Tides! He actually believes Stellan signed those papers. She smiled, although not for the reason Declan thought. “Warlock’s input was very helpful. He was one Crasii not overawed by a Tide Lord.”
Declan studied her curiously. “Do you know where he is now?”
“Warlock? I have no idea. I haven’t seen him since he was released.”
“I should probably find this fearless canine of yours,” he said. “I believe the Scards may well be our only allies if things go the way I suspect they will.”
“That places you in a very small minority, Declan.”
He nodded. “That’s why I’m asking for your help. To face this threat the Cabal will need people like you. People who have faced down a Tide Lord and walked away from it unscathed.”
Arkady took a sip of rapidly cooling tea from her cup, hoping the delicate china would hide her uncertainty at Declan’s optimistic and entirely incorrect assumption that she had emerged from her confrontation with a Tide Lord unscathed.
She had been marked by Cayal far deeper than she cared to admit. It was just that nobody but Arkady could see the scars.
Chapter 68
With the callous disregard common to all canine females, the day after Boots and Warlock mated so savagely and irresistibly in the lane outside the Kennel, she was all business again, acting as if nothing had happened between them. While the change in her attitude did not surprise Warlock, it did disappoint him. Intellectually, he understood the primal urges that drove his race to procreate, while in his heart, he resented mightily the immortals who had so thoughtlessly created them. The Tide Lords had wanted slaves and cared nothing for the way canine society might happen to evolve.
Warlock lamented the lack of opportunity for a meaningful relationship with a female. There were no anniversaries celebrated by their kind. No rewards to mark a marriage that had stood the test of time. There was affection between them and the urge to mate. Love as it existed for humans was unknown to them, and Warlock thought the Crasii poorer for the lack. Canines made friends and formed family groups for protection of their young, they cohabited, even married, but when it came time to rut, all bets were off and the strongest male won, regardless of what had gone before or might happen in the future.
The musky, maddening scent of Boots had faded significantly by the following day and was gone completely after a few days, which made it much easier for Warlock to concentrate when she was around. The males who attacked them in the alley returned to the Kennel, showing no interest in continuing the fight, once the female was no longer in heat. Had the memory of their sharp, savage coupling not been imprinted so vividly in Warlock’s memory, he might have begun to believe he’d imagined it.
Every day they made the trek through the crowded, dirty streets of the Lebec slums to Shalimar’s attic, and every day—at least once—they ate like noblemen while Warlock tried to recall everything Cayal had said to Lady Desean in his hearing. He told them about Gabriella and Planice, the Queen of Kordana. He told them of Arryl and Diala, Syrolee and Engarhod, Tryan and Elyssa, Krydence and Rance and the enigmatic Lukys, who even among the Crasii remained something of a mystery. He told them of the suzerain’s dark moods, his assertion that Warlock was probably a Scard and Cayal’s promise—which had seemed so empty at the time—to settle the score once the Tide returned.
Shalimar took copious notes as he spoke, and then questioned Warlock extensively, probing for details he may have overlooked or not recalled in the first telling. Warlock found the interrogations quite exhausting, but he suffered through them willingly enough. Not only was it an opportunity to eat like a civilised being, but it meant Boots stayed with him, listening intently to every word, adding her questions to Shalimar’s, revealing a sharp intellect and a remarkable eye for detail in the process.
“Did Cayal never speak of the destruction of Kordana?” Shalimar asked one afternoon, following another intensive session of questions.
Warlock shook his head. “He spoke of it only in passing. He blamed Tryan for it, I know that much, but he never said exactly what happened. Is it important?”
“Knowing what drives these monsters is always important,” Shalimar said, putting down his notes. “If we could define some pattern in their behaviour…some trigger that sets them off…perhaps we could find a way to stop them.”
“Be more use to us to find a way to kill them,” Boots grumbled, picking at the bones of a chicken she had all but sucked dry. Warlock liked to kid himself she was hanging around because she fancied him, even though she was no longer in the grip of her mating instincts, but he suspected she was driven by the need for decent food just as much as he was.
“Then you and the Immortal Prince are of one mind,” Warlock remarked. “He’d very much like to find a way to kill himself, I suspect.”
“Would that we could aid his quest,” Shalimar lamented, stretching his tired shoulders. It was hot in the attic and his face was damp with sweat, but he didn’t seem to notice. “What a torment Cayal must be suffering, to want death so desperately while knowing it can never be.”
“Tides, Shalimar!” Boots complained. “You sound as if you feel sorry for him.”
“I do a little,” the old man replied. “Not enough to want to be enslaved by him, mind you, but I pity any creature in pain.” Suddenly he smiled, revealing a row of uneven teeth, yellowed with age and cowberry juice. “In fact, I’d like to help the poor sod find a way to kill himself. I’d then like to apply the same remedy to the rest of his merciless brethren and be rid of the whole flanking lot of them.”
“Do you think there is a way to kill an immortal?” Boots wondered without looking up, too busy picking over the bones of the chicken for any tiny morsel that may have escaped her notice to give the others her full attention.
“Maybe.” Shalimar shrugged. “I suppose the one thing the immortals don’t lack is the time to look for it.”
“Are they all like Cayal?” Warlock asked. “Do they all seek an end to their endless existence?”
Shalimar looked thoughtful. “To be honest, I have no idea. Until you shared your incarceration with him, we didn’t even know any of them wanted to die. And it could just be some sort of temporary insanity brought on by the long Low Tide. First hint of the Tide turning and for all you know the Immortal Prince is fair bouncing with glee at the prospect of another millennium lording it over the rest of us.”
“Might get interesting if it isn’t temporary,” Boots remarked.
“Why?” Warlock asked.
She pushed the plate away and rubbed her greasy hands on her shift to clean them. “Suppose he finds a way to die and the others aren’t interested in joining him in oblivion? The Tide Lords are bad enough, by all accounts, when they can only hurt each other. What happens if they find a way to start murdering each other, too?”
“It may not be such a bad thing,” Warlock speculated. “It’d thin their numbers down at the very least.”
“Might also take the rest of us with them,” Shalimar reminded him with a frown. “But it’s an interesting problem and one I will dwell on much in the coming weeks, I suspect. Will you come back and see me again tomorrow?”
Warlock glanced at Boots, who nodded. “If you want.”
“I’d like to know more of what Cayal told you about the Eternal Flame.”
Warlock was going to say that he’d already told him everything he knew, but then he glanced at the laden table and nodded. “I’ll try to make sure I remember everything,” he said.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” Shalimar declared, rising to his feet to usher them toward the door. “And we’ll see if we can’t learn all about becoming an immortal, eh?”
“What does Shalimar do?” Warlock asked Boots a little later, as they strolled past the beggars and the whores of the slums toward the Kennel. It was almost sunset and the streets were even busier than they had been earlier. They passed slaves and workmen, indentured servants and free Crasii of every sub-species,
even a pair of canines mating up against the wall of one of the many taverns scattered through the city outskirts, in full view of the passers-by. He looked away in disgust, his disapproval tempered by the knowledge he was no better than they were. At the thought, his disgust turned to a measure of self-loathing, the faces of the couple against the wall blurring in his mind, his tormented imagination replacing them with himself and his companion against that wall…
Boots noticed his expression and the copulating couple and because she had no notion of the direction of his thoughts, she smiled. Warlock looked away, embarrassed by his own weakness as much as her amusement.
Despite the noise and the smells, Warlock was a little surprised to find he was growing accustomed to the hordes of people and had discovered the hang of shouldering his way through a crowd. He still wasn’t used to the libertine attitudes of the slum Crasii, but was growing a little more accepting of the idea that instinct was a harsh mistress. She didn’t like to be ignored.
“What do you mean?”
“Pardon?
“You asked about Shalimar.”
Warlock forced himself to forget the couple and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand. “I was wondering where all the food comes from? He has to pay for it somehow. How does he make his living? As a healer? A scribe? A fortune teller?”
Boots thought about it for a moment and then shrugged, stepping over an oily puddle exuding a smell that made Warlock want to retch. Between the endless spring rains and summer fast approaching, stinking, unidentifiable sludge regularly clogged what passed for gutters here.
“Don’t really know. Maybe he gets by on donations.”
“From whom?” he asked, wondering how Boots could negotiate these streets so oblivious to the smells and the refuse that polluted them. “This is the Lebec slums, Boots. There’s nobody here with the coin to keep their own bellies full, let alone give it away to set a table as full as Shalimar’s.”
“From the Scards he helps, perhaps?” she suggested, clearly worried now that Warlock had brought the matter to her attention. “Maybe he charges passage to Hidden Valley and puts a percentage on top.”
“That would make him a scavenger who lives off Crasii misery,” he said. “Not the great man you seem to think he is.”
Boots looked up at him curiously. “What are you trying to say, Warlock? That Shalimar is some sort of evil charlatan trading on Crasii misfortune?”
“Do you know where Hidden Valley is?”
“No.”
“Have you ever spoken to anybody who’s been there? Seen anybody come back from there?”
She frowned. “Well…no…”
“So for all you know, Shalimar is getting rich pretending to help our people, when in fact, he could be taking their money, slitting their throats as soon as they leave the city and burying them in an unmarked trench somewhere, just outside the city.”
Boots stopped and looked up at him for a moment and then shook her head, rolling her eyes at him. “You’re crazy.”
“I was just asking how he can set a table like that, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I might, tomorrow.”
“You do that,” she said, obviously annoyed. “I’ll look forward to Shalimar’s reaction to what you’re insinuating.”
Warlock sighed. He hadn’t meant to make her angry. “Boots…I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything. I was just thinking, that’s all, how it seems a little odd—”
“Halt!”
Instinctively, Warlock froze at the shouted command. Boots, being much more used to freedom than he was, had the opposite reaction. She ran—a futile ambition in these narrow crowded streets—only to slam straight into the arms of a pair of City Watchmen. She yelled at the men, struggling violently as they tried to restrain her, scratching one on the cheek, biting the other on the arm. Warlock growled low in his throat and moved to help.
“Not another step, dog boy!” someone yelled behind him. “Not if you and the bitch expect to live!”
Warlock hesitated and glanced over his shoulder to discover a crossbow aimed squarely at his torso. There were a dozen or more Watchmen behind them and even more moving in behind the pair who held Boots. Completely surrounded, the Watchman with the bow trained on him was almost close enough to touch, certainly close enough to shoot before Warlock could reach him, and near enough to be confident he wouldn’t miss.
After a tense moment while Warlock debated the wisdom of trying to free Boots and make a break for it, he slowly lowered his tail and raised his hands. The officer visibly relaxed.
“Wise decision, dog boy.” He turned to his men. “Take him back to the Watch-house.”
“What about the female?” one of the Watchmen asked.
“Take her, too,” he ordered.
The men moved in closer, and quite warily, probably because of Warlock’s size.
“What am I being arrested for?” he called after the officer, who was ordering the remainder of his men to clear the street of the curious onlookers who had gathered to gawk at this unusual event. “I have done nothing wrong! I have a pardon from the Duke of Lebec.”
The officer glanced over his shoulder at Warlock. He seemed singularly unimpressed by the news.
“It’s not the duke who wants you, dog boy,” the officer told him with a shrug. “It’s the king.”
Chapter 69
It was late in the evening on the day before they were due to depart for Herino before Stellan saw his wife again. Certain she was deliberately avoiding him, he finally decided to visit her room as she was preparing for bed, knocking as he entered although he didn’t wait for permission.
Dressed in a long pale blue nightgown, Arkady was folding down the covers as he opened the door. She turned to face him, but he was unable to read her expression in the inadequate light coming from the single candle on the bedside table.
“Come for your regular conjugal visit, husband?” There was an edge to her voice, the ritual greeting a cruel parody of their former easy companionship.
Stellan closed the door and leant against it. He’d been expecting her to be angry, but not so cold. Not so distant. “Actually, I came to apologise.”
She shrugged and turned back to the bed covers. “As you wish.”
“I truly am sorry, Arkady,” he said, walking toward her. He stopped when he reached the bed, reaching out to her, hoping to convey his remorse. She ignored the gesture.
Disappointed, he dropped his hand. “What I said the other day…you didn’t deserve that. I was angry. Declan Hawkes scares the life out of me, and with you disappearing like that, forging my signature…him breathing down my neck…”
She stopped arranging the bed covers and turned to face him. “It’s all right, Stellan. You don’t have to explain.”
“He came to see me about you.”
She didn’t seem surprised. With a sigh, she sat on the edge of the bed.
He sat down beside her. “He told me I was being a fool.”
Arkady smiled thinly. “Really? How did he know?”
“I’m not sure. You do know he’s in love with you, don’t you? It’s one of the reasons he frightens me so. I took you away from him.”
“That’s crazy,” she scoffed. “Declan’s my oldest friend. There was never anything between us.”
Stellan shook his head, wondering why people never saw what was right in front of them. “You married me before Declan had a chance to declare himself, I fear, which is why every time he steps foot in my palace I start to worry. He’s the King’s Spymaster, Arkady, and even for a man without my secrets, that makes him a very dangerous enemy.”
“Declan doesn’t suspect a thing and if anything, our marriage brings you an added layer of protection. To bring you down, Declan would have to bring me down too, and he wouldn’t do that.”
Stellan nodded slowly. “I hope you’re right. Did you say something to him…about your kidnapping?”
She hesita
ted, which made him wonder how much of her crazy theory about immortals she had shared with Declan. Not much, he concluded, given Declan had done nothing but praise her courage.
“We had a very…enlightening…discussion at breakfast a few days ago,” she admitted finally. “He’s very interested in tracking down Cayal.”
Stellan nodded. “Yes, he told me that. Said you were to be admired for your bravery, actually, and that your contribution to his eventual recapture will be vital.”
“You didn’t tell him your suspicions about me having an affair with the Immortal Prince, then,” she remarked. He had the feeling she was still not quite ready to forgive him.
“I’m truly sorry, Arkady,” he assured her, taking her hand. “You’ve stood by me without complaint for six years. I should never have suggested anything so callous. I don’t know what I was thinking. If you’re not with child, then so be it. We’ll tell the king you miscarried, as I originally intended.”
“I slept with Cayal once, Stellan. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Do you love him?”
The question took Arkady by surprise. She thought about it for a moment and then stunned him with her answer. “I don’t know, Stellan. Is longing a sign of love? The inability to concentrate? The inability to think of anything else but those haunted blue eyes?”
He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Was it really like that for her? He knew all too well the agony of a love that could never be acknowledged, never even suspected. Stellan would never have wished the same pain on Arkady. “There’s no future for you down that road, Arkady,” he warned gently.
Arkady smiled and nodded. “Now that I do know.” She squeezed his hand apologetically. “Never fear, Stellan, I’m not planning to run off with my immortal lover anytime soon.”
He frowned. There was love, and there was blind foolishness. He had never thought Arkady likely to fall victim to a confidence trickster, not even one as accomplished as this one apparently was. “You’re still insisting he’s immortal.”
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