The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  The Vendre’s main door was half-open, with a couple of Docksiders keeping watch. One of the pair recognized her and stood at attention, or at least a reasonable parody thereof. Winter almost burst out laughing again, but she bit it back and snapped a textbook salute before slipping out into the courtyard.

  If there had been a carnival atmosphere before, things were now positively ebullient. One reason for this quickly became obvious: Now that the fighting was done, Vordan’s merchants and vendors were taking up the challenge of supplying the crowd with all the food, and more important, all the drink, that it might be require. Bottles were everywhere, passing freely from hand to hand, and as she watched, a man pulling a handcart loaded with wine was mobbed by customers and relieved of his burden in a few minutes. He turned the cart around, pockets jingling with coin, and headed back for another load.

  It seemed as though the entire city had decided to drink itself into an oblivious stupor. In the courtyard, some of Jane’s Leatherbacks had formed a circle and were playing some kind of game, which involved a repeating chant and frequent pulls from any of several circulating bottles. Some of the girls, Winter thought, were too young for that sort of thing, but she was hardly in a position to complain. She spotted Cyte among them, dark makeup finally washed away, looking relaxed and comfortable and roaring with laughter. When she saw Winter, she beckoned her over, but Winter only shook her head and pointed out the gate, as though she had somewhere to go.

  The street outside was a continuation of the same madness. Portable stoves had been hauled in, or improvised from boxes and wooden scraps, and a dozen enterprising vendors were hawking hot meals. It was far too loud for any shouts to be heard more than a few feet away, so they stood on boxes and raised what they had for sale above the heads of the crowd.

  It reminded Winter of the markets of Ashe-Katarion. There she’d tasted roasted imhallyt beetle on the half shell (bitter and gooey), fried dhakar (a kind of centipede, spiced and crunchy) along with thick black bread, cornmeal cakes flavored with honey, and every conceivable product that could be made from any part of a dead sheep. The thought made her stomach rumble, but what was on offer felt strangely alien. Staring at the steaming sugar chestnuts, pork buns, and sizzling bacon sandwiches, she felt a pang of homesickness. Not for Ashe-Katarion, exactly, but for the camp outside it, for stale crackers and “army stew.”

  She felt as though she had spent half her life as a stranger among a strange people, only to return to the city of her birth and find herself a stranger there as well. In the middle of the jubilant crowd, Winter felt more alone than she had since . . .

  Since Fort Valor. Since Captain d’Ivoire made me a sergeant, and I met Bobby and the others. She’d been alone before that, of course, when she wasn’t being tormented by Davis and his thugs, but she hadn’t really believed there was any other way she could be. The Seventh Company had changed that. But Bobby, Feor, and the others were still at sea, far away from here.

  She suddenly wanted very badly to run back into the Vendre, pull Jane out of her meeting, and stay wrapped in her arms until the tumult in her head settled down. When she was with Jane, everything was simple.

  Don’t be silly, she instructed herself, sternly. Jane had been forced into quasi-leadership of this weird, leaderless coalition, and the last thing she needed was for Winter to have a breakdown and demand comfort. There’ll be time for that later. She marched over to the closest vendor and bought a paper bag of sugar chestnuts, inhaling the sweet steam and popping one into her mouth as soon as they were cool enough to stand. It was crunchy and sweet, and she had to admit that as a snack it was an improvement on centipedes.

  A large group had gathered in one of the nearby squares, and Winter drifted in that direction out of curiosity. She couldn’t get close enough to get a view, but it sounded as though someone was giving a speech, and when she managed to catch a few words she realized it was Danton.

  “The fourth duty of a citizen,” he was saying, “is to at all times keep in mind the condition of the implements of labor given into his care—the land and its improvements, the seed stock and herds, the tools of his trade, and everything else that tends to the increase of his prosperity. It is his duty to his country to maintain and improve these tools, both for the sake of his own descendents and so that the nation as a whole shall progress toward a greater prosperity in accordance with God’s design. However, this duty shall not conflict with the first, second, or third duties, and a citizen shall not . . .”

  There was more in that vein, a great deal more. Winter wasn’t sure she could have struggled through more than a page if it had been laid out in text. In Danton’s great, booming voice, it had a certain ring to it, but it was still not exactly passionate stuff. And yet the crowd all around Winter showed every sign of being enthralled, standing in total silence so as not to miss a word of the great man’s explanation of why, for example, potatoes were a superior crop to turnips and encouraging their growth was in the national interest.

  Probably at this point he could be reading out of a dictionary and people would stand at rapt attention. Danton was certainly capable of a good turn of phrase—his speech to the prisoners on the night the Vendre had fallen had been stirring, even to Winter—but he clearly had not exerted his rhetorical talents here. She wondered idly which was the real Danton, the man of action beloved by the crowd or this intellectual with his obsession with potatoes.

  Something tingled at the base of her spine. The Infernivore was restless, like an anxious child rolling over in its sleep. Ever since her near contact with Raesinia had roused the thing, she’d been more aware of its moods. Danton, apparently, made it nervous, and Winter slipped away from the crowd and back toward the prison.

  Raesinia. Winter had wanted to get a message to Janus about her, telling him about the Infernivore’s strange reaction, but the girl had been assassinated before she had a chance. According to those who’d been on the parapet, she’d been shot in the head by a Concordat spy, who had subsequently fallen to his own demise on the rocks below. After what she’d seen from Jen Alhundt in the Desoltai temple, Winter wondered if there wasn’t more to it than that. If Raesinia really was some kind of wild talent, maybe the Black Priests sent someone to eliminate her. She decided she would have to tell Janus after all, if they ever had the chance to meet in private.

  Behind her, Danton droned on. Ahead were the walls of the Vendre, where Jane would still be engaged in oh-so-important business. In between, the street was full of happy people, drinking toasts, singing traditional café songs, and even gathering round for impromptu dances. Someone had hauled out a fiddle and was playing it with more enthusiasm than skill, which suited the caliber of the singers perfectly.

  Winter popped the last of the chestnuts into her mouth, balled up the bag, and wandered.

  RAESINIA

  At the door of Lady Farnese’s Cottage, now surrounded by Janus’ red-and-blue-uniformed guardsmen, Raesinia turned to address the small horde of servants and courtiers who had followed her from the palace proper. She took a deep breath, or tried to. The mourning dress was simple by court standards, but still uncomfortably stiff.

  “I need to speak to Count Mieran on a number of important matters,” she said. “I must ask you all to excuse me.”

  She jerked her head at Sothe, who stepped up to her side. Janus opened the front door, and a cordon of Mierantai stepped between the new queen and her followers. A babble of protest rose immediately, and Raesinia turned again.

  “My lords, please. There will be time later for formalities, but the affairs of state will not wait. I thank you all for your concern.”

  Once she was inside, with the door shut behind her, she let out a sigh. Is the rest of my life going to be like this? It seemed depressingly likely.

  “I’m sorry to impose on Your Majesty by asking you to come here,” Janus said. “But I imagine you are no more eager to have our convers
ation reported to His Grace than I am.”

  “You think we’re safe here?” Raesinia looked around. No guards or servants were in evidence, but that didn’t mean much. Ohnlei was a labyrinth full of hidden doors and back corridors, ideal for eavesdroppers.

  “As safe as I can make us,” Janus said. “Miss Sothe has looked over my arrangements.”

  Sothe nodded. “Unless Orlanko has gotten a lot smarter since I left, I think we should be secure.”

  “Good.” Raesinia paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Then how about the two of you tell me what the hell is going on?” She glared at Sothe. “You never mentioned a word about knowing Count Mieran.”

  She was surprised how much that stung. Sothe was the one person Raesinia had placed her full trust in, unreservedly, and finding out that she’d been keeping secrets hurt badly. I should have expected it, though. Sothe came from a world of secrets.

  “I assure you,” Janus said, “our acquaintance is recent. After I heard about your . . . fall, I contacted her to offer my assistance.”

  “Then you knew—” Raesinia blinked. Everything. “How?”

  “It would be best,” Janus said, “if I began at the beginning. Please, have a seat.”

  He gestured. They were in the cottage hall, and beyond was an entertaining room with a sofa and chairs. Raesinia followed the count’s gesture and sat down, carefully, on the sofa, the black dress folding and crinkling around her. Janus took the chair opposite, and Sothe remained standing.

  “I would offer some refreshment, after what has been a very long night,” he said. “But in Your Majesty’s case, I gather that there would not be much point, and in any event I have banished the servants so we may speak in secrecy even from my own people.”

  Raesinia gave a curt nod. “Thank you. Now—”

  “What the hell is going on?” Janus leaned back and smiled, just for a moment. “A fair question. For the sake of brevity, I will leave aside my own history and simply state that I am a scholar of the arcane and the occult. The dark arts, as some would have it. Demonology. Magic.”

  “That’s a dangerous line of work,” Raesinia said, determined not to let any surprise show on her face.

  “Indeed. There are places where it flourishes, however. In the eastern League cities, chiefly, where the grip of Elysium is at its weakest. It was there that I went to further my studies, and it was there, three years ago, that your father’s agents found me.”

  “My father’s agents? Do you mean the Concordat?”

  “Emphatically not. While the duke was, of course, a part of His Majesty’s government, in this matter the king and the Minister of Information had . . . differing views. The man who contacted me had been well paid, through a very indirect route, to seek out someone with knowledge of the arcane arts and bring them before the king. Enormous precautions were taken to ensure that the Last Duke remained in ignorance.”

  “Why? What would my father want with a magician?” As far as Raesinia knew, her father had never believed in magic, like any sensible person of the modern age. If not for her own unique experiences, Raesinia doubted she would have believed in it, either.

  “His Majesty wished to consult me on a very delicate matter.” Janus coughed. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but he wanted to talk about you.”

  “About me? That doesn’t make—” Raesinia shook her head, then froze. Her voice came out as a whisper. “He knew?”

  “He did.”

  Raesinia’s chest felt tight, as though the black dress had suddenly shrunk several sizes. He knew.

  She had always been afraid of what would happen, should her father find out the truth of what had happened to her. She’d even constructed scenes in her mind, usually in the dead of night when her inability to sleep grated the worst. She pictured him having her dragged away in chains, to be imprisoned in some dark oubliette. Even executed, if he could figure out how. Burned at the stake. After all, his daughter is dead. I’m something else. A demon.

  She swallowed hard. “He wanted you to . . . get rid of me?”

  Janus shook his head. “He wanted a . . . cure, for lack of a better word. A way to reverse what Orlanko had done to you. In such a way that you remained alive afterward, of course.”

  Raesinia felt tears sting her eyes. She let her head fall forward into her hands, elbows on her knees.

  He knew. She didn’t want to sob in front of Janus. That was easy enough; she just stopped breathing. He knew all along, and he wanted to help me. Oh God. Father. I thought . . . how could I have thought . . .

  He tried to tell me. “Count Mieran is more than he seems. You’ll need all the allies you can get.” He couldn’t come out and say it, not with Concordat spies everywhere, but now the meaning was clear. Oh, Father . . .

  “Your Majesty,” Janus said, after a long silence. “If you like, perhaps we could—”

  Raesinia squeezed her eyes shut, banishing the tears, and sucked in a long breath. The binding tingled across her, repairing the damage from her brief asphyxiation. She raised her head. “My apologies. Please continue.”

  Janus regarded her carefully for a moment, then nodded. “As you say. For some time, His Majesty and I carried on a correspondence, and I regret to say I was not able to be of much assistance. The Priests of the Black have been astonishingly effective at removing all traces of magic wherever their writ runs, and what remains is a pitiful remnant of what was once known. If the knowledge to do what His Majesty wanted existed, I told him, it was locked in the dungeons under Elysium.” He steepled his fingers. “Then a bit of unexpected news opened up a new possibility.”

  Raesinia was starting to put the pieces together. “The rebellion in Khandar.”

  “Indeed. There have always been legends of the Demon King, who fled across the sea with his treasure trove, but nothing concrete. When I discovered that the Black Priests had tried several times to actually retrieve something from Khandar, though, I started to dig deeper. I became convinced that the treasure actually existed. The names—the bindings—of all the creatures captured by the Demon King. The Thousand Names of legend.”

  “And my father sent you there to find it.”

  “His Majesty took some convincing, as did his advisers,” Janus said, with another flash of a smile. “The duke, for one, was deeply suspicious. But ultimately, yes.”

  “And?”

  “The Names are real. We found them.” Janus tossed the statement off, as though it were of no great importance. “By the time we did, however, we received word that the situation here had become critical. So I hurried back as soon as I could, and His Majesty named me to the empty seat on the Cabinet to assist you as best I could. I am honored to say that I believe he had come to trust me.”

  And will the Names work? Raesinia wanted to scream. Janus caught her expression and gave a little shrug.

  “I do not know, yet, whether we’ll be able to do anything for your condition. The Names must be deciphered and studied to see if something useful to you is among their powers, and I only had the chance to make a cursory inspection before I left Khandar. Once our current crisis is resolved, I will devote myself to it. But for the moment . . .”

  Raesinia nodded. Somewhere deep in her chest, though, something had taken hold. A tiny mote of hope, that there might, somehow, be a way out. Back to a normal life.

  “All right,” Raesinia said. “I follow you so far. How did you end up talking to Sothe?”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Janus said. “After your father gave me Justice, I began looking into the disturbances in the city. I got descriptions of all the potential leaders, and once I saw yours it wasn’t hard to put the facts together.”

  There had to be more to it than that—the all-knowing Concordat hadn’t been able to find her, after all!—but Raesinia didn’t care about the details. “And Sothe?”

 
“Even easier. She’s so close to you on the Ohnlei side that it was inconceivable that she not be a party to the deception, though I didn’t understand the full extent of her involvement until she told me herself. I sent her a note, indicating what I knew and expressing a desire to help.”

  “It was waiting for me when I got back to Ohnlei, after you ‘died,’” Sothe said. “I was frantic. I had to keep up appearances here, intercept Orlanko’s watchers, and figure out how to retrieve you at the same time. When I saw this . . .” She shrugged.

  “You just decided to trust him?” Raesinia was surprised. To say that Sothe was not a trusting person was a significant understatement of the facts.

  “I went to talk to him,” Sothe said, “since he knew the secret. I thought that either he’d end up on our side or I’d have to kill him, and in the latter case I wanted to get it over with.”

  There was a flash of surprise—not much, but definitely there—on Janus’ face. “Well,” he said after a moment, “I’m glad I was able to convince you.”

  “So, what happens now?” Raesinia asked, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms.

  “I think we’re almost through it,” Janus said. “The announcement has gone out that you’ve accepted the Deputies-General, and the mob is ecstatic. When they present their lists of demands, one of them is certain to be a new Minister of Information and the elimination of the Concordat. All we have to do is be ‘persuaded.’”