Moon's Artifice

by Tom Lloyd

  For the first hour the feast proceeded across strictly formal lines – host lord and his honoured guests in the central room below a great glass dome through which the night sky is visible. The noble, religious and warrior castes each in a room of their own, with the honoured merchants in the last and furthest. It is there Narin has remained, even after the formalities are done and the segregation relaxed, offered only the cheapest wine they have. He takes a sip from his cup and is reminded that its quality remains better than he can afford himself. Only a merchant’s wife has bothered to speak to him all evening – as with all formal events, the arms of every person present are bare. There is no hiding his caste-mark from his betters.

  He glances to his right and sees the merchant’s wife immersed in conversation with an aging warrior – the Wyvern’s long braided hair now white against his dark skin. He realises he was terse in his replies, his discomfort at being the lowest-born person in the room a burr against his skin. His resentment at her assumed condescension turns to embarrassment at his rudeness. He wants to go and apologise, but does not know how and in the next moment Kine rises from across the room.

  He feels his breath catch as for a moment she looks him straight in the eye. The babble of the feast fades to nothing and he is lost in the white flash of her eyes, the brief glimpse of teeth before she covers her smile. She wheels away from the tall priest she had been talking to, a butterfly darting from his raven’s clutches. Her arms are in constant movement, each gesture precise and intended as she navigates the press of revellers, greets friends and deflects well-wishers, all without a word spoken.

  Narin follows her through the hall, circling in the opposite direction. The palazzo hall is packed with people, but one end is opened up to the enclosed gardens. Lord Vanden is from the inland reaches of Wyvern’s domain – not for him the arid, desert-like gardens that echo the home of real wyverns ; he prefers the towering, humid jungle.

  It is a garden to get lost in and as soon as Kine slips through the hanging fronds of an unknown tree, she has disappeared from sight. The garden is small by noble standards – vast by Narin’s reckoning. Yellow-tinted jars placed amongst the undergrowth shine a soft light, but to Narin it is a confusing thicket he blunders blindly through.

  Wyverns are a hot-blooded breed – he knows that much at least, and keeps close to the candlelight. Soft moans come from the darker corners, followed by an abrupt cry of pleasure that breaks like a startled bird. Narin turns to follow the sound on instinct then looks away again with his cheeks warm.

  From nowhere Kine stands before him, a gentle smile half-hidden by her slender fingers.

  ‘My Lady,’ Narin blurts out, ducking his head in some semblance of formality.

  ‘Investigator,’ she acknowledges, performing a playful, almost girlish curtsey. She holds out her hand. ‘This way, there are benches away from the darkened corners.’

  She leads him along a tangle of tiny paths, winding past canopied seats and cloth-decked pergolas until they are in the furthest corner where a curved stone bench sits – exposed to the light but hidden by expansive trees.

  ‘I am glad you came,’ Kine says, releasing his hand briefly as they sit. ‘Are you enjoying the feast ?’

  Narin’s words falter. ‘I … not much,’ he admits, hanging his head. ‘I have no polite conversation, no refined interests to offer for discussion.’

  She acknowledges his words with a squeeze of his hand. ‘I thank you for coming then. My heart is lighter just for seeing you across the room.’

  ‘Any discomfort is worthwhile,’ he declares with as much gallantry as he can muster, ‘just to sit here with you. To be alone with you.’

  He sees her eyelids flutter up, instinctively checking for anyone who might be watching them, but at the same time she cannot help but smile. Even turned slightly away from him and lips instinctively covered by her fingers, the sight warms Narin’s heart.

  She turns towards him just as he leans forward. There is surprise in her eyes, but she reaches to him all the same and they brush lips delicately. The taste of her lips and scent of her skin are intoxicating.

  The smile on her face afterwards awakens a hunger for that taste again ; a desire more powerful than he has ever imagined he could feel. He kisses her again and this time it lasts much longer ; his hand pressed gently against her back, hers bunched into fists around his tunic as she pulls him close.

  Reluctantly, she breaks away and again checks for witnesses. ‘Not here,’ she whispers breathlessly. Even in the faint light he can see a flush in her dark cheeks. ‘If we are seen, we would be killed.’

  ‘Where then ?’

  ‘There is a teahouse, near the Harbour Warrant,’ she says after a moment, straightening her dress, composing herself. ‘The Feathered Serpent, do you know it ?’ He nods. ‘I go there with friends to play cards the first day of every ascendancy. Wyvern and Longtooth noblemen gamble on Firstdays ; my husband never misses that, be it cards or bloodsport.’

  Narin nods and she stands, checking once more before cupping his head in her hands and kissing him hard on the mouth.

  ‘The others will leave at nightfall. Come find me after dark, I will have a few hours.’

  Cold water slapped across his flesh, sluicing the warmth of his dreams away. Narin gasped and shuddered under its impact, then howled as the movement drove iron rods of pain down through his arms and shoulders. Hung from manacled hands, toes scraping feebly across the stone floor, his body was alive with pain and his head fogged and dizzy.

  He tried to look up, to focus on the face ahead of him, but he could make out nothing. The scene swam in front of his eyes and the pain from his arms and back nearly overwhelmed him again. There came an abrupt jerk on the chain holding him up. Narin moaned, but after the initial movement he found himself being eased down to the floor. It was cold and hard but Narin could not tell if the tears spilling down his face were caused by pain or relief, however short-lived they might be.

  ‘Better ?’ came a voice above him.

  Narin squinted up. Still unable to see properly, he was at least able to work out it wasn’t the Dragon who’d tortured him. This one wasn’t nearly so dark-skinned or broad, with long slate-grey hair.

  ‘Water,’ Narin croaked and was rewarded by a cup being brought to his lips, his head supported as he drank. A voice at the back of his head – Enchei’s, he thought distantly – told him that this was the time to try to escape, but he could barely move. Lifting his head was beyond him, let along overpowering some magic-enhanced goshe assassin and fighting his way free. Instead he just found himself pathetically grateful for the trickle of water that made it down his throat.

  ‘Got some questions for you now,’ the new gaoler stated once Narin was finished with the cup.

  ‘Fine,’ Narin gasped as he sank back on the floor. ‘Doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Because Irato’s already bolted from wherever you were going to meet him,’ the man stated. ‘Aye, thought as much, but there’s still a lot you can tell us.’

  ‘And you’ll just believe me ?’ Narin said, confused.

  ‘You want Kodeh to come back here and start cutting bits off you ?’

  Just the memory of the Dragon’s lightning-wrapped hand pressed against his bare skin was enough to make Narin whimper and try to curl protectively up.

  The man laughed. ‘Didn’t think so.’

  ‘Still don’t see why,’ Narin coughed after a while, desperate again to be talking rather than anything else. The room was lit just by a lamp ; nothing to indicate the time of day or how long he’d been passed out.

  ‘Should still be some of the drug in your body,’ the man replied conversationally, ‘that’ll keep you chatty.’

  Narin blinked up at his captor. Through the fog in his mind he realised the man’s voice was young ; he hardly sounded older than a novice, despite his grey hair. House Iron, he realised slowly, the room briefly spinning as he tried to shift position on the floor.

 
‘Drug ?’ he said slowly. Narin blinked and saw bright bursts of light behind his eyelids as he did so, the room coming only reluctantly back into focus. ‘I can’t lie ?’

  His captor laughed again. ‘Try one.’

  ‘I …’ It took Narin a long time to think of anything at all, but at last something did come to mind. ‘I’m Lawbringer Rhe.’

  ‘There you go then, you can lie.’

  ‘How would you believe anything I said, then ?’

  The man crouched at his side, close enough that Narin could smell the leather of his boots and strange, pungent sweat.

  ‘Did they tell you at Lawbringer school that you can’t beat a true confession out of a man ? Well, that ain’t exactly right. You can make an innocent man confess to anything, damn right – but some bastard you know’s guilty ? Someone you know has something to tell you ? He’s got to be tough before he’s gonna lie convincingly when you’re burning the skin off his body. Tougher’n you, I reckon.’

  Despite himself, Narin shuddered, imagining the pain all too easily.

  ‘Yup, there you go – and I ain’t even touched you yet.’

  The goshe bent lower, his face so close to Narin’s he only had to whisper, as soft as a lover. ‘But the other reason you’re gonna tell me everything ? You want to know that ?’

  Narin stared up at the suddenly-malevolent smirk on the young man’s face and felt a cold shard in his belly. He didn’t say anything, terrified of what might come next, but the man continued anyway.

  ‘Aye, I reckon you do. See – the drug I gave you, I gave you too much. No bloody use to me o’ course, what with you babbling like a madman and not hearing any questions I had for you, but that didn’t stop you talking.

  ‘So answer me this, brave lawman – who’s Kine ? Fancy gambling that with all the power of the goshe at our disposal, we wouldn’t be able to find her ?’

  The map in his mind took Enchei to a corner of the city he’d rarely visited, far enough from Coldcliffs that he had to wonder how they’d managed to get a subdued Narin so far across the city without attracting attention. The Kayme Warrant was a small, mostly residential district on the northern edge of the larger Eagle District. Many of the servants and labourers working in Eagle lived in Kayme and its buildings were some of the oldest in the city ; cramped, narrow streets with little logic to their layout. As a result it was the poorest of the northern districts and rife with crime.

  A good place to get lost in, Enchei realised as he entered the district, and the locals are unlikely to be helpful to anyone pursuing Narin’s kidnappers.

  He stopped before a small well at a crossroads of five streets and watched the locals go about their day. The fever had taken hold here too, he saw, with hastily-daubed symbols on walls and fear in the eyes of those fetching water. They all eyed him with suspicion, but were almost as wary of their neighbours as they went about their afternoon chores. Very little talking took place between any of them and Enchei was careful to move on quickly, resisting the urge to stop and question the locals.

  He passed a long passage between houses that had an aging lead roof covering it, but at the far end he could see daylight and a street beyond. A good place to get lost in, he repeated to himself. Hidden from the Gods, even.

  It was only mid-afternoon, but it seemed like evening was drawing in early. Grey clouds massed overhead, the sun banished behind a gloomy, unseasonal curtain.

  Hoping the rain would intensify and keep locals off the streets, Enchei pulled on his long leather coat and headed into the heart of Kayme. Before long, he found himself surrounded by half-derelict tenement blocks and warehouses. A broad, forbidding building rose from the heart of them and instinctively he knew that was where he was headed, despite the map telling him his destination was an abandoned shop-front nearby. That backed onto a crumbling tenement full of noise, children and babies creating a clamour that hung over the building like a cloud. Any cellar would be small and cramped, any strangers or screams quickly noticed.

  In a part of the city this old, Enchei knew there would be disused sewers and tunnels dating back to the Greater Empire. Criminals and vagrants inhabited most of those, but he had no doubt the secret soldiers of the goshe would have cleared out a patch for themselves and sealed it off. The large, four-storey building hidden within the tenements was significantly older than its neighbours and had once been grander. That meant thicker walls and proper foundations, perhaps even several levels of cellars – perfect for keeping prisoners.

  He walked a long lap around the building. There were no signs of life. The upper floors showed signs of fire damage, while the lower windows were barred where there weren’t shutters blocking any view of within. There were two exits beyond the principal one, which was half-hidden by a blockish portico that looked dangerously unstable should anyone try the door. He lingered near each of them for as long as he dared – one a tall street door, the other a smaller alley exit.

  Realising he couldn’t waste as much time watching as he’d like, Enchei chose the alley door as the more likely to give him safe access. He stepped into the recess of the doorway and surveyed the obstacle. It was sturdy and fitted comfortably into the frame, with little yield when he gently pushed on it.

  Most likely a recent replacement that’s been aged to blend in.

  He placed a black metal disc the size and thickness of a child’s palm on each thick hinge bracket. On the back of the discs was inscribed an incantation in the language of a forgotten race, ornate words that spiralled inward to a tiny crystal shard at the centre. Enchei pressed his thumbs against each shard before walking away, leaving them attached to the door.

  Enchei counted silently as he took a lap of a neighbouring tenement block to allow the discs time to work. It was one of many skills the mage-priests of his homeland had planted into his mind, bypassing the learning process to burn it directly into his memory. The seconds slipped past, entirely absent from his attention, which was occupied with watching for threats but keeping perfect time.

  Worried for years about that, I did, he thought as he completed his circuit. Whether they’d taken out some of me to make space for it all. Was years before I learned how much useless space was in my head, how much they could put in there without me even noticing. Doubt Irato would appreciate that little nugget of wisdom, though.

  As he returned to within view of the alley door, the desultory rain turned into a sudden, intense burst that scattered what few residents were in sight. Enchei scowled up at the sky as heavy drips worked their way down his neck. He found himself a darkened corner that would be mostly hidden from the building Lord Shield’s ghost-map had shown him and began to run through his plan of action in his mind. The seconds slipped past at the back of his mind, unnoticed as he waited for his charms on the door to have their effect.

  He had no idea what state Narin was in now, but had to assume he was talking and giving them everything he knew. That meant the inn was likely compromised, his identity too, perhaps.

  And once more, I’m left with just the clothes on my back.

  Enchei sighed and reached into the bag he’d brought with him, slipping his hands into the mesh gauntlets that were part of his armour. Once they were in place he felt the metal grow faintly warmer and the mesh tighten briefly against his skin before settling on a comfortable fit around his hands. It had been years since he’d worn these, his hands already sufficiently deadly for almost any circumstance.

  No time for careful reconnaissance. I’m just going to have to march in that back door and hope there are no surprises I can’t deal with.

  The countdown in his head came to an end and Enchei stepped out of his temporary hiding place, heading back towards the alley door he was planning on using. It was the most likely exit, given he doubted anyone going into that abandoned shop-front would leave the same way. Other tunnels were also a possibility, but he didn’t have the time to search for them and once he was away from potential witnesses he had other tricks he could employ
.

  He slung his bag over one shoulder and quickly moved to the alley door, walking lightly with his senses open to anything that might indicate he’d been seen. The city was quiet enough ; no unnatural calls or warnings overlaying the muted voices of children, no scuffle of feet or steel on stone.

  At the door he surveyed his handiwork and gave a nod of satisfaction. There was no outward sign of damage to the thick, rusting hinges as Enchei pocketed each disc, but with a metal-clad finger he scraped a furrow of brittle metal shards from the topmost hinge.

  From the bag he withdrew what looked like a baton of the same black metal, with a handle that took up half its length and a blunt, rounded tip. One last check behind him and he slammed the butt of the baton into the lower hinge. Under the impact the metal crumbled, falling like soil at his feet.

  Enchei tensed, but he heard no alarm – mundane or arcane – as the door lurched a shade. It was a solid construction, thick wood bound in studded bands of iron, but like any other door, without hinges its strength meant little. Stepping back from the recessed doorway, Enchei moved almost halfway around the corner before he smashed the baton into the second hinge. He pulled his arm back after him as quickly as he could, but no flash of fire erupted from behind the lurching door, nor any other form of trap that he could detect.

  Almost disappointed in his opponents, Enchei moved back around to grab the creaking door as it sagged back. Held up only by the lock and frame around it, he punched forward into the wood with the stubby points of his gauntlets. Once he had a firm grip he levered the door open enough to slip around it, the grind and groan of the iron lock the only sound.

  Inside it was dark, only the outline of an empty double-height room visible in his white mage-sight. He pulled the door behind him and secured it as best he could with a length of wire. That done he dropped his bag on the ground and pulled the last item from it, an all-enclosing helmet with a curved, featureless face-plate. He slipped it on and felt it mould tight around his skull, setting his senses tingling. He looked around again and this time saw more than an empty room. There were ghostly trails stretched at random across it, an invisible residue of magic hanging in the air – a web spread throughout most of the room to warn of anyone breaking in.