Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  “How much time, you think?” Zell persisted. He looked at the boy like an unlucky uncle who had been pressed into child-watching duty, and could not be done with it quickly enough. He shifted in his seat, his aging back protesting both the hard wooden bench of the wagon, and lending support to his general irritation with the whole situation. “I want to get done with whatever business you and Brannis are up to.”

  “Oh, believe me … I am more eager for a resolution to this than you are,” Wendell promised, giving a tenuous little smile. Zell noticed that Wendell looked awful—he had not paid much attention to the magician’s appearance before then, spending much of his time avoiding conversing with the street-performer.

  “Are … you all right, Wendell?” Zell ventured tentatively, trying to look concerned. “I know you and Brannis wanted to keep this whole business secret, but if there’s something I need to know, tell me.”

  “Things are going better here than in Veydrus, shall we say?” Wendell allowed. He turned away from Zell after that, fixing his attention on the boy, Jadon. Zell watched one broken, spooky magical creature stare at another one.

  “Is … Naia … nice?” Zell asked, trying his pidgin Takalish in an effort to strike up a conversation with their driver. The wizened old Takalish twisted in his seat to look back at his passengers, making an inquiring little noise, as if he had forgotten that his cargo could speak.

  The driver garbled something in reply in the casual patois of one who does not realize how to soften his speech to the understanding of a non-native speaker. Zell imagined he caught enough to gather that indeed it was a nice place. He gave a satisfied grunt, and nodded sagely in lieu of continuing a verbal exchange.

  Zell slumped back into his seat as the driver returned his attention to the road, which hardly needed it. The horses were the ones keeping the wagon from veering off the road, maintaining a steady pace they had learned over many such crossings of the Tradeway.

  “Anything I could maybe ask Brannis about for you?” Zell offered.

  “No. No, I do not think that would be helpful,” Wendell replied, shaking himself from whatever musings were occupying his thoughts just long enough to form a reply before giving all appearance of heading right back to them.

  That settled it in Zellisan’s mind. His next opportunity, he would talk to Brannis about whatever mysterious problem Wendell did not want to discuss.

  * * * * * * * *

  Denrik did not enjoy taking his crew’s coin. The easiest way to maintain loyalty among cutthroats had always been to establish a belief that you were the key to their future wealth, he had always believed. Distracted as he was, it was no trouble at all avoiding impoverishing his common sailors. Bad cards came his way in plenty, and saw more play than they probably should have. Good cards came his way occasionally, and earned him little, as he testily overplayed them, scaring away players before pots grew large.

  He was beginning to wonder when he ought to call off the game, risking sounding like a sore loser if he did so when he still had a pile of coins on the table in front of him that were frequently heading to his men’s piles. The decision was made easier by a shout from on deck. A ship had been sighted!

  Denrik threw in cards that might have had some potential to win the hand, but he had mainly been biding his time. He gave his pile of coins, paltry though it had become, a meaningful look. He ran a finger over them, making it look like he was taking a count. He had no time to actually count the varying currencies in the pile to take a proper accounting of them, but the worry that he might have done so ought to have been enough to stay greedy hands.

  Denrik took his hat from the back of his chair, and set it on his head slightly askew. The angle was just enough to make the Acardian captain’s hat look less than properly naval. He felt more a proper pirate captain by the day, worry over Stalyart’s absence excepted, looking the part played into it. He was no longer wearing the castoffs of the ship’s previous captain, but had a full wardrobe of tailored clothes, new pistols, a jeweled sabre. He strode out onto the deck of the Fair Trader as a king of a small, floating kingdom, prepared to watch the return of his favored knight.

  The ship on the horizon had been too far to identify when he first arrived on deck. He took his own personal spyglass from a case that hung at his side, and watched the ship approach. It was heading straight for their position—either a good sign or a very bad one. With just a head-on view, he could not get a full count of sails, but he could at least rule out—

  Kthooom. Kthooom. Kthooom. Kthooom.

  Both broadsides of the unidentified ship opened fire at once. Plumes of thin, grey smoke rose from either side of the ship. Denrik smiled, and a cheer went up from the Fair Trader’s crew. A waste of munitions, to be sure, but the man has style. The shots splashed harmlessly into the Katamic, launching cascades of water into the air.

  The tension of the ship’s approach immediately changed to eagerness and preparations to greet the returning Merciful. Captain Stalyart offered no further theatrics as he piloted his ship in, and slid it up next to the Fair Trader, then threw a pair of gangplanks between the two vessels. Stalyart himself was the first to cross the gap.

  “Captain Stalyart, I was beginning to think you had gone and gotten yourself sunk,” Denrik called out loudly enough for both crews to hear. It was a public event, and needed a public greeting to go with it.

  “Ahh, Captain Zayne. I think my tale will put thoughts of lateness very much to the back of your mind. I have two little newses for you, and someone new whom you need to meet,” Stalyart replied in a somewhat more reserved volume. From a showman like Stalyart, it boded ill.

  “Let us talk it over in my cabin while the crews catch up on old times,” Denrik told him, keeping the tone light until he could get his former first mate somewhere private. Stalyart followed him as he returned to his cabin.

  “I see you have played Crackle without me. I am hurt.” Stalyart feigned offense at the sight of the hastily adjourned game still occupying a table in Denrik’s cabin.

  “Worked like magic, getting you back here.” Denrik smiled, his mood rather lighter than normal despite the foreboding he had picked up on from Stalyart upon his arrival. He was a good man to have around, and bad news from him was better than no news without him. “So what had you to tell me?”

  “Well, I have determined that Mr. Hinterdale has departed Denku Appa, and seems to have no interest in pursuing any sort of vengeance against you. In fact, he has arranged for a replacement for himself as Kadrin ambassador aboard the Fair Trader, should your offer of such still stand. I have the man in question, who goes by the name of Tanner, on board the Merciful right now.”

  “Well, those were not such bad ‘newses,’ now, were they?” Denrik said, giving a chuckle to put Stalyart at ease. The man seemed to have had a rough go somewhere along the way that he had yet to detail, and Denrik did not want Stalyart to think him upset with the idea of another try at the “floating embassy” idea.

  “Oh, my pardon, Captain. If you consider those separate bits of news, then I have three,” Stalyart amended, his face grave.

  “What is the third, then?” Denrik’s eyes narrowed.

  “By rather fantastical means, it appears that our Mr. Hinterdale has escaped Denku Appa via Kadrin. He has traded places with Brannis Solaran.”

  “Could you repeat that please, Mr. Stalyart?” Denrik asked, declining to form a proper reaction until his mind wrapped that sentence up into a package it could digest. He pushed his hat up a bit so that it gave a clearer view, with no corner overhanging any part of his field of vision—as if that would somehow allow the information to make more sense as it reached him.

  “Kyrus Hinterdale is in Kadrin. I dropped Brannis Solaran off in Takalia, Daisha to be precise. He travels with four other Kadrin twinborn,” Stalyart said, speaking slowly and deliberately.

  “That was not what you said the first time. That was worse!” Denrik snapped. He squeezed his eyes shut, and rubbed t
hem with thumb and forefingers, willing the news to make sense, or to somehow be less awful. “Sit. I need to get through this, and I am going to have a lot of questions, I think.” Stalyart obligingly pulled up a chair, straddling it backward with his arms crossed atop the back.

  “Before you ask, I know your first question. It is not Kyrus I met. I do not see the aether well, but Mr. Hinterdale stood out quite clearly to me. Brannis Solaran is a ghost, as close to Sourceless as I can remember seeing.”

  “A trick. Some way to hide his Source,” Denrik proposed.

  Stalyart shook his head. “I think not. You said you met Brannis Solaran at Raynesdark. You described him in resplendent golden armor with a sword that practically radiated magic. When I encountered Mr. Solaran, he was on a ship the Merciful attacked, singlehandedly fighting off my crew in a golden suit of armor that shrugged off all blows, and wielding a sword that crushed all in its path. He is Mr. Hinterdale’s height, and has his face, but he is built like Mr. Reggelend, perhaps a bit thinner.” Stalyart drew the comparison to the largest of Captain Zayne’s “crew” from his imprisonment on Rellis Island. Tawmund Reggelend was a street enforcer for a land-based gang of thieves; he was the sort who broke legs when debts went unpaid.

  “Magic?” Denrik suggested, lamely, optimistically.

  “Captain. You may ask me a thousand questions if you like, but I think Mr. Tanner would be more helpful,” Stalyart suggested. He looked over at the cabin door. Denrik could not recall seeing the man seem so discomfited.

  “Very well, but before you go fetch him, what sort of man is he?” Denrik asked. “Who am I going to be hosting as a Kadrin ambassador?” He had visions of a man of middle years to all appearances, but older than most toothless greybeards. Perhaps a sorcerer of the Imperial Circle, if not even the Inner Circle. Surely if there were as many twinborn among the Kadrin as Stalyart’s claim of four in Kyrus’s immediate company indicated, sorcerers would be prominent among them.

  “He fits in well with the crew, I must admit. He is a coinblade and a quickblade. A saw a bit of him fighting during a boarding action he was, at the time, on the other side of. He is at least my equal with a sword. He knows a touch of magic, just enough that it makes him feel important. He can hold his drink, and pisses away his coin at Crackle like a merchant’s son.”

  “Hmm.” Denrik gave it some thought. “Could be worse, I suppose. Go along, then, and send him in.”

  Stalyart did not need goading. He was gone from the cabin as quickly as dignity allowed. He is either nervous about this whole Kyrus business, or he has something he does not want to tell me. You are an excellent Crackle player, Robbono, but I know you too well.

  The man who entered Denrik’s cabin looked like he had lost a fistfight, and never quite recovered his looks. A flattened nose hunkered between an overhanging brow and a jutting chin. He strutted in as if he was considering buying the ship from Denrik. He looked about at the decor before settling his gaze in Denrik’s general direction.

  “Nice ship. I guess it will look a bit more pirate once you’ve had it longer. Still smells navy to me,” Tanner commented, rubbing his chin with one hand while the other rested on his hip.

  “You must be the one Stalyart called Tanner,” Denrik said by way of greeting. “I am Denrik Zayne, Captain of the Fair Trader.”

  “Wasn’t just Stalyart; everyone calls me Tanner. Keeps it simpler. Looks like we’re going to be stuck with each other a while.”

  “Stuck? Are you saying that you are here unwillingly?” Denrik thought that sounded promising.

  A discontented ambassador? Could Kyrus have been such a fool as that?

  “Well, it was a hasty plan that got me sent here. Lots of moving parts to it, I guess, and I was the misfit piece that got packed off with Captain Stalyart,” Tanner said with a shrug. “I know spit about being an ambassador. I think in this case, though, I’m more of a go-between. I am with Kyrus in Kadrin, and with you here. If Brannis and Jinzan Fehr want to talk … here I am to bridge the two worlds. Just consider me a messenger pigeon, or a bottle to float notes across the aether in.”

  “So you have no initial greeting from Kyrus to start us off with?” Denrik asked, amused with the prospects that a careless, bored twinborn might pose.

  “Way I figure, I’m mostly just going to hang about drinking your best rotgut until you give the word that Megrenn’s had enough,” Tanner said, his offhanded manner about something Denrik cared deeply about immediately souring his mood.

  “You seem to have missed an essential briefing: Kadrin is losing this war. We are winning on every front, and more nations join us as we speak. They see our success, and believe in the downfall of the once mighty bully of Veydrus. Your warlock might have won you one battle a season ago, but he has hidden away ever since,” Denrik boasted.

  “Hey, he never told me not to tell you, so just to clear things up, we just crowned a new emperor last night. First thing he did? Ordered Rashan to go out and start killing your folks off, using that nasty piece of work of a sword of his. Plus I think if you ever got anywhere near Kadris, Kyrus would try to figure out which end of a hellfire spell is which, and set half the continent ablaze. Politics, Cap’n, politics has been keeping Megrenn in one piece. Once we get our heads out of our backsides and fight back, it’ll be messy.”

  “I see,” Denrik said, his dry tone contradicting the spoken words. “Well, enjoy your stay here, and if I find myself needing to surrender, I will alert you without delay.”

  “Thanks. Nice to see we’re seeing things the same way,” Tanner said with a smile.

  Oh, he is not so foolish as he acts, I see.

  Tanner opened the door to leave, turning back to leave a final thought. “Oh, and if you find a missing warlock, please have him sent back. He isn’t quite big enough to keep if you catch him.”

  * * * * * * * *

  Rakashi strode through the small taproom on board the Sand Piper. His soft boots made muffled thumps on the carpeted floor, drawing Brannis’s attention from his ale.

  “I had not expected to see you without an entourage until we set foot in Acardia,” Brannis called out to him.

  The Takalish warrior smiled, but did not say anything until he had poured himself into a chair next to Brannis. “I told them that I was traveling with friends, and was neglecting them badly. It will not end the attentions they lavish upon me, but it buys me a small respite,” Rakashi replied. “I had expected to find Soria with you. Have the two of you quarreled?”

  “Far from it,” Brannis answered, lifting his eyebrows suggestively as he lifted his tankard to his lips. “But I have no energy to keep pace with her. She found a game of Pak Chu in the social galley; it seems Kheshi parlor games are a fancy among rich Takalish women these days. I left her to it. She could not resist the lure to play, said she had not seen anyone play it in years.”

  “Good. I worry about her at times, especially in Kadrin, where I cannot look out for her. There I worry about her life, inhabiting a nest of dragons as she does. A misplaced word could bring down swift death if she treads wrongly. Here, I worry for her heart. Soria is always so full of anger. There is a Safschan expression that translates to ‘hornets in the blood,’ and it describes her aptly. She prefers to strike out at the target of her anger before considering alternatives. Since finding you, her mood has lightened like the sky after the passing of a storm. She laughs more in a day than I have seen in a year from her before.”

  Brannis studied Rakashi’s expression, which he kept so carefully neutral most of the time. He could see something there that he had not expected. He is in love with Soria, Brannis realized. It might not have been the passionate love that Brannis felt for her, but he saw that Rakashi cared more for her than he had realized.

  “She does not need a lot of looking after, even in Kadrin. Still, I am not blind to the treachery that has seeped into the streets of Kadris like weeds between the cobblestones. I cannot pull every weed—not quickly at least—but until they
are cleared, I found a way to get her clear of the danger. I will let no harm come to her,” Brannis assured Rakashi.

  The Takalish warrior put a hand on Brannis’s shoulder. The smile on his face relaxed with genuine warmth.

  “With the troubles I hear of from Kadrin, I find your assurance a great comfort. Soria would never admit the need for help, or perhaps even notice such a need. I am glad she has you now.” Rakashi stood. “I think I will go see how Soria’s game of Pak Chu is proceeding.”

  Chapter 31 - Tangling Knots

  Kyrus could hear the shouting as he approached Emperor Sommick’s chambers. He was on his way to meet with the emperor and Warlock (no longer regent) Rashan, but it seemed that there was already a meeting in progress—a contentious one. The emperor’s voice carried down the halls as Kyrus approached.

  “… as of last night!” were the first words Kyrus made out.

  “I am not some lackey to be ordered about. I do your bidding for the glory of the Empire, and the safety of her people. I am not a chamber-servant.”

  “I will not be made a puppet of. When I give a command, I expect—”

  Suppressing an instinct of self-preservation that told him to wait outside, Kyrus approached the door. The two palace guards who flanked it stood too stiffly, as if afraid to move—no magic held them thus. Neither guard made a move to hinder him as he opened the door.

  “I thought I saw the sunrise coming down the hall at us,” Rashan greeted him, smiling as he turned his attention away from Emperor Sommick.

  The emperor was clawing at Rashan’s arm, trying futilely to remove the demon’s hand from over his mouth. Muffled protests sounded from behind that hand. The emperor’s face was bright red with rage.

  “Please close the door behind you. Emperor Sommick and I were just hashing out the boundaries of power between the two of us.”