The streets are awfully full, with the festival and all.” Adamat didn’t bother adding how unusual it was to hold appointments on a festival evening. Something told him the reeve didn’t actually enjoy having fun.

  “Save the excuses for someone else. Don’t waste my time, Investigator,” the reeve said. “I didn’t try to have Tamas killed. I have neither the patience nor time to answer your questions. The ledgers still need to be kept in Tamas’s absence.” He made a face, realizing that he had let something slip.

  “So he is missing?” Adamat asked.

  The reeve glared at him.

  Adamat examined the reeve for a moment. Ondraus was a small man, bent from decades of leaning over a desk, shoulders hunched. His face was long, his cheeks sallow, shoulders narrow. Ondraus was one of the most well known men in Adopest. This was quite the feat, considering that he rarely showed his face in public, he had never sat for a portrait, and he reportedly tried to alienate everyone he met. Adamat could see that the last seemed to hold true. He could also see that Ondraus would not be talking about Tamas’s disappearance.

  Adamat’s weeklong investigation had turned up frustratingly little. The reeve handled the nation’s treasury—with the exception of the king’s purse, though there was a rumor that that had changed with Manhouch’s execution—from that little desk in the corner. He had an office on Joon Street, which he never visited, where a team of bookkeepers did most of the labor. Everything they did was double-checked by the reeve. He had no known hobbies, no known friends. His housekeeper had been with him for forty-some years, but no one considered them to be friends. He had one bodyguard, who went with him whenever he left the house, which was rare.

  Rumor had it the reeve had ridden at the hunt, that he had been there when Tamas disappeared. Adamat couldn’t picture the man on a horse.

  “You don’t seem the type of man to betray his country,” Adamat said. “As the city reeve you could undermine Adro from its very heart without Kez help. It’s not a question of money. My research indicates that you’re one of the wealthiest men in Adro. You receive two hundred thousand krana a year for services rendered, and you own three million acres of farmland in Fatrasta, half a million acres of Bakashcan coastline that includes a major port, a coal mine in Deliv, and half of a trading company in Kez. I do wonder at all the foreign stock. Do you not have faith in your country?”

  “You’d know if you were more thorough,” Ondraus said. “I own three gold mines and twelve Mountainwatch toll roads. I own three hundred and twelve thousand acres of vineyards, and I finance a merchants’ guild in the north.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Ask your friend, Ricard Tumblar, if you want to know more. I personally employ three thousand of his union workers in my ironworks.”

  “Among other factories,” Adamat said.

  Ondraus’s eyes narrowed. “You knew.”

  “I was just curious what you’d catalog as the most valuable.”

  “If you don’t suspect me, then why are we having this conversation?”

  “I never said I don’t suspect you. I’ll admit you are low on my list. I want to know, sir, what the books tell you.”

  “I don’t get your meaning.”

  By the way Ondraus’s hand tightened on his ledger Adamat suspected he understood perfectly. “Money. You track everything. Even things a reeve shouldn’t know you have cataloged.” Adamat pointed at the ledger with his cane. “I’ve taken a look at your books on Joon Street. Very thorough. Very impressive.”

  “Those aren’t for public eyes,” Ondraus snapped.

  “I’m not the public. I had to bully my way past your clerks. They’re very loyal to you. Now, tell me, what does the flow of money tell you?”

  Ondraus watched him through those bespectacled eyes for several moments before he responded. Calculations were being made, thoughts sliding into place.

  “If the motive is money,” Ondraus said, “which it almost always is, then you have nothing to suspect of either the Proprietor or Lady Winceslav. I’ve had access to the Winceslav books for months now and there is absolutely nothing irregular about them. The Proprietor—well, criminal or not, he pays his taxes. Every penny of them, even that made on illicit gains. A man who pays his taxes like that is not concerned with the day-to-day
of the government. He wants nothing more than a stable world in which to expand his influence slowly, assuredly.”

  “War can mean a great deal of money for an opportunist.”

  “Opportunists do not pay their taxes,” Ondraus said.

  “And the other councillors?”

  Ondraus sniffed. “Prime Lektor is a mystery. The man’s finances do not exist. Very strange, that. Aside from the occasional grant from the university, it’s as if money does not even go through his hands. Ricard Tumblar is a businessman. He cooks the books as well as he can. He’s received very large sums of money lately from Brudania and from banks in Fatrasta and Gurla.”

  “Brudania is a major ally of Kez.”

  “And the banks in Gurla are owned by the Kez.”

  “Fatrasta is not an ally,” Adamat said. “And I’m not sure if I can trust what you say about Ricard. The unionization of your workers must have infuriated you.”

  “Did it?” Ondraus raised an eyebrow. “His unions have organized production in a way even I couldn’t. Revenue has increased three hundred percent in my ironworks and gold mines since the unions came in. Ask Ricard. I did not bar them. I welcomed the unions.”

  Ondraus made a dismissive gesture, moving on. “Then there’s the arch-diocel. As a man of the cloth his movements are completely shrouded in secrecy. No one outside of their order may so much as glance at their books. Yet he spends enough to make a king weep. Far more than his allowance as an arch-diocel. I often wonder at that.”

  “And yourself?”

  “I am to suspect myself?”

  “Is there any reason you’d want Tamas killed?”

  “Tamas is spending too much on the army and too much on spies. This is wartime, however, so his expenditures are practical. He’s increased public rations higher than I would like, but that came about from a previous agreement of ours. A ferret could run this country better than Manhouch did. At least Tamas listens to my advice.”

  Ondraus went on without prompting. “If Tamas were to die, the military leadership would not be up to the task of holding off the Kez. The Kez would conquer Adro, and Adopest would be taxed. The Kez have a long history of excessive tax on their colonies in Fatrasta and Gurla. We would be no different, and the city coffers would be even worse off than they were under Manhouch.”

  Adamat considered, not for the first time, Ondraus’s singular position of power. If he wanted to thwart Tamas, he could be far more subtle than by having him killed. He could just tell Tamas there was no money to pay the army or feed the people. Tamas would have riots within a month and be completely undone within two.

  What he’d said about Ricard bothered Adamat. Ricard may have been the head of the Warriors of Labor and received a great deal of money, but he was not wealthy in the way that people like Ondraus or Charlemund considered wealth. He was no king. The Kez had the money to make him one.

  Adamat said, “Thank you for your time. I think I’m done here. I may return if I have further questions.”

  The reeve turned back to his ledger without another word.

  “I’ll show myself out,” Adamat said.

  Nikslaus, whether he feared Tamas or not, was taking no chances. Tamas sat facing backward in the carriage. He wore wrist and ankle irons, both of them bolted to the floor by thick chains in the style of a prison wagon. A Warden sat next to Tamas, his twisted bulk pushing Tamas against the side of the wagon. Tamas’s skin crawled being so close to one of the creatures.

  Despite the irons, the carriage was fit for a duke. Nikslaus sat opposite Tamas upon a velvet cushion, which left plenty of room for his legs. The wall covering and window hangings matched the cushion and did a little to muffle the sound from outside. The carriage had recently ceased its rocking motion and now moved upon a cobbled thoroughfare. From the sound of increasing traffic they were getting close to the city.

  Nikslaus appeared deep in his own thoughts. His fingers danced in his lap, sheathed in white, runed Privileged’s gloves. Tamas wondered whether he was doing some sort of unseen sorcery, or simply passing the time. Tamas lifted a finger to the curtains and glanced outside. There was nothing of interest to see. At the sound of his chains jingling, Nikslaus glanced at him. He nodded to the Warden, who reached out and firmly moved Tamas’s hand from the window.

  Tamas sighed. At least his vision had cleared. They’d left the farmhouse late in the afternoon the day before. Something had calmed Nikslaus and he seemed no longer worried they’d be caught. Tamas sent his senses inward, then probed out. He tried to open his third eye.

  Powder mages were the only kind of sorcerer whose power could be disrupted like this. Tamas didn’t know how it had been discovered, or when, but gold in the bloodstream could render a powder mage’s power completely null. It even blocked their ability to see the Else. Removal of a Privileged’s hands at the wrist was said to keep them from manipulating the Else, but not from seeing it.

  “I’m not a bad man,” Nikslaus said suddenly.

  Tamas gave him a glance. The duke stared at him, a troubled look on his face.

  “I don’t revel in your discomfort, or smile at the thought of your doom,” Nikslaus said.

  Tamas said, “Such knowledge would not keep me from choking the life out of you, given the chance.”

  Nikslaus gave him a distracted smile. “I’ll be glad not to give you such a chance.” He paused. “I was thinking, just now, what it would be like if I couldn’t use sorcery. If my hands were struck from me and my ability to touch the other side was gone. It was a harrowing thought.”

  “You’ll not win any goodwill from me,” Tamas said.

  “I simply want you to know,” Nikslaus responded, “that I don’t do any of this out of pleasure. I act on the whim of my king. I am but a servant.”

  “Were you a servant when you delivered the head of my wife in a cedar box?” Tamas said. The sentence began calmly. By the time he finished it, he was snarling, his anger bared. It had come upon him like a rogue wave. His chains jingled and clanked. The Warden gave him a dangerous look.

  Nikslaus calmed the Warden with a raised hand. “Yes,” he said. “I was a servant.”

  “You enjoyed it,” Tamas said through gritted teeth. “Admit it.” Bitterness dripped from his voice. “You enjoyed ordering the headsman’s blade, you enjoyed bringing her head to me and seeing my sorrow, and you enjoy seeing me incapacitated now.”

  Nikslaus seemed to think on this. “You’re right,” he finally said.

  Tamas fell silent, shocked that Nikslaus would admit such a thing. It was beneath a duke.

  “When you put it that way… I did enjoy it, and I still do,” Nikslaus said. “But not for the reasons you think. This isn’t personal. Powder mages are a stain. A black blot on sorcery. I don’t take relish in another person’s suffering. I take pride in seeing a powder mage struck down, as I did when Ipille ordered the death of your wife.”

  “It makes you no less a beast,” Tamas said. He glanced sideways at the Warden. “No less a beast than the ones who made this.”

  Nikslaus’s eyes narrowed. “Says the powder mage. Your kind are more monstrous than Wardens by far.” He looked at the ceiling. “I’ll never understand the minds of such as you, Tamas. We’ve both got our prejudices, I suppose.” He snorted. “Had you been born a Privileged, you would have made a formidable ally.”

  “Or opponent,” Tamas said.

  “No,” Nikslaus said. “Not an opponent. Our antagonism toward one another is based solely upon your being a powder mage.”

  “I’m Adran,” Tamas said quietly. “You’re Kez.”

  “And the Adran Cabal would have been enfolded into the Kez Cabal, had the Accords been signed. As they should have been.”

  “Does Ipille really expect to rule Adro?”

  Nikslaus blinked at Tamas. “Of course.”

  Tamas could see in Nikslaus’s eyes that there was no doubt there. What arrogance.

  “I’ve wondered,” Nikslaus said, “ever since
news came of your coup, what finally did it? Is it simply revenge? Or do you honestly think you have the best interests of Adro at heart?”

  “Do you honestly think it is in Adro’s best interest to bow to Kez?” Tamas countered. “No, don’t answer. I can see it in your face. You’re as blind a nobleman and monarchal stooge as any of those that I sent to the guillotine. Do you not read the papers? Do you not hear of uprisings in Gurla? I know you felt the sting of rebellion when Fatrasta rose up and threw your armies out.”

  “Fools, all of them,” Nikslaus said.

  Tamas persisted. “The world is changing. People do not exist to serve their governments or their kings. Governments exist to serve the people, so the people should have a say in those governments.”

  Nikslaus scoffed. “Impossible. Decisions should not be left to the rabble.”

  “One people should not be ruled by another,” Tamas said.

  Nikslaus steepled his fingers. The gesture was often one of significance when a Privileged was involved—especially when he wore his gloves. “You’re either playing me, or you’re a naïve fool. You served in Gurla, in Fatrasta, and half a dozen other savage countries where members of the Nine have claimed land. As did I. The peasants and savages need to be tamed. As Adro and the powder mages need to be tamed.”

  “We learned two different things from our experiences, you and I,” Tamas said.

  Nikslaus wore a look that said he wasn’t that interested in hearing what Tamas learned.

  “Who betrayed me?” Tamas asked. He had answers of his own to find.

  Nikslaus gave him a glance. “Do you think I’d risk telling you?” He shook his head. “No. Perhaps when the guillotine blade is about to fall, I’ll whisper it in your ear. Not a moment before that.”

  Tamas opened his mouth, about to taunt Nikslaus with the knowledge that Brigadier Barat was a traitor. He stopped himself. Was Nikslaus really worried he’d escape? Did he really think Tamas had a chance? Tamas was bereft of his abilities, his leg unusable. How could he possibly escape?

  Nikslaus shifted in his seat. He moved the curtain enough to look out, then sat back, an annoyed look on his face.