“I said—”
“I know what you said,” snarled Niklaus. “And I’m still thinking.”
Blood and damnation, how can I think if I’m constantly interrupted?
There was a deathly silence around the room. The other players, all wealthy merchants and nobles, likely thought he was a rude foreigner. And likely they were right.
He drained the remainder of his Thimble Rum and considered his meager pile of talents on the table in front of him. A few silvers and one gold, with a lone silver royal from the northeast of the continent that had somehow made its way into the pile. When he’d sat down, the gold talents had stacked high.
He glanced up at the other players in the smoke-filled room. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose at the scent of sweat and spirits and smoke, under which there ran an undercurrent of fishiness. That was right, this city was on the ocean, and he hadn’t even gone down to the harbor district yet. One seaport was like any other, he figured.
Niklaus’s eyes strayed to the merchant who’d won the most coins of the night so far: an overweight man with a pasty complexion and, judging by his clothes, obviously unmarried. No woman of repute would let her husband step out of the house wearing garishly colored silks that only emphasized the girth of his belly. A pointy-nosed merchant with dark brown hair cleared her throat, and Niklaus gave her a glare, which she returned for a moment before sniffing and looking away. Her eyes were lit with contempt. She had taken her fair share of his coins, too. Thought that made her better than him. But she didn’t know what he knew: that coins were ephemeral, and the only true power was what you wielded yourself.
There was no point playing for time with a bad hand. You had to know when to cut your losses, whatever the battle.
He threw his cards on the table and stood. Someone sniggered, but Niklaus couldn’t work out who it was. He leaned over and picked up his remaining coins slowly, one by one.
“We’ll see you tomorrow night, then?” the woman said. “If you can lay your hands on more talents . . .”
What was her name? Niklaus often couldn’t recall names, but faces he never forgot. Deanna? Dana? It was no matter. He’d still be alive long after she faded away. He’d watched a great deal of people age and die, while he stayed the same. Gods had their favorites, no matter what people said.
“Perhaps,” Niklaus replied. He picked up his sword belt from where it had been hanging on his chair, and buckled it about his waist. The motion seemed to calm him, to clear some of the fog in his head caused by the drink and the fumes of the herbs some of the other players smoked. His hands rested on the pommels of his swords, the familiar feel of his long and short blades comforting.
Without making polite farewells, Niklaus turned and left the room through the heavy curtains that draped the doorway. It was only as he entered the main room of the establishment that he realized how heavy the smoke in the room had been. No wonder his head was spinning. It wasn’t the Thimble Rum he’d imbibed. They probably did the same to any foreigners who came here to wager a bit of coin, leaving them befuddled and unable to make rational decisions, all in order to separate them from their hard-earned talents.
Niklaus chuckled. He bore them no ill will. It was an expensive lesson, but he now knew of a soporific herb he hadn’t encountered before. A particular precise concoction. And he would be prepared next time.
A long bar stood against one wall, behind which two bare-chested men and a woman in a low-cut shirt served drinks to a raucous crowd. The clamor was loud enough to cover someone screaming murder and it grated on him more than losing at cards. Coin he didn’t care about.
Niklaus weaved between tables and headed outside into the cold night. He staggered a few steps before leaning against a brick wall, breathing deeply of the slightly salty air. Down the street someone coughed and hawked, while a babe’s faint crying began but was quickly soothed. He fumbled in a pocket for a vial filled with a sickly sweet brown liquid and tossed it back in one gulp. The general antidote should clear his head soon. After almost dying once from a poisoned dagger in the hands of a notorious assassin from the islands of Ak-Settur, he was never without a dose.
A pale light came from the east, and Niklaus realized dawn was almost upon the city. Another night wasted, wondering when he’d be used, praying he’d be up to the task, never knowing if his goddess would finally demand of him a thing for which he was not prepared. He hoped that with every passing day, with every sharpened skill, such a possibility grew less likely.
Early morning workers hurried along the street, paying him no mind. To them he was another drunken noble or merchant who’d been up all night and who did little to earn whatever coins he’d wasted during his revelry. A horse pulling a cart stacked high with potatoes and turnips trundled past, on its way to a market no doubt. From somewhere the scent of freshly baked bread wafted over him, causing his stomach to rumble. Niklaus decided to follow the cart. An early market meant food, and he couldn’t remember if he’d eaten last night. His memory was always patchy, but if he was hungry then he needed sustenance.
The cart wheeled along the street for a few blocks before turning into a narrow lane. In the distance, a tower rose high above the city. He recalled having asked a few people about it, but they’d said it was just another temple to a failing god.
A dozen yards before the intersection, Niklaus passed a young girl sitting atop a barrel, cradling a shoddily made basket filled with small loaves topped by speckled chunks of dried fish. A typical breakfast food in the city, Niklaus thought they were horrible. Who ate dried fish so early in the morning? It was no wonder the populous was so ill-tempered.
A carriage pulled by two dappled horses approached the crossroads. It was traveling fast, as if whoever was inside was late for an appointment that their life depended on. The driver stood from his seat, knees bending as he swayed to the carriage’s movements, and he flicked a long thin whip across the horses’ rumps.
As it rushed past, Niklaus saw the curtains weren’t drawn, and he caught a glimpse of a worried-looking pale-faced man with long brown hair tied at the nape of his neck.
The world seemed to slow, and darkness encircled Niklaus’s vision until only the man in the carriage was left in his focus. A sound like the flap of great wings reached his ears, along with the scent of leather and musk and spices. His mind swam as his goddess’s heady presence inflamed him. Blood pumped to Niklaus’s face and groin.
Sylva Kalisia. She’s here. Her lips scorched the flesh of his ear, and her hot breath brushed his skin.
“Him,” she whispered.
Niklaus couldn’t stop himself: he reached for her. But she was already gone, disappearing into the shadows like water soaking into parched earth.
His heart ached in his chest. He stumbled.
Time accelerated. The target’s face disappeared as the carriage flashed past along the cobbled street. Niklaus glanced toward the lightening sky, saw nothing, then broke into a sprint behind the carriage. He snatched a loaf from the girl on the barrel and dropped his last remaining gold talent at her feet.
He didn’t have much time, or the carriage would pull away and be lost in the streets.
Blood and damnation, I’m going to lose it.
He pumped his legs harder, and as he caught up he leaped, a hand snagging a handle on the back of the carriage, his feet scrabbling for purchase on a footrest. The toes of one boot scraped along the cobbles before he pulled himself up onto the small metal platform designed to be a coachman’s stand.
Niklaus glanced behind to see the girl atop the barrel staring at him. He waved and she flashed him a quick smile, one hand shoving the only gold coin she’d likely ever see into the grubby folds of her clothes.
It would do her more good than him. And now his goddess had visited him, however fleetingly, his spirits were improved a hundredfold. Niklaus took a bite of the loaf, ignoring the fishy taste.
Now all he had to do was kill someone.
~ ~ ~
&n
bsp; The pale-faced man in the carriage was a sorcerer. That much Niklaus had been able to determine. Not because of anything he wore or anything he’d done, but from the mere fact that along their harried, bumpy journey through the gray streets of the city, a few men and women had spat and made superstitious warding signs as the carriage passed. Completely useless precautions, of course, but most people were fools.
Their pace slowed as they traveled alongside a mortared stone wall, and Niklaus risked a peek around the side of the carriage. They were headed toward a large wrought-iron gate, and he didn’t think he’d escape notice if there were guards stationed inside. His head had cleared during their journey, though it still remained slightly fuzzy and his mouth felt dry.
He let go and dropped to the ground, making sure to synchronize his gait to the speed of the carriage so he didn’t topple to the stones. He slowed his course until the carriage pulled away, then swerved to the other side of the street, which consisted of freshly whitewashed wooden buildings. A number sported signs swinging above doorways, denoting a jeweler, an herbalist, and a purveyor of fine alcoholic beverages.
As he predicted, the carriage stopped at the gates, which opened, before continuing inside. Niklaus could see expansive gardens to either side of a gravel road leading to a white-walled mansion.
Three street urchins wheeling barrows filled with night soil trudged past. Each barrow dribbled a dark liquid that marked their passage and left a fetid stench.
“You there,” Niklaus said to the closest, a teenage boy with a wonky eye that looked left instead of straight ahead.
“What do you want? I know a place where you can get a hot breakfast and a hot woman, if you get my—”
Niklaus flicked him a silver talent then instantly regretted it. The boy was so eager for the coin he dropped his barrow, and night soil spilled across the street. His fellows just laughed at him and kept going. The coin, which he’d managed to snatch out of the air, disappeared into a pocket. The boy scowled at Niklaus, then began using a small metal shovel, which had been attached to the side of his barrow, to begin scooping.
“Who lives over there?” Niklaus said, pointing.
“A damned sorcerer, that’s who.” The boy used his spare hand to help scrape up the mess, and Niklaus grimaced in distaste.
Good. There had been a chance the man was visiting someone instead of coming home, which would have meant Niklaus waiting around before following him somewhere else.
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. Ask one of the guards. All we know is he’s a sorcerer. And that’s enough for us.”
He wouldn’t get much information out of questioning commoners like this lad. The boy was right: he needed to ask people who’d know more than next to nothing.
Niklaus jerked his head down the street. “Thank you, that’s all I need.”
“Maybe the shopkeepers’ll know more.” The boy pointed out some nearby stores. “The sorcerer buys things there sometimes, so I heard.” He lifted his barrow and trotted away.
A short while later and the last of his coins lighter, Niklaus had information from a couple of shopkeepers that the sorcerer’s name was Rakine Johannis, a counselor to the Lord Protector Damjan, ruler of Riem. He was a master at the Arcanum University and a widower whose wife had died under suspicious circumstances a few years ago. Suspicious due to the fact that one of the servants had sworn she’d been violently killed late one night, before the servant himself had been found floating facedown in the harbor shortly afterward. The official cause of the wife’s death was lung fever brought on by a damp winter.
Niklaus didn’t know what Rakine was about or why he’d been chosen to die, and he didn’t really care. What he needed to do was please his goddess. His pact with her demanded no less, though the details of what he’d agreed to had become fuzzy over the years. What he did know was that she was his life, his soul, and one day they would be together.
And woe betide anyone who had the ill fortune to come between him and that destiny.
~ ~ ~
“One sorcerer,” read Niklaus, “is worth a thousand warriors. Or so General Vael repeats to his advisors. They mutter among themselves, but none of them says a word. I know he speaks true, but then it depends on the warriors, does it not? The general puts too great a faith in his sorcerers and not enough in his troops, who grow uneasy. Perhaps I am meant to assassinate him, or perhaps kill his advisors, who themselves are beginning to show signs of disquiet. The goddess will show me the way, but it has been months already, serving as bodyguard to the general, and there has been no sign from her.”
Niklaus gingerly closed the worn book, taking care with the brittle pages. It was his handwriting and his thoughts, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember writing the words, or living the experience. There were gaps in his memory, which he put down to how long he’d served the Lady Sylva Kalisia. There was only so much you could remember. He ran his fingers along the leather spine of the journal before sighing and placing it atop the others inside his satchel. He’d have to make a copy of this one soon. Perhaps that was why they were all in his handwriting. He’d copied them all at one time or another. The problem was, he couldn’t remember doing so.
He assumed what was in his journals must be true, if he wrote them, but they had the quality of someone else’s dreams.
~ ~ ~
Built from dark gray-flecked stone, the Church of Sylva Kalisia in Riem looked much like any other Niklaus had seen. Though its entrance doors were wide open, inside was dark and dingy, deliberately so. He would sooner avoid the place if he could, but he was a part of the faith, and with that came certain unavoidable responsibilities. Plus, if he ever needed anything from the priestesses, then he would be wise to keep on their good side.
If they had one.
He ascended the wide steps, and a raven flew past, pursuing an insect that twisted and turned in its flight, attempting to escape the inevitable. Niklaus paused, eyes on the raven, wondering if it signified something. He was always looking for her signs.
But his encounters with the goddess had so far been ephemeral. Every time she visited him in his dreams, his desire to see her in the flesh, to join with her, became stronger.
Four guards stationed on either side of the doors watched him without emotion. No doubt they saw many men hesitate before entering, or turn and scurry away. The Church of Sylva Kalisia was mainly for women, and with the goddess’s dominion over the moons and pain and suffering, she wasn’t exactly a mainstream deity. But enough worshiped her that the faith hadn’t yet disappeared. Perhaps it was her fierce intelligence people admired, or her ruthless cunning?
Inside, the church was a vast, open space. The only light was from the open doors and clerestory windows set just below the ceiling around the room. Each of the windows was barred by a screen of decorative wrought iron. As with all of her churches, human-sized statues lined the walls. Carved from stone and wood, or cast from bronze and other metals, they depicted naked men and women in a variety of poses. The ones that caught Niklaus’s attention, as always, were the statues running nails down their bare skin, scoring themselves and drawing blood.
This church was different, though: there were cobwebs in the corners and dirt underfoot, tracked in by worshipers. A marked difference to the cleanliness he usually encountered. And the stepped offering pyramid in the center of the room was crafted from wood, not stone. At twice his height, each level was filled with various offerings to the goddess: dried fruit and meats from the poorer worshipers, coins and valuables from the wealthy. But the coins were mostly copper, and the jewelry was cheap. It seemed this church had come upon lean times.
A few novices in rough-spun woolen robes, all young girls, swept the floor and dusted the statues. Worshipers knelt and sat around the offering steps, chanting prayers and asking for the goddess knew what. Likely a curse on a neighbor for some imagined slight, or for their daughter to find a good husband.
He strolled over
to a corner, intending to sit and wait, but saw it contained a pile of dusty bones as high as his knees. Niklaus had visited many of the Lady’s churches, and this was the first time he had seen such a thing. Finding a less dusty spot against a wall close by, he sat between two of the statues. He adjusted his sheathed swords until he was comfortable.
No one bothered him for a while. No novice asked him his business. No priestess came to beg an offering. They knew he was there. They knew what he was, even though he’d never visited the church previously. Their matriarch would have been told, and she’d have relayed word down to her priestesses.
Eventually, an elderly priestess clad in a black dress and silver belt approached. Hawk-nosed, she wasn’t as old as she at first seemed. Deep crow’s-feet fanned from the corners of her eyes, which were clear and sharp. As Niklaus would expect from someone who had risen to the position of matriarch.
She stopped a few paces from Niklaus and bowed low. When she did, one of the novices gasped, and they all stopped to stare.
“I’m Matriarch Yolandi,” the woman said.
As with every other matriarch or high priestess Niklaus had met, her voice was raspy, as if she’d damaged her throat and the wound had scarred. Curiously, he’d once heard a woman outside of the church who’d sounded the same. She’d been tortured for weeks and her voice had been permanently torn from her constant screams.
“I was told you were here in Riem,” she continued. “A few weeks ago, in fact. Why didn’t you come here sooner?”
Uncowed, Niklaus met her gaze and let her comment slide. She was the same as all the other priestesses: they were in awe of him yet hated the fact he wasn’t theirs to control. He answered only to the goddess. That didn’t stop them from trying to influence or intimidate him though.
Niklaus rose to his feet, shrugging his shoulders to loosen them. “I serve the Lady, not the Church.”
“They are one and the same.”
“Not to me.”
Tower Of The Forgotten Page 2