When he reached it, he glanced back and saw the priest with several others around him, simply watching him. Carter and her men had disappeared. He would need to move quickly to stay ahead of her as he raced toward the palace.
Fes fixed the priest in his mind. He would find him again, and he would reacquire his dagger. That was worth much to him. Finding a priest in Anuhr couldn’t be that hard, could it?
The priest watched him, holding on to the dagger. With the sunlight reflecting off the blackened blade, it seemed to glow somewhat. Fes rubbed the hilt of his other dagger and spun away.
Outside the market, he turned away, racing along the street until any thought of pursuit died off. From here, he could make out the palace in the distance, though he was still far from it. He ran through the narrow streets lined with two-story homes all crammed together, weaving around people walking through the side streets Fes preferred so as to avoid the chaos of the wider streets. As he ran, he reached into the pack and pulled the bone out. It was warm, which made him think it was a real dragon bone. And it had been offered in exchange for something else.
Did Azithan know what the merchants wanted from the priest? Most likely he did. If he didn’t, that knowledge might be valuable to him, and more reason to keep Fes around.
He would be paid for this job. And he would see that Azithan paid even more than what he had agreed. Losing his dagger was worth an extra gold or two.
Chapter Two
Fes was holding onto the bone, rolling it in his hands, running it along the surface when the door to the room opened. The bone was mostly smooth, but there were strange striations in it that he could feel though he couldn’t see them. It seemed as if the warmth he felt seeped from those striations. He’d held replica bones often enough, but this didn’t seem to be a copy. The real thing, then.
“No. Don’t get up on my behalf,” Azithan said as he entered.
Fes looked over. He didn’t bother to move his leg, which was draped over the arm of the chair. Like everything in the room, it was ornate, decorated with silver gilding worked into the arms. In Azithan’s rooms, everything had a certain gilding to it.
“Why should I get up? Your chairs are much more comfortable than any that I have.”
“I should think so. Considering what you have come from, that’s not all too surprising.”
Azithan stopped in front of him. He was draped in a thick maroon robe, and he wore a gold collar marked with symbols of the empire, including the dragon, the symbol for the emperor. Azithan reached for the bone, but Fes pulled it back, twisting in his seat.
“Not before you pay me.”
Azithan looked hurt. “Have I ever failed to pay you?”
“It’s not a failure to pay so much as it is the terms of our arrangement.”
Azithan regarded him for a moment with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “Have you decided to change those terms?”
“I lost a dagger.”
Azithan turned away, leaving Fes sitting with the bone on his lap, and made his way to the massive tile-framed hearth. A warm fire crackled within, and there came the scent of cinnamon on the air. That fit Azithan far too well.
“A dagger? That’s what your change of focus is about? Why should I care about a dagger?”
“Because I care about a dagger,” Fes said, peeling his leg off the chair and twisting so that he could see Azithan better. The man had his back to him, and he did something near the hearth that created a strange mix of smells. Not only was there the cinnamon, but now there was something else, almost a hint of mint or perhaps pine.
“How much was the dagger worth to you?”
Fes debated what number to throw out. If he went too high, he ran the risk of offending Azithan. The only reason he cared whether or not he did that was because Azithan continued to send jobs his way. He needed those jobs. They paid well, and the alternative was much worse. Besides, Azithan had been kind to him.
“Probably three gold shils.”
Azithan glanced over, a trace of a smile curving his mouth. “Three gold? I have a hard time believing that you would carry anything quite so valuable on you, Fezarn.”
Fes tensed. He hated it when anyone used his full name, but there was something almost possessive about the way that Azithan said it. “That’s what it’s worth. And I lost it. I could have traded the bone for the dagger—the priest was willing to do that—but…”
“You wouldn’t have traded the bone for the dagger,” Azithan said, turning back to the fire. There came a flash of light that faded. A trail of orange smoke drifted into the room. Had Azithan added something to the fire, or was this a demonstration of his fire magic? The man was a fire mage, though Fes never saw him use that kind of magic. “You wouldn’t want to have failed in a task. I know you well enough to know that you would hate that, Fezarn.”
Fes looked down at the bone. He ran his hand along the surface, feeling the strange grooves. Azithan was right. He always completed his tasks and had so far never failed. That was another reason that Azithan continued to hire him. “Did you know I’d find this?”
“Was it with the priest?”
Fes hesitated. “The bone wasn’t with the priest. It was his payment.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.” Azithan waited, but Fes didn’t have anything more to say. He hadn’t learned of the task the merchant wanted of the priest and had thought the bone all he cared about. “Is it authentic?”
Azithan’s face tightened a moment as he did something. Fes could feel it as tension in the air. “It appears to be.”
“Five gold shils of value?” Fes asked.
Azithan chuckled. “Is it five now? I thought the agreement was for me to pay four. Between the increase in price along with what you are quoting me for your lost dagger, I’m beginning to question whether you are to be trusted, Fezarn.” Azithan turned to him, clasping his hands before him. “You are a collector for the empire. Is that not worth something to you?”
“Is that what I am now?” He had been Azithan’s collector. Was he getting promoted? It wasn’t that Fes would argue with such a promotion. There was value in serving the empire, even if he didn’t feel any particular allegiance to it.
Azithan studied him. “You’ve served me long enough to know your worth.”
It had been nearly a year since Fes had stopped needing to take other jobs. A year spent working with Azithan, assigned to track down items of various value, though none of them of value to Fes. A year where he hadn’t needed to fear where money would come from… or whether he would have anything to eat. A year since he had needed to serve Horus.
“I don’t really know what I’m worth to you.”
“You work for the empire, which gives you a certain level of credibility that you wouldn’t otherwise have. I think that matters more than you give it credit for.” Azithan watched him for a moment before turning away and heading toward the back of the room. When he returned, he tossed a sack onto Fes’s lap. “That should more than cover for your missing dagger. There are plenty of places that you can go to purchase a replacement. Now, if you don’t mind?” He reached out for the bone, and Fes handed it over to him.
“I might be able to buy another dagger, but it won’t be the same.” Fes glanced at the coin purse in his lap. He untied the strings and flipped it open and began sorting through the coins that Azithan had offered. He reached ten, and there were still a few coins remaining. More than he’d agreed. Then again, Azithan had always been fair with him.
Azithan brought the bone close to his face, studying it. A strange tingling irritated Fes’s arms for a moment before fading. Azithan smiled to himself as he brought the bone to the back of the room and set it down.
“Is it what you were hoping it would be?”
“A dragon bone is valuable.”
“To a fire mage,” Fes said, watching Azithan.
“You don’t think others would find it valuable?”
“I don’t know. Valuabl
e enough the merchant thought the priest would accept a job for him.”
Azithan straightened. “Do you have any idea what job that might be?”
“Not particularly. When I saw the bone, I thought that’s what you were after.”
The fire mage watched Fes for a long moment. “The bone has value. That’s why you were paid, Fezarn.”
“You wanted to know why the priest came to the city.” Azithan had not only known about the bone, but he must have known about the meeting with the priest.
Azithan smiled tightly. “Now you begin to think. Yes. That would have been more valuable to me.”
Fes glanced down at the bag of coins. How much more valuable would it have been? Azithan had paid a ransom for just the bone—would he have paid even more?
“I could go back to the merchant…”
“It will likely be too late. Now that they know you were there, they will have connected you to me.”
“I could try.”
Azithan frowned at him before returning to stand in front of the fire. “Tell me, Fezarn, what is it that you saw when you were there?”
“I told you what I saw.”
“And you gave no thought to why a merchant would pay a priest with a priceless dragon relic?”
He should have. “How would the merchants have acquired an actual bone? I thought most of these were lost, scavenged long ago.”
“Not scavenged,” Azithan said, derision in the way he used the term. “Most of the fragments of bone were harvested by the dragonwalkers for the empire centuries ago, but there are those who still know how to find them. They belong to the empire to ensure its protection.”
Dragonwalkers. If the stories were real, they had a place of esteem when they existed, prized for their ability to crawl through the Dragon Plains and claim the bones for the empire during the Great War a thousand years ago. Those bones had been the key to defeating the dragons and bringing peace. In the time since the last of the dragons, the entire empire had known peace. Though rumors regularly spoke of the threat of attacks, the mere presence of the fire mages held them at bay.
The dragonwalkers were gone, and those who still searched for relics were considered scavengers, not sharing the same esteem as the ancient dragonwalkers. How could they, when most scavengers sold replica dragon bones to the gullible?
“When was the empire really threatened?”
“More often than you know,” Azithan said softly. “The threat of power maintains peace. We must always be prepared.”
“For what? Toulen borders us to the west, and they want nothing but peace. We don’t know what’s beyond the northern mountains, and the sea borders us on the east and south. The empire is safe, Azithan.” The small nations that had once existed had long ago been swallowed by the empire so that none really knew what they once had been.
“Some believe that the dragons will one day return,” Azithan said.
“You’re starting to sound like the priest.”
“There are far too many stories that suggest the possibility. That is why the empire remains prepared.”
“And the priests will return them? They might have some magic, but from what I’ve seen, I doubt it’s enough for that.”
“I suppose that would be true. The Priests of the Flame believe the dragons never were completely exterminated, and that they simply have chosen to mask themselves. No one disputes that the dragons had power, though if creatures of such strength were to be able to conceal their presence, it’s unlikely they would have managed to do so for the last thousand years.”
“They’re gone, and the priests think that bringing their bones back together will cause the dragons to rise once more.”
“I’ll admit it is unlikely.” Azithan watched him for a moment, and then he flashed a smile. “You did well, Fezarn. Perhaps you even earned the gold that I paid you this time. Next time, wait to grab the bone until you have learned what they are really after.”
“I lost my dagger to get that for you.”
Azithan nodded toward the door. “Go find yourself another dagger. You should have enough money to buy whatever quality of blade you want.”
The fire mage turned back to the fire and Fes glared at his back. The money might be able to buy a quality blade, but it wouldn’t replace the dagger—his dagger.
Maybe he should have traded the bone for the dagger. Azithan wouldn’t have known. Fes glanced at the bone, sighing briefly, and then made his way out of Azithan’s room. He headed out of the palace and back out onto the streets.
In this part of the city, there was a chaotic sort of activity. Shops had sprung up, one after another, each vying for the money that spilled out of the palace. Plenty of people served the palace, and plenty of wealth poured into the city. It wasn’t quite as chaotic as it was in the Great Market, but there still was a certain sense of excitement. Most of the buildings were decorated with dragons, marking their allegiance to the emperor and trying to curry his favor. Those decorations became less frequent the farther he went from the palace.
Fes started toward his home. He didn’t have much, little more than a room, but it was his. Were he not so dependent on Azithan and the jobs that he took, he might not have bothered to pay for even that, but for now, with Azithan hiring him as often as he did, Fes didn’t want to be too far from the center of the city and didn’t want to be too far from the offers of employment.
Azithan was right. He did need to replace his dagger. It wouldn’t do for him to have only one, mainly as there were times when he had needed both. He knew just such a place that he could go but doubted that Tracen would have anything for him. He was a skilled metalsmith, and in high enough demand that it would be luck were he to have a dagger. At least he could put in an order. It might take a long time, but Fes didn’t know when his next job would come.
As he meandered through the city, he passed through a busy section. There were carts out on the street, with people selling food or other items. It was an outdoor market, one that attempted to rival the Great Market, but there wasn’t the same vibrancy within the city as there was at the edge of the city. From here, he could continue onward, reach the slums where he’d spent so much of his youth, but he’d avoided returning over the last year, wanting to stay as far from the slums as he could.
When he reached Tracen’s shop, he stepped inside, getting away from the din of the street. He heard a hammering in the back of the shop, and Fes made his way toward his friend. They had known each other for years, back when Tracen had still been in the slums and before he’d managed to find an apprenticeship and get out. He was the only one Fes remained in touch with from those days.
Tracen looked up, his hammer paused before striking the metal. “Fes. No assignment today?”
“There was. I finished.”
“Oh yeah? And what bizarre item did he have you tracking this time?”
“I thought it was a bone, but I think there was more to it.” Azithan had been after whatever the merchants knew about, the reason they wanted the priest to do something for them. He might have to pay another visit to the market before the Bayars disappeared.
Tracen said his hammer down and looked over at Fes as he wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. “As in a dragon bone?” Tracen whistled softly. “That’s got to be worth… I don’t even know what it would be worth.”
“Well, I did steal it from a priest.”
Tracen came around the forge and leaned on one of the tables that displayed the knives he’d made. All of them were of high-quality steel, though many were simple. A basket near the far corner contained swords that he had made. Neither was quite the right weapon for Fes. He preferred something of a little longer blade, but not so long that he had to worry about cutting himself with it, not the way that he would if he carried a sword.
“What are you doing stealing from priests? Do you really need that kind of luck?”
Fes chuckled. “What kind of luck is that?”
“It can’t be go
od, not if you’re stealing from a priest.”
“I think I’ve already had enough bad luck.”
“You can’t keep using what happened to your parents as an excuse.”
“No? I thought that I could use that as often as I wanted.”
Tracen snorted. “It is tragic, but I think you need to move on.”
“I have moved on. That’s what brought me here.” Not that he had anyplace else he could have gone. Had he not come to Anuhr, Fes suspected he would have died.
“No, you’ve thrown in with the emperor.”
“Not the emperor. Azithan.”
Tracen arched a brow. “They’re pretty much the same, aren’t they?”
“Fine, but I’d rather have the stability of a job and the safety of knowing that were anything to happen, I have a connection in the palace.”
“A connection that may not care about you if things turn sour. Will Azithan watch out for you? The emperor? You need someone who cares about you and honest work.”
Fes smiled at Tracen. “That’s sweet of you, but I don’t think that you’re my type.”
Tracen shot him an annoyed look and return to the forge and picked up his hammer. He began beating on the metal, striking it with a steady rhythmic below. Something was soothing about listening to him as he worked, He could never know the sort of comfort that Tracen had while hammering metal, shaping it into knives or swords or any of the dozen other things that he had made. Then again, Tracen led something of a boring life, and it was one that Fes wasn’t sure that he could ever stomach.
“You know what I mean,” he said while hammering. “You didn’t want to stay with her—”
“It would never have worked, and we both knew it. Besides, this is a steady job.”
“Steady doesn’t mean that it’s a good job. Think of all the things he’s asked you to track for him.”
Fes pulled out the coin purse and shook it. “But he pays.”
Tracen glanced over. “There is that.”
“Which is why I came.”
“You didn’t come to visit with me?”
Fes shrugged. “You know how much I enjoy chatting with you.”
Dragon Bones (The Dragonwalker Book 1) Page 4