Leyd stared at Consuevé for an unreadable moment—disbelief, affront, indignation...it was hard to tell what emotion stirred behind his emerald gaze—then the decanter of wine rose obligingly from the table and floated through the air towards Consuevé.
Dore observed the latter icily. “As ever, Demetrio, the point has passed you over for a more intellectually hospitable candidate. Had Isabel been mine, I would not have trusted her, as was Arion’s irreparable mistake. I would’ve put her under my knife, chained her to my will, just like my Işak’getirmek.”
The wine had reached Consuevé and was hovering just out of his reach. Consuevé made a swipe for it.
The decanter smoothly evaded his grasp.
Consuevé speared an accusing stare at Leyd.
The zanthyr lifted a raven brow.
“...Işak, Işak,” Dore was lamenting meanwhile, mostly to himself. “I must chain him much more forcefully when I have him again—and I will have him again, as I will have his brother, the magnificent Arion Tavestra Returned. Mark my words, Consuevé.”
Consuevé was occupied with the decanter, which again danced just beyond his reach, and therefore wasn’t listening to Dore.
“The val Lorian heirs cannot hide forever—no, no.” Dore leaned back against the newel post and crossed his arms, evoking images of Arion Tavestra in the same pose. It made Viernan’s teeth ache. “They will float to the forefront of my deception soon enough. The crusade has begun, the assault launched on Calgaryn, with more to come—yes, yes so much more...” Dore’s eyes shone with a darkness that never boded well for anyone.
“Soon, everything the brothers love will be imperiled,” he said with a flicker of his tongue, as if tasting of the ill moment already, “and they will reveal themselves to me. Ever the noble must rear their heads in defense of the defenseless, in defense of king and kingdom...in defense of their honor.”
Consuevé finally snared the decanter and pulled it triumphantly towards him, whereupon it attempted to upend itself into his lap. He grabbed the neck with both hands and fought to keep it from dumping over while glaring furiously at the zanthyr.
Leyd smirked at him.
“Honor,” Dore meanwhile said—pontificating, it would appear, to the stones, for neither of the other two were listening. “What a disgraceful deception that is!”
“A moral compass only ever led a man into entrapment,” Viernan muttered, for with this sentiment he had to agree.
Dore’s gaze shifted to him briefly, and within it, Viernan saw a glimpse of the man Dore used to be, as a spark that flamed but once and died, lost in the rising smoke of madness.
He continued lecturing, including Viernan and Consuevé both in his boiling gaze. “Honor is a strong man’s undoing, for the strong cling to it; thus, with it they fall. And it is the strong—make no mistake—it is the strong we must enchain. For the darkness in strong men’s hearts beats as surely as in those of lesser men, but the former have more capacity to wield lasting harm upon the rest.”
Dore pushed off the railing and began to pace slowly with his hands clasped behind his back. The heels of his too-large boots scuffed with every step.
“There is nothing to be done for the good of all but to subdue the strong,” Dore declared. “If you bind a strong man, leash him to your will, then you will be...no, not safe from him. No one can be safe from the darkness that thrives in all men’s souls. Surely you see this, Consuevé?”
Consuevé, his face red and arms shaking in his battle to keep the decanter from dumping over into his lap, surprisingly did not reply. Leyd was grinning wickedly him.
“But if held under enough duress,” Dore continued with a dark light burning in his gaze, completely incognizant of the losing battle Consuevé was waging to keep his clothes from ruin, “if kept subdued and repentant enough that he posed no immediate threat...well, then you could keep a wary eye.”
The unhealthy certainty Dore had been exuding throughout this entire diatribe made Viernan wish he still believed in his gods.
“This is what must be done by those who understand these truths.” Dore swung to Viernan with a sudden frightening passion infusing his gaze. “You see this, do you not, Viernan? It is incumbent upon men like us to leash the strong, that they might prove no enemy to themselves or others.”
Consuevé finally made a desperate scramble to avoid the decanter and leapt out of his seat just as the crystal upended wine all over it. Thus emptied, the decanter bounced down unceremoniously onto the cushion.
Chagrined, Consuevé yanked the hem of his waistcoat straight, took up his goblet and strode purposefully across the terrace towards the table where another decanter sat waiting.
A grinning Leyd extended his goblet as Consuevé was passing. “Get me a refill while you’re up, will you, chum?”
Consuevé stared at him, smoldering. Then he snatched the goblet out of Leyd’s hand and continued on. Viernan thought it a prudent decision.
Leyd shifted a lazy-lidded gaze to Dore. “If you’re done preaching, might you tell me why the hell you called me here?”
“Not for the pleasure of your company, you can be sure of that,” Viernan muttered.
Leyd turned him a mocking smile. “Oh, is that you, Viernan? I mistook you for a corpse.” He received his goblet back from a sullen Consuevé and added with veiled mirth, “There’s no accounting for people’s taste in décor, you know. It was an honest mistake.”
“Leyd, we need our attention off this rebellion,” Dore said. “You intimated you know the location of the Nodefinder Rebellion’s headquarters. Consuevé needs it now.”
Leyd sipped his wine. “What’s in it for me?”
“The joy of bringing irreparable harm to others,” Viernan said blackly. “Isn’t that your modus operandi?”
Leyd shifted his green eyes to him. “Yes, but only when I’m bored and in need of diversion.”
“You’re always bored and in need of diversion,” Consuevé grumbled. He eyed his soaked lounger sullenly as he walked to a different chair. But when he made to sit down, the chair skidded out from beneath him. He only just caught himself in time and stumbled forward, shouting, “What the hell, Leyd?”
Smirking, Leyd looked back to Dore. “You haven’t answered my question. The last time I aided you, this old fool made a mockery of a simple task, and now I have a drachwyr chasing my shadow all over the realm.”
“Noooow, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Consuevé demurred, waving his goblet from the relative safety of one of the newel posts. “I mean, if this drachwyr knew you were the mastermind that banished her siblings, I wager she’d have found you already.”
“Who’s to say this outcome wasn’t your intent all along?” Viernan groused. “You would find it an enticing game, no doubt, tearing apart the world while battling a Sundragon.”
Leyd eyed him intriguingly. “Yes, who is to say?”
“Leyd,” Dore recalled the zanthyr’s gaze impatiently, “we must handle this itinerant drachwyr and the rebellion and clear the board of these matters. There are more important affairs on our mutual horizon.”
“Oh, I know, your burgeoning army—all hail the forces of darkness.” Leyd notched a raven brow with sardonic hauteur. “Your obsession to eradicate Arion Tavestra in all of his iterations interests me about as much as a cow chewing its cud in the rain.”
“Huhktu’s blighted bones,” Viernan hissed, “just ask him what he wants for the information, Dore.”
Dore glowered at the zanthyr. “What do you want, Leyd?”
Leyd lifted his goblet in thanks to Viernan. “I think I’d like Mithaiya.” He sliced a grin over the three of them. “Bound. Helpless. Preferably unconscious. The prudent move would be to take her down before she comes for me.”
Viernan froze upon hearing the words, prudent move. He couldn’t help but think the zanthyr had used those words purposefully.
Leyd cast him an unsettling smirk and sipped his wine.
“A Sundrag
on.” Consuevé snorted meanwhile. “You want us to trap a Sundragon?”
“Well, not you, Consuevé. Someone competent should handle it.”
“How do you suggest we trap the drachwyr?” Dore cut in impatiently, denying Consuevé an edifying retort.
Leyd eyed his wine as if a bug had fallen into it. “Any solutions I might offer would only be beyond your skill.”
Blood of Inanna, you could’ve built a castle on his condescension.
“But we know she’s actively searching for Viernan,” Leyd added cheerfully, giving Viernan a smile as oily as it was malicious, “so that part should be easy to work out, even for stooges like you three.”
“Charming,” Viernan muttered.
“And the location of the rebellion?” Dore prodded.
Leyd shifted his gaze back to him. He let the moment breathe in a tense apprehension, as with the silence after a hanging, when the body’s still twitching while death feeds upon it. Then, with a dismissive arch of one brow, as the will of a god indifferently cast, he let his divine hammer fall.
“The rebellion headquarters is at the First Lord’s sa’reyth, or a stone’s throw from thereabouts. You’ll need a competent Nodefinder to locate the ley line to the sa’reyth on the world grid.” He sipped his wine. “Oh, and you’ll need at least a hundred men.”
“A hundred men?” Consuevé balked. “We don’t need a hundred men to teach Gannon Bair and his monkeys a lesson in manners.”
Leyd settled him an unnerving smile. “No, sweet idiot, you’ll need a hundred men to have any hope of getting past my sister.”
Dore drew back with sharp skepticism. “A zanthyr defends this rebellion?”
“She’s the caretaker of the First Lord’s sa’reyth,” Leyd clarified, “but I think she’ll take exception to your men making an uninvited appearance in either valley. She’s taken some of these rebels under her wing.”
Dore glowered at this news. “Any other obstacles—immortal or otherwise—we should be aware of?”
“Well, you’ll need Merdanti. And not just any Merdanti—it had better be a zanthyr’s blade.”
“Where in thirteen hells are we supposed to get one of those?” Consuevé complained. “From you?”
Leyd snorted. “Like I’d trust any of you idiots with my blades. Your people can’t even count to six.”
“The Lord Abanachtran can acquire them for us,” Dore said ominously. “Anything else we should know, Leyd?”
Their conversation continued, but Viernan was no longer listening.
He couldn’t get past the idea that the zanthyr was seeking death more surely than the sun set in the west. He couldn’t say what in Leyd’s manner betrayed this truth, but beneath the contempt in his gaze, beneath his patronizing barbs and disdainful commentary, ran a current of truth that resonated somehow in Viernan’s own core, and he recognized it for what it was:
Self-loathing.
For Viernan, this hatred of self had begun when he’d realized that all of the crimes of his long centuries, all of the sacrifices of soul made for prince and princedom, had resulted only in service to a madman whose mind had degraded beyond recognition, and whose once-glorious reign was tumbling irreparably into chaos.
Viernan didn’t know what failures marked Leyd’s turning point, but he was sure that the creature had passed this point so long ago that no hope remained of turning back.
Viernan, on the other hand...
As if hearing this thought, Leyd tipped his goblet to Viernan in salute. His emerald gaze inquired with cold amusement, But what will you do, now that you’ve witnessed the truth?
Viernan’s stare replied darkly, Wouldn’t you like to know?
Whereupon, his decision already made, he turned and left the stooges on the terrace to face Cephrael’s wrath alone.
Twenty-six
“Mercy, tolerance, compassion...these are not weaknesses.
They are the brain-trust of a just king.”
–King Gydryn val Lorian, to his sons
Trell stood on the line of boundary, staring at the warlord’s fortress, which appeared a distant, darker-than-dark hulk beneath the starry sky. Behind him, his men were feverishly at work carrying out his orders, yet he heard barely a whisper as they moved about the camp, for maintaining silence had been his primary instruction.
Though his mind was decided on their next course of action, he continued to inspect the information he’d collected—mostly from Jasper—seeking any flaw in his evaluation and conclusions.
‘A demon!’
‘...as the captain’s sword shattered against his flesh....’
‘...robe askew over skin so black that pitch would look grey beside it...’
‘...They always had at least threescore guards watching a dozen of us at a time...’
‘...places in those ruins they don’t dare go. Rooms where men have turned to dust just walking inside...pattern traps for the fifth.’
‘...Cursing his orders to keep you alive...’
Out of these facts, as well as others he’d isolated earlier, Trell suspected that an actual Player stood behind the warlord, a Player who’d probably paid little heed to that particular piece of his...that is, until the piece had run itself across the path of another Player, notably himself.
Trell knew he had many enemies—Radov abin Hadorin, Viernan hal’Jaitar and the Duke of Morwyk, to name a few—but these enemies generally wanted him dead.
This new Player for the opposition seemed to want him alive, which made Trell wonder uneasily if the Player actually intended to use him as a piece, and if so...against what other Player on his own team, and how?
Pondering the how too deeply brought a cold feeling to his chest. Since it served no useful purpose to ponder it at all, he set the matter aside entirely.
There were no certain outcomes in war, but all his evaluations indicated that his forces outnumbered the warlord’s. The skirmishes, the brutal messages and fear tactics, and finally the barricade—they were meant as camouflage for the truth: that the warlord’s forces were inferior to Trell’s.
If they could gain access to the fortress, it would fall—possibly inside a matter of minutes. Therefore, achieving this access became Trell’s singular goal.
Still...he was taking an enormous risk and wagering hundreds of lives on his own guesswork; the lives of men who trusted him to act with reason and confidence and not needlessly thrust them into harm’s way.
But Trell hadn’t gotten where he was by second-guessing his own decisions. He took great care to fully explore a plan before deciding on it, but once he’d decided, he was committed. He knew no other way through the chaos of war.
He couldn’t say why, but it all felt...right, this line of thinking. And incredibly dangerous. And truly the only path he could see to follow.
It wasn’t that he thought he couldn’t fail. It was that he knew he could. Yet he couldn’t afford to fail. Too many lives depended on him. Thus, it was beholden upon him to think further, longer and more steps ahead than anyone else, to do everything possible to assure a victory.
The particular whisper of Rolan’s jeweled robes floated to Trell’s ears shortly before the man came up behind him. “The men are in position within the camp, A’dal,” he said in a low voice ridged with tension.
Trell turned to him. “Thank you, Rolan.” He layered meaning in his tone, that Rolan might understand all that he was thanking him for.
The latter seemed to glean it true enough, for he blew out a breath interwoven of aggravation and uncertainty. “Huktu’s bones but you test a man’s faith,” he muttered. “You know that I believe you’ve Thalma’s own luck, A’dal, but this is risky, even for you.”
Trell exhaled a slow sigh. “I know.”
“We’re making a sheikdom of plans based on a peddler’s cart of guesses. We really know nothing about this warlord, save that he’s mad.”
Trell looked to him. “On the contrary, Rolan. He cannot resist telling us about h
imself.”
Rolan tilted his head. “How’s that?”
“Just look at what he’s told us: from the skirmishes, we know he’s a leader who prefers a wild broadsword charge. We know his fortress is protected by patterns he didn’t create; thus, he’s clearly the minion of a wielder. We know he has access to a node, probably from the caverns beneath his fortress—many ancient fortresses and palaces were built atop such nodes; my family’s home in Calgaryn is one of them. We know he’s no longer human, if ever he was.”
Rolan assessed him quietly. “We know all of this, do we?”
Trell looked back to the fortress. He crossed his arms and continued his study of the night, wishing he might’ve been able to see elae’s currents as Alyneri was learning to do, wondering what they would tell him of the warlord’s ancient stronghold...and if his suspicions would prove true.
Well, he would find out soon enough.
Rolan joined him in staring at the distant, dark hulk blocking the stars. The aggravation he’d been radiating had ebbed. “Valeri still up there?”
Trell nodded.
“How long now?”
“Four hours since I sent him to learn what he could of the fortress.”
Rolan scratched beneath his beard, jangling its jeweled braids. “Can’t say if being gone that long is good or bad.”
Trell puffed a sardonic exhale. “Neither can I.” He cast a sidelong glance at Rolan. “What word from Loukas?”
“He’s still estimating the lines of drift, as you ordered, and complaining like a bloody woman about not having had time to take a proper topographic survey. Says you ask the impossible, but I’d bet against Ha’viv that he’ll have what you want before dawn. That lad’s worth his weight in gold, you know.”
Trell gave a quiet smile. “Yes, I know.”
“Gideon turned in, the better to look his part tomorrow, I suppose. Lazar has his men on three-hour shifts until the dawn.” Rolan looked him over steadily. “You going to find your bed?” He didn’t say, or will I have to drag you there? but Trell heard it all the same.
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