Williams, D M - Renegade Chronicles [Collection 1-3]

by David Michael Williams

  It was very late, but Mitto couldn’t bring himself to head upstairs yet. He needed at least one night with his friends before leaving Rydah again.

  “The name doesn’t sound familiar,” Baxter was saying, “but that doesn’t mean Mister Blisnes isn’t a wanted man. Could be an alias. The Renegades are a crafty lot, and now that the Guild has thrown in with them…”

  The Knight let his unpleasant thoughts trail off. Mitto just stared at the orange flames. He couldn’t shake the feeling that accepting the job was akin to throwing dice with Else. But would taking Toemis to Fort Faith prove as costly as a night of gambling with the lucky innkeeper? The stakes were certainly higher. He had more to gain…and more to lose…

  All or nothing.

  “I’ll talk to my commanding officer first thing tomorrow morning,” Baxter continued, “even though it’ll mean getting up at the crack of dawn on my only day off.”

  “How downright gallant of you, Sir Lawler,” Else said from her place on the other side of Mitto. “But given the way you talk, I assumed you were the highest-ranking Knight in all of Capricon.”

  Baxter stuck his tongue out in reply, looking more like a glib youth than one of the great defenders of the realm.

  Mitto turned to regard Else. After he had filled in the gaps of what she had gleaned while eavesdropping, she had said very little about her thoughts on Toemis and his offer. Years as an innkeeper had forged Else Fontane into a reliable judge of character, and Mitto respected her opinion. But aside from stating the obvious—“If something seems too good to be true…”—Else had kept her private thoughts to herself.

  But Mitto had the distinct impression she didn’t want him to go.

  “It’s just so bloody suspicious,” Baxter added, “a man willing to pay that much money to go to an old fort. I suppose it’s possible he has a grandson stationed there and wants to visit. Or maybe he’s really a wealthy nobleman in disguise and wants a place to hide with Knights all around him…though there’re Knights aplenty here in Rydah.”

  “So the rumor is true,” Mitto said with a wry chuckle. Perhaps Miles Tentrunks wasn’t the total buffoon after all.

  “Which rumor?” Else asked. “And isn’t Fort Faith a wreck?”

  When the Knight took a long swig of Dragon’s Hoard, Mitto knew he and Else were in for a lengthy explanation.

  “Fort Faith was a wreck, but the Knights have fixed it up some from what I’ve heard. You see, a little while ago, a young commander and fifty or so Knights came from Continae to reoccupy the fort.

  “Why, you may ask? Well, on account of all these no-good rebels roaming the countryside. At last count, there a half-dozen different factions on the island, and now there’s talk of a new Renegade Leader from the Continent United.”

  “It’s only fair,” Else said sagely. “If the Renegades can call on their friends from Continae, why not the Knights?”

  Baxter merely shrugged. “Maybe so, Else dear, but I’d rather they take their blasted war away from our idyllic island than the other way around.”

  “You’ll hear no arguments here!” the innkeeper laughed, throwing up her hands in mock surrender. “But what about Toemis? Could he be one of the new Renegades, the Renegade Leader even?”

  “I don’t think Toemis is a rebel,” Mitto heard himself say. He felt the others’ eyes on him. “I have no proof, mind you. Just a feeling. Anyway, I’ve never heard of a Renegade Leader traveling in the company of a little girl before.”

  Neither Mitto nor Else had gotten more than a glimpse at Toemis’s companion, but she was the bigger mystery in Mitto’s mind.

  “And you’re sure she wasn’t a midge?” Baxter pressed. “Many a man has mistaken one of those little scamps for a human child…until the bloody thing starts throwing spells.”

  “Have you ever known a midge to sit quietly for more than two minutes?” Else countered. “No, I’d bet my inn she was an actual child.”

  The three of them shared the silence for another few minutes, alternatively taking swings of Dragon’s Hoard. When Mitto found his way to the bottom of his mug and stood and said he wanted to get some sleep before his early start tomorrow.

  “You take care now, Mitto O’erlander,” Else ordered. “If anything happened to you, I’d lose my best customer.”

  He promised to keep his guard up—as if he were some green jaunt-about out to see the world for the first time!—and told them both he would be back in Rydah before they knew it. Then he said goodbye to both of them, though Baxter promised he would meet him at the Westgate in the morning “to get a good look at the old guy, if nothing else.”

  Else would also rise with the dawn, he suspected. She always seemed to get an early start on the days Mitto left the city.

  Since he would likely see them both in the morning, what was the point of raising a glass to friendship or exchanging heartfelt farewells? Anyway, Mitto hated goodbyes. When one made a living by delivering goods from town to town, life was one temporary goodbye after another.

  Still, as he made his way upstairs and down the dark corridor, he couldn’t shake the feeling this would be the last time he shared a cup of Dragon’s Hoard with the irreverent Knight and the lovely innkeeper.

  Passage III

  In the twilight of early dawn, Magnes Minus, the Lord of Capricon, took leave of his sleeping wife and made his way through the halls of the Celestial Palace. His pace was brisk, though not hurried. Reflex directed his feet down the appropriate corridors and stairways, inevitably leading him to the palace’s library, his sanctuary from duty and distress.

  There, in that shrine-like athenaeum, while combing the archives to acquaint himself with the long-dead saints and sinners who had shaped the world through their deeds, Magnes Minus paid homage to history.

  He barely noticed the elaborate tapestries that graced the walls or the other ornamental embellishments of the palace’s superb architecture. He passed by windows that provided the most spectacular views in all of Rydah, in all of Capricon perhaps, but paid them no heed. Even the archaic suits of armor standing on either side of one particular doorway—costly relics from the Wars of Sundering—even those souvenirs of centuries past did not earn a second glance.

  The few members of the palace staff who crossed Minus’s path were greeted distractedly, but surely by now those early-rising maids, attendants, and chamberlains were accustomed to the lord’s faraway eyes, his furrowed brow. Some might worry for him, assuming the burden of his position and the stress of keeping Capricon safe from petty criminals, the Guild, and Renegades weighed heavily on their lord’s mind.

  But those who knew Magnes Minus understood that mornings were reserved not for present concerns, but for the past.

  This particular morning, Minus found himself lost in a conundrum that had him both stymied and excited. While researching the life of Memndrake, Superius’s third king, he had happened upon an obscure reference to one Sir Ryleigh Tristan, the grandson of Sir Tristam El’Drake, who was allegedly one of the first Knights of Superius.

  Ryleigh’s lineage meant very little in itself. Every great family in Superius claimed descendency from one legendary warrior or another. And yet while no knew exactly how many Knights had made up the original Order—whose virtuous exemplars who had lived before the nation of Superius itself was born—many records mentioned “Aldrake’s Twelve.”

  Whether that number included the warrior-king Aldrake or not was up for debate. Some scholars had searched through every available resource and had managed to put a name to each of the Twelve.

  Tristam El’Drake was not among them.

  Yet perhaps that was not so surprising. There were so many inconsistencies in Superius’s early history. Mostly people dismissed the old stories of King Aldrake and his Twelve as myth. As those stories were passed down from generation to generation, the names of the Twelve were changed, lost, and in some cases reinvented.

  Normally, Lord Minus had no trouble dismissing such incongruities, history
’s bastard children. But there was something familiar about Sir Tristam, not to mention the obvious similarity between the Knight’s surname and the given name of the first King of Superius.

  Were Tristam El’Drake and his connection to King Aldrake a key to the monarch’s cloudy origins?

  Minus had recalled another text that referenced to a Sir Tristam, but it wasn’t until last night, on the verge of falling asleep, that he had remembered a lyrical poem about Aldrake’s heroic charge against the Midcanthian Emperor…

  Now, as he walked ever faster toward the library, Magnes Minus prepared to take the next step in unraveling the mystery of Tristam El’Drake, the Thirteenth Knight. He felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest and smiled. So many people found the nuances of lore boring, but he reveled in it.

  He took two steps through the library’s threshold and stopped in his tracks. No one ever visited the archives at this time of the morning. Everyone in the Celestial Palace respected their lord’s privacy during his sojourns into the past. But today, someone had gotten there first.

  The intruder jumped to his feet and started scooping up papers strewn about one of the library’s many desks. “Apologies, milord. I had hoped to be gone before your arrival. I am just finishing.”

  Minus’s grin grew as he approached the man, whose face had turned a deep shade of red.

  “Why, Sir Walden,” he said, “this is surely the first time I have ever seen you make use of the library.”

  The Knight said nothing at first and busied himself with organizing the sheaths of paper and returning them to their place on a nearby shelf. Minus was dreadfully curious about what the man had been looking at, but he decided to have some fun with his old friend first. The Knight had provided him with precious little ammunition over the years.

  When Sir Walden returned to the desk to retrieve his cloak, the lord cut off his retreat by interposing himself between the Knight and the only way out of the library.

  “Do you mean to become a scholar, then?” he asked. “Will you exchange your sword for the quill?”

  The Knight’s apparent embarrassment was worth all the gold in the palace’s treasury.

  Bryant Walden had resided at the Celestial Palace for nearly two decades. As the High Commander of Capricon, Sir Walden was the highest-ranking Knight in Rydah and a stickler for protocol—more so than any other Knight Minus had ever met. Even after so many years of friendship, the seneschal still insisted on addressing him as “milord.”

  “Hardly that, milord. I am here on official business, but, by your leave, I will leave you to your work.”

  Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Walden’s all-pervading civility, Minus said, “First, let me ask what business you had here that could not wait until later in the day. It is not every day that you breach your routine, Sir Walden.”

  The Knight looked hesitant, clearly not wanting to take up more of his lord’s time. Minus crossed his arms in mock impatience.

  “It is probably nothing. One of my officers asked me to investigate a suspicious character.” When Minus inclined an eyebrow, he quickly added, “You need not worry, milord. I came here to research the name more as a personal favor than out of any real concern.

  “One of my lieutenants, Sir Baxter Lawler, has a friend who transports goods all throughout Eastern Capricon. Last night, a peculiar stranger offered him a purse full of gold in exchange for nothing more than a ride out to Fort Faith.”

  “Fort Faith?” Minus shouted, and the words echoed throughout the vast library. He frowned. “What is the stranger’s name?”

  “Toemis Blisnes, milord.” Walden shared the description Sir Lawler had gotten from his merchant friend.

  “And did you find any mention of Toemis Blisnes in the criminal records?” Minus asked.

  “No, milord. He has never been arrested anywhere in Capricon.”

  Magnes Minus’s fingers played at the hair of his beard. “This is suspicious indeed. Prince Eliot had left Rydah for Fort Valor just last week. Four days ago, we received word from Commander Bismarc that the Crown Prince of Superius has moved on to Fort Faith. As far as anyone knows, Eliot Borrom is still there.”

  Walden did not reply. As High Commander, he had known of the prince’s movements. Obviously, he had not wanted to trouble his lord with Toemis Blisnes.

  “It could be a coincidence,” Minus said, unconvinced by his own words.

  Walden shrugged. “No one has heard of this Blisnes fellow. It is best not to take chances.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I intend to send an escort of two mounted Knights. It may be better if they follow the wagon at a distance. If nothing happens before they reach Fort Faith, Sir Lawler can tell the Knights there what he knows…or, rather, what we don’t know.”

  Magnes Minus was already nodding. As troubling as Prince Eliot’s visit to the Celestial Palace had been—as much as the lord loathed the arrogant ass Eliot Borrom had grown into—he would sooner die than allow any harm to befall the Crown Prince of Superius.

  Yet it was probably nothing at all…

  Minus stepped aside and allowed Walden to go about his business. Whereas the athenaeum usually wrapped him in a cocoon of warm solitude, it now seemed like a lonely place. Modern concerns had pierced his shield of scholarly pursuit. The distance of centuries was no longer enough to keep present worries at bay.

  With a sigh, Magnes Minus blew out the candle Walden had left on the desk and made a premature departure from the library. The Thirteenth Knight would have to wait.

  * * *

  Though Mitto had never been one to have a stiff drink before noon, he made an exception that morning.

  He hadn’t slept well, hadn’t slept at all really, so when Else knocked on his door to tell him that the sun would rise within the hour, Mitto was already sitting up in bed, staring at nothing and trying to remember a childhood tale that contained Goblin, gold, and a happy ending.

  Maybe Toemis isn’t Goblin, he thought, but he’s not a wish-granting godmother either.

  Mitto was still pondering all that might go wrong on the way to Fort Faith when Toemis and the little girl descended the stairs into the common room. The old man carried a middle-sized leather bag, but they had no luggage aside from that. When Else asked them whether they wanted breakfast, Toemis declined.

  Fine, let’s get this over with, Mitto thought as he emptied his mug of ale.

  “Wait here, and I’ll bring the wagon around,” he told Toemis and the girl. Placing a coin on the bar, he said to Else, “I’ll be back before the week is up.”

  She smiled, but Mitto thought it looked forced. Her worry only increased his own and seemed to confirm last night’s feeling that this was more than a simple goodbye.

  Forcing his thoughts from that pernicious path, Mitto flashed a counterfeit grin of his own and strode out of Someplace Else.

  Ten minutes later, he was reaching down from his perch on the wagon and taking the single, shabby travel bag Toemis held up for him. For being the only piece of luggage between his two passengers, the bag was not very heavy.

  Toemis half-guided, half-pushed the girl up into the back of the wagon. Mitto tried to help, but he was at an awkward angle, so instead he took the opportunity to examine her.

  The girl was wrapped in the same hooded coat she had worn yesterday. The rain had stopped at some point in the night, but the dark clouds, which smothered all but a few rays of the dawn, promised more showers to come. Mitto didn’t know whether the girl was simply preparing for more foul weather or if the concealing clothes were a part of her everyday attire. Either way, Mitto’s attempt to get a better look had been foiled once again.

  That she had blue eyes and black hair was all he could say about the puzzling passenger.

  In spite of his reservations about Toemis’s character, Mitto found himself reaching out to steady the old man as he climbed up into the wagon. Not that Toemis needed any help. His movements were quick and decisive. The a
rm Mitto had thought to reinforce was scrawny and covered with age spots, yet holding it felt like squeezing the roots of an ancient hickory.

  Once Toemis cleared the opening of the covered wagon, Mitto turned halfway around and said, “If you don’t mind, Mister Blisnes, I’d like to see that gold of yours one more time.”

  He had to make sure the man hadn’t done something tricky like bury it outside the inn so he could reclaim it later. Toemis produced the leather pouch without complaint, loosening the drawstring to reveal the coins inside. Even in the gloomy light, the gold somehow managed to shine. If Mitto had any concerns about whether the gold was genuine, he dared not take one between his fingers.

  Goblin gives up his fortune freely but only when the time is right, Mitto thought.

  As the old man plunged the purse back into the folds of his cloak, Mitto took a deep breath and said, “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what business you have at Fort Faith.”

  “I thought you didn’t care,” Toemis replied before disappearing into the wagon’s shade.

  “Fair enough,” Mitto muttered, though only the horses heard him.

  He jerked the reigns, and the wagon lurched forward. As the wagon rolled noisily over the cobblestones, Mitto spoke reassuringly to the animals. He apologized for the brevity of their respite and promised them a long rest once they were back in Rydah again. He knew, of course, the beasts couldn’t understand him, but after spending so much time together on the road, they were accustomed to hearing him speak.

  Mitto’s gaze wandered from one building to another. Most of the inns were still; their common rooms, empty. The smoke of breakfast fires issued forth from a few chimneys, but Mitto figured that most of the guests would sleep for at least another hour before rousing. He envied those people.

  The lethargy that had evaded him throughout the night now accosted him, weighing down his eyelids and evoking powerful yawns. The morning light, although filtered through sponge-like nimbuses, stabbed at his tired eyes. Maybe I should invest in a flask of strong spirits, he considered but immediately dismissed the thought. That was probably how Miles Tentrunks started out…