by Cindy Dees
Raina caught Sha’Li’s amused grin, a flash of white against the lizardman girl’s black scales, as everyone else in the room jumped, too.
Eben had finally spied Sha’Li if his furious scowl was any indication. The next time Raina got either one of them alone, she was going to demand a full explanation of the rift between them.
“Go on,” Selea urged Rynn.
Raina turned her attention back to the paxan’s description of what he and Goldeneye had seen. “A vast army lies beyond the gate. Elementally aligned dream creatures of every size, shape, race, and form gather to attack.”
“What is their target?” Selea asked tersely.
“Haelos,” Rynn replied. “And then all of Urth if the claviger’s thoughts are to be believed.”
Aurelius sat back hard in his armchair, he and Selea exchanging worried stares.
“Who leads this army? Did you see?” Selea asked.
“We saw several figures clustered on a tall rock with the army at their feet as if they were the leaders. In that group were several large elemental figures. They looked entirely corporeal and not visibly phantasmal at all, which would make them extremely powerful dream creatures, indeed. Phantasms of elemental lords, if I had to guess. With them was a little girl. Close beside her stood a man—a warrior, by the looks of him, wearing full armor and distinctive armored gloves that extended up his arms. Their style was ancient.”
“Gages?” Aurelius asked sharply.
“Yes. Gages on both hands and forearms.”
Selea breathed, “The Gaged Man?”
Aurelius sucked in a shocked breath. “Surely not.”
Although gages were gloves, a gage was also a promise to serve another. In which way did Selea mean the epithet? Raina looked back and forth between the horrified elves. “What? Who is this man who alarms you so?” she asked.
“He is a bodyguard, sworn to death and beyond. But it is his mistress, the little girl, who alarms us,” Aurelius answered grimly.
Selea added, “She was the daughter, scion, and heir of Ammertus.”
“The Kothite archduke Ammertus?” Raina blurted, horrified.
“The very same,” Selea replied.
“What’s she doing on the dream plane?” Will asked.
Aurelius answered, “That’s an excellent question. She was permanently destroyed long ago. Ammertus has never been quite the same. He still carries one of her braids in his belt as a token of grief and remembrance.”
Rynn said slowly as if thinking his way through his words, “If her spirit was of sufficient power, it might survive being sundered from her body. Not for long, but long enough for someone to shunt it over to the dream realm. Once there, it might be possible for her spirit to survive as a disembodied being made of dream energy.”
Raina responded, “So she is not actually a phantasm, then.”
“Likely not,” Rynn answered.
Aurelius said heavily, “What she would be is dangerous. Exceedingly so. As Ammertus’s firstborn scion and heir, he would have imbued her with massive power at the time of her creation. She could be nearly as powerful as her sire.”
Raina gulped. Ammertus was one of the most powerful Kothites of all, an immortal being of immense mental power. He was also rumored to feed on rage and be half-mad with lust for power.
Eben said reflectively, “She did not strike me as being especially dangerous when I spoke with her in my dream.”
“You’ve been dreaming of her?” Aurelius exclaimed.
Eben squirmed a little. “I asked Rynn to help me visit the dream realm so I might search out my sister and speak with her.”
“And did you?” Selea asked.
“I did not get to speak with Marikeen, although I did leave a message for her with Vesper.”
“You left a message. With Vesper,” Aurelius echoed. “What message, pray tell?”
“Simply that I worry about Marikeen and wish to speak with her,” Eben said a shade defensively. “Vesper offered to help us escape our captors. It was she who distracted the rakasha slavers so we could get away.”
Rynn responded, “You do not know that for certain, Eben.”
“No, but she did offer to help us,” Eben retorted. “And she said she would help us find Kendrick and fix him. She would have nothing to gain by doing that other than our friendship, would she?”
Aurelius and Selea exchanged worried looks again.
Aurelius answered grimly, “You can count on Vesper having something to gain by helping you. If she is even one-tenth—one-hundredth—as calculating and scheming as her sire, she wants something from you. Badly.”
“But what?” Eben asked. “I have nothing to offer her.”
It was Selea who answered grimly this time. “That’s what worries me.”
Will brought the conversation full circle by asking, “How can she conquer the material plane if she is but a spirit, or whatever disembodied thing she is, on the dream plane? And if that is the case, why does Vesper build an army and send it through to the material plane? What does she have to gain by doing that?”
“Besides dominion over all living things?” Rynn retorted. “My guess is she seeks a new body to inhabit.”
Silence fell over the party. Raina suspected they were all thinking the same thing she was. Gawaine’s body was somewhere in Haelos. It was immortal and at the moment inhabited by no spirit. It would be perfect for Vesper’s purposes.
Into the silence, Eben said, “It is decided, then. I must go back to the dream plane and infiltrate this Vesper’s army. I shall learn more about its goals and what she seeks.”
Raina exclaimed, “You are no spy, Eben!” An able merchant and a fine warrior he might be, but the young jann was as direct, honest, and forthright as his foster father, Leland Hyland, had been.
He scowled at her. “We’ve already had this argument. Marikeen serves Vesper and trades favors with the elemental lords who appear to be Vesper’s generals. If anyone of us can get close to Vesper and her cronies, it will be me. I will approach my sister and tell her I wish to stand at her side. That I have missed her and only want to protect her. Marikeen will believe me because it’s the truth.”
“What you propose is dangerous, Eben,” Selea cautioned.
“Isn’t everything we’ve done so far dangerous?” Eben retorted.
He had a point. Pursuing the awakening of the legendary Sleeping King, an ancient elf, so he might rise and throw off the shackles of Koth was beyond dangerous. It was suicidal. And yet, they’d spent the past year and more pursuing that very goal.
“Speaking of which, look at this,” Raina said. She held out her right hand, showing Aurelius and Selea the carved ivory ring clasping her middle finger.
The Mage’s Guildmaster examined it closely. “Unicorn horn?” he asked in no small wonder.
“Very good. It is, indeed, unicorn horn, and it is Gawaine’s signet ring,” she replied, smiling broadly.
“How can you be certain it is part of the Sleeping King’s regalia?” Aurelius challenged.
“I dreamed of him again and visited his grove on the dream plane. He wears an identical version of this ring. He recognized mine as the physical version of his.”
Like Vesper, the Sleeping King’s disembodied spirit was trapped on the dream plane. However, unlike the Kothite girl, his actual body still rested somewhere on the continent of Haelos. When they found the pieces of his regalia and brought them to his body, they hoped to be able to rejoin Gawaine’s spirit and physical form so he might awaken and lead them all to freedom. That was the plan, at least.
“While we are on the subject of dreams,” Rynn said, “Eben, you must tell our esteemed hosts about your dreams of late.”
Raina sat up straighter, interested to see if Aurelius and Selea could shed any further light on Eben’s strange visions of an ice lord rising in the east to stand against Vesper and her elemental lieutenants.
The two elves listened intently to Eben’s description, their exp
ressions freezing into polite masks as he spoke—a sure sign that both men were reacting more strongly to what they heard than they cared to let on.
Eben finished his recitation with, “So. Do you know what it all means? Who is the ice lord in the Heaves?”
The Heaves were a mountain range south and east of Dupree at the tip of the great peninsula where the colony made its home.
Aurelius and Selea exchanged another of those long looks they’d been sharing all evening. Except this time, both of them looked nothing short of aghast. Alarm spiked in Raina’s belly. What did they know that they weren’t saying?
Selea nodded ever so slightly, and Aurelius said, “Normally, elementals of different flavors would never deign to work with one another. Clearly, Vesper has some great hold over all of them and forces them to cooperate. This ice elemental you describe is behaving more as I would expect a powerful elemental to—posturing in protection of his own territory and challenging elementals of other alignments.”
“Who is he?” Eben asked.
Aurelius winced. “That, my boy, is a question best answered in private.”
Eben bristled. “These are my closest friends. I trust them with my life.”
Raina couldn’t help but wonder if he still included Sha’Li in that statement.
Apparently, he must, for he continued, “I have nothing to hide from them.”
Dear, sweet Eben. So honest and decent. He lived his life as an open book. She envied him.
Yet another long look between the elves, and finally, Aurelius said, “The elemental ice lord you describe sounds a great deal like Dikenn Tarses.”
Raina gaped. Tarses? As in General Tarses? The legendary battle leader of the Kothites, the one who conquered the elemental continent, Pan Orda, for the Empire? As she recalled, Tarses had been a jann just like Eben.
“Why on Urth would I dream of General Tarses?” Eben demanded. “I barely know the stories about him.”
Aurelius opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Never before had Raina seen the solinari so visibly uncomfortable. Intrigued, she waited to hear what he was struggling so hard to say. Or not to say.
Finally, he said, “Eben, as you know, you and your sister were taken in by Leland Hyland shortly after the first Night of Green Fires two decades ago when your parents were killed.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” the jann answered impatiently.
“What you don’t know is that your father was a prisoner of the first governor of Dupree. A very secret prisoner, held in a secret location. Your mother was allowed to stay with him, coming and going as she pleased along with their two small children.”
“Marikeen and me?” Eben asked.
“The very same.”
“Who, then, was my father?”
“His name was known only to the governor, but, son, I believe that prisoner was Dikenn Tarses.”
“General Tarses is my father?” Eben exclaimed. “That’s absurd.”
Selea dived in. “Maybe not so absurd. There have been rumors over the years of a jann prisoner, stripped of his name and identity by the Emperor, locked up under orders never to be released. If you are his son, it might explain why you are dreaming of him in such vivid detail. And then there’s the blazon you wear on your necklace that you say was your father’s.”
Eben fished the blazon out of his shirt and fingered the round medallion nervously. “What of it?”
Aurelius leaned forward. “It’s a senior officer’s medal from the Pan Orda campaign. Selea and I each have one. Only a handful of them were ever given out, and I know every man and woman who received one. The only blazon unaccounted for is the one given to General Tarses himself. It would also explain your sister’s strong affinity for ice magic,” Aurelius added. “She gets it from her father, who holds within him much of the spirit of the Hand of Winter, a great ice elemental lord.”
“But every jann has an affinity of one kind or another,” Eben protested. “Mine is for stone, and Marikeen’s is for ice.”
Will added, “And General Tarses is dead.”
Aurelius retorted, “That’s what Maximillian would have everybody believe, but that does not necessarily make it so.”
Rynn spoke up, choosing his words carefully. “Scholars among my kind have long wondered if Maximillian actually fabricated Tarses’s death. The general was said to be the Emperor’s closest friend, and the story of Tarses’s demise always seemed rather flimsy. The man was not only a great general but also an accomplished warrior personally. He would not have been easy to kill, particularly after he ingested the Hand of Winter. Not to mention, Maximillian would have carefully safeguarded such a useful tool.”
Raina frowned. “Are you suggesting that the Emperor falsified the general’s death and instead imprisoned him here in Dupree?”
Rynn shrugged. “Dupree was the remotest penal colony in the Empire until it was changed over to being a full colony. Where better to hide a prisoner you want the whole world to believe is dead?”
Selea said, “If we are correct about the identity of the prisoner and of your parentage, Eben, no one outside this room must ever know who you are. No one. Your father is supposed to be dead, which means you are not supposed to exist. The mere fact that you live is an affront to the Empire.”
Aurelius added, “And believe me, the Emperor will be eager to rectify that mistake. Not only will he eradicate you, but he will eliminate everyone who has ever known you.”
That, Raina could believe. The Kothite Empire was brutal and viewed life as entirely expendable, particularly the lives of commoners. In truth, the Empire stood for everything she was sworn to oppose as a White Heart member.
Eben looked shocked to his core. She didn’t blame him.
Will came over to give the muscular jann a clap on the shoulder. “Welcome to the no-name, no-family club, my friend.”
Raina snorted. Rosana already belonged to the club, having been orphaned the same night Eben had lost his parents, in the first great greenskin attack on the young colony of Dupree nearly twenty years ago.
Raina had voluntarily chosen to turn her back on her family and its plans for her. Instead, she had run away from home and ended up in the White Heart. She did not know if Sha’Li knew her family or stayed in touch, and Rynn never spoke of himself at all. Still. It was strange that four of them were, in effect, homeless and nameless. Even General Tarses could say the same.
Rosana broke the heavy silence. “It is late, and I am on duty in the Heart first thing in the morning.”
The gathering broke up quickly after with Will and Selea offering to escort Raina and Rosana back to the Heart.
As Raina fastened her cloak, Aurelius stepped close to murmur, “I would speak with you in private at your earliest convenience, Emissary.”
She blinked, startled at the use of her title, not to mention the deference with which he used it. “Of course, Guildmaster. I am at your disposal.”
“I will send a note to arrange a time.”
She nodded, shocked at being treated at something approaching equality by the solinari. She was not yet eighteen years old, and he was hundreds of years old and a powerful guildmaster to boot.
“Are you ready to depart?” Selea asked her politely.
“Yes, Master Selea. Lead the way.” She’d learned in the past few weeks that her guards liked to go first.
The irony of a master assassin guarding a White Heart member was not lost on her. Personally, she liked Selea and admired his deeply ingrained sense of honor, but she could not condone his chosen profession.
What on Urth did Aurelius wish to speak with her about? He’d used her title intentionally; was it White Heart business he wished to discuss, then? How exceedingly strange to suddenly be one of the top-ranking Heart members in all of Haelos. What had Goldeneye been thinking to do this to her? And what was Aurelius thinking of using her rank for? More than ever, she felt like a pawn on a great, invisible chessboard.
They stepped out into t
he night, and she drew up short, startled to see Commander Thanon and several of his men lounging in the street in front of Hyland House. “You haven’t been waiting out here in this cold for long, have you?” she asked him, appalled.
He grinned. “Not long.”
But the rolled eyes of his men gave lie to his words.
“Really, this is not necessary. Within Dupree, I am well known. No one here would harm me. They like the healing I give out far too much.”
“Nonetheless, a little protection never hurts,” Thanon responded.
“Let us not delay, then, so your men can return to their barracks and their warm beds.”
The large party moved out, and Will joked and chatted with Thanon’s men while Rosana scowled on Will’s other side. As for Thanon, he fell in beside Raina, hovering protectively over her as if she were his own personal property. No doubt about it, he was a problem. The Empire—namely, Thanon himself—must not find out what she and her friends were really up to.
CHAPTER
7
Eben timed his departure from Hyland House to coincide with Rynn’s. He hurried out the postern door and lengthened his strides to catch up with the solitary paxan. “A moment of your time, Rynn?”
“Of course.”
“Share an ale with me?”
“As long as it’s not served by one of Anton’s flunkies and it’s a dark tavern,” the paxan replied wryly, gesturing to his forehead.
Eben nodded in understanding. At least Rynn’s cloak had a deep hood that he wore pulled well forward over his face to cover his third eye. “I know a place where the proprietor is fanatically loyal to Koth. I’ve heard him go on at length singing Syreena Wingblade’s praises.”
Rynn grinned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the place sounds perfect.”
They ducked into an upscale but particularly dim tavern, and Rynn made a point of sitting with his back to both hearth and door, casting his face into black shadows. Two ales were plunked down in front of them, and Eben flipped a silver coin to the barman. “Keep ’em coming.”