Dragon Magic

by Megan Derr

  "Well done," Cemal said with a laugh. "I am sorry. It should have occurred to me that you obviously have never needed to use an inn before. They're deuced annoying, and you're less likely to find vermin sleeping on the bare ground with most of them. I do not think I have ever gotten a room as decent as this. Between Binhadi's reputation and your forthright manner… Well, we shall have to let you obtain all our rooms in the future, hmm?"

  Mahzan rolled his eyes and ignored the comments in favor of examining the room. It was of a modest size, with a bed in one corner and a trunk at the end of it piled high with pallets and bedding enough for two. In the opposite corner was a wash stand, a cracked pitcher and chipped bowl on top of it and a little shelf below holding soap and washing rags. The fireplace was small, not yet lit, with a washing tub propped against the wall beside it.

  Cemal chuckled and moved to the bed, removing his cloak and sword belt, stripping off his gloves before he sat down with a groan. "I do wish we had time for a proper rest before we venture out to pick fights. There is very little I would not do right now for a few nights' rest in a proper bed."

  Mahzan agreed wholeheartedly. There were many things he missed about the Heart, things it hurt to think about, but above most other luxuries, he missed being able to bathe whenever he wanted, and falling into his own bed at the end of a long day.

  He stripped off his own travel clothes and set them atop the bedding on the trunk. Walking over to the wash stand, he saw the pitcher was filled with steaming water. Pouring it into the bowl, he added a small bit of soap and began to scrub off, eager to be somewhat free of dirt and grime for even just a little while.

  Still think traveling is a fine thing? Sule asked.

  Yes, Mahzan replied. Life as the King's Jester is not exactly easy either.

  He had not thought about it for days, he realized—his life as the best of all entertainers seemed so distant, already taking on the faded tones of a memory. It felt like he would not be going back to it, for all that he should have been looking forward to precisely that. He had been, hadn't he? When had that changed?

  All his life he had been a jester, from his days of whoring by night and street theatrics by day. It was not something to be brushed aside after only a couple of months. He was overreacting, caught up in this mess of Binhadi's making. Once the Oath was broken, the fearmonger killed, he would return to the Heart and help restore the city and fall back into the patterns of being the King's Jester.

  Dismissing those thoughts for the time being, he grabbed one of the rags from the lower shelf and dried his face and hands. He looked longingly at the wash basin, then dismissed those thoughts as well and focused on their mission. "So what do we do now?"

  "We go to dinner," Binhadi replied as the bell signaling meal time rang. "If I know one thing about men like Dree, he will come to sniff me out. He won't be pleased that someone more powerful arrives in town. He'll also want to see if he can use me, somehow. I'm sure he's all too used to his magic getting him whatever he wants."

  That must be what news the little rat who just arrived has come to report, Sule said. Yes, I definitely am hearing your name, Binhadi. They are looking at me, wondering if I know you, I think. Because obviously everyone in the Heart knows everyone else.

  They all chuckled, sharing looks of amused aggravation—all visitors to the Heart assumed all the locals knew each other. In small cities like Hemal's Pass and Three Circles, that was certainly likely. But some cities, like the Heart, were too large and heavily populated; it took visitors some time to really appreciate that meant they were virtually all strangers to each other.

  You do not know me, Binhadi finally said. That would be too much coincidence. Heard of me, certainly.

  As you say, Sule replied, and faded out again.

  "Why do I sense tonight is going to end in a bloodbath?" Mahzan muttered. "Having a knife at my throat once was more than enough."

  Cemal laughed as he stood and put his cloak, gloves, and sword back on. "This time stay out of the way. You could try learning swordsmanship, if you want to be at less risk in a fight."

  "No," Mahzan said flatly. "I am too old to learn that nonsense now. I will just 'stay in the rear' as his Royal Highness Prince Short Temper commands."

  Dragon eat your balls.

  Grinning, Mahzan resumed his own travel gear and bowed low to Binhadi, the very image of subservience. "Shall we to dinner, my lord? I hear they are serving an excellent roasted fowl, with a side of criminal innards in blood sauce."

  "Sounds as though it will not be a boring dinner, at the very least," Binhadi replied, and led the way downstairs.

  TRUE BLOOD

  Everyone had questioned why Sule had been made North Captain so young. The East, West, and South Captains were all fifty-odd years old, and the youngest had been in his post for seven years already. Not a one was less than twenty years his senior, and while they cooperated with him, it was only barely. No one ever let him forget that he was too young, and no one believed it was for good reason.

  Why, so many demanded, why had a man so young and unfit been picked over superior officers much better suited? He must have greased palms or done very dirty deeds for the crown. Blackmail, that had always been a popular rumor. It had never been as popular as the theory that he must possess exceptional cock sucking talent and an even better ass.

  It never seemed to occur to anyone that he had been given the post because he was honest, or that the men who had been passed over were the corrupt ones. All anyone saw of the affair was that his predecessor had been brutally murdered—stabbed several times in the chest and gut, left to bleed out in his own home—and a man too young had taken his place with shocking swiftness.

  No clues to the murder had ever been found, save a whore high on mist leaf who swore she had seen a priest visit the late North Captain in the dead of night. They had never found anything to substantiate the claim, and all the priests had been accounted for; eventually the trail had gone cold and the murder remained unsolved.

  They had little taste for solving it, anyway, as the murder had brought to light a dismaying amount of corruption in the royal army. Murder, blackmail, sex scandals, black market trading, even treason, had all been revealed, leaving the army horrified and the crown furious.

  Desperate not to let out the extent of the rot in the men who guarded his castle and his kingdom, the king had ordered the matter quietly handled. Men had been arrested, reassigned, demoted, and even executed with little to no trial. The matter had been handled so quietly, the only man under suspicion was the North Captain promoted for his integrity.

  It should have been a moment of pride, of triumph—of joy. But the promotion had come only a couple of months after his father had disowned him. It was all Sule remembered of that night, he had gotten so drunk. A few days later, his family had packed up and returned to their little village. Sule had never heard from them again.

  There had been no one to invite to his appointment ceremony; the only friends he'd had were all soldiers who were present anyway. His family was long gone by then, and Sule spent all his time working or in his barracks room.

  He had tried to feel pride and joy, anyway, but what happiness was to be found in standing triumphantly alone?

  But alone had its uses, and had proven far simpler than a life riddled with attachments. The army was all the attachment he needed. He could not wait for the Oath to break, to get back to a routine he understood and leave behind all this nonsense he did not.

  Mahzan was right, much as Sule hated to concede that: it all felt like they were acting out one of the utterly ridiculous tales Jesters loved to tell and audiences loved to hear. Whatever his feelings, though, he owed Malea a debt, and would repay it twice over as all such debts should be repaid. If not for her, he would not now have full use of both his arms.

  He turned his thoughts elsewhere, before memories of the dark and pain could bother him. Dree and three of his cronies had wandered off to whisper amongst thems
elves. Sule looked toward the room where Malea was locked away, rage growing all over again as he remembered her cries of pain, the sickening sound of Dree beating her.

  He fervently hoped someone would help her later; the cruelest part of being a healer was that they could not easily heal themselves. They needed another's life force to heal their own wounds. Sule balled one hand into a fist, then forced himself to relax. He could not move until they knew the game they were playing, the true measure of the men they were up against.

  If he acted now, he would only get himself killed, and he would not risk all their lives again. The Great Dragon did not tolerate gross stupidity. Restless, Sule prowled around the front room. He wanted to do something—anything. Reconnaissance was not his forte; he fared much better acting on what reconnaissance brought him.

  The door at the far end of the room opened, and the man who had come to tell Dree of Binhadi—Kek—beckoned him. Sule obediently joined him, stepping into what proved to be an office. Dree sat behind a desk carved from dark wood—expensive, foreign wood. "You said you know of this Morlock. The name sounds familiar, but I cannot place why."

  Dree's voice was strong, beautiful—very easy on the ears. Sule knew of jesters who would cheerfully murder for so fine a voice. It should have been persuading him, making him more obedient, possibly even simpering. But that magical element… vanished, somewhere, somehow.

  It made him wonder, again, just how terrifying a person Mahzan might be if he were not so stubbornly a fool. Sule had only known him two long, infuriating months and already he could see why Binhadi was so insistent that Mahzan make more use of his powers.

  Sule replied, "Morlock, everyone knows that name. Old nobility. There's a traitor or three hung every generation. Rumor has it they were the traitors that helped found the kingdom by betraying Petrocia, back when Orhanis was a colony. That lot turns traitor like whores turn tricks. If he's traveling, especially this far from the Heart, then he is avoiding some scandal, I'd wager my balls on it." The balls he didn't have, but they didn't need to know that.

  Dree laughed, nasty and mean. "So you'd know him to look at?"

  "Yeah, I know what he looks like," Sule said. "I ain't here to play your games, though. I dropped your woman off, and I need to be heading back—"

  "I will see you off in the morning," Dree cut in with all the charm of a blood spider. "Help me now, and I'll see you off on the finest horse in my stable."

  Sule grunted and went along as the type of soldier he was playing at would. "Fine, but I keep my horse, too."

  "Of course," Dree said. "Let us go, then. I want to see this supposed shadow mage who has shown up the same day as my wife."

  Swearing, Sule reached out in a way that was becoming far too familiar. Dree is suspicious.

  Nothing for it now, Binhadi replied. Scandal, is it? Traitors like whores?

  It was very difficult to hold a conversation in one's head without giving away any outward sign of it. Suck a spiker's teat. It worked.

  Concubines, beatings, whores, balls, teats—I think we need to make time to visit a whorehouse, Mahzan interjected.

  Sule really wished he were close enough to strangle Mahzan. I am going to enjoy throttling you one day.

  Mahzan's laughter rippled through his mind, and then they all faded off again.

  Dree eyed Sule. "If you are all coming from the Heart—or close enough to it, and have arrived at nearly the same time, why did you not see each other on the road?"

  "That implies there's only one road," Sule said, shrugging irritably. "We came from the Eyes. Morlock would have come from the Heart itself. Someone like that, he would have left the Heart and landed at Barren Point, gone the long, easier way around. Wouldn't doubt they've been on the road longer, but only the Dragon knows."

  Dree grunted and gestured. "Come on, then. You're sure you will recognize him?"

  "Aye," Sule said. "I'd know him. Hard to miss that one in a crowd. They all walk around arrogant and bossy and prissy in their black robes, and he's the worst of the lot. Close the throne and never lets anyone forget it."

  Don't think I'm not noticing that you seem to be having entirely too fine and easy a time slandering me, Binhadi said drolly.

  Laughing, Dree gestured to Kek. "Get the others, tell them where I'm going, see they position accordingly. Call the curfew, get ready for the shipment tonight."

  "La, la, la," Kek grumbled, but obediently left to carry out his orders.

  Sule fell into step just behind Dree as they left the manor and headed up and down sharply angled streets, walking made all the more difficult by the unevenness of the cobblestones and the growing dark.

  He glanced surreptitiously around the dining room as they slipped inside, and wondered why he felt a flood of relief when he saw the other three sitting at a table in the farthest corner.

  "Is that him?" Dree asked.

  "Aye," Sule replied. "That's him. Still an arrogant-looking whoreson."

  My, my, we really do love calling me names when there is nothing I can do to retaliate. But revenge is best delivered after dark, remember that, Binhadi replied.

  Sule was startled by the mirth in his voice. He was not certain what to think of Binhadi openly amused. Terrified of that revenge, perhaps. Whatever convinces them I am the stupid, lazy soldier they expect, Sule replied. "I'm for an ale, unless you've further need of me."

  "No," Dree said, clearly having already dismissed him. "Wait a moment, actually. Do you know his men?"

  Sule flicked them a glance and grunted. "No. Man like that goes through servants like he goes through wine. G'day, milord." He strode off, up to the bar, and ordered an ale. What now?

  Now we see what he does with me, Binhadi said.

  Snorting, Sule took a swallow of his ale. He grimaced at the taste, and reached out to snag the bartender, jerking him close. "Let's try this again. I ordered an ale. Bring me one that's not mostly well water, or you'll be swallowing your own teeth." He roughly let the man go and watched him closely as a new ale was drawn.

  He shifted away as someone came up beside him and settled a bit too close, stifling a sigh as the man laughed. "Are they so spoiled in the Heart they don't serve watered down ale?"

  "How would you know I'm from the Heart, then?" Sule asked. He accepted the new ale and tried it, then jerked his head to dismiss the bartender.

  "You stand out," the man said congenially. "Hearts always do—wear an attitude about you like a cloak."

  Sule rolled his eyes.

  I think he's with Dree's men, Mahzan said. He glanced our away briefly. His emotions are…unsteady. He likes to pick fights, and is happy for any excuse to kill.

  Yeah, he seems a rough sort—and a smelly sort, Sule said. Dree must not be completely sure of me. Dragon burn them all. I think we have lost all chance of subtlety. Can you read their minds at all?

  I can try, Mahzan replied. But they do have shields in place, which means they have experience, which in turns means they might notice if I go delving deeper and try to breach the shields.

  Cemal interjected, Not worth the risk, not yet. Definitely not with so many people around. Sule, you should go, that will force at least one or two of their men elsewhere and spread them a little thinner. You can go protect Malea.

  Sule finished his ale and tossed a coin on the bar. "I can get better swill from a horse's trough." He pushed away from the bar and strode back through it, slipping out into the night. He walked slowly, lazily, like a soldier who knew he had nowhere to be and no one who would demand an accounting of his whereabouts and doings.

  He sneered at his tail, who clearly thought he was subtle but possessed as much subtlety as Mahzan did sense.

  Funny.

  Sule smirked. Turning a corner, he slipped into the doorway of a closed shop and drew the dagger at his hip. A few seconds later, his tail turned the corner and then stopped as he realized Sule was gone. The moment of confusion was all Sule needed; he darted from the doorway and snuck up behind the
bastard, tripped him and pinned him to the street, straddling him to trap his arms. He yanked the man's head up and pressed the edge of his dagger to his throat. "Good evening, friend."

  "Some friend—" the man bit out.

  "I do not like people following me," Sule said. "Men who follow without wanting to be noticed doing so usually have a mind to stick a knife in someone's back."

  "Just making sure you got home safe, friend. Dree's guests shouldn't come to harm."

  Sule caught the white shine of his eyes just as the wind around them sprang up. He slammed the bastard's head against the cobblestones, then hit the back of it with the hilt of his dagger to ensure the bastard would not wake immediately. He briefly pondered just killing him, but in the end settled for dragging him into the alleyway and using the man's clothes to improvise bindings.

  When that was done, he continued on his way back to Dree's house. There were two men stationed outside when he arrived, but they let him pass without fuss—and went down easily, taken completely by surprise. Dragging them into the carriage house, Sule use rope there to secure them. Striding back to the house, he went inside and headed straight for the room where Malea was locked up.

  One man stood guard in front of her door, and he was smarter than his fellows in that he drew this sword the moment he saw Sule. In the end, however, he was only moderately more difficult to deal with. Once, Sule would have struggled more with a shaper, because for all they were fairly common, Sule did not interact with many. Two months with Cemal, however, had taught him much.

  The man died easily, and Sule yanked his dagger from the body and cleaned it on the man's cloak before sheathing it. Removing the keys from the man's belt, he unlocked the door to Malea's room and stepped inside.

  Malea sat before a fireplace, looking lost in thought, a neglected book spread open in her lap. She looked up, tense—and then her eyes went wide with surprise as she saw him. "Sule!"

  "Come," Sule said, not wasting time on pleasantries or explanations. "Nothing is going according to plan, and you are not safe here."