The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  "I'm not just a loyal Wikuni, Highness, I also happen to be fond of you," he admitted. "You gave me a good chance to make something of my life, and I've done my best to build your business into something you could be proud of, just as proud as your noble house."

  "Rallix, I'm ten times more proud of you and the Twenty Seas than I'll ever be over House Eram," she told him honestly. "Lizelle didn't build this company. You did. And I want you to know that I've always known that, and I've always been very thankful you were here."

  "It is nothing, Highness," he said with a slight smile. "It was nothing more than duty."

  "Be that as it may, we're going to have a very long talk later, Rallix," Keritanima promised him. "Right now, we have to send Lady Lizelle here on her way, and I have to get back to the Palace."

  "I'll make sure everyone knows Lizelle left," Rallix smiled.

  Keritanima escorted Kalina to the back gate. She gave her friend a quick hug and held onto her shoulders. "Just keep low, girl," she instructed. "Rallix will see to it that you're pampered and doted on while you're there. I'll send word when it's safe."

  "Don't send it any time soon," Kalina winked. "You be careful, Keritanima."

  "Call me Kerri, girl. All my friends do."

  "Kerri," she corrected with a warm smile. "Tell Ulfan I'll be gone. He worries when he doesn't hear from me for a month or so."

  "I'll make sure he knows," she promised. "They're waiting for you, girl. Now scoot, and enjoy yourself."

  "Oh, I will, I promise that," she grinned. "You be careful, Kerri. It's still dangerous."

  "I'll be alright, Lizelle. I have good friends I can count on."

  Kalina smiled, and then she hurried towards a ship at which Rallix was pointing. Keritanima looked away, but Miranda kept looking out towards the docks.

  "She'll be alright, won't she?" Azakar asked.

  "She'll be alot safer than we will," Keritanima chuckled. "Come on, gang. We have to get back and see what kind of mess I just created." Keritanima noticed Miranda's secretive little smile. "And what's got you so happy?"

  "Oh, nothing," she said with a deceptive grin, then she walked away, back towards the carriage, humming aimlessly to herself.

  Chapter 15

  If Keritanima would have filled the Hall of the Sun with gunpowder and thrown in a torch, she could not have produced a more disruptive effect on court.

  Keritanima was only nineteen years old, but she had a keen understanding of her own people's basic motivations and patterns. She knew that though most of them didn't know a great deal about the Firestaff, their inherent curiosity about the chaos going on in Sennadar would have motivated most of them to look into it. Wikuni were sailors, but they were also a race of merchants, and one couldn't make a profit unless one had an ear to the current events of the marketplace. That inquiry would generate some excitement--after all, who wouldn't get excited about the idea of some mystical artifact with the power to turn someone into a god?--and that excitement would provoke more study. And just like the humans, many of the noble houses had worked up rudimentary plans to find the Firestaff, or track down the person who finally did and take it from him before the appointed day. That first day of eavesdropping on court had told her just how much of a topic the Firestaff was among the noble circles, taking a very close second seat to the intrigue surrounding the throne. Her idea to use the Firestaff as a pot-stirrer seemed to her to be the simplest, easiest, and most logical way to go about whipping everyone up into a frenzy. It was so simple, she had kicked herself repeatedly for quite a while for not thinking of it sooner.

  As she expected, her written message had been intercepted, spies had spied on the spies who intercepted it, and the meeting between Lizelle and Keritanima had become common knowledge. As she expected, more than one set of unfriendly ears was present in the Dancing Swan when Keritanima and Lizelle had their meeting.

  And as she expected, the only thing anyone could talk about now was just what Keritanima knew.

  This in itself wasn't the lit match to blow up the gunpowder. That came exactly ten days later, in the form of twenty-nine identical letters. Each one went out to the heads of the other twenty-nine noble houses, and all twenty nine said the very same thing. That she was afraid that her father would force her to divulge that information, and if he did, then he would be both king and god. She made no overt mention that the house should strike against her father. She made no requests or demands. She simply noted her fears to the others.

  During those ten days waiting for the right time to send out the letters, Keritanima wandered absently around court, talking to nobody, but seeing the eyes following her and the murmurs that shifted to furious whispering when she approached or as she left. When not in court, she spent her time in the Royal Library, looking through some of the antique books her father had collected over the years. Two of them were Sha'Kar tomes, and she played again at cracking the Sha'Kar written language half-heartedly. She knew she was being watched, and her interest in dead-language books only fueled the firestorm she had created. Both of those books disappeared out of the library the day after she looked through them, but she couldn't really say who had stolen them. Half of Wikuna had their eyes on her at any given time.

  The other thing that had occupied her mind during that time, crept in on her during lulls of eavesdropping or study, was Rallix. The badger had known! That simple fact kept creeping back into her mind over and over again, not allowing her to forget it or put it aside. He had known her secret, known it for four years, and had done nothing to give her away. Just like Miranda, he had worked with her to perpetrate the game, but she hadn't known it at the time. She had never really thought much about Rallix. He was someone who seemed always in the background, going about his job with a quiet efficiency that kept Lizelle's life simple and easy to manage. And yet he had known who she really was, and done nothing to give her away. Why? Why, for the gods' sake? He had no personal motivation to keep her secret and work with her to continue it, but he had. To be honest, it would have been better for him to turn her in, because Wikuni law would have passed the trading company to him, being her legal partner in the venture. All he'd had to do was open his mouth, and he would have been one very rich Wikuni. But he didn't.

  It drove her crazy every time she thought about it. He had no personal feelings for her aside from their business relationship. She had never treated him as anything more than an employee. There was no logical or illogical reasoning for his loyalty to her, and yet he had demonstrated just as much loyalty to her as Miranda or Binter or Sisska did. In his own ways, Rallix had been just as indespensible to her as Ulfan was, and just like Ulfan, he was always there when she needed her, and he never let her down. And there was no reason for him to have that much loyalty! It was maddening! The more she thought about it, the more agitated she got. Personally, she rather liked Rallix. He was calm, measured, sharp as a tack, and had an almost unnatural nose for turning a profit. Those very properties that made her hire him had allowed him to discover the truth about his employer, most likely. Very little got past Rallix. But her feelings for him had no bearing on how Lizelle treated him, and they certainly didn't explain his irritatingly strong loyalty to her and her cause.

  There just was no real answer to that. She forced herself to put it aside to deal with more important matters, but it always managed to just peek in her when her mind wasn't engaged on something else.

  The stress of the situation showed plainly on her father's face in court after the letters were delivered. He just couldn't stop staring at her. She knew he knew that she sent those letters out, so he was probably the only one that realized that her information was probably a red herring, meant only to cause him problems. But he had no proof. And he absolutely couldn't risk the chance that she really did know the location of the Firestaff. Like so many others, her father wanted it, and he wanted it badly. He hadn't been in a position to send sages or searchers to find it because her earlier round of assassinations had
created such a mess that he had to devote all his attention to keeping his throne. But now the possibility that Keritanima held the most vital information in the world at that moment hung over him like a pall, and every time he looked at her, she just turned to the side and patted her back gingerly. A sign, that because he had her flogged, she wasn't going to so much as give him the time of day. Because he had dug his own grave with her, he hadn't attempted to speak to her since the meeting, since that first day in court. That was part reservation, and part good healthy fear. Damon Eram was terrified of being in a position where she could kill him with a minimum of witnesses to eliminate, and that kept her safe from any kind of personal audiences where he would grill her for what she knew. He was probably debating just how to approach her to force her to tell him one way or the other if she really did know, and do it without getting himself killed. And if she did know anything, to drag that information out of her. But his problem was that he couldn't devote enough attention to that problem and keep a grip on his own throne. He was being pressed from all sides at once, and it took all his devotion to stave off being removed before he could find anything out.

  The only way to get that information was holed up in her apartment. Miranda, Binter, and Azakar had all but barricaded themselves in her apartment, and she personally delivered all food and drink to them. She had ten Royal Guards in place at that door at all times to protect her friends, and feeling that a little magical assurance was needed with the number of priests who sold their services in Wikuna, she placed a powerful Ward on the door that would kill anyone who touched it other than her and her other companions. She wouldn't allow them to put themselves in a position where someone would kidnap one of them. Miranda, actually, since Azakar or Binter could eradicate anything but an army of kidnappers. Anytime Miranda went out, she had both of them with her to protect her. Binter argued about that for nearly two days, until Keritanima promised not to leave her room any time Miranda went out, and to have the guards on her door doubled. The move placed her inside the capable protection afforded by the Royal Guard, and also gave her the added protection of the Ward of her own Sorcery. Binter trusted the Royal Guard, because they guarded the throne, not the monarch. Keritanima, as heir, would be defended by them as fanatically as they would defend the King himself.

  There was only one attempt to abduct Miranda, and it ended in disaster for the attackers. They sent twenty men to overpower her towering bodyguards and kidnap her, but Binter and Azakar showed the ruffians why their race and order were honored and respected the world over as some of the most effective, efficient, and best fighting men in the world. Binter and his huge Mahuut companion had absolutely annihilated the attackers to the last man. Miranda had not even been touched. They didn't get within five feet of her. The only way to really get to her was by killing Binter and Azakar with guns or crossbows, but the tensions in the Palace had caused the King to decree that only the Royal Guard could carry firearms. That limited everyone else to small starwheel pistols, which simply didn't have enough power to kill either the monstrous Vendari or the heavily armored Mahuut.

  The game had had its intended effect. After the letters went out, there were three assassinations of her father's staff, and her father's spies had unravelled one attempt on him, but couldn't pin the plot on anyone of importance. The numbers of spies on her tail diminished, but not enough to suit her. Her father now had a lot to worry about, but the fact that she had played the Firestaff card made him find men to keep on her. She knew that was going to happen, and felt that the increased pressure on her father was worth the extra eyes following her. Her father looked haggard after five days, and the glares and hot looks flew around court like daggers. Everyone was starting to plot against everyone else even more than usual, but they all wanted to get Damon Eram out of the way first, for he was in the best position to get that vital information out of his daughter first. After he was out of the way, they would worry about how to make Keritanima tell them what they wanted to know, but first things first. Damon Eram represented an immediate threat, where Keritanima's knowledge was something they could extract at a more leisurely pace. If worse came to worse, they could simply put tails on the Knights she had summoned from Sulasia.

  The rumors, whispers, and general frenzied planning all went up in flames about two weeks after her little game. That night, everything had been normal. But the next morning, all of Wikuna was in chaos. The heads of the fifteen top noble Houses, except house Eram and house Zalan, were found dead. Every ranking member of her father's council of advisors, military officers, and top aides, except for the Chamberlain, were all dead. And finally, several shady types in the city, heads of thieves' guilds and assassins and underground societies, were also found dead. In one fell swoop, the ruling minds of about three quarters of the city's political factions had all been wiped out, leaving the new noble heads to pick up the pieces.

  Ulfan's men were quiet, they were efficient, and they were punctual. She had ordered all the murders to occur on the same night, and he had come through for her in spectacular fashion. They did not miss a single name.

  Court that morning was eventful. It was full of frightened yammering, fierce whispering, and glares in every direction. Her father didn't even show up, so she knew that he was very busy trying to find out what in the nine hells happened. Because not just her father's men were killed, it made Keritanima a much less likely suspect. After all, she had nothing against the heads of the noble houses, no reason to really kill them. Her fight was with her father, and almost everyone felt that she still had no real intention of taking the throne. They saw her as much smarter than they thought, true, but still the image of the Brat clung to her, making them think that she was acting out of pure emotion. That getting her father was more important than the throne that would pass to her afterwards, and which would make her much easier to get off of it than Damon Eram had been. She had never shown an interest in the crown, even after they knew that she was smarter than they thought. Indeed, they all knew that she had done everything she did to get out of taking the throne. If her father was out of the way, they all felt she'd either abdicate or end up getting the army to turn against her, which would allow some other noble house to step in and forcibly take the throne from her.

  Her killings had fulfilled three key objectives. Firstly, it would put even more pressure on her father. Secondly, it softened up every noble house in a position to harm her after she had the throne, and laid the seeds that would be added to her other little plots to turn them against one another when she did have the crown. Thirdly, the murders of the higher-ranking thieves would turn the dark men whom the nobles hired to do their dirty work inside out. The effect of that wouldn't be felt until one of them tried to hire an assassin, and would find all the guilds in wars of succession. The underworld would be too busy settling who owned what street to hire out men to stick daggers into overfed milksops for the rich people. The only guild left that was large enough to handle such contracting was Ulfan's, and he had already promised her that he wouldn't hire out to anyone that had designs on her. It created an extra layer of protection for her, allowing the nobles to try to kill each other but not allowing them to try to get at her or her friends.

  A day of overhearing had convinced her that the plan had been a smashing success. None of the noble houses were organized enough to do anything against her, but the plans they'd made concerning her father, made before the murders of the noble heads, were still there and still in motion. Nobody thought she was behind it, though there was enough speculation to make her consider defenses in case it was tracked back to her. It had seriously undercut her father, who was still reeling from the last round of assassinations that had killed off his best men. She had gotten everyone else this time, leaving him with very little support and very few seasoned advisors.

  And because so many people from so many widely varied factions were all killed on the same night, everyone pointed their fingers at everyone else.

  It wa
s an atmosphere of truly delicious insanity. Keritanima moved through it that next morning with the calm of a sashka dancer, standing in the eye of the political hurricane she had conjured up. She saw it on all sides, from the smallest noble house to the largest, even in the wild stares from Jenawalani. They all just knew that someone very high in the chain had to have arranged it, and since so few suspected Keritanima, that turned all those accusing stares in Jenawalani's direction. Jenawalani was that high up, and she was well known to be a very good player of intrigue. She had also been there the whole time, something Keritanima had not done, been there and had her ear to the ground to know who, how, and when to strike to arrange so many consecutive killings. Something like mass murder fell in with her elemental style of doing things, taught to her by Damon Eram, so it made her a much more likely suspect than her older sister. Jenawalani spent that morning and afternoon in damage control, trying to insure that nobody thought she did it strongly enough to come after her. By nightfall, Jenawalani was doing the same thing Keritanima was doing. She had all but locked herself in her rooms and had Royal Guards protecting her door.

  By the time Keritanima returned to her apartments that night, she felt greatly relieved. Now things were ripe for the next phase of the plan. The only real immediate business to take care of was Ulfan's payment. After that, the next campaign would begin, the campaign to send her father over the edge...or at least make everyone think that he did so.