Luciena had no problem overthrowing Mahkas Damaran. But if she was going to be tainted by a plot and possibly condemned by it if it failed—which, if her husband was a key player, was unavoidable—if she was going to risk her children, she wanted to know the details.
CHAPTER 56
“You’re still alive, I see.”
Kalan Hawksword stared down at the figure lying on the bed, without compassion. Galon Miar looked around the room, blinking owlishly, as if his eyes were having trouble focusing.
“Lady Kalan … um … where am I?”
“In my mother’s bed,” Kalan informed him coldly. “This is her room, in case you’re wondering, but then, you probably wouldn’t recognise it, I suppose. I don’t believe you’ve seen it in daylight.”
He grimaced at her tone. “You’re mad at me about something, aren’t you?”
“You really are very good at reading people. Do they teach you that in assassin school?”
“Apparently they don’t teach manners in sorcerer school,” he retorted. “What happened to me? And why can’t I feel anything below my waist?”
Kalan smiled nastily. “After the guards ran you through and then knocked you unconscious when they found you trying to rape my mother, I gave you something for the pain. They tell me it’s quite agonising when you castrate someone.”
Galon was silent while her words sank in and then, with a panicked cry, he threw the covers back to check the damage for himself. There was a bandage around his chest, but he was wearing nothing else.
Hastily he covered himself again, and glared at her. Kalan burst out laughing.
“That was cruel, Kalan,” her mother scolded, entering the room with a slave behind her carrying a tray.
“But you should have seen the look on his face, Mother. It was priceless.”
The assassin looked up at the princess, not in the least bit amused. “Your daughter is sick, your highness.”
“And yet we feed her anyway,” Marla replied. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my head’s been cleaved in two and some bastard stabbed me in the back. How bad is it?”
“Better than you deserve,” Kalan informed him. “But you were lucky. You weren’t actually run through. The guard who stabbed you hit a rib and the blade slid off your left side, so it’s really only a flesh wound, albeit a rather long and impressive one.”
Galon turned to her mother with a frown. “You need to do something about your guards.”
“I’m not going to chastise them for trying to protect me, Galon.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest you do, your highness. But if they seriously thought I was raping you, they should have killed me, not left me with a flesh wound. And for that matter, running a sword into me when I was on top of you was insanely dangerous. If my rib hadn’t deflected it, the blade might have gone right through me and into you, as well.”
“You? On top of my mother?” Kalan remarked. “There’s an image I could have done without.” Having the guards burst into a room in response to the sounds of a struggle, only to find her mother in the grip of unbridled passion with a lover—one who had actually sneaked in through her bedroom window—was a little more than Kalan was ready to deal with at the moment.
It was almost as bad, she mused, as when I thought Wrayan and Mother were more than just good friends.
Frowning, Kalan watched her mother chatting affably with Galon Miar as the slave placed the breakfast tray on the bed. She knew Marla was probably already looking for another husband, but after sixteen years of Ruxton Tirstone, who was pleasant and unobtrusive, Kalan wasn’t sure she was prepared to welcome a man like Galon Miar into the family. In her mind, ideally, Marla’s next husband should be someone very old and preferably bedridden; someone willing to let her mother control his political power and his wealth and not actually make any demands on Marla or her family. Galon Miar was far too full of life (and obviously lust) for Kalan’s comfort.
“Will you be needing me any further this morning, Mother?” she asked. Kalan had her own part to play in their complex plan to bring Alija down and she was anxious to get on with it.
“No, thank you, Kalan,” her mother replied. “Once the draught has worn off, I’m sure Galon will be able to find his way home without any further assistance.”
“See that you do go home,” Kalan advised the assassin, then turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, leaving her mother alone with him. She’d barely closed the door, however, before her mother followed her into the hall.
“Kalan!”
She impatiently turned and looked at her mother. “What?”
Marla closed the bedroom door before she answered. “That last remark was uncalled for.”
“I’m sorry. Did I hurt your precious lover’s feelings?”
“Galon Miar is not my lover.”
“Then why is he still breathing, Mother?”
Marla sighed. “The situation is complicated, Kalan.”
“Bizarre is the word I was leaning towards.”
“Galon Miar is in a position to do me a very useful service.”
“So is any court’esa worth the price of his collar.”
“I wasn’t referring to that kind of service,” her mother explained patiently, walking toward her. “There are other things afoot, things you don’t know about. Even more delicate than this business with Alija …”
Kalan took a step back. She wasn’t in the mood to hug and make up. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Mother. I don’t really care who you sleep with. I just think you should be a little more cautious, that’s all. You don’t know anything about that man.”
“Wrayan says he can be trusted.”
“Wrayan said Galon Miar can probably be trusted not to betray us to the Patriots. That’s not the same thing as trusting the man in your bed.”
Marla sighed. “I didn’t invite him in, you know.”
“You seem to have a rather unconventional method of throwing him out.”
“It’s not what you think. He does it to rattle me, that’s all.”
Kalan was unconvinced. “Don’t try and fool yourself, Mother. I was watching him the other night when he was here. He never takes his eyes off you. I swear he counts your heartbeats. Are you in love with him?”
“The only man I have ever truly loved was your father, Kalan.”
“Didn’t you love Damin’s father, too?”
She shook her head. “I respected him. Liked him, even. But I never loved him. Love isn’t required to produce an heir to the throne, you know, just the willingness of both parties to do what’s required of them.”
Kalan was so much luckier than her mother, she often thought. “I should thank you more often, you know, for letting me find a way to escape your fate.”
“Speaking of which,” her mother remarked, eyeing the itchy black robes Kalan was wearing. “Given your formal attire, I gather you’re on your way to the Sorcerers’ Palace?”
Kalan nodded. “I’m going to visit Bruno. He’s a traditionalist. Or he doesn’t recognise me if I’m not wearing my robes. I’ve never been really able to work out which it was, actually. Whatever the reason, we need Bruno Sanval on our side. He’ll have to be ready to step up and take over when Alija’s gone. And it will be up to him to appoint a new Lower Arrion, as well, and that’s a decision we need to have some control over. There are more peripheral consequences to this plot than you realise, Mother.”
“You sound as if you enjoy the politics of it all.”
“What can I say?” She shrugged. “I am my mother’s daughter.”
Marla had no answer for that. “Be careful.”
Kalan stared at her, a little offended by the warning. “There’s an assassin in your bed, Mother, and you’re telling me to be careful?”
“The irony is not lost on me, darling.”
“Well, I’ll promise to be careful, if you promise me you’ll do the same.”
Her mother seemed satisf
ied with that. “A fair exchange.”
“Then be careful, Mother.”
“I’m always careful, Kalan, that’s why we’re all still here.”
The Chief Librarian of the Sorcerers’ Collective library was a man named Dikorian Frye. At first glance, he seemed an odd choice for librarian. He was a big, muscular man who seemed more at home with physical labour than the intellectual pursuits of a scholar. But he was a cheerful soul and Kalan had always got along with him. He was also the only person in the Sorcerers’ Collective likely to know the whereabouts of the Lower Arrion, Bruno Sanval.
“Kalan Hawksword!” the big librarian exclaimed when he saw her enter through the large carved doors of the labyrinthine library. “I thought you were lost in the north of Pentamor somewhere, hiding from the plague!”
“I was in Krakandar, actually. I got back a few weeks ago,” she told him, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’m glad to see you survived the troubles, Dikorian.”
“Only because no self-respecting rat would be seen down here in the bowels of the Sorcerers’ Collective,” he chuckled. “What are you doing here, anyway? Didn’t I hear you swear at your graduation that you weren’t planning to open another book until you turned thirty? Or was it young Rorin who said that? Might have been him. He never was one for studying, much.”
“It was probably Rory,” she agreed with a laugh. “And it’s an oath I can vouch that he’s keeping religiously.”
“Then what can I do for you, my dear?”
“I was looking for the Lower Arrion. Is he down here?”
“When isn’t he down here?” Dikorian asked. “You’ll find him in the Harshini archives. Down one level, third door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
“Come see me before you go!” he called after her.
“I will,” she promised over her shoulder as she headed down the stairs that would take her into the lower levels of the vast Greenharbour library.
When Kalan first came to the Sorcerers’ Collective as an eleven-year-old, she’d expected the lower levels of the library to be a dank, dark place, lit by flickering torches, cluttered with several thousand years of accumulated dust, rotting books and fragile scrolls. To her surprise, it was quite the opposite. There was no dust to speak of, and certainly no damp. The information stored here was far too precious to allow it to be consumed by mould. To reduce the risk of fire, the passageways were well lit with glass-shielded oil lamps designed to discourage people bringing candles or torches down there; the corridors were wide and the small rooms that led off them clearly marked with their particular area of interest.
It was clean and well ventilated and never allowed to degenerate. The Harshini would come back someday, the Sorcerers’ Collective believed. When they returned, they would find their library just as they’d left it.
The room where the Lower Arrion was ensconced had a small brass plaque attached to the wall by the door, which announced Harshini: Xaphista to Sisters of the Blade. Kalan wasn’t surprised to find him here. Bruno’s obsession was to discover the location of Sanctuary (or even confirm that it really existed) and if he had to read every single word in the archives to find it, then he was quite prepared to do it.
She knocked on the door and then opened it. The old man was hunched over an ancient scroll, examining the faded text with a small magnifying glass.
“Bruno?”
“Hmmm?” he replied without looking up.
“It’s me. Kalan Hawksword.”
He spared her a brief glance and went back to examining his scroll. “Thought you died in the plague.”
“It would seem not.”
“Pass me that.”
“What?” she asked, looking around.
“That!” he told her impatiently, waving in the general direction of the end of the long table near where she stood. Kalan looked around and guessed he meant the small open notebook beside the inkwell. She picked it up and walked the length of the long bench to hand it to him.
He accepted it without looking up and began flicking through the pages until he found what he was looking for. Brushing his long white hair out of his face, he laid the notebook down next to the scroll and began moving the magnifying glass from one to the other, comparing the text of the scroll and the notebook, making strange little noises that sounded as if he’d discovered something momentous.
“Have you found it?” She wasn’t asking out of idle curiosity. Her whole plan hinged on Bruno not having reached his life’s goal to find the hidden Harshini settlement.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “The writings of Balankanan the Minstrel clearly refer to his intention to stay for some time in a place north of a small human village in the Sanctuary Mountains named Hayden, while he mastered the remaining Songs of Gimlorie, and he uses the word sanctuary on a number of occasions, but not in the titular context. Paranasien, some two hundred years later, however, says the Harshini who came to his aid took him back to …” he referred to his notes, “ … a white fortress of inestimable beauty hidden high in the mountains … which was much farther north, according to his diaries.”
“Who’s Paranasien?”
“A Medalonian villager trapped in the mountains after a logging accident. The Harshini found him in the forest and took him back to Sanctuary to heal him, so he claims. It’s supposed to have happened about three hundred years before the Sisters of the Blade came along.”
“Why supposed to have happened? Do you doubt his story?”
“There are other accounts dated around the same time which claim Paranasien was on the run from an irate father expecting him to wed the daughter he’d dishonoured just before he vanished into the mountains. By the time Paranasien returned to civilisation two years later without so much as a mark on him, the daughter was wed to another man …”
“And Paranasien was off the hook,” Kalan finished with a smile.
“Hence the doubt about the veracity of his account,” he agreed. “Thank you for the notebook, you can go now.”
“Actually, I came to see you.”
“Which you have done,” the old man pointed out, a little impatiently. “Now be a good girl and run along, Kalan. I’m busy.”
“I know where Sanctuary is.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you do.” He shrugged dismissively.
“I know someone who’s been there.”
Bruno looked up at her with a shake of his head. “You should stay out of taverns, Kalan. And not listen to the drunks who frequent them.”
“He gave me this.” She reached into her pocket and retrieved the tiny crystal cube suspended on a chain that Wrayan had given her to prove her story, holding it out for Bruno to see.
He glanced at the necklace without really seeing what it was, then he looked at it a second time. This time he cried out in shock and snatched it from her hand.
Anxiously, he studied it under the magnifying glass, making more of those funny little noises, before he looked up at her, clearly shocked. “By the gods, girl! Do you know what this is?”
“It’s a couremor, isn’t it?”
“A lover’s link,” Bruno breathed in awe as he held it up to the light to examine the tiny dragon magically etched inside the crystal. “The Harshini would infuse these with magic and leave them with their human lovers so they could call them. There hasn’t been one of these found in more than a hundred years. How did you get this?”
“My friend gave it to me.” And then she added with a smug little smile, “The one who knows where Sanctuary is.”
This time the Lower Arrion didn’t dismiss her claim quite so quickly. “Who is this friend? I must meet him.”
“I can probably arrange that”
“You must arrange it, girl!” he ordered excitedly. “At once, do you hear! At once! This is the most remarkable discovery since … since … the last … I don’t know … the last … remarkable discovery!”
Kalan smiled at his blubbering excitement. “I appre
ciate your enthusiasm, Bruno, but my friend is very shy. Not to mention he’s been sworn to secrecy by the Harshini.”
“If he’s been sworn to secrecy, why did he tell you about it?”
“He told me that he’d been there. Not where it is. He swore not to reveal the location of Sanctuary unless there was a dire need.”
“But … but …” Bruno stammered impatiently. “I’ve been searching for this all my life. Your friend’s need might not be dire, young lady, but mine certainly is!”
“There might be a way I could convince him to talk with you,” she said, thoughtfully. “But you’d probably have to do something first. Something to prove you can be trusted with such knowledge.”
“I’m the Lower Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective!” he barked at her, quite offended by the implication that he was anything less than totally trustworthy. “What makes you think I can’t be trusted?”
“It’s not you, Bruno. It’s the High Arrion who has my friend worried. She’s already tried to kill him once. He’s afraid if he comes forward now, you’ll reveal his secret and because she’s in league with Hythria’s enemies, by sharing anything with you, he’d be bringing about the ruin of the last of the Harshini.”
“What do you mean, she’s in league with Hythria’s enemies?” he demanded. “What nonsense are you babbling, girl?”
“She’s doing a deal with the Fardohnyans, Bruno, even as we speak. Alija is arranging for her son to be appointed governor by Hablet when he overruns us. I thought you knew all this?”
“I’ve never even heard of such a plot. How do you know of it?”
“I’m the High Prince’s niece. How do you think I know?”
Bruno looked on the verge of tears. “This cannot be.”
Kalan leaned forward and took the couremor from him, replacing it in her pocket. He reached for the necklace anxiously, as she took it from him, but Kalan was too quick for him. “I’ll tell my friend you can’t meet with him. I’m sorry.”
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