The Fair Elaine: A Kethem Novel

by Dave Dickie

  There were throw rugs here and there, but most of the floor was polished pine, simple and pretty if not elegant. It was all arranged a little haphazardly, but that’s the exciting life of a bachelor.

  Sitting on the far couch, across the room from where I had entered, was Sariel from the Sambhal temple. She was stunning, wrapped in a short red dress that hugged her curves and showed off her legs, not the filmy garb from the temple but just as flattering to her figure. She wore the belt from the temple, except it had changed color to match the dress perfectly, with the gold thread still making the same intricate patterns. Next to her there were a pair of sandals with low heels, taken off and tossed to the side. She looked extremely relaxed. I gave her a couple of points for that, because that’s hard to pull off when you’ve broken into someone’s house. She gave me that wide, sunny, slightly amused smile that I knew she knew I liked and said, “Hello, Gur. I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in.”

  That was a bit of an understatement; the lock on the door was a good one, and I wondered how she’d unlocked it. A spell, one had to assume. That I was thinking about it made me guess that Sariel’s glamour was off. She wanted to ask me for something. I did a short bow. “You honor and brighten my apartment by being here. How could I possibly object?” I said with a smile.

  She gave a short laugh and said, “Gur, you’re turning into a poet, you sweet talking hunk of a man. Any more and I may not be able to control myself.”

  “Then I’ll be more careful, because I must admit the concept of an out-of-control Sariel is something I’m not sure I could handle,” I said.

  She gave me a sly grin and said, “Might be fun to find out.”

  I nodded, but rather than go down that path, mostly because I was afraid where it might lead, I asked "Why are you here, Sariel?”

  She lounged back, which thrust her breasts forward a bit, which I was pretty sure she was fully aware of. “I’ve heard you’ve been a bad boy, Gur,” she said, and then winced a bit, like she had a sudden shooting pain. Interesting. I had to guess that was something she’d learned at the temple and the geas was letting her know she was close to divulging information she shouldn’t. But it came and went in a flash, and then she lowered her eyelashes a bit. “I like bad boys,” she said, voice going low and sultry.

  I gave her what I hoped was an enigmatic smile. “That’s an incentive if I’ve ever heard one, Sariel. But there’s bad, and there’s bad. I like to think of myself as more of a maverick than a bad guy. Challenging the status quo, stepping outside the lines, that’s me.”

  She leaned forward. “Me too,” she said, and she seemed sincere.

  “You seem to have found something that works with the Sambhal temple,” I said, curious what her story was.

  She laughed, but it was a bitter laugh. “When I was seventeen, I use to think I could help make things different. I thought enough of us, working together, could change the social order, slowly erase the divisions between Holders and commoners. A Holder taught me otherwise in the most direct possible way. Sambhal… well, at least now there are rules, limits to what men can do to me. But it’s better, not different. Now I know the only way to effect real change is power.” And I could see that hard little thing she was hiding deep down, the one I’d had a glimpse of the first time we’d met at the Sambhal temple, reflected in her eyes. She shook her head as if to clear it and said, “So, master of challenging the social order, I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?”

  “All ears,” I said.

  “My theory is that if people think you’ve done something bad, then you’ve probably found out things you shouldn’t have. I think they might just be unhappy enough about that to do something about it. I like you, Gur. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt. So I thought I would drop by and suggest that you need to be careful.”

  I said mildly “Is that a warning?”

  She looked confused for a moment, then laughed and said, “It is, but not from me. I really just mean you should be careful.”

  That was interesting on a couple of fronts. For one, it meant the two guys that attacked me weren’t sent by the temple, or she would have known it had already gone down. Second, it meant Sariel had heard something in the temple about my recent troubles. My thoughts flashed to Leppol and Kyung-chul, but it still didn’t seem likely that he would hire me and then try to kill me. And I felt fairly confident that Leppol wasn’t the only Lord Holder who visited the Sambhal temple. Unfortunately, pumping Sariel for information wasn’t going to work. The geas would keep her from telling me much. Anything she gave away would be unintentional.

  She stood up. It was graceful and sexy and impossible not to watch, even without the glamour. She took a few steps closer, her bare feet outlined by the wooden floor. “So, have you thought about Tessa’s offer? Do you think you might…” and she put her arm on mine and it was a warm, delightful feeling, and then continued more quietly, “soften your position a little?”

  And there it was. I didn’t believe she came over to warn me. I didn’t really believe she wanted to warn me in the first place. It was just more head games from someone who had clearly mastered them at a very young age. Some people took the kind of wounds she’d received when she was young and they learned to be more cautious, but they recovered. In others, it festered and pushed them down darker paths, made them hard, ruthless, driven by hate. Sariel did a fine job of hiding it most of the time, had learned how to make it look like she was charming and sincere, but underneath, I doubted she cared much about anyone other than herself. Maybe even wanted to hurt people, looking for some kind of balancing of the scales for what had happened to her. I could understand and perhaps even sympathize a bit, having my own scars from my childhood, but there wasn’t any way I was going to take that bait.

  I took her arm off mine and said, “Sariel, you are attractive, smart, and a very seductive young woman. I think you will go far in the temple. But I am not in a sharing mood, and even if I was, this would not be the way to get me to open up. I do not give up my clients, for anything, ever.”

  She took a step back, appraising me, and didn’t look angry. The smile came back. She said, “Ok, Gur. Alternative offer. You like me?” It turned out the dress, while perhaps not the Sambhal temple outfit, was magicked up. Either that, or very well designed. She touched two points on her shoulders, and it just fell off her like water sliding off a body in the shower.

  She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.

  My heart started hammering and I found I couldn’t look away. The glamour had been kicked on in high gear. Even without it, I’d been wrong to call her a ten. She was at least an eleven, maybe a twelve. She smiled and stretched, which was a thing of beauty. She cocked her head and said, “You want me? Then I’m yours, no strings attached. Just you and me, no questions, no talk, just … us, together.” She stepped up to me and I put my hands around her waist without thinking about it. The temperature in the room seemed a lot hotter than a few minutes ago. And, in the back of my mind, a little voice was telling me that it really was a no-strings-attached deal, because it had become clear to me that Sambhal rules did not allow using glamours to strike bargains. You had to agree to whatever it was they wanted you to sign up for on your own terms.

  Another little voice in the back of my mind was screaming at me, and it was a frightened, angry scream with no words. I was sinking into those eyes, leaning in to kiss her, when that scream turned into a sentence that popped right out of my mouth. “Was it the same way with Ralin? No strings, just pleasure?”

  And the moment was over. She jerked back, and the glamour flickered out of existence. “What? What?” she said, but her eyes were blazing with anger, not shock. Even angry and without the glamour, I had to say she was still an eleven.

  “Ralin, Telburn Hold? You had a standing meet up with him every couple of weeks, didn’t you?” I said.

  She grimaced and said, “It’s not our policy to discuss temple matters with those not in the orde
r.” Which sounded like a response that had been drilled into her, and probably all the Sambhal retinue, over and over and over again.

  "He must have had quite a crush on you. For a Silver Ring, that had to be pretty expensive. And he could have had his pick, right? But he only wanted you. Was he in love with you Sariel?” And I could see in her eyes that I’d hit it on the head, and more, that it hadn’t been mutual. And suddenly Sariel wasn’t that attractive any more.

  She sighed and stepped back toward me. She said, “Gur, you know, I really do like you and I really wanted to do this the easy way, the fun way. But if you know anything about Ralin, I think I have a bit of a problem and it requires a more direct approach.” And then her eyes blazed red, like a fire had been lit behind them, and she slammed her open palm into my chest hard enough for my feet to rise a foot off the floor as I flew back into the wall. Yimmy’s magicked shirt did its job of absorbing and spreading the blow, but I was pretty sure from the incredible pain lancing through my side that she’d broken at least one of my ribs. The concussion from slamming into the wall didn’t help, and I ended up on hands and knees, shaking my head to try to clear some of the stars.

  Sariel padded toward me on bare feet, completely naked, and I’d probably laugh about the incongruity of it later, if I survived the next few minutes. Which seemed unlikely. When she was four feet away, I lunged forward, ripped one of the stilettos out of its quick draw sheath and stabbed her with it.

  So, the thing about stilettos is that they look cool and dangerous, but they are not great for hand to hand combat. They’re more an assassin's tool than something meant for a knife fight, intended to slide into someone’s back when they weren’t looking. They’re thin and delicate, easy to stop with armor, hard to get between ribs and bones to stab vital organs, and just don’t have the solid thump that you can give your opponent with a heavy combat knife. But they are light weight and concealable, which is why I carry them. And they do look deadly. More than once I’ve had one out and while the other guy was focusing on it taken them out with a haymaker. So I wasn’t expecting too much when I tried to pig-stick Sariel with it, but even those paltry hopes went unanswered, because the blade snapped in half when I struck her and there wasn’t much of a mark to show for it.

  Sariel looked down and laughed. She said, “Not very chivalrous,” and took a swipe at me that I partially dodged, which was good because even so I was pretty sure I needed to add a dislocated shoulder to the broken rib as I tumbled across the room. Her eyes widened a bit and she added, “What, Gur, did you really think a demon god’s power was limited to protection from venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies?”

  I’d managed to pull the lightning stone out and I let the last charge go. It flashed, lightning jumping from it to Sariel, the crackling roar deafening in the small room. When it reached her, it splashed off something, some kind of shield around her body, and flowed instead into the floor and furniture around her, leaving black, smoldering lines wherever it hit. I was going to need a new coffee table. Maybe I could cover up the burn marks in the floor with throw rugs.

  It’s funny what runs through your head when you’re about to die.

  As I tried to stand up and backpedal at the same time, I gasped out “You know, Sariel, I have to say, sex kitten works a lot better for you than psychotic bitch. Just saying.” I was kind of proud of myself. It’s hard to be a smart ass when a cracked rib is making it feel like you have a dagger stuck in your side.

  She laughed again, eyes glowing like coals. “Oh, good one Gur. I’ll get right on that.” She started walking toward me again. “So, let me spell this out for you. If you know where the primordial chaos is, I am going to beat it out of you, and then I’m going to kill you. If you don’t, that might work out better for you, because then, if you really, really beg, I’ll let you take a geas from Sambhal to be my slave. You’ll tell me what you know, you’ll go out and find out more for me, and - just so we’re clear - sex is not on the docket this time.”

  I’d dodged around the still smoking coffee table, but she kicked it with her bare foot and it went flying across the room and smashed against the far wall. She advanced and I threw up a hand and said, “Sariel, please. Last chance. Walk out of here, and I swear I will forget this happened. It will stay between us. Just walk out, now. Please, Sariel.” I was pretty proud of that too, because the pain was making me want to start weeping instead of making ultimatums.

  Sariel, who had stopped for a moment, laughed in disbelief. She said, “That’s the best you’ve got? Really? Get out of here or I’ll really get mad?” She stopped laughing and her lips went thin. “I don’t think so.” And she started moving toward me again.

  Fortunately, the dislocated shoulder was on the left side. I dropped the second stiletto into my right hand and crouched down. When she was four feet away, I triggered the demon protection spell and prayed. Not to Sambhal, just a generic prayer. Her eyes flickered, flickered, and then they were just blue eyes for a second. She stopped and said, “What was that?” But a reddish haze was filling her pupils. The demon pro wasn’t sticking.

  I lunged at Sariel and slammed the second stiletto into her chest. Like I said, stilettos are tricky little beasts, but someone was smiling down on me because she took a couple of step back and looked at the hilt sticking out just below and to the right of her perfect right breast. The blade must have gone between the ribs and given the angle, if I was any judge… and I am… gone straight through her heart. She looked up at me in disbelief. She said, “What the hell, Gur?” For just a second she looked young and innocent and lost. Then her eyes went out of focus and she slowly toppled over. I was pretty sure she was dead before she hit the ground.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was angry, and sometimes when people are angry they do stupid things.

  This was one of those times.

  I was across the street from the Sambhal temple waiting for Daesal. My shoulder and ribs still ached. The physicker I’d seen had knit everything back together again with sorcery, but told me he could only repair the gross damage and I needed to take it easy for a while.

  The dull pain was not improving my mood.

  I’d arranged for Tolan and Fafer to take Sariel’s body out of my apartment and to the Kydaos temple under the cover of dark. They had to get a wagon, wrap the body up in one of my ruined throw rugs, and wait for the street to be clear. It had taken a while. They both looked a little shocked, although that might have just been the body count. So was I. I’d never killed a woman before. I’d never killed three people in just over twenty four hours before.

  Tolan had covered it with a joke about not giving frequent user discounts.

  Then I tried to get some sleep, which I was pretty sure was going to be unsuccessful until I woke up from a nightmare where a Ohulhug with Sariel’s face was coming at me with a dagger and a grin while the Tamil of the Nitheia temple had me paralyzed. The Tamil kept telling me she’d remove it when she was less irritated, but the Ohulhug was getting closer and closer. I woke up when it had an ugly black blade at my throat and was starting to cut.

  Daesal arrived after a while. I’d sent a messenger to her the prior night with a priority package, expensive but they would wait at her door until she showed up. Part of the message had been to meet me here. She looked at me without speaking. I pulled out the Elvish dagger and handed it to her without a word. She licked the blade.

  “And?” I said. She nodded and handed it back. People on the street were looking at us a little strangely. I looked at the dagger. One more part of the story confirmed. I sighed. That part spelled trouble, but I wasn’t sure I’d be alive long enough to worry about it. “You read the note?” I asked Daesal.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You know what to do if I vanish?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I handed her the dagger. “Just in case,” I said. “If I don’t see you again, return it to the Elvish ambassador. You’ve been a good friend
Daesal. Thank you.”

  “You have been an interesting companion and I have learned much from you and your missions. I thank you for that,” she said.

  “I was hoping for a something a bit more sentimental, but I’ll settle,” I said. “Go. If things work out well for me, I will see you again shortly.” She nodded, turned, and walked down the street. I faced the temple, took a deep breath, and slipped across Aron’s Way, through the wagons and carriages. Up the steps, over the patio, and to the gentlemen’s door. It didn’t swing open for me, no surprise there. I pushed it open and walked in. There was a tall, muscular, very handsome man standing in front of me. He smiled and said, “I’m sorry, my friend, but you don’t have an invitation. I’m going to have ask you to leave.” I walked up to him and I could see a little doubt creep into his eyes, but there was also confidence there. He had some experience with fighting.