Sanctuary 5.5 - Fated in Darkness

by Robert J. Crane

  Yartraak’s jaw clamped back into place, showing his enormous underbite. “She has just helped to secure an immense victory for our people in the Riverlands of the Human Confederation.”

  Tordor blinked back his surprise. “I … well … good. Her mother will be … so surprised.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, Father.

  Yartraak whirled his face to look at her. “You hid this from Shrawn.”

  She did not blink, looking a god straight in the face. “When he came to me, he made his purpose plain—I was to be the spy that you did not have, to be the subterfuge that you have no place for in your society.” She smiled. “I was all he expected and more.”

  “Indeed you were,” Yartraak said, low, considering. “More than he anticipated, then. Yes …”

  “You didn’t believe him to be the flawless spider at the center of the web of information, did you?” she asked, oh-so-coy. “I know he tries, so very hard, to convince you of his authority in these things …” She dangled the tempting morsel, waiting to see if his pride would allow for him to bite at it.

  “I see the truth in the hearts of men,” Yartraak snapped with such force that Grimrath Tordor took a step back. Aisling, for her part, did not even quail at his sudden burst of fury. She let him see the lack of concern in her eyes, stared him down and gave him a gaze of her own in return. “And women, lest you think yourself immune to my power, outside of my influence.” He paused, composing himself. “Why do you return to me now, Yalina Tordor? Why expose who you are at this moment?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, pretending surprise and knowing that he did not see it, despite his protests. “Because I’ve come here to declare myself to you.”

  “What would you have me hear?” the Sovereign asked.

  “That I serve you,” Aisling said and bowed to a knee for effect. “That I am weary of throwing myself uselessly at the feet of Dagonath Shrawn and having him misuse me constantly.” She pointed at J’anda. “I come to tell you the same thing that he does—that your servants, so-called, have led your Sovereignty into more ill places than can properly be imagined in the realms of men and fools. They hide secrets from you, things that serve their purposes but not yours, and try to disguise their failings so you will not see …”

  “This all sounds very familiar,” Yartraak said, low and suspicious, and he pointed at J’anda. “It sounds like the same lies that Terian Lepos fed me for months and years before his inevitable betrayal. Lies disguised as truth, and unpalatable either way. Interlopers from Sanctuary trying to convince me that my most loyal are least loyal, thinking me a fool all the while—”

  “I’m not from Sanctuary,” Aisling said. “I’m from Saekaj.”

  “You carry the taint of that place on you,” Yartraak said, whipping clawed fingers about him in a furious gesture, “the stink of lies that Alaric Garaunt draped over him at all times.”

  “You’ve had to raise an army of the dead to win a war that you nearly had finished two years ago,” J’anda said, finally entering the conversation and causing the Sovereign to whirl on him. “Which part of that is lies?”

  The God of Darkness spun around to face Aisling once more. “You come to declare yourself to me? And bring me what? News that you have failed? What a kind gift.”

  “News that I helped you win a battle, as you said before,” Aisling looked up at him, unmoved by his mercurial temperament. “As for whatever else you would have of me, I leave up to you. You know what I’ve done.” She felt a tiny prick of shame at having her father here for this, though he likely had no idea what she’d done in the course of those duties.

  “And what do you want?” Yartraak asked, surveying her quietly.

  This is it. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. “Only to serve,” she said, lying right through her teeth once more. “Otherwise, I would have left.”

  “You come at a time when I have almost won the battles before me,” Yartraak said, considering her carefully. “You leap upon the victor’s bandwagon as it rolls through on a celebratory parade.”

  “Reikonos still stands,” she said, looking to J’anda, planting the seed.

  “For a little longer,” Yartraak agreed. “How would you cure that particular ailment?”

  “I’m hardly a master strategist,” she said, now pulling out some of that well-traveled coyness, “but it seems to me that a hero of Saekaj is standing right behind you, a man with no small talent for helping win battles with his … abilities.” She flashed a smile in the dark. “If you wanted to test his loyalty, that seems like a place where he might be of use.”

  Yartraak’s breath rumbled in and out. He did not see the stricken look on J’anda’s face. “Yes,” the Sovereign rumbled. “That is a use I could have for you, J’anda Aimant.” He whirled on the enchanter. “You protest that Vracken Coeltes has co-opted your life and stolen all you worked for, depriving me and yourself of victories? Prove it to me.” He leaned right into J’anda’s face. “Prove it to me by handing me the jewel of the Human Confederation.”

  J’anda’s face had been impassive since he’d seen the Sovereign turn on him. His reaction was a low bow. “As you wish.”

  “And you,” Yartraak said, turning back to Aisling. “What can you do for me?”

  “I can do something for you that none of your other servants can,” she said, looking right at him and ignoring the look of growing horror on J’anda’s face as she spoke. “I’m a Lady of the Elven Kingdom … and I can open the city of Termina to your armies.”

  40.

  J’anda

  He stalked after Aisling down the hallway from the throne room, wary of the guards stationed around them. “Are you mad?” he asked in a barely restrained whisper, wondering how she would even answer.

  She stared back at him through smoky eyes, her head turned, cool as a Northlands morning. “I just saved your life.”

  “Lots of people have been doing that lately,” J’anda said, and he stopped in the middle of the foyer, the grand hardwoods covering every surface around them giving it the aura of some surface mansion at night. “I’m finding myself less and less grateful every time it delays me from the inevitable.”

  “You seem to be developing a gratitude problem,” she said. “Have you thought about just saying ‘thank you’ and moving on?”

  “I didn’t hear your father say ‘thank you’ and move on.” This was true. Grimrath Tordor had sputtered when dismissed from the Sovereign’s presence, and hurried to leave, saying only two words to Aisling—Yalina, he supposed—under his breath before departing in a huff.

  “He’s got years of resentment and anger built up,” Aisling said. “What’s your excuse?”

  J’anda looked again at the guards before leaning in close to her. “That you stabbed my friend in the back.”

  “Cyrus?” There was only a flicker in her eyes to show she felt anything at all. “He’ll live.”

  “Perhaps it’s also that you just committed us to delivering the Sovereign the Elven Kingdom and Reikonos, respectively.” He pointed from her to himself. “That is a very big debt for me to pay.” When she didn’t react, he stepped in close. “What are you playing at?”

  “Why would you assume it’s a game?”

  “I didn’t,” J’anda said.

  “You said ‘playing at,’” she said, “as though it’s some scheme cooked up by a bored heiress or something.”

  He shook his head. “You’re the heiress of Grimrath Tordor, the greatest collector of antiquities in Saekaj, and you’ve become a thief. I can’t think of a reason for that other than being a bored heiress, so—”

  “My reasons are my own,” she said, eyes flashing in barely disguised indignation, “and this is no game. Not at this level. Not with the Sovereign opposite us.”

  Wariness settled over J’anda. “If he’s opposite us, then truly, you are playing a dangerous game.”

  She hissed once more at his use of the word game. “Games are for children. Lives a
re on the line.”

  “Entire nations are on the line,” J’anda replied, the quiet of the foyer making him nervous. “You should know since you just put them there.”

  “They were already there,” she said, “I merely hastened their addition to the stakes. Anyone who’s a serious observer knows which direction this army is marching, and that it’s inevitable that they’ll arrive there.”

  “And you,” J’anda said, watching her carefully, “you who just professed her loyalty to the Sovereign … you’re going to stop this?”

  “I have my own reasons for what I’m doing,” Aisling said, back to cold. “I just saved your life by bartering something that was bound to come under the hammer, since armies of dark elves surround the city. Now you’ve got marching orders instead of an execution. Thank me, don’t thank me, it’s entirely up to you. I’d simply take it as a courtesy if you don’t screw things up until I’ve had time to do what I need to.” With that, she proceeded to turn to leave.

  “Why?” J’anda called after her. They were far enough apart now that there was no longer a guarantee of privacy.

  “Because I serve the Sovereign,” she said, turning her head back to him just enough to catch his eye. “I do what I’m ordered to do, by him and his servants. They sent me to Sanctuary, ordered me to Cyrus’s side at all times, and informed me when the time had come for him to reach his end.” She smiled, and it almost looked sincere. “All glory to his name.” The smile faded. “Now, if you’ll excuse me … I have to go home.” And she left out the front doors, opened by guards in full armor, their poleaxes stiff and at the ready, but at attention for a servant of the Sovereign as she passed.

  J’anda blinked as he ran through what she’d said in his mind. She serves the Sovereign, she said, but she doesn’t truly. She mentioned his orders—his servants’ orders. Shrawn, I have to guess … It was a like a puzzle he was putting together, searching for the pieces that interlocked correctly. They forced her into this course of action, somehow … had leverage over her, by the sound of it. Made her fearful … like me, he though ruefully. Now she smiles at them and speaks the words of their agenda while following one of her own …

  Perhaps I’m not left alone in this fight against the Sovereign now that Terian is gone, he concluded as the guards shut the door with a clatter behind her. Though I’m not sure I could call her ally, given that there’s absolutely no telling how she wants things to play out …

  41.

  Aisling

  She walked into the front doors of her parents’ house as though she owned the place, though in fact neither she nor any member of her family did. Every one of the twelve manors that lined the road leading to the Grand Palace of Saekaj, as well as every other home in the upper chamber, belonged to the Sovereign, and was let out by his favor alone. The high ceiling of Saekaj was like the limit upon the opulence of the place, with nobles rising and falling in the Sovereign’s estimation and moved about in the great Shuffle with every change in their position.

  The House of Tordor had maintained a residence in the top twelve for over three thousand years. She stared around the carved stone of the entryway. An opulent chandelier hung from the ceiling, lit with a thousand candles that shed their light all day and night. It had been imported from an iron-and-glass works in the free city of Aloakna before that town had been destroyed at the Sovereign’s decree. It was permissible to make alterations to one’s house, though if one were shuffled down to a lower manor, they had to remain. Her father had been very careful to keep his little collectables mostly out of sight, things that could not be argued to be part of the house, should such an occasion come about. And it had in the past, she knew, though not in her lifetime.

  “I’m home,” Yalina Tordor said aloud, though not at all loudly. There were servants standing at attention against the walls, two men in long coats of the sort that were preferred by the serving class, tails down almost to their knees.

  “You are expected, madam,” one of the servants said, bowing his head at her. She didn’t bother to disguise her smile. She was clad in leather armor from head to toe and wore a great cloak over the top of it all, cowl back and her hair loose around her shoulders. It was doubtless the first time the servants of the House of Tordor had had a true rogue as a visitor in their house, a ranger bent toward the delicate craft of thievery and stealth. There’s not exactly a guild for us, after all, at least not an accredited one. “This way,” the servant said, pointing toward a sitting room hidden behind a well-carved door that Aisling suspected had not come with the house.

  “I’ll see myself in,” she said, brushing past the servant, who tried to disguise his shock and failed. She entered the sitting room with a simple push of the swinging door to see her father on a plush, red-padded couch, clutching his walking stick between his fingers. Her mother, looking aged and weary, sat next to him, worry etched in the lines of her face, which looked to have deepened in the years since last Aisling had last seen her. “Bet you didn’t think that you’d be summoned before the Sovereign on the day of my return,” she said, opening grandly with a smirk, “to hear about how well I turned out, and what excellent service I’d provided to the Sovereignty.”

  “Uh, well, no,” her father said, pushing up to his feet, his back crooked from being hunched over. “I must confess, I thought for certain that if ever we were called to account for you, it would be a summons to Sovar to identify your body.”

  She made a disgusted sound deep in her throat. “You assumed that because I became a thief, I’d simply become a common one, with a common destiny, and end up dead in a gutter. Your faith is truly the buttress that holds me aloft.”

  “Well, you have to admit, dear,” her mother said, eyes sad, “there are not exactly a great many thieves that live to a ripe old age, or that become accredited in the eyes of the Sovereign. Most of them endure slow death in the Depths—”

  “I’m not common, I keep telling you,” Aisling said, pacing slowly around the small table that separated her from them on the couch. “You should have known that, of course, because I told you when I left that I didn’t aim to be gutter trash.”

  “All Sovar is gutter trash,” her father said darkly.

  “All Saekaj is gutter trash as well, actually,” she replied. “In Sovar they know it and embrace their calling with pride. Here it’s all appearances and balls, trying to put on airs to hide the stink of our cave-dwelling nature. We’re a low people, preying on each other. And Saekaj is the worst of all, feeding on the carcasses of those below, lording it over them.”

  “I trust you didn’t return like some dark horror from the Back Deep simply to preach a revolution,” her father said, leaning hard on his cane, “because I think you’ll find it causes more than a fair amount of alarm up here.”

  “As well it should,” she said. “No, I didn’t come home for that. I came because it’s expected, after I revealed myself to the Sovereign.” Her eyes fell on a series of sculptures from around the world, displayed on a high shelf. She did the calculation in her head; they were worth six million gold pieces to the right buyer, probably; only a million or two if fenced. “Appearances need to be tended to.”

  “So … you’re not staying, then?” her mother asked, with undisguised relief.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Mother,” she said, now smirking again. “Remember, you get credit for my successes, not just my failures, and I’ve pleased the Sovereign to some degree recently. Perhaps it’ll move you up a rank or two in the Shuffle.”

  “I worry more about what happens if you decide to embrace those thieving ways you left us to pursue,” she said.

  “I’m a bit too busy to thieve at the moment,” Aisling said, and her eyes fell over a gold-inlaid chair that was perched in the corner. The gemstones crusting it were probably worth at least a few hundred thousand gold pieces; once removed and melted down, the gold plating was probably another hundred thousand by itself. The chair, though, was almost worthless without them. “And I ne
ver truly had great need of the proceeds, did I?”

  “Then why?” her mother asked. “Because of that man?” She struggled. “What was his name? Northen?”

  “Norenn,” she whispered. A trace of sadness ran across her face.

  “Was it all for him?” her mother asked.

  It may have started that way, she thought but dared not say, even here, but it certainly isn’t turning out that way. He felt like the habit she couldn’t break, the tether she couldn’t snap even to save her own neck. “I owe him,” she said, and spoke the truth in this, though not all of it. She gathered her cloak about her and turned to leave.

  “Will we see you again?” her father asked, as close to plaintive as she’d ever heard him. She turned at the door, looking at his stooped-over figure. Time had not been kind to him, his back worsening in her absence. He looked at her through worried eyes, focused on her at last. She saw a matching gaze from her mother, though buried under a layer of reticence born of years of rift between them.

  Aisling Nightwind opened her mouth to answer, but could not find a reply that she wished to give. And so instead she turned and left the house of Yalina Tordor, her cloak swishing behind her, almost certain that she would not return but harboring one last hope that perhaps, someday, once the thing was done, her answer might change.

  42.

  J’anda

  The road to the front was a long and laborious path, a dirt road trod hard by horse and wagon and man, threading through fields that might once have been green but were now mud and shit, blood and gore turning the ground soupy but empty, all traces of corpses removed as the army of Saekaj and Sovar marched forth to their ultimate goal.

  The city’s walls were visible on the horizon, a day’s ride from the hilltop that J’anda rode across, his horse cantering beneath him at a leisurely pace. His back hurt, his legs hurt, and the rest of him was along for the painful ride. The signs of life were there under the walls of Reikonos in the distance. He could hear the faint roar of an army at siege, could see the trebuchets firing hunks of rock and bombs that looked like birds at this distance but which were probably the size of horse-drawn carts. Occasional explosions rumbled like thunder to his ears, and he watched it all with a heavy heart, knowing the end was nigh.