“How is Suri?” Andrik asked. Up close, he looked - and sounded - exhausted.
“She’ll recover,” I replied. My voice was quiet in the closeness of the room, which was dark except for the fire blazing in the hearth. “I came to give a report on what happened at Kobayaz.”
“We know what happened. The man had a device that killed Toth, obliterated one of the greatest sages of my kingdom, twenty soldiers and ten other guests, including Lady Andreas Lustival, a beloved opera singer who has set the trends for the ladies of the court for going on fifteen years now. Then their corpses amalgamated into some revolting beast which you, Suri and your dragon slew while my men ran away like little girls.” Andrik scowled, and took a deep swallow of wine. “Did I miss anything?”
“I tried to warn your men that something was going to happen,” I said. “There was a hostile agent at the Auction House. She called herself ‘Red’.”
“‘Red’? What did she look like?”
“Tall, extremely thin, dressed all in red, as the name implies. I think she came in as one of the mummers.”
“I don’t recall seeing her. Was she human?”
I shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. Definitely an odd one, though.”
“And who did you warn?”
“Ur Kirov and the Commander of the garrison,” I replied. “They told me that every precaution was in place.”
“It was. But none of us thought that someone would be so desperate to sabotage this event that they would do something this extreme.” Andrik shook his head, and had another drink.
“There was another thing,” I said, holding out the ring. “My dragon found this in the remains of the monster.”
Andrik frowned as he took the ring and held it up to the fire, turning it around so that he could see the details.
“It’s a syndicate ring worn by members of the Nightstalkers.” I parroted back what Suri had told me about it. “The head of the Syndicate calls themselves-”
“The King of Cats,” Andrik said quietly. “Yes... I know.”
He handed the ring back to me, and sighed, gazing off into the flames. “Garen?”
“Yes, sire?”
“You may leave us.” Andrik waved his hand back toward the door.
The Kingsguard stood, armor rattling. “Your Majesty?”
“I will not say it again. Leave.”
The older man glanced between us, then picked up his shield and clanked his way over to the door. He let himself outside, and when it closed, Andrik waved toward it again.
“Go and stuff some wax in the keyhole, Tuun,” he said. “I do not want anyone eavesdropping.”
I shrugged, and did just that, warming up a candle and using the soft wax to plug up the small hole. When I came back, Andrik sat up in his chair and reached for the bottle on the table beside him. “You know that I am the younger of two brothers, do you not?”
“I have heard that His Majesty lost a brother some years ago,” I replied carefully.
“Don’t be coy.” Andrik sloshed more wine into his glass. “This is my castle, Hector. I know full well what kind of gossip gets shared around here. One of the oldest and juiciest pieces of gossip involves Ignas and what happened to him. Everyone knows the reason why the Corvinus Throne warms my behind instead of my brother’s bony arse. Sit down. Do you want a drink?”
“Sure.” Refusing Andrik while he was tipsy and brooding seemed like a bad idea, so I got a second glass and a chair and pulled it up next to him.
“Discipline.” Andrik shook his head he poured my wine. “That was Ignas’ favorite word. ‘A man is nothing if he has not built himself on a foundation of self-discipline and temperance’. He used to say that to me whenever he thought I was hunting or whoring too much. Ignas was very much our father’s son.”
“Okay.” I bought the drink to my lips, but didn’t touch any of it.
“Well, what is it they say about moral men?” Andrik snorted, swirling the wine in his glass. “I told you about the properties of Corvinus Rubies, and that my dynasty is the only one who can use them to imprint memories. Well, Ignas had always been known for his love of the arts, and he kept the company of several notable artists in court, including this one Meewfolk dancer. I can’t remember his name… Rhan’ah or something. The short version of a long tale is that my pious, terribly disciplined brother was not only been screwing this Meewfolk male, but recording his experiences onto a ruby so that he might replay and relive his bestiality over and over.”
I winced.
“Father found the stone,” Andrik continued. “And that was that. He marched into the lunchtime banquet, tore Ignas’ coronet off, and screamed at him to pack his bags. I’d never seen a man become so furious in all my life. Ignas broke down and begged forgiveness, but how could he be forgiven for such a thing? He was the Crown Prince, and he was already engaged to Princess Ahrem, the flower of the Jeun Empire. That same night, my brother committed suicide.”
I nodded, taking a moment to digest what he’d said. “How’d he kill himself?”
Andrik snorted, sinking down into his chair. “He walked into the sacred furnace at the heart of the Keep, the one which warms the ground and walls. Baked himself into charcoal. That was three years ago to the day.”
“You think he’s alive?”
“They pulled the remains out of the furnace,” Andrik said. “But the handy thing about self-immolation is that it makes the dead harder to identify. When I went to view him, the first thing I thought to myself was ‘that can’t be my brother’. Ignas was tall and lanky. This man was too short and broad. The attending priest said that was because the body shrinks and contracts while burning, but… I remain skeptical.”
“Did you tell your father?”
“Of course, but he didn’t want to hear it. The old man died of grief not long after. He’d already lost Mother when I was a babe, and now this.” Andrik shook his head, looking down at the ground between his feet. “And here I am, stuck with a crown I never wanted, faced by the need to marry and produce heirs well before I was ready... We have some manner of monstrosity threatening us in the East, and now we have Ilia baying at our doors – no fault of yours, I assure you. The alliance with Jeun collapsed with Ignas’ death.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I motioned to him, the untouched glass of wine in the other.
“Because I don’t think Ignas is dead,” Andrik replied. He jabbed a finger toward the ring. “A year ago, I started hearing this name, the ‘King of Cats’. He is the leader of one of the largest underground gladiatorial circuits north of Dakhdir. That vice is illegal, but there is a great demand for bloodsports. Vlachia, Dakhdir, Shalash, and even Meewhome partake of underground fighting events. The syndicates can be useful to a monarch, and so most savvy nations play host to these brigands under the terms of a gentleman’s agreement.”
In other words, you tolerate organized crime because the Dons give you a cut of their profits. I kept that observation to myself.
“I was assured by my contacts that the Nightstalkers were nothing but a small gang of pit fighters. Then there was a change in leadership, and suddenly, the Nightstalkers are competing with the biggest syndicate in Vlachia, the Rose Knives.” Andrik’s brow creased. “I tried to learn about this King of Cats, but we found nothing. I sent out word that I was interested in a meeting. When that failed, I tried an assassin. My man’s head and spine were returned to the Keep and laid out on my Chancellor’s bed. Meewfolk assassins are fond of that display.”
I struggled not to grin. “Maybe they thought the Chancellor was hungry.”
Andrik shot me a dark look. “Do you think this is funny?”
“No, sir.” I shook my head. “You think the King of Cats is Ignas?”
“Well, there are two things that occurred to me about the Nightstalkers,” Andrik replied, looking back to the fire. “They’re supposedly very wealthy now. And above all, they’re terribly disciplined. Almost like a small army, you could say.”
“Yes, sir.” But even as the old ‘yes sir-no sir’ speech fell from my lips, I was thinking of what Andrik might be leaving out of his story. Like I’d told Suri, I had a problem with authority.
“Regardless of whether or not the King of Cats is my not-so-immolated brother, the fact remains that he has now been implicated in the murder of my citizens. He must be brought to justice.” Andrik drained his glass and set it aside. “It’s good that you came alone, actually. I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh?” I set my untouched glass down as well.
“Yes. You are a servant of Matir, are you not? Or, what do you call him in your land? Burna?”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘servant’. More like ‘franchisee’.”
The Volod shrugged. “Regardless, you serve his tenets and believe in his message. Therefore, I invoke the Kara Bukat-talom.”
I frowned. The words were Tuun - they meant ‘Moon Pact’, and with them came a wash of racial knowledge. The Kara Bukat-talom was a pact of secrecy made under oath before Burna, used to discuss clandestine matters. Breaking your word after swearing one made you a pariah and gave the aggrieved party the freedom to avenge themselves in any way, and if they informed the faithful of Matir that you’d broken your word, they’d join in the hunt. I knew, somehow, that this wasn’t just a ‘he said, she said’ thing, but a status mark, like the King’s Mark that told the guards of Taltos that I worked for Andrik.
“Okay.” I bowed my head, rubbing the Mark of Matir with my other hand, and summoned the words for the oath out of my Tuun racial memory. “Bukat Talom den Kanbuchen.”
“Good.” Andrik nodded. “Under the restrictions of the oath, I will pay you another five thousand olbia if you bring me the head and one hand of the King of Cats. If it is Ignas... I will add another five thousand.”
That hardly surprised me. As soon as he’d invoked a sacred oath under the God of Darkness, I knew he’d been about to discuss something like this. I made a show of considering it, then shook my head.
“Your Majesty, please hear me out,” I said. “You and I share some things in common, even though you’re a noble and I’m not. I’m a younger son from a strict family with an older brother. His name was Steve.”
“Odd name for a Tuun.”
“Yeah.” I brushed it off. “Me and Steve were polar opposites. He was tall and handsome. I had short legs and bad skin. He was smart, and good at everything he did, and I was dumb and had trouble concentrating at school. My parents were always really proud of him, and always ashamed of me. And I lived up to their shame, too. I did stupid shit... drugs and bullying and dangerous riding. But that wasn’t my natural state, you know? When we were kids, we loved each other to death. We shared a lot of the same interests and sense of humor. As we got older, he began to believe what our parents said about me. He started to look down on me, like I was some lost puppy that just needed a firm, guiding hand to set me on the path of sensible financial decisions and good grades. We hated each other.”
Andrik’s expression of sly skepticism faded as I spoke. He looked down. “Yes. It was the same with Ignas and I. We were very close as children… not so much as adults.”
“Yeah. Well, both of us got sick,” I continued. “Sick enough we were going to die. And you know what his first thought was? Me. We hadn’t spoken in five years after I disowned my family in a huge, nasty fight. But when we were dying, his first thought was to find a way to help me. And he did. So if the King of Cats really is your brother... I’m just saying to give him a chance. Thanks to Steve, I’ve been able to do more with my life in the last month than I did in the previous twenty-six years. If he was alive, I think he’d be proud of me. And your brother? If he sees that you’ve been a good, wise, stable king, maybe you can talk him around. You don’t have to give to him except your time and some empathy, you know what I’m saying?”
The Volod nodded. Then, to my surprise, he pulled a silk handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of his eyes.
“My goodness,” he said. “That certainly touched something. I will take your heartfelt words to bed with me and think on them, you can be sure of that.
I nodded, and almost reached out to clap him on the shoulder before I realized that was probably not a good idea. “In any case, I will be looking into the King of Cats angle. If he turns out to be some random asshole, I’ll see what I can do about removing him from play - assuming he’s guilty.”
“Of course. However, speaking of that, you ought to turn in yourself. Who knows what the dawn shall bring.” Andrik held a finger to his nose as he sniffed, then stood without looking back at me.
“I need to do some training first,” I said. “Karalti and I just started flying together.”
“Is that so? Well, the parade ground is yours to use,” he replied. “I can mark it on your map, if you require.”
“Sure.” I nodded.
Andrik concentrated for a moment, and sure enough, the location icon appeared.
“Enjoy your evening,” he said. “Was there anything else?”
I was already edging away when he asked, and suddenly remembered something: the ‘quest’ I’d gotten to learn about the Ravensblood Ruby.
“Yeah, actually. One thing.” I turned back. “What can you tell me about the Ravensblood Ruby? Like... what makes it so special?”
The Volod regarded me shrewdly. Then he snorted.
“It is nothing more or less than the heart of Taltos, and perhaps all of Vlachia,” he replied. “Despite its grandiose name, it is not a very large stone... perhaps the size of my thumb. It is an exceptional Corvinus Ruby. Since we found it some five hundred years ago, Vlachia has never fallen to any of its enemies. We have fended off barbarian hordes, the Jeun Empire, Dakhdir. Perhaps more mysteriously, it is said to contain the memories of the dragons themselves, including dragons who travelled here, to Vlachia. Most of the Church’s lore of dragonkind was extrapolated from a written interview with my grandfather about the contents of the stone. He did not pass down the Words to activate what he saw, unfortunately.”
“Huh.” I scratched my stubbly jaw. “I wonder why it is that only your family can use these stones?”
“They say we are descended from the demigod Taltos, for whom this city is named. He was the son of Khors and a human woman.” He smiled, nodding again. “It gives us some native resistance to magic, as well as... a few other quirks and features. Now, I really must be off to bed. Enjoy your training.”
I bowed from the waist. “Enjoy your sleep, Your Majesty. I’ll definitely be thinking about what you said.”
“As will I.” And with that, he swept out of the room.
Chapter 33
I walked from the Great Hall to the parade ground in the bitter wind, spear in hand. I’d stripped my gear down to the bare minimum, leaving the rest in our suite. I had my two primary weapons - the Spear of Nine Spheres and the Alpha Rod - some healing potions, our cash, and essential quest items that I either couldn’t unequip or didn’t want to.
“Karalti,” I called out to her, mind to mind. “It’s time to come backand talk, Tidbit. I know you know where I am.”
For a couple minutes, all I heard was telepathic grumbling. I kept my ears pricked and my eyes keen, waiting, and was about to message her again when I saw a familiar, winged shadow cut in front of the moon and then vanish again.
Karalti slowly wheeled around in a crescent, sweeping great clouds of dust from the smooth stone of the drilling yard as she came to land. She dropped into a series of neat hopping steps, tucking her wings in against her sides. Her eyes gleamed brightly in the golden light that Erruku cast over Archemi.
“You alright?” I asked aloud.
Karalti turned her head, grunting and huffing.
“You need to use your mouth-words, girl.” I set the end of my spear on the ground, leaning on it.
“Is... Suri okay?” she asked, after a short pause.
“Yeah. She’s going to make it. She’s tough.
”
The dragon’s nostrils flared and then sealed as she snorted, and then she turned her muzzle back toward me.
“Look, I’m sorry I split my attention between you and her at the party,” I said. “But at the same time, you have to meet me halfway. You need to really believe me when I say that you’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, Karalti, and that’s never going to change. Neither is the fact that I’m human, and you’re a dragon. It doesn’t matter how we feel about it - that’s the truth. We’re going to have a different kind of relationship than I would with another human.”
The voice of doubt in the back of my mind tried to remind me that Karalti wasn’t real, that she was some combination of human personalities, fictionalized into a creature that had never existed. But I was watching a very real internal struggle play out before me. Karalti paced on the spot, chomping her jaws together as she wrestled with my words and herself.
I smiled at her, and knelt down to lay the spear down. Then I stood up and held my arms out.
Karalti turned her snout from side to side, looking at me with one eye, then the other. She took one step toward me, and then she spread her own arms, mantled her wings, and bobbed her head quickly. She drew one leg up, and then dropped into a sweeping bow - a tonne of weight perfectly balanced on three toes.
“You dance back,” she grumped.
Grinning, I bowed as well, and as she plunged and reared her head, I did my best to mirror her, dancing slowly to the left as she set the pace to the right. As we moved, she came closer, winding in until I could wrap my arm around her neck and grip her arm with the other hand, my face buried against her wingshoulder.
“I’m jealous. I know it’s bad.” Karalti ducked her head, and crooned low in her throat as we embraced. “My Words are Words of pride, because pride is part of Darkness... pride and jealousy. I don’t like that you like Suri, but I like her, and I... like you.”
“Yeah.” I petted her scaly forearm. “I know. And you’ll be okay, okay? So will we.”
“Yeah.” Karalti hung her head.
Trial by Fire: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (Archemi Online Chronicles Book 2) Page 29