The Shadowhand Covenant

by Brian Farrey

  DEDICATION

  For Benji, an honorary Grimjinx

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  PART ONE:

  THE SHADOWHANDS

  CHAPTER 1: Good-Bye to Nanni

  CHAPTER 2: The Summons

  CHAPTER 3: The Shadowhands

  CHAPTER 4: Ambush

  CHAPTER 5: Underground

  CHAPTER 6: Attack of the Vessapedes

  CHAPTER 7: Tinderjack

  CHAPTER 8: The Sarosan Plight

  CHAPTER 9: A Sinister Message

  CHAPTER 10: Escape

  CHAPTER 11: The Smell of Blood

  PART TWO:

  THE COVENANT

  CHAPTER 12: Return to Redvalor

  CHAPTER 13: The Robberies

  CHAPTER 14: Finding the Traitor

  CHAPTER 15: The Dagger

  CHAPTER 16: The Horror in the Walls

  CHAPTER 17: A Deadly Oasis

  CHAPTER 18: The Nursery

  CHAPTER 19: The Last Shadowhand

  CHAPTER 20: Shimmerhex

  CHAPTER 21: The Final Trap

  PART THREE:

  THE SOURCEFIRE

  CHAPTER 22: Underground. Again.

  CHAPTER 23: The Traitor’s Story

  CHAPTER 24: The Palatinate Palace

  CHAPTER 25: An Impossible Menagerie

  CHAPTER 26: Unexpected Rescue

  CHAPTER 27: The Labyrinth of Glass

  CHAPTER 28: Another Tribunal

  CHAPTER 29: A Last Request

  CHAPTER 30: Exile

  About the Author

  Back Ad

  Books by Brian Farrey

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  THE

  SHADOWHANDS

  1

  Good-Bye to Nanni

  “Whenever things seem to be exactly as they should, lay down money that they’re not.”

  —Ancient par-Goblin proverb

  It was exactly the funeral Nanni always wanted.

  The morning sun glistened off the fresh sheen of snow across the hillside. The nip in the winter air, crisp and clean, chilled without being too cold. Huddled together for warmth, the crowd of mourners stood around the freshly dug grave in the cemetery just outside Vengekeep as a hemmon chirped in the nearby trees.

  I brushed snow from the lenses of my silver-framed glasses and gave my sister Aubrin’s gloved hand a squeeze. She looked up, eyes swollen with tears, and returned a fragile smile. To my right stood Da, wearing the traditional burgundy shawl of mourning, staring down at his feet as though looking at the grave would be too much. Ma’s arm reached around his shoulders from the other side, comforting the bereaved son.

  While we were never what you might call religious, we still thought it proper to hire a vicarman to say a few words about my grandmother, whom we called Nanni. He stood near the casket, talking about all the lives she’d touched and how much she meant to us, the Grimjinx family. When he spoke of how much Nanni loved making singemeat stew, Da released a loud, heaving sob. I put my free hand on his forearm as Ma whispered loudly, “Be brave, love.”

  Talian Strom, Vengekeep’s town-state mage, uttered a single word. His spellsphere sparkled, and the heavy casket descended into the frozen earth. Nearby, the widow Bellatin tugged on the strings of an oxina and played a plaintive song. Da stepped forward, scooped up a handful of dirt, and said in staggered breaths, “Ma . . . Nanni . . . you’ll be missed. Always.” He tossed the soil into the grave, then returned to Ma’s waiting arms, where he broke down crying.

  The mourners—dozens and dozens of our neighbors in Vengekeep—waited in line to pay their respects. We hardly knew them. Many were among the wealthiest people in the town-state, no doubt hoping to impress Da—the town Protectorate—by simply showing up.

  We stood at the edge of the cemetery, receiving the well-wishers one by one. Aubrin was the bravest of all. She looked everyone in the eye and thanked them sincerely for coming. Ma spoke for Da, who eventually had to withdraw when his sobbing overtook him. He murmured excuses, then walked back toward the town-state gates and home.

  I shook hands and accepted condolences with a stoic face. As the line of mourners thinned, I found my best friend, Callie Strom, in a modest crimson dress. Teary-eyed, she pulled me into a tight hug.

  “She was a lovely woman, Jaxter,” she said, her voice broken. “I can’t believe she’s gone. I keep thinking we’ll see her again.”

  I coughed and gave Callie a look. She lifted a handkerchief to her eyes and moved on to Ma. Once the receiving line was finished, Aubrin tugged at my sleeve.

  “Can we go home yet? Everyone here looks so grave.”

  I groaned. She hadn’t spoken a word for the first ten years of her life, and now that she was talking, she couldn’t stop making bad jokes. “Why don’t you head back to the house and help Da? Ma can finish up here.”

  Aubrin raised an eyebrow. “What about you?”

  I looked up toward the rim of the valley that surrounded Vengekeep. “I have a quick stop to make and then I’ll be along.”

  I hugged Aubrin, then trudged up the valley slope through the snow. I glanced back at Vengekeep. I hadn’t seen my hometown for nearly six months. I couldn’t have guessed the reason that had finally brought me back.

  At the top of the hill, a large, gray, copper-trimmed carriage drawn by four silver-maned mang waited near the edge of the forest. On my approach, the footman, who’d been hugging himself to stay warm, leaped off his perch.

  “Oya, Tren,” I said to him with a wink. Tren winked back. I stood beside the carriage and took a deep breath. More than a little nervous, I nodded at Tren, who opened the carriage door. I climbed inside.

  Red velvet lined the carriage’s interior. I sank down in the rounded bench at the fore, my back to the mang out front. Sitting across from me, the Dowager Annestra Soranna, wrapped in a thick fur serape, inspected an unruly stack of parchments on her lap. She leafed through the pages, frowning at what she saw and clicking her tongue with disapproval.

  I studied her quietly. Silence between us had been the norm recently. Right now, I couldn’t tell if she was still upset with me or just busy. In training me to be a thief, my parents had taught me how to read people’s thoughts and emotions based solely on their body language. But when the Dowager worked on official state business, she was inscrutable.

  “How did it go?” she asked absently, absorbed in her reading.

  “A beautiful service from start to finish,” I reported. “Callie sang a lovely dirge. Something about ladygills blossoming in the spring. Or was it autumn? Not sure. Wasn’t really paying attention. Anyway, there was quite a turnout. I wish Nanni could have seen it. She’d have loved it.”

  The Dowager nodded, but I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. Shortly before we’d left Redvalor Castle three days ago, she’d received an urgent message. A herald from her brother, the High Laird who ruled all the Five Provinces, had arrived and delivered the parcel of parchment now before her. The entire trip, the Dowager had pored over the papers and grown increasingly distressed with what she read.

  I said, “Don’t tell me. The High Laird has decided to give up his post for a life as a novelist.”

  The Dowager snorted. When she looked up, I finally saw the warmhearted woman to whom I’d been apprenticed these last six months. She had a slight, odd smile on her lips, eyes that flittered about, and a gentle sway to her head. Even with the tension between us, it felt good to make her laugh.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “Although maybe I’ll recommend it to him. Honestly, Jaxter, I moved into Redvalor Castle so I wouldn’t have to deal with things like this. Missing artifac
ts, suspicious thefts . . . And he’s got no one to blame but himself. If he’d listened to my advice . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as she turned another page of the High Laird’s report. Since moving to Redvalor Castle to do research with the Dowager, I’d learned that frenzied missives from her brother seeking advice were commonplace. She, not he, had been groomed by their father to be High Laird. Sometimes it showed in her brother’s hasty decisions. He spent a lot of time consulting her, often after he’d made terrible mistakes.

  The Dowager set her papers aside. “You do understand why I couldn’t join you at the service, don’t you, Jaxter?” she asked delicately.

  “Of course,” I said. “It’s for the best that you stayed away. Everyone understands. Besides, it’s all over now.”

  The Dowager gazed out the window at Vengekeep. Last night’s snow had painted the walls surrounding the town-state, making them hard to see against the blanket of white that covered the valley. “That must have been very difficult for you.”

  I shook my head and grinned. “Nah. Not really. I’m starved. You ready to eat?”

  When the Dowager and I arrived at Ma and Da’s house, we found Da dancing jubilantly around the kitchen, making a show of dropping chopped vegetables into a boiling kettle and singing a silly jingle about par-Goblins. Ma knelt near the fireplace to check on the two plump gekbeaks roasting on the spit. Aubrin sat curled up in a large, plush chair in the corner, scribbling furiously into her black leather journal.

  My sister had turned eleven last month and had taken a sudden interest in writing. Now, whenever I saw her, she was holding a small leather-bound book, scribbling away. As I walked past, I snatched playfully at her journal. She pulled it to her chest with a smile and wagged a finger at me.

  “It’s not time,” she said. That’s what she always said when someone tried to read her journal. No one knew why.

  Ma swept across the room to take the Dowager’s fur. “Dowager Soranna,” Ma cooed, bowing respectfully, “we are honored to have you in our home.”

  “Please,” the Dowager said, her head lilting side to side, “call me Annestra. I think it’s a perfectly lovely name. The problem with having a lovely name and being a member of the royal family is that no one ever uses your lovely name.”

  “Annestra it is,” Ma said as Da stepped forward to shake the Dowager’s hand and show her to the dinner table.

  I answered a knock at the door and nearly fell over as Callie burst into the house, threw her arms around me, and wailed, “Oh, Jaxter! The pain! The loss! However will you get by?”

  “Be respectful,” I warned, pushing her gently away. “This is a house of mourning.”

  Callie giggled. She’d changed from her funeral dress back into the gray robes she was required to wear as Talian’s apprentice mage. She gave me a mock curtsy. “I thought my performance was brilliant.”

  “This morning, yes,” I said. “But you were a bit over the top just now.”

  Ma pulled the gekbeaks from the fire just as Aubrin brought bowls full of boiled vegetables to the table. Once we all took our seats, Da poured ashwine for the adults, while Aubrin, Callie, and I helped ourselves to glasses of mangmilk. Ma struck her glass with a fork and stood, raising her arm in a toast.

  “To Nanni!” she said. “May she rest in peace!”

  We all raised our glasses and repeated, “To Nanni!”

  Just then, we heard a creak as the back door in the kitchen opened. Turning, we watched a hooded figure carrying a large cloth sack waddle in. The sack dropped with a metallic crash as the figure pulled back the hood to reveal Nanni, grinning widely.

  “You didn’t start without me, did you?”

  2

  The Summons

  “The difference between a good lie and a great lie is six years in gaol.”

  —Graydin Grimjinx, sole perpetrator of the Second Aviard Nestvault Pillage

  Once everyone had a full plate, Da explained.

  “It’s an old thieving tradition,” he boasted to the Dowager, who was eyeing Nanni’s loot bag with a great deal of discomfort. “When you decide to retire, you fake your death, have your accomplices throw a big funeral, and then rob the houses of the mourners as they cry over your grave.”

  The Dowager nodded nervously. I’d explained all this to her when I first got the letter from Da three weeks ago, announcing Nanni’s imminent funeral. The Dowager’s mischievous side had agreed to accompany me back to Vengekeep so I could take part, but the side of her that remained very aware she was the High Laird’s sister kept her from enjoying the festivities fully. No telling what people might do if they believed she was in on the deception.

  “Of course, it’s a very old custom. Not many practice it these days,” Ma said sweetly, as if trying to comfort the Dowager.

  Da raised his cup to Nanni again. “But how could we say no to giving Nanni such a fine send-off?”

  The Dowager managed a weak smile. “So,” she said, after steeling herself with a swallow of ashwine, “you’re retiring. How lovely. Where will you go?”

  Nanni, who’d been rooting around in the bag of stuff she’d just nicked, almost missed the question. “Hrm? Oh, yes. Time to rest these weary bones. I’ve found a lovely cottage in Angel Cove. Nice little seaside town just south of Vesta.” She pulled an elegant copper candelabrum from her bag and all us Grimjinxes oohed with envy. “This should just about cover the down payment.”

  The Dowager choked on her ashwine. She knew our family code meant that we never stole from the poor. But theft was still theft. Officially, the Dowager disapproved of my family’s shady history. Unofficially, she was fascinated by the guile that went into planning and executing criminal activities.

  Granted, those activities had decreased sharply in the past months. After Ma had accidentally woven a tapestry from fateskein that nearly destroyed Vengekeep, our family decided to go easy on the heists and try a new adventure: being normal.

  None of us was very good at it, but at least we gave it a shot.

  Nowadays, Ma and Da tried to earn an honest living, with Da serving as Vengekeep’s Protectorate and Ma making dolls in the phydollotry shop. Still, the par-Goblins always said, “An unused tool is a rusty tool.” With Da in a position to make sure that any sort of substantial charges would go away, my family indulged in just enough thieving to stay at the top of their game.

  But the Dowager was clearly torn between showing her admiration and being offended at the very idea of dining with thieves. So, she chose a halfway point: total denial.

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy retirement,” the Dowager said, poking at her food with her fork.

  “Retirement beats living like a fugitive,” Nanni said, raising her glass in the air.

  “Yes,” Ma said softly, “I imagine that’s how the Sarosans are feeling these days.”

  I looked up sharply at Ma, but her eyes were already down on her plate. She’d promised she wouldn’t talk politics while the Dowager was here. But Ma being Ma, she couldn’t resist a gentle challenge.

  To be fair, news about the Sarosan plight dominated conversations everywhere you went in the Provinces. And like many people, Ma had been following the story with great interest. A month earlier, the High Laird had ordered that everyone belonging to the nomadic tribe submit themselves for interrogation. No explanations, just a demand for compliance.

  The Sarosans were peace-loving people. Some of their leaders sought an audience with the High Laird to discuss the problem. They were promptly arrested and a royal decree named all Sarosans as enemies of the state, to be arrested on sight. The remaining nomads had scattered and now lived in hiding. Some law-advocates had pressed the High Laird’s court for an explanation. But the High Laird refused to justify his orders, and as a result, there was unrest throughout the Provinces. Everyone feared they would be the next ones asked to surrender for interrogation.

  “Ma . . . ,” I said quietly.

  But Ma just smiled and passed a plate of st
eamed vaxis root around. “I’m only saying that it’s very strange, given that no formal charges have been brought against the Sarosans. The worst they’ve ever done is bore people by roaming around, preaching against the use of magic. And if being boring is a crime, they should have locked Castellan Jorn up years ago.”

  Privately, the Dowager had no problems criticizing her brother and his often erratic policies. When the High Laird ordered the arrest of the Sarosans, she ranted to me for hours over how foolish it all was. But here, she put on her best “head of state” face. She squared her shoulders and said, “I’m sure all our thoughts are with the Sarosans and the High Laird as well.”

  “So, Callie,” I said, quickly changing the subject, “you’re looking very smart in your apprentice robes. I imagine Talian’s got you casting all sorts of spells by now.”

  Callie harrumphed. “Hardly. I can’t get a spellsphere until I’m sixteen, and I hear it takes a year just to learn how to speak the magical tongue properly.” Then she beamed. “But Talian says our lessons are going well. He might let me try casting a simple glamour next week.”

  Everyone raised their glasses to Callie.

  I nudged her with my elbow. “Maybe before the Dowager and I go back to Redvalor, you can give us a tour of Talian’s place.”

  Callie stiffened. “Actually . . . I have to leave right after dinner. Talian and I are being evacuated by the Palatinate tonight.”

  Everyone’s face went from pride in Callie to looks of severe discomfort. Leave it to me to try to steer the conversation away from politics, only to land right back in the thick of the mess again.

  The Palatinate, the body that governed the use of magic in the Five Provinces, had announced earlier this week that they believed the anti-magic Sarosans were a threat because they refused to turn themselves in. For their own protection, all mages had been ordered to report to the Palatinate palace in Tarana Province until the “Sarosan menace” had been dealt with.

  “Yes, a lot of people are upset about these evacuations,” Ma said, doing a terrible job of sounding innocent. “I’m no law-advocate—”