by J. S. Morin
“What happened to the Daggerstrike?” Kyrus asked, now that he was sure Juliana was physically unharmed.
“Up there still,” Juliana said. “Crazed stripe-cat pulled me free of the ship.”
She raised up the broken leather strap from the harness that still dangled from her midsection. Kyrus then followed her gaze upward. The Daggerstrike continued to float away, the way chimney smoke wafts from the rooftops of cities. Kyrus frowned up at it. Arrows continued to brush against his shield, which enveloped Juliana as she nestled against him, her feeling of safety more than romantic illusion.
Kyrus reached a hand out in the direction of the airship. Slowly, with the deliberate care of the craftsmen who make ships in bottles, he righted the Daggerstrike. Once he judged it to be level, he started it on a gradual descent down toward the marketplace once more.
“Brannis.” Juliana got his attention, pointing to the stripe-cat, still trying valiantly to chase down its prey: a certain Kadrin sorceress.
Kyrus blinked, distracted from his telekinesis, to see the beast approaching them. It was obviously mortally wounded and in pain. Its mewling whimpers made it seem especially feline and piteous.
A blast of aether against his shields diverted Kyrus’s attention in a third, possibly fourth different direction, annoying him. He turned to see the Megrenn sorcerer who had just attacked him. I am too tired to deal with all this. Kyrus sighed mentally. He fixed the sorcerer with his best withering glare, and unleashed a jet of hurled fire.
The Megrenn sorcerer flinched, a reaction to the shock wave in the aether that accompanied the blast. The stripe-cat’s misery was ended. There was a scattering of shattered bones and melted scraps of ruined armor from both the creature and its rider, nothing else. There was a furrow of molten flagstones where Kyrus’s attack had cut into the marketplace ground.
His glare still fixed on the sorcerer, Kyrus cocked his head to the side, and raised his eyebrows. The Megrenn sorcerer froze in place, eyes wide in awe and fear.
Kthoom.
A cannon’s report shattered the air. A hollow bell sound rang out as the shot slammed against the hull of the Daggerstrike. Some enterprising Megrenn artillerist was apparently an excellent shot. Kyrus saw a dent in the armor plating of the airship.
Kthoom.
A second shot never reached its target.
There was a rumbling noise of displaced earth and stone as a massive, translucent barrier grew, encircling Kyrus, Juliana, and the spot where the Daggerstrike was being steered to set down. The barrier rose up into the sky, shielding the airship from further target practice. As it formed, it shoved all in its path out of the way, cutting a pace or more into the ground, and carving its way through stone buildings, pieces of which crumbled into the streets where insufficient structure was left to support them. It was the same spell Kyrus had once used to hold back a Katamic Sea storm. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Stop that,” Kyrus ordered. He did not raise his voice. He had not, he realized, used his voice at all in erecting the barrier.
“Cease fire!” Narsicann ordered. The sorcerer backed away from Kyrus and the cylindrical wall that glowed with a soft yellow light. The soldiers followed his lead, withdrawing to positions that offered cover in case Kyrus tried some sort of attack. A handful who had been trapped on the inside cowered together near the wall, as far from Kyrus as they could get.
“We are leaving,” Kyrus informed anyone within earshot, shouting as loudly as he could. Juliana covered her ears. “Do not give me any reason to change my mind and remain!” The Daggerstrike settled a handspan from the ground. Kyrus lifted Juliana gently up onto the deck. “Open the hatch, if you would not mind,” he called up to her.
Kyrus stepped into the Daggerstrike, looking about at the crew he had hastily assigned to the ship. He also saw the three escapees from Zorren that Juliana had been sent to rescue. Faolen’s Source was a tattered mess, fraying and spilling aether irregularly, but he seemed physically sound enough. Aelon was bare chested, with his head shaven; Kyrus was sure there was a story there somewhere that would bear hearing at a later time. The most interesting, though, was a young boy who bore a notable resemblance to Denrik Zayne—and Jinzan Fehr, he supposed.
“Are you Tallax from the storybooks?” Anzik Fehr asked. Seeing Kyrus’s puzzled look, he clarified: “Tallax has a really, really bright Source and so do you. Are you him?”
“No.” Kyrus shook his head. “Those are just old stories about a sorcerer who died a long time ago.”
“I like your airship, whoever you are. Faolen just told me that it was you who made it. Where are we going?”
“Home.”
The Daggerstrike, with Captain Juliana once more at the helm, headed off for Kadris.
* * * * * * * *
A yellowish glow lit the airship as it floated up from the middle of Zorren. Jinzan watched from the open balcony door of his study as it turned slowly in the air, bow to the southeast as it shot off, and vanished into the distant darkness. He stared after it for a time, wondering whether the clenched fist gripping his heart was just his imagination or some subtle magic at work upon him. He felt trapped, helpless to make a move; he knew he ought to, but no action proceeded from that knowledge.
“What are you doing out here? It is too cold to be in just your nightclothes,” Nakah chided him.
His wife sidled up next to him, huddling against him for warmth as she wore only a nightgown herself. Jinzan put an arm around her by habit and reflex, continuing to stare out at the magical glow over his city. In his other hand, he clutched the Staff of Gehlen, his boon and curse. Word had reached Zorren of vicious attacks by Rashan Solaran against Megrenn forces. Now, if he did not miss his guess, Kyrus Hinterdale had just used a transference spell, followed by several other magics that had wrenched and torn at the aether around the city, awakening him from a deep slumber.
He should have been out there with the Staff of Gehlen, the only with who could stand in confrontation against either Kyrus or the demon. He was the only hope against either of them, and he was Megrenn’s only hope of victory. Yet he stood watching, unsure of what he could do in the face of the power he saw, content to let the question rest unanswered for one night longer.
“Do you see that light out there?” Jinzan asked, nodding in the direction of the glow. The question was rhetorical of course, since it outshone the moonlight. “One of our enemies has come and gone tonight. I am spared having to face him for now.”
“Jinzan Fehr came to our bed tonight. Councilor Jinzan awoke and left us. Zaischelle is worried, but I made her stay inside and warm. Come back, but leave Councilor Jinzan watching out here if you must. Our husband needs his rest.”
“Very well,” Jinzan relented. It was such nights that made him grateful he did not dream, as others did. It kept nightmares away as well.
Chapter 38 - Introductions
“I swear I told you all about it,” Brannis protested. He held his hands up as if to ward off thrown cutlery. Soria still sat across from him at the same table they had occupied since first settling there to deal with Faolen’s emergency summons.
“No. No, you missed mentioning that there was a shielding spell for the entire deck of the ship. I spent hours in the rain, soaked through to my …” Soria began, but she must have noticed that her voice was rising. She caught herself, and continued as a harsh whisper: “… soaked through to my nether-garments.”
“You forgot,” Brannis insisted. “I am sure I told you.”
“You know, Erund, a sensible man learns to lose this argument, admit he was wrong, and move on.”
Somewhere above Veydrus, the two of them were sleeping in shared quarters on board the Daggerstrike. As captain, Juliana had her own, and as commander of all Kadrin military forces, no one objected when Kyrus joined her. Still shaken from her close encounter with the Megrenn military, and being dragged bodily from her own ship, Juliana had been rather more forgiving of her earlier discomforts than Sori
a seemed to be.
“I suppose sensible men are liars, then. I would admit it if I did not remember telling you about the shield,” Brannis said, smiling to diffuse the rising anger Soria was showing.
Soria muttered something under her breath in Kheshi as she turned her head to look anywhere but at Brannis.
“What was that?” he asked. Brannis had some guesses but none were flattering. It was his curse that he felt compelled to ask anyway.
“Nothing. Just a little mantra they made us recite at the temple. It’s supposed to be calming, but I don’t know if it’s working.”
“Maybe when we are done in Acardia, we can visit Khesh. You can show me where you grew up.”
“Maybe.” Soria did not sound enthusiastic, so Brannis did not press the issue.
Soria looked down, and began fishing about in her coin purse, the metallic clattering drawing the attention of the proprietor. Brannis felt a pang of guilt, since they had been occupying a corner table of his establishment for hours. Soria assuaged that guilt easily enough with a pile of eckle coins whose value was difficult to count, spilled haphazardly across the table, but there was at least ten times what they owed for their meal.
“Let’s go,” Soria said, standing up. “We had a day planned.”
Greuder’s Pastries was closed for the day when they arrived. Their interworld distraction had delayed them into mid afternoon, while Greuder closed up shop shortly after noontime. The handle of the door jiggled a little when Brannis gave it a pull, but it held fast.
“We can try again tomorrow,” Soria suggested. “I cannot imagine that such a problem will come up twice in two days.”
“No. I think he is still in there. Follow me,” Brannis said.
He walked around the building, down a narrow space between the bakery and the silversmith who owned the shop next door, and around to the back of the building. There was another door there in the alleyway. Brannis knocked.
“We are closed on this side as well, sir,” Greuder’s familiar voice called out from inside. “Come back in the morn.”
Brannis knocked again.
“Still closed.”
Brannis knocked a third time. He heard footsteps from inside the bakery. There was a noise of some bar being drawn. The door swung open.
“Now listen here—” Greuder began, but stopped, mouth agape.
“Can we come in?” Brannis asked.
Greuder nodded, stepping aside to allow Brannis and Soria to get by him.
“Kyrus, what are you doing here?” Greuder asked, once he had herded them inside, and secured the door once more.
The back of the bakery was packed with shelves full of ingredients and tables for mixing, rolling, and kneading. Dominating the whole of it, though, was the large stone oven from whence came spiced crescents. Alas, the oven was cold, and Greuder had been cleaning up after the day’s work when Brannis’s knocking had interrupted him.
“Well, first off, do not call me Kyrus. I am going by the name Sir Erund Hinterdale, and I came from Marker’s Point. I figured I could not ignore the resemblance to a certain fugitive, but I can explain it as a distant relation. As for why I am here, I wanted to see how you had been faring in my absence.
“Well, spiced crescents do not sell like they once did, but otherwise I have fared well enough. You seem unusually hale and hearty, though I imagine a suit of armor can hide a lot,” Greuder said with a wink. “Are you going to introduce me?”
“Soria Hinterdale,” Soria stepped in and introduced herself. Brannis cringed, remembering the talks that Kyrus had with Greuder about Abbiley. He also noticed that she was playing up her Kheshi accent.
“Another distant relation?” Greuder ventured a guess.
Brannis relaxed a bit as Greuder did not attempt to make the more obvious—
“Wife,” Soria replied, tossing Brannis’s hopes of avoiding an awkward conversation right overboard.
“Congratulations!” Greuder cried out, beaming. “Kyrus, you’ve done well for yourself, picked a real beauty.”
“Well, this is all sort of unofficial—”
“Yes, as fugitives, Kyrus and I have not had the chance to have a proper ceremony,” Soria clarified.
“Well, of course. I can understand that, certainly. My congratulations to the both of you, though, in the hope that you can settle down somewhere nice, where you can leave your troubles here behind you.”
“I think once I have seen to some business here in Acardia, we will take ourselves off to Khesh. Soria is Acardian, but she traveled down there with her family as a young girl, and was raised there,” Brannis said. It seemed better to tell Greuder their actual plans, and let the information be known, rather than spend a few seconds coming up with a lie, and having Soria beat him to the storytelling.
Brannis itched to ask about Abbiley, but Soria seemed intent on thwarting his efforts, making sure Greuder knew that he was hers. Greuder also seemed complicit, even though it was out of politeness in his case, not mentioning Kyrus’s sweetheart in front of Soria.
They talked a long while, snacking on tarts that were left over from the day’s sales. Kyrus heard bits and pieces of the aftermath of his escape, and the reemergence of Denrik Zayne as the Scourge of the Katamic once more. Brannis filled Greuder in on the missing portion of Kyrus’s story, leaving out the more fantastical ones, like the explosion on Marker’s Point. They left the bakery by early evening, taking the back way again. Soria left Greuder with a trade bar, for use in any emergency that might come up due to their meeting. It was a cryptic warning, but Brannis knew that if his suspicions about a conspiracy were right, there might be bystanders who got pulled into it as well.
“It ought to be time to find ourselves dinner, but I stuffed myself with enough blackberry tarts to last me the night,” Soria commented as she strolled down the wide cobblestone avenues of Scar Harbor alongside Brannis.
“I could have done with a spiced crescent, to see if they were all that Kyrus made them out to be. We ought to go back before we leave the city.”
“Bra—Erund, you have to know that isn’t a good idea. I know this all feels like a homecoming lark, but you are the one who thinks that something nefarious is going on here. Anyone you talk to is endangered, if only a little, just by speaking to you,” Soria told him.
“Yes, I know why you gave Greuder a whole trade bar, just for interrupting his daily cleaning of the bakery. He might need to flee Scar Harbor if people start coming after him to get leverage over me.”
Soria wrapped herself around Brannis’s arm as they walked, squeezing it in lieu of a full hug.
“At least you understand that much. I was getting worried that I would have to do all the underhanded thinking for both of us.”
“Well, I am still not comfortable with calling myself ‘Sir’ Erund. Impersonating a knight is an actual crime in Acardia.”
“You are not impersonating a knight. There is no Erund Hinterdale to take offense. We made him up,” Soria said cheerfully, smiling up at Brannis. She seemed to be enjoying playing at being the knight’s lady. Soria was such a warrior all the time, from what he had gathered from Varnus and Tanner.
How much does she envy Juliana her life of parties, fashions, and idleness? Juliana certainly seemed hungry for a taste of the warrior life.
“Yes, but I am not a knight at all. Whether I take the name of a real knight or just make one up, it is still just as criminal.”
“I am sorry, Sir Brannis Solaran, but I seem to rather strongly recollect that you are a knight. The ones around here are hereditary knights and bootlicks who get the title handed to them for ‘meritorious distinction’ and such nonsense. If anything, they’re the ones impersonating knights, not you.”
* * * * * * * *
In the small hours of the morning, shortly before dawn, a small crowd still occupied one of the innumerable portside taverns along Kadris’s waterfront. Work in the port continued round the clock, though it ebbed and flowed, slowest in the wee
hours, but never quite stopping. The taverns mirrored the pattern, with one or more always open, come sun or moon.
Tanner awoke to the sound of monohorns thundering across the table in front of him. The huge, savage beasts had already trampled his head flat, and were proceeding to run in loops just to vex him. Three empty bottles lay on the table in front of him but, with effort, they turned into just a single bottle, lying on its side, a leftover splash of whiskey pooled shallow within.
He started trying to trace back his evening. He had been kidnapped by a worried Varnus, forced at drink-point to listen to a convoluted tale about messages being ferried every which way from Veydrus to Tellurak and back. The burly old guard captain had matched him drink for drink, but Tanner had never had the head for it that Zellisan did, and that went for Varnus as well.
“I was beginning to think I would have to find you another time,” a voice called in his direction. It sounded familiar but he could not place it. He raised his head from where it had laid, pressed flat against the wood grain of the table, for how long he could not tell. The side of his face was sore, and a line of drool clung to the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve as he looked for the one who had addressed him.
Tanner blinked in confusion when he saw Captain Stalyart walking over from a nearby table to join him. It was the same man, there was no mistaking him. The bronzed skin, dark hair, the amused expression permanently carved into the features of his face—there could never be two such as him, except as twinborn.
“Just to be on the safe side here … where are we?” Tanner asked, wincing and putting a hand to his eyes to shield them from the lantern light.
“Kadris,” Stalyart’s twin replied. “You are not imagining. Like you, I try to keep myselves easy to remember. I do not play at games of disguises and layer upon layer of selves.”
“So what’s your name here, then?” Tanner asked.