Slim brought his chubby hands together. “Er. Well. If you were a run-o’-the-mill citizen, I would have to say no.”
Maren leaned to one side expectantly. “But?”
“But you’re on the Council, so I suppose the truth is in my best interest.”
“I suppose it is.”
Slim gestured Maren inside and closed the doors. “He’s had Erath holed up in his office goin’ on an hour now. No appointment, never asked to stop by, just came waltzin’ right in, tellin’ us it was official business of the crown.”
“When you do business with capital kingdoms,” Maren said, “you tend to attract the attention of spymasters.” Slim murmured something, probably along the lines of to hell with your bloody spymaster.
The Luthmen brothers’ belief in clean, elegant and graceful design announced itself the moment you stepped foot into their headquarters. Vaulted ceilings rose high above a mostly empty room of polished pewter gray floors. At the edges stood tables with various miniature designs that the brothers had completed over the years or that served as conceptional pieces for prospective buyers.
Slim led Maren to what looked like a solid wall. The rotund man knocked twice, then slid a hand along what turned out to be a concealed panel that glided along on a track, revealing a door behind it.
“What’s the point?” Maren asked.
Slim looked offended. “Art.” He rolled his eyes and proceeded to open the door. He poked his head inside the room and said, “Got Maren O’Keefe out here, Mister Dewn. Says he’s lookin’ for ya.”
“We were just wrapping up our conversation,” said a man with a steely voice. “Our emissary can be found in the village of Cragtop, due south of Torbinen. Please inform him if you notice anything of interest. I appreciate your time, Erath, as always.”
There was a sniff, followed by a long sigh, which came undoubtedly from Erath Luthmen. His preferred method of communication when annoyed involved long, drawn-out breaths and the grinding of his teeth. His personal savant recommended this coping method to deal with his anger rather than erupting in violence and shouting obscenities as he had been wont to do.
Horace Dewn appeared before Maren, clutching a folder to his chest. One could suggest Horace looked entirely and utterly undeserving of the title spymaster. Spymasters tend to conjure up images of hood-wearing sleuths with daggers at their sides and a cagey presence with shifty eyes. Horace Dewn wore no hood, dressed himself in a midnight-blue tunic messed with wrinkles and stains, and trudged around in boots that had needed replacing six years ago. He was, in a word, inconspicuous.
“Maren,” Horace said with a nod, walking briskly past the master-at-arms.
Maren O’Keefe caught up to him and the two departed Luthmen’s Architecture. “I’ve a favor to ask of you.”
Horace looked right, clicked his tongue, then aimed his broad nose left and started down the bustling street. “I’m quite busy, Maren, what with our king vanishing and all.”
“About that…”
Horace did an about-face. “Yes?”
“We should talk in private,” Maren said.
The spymaster waited, emotionless and seemingly detached. Silence is the great undesirable—it latches on to you, inside of you, and eats away at your nerves, makes your blood run cold. You just want to make it go away, so you blurt something, anything to keep the conversation flowing. Maren had used this strategy plenty, to instill a healthy fear and respect in his soldiers, to nudge secrets loose in the throats of those who swallowed them.
He understood the game. And he wouldn’t be played, which was why he tightened his lips and crossed his arms.
Horace wheeled around and began walking again, only to pause after a few feet. “Well?” he called over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
Several minutes later, Maren found himself trailing Horace up the winding carpeted steps of the keep. Up and up and up, spiraling and twisting, till finally the spymaster led him to a landing beneath a gaping stone arch. Two banners hung from either side of the arch, displaying a single white eye against a background of black: the coat of arms belonging to the Umbras, as they called themselves. Officially, they were the espionage arm of the Valiosian crown.
Horace ambled down a long hallway dimly lit by a handful of wall-mounted torches, till he arrived at the very end, before a door. He produced a ring of keys from his pocket, unlocked the door and stood aside. “Guests first,” he said.
Maren took three steps and that’s all. Mostly because he couldn’t see a bloody thing. Horace remedied this problem by scouring the room nimbly—it was his own, after all—and collecting a candle. He lit the wick in the fire of a torch outside.
“Normally,” Horace said, lighting the rest of the candles in the room, “I wouldn’t entertain even important discourse at the moment. But I trust you, Maren O’Keefe. You wouldn’t come to me unless you had to. Am I correct?”
Maren shut the door and locked it. He noticed a subtle tenseness in Horace, probably because asking to speak to someone privately and then locking yourself inside a room with them is the type of thing an assassin would do. But Maren had no intention of offing Horace; he needed the man.
“Do you remember the discussion we had… oh, it must have been two years ago. Maybe three. It was about the inevitable death of Craigh Opsillian.”
Horace shuffled several folders on his desk into one stack, then began tidying up the tall cabinet lying against the rear wall. “Vaguely.”
Maren knew if Horace recalled something, it was never in vague terms. That answer was his way of playing dumb, innocent.
“Craigh fucked us, Horace.”
The spymaster shrugged as he gathered up a few loose pieces of parchment and placed them inside a drawer. “The city’s an economic powerhouse. The Chamberlain claims our books are more impressive than those of Bastion Rook’s.”
“And what good does that do if we have no allies? Craigh stuffed the coffers well, I’ll grant you that. But he neglected our position on the world stage. The Valiosians were once the great unifiers of the West. And now we simply exist here. We don’t own it.”
Horace said nothing.
“I understand this might only seem like a problem if war arises, but I’ve heard rumors, Horace. Surely you have too.”
Horace glanced back. His face looked a shade paler. He didn’t grit his teeth or flare his nostrils; his jaw hadn’t shifted and his pupils hadn’t widened—but there was a faint paling of his cheeks. “What kind of rumors?”
“That the Wrokklens are in the midst of a famine. Their people are hungry and angry. They’re on the precipice of rebellion.”
And just like that, the color returned to Horace’s face. “That’s less of a rumor and more of a known fact, Maren. The Umbras are keeping an eye on the situation.”
“They’re desperate. You know as well as I there are lots of recipes for war, and desperation is an ingredient for many of them.” He let the implication dangle before Horace for a moment, allowing the spymaster to fully savor it.
If the West were a square, the Valiosians would find themselves in the very center and the Wrokklens at the bottommost left corner. Before Craigh Opsillian took the throne, the Wrokklens were barely recognized as a capital kingdom, and most saw them as the little brother to Valios. But as Valios’s sphere of influence had shrunk and shriveled, the Wrokklens’ had expanded. They weren’t so little anymore.
“You know,” Horace said, closing one of the drawers and facing Maren, “I thought this discussion would be about Lavery Opsillian.”
“I’m getting there,” Maren said. “But first, I need to know you understand the peril this great kingdom faces. If the Wrokklens break for war, they may very well unite the West against us.”
Horace chewed his cheek silently. He understood the possibility.
“I know where Lavery Opsillian is,” Maren said.
The spymaster offered a wholesome display of nothingness. He wouldn’t comment, not yet. He wanted more information.
“Do you know the Eyes of Aleer?” Maren asked.
A single nod of Horace’s head followed.
“Well, that’s where he is. In their possession. And—” Maren steadied himself, steeled his heart, slowed his breathing. Nerves were no good right now. He needed to be convincing. To be certain. To be confident. “I suggest we leave him in their possession. You know as well as I that an eleven-year-old king would spell doom for Valios.”
“Then why,” Horace said, speaking frankly, “did you insist the Council vote him in?”
“You know the answer to that. Don’t play me for a fool. If he didn’t get the crown, someone in the Council would have it instead. Would you truly trust Lady Aylee on the throne? Or how about Lord Mauvery and his drunken ass? The only ones deserving of kingship, Horace, are you and me.”
Under normal circumstances, this proclamation would have probably seen Maren in a ditch later that day, his throat scalded from gulping down an unsuspected poisoned mug of ale. But he had ventured onto this path with Horace before, those years ago when they’d gotten together and discussed possibilities for replacing a dead Craigh Opsillian. Horace had seemed open to the idea then; Maren could only hope he was open to it now.
“Was it intentional?” Horace asked. “Lavery’s abduction, that is.”
Maren shook his head. “Honest to Roln,” he said, speaking of the ancient god of life.
“You aren’t a religious man,” the spymaster noted.
“No, but you are. And I don’t disrespect another’s god. But I’m not going to run a game on you, Horace. I’ll admit that I had plans for dispossessing little Lavery, but not until I got your blessing.”
“And if I didn’t offer it?”
Maren shrugged. “Then onward with the status quo. I’d have hated to see this once great kingdom fail, but I enjoy life… and going against the wishes of a spymaster is not conducive to living.” He smiled.
Horace chuckled. It wasn’t a chuckle steeped in genuine humor, but rather in disbelief. “Roln save me,” he said, crossing his arms. “Tell your plan. And if you don’t have one—”
“Of course I have one. The West will only unite against a common enemy. I’ll be brief, Horace: we place the blame for Lavery’s disappearance on Bastion Rook. The Rooks have attempted a hostile takeover of the West before, and they’ll attempt it again.”
“We can’t take on Bastion’s armies, even with a united West.”
Maren waved away Horace’s concerns. “A few small battles here and there, and then we call for peace. We push out propaganda that the West won, convince our people that Bastion cowered before us but that we were merciful and godly. Bastion will surely accept a peace treaty. He has his own problems with the Torbinens; he won’t want to cross the Gape and fight a war on two fronts.”
“I’ll begin sowing rumors,” Horace said.
Maren couldn’t hide that he was taken aback. He had expected more of an argument from the spymaster, more cautiousness. It wasn’t supposed to be this easy.
“The Council,” Horace said, “will give us fits.”
“The Council will be going away.”
Horace raised a brow.
“I’ll secure prisoners from Vivine Village,” Maren said, leaving out the small fact that he had already done so. Admitting that would have shown Horace that he’d already put his plan into motion, which rather conflicted with the whole I-need-your-blessing fib he’d mentioned earlier. “We’ll bring them here and outfit them in a few uniforms identical to those of the Rooks’.
“We plant evidence that someone on the Council—Lady Aylee, perhaps—conspired with Bastion to have Lavery kidnapped so she could take the throne herself. The people will no longer view the Council as trustworthy, which is where I proclaim myself the temporary steward. Unless, of course, you desire the crown…”
Horace sniffed. “No desire whatsoever.”
“Hell, Horace, maybe if everything goes swimmingly, we’ll unite the whole damn world against Bastion. Wipe his fucking name off the books forever. You know the Torbinens would enjoy that.”
Horace forced an obviously fake smile. “Maybe,” he said, his voice small.
“Speaking of the Torbinens,” Maren said, “and this is merely my curiosity—what has the Umbras so interested in them? I heard you mention to Erath that if his workers in Torbinen see anything of interest, they ought to report to it to the Umbras’ emissary there.”
It took a long time for the spymaster to respond, but when he did, all he said was, “Mindless spy work.”
He was going to say something else, Maren thought. He’d have to come back to this topic at another time. “Well, friend, I’ll secure those prisoners. We should meet tomorrow and every day from there forward to discuss how our plans are going.”
Horace forced another smile and nodded agreeably.
As Maren unlocked the door and grasped the handle, the spymaster’s voice froze him.
“Maren,” Horace said, “there’s something you should know.” Angst slathered every word. “Lock that door.”
Horace got on his knees and pried a square chunk of wood from the floor to reveal a hidden compartment beneath. His hand vanished inside. He brought it up with a burlap sack in tow. It stunk like rotten eggs. Or meat. Definitely rotten meat.
“The Umbras said they saw it flying low along the Torbinen coast. They took it down with an arrow in its heart. They brought it to me yesterday.”
He untied the bag, opened it wide, and gestured for Maren to come have a look.
Maren O’Keefe had only once before felt his heart vault into his throat, and that was the day he’d stared at the lifeless body of his wife, who had passed peacefully in her sleep. Today marked the second such occasion.
“What the hell is that?” he said.
“It’s quite young,” Horace said. “Which means there must be an older one out there somewhere. Well, two of them, I suppose.”
Maren swallowed. He fixed his eyes to the spymaster’s. “Horace, what the hell is that?”
“You know what this is, Maren.” Horace waited for an answer, but never received one. “It’s a dragon.”
Chapter Ten
He was hungry. This wasn’t particularly problematic since the village had many sources of food—though tasty or scrumptious were not words you’d assign to any of them—but it did hammer home the fact that he was once again very alive. Sometimes he questioned if this was all a dream, but you do not dream when you’re dead, so that was impossible.
Many living desires had returned, but at this moment he had only one desire, and that was to eat this loaf of bread.
He in fact ate two loaves of bread and drank more goat’s milk than he’d ever thought possible. Then he rearranged a wooden rocking chair so that it looked out over the balcony, and he sat. And he waited—dressed in clothes, finally.
It took them several days, but eventually they arrived just as he’d suspected, though in far smaller numbers than he’d imagined.
On five horses rode five women, all dressed in tight-fitting leather armor and equipped with a sheathed sword at one side and a chain mace at the other. A bow and quiver lay before them, on the saddle.
Their hair was cropped, their eyebrows shaved. Each had a strong jaw and jutting chin, which is what you’d expect to see when looking at a Daughter. Weak faces and weak souls alike were purged.
The eyes of the silent Daughters climbed up the peaks of the mountain, drifted over the village like a dark rain cloud, and scoured the trees.
“Meli,” said one of the Daughters, “something is wrong here.”
“Bless me, Twin Sisters,” said another Daughter. “Oh, bless me.”
Her words came as several villagers looked up from their plowing and milking and log chopping. They stood there trancelike, no emotion evoked, no fears stirring. They wore no clothes. They wore no flesh.
“A curse,” Meli whispered. “There is a man here,” she said, stepping forward and addressi
ng the villagers. “He is a menace, a sin upon this world. If you have seen him, you must tell us.”
One of the horses snorted and wiggled its rear, backing up.
“Even the beasts can sense it, Meli.”
Meli pulled tight on the reins of her horse, but fear widened the steed’s brown eyes. It whinnied and snorted and swished its tail. It wanted to leave this place.
One of the villagers eyes fell out of its socket.
Meli leered suspiciously. “I smell him,” she told the Daughters. “He’s here.”
A horse reared onto his hind legs, then crashed onto its front hooves, nearly bucking its rider off.
“Meli,” a Daughter said desperately, “we should go. There’s bad on this mountain.”
“There is,” Meli said, clambering down off the saddle.
“More than we can handle…”
Steel scraped against leather. “No. The bad will bend to us, and we will purge it. Bows, Daughters.”
The four Daughters joined their leader. Their horses cried and ran. When the last thundering of the hooves was out of earshot, the women moved toward the village.
Protect your god, Gynoth whispered to the villagers. His words came not from his mouth into their ears but from his mind into theirs.
Villagers poured from their homes and the barn, from the stables and from the open hearth. There were sixty of them in all, and they formed a wall of bone that permitted the Daughters no entry.
“Meli,” one of the Daughters said, her voice trembling.
Meli lifted a hand, a futile attempt to pacify the woman’s soul. “We are your friends,” she told the villagers. “You are sheltering a demon. A twisted being who has no place in this world. You are suffering and we will cure you.”
Gynoth rose from the rocker. He descended the steps, eventually making his way out of the house. His appearance drew two nocked bows.
“Death,” he said, “was more peaceful than I imagined.”
Meli stepped forward. “Why are you here, necromancer?”
“I assume because a reckoning is coming and I’m the only one who can stop it. You need me. You might not like me, but you need me.”
The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1) Page 8