The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  They were about a day from Valios when the thick snowy clouds began spitting out a frozen rain. That night was the coldest Lavery had ever felt. His body felt so cold it burned. When the rain ended and Laythe managed to strike the ninth fire that night—the others had been doused—Lavery looked up from his seat in the woods and saw a forest of sagging branches slick with ice.

  “It’s so peaceful,” he remarked, chewing on a cabbage leaf. “Don’t you think it’s kind of odd?”

  Laythe murmured, uninterested. He never spoke unless the need presented itself. Lavery wondered if his life expectancy decreased with every nonessential word he uttered. It sure seemed that way.

  “Winter,” Lavery explained, “and I know it’s not winter yet, but it’s coming. Obviously it’s coming. Anyway, sometimes it looks so lovely. But it’s a season when everything dies. Death shouldn’t be appealing.”

  He waited, twiddling his thumbs and hoping for a response. He did not receive one, of course. I guess I’ll have to be blunt about it.

  “I’ve read about sorcery. Fire and ice and illusion and furtive sorceries, all of them. I also read about black sorcery. It’s also called death sorcery, if you cared.”

  Laythe’s silence told Lavery he did not care.

  “Well,” Lavery continued, “the acid rain you called down to make those dragons go away, and the dead tree you enlivened—that seemed a lot like black sorcery.”

  For the first time during the one-sided conversation, Laythe opened his eyes. “And?”

  A discomfort knotted up Lavery’s stomach. “Um, it’s just that—I only ever read of necromancers using black sorcery.”

  “Do you think I’m a necromancer?”

  “You said you weren’t.”

  “Yet you persist with this nonsense. So answer the question. Do you think I am a necromancer?”

  Lavery thought about it. Or rather, he thought about his answer. Sometimes you can’t tell people what you’re truly thinking. His father had taught him that. Those kinds of lies are quite all right, his father had said.

  Head hung, he weakly said, “No.”

  “You ask poor questions,” Laythe told him. “You should be asking how you’ll ever get the phylactery in your hands.”

  Lavery shrugged. “That seems easy. I’ll just Walk into the past and—”

  “When in the past?”

  “Oh. Um.”

  “Five hundred sixty-two years ago,” Laythe said, “at precisely the same time an old man is there in the tomb. He will resemble Baern. Mostly because he is Baern.”

  Lavery opened his mouth, paused. “How is that possible?”

  “Because there are things your old friend has not told you.”

  This was all wrong. The flags reaching out from the tops of the corner towers and banners hanging from the walls. They were the wrong color, embroidered with the wrong sigil: a rusty copper backdrop featuring a horned horse.

  Lavery had seen that coat of arms before, both in person and in books. Those flags had flown from the caravan of Aven Klouth when he’d visited Valios to discuss whatever it was vassals discuss with their lieges.

  But why had they replaced the Valiosian twin serpents?

  “I don’t understand,” Lavery said, hands around Laythe’s waist as their horse bumbled over uneven terrain.

  “Your kingdom’s been taken,” Laythe said blithely. “Don’t say a word to the guards. Don’t look at them. We’re impoverished, here to sell the last of our crops, and you’re my son.”

  Laythe had smeared mud onto Lavery’s cheeks and cut a few chunks out of his hair that morning so he’d look less like the missing King Lavery Opsillian and more like a homely farm boy. If it was true that Valios had been taken, Lavery was thankful for his new appearance; rightful heirs to a throne aren’t treated kindly by usurpers.

  The Valiosian gate stood closed, two pairs of guards posted outside. Lavery didn’t recognize a single one.

  They motioned for Laythe to idle his horse.

  “What’re you here for?” one asked, cheeks burnt red from the gelid wind.

  “Me and my boy here come to sell the last of our crops ’fore winter comes.”

  “Lord Aven Klouth requires a tithe from all merchants prior to entering the city.”

  A second guard went around and inspected the wagon. He tossed over the cabbage, rummaged through the heads of lettuce. “Looks like a couple barrels worth of greens. Not worth even half a silver if he sold it all.”

  The first guardsman rubbed his chin. “Let’s call it a fifteen-copper tithe. More than fair, I think you’ll agree.”

  “Sirs,” Laythe said, “I’ve not any coin on me person. I can offer you twenty copper after—”

  “Not gettin’ swindled by a cabbage farmer. Can’t afford the tithe? Then we take a quarter of your stock. Warsch, bag it up.”

  A third guard peeled apart a single burlap sack from several on the ground. He began tossing the crops inside.

  Laythe hung his head but didn’t say a word. He plays his part well, Lavery thought. He wondered how many times he’d done this very thing in the past.

  The guards didn’t give Lavery so much as a passing glance, and for that he was thankful.

  “Mm,” Laythe mumbled as he passed into the city, head swiveling this way and that.

  “You don’t know where to go, do you?” Lavery said.

  “The market used to be straight ahead. A small thing, if I recall, a cobble road cutting through, stalls on either side. Stretched for maybe sixty paces, seventy.”

  “When were you last here?”

  “A long time ago.”

  Clearly, Lavery thought. “There’s a whole district now for merchants. But you can’t just go there and claim an empty stall. You’ve got to talk to Lord Jullen. He’s the master of commerce.”

  “That sounds very complicated.”

  “I guess. But it keeps trade organized and also enforces taxes. Lord Jullen comes by every night and collects taxes from registered merchants, and if you aren’t registered—well, that’s a big crime. You can—”

  Laythe blew an irritated sigh between his lips and turned around. “Take me to a secluded alley.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re dumping this horse and cart there and venturing over to the tombs.”

  Lavery thought about this. He knew plenty of recluse alleys, but he had a better idea than letting all their crops—or rather, the crops belonging to that poor farmer they’d stolen from—go to waste.

  “Down there,” he pointed, a finger sandwiched between the stables and a towering hayloft that doubled as the sleeping quarters for grooms and food storage for the horses.

  Laythe directed their mare that way without question. After a while they came to a stone bridge that spanned one of the many chasms in Valios. “This is the closest alley?” Laythe asked.

  “Go across,” Lavery said, hoping to convince Laythe. He did not.

  “Looks like a chamber pot for the gods.”

  Bristled and insulted, Lavery nearly erupted with admonishment, but he caught himself in time. The dregs of Valios had always been the victims of laughter and contempt, and he hated it. He’d have changed that had he been king. Well, he had been king, but hardly for long enough to change things.

  “The poorest live here,” Lavery explained. “We can leave the crops for them. They’ll very much appreciate it, I promise.”

  Lavery saw the muscles in Laythe’s neck seize. “I am not here to feed the disadvantaged.”

  “The nearest secluded alley is back the other way. If you want to waste time backtracking…”

  “Clever,” Laythe said, his voice stale. He clicked his heels, walking their mare into the dregs.

  “We can leave it right here,” Lavery said. “The mausoleum isn’t far, and by going through here, we can avoid most guard patrols. Maren O’Keefe didn’t see a reason to send the Silver Swords into the dregs unless there were riots or fires. Even then sometimes he didn’t
; he claimed an occasional cleansing was necessary. I hated that man.”

  “He sounds cruel. Sometimes you need to be cruel. Lead the way.”

  Lavery frowned at that. He wondered if all sorcerers had the same callous disposition as Laythe, if being hunted by the Daughters to near extinction had made them all jaded and insensitive. That was assuming Laythe was, of course, a mere sorcerer. Lavery wasn’t so sure.

  Shortly after the wagon and horse had been abandoned, emaciated figures with ribs showing like veins in an arm poured out from alleyways and beneath the broken shelter of shattered carts. They wobbled on bony feet toward the cabbage and lettuce, reaching for them with shaky fingers.

  The made snorting sounds as they devoured the crops, trembling with hunger. Those who were worse off lay in the mud, staring with gaped mouths; their bodies had given up.

  Away from that sad, dismal sight loped Lavery, crossing a couple chasms, jumping a fence, and getting clucked at by an irrationally angry chicken. He came to the mausoleum’s whitewashed brick with Laythe several steps behind.

  “It’s a tight fit,” Lavery said, walking inside. “But if Baern and all those mercenaries could fit, so can you.”

  For the first time in a while, Lavery felt happy. The familiarity of this place, the memories of sneaking away from his room at night and coming here to talk to his friends, to explore the purity of the tombs—it made him smile. But memories tend to dredge up the very painful prick of nostalgia, and Lavery’s happiness soon gave way to melancholy. He longed for those days again, when he was a boy who had no responsibilities. When the world had seemed so bright and full of life.

  Every day since, he couldn’t help but notice the light was seeping away, glimmer by glimmer.

  He wanted to cry. But he held it together. Shook his head, pinched his eyes—that always dammed up the tears. With a heavy sigh, he squeezed himself into the hole and entered the tombs once more. Perhaps, he thought, for the last time.

  He heard Laythe’s trailing footsteps. “Where are you?”

  Lavery didn’t answer. He ran his hand along the cold cobwebbed walls, grinning as a familiar mustiness filled his lungs.

  “Lavery,” Laythe called out.

  “Over here.”

  “I can’t see where over there is. You have a job to do; this is not the time to play.”

  He sounds more like Maren every second, Lavery thought. He was right, though. This wasn’t the Valios Lavery had left behind, the one that would welcome him back with open arms and warm hearts. Aven Klouth had, somehow, taken the city. The longer he and Laythe lingered here, the more they risked.

  “Can you see yet?” Lavery asked. He sat on a fat rock he’d first learned was there a few years ago. That was also the year he had broken his foot by accidentally kicking said rock.

  “No. And—” Laythe fell silent.

  “And what?”

  “Do you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  “The wind. Stay here.” Laythe climbed back up into the mausoleum, and that’s when he shivered. How hadn’t he felt it until now? The Daughters were here, and this time they came for him in numbers.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Graybeard Hischk glanced at the sky for at least the fifteenth time, as if a dragon might coalesce from the clouds and rain destruction upon Feirdeen.

  Oriana supposed that wasn’t entirely unreasonable, given the circumstances. She followed at his heels as they hurried across the city’s network of bridges and slopes. He brought her back to his house. Up the stairs they went, to a mostly empty second floor, save a small cot where a bald woman dressed in a loose-fitting blouse lay curled.

  “Catali,” Hischk said, gently shaking the woman’s shoulder. Catali groaned and opened one eye. “You have a visitor. I think you’ll want to see her.”

  Stretching her legs, she rolled onto her back. A yawn and a blink of her eyes later, she bolted upright. “Ori!” She looked to the heavens and steepled her fingers. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m so glad you’re okay. Something terrible happened, and I—”

  “I know, Cat,” Oriana said. She sat next to her friend on the cot, laying a hand on her knee. “The Evanescence Clutch came for us. We got out of there in time, but I’m not sure how long we can stay ahead of them.”

  Catali had thinned since Oriana last saw her. She looked unhealthy. Her collarbone protruded from her neckline and her cheeks were sunken in, exaggerating her already pointy chin and broad nose.

  “I’m so sorry,” Catali said, grasping Oriana’s wrist. “I wanted to warn you, but I was at the Helmlands. I couldn’t have gotten to the coast in time. I only arrived here a few days ago.”

  “It’s not your fault. Cat, I have a very important question.” Oriana swallowed. She didn’t want to ask it, because the answer frightened her. “Has the Conclave fallen?”

  With downcast eyes, Catali shook her head dismally. “I wish. When I last saw you, I told you King Fahlmar was making a push into the Erath Basin in an attempt to nudge the Conclave farther west. Things deteriorated quickly. Fahlmar launched a diplomatic coup against the Conclave, convincing their allies to betray them. In only a month’s time, the Conclave was pushed back to the Bluffs, losing almost all their territory and many of their sorcerers.

  “He made a final push to eradicate them from this world.”

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Oriana said.

  “You shouldn’t. From my conversations with repudiated Conclave sorcerers, the Conclave had learned of your hiding place long ago.”

  Bewildered, Oriana shook her head. “How? I’d only cast a single illusion. It was intense, yes, and covered my entire estate, but still… a single use of sorcery shouldn’t alert the Conclave.”

  “I know nothing for certain,” Catali stressed, “but… listen, Ori, this is purely speculation, okay? I don’t want to worry you.”

  With a motion of her hand, Ori said, “Out with it.”

  Catali frowned. “I think one of the sorcerers we recruited is a Conclave informant.”

  “I thought so too. But we were so careful. You interrogated each and every one.”

  “Mindful sorcery isn’t effective against those who practice the same,” Catali reminded her. “The Conclave knew everything you’d done for the past five years. The whelps, the slaves, your estate, the sorcerers. How else would they know all that?”

  Mouth buried in her hands, Oriana closed her eyes. “The Conclave sent the clutches after me, didn’t they?”

  “It’s worse than that. They pledged themselves as allies to the clutches, offering them the location of your locus—and their whelps. In return, the dragons would lay siege to Fahlmar’s armies and assist the Conclave in sweeping across Baelous. And they did just that.” She folded Oriana’s fingers into her hand. “Ori, you can’t go back. Stay here, please. We’ll figure out a way.”

  Oriana ripped her hand from Catali’s. “Why would you ask me to do that, after all we’ve done? I’m not abandoning Avestas. I will never abandon Avestas.”

  “Please, Ori,” Catali pleaded.

  “Absolutely not. I’m going—”

  “Ori… the last of the clutches has left for Avestas. It’s over.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A thud jolted Lavery from his thoughts. “Laythe?”

  “Get that phylactery, now. We need to leave.”

  “What’s wrong? Is someone screaming?” Someone—no, several someones—were certainly screaming.

  “We’re being hunted.”

  “Hun—”

  “Lavery! Enough talking. If you don’t get that phylactery now, we won’t have another chance. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  It meant Avestas would burn just like in his vision. He closed his eyes. Deep breaths in and out, just as he’d practiced. He placed his hands flat on his thighs and counted each exhale—one, two, three, four… the numbers began fading and so did the mustiness of the tomb.

  The Ma
dness of Departure temporarily stripped him of all external sensations and thoughts and emotions. The crushing desire to flee the present made him squirm. To give in would have been utterly relieving, but he withstood the need to do so. The past and future fwhipped past like a barrage of arrows, flicking across his vision, blinking in and out of his mind.

  He groaned, grunted. His head ached now, felt like his temples would collapse inward. He gritted his teeth, began trembling violently.

  Corpuscular apparitions that had been laid to rest hundreds of years ago appeared before him, and so too did those that had come to pass as little as eight weeks prior. The fate of the world in twenty years, in two hundred, in two thousand—there were brief glimpses of a flourishing countryside and likewise an apocalyptic hell.

  Lavery unconsciously balled up his fists. White-knuckled, he moaned as the visions solidified and slowed. This was the most painful, agonizing part: disregarding each point in the past or future until he found the one he needed.

  For Lavery, the process felt like it took hours, but he’d passed over thousands of years in only a few blinks before he saw the beard, the aged pockmarked face, the bushy brows.

  The tomb was transformed into a tidy, well-lit tunnel of coffins. A half-built wall stood before Lavery. A pail of wet mortar sat atop.

  “Baern,” Lavery said to the man slopping mortar onto a stone.

  Startled, the old man nearly jumped out of his skin. “Whoa, now. Hey. How—who’re you? A little young to be traipsing down here, don’t you think? Why, if I was your age and my mama caught me doin’ what you’re doin’, she’d have my hide. Yes, she would.”

  With a gaping mouth, Lavery stared for several moments. “It is you. Laythe wasn’t lying. You probably don’t know me since, um, I’m not really born yet. But I’m Lavery Opsillian.”

  “Lavery what now?”

  “I’m here for the phylactery.”

  Baern lay his trowel on the wall. “Is that right?”