The Dragon's Banker

by Scott Warren

  “But it’s your destiny, isn’t it?” asked Mara.

  “It’s a nuisance is what it is! Everyone else gets to choose their own destiny, but mine won’t let go of the reins.”

  Mara stretched and yawned. “Seems to me,” she said, unpacking her bedroll, “that you’re too busy running from your fate to free yourself from it.”

  “I can’t topple an empire, Mara. I’m seventeen. It’s impossible.”

  “It’s not impossible. It wouldn’t be fate if it were impossible. Maybe what you need is to find some way to make it impossible.”

  I was too shocked to reply. By the time I found the words to respond to Mara she was long asleep and snoring loud enough to wake the dead. But she had given me a lot to think about, and I wrapped my arms around my knees and considered it until the forest began to lighten.

  Chapter 5

  By the time Mara awakened the fire was nothing but ashes smoking in the morning breeze and I had reached a decision.

  “I want to go with you to the Capital,” I said.

  Mara yawned and rubbed at the tired bags beneath her eyes. “After breakfast, kiddo,” she said. “Is there any more squirrel?”

  Mara ended up being the best traveling companion I’ve ever had. She didn’t treat me any differently now that she knew who I was. I suppose it was because she first saw me as a strange kid in the forest, tired, bruised, and wary from my fiasco at River’s Edge. She and I passed the days comparing notes on artifacts we had encountered and rumors we had heard. By night we relaxed and joked by firelight until her snores drowned out all noise in the forest. All the while the Capital loomed closer, ever-present storm clouds flashing every few seconds with sheets of lightning. The Dark Lord Emperor must have had a lot to say in those few days while he awaited my arrival.

  Before we could reach the Capital Mara and I had to pass through Anteoch, a small town on the outskirts of the city. We arrived late in the evening, but luckily Mara knew her way around and we headed toward her favorite inn.

  Almost as soon as I opened the door a perfect beauty with purple hair and matching eyes emerged from the kitchen. She smiled at us, but I pushed past while Mara gaped.

  “Hello travelers, I’m—”

  “Going straight to bed,” I snapped, dropping a handful of coins on the bar. “Goodnight.”

  Mara whispered to me as we climbed the narrow stairs. “Is it always like that?”

  “More or less.” I replied.

  Rather than going straight to bed, I stayed up a bit with my thoughts and took stock of my own collection of artifacts that I’d found too useful to discard or sell. There was my magic dagger, a ring, and a few other trinkets. Mara didn’t turn in for the night either, which I knew before she knocked on my door because her snores weren’t yet rattling the window settings.

  I invited her in, and she nodded approvingly at my little collection before closing the door and taking a seat on the corner of the bed. “You scared, Arty?”

  I swallowed. “Honestly? A bit, yeah.”

  Outside my window I could see the Capital clearly despite the late hour. Its narrow alleys and peaked roofs all led up to the castle moat, and the Dark Lord Emperor’s fortress waited beyond. “I’ve been running from this my entire life. All I know how to do is run and now that I’m here I want to run like hells. But if I do this curse, or geas, or whatever it is will keep hounding me until my bag of tricks runs dry and I wind up dead. Not all the legends say I’ll succeed, you know.” I pointed at the fortress. “But I think you’re right. The only way to get out from under it is in there somewhere.”

  Mara nodded. “Well I’d be remiss if I let you go it alone. ‘Sides, maybe they’ll mention me in a song or two once all this is done.”

  “It’ll be dangerous,” I said. “My face is on every wall.”

  Mara raised her eyebrow and then laughed, deep and full. “I hunt magic artifacts for a living. I see worse than imperial soldiers. You think I’m worried about a little tangle?”

  I shrugged. “When you put it like that…”

  My companion stood up. “Try to get some sleep, kiddo.”

  Mara left, and I stripped down and climbed into bed. I was about to blow out the candle when I heard a soft tapping at the window. Grumbling to myself, I got back up and walked over. There was an owl outside, rapping its beak against the glass. It was holding something, and I held up my candle to reveal a tiny envelope with my name on it.

  “Nope,” I said, and shut the curtain.

  Chapter 6

  I descended into the common room early in the morning, intent on an early breakfast to prepare. The stairs carried me just a hair too close to a shadowed corner on the west side of the common room, and I heard the fateful words.

  “Good sir, I—”

  My hand shot out and grabbed the mysterious figure by the collar of his hooded cloak. “You’d better hope, for your sake, that the next words out of your mouth were going to be ‘I was just leaving, please take this table.’”

  The short gray beard began to tremble. “B-b-but…”

  “Your life is at stake, idiot! Get out of here!” I shouted. Whoever the old man was, he needed no further encouragement. If just to get away from me, he was out the door before I could spit further threats. It honestly felt good to be the one delivering the portents for once. Mara ambled down the stairs with a yawn as he fled.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” she said.

  “Trust me, I did him a favor,” I replied, and slid into the newly open chair. Mara joined me, and the owner brought out a platter of smoked bacon, hard cheese, stew, and bread. I looked down, grimacing. “Why is it always this?” I grumbled, prodding the mysterious white lumps in my stew. Surely an inn somewhere must have different food. Mara showed no such compunction and tore into her platter as ferociously as a starved bear. I found I didn’t really have much of an appetite. I busied myself making sure my gear was readily accessible instead.

  “What’s the plan?” asked Mara around a mouthful of bacon.

  I considered. I knew the Capital by heart. Despite having never been in person, I’ve studied maps and sketches so that if I were ever captured I would know how to get out of the city once I escaped. The dungeon itself was no issue. No cell seemed adequate to hold me, and I’ve been in quite a few. But the city at large might prove challenging. I never expected to use that knowledge to get in. “The public square is the most direct route. After that there’s a switchback checkpoint to get to the upper city, and then a moat.”

  “Anything else?”

  “About a thousand imperial troops.”

  Mara washed down her breakfast with a half-pint of ale and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “What are we sitting around here for?”

  None of my sketches and maps prepared me for the people. I’ve spent most of the last few years on my own, hopping from town to town with vast stretches of rural country roads in between. The Capital streets seemed more people than space, and I had to struggle to keep Mara in sight as we pushed further east toward the fortress of the Dark Lord Emperor. We stopped in the shade of an awning to regroup.

  “Is it always like this?” I asked Mara.

  “More or less,” she said, stretching her neck to look over the crowd. She had a good height advantage on me and could see over the crowd, whereas I could see mostly shoulders and dirty faces. “Usually less, seems like everyone is out today.”

  I turned around, and saw my own face looking back at me. It was no mirror, just a sketch, with a vague promise of reward written below. I tore it from the nail, crumpled it up, and tossed it to the side. It was the sixth such rendition I’d seen that day. “We shouldn’t have stopped off for the night,” I said. “It gave my curse a chance to rest and catch up. Mark my words, there will be trouble.”

  “Not will,” said Mara, her voice low, “Is.”

  I tried to look behind, but she pushed my head straight and made sure my hood was drawn up. I felt her hands on my shoulders, urging me
forward. “Imperials, fifteen yards behind. Keep moving.”

  I could hear them approaching, questioning as they came. I dared a look back and saw them push back the hood of a boy with a similar height and build. They shoved him back into the crowd. I tried to press forward to the public square, but found the way blocked by a mass of bodies.

  “What’s going on?” I asked one of the men in front of me.

  “Public demonstration,” he said, and looked down at me. I moved on as recognition began to dawn in his eyes. There was a gap a little further and if we could just make it…

  “Stop right there.”

  I froze, and slowly turned to look at the tip of a blade a hand’s span from my nose. Its owner was an imperial soldier with sergeant’s stripes, with two troops at his command. The blade slid up, slicing the top of my hood. The two halves fell to either side and completely exposed my face. The crowd gasped, and the sergeant sneered. “As I thought, Arturus Godsbane. You’ve picked a fine day to die.” He gestured to his men. “Take him.”

  I backed up against the press as the two armored imperials pushed forward. That was when I noticed Mara had used the distraction to sneak up behind all three. She had the knotty Gelder wand in her hand.

  “Circumsempra!” she hissed, pointing the orange glowing tip at the trio. There was a faint smell of burning hair and all three soldiers stopped in their tracks. One began to utter a wail inside his bucket helmet that rose in pitch and intensity, amplified all the greater by the metal enclosing his head. More of the crowd began to take notice of the tableau, but unfortunately that included the rest of the imperial column. With my hood completely in tatters I was in full view. They recognized me immediately and began to push through the press.

  I grabbed Mara. “Come on,” I said, and retreated to the public square.

  There was indeed a demonstration in progress. Rose was tied to a post, next to two other girls. One was the wench from the tavern in Anteoch. The other I didn’t recognize at all, but she had waist-length hair so pale it was practically glowing. I must have just missed her at some recent junction. What I couldn’t see was a way out of the square through all the people.

  “Ah, Arturus Swordsinger!”

  I looked up. The Emperor’s justice had spotted me from the raised dais where he lofted an axe at least as tall as I am. He was stripped to the waist, with thick rolls of fat and muscle moving as he spoke from behind a black cloth hood. “Come to free your love then? Or to test my blade? Have at thee!” he declared and jumped down from the dais. I’m pretty sure I felt the ground shake under his impact, and he twirled the massive axe as if it were a conductor’s baton.

  “Nope,” I said, drawing a ring from my pocket. I slipped it on, and the executioner vanished, along with everyone else in the square, including Mara. I was alone, save for the cry of alarm throughout the public grounds.

  “What the gods?” asked the empty air behind me. I looked around and spotted an arched tunnel beneath two tenements that led out of the square, then slipped the ring off. Everyone reappeared. I grabbed Mara, who was looking with wonder at her own hands, and pulled her toward the correct path.

  “What was hells was that?” she asked.

  “It’s called the None Ring,” I said. “When you put it on it makes everyone else invisible.” Alarms had begun to sound in the lower city by the time we made it out of the press and into the deserted tunnel. “The imperials got a good look at me, but so did everyone else. Which means the riots should start any minute.”

  But we didn’t have that long. As we reached the end of the tunnel I dug a hand into my bag, pulling out a length of silky cloth. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. I pressed one end to Mara’s hand.

  “Take this and tie it to that support,” I said.

  “Is this…?”

  “The Invisible Cloak.”

  I finished tying my end just as the first soldiers pushed into the tunnel.

  “Come on!” I said.

  “We’d stand a better chance if you were armed,” said Mara. “What about that?” she asked, pointing to a small church yard. A hilt and part of a blade protruded from a stone just outside the chapel door. I stopped and stared for a moment as a convenient break in the persistent clouds allowed a single ray of light to illuminate the sword. I looked away.

  “I’ll take my chances,” I said. “We need to get to the upper city.

  The switchback checkpoint was out of the question now. With alarm bells ringing across the city it would be too well-guarded, which left a thirty-foot sheer cliff in the way. Luckily, I had planned for this. I pulled out a fibrous length of rope. Behind us, the first soldiers got tangled in the Invisible Cloak and the momentum of the massive executioner bowled the whole lot over. He took the aged wooden supports with him and brought the tunnel down on top of them. But it wouldn’t stop the soldiers for long.

  Mara looked between them and the cliff. “I don’t have a grapnel.”

  “Don’t need one,” I said, and launched the rope skyward. It twisted around something at the summit and grew taught, and I didn’t wait for Mara before I started to climb.

  “Is this hair?” she asked after a few feet.

  “Yes, and you wouldn’t believe what I had to do to get it, so keep climbing,” I said. I’ve honestly never been much of a climber. Never really trusted ropes, but this stuff was guaranteed by fate to support me.

  We reached the top by the time the first soldiers extracted themselves from the rubble. To their credit, they continued the pursuit and jumped onto the rope without a second thought. I could see no way to undo the hairy knot with their weight pulling on it, so I pulled out my special dagger. Mara’s gasped when she saw the curved blade.

  “I’ve been searching for that dagger for years,” she said in awe. “That thing controls time!”

  “Yeah,” I said, sawing frantically, “It also cuts things pretty well.”

  The line snapped, and the clatter and shout of armored soldiers let me know that they had dropped. Mara eyed my bag with renewed interest. “What else have you got in there?” She asked.

  “I feel like telling you would make us more likely to have to use it,” I said. We moved on.

  Looking out over the lower city, I could see smoke from a half-dozen fires already burning from the riots. The upper city was alert, but still quiet, and we were able to make our way through the alleys to the moat while the lightning intensified overhead. It seemed most of the citizens had gone down below to watch the executions. Even the moat bridge was unguarded, and we stepped out onto the planks with some small trepidation.

  About halfway across the narrow rope bridge, something possessed Mara to make an innocent observation. “This was too easy,” she said.

  I stopped and turned to her in horror. “Why would you ever say that?” I asked, before a door slammed open behind us.

  We looked back as ten Blackened-Bandana Blademasters emerged from a building with a shrill war cry. Ten more flooded out of the fortress ahead. Within moments we were cut off on both sides.

  Chapter 7

  The blademasters began stepping in time again as they marched onto the narrow bridge. The planks bucked and bounced beneath us, and I gripped both sides for support. The leader lifted his sword toward me. “Arturus Graveblade, you escaped me once, but it won’t happen again, herrings or no herrings!”

  “I’m sorry!” said Mara, “I don’t know why I said it!”

  “It’s not your fault,” I replied. I looked over the ropes at the backs of the scaly creatures circling in the water underneath us.

  “Can’t you handle this? You’re supposed to be able to defeat twenty of them,” said Mara.

  “I already did. I don’t think I could manage it again.”

  “I thought you were a master of Kli’shaes!”

  “It’s not really something you can rely on.”

  Mara and I looked at the forest of raised swords pushing in toward us. I wasn’t sure how the bridge was supp
orting the weight of twenty armored blademasters, but it groaned and creaked underfoot. I was glad I had brought Mara, because she was the one that saved us. She dug in her bag and drew out the short sword I had identified for her a few days prior. She held it above her head. “Hold on,” she said, and then addressed the blademasters.

  “A society’s worth is measured by how it treats its lowest members!” she said and swung the Sword of Half-Truth. It cut cleanly through half of the bridge underneath us and wedged in a plank. It turns out the remaining half was not enough to support the weight of twenty unprepared blademasters. The ropes and planks shot out from under us, and it was all Mara and I could do to hold on to the one remaining rope handle. All twenty of the elite swordsmen slipped, scrabbled, and plummeted into the churning waters of the moat below, leaving a dozen black bandanas floating on the murky surface.

  I got my feet up onto the edge of the remaining planks and levered myself up. “Good thinking,” I said. It took us a few minutes to reach the fortress after that, slowly working hand over hand through the remains of the moat bridge. Once back on solid ground we sat for a moment and I waited for my heart to stop pounding.

  The tromp of heavy boots approached, and I looked up at two armored faces with wicked glaives. “One minute,” I pleaded. The imperial guards nodded in their great helms and backed away a step. I was spent, and Mara was little better. They had us at their mercy. I turned to Mara. “I think I’m ready to see him. Thanks for all your help.”

  “If you do overthrow him, you owe me a new sword,” said Mara. Then she gave me a fierce hug. “Good luck in there, kiddo.”