Hendrieux was dragged into the center of the room and hoisted upright under each armpit by the gauntleted fists of Gallo, who held him before the prince like one might hold a puppy out to be inspected by a breeder. Hendrieux could only watch as Sahand slowly removed each of his gloves, one finger at a time. “Are you in there, Zazlar?” he asked, his voice seemingly miles distant. “I’m so glad to see you’re enjoying your payment.”
The prince nodded to one of his men, who stepped forward with a pot of bubbling red paste. “I’m afraid your little mental escape is going to be drawn to a close, however.” Using a small brush, Sahand’s man smeared some of the Crimson beneath Zazlar’s nose and behind his ears.
Blazing hot panic lanced through every nerve in Hendrieux’s body as the invigorating ink burned Cool Blue’s effects straight out of his system. Hendrieux felt as though he had been plucked from a snowdrift and tossed in an oven. “Ohhh! Gods!” His muscles quivered and twitched, and he did his best to stand upright. “Th-Thank you, Your Highness.”
Sahand smiled tightly. “Excellent. Are you back with us, Zazlar? Can you feel again?”
Hendrieux managed a haphazard bow. “Yes, Your Highness. I’m . . . I’m back.”
“Good.” Sahand kicked him in the stomach so hard, the Akrallian collapsed into a triangle on the floor, his face and knees pressed against the dirty ground as he struggled to take in air. Above him, he heard the steel-hard voice of the Mad Prince say, “That was for wasting my men.”
Hendrieux rolled onto his back, his lungs trying to recover. His body still sang with the fiery effects of the Crimson, and his twitching muscles only made him flounder on the ground. “I . . . I am sorry, milord. Reldamar was a threat to our—”
“Reldamar is a threat to you, Zazlar, not me, and certainly not us.” Sahand looked around at the dilapidated furniture and turned to one of his entourage of armored men. “Bring me a suitable chair.”
A man bowed and left without comment.
“You told me Reldamar was dead,” Sahand went on, fixing Hendrieux with his steel-hard glare. “Did you lie to me, Zazlar?”
Hendrieux struggled to his feet, still partially doubled over. “No! He was . . . or I thought he was. The spirit engine was destroyed, Your Highness, and I assumed—”
“You ‘assumed.’ ” Sahand sneered. “Do you know why I am here?”
Hendrieux managed a weak smile. “I as-assumed that you wished to help me deal with—”
“There is that word again—‘assume,’ ” Sahand interrupted. “Gallo, if Captain Hendrieux says the word ‘assume’ one more time, gut him.”
Gallo, his breath gurgling rough assent, put a big hand on Hendrieux’s shoulder and pressed a rondel dagger with a long triangular blade against the Akrallian’s stomach. Hendrieux stood perfectly still.
Sahand’s chair arrived, and the prince sat down. “Do you know why I hate the word ‘assume,’ Hendrieux?”
“I as— I don’t know, Your Highness.”
“I hate it because that implies that you, Zazlar Hendrieux, my hand here in Freegate, are thinking. I did not acquire your services because you were a thinker, Hendrieux. I acquired you because you had a knack for following complex instructions. Did my instructions involve sending a pair of my men to assassinate Reldamar in his home?”
“Well . . .”
Sahand’s iron-hard glare narrowed. “Did they?”
Hendrieux shook his head. “No, milord . . . err . . . Your Highness.”
“If I had wanted someone capable of thought, I would have hired Reldamar, not you, you insufferable dunce. I hired you because you were ruthless, cunning, addicted to ink, and able to follow directions!”
Hendrieux hazarded a glance at Gallo, whose scarred lips were blowing particles of spittle into his ear. “Yes . . . of course, Your Highness.”
“I would like to share something with you, Zazlar, and afterward I would like your opinion on it.” Sahand put out his hand to one of his men and a letter was placed in it. Sahand then handed it over to Hendrieux. “Read this.”
Hendrieux unfolded it, and noticed the handwriting immediately. He began to tremble as his eyes scanned the page.
Your Highness,
Please find accompanying this note one of two packages shipped to me in error this past evening, the 29th of Ishmonth. The presence of these parcels in my abode caused a good deal of damage to my property. I am appending an invoice detailing the precise costs but, in brief, it asks for the replacement of or compensation for the following:
One (1) Window
One (1) Door, Pure Oak
One (1) Rug, Hand-woven, Hurnish
One (1) Candelabra, Crystal
One (1) Sleeping Draught, Ten-hour duration
Ordinarily, I would not seek to bother your esteemed person regarding matters of this nature, but as I must assume this was an error made by those in your employ, I thought it important that you be made personally aware of it. I regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and also regret that only one package is being returned. During its stay at my home, the other package was damaged beyond repair and not fit for additional use, and so I have taken the liberty to dispose of it for you.
As a gentleman of unparalleled reputation, I know you will take it upon yourself to resolve this unpleasant matter quickly and to the benefit of all.
Your Friend, in Spirit,
Tyvian Reldamar
P.S.: Please understand that shipping the parcel “cash on delivery” is not meant as a slight. I am but a poor smuggler who can ill afford to ship mislaid cargo.
When Hendrieux had finished, the color drained away from his face and he stood, shaking like a blade of grass in the wind before the murderous scowl of the Mad Prince of Dellor. “I . . . I—”
“Shut up!” Sahand snapped. “I received that note early this morning, along with one of my men, who was tied up like a slab of beef and deposited in my personal supply tent by a courier djinn.”
The prince paused, letting that information seep into Hendrieux’s terrified brain. Hendrieux looked to his left and to his right, where each of Sahand’s men were looking at him with deadpan expressions. Many of them had their hands on their swords. Gallo pressed the rondel harder against Hendrieux’s stomach.
“Now,” Sahand began, “what I would like from you, Hendrieux, is assurances that your feud with Reldamar is over. No further contact, do you understand? Avoid him—we are hopefully very near the end of our operations here, and I can’t afford your simple, ink-addled brain getting distracted by petty vendettas.”
“But . . . I haven’t been . . . I mean I’ve been quite certain to . . .”
Sahand cocked an eyebrow at him. “I seem to recall you acquiring three gnolls for me some time ago, but then you seemed to have misplaced one, is that not correct?”
Hendrieux’s heart sank. “Yes. But . . .”
Sahand ran a thick hand along the short silver stubble that adorned his chin. “You will be needed for another pickup from our supplier tomorrow night, Captain. Given your propensity to misuse my resources for your own personal reasons, I am leaving Gallo here as an advisor. I am also leaving more men to secure this tumble-down hovel of a slaver’s prison you’ve acquired. I’ll not have my operations compromised by some foolish thieving guild that gets angry over losing their favorite alchemist. Do you understand?”
Hendrieux, pale, bowed deeply. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Sahand got up, his bodyguards falling into position around him. “One more thing, Captain—if I hear of you jeopardizing my aims to protect your worthless hide again, I’ll have you staked out in a crow-cage with your eyes torn loose.”
With a solemn nod to Gallo, Sahand turned and strode from the room, his cape swirling after him.
When he was gone, Hendrieux collapsed into a chair an
d let out a long, slow breath. His fingers twitched with a desire to go back into the tower and dive into another pot of Cool Blue. Gallo just stood there, watching him like a hangman on Traitor’s Day.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
COVERT AFFAIRS
The Horse District occupied the northernmost corner of Freegate, clustering around Grand Avenue as it left the city and made for the Pass. Here, horses and livestock from the broad pastures of the North were brought for sale and trade. Accordingly, the district was a sprawling array of corrals, barns, stables, and racetracks, all of which were as full of vagabonds and fugitives looking for untended haystacks to sleep in as with horse traders and drovers. The wealthier members of the Drover’s Guild paid the Watch to make regular sweeps of their property and pummel the ne’er-do-wells found there with sufficient savagery that they either died or deigned not to return. The rest of the guild, however, spoke of their unwanted guests with the same benighted resignation they reserved for rats and other vermin, and resolved not to leave anything of value out that wasn’t securely bolted down.
It was in the hayloft of a barn owned by one such horse trader that Artus tried to get a good night’s sleep. This was made inordinately difficult by the two other drifters present in the hayloft, who, together, snored loudly enough to make a spirit engine sound like a lullaby. Artus knew better than to ask them to keep it down—there was an unspoken pact of silence among barn-trespassers, born from the simple realization that one didn’t know if the fellow sleeping next to you was in the barn just because he was broke or because he had just murdered his whole family and was on the run. If you didn’t ask, you didn’t find out, and everybody lived much longer, happier lives on the average.
Artus had been in this particular barn before, on his first trip through Freegate. He was just a few months older than twelve then and didn’t know anything about the big cities of the West. Freegate had been a shocking experience—more people and more buildings than he had ever seen in one place. He’d been robbed of all his money on his first day, beaten on his second, and wound up in this barn on the night of his third. He had cried a lot then. He knew better than to cry now—you weren’t supposed to weep and carry on in barns either.
It was cold in the hayloft, despite the piles of straw under which he had burrowed. He could see his breath in the moonlight; it was a clear, cold night, and the thin mountain air left his throat dry and cracked. He wondered what Reldamar and Hool were up to. He hadn’t seen Reldamar since he’d been ditched, and he hadn’t seen Hool since this morning. They were probably up to something.
“Probably getting even with Hendrieux,” Artus grumbled to himself. He thought he had at least as big a stake in getting back at Hendrieux as Tyvian or Hool—he’d been on that spirit engine, too, after all. Sure, he didn’t have any children who were kidnapped or have any partners who’d betrayed him, but still . . .
Artus sat up. He was never going to get to sleep with his fellow vagrants’ thunderous snores shaking the shingles off the barn anyway, and decided to see if the accommodations were any better under the grandstand at the racetrack down the road. He climbed down to the barn floor and crept outside, keeping a careful eye out for the trader’s guard dog, though not because he was afraid of being attacked. The dog had been so consistently fed by various vagabonds through the years that it was fat and very friendly. It also happened to be quite insistent on being fed, and failure to do so meant it would bark its head off. This would, in turn, attract the trader who, though equally as fat as his dog, wasn’t half as friendly and frequently had a poleaxe with him.
Since Artus had no food, he did his best to cross the yard to the gate without stirring so much as a clod of dirt. The dog, slumbering underneath the front stairs of the house, did not wake. At the gate, his eyes still fixed on the sleeping dog, Artus carefully moved to lift the hook . . . and stopped.
Someone was coming up the road beyond the yard, their steps jingling with the sound of armor and a sword. Not wishing to risk an encounter with a watchman, Artus peered through a crack in the gate to watch the person pass. It was not, as it happened, a city watchman at all.
It was Hacklar Jaevis.
The bounty hunter looked paler than before and even more weather-beaten, but was otherwise the same. He was walking in the middle of the street, which was strange given the quantity of mud there, and was wearing a purse openly on his hip, which was even stranger given the concentration of sneak thieves and muggers in the area. Granted there wouldn’t be many who would challenge the likes of Jaevis, but it was still a risk. If nothing else, Artus was fairly certain that a talented cutpurse could nab the money and outrun the bounty hunter before having his throat slashed.
Every fiber of Artus’s body shook with terror at the thought of Jaevis, here, alive. He knew this meant trouble for Tyvian and for Hool, too. How was he still alive? What could he be doing walking through the Horse District at this time of night? Watching Jaevis’s silhouette recede into the dark of the winter night, Artus slipped silently out of the yard and began to shadow the bounty hunter through the muddy streets, ignoring the sound of his mother’s voice in his head that told him, over and over, that this was the stupidest idea he had ever had.
Every step Jaevis took made a thick, sloshing noise in the mud—a sound that Artus used to cover the sound of him creeping along some ten paces behind. Every minute or so Jaevis would turn around and check behind him. Artus, who had picked up a talent as a tail when living on the streets of Ayventry, barely managed to dart into an alley or behind a cart before being seen each time. With each occurrence, however, his heart raced faster and faster. The gravity of his situation was becoming more and more clear—one trip, fall, or stumble, and Jaevis would see him. If Jaevis saw him, it would make the second night in a row where he was almost stabbed to death in a Freegate alley.
Still, it was Jaevis. It was crazy, but he just had to know what the bounty hunter was doing here.
There was a sudden thunder of hooves and a squeak of undergreased axles; a coach drawn by a pair of dun-colored draft horses rounded a corner and headed straight for Jaevis, who stopped walking and shielded his eyes from the glare of the large feylamps mounted on the coach’s roof. The horses pulled up short at the coachman’s guttural command right in front of the bounty hunter, and Artus prepared for a string of colorful, Illini expletives to be hurled at the driver. None came, however.
“Ozmar?” Jaevis asked.
“Jus’ get in, dummy,” the coachman returned.
Jaevis frowned and pointed at the coach. “They are in there?”
“Nah, I’m a bloody taxi come to pick your ugly self up!” the coachman sneered. “ ’Course they’re inside, ye bloody fool. Get in!”
Artus, still hidden at the edge of the road, was too confused to guess what was going on, but whatever it was clearly fell into the category of “strange and probably no good.” He watched as Jaevis, apparently satisfied with the coachman’s assurances, walked to the door of the coach and climbed inside. They were about to have some kind of secret meeting.
Whatever happened, Artus knew he had to get aboard that coach.
A man’s voice—not Jaevis’s—called from the curtained windows of the cab, “Ozmar, just drive us around—don’t stop for anybody.”
Artus stole out of the alley and crouched by the back wheel. There was no way to get in the cab, that was for sure. He heard Ozmar crack the whip and the coach lurched into motion and began to pick up speed. Artus trotted after it in the mud and noticed that the cargo rack at the back of the coach was completely empty. Doubling his pace into a full sprint, he nimbly leapt atop the empty rack and, clinging for dear life, was carried off with the coach as Ozmar gave the horses another crack of the whip. They soon were moving at a fast clip down the muddy, dark streets of the Horse District.
Artus took a moment climbing into a more comfortable position on th
e cargo rack, ensuring that he wouldn’t fall with an errant bump or rut in the road, and then crept up to the rear wall of the cab and placed his ear just outside the small ovular window there. Over the thunder of the hooves and the rattle of the suspension, it took him a few seconds to fully distinguish the voices inside.
The first one he heard was Jaevis’s, which was in mid-sentence. “ . . . know you are who you say?”
The other man spoke again. It was more jocular and refined—the voice of a man who did not lead a hard life. “I assure you, Mr. Jaevis, that I vouch for my Galaspiner friend’s honesty in this matter. You know my reputation—that should be good enough. I would like my fee, please.”
Artus heard a faint jingle—the money purse. “You count. Hacklar Jaevis is no cheat.”
A third person spoke—a young man’s voice, healthy and with good humor. “That’s a rather large fee for arranging a meeting, isn’t it?”
“You are asking me to betray the friendship of a very dangerous man who happens to be in a very bad mood,” the unidentified man said. “The price is fair considering the risks to my person.”
“You want Reldamar. I will get him,” Jaevis stated.
The young man chuckled. “Straightforward—I like that in a fellow. Yes, I want Tyvian Reldamar.”
“Dead?”
“Tsk-tsk—bearing a grudge, are we? Alive, if you please; no payment if the man dies. My esteemed colleagues and I wish to study him, not bury him.”
The first man—the one who had set up the meeting, the one who knew Tyvian—chuckled lightly. “I should warn you both—Reldamar is seeing enemies everywhere at the moment. He’s expecting poison in every teapot, for Hann’s sake. He will be difficult to catch unawares, if at all.” Artus’s ears perked up at that. It sounded familiar somehow . . .
“I will catch,” Jaevis grunted.
The first man snickered, “It is my understanding, sir, that the last time you went up against Reldamar ended with you at the bottom of a river with a blade through your guts. Use caution, or he’ll unravel our whole little plot here, and then, my friends, all our geese are cooked.” Where had Artus heard something about poisoned tea? Gods, it was right on the tip of his tongue!
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