by Lisa Shearin
“Was taught alongside Sarad Nukpana—the infamous leader of the Khrynsani—by the same teacher,” Aeron Corantine said. “Mages are the product of those who teach them.”
Imala’s hand locked Tam in place. He could have moved, but he didn’t. And I knew it was taking every bit of self-control he had not to go for the Nebian’s throat—or give him a long-overdue death curse demonstration.
“If you are referring to Kesyn Badru,” Dakarai said into the suddenly silent room, “he is an honorable man—as is Tamnais Nathrach.”
“Who openly conspired to bring down the goblin government and replace it with his puppet, Chigaru Mal’Salin. He even conspired and manipulated Chigaru into declaring him his heir until the king and his queen produce one. It is well known who controls the new goblin king and the goblin people—Tamnais Nathrach, a known dark mage and master of black magic.”
“Malicious lies and baseless innuendo have no place in these proceedings,” Mychael said coldly.
Aeron Corantine smiled and spread his hands. “I am not claiming these opinions as my own. I am merely relaying what I have heard said.” He paused. “Often.”
“A wise man only gives voice to words he believes in his heart and knows to be true,” said an amused, deep voice from the back of the room. The Myloran ambassador, Herryk Geirleif. “A foolish man repeats whatever he hears.” He crossed his massive arms over his even larger chest. “I do not know Chancellor Nathrach personally, but there are those I count as friends who do. They tell of a mage of the highest honor, a warrior without peer, and man who would give his life for his friends and his people. I would gladly welcome such a man into my longhouse and share with him the warmth of my fire and bounty of my hunt.” The Myloran gave the Nebian a brittle smile. “Liars and slanderers are left outside with the wolves.”
*
Justinius had dismissed the delegates. Predictably, the Nebian delegation immediately returned to their embassy. Others remained and spoke to one another in small groups and quiet voices.
Dakarai Enric’s words had accomplished what an elder statesman/kindly grandfather did best—calmed everyone down and restored some semblance of sanity to the proceedings.
The Myloran ambassador’s words had made the Nebian ambassador look like an idiot.
I didn’t know which one I appreciated more.
“At least they haven’t found out why Markus isn’t here,” I murmured to Mago, “and whose gold paid for Eldor’s assassination. Khrynsani monster spiders in the Void are bad enough.”
“Aeron Corantine is lucky that Chancellor Nathrach can control his temper. Were he not, at least we wouldn’t have to endure that man any longer. I feel a need for a bath every time I have to speak with him.”
“That happening often?”
“Just because Pengor and Nebia share a small portion of border south of the Hart Forest, Aeron is determined that we should be as close as brothers.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun for him to actually meet your brothers?”
Mago closed his eyes and inhaled as if I’d just held a snifter of fine cognac under his nose. “That much enjoyment is illegal in five out of the Seven Kingdoms. Even worse, I’m not the only one who has been beset by our Nebian neighbor. Dear Isibel has been a paragon of self-control.”
“The next time he tries to kiss my hand, he’ll be getting my fist.”
Isibel stepped out from behind my cousin. There were definite advantages to being petite; you could eavesdrop from virtually anywhere.
“If anyone could get away with decking that one,” I told her, “it would be you. You’d inflict pain and embarrassment with one punch.”
“I’ve been told that I have a mean right hook,” she said with a tiny smile. “Ask my brother.”
I laughed. “Oh, I will. Before I leave this room I’ll ask. I deserve some fun.”
Mago lowered his voice. “Mychael said you caught one.”
My cousin didn’t say what “one” he was talking about and he didn’t need to. My skin tried to crawl away and hide. “Yeah, I did. I don’t know how, and I’d rather not think about what would have happened if my magic hadn’t flared up when it did.”
“Do you think your magic might be able to help with that?” He inclined his head toward the crystal ball.
“Mago, I wouldn’t begin to know how.”
“Do you think you might receive enlightenment before we start waking up wrapped in black web bedsheets?”
“I don’t think I could be floundering any more than I am right now, but I’m hopeful that I’ll figure out something.” Justinius had just finished speaking with Dakarai Enric and was within earshot. “However, a very wise man of my acquaintance once said: ‘I just had this dumped on me. Brilliance takes time.’”
Justinius beamed. “It’s so encouraging when young people listen to and learn from their elders. The Brenirian ambassador was asking me a similar question. Whether Raine Benares the Saghred slayer could go into the Void with a big fly swatter and take care of business.”
I glanced at the Brenirian ambassador out of the corner of my eye. He was bespectacled and solemn. I was nearly certain his face would break if he smiled. Come to think of it, I’d never seen him assume an expression of any kind. “He said that?”
Justinius shrugged. “My words, not his. But it was what he meant.”
“I’m certain he isn’t the only one,” Mago ventured. “You have quite the martial reputation.”
“Let’s hope there’s a more reliable solution, because my magic isn’t.”
“I have the chairman of our cryptozoology department working on the problem,” Justinius told us. “He and his faculty are creative thinkers.”
“I hope they’re also fast thinkers. The Nebian ambassador may have been the only one who said it, but the rest of them believe it, or at least suspect it. And, bottom line, it’s true, at least in part. They don’t trust Tam because they don’t know him, and they don’t know him because they’re scared to be in the same room with him. To them, there’s not much, if any, difference between Tam and Sarad Nukpana. The Nebian did his homework; he knows Tam and Sarad Nukpana had the same teacher and that both went to the dark side, though it was after both had left Kesyn’s classroom. Nukpana stayed on the dark side. Tam didn’t. But there is no proof of that, at least no proof that they’d believe. If Tam walking into a Rak’kari nest doesn’t change their minds, I don’t know what will.”
*
Once the delegates began returning to their embassies, Justinius asked to speak with the goblin ambassador. While Dakarai waited for the Majafan delegation to finish peppering the archmagus with questions, we talked. Ever the grand courtier, Dakarai linked my arm through his and we strolled down the corridor outside of the meeting chamber, talking about Aeron Corantine’s accusations taking hold with the other delegates.
“I have served the Mal’Salins all my life.” Dakarai’s dark eyes twinkled. “Though I openly admit some times were with more enthusiasm than others.”
“So what do you think about Chigaru?”
“He’s still young and relatively inexperienced, but he is receptive to advice from those he trusts. His exile has made his trust a difficult thing to earn. Such caution will serve him well.” He glanced fondly over at Tam and Imala. “As will those he surrounds himself with.”
“How did it ever come to this?” I asked him.
“The same way it always has and—to our great misfortune—probably always will. With fierce hate harbored by a few and complacency displayed by the rest. All it takes for evil to take hold and flourish is for men and women of conscience to do nothing.”
“We’re doing something—at least we’re trying.”
“Yes, we are.”
“But will it be enough?”
Dakarai Enric smiled very slightly. “What are we, my dear?”
“Pardon?”
“What are we, you and I?”
It took me a moment, but I got it. My small smile was a
match for his. “We’re an elf and a goblin.”
“Taking a lovely stroll together, arm in arm. And where are we?”
What Dakarai was getting at really sank in, and my tension faded ever so slightly. “In the citadel of the Conclave Guardians—an organization neither of our people has ever really trusted, whose mission it is to protect a group nobody really likes.”
The old goblin stopped and turned to me, taking one of my hands in both of his. “Regardless of what happens or does not happen with these peace talks, we’ve already won. The rest will come.”
If the next Khrynsani surprise didn’t come first.
Chapter 18
The sun was beginning to set when Mychael and I took another trip to the harbor, this time by coach, to do something that was even scarier than flying there on Kalinpar—or looking a Rak’kari right in its multi-eyed face.
Mychael’s parents had arrived.
It was time to meet my future in-laws.
The Eiliesors were an old and respected elven family. They were minor nobility and had no ambitions past that, which was unusual for elven aristocrats. They had overseen the same lands and vassals for centuries and were content to keep doing it. They married into appropriate families and had appropriate children.
Change was unwelcome.
I was the walking and talking embodiment of change, and my family couldn’t be more inappropriate if they tried.
Mychael’s family was landed gentry from aristocratic stock. My family were pirates; though if you wanted to look at it that way, they were pirate royalty. When you were the most notorious criminal family in the Seven Kingdoms, people weren’t lining up to tell you what you couldn’t call yourselves.
Elven nobility meeting people you’d invite to dinner only if you had to, and when they left, you’d count the silver.
I sighed.
I was doomed.
A Benares wouldn’t care what anyone else thought. We did what we wanted where we wanted, and would never try to be anything we weren’t for anyone.
Mychael agreed with my family’s credo. He told me to just be myself and his parents would love me.
I sighed again.
I was still doomed.
I glanced up. Mychael was looking at me.
“My parents will love you,” he told me. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Until I believe it.”
“When will that be?”
“When I see it.” I shifted uncomfortably on the coach seat. “Last time I was this nervous, I was being pushed down an aisle toward a sacrificial altar.”
“My last time was watching you being pushed down that aisle.”
“So you are nervous about them meeting me.”
“No, I’m nervous about them coming here, especially now. Two days ago, the closest danger to them was the possibility of more Khrynsani-paid assassins in our waters. I thought they’d be safer here.”
“Well, we didn’t know, and your parents aren’t going to be anywhere near a travel mirror. Though we’re going to be occupied trying to exterminate some spiders. What did your parents do for entertainment the last time they were here?”
“They’ve never been here before.”
That earned some silence.
“Unlike your sister,” I ventured, “you have told them what you do for a living, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but not until I had to.”
“What is it with your family and secrets?”
“We don’t tell what’s likely to be disapproved of.”
“You told them about me.” I let out a short laugh. “Though it wasn’t like you had much of a choice.”
“I told them about you because I’m proud of you. I’m prouder still that in a few days, I’ll be able to introduce you as my wife.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just let the goofy, love-besotted grin happen again.
“Why would they disapprove of your job?” I asked. “You’re the Paladin of the Conclave Guardians, for crying out loud.”
“It’s not overseeing the family estates.”
“No, it’s saving the world as we know it on a daily basis, so other people can stay home and mind their family estates. You doing your job means those families will survive and those estates will stay theirs.”
“Tell my mother that.”
“If she brings it up, I will. That’s a ridiculous opinion. Though I won’t say it quite that way.”
“It’d probably be best.” Mychael grinned. “Though the look on Mother’s face would be worth it.”
“I’ll consider it an opportunity to practice diplomacy. As the paladin’s wife, I’m trying to learn.”
“That’ll be fun to watch, too.”
“Speaking of fun to watch, I could see you running the family estate.”
“You could?”
“Sure, you’d be good at it. I just couldn’t see you being happy.”
“Nice that it’s obvious to you.”
“Considering that I’m marrying you, that’s a good thing.”
“My parents have accepted it; they just don’t understand it.”
“What about your sister? Any chance Isibel will eventually want to go home and tend farms?” I snorted as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I waved a hand, “Never mind; stupid question. So when you and Isibel inherit, what are you going to do with all of it?”
“What should have been done long ago: give the farms to the families who have worked that land for generations. They’ve more than paid for those farms. They should legally own them.”
I whistled.
Mychael gave me a strange look.
“I don’t disagree. The whistle was for what your parents will think. Do they know?”
“They do.”
“And?”
“Well, at least they’ve given up trying to talk me out of it.”
“They have?”
Mychael shrugged. “Either that or it’s merely a temporary retreat to reevaluate their tactics.”
“My money’s on that one. Your head for strategy had to come from somewhere.”
“Mom.”
“Really?”
“Um-hum. She never gives up.”
Wonderful.
*
Mychael favored both of his parents, at least in appearance, and Isibel was most definitely her mother’s daughter. Whether they—like their son—could ignore what my family did for a living had yet to be determined. Well, what my extended family did for a living. My mother hadn’t been a pirate; she’d been a sorceress of marginal ability, like myself. My father was one of the original Conclave Guardians—original as in over nine hundred years ago. With his soul now residing in the body of a young Guardian who had been murdered by the Demon Queen, my dad was going to be walking me down the aisle in a few days, along with my godfather, Garadin Wyne.
One side of my family were pirates; the other side was merely complicated.
A wagon was standing by to take Brant and Edythe Eiliesor’s luggage to a citadel guest apartment. My soon-to-be-in-laws would be riding back in the coach with us.
Awkward wouldn’t even begin to describe it.
As I said before, I didn’t do small talk. I either had something to say or I didn’t. Though chances were good there’d be more along the lines of awkward silences. Neither parent would be saying: “So, tell me about yourself.” Mychael had already told them. Everything. Well, at least everything he thought they should know and could handle. If that was the case, it meant he hadn’t told them much of anything. My last name was more than enough.
I’d changed into a gown for the occasion. I was going to be enough of a shock; I didn’t want to push them completely over the edge. Though I had to admit, there were advantages to wearing a gown. With the situation on the island being what it was, I had a small arsenal of bladed weapons within easy reach.
When Mychael met them at the base of the gangplank, I was right there with him, hoping my smile didn
’t look like a terrified rictus.
The Eiliesors’ smiles were neither terrified nor a rictus. They were beyond thrilled to see their son. There were enthusiastic hugs all around. We were surrounded by a Guardian security detachment, and once again, Mychael couldn’t have cared less who was watching.
I was standing a little off to the side. The Eiliesors hadn’t noticed me yet, and I was completely good with that.
Then suddenly I was the center of attention. I took a deep breath, and smiled as best I could.
Mychael turned and held out his hand to me. I concentrated on not letting any of my weapons clank as I walked over to them.
“Mom, Dad, this is my fiancée, Raine Benares. Raine, these are my parents, Brant and Edythe Eiliesor.”
I paused in a fluttering moment of panic. I had no idea what was the proper way to greet elven aristocrat in-laws. A curtsey was out of the question. One, I think they were reserved for kings and queens and the like. Two, I’d never done one in my life and didn’t know how. Three, there was the distinct possibility my blades would throw me off balance and I’d end up in a clanking pile at their feet. So I simply went with what I knew. A handshake. Fortunately Mychael’s dad was closest, and a handshake with a man wasn’t a social faux pas—at least I didn’t think so.