The Cycle of Galand Box Set

by Edward W. Robertson

  Herrick's brown eyes lingered on her pocket. "You keep that safe until then, yeah?"

  "Yeah." Keeping her eyes on Herrick, she stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled.

  It had been one of the first things she'd taught them. The front door swung open. Hesitantly, a young boy emerged into the sunlight. He was as tan as a Bresselian, his hair black and shaggy.

  "You get back inside!" Herrick hollered. Teeth gritted, he glanced back at Raxa.

  The boy was already reaching for the door handle and retreating inside. But it was too late to cover the puffy black ring around his right eye.

  Raxa grabbed the collar of Herrick's thin gray blouse, yanking him close. "Is that your work?"

  "Get your hands off me." He grabbed for her wrist, but she snatched his thumb, levering it back until he stopped resisting. "I said let go!"

  She released his thumb, swept her hand to her belt, and drew a knife. She put its edge against his throat.

  "I'm going to ask you some questions," Raxa said. "You're going to answer."

  He tried to pull his neck back from the knife, but she kept it tight. He grimaced. "It's broad daylight!"

  "Then everyone will be able to see how black your blood runs."

  "All right. All right!"

  "Why?"

  Herrick grimaced; a bead of blood ran down his neck. "He's more trouble than he's worth."

  "That's one of the reasons I pay you," Raxa said. "So you can make the effort to help him lead a civilian life."

  "What do you think I'm trying to do? How else am I supposed to get him to listen?"

  "You don't hit them. No matter what, you don't hit them. That's the first rule."

  "I know it is."

  "Then why?"

  "He doesn't listen. I give him chores. Nothing more than I had as a kid, mind. Enough to earn his keep and build some discipline. And eight times out of ten, when I come home, he hasn't lifted a finger."

  "And you think if you hurt him bad enough, he'll become a perfect gentleman. Happy to do your bidding without a trace of resentment."

  Herrick's jaw hardened. "So maybe it don't make sense, do it? But you tell me what else to try when you already tried everything else."

  "Try again," she said.

  "All right."

  "I'm going to ask you one more question. It's very simple. It's not a trick. Do you want him or not?"

  A tear slipped into Herrick's whiskers. "I do, Raxa. I wouldn't have taken him if I didn't."

  "Then act like it," she said. "Because if you don't, I can find him another home. But if you do, then you'll never lay hands on him again."

  She withdrew the knife, wiped the veneer of blood on the leg of her charcoal trousers—which were dark for reasons exactly like that—and sheathed the weapon. As Herrick rubbed his neck, inspecting the smear of blood on his fingers, Raxa stalked to the shack and opened the door. Fedd stood inside the dark room, staring up at her.

  "He hit you?" she said. The boy nodded. She moved closer, touching his shoulder. "If he does it again, you tell me. You understand?"

  The boy nodded again.

  She walked outside. Herrick stood in the yard, squinting, although his back was to the sun. Raxa got out the sixth sack of coins and underhanded it hard at his chest. He turned away from it, shielding his head. The sack struck him in the ribs and fell in the grass. He grunted, stooping to pick it up.

  "Buy him something nice," Raxa said. "Like some shoes."

  Herrick reddened beneath his summer tan. Raxa turned on her heel and walked back toward the gate. During their conversation, she'd kept her cool, but now she steamed like a kettle. Before she could turn back and do something stupid—despite everything, she believed Herrick when he said he wanted to keep the boy—she broke into a run, drawing looks from a pair of guardsmen in the black and silver of the Citadel.

  But maybe she should hurt Herrick. These were her kids. She'd pulled them off the street—often, places far worse than the street. She'd found them parents she trusted to do right by them.

  It had started two winters back. Dead dog in an alley. Covered with snow. And two tiny cloth-bound feet poking from beneath it. She'd pulled away the dog; its legs were stiff, but it hadn't yet frozen through. And underneath it was a toddler. The boy sat up to look at her, back pressed to the wall, but he didn't look afraid.

  "Are you here to hurt me?"

  His voice was a young child's, but his tone was a veteran soldier's. As if he didn't even care, in the end, but just wanted to know how the rest of his day was going to turn out.

  "No," Raxa said. "No. I'm here to get you out of here."

  The boy stared, then reached up. His hand was as cold as the snows. One of his fingers was already discolored. Days later, however, it would turn out to be the only digit he'd have to have amputated.

  That had been Ven. She'd found Bina two months later, and Avie a few months after that. Now, she was up to six. She wasn't sure how many more she could handle. Costs added up. The people she chose were the good ones. Honest. Wanting to help. Too often, that meant they were nearly as poor as their former street urchin fosterlings had been. Raxa's purse was only so deep.

  But if six was as many as she saved from a life like hers, then she would have done far better than most.

  She went home. The apartment was small, stuffy, hot. Inside, bugs crawled on the moldy walls. Outside, human vermin stalked through the mucky streets. Raxa stretched out in bed, hands behind her head, and smiled.

  ~

  "Well," Gaits said. "Don't you think you should tell me how you intend to make entry?"

  Raxa wagged a finger. "Trade secret. Why would you need to know?"

  "So that if anything happens to you, I'll know where to recover your body."

  "Anything happens to me, you won't want to get within a mile of the Citadel. The less you know, the better."

  "On the one hand, this is completely true." He regarded her with a look that almost but wasn't quite a glare. "On the other, it's damned annoying to have no idea how you intend to do this."

  "If I told you, it would only frustrate you more."

  "Great. Now you've made it even worse." Gaits sighed testily, turning toward the distant Citadel. Night lay on the city, but lights gleamed in the windows of the keep. "I believe we're done here."

  She was making entry that night. She'd had the map for two days. It was crude, but like Gaits had said, most times you had no map at all. Maybe it was better that way. A map made you think you'd know your way around. Gave you false confidence. But it didn't show you where the guards were patrolling. Where the servants would pass by at the exact wrong moment to land you in the dungeon—or at the end of a noose.

  "No sense sitting around." Raxa pushed off from the railing around the roof. "Keep a bottle handy. I'll be back before morning."

  She already had everything she needed: map, knives, a doughty pack, her personal lockpicks, and some more specialized tools checked out from the supply room. She set out to the east. It was only nine o'clock and the streets were thick with pedestrians out for a night on the town. The Cathedral of Ivars grew taller and taller. Eventually, she stood beneath it, the Sealed Citadel across the plaza, its outer walls thirty feet high and the keep far higher.

  Though the church doors were closed, a few pilgrims stood outside, laying down prayer boards: thin wooden squares carved with the position of the Celeset's stars during their birth. Otherwise, the plaza and the fortress across it were nice and quiet.

  Raxa headed north without any hurry. On the fringe of town, she stopped at a tavern for a beer and a plate of beef hash. When the midnight bells pealed across the sky, she rose and continued to the hill with the cemetery on top of it and the body locker beneath it.

  It was as quiet as her first visit. This time, though, she was carrying a small shop's worth of burglary equipment. She moved to the side of the cave, bit her lip until she tasted blood, took a deep breath, and stepped into the shadows.

  The
world became a place of shadow and silver. Mercury-colored light glowed from anywhere it pleased: the trees on the hillside, the flies on the air, from within the cavern itself. Even where there was no light, she was somehow still able to see through the darkness. The air tasted sharp and metallic and refreshing. Her body felt like an arrow in flight.

  No time to waste enjoying herself. She jogged into the cave. A hooded figure sat inside the foyer, reading by the light of the lantern. To him, she was perfectly invisible. She still hadn't had to use the cover story she'd devised for coming here. It was a shame how much prep work went to waste on most jobs.

  She made her way to the tunnel she'd investigated the other night. It and the hallway leading to it were deserted. She stepped out of the shadows and into a darkness so total she had to reach out to the cool stone wall for support.

  Knowing the floor was smooth and unbroken, she walked forward blind, one hand trailing along the wall while the other reached out before her. After what felt like forever, her leading hand touched blank stone.

  Raxa moved back into the shadows. Within them, walking through the rock was no trickier than walking through a gauzy curtain. She emerged into a prison cell, the bars on its small window swirling with silver motes. She returned to the humdrum world, opened her pack, and changed into a set of servant's clothes: a gray shin-length dress with ties at the end of the sleeves so they could be secured above the elbow if the weather warmed. A white tree embroidered on the breast marked her in the employ of the Citadel.

  The disguise was as basic as basic got. But she couldn't move through the shadows for more than ten or fifteen minutes a day before her brain lost its hooks on the place and she tumbled back into reality. There was no way around it. Most of her time inside the Citadel would be spent out in plain sight.

  She returned to the shadows long enough to slip through the wall and into the hallway beyond. This was empty. And totally dark. Recalling the map, the stairs were to her right. She shuffled that way. Rats—she thought—skittered through the darkness. The air smelled like mildew, old sweat, and gentle rot. Eventually, her toes banged into a stone step.

  The stairwell took her up to a yawning hall with a lantern at the far end. A quick poke around revealed a score of large storerooms aching to be burgled, but that could come later. She continued to the ground floor.

  She exited into a small foyer next to a high-ceilinged hall. Voices murmured somewhere ahead, carrying across the vast stone spaces. Without pausing, Raxa forged onward, following the wall until it came to the stairwell to the upper floors. This sported a lantern at each landing, providing enough light to climb by.

  The Jerrelec Collection was supposed to be housed on the top floor. She ascended, stepping lightly. The air smelled dusty but otherwise clean. A door creaked above her. Heavy footsteps began their descent. Raxa carried on. At the next landing, a man in a thin black doublet with a white tree on the chest glanced her way. He was heavyset, mostly muscle, with a thick beard and an air of authority. Raxa lowered her eyes and stood to the side of the stairs.

  He moved past her with the slightest of nods. She recognized him—Salamander? Ollimander? Something like that. The chief in Galand's absence. Raxa climbed upward, reaching the top floor without interruption.

  The hallway was lit well enough to see it was empty. Her target was three doors down on the right. Door was locked. She bit the inside of her lip again, drawing enough blood to make the shadows happy, and walked into the realm of black and silver. She crossed through the stone wall. The room beyond was empty of people, but crowded with cabinets and display cases.

  She smiled and departed the shadows.

  The room was pitch black. She groped around her stuff until she found her flint and lit a candle. Jewels and silver shined from pegs and the dark cloths used to showcase them. One case held nothing but gold rings. Raxa gave herself a moment to enjoy them. After all, a good thief had to know what the best merch looked like.

  Enough admiration. Time to start grabbing. She wrapped the larger necklaces and idols in cloth so they wouldn't clink and sorted various rings, bracelets, and earrings into a compartmented wooden box. Finished, she hefted her pack. By weight alone, she was carrying a fortune.

  She crossed back into the hall. At the far end, a silvery figure entered a door, closing it behind themselves.

  So far, everything had gone as smoothly as Raxa could have asked. Getting inside the Citadel was the hard part. Once you were there, and dressed as a servant, nobody was going to pay you any mind unless they caught you somewhere you weren't supposed to be. All she had to do was walk downstairs, hit the dungeon, and get the hell outside.

  But something held her back. The man of the house was gone. And his room was just down the hall.

  Sending a quick prayer to Carvahal, who looked over all thieves, she walked forward, counting down doors. At Galand's, she tried the knob. Locked. A quick jaunt through the shadows got her inside the room.

  She relit her candle, revealing a space that was both orderly yet cluttered. Shelves along the walls were full of books, most of which looked older than the bones in a crumbling tomb. Benches and desks displayed a crazy amount of knives, scalpels, small skulls, bits of bone, a glass case full of pinned moths, assorted gewgaws, and tiny wooden statues so well-crafted they had to be norren craftsmanship. For the right person, there might be treasures here, but nothing hit her eye as worth carrying out.

  The candlelight glinted from something hanging on the wall. A sheathed sword. The scabbard was black and curved, filigreed with silver, though not half so pompously as the blades of most nobility. A bright blue sapphire winked from the scabbard's tip.

  Raxa set a chair beneath the sword, climbed up, and unhooked the scabbard's strap from its pegs. She began to draw the weapon, but stopped when she'd only exposed the first six inches. The blade was white.

  She tapped her nail against its flat. Wasn't metal. Almost felt like wood. Or more like…bone.

  Raxa unsheathed the rest. The entire sword was white, gently curved, edged on one side. It was lighter than expected, as if it was hollow. There wasn't a single nick on its cutting edge. Ceremonial? She set the edge against her thumbnail to test its dullness.

  She cocked her head. And took a second look across the room. All those trinkets. Scalpels. Pieces of animals. Aside from the strangeness of the collections, some of which looked like active experiments, these were the personal quarters of Dante Galand. Nethermancer extraordinaire.

  Raxa withdrew her thumbnail from the sword, walked over to the desk hosting most of the pieces of bone, and laid the edge against the wood. As soon as she pressed down, the sword sliced an inch into the table.

  With a gasp, she dropped the hilt. The blade remained embedded in the wood. Effortlessly, she pulled it free, eyes traveling up its white length.

  "Uh oh," Raxa murmured. "Looks like someone left their favorite toy behind."

  5

  Gladdic moved forward, silver eyes shining from the infinite darkness of his body. Dante reached for another bolt of the ether that had finally knocked Gladdic back a step, but he produced nothing but a handful of sparks in the air between them.

  Even so, Gladdic halted in his tracks. Dante followed up the sparks with a lance of shadows. As before, Gladdic absorbed the nether without so much as a grunt. Dante lashed out wildly with enough nether to knock down a small house. Gladdic inhaled, chest swelling as the shadows sank harmlessly into his body, and stepped forward, lifting his claws.

  Dante turned and ran for the stairs.

  "Blays!" His feet thundered on the steps. "We have to get—!"

  Blays spilled out onto the second-floor landing right beside him, clutching an armload of papers. "What's happening?"

  Dante raced down the steps. "What are you doing up here?"

  "Why are we running?" Blays fell in beside him, glancing back up the steps. "Did you ruin everything?"

  "No time for talking."

  "I'm taking that as a
firm 'yes.'"

  Dante came to the ground floor and raced toward the door he'd come in through. His leg banged into a table, spilling him onto a plush rug. Shin throbbing, he got to his feet. Blays had gone to open the door, sword in hand. As Dante reached him, his eyes went wide.

  "Oh," Blays said. "Run!"

  Gladdic's silhouette seemed to flow across the dim room. Dante sprinted outside. He and Blays dashed across the moonlit plaza. A dog barked nearby. Dante flung himself at the wrought iron fence, grabbing tight and hauling himself over its points. Blays dropped to the other side, landing in a crouch. Dante came down beside him, stumbling, his wounded leg threatening to give out beneath him. He sent a wave of shadows to his shin. Attracted by the blood leaking from the gash there, they soothed the wound at once.

  "What in hell?" Blays said.

  "Don't know," Dante panted.

  "That thing looked like it was carved out of coal!"

  "That thing was Gladdic."

  Blays swerved south, putting them on a parallel course with the distant river. "You're sure about that? Because I have a distinct memory of Gladdic being human."

  "I've been watching the temple all day. Gladdic never left. When I went into the room, he was sitting at his desk. I hit him with the nether, but it was like he absorbed it. He didn't even have to do anything. When I struck him with the ether, that's when he turned into…whatever that was."

  "Maybe that's what he's always been. And the ether only revealed his true form."

  They entered the tailors' district. With the shops shuttered for the night, the street was quiet, their footfalls echoing from the walls.

  Blays glanced back, but they appeared to be alone. "Here's another thought. What if that wasn't him at all?"

  "What else would it have been?"

  "You're the wizard. You tell me."

  "You know how to use the nether, too!"

  "Yeah, but for me, it's only a hobby," Blays said. "For you, it's more like your wife."

  They veered east, heading back toward the river. Dante slowed his pace. "I have no idea. But that felt like a trap."