The room was suddenly very quiet.
Dante lowered his chin a fraction of an inch. "You'll have to pardon me. I was attempting to participate in dana kide."
Riza looked unconvinced. Blays cleared his throat. "This thing about rido ashe. That's why you're out to stick the Drakebane's head on a pike?"
"It's but a symptom." Riza's anger pivoted back toward the crown; Dante silently appreciated Blays' gambit. The lord strode across the chamber. "In obscuring and diluting the truth, our great master is better able to hide any number of unfortunate facts about his empire. Primarily, the fact that our citizens don't really have the freedoms they're promised, and are instead kept subservient through a number of cunning systems.
"Among the most wicked of these is the idea that anyone can build and own land. Is this true? Well, yes, I'm sure it's written into the law. But a whole spiderweb of related laws comes with it. The raising of land requires the payment of an initial tax that most laborers can't afford. Even if you can afford it, and spend the time and effort necessary to create your plot of land, it is then taxed even more heavily. Given that it can take years to make a piece of land profitable, most would-be freeholders wind up bankrupted by taxes. At which point the land is forfeited to the state."
Blays grunted. "Did they set it up to work like this on purpose?"
"Does it matter? Either way, the outcome is the same: what the peasants lose, the crown gains." Riza snorted archly. "This hasn't even broached the subject of the Body of the People. We are told that we each have our part and that each part is vital to the whole. Perhaps so, but some parts are clearly more vital than others—and rewarded in kind. The crown's answer to this, of course, is so what? Anyone can become whatever part they wish!"
"Now, I'm no genius, but I'm picking up the idea this might not strictly be true."
"A few people attain their desired part, yes. But most aren't allowed beyond the simplest trades, following the same rut laid down by their fathers and mothers. It is believed that just enough of us are allowed to drag ourselves out of the swamps to convince everyone else that it's possible."
Riza stopped his pacing and turned to regard the three of them. "I'm not particularly concerned whether our reasons satisfy you, because they are for us, not you. But this is why we fight."
"Our only concern is Gladdic," Dante said. "We won't interfere with your business."
"Which doesn't mean we want any part of yours. You came here under the guise of merchant enforcers from Mallon. To Volo, you revealed yourself as sorcerers. Where are you really from and who do you represent?"
"I'm from the north. And I represent myself."
"That's not good enough. My time is valuable. Continue to waste it, and I'll see you out of the city."
Dante exhaled through his nose, searching for the right admixture of truth and omission. "I'm from Narashtovik. I'm a priest of our holy order—but my involvement here is purely personal."
"Narashtovik." Riza tipped back his head, mouth pursed. "The city where the dead are on constant march against the walls?"
"Such reports are highly exaggerated."
"Fortunate for you. If your interest is merely personal, why should I be concerned with it myself?"
"Oh, because of the demons," Blays said. "Gladdic makes them, you see. And we know how to kill them—assuming he hasn't come up with anything worse in the meantime." He drew the black sword, purple light crackling silently along its edges. "Though this might help even the odds."
Riza's lips parted. "Where did you get that?"
"From the body of a man who was trying to turn us into bodies."
"That came from a Knight of Odo Sein." The nobleman put his right fist into his left palm, clasping them over his navel. "We will pursue the Drakebane. If you can help us find him, Gladdic is yours. We leave in two days."
24
The key scraped for its hole, metal on metal. Raxa's heart threatened to blast out the top of her head. She stuffed the stopper into the ink bottle and swept the documents into the desk's top drawer. She stuck her thumb and forefinger in her mouth, then snuffed the candle with a quick sizzle. As the tower door swung open, Raxa tumbled into the shadows.
Harald Walpole entered the room. He wasn't carrying a candle and from inside the shadows, the silver pools of his eyes seemed to be looking right at her. He held a dagger against his thigh. In perfect silence, he moved across the room, pressed himself to the doorway to the sitting room, and swung inside. A moment later, he returned to the larger chamber, sheathed his dagger, and went to the window overlooking the rooftop courtyard and the happy party that laughed on below.
He glanced back and forth between the festivities and the wall opposite the window. He'd been below, hadn't he? He'd seen light in his quarters, and rather than sending a servant or a sentry, he'd come to investigate for himself.
He made a noise low in his throat and walked back out. He closed the door. Locked it. Raxa waited for the shuffle of his first step, then eased from the shadows. Whispering a curse, she reached for the desk drawer.
The footsteps reversed. The key clicked into the lock. Raxa jumped back into the black and silver. Walpole reentered and moved to the desk. He leaned over the snuffed candle and sniffed. Reached out and felt its wick. He drew back to stand in brooding darkness.
Raxa could feel each second sapping her stamina. Should have grabbed up the papers rather than stuffing them into the desk—she'd been blindsided by haste, moving too fast to think things through. Now, she'd shifted in and out of the darkness twice, sucking away her juice each time. She could walk out right now, but if she did that, she'd leave the documents behind. Including an obvious half-finished copy. If Walpole found it, he'd take the original somewhere else. Or, from what she'd seen of him—decisive, hard-nosed—he'd destroy it.
Walpole exited to the hallway, leaving the door open. He returned with a candle and lit the one on his desk. He sat, planted his elbows on the desk, laced his fingers together.
From his bearing, Raxa wouldn't be surprised if he stayed there until dawn. And every second she wasted waiting for him to go away brought her that much closer to a rude boot out of the shadows.
She moved into the sitting room. Weak candlelight fanned through the doorway, but the walls lay in darkness. Raxa emerged into reality, opened the drink cabinet, and smashed a bottle of brown liquor in the corner. As the sweet smell of rum gushed through the room, she dived into the shadows and ran past Walpole as he charged into the room, dagger drawn.
She moved to the desk, flicked back to the real world, and stole the papers from the drawer, both the original and the copy. She closed the drawer with a tight wooden squeak. Vaulting back into the nether, she booked it through the stone wall and into the hallway.
The shadows were already getting slippery. Wouldn't have nearly enough to get her all the way back to the Fabians. Needed to get away from Walpole and out of the nether as fast as she could. She thought about climbing to the top of the tower to hide and sneak down later, then growled to herself and loped down the stairs. She'd barely gotten one floor down before Walpole's boots racketed on the steps above her.
Within a few turns of the stairs, she could see him coming down behind her, his eyes shining like pockets of angry quicksilver. She knew the base of the tower was flush with the roof. On the last floor before the descent into the larger palace, she veered directly toward the wall, praying she had her orientation right and wasn't about to fall down the side of the palace. She emerged through the wall onto a flat stretch of roof. Tucked behind a row of shrubs, she returned to the world.
Hands shaking, she caught her breath, smoothing out her dress—she'd chosen something court-worthy, just in case of a contingency like this, but also unencumbering enough for her to work with if it turned out she needed to do any climbing or tumbling.
Not a hundred feet away, partiers exchanged witticisms and compliments, flattering each other like idiots, their drunkenly healthy faces aglow in the pool
of light cast by the lanterns. A stone block rose behind them, housing the stairwell down to the interior. Raxa checked her hair with her hands. Seemed relatively intact.
She straightened her spine, tipped back her chin, and walked forward. Nearing the wash of light, she beckoned to a servant carrying a tray of goblets. He hastened to bring her one. Prop in hand, she slowed to an unhurried pace, meaning to draw as few eyes as possible on her way to the stairwell.
The door to the stairs banged open. Two soldiers spilled out, scanning the mingling courtiers. Down on the grounds, a guard yelled out an order, his voice echoing through the courtyards.
Walpole had already spread word throughout the palace. They'd be stopping anyone of lower birth than a prince.
The rooftop garden was fenced on one side by an iron railing overlooking a lawn of trees, grass, and flagstones. Raxa made her way to the rail. Keeping her hand inside her pocket, she folded the pages into a tight packet. She leaned over the railing, as if drinking in the cool night breeze, and let go of the creased parchment. They fluttered on the way down, threatening to snag in a tree, then landed on the paving stones by the base of the wall.
She lifted her glass of pink wine and took another drink.
Smiling, she moved toward the door to the stairs. One of the guards moved in front of her.
"Ah," he said, as if he hadn't thought about what he'd actually say until this moment. "There's been…an incident, milady. No one can leave unless they've been…checked."
"Checked?" She arched her eyebrows. "For what?"
"I don't know," he admitted with tangible relief. "Just come with me. Please. Milady."
Raxa did some requisite scoffing, then followed the soldier downstairs to the front hall. A business-like servant with the imperious bearing of a minor lady took Raxa into a side chamber and asked her to turn out her pockets. Raxa protested just enough to make it look like she cared about her dignity, then relented. Finding nothing on her more suspicious than a jackknife, the woman delivered her to the palace doors.
"Please wait here," the servant said. "I'll find a soldier to escort you home."
"No." Raxa's denial had been a little too fast. Her wit put a knife to her brain's throat and demanded it provide a reason. "I couldn't possibly. You need all your men here to help you in your search."
"But Lady Yera—"
"I live at the Fabians. If I can't walk from here to there without being assaulted by brigands, then I don't fear for myself. I fear for the city."
She'd been around the nobility long enough to inject this with enough arrogance that the servant had no choice but to smile tightly and let her go on her way. Raxa strolled across the mall. Soldiers were posted in a loose ring around the palace, holding lanterns up to watch the night. Was Walpole always this paranoid? Or were the secrets in his quarters just that serious?
She reached the facade of the Fabians, then turned and walked alongside them until she provoked a rat out of hiding. She pointed at it. A black bolt sizzled from her finger to its head. As it spun away, she was afraid she'd blown it to pieces, but it was still mostly intact. Crouching over it, she called to the nether. It hung back, then dislodged from its hiding spots, reluctantly filling her hand. Gathering the dregs of her strength, she sent it into the rat.
The rat shuddered. It lifted itself to its feet, collapsed, then forced itself upright, gazing at her with its dead and glassy eyes. Feeling disgusted with herself, yet powerful, she sent the rat scampering across the mall.
Watching through its eyes made her want to barf. She sent it onward, past a stationary guard, who glanced at the rodent and shook his head, muttering something foul. The rat crossed a paved space, approaching a high wall. Raxa searched for ten minutes before she found the folded papers. The rat picked them up in its mouth, then trotted back across the mall. When it returned, Raxa pocketed the papers, went upstairs, and collapsed into bed.
~
"Eventful night?"
Raxa looked up from her breakfast—breakfast in the sense that it was her first meal of the day. By the bells' reckoning, it was eleven in the morning. Maura had appeared to her right, gliding across the carpet without making a sound. At least not one that Raxa had been able to pick up over the clamor of her own chewing.
Raxa dabbed egg from the corner of her mouth. "Should it have been?"
"I couldn't say myself. There were some who considered it the event of the month."
"You mean the party. The one on the roof."
Maura rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me there was more than one."
"I couldn't sleep. I had the window open and I could hear them laughing. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me—I just wanted to ask what it was for. I didn't think they'd invite me up."
"The only thing you have to apologize for is thinking I wouldn't want to go with you. Next time, yes?"
Raxa smiled. She spent the day convinced someone was about to kick down her door, tear her room apart to the floorboards, and drag her off to a dungeon. Instead, it was as quiet as the morning after Falmac's Eve, when hungover farmers stayed huddled under their covers, emerging only to grumble at their children to go see to the chickens.
She didn't bother to copy Walpole's order sheet. There was no point trying to return the original to his desk. After the last night, it was so creased and rat-nibbled that its return would be more obvious than its absence. Anyway, whatever it was for, it was too big to cancel just because someone else had found out about it. She tried to read it, but the combination of cramped handwriting and fancy words was too much for her.
At last, midnight. She put on her trousers and doublet, tucked the orders into her pocket, and shimmied down the balconies to the ground. The night before had been a tough time. The kind of thing that would scare some people into lying low for a while. She'd always thought that if you gave into the fear too often, one day, you'd go to ground and never find the guts to come up again. The only thing was to get back out there the very next day and prove that the last time was nothing. That the world should be afraid to run into you.
On the off chance someone had been watching their meets, she and Sorrowen had arranged to rendezvous at a different park not far from his monastery. As usual, he was already there waiting for her. Without a word, she handed him the two sheets of parchment.
As he read, raw glee spilled across his face. Raxa made a note to invite him to play cards with her some time; he had so little control over his expressions she'd take him for every penny in his pocket.
Finished, he jerked his head up from the orders, waving them around like they were on fire. "This is it! The order!"
"For what? Weapons? Mercenaries?"
"I don't know."
She gave him a pained look. "I thought you said this was the order."
"Yeah, but it doesn't say what it's for. Other than so much money that these people should be ashamed they're spending it on a war and not a cathedral to the glory of the gods. But it does tell us where the goods are supposed to be delivered." He peered down at the page. "Keller's Pier. Three nights from now."
"They're making the exchange during the night?"
Sorrowen bobbed his head. "Two in the morning. That's…weird, isn't it? Sounds like something you'd do."
"And I deal in things I've taken from other people. Makes you wonder what they're buying that they don't want anyone else to see it?"
"Camp followers?"
Raxa was too exasperated to smack him. "What about you? Heard any prime dirt? Or just the usual stories of the gods being awful to each other?"
Sorrowen looked perturbed by her borderline heresy, then rolled back his eyes in thought. "There is one thing. But it's a little strange. The masters have been preaching about the return of Daris—and the need to kill him." He chuckled heartily. "Can you believe it?"
"What's a Daris?"
"Raxa! Have you never even set foot in a church?"
"Not since I learned to walk on my own."
He swayed back fr
om her, as if afraid of breathing the unclean air that surely surrounded her, then sighed. "If Dante hears I had to tell you this, he'll make sure you spend the next decade locked in a seminary. The story of Daris is told in both Mallon and Narashtovik. Do you at least know about Carvahal and the fire?"
"Who's Carvahal?"
"Oh, for the love of—!"
"He stole the fire from Taim," Raxa said. "Who was keeping it for himself like a greedy asshole. Carvahal's the one who brought it down to humans."
"Correct. Except for the part where you called Taim an asshole. Although I guess in this story he kind of is, because the first thing he did when he saw the theft was gather up his army to go kill Carvahal. Carvahal could see he was going to get clobbered, so he passed the torch of flame to Eric the Draconat, the greatest dragon-slayer in the world, so he could climb up to the heavens, fight Daris—Daris being a dragon, you see—and make Daris join his side."
"Why the hell would Daris join Eric if Eric was trying to kill him?"
"Because…I mean…that's how honor works."
"Oh," Raxa said. "No wonder I've never thought much of it."
Sorrowen blinked, then plunged onward. "Eric beat Daris, so Daris and all of his other dragons had to help Eric and Carvahal go fight Taim. After the biggest fight the world had ever seen, Taim slew Daris, and the whole world tilted. But just as Taim was about to win the day, take the fire, and thrust humans back into darkness, Eric stabbed him in the heart, forcing him and his allies back into the heavens.
"So we kept the fire. And it's kept us warm and defended us against the night ever since. Eric is the big hero of this story, but as you can see, he couldn't have done it without Daris' aid. I mean, doesn't this seem weird to you?"
"That the father of time went to war against a giant lizard to get back his torch?"
"Daris was a hero. But when the masters discuss his coming return, they warn us that we'll have to stand against him. Now why would they think that?"
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