"Oh, I knew it was doomed. Or maybe I didn't. Stranger things have been known to happen in Cheliax; it is a country made for strange allegiances. Perhaps I wanted so badly to believe that I even convinced myself we could be one of them. But we weren't.
"I don't know why he decided to break into my private belongings. I suspect his father was behind it; he wanted Ederras to get rid of me and start getting babies on some mousy little noble-born wife. But it might have been his own idea. Anyway, he had one of his friends in the rebellion force the locks on my closets.
"They found everything." She paused, and took a breath; Isiem could almost see the self-mocking smile curl upon her lips. "My books, my tools, my recorded observations of all his friends' treasons. I had never reported any of it—I loved him too much for that—but he didn't ask. Didn't care, I imagine. The revelation of my nature was damning enough.
"That night he came to me in armor again, but this time he did not take it off. He told me that he knew what I was, what I had done, and that justice demanded my death.
"I said nothing. I did nothing. I was too devastated to defend myself. And I think because of that, he could not bring himself to finish it. Oh, he tried. But Ederras was a truly righteous man, and it wasn't in him to kill an unarmed woman, even if that woman was me. So he held back from delivering the last blow." Velenne made her odd little laugh again. She ducked her head, nestling her cheek against Isiem's side, as if even in the darkness she wanted to hide whatever was on her face. But she did not stop.
"He left me there, bleeding on the brink of death. I never saw him again. I suppose he married the faithful little wife his father wanted, or went off to throw himself against demons in Mendev. Perhaps both. For my part, I did my duty and turned in my observations. The Hellknights took his friends, and my work was done in Westcrown. That was the end of it."
"Why are you telling me this?" Isiem asked. It was an effort to force the question past the constriction in his chest.
"You're supposed to be spying." She brushed a kiss against his neck, plainly aware of his torment and just as plainly amused by it. "Don't forget it. Love only gets in the way."
∗ ∗ ∗
He never reported her sedition.
He never reported anything, although there was much about their visitor that would have interested the Umbral Court. Velenne's candor was breathtaking, and although Isiem wondered how much of it was genuine unconcern and how much was meant to bait him, the answer almost didn't matter. It was enthralling. No one dared think such things in Nidal, let alone say them.
Velenne said anything she wanted. And although Isiem never did, bit by bit he found himself silently sharing her thoughts. About fear, and enslavement, and the crushing terror of being held to someone else's bargain. About freedom.
"I want to go to Cheliax," he told her one night as they lay entangled in sheets and sweat. He hadn't intended to say it; the words had slipped out on their own. The idea of running away had been more and more in his mind lately, although Isiem tried to tell himself it was only an idle fancy. There was no real future for him with Velenne, and no chance of escaping Nidal.
But he couldn't quite crush that last ember of hope, and when he heard what he'd said, he froze, wondering how the diabolist would react.
"What?" She propped herself up on an elbow, looking down on him with a mixture of concern and merriment. Her hair fell across her shoulders in loose tangles.
He took a breath and plunged ahead, committing himself to the plea. "You won't stay in Nidal forever. Take me with you when you go."
Her eyes widened. Then she laughed, breathily and almost soundlessly, for a very long time. Sitting up, Velenne gestured to a black-thorned candelabra resting on her vanity. A spark ignited the nearest of the candles, then jumped up to the next and the one after, drawing an arc of fire in its wake. The flickering flames seemed to echo the diabolist's laughter. "You want me to help you run away."
"Yes."
"Do you have any idea what happens to runaway slaves?"
"If they're caught," Isiem said with more bravado than he felt. "I won't be."
"In Egorian? You would be. There are some who can melt into cities and vanish. You are not among them. Besides, it's too predictable that you would run away with me. I would be questioned, and I would give you up. Immediately. The only way to avoid it would be for me to run as well, and I have no interest in that. I am quite attached to my position."
The air seemed to have fled from the room. Isiem cast his eyes downward, feeling unutterably foolish. "I see."
"No, you don't. You want to be free?"
"Yes."
"You should." Velenne leaned in, tracing her nails across his shoulders. "I've been pushing you toward it from the beginning. But to realize that desire, you must have a plan. A real plan, not a child's belief that some benevolent fairy will sweep you away by magic. And it will have to be of your own doing, or with the aid of expendables, because anyone you enlist to help you is likely to be destroyed—either by your pursuers, or by yourself, to cover your tracks."
"On my own, then."
She gave him a brief, tight smile and pulled away. Disapproving, Isiem thought, that he was not more ruthless. "On your own. As you will. You should stay away from cities: you have none of the skills needed to hide in crowds or survive among strangers. The wilderness will serve you better. Few there will recognize you for what you are, and fewer will care."
"The Uskwood is full of eyes. I can't hide there."
"I said the wilderness. Not Zon-Kuthon's garden of nightmares. Western Cheliax is filled with godsforsaken wastelands where traitors and dissidents hide."
Isiem was dubious. "And how do I get there?"
"Oh, that part's very simple. You persuade the Black Triune to send you."
Book Two: People
Prologue
Parsellon Alterras, Provisional Governor of Devil's Perch by the grace of Her Infernal Majestrix Queen Abrogail II, poured himself another glass of brandy, swirled the amber liquid while staring at it with every appearance of thoughtfulness, and wondered for the ten-thousandth time why his uncle couldn't have purchased a better office for him. This arid spit of striped red rock lacked any semblance of prestige. Its people were a fractious and independent lot, as stubborn as the rocks they called home—and as poor. Governing Devil's Perch had yet to line his pockets with anything but dust; all this place had ever given him was an overabundance of headaches.
One of those headaches was babbling at him right now.
Parsellon pinched the bridge of his nose and eyed the man over the brim of his brandy glass. He'd already forgotten the fellow's name. Horvus? Sorlos? Some unshaven miner who drank too much and bathed too little and spent his days trying to scratch crumbs of gold from the unforgiving spires of Devil's Perch.
When he'd first come to this godsforsaken place, Parsellon had believed that the gold mines might make his ten-year term as governor worthwhile. True, the posting was remote, and the newly established town of Blackridge—what was intended to eventually pass for the provincial capital—hopelessly dull. But if there had been gold here, he would have done his duty to Imperial Cheliax faithfully and without complaint, and then retired to Egorian to enjoy his well-earned spoils.
There was no gold. If there had ever been gold in Devil's Perch, which Parsellon heartily doubted, it had all been mined out long before he arrived. All that remained were rumors and stories and desperate idiots chasing them through the canyons.
Well, the sooner he got rid of this idiot, the sooner he could enjoy his brandy without having it spoiled by the man's odor. "Remind me again what you wanted?"
"A claim deed for a parcel around Crackspike," the man said. He fumbled a greasy piece of leather from his back pocket and held it out to the governor.
Parsellon glanced at it long enough to ascertain that it held a crudely rendered map and waved the ill-smelling thing away. "A claim deed, you say?" That could be worthwhile. In order for Imp
erial Cheliax to recognize a miner's claim on a previously unstaked piece of land, the miner had to formally file a request for it and be granted a deed. The filing fees on such deeds were not formalized. In theory, this was because the value and size of parcels varied, so a uniform fee would have been unfair. In practice, it was an open invitation to bribery. The Provisional Governor could set his fees as high or as low as he pleased—which would have been very useful, if anyone ever bothered paying them.
In fact, as Parsellon had learned soon after coming to Blackridge, hardly anyone did. The pitiful excuse for a town he governed had only the barest semblance of a militia, so there was no real enforcement for such deeds. Even more damaging, there was no reason for anyone to want or need a legal claim, because all the land in Devil's Perch was worthless. No one could farm it, livestock starved and died on it, and there was nothing but sorrow to be mined.
But if this idiot wanted a claim deed, who was he to refuse? Provided the man could pay the filing fees. "These things can be expensive, you realize," Parsellon said, stroking the scarlet velvet stole of his office. He'd had it trimmed with a band of gold brocade: a bit of an overstep, since only paracounts and higher were accorded gold in the courts of Cheliax, but one he judged unlikely to hurt him. These louts didn't know any better, and no Egorian aristocrat would be setting foot in Devil's Perch anytime soon.
He hadn't offered his guest any brandy. The miner—Sorvus, that was his name—stared at the governor's drink with open longing before shaking himself and returning to the matter at hand. "I can pay."
"That's a large parcel you're requesting." Parsellon glanced at the charcoal-sketched map. "It will have to be surveyed, checked for prior claims, registered before Her Infernal Majestrix's clerks in Egorian ..."
"How much?" the miner interrupted.
The Provisional Governor decided to overlook the man's impertinence. If he felt entitled to be so rude, he was clearly an eager mark. "Fifty golden sails," he decided aloud. An impossible sum, unless the miner really had struck something worthwhile in those rocks.
"Here." Sorvus dug a callused hand into a dirty pocket and came up with a handful of dingy gray rocks, which he spilled over the top of the governor's desk. He untied a filthy sack from his belt and tossed that alongside them. The sack's mouth sagged open, revealing grains of blue-black dirt. "Weigh it."
"You can't pay the fee in rocks," Parsellon said, annoyed.
The miner squinted at him. He unhooked the horn-handled knife at his hip and scratched it along a particularly wriggly-looking rock, one shaped like a spoonful of batter dropped into hot oil. A shining line of white followed the dull blade's score.
Silver.
That was why none of the hedge charms to find gold in Devil's Perch had ever worked. There was no gold in those rocks. The fortune of the lawless west was silver.
Parsellon's fingers twitched. He knotted them tightly in his ample lap. "Where did you find that?"
"You'll take my claim deed?"
"Consider it signed."
Sorvus nodded and spat on the floor. The governor didn't correct him. "Two miles north-northwest of Crackspike," the miner said. "Found these nuggets washed up after a canyon flood. The rest at the bottom of a water pit I dug. It's in my parcel, mind. I've claimed it."
"It is yours," Parsellon assured him. He didn't take his eyes off the silver. If all of that was pure, he had ...what, a hundred gold sails' worth sitting on his desk? Two hundred? How much was the man carrying? How much had he found? "That's strix territory, though, isn't it?"
"They call it theirs, aye. The black buzzards are thick up there. Probably why nobody found the strike before—or lived to tell about it if they did. Which brings me to the second favor I came to ask you."
"Ask."
"Send word to Citadel Enferac. We'll need Hellknights to keep the swoops at bay if we're to get the silver out of Crackspike. It'll be hard enough mining ore out of those rocks without worrying about the strix. Scare them off, or I'll never get the men I need to make my find good. A company or three of Hellknights will go a long way toward convincing outsiders it's safe enough to come and work here."
"You'll need that many workers?" Parsellon asked.
"Oh, aye, no question of it. The find's good."
"Well, I'd be remiss in my duties as governor if I didn't do all I could to help Devil's Perch flourish." Parsellon gestured to his bodyguard, Thantos, a hulking and taciturn man who had not budged an inch from his post by the door for the entirety of their conversation. The provisional governor sometimes wondered whether the man blinked. "Quill and paper, if you please."
Wordlessly Thantos set them before him. Parsellon dipped the quill and, glancing occasionally at the miner's map, sketched out the area to come under Sorvus's claim. Then, with a flourish, he signed his name at the base and pressed his official seal to the paper.
"There," the governor said. "Sorvus's Strike is yours. I shall have my clerk draw up a copy to send you before the day's end. The original, of course, must go to Egorian to be properly recorded. Rest assured that I will dispatch it as soon as the appropriate security measures are arranged. It's quite a claim you've made here. We wouldn't want it to get lost. But the strike, my good man, is yours." He motioned to his brandy carafe. "May I offer you a toast to fine fortune?"
"I wouldn't say no," Sorvus replied. The apple of his throat bobbed.
"Thantos! Another glass." Parsellon poured a liberal measure and offered it to his guest. And another. And, when the man continued to swill good Chelish brandy like Isgeri barrel-wash, a third.
Five glasses in, Sorvus was blind drunk. Parsellon, who had nursed his original glass throughout while toasting his guest's every sentence, gave the inebriated miner a confiding smile.
"So tell me," he said, "just how much silver is there in your strike?"
"Don't know." Sorvus set his glass aside unsteadily and tried to lay a finger alongside his broken nose. He missed, although he didn't seem to notice. "A lot. I went upstream when I found that bit I gave you. Found ...a lot. Under the rocks it's soft. You can ...you can shovel it right out." The miner mimed throwing a shovelful of dirt over his shoulder, nearly upsetting his glass. He didn't seem to notice that, either. "Looks like sludgy black dirt, but you cook it down with salt and mercury and you can see, it's silver. It's all silver. Barrels of it. Wagons."
"We'll need soldiers to protect that," the governor mused. "Or Hellknights."
"Aye." Sorvus tipped the last of the brandy down his gullet. "The swoops didn't trouble me none, but I'm just one man and I know the canyon ways. We'll need a lot of workers to mine out the strike, and they won't know the first thing about surviving out here. Maybe if I could hire men from Pezzack, but ..."
"There will be no traitors tolerated in Devil's Perch while I'm governor," Parsellon said firmly. Softening his tone, he added: "Besides, how would that look to the throne? Or the Hellknights?"
"Not good." Sorvus grimaced. "No Pezzacki. That means outlanders. Lots of 'em. And that means trouble with the strix."
"Let me worry about that. You just enjoy your good luck. There'll be plenty of time for work soon enough." Parsellon stood and nodded toward Thantos. The towering bodyguard took the miner's shoulders, helping him gently but inexorably toward the door.
When the miner was gone, Parsellon yawned and cracked his neck. His eyes fell on the greasy leather map, which Sorvus had neglected to pick up before he left.
Wagons of silver ...
Thoughtfully, he rubbed the soft, dirty leather between his thumb and forefinger. That much wealth would make Devil's Perch a magnet for prospectors, and everything that went with them: cooks, barkeeps, whores, dealers in horses and mining equipment ...rough trades, to be sure, but profitable. Very profitable. And they'd all be under his jurisdiction.
His gaze strayed back to the center of the map. Crackspike. An ugly little landmark, that was. The first team of prospectors to run afoul of the strix, nearly twenty years ago, had be
en tortured to death. While bloody but still alive, they'd been staked out for the venomous yellow hill ants to devour, and they had been left there until nothing remained but bare bones.
Then the black-winged bastards had gathered up their victims' bones and cracked them apart with their own mining tools and made the whole thing, broken spikes and broken bones and all, into a morbid sculpture in the shadow of one of their holy stones.
That was Crackspike: the strix's way of saying that the barren red rocks were their land. Human interlopers were unwelcome.
Hellknights didn't die as easily as prospectors, though, and with Citadel Enferac's support, the governor was quite confident that the strix could be pacified.
Securing that support, however, could prove costly. The various Hellknight orders were always interested in raising their power and prestige relative to rival orders, and in extending the rule of law over an uncivilized land ...but convincing them to protect a single man's silver claim, however rich, could be a difficult proposition.
Considerably easier if that claim belonged to the throne. Considerably more profitable, too.
The door opened. Parsellon looked up as Thantos stepped in, wiping a spatter of mud from his breeches. "What do you think of all this?"
"Lot of changes coming," the big man replied. "Probably a lot of blood. You want me to start hiring swords?"
"A sensible precaution, if you can find good ones. We'll still need the Hellknights, though. Find a fast rider who can take a message to Citadel Enferac. For Vicarius Torchia's eyes only." The Provisional Governor tapped his fingers against his desk, looking at the map again. "That miner ...Sorvus. Does he have a wife? Any kin?"
Thantos grunted. "He had a woman for a while. A Pezzacki. I forget her name. Pox-scarred, but not bad to look on. She left two years ago. Went back to Pezzack. It's a hard life for a woman out here."
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