by Lisa Shearin
Page 25
“Looks like our citizens don’t want to be recognized by anyone,” Imala said to my unspoken question.
Kesyn took a quick swig from his flask. “When you don’t know who you can trust, you save yourself the bother of weeding through the chaff and don’t trust anyone. ”
Our destination was to get past Execution Square to a small, rocky beach outside of Regor’s harbor. Tam had assured us it wasn’t far, but since we were the most wanted people in the city, any distance was too far in my opinion. We weren’t going into the square, but now getting past the square might take even more than we’d thought.
A big hand grabbed my bandoleer and hauled me back into a dead-end side street.
Mychael.
“Khrynsani guards,” Imala whispered. “They appear to be questioning everyone going into the square. ” Her dark eyes narrowed dangerously. “I stand corrected. Only one of those men is Khrynsani. The other is one of my agents—or was. ” The glare Imala was giving him promised that not only was his career over, but his life was about to follow in its fading footsteps.
“He was one of Carnades’s guards,” Tam told her.
Imala nodded once. “And one of my most trusted,” she said quietly.
Tam never took his eyes off of the rogue agent. “Would you like to speak with him?”
Imala’s smile was chilling. “Yes, thank you. There is nothing I would like more. ”
“We can’t stop for this,” Mychael told them.
“Balic’s known for putting his nose into everything,” Imala said. “He probably knows something we need to. ”
“Like where Carnades is,” I said.
That swayed him. “Okay, but no more than a few minutes. ”
Imala never took her eyes from her prize. “That’s all I’ll need. ”
“Mychael, cover me,” Tam said as he stepped forward and vanished behind a veil.
“Wait,” Mychael called quietly.
I couldn’t tell if Tam waited, but apparently Mychael could. His eyes grew intent on the two men, and I knew his spellsinger magic was soon to follow.
The area around the temple, including the square, was seething with magic. We weren’t going to do the magical equivalent of setting off a bomb, but veils and such were quiet and necessary. We needed to move fast, and sneaking wasn’t what you’d call speedy; neither was snatching a secret service agent off of a street corner.
Mychael began humming an innocuous tune. The Khrynsani guard’s head snapped up as if he’d been slapped. Heck, for all I knew, that was what Mychael had done. The guard told Imala’s traitor to stay put and ran across the street and around the corner to investigate whatever Mychael had told him to.
Mychael’s hum changed pitch and the agent tilted his head like a dog hearing a whistle. Then he obediently turned and walked right to where Tam and Imala waited in the shadows.
“How very nice of you, Mychael,” Imala murmured. “The perfect present. ”
Mychael flashed a quick smile. “I thought you’d like it. ”
Tam was still veiled when he grabbed the agent and slammed him against the brick wall. Mychael quickly muttered what I recognized as a spell to ward the entrance to the narrow street. No one could see in, and anyone who passed by would feel an overwhelming urge to keep right on walking.
By the time the goblin agent could see straight again, the first two people his eyes focused on were probably two of the last people he wanted to see. I’d never seen a goblin go so pale, so fast.
“Balic,” Imala all but purred. “What an unexpected surprise. ”
I didn’t think he could have gotten any paler, but I was wrong.
He’d just spotted the rest of us.
As one of Imala’s agents, he had enough on the ball to know that he wasn’t going to be allowed to see us and then leave that alley alive.
“Nukpana forced me to do it,” he told his former boss. “He’s holding my family prisoner, and—”
Imala silenced him with a hard fist to the gut. Balic gagged and would have doubled over if Tam’s armored forearm hadn’t had him anchored to the wall.
“Nice try,” Imala said. “Your records say your family’s in Greypoint and they disowned you years ago. I wish I had done the same. ”
“I think he meant to say that Nukpana has my family prisoner,” Tam hissed softly, his face mere inches from the agent’s. “And you helped put them there. Where are they?”
“They took everyone to the temple. I don’t know anything else; I swear it on my grandmother’s grave. ”
Imala punched him again. “Your grandmother’s still alive, too. ”
“Where’s Carnades Silvanus?” I asked. “Spit shining Nukpana’s boots?”
Balic’s lips slid into a smile.
Oh yeah, he was an oily one, all right.
“That I do know,” he said. “The elf wanted us to take him to Sarad Nukpana. He was all eager to share the news that you didn’t have your magic anymore. He wanted to go to the temple, so that’s where we took him. ”
“And?” I asked.
“And nothing. We handed him over to the temple guards and left. I imagine he’s warming a dungeon cell by now. ” Balic shot a smug look at Tam. “I’ve got information about that son of yours. ”
Tam leaned in closer, his fangs sharp and visible. “Speak. ”
“Not so fast. I want your word that neither you, nor anyone else here, will kill me. ” He tried to swallow past Tam’s arm against his throat. “If I tell, I walk. ”
“What if my word is no better than Sarad Nukpana’s?” Tam’s voice was devoid of any feeling whatsoever.
“Your word’s good. ”
“Give him your word, Tam,” Kesyn said. “We don’t have time to play. ”
Tam shot his teacher a withering look. “What?”
The old goblin’s dark eyes flickered. “Oh, go on and give it to him. ”
Tam met Kesyn’s look, then pressed his lips together. He slowly turned back to Balic. “Done. You have my word; I won’t kill you. ”
“No one else here will kill me, either. ”
“Nor anyone else,” Kesyn bit the words off. “Now spill it, worm. ”
“Your son must have a lot of elf in him,” Balic said. “That navinem made him go on a rampage. I saw him just after midnight near the city’s west wall. He blew up the main bank of latrines the army’s using while they build Nukpana’s contraption outside the city. ”
The Gate. That monster Gate. Oh Talon, you devil. If I live through this, you’ve got a big kiss coming.
“The weekly supply wagons had just arrived,” Balic was saying. “The explosion sprayed shit on everything. Heard later that two of Nukpana’s pet generals were in the latrine when it went up. ”
Piaras pumped his fist in the air. “Woooo—”
I elbowed him in the ribs.
Mychael was grinning. “Don’t worry; I’ve warded us for sight and sound. ”
Balic added, “Then the kid dropped his trousers and mooned the lot of them. ”
Beautiful.
“Of course, they opened up on him: small cannon, crossbow, javelins—anything they had at hand. ” Balic stopped and looked expectantly at Tam.
“Did he get away?” Tam growled.
“I saw what happened. ” He smirked. “Let me go and I’ll tell you. ”
Tam drew a dagger and stepped in even closer. I couldn’t see where he was holding that dagger, but from Balic’s gasp and complete loss of color, I had a good idea.
“I gave my word not to kill you,” Tam said calmly. “It’ll be only one small cut, perhaps two. It won’t be fatal, though you’ll wish it had been. ”
“He got away,” Balic squeaked.
Tam stepped back and the dagger vanished back into his sleeve.
“You got anything else to tell us?” Kesyn asked.
“Th
at’s all. Now keep your word—”
“I got your word right here,” Kesyn said. “Dost ni’kiprat dij’sh. ”
Balic’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp in Tam’s grasp. Tam let him go and the former secret service agent slid down the wall into a crumpled heap in the street.
“That was more than one word, wasn’t it?” the old goblin asked Tam.
Tam was smiling. “Yes, sir, it was. They were well chosen, though. ”
The rest of us hadn’t moved.
Kesyn looked around. “What? I didn’t kill him. He’s just asleep. Of course, he won’t wake up until I tell him to; and if I get killed… or forget to come back…” The old man shrugged. “My memory’s just not what it used to be. ”
Chapter 14
Kesyn’s plan would either get us into the Khrynsani temple, or be an incredibly messy way to get ourselves killed.
Pretty much every ritual the Khrynsani conducted began and ended with some poor sot taking a dagger through the heart. That made for a lot of dead bodies. For the past thousand years, the Saghred hadn’t been around to clean up after them, so the Khrynsani had to do their own housekeeping.
Like Magh’Sceadu, sea dragons didn’t leave leftovers.
Just south of Regor’s harbor was a sheer cliff. I didn’t know how high it was because I couldn’t see the top from where we stood at the base of the thing. The six of us were on a stretch of rocky beach that was just big enough for us to stand on without getting wet. The height of the cliff didn’t matter because our destination was an opening about twenty feet over our heads. There were enough hand- and footholds that we could reach it. At high tide, the sea water could reach it, too. But our concern wasn’t that we’d get caught in a flooded tunnel at high tide. We were worried about getting caught by what lived in the cave and lake at the end of those tunnels.
A sea dragon. Definitely one, possibly more; serving the dual purpose of Khrynsani sentinel and undertaker. According to Kesyn, occasionally the Khrynsani would bypass their corpse-consuming sentinel and throw their dead out of the tunnel and into the sea. The tide would come in and take the bodies out. I’d noticed that a lot of the rock and gravel we were standing on was white and shaped suspiciously like bits of ground-up bone. I was making every effort not to notice it again.