The Queen of Lies

by Michael J. Bode

  EIGHT

  Twin Shields

  HEATH AND SWORD

  IMAGINE YOU HAVE a beautiful gown only to discover every lady at the ball is wearing the same thing. Suddenly it’s no longer beautiful. The stitching hasn’t changed; the emerald satin remains the highest quality; the playful pearl embroidery about the décolletage continues to shimmer in its intricate dance with the candlelight…but what was intended to catch the eye now has become lost in a sea of monotony.

  Such it is also with the Patrean face. His bone structure—the square jaw, the straight nose, the determined brow—such a man should be stunning. The woman is nearly his equal with her raven hair and soft, earthy features. Yet those faces are worn by every guard in Thelassus, every soldier in the Red Army, and in the armies of all the lesser nations. The eye grows familiar and learns to disdain it, just as a man cannot feast on whale sausage and plum wine for every meal and still enjoy it.

  Whatever ancient magician crafted such features clearly had an eye for beauty, but I’m always puzzled—why the one face? Could they not all be made handsome or beautiful in different ways? Beauty and rarity are intertwined. I’m often asked which is more important. There is no answer to this question, but I always say if one is presented with the choice, always be unique.

  —MESSER PISCLATET, ROYAL STYLIST TO PRINCESS SIREEN OF THRYCEA

  THE ENTRANCE TO the Twin Shields Longhouse was straddled by a painting of a warrior woman holding two bucklers at chest level to cover her tits. They’d mounted real shields with long points in the center to drive home the subtle meaning of the image. Depicted behind her was a phalanx of oiled men wearing loincloths and holding spears with tips shaped like dicks.

  “This is my kind of place!” Sword pumped his fist as he swaggered up to the entrance. “Your ‘friends’ in the tower are covering expenses, right?”

  “Classy.” Heath chuckled as he stepped forward and pushed his way inside. “Just keep your hands to yourself unless there’s trouble.”

  The main room of the Longhouse had been done up to resemble a warmaster’s pavilion; maps with battle plans hung on the walls beside battered shields and an arsenal of melee weapons. The blades weren’t just decorative; most of them looked like they’d seen combat. A couple of female Fodders reclined on cushioned benches in skimpy leather styled after Rivern battalion uniform.

  A one-eyed Fodder with a full blond beard and intricately tattooed arms stood guard by the door. He wore a black leather jerkin, and two longswords hung on his belt. “Brother”—the man nodded to Sword—“looking for work or action?” That’s what Sword would look like in ten years, if he could keep his current body alive that long.

  “Information,” Heath said.

  “Talk to Red. She’s in back through the door on the left.” The Fodder didn’t even attempt to look like he gave a shit.

  Sword halfheartedly saluted the bouncer as he followed Heath to the back. Under his breath he muttered, “What kind of asshole uses two longswords? A longsword isn’t an offhand weapon. Frankly I find it offensive.”

  “Remind me what kind of sword you are again.” Heath grinned.

  “Technically…the term ‘bastard sword’ comes from my impressively large hilt, which allows me to be held with one or two hands,” Sword said hastily. “It’s no reflection on my character.”

  Heath reached the door and knocked a couple times. “You’re the biggest bastard I’ve ever met. Technically.”

  “Well, you’re…the stupidest person I’ve ever met.” Sword grumbled and thumped the side of his head. “Except for this meat suit. You couldn’t put me in someone smarter? This tiny brain is killing my witty repartee.”

  The door flung open. A statuesque Patrean woman in her late forties stood majestically at the door, her posture straight as an arrow. There was no question, based on the red leather armor or the crimson dye in her hair, as to her identity. “I’m Red, commander of this establishment. Welcome to the Twin Shields.” She saluted them formally. “What are you gentlemen in the mood for?”

  “Information.” Heath didn’t bother playing his usual “Orthodoxy business” angle. Most Fodders weren’t religious, and the ones who had served in the Hierocracy didn’t remember their assignments fondly. The priests preferred spending the coin to pay death gratuities for fallen soldiers to spending their Light to heal the unfaithful.

  “I could also use a whore,” Sword said.

  “It’s the same rate whether you want to talk or fuck,” Red said matter-of-factly. “Twenty ducats an hour, one hour minimum. More if you want to play rough. I’ve got green cadets, seasoned warriors, drill sergeants if you like to take orders, and a couple of night wrestlers if you like to take it up the ass.”

  “Night wrestlers are what they call their queers,” Sword whispered to Heath. “They have special training at night in hand-to-hand where the blokes can blow off steam.”

  Heath sighed and pulled out the parchment, which he handed to Red. “I understand this man was seen near your establishment the night one of your customers died in his sleep. I’d like to talk to whomever may have spoken to him and to whomever was with the client that night.”

  “Really?” Red asked defensively. “The guard and the creepers already took statements.”

  “I’m a concerned citizen.”

  “I know who you are, dark-skinned one,” Red said. “The rumors say you’re a spice merchant with black-market connections. You live in the Inlet District, so I doubt you’re that concerned.”

  “I came up on these boardwalks with Cordovis.”

  “I heard that too.” She smiled. “You two had a falling out?”

  “A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that I work for Cordovis’s people.” He motioned to the bar. “Not many customers here. The attacks can’t have been good for business.”

  Red let out a sigh. “Since the attack the only people who come in are Fodders, most of them looking to enlist. People are afraid we’re not warded, but I salt those sheets every morning. The guy who died wasn’t even a client. He was a boatman sweet on Hilta. Her contract was almost up, and I didn’t see the harm in letting them have the room.”

  Salted sheets? That’s a new one. Heath pointed to the parchment. “Did you see this man that evening? He may have been directly responsible for your recent decline in revenues.”

  Red nodded. “Yeah. The creepers asked about him too. I talked with him, but he was never anywhere near Hilta’s room. Why? What does he have to do with the deaths?”

  “I’ll talk to Hilta,” Sword volunteered, and darted off. Over his shoulder he called out, “Pay the lady.”

  “Step into my office.” Red motioned for Heath to follow. The room was Spartan and well organized with shelves of neatly lined ledgers and lockboxes. Red gingerly set herself down in a chair by her desk, pressing her hand against her back. It looked painful. “Your friend is very odd…He has Protectorate markings, but he speaks like an outsider.”

  “Fortunately there’s only one of him.” Heath sat in the chair opposite her. “Are you hurt?”

  “Old injury that never healed right,” she explained. “You see a lot of that here. I provide a line of work for those of us who no longer can take on mercenary contracts and don’t fancy growing pumpkins in the veteran farmsteads. But you didn’t come here for my service record.”

  “You’ve got a fine establishment.” Heath smiled. “I suppose it helps when the girls know three ways to break an arm.”

  “There’s more than three, young man.” Red looked at the parchment. “Verge, the bouncer, didn’t remember seeing him come in. When homeless show up, we send them away gently and tell them to come back in the morning for a handout around the back. A lot of them served beside us in the Protectorate’s wars, but Genatrovan vets don’t get farmsteads they can go to. War is just a lot harder on them mentally. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Heath said. “Our peoples experience fear differently.”

  She co
ntinued, “He didn’t make a fuss. He was just sitting in a corner by himself. I don’t even know how long he was there. I thought maybe he was trying to get a free show, but his eyes were white as snow. I told him he had to leave but said to come back the next day for some rations.”

  “Did he?” Heath knew this from Loran’s reports, but he suspected there was more to the story; there always was when authority was involved.

  “Leave? Eventually. Haven’t seen him since,” Red said. “Old Milk Eyes said he could pay, but he phrased it really strangely. ‘I can’t afford to justly compensate you,’ he told me, ‘but if you permit me to linger here a while, I have something small you may find pleasing.’ Then he handed me this.”

  Red reached down the front of her leather corset and drew out a small black velvet pouch about an inch and a half long. She opened the bag slowly, and Heath recognized instantly what it was by the soft glow that came from within. She pulled out a slender crystal that pulsed with soft, coruscating light. Strands of ultravivid hues appeared and floated through it before fading into diffuse forms.

  “He gave you that?” he whispered.

  “I thought it was pretty.” She suddenly looked concerned. “Is it dangerous?”

  “That’s an Archean shard,” Heath said. “Worth about thirty prisms, which is probably enough to buy this place—staff contracts included—three times over. Hard to find buyers, though. I could help broker something for a percentage.”

  Red tucked the prism into the pouch and slid it down her bra. “Thank you for the offer.”

  Heath shrugged. He had a couple of them himself, and he understood. They were almost too beautiful to sell. “You didn’t show that to the Invocari, did you?”

  “I didn’t even realize both things happened on the same night until you brought it up today,” Red said. “When the creepers came back a few weeks later, I thought they were looking for the shard. I knew if I told them, they’d have confiscated it.”

  “They probably would have,” Heath said, “but they weren’t looking for it. That man’s been at the near the scene of every killing that’s happened. From what I hear, he hasn’t been sneaky about it either.”

  “Could he have killed all those people?” Red asked. “Why choose Hilta’s boyfriend? He was nobody special.”

  Heath shrugged. “I have no clue, which makes this guy very, very dangerous.”

  “Curious he would pick this establishment. Patreans aren’t susceptible to the sleeping death.”

  Heath cocked his head. “Really?”

  “The warmasters keep extensive archives of every death. Millions of troops over the centuries, camped out for months at a time. Never a single death showing the telltale signs. Most of us think it’s because we don’t have dreams when we sleep. It must be so strange to hallucinate every night.”

  “I never knew that,” Heath said. He’d known a lot of Fodders in his time, but they never made mention of that fact. Of course when you were running in street gangs, the topic of dreams rarely came up in conversation. For all he knew, Patreans never cried either.

  “Most people never ask.” She shrugged. “Our creators probably didn’t see the point in giving us dreams. Like fear, it seems they’d be a distraction to a warrior.”

  “When did Milk Eyes finally leave?” It seemed a fitting enough name for the mysterious man.

  “I don’t know.” Red said. “I let him stay in that corner as long as he liked. Told the troops to give him his privacy. At some point I stopped even noticing him, and then the corner was empty. It was a couple hours from dawn when I realized it, but he could have been gone longer. That’s all I know. No one else spoke to him, as far as I know.”

  Heath smiled and stood. “Thank you for your time. If I may…”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. She recoiled at first, her fist ready to strike, but then she felt his Light. His hand glowed golden where his dark fingers touched her dusky skin. The energy flowed through her body, tracing along her veins in gentle pulses of illumination. She gasped and shut her eyes as the energy cycled through her. She clenched the edge of her chair then moaned softly. Heath removed his hand, and her head lolled forward.

  Red placed a hand on her back and looked at him in disbelief. “The pain—it’s gone.”

  “It’ll come back. Like you said, the injury wasn’t properly treated. But I did remove the inflammation between your spinal discs. It should be a lot easier to manage. Don’t tell anybody I did this,” he said, placing a finger over his lips.

  “Secrets are my trade, Mr. Heath,” Red said proudly.

  “Mine too.” He bowed slightly and let himself out of the office.

  Sword was buckling his trousers when he came out of Hilta’s room. Heath had been waiting only a couple of minutes, and Red had informed the boys to keep his cup full, but he projected total impatience. His friend was acting more impulsive than usual in his new skin, and Heath was considering giving this vessel an early retirement.

  “You fucked her,” Heath stated, feeling slightly sick to his stomach. It was the second time he felt nauseated in as many days.

  Sword plopped himself down next to Heath and threw his arm around his shoulder. “Don’t get jealous. There’s plenty of this big hilt to go around. These Fodder bodies have some fucking stamina.”

  “I appreciate the irony of me lecturing you on morality.” Heath sipped some more wine. “But her boyfriend just died. That’s low, Sword.”

  “You forget that I’ve spent roughly half my existence as a woman. I was very empathetic and respectful in the manner in which I fucked her,” Sword said solemnly. Heath missed Sword’s last incarnation. Catherine’s voice and mannerisms had a way of making his boorishness seem charming.

  “I almost believe you,” Heath said.

  Sword grabbed the wine from Heath’s hand and tasted it. He made a disgusted face. “So get this. Her boatman boyfriend, Jerron, who was twenty-two, was a student at the Lyceum a few years back. He had a Hamartia, which is a—”

  Heath cut him off. “I know what a fucking Hamartia is.” He knew more about seal magic than he ever wanted to.

  “Oh, right. Touchy, touchy!” Sword scooted away. “Anyway he fucked up the Seal of Communication. Made him totally illiterate—like letters would run around on the page like little wriggly worms. Real sad story, because Hilta said he was supposedly the most promising pupil to ever join the college.”

  “Or he said he was. Maddox would have dropped the kid’s name if he was even a contender. So he talked a big game and washed out of the Lyceum.” Heath grabbed his wine back from Sword. “Milk Eyes was carrying an Archean shard on him. Did you learn anything that might connect him and the kid?”

  “High Wiz, you think?” Sword seemed uncertain.

  Heath set the glass down beside him. “Could be. A shard is rare as hell and a lot of money for a deckhand to bring on shore leave, when he can trade prisms. And then to just hand it over to Red—well, if Milk Eyes was a wizard, he might not care. But then what’s the interest in Hilta’s boyfriend?”

  “Maybe he just likes pulling the wings off insects. I don’t know much about the Archeans. They typically don’t involve themselves in terrestrial affairs,” Sword said. “But I do know the Harrowers have a favorite snack: unstable magicians. With the right combination of untapped power and cockiness, they could find themselves another Achelon and then…boom. All the wizards in Creation go crazy and the world plunges into another Long Night.”

  “So far we have six deaths: two nobles, the magic-school dropout, a drug addict, a clerk at the temple, and an Invocari,” Heath mused. “Two out of the six could fit the pattern, but the paper pusher, nobles, and junkie don’t…that we know of.”

  “I say we check out the junkie next.” Sword grinned. “I’ve been itching to fill this body with some drugs. He got himself a pretty bad dragonfire habit before I took over.”

  Heath massaged his temples. “I can never tell if you’re kidding.”

&nb
sp; “You can fix an addiction with a little touch of those glowy fingers, can’t you?”

  Heath slapped Sword’s cheek gently. “Come on. We have work to do.”

  NINE

  First Impressions

  JESSA

  I MUST CONFESS that my most satisfying deceptions over the years came from being underestimated. When I was new to court at Thelassus and presented to the emperor, the other Stormlords thought me a callow ingenue, an act I maintained for several years before I gained my reputation for intrigue.

  I can’t in good faith claim that all my initial blunders were intentional, but my reputation as a poor liar eventually led people to trust me as if I were an honest person. And of course being as seemingly clueless as I was made me the perfect “pawn” in the schemes of others.

  For a time I was suspected of being in league with Lord Calatax in his bid for the Bleak Atoll shipping contract. I protested to everyone that it wasn’t the case, which only made them more certain of it. Then I started to deny the rumors (which I’d invented) about Lord Calatax’s plans and capabilities in order to convince the armadas to destroy him. And that was just the first of three Upheavals.

  I entreat you to consider all those around you: your friends, your enemies, and especially your blood. The next Lord of Lies is already among you, and it’s the person you least suspect. It might even be you.

  Enjoy the game. Trust no one.

  —FOREWORD TO THE SEA OF DECEPTION, ALLEGEDLY WRITTEN BY LADY ALESSANDRIA, “QUEEN OF LIES,” AND PUBLISHED AFTER HER REPORTED DEATH

  JESSA’S HUSBAND-TO-BE WASN’T ugly, but he certainly left much to be desired otherwise. His wavy blond hair sat like a bird’s nest atop his head, somewhat hiding his dark-blue eyes. He was completely shaven on the face, giving his jawline a girlish quality Jessa found distasteful. His build was short and modest. He wore an ill-fitting coat over a wrinkled shirt and a large gold chain with two clunky medallions, along with a pair of leather sandals.