The Palace of Impossible Dreams

by Jennifer Fallon

  Jaxyn shook his head. “Of course it won’t work. It won’t do a damned thing except buy us some time to gather our army.”

  Mathu stared at him in horror, as if it had only just occurred to him this could actually mean war. Then he turned to Diala—she who had been counselling avoidance up until a few minutes ago. “What should I do?”

  “What Jaxyn says,” she advised, too smart to play games with the landscape so dramatically changed. “They’ll attack us as soon as they think they’re ready, and your sodomite cousin has given them the perfect excuse.”

  “He’s your uncle, Kylia,” Mathu reminded her.

  “To my eternal shame.”

  “Tides, I still can’t grasp the depth of Stellan’s betrayal.”

  Jaxyn could. In fact, he almost admired Stellan for it. He certainly understood why he’d waited until now to wreak his vengeance. After all, he’d already been branded a traitor, so he really had nothing to lose. Jaxyn wished he’d taken the time to remember Stellan Desean was more than a man with a secret; more than a man with a claim on a throne and a very desirable wife. He was a diplomat and a brilliant political strategist.

  Just exactly how brilliant, Jaxyn was only just beginning to appreciate.

  Of course, that just left the question of whether Hawkes was really dead too, or if he was also a part of this plan. Given they had both died—or were supposed to have died—in the same fire, it wasn’t inconceivable that Declan Hawkes had survived the blaze, just as Stellan had . . .

  But what possible motive could the King’s Spymaster, a man with a bright future in the service of the new king, have to fall into a plot with Stellan Desean, which was—by anybody’s definition—high treason? Particularly as there seemed to be no love lost between the two men. After all, Stellan had stolen away Declan Hawkes’s woman with the offer of wealth, a title and an escape from the slums of Lebec.

  No, Jaxyn decided. If anything, this is proof Hawkes is dead. Even if he were inclined to betray the crown, he would never be a party to anything that involved trusting Stellan Desean, just on principle.

  Which reminds me . . . where is the lovely Arkady?

  “Did you know about this?”

  Diala closed her door before answering Jaxyn, checking the hall to be certain he hadn’t been observed entering her bedroom by anybody in the palace but a Crasii.

  She leaned on the door and glared at him. “Of course I didn’t know. Tides, Jaxyn, you were sleeping with him. Surely you must have known what he was capable of.”

  “He never struck me as the vengeful type.”

  “You think he’s doing this for any other reason?” She pushed off the door and walked to the window to gaze out over the mist-shrouded lake. The earlier sunlight was gone, blocked out by the heavy clouds bringing yet another rainstorm to the Great Lakes.

  Jaxyn shrugged, picking up the poker to stir the fire back into life. “What other reason is there?”

  “Maybe he knows who we are. What we are.”

  He shook his head, overturning the red coals underneath the ashes. “Arkady tried to convince him Cayal was immortal and he laughed at her. No, this is about getting even with me and with Mathu for falsely accusing him of killing the king. He still believes you’re his niece and I was his lover. Besides, for Stellan to throw himself on the mercy of Caelum’s queen because he’s afraid the Tide Lords are trying to take over Glaeba, he’d have to know that the Empress of the Five Realms and her wretched clan had taken up residence there—and who and what they are, too. How would he know that? How would he even suspect it?”

  She turned to look at him, her arms folded across her body. “The Cabal would know.”

  “The Cabal of the Tarot?” he scoffed. “Tides, they’re deader than Cayal’s daughter.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Jaxyn shrugged, picking up a small log and tossing it onto the fire in a shower of sparks. “We haven’t seen or heard of them for the better part of a thousand years. It’s reasonable to assume they’re no longer with us.”

  “They’ve survived cataclysms before this,” Diala warned. “Mortals can be very resourceful.”

  “As Stellan Desean has just proved in spades.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  Jaxyn tossed the poker aside and turned to look at her. “Get ready for war. And keep Mathu on the throne.”

  “I thought you wanted to get rid of him?”

  “I did,” he said, “when there was no other clear heir to Glaeba’s throne. But Stellan’s the next in line and everybody knows it. He’ll be a focal point for every malcontent in Glaeba once word gets out he’s alive. And we’d be foolish to underestimate the support he has among people who claim they’re loyal to the king.”

  “If Mathu dies, I’ll become queen.”

  “At which point, Stellan would be well within his rights to claim the throne as his, and with Caelum backing him, would have a better than even chance of taking it. I’ll be damned if I’ll make it easier for him by getting rid of the incumbent king.”

  “Would he do that?”

  “Tides, who knows what he’s capable of?”

  “You claimed you did,” she said, walking over to the bed. She kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, with a malicious smile. “You screwed this one up royally, didn’t you, Jaxyn?”

  He followed her, looking down on her reclining form, wishing there was a point in wrapping his hands around her throat and squeezing the life out of her. “I will prevail, Diala.”

  “Well, if you don’t,” she said, folding her arms behind her head, the better to display her cleavage—which was pointless because Jaxyn had no interest in Diala. He’d gotten over wanting her several thousand years ago. “I can always go visit Syrolee. I’m sure she’d welcome me with open arms,” she added.

  “You might want to remember you said that,” Jaxyn replied, shaking his head contemptuously at her blatant and pointless attempt to entice him, “the next time you start to wonder why I don’t trust you.”

  “You don’t trust anybody, Jaxyn,” she said, still smiling. “Not even yourself. And with just cause, as it turns out. Hope it was good for you.”

  “You hope what was good for me?”

  “You and Stellan Desean. I hope it was good for you, dear, because he’s given you one right royal fucking.” Then she added spitefully, “Mind you, I’m not sure you did enjoy it, because it’s taken you until now to realise how profoundly you’ve been screwed.”

  Jaxyn shook his head. “Nobody gets the upper hand over me for long, Diala. Not you, not Syrolee and her power-grubbing family and certainly not Stellan Desean.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “What I should have done in the first place. Have him killed.”

  “But he’s under the protection of the Queen of Caelum . . .”

  “Who just married Lord Tyrone of Torfail, whose sister is Lady Alysa, whose Crasii are my spies. I don’t have to get near Stellan to take care of this, my dear. I’ll simply order the canine Cecil to kill him.”

  “Unless Elyssa’s had the wit to order them to forget everything you ever said to them.”

  “She’ll not even think of it. Elyssa’s a fool.”

  “Well, it takes one to know one, I suppose.”

  Chapter 24

  “Put those bottles in the back!” Cydne Medura called out.

  He was shouting from the front of the small wooden house in the remote village of Watershed Falls they had commandeered as their temporary clinic. They’d been sent here by the Physicians’ Guild to nip the outbreak of swamp fever in the bud.

  Arkady hefted the slatted wooden crate full of the special tonic the guild had supplied for them to treat the outbreak. This room was the bedroom, furnished with a narrow pallet she knew was going to be uncomfortable, just by looking at. It would be even worse if Cydne expected her to share it with him. Sleeping in close contact with another body in this heat was going to be sticky, u
ncomfortable and unpleasant.

  Maybe she could convince him to let her sleep on the floor once he was done with her. She was his wii-ah, after all, not the love of his life. He didn’t need to hold her in his warm embrace all night long, just to prove his devotion to her.

  “There’s another crate to go out there too!” she heard him telling Jojo.

  Arkady carefully put the crate on the floor by the small window and walked back out to the porch where Cydne was supervising the unloading of their supplies. Already a number of people had begun to line up, following the news that a doctor had arrived with some hope of relief from the fever, which was ravaging the population of the wetlands. She glanced out over the village, wondering how many more would come, once word got out they were here.

  The village of Watershed Falls proved more substantial than Arkady was expecting. Somehow, from Cydne’s description, she’d gained the impression of a swampy island with a dock and a tavern and a couple of houses, clinging to the edge of the wetlands, eking out a miserable existence in an insect-infested swamp.

  It turned out to be a village of more than a thousand souls, human and Crasii alike. And while it was certainly infested with an impressive array of insects, most of which seemed to consider human flesh a food source, it had a main street, several other streets leading off it, and quite a number of prosperous businesses. The main industry seemed to be harvesting nacre. For Arkady, who came from Lebec, where pearls were prized and where the mother-of-pearl contained in the oyster shells was an almost valueless by-product, it seemed a strange occupation. Quite the opposite of her experience. Everything else here seemed related to the harvesting of flax, rice, cotton and a few other crops which thrived in this waterlogged environment.

  “Lock the door once you’ve put the tonic away,” Cydne told Arkady as she picked up the last crate. “If word gets out we have a cure, we’re likely to be overrun.”

  “Do we have a cure?” she asked, wondering why, if this tonic was so special, they hadn’t used it to save any of the swamp fever victims they’d treated at the clinic in Port Traeker.

  “Oh, yes,” he assured her. “Believe me, that stuff will stop swamp fever stone dead.”

  The pragmatism of the Senestrans continued to amaze Arkady. She’d been surprised enough to learn the Physicians’ Guild insisted their members treat the poor as well as the rich, but when a delegation arrived at the clinic to inform Cydne he was being sent north to deal with a swamp fever outbreak, she’d been thoroughly impressed. Not only was the guild funding the trip, but they’d supplied all the tonic required, free of charge, and assured Cydne if he needed any more, all he had to do was ask for it.

  Their logic, of course, was that if they could stop the fever at its source, then it wouldn’t reach the cities, and countless lives would be saved. Arkady wondered how, in a society so driven by trade and profits, such an altruistic outlook could flourish. In the end, she decided not to question it. Besides, Senestran altruism was very selective. They might be here saving countless lives for the greater good of Senestra, but that didn’t alter Arkady’s circumstances one iota.

  Arkady put the last crate in the bedroom next to the one Jojo had brought in, locked the door and then walked back outside with the feline bodyguard where they were confronted with a totally unexpected sight. Standing in line was a creature she at first mistook for Tiji, until she realised, on closer inspection, that the silver-skinned Crasii was male.

  “That’s a chameleon Crasii,” she said in wonder as she handed Cydne the key.

  He glanced up uninterestedly, took the key and pocketed it. “So what? They’re as common as fleas around here. Most likely they’re the ones responsible for the fever.”

  “I wish Tiji was here now.” Declan’s little spy—irritating and judgemental as she was—had hungered to know if there were others of her kind. Arkady finally had an answer for her . . . and nobody to share it with.

  “Who’s Tiji?” Jojo asked.

  “A chameleon I knew once. She belonged to a friend of mine.”

  “Well, I hope he didn’t catch anything from her,” Cydne said. “You can make up those pallets in the front room next. We’ll treat the humans inside and the Crasii out here on the veranda.”

  Arkady and Jojo spent the next hour setting everything up, by which time the line outside had grown considerably. Surprisingly—and to Arkady’s intense relief—there weren’t many suffering from swamp fever. She was somewhat consoled by the notion Cydne had, if not a cure, then at least a method of treating the disease should she become infected, but the thought did little to ease her mind. For this first afternoon, they saw patients with a variety of other ailments this rare visit from a Port Traeker physician had afforded them the opportunity to attend to.

  They worked solidly until dusk, Cydne dispensing medicines—and often quite pointless advice—to the patients lining up to see him. He was much more confident in his role as a doctor than he was socialising with his father’s trading partners or his wife’s inane friends. He still stammered and blushed when called upon to examine female patients, though, and didn’t know where to look when one largish, heavily pregnant woman appeared with a nasty fungal infection. He’d blushed thirteen shades of crimson by the time he was done examining her, and then glared at Arkady as if he knew she was silently laughing at his embarrassment.

  Still, he managed to get through the line of patients, seeing the human patients first, regardless of their condition. The Crasii were forced to wait, Jojo hissing at a few of the more impatient ones to keep them in order. When the last of the human patients filed out—none of whom appeared to be suffering swamp fever—Cydne moved out of the front room, set himself up on the veranda and told Jojo she could start to let the Crasii come.

  The first Crasii was a feline. She had a battle-scarred pelt and was suffering from an abscessed scratch acquired in a recent fight, which had swollen the left side of her face to twice its normal size. In a business-like fashion, Cydne lanced the abscess, drained it and dressed it and sent her on her way with a poultice which Arkady suspected would do nothing to aid the healing. Still, with the pressure relieved and the swelling reduced, the feline was grateful enough, and left quite happy with her treatment.

  The next two patients were canines and just as easily dispensed with. And then the chameleon stepped up to be treated.

  Arkady stared at him, marvelling at how much like Tiji he looked. She’d never seen a male of the species before, and was surprised to see his skin colour remain quite solid, not flickering the way Tiji’s did when she got excited or upset. She wondered if it meant the male chameleons couldn’t change their skin tone the way females could.

  Arkady led him to Cydne, smiling at the reptilian Crasii reassuringly. “What’s your name?”

  “What does it matter what his name is?” Cydne snapped. “I’d rather know what’s wrong with him.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” he said to Cydne. And then, as if he appreciated Arkady’s attempt to be civil, he added to her, “My name is Azquil.”

  “Why are you wasting my time if there’s nothing wrong with you?” Cydne asked.

  “We’ve been told you have a tonic that will treat swamp fever.”

  “What of it?”

  “Well, there are other villages, sir—villages further inland where you’ll not be visiting that are suffering from the fever,” he said.

  “And . . .” Cydne prompted impatiently as he mopped his brow. For the first time, Arkady was grateful for being able to wear so little in the heat. Cydne, in his embroidered shirt and vest, was hot and cranky and in no mood to be nice to anybody—which was probably why he’d left the Crasii until last, Arkady thought. Being subhuman, his bedside manner with them, or lack thereof, was hardly an issue.

  “I’ve been sent to ask if we could buy some of the tonic and instructions on its use for dispensing to the inland villages.”

  “Who asked you?”

  Azquil hesitated for a fra
ction of a second. “The village elders.”

  Cydne might have missed the hesitation, but Arkady didn’t. She was fairly certain Azquil was lying, but couldn’t think of a good reason he’d need to. Unless he was making up this story about the village elders because he was planning to sell the tonic on the black market . . .

  “I don’t have money but I have these.” He opened the small pouch he was carrying and spilled the contents into his palm. The pouch was full of small, square, iridescent nacre tiles, all carved and polished to perfection.

  Cydne wasn’t interested in the Crasii’s bag of trinkets. He fished the key from his pocket and held it out to Arkady. “Give him three bottles.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t question me.”

  She took the key, bowed obsequiously and replied in Glaeban so only he would understand her, “As you command, O peerless and most worthy master.”

  Cydne glared at her for her insolence but said nothing. Arkady retrieved the three bottles of tonic from the bedroom and went back to the veranda, where Cydne sat stiffly, ignoring Azquil.

  The chameleon rose to his feet as she approached, looking very relieved.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” he said, taking the bottles from her. “How much do I owe you for them?”

  “Consider them a gift from the Senestran Physicians’ Guild,” Cydne told him, waving away the pouch full of polished nacre. “The dose is one spoonful every three hours. Now take the tonic and go. I have genuinely sick people to see.”

  Azquil nodded, spared Arkady a sympathetic smile and then bowed to Cydne before hurrying off the veranda and their makeshift consulting room.

  “You weren’t very nice to him,” Arkady said as she handed back the key.

  “I’m not paid to be nice,” he said. “And it’s not your place to comment on my behaviour, in any case.” He pocketed the key, adjusted his vest, and sat a little straighter in his chair. “Tell Jojo to send the next one over. And tell her I said to make sure this one is actually sick.”

  “Yes, master.”

  “And, Kady,” he added in an ominous voice, “if you ever take that tone with me again in front of another living soul, I will slap you until your ears bleed. Is that understood?”