by J. S. Morin
"Mighty impressive," Kedan said. "Don't know that I had a mind to mischief, mind you, but I've a less a one now."
"It's all in the technique. Where I grew up, they didn't let little girls use axes."
Kedan led them into the house. The porch floor creaked with each step. The door fit askew with the jamb. Brannis's nose was not quite able put a name to the odor but it stank of musk and cold. Inside was a bit better, the bubbling of something on the stove reminded Brannis of the long winters Kyrus had spent as a child stuck indoors to escape the coldest days.
"Ma, Pa, it's Kyrus come home," Kedan shouted. Brannis and Soria followed him in. Washing hung on lines was strung up by the fireplace. Two large, gangly dogs that had been lying in front of the fire perked up and lumbered for the door to greet the visitors.
"Scratcher, Big-Boy, how are you boys?" Brannis asked the dogs as they attacked him in a joyous reunion. They know me. Even the dogs can't tell me and Kyrus apart.
"Aww, scoot, you seen him before." Kedan shooed the dogs away, or tried to at least. They were intent on getting Soria's scent, and no amount of scolding or shoving could dissuade them. She got down on a knee and let them sniff and lick at her. "Alright, now git, you had yer fun."
"Kyrus, is that really you?" Ma Hinterdale asked as she entered the room. She was a taller woman, near to Soria's height, with scraggly grey hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head.
"Hello Ma, been too long," Brannis said. It was a new light that he saw her in, knowing that twenty-three years ago she had betrayed her husband to conceive him. "I'd like you to meet Soria. Soria, this is my mother."
"Kyrus, you've got a girl?" Ma Hinterdale asked.
"Naw, Ma, they're married," Kedan explained. Neither Brannis nor Soria made any attempt to correct the misconception they had worked so carefully to concoct. Ma Hinterdale's hand went to cover her gaping mouth.
"Kyrus, you never ... Oh, my dear, let me have a look at you." Dogs underfoot, the old woman came up to Soria and looked her over like a horse at the fair. Brannis saw Soria tense as Kyrus's mother took her chin in hand. She then took Soria's hands and looked them over as well. "Common laborer, though she's had a gentle time of it mostly. What is it you do, dear? Ladies' maid, potter, seamstress? Those hands of yours have seen real use, but you look well kept."
"Coinblade," Soria replied, smirking as the woman (who was purported to be her oathmother) recoiled.
"Kyrus! What sort of woman are you bringing around here?" Ma Hinterdale demanded.
"It figures he'd be mixin'," a voice came from the far doorway, where Pa Hinterdale stood, sucking on the end of a battered pipe. He looked every bit of an elderly Kedan: tall, but not so tall as Brannis, wide shoulders and thick arms. His jawline was accentuated as he gritted his teeth around the pipe."Figures he'd fall in with pirate types. Figures he'd marry him some whorin' sneak."
Brannis could abide many slights, but his father's casual venom toward Soria was too much. He started across the room for Pa Hinterdale, only to have Kedan bar his way. Kedan had often taken Kyrus's side as a boy, doing chores for him when he grew tired or did them poorly in his carelessness. But Kedan had always kept Kyrus in his place as well, roughing him up whenever he saw the need. Kedan still had an advantage of heft on Brannis, but now there existed nowhere near the same disparity as there once had been between Kedan and his true half-brother. As Kedan put his hands onto Brannis's chest to push him back, Brannis laid his own forearm across Kedan's collarbone. He had leverage and knew he could force his way past Kyrus's brother, but allowed himself to be restrained.
"I didn't come back here for this," Brannis snapped. "I came to see how the family fared, and let you know that I wasn't all they claimed. Looks like I needn't have bothered."
Soria snickered softly behind him. Brannis whipped his head around to see what could possibly have amused her at a time like that.
"Sorry," she told him. "I'll explain it later." She had dropped all pretense of disguising her Kheshi accent, he noticed.
"Get out then. We're farin' just fine. That slaggard Harwick's already been and told us all, months back. Even tried to buy us quiet. But he ain't buyin' my opinion outta me. Get gone, be you witch or pirate or both. Don't you bring that harlot back, neither."
Brannis followed Soria out the door, slamming it shut with a crack behind them. Did he know all these years that I wasn't his? Was this just father's excuse: blaming Soria? Kedan followed them out, muttering apologies for their father, but he did nothing to dissuade them from leaving as he helped them retrieve their horses.
As the two of them rode away, Brannis calmed enough to ask Soria what she had found so amusing during his argument with his father.
"You," she answered. "You slipped back into some country yokel dialect of Acardian, probably what Kyrus spoke as a boy in that house. You actually started a bit earlier in the day, but I didn't say anything about it. I just figured it was the thought of home. Then I realized that even though you still aren't completely convinced you're Kyrus, you just started speaking with an accent that you never used in your life."
Brannis frowned, but found that he could not keep with it. To his chagrin, he smiled, forced to admit to himself that, yes, it was funny.
* * * * * * * *
It was early evening when they reached Scar Harbor. The brief stay at the Hinterdale Farm had been far briefer than their guesses.
"You're in a foul mood already. Want to just go see Lord Harwick tonight?" Soria asked. "I mean, what news could he have that would upset you further?"
"Aside from blaming me for Caladris's death and trying to exact revenge on the spot? I suppose not much. I already know his sad tale, and the retelling cannot be much worse, I would imagine."
"That's the spirit," Soria said to him. She laughed and trotted on ahead of him. Brannis followed her, feeling reckless taking his horse so fast on crowded city streets.
The ride to Tomas Harwick's manor house was not a long one. A servant at the gate told them that they were expected and took their horses with no fuss. When Brannis asked about Lord Harwick, the man just shook his head and would not meet his eye.
"There you are, blast you!" Lord Harwick bellowed down from the upstairs landing upon their arrival. "Get up to my study. This cannot wait." Lord Harwick disappeared down the hallway. Soria and Brannis exchanged a wary glance before following after him.
They caught up with him in his study. Lord Harwick was already slouched back in his chair, a bottle of some clear liquor clenched in one hand. With the other, he shoved a piece of paper across the desk at them.
"Read this," he ordered. Lord Harwick then took a long pull from the bottle.
"What is it?" Brannis asked. Harwick waved for him to just read it, not so much as taking his mouth from the bottle.
The Honorable Tomas Harwick:
Being that you are of most prestigious and respectable lineage. Being that you are of moral and ethical good standing. Being that you are of sound judgment and admirable intellect, I hereby request with all humility that you would accept a position that would do honor to my family and my people.
Brannis skimmed a while, taking note that most of it seemed to follow a very legalistic form, though not of Acardian cadence. The hand that wrote it knew Acardian script well enough though, and the calligraphy was professional. It was signed at the end.
The office of Her Highness, Princess Fjong Shilasdaughter
"What's the trouble?" Brannis asked. "It looks like they want Tomas for an ambassador to Khesh. This would be a real coup for a man of his age." Brannis felt odd referring to the youth of a man who was eight summers his elder, but it was true. Ambassadorships were typically granted to old pensioners of the army or noblemen who never inherited.
"The trouble? I received the letter this morning, that is the trouble," Lord Harwick said. "But Tomas was kidnapped last night while I was down at the Society for a few drinks and a game of chess."
"I am sure the Kheshi will u
nderstand—"
"The Kheshi are the ones who took him!" Lord Harwick thrust himself from his chair and stalked the room, bottle in hand. "The letter is a leash about my neck so that I can neither pursue him nor make a proper complaint to the Kheshi embassy. We've been outmaneuvered."
"Outmaneuvered by who?" Soria asked. "What would anyone want with Tomas?"
"Rashan. It has to be," Lord Harwick said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. His eyes opened and fixed on Brannis who could see dark bags beneath the bloodshot whites of his eyes. Lord Harwick took a step closer to him, and Brannis could also see that his late uncle's twin had not shaved. The stink of whiskey on his breath came as no surprise, but it threatened to turn Brannis’s stomach. "What happened?"
"You mean after ... Rashan ..." Brannis stumbled through the words.
"Yes, after he killed me," Lord Harwick said. There was a trapped look in his eyes, which seem to flit about, looking for some escape from his head. "Brannis, the other morning I awoke screaming, scared my butler out of a year's life. Veydrus was gone in an instant. I still know it is there, like a man with a missing leg who still feels an ache in it. I never asked my brother what it was like when he died there. It seemed a morbid, thoughtless thing to ask. I wish I had, because I have not slept since. I know I cannot hold out forever, but ... but I do not want to see the nothingness that must greet me next."
Brannis shook his head. He had no answers for the questions to which Lord Harwick most wanted answers, but he could provide what he knew. "Rashan killed most of the Inner Circle. Your loyal assistant sold your secret to Rashan to avoid marrying you once Aunt Faeranna died."
"Did you flee?" Lord Harwick asked. "Did you drive him off? What happened when he turned on you?"
"He did not ... or at least he has not, yet," Brannis admitted.
"You mean you did nothing?" Harwick demanded. "You sat there, like a dragon on high, able to shift the balance of power in that chamber at a whim and just watched?"
"I protected the emperor. Our plans had always envisioned attacking Rashan from ambush, catching him at a moment when he was off his balance. Being caught on the wrong end of his ambush was the worst time to reveal myself. I would be right here alongside you, crying into a bottle." Brannis was unsure of the latter. However bleak things had looked before, he had never sought refuge in the bottle, but he was beginning to wonder whether Lord Harwick had gone mad in the wake of Caladris's death and how much blame he might throw Brannis's way. Lord Harwick was still a formidable sorcerer.
"You are probably right," Lord Harwick admitted. He sighed and wiped his brow with a sleeve, his bottle of gin angling dangerously toward spilling its contents. "You need to find another chance to kill him. I will give you anything I can to help. You can study on the way." Lord Harwick set the bottle down and took a key from his pocket.
"On the way where?" Soria asked. "We just got back."
"To Khesh," Lord Harwick replied as he fumbled with the lock of his desk drawer. "Your ship, the Poet's Hammer leaves with the morning tide."
"You already booked passage for us?" Brannis asked. "How did you know we would be back? We left no itinerary for our visits."
"The tide waits for no man, but the ships can be held to the next. The captain may well be inconvenienced, but I have the authority to hold ships in port. He should be grateful to have his leave to sail on the morrow."
"How has Abbiley taken his disappearance?" Brannis asked. He felt Soria's glare on him without having to look her way.
"She was taken as well. It looked as if they were made to pack in some haste, or someone packed many of their belongings," Lord Harwick said. "We have been outmaneuvered badly, I am afraid. I think that Rashan may have had more agents in Tellurak than I had realized. I had thought I was his only substantive contact."
"What can he want by this? If he wanted to kill you here as well, why not just be about it—no offense, of course—rather than involving your son?" Brannis asked. "It makes no sense."
"I can only imagine that it is a hedge against you. He still believes that he has you by Abbiley's leash. If he takes her, he can ensure that you cannot act against him without losing her," Lord Harwick said. He turned toward Soria, cutting her off as she seemed about to protest Abbiley's irrelevance. "I know as well as you that Abbiley is not the deterrent Rashan would like to think she is. That is not what matters here. What matters is that two innocents, my son among them, are about to be kept as pawns by some Kheshi princess toward ends they have no say in. I lack the capacity to hunt after them. I leave them to you."
"Why should we?" Soria asked. "You got them involved in this. He's your son. You got the girl involved to snare Kyrus and caught Brannis instead. He's slipped that net though, and he's with me now. We don't have to do anything at all about this. Complain to the king, and get his help with the Kheshi."
"This is where it grows complicated. I have lost control of the flow of information. Rashan has another contact—he must. I have no further link to Veydrus besides you, but I need you here to act. Whoever is behind these Kheshi dealings is working with Rashan in Veydrus. If you can trace them, maybe you can find a way to twist them back to our side and betray him. That is always the risk with plots between worlds: the same absolute secrecy works both ways."
Lord Harwick managed to open his desk drawer and draw out a stack of papers, piling them in front of him. He turned to look for something among the shelves.
"What is all this?"
"All that I had been planning to teach you. There may be no time for it now. You are no threat to me any longer in Veydrus so you might as well have them. You managed a transference spell on your own, so I doubt you need my hand-holding over the basics of them. You will just have to settle for painting portraits with an axe-head without my guidance. At least I will not have to witness your shoddy spells." Harwick turned with the last little jest to display a smile. He wobbled a bit, holding onto the bookcase with one hand to steady himself.
He found a handful of scroll cases and began stuffing the notes into them. Brannis cringed as drunken fingers mashed the valuable documents into the tubes. He took up a case and helped fill it to limit the damage.
"Learn this stuff, Brannis, as much as you can. Hang me if I know any weakness that that bastard has, but I think maybe you could face him head-on if you just get enough practice. Promise me you will send word if it comes to combat between you. I must know if he is dead or if you fail."
"I will," Brannis promised.
"Get going now, both of you. You have a lot of packing to do before your ship departs. Seven bells tomorrow. He dare not leave without you, but I cannot bear any delays. A half day may make the difference of Tomas's life."
* * * * * * * *
"Where is Brannis?" Rakashi asked when he saw her.
"'Hi Soria, I'm alive,' might have been a nicer greeting you know. Since you don't have that haunted look in your eye that Lord Harwick does, I can only imagine you're either alive or made of much sterner stuff than the old buzzard," Soria replied.
"Can it not be both?" Rakashi asked. "Yes, and by most strange agency. Come in and sit. We may be a while."
"Can you tell the quick version?" Soria asked, following him into the small house he rented. "Brannis and I just got pulled into another job and are sailing in the morning. I need to help him pack or I'm liable to find myself with nothing but dresses and what I'm wearing right now. We're on the Poet's Hammer—obviously a Kheshi vessel—sailing at seven tomorrow morning. Book your passage and come along. You can catch me up on the long version then."
"Well, for now you must know this. I faced Rashan in a mockery of battle, but I impressed him enough that he spared me a sure death by his aether, and offered me a deal instead," Rakashi said. Soria had been wrong initially. There was indeed a look in that single uncovered eye—a bit too wide, perhaps, for his normal look.
"What sort of deal?" Soria said. She tried to work into those few words just how much distaste she held
for Rashan's deals.
"He has me at the end of one of his infamous bargains ..."
* * * * * * * *
Rashan grinned. "Excellent. I have a task for you: I would like you to find and kill the twin of Brannis Solaran," Rashan said. His manner was no more grave than if he had asked for Tiiba to fetch him a particular vintage of wine. An image sprang up, no doubt at the demon's bidding. It showed a likeness of Brannis. Tiiba had not met Kyrus Hinterdale, but if there was any difference in appearance between the two, the image was clearly of the one who now traveled alongside Soria.
"You can find him traveling in the company of a female coinblade," Rashan explained. "He is nearly a head taller than you, built like a blacksmith, and armed with runeforged armor and blade. The blade is unstoppable except by extraordinary means, and Brannis's style of fighting is not so different from what I first showed against you. His armor will stop nearly any blow so long as its magic holds. I would caution as well against moving against him with the woman nearby. She is Tezuan trained and likely to be nearly as deadly. I find it also quite likely that she might come seeking vengeance."
"I am no murderer," Tiiba protested, mouth hanging open, aghast.
"Ah, but you see, I am. I give you until the first of summer, a quarter of a season from now. On the second of summer, I come back and finish what I have started here in Safschan. Or I come back and find that you have killed him. Do you understand?"
"I do," Tiiba said. He hung his head and in a quieter voice repeated, "I do."
Tiiba did not look up, but felt the typhoon of aether that drew toward the demon before his spell whisked him from Safschan.
"All too well, I do."
* * * * * * * *
Soria crossed her arms, unimpressed with the tale. "I think you would be pressed to harm Brannis even if you could get to him. By all accounts, he's leveling buildings by accident, and surviving the sort of blast that can cause that damage. Rune-blade or no, I can't see your—"