Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  They were not.

  * * * * * * * *

  Iridan stumbled into the wine cellar of a nobleman’s estate. He did not know which, and could hardly have cared less. The Megrenn occupiers had leveled a great many of the wealthier estates, places that could have been used by generals, sorcerers, even the accursed blade-priests, who counted among their own elite. Part of the ceiling was caved in, but a comfortably large space remained, smelling of the grape.

  Iridan had swept away the broken glass, and burned off the spilled wine, making it into a hideaway for the hours when Megrenn and peasant alike would be stalking the streets of Munne. He had brought in blankets and some pilfered foods to hold him over for a few days—he could always loot more from either the occupiers or the peasants. His aching body needed rest, and lots of it.

  “Maybe I will rest tomorrow night as well,” Iridan told himself. He knew that he would not. The drive to save the city kept him out on the streets each night, every death bringing the city closer to freedom.

  Iridan uncorked a bottle of a vintage he had never heard of. Wine was all the same to him, whether it was of ancient vintage or last season’s grape juice. He just needed to get drunk enough to fall into a dreamless sleep. He half-succeeded …

  He found himself stalking the streets as he had on his first nights in Munne. He dodged among the buildings, facing off against stripe-cats and infantry patrols. Nothing hurt in the dream, not when the headless stripe-cat collapsed atop him momentarily, not when he landed awkwardly jumping from a third-story rooftop to pursue a fleeing Megrenn captain. Every opponent he faced off against fell either by blade or by spell.

  He found himself bereft of opposition, and decided to find shelter and respite. The dream fatigue felt real enough. Everything slowed to where he felt like he was wading through honey; he needed rest.

  A peasant home caught his eye. It opened onto an unremarkable street and, from its look, likely had a loft where he could hide. Blade still in hand in case of ambush, he used a bit of telekinesis to flip the bar that held it firm against intruders. The dream was in the light, so Iridan could not see the occupants within, but he remembered them from when it happened to him in the waking world.

  The husband and wife within had been awakened by the throwing of the bolt, and had both come to investigate. The man carried a wood axe, the woman a small knife.

  “I am Warlock Iridan. You have nothing to fear from me. I seek shelter as I drive out the Megrenn soldiers,” he said to them. They looked at him with fearful eyes, seeing a black-clad swordsman, dripping blood all over their floors, and with a readied blade in hand.

  “Leave us alone! We want no trouble here!” the man shouted at him.

  “Be quiet,” Iridan ordered, trying to sound authoritative, but in the dream it came out with a savage growl.

  “Mommy, what’s goin’ on?” a voice came from above. There had indeed been a loft in the house, and a young girl of perhaps six or seven winters leaned her head over the edge to see. When she did, she screamed. It was the shrill, piercing note that only the very young and very frightened can manage.

  Iridan panicked. He needed stealth and refuge, safe from further discovery by the occupiers until he had rested. His hand acted before he could think enough to stop it.

  A little girl’s head dropped to the floor. In the dream, it kept screaming.

  Chapter 28 - Found

  Dingy light fell through the sewer grating to cast the passageway in a gradient of shadows, devoid of color. A trickle of water echoed in the dark recesses past that border of illumination. Sodden, filthy debris piled in the path of the flow dammed it off after a fashion, leaving a space that was merely damp, rather than awash in sewage.

  Measured in the length of Anzik’s foot, the area was twelve feet wide and thirty-one feet long, in the direction the flow would have gone, had he not stopped it. But he had stopped the flow. Sometimes it would leak, but he would stop it again. The Staff of Gehlen was nine feet long. He had to measure it so that he could find the height of the ceiling by pushing it against the top of the passageway, and seeing how many feet fit beneath it. The ceiling was thirteen feet tall, except where the grating was—it was sixteen there.

  Anzik had checked his measurements fourteen times; he got the same results every time. It comforted him to get the same results every time. That was the way it was supposed to be. Counting kept his mind busy, and the voices away. He had refrained from using any magic at all since meeting Faolen.

  It should be soon.

  Anzik started another survey of his hideaway, pressing heel to toe, heel to toe across the passage. One, two, three … A pang of hunger growled for his attention, but he was counting. There was food, stolen from the marketplace, in a cloth sack on the ground by the staff. He had dates, plums, apples, hard-crusted bread, and a cheese that smelled like he remembered from home. But he had started counting. It would be wrong to stop in the middle. Four, five, six …

  Anzik paced off the space, then double-checked himself by doing it again. Satisfied that everything was where it belonged, he sat himself down, and ate his meal. He had paid little attention to time since he had run away, so he decided that every meal was lunch. Lunch had no runny eggs that felt funny in his mouth. Lunch did not need a knife or someone to cook it—though soup might have been nice.

  Faolen is going to get you now, voices. Just you wait. Any time now …

  * * * * * * * *

  The wagon trundled along at a relaxed pace. The wooden rumbling of the wheels set a counterpoint to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves. Five other wagons traveled alongside them as they made their way down the Tradeway, the east-west road that ran the length of Takalia. The caravan was a common means of traveling safely over long distances, providing safety in numbers as well as in paid guards. For their part, the Takalish guards cost little enough: food for the journey and a small stipend paid by each wagonload of passengers or goods.

  Zellisan looked the four caravan guards over, and was impressed with what he saw. None was older than twenty-five years by his reckoning, but they had a polite, calm dignity about them. Left alone, they would ride in silence for hours; strike up a conversation, and they bantered like they knew you since childhood. They would answer any question like a proud host, showing off his new home to guests at a dinner party. They knew every inch of the Tradeway and a good ways to either side of it. They were passing through wine-making lands, with vineyards stretching as far as could be seen from hilltop to hilltop. The distinctive wide-brimmed hats they wore—large enough to cover an open barrel without risk of falling in—let brigands know the caravan was protected.

  Should any brigand be foolish enough to attack the caravan, he was in for a rude welcome. Zell had seen Acardian muskets in his military days. They were scary to hear fire—louder than pistols even—but not terribly accurate. The long guns that the Takalish caravan guards wore slung over their shoulders were of fancier make: polished barrels gleaming down their length without a hint of a flaw in their straightness, dark-stained stocks padded in leather, and each carrying a small spyglass mounted to the top. He knew before he noticed the distinctive square-on-end C.E. logo on the stock that they had to have been from the Errol workshops. It stood to reason, since the Mad Tinker’s island refuge was not far north of Takalia.

  Zell found himself ill at ease with his new traveling companion. He knew that Wendell was a Kadrin sorcerer in Veydrus, which ought to have made him trustworthy. Being brought in to head the Imperial Palace’s guards had given him too much insight into the goings on of the seat of imperial power of late, though. House Archon had its flaws, its malcontents, and, from time to time, its high sorcerers summarily executed for treason … but he trusted all of them. He had known Brannis since he was a lad, and knew that he had carved himself a separate path, but the rest of the Solarans were a scheming lot. Wendell seemed cut from the Solaran cloth rather than from the Archon.

  “What is it you keep looking at me for?” Zelli
san asked, noticing the magician’s gaze wandering his way too often for comfort.

  “I might ask you why you spend so much time looking at the caravan guards. I suppose it might be the same reason: I am curious about whose hands my protection lies in,” Wendell replied. In his road-dusted gentleman’s suit and hat, he looked the very image of the traveling neophyte—overdressed and underprepared.

  “Not a bad life, if you don’t mind the pay,” Zellisan said, conceding the point. Wendell had already made clear that his power in Tellurak was limited. He would need Zell’s protection should any danger find them once they were clear of the caravan’s protection. “I could do the same back home. Know every road from Scar Harbor to Urdur like I put ’em down myself.”

  “So why don’t you? Seems an easy living, seeing the land and meeting people, making a bit of coin for the trouble?”

  “It’s the ‘bit of coin’ part, really. Couldn’t see docking myself pay. Couldn’t see folk paying my typical rate just for some light guard duty,” Zell answered, lacing his fingers behind his head, and leaning back on the bench seat of the wagon.

  “You’re paid that well, are you?”

  “I don’t need to pass a hat around at the end of a job, magician.”

  “The hat takes care of me. I don’t expect to die a rich man.”

  * * * * * * * *

  “Jinzan, a word, if I might?” Narsicann said, diverting Jinzan’s attention from the farewell dinner he was enjoying with his wives and children—those who had not run away at least.

  “Is this urgent, or can it wait until we have eaten?” Jinzan asked, setting down the slab of bacon he had been working on, and sucking the grease from his fingers.

  “One bit of news could, I suppose. The other, no.”

  Jinzan regarded him a moment, looking for hints that he might be jesting, but he found no such indication. Narsicann’s humor could be subtle at times, but he would not dare trifle with Jinzan just before he left to make war.

  “If you would excuse me, everyone,” Jinzan said to his family, making sure his gaze swept across each of them. He wanted to make sure he remembered them as they were, not the fading memories of the children as babes or his wives as when he had met them. He was home too infrequently, even when he was in Zorren—sleeping did not count for making memories.

  “We have found a Kadrin sorcerer within the city,” Narsicann told him once they were alone on Jinzan’s balcony. Narsicann was back-lit by the low sun, making his expression hard to read. Jinzan wondered how the spy-sorcerer always kept such subtle tricks at hand, even when dealing with friends.

  “Where? To what end?” Jinzan knew that if the Kadrin had been captured already, Narsicann would have said so first off.

  “He and an accomplice seem to be closing down a business in the warehouse quarter. Checking on it, they set it up several days ago, fronting a half-season’s rent, and claiming to be traders. The fact that they are leaving now—”

  “You think they found the staff?” Jinzan said, interrupting Narsicann. He felt like a cold-blooded politician for asking first about the staff, and felt a pang of guilt.

  Narsicann nodded.

  “We think it quite likely, in fact. Their rented shop is surrounded—we even have the nearby sewer entrances watched. Everyone is keeping their distance until we arrive.”

  “You need my help in case the Kadrin uses the staff against us,” Jinzan said, drawing another nod from the master of spies.

  “Indeed. I have five other sorcerers already waiting for us, but none so strong as you. We need you,” Narsicann stated, not quite asking it as a question, but Jinzan heard it that way.

  “Of course, let us be off,” Jinzan replied, wondering if his last look at his family truly would be the last. Jinzan knew the power that the staff granted its wielder. “Once I have it in hand, I will make for Munne, and deal with Rashan Solaran.”

  “Well … that was the other thing, the one that could have waited until your dinner was ended. It seems that the trouble in Munne is not Rashan Solaran, but his son Iridan. The young demon-spawn styles himself a warlock now, and has slain three of the blade-priests you sent,” Narsicann said.

  “Was Tiiba among the fallen?”

  “No, Master Tiiba has a plan for dealing with this ‘warlock.’ He intends to set a trap and—”

  Jinzan waved off the explanation. “Tell me about it afterward, whether he succeeds or fails. We have more important matters to attend.”

  “Agreed.”

  * * * * * * * *

  “I see no Sources inside,” Jinzan whispered, peering around the stone bricks of an adjacent building.

  “Neither do I, but I trust the eyes of the men who said there are two Kadrins inside. I find it more likely they are concealed in magic than escaped by it,” Narsicann replied, crouched low next to him.

  “The two of us, then—prepared for whatever lies inside?” Jinzan asked.

  “Aye, it’s been too long since we last fought together. If we fail, it is unlikely that the perimeter guards will be able to stop them. We must not fail.”

  “If we do, it has been a pleasure knowing you, old friend.”

  “Likewise.”

  The shop door bore no visible ward upon it. A simple spell of telekinesis lifted the bar from inside. Jinzan pushed the door in, and was relieved that it did not squeak as it swung. It was dark within the building, the curtained windows permitting scant slivers of filtered starlight about their edges and little else. The only other illumination came from the newly opened door.

  Jinzan conjured a tiny sphere of pale blue light, and sent it whizzing about the front room of the shop, finding nothing out of the ordinary. There were no spies and no staff, just a counter and a number of crates half-filled with useless bric-a-brac. Jinzan and Narsicann tiptoed into the room, and searched about from closer up, but found no sign of their quarry. The door to the storage area in back was unlocked, and opened easily, quiet as the first. The blue light led the way again, doing a circuit of the larger space, and showing nothing extraordinary. Jinzan turned to Narsicann, who only shrugged.

  There was a set of stairs that led to an enclosed loft over the customer-oriented front half of the store. Jinzan crept up them, careful to ease onto each in turn, lest they—

  Creeeeeeeeeeee …

  Jinzan mouthed a variety of curses without lending breath to them as the stair creaked loudly enough for someone to have heard from the shop’s front door. He felt Narsicann grab his arm to stop him from going any farther. The two sorcerers waited, motionless, silent. Jinzan could hear his own breath, coming faster and deeper than he would have hoped. He swallowed, wondering if that sound really carried as far as it seemed to in his head.

  Noises came from above, behind the door at the top of the stairs. A creaking of a floorboard—softer than his own misstep but unmistakable—followed by a rustling noise. Jinzan felt a tug at his arm, and turned to look Narsicann’s way. He saw Narsicann’s face by the ghostly light of his spell, the man’s eyes wide. Narsicann jerked his head in the direction of the door they had entered by.

  There is certainly time to run, Jinzan thought. We could be gone before anyone came down the stairs. Jinzan looked Narsicann in the eye, and shook his head. If we give up now, we lose the staff.

  Jinzan pointed up the stairs, making certain his hand was visible in the scant light available. He held up his hand, fingers spread wide, watching to see Narsicann’s eyes focus on it.

  Jinzan pulled in his thumb, leaving just four fingers extended.

  He put down his little finger, leaving just three. He watched Narsicann’s head nod just enough to let on that he understood.

  Two.

  One.

  The two men rushed up the stairs, all attempt at stealth abandoned. Soft-soled boots thudded heavily on the wooden treads. Jinzan leaned his shoulder against the door as he thrust it open, trusting to brute force over magic in his haste; he found it unbarred, unwarded, entirely unprotected again
st his advance.

  Jinzan stumbled into the loft, Narsicann close on his heels, and the first words to a spell poised ready on his lips. There was nothing there.

  While there was a bed, a scattering of blankets upon the floor, and various personal effects lying here and there, it amounted to nothing. There was no spy, no accomplice, and—after a cursory viewing in the aether to be sure—no Staff of Gehlen.

  “Your informant was wrong, it appears,” Jinzan said, casting an annoyed glare at Narsicann out of the corner of his eye, a gesture lost in the gloom of a single open window, whose light did not quite reach the doorway.

  “At first glance, it would appear so,” Narsicann said. He stalked past Jinzan into the room, and lit it with a spell of his own, banishing all semblance of nighttime. The master of spies made his way to the window, and stuck his head out, looking for signs that their prey had climbed out onto the roof or dropped to the ground below. “But I like to be thorough. We should burn the building to the ground.” He pulled the shutters closed.

  Narsicann picked up one of the blankets from the floor, giving it a look over as it began to smolder. As it caught fire, he tossed it into a corner of the room piled with soiled clothing.

  A form slipped from under the bed, hooded cloak pulled low to shield the face from the view of both Megrenn sorcerers. Quick as a hare, the cloaked figure dashed to the window, and dove headlong through it, splintering the shutters. Narsicann raced to the window to see where the fugitive had gone.

  “Look out! The Kadrin is on the move!” he shouted out to the sentries stationed all around the shop.

  Jinzan knew that he was too old to be leaping out windows to pursue anyone. After recovering from his initial surprise, he made for the doorway. He bumped into something that he did not see, immediately realizing the ruse they had both just fallen for. He reached out, and grabbed what felt like an arm.