Will Power wh-2

by A. J. Hartley

  “How could they think that you were like that filth just because you don’t, you know, look the same as them?”

  She shrugged fractionally and smiled her tiny, knowing smile.

  “You haven’t come across the goblins, though, Lisha,” I said, trying to sound conciliatory. “I mean, I’m not saying that it’s understandable that they took you for one, but the people round here have pretty good reason to hate them.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, regarding me thoughtfully.

  “I mean it’s terrible that they misjudged you, but if you knew these things, you’d see why they are so paranoid. It’s more misreading than malice, you know?”

  She sat quite still and said nothing for a long time. Then she sighed and said, “I don’t know, Will. This place just doesn’t feel right to me. I’ve had to skulk around the countryside wrapped up like a leper so that no one would challenge me on the assumption that I’m some kind of demon. Out here, where the people are a little more mixed, I can just about get by, but even here I have to stay in my room and pay double the usual rate to keep the innkeeper happy. I can’t get anywhere near the city. That’s why I had to bring you to me, without making myself visible.

  “I heard of your presence in the city but I did not want to risk drawing attention to myself,” she said. “Apart from the danger such exposure might put me in, it could also jeopardize the kind of reception you have been getting. I chose a way that would reach you but wouldn’t attract attention if the letter should. . go astray. You were the obvious target because I doubted Garnet and Renthrette would roll with something so underhanded. I assume they’ve adjusted to the court rather better than you have?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Odd, really. I’ve always prided myself on being flexible, on being able to play any role I was given, while they’ve always seemed rigid, unbending, and intolerant of whatever seemed suspicious. I guess the palace doesn’t seem suspicious to them.”

  “And you? Are you suspicious?”

  “No,” I said, quickly and without much thought. “I don’t think so. There are strange things about the whole city, but I suppose you’d find that everywhere.”

  “I suppose,” agreed Lisha, noncommittally.

  “What are you thinking?” I pressed. “You think something is wrong?”

  “Probably nothing. I’m just not sure of a few things. I told you that I have word from the city via some of the few people who will talk to me.”

  “Does that include the girl who picked me up?”

  “Rose? Yes. She doesn’t know anything about me, but she likes to talk, and I have learned much from her. She. . has contact with some of the courtiers from time to time.”

  “You mean. .”

  “Outside the city, people are not so wealthy as in it. Much of what is made or grown out here goes into Phasdreille, and many of the laborers struggle to make ends meet. Rose, like many others, has found a way to bring in some more money. That way she can keep her family, and her children, respectably.”

  “Ironic.”

  “Irony is a luxury many cannot afford,” she answered. I dropped my eyes a little, but she smiled. “Come now, Will. Before you came here, your hide was a good deal tougher. I suggest you thicken it again, if you can. It may yet prove invaluable. But that wasn’t my point. Rose and others like her told me of the arrival of people they called Outsiders. When you first reached the city, you created something of a stir. It seems that these Outsiders have been expected for some time. And though their interest in you has strangely dwindled lately, your first appearance prompted a good deal of excitement and some anxiety. Your names were on everyone’s lips for a day or so, and then, quite suddenly, you were forgotten. Garnet is now a horseman of the fair folk. Renthrette is a court lady often seen in the company of the much esteemed Sorrail. Will Hawthorne has vanished from sight and, it seems, from memory. Rose spoke of you several times when you first came to Phasdreille, but when I sent her to get you, she appeared to have no recollection of you. It is, as you say, odd.”

  “I guess I’m kind of forgettable.” I shrugged.

  “But that’s the thing,” she said. “You’re not. You should stand out, because you’re not like them. You don’t look like them and you certainly don’t think like them, so why have people stopped talking about you?”

  “Maybe I’m just the wrong kind of different,” I said.

  She looked at me sharply, and then nodded, as if I had said something shrewd or profound. “There’s also this attempt on your life,” she continued. “I don’t know, Will. It’s all very strange. It sounds like two separate entities-one goblin, the other human-want you dead. The cloaked figure only intervened when it seemed that the goblins might spare you. Why do two groups who hate each other both want you dead? And then there’s the Orgos apparition in the forest. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Not really,” I confessed. “The goblin said, ‘I have no faith in prophecy, Mr. Hawthorne.’ Could our arrival have been foretold somehow? It might explain why there was such interest in us at first. Then when it turned out that we either weren’t what was prophesied or that the prophecy was bollocks, or whatever-then they lost interest in us? I don’t ordinarily believe in such things, of course. . ”

  “Of course.” Lisha smiled dryly.

  “But this place is crawling with things I didn’t believe in, so I’m sort of at sea in a leaky kettle. Maybe there was some kind of prophecy that seemed to refer to us.”

  “And then it became apparent that you weren’t the prophesied Outsiders after all,” Lisha suggested.

  “That’s possible,” I mused. “But maybe a few fringe groups still think we’re worth killing just in case. The Assassins’ Convention, which I seem to have walked in on, took place some time after we fell from grace in the eyes of the king.”

  “We need to find out more about this prophecy, if it exists,” said Lisha, rising and starting to pace the room. “I wish we could get Garnet and Renthrette out of there. I worry that. .”

  “What?” I asked, since her voice had trailed off into nothing.

  “I don’t know,” she said, unsure of herself. “It’s just a feeling, an uneasiness. I don’t like the idea of them getting too. . involved with the court in Phasdreille.”

  “If you say the word,” I answered with a dry and knowing grin, “they’ll jump back into line like their tails are on fire and you have the only bucket of water in the world.”

  “I don’t know, Will,” she said, “but I hope so.”

  She sat down again and stared at the tabletop as if her mind was miles away.

  “I wish Mithos and Orgos were here,” I said suddenly. It was the first time I had said it, and I was rather surprised by it. It was as if my private anxiety had been skulking through the jungle of my head for days, always a few feet from the path I was on, and had chosen this moment to ambush me.

  “I think they are still alive,” she said, looking at me in that compassionate but penetrating fashion of hers which always made me feel like she’d walked in on me as I was getting out of the bath.

  “Based on what?” I demanded. I hadn’t intended to sound hostile, but I did not want to be patronized by groundless hopes.

  “I just feel it,” she said. “Or rather, I do not feel they have died.”

  “Why would you?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I wouldn’t,” she said. “But we have been together a long time and I think their passing might register in me somehow.”

  Her eyes held mine throughout this curious speech. I hesitated only a second.

  “That is the stuff of stories, Lisha,” I said. “Brothers, friends, twins, parents, and daughters all die daily, and their loved ones are none the wiser till some grim-faced messenger arrives at the door. I’d love to think we were all connected by some sort of spiritual bond, some connection, but I have seen no evidence for it, and plenty to the contrary. I don’t believe it.”

  “You are right not to,” she said. “I don’t believ
e it either. I merely hope that it might be true. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but I feel it nonetheless.”

  I shrugged, unconvinced, and began feeling depressed as a result. She smiled a little, as if this endeared me to her or reminded her of something she liked in me. Though she was the one talking fancifully and I was the cynical realist, she managed to make me feel, as usual, like a child. I smiled again and she clasped my hand impulsively.

  “I am glad you got here,” she said. “I needed to hear a voice of skepticism in this curious place. But now you must go back. I cannot come with you, and I feel that some of our answers still lie in the city. I will move in what limited way I can and gather information from the few safe sources available to me, but I have no wish to be hounded to earth and executed as a goblin spy.”

  “Where should I begin?”

  “With the prophecy, I suppose, though how you will go about that without putting yourself in danger, I do not know. Beware of trying to sour the city for Garnet and Renthrette too quickly. They may turn against you.”

  “Again.”

  “Quite. In fact,” she added, “now that I think of it, it might be better if you don’t tell them I’m here.”

  “You want me to lie to them?” I said, pleased by the idea.

  “No,” she insisted. “I just want you to keep what you know of my presence to yourself. For now.”

  I grinned. One day I would get some real mileage out of this, her trusting me over them. Still, it was unlike her to mislead her friends.

  “I just think it might be for the best,” she added. “For them, I mean. We’ll tell them soon.”

  “We don’t need to,” I said.

  She ignored that.

  “Be careful, and bring me word through Rose,” she said. “I will send her to the bridgehead gate two days from now and every day thereafter. If I can, I will come in the coach; otherwise, you should give her any letters for me that you have. I think she can be trusted, and I do not think she can read. Leave no writings in your quarters as long as you are in the palace. I hear the general practice of being a courtier involves a good deal of spying just to see who is on the way up and who on the way down and out. I have no doubt that servants are paid to bring stray letters to their masters. Don’t get caught up in the factions of court life, Will. There are too many daggers in such places, and you can’t protect yourself from all angles.”

  “It’s a good thing we know who the enemy is,” I remarked.

  “Indeed,” she said.

  I spent the night on the floor of Lisha’s room and left as close to first light as I could manage. I journeyed back to Phasdreille by means of the same carriage in which I had left, but Rose, alas, did not make the return trip with me. I arrived at about nine o’clock, passing the barbican sentries with a nod which they returned with the smiles of men who thought they knew what I’d been up to all night, and made straight for the palace and my room.

  My sword had come back from the smith, but instead of the notched blade having been reforged, they had just cut the end off and then ground down what remained. It was now less a short sword than long knife. I was irritated enough to have a word with the nearest guard, who pointed me to the armory next door. I marched in like I owned the place, slammed the sword down on the counter, and asked what the hell that was supposed to be.

  “It’s a fine sword,” said the duty officer.

  “It was a fine sword,” I said, “before you idiots chopped three inches off the end. Now it’s a bread knife. Can’t you make it like it was?”

  “Longer, you mean?” said the officer, blankly. “How?”

  “I don’t know; I’m not the smith. Melt it down, add more steel, and beat it out again,” I suggested. “Isn’t that how these things work?”

  The officer looked confused, but he went back into the forge. When he didn’t come back after a couple of minutes, I went in after him. I noticed two things right away. The first was that, though the smithy was large, with several furnaces and anvils set up, there was only one person working, and all the other hearths were cold. In fact, they looked like they hadn’t been used for ages. The second thing I noticed was the way that the smith in his leather apron studied the sword with the same blank look the duty officer had given me. These people were clueless.

  “I could weld a setting for some diamonds to the hilt,” said the smith, sauntering over, “or I can give you a new one.”

  “Oh,” I said, taken aback and rather pleased. “Fine. Yes. I’ll take a new one.”

  Since I seemed to be the only person in the city who didn’t go about with a wheelbarrow full of diamonds, it seemed the smart choice.

  He turned to a door and opened it. Briefly I saw beyond him and noticed rack upon rack of swords and other weapons. He drew one out, seemingly at random, and brought it to me.

  It was, if anything, finer than the one I had broken, with a filigree patterning in the steel where it had been folded and reforged many times. I swashed it about in a professional sort of way, which seemed to satisfy the smith.

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  So I was feeling pretty good about myself as I made for the library. Things had gone without a hitch thus far. I was beginning to feel as smooth as a greased otter when I got to the side door of the library and found it closed and guarded. I paused in the long morning shadows of the colonnade that ran along the sides of the square and considered my next move, while trying to look like I was out on a morning stroll. Not that anyone round here ever went on strolls. It was all lolling about spouting poetry or charging into battle. A good stroll would probably do them good.

  None of which helped me. I needed to get into the library because I felt sure that it was there that I could learn the most about the prophecy. But that wasn’t all. My curiosity had been piqued about the fire which had evacuated the building on my last visit but left no noticeable damage anywhere. I had paced around the entire building, focusing particularly on the great dome itself, but there were no signs of cracking, no scorching of brick, no shattering of window glass, no blackening of stone. If there had been a fire, it had been a bloody small one. Perhaps I had just felt the heat from another incinerator, in which case Aliana either had no idea what was going on in the library or she was trying to keep their little book-burning project under wraps. If I got inside again, the first thing I would do was look over that room with the great brass doors.

  But getting in, like many things in life, was easier said than done. The only way in that I knew was guarded, and the alternative was to knock politely on the door and ask them what the big secret was. I hadn’t forgotten the spectral “Orgos” or the rival assassins in the alley. They, whoever “they” were, probably had suspicions about me already, but there was no point in confirming those suspicions unless I was going to achieve something in the process.

  You will have noticed that my brand of adventuring is subtly different from that of Garnet or Renthrette. Perhaps “subtly” isn’t the right word. In this instance, neither of the noble siblings would think anything of shinning up the walls like secretive steeplejacks, clambering ape-like down chimneys, or knocking holes in the dome with their heads. That was not my style, partly because such feats were beyond me. If I started hoisting my awkward frame up ropes and squeezing through windows I’d probably rupture something crucial or hang myself in the process. The general populace would wake to find me sheepishly dangling from a turret, flapping about like some absurd flightless bird. No, I was not Garnet (thank God) and I must stick with whatever talents I had.

  Unfortunately, these were few. I could talk myself into a rich man’s good graces and his theater-loving daughter’s bedchamber (well, nearly). I could act the part of a crippled beggar or a sleeping drunk whenever there were coins to be donated or pilfered. I could get onto a stage and make a crowd believe I was a warrior, lover, tyrant, or clown. But I wasn’t going to get into that library, and the reason was perfectly simple. Out in the slightly seedy tavern where Lisha was s
taying, I had blended in with the other lowlifes and disreputables. Here, I was a man alone.

  The average height of the men in Phasdreille was a good two or three inches above mine. They were lithe and slender, I am-as Renthrette was fond of pointing out-thicker about the waist than I should be, and my limbs tended to the scrawny. They had long, flaxen hair, bright as sunlight through hay, and pale, icy blue eyes. I have hair so brown that it gives a new dimension to the term “nondescript.” My eyes, likewise. And while, in my former life, these features had helped me lie low, they now stood out like a beacon, a sign that singled me out, identified me by name, and reminded all and sundry what a gutter-crawling degenerate I was. While I could live with such barely concealed distaste and skepticism-it had never really bothered me before-it meant that there was no way I could dress as a guard or a librarian (complete with book-burning stove) and sidle in as if everything was normal. I either had to go in as myself, or I had to go in one hell of a disguise.

  I tried the former.

  It took me a moment to convince the guard on duty that I knew Aliana. He sent word inside to confirm my story. She met me at the main door fairly promptly.

  “I’m back,” I announced, redundantly. She met my genial smile with a tiny replica of her own touched with a certain reserve.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How was the fire?” I asked, jauntily, as if it had been some kind of holiday excursion.

  “It’s out,” she said.

  “Much damage?”

  “Not much.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “There was no need.”

  “And the fire’s out?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there was no real damage, to speak of, as it were?”

  “No.”

  This was not going all that well. She was holding the door open just wide enough to poke her head round, and showed no sign of inviting me in.