by Ember Lane
“Common sense is mana for my mind, but all I see here are games being played.”
Zenith lofted an eyebrow. “Seriously? You think this a game? Why not just employ Cutter to kill Muscat. Have you stopped to ask yourself that?”
Lincoln stared out over the fast running water. He wondered if Jin had solved Finequill’s wife’s murder, wondered if Finequill was pulling through. He wondered about the portal, Tanglewood, and the endless battles underground. He was beginning to wonder whether this world didn’t just need a reset. “Because Mandrake needs him to dither. A strong king would unite them.”
“How?”
“The way a strong king in a precarious position always does. He would declare war on The Lowlands and invade. The common cause would rally his banners and extinguish the mutterings of treason.”
“And effectively kill all the soldiers in Irydia. Tell me is there a common cause in Mandrake worth fighting? Surely that could unite nations, not divide them.”
“Petreyer,” Lincoln muttered. “Rid Petreyer of its mutants. Free that land.”
Zenith smiled. “That, Lincoln, is what a great king would do. That, Lincoln, is how a great king thinks.”
His mind drifted over the speeding water. Games could be played like this: move that piece here, take that piece with this one, but this? This was too close to real life. Chess pieces, for instance, didn’t have a mind of their own. The what ifs were too many and all gathering in his mind like a troop of stabbing pikes. What if Muscat ignored Lakevale’s pleas for help? What if Waraxion was defeated before Sutech Charm even docked? What if the King of the Lowlands didn’t bother showing? He knew history, understood it, these folks didn’t. Folks rallied to a show of strength, but they fell in rank behind charisma, and they stayed there through victory. Ale was ale; it had served him well, but it wouldn’t win a war. He needed a figurehead. He needed a warrior with a blazing blade and a fearsome steed. He needed someone who could charge, banner held high, carving a welt of blood through fearsome foes.
They left The Forest of Ledges behind as the sun began to set, and Lincoln caught sight of Estorelll’s lofty spires shortly after. At first they confused him, and he narrowed his eyes, straining to make sense of what he saw.
Ahead, two columns rose up to the skies, their shining tops bellowed outward and then turned to a point, like a fat, golden drip. They stood sentinel by the river, guardians of what lay beyond, daring the small boat to pass through. From either side, a huge wall tapered away holding back a mass of buildings that spilled above its height. Their golden roofs, turrets, and towers shimmered in the setting sun, capping the wall like a shining cloud.
The boat forged on. Flip turned around, his face beaming.
“They say it’s cursed, that all who enter lose their minds.” He rubbed his hands together. “Can’t wait.”
Grimble growled. “Dead gravelings, tiny mites that wear next to nothing, assassins that can’t be turned for coin but can be negotiated with. Should have stayed in Sanctuary.”
Ozmic shoved him. “We’d ‘ave had to get a job or somethin’.”
Grimble grunted. “I s’pose we’d ‘ave gotten found out sooner or later. Not keen on these Esteem plans, that’s fer sure.”
“Hang on!” Lincoln shouted from the back. “You…” But his mind was dragged away from the banter as he saw the columns were actually carved stone and each was an outfacing soldier, standing guard, warning intruders away. A hazy memory stirred in the shadows of his mind.
The boat slowed before the fearsome statues, like it was nervous. Zenith began chanting, bowing his head and then looking up at the stars. Amaya was shaking, looking around like for a way to escape. Lincoln noted the assassin; his gaze never wavered from his target, and that target was Estorelll.
“City of the Cursed, or cursed city, take your pick,” he said. “You can all stop shaking. We stayed there two nights ago, and I’m not crazy yet.” Cutter shrugged. “Though I’d have normally killed Lincoln outright, so maybe something’s changed.” Cutter turned, his pale face ghostly, a silhouette against the sun’s streaming gold as it bled along the river. “Do you think I’ve gone mad? Or was it the promise of a pirate prince I wonder?”
Lincoln glanced behind him, trying to read Flip’s expression, but the prince just smiled through his searching inquiry and looked over his head. “Behold, the cursed city of Estorelll, home to Darwainic's courtiers, to his commerce, and to his academia. This, not Shyantium, is where the Land of Mandrake should have grown. Starellion for war—Estorelll for its peace.”
Lincoln’s skin tightened as they passed between the sentinels. A breath of cold, like a ghost brushing past him, rippled up his arms, his neck. He thought he heard singing, thought he saw people walking along the promenade that lined the river. What he did see, what he could believe, were the uniform stone buildings. An organization, almost urban planning, that was way in advance of anything he’d set eyes on—Brokenford, Starellion, Texacolpo, everything, and that told him that this land hadn’t always been so backward.
Flip turned the boat toward a quay, and Cutter jumped out and secured the mooring. His accomplice—or apprentice, dependent on Cutter’s mood, skipped away, bounding up a set of steps and vanishing into the deserted city.
“She looks after me,” Cutter said. “Never thought I’d say it, but a couple of months in, and she’d come close if she wanted my crown.” His laughter rang around. “Close, but not too close.”
Clambering up, Lincoln stretched his back, flexed his legs; the cramp of the boat was unexpected. Jumping onto the quayside, a peculiar sensation of homeliness flowed through him. It felt like he’d been there before. The steps looked familiar, and he crept up them warily. The road at their top ran left to right, a merchant’s store opposite, and what looked like a customs house adjacent. Without even having to look, he knew that just down the road an arched viaduct would cross it, and beyond that, a square would open out, a temple its focus, and that it had cloister-like borders, wide enough for taverns to arrange their tables outside.
He blinked and walked on, walked under the viaduct and into the square, and just as he thought, it was lined with columns, and balconies overhead.
“You know this place?” Flip asked, drawing aside Lincoln.
At first he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t know it unless the game had infused his mind with the knowledge. Or if the talisman he held lent him some ghostly memories. Maybe it was the quest to wake the place? Had that imprinted a map on his mind?
“I can’t though,” he whispered, and then Flip clamped an arm around him.
“Well, Cutter has chosen to rest up for the night in small tavern off Tooley Street, so I think it best if you and I head in that direction before the spirits of the dead swoop down and gobble us up.”
Lincoln walked the length of the square and then ducked down a narrow, cobbled alley with a foot-wide sluice in its middle. He marveled at the narrow-terraced dwellings on either side and saw a city in waiting, one that would, once more, need people to fill it. Maybe this was his challenge, finding the folks, rather than the actual building. Wondering what he had to do to lift its curse, but at the same time deciding that it was best left in place for the moment. He turned a sharp left and then right and entered a much larger street, one that he knew ran parallel to the river and quay.
“Just down here,” he said.
Flip followed. “Are you sure you’ve never been here before?”
Lincoln pressed his finger against his temple. “I think the quest’s imparted some knowledge before it should have done.” He smiled and skipped down the street.
Lantern light spilled onto the cobbled roadway, signaling they’d found Cutter. Dink flew overhead. A thought crossed Lincoln’s mind.
Did you guide me? Did you give me knowledge of this city?
Dink flew down, hovering just in front of him.
No, not I. Never been here before. Born underground, captured underground. I’ve seen only wh
at you have this past day.
Lincoln shrugged. So much for that.
The tavern had fared well, almost like it had been suddenly abandoned and merely mothballed. Cutter already had a fire roaring in the central hearth. A barrel of wine sat on an ample table. Flip darted straight over to it then sniffed Ozmic’s full cup. “Thameerian—fourth tier? Did Green give you this?”
Cutter looked up from stoking the fire. “Green? No. He gives nothing away. One of your ships docked as I was leaving Lordslaner. I brought a barrel or two for the journey.”
“A barrel or two? Tell me,” Flip said, approaching the assassin. “These barrels, they wouldn’t have tumbled off the stern of the boat, would they?”
“Are you accusing me of what I think you are?” Cutter’s expression turned to ice, his hand reaching behind his back.
Flip seemed unperturbed.
“Not accusing, merely wondering what price my wine fetches on the black market of a country that has no…no…no other shade of market.”
“Your wine fetches much the same from whatever side it drops off. Mostly, I suspect, because you get a cut from each.”
Flip produced a mug from his sack. “Good. I’d hate to think my captain is selling it off cheap.”
Cutter sat at the table with him and Lincoln joined them.
“Where’s Amaya?”
“Megan’s showing her around the city. What can I say? Seems my apprentice actually has a heart—I was beginning to wonder. Or maybe she fancies training a killer herself.”
“She seems shy,” Flip said.
“Megan? Shy? No, she’s just dislikes most people. You could easily take her for rude, but I think she’s just focused on survival, and nothing else.”
“She’s probably teaching our princess how to stab her abductors in the back,” Flip said, staring into his wine. “Did Astreus really sell you my wine sneakily?”
“Games, Prince of Lies—you’re playing games with the wrong man. One of the qualities of being an assassin is awareness. That little sprite couldn’t sneak up on me, nor could your builder—though I’ll admit that trick of his with the spell was unique. A man with no magic who has magic will best many.”
“If only I had a better spell,” Lincoln pointed out. “It kinda puts me to sleep as well.”
“Granted,” Cutter said, “but you have to accept, I’m rarely surprised, and do you know how I get most of my awareness? I listen, and yes, he was open to a deal, or so it seemed on the surface.”
“What did my captain tell you?” Flip said, a resigned tone to his voice.
“He told me that he was sailing back to the Five Isles where he had to restock with all the luxuries because his prince and a small party needed picking up and taking north. Of course, I asked where—out of politeness, you understand—and he told me Estorelll.” Cutter put his mug of wine down and arched his hands. “I thought that a coincidence, seeing as I was headed that way but by a more direct route. Coincidences and I aren’t great bedfellows, and yet here we are, contract discharged, your party in Estorelll. Why do I think there’s more? Why do I think you’ve already had my room prepared on that boat?”
“What could I possibly offer you to get you to travel north?”
Cutter grinned. “What always makes me travel—coin and a contract—without that, I’ll be headed back to Lordslaner to continue training my apprentice.”
“I’m not going to offer you either, but you are going to come to Beggle with me.”
The assassin laughed and brought out a small cigar. Lighting it, he sat back. “In the morning, I will do you the service of taking you to your ship and then we’ll say our goodbyes.”
“No we won’t,” Flip said, his eyes glowing brightly.
“There is nothing you can say that will get me to change my mind.”
“What if I told you that a quest party is gathering in Pandreya? And what if I told you that you will join it—and for free.”
“I’d say you were mad.”
“You don’t know what the quest is.”
“Quests are for adventurers.”
“And adventurers would be among their number. It’s what they seek that you’ll not be able to resist.”
Cutter spun his mug around. “And that is?”
“The Prince of a Cheated House.”
“His bones?”
“Canelo James isn’t dead.”
30
The Temple at the Top of the Hill
A rarely seen vein protruding from Lincoln’s hairline, just above his temple, pulsed like it was gathering to burst. Joan would have known what it signaled, but nobody in the room knew him well enough to spot it. The vein didn’t show itself very often, less now that Joan was gone, because it had usually been sparked by his love for her, for instance, when a stranger paid too much attention to Joan, like complimenting her on her long and vibrant hair, or marveling at her gray eyes—that sort of thing would get his vein throbbing. So, other than that, Lincoln’s jealousy streak rarely became riled.
As Flip described the quest to Petreyer, it was throbbing like a ripe boil. Lincoln wrung his fingers through his scruffy, gray hair, more in self-persecution to focus his words than a need to tidy his reasonably unruly mop. He ground his teeth and tried to think of a word with more feeling behind it than plain jealousy.
“So, Alexa Drey’s next quest is to go to Petreyer, a place full of mutants, De’Vulk, and who knows what other kind of monsters, and march her way—”
“More like fight,” Flip pointed out.
Lincoln’s knuckles whitened, his fists hovered just above the tabletop. “Fight her way through to rescue some long-thought-dead prince. Quest her way through, more like. Sword shimmering in the freaking sun. Her steed rearing on the crest of a bloody hill.”
“Yes, yes, yes, essentially that, we believe that’s what it’ll be, not grinding through treacherous terrain and sleeping with your eyes open.” Flip turned his palms up and grinned. “Of course I only got a quick look in the box that you looted and really merely skip read the note. Time was running out and you were stirring, plus I wanted to scoop up as much of the loot as possible before you all started waking and grabbing it for yourselves. But I saw enough. It did mention the Prince of a Cheated House?”
Lincoln nodded stiffly. Fighting mutants, monsters, true questing…Grrr…
Flip continued, “The cheated part refers to how he never got to fight properly—how all eight of his brothers fell on him when he was trying to reason with them. Therefore, it can only refer to Canelo James, as there is no other Cheated House in the land, leading one to assume he’s alive.”
“Now there’s a man that the land would rally behind—a man who had respect from The Lowlands to the very tip of Atremeny.” Cutter seemed to be warming to the idea of coming, though very slowly. “Plus, he was very supportive of the business of assassination. After all, if you want someone removed, you don’t want to have to employ any old Thomas, Richard, or Harold on a shady back street. Wasn’t it Canelo who set up The Guild of Assassins and Rogues—one that still endures through the Carters?”
“So, you’ll come?”
Cutter hesitated for moment. “Come? Have you missed what has just started? Have you missed what was just set in motion? My worth has just risen immensely. My guess is that commissions will be finding my agent by land, sea, and air—though most likely air, naturally—the others take too long. Why on earth wouldn’t I tap into the gold mine I just opened? Commissions will be two a dozen, and there are two of us who can cash in.”
“Because it’s Petreyer.”
“I don’t suppose I could go in his place, you know, now that he’s turned you down?” Lincoln ventured. “After all, they’ll be all right at Sanctuary, Joan’s Creek, Starellion? Won’t they?”
Flip shot him a look that told him no, and Lincoln remembered he’d already promised Swift he’d go to Kobane. His vein throbbed again.
“How do you even know he’s in Petreyer?” Cut
ter asked.
“Last seen in Partic Fair; never seen again. No one—to my knowledge—has ever ventured back there. She’ll have to start somewhere; my guess is she’ll start there.”
Cutter nodded. “There or—”
“Doesn’t this Alexa have some affinity with the jaspur tree?” Zenith said suddenly.
“They come when she calls,” Lincoln grated.
Cutter nodded, appearing to mull over Lincoln’s words. “Coincidence is quite the thing,” he finally said, leaving his response open-ended.
“They herald from Petreyer; there could be some other thing at work here.”
“So, Petreyer…” Flip stared at Cutter, challenge filling his golden eyes.
“If it's Petreyer, then Green can look for him while I bring in the gold." Cutter sat back, as if he’d thrown a winning card hand forward.
It was Flip’s turn to smile. “Why do you need all that gold?”
Cutter paled further, and he dipped his head, letting his bangs fall like a veil. Whatever he contemplated, Lincoln knew it held a good measure of his heart. When he finally did look up and peered through his draping fringe, Lincoln felt the true meaning of fear. It was like threat flowed from the man, and it was ice-cold.
“I aim to find her.”
Flip tapped his mug, clearly wondering if he should press Cutter further. “In that case, you should definitely come.”
The assassin nodded slowly, running his fingers through his jet-black hair, gripping it, pulling as he reached its length down his forehead. He gasped, a mix of sorrow, regret, and anger. “Tell me more,” he said, but there was not a jot of pleading in his voice, anguish, yes, but no more than that.
“Not my story—”
Cutter’s fist banged down on the table. “Does it or does it not lead to her!” he shouted, his voice deep, resonant, demanding an answer.
“Everything we do leads to her,” Flip said quietly. “You’ve just been playing a lonely game.”
Lincoln decided the conversation had reached a point where it was none of his business anymore. He saw that Grimble and Ozmic had turned away and were in mumbled conversation, so he drained his pot, stood, and crept back outside for some fresh air. No, this wasn’t his business. Jealousy aside, Cutter and Flip needed to sort this out themselves. He briefly wondered if Kobane had any mutants but decided he’d used up all his luck bonuses right at the beginning of the game.