Obviously, I’m going to be quiet, you old fool, Natarios thought. Do you think I’m a moron?
Old Kram, oblivious, lowered the torch and scanned the wall beneath the side tunnel, expecting to find something, but all Natarios saw was more rough-carved, black rock. Kram knew his business, though. He brushed his hand across the wall and found a foothold obscured beneath a veil of dusty cobwebs. And then he found another, and another. Within moments, he had cleared out five footholds carved into the wall—a ladder of sorts, leading up to the side tunnel. Kram motioned for Natarios to climb up, and Natarios felt his throat tighten in fear.
You go, he wanted to tell Old Kram, but no, of course, it had to be Natarios. Kram wouldn’t understand what he was eavesdropping on even if he didn’t break his hip climbing up there.
Seeing nothing else for it, Natarios took a deep breath and hiked up his black robes to get his right foot into the first foothold. From there he reached his hands up to grip on the ledge of the tunnel above him and pushed himself up. The ledge was smooth, with nothing to properly hold on to, and Natarios felt himself slipping backward as he blindly tried to find the next foothold with his left foot, but then Kram’s hand was on his arse, shoving him upward. Natarios felt old webs clinging to his face as he scrambled up, and then he cracked his head into the ceiling of the side tunnel.
Natarios choked back a curse as he fell heavily into the narrow tunnel, kicking up a cloud of dust Natarios couldn’t see but could smell and taste well—bone dry, and enough to send a man into a fit of sneezing. Natarios closed his eyes, grabbed his nose, and willed himself to do nothing of the sort. Around him, the echoes of conversations continued unheeded. When the tickling in his nose was finally gone and he opened his eyes, he found it to be just as dark as with his eyes closed. A twinge of panic ran through him, but he pushed that away too. The passage was too narrow to turn around and get the torch from Kram. He would just have to worm his way forward in the darkness, then back out the same way he came.
Seeing nothing else for it, Natarios crawled deeper into the blackness, flailing one arm out in front of him to knock away the bulk of the cobwebs. At least I know with all these cobwebs still intact, there can’t be anything too big living back here, he told himself, but the thought did little to calm his nerves.
Eventually, one of the conversations became clearer as he wormed forward, coming suddenly into sharp focus in his right ear. Taking a page from Old Kram, he brushed a hand over the wall and discovered a hole, no larger than his fist. He cleared away the cobwebs and wiped them off on his robe as he slid in closer. A sound hole. The conversation from the room above was as clear as if he were in the room itself.
“…the same for me, so do not be discouraged,” someone was saying. “The other voting members humor me and hear me out, but with Queen Makarria two thousand miles away, they see me as little threat.”
Ambassador Elvio.
“How is that not discouraging? I’m supposed to take solace in the fact that no one takes either one of us seriously? The election is a week away, Ambassador.”
It was Prince Caile’s voice, this second one.
“I was certain snooping around the war-wagon factory would stir up something, but no one seems to care,” the prince continued.
This was all information Natarios already knew. His own informants had told him of the prince’s tour of the war wagon factory, and Natarios had passed the information on to Ambassador Rives. Rives had certainly already known about it, too, but Natarios needed to maintain the guise of being a dutiful servant for the time being.
The prince was still whining about his futile attempts to influence the council, so Natarios resumed crawling deeper into the tunnel, seeking his real quarry. The voices of Prince Caile and Ambassador Elvio garbled behind him, only to intermix with new voices. After several yards, those new voices came into focus, and Natarios stopped, cleaned out the sound hole, and listened.
“…you hungry for more than just supper tonight, m’lord?”
It was a woman’s voice.
“Aye,” a deep, gravelly voice replied. “Come here, you filthy wench.”
Ambassador Lanhorne. Natarios rolled his eyes and crawled deeper into the tunnel. A Norgman through and through, that Lanhorne. The wench’s giggles garbled behind him, and then there was only the confusion of mixed voices for a long time. One of the rooms must be empty up above. He trudged forward, though, and eventually a new conversation came into focus. He cleared the sound hole.
“…you ask me, we should kill him.”
It was the steam-engineer’s guildmaster. Natarios would recognize his nasally voice anywhere.
“Let’s not be hasty. The prince is of little threat to us for the time being.”
Rives!
“The votes for Kobel are still there,” the Ambassador Rives continued. “We stick to our plan unless we hear otherwise.”
“Well, let’s speak with them already.”
The third voice was the sorcerer’s guildmaster. Natarios’s skin prickled at hearing him. The man was by all accounts a powerful sorcerer himself. Might he sense my presence down here?
“Well?” the sorcerer demanded.
“Yes, it is time,” a fourth voice responded, a voice Natarios did not recognize at all. “Close your eyes as I establish the link.”
A low buzzing noise filtered through the sound hole from the room above, and then all was silent for a long moment. The hair at the nape of Natarios’s neck stood on end. Sorcerery. Lightbringer’s arse, I hate sorcery.
“You may open your eyes.”
“Good evening, Senator Emil,” Ambassador Rives said. “All goes according to our plans here in Col Sargoth, with the exception of one new wrinkle.”
“And the wrinkle?”
Another new voice, this one more distant sounding than the others. They’re speaking with the Old World, Natarios realized. His neck was beginning to cramp from holding it up alongside the sound hole, but he dared not shift his position and risk giving himself away. Especially now, knowing there were two sorcerers in the room above him.
“Prince Caile Delios continues to snoop around,” Rives was saying. “He was granted access to the war wagon factory. I see little harm in his actions, but the others feel he is a danger.”
“Abduct him,” the distanced voice said. “Be discreet about it, and don’t harm him seriously. As a hostage, he might be useful in persuading his sister to acquiesce. She is our last hurdle.”
“The last? What of the dreamwielder?”
“She bowed to the Republic and signed the treaty this morning. All is going as planned.”
Natarios could hardly believe what he was hearing. The dreamwielder is in league with the Old World, too? I wonder what our spoiled prince would think if he were to find out she’s abandoned him.
“Our western fleet is en route,” the Old World senator continued. “They should arrive on the day of the election. Once Lord Kobel is elected, you know what to do. Make sure the entire council has signed the decree and then kill them all.”
“That’s probably not necessary,” Rives said. “Once Kobel is elected, no one will have any recourse to undermine his authority.”
“Kill them all,” the senator repeated. “The houndkeeper and Lady Hildreth have proved themselves meddlesome, and the others vote for us only because we have bribed them. We’ll have no loose ends. The death of twenty some odd individuals will avert outright war, so you’ll actually be saving thousands of lives, gentlemen.”
Righteous anger welled up in Natarios. Ungrateful bastards. After all the work I’ve done, you mean to kill me like a common cutpurse?
“It will be done,” the sorcerer’s guildmaster said. “I will have two firewielders with me. I will see to it myself that no one besides those of us in this room walk out alive.”
“Excellent.”
“And what of Queen Taera?” Rives asked.
“You let me worry about her. Just capture the prince, and g
et Kobel to those war machines as soon as he’s elected. Once Queen Taera sees she’s caught between the Republic armada on one side and Kobel’s war wagons on the other, she’ll have no choice but to surrender Pyrthinia.”
“And Norg?”
“With the other four kingdoms in the fold, King Hanns will bend the knee quicker than King Lorimer himself.”
“You forget yourself,” Rives growled. Natarios knew that tone of voice all too well. Rives was quick to anger and wore his emotions on his sleeve. “King Lorimer did not bend the knee. He was the one who proposed this pact with the Old World Republic. Without him—without me—none of this would have been possible.”
“My apologies, Ambassador Rives. You are correct. The Kingdom of Golier has been instrumental in this expansion, and you and King Lorimer will be rewarded greatly for your services. Now I must go. I will contact you tomorrow night after I arrive in Sol Valaróz.”
The buzzing noise filled the room above him again, and then all Natarios heard was the shuffling of feet and a few murmurs as the conspirators left. Natarios took that as his cue to leave as well, and began the long scramble backwards through the tunnel, his mind racing. Bastards, he kept repeating to himself. If you think I was meddlesome before, just you wait.
• • •
Makarria willed herself to raise her head when she heard the keys rattling in the lock of the iron door. She had expected to see the jailers returning to feed her, but no, it was the pthisicis-corporis, still wearing Makarria’s body. It was like a horrible dream seeing her own body approach her. The fake queen carried a rucksack in one hand, but tossed it to the ground once the guards lit the wall torches and left, locking the door behind them.
“How’s my little pet enjoying the mind cage, hmm?”
Makarria’s head slumped, but the fake queen clapped her on the cheek three times, as if Makarria was a disobedient child in need of reprimanding.
“No, no, stay with me. You should be used to the clicking and clacking by now, I would think.”
Why? Makarria tried saying the word out loud, but all that came out was a groan, followed by a mouthful of drool that ran down her chin. Not my chin, she remembered. Lorentz’s. She had discovered the stubble of a newly sprouted mustache and beard earlier, when she’d tried wetting her lips before the guards shoved the feeding funnel down her gullet.
“How uncouth,” the fake queen said, wiping the drool away for Makarria. “I have exciting news for you, but you’ll need to concentrate. Ignore the clicking and whirring in your head and focus on my words. Come now. You can do it.” The pthisicis-corporis wore the royal gown in a negligent, wanton manner, with the neckline unlaced and hanging open. Makarria’s body, too, looked mistreated. The fake queen had dark circles beneath her eyes and the skin on her face had an unhealthy pallor.
What have you done to my body? Makarria raised her head and blinked her eyes clear again, her anger giving life to her weary mind and limbs.
“Excellent,” the pthisicis-corporis said, stepping away from Makarria to pace back and forth in the small cell. “Now all this must be quite a shock for you, I’m sure. One moment, you’re the queen, on the verge of capturing your nemesis, and the next, you’re trapped in his body and chained to a wall. Even worse, you can’t dream up your little magical tricks any more. Do you still remember what you did wrong, my dear?”
Makarria’s thoughts since being locked up had been fragmented and torn, but she had over time pieced things together, as if in a nightmare. She knew who she was still—it took effort to remind herself with each breath, but she knew who she really was—and she knew what had happened to her. And even over the whirring and clicking of the mind cage, she understood the body thief’s words. Makarria ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth to wet it and focused on the fake queen’s face. She formed the words carefully, but even so it came out in a horrible lisp, unaccustomed as she was to Lorentz’s tongue and missing teeth. “I touched you with my power.”
The fake queen gave her a melodramatic grin. “Well, well, very good. You are still sane, after all. I should have never doubted you. You’ve proved to be an enjoyable adversary, particularly considering you’re barely more than a child. You sniffed me out quickly, and even though I knew you were coming for me, bringing the kennel masters with their pole nooses, well, that caught me by surprise. A couple of years training and seasoning in the Old World, and you would almost be a worthy opponent for me. Even so, it’s been an entertaining diversion.”
The pthisicis-corporis is toying with me, Makarria realized. But for what purpose? I’m already chained. Beaten. She knew the answer to the question before she finished asking it. The pthisicis-corporis was here for the same reason Emperor Guderian needed to pontificate in front of his court about mankind’s dominion over magic and nature. Without someone to share his crazy ideas with, they were simply that: crazy ideas. Emperor Guderian had needed the validation of those around him to convince himself he was righteous in his tyranny. The pthisicis-corporis, in turn, lived a life of secrecy, subterfuge, and solitude. The creature needed someone to speak to in order to validate its genius, and what better person to talk with than Makarria, the victim who no one would ever believe even if she did try to tell the guards?
“It was your skiff on the western shore of The Spine,” Makarria said, the words coming to her more easily now.
The fake queen beamed. “Of course. I had a vision of the dark caves of Khal-Aband, and you coming in like a white knight to rescue some pauper that was already dead, so I made haste to get there before you. You took a bit longer arriving than I anticipated, but I found enough diversions to keep me entertained. A few of the prisoners might have gone mad after feeling my touch—and a handful of the guards as well—but it was of no consequence. You swept in as I knew you would, and I took your very own bodyguard to take my place at your side.”
“But why?” Makarria asked. If the pthisicis-corporis was in the mood to talk, she would have answers out of him. “Who sent you? Senator Emil?”
The fake queen shrugged. “Emil or another senator of the Republic. What does it matter? I was held captive, in a cell not so different than this, wearing the very same mind trap you wear now, when some man in a white robe came to me. He gave me his proposition, and when I agreed to his terms, my release.”
“His terms? You mean to kill me?”
“To kill you? Good dear no. The Old World Republic thinks much too highly of itself to resort to simple assassination. My task was to merely create havoc and undermine your authority until you had no choice but to sign the Republic’s treaty, which I signed on your behalf this morning, by the way.”
It was just as Makarria had suspected then, a plot by the Old World to weaken her authority as queen. The confirmation of her suspicion did little to lift her spirits, though. Nor the news of the signed treaty. Even helpless and chained to the wall, it stoked a cold anger inside Makarria. This body thief was too confident, too smug by far. I goaded Guderian into making a fatal mistake by showing him the truth. Why not the body thief?
“Your over-confidence will be your undoing,” Makarria said. “Already, you almost lost me once.”
“Oh?”
“The assassination attempt in the council chamber and then the stables. If I had died, your plan would have been foiled. You’re not half as clever as you think you are.”
“Oh please,” the fake queen scoffed. “You think something like that happened by happenstance? I was the one who paid those men, uniformed them, and got them inside the palace. That’s why I had to kill them all, lest they ratted me out.”
“You’d be a fool to risk to do such a thing.”
“A gambler perhaps, but not a fool. What better way to regain the trust of the Queen and Prince than by foiling an assassination? And even more important, what fun!”
The pthisicis-corporis spoke with mock enthusiasm. There was no glimmer of mirth in its face. It leaned in close to Makarria, so close Makarria could smell the
sour wine on its breath. Makarria had to turn away, not because of the stank breath, but because looking into her own distorted face was unbearable.
“You mistake me, dreamwielder,” the body thief said in barely a whisper. “Just because I was captive, just because the Senate gave me orders, does not mean I am a slave. I am a pthisicis-corporis, and like the rest of my fallen race, I serve my own whims and purposes. You and the Republic senators are one and the same. You seek control over others. You use words like ‘peace’ and ‘order,’ but you really mean control—bending others to your will so the world makes sense in your eyes. Well, I don’t see the world as you do. I am an agent of anarchy. I do as I please, when I please. My only pleasure in life is to destroy peace and order so others are forced to really make their own decisions for the first time in their lives.”
Makarria raised her head and met the fake queen’s stare unblinkingly. “You’re wrong about me, body thief. I’m not the same as the Old World senators. Everything I’ve strived to do as queen has been to give people the liberty to live as they please, but every time I change a law to give people more freedom, someone takes that as license to exploit those around them. Sometimes it’s greedy merchants. Sometimes it’s self-righteous groups like the Brotherhood of Five. And sometimes it’s an entire nation like the Old World Republic.”
Makarria wet her cracking lips, ignoring the foreign sensation of the fleshy gumline where her teeth were missing. “I know what they did to your race,” she continued. “The Old World Senate exterminated the pthisicis-corporis. All but a few, who were kept alive in captivity to do the Senate’s bidding. You grew up as such, in chains, and I’m sorry for that. I really am. I may have grown up on a farm, but I lived with the same fear, the fear of extermination. Emperor Guderian hunted down anyone with the ability to perform sorcery. And as a dreamwielder, you can be sure he wanted me dead. I ran at first, but like you, I realized I needed to face those who would control me. I faced Guderian, and he placed me in a dungeon before I killed him and set his people free. Has it all gone as I hoped? No. But it’s not too late. Why perpetuate the injustice that was done to us, when we can end the cycle of hate and violence? The treaty you signed can be undone. Let me go, give me my own body again, and we can work together. Together, we can turn the Old World away and make the Five Kingdoms truly free. You must have a real name. Tell me and I will accept you for who you are, make you one of my most trusted advisors. Clearly, you have wisdom beyond my understanding.”
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