Agents of Artifice p-1

by Ari Marmell

  Paldor look like a giant, bearded grape. "Welcome to your first assignment, Beleren," he said.

  No response. It required a not-so-subtle "Ahem!" from Paldor to draw his attention from the peculiar contraption on the wall.

  "Ah, yes," Jace said. "Sorry."

  Paldor scowled, then shook his head. "You've heard the name Ronia Hesset?"

  "I've come across it. Who is she?"

  "The head of a merchant family who used to have connections with the Orzhov and with whom the Consortium has had a great many dealings since the guilds went away. She's even dealt with Tezzeret himself, a time or two. She doesn't know our true nature-or the existence of other worlds at all, for that matter-but beyond that, she knows as much of the Infinite Consortium as any outsider.

  "Of late, more than a few of our transactions with her House have come up short. For a time, Tezzeret and I were willing to let it go; most mercantile sects have one or two corrupt members, and she's done well enough by us in the past. But now she's claiming to have lost an entire payment, several thousand-weight of gold in value. Since this happened at roughly the same time one of her relatives paid off an outstanding debt to certain criminal interests… Well, you can see how this might arouse my suspicions."

  "Aroused?" Kallist muttered from behind. "I'd say they were downright seduced."

  "Your job," Paldor told Jace, "should be simple enough for a man of your talents. We'd hoped to just have you meet with Hesset, read her that way, but she's refused any meetings for the next few days. 'Too busy,' she says. And frankly, Tezzeret's not willing to wait. You'll accompany Rhoka into Hesset's home. He gets you into her house; you then get into her mind. If she's truly innocent and ignorant of these thefts, you'll return to me, and I'll deal with it. If she's behind them, as I suspect at this point she must be, you tell Kallist and he makes an example of her."

  Jace frowned sharply. He'd known that working for the Consortium would require what he preferred to think of as "extra-legal" activities. Hell, that was how he'd lived for years. But murder?

  His gut churning, Jace opened his mouth to object, or perhaps simply to inform Paldor that this had all been a mistake, that service to Tezzeret wasn't for him after all.

  The words wouldn't come. The fear of losing out on all the opportunities Tezzeret had promised-to say nothing of the far greater fear of what these people would do to him if he backed out now-formed a fist around his vocal cords that he could not shake. And so, feeling a new sickness in his gut that definitely wasn't fear, he nodded.

  "Kallist's already studied the layout of Hesset manor," Paldor told them. "You shouldn't have much difficulty."

  Jace turned. "And you've chosen Kallist in particular since you have a swordsman who happens to greatly resemble your only mind-reader-or a mind-reader who resembles your best swordsman," he added with a sarcastic smirk at Kallist, "and you might just be interested in seeing how well they work together on a simple assignment, so you know if you can take advantage of their resemblance down the road."

  Paldor grinned broadly. "Now you're thinking like a member of the Consortium. Now get moving." Paldor twisted in his seat and lifted an oddly shaped tube-and-funnel contraption from the wall. No magic, here, but a simple speaking device, designed with perfect acoustics to carry his voice to the room beneath. "Captain," he said, grinning at Jace and Kallist, "please have a pair of Hesset Estate servant's uniforms made ready for Rhoka and Beleren…"

  Jace didn't have to be a mind-reader to tell, from the sound of Kallist's groan, that he wasn't going to like the outfit.

  And that was pretty much that. They gave Jace half an hour to change-into a horrible set of livery, with canary yellow leggings and deep red tunic-and to gather what supplies he felt he might need, admonished him to trust his partner when he asked if he could have some time to memorize the layout of the estate, and then they were on their way.

  "I feel like a fruit salad," Jace said to Kallist as they made their way out of the Rubblefield.

  "Tell me about it. I'm afraid to look down at my feet, for fear of burning my eyes out of my skull."

  Silence for a time, as the pair made their way toward the Hesset property. Jace found at least some relief in the fact that much of the district was middle-class, so he and Kallist weren't even the most garish people on the streets.

  "This operation," Jace commented as they finally approached the outer wall of the estate, "seems a bit half-assed. Wouldn't it have made more sense to wait for a more social opportunity to have me read Hesset's mind, rather than break into her house?"

  "Probably," Kallist admitted. "Tezzeret's got a pouch of jade arriving in two days; surprise shipment, something that another cell just got hold of. Other people, outside the Consortium, have begun spreading rumors about our losses in dealing with Hesset's people. He really wants the matter settled-and blatantly so- before there's any risk of losing the jade to someone who decides those rumors mean we're vulnerable."

  "Got it." Then, exercising a sudden suspicion, Jace added, "I've never before met a planeswalker who preferred blades to spells."

  "You still haven't. I've worked with enough of your kind, Tezzeret included, to have a pretty good idea of what's really out there. But no, I wouldn't know a spell from a spittoon."

  And then they were there, and further conversation would have to wait.

  The outer wall of the estate proved no trouble at all. Jace cast his sight out and beyond the wall, watching until neither guard nor dog nor drake was present. Once it was clear, Kallist tossed a rope-enchanted to grab hold without need of a hook-and they were up and over, Jace somewhat less gracefully.

  "That's a handy trick," Kallist whispered to him once they stood within the grounds. "Maybe I should learn a spell or two."

  Jace's reply wasn't even a whisper; it sounded only within Kallist's mind. Perhaps you should.

  Kallist started, gave Jace a look the mage couldn't begin to interpret, and led the way forward.

  Traversing the grounds gave them no more trouble than had the wall. Between Kallist's trained senses and Jace's supernatural ones, they sensed the approach of any guard or beast, and took appropriate cover behind one of the estate's various hedges or trees. Still, a pair of great hounds, tugging their keeper along by the leather leash, nearly discovered them. The topiary behind which they crouched might block the eyes of the men, but not the noses of the dogs. Even as Kallist reached for his blades, cursing the inevitable racket, he noticed Jace muttering under his breath. And without the slightest pause, the hounds passed them by.

  "What did…?"

  When Jace answered, he spoke aloud once more. "Most people think of illusions only as sight or sound. It's harder to do smells, but if you know what you're doing…"

  Kallist grinned. "You have got to teach me how to do that. But, uh… Try not to do that too often, all right? That mind-speaking-thing is weird."

  The front door proved but a momentary obstacle. Kallist fiddled with the lock as Jace kept watch, and while Kallist seemed to be doing more cursing than actual manipulating, the device did eventually pop open with a dull snap. Jace allowed his vision to go unfocused, examined the door and the entryway for magical alarms, but if any were indeed present, they were of a sort he couldn't recognize.

  "Should it really be this easy?" Jace asked as they softly closed the door behind them.

  The other shrugged. "Well, I don't normally have someone with me who can see through walls or plug up dog snouts at thirty feet," he whispered. "So I'd expect it to be easier."

  A few moments passed as they made their way through darkened halls.

  "Should it really be this easy?" Jace pressed again, after the third hallway that boasted no guards at all.

  "No," Kallist whispered with a sigh, "probably not."

  The manor was fairly typical, as manors went. Lots of halls with many rooms to each side; nice carpeting and fancy paintings in fancier frames; a collection of chandeliers, fireplaces, sweeping stairs, and dining t
ables that were all far larger than necessity dictated. The strong scent of rose petals wafted along the corridors, and Jace couldn't tell if it came naturally from the many vases that decorated the various mantles and shelves, or if a touch of magic were involved. The utter lack of dust or dirt, however, was certainly magical, since even the most obsessive maid could not have done so perfect a job.

  Once, and once only, Kallist and Jace had to duck into a small alcove as they heard the footsteps of heavy boots approaching. They watched a trio of guards, all armed and armored as though they were truly knights marching to war, pass their shadowed shelter and disappear down the hall. Not a one of them bothered even to glance left or right as they walked their patrol.

  Jace and Kallist shared a suspicious look, shrugged in unison, and continued toward the stairs.

  Still nobody interfered, and within a matter of moments, they found themselves outside what Kallist swore was the bedchamber of Ronia Hesset herself. Slowly and steadily he reached for the doorknob, only to freeze as Jace's hand latched onto his own.

  "What?" Kallist hissed. "Don't you need to see her to get into her mind?"

  "Since I don't know her well, yeah," Jace nodded. "But… I don't know. Shouldn't we oil the hinges or something? What if the door squeaks?"

  Kallist's lips quirked in a larval grin. "Jace, as a thief, you make an excellent wizard."

  "What?"

  "Tell me what you notice about this door."

  "Well, it's heavy wood. Crystal doorknob. Opens inward… Oh."

  "Yeah. 'Oh."'

  "Why don't we just crack open the door, then?"

  "Why don't we?"

  Kallist gently turned the knob, and then shoved swiftly to minimize the duration of any noise the door might indeed have made. It opened only a few inches, enough so that he could reach the hinges on the inside-but as it happened, the door didn't squeak at all. Far more slowly, he inched it open farther, until both men could look into the opulent chamber.

  Even in the faint moonlight trickling through the window, they could make out a towering wardrobe, a large canopied bed with silken sheets, and a form wrapped in the blankets.

  "Ready?" Kallist breathed, barely even a whisper.

  Jace nodded. Please, he thought to himself, begged the Multiverse at large, let her be innocent. Then he and Kallist could leave, and neither Ronia Hesset nor any part of Jace's soul would die tonight…

  Jace stared at the sleeping form, spent several nerve-wracking moments gathering his focus, and found himself strolling the byways of someone else's mind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  With a gasp, Jace was back in his own head.

  "Well," Kallist asked. "Is she guilty?"

  "I can't say for certain, but I'd imagine so," Jace murmured sadly.

  Kallist blinked. "What do you mean, you can't say?"

  "That's not her beneath those covers. It's one of her guards, wide awake, and there are more on the way. Kallist, they knew we were coming!"

  "That would seem to suggest some amount of guilt," Kallist said dryly. "I-"

  Afterward, Jace was never sure if he'd sensed a flash of the decoy's intentions through some lingering strand of his telepathic link, or if he'd just seen movement from the corner of his eye. In either case, he yanked Kallist aside with both hands as a crossbow twanged from within the room. The bolt flashed through the tiny crack of the open door, punching with alarming accuracy through the spot formerly occupied by Kallist's skull.

  "Kind of you," Kallist offered, reaching out with a foot to hook the door and draw it near enough to slam shut.

  "You just remember this on my birthday," Jace found himself saying, more than a little stunned at his own composure.

  The other chuckled softly and then drew Jace into a small side corridor, where they'd be at least momentarily hidden from anyone coming up the stairs or from the room. They both half expected the door to come flying open, but apparently the guard within was content to wait for reinforcements. "All right, Jace. Do we start hunting for her? It'll be a lot harder, now they know we're here."

  Jace didn't know why Kallist was deferring to him, but he shook his head. "No. I have no idea why we haven't heard the tromp of running guards already, but they could be here any second. Better we get word of what's happened back to Paldor. He can arrange for her to fall off a bridge or something some other day."

  And he can get someone else to do it!

  Though his expression remained too bland for Jace to tell if he agreed or was simply following along, Kallist nodded. "All right. Then let's get the hell out of here."

  They stepped from the corridor, and the swordsman took a moment to draw his largest blade-a nasty broadsword, serrated along the length of one edge-and drive the pommel hard into the bedroom's doorknob. The crystal shattered, and Jace heard the crunch of the mechanism within.

  In response to Jace's questioning look, Kallist shrugged. "One guard stuck in the bedroom is a guard not standing between us and the door."

  They were off, moving along the hall, down the stairs, hugging the walls and shadows in what both recognized as a feeble attempt to remain unseen. Jace felt that every step they took, every breath, every heartbeat was a gong announcing their presence to all and sundry.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Kallist instantly dropped into a crouch, broadsword in one hand, long poniard in the other. Jace froze for a split second, wondering what his companion had heard. And then the guards were on top of them.

  There were three of them, appearing from doorways near the base of the stairs: a man and two women, all of whom looked enough alike to suggest they were related. Chain hauberks, short-handled axes, close-cropped black hair, and vicious scowls were identical across all three, and they moved with an expert precision intimating not merely a high degree of skill, but long practice fighting as a unit.

  They fanned out, the man and one of the women moving to each side of the stairs; the third came up the middle, axe weaving a hypnotic pattern in the air.

  Jace threw a writhing, razor-finned eel in her face.

  It wasn't real, but against an untrained mind, its phantasmal nature made no difference; fear was fear, and pain was most assuredly pain.

  She screamed and fell back, thrashing at the phantasm and just about braining herself with her own axe in the process.

  Her comrades hesitated, torn between rushing to her aid and carving her attacker into stew meat. Kallist hesitated not at all. With a leap he was between them, lashing out with both blades. Jace, who had just drawn breath to cast another spell, found himself frozen in stunned amazement as he watched his companion work.

  Kallist seemed constantly in two or three places at once. He lunged to his right, forcing the male guard to raise his axe in a desperate parry. Steel grated on steel and Kallist was facing the other direction, using the momentum of the axe on his sword to aid his spin. In the midst of his turn, his dagger came up to intercept an overhand slash from the woman behind him, and Kallist lashed out with a kick. The guard's leg folded beneath the impact, dropping her into a painful crouch, and Kallist was once again facing the man he'd attacked first, broadsword coming around for a second strike.

  Again and again he flickered between them, parrying to one side, attacking on the other. Sword met axe, axe met dagger, fist met armor, foot met flesh. The man moved in on Kallist to pin him in a flank with his comrade. Kallist gave him a dagger through the thigh for his troubles, sending him toppling to the floor even as the woman rose. Hurling herself from the path of Kallist's crushing broadsword, she teetered backward, momentarily off balance long enough for Kallist to turn back around and knee her brother in the face just as he began to rise. Cartilage folded, blood flowed, and this time when he hit the floor, he didn't seem liable to rise any time soon.

  The woman dived, rolling beneath the circle of Kallist's whirling steel, and drove the haft of her axe into his groin. Kallist folded like an origami stork, but even through the pain he lashed downward, the blade of hi
s dagger punching through her leather gauntlet and pinning her hand to her weapon. Her mouth opened in a sudden gasp, and Kallist drove the point of his broadsword between her teeth.

  Both hit the floor at the same moment. Only Kallist rose. Limping and wincing, he reached out and slashed the throat of the guard still struggling with the phantom eel, and also, for good measure, the unconscious soldier on the floor.

  "All right," Jace gasped when he could once again gather his thoughts. "You have got to teach me how to do that."

  Kallist grinned, though his face remained pale with pain. "It's a deal."

  They swiftly found their way to the foyer, and just as swiftly found that getting there had been the least of their problems.

  "That," Kallist said, peeking out a front window from between two curtains, "is a lot of guards."

  Jace could only nod. This, then, was why they hadn't faced more opposition inside the house: The bulk of Hesset's warriors were gathered in the yard outside, blocking all possible paths to the outer wall of the estate, and they appeared more than content to wait there until the stars burned out.

  It made a certain amount of sense, really, and Kallist cursed himself for not anticipating it. In the house, there were far too many tiny rooms, closets, nooks, and crannies in which to hide. But outside? Somehow, neither of the intruders thought that hiding behind a bush would suffice this time around.

  "All right," Kallist said, "since you hate my plan so much, why don't you come up with one?"

  Jace blinked. "You haven't suggested any plan."

  "I know, but trust me; you'd hate everything I've thought of so far."

  Jace snorted, but then his brow furrowed. Kallist grinned. "You've got something?"

  "I might." Jace turned to him. "Please tell me that you've met Ronia Hesset personally."

  Kallist nodded. "Once or twice, during her dealings with Paldor, but only in passing."

  "It'll do. I need you to do two things for me. First, I've been ordered in no uncertain terms not to read the minds of anyone working for the Consortium without permission. So I need your permission."