The Sable City

by M. Edward McNally

  *

  Tilda listened as John Deskata spoke to the Jobians at length, and the hobgoblins and bullywugs listened as well. Whether or not the Magdetchoi were physically able to speak Codian, they seemed to understand it. The man Zebulon and the shukenja he had called Amatesu moved back to the porch and translated for the odd pair remaining there, the woman with the huge blue eyes and an Ashinese man Tilda recognized as wearing the full o-yori armor of a samurai.

  Deskata told the crowd much, though not everything. He said he knew the renegade legionnaires, and he knew that they had found an ancient tome in faraway Orstaf, at the site of the destroyed Round Hall in La Trabon. They had taken the book to a seer, who had been able to read enough of it to tell them a mage could use it to open a magical doorway of some kind, a doorway that would lead anywhere the person walking through it could desire. The magic would only work at three specific places, and the only one the seer could decipher was identified as, the heart of Vod’Adia.

  “That was their plan,” Deskata said. “They wanted to come here, find a mage, and go into Vod’Adia. They meant to take everything they could carry out through the doorway, without having to turn anything over to the Shugak for taxes.”

  The hobgoblins and bullywugs growled and croaked. Sister Paveline gave Deskata a hard look.

  “You were one of them,” she said. “You yet have the look of a Legion man about you.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Deskata said. “I didn’t join with the band we are talking about, but they robbed me to get together the price of a license. I came after them to get my money back. I have no idea how they fell in with a bunch of Ayonites, or what they think they are up to now.”

  “Why would they have taken Claudja with them?” Tilda asked, though she did it grudgingly as she would have preferred not to speak to Deskata at all. The man had his reasons for lying to her for months now, as stupid as they were, but she had no intention of forgiving him. Captain Block was dead because of his lies, and the House of Deskata was doomed. Tilda had failed the only mission she would ever be given, and it was John Deskata’s fault.

  He shook his head at her question. “I said I don’t know. Whatever it is, I reckon it was the Ayonites’ idea.”

  “But those men are all dead, are they not?” Tilda looked around for confirmation and the acolyte Heggenauer nodded at her.

  “They are, but they had a purpose for being here. The war between Ayzantium and Daul rages on. There are any number of reasons the Fire Priests might wish to have a Duchess of Daul as a hostage.”

  “Do you believe your friends still serve the purpose of Fell Ayon’s minions?” Sister Paveline asked Deskata. “That they will seek to take the Duchess, by magic, somewhere she can be handed over to the agents of the Burning Man?”

  “If they have been offered enough cash, they will do whatever it takes. What I am telling you people is that the legionnaires would not have gone into Vod‘Adia, with or without a hostage, unless they intended to leave by a different route.”

  “And they have a mage with them,” Tilda said quietly. “The man who knocked me out with a spell.”

  There was a surprised cry from the porch, the man Zebulon sputtering, “What?” to the woman with blue eyes. He asked it much too loud, and everyone looked over from under the tree.

  The woman settled back on her elbows, sitting now on the top step of the porch. She spoke several sentences in a language Tilda did not know, but which made Heggenauer and the Jobians frown. Zebulon only stared at her as she spoke, but when she was through he looked up and noticed that everyone, including the two Westerners, were looking at him expectantly. He licked his lips and cleared his throat.

  “Um. We know the mage who was here last night. Apparently. Fellow name of Phin. Nice enough chap.”

  Amatesu asked him a quiet question and Zebulon shook his head.

  “Who is this person?” Sister Paveline demanded. Tilda was not sure if the priestess was asking about the mage or the blue-eyed woman, but Zebulon chose to answer her regarding the former.

  “Just a Circle Wizard who tagged along with us on the way here.”

  The frowns of the Jobians deepened, but suddenly the throng of Shugak chiefs were barking and croaking in alarm, attracting everyone’s attention. A large hobgoblin shoved a thin one forward, and the toothy creature forced out words toward Zebulon like it was choking on them.

  “A Wizard of the Codian Circle? Tullish trained, as was Kanderamath?”

  Zebulon shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “Kanderamath,” Deskata snapped his fingers. “That was the name on the book.”

  The Shugak stared, then went back to growling and spitting among themselves. A little black bullywug rubbed its hands together and its pink tongue darted out to lick its pearl-black eyeballs the way a nervous man might mop his brow. Tilda could not imagine the little creature could see out of those eyes and yet it did not seem to be blind.

  “Who is Kanderamath?” Tilda asked no one in particular, though the name sounded vaguely familiar to her.

  “An ancient Witch King of Tull,” Sister Paveline said. “It was he who supposedly Opened Vod’Adia the first time, nearly five-hundred years ago.”

  Tilda glanced at John Deskata, but the man’s face was blankly neutral and if he knew she was looking at him he gave no sign. She could not believe he was out here already after the news she had given him only minutes before, and then the reason occurred to her. A book that could open a doorway. A doorway that would lead to any place that the person walking through it could desire. Anywhere in the world. In an instant.

  Tilda’s heart should have risen in her chest at the thought, but it stayed where it was. She had not spoken her last words to John Deskata idly. Matilda Lanai truly felt that the House of Deskata was better off without him, even if it meant the end of the once proud line for whom her own family had worked for a century. John Deskata was no sort of a man to lead a House. His last lie, that the Duchess Claudja was safe, had been the last straw for Tilda.

  The crescendo of the Shugak’s debate turned into a shoving match, until finally the black bullywug silenced the others with loud croaks and a wild waving of its webbed hands. The thin hobgoblin that spoke Codian turned to Paveline.

  “The mighty Shugak will grant entry into Vod’Adia by a party. Take the Daul woman as you will, but you must slay the Circle Mage and bring us out the book.”

  Those words did move Tilda’s heart, and Heggenauer struck a fist into an open hand. Sister Paveline frowned, but before she could speak the black bullywug hopped over to the porch in two long bounds and threw itself to the ground at the base of the stairs. It held its webbed hands up toward the blue-eyed woman and gave voice to the most pathetic series of ribbits and croaks Tilda could have imagined.