Tory nodded. Kee was right, by process of elimination. “It’s got to be on my side, and my mother’s relatives are all accounted for too. Which means it’s the Black Sheep.”
Kee snickered as the fire popped. “Actually, considering they are in the majority where they come from, your grandfather and his sweetheart are the ones that ran off, and your father refused the family invitation to come home and sit on the throne, it’s more like your father is the Black Sheep of the family.” Then he sobered. “Well, what are we going to do?”
“Do?” Tory shrugged. “Nothing. They’re professional assassins, Kee. They murder people. They live a dangerous lifestyle. I wouldn’t think any of them live too long. And we don’t even know what country they live in, much less where this happened and who it happened to!”
“But. . . .” Kee frowned. “This was personal. Like a cry for help.”
“To go where and help who, Kee?” Tory shook his head. “And for all we know the person in trouble is in trouble because he tried killing someone better than he is—and it’s probably someone who didn’t deserve to be murdered. Their only consideration when they kill people is whether or not they are going to get paid for it. Father’s cousin Bey might sound romantic in the stories, but he’s a killer-for-hire, Kee, and so is everyone in his family, and so is everyone in his clan, or tribe, or cult, or whatever they call it.” Tory had given the experience he and Kee had shared a lot of thought over the last twenty-four hours, and he was not at all inclined to let himself get all emotionally entangled in a situation he knew literally nothing about.
“But he saved your father!” Kee said desperately, and Tory suppressed his own frustration and annoyance at his friend, who clearly had been listening to too many Bardic tales. There was nothing romantic about people who killed for money. Besides, Bey hadn’t done badly out of the deal, now, had he? He got to be their “Prince,” and then their “King,” because Papa didn’t want any part of the people or the title.
The popping and crackling of the fire punctuated his words.
“And Bey also got himself the throne because Father wasn’t there to claim it,” he replied steadily, saying what he had been thinking out loud. “See what I mean? It wasn’t noble altruism. Bey got quite a lot out of the situation. Much, much more than he would have if he’d followed orders. Honestly, I have to wonder if the truth was that Cousin Bey went looking for father to kill him himself, if father’d shown any inclination that he’d changed his mind about returning with the Sleepgivers that last time.”
Kee finally subsided, although Tory was fairly certain he wasn’t going to hear the last on the subject.
But he had made up his mind. It served no purpose to go haring off in a random direction to “save” someone he didn’t know, who might not even deserve saving, and who, in fact, was probably already dead.
And there was an end to it. He changed the subject and got Kee’s mind off the whole thing. Once and for all, he hoped.
* * *
• • •
Except . . . it wasn’t the end of it.
So far as Tory was concerned, everything was going spectacularly well. False summer had descended with its lying promise that autumn was moons distant, with dry, sunny weather and warm, balmy nights. Kat was back, having successfully solved yet another problem that had involved stupid, stubborn highborn people making claims Tory would rather not hear about. Abi was back, but only to negotiate for more money for those walls, which, as Tory had correctly guessed, were going to have to be double stone walls with rammed earth between them, because the quality of the local stone was so low. But there was absolutely no point in going any further with the project at this time of the year; the town was going to have to rely on its old log palisade for another winter. So at least Abi would get to celebrate Midwinter in the comfort and luxury of the Palace.
She’d be turning down invitations to fetes and would-be suitors right and left, if Tory was any judge. She wasn’t remarkably good-looking, at least not to his brotherly eye, but she wasn’t unpleasant to look at either, and impecunious second and third sons with nothing of their own to fall back on would look at her and see a highly successful, Master Artificer with as many Crown Commissions as she cared to take. They’d know for a fact that she was a prize for someone like them, and they’d find all that outweighed beauty any day.
Abi, of course, was more than wise to that sort of wooer and would take their invitations if she cared to, turn them down if she didn’t, and, either way, leave them disappointed in the end. Well, she would if the last several years were anything to go by, and he didn’t think any of those would-be suitors had suddenly bloomed with desirable attributes in the last year.
There might be women who found her equally attractive, but . . . well, that sort of wooing tended to be a lot more circumspect, and he had a notion he didn’t know enough about it to spot it.
Though he thought Abi probably would have said something if she found someone else attractive enough to consider for more than a season or so. Tory wasn’t sure what, if anything, she was looking for in a mate, but he knew one thing for sure: it wasn’t a pretty parasite.
Meanwhile it was good just to all be together at once for a change.
Their parents obviously felt the same and were taking advantage of having all their offspring home at once for some old-fashioned family fun that did not involve looking for foreign agents or other bad actors.
Tonight was one of those nights. And for the first time in a very long time, Amily had taken a night off from her duties as King’s Own, and they’d all gone down into Haven to see a play. They even took Larral, who’d quite enjoyed himself and, from the many and varied expressions on Perry’s face, was making his opinions on the antics known to his partner. It was almost more fun watching Perry than the play.
The play itself had been exactly the sort of thing Tory liked: a comedy, a romantic farce, just bawdy enough to be hilarious, with lots of acrobatics and slapstick humor and a plot as shallow as a Midsummer puddle. It was given in one of the largest inns in Haven, one with a huge common room and a purpose-built stage. They were all actually quite familiar with this particular inn; Mags had a hidden changing room in the stables where he and Perry and sometimes Tory could change from disguises into their normal garb and back again.
Decent wine flowed (though not enough to impair any of them), there had been much laughter, no one in the audience got obnoxious, the players had been good, and there had been absolutely nothing to mar the event.
They were walking back up to the Palace in the balmy evening—no one in his right mind was going to accost a group containing two Heralds plus two muscular, armed young men and a “dog” almost the size of a small pony. And they were just about out of one of the neighborhoods of small merchants—when out of an alley behind a candle shop came a sharp “Hissst!”
They all stopped and, as one, drew weapons. No hesitation, no pause for thought. Suddenly the peaceful family party bristled with cold steel.
Nothing happened.
“Who’s there and whatdye want?” Mags asked suspiciously.
“Hissst!” came the whisper again. “Cousin Mags! It is Ahkhan! The son of your cousin Beshat! I must speak with you most urgently!”
“What in the seven hells—” muttered Perry, but Mags waved at him to be quiet.
“Then come out where we can see you,” Mags said. “Yer gonna have to forgive me for bein’ suspicious, but th’ last time I tangled with your kin, aside from Bey, it didn’t go so well.”
“Understood,” said the whisperer, and he . . . well, one moment there wasn’t anyone there, and the next moment there was a fellow in mottled black and gray wrappings standing in the moonlight on the cobbled streets, holding out empty hands. “So you see,” he said, pulling the wrappings down off his face, tilting it so they could get a good look at him in the light of the full moon, and sho
wing that, indeed, there was no doubt that he and Mags had some relatives in common. “Please, may we go somewhere that is not so public? My father sends me to you, he says, to ask for the repayment of the debt.”
Mags cast a glance over at Tory, and Tory sighed, knowing exactly what Mags was thinking right now. That this could not be coincidence. That this had everything to do with what Tory and Kee had experienced at Harvest Fair. And that, of course, Mags did owe Bey a life-debt, and it had been too much to expect that such a debt would never be called in.
And that they were going to have to at least hear this cousin out.
But it also occurred to Tory that the only real question in his mind was . . . it had barely been two weeks since he and Kee had felt that unknown person under some sort of deadly attack. If that. So how in hell had this young man crossed half the length of Valdemar and beyond in the course of a fortnight?
* * *
• • •
There was no question of allowing an assassin into the Palace, of course, so they had all gone down to the pawn shop, slipped in the back way, one and two at a time, and sent the two employees home, closing it for the night. Once they had all crowded into the back room, they listened to Ahkhan tell his tale.
When they were all settled, each of them using some box or barrel or crate as a seat, with Ahkhan standing in the middle, the young Sleepgiver gave Mags a low bow.
“You will please to be putting the magic of Truth upon me, so that you will know all I tell is so,” the fellow said. “The one that forces Truth, so you will know also that I hold nothing back.”
Mags exchanged a look with Amily—and they both closed their eyes for a moment, then stared fixedly at Ahkhan, their lips moving silently, until a strong blue glow surrounded the Sleepgiver.
He sighed as it settled, as if he actually felt it. Maybe he did? Tory knew nothing about Sleepgivers, but they had to be extraordinarily sensitive and aware of all sorts of things in order to be as effective as they were.
“You must know that when we canceled the contract with the Karsites, the Karsites did not accept this thing,” he said, as if choosing his words very carefully. “They took it ill. But rather than the civilized answer of demanding their fee back, they elected to take their repayment in our blood. Or rather, they tried to. It did not go well for them.”
Mags snorted. “I c’n imagine.”
“I tell you what is not much known; the Nation lives in the center of Ruvan. The Karsites knew roughly where. So they sent their demon-summoners to strike at us in our heart.” A faint smile flickered across his face. “As I said, this did not go well. They have only been permitted to go within striking range of the Nation because we allowed it. They were blinded by arrogance and anger and were easy to ambush. It is my sister Siratai who has been charged with these ambushes since she was old enough to take missions.”
“Alone?” Amily asked incredulously.
Ahkhan shrugged. “There were never more than one or two at a time. Of course, alone.”
Tory was actually impressed; impressed that the Sleepgivers had been waging a very one-sided war against the Karsite demon-summoning priests all this time. Impressed that Ahkhan had not just readily agreed to have Truth Spell cast on him at the outset, but insisted on it.
“After the last such incursion, they appeared to accept their defeat. There was a long pause, then a longer pause, and . . . something occurred that required Siratai take a journey outside the Nation’s bounds.”
Finally, he got to the point. The story ended up being a very simple one—that Ahkhan’s sister (also an assassin) was supposed to go to some experts to consult with them and had never arrived. That Ahkhan himself had traced her path and found a dead pony and some of her belongings, but not her—and the very certain signs that she had somehow been caught unawares by more of the Karsite demon-summoners than she could fight off. And that she had been taken alive. During the course of this explanation, it was clear that he was trying to talk about real magic—but the difficulty anyone in Valdemar had in giving voice to that subject was making it impossible for him to do so. They were all getting the gist of it, however. He had taken to calling Mages, “experts,” which at least had made his narration less strained.
“We have consulted those same experts of Amber Moon, and our own, and they cannot find her. It was the experts of Amber Moon who suggested that the Mind-Mages of Valdemar might be able to succeed where they could not. And my father remembered that you are a powerful Mind-magician.” The fellow—who looked to be exactly Perry’s age—now turned his gaze on Mags with hope. “Can you? Can you help us?”
“Ah, hell,” Mags groaned. “Ye’ve put me in a awful position, lad. I cain’t. But I’m pretty damn sure I know who can. Problem is. . . . one uv ’em’s a Prince.”
Ahkhan drew himself up, suddenly looking years older. “Then take me to the King,” he said, with dignity. “I am empowered to negotiate for a prize he could never otherwise win. The pledge of all the Nation that never shall a Sleepgiver lift a hand against any in Valdemar for as long as the Nation shall endure.”
Tory had no idea his father knew that many obscene words. . . .
* * *
• • •
They didn’t take Ahkhan to the King, of course. With what they had learned at first hand, and what Mags’ memories told him, if this had all been a ruse and was a suicide strike against Valdemar’s Monarch, there was very little anyone could do to stop it if Ahkhan and the King were in the same room. But they left Ahkhan cooling his heels in a very secure Guardpost outside the walls of the Palace while Mags and Amily consulted with the King and the Privy Council.
Tory and a very excited Kee were left outside of these negotiations, much to the latter’s chagrin; they were left cooling their heels in the Royal Library. Kee was all for this “adventure,” as he persisted in calling it. Tory . . . Tory was very much of two minds about it. On the one hand, he’d literally never been out of Haven in his life, and this was beginning to sound not unlike the “adventures” that Perry and Abi had had, experiences that turned him many shades of envious green every time he thought about them. On the other hand, this was going up against Karsite demon-summoners, and even if all they did was pinpoint where the Princess (as Kee insisted on calling her) was being held, they would almost certainly have to go inside Karse’s border to do so. Which was very likely to lead to a most unhappy ending to the “adventure.” He remembered only too well the harrowing tale Abi had told of her own fight with demon-summoners, and those hadn’t even been Karsites.
On the third hand . . . there was no doubt his father owed cousin Bey. Being in debt to the King of a tribe of assassins was not a comfortable position to be in.
And on fourth hand (there were two of them, after all, so there were four hands between them) . . . Truth Spell didn’t allow for the least shading of lies, not in his father’s hands. Ahkhan really was empowered to offer what was an absolutely extraordinary concession. While Karse was Valdemar’s only open enemy, allies could turn foe, and there were always internal enemies to reckon with.
And that only covered the danger to the Royal Family. There were feuding families, criminals, and others who might be able to muster the high price a Sleepgiver could command to take out a rival or rivals. To be able to purchase the safety, not only of the current Monarch and his family, not only every ruler of Valdemar forever, but every single citizen of Valdemar in perpetuity. . . .
Tory couldn’t see how the King could possibly turn this down.
Even though it meant his own son was going to be put into danger.
Kee knew better than to babble out what he was feeling as they waited, but it was all clear enough on his face. This was his chance: his chance for adventure, his chance to leave the shadow of his father and brothers, and on top of everything else, his chance to do something for his Kingdom. Kee might not be a Herald, but he wa
s raised by Heralds and with Heralds, and that was what Heralds did.
The debate started in the earliest hours of the morning and lasted long into the night, as the two of them waited to hear what the King would decide. Kee declared himself too excited to eat, but eventually Tory made him go down to the Royal kitchens and do so anyway, because excitement coupled with not eating was going to make both of them sick.
And at last, just before midnight, they were summoned by Amily to come up to the King’s private chambers, where he had retired after making his decision.
And as soon as Tory saw the King’s face, looking suddenly much older in the firelight as he sat in his favorite chair, waiting for them to come before him, Tory knew what the answer was going to be.
“You’re going. I’m told Mags’ cousin has a mount that has the speed and endurance of a Companion,” he said without preamble, as Kee managed to contain his excitement. “I don’t even know how that’s possible, but since time and speed are of the essence, Rolan has asked two Companions to take you as far as the Menmellith Border, where . . . well, the Sleepgiver wasn’t able to tell us how he was going to get you across two entire countries, but it was clear he could do so, and you’ll find out when you get there.”
Kee drew himself up and summoned all his dignity. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said formally. “Tory and I will not fail you.”
“Just don’t fail to come back,” said his father, his voice a little choked. “Your mother would never forgive me.”
“Well, we haven’t been training in those assassin tricks all this time for nothing, Majesty,” Tory put in. “We may not be as good as my cousin, but we’re pretty damn good at not being seen, even better at keeping ourselves alive, and that’s how I intend to keep things. In, out, and done and no one the wiser. That’s my plan.”
Kee gave him a look, but in the next moment he clearly realized that it was the absolute wrong time to voice any disagreement with such a plan. Instead he nodded vigorously, and echoed. “In, out, and done. Definitely.”
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