The Warlord's Legacy

by Ari Marmell

  “It’s just … Cerris.”

  She blinked, and he knew it wasn’t because of the water. “What?”

  “Cerris. Tyannon, the priest called me ‘Cerris.’ ”

  “Well, yes. That’s what we told him your name was. It’s not as though we could have—”

  “I know. But …” He waved helplessly, sending a spray of water arcing over the flowers, perpendicular to the rain. “Can we build a marriage—” he asked in a whisper, “can we build a life—on a lie?”

  “No! Not a lie.” She slid from the bench, dropping to her knees before him, allowing the gown to soak in the rivulets of water and mud as she clasped both his hands in her own. “Cerris? The man you are now? He’s a good man, and he’s not the man you were. How can it be a lie for me to be married to Cerris, when that’s who you are?”

  Corvis—Cerris—stared down at his new bride, and gave thanks for the gentle shower that washed away his tears.

  AND THEN TYANNON WAS CALLING his name, her voice low but harsh. Except it wasn’t Tyannon, as his bleary eyes opened, but Irrial standing opposite the embers of the dead fire, waking him for his turn at watch. She nodded brusquely as he awoke and returned to her own blanket without another word.

  He was grateful, then, that the second woman Corvis had stolen from Cerris’s arms fell swiftly asleep, for today no rain fell to hide his tears.

  THE LAST FEW LEAGUES OF ROADWAY GREW somewhat more crowded again, not with refugees—a few had come this far, true, but only a few—but with more traditional travelers: farmers and merchants, laborers and couriers.

  And soldiers.

  Not nearly enough, as Irrial had hoped when first spotting them, to suggest that Imphallion was finally mobilizing. No, these were sporadic patrols of a dozen or fewer, less concerned with advancing eastward than in carefully scouring those coming west. After their third time being stopped and questioned without explanation, Corvis realized that these sentinels must have been assigned to ensure that none of the fugitives come from the border were actually Cephiran agents in disguise.

  As if there were any way to tell. “Damn fools,” he grumbled to himself, his words lost to the tromping of the warhorse’s hooves. “Even when they decide to do something, it’s a bloody waste of effort.”

  ‘Sort of like leading an untrained resistance against the Cephiran army on behalf of a woman who’d now sooner behead you than bed you, Corvis?’

  If this is just all in my mind, Corvis bemoaned silently, I must really hate myself.

  Thanks to some quick shopping in towns along the way, the travelers who finally arrived at the towering gates of Mecepheum were not entirely the same pair who had fled Rahariem. Irrial wore a fine green cloak, lined in velvet, over a startlingly white tunic and thick riding trousers. The fellow accompanying her was clad in the formal but practical outfit of a household servant, and sported a few weeks’ worth of neatly trimmed beard.

  He also, due rather less to new clothes than to judicious use of subtle illusions, didn’t especially resemble Corvis Rebaine. It had been a long time, but there were too many among the capital’s elite who might recognize him.

  When Irrial had asked how he could make use of his local contacts when he didn’t resemble himself, he’d merely wiggled his fingers and said “Maaaaagic.”

  She hadn’t spoken to him since.

  Although it required standing in line for upward of an hour, they entered the city with little hassle or fanfare, stopping just inside the gates to take a long look. After occupied Rahariem, Mecepheum was an alien land. The streets were bustling—one might even say “flooded”—with people and horses, carts and wagons, all shoving their way through walls of sweaty flesh. The tumult was nigh overwhelming, but it was the typical rumble of daily life, with nary a sob of despair or a barked command to be heard. The absence of shattered homes and piles of rubble seemed somehow improper, as though Mecepheum were rudely refusing to acknowledge the troubles of its distant sister.

  Which wasn’t all that inaccurate, really.

  Though many blocks separated the gates from the political offices in and around the Hall of Meeting, the travelers chose to make the trip on foot rather than trying to ram their horses through the throng. A nearby inn provided quality stabling at only slightly hair-raising prices, and Corvis also acquired a couple of rooms before they braved the streets again. This time, Irrial walked with the slightest trace of a limp and leaned on what looked to be a plain but expertly carved cane. Corvis wore her Cephiran sword at his waist; Sunder was nowhere to be seen.

  The baroness, who’d not been to Mecepheum in many years, gawped like a yokel, not taken by the capital’s finery so much as by the sharp delineations between the poorer and richer quarters, as well as the obviously new repairs to the ancient structures. As the apparent age of those repairs finally sank in, she cast a suspicious glance at her supposed “servant,” trailing a few steps behind.

  “Audriss,” he said defensively. “Not me.”

  Irrial didn’t look convinced.

  They mounted the steps to the Hall of Meeting, noses held high as though they not only had every right to be there, but questioned everyone else’s presence. Recognizing the arrogant mien of the nobility—and the servant thereof, which was frankly even worse—the clerk positioned near the entrance didn’t even bother to ask their business.

  Unfortunately, stopping to ask him directions might have ruined the effect, and Corvis hadn’t the slightest idea where they were going. Running through a mental list of Guildmasters and nobles over whom he still held “influence,” he stepped up the pace a bit and whispered “Mubarris. Cartwrights’ and Carpenters’ Guild.”

  Irrial’s hair barely twitched, so shallow was her nod, but clearly she’d heard. As they rounded a corner, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpeting—which, if ubiquitous throughout the Hall, must have cost enough to buy a small village—she raised a hand to stop the next passerby. “Tell me, good sir,” she asked, voice distant but stiffly polite, “where might I find the office of Guildmaster Mubarris?”

  The fellow they accosted sported immaculately curled blond locks and was clad in the blue-and-white livery of one of Mecepheum’s numerous aristocratic Houses. “And what, do pray tell,” he asked with a disparaging sneer, “would a highborn lady such as yourself need with one of those merchants?” It might have been the most foul, blasphemous epithet the way he choked it out, and Corvis groaned inwardly. Things were obviously even worse between the Guilds and the nobility than he’d thought.

  That, or the guy was just a jackass.

  ‘You’re such a pessimist. Why can’t it be both?’

  Irrial’s expression grew so cold and so stony, it might well have convinced an angry basilisk not to waste its time. “That would be between me and the Guildmaster, wouldn’t it? Now kindly tell us where to find him.”

  “So you can make more concessions? Give away more of our power?” The pugnacious fellow was on a tear; apparently having found a target for his frustrations, he wasn’t about to surrender it without a fight. “You’re not from Mecepheum, my lady, I can see that right off. So why don’t you go back wherever you came from and leave the real politics to the people who know what they’re doing?”

  Corvis sucked in a breath between his teeth and began to step forward, but Irrial raised a hand to stop him. Her voice, when she spoke, had gone completely calm. “You, dear fellow, will answer my question.”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  “Because if you don’t, my servant here is going to find the nearest blunt object and play your head like a drum until your eyes switch sides.”

  “I—you …!”

  “I still remember some great military cadences,” Corvis told him. “Very impressive. Lots of percussion.”

  “You can’t lay a finger on me!” the aristocrat whined, though he took a hesitant step back.

  “I’ll swear blind that you raised a hand to me first,” Irrial said. “My servant was just defending
me.”

  “Third floor.” It was a surly mutter, scarcely audible. “Fourth hall to the left of the stairs, third door on the right.”

  “My thanks, good sir. You’re a credit to your kennel.”

  They were gone, Irrial leading the way in a billowing flurry of cloak, before he could cease gawking long enough to formulate a response.

  “Where,” Corvis asked, voice quivering with suppressed laughter, “did you learn to do that?”

  “That’s all politics is really about, Reb—Cerris,” she corrected swiftly, lest anyone overhear. “Finding some way to get the last word.” For just an instant, her lips twitched in that smile Corvis hadn’t seen in weeks.

  “I think I’m rubbing off on you,” he said—and right away, even before her smile vanished and her face hardened once more, he knew it was exactly the wrong thing to say.

  ‘How’s that foot tasting, Corvis? Have you really gotten this stupid, or are you just trying to prove something?’

  They climbed numerous stairs, traversed numerous halls. It was easy enough to see which doors led to the offices of anyone remotely important: Those were the doors flanked by mail-clad guards. They were armed with broad-bladed short swords, brutal thrusting weapons well suited to the tight confines of the corridors, and loaded crossbows leaned against the walls at their feet.

  “You’d think they were afraid of something,” Corvis whispered. This time, Irrial didn’t smile at all.

  Without pause, she approached the mercenaries standing outside the room to which they’d been reluctantly directed. “Would you be so good as to inform Guildmaster Mubarris that the Baroness Irrial of Rahariem requires an audience?”

  In a practiced maneuver, one of the guards moved to block her way while the other opened the door just wide enough to ask whether or not they were to be admitted. The one whose attentions remained fixed on the newcomers gestured over Irrial’s shoulder with his chin. “Your man all right, m’lady?”

  She glanced back and was startled to see Corvis’s face—well, the face he was currently wearing—furrowed in concentration, beaded slightly with sweat.

  “He’s fine,” she answered with far more conviction than she felt. “It’s just been a long journey.”

  “I understand.” Then, “Is it as bad as we’ve heard out there?”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s bad enough. We’ve basically lost the border towns entirely.”

  That brought a fearsome scowl. Apparently, not everyone here was thrilled with the government’s failure to act. “I’m glad you got out, m’lady,” he added politely.

  The second warrior turned back from the door. “The Guildmaster will see you.”

  Irrial began to step forward. “Thank you so—”

  “Uh, I’m sorry, m’lady,” the first guard interrupted with a nervous smile. “But nobody’s permitted into a Guildmaster’s or noble’s chambers under arms. Nervous times, you understand.”

  “Of course.” She waved a finger at Corvis, who dutifully detached the sword from his belt and handed it over. When the soldiers looked her way, she shrugged, leaning on her cane. “I’m unarmed. That’s what I keep him around for.”

  The guards glanced at the cane, which could have functioned as a makeshift club—but then, so could the chairs inside the room. With a mutual shrug, they stepped aside.

  Irrial swept between them and offered a shallow curtsy to the fleshy, balding fellow behind the desk. Corvis followed, shutting the door behind him.

  The Guildmaster rose and bowed, his movements slightly stilted. His expression was just the tiniest bit unfocused, something she’d never have noticed had he not looked directly at her. He looked—preoccupied wasn’t quite the right word, but she could think of none better.

  Brow furrowed, Corvis appeared at Irrial’s side. “Hello, Mubarris.”

  “Hello.”

  Irrial nodded in understanding. “You weren’t joking, were you?”

  “About using magic? No.”

  “I didn’t see you casting any spells.”

  “You’re about six years late for that.”

  The baroness frowned and opened her mouth to ask a question, but Corvis shook his head. “Later.” He took a seat, gestured for Irrial to do the same.

  For more than an hour they talked, Corvis and Irrial asking questions, Mubarris providing answers in that same “not entirely there” tone of voice, but those answers were proving relatively unhelpful.

  He confirmed for them the murders committed by “Corvis Rebaine,” not only in Mecepheum but later in Denathere, and a purported few in other cities as well. He provided a list of the dead, and though she’d already known, Irrial lowered her head when her cousin’s name passed his lips.

  Corvis, ever suspicious, chewed at the inside of his cheek and wondered if it was simple chance that so many of the dead—not all, not even most, but more than he’d easily accept as coincidence—were men and women over whom he’d long ago cast Selakrian’s spell.

  What Mubarris could not offer was any hint as to who might be behind the false Rebaine. He did not, in fact, even have reason to disbelieve the rumors himself, given his ignorance of the magics under which he currently labored—or who had cast them.

  Nor could he offer any reasons beyond the obvious as to why the Guilds and the nobles were proving so stubborn, so mulish, that nobody had taken action.

  “We’re all scared,” he admitted. “Nobody wants to be without protection—and lots of it—in case Rebaine comes for us next. And you know that the Guildmasters and the nobles haven’t agreed on much of anything since the Guilds dethroned the regent.”

  Corvis and Irrial nodded in unison.

  “But it does seem,” he continued, “as though there’s some added pressure. As if the leaders on both sides are demanding concessions and promises that they know the other side won’t accept. I couldn’t say for sure, though, or tell you where that pressure’s coming from. I’m not really part of the inner circles anymore. Haven’t been for a few years; I guess nobody thinks the Cartwrights’ and Carpenters’ Guild is important anymore.” His heavy sigh dragged an anchor of self-pity along behind it. “Or maybe it’s just me.”

  The visitors made their excuses, Corvis delivering a final command to forget the conversation—or at least never to speak of it to anyone, since he wasn’t sure if the spell could compel Mubarris to forget—and departed. He reclaimed his sword from the guards, then requested directions to another room.

  Over the course of the afternoon, Irrial and Corvis visited two more Guildmasters, and two nobles with offices in the Hall. All were among the surviving number of Corvis’s “contacts,” and all told the same story as Mubarris. All confirmed what he had confirmed, suspected what he had suspected; and none knew any more than he, for each and every one had found him- or herself excluded from the pinnacles of power in Mecepheum. The nobles lacked much real authority, now that the Guilds had firmly taken over, and the Guildmasters, again like Mubarris, had been carefully shuffled to the periphery.

  Corvis was finding it harder and harder to accept this as coincidence. He’d known that his puppets had to have lost some of their power when Imphallion failed to sail the various courses charted by Duke Halmon—or occasionally by Corvis himself, through Halmon. He’d known that several of the Guildmasters he’d beguiled had even lost their positions. But to see it before him like this, so deliberate and precise …

  “What now?” Irrial asked, interrupting his musings.

  He shrugged, running through the names of every Guildmaster he could recall, disliking the direction his thoughts were taking.

  “Now,” he said finally, reluctantly, “we talk with someone I know is in a position to tell us more about what the hell’s going on.”

  And we hope, he added silently, that she’s willing to tell us, because over her, I hold no influence at all.

  THE HALLS GREW ever more crowded as they progressed. No surprise, that. The higher one climbed in the Ha
ll of Meeting, the more important were the inhabitants of its chambers; and the more important the inhabitants, the greater the quantity of rugged mercenaries and minor functionaries.

  Corvis hung back as Irrial approached the door, and the no fewer than six guards posted beside it, and was momentarily grateful to be masquerading as a servant. The deference expected of his role would do well to cover his genuine unease. He disliked the notion of coming here, of exposing himself—even disguised—to a Guildmaster over whom he lacked any control. And if anyone here was likely to have the knowledge, the discipline, and the presence of mind to discover him, it was she. But he knew that, now as when he’d last seen her more than half a decade gone by, she was highly regarded by the other Guildmasters. If anyone was in a position to see the whole picture, to understand what was happening here in Mecepheum—and what wasn’t happening, and why—it was she.

  “The Baroness Irrial of Rahariem,” his companion announced to the guards as she halted before them, cane thumping dully against the carpeted floor, “to see Salia Mavere.”

  As before, one of the guards slipped through the door while the others maintained their positions, and Corvis struggled not to hold his breath. Odds were good that Mavere would want to speak with Irrial, to learn what was happening on the eastern front, but …

  He couldn’t quite suppress a sigh of relief when the guard returned and announced, “The Guildmistress will see you.”

  Also as before, Corvis handed his sword over to the soldiers before entering, then followed Irrial as meekly as he could manage.

  The priestess of Verelian and leader of the Blacksmiths’ Guild offered the baroness something oddly between a bow and a curtsy, which Irrial politely returned. “I was heartened to hear your name,” Mavere said as she offered chairs and then drinks to her guests—the former of which they gratefully accepted, the latter politely declined. “It’s been difficult getting any reliable news from the east, but we’d heard that most of the elite were being held.”