The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  He'd wait and see, then. Doing anything rash would ruin both their chance to assassinate Samarand and his ability to learn the nether through the structured instruction of this place rather than through whatever fragments he could scrape together on his own. They'd decide either to kill him or use him. He wouldn't act until he knew which.

  Time went by. Without a window on the sky he had no way to tell how much. He conjugated irregular verbs for a while. He killed some time holding his breath for as long as he could, then waited for his gasps to subside and tried it again. He made a methodic sweep of the room, poking every stone up to the eight-foot ceiling, tapping his toe against every block in the floor. None were false or loose. He hadn't expected they would be, but he liked to think someone who'd shared this room before him had made an effort to escape rather than let himself rot, clapped up and forgotten.

  It wasn't until he could no longer forestall urinating that he grew angry. There were no buckets, no holes in the floor. They hadn't exactly forgotten about him in a few hours, either. It was deliberate. They wanted to reduce him to an animal. Degrade his pride. He did his business in a corner and laid down on the other side of the room, breathing through his mouth. After a while he even slept.

  Dante woke to pitch darkness. He jerked upright, flinching as if he expected to bang his head. The lantern had gone out. He groped for the near wall, leaning forward until his fingers brushed stone. He let himself wake up for a minute. Torchstone in his pocket. He cocked his head, listened for the scrabbles of rats or anything else lurking in the blindness. There was no need for light, the room was practically a complete seal. Darkness couldn't hurt him. For a while longer he sat there, listening to himself breathe. Maybe it was a good thing he was still locked up. Maybe that meant they had lots of things to talk about.

  His stomach gurgled. He had no way to know how long he'd slept, but from his stomach, insistent but not yet pained, he guessed it had been some twelve hours since he'd eaten lunch shortly before they'd dragged him here. He sucked on his fingers, straining his eyes against the inky darkness. He stilled his mind. A coldness like exposing wet skin to a breeze crept over his hands. He thought on the nature of the shadowsphere, the all but solid substance of its delumination, a deeper blackness even than that of this room. He bent his mind to define the sphere by what it wasn't. By its un-ducklike properties. He laughed through his nose, and as his breath touched his palm he could see the creases of his skin, white and illusory as a flash of pain. It winked out at his surprise and he cast back out for its feeling, gathering it in like rope onto a pier. First a spot: and then he saw his hand, his wrist, it expanded over his arm, the dust on his knees and the smooth stone floor. He stood slowly, willing the light to grow. His line of sight bubbled outward until all the room was lit in ghostly white. It had been so simple. What else could he do if he took the time to think about it?

  Metal scraped on metal on the far side of the door. Dante started. The bolt clicked. He swept his thoughts clean and popped back into darkness in time for the light of the hall to spill into his chamber as the door swung open.

  "Still alive?" Larrimore called. He walked inside, glancing idly to either side of the door, then saw Dante standing half in shadow at the far side of the room. Larrimore was silhouetted, his face unreadable. "Stinks in here."

  "That's what happens when you treat a man worse than you'd care for your stock," Dante said.

  "At least it hasn't dulled your tongue."

  "How's Blays?"

  "Untouched, despite my best counsel and his brilliant plan to try to brawl his way to wherever we might have you," Larrimore said. He raised a dark hand to his face. "How would you like to see Samarand?"

  Dante snorted. "Do I have a say?"

  "Of course not. But I thought you might be comforted by the illusion you did." Larrimore turned toward the door. "Come."

  Dante squinted against the modest lantern-light of the hall. After a single day in the room it already felt strange to walk about relatively free—qualified only by Larrimore, the sheathed swords of the guards who followed him, the walls of the keep, the hundreds of soldiers within it, the walls around the keep, and, he supposed, his own need to stay here until Samarand lay dead at his feet. He stumbled and a guard put a hand on his back. He shrugged it away. His heart railed against his ribs. Samarand, face to face. He felt certain he could take her life if he sacrificed his own. Why had all this fallen on him?

  They ascended to the entry hall and Larrimore strode straight back to the sets of doors at the far end of the room. A few soldiers and well-dressed men glanced their way. Into a hallway, through another couple doors, a tight spiral staircase. Dante stopped counting steps after a hundred.

  Larrimore turned off on a landing a short distance from the top. Dante smiled at the heaving breathing of the others. He was winded, but not badly. All that running away had been good for something after all.

  From there they entered a sort of fore hall, thick black rugs on the stone floor, weavings and paintings on the walls, elegant sculpture of the same make he'd seen on the temples within the city. They passed a window of purified glass and Dante stopped short. Below him lay the yard and the walls and the open street, and beyond that, across a yawning gap of empty space, the upthrust steeple of the Cathedral of Ivars soared into the sky. For all their height in the keep, a full two thirds of the church's spire towered above them. Dante was beginning to understand just how big the world was, but surely Ivars was the tallest thing man had ever built. Behind it, the dead city stretched for miles through swaths of gray and white stone, riverlike streets, black fringes of pines growing frequent between the first and second walls and thickly enough to resemble a forest in the crumbling fringes of the outermost city. To his north he could see the gray waters of the bay, the tree-painted arms of land holding it in place, the silvery line of a river feeding it and coursing off to the southeast. It was earlyish morning, he saw, eight or nine o'clock. He'd spent closer to twenty hours locked up than twelve.

  "Enough goggling," Larrimore said. Dante pulled himself from the window and hurried to catch up. They drew up in front of a solid-looking set of doors and Larrimore rapped his knuckles against the wood.

  A woman's voice filtered through the door and with a distant thrill Dante realized he understood the foreign words: "Come in."

  The room was close, warmed and lit by a hearth at its far end. Samarand was seated in front of it, turned toward the door. She folded up the book on her lap and looked up. Her gaze caught on Dante a moment, then she smiled at Larrimore, who walked forward and bobbed his head. They exchanged a few words and Dante's comprehension of Gaskan-by-way-of-Narashtovik evaporated. He shifted his feet as their talk wore on. Samarand laughed regularly, pressing her hand to the base of her throat. His eyes settled on the hollow there, the white, fragile skin. He imagined slitting it. Gathering the nether and caving in her face. If he made the room go black first, he could probably do the same to Larrimore and the armsmen before they could stop him. He was more dangerous than they gave him credit.

  "Dante Galand," Samarand said, standing and facing him. Her voice was soft but carried a current of command. Her words were Mallish, but accented with the thick consonants of Gask speech, an influence he hadn't heard when she'd given her sermon. He met her eyes. "I'm sorry you spent so long in that cell. I was out."

  "My fault," Larrimore agreed, smiling. She gave him a look and he gathered his men and bowed out through the door.

  "It was at least a step more civil than all those times you tried to kill me," Dante said, managing to keep his voice level.

  "I've never seen you before today."

  "In the fields. Coming for the book. Did I pass your test?"

  "Was I ever out in those fields with you?"

  "Whose men were they, then?"

  She shook her head, gaze steady. "This isn't why I brought you here." She nodded to a chair across from hers. He fell into it, leaning his head against its high back.

>   "I bet the others were grateful for the chance to prove themselves," he said. She just smiled. He found it maddening.

  "It's easy to forget," she said, "when Larrimore tells me of all the things you've done, you're still a child." He let that go. "The others were angry, too. They didn't understand at first. But the same drive that brought them to the book gave them the vision for what they could become. Two of them are present members of our council."

  "Is that an offer?"

  She laughed again, then touched her fingers to her lips. "You've made things difficult for me. I'd like you with us. We need talent now more than ever. But I need that book."

  Dante made himself sigh. "I told Larrimore. The book I gave Nak is the same one I found in that temple."

  "Indeed." She leaned back in her chair. She could have been discussing the health of a distant relative. He readied himself to reach for the nether.

  "I suppose you've already made up your mind."

  "Why would I have done that?" She frowned, showing the wrinkles around her mouth. "This isn't a formality. I wanted to see you for myself."

  He narrowed his eyes. "Is Blays safe?"

  "Your friend is fine."

  "I want to see him."

  She lifted one gray-flecked brow. "If it turned out I'd killed him, what would you do about it? Try to kill me?"

  "That would be suicide," he said evenly.

  "Here and now you and I are in this room," she said with the same easy power with which she'd given her sermon. "It's high and isolated. The doors are shut. I have one question: do you want the knowledge I can offer?"

  His hands tightened on the chair's arms. "Yes."

  Her blue eyes skipped between his. "Then give me the book."

  "Look at these," he said, pointing his finger so close to his eyes he might poke them out, "and know I'm telling the truth when I say I've given you everything I have."

  She stared at him the way you'd stare at a scorpion while deciding whether to crush it or leave it be and he felt a flickering around his mind. He jerked his head, then made his mind go as blank as when he sought to channel the nether. Burn in hell, he thought, but he saw no recognition cross her face.

  "You're a snake," she said, freezing his blood, "but I see no lie in your eyes."

  "Finally. Now maybe I can get back to my lessons."

  "Heavens forbid I infringe on your time. Is that how you aspire to spend it? With grammar and vocabulary?"

  "I need to know those things," Dante frowned. "You all speak more than one language."

  "Yes, we're wise enough to know the world's a large place. And good for us. But you didn't travel all this way in hopes of learning your letters. I'm inclined to agree."

  Dante leaned forward, trying to keep his eyes guarded. "Meaning?"

  "If these were ideal circumstances, we'd be in no hurry to rush things along," she said, lifting the corners of her lips at what she saw in his face. "But they're not and we do. You'll continue your lessons with Nak, but we've got a lot of work and not enough hands to get it done. Larrimore will make use of you with some tasks more suitable to your skills than copying conjugation tables."

  "What kind of tasks?"

  She gave an ironic tilt to her head. "Trust my great wisdom will see they're matched to your ability and temperament. I'm not interested in wasting either of our time on tests."

  Dante nodded, considering her placid face. He'd have training both formal and experiential. In the employ of her most trusted servant. A chance to at once realize his talents and stay close enough to find the right moment to strike her down. He couldn't have asked for more. He knew this was no fortunate turn of a die, though. He had made this thing happen. Through wit and will he'd put himself in position to receive this offer. He wouldn't squander it.

  "I accept."

  "Excellent," she smiled, appearing genuinely pleased. Dante still hadn't seen the violence and radicalism Cally'd claimed she'd ridden to power. For a brief moment, he wondered if the old man might have been wrong, if the Samarand he'd known years ago had let age temper her ambition with wisdom. People did change, he thought. He wasn't the boy he'd been three months ago. He'd become potent in a way he'd imagined would take years, had done things he never would have dared on his own. If he could reforge his personality so much in three months, what could Samarand have done in twenty years? Perhaps when she'd gotten the wants of her heart, she'd mellowed, satisfied with her power and her place. "You won't be seeing much of me, of course," Samarand went on. "I've got a lot to do beyond holding the hands of all those administrators who keep writing me for money and troops." She nodded at her desk, overflowing with signet-stamped letters. "Larrimore will tell you whatever we need done. Grow strong. We'll need you soon enough."

  He nodded, dazed. She stood and he did too. He wondered if he was supposed to bow. He offered a kind of deep nod, and when the guards escorted him from her chambers, he knew it wasn't to control his path, but to protect him.

  * * *

  "Why didn't you do it then?" Blays asked when they had a moment alone. He had a bruise high on his cheek and a cut across his nose, but he looked to be in one piece.

  "We'd have been killed," Dante said simply. He rubbed his eyes and looked up from a pile of Nak's notes. "We can't do this like we've done all the rest. We need a plan. A real one."

  "Yeah," Blays nodded, letting his heels bounce against the side of the desk he was sitting on. "Was she as nice in person as at her sermon?"

  "There's something about her. She's seductive."

  "That's disgusting!"

  "Not like that," Dante said, face going red. He shoved Blays.

  "Wait, let's not rule this out," Blays said, righting himself on the desk. "We can use this. First, you flatter and sweet-talk your way into her confidence. Then, when the moment is right, you use that sharp tongue of yours to—"

  "Shut up!" Dante shoved him again. How had they started talking about this? "I mean, she has a way with people. She's a leader of men. If she's like Cally said, then she hides it well."

  "Well, I see how little it takes to win you over," Blays said, eyes lingering on Dante's neck. Dante touched the cold clasp on his collar, the badge Larrimore had given him after his talk with Samarand: a silver ring around a simple, stylized, seven-branched tree.

  "This is how I'm going to keep close to her."

  "Closer than a private audience?"

  "This lets us choose the moment when," Dante said. "That gives us the power." He moved across the room to their one window. "They told me they'd assign you an instructor from the soldiers. You'll be with me on our assignments."

  Blays tapped his finger on the desk, then leaned forward, elbows on knees.

  "Just what are these errands, anyway?"

  "I don't know," Dante said. "Things they need done."

  They found out soon enough. Larrimore appeared the next afternoon to interrupt Nak's lesson with a tersely-worded order about a man spotted in the ruins beyond the outer wall. He wanted Dante to bring him in.

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm telling you to."

  "A time-honored logic."

  "Because," Larrimore said, tugging his collar forward, "he used to be one of our acolytes."

  "Not fond of those who leave the fold?" Dante said, judging he still had some play to his rope.

  "Not fond of those who leave it with their pockets sagging with our property." Larrimore tapped Dante's badge. "Nor is it particularly pleasing when they make a point of lurking about and robbing our monks when they're out on their business. Stealing from men of peace! What is this world come to?"

  Dante nodded, mollified. "Should I know anything about him?"

  "Dark hair. Queued. Bearded—in fact, a general mess, you'll know he's been on the streets a while. Name's Ryant Briggs."

  "I meant of a less tangible nature."

  Larrimore laughed, met his eyes. "Scared?"

  "No," Dante said. He picked up his sword belt. "Well? What can he do?"
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  "Minor talents. Nothing you can't handle."

  "Want him in one piece?"

  "Would be nice," Larrimore shrugged. "But denial of men's desires is the gods' way of saying hello."

  Dante nodded, buckling his sword around his waist. "He'll be yours by nightfall."

  "I hope you're cognizant of the irony here," Blays said after Dante'd found him trading blows with one of the soldiers in the yard and explained their job.

  "I'm cognizant. Remember why we're here."

  "You'd do well to do the same."

  Dante shook his head. They crossed the yard to the small door at the other side of the Citadel's walls, the only other exit from the place, a door far less ostentatious than the main gates but thick as his palm was wide and set in a passage too narrow to swing a sword. The sunlight flashed on the icon on his collar and the door's guards let them by. They strode east into the city, toward the fringes. Citizens' eyes lingered on Dante and the silver at his neck as he brushed by. He gazed straight ahead, a faint thrill of rank and recognition tickling his nerves.

  It had snowed the night before and their boots slid on the ice-slick cobbles. They passed under the Ingate to the shabbier, less-peopled buildings between it and the gappy ring of the Pridegate, so named, Nak had told him in a brief break from the endless language lessons, because in all the times the city had been sacked no man who'd defended its outer walls had ever abandoned them except to be thrown in a coffin. Much of the city was still a mystery to Dante—he hadn't been outside the Citadel since the day he'd given them the fake copy of the Cycle—but the keep and the church were landmark enough to keep his direction even with the sun hidden behind a screen of clouds. The ground sloped down between the two sets of walls before leveling out in front of the Pridegate, threatening to yank itself from under their feet with every step into the snow.

  It was easy to forget, behind the thick stone of the Sealed Citadel and among the bustling crowds behind the Ingate, that so much of the city was wrecked, forgotten, neglected, peopled by the lost and the landless and the outcast—when it was peopled at all. Dante paused in the street just past the outer walls. Birdsong and single footsteps trickled through the rubble and the pines. Behind him, far-carrying notes of shopmen crying prices, hammers shaping steel.