The man beside Null – Micks she thought – kept a close watch on her, his gaze following her form when he thought she wasn’t looking, and darting away when she was. It made her uncomfortable, for although the man had come to rescue her, it seemed that he despised her, after all, what other reason could he have to look at her in such a timid fashion?
Their walk was slow and quiet, making it seem much longer than it probably was. When they stopped at a dead end outside another panel – this one of white canvas – she did not think they had gone far. Still, the abrupt end surprised her. In the distance they traveled, the tunnel hadn’t forked; it had been built for the sole purpose of connecting these two rooms.
The canvas panel made no sound as Beda slid it into a crack between two walls. The room was unlit, and with the shades drawn, it was too dark to recognize by the faint light of Beda’s torch. And yet, she didn’t need to see the room to know their location; the familiar scent of incense and scented candles told her exactly where they were. She had been here many times, knew its gold curtains, its red oak desk in the corner, the simple four-post bed, and the large painted map of Lock and Atherahn through which they had just entered.
She spoke before thinking. “Why does the king have a passage to Mycah’s bedroom?”
One of the men laughed.
“Oh, Null,” the queen said, her voice a mixture of pity and remorse. “What have we done to you?”
Beda glared at Tepa, but the queen seemed not to notice. As the queen paced to the door leading to Mycah’s sitting room, Null realized that she wasn’t going to get an answer.
“A better question,” the queen said, her eyes watching Beda. “Is how you knew of it?”
Beda opened her mouth to speak, but a voice stopped her.
“Where are we, mage?” the voice said from Mycah’s sitting room. Like the room, she knew it immediately. It belonged to Tyvan Dahl. “I thought you said the queen would be here.”
“She will be,” another man answered. It was not a voice she recognized, but she wished she had. Tyvan had called him ‘mage.’
The queen turned a concerned frown on Null and the others. She spoke in a whisper. “I think it best if no one tells him where we are.”
Null agreed. If he knew they were in Mycah’s chambers, the spymaster would probably burn his own clothing in an effort to cleanse himself of the mage’s taint – and half the room besides. Null was just about to say as much when Beda surprised her.
“The Hegemon has declared martial law,” Beda said. “But one day, his stewardship will end and Erin’s heir will take the throne. Right now, that heir is Tyvan. If you want Null to have the future she deserves, if you want the mages of this city to have the future they deserve, then you will need to start telling the truth eventually.” She glared a challenge at the queen. “Or would you rather that Tyvan and his Atheists take the throne?”
Shame fell over Tepa’s face. She glared at Beda, surprise written into the flat line of her pursed lips.
Null didn’t understand it. If not Tyvan, who else would take the throne? Unless the queen intends to… But that would require revealing who she is, else her subjects begin to question her age.
“You are right,” Tepa said, her tone decided. With a determined grimace, she opened the door and entered Mycah’s sitting room.
Tyvan Dahl stood waist high, half his body covered by the lip of the hole in which he stood. Mycah’s cauldron, and the floor underneath it were both gone, revealing another tunnel and more steps, and she finally understood why Mycah had never used the thing.
The spymaster did not notice their entrance, he stood facing the bookshelf, his eyes motionless in their sockets, which led Null to suspect that he was not as much perusing the titles as he was attempting to avoid the man who stood beside him. Hefty and dark haired, it was not a man Null recognized, but as Null followed the queen into the room, the man’s eyes were on her, not on the queen.
“Afternoon, gentlemen,” Tepa said.
Tyvan spun toward her voice with a pleased grin. “Queen Tepa,” he smiled, “you’re alive.”
The portly man sneered, his look encompassing first Tyvan then Rin Tepa. “Yes, Queen,” he agreed sarcastically, “it is fortunate for us all that you still live.” His tone said quite the opposite.
“Mister Clerahl,” the queen said, “it is good of you to come.” Despite Mister Clerahl’s sarcasm, the queen seemed genuinely pleased to see him.
Clerahl frowned. “It is?”
“Certainly,” Tepa smiled. “It is always good to finally meet one’s contractors, particularly those who’ve done such a marvelous job.”
His glare was suspicious. “How do you mean?” he asked slowly.
“Do you think Mycah and his subsidiaries could have paid for these tunnels themselves? Or gotten away with it, without my consent? Indeed, it was I who suggested them.”
Beside the mage, Tyvan gaped. “Mycah’s chambers?” he mouthed, looking even more confused than Clerahl. “But… Beda said they were keeping you in your own room. Why would there be tunnels between the mage’s room and yours…” Tyvan paused, his face paling to a stark white as a flash of sickening revelation swept over him. “You and the mage?” he accused. “I knew his vile flirting was too friendly with you! How could you do such a thing with that cretin?”
Tepa regarded Tyvan with an amused grin. “My son’s chambers,” Tepa corrected. “The tunnel from Mycah’s bedroom goes to Erin’s bedroom.” The queen emphasized the two rooms, seemingly enjoying this moment as if she had waited years for the admission.
Tyvan sputtered his reply between shallow breaths. “You mean that Erin was… that he was intimate with… with a… a ma… a ma…” With each stutter, the lines of disgust around Tyvan’s eyes deepened. “A mage!” he finally managed.
Clerahl’s mouth was a shocked grin, his jaw open and his eyes wide.
Null’s gaze shot to the bedroom. The king and Mycah? No… it doesn’t… no… Despite her disbelief, it made sense.
“Beda,” the queen said, “we’re wasting valuable time.”
Beda acknowledged her with a short bob of her head. “Yes, Queen.” With an outstretched arm, she motioned past Tyvan to the second tunnel.
“But… but…” Tyvan stammered.
As the queen passed him, she stopped and smiled. “As spymaster, I of course expect some discretion in what you’ve learned here today.”
“But he… They… It’s not true.”
The queen cocked her head, offering him a consoling smile that seemed all too fake as she patted his cheek and said, “Of course it is, dear. Haven’t you been doing your job?”
With that, the queen was done talking. She barreled past him and into the tunnel, Beda at her heels and as stone-faced as ever. Null had always believed Beda to be subservient to Tyvan, not only in position, but in demeanor as well, but as Beda passed him, she didn’t even glance at the spymaster.
Tyvan gaped at Beda, and at her two lackeys when they passed, then with a glance around the room, which surely showed him that he’d been left alone with Null and Clerahl – left alone with the two mages – he raced into the tunnel.
Clerahl faced her, still beaming. “Is that all true?” Clerahl asked. “Hired me to build these tunnels and fucked the king? Shit, I thought you court mages were all Atheist pets.”
Null shook her head and walked into the tunnel. It seemed best not to comment on things she wasn’t entirely certain she understood herself.
The tunnel they followed was no more extravagant than that in the palace, but it was much wider, and the farther they went, the more intersections and forks they passed. Clerahl walked beside her at the end of their column, silent after her failure to answer his question. The queen kept an urgent pace, and when Legion horns blared above, she further quickened her steps.
Beda’s torch bobbed in the darkness, lighting each of them in turn as the light flickered. It led them to an open door flanked by two lit torches, where Mic
ks and Hen stopped and waited, crossbows ready as if resuming a post – and from the looks of the empty passage, Null suspected they were.
Through the door, the tunnel widened to a large, rounded hallway. Torches lined the expanse, lighting the array of rooms branching on either side of the passage. In each room were soldiers, a dozen or more in each, all wearing the black and white cloaks of the Old Guard. They looked ready for something, each resting on a knee and pointed at a set of steps. Null got the impression they were preparing to charge up them, or perhaps waiting for something to come down. It made little sense to Null until she examined the spacing. Their tunnel was as wide as the streets above, and the rooms spaced like the cellars of the former shops which had lined the outskirts of the palace courtyard.
Their party didn’t stop as Null expected. Beda continued on, taking them deeper into the grand passage, past more rooms and more soldiers. Here, a few of the rooms were empty, their stairways echoing with the sound of fighting above. They had come too late. The Hegemon had already ordered the Guard to attack.
He waited ahead, visible through the final doorway at the end of the long hall. With dark hair and darker eyes, the Hegemon was a man Null had only seen on a handful of occasions. Most months he spent among his ranks in the east, manning the border between Atherahn and Lock, holding back the ‘blood-addled madmen,’ as Mycah called them; the deranged mages of his former cult.
Tall and lithe, Winter Blake watched their approach with a cold stare. “Queen,” he said, “it is good to see you well.” He stood at the room’s center, over a map of the city, about a half dozen advisors surrounding him, each quietly pointing at and discussing the map in small clusters of two or three. None looked up to greet their queen, nor did they seem to notice anyone else in the room. There were sounds of agreement from one group, before one of the advisors nodded to a messenger at the far end of the room. The messenger nodded back before sprinting out the door beside him.
“We need to speak,” Tepa said. “Alone.”
The Hegemon’s lips tightened. “Certainly,” he said. “Although, is now the best time?”
“It must be now.”
The Hegemon bowed his head, a quick deferent jerk before he turned his gaze on Beda. “The tunnels are clear?” he asked. “May we begin sending men into the palace itself?”
“They are,” Beda said.
“We need to speak before that,” the queen ordered.
The Hegemon frowned, glanced at his advisors, and then nodded. Motioning to a small room behind him, he waited for the queen to precede him.
“Null. Come,” the queen barked.
Null jumped, surprised that ‘alone’ would include her. In years past, she’d not been allowed in the same room as Winter Blake, let alone admitted to his private meetings with the queen.
The Hegemon’s eyes followed Null with an unreadable expression, but as he’d done for the queen, he waited for Null to pass with head bowed. Tyvan made to follow, but a glare from the queen stopped him.
“Not you, Tyvan.” The look the queen gave him made it clear that she would not be questioned. For a wonder, the spymaster didn’t.
They entered and the Hegemon closed the door behind them. “What is-” he tried.
“You need to stop this,” the queen interrupted.
“Stop what?” His voice was slow.
“You must call back your men.”
The Hegemon’s brows curled. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “We’ve already taken the docks and the outer walls. We were only waiting for your arrival before we sent men into the courtyard. Why would we stop?”
“Because I told them we would cooperate.”
“Cooperate?” The Hegemon looked puzzled. “Now why would we do that? We have the advantage in numbers, experience, and now, of surprise and defenses. Why would we barter?”
“For the good of Dekahn,” the queen hissed.
The Hegemon turned. “Ah,” he said, “I… I see.”
Tepa’s eyes narrowed. “What? Why do you sound surprised?”
The Hegemon shrugged. “I had made a different calculation, that’s all.”
“What calculation?”
“Well… Dekahn is dead, Queen. I had… planned to crush the Legion here and then abandon it.”
“You can’t do that.”
The Hegemon frowned. “Destroy the Legion or abandon Dekahn?” he asked.
“Both. Dekahn is Lock’s wealth. If it is not rebuilt, the country will fail. There will be no money to support the Guard, either Old or New.”
“That…” the Hegemon paused, “does not worry me.”
“Doesn’t worry you? How do you think you will pay your troops without Dekahn’s wealth?”
“I do not intend to,” he said, and when the queen frowned at him, he continued. “Pay them with Dekahn’s wealth, that is, I have other plans in mind.”
“And what plans are those?”
The Hegemon scowled. His gaze swung back to Tepa in a slow arc. “Do you know how long I have fought in the East?” he asked.
“What does tha-”
“Forty-six years,” Blake interrupted. “Since the age of nine, I have fought a war that cannot be won. You speak of rebuilding a city, of restoring a stalemate so that I, and those soldiers I have brought with me, can spend the rest of our days holding an imaginary line that each decade we lose inch by inch, but here I must ask myself. Why?”
“What do you mean, why? What, Blake? Forty-six years, and now you’ve decided to just give up?”
“Quite the contrary,” the Hegemon said. “I intend to do something that will turn the tide in our favor.” He pointed at Null. “And I am glad to see that you won’t be resisting me, at least on one point.”
The Hegemon paused, his gaze examining the queen as if weighing her reaction in order to use it as a frame for her thoughts.
“I am tired of fighting a war I cannot win, Queen. So, it is time we fought one that we can, which first and foremost, means utilizing the resource Lock has always had, but has chosen to stifle rather than embrace. As you can see,” – He held up his arms to encompass the tunnel – “with Beda’s assistance, I have already reached out to the mages. It is a funny thing, Queen. While your Atheists hate the Butcher’s Cult, there is only one group who hates it more: the very mages your Atheists have subjugated.”
“You… you intend to enlist them? You cann-”
“I already have,” the Hegemon smiled. “Mister Clerahl and his friends have already agreed to help my cause – in exchange for a favor, of course.”
“What favor?”
“Vengeance. It seems they lost a great many of their number when the Legion attacked the city. They want to make certain the Trellish bleed the way they have done.”
“That is foolish. Killing the Legion here will only inflame them further.”
“And what else do you suggest?” the Hegemon asked.
“I have already negotiated a peace,” Tepa said. “One which will see Dekahn rebuilt, and in time, a joint coalition against Atherahn.”
“Have you…” the Hegemon mused. “That… changes a great deal… however…”
“However, what?”
“However, I’m…” The Hegemon touched a finger to his bottom lip. “Not sure that is what I want.”
“What?”
“Your offer is tempting, but with Erin’s death, it is my decision. I see the merit of what you propose… but I cannot ignore Trel’s past. You suggest a peace, and foreign aid, but how long will it be before this ‘joint coalition’ of yours becomes a subjugated Lock? I am sure the Trellish will rebuild Dekahn, and with it, they will dip their fingers into our nation’s wealth. We will no longer be a sovereign state, Queen. We will be Gable seventy years ago, a conquered vassal, but unlike Gable, we will not have a common faith and a common culture with the Trellish.
“Have you not considered this?” he frowned. “What you propose is not a peace, Queen. It is annexation and subjugation.”<
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The queen was silent. Just had promised her a united Trel, and what Just had described, sounded a great deal like the Hegemon’s theory. Just had promised Lock to Rin Tepa, but Lock under his laws and his authority. That might be enough for the queen, but would it be enough for a populace who had always prided itself on its succession, and its freedom from the Faith’s rule?
The Hegemon took his opportunity. “No, Queen. I know the hope you saw in their deal, but it is not one that I can accept. Instead, I intend to have it the other way around. Today the Legion will fall, and I will march for Trellahn. You know as well as I, that their armies are inexperienced and their nation fragmented. Their citizens do not trust their protectors, they scorn the Legion and its rule while their priests and deacons squabble over scraps of power within their church. Their nation has weakened to the point that there are even rumors their High Cleric orchestrated this war in an effort to prune his political foes. It is a war they wanted, but now it shall be an opportunity I do not intend to let slip.”
“You’re mad.”
“No, Rin, I am a realist. We cannot go on the way we have. This is Lock’s hope. Think of it… We will march into Trel not as conquerors, but as liberators. To take their nation will be simple, and then with Trellahn’s resources, we will finally have the strength to not only hold the Atherahnians back, but destroy them utterly.”
The queen gave him a hateful look. “Two weeks after you march out of Dekahn, the Settish will march north and claim it in your wake.”
The Hegemon shrugged. “And they can have it, Rin, and the war with Atherahn. And when the cultists break them, and in Trellahn we have created a foundation upon which we can propel Lock into the next age, the Guard shall return to take the burden. But in the meantime, I intend to make for us something better, something more stable. Trel has always been the heart of this peninsula. Should it not belong to us?”
The queen sighed a heavy breath, the anger in her eyes fading into patient resolve. “You know not what you really face, but something tells me I will never convince you. When your effort fails, and the Guard you are so proud of, the Guard you place so much faith in, is falling apart around you, just remember that this was a war that you have chosen.” Grabbing Null’s hand, the queen turned for the door. “We shall be returning to the surface to await Just’s reckoning,” she said. “Good day to you, Blake.”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 101