The Palace of Impossible Dreams

by Jennifer Fallon

  “But you came, anyway.”

  Taryx shrugged. “Didn’t have anything better to do. And with the Tide on the turn, the fun and games will start again soon. Elyssa’s a bitch, Tryan’s an animal, Jaxyn can’t be trusted, Maralyce is a bore, Brynden’s a self-righteous prick, Pellys is an idiot, Kentravyon is crazy and you’re a pain in the arse. Really just left Lukys, this time ’round, if I was going to find a safe place to sit it out.”

  “Lukys never was the type to keep minions.”

  Taryx jerked his head in Oritha’s direction. “Not the type to take a young wife and build her a palace in the middle of nowhere, either. But here she is. And here we are.” He looked at Cayal disparagingly, adding, “And who are you calling a minion, anyway? At least I know the limits of my ability. I can’t hope to compete with you Tide Lords, and I’m smart enough not to try. But you? You’re powerful enough to challenge any one of the others, and yet here you are, trudging along in the snow, just as I am, ready to do Lukys’s bidding.”

  There was little Cayal could say in response to that, so he remained silent, thinking it better to wait and ask Lukys in person what he was up to, because Cayal was starting to suspect his own death might prove to be a serendipitous side effect of Lukys’s plan—whatever it was—rather than the main event.

  Lukys greeted Oritha first, kissing her fondly and then asking one of his servants to show her to her quarters. Even more surprising was that the servants were Crasii; two score canines that Cayal could see. Lukys had never been fond of the Crasii. Cayal could think of no good reason why he’d have them here now.

  They were greeted by a rush of warm air as they entered the palace, although warm was a relative term. It wasn’t really warm; it was simply the temperature inside the palace was somewhat higher than outside, the wind-chill factor reduced by the solid ice walls.

  Lukys looked surprised to see Pellys, but he did nothing more than greet the Tide Lord warmly and ask Taryx to escort him to one of the guest suites. Taryx acquiesced without complaint. Pellys was too taken with this fabulous crystal palace to notice he was being fobbed off. As they left, Pellys’s head swivelling in amazement at the towering ice walls, Cayal turned to his host.

  “You have guest suites?”

  Lukys nodded. “Of course. One never knows who might drop in.”

  Cayal’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. Because down here at the bottom of the world, we’re at the crossroads of civilisation, aren’t we?”

  Lukys smiled. “More than you know. Come with me.”

  Still no more enlightened than he had been when he arrived, Cayal did as Lukys asked and followed him through the grand main hall, along an icy corridor and up a set of stairs carved of ice which let out onto a narrow battlement.

  “Never thought I’d see you with Crasii slaves,” Cayal said as they climbed the stairs.

  “I don’t like the way they were created, Cayal,” Lukys said, glancing over his shoulder. “There are other, much less traumatic ways of manipulating life into the shapes you want, without having to go to all the trouble of making Crasii. You just need to be rather more patient than Elyssa was. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their uses.”

  They reached the battlements and stepped outside, the whole icy vista laid out before them. From here, it was easier to get an idea of the scale of the place. It was huge. Far more than was needed for one man who’d sent for his young mortal wife. “And what’s Oritha’s purpose?”

  “My wife?” Lukys looked surprised Cayal was questioning her place in all this. “I happen to like her, Cayal. There’s nothing sinister in her presence here.”

  “She thinks your name is Ryda Tarek.”

  “That is my name. In the Cabal.”

  Cayal stared at him for a moment and then shook his head with a thin smile. “You didn’t . . .”

  Lukys laughed. “Oh, yes I did.”

  “You joined the Cabal of the Tarot?”

  “I didn’t just join it, Cayal. I’m a member of the Pentangle.”

  “You are shameless.”

  “Patient beyond description, more like it. Tides, this lot have got to be the most irritating bunch of would-be do-gooders I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with. Probably because the Cabal is centred in Glaeba, these days. All that rain does something to their brains, I’m sure.” He smiled even wider, stopping on the narrow walkway to lean on the icy battlements while he admired the view. “Can you believe Jaxyn and Diala were living right under their noses and they never even noticed? Although they pegged you for what you are quick enough. But that could be because you, well, told them . . .”

  “They have no idea who you are?”

  “Of course not. You know how this works.”

  Cayal did know. He and Lukys had had a high old time infiltrating the Holy Warriors once before, and doing exactly the same thing to them as Lukys was doing to the Cabal of the Tarot.

  “But enough about my exploits. Tell me, did you talk to Brynden?” Lukys was braced against the wind, almost as if he was tempting it to blow him off the tower.

  Cayal nodded. “He wasn’t interested.”

  “I did warn you about that, didn’t I?”

  He shrugged. “It was worth a try. Where’s Kentravyon?”

  “I believe he’s gone ice fishing.” Lukys staggered a little as the air gusted around them. Cayal stared at Lukys but said nothing, concentrating on maintaining his balance. Up here the wind was much stronger, with an icy bite that even Cayal and Lukys, with their immortal immunity to the cold, could feel. Either one of them could have calmed it, of course, but Lukys rarely fiddled with the weather without good reason, and apparently being blown off a drop of several hundred feet, wasn’t good enough.

  “I’m serious!” Lukys said, when he saw the look Cayal was giving him. “Since coming back to life, the simple pleasures seem to amuse our madman almost as much as mass-murdering innocent mortals used to.”

  “Why did you wake him?”

  “We need him,” Lukys said. “Or rather, you need him.”

  “That’s not what you said in Torlenia.”

  “I’ve had time to rework my calculations,” Lukys said. “This is going to take more power than I first thought. And it’s why we’re here, by the way. We need to do this close to one of the magnetic poles.”

  “Why this one? Why not the north magnetic pole?”

  “Kentravyon was already down here. Seems a bit of a wasted effort to retrieve him from the south magnetic pole just to drag him north. Besides, that would mean taking him through other places with living people in them, Cayal. Not a good plan.”

  “And Taryx? What’s he doing here?”

  “Same as Kentravyon. This is going to take every bit of power we can summon.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I brought Pellys here.”

  Lukys shook his head. “He may not be as much help as you think. We need to focus our power for this, and I’m not sure Pellys is capable of that. But we’ll see.”

  “Focus on what?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said we need to focus. On what?”

  “The task at hand,” Lukys said so glibly even Cayal knew he was lying. “Which brings me to my next point. We need more people.”

  “Tides, Lukys, I’m not seducing Elyssa for you. If you think you need her help, you ask her for it.”

  “Actually, you need her help more than I do,” Lukys said. “After all, you’re the one who wants to kill himself. But we’ve time yet before the Tide peaks, and we need to deal with the empress and her clan. Did you know Jaxyn—with Diala’s help, believe it or not—is only a hairsbreadth away from owning Glaeba?”

  “I heard something about it.”

  “Well, while he’s keeping Syrolee and Engarhod occupied—and that means Elyssa and Tryan as well—we’re free to pursue our own plans.” Lukys turned to look out over the spectacular icescape. “Tides, this place is awe-inspiring, isn’t it?” He glanced back at Cayal with a thin
smile. “Ah, that’s right. Nothing inspires awe in you any longer, does it, old son? That’s why you want to die.”

  Cayal ignored the question, certain the crux of the matter lay not in his ability to appreciate the landscape but in something else Lukys had just said. “And what exactly are our own plans?”

  “To help you put an end to your suffering, of course,” he said with an ingenuous smile.

  “And make yourself God in the process?”

  “Don’t you just love a plan where everyone wins?”

  “You’ve been swimming too deep in the Tide,” Cayal said, shaking his head. There was no point arguing about this, and in the end, what did he care about what Lukys was really up to, anyway? If it involved his death, what happened afterward was irrelevant. “It’s driven you mad too. What else do you need me to do?”

  “We need as many of our kind as we can muster, down here near the magnetic pole. Even the lesser immortals like Taryx.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we do, Cayal. Trust me.”

  Tides, was there ever a phrase more fraught with peril than trust me?

  “Do you know where any of the others are?”

  He nodded. “I know where at least three of them are.”

  Cayal frowned, fairly certain he wasn’t going to like what came next. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a reason you’re telling me this and it’s not just because you like standing on the edge of a precipice, making conversation?”

  Lukys smiled, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “Because I want you to go and get them for me, Cayal. Invite them here, to our . . . what did Pellys call it . . .” He opened his arms wide, to embrace the fantastic ice castle he’d created. “Our Palace of Impossible Dreams.”

  Cayal wasn’t nearly so enchanted with the idea as Lukys. “Which three immortals are we talking about?”

  “Arryl, Medwen and Ambria. All former lovers of yours, are they not?”

  “I’ve never slept with Ambria.”

  Lukys looked shocked. “Who’d have thought?”

  Cayal debated the advisability of going along with Lukys’s plans for a moment, and then reminded himself of the one thing he must keep in mind: Lukys could help him die. “Where are they?”

  “Senestra. Got themselves a very tidy little racket going, they have. They’ve been there almost since the last cataclysm. Call themselves the Trinity, these days. I believe they’re the self-appointed goddesses of the reptilian Crasii.”

  Cayal was quite sure it was more complicated than that, but at least Senestra was warm. “And you think they’re going to just walk away from hundreds of years of safety and security just because you’re asking them to?”

  Lukys shook his head, and smiled so dangerously it made Cayal’s blood run cold. “No, Cayal, they’ll come because you’re asking them to. And if they refuse, you can inform the ladies of the Trinity that the next messenger I send to invite them here will be Kentravyon.”

  Chapter 27

  “We’re closed. Go see them at the clinic on Clover Street.”

  Declan shoved his foot between the door and the jamb to stop the big bearded slave from slamming it in his face. “I’m not sick. I just want to see the doctor.”

  “I know you ain’t sick, so why do you want to see a doctor?” He pushed the door harder, trying to crush the intruder’s foot.

  The intruder, however, wasn’t concerned about broken bones. “I have to see Doctor Medura.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he has something that belongs to me.”

  “What?”

  Still shoving against the door, Declan took a deep breath to control his anger. He couldn’t afford to alienate this man, even if he was only a slave. “I believe he was inadvertently sold a slave of mine. A woman. Her name is Arkady. She’s foreign, Glaeban. Or perhaps she looks Caelish . . .”

  The big slave stopped trying to slam the door in his face and looked at him curiously. “You mean Kady?”

  Declan felt faint with relief, both from the notion that he’d finally found her and that his foot was no longer being crushed. “You know her?”

  The slave nodded warily, eyed Declan up and down for a moment and then stood back to let him enter. “Maybe you’d better come inside.”

  Locking the door behind them, the man indicated with his arm that Declan should follow him down the hall. It was just on dusk and the clinic was dimly lit, smelling of lye soap and disinfectant. And it appeared to be empty of patients or staff, but for this big hairy brute, which seemed very odd indeed. Like all slaves in Senestra, Declan’s guide wore only a short loincloth and a chain-link brand on his chest, which did nothing but draw attention to the fact that he was probably as strong as an ox and the only way to get any information out of him was by asking nicely. Trying to beat a confession out of this man would be akin to trying to beat one out of a brick wall.

  Declan followed the man through the entrance foyer, past a small hospital ward with half a dozen empty beds, and into an office which undoubtedly belonged to the ship’s doctor Declan had spent the last few days looking for. The man—so the captain of the ship Declan had traced to Port Traeker, told him—who had claimed Arkady for his own on the voyage, keeping her prisoner in his cabin so he could have his way with her at his convenience.

  There were many fates Declan had in mind for Cydne Medura.

  All of them were excruciatingly painful.

  But he had to find Arkady first. His chest constricted with anticipation as he took a seat in the office, knowing his search was almost over.

  It was more than three months now since Declan had left Stellan and Nyah at Maralyce’s Mine, and in that time, he’d travelled halfway round the world searching for Arkady. He didn’t mind the time, in one respect, because it gave him something to think about other than his own problems. What he fretted about was the terrible things that might have befallen Arkady in the meantime, and it seemed as if his fears had not been groundless. Sold into slavery and turned into a rich man’s whore.

  Was there any fate more harrowing than that?

  It had been no mean feat to track Arkady down, and Declan was more than a little surprised he’d even been able to pick up her trail. With Pollo’s help, and a substantial bribe to several city officials responsible for the reconstruction of the slave markets in Elvere, Declan had been able to locate the slaver who’d once ruled over the vast pens before they were destroyed. It turned out he wasn’t dead, despite popular rumour, but he was acting as if all his limbs had been severed.

  Once they’d let the man rant for a time about how he was ruined, how the rebuilding was going to cost a fortune and how he was losing customers every day the markets remained closed, they were able to establish that only three slave ships had sailed from Elvere in the days prior to the storm that had battered the city so unexpectedly. Two of the ships, they discounted immediately. Both were headed for Tenacia and carried male slaves, destined for the mines there. The third ship was headed for Senestra, and while he didn’t remember specifics, the slaver did vaguely recall there being a tall foreign woman among the batch-bought slaves one of his colleagues had sold to the Medura slaving company.

  After that it had been a simple matter of finding a berth on a ship bound for Port Traeker.

  The journey had taken several weeks, and most of it Declan had spent pacing the deck, wondering if he had the power to speed the ship’s progress by filling her sails with wind. Or wondering if he’d inadvertently cause a disaster on the scale of the Immortal Prince creating the Great Lakes of Glaeba, if he tried to do anything so foolish.

  That was the trouble with forced inactivity. He could no longer avoid thinking about his future—his very long and uncertain future.

  Tides, no wonder the immortals are all crazy. It’s enough to drive you mad just thinking about it . . .

  Once he landed in Port Traeker, Declan was able to avoid dealing with his own problems for a while longer because he had another stroke of l
uck. The ship he’d followed from Elvere was in port. He’d been able to speak to the captain and get his first real confirmation that it was Arkady he was following. The captain remembered the Caelish slave—Declan assumed she was telling people she was Caelish to make it harder for Jaxyn’s men to find her—very well indeed.

  She’d been taken by the ship’s doctor for sport, the captain informed Declan with great relish, and what’s more, the young doctor had been so taken with her, he’d kept her as his wii-ah after his wedding and, as far as the captain knew, that’s where she remained. In the service of one Cydne Medura, a man Declan had never met, but who he’d already decided to kill slowly and very, very painfully for what he’d done to Arkady.

  He couldn’t afford to let the doctor’s slave know of his intentions, however. As far as the big man was concerned, Declan was here to take back—or, if necessary, buy back—the slave he rightfully owned.

  “Who are you?” the slave asked, closing the door of the office as Declan took a seat.

  “I am Aleki Ponting,” he said, borrowing the name of Tilly’s son. It was for a good cause, after all. He didn’t think Tilly or Aleki would mind. “I have extensive holdings in Glaeba. The woman . . . Kady . . . is my property. She was stolen from me several months ago in a dispute and I’d like to . . . I’m sorry . . . what was your name?”

  “Geriko.”

  “Well, Geriko, I’d like to get her back.”

  The slave nodded thoughtfully. “Always thought she was probably a ladies maid or something. Walks too proud to be a makor-di.”

  “Where can I find Doctor Medura? I’d like to get this taken care of as soon as possible. I’ve really wasted too much time on this matter already.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Then I’d like to see my slave.”

  Geriko shook his head. “She’s gone too.”

  I knew this was too easy. “Gone where?”

  “Up into the wetlands. Been an outbreak of swamp fever, last few weeks. The guild sent the doc and Kady went up there to help out. Nip it in the bud, you know? Before it spreads to the cities and towns again, like it did the last time.”