Shadowdance 05 - A Dance of Ghosts

by David Dalglish

  “Insanity,” Antonil said, thudding his glass back down onto the wooden table. “Insanity brings me here. Insanity in my king, insanity in his advisors, insanity in the streets, the guilds, everywhere. The whole damn world’s gone insane.”

  “Since entering Veldaren, I’ve often wondered if I’m the only sane person left,” Victor said, grinning.

  “That, or the only one insane enough to fight against the way the world is moving,” Antonil said. “But in the end, it doesn’t matter.” He glanced over his shoulder, to the man guarding the door. “What I speak, no one but us must hear. Are we safe?”

  Victor nodded.

  “My men are loyal. Whatever you need to say, say it.”

  Antonil took in a deep breath, drank a bit more from his glass, and then let it out.

  “I’m here to commit treason, Victor.”

  To his credit, Victor handled the news well enough.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Muzien and his Sun Guild have gotten to the king, and he’s given them complete immunity in all things. My guards aren’t to touch them, aren’t even to give them strange looks no matter what crimes they commit. I swear, this whole city’s rotting beneath me, and no matter how hard I try, the wood keeps peeling, the stones keep cracking. I won’t let this happen. I won’t sit back and watch my beloved city break. Not without a fight.”

  Victor pushed aside his alcohol and leaned forward on his elbows.

  “What are you telling me?” he asked. There was no denying the eagerness in his voice, in the way his eyes shone.

  “I can’t fight Muzien, not openly,” he said. “But I have men who are loyal, and access to the king’s armory. If you’ll stand against him, I will ensure you have soldiers and weapons for them to wield. Our nation has not fought a war in over a decade, but I feel this is the closest we will be in my lifetime. I have no intention of losing.”

  Antonil stood.

  “You marched into this city proclaiming to cast out the men hiding in the shadows. By Karak, you even swore to remove the shadows themselves. Well, the city’s only darkened, Victor, and I need all the help I can get. Will you accept? Will you put your neck on the line where I cannot?”

  Victor pushed aside his own chair as he stood.

  “You are a rope thrown to a drowning man,” he said. “Give me soldiers, and I will save our city. I swear it upon my life and the honor of my family.”

  Antonil could hardly believe the words he was saying, but it felt good. Terrifying, but good.

  “When do you need my men?” he asked.

  Victor scratched at his chin as he thought, his eyes staring into nowhere.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’ll come to you when I am ready. There is one more ally we need, and with your promise, I feel I can at last win them to my side. We must be strong, and when we strike, it must be overwhelming. Right now, Muzien views us as ants, insignificant to his plans, and we must keep him thinking as much. By the time he realizes his error, I pray we’ll be hoisting his head on a pike over the walls of the castle.”

  He offered his hand, and Antonil clasped it and shook.

  “Good men like us,” Antonil said, “we are the only hope this city knows.”

  “This city doesn’t want good men,” said Victor. “I’ve watched it chew up and spit out dozens of men who thought themselves good, who thought they might bring about change. We commit treason and plot death in the shadows. We’re no longer good, but we’re what this city needs.”

  Harsh words, but Antonil could not deny them.

  “May it be enough,” he said, and with a salute, he exited the tavern and made his way back to the castle, to inform the soldiers of the city that until further notice, the Sun Guild ruled the streets.

  CHAPTER

  15

  The hour was early when Zusa heard word of Victor’s arrival at their gates.

  “I can send him away,” she told Alyssa, who was lounging in a warm bath beside her.

  “He will only come with the same promises as before,” Alyssa said, eyelids closed and head tilted back so her long red hair was fully submerged. “Gods, I am tired of listening to it. I’m not sure there is a more stubborn man alive on the face of Dezrel.”

  Zusa sat at the edge of the tub, dressed in her elaborate dark wrappings, and she drummed her fingers atop the hilt of one of her two daggers.

  “I can make him stay away forever,” she said.

  “He’s stubborn, not dangerous,” Alyssa said, and she laughed.

  “I merely meant to frighten him.”

  Alyssa turned her head to the side, and Zusa easily recognized it as the equivalent of a glare ever since her mistress lost her eyes.

  “Is that so?” Alyssa asked.

  Zusa scratched at her neck.

  “Maybe?” she said. “He is rather annoying…”

  Alyssa laughed again, and it warmed Zusa’s heart to see her do so. They were in an extravagant washroom, full of mirrors, white walls, and gold-tinted frames, and the air was heavy with the scent of lilac. Alyssa was nearly hidden by the steam, they’d heated the bath so hot, but it was one of the few things that could truly relax the lady in charge of the Gemcroft fortune.

  The door cracked open, and a female servant stepped in and bowed with her hands behind her back.

  “Milady,” she said, “Lord Victor refuses to leave the gates and insists I relay another message.”

  “What is it?” Alyssa asked, her good humor replaced by annoyance.

  “He says he must speak with you, and it is most urgent.”

  “He always insists that is the case,” Zusa said.

  The servant woman blushed.

  “Yes,” she said, “but—but this time he said to tell you that he has spoken with Antonil Copernus, and that he has learned of matters most urgent to the well-being of this city … and of a potential ally.”

  It was the clear the woman knew she was relaying information that was both private and dangerous, and she grew more nervous with every word. Alyssa let out a sigh, and at her nod, Zusa rose from her seat at the tub and gestured for the woman to go.

  “Bring him, and put him somewhere he can wait,” Zusa said. “Alyssa must first dress appropriately for the meeting of a man of such … high regard.”

  The servant curtsied again, then hurried out of the room. At the shutting of the door, Alyssa rose from the tub.

  “My towel,” she said, holding her left arm out and waiting.

  Zusa retrieved one from a cabinet, then sat patiently as Alyssa dried herself. She pondered over what Victor had come for this time, how it might change things.

  “If Antonil has sworn to help Victor against the Sun Guild, it may only make matters worse,” she told Alyssa.

  Alyssa pulled the towel from her body and wrapped it about her head. That done, she reached out and waited for Zusa to take her hand and guide her from the tub. From there, Zusa led her from the room into the adjacent bedroom, where atop the bed, the maidservants had already laid out her clothes for the day, a simple enough dress the color of grass. A younger girl waited patiently in the room to help, but Zusa dismissed her with a wave and began dressing Alyssa herself.

  “Muzien’s left us alone,” Alyssa said, and she sounded troubled. “Compared to the other guilds, he’s almost … civilized.”

  “You fool yourself if you think it will last,” Zusa said, lacing up the back of the dress. “We will be next, I assure you.”

  “We don’t have to fight him,” Alyssa said, and Zusa’s deft fingers stopped their weaving.

  “I fear I misheard you,” she said.

  “No, you didn’t. We don’t need the Watcher’s truce. There was a time we merely endured the thief guilds, accepting their take as a part of doing business. Why not return to that? Muzien may seek the same. It was Thren who sought to unite them, to lift up the underworld as if it were a conquering army.”

  Zusa turned Alyssa around so she might look upon her face. With Alyssa’s eyes
unfeeling glass, there was nothing she could read in them, but there was no hiding the defeat she heard in the woman’s voice, the tension in her neck, the exhaustion tugging at her lips.

  “Now is not the time to surrender,” she told her mistress. “You have been strong your whole life, and—”

  “And I am tired of being strong,” Alyssa said. Water built around her eyes, dripping down in slender tracks. “Look what being strong has cost me. I’ve lost my father, I’ve lost friends, my sight … it’ll cost me you one day, I know it, and it will cost me my son. I cannot do this anymore. If Victor wants to fight a war, I won’t help him do it. I won’t give him my hand just so he can lead me into more fire and bloodshed.”

  Slowly, carefully, Zusa wrapped her arms around Alyssa’s neck and pulled her close. She said nothing, only held her as her mistress silently cried.

  “What about Nathaniel’s future?” Zusa asked after the moment passed, and she sensed Alyssa’s composure returning.

  Alyssa stepped away, and she turned so Zusa might finish putting on the dress.

  “It’s the only thing I have left,” she said.

  “And is that not something worth fighting for?”

  Alyssa crossed her arms, and Zusa wondered where the laughter had gone she’d seen only moments before. Where was the joy? Was the mantle of leadership truly so heavy?

  “What is it you want from me?” Alyssa asked her. “Truly, what? Do you want to see me married? Do you want us to run from Veldaren, dragging Nathaniel with us so we might escape and leave the scum to pick apart our remains? Or do you want me to die fighting a war we cannot win, spilling blood as I have spilled it so many times before?”

  Zusa took Alyssa’s hand into hers, and she squeezed her fingers tight.

  “I’d have you know joy,” she said. “I’d have you feel safe. I’d see you smile again and give not a damn for what all others would think or do.”

  Alyssa smiled at her, and it was so sad, it broke her heart.

  “My hope for that is gone,” she said. “It left me the moment Stephen ripped the eyes from my face.”

  She gestured to her dress.

  “Am I presentable?”

  Zusa swallowed down a knot in her throat.

  “Beautiful as always,” she said.

  “Good. We have left Victor waiting long enough.”

  She offered her hand, and Zusa took it and led her down the hall. After asking a servant for Victor’s whereabouts, she found him waiting in the garden behind the mansion, nestled between the long east and west wings of the building. He sat on a cracked marble bench, chin resting on his fist as his eyes stared far into nowhere. As usual, he looked prepared for war instead of a casual conversation. When he noticed their arrival, he bolted to his feet, then bowed low.

  “Lady Alyssa, Zusa,” he said, addressing each in turn. “Thank you for agreeing to visit with me on this fine morning.”

  “Better sense would have had me send you away,” said Alyssa as she sat next to him on the bench. Zusa remained standing, lurking behind the bench with her fingers tapping the sides of her daggers. With each passing day, her trust of Victor had shrunk. It was more than just his stubborn display the last time he’d spoken with Alyssa, at how he’d laid his hands upon her. There was a hunger in his eyes, a desperation that belied his handsome smile. The morning sun might have lit up his blond hair like spun gold, but to her eyes, he was the rotting corpse of a beggar with outstretched hands.

  “Better sense,” said Victor, leaning back and feigning being relaxed. “Now, when have either of us been known to be well in supply of that?”

  “I’m not here for idle banter,” Alyssa said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “You’re lucky to be in my presence after your last visit, so make this quick. You said you brought word from the Guard Captain … What is it, and how could it possibly change any answer I’ve given you before?”

  Zusa slowly paced behind them, only half listening to Victor as he began making promises of Antonil’s aid. It was intriguing, of course, but she doubted it would influence Alyssa’s decision. Victor wanted her hand in marriage, and it’d take more than some extra soldiers and illicit coin to win that. Her eyes were on the garden, the soft violet columbines and pink roses buzzing with the occasional insect. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. It was like a familiar presence in the back of her mind, no stronger than the buzz of the honeybees flitting from flower to flower.

  Again she scanned the garden, searching for the source. It was as if the more primitive part of her mind had spotted and recognized something she did not. Somewhere lurking in the rosemary bushes, hiding behind one of the slender birch trees, perhaps? Or …

  She looked to the rooftop of the mansion overlooking the garden, and there she saw it, the crouched specter of a faceless woman, the only one Zusa knew to still be alive.

  “Deborah,” she whispered, and she felt ice chill in her veins.

  Deborah leaped from the rooftop, and Zusa could tell she knew she’d been spotted. Drawing her daggers, she took a step, meaning to fling herself between Alyssa and the faceless, only to realize as the woman’s trajectory neared that her mistress was not the target.

  She was.

  Zusa backflipped away as Deborah slammed into the dirt, the impact seeming to have no effect on her body. Her pale cloak settled about her shoulders as she crouched there, daggers in hand.

  “You’ve insulted us long enough,” Deborah said as the tall woman rose to her full height. “Today, you will go to Karak, and you will find no mercy in his fire.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Victor asked, leaping from the bench and drawing his sword.

  “Stay back,” Zusa said, the muscles in her legs tensing. “You have no place in this fight.”

  “Zusa?” Alyssa asked, and she clutched Victor’s wrist in alarm. “Zusa, what’s going on?”

  She had no time to answer, for Deborah launched herself into an attack, her body turning in midair to add strength to her downward slashes. Zusa blocked one of the strokes as she fell back, the other coming up short so that it knifed the air before her chest. Instead of taking the opening before her, Zusa continued to retreat, wanting to gain space between them and Alyssa. Besides, she sensed if the fight remained near, that idiot Victor would try to get himself involved. Legs pumping, she leaped once, and then again, soaring through the garden so that her toes brushed the tops of the birches.

  The air whipping the cloak about her body, she turned to see Deborah following, the pull of the world meaningless to her as well. As she fell toward another tree, she braced her legs, and upon slamming into its trunk halfway up its length, she kicked off, flying back into the air. Her body extended, her daggers reaching out, and with Deborah still falling, she should have been easy prey.

  “Karak!” Deborah shrieked, and the word was like a thunderbolt. Zusa’s upward momentum halted, and she screamed as she felt her bones rattle from the sudden shift. And then it was Deborah who slammed into her feetfirst, blasting her abdomen. Together, they fell to the earth, the other woman’s weight atop her, and she knew upon landing she’d be crushed. Letting go of the dagger in her left hand, she reached out to grab Deborah by the elbow and then pulled with all her might. The motion tilted her just enough so that when they hit the soft grass, it was side by side. Zusa’s head struck dirt, and her vision blacked out as her stomach heaved its contents up and out her throat.

  Panic overwhelmed her as she crawled on her knees, still struggling to see. If Deborah had managed the landing better than she had …

  Something hard struck the side of her face, and out of instinct, she flung her other dagger in the way. The metal rang against metal, and as the scattershot stars in her vision gave way to sunlight, she caught sight of Deborah preparing another stab. Wishing she still had her other blade, she continued to retreat, twisting her body out of the way to avoid the thrust and then parrying aside a second and third from Deborah’s other hand.


  “Did you think I would come unprepared?” Deborah asked as they stepped onto a cobbled walkway running through the center of the garden, the faded violet stones cool beneath Zusa’s feet. “The deciding hour approaches, and Karak has rewarded our faithfulness above all others.”

  “That’s wonderful,” said Zusa, spitting out a bit of bile that had collected in the back of her throat. “A shame you’ll die anyway.”

  Deborah stepped closer and closer, head tilted to one side, staring out through the thin white cloth covering the opened slit across her eyes.

  “Still in denial,” she said. “Still a fool.”

  Again she rushed in, and Zusa twisted and danced side to side, parrying whatever she could not avoid. Back onto the grass they went, the march of their combat taking them toward a shallow pond near the heart of the garden. Surrounding it were five rowan trees, tall and thick with creamy white flowers. Zusa tried to retake control of the engagement to fight her way past Deborah, but the woman battled as if possessed, denying her any escape, her daggers always there. Closer and closer to the pond they went, and Zusa knew if she were forced into it, it’d hamper her ability to dodge, leaving her trapped.

  “You humiliated me when you escaped our dungeon,” Deborah said, slashing out for Zusa’s face. She knew it’d be blocked, but she wanted Zusa kept on the defensive, wanted her to feel overwhelmed. Again and again, slashes to the face and chest, Zusa forced to shift her weight side to side to brace accordingly. They were between two of the trees now, the pond so very near.

  “You humiliate yourself every day you wrap your face in that mask,” Zusa said, her pride stirring in her chest. She was far more experienced than the whelp she faced, and even lacking a weapon, she should have been able to find victory. “You humiliate yourself every day you let Karak rule over you like a slave.”

  Deborah’s controlled demeanor broke for just a moment, and she stretched forward for a killing lunge. The overextension was all Zusa needed. Sidestepping the thrust, she trapped Deborah’s wrist between her elbow and her side, and she kicked as hard as she could into the woman’s armpit. She heard a pop from Deborah’s shoulder, followed by a scream. Zusa let her go to block a desperate swipe, then flung herself into the offensive. Deborah was wounded now, her right arm pressed against her waist as she battled solely with her left. For Zusa, who needed no advantage, it was more than enough.