“Don’t you think it’s time to consider sacrificing your precious honor for the greater good?” Lakeo grumbled.
Yanko thought of his brief conversation with Jhali. He would be a hypocrite if he ignored his sense of honor after lecturing her.
“No,” he said quietly. “Besides, if I can go in and explain to the consul everything that’s happened before he or she hears the story from someone else, maybe there’s hope that… Well, let’s just say it would be nice to have one Nurian in authority who believes I’m not a criminal.” He remembered letting those prisoners out of the cliffside jail back in Red Sky and grimaced. “Or if I am, that there were extenuating circumstances and that I should be assisted in reaching Prince Zirabo.”
Zirabo could clear his name—everything Yanko had done had been in pursuit of the mission the prince had given him. More than that, he wanted very badly to dump everything he knew into someone else’s lap. Zirabo would know what to do next. Yanko would help with whatever more Zirabo asked—hopefully, after he’d seen his family and knew they were all right—but he didn’t want to be in charge anymore.
“How are you going to convince a stodgy Nurian consul that Zirabo wants anything to do with you?”
How, indeed. Especially when he had lost Zirabo’s letter. “I’ll explain everything that happened. And attempt to be charismatic and believable.”
“Will that be hard when you’re standing before him in nothing but your dirty drawers?” Lakeo asked.
“No, because I have righteous truth on my side.”
“And a sleeping parrot on your shoulder.”
Arayevo did not comment on this exchange, other than to give Yanko a dubious look.
“You’re welcome to part from us—from me—and find your own way home, or back to Minark’s ship,” he told her quietly.
“Oh no,” she said. “I want to see if you, your drawers, and your parrot can convince a consul to help us. If nothing else, it should be entertaining.”
“Entertaining, right,” Lakeo said. “Do consulates have dungeons that prisoners can be thrown into? I still think stealing money and buying passage to the Great City is a better plan.” She paused, looking Yanko over. “Also, stealing clothes. Something colorful to match your parrot perhaps.”
Kei stirred, clacking his beak a couple of times, then said, “Time for bed, time for bed.”
“I think we’re keeping your bird up too late,” Arayevo said.
Yanko pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s do this so Kei can get his rest. Wherever we end up.”
“He ought to be used to cells by now,” Lakeo said.
Yanko climbed down a drainpipe and headed toward the consulate. He hoped he hadn’t been foolish to delay his visit until after dark. What if the Turgonians guessed he would go there? There could be a squad of soldiers standing outside right now, ready to recapture him before he could find what he hoped was sanctuary inside.
“Let’s not worry about things that haven’t happened yet,” he mumbled to himself.
“What did he say?” Arayevo asked, walking behind him at Lakeo’s side.
“That he wishes he’d agreed to your theft idea and hates his parents for instilling all that honor blather in his brain,” Lakeo said.
“That’s a loose translation,” Yanko murmured, keeping his gaze toward the walled building on a corner two blocks ahead.
They walked around a fountain at the prior intersection, gas lamps on the corners shining light on a statue in the center. It depicted a soldier fighting off an attacker in flowing robes, one that looked suspiciously like a Nurian mage. The fountain reminded Yanko that he was a long way from home, and he picked up his pace, avoiding the light of those lamps and hugging the shadows.
There wasn’t a guard at the wooden double doors barring entrance to the courtyard. Fortunately, he also didn’t see any Turgonian soldiers lurking. A simple bronze plaque next to the doors proclaimed in multiple languages that they had found the Blessed Hawk’s Nest Nurian Consulate. A smaller, less permanent-looking plaque displayed the hours of business.
Yanko didn’t want to wait nine hours until it opened, so he hoped someone was still up, someone who wouldn’t be overly irritated by visitors. He pulled on a rope, and a bell clanged inside the courtyard. Several long minutes passed, and he debated ringing it again. He checked the building inside with his senses to see if anyone was awake.
“What do we do if they don’t answer?” Lakeo looked up and down the street.
“Hide out in the city tonight and return in the morning,” Yanko said, though he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
He sensed people inside, twenty or thirty, with about half of them awake and reading or working on projects by lamplight. There were also a few people singing by candlelight in a prayer hall, the lyrical refrains of the Song of Rest drifting out to the courtyard.
It is late, Honored Visitor, a woman spoke into his mind. Can your business wait until morning?
Yanko was tempted to agree to the reasonable request, since he didn’t want to bother anyone, but wasn’t his situation precarious enough to warrant a late-night audience? Forgive me, Honored… Diplomat, he replied, not sure what title to use, but we seek refuge from the Turgonians. If they find us tonight, we won’t be able to return in the morning.
“Yanko.” Lakeo nudged him in the back.
The warning note in her voice made him turn around.
Two uniformed soldiers with rifles had appeared in the street a block away. They walked around the fountain and headed in his direction. They didn’t yet look like they had seen Yanko’s group, but that wouldn’t last long. How many Nurians running around in smallclothes could there be in the city?
So, you’re bringing trouble to our doorstep? the woman spoke into Yanko’s mind again, her tone dry.
Is that uncommon?
Not really, but we try to encourage it to come during business hours.
“We may want to run before we’re cut off,” Arayevo murmured as the soldiers headed toward them.
“I’m talking to someone inside,” Yanko whispered. He peered in the other direction, searching for alleys they could disappear into if need be.
“Someone who’s going to open the door?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
He spotted another pair of soldiers. They were also heading toward the consulate.
“Uhm, Yanko?” Lakeo prompted.
Ma’am? Yanko asked the speaker inside the consulate, even as he braced himself to fight.
One of the soldiers pointed at Yanko’s group and blurted something in Turgonian that sounded like, “That’s them!”
The two men burst into a run. Yanko stepped toward them, raising his hands and condensing the air to create a barrier that stretched across the street in front of them. It was invisible to anyone who couldn’t sense magic, so the men struck it and bounced off with startled curses. One whipped up his rifle. Yanko grimaced in concentration. He would have to create an even more impenetrable barrier to block a bullet.
An angry protest came from Kei, along with another cry of, “Time for bed,” as he flapped his wings and flew up to the courtyard wall.
There was no time to answer or soothe the parrot. A query came from the other soldiers—they had noticed the commotion. Yanko struggled not to panic, but he couldn’t make two separate barriers at once. The fear of being shot at made it hard to focus on keeping even one up.
Lakeo grabbed his arm, and his concentration slipped.
“Don’t,” Yanko blurted and flung a wave of air in desperation as one of the soldiers pulled a trigger. The rifle twitched aside two inches as it fired.
A bullet clanged off the courtyard wall over Yanko’s head as Lakeo tugged him to the side. To the side and through the now-open door. When had that happened?
As Yanko stumbled into the courtyard, finding Lakeo and Arayevo already inside, the door slammed shut again. An instant later, someone pounded on it, then rattled the latch, trying to open it
. But the door had locked, and the pounding did nothing against the stout wood.
Furious rings of the bell followed the pounding. Yanko winced, certain the noise would not only irritate the consulate residents but wake up the city for a mile in each direction.
“There’s nobody here?” Arayevo asked, looking around the courtyard.
A fountain gurgled in the middle—no warmongering statues loomed from the center of this one—sending water into a stream that curled through gardens to either side of the path. There were benches and lamps, these burning kerosene or whale oil instead of gas, and Kei left Yanko’s shoulder to fly over to a tree in one corner. He alighted on a branch and buried his face in his feathers.
“Whoever was speaking to me telepathically must have opened and closed the door with her mind,” Yanko said.
Indeed, the woman told him. It is so tedious to put on clothes and get out of bed simply to open a door. Please enter. The ambassador will see you.
Yanko almost commented on his own difficulties with clothing of late, but he decided he should not be so familiar with a person who was undoubtedly an elder to him. Ambassador, she’d said. Not consul, as Yanko had been thinking.
The Turgonians were still pounding on the door and ringing the bell, so Yanko hurried through the courtyard toward an adobe building. He half-expected the tall, athletic soldiers to leap over the wall and try to drag him back to their headquarters. Instead, they shouted at him through the doors. It was just as well that he couldn’t understand the words.
“Time for bed,” Kei squawked loudly toward the ringing bell.
“Your parrot seems extra crabby tonight, Yanko,” Arayevo said. “Did he not get enough seeds during the voyage?”
Judging by Kei’s earlier biscuit comment and his suitable plumpness, the parrot had been doing well for himself on the trip.
“It’s late,” Lakeo said. “I wouldn’t mind going to bed too. Keep yelling at them to quiet down, Kei.”
The parrot squawked one more time, then turned his head and buried his beak between his wings again.
The path led to a large wooden door painted a cheerful blue with yellow accents. Yanko lifted a hand to knock, but the door opened first. He hurried in, wanting to put more distance between him and the soldiers, and almost crashed into a man wearing orange and green robes with his gray hair swept up into a topknot.
He was tall for a Nurian, over six feet, and stared down at Yanko as if he were a dead mouse a cat had brought in. A trimmed gray goatee made his chin seem pointed, or maybe that was an effect of his pinched expression.
A couple of younger robed men—servants or aides?—stood nearby. One pointed at Yanko’s bare chest and murmured something to the other, which drew a snicker.
“Honored Ambassador,” Yanko said, ignoring the aides and pressing his hands together as he bowed low to the gray-haired man. “I apologize for disturbing you at this late hour. My name is Yanko White Fox. I’m in need of temporary asylum and, if at all possible, help in returning to the Great Land. I’m on a mission for Prince Zirabo, but I was captured by Turgonians before I could complete it. I desperately need to find him and report in.”
Aware of Arayevo and Lakeo shuffling in behind him and shutting the door, Yanko lifted his gaze to meet the gray-haired man’s dark eyes.
“I am Ambassador Honli Silver Wolf,” the man said, his voice as cool as his gaze. “You appear far too young to be on a mission for anyone.”
“It’s a long story, Honored Ambassador, one which I am prepared to share in full.”
The pounding outside had stopped, but the bell kept clanging. Those soldiers did not give up easily.
“White Fox. You are related to the pirate woman?”
Yanko kept his chin up, though a wave of bleakness washed over him—would he never escape his mother’s legacy? “Yes, sir, but she left home when I was a baby. My mission and my actions have nothing to do with her.”
“We shall see.” Silver Wolf tilted his head toward one of several doorways leading from the large tiled foyer. “Sor Yen, bring tea to the receiving room,” he commanded one of the younger men as he strode in the indicated direction.
“Yes, Honored Ambassador.” Both men bowed and darted off.
“And Consul Tynlee?” Silver Wolf called, raising his voice to address someone else, though there was nobody in sight. “Please convince those Turgonians to stop ringing our bell.”
“Yes, Ambassador,” came a female voice from down a hallway. It sounded like the woman who had spoken telepathically to Yanko. “Subtly or unsubtly?”
“Use your discretion.” Silver Wolf waved his hand indifferently as he entered a spacious room with a wooden table and chairs on one side and a more casual sitting area with sofas and upholstered chairs on the other. He seated himself on that side, waving for Yanko and his comrades to line up on a sofa in front of him. Covering a yawn, he said, “Begin.”
Yanko perched on the edge of a cushion, took a deep breath, and started at the beginning. Well, not quite the beginning. He left out the part about how he’d failed the Stargrind entrance exams, instead saying he’d been working in his family’s salt mine when the attack had come. From there, he described everything in detail, reluctantly admitting to inadvertently freeing prisoners at Red Sky, because leaving out that detail would only cause trouble later, when someone else reported it. For the most part, Arayevo and Lakeo stayed silent, sipping the tea one of the young men brought and letting him tell his tale without interruptions. Yanko wasn’t sure whether he appreciated their uncharacteristic quietness or not. A little verification here and there would have been nice. But neither of them had wanted to come to the consulate for help.
“This Dak you speak of,” Silver Wolf said at one point. “You say it’s Colonel Daksaron Starcrest?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that until recently.”
Silver Wolf stroked his goatee.
“Are you familiar with him, Honored Ambassador?” Yanko asked.
“He was stationed at the Intelligence Headquarters here in town for a couple of years. Though I am most often at our embassy in the capital, I visit Port Morgrant frequently, since this is the largest trade city in Turgonia. Our interactions were infrequent but not as infrequent as I would have preferred.” Silver Wolf’s lips thinned, and Yanko had a sense that whatever those interactions had entailed, they hadn’t gone well for the ambassador. Because he’d been outmaneuvered in some military or political matter?
Movement in the doorway caught Yanko’s attention. A woman in comfortable-looking silver and white robes had arrived, her long hair pulled back in a loose braid, a few strands of gray weaving through the black. A Turgonian pen perched behind one of her ears, and she carried a book or a journal. An inch or two over five feet, she had a round, smiling face and bright eyes. She peered at Yanko, Lakeo, and Arayevo with interest. Even before she opened her mouth, Yanko was certain this was the person who had spoken to him telepathically.
“Hm,” she said, her gaze lingering on him. “I didn’t realize this would be such an informal meeting. It seems I needn’t have put on clothes, after all.”
Yanko blushed.
“Really, Tynlee,” Silver Wolf said in mild reproof.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get the boy a robe or a tunic?” Tynlee said, not looking the least abashed at the reproof.
“Our robes denote mage status,” Silver Wolf said. “He is too young for that.”
“Yanko is a strong mage,” Lakeo said, surprising Yanko by the support.
Silver Wolf’s gray eyebrows lifted. “He has had formal mage training and graduated from an accredited academy?”
“He took down a ship and incinerated—”
Yanko gripped Lakeo’s arm, now wishing she had refrained from supporting him. Nobody back home—or here—would appreciate some unschooled youth running around, chaotically battling with respected and established mages from honored families.
“In my quest, I’v
e been forced to defend myself a few times,” Yanko said, for Silver Wolf was frowning at him, “but you are correct, Honored Ambassador. I’ve not had formal schooling.”
“A bathrobe would be sufficient,” Tynlee said, her voice even dryer out loud than it had been in Yanko’s head. “Perhaps a bath too.”
Lakeo elbowed Yanko. “Told you.”
“This isn’t a hotel.” Silver Wolf stood up. “Wait here, White Fox. It’s still daylight back in Nuria. I’ll contact someone there and get advice in this matter.”
Yanko lurched to his feet. “Sir, can you contact someone you know is loyal to the Great Chief? Or even better, someone who knows Prince Zirabo? Rebels were attacking my home province when we left, so I’m not sure who’s safe to talk to back there. I’ve heard there are numerous factions taking action right now. The Sun Dragons, I know, were plotting to claim the dais for themselves.”
“We are aware of the situation, young man,” Silver Wolf said.
“The Nurian embassy on Kyatt can’t be trusted. They tried to fool the Turgonians into believing that Jaikon Sun Dragon was a diplomat with the authority to…” Yanko trailed off because Silver Wolf’s gaze had gone from harsh to downright withering.
“The embassy can’t be trusted?” he asked incredulously.
“Someone there—”
“I know Ambassador Still Water personally. He rose to his position even though he is from a modest family. He is a good man and fully deserves his position.”
“It’s possible he wasn’t the one who—”
“I should think not.” Silver Wolf turned his back on Yanko and strode through a door that led deeper into the facility.
“And here I thought diplomatic ambassadors were supposed to be diplomatic,” Arayevo muttered.
Tynlee still stood in the other doorway, so Yanko did not reply. He dared not disparage the leader of the facility, but he was starting to wish he’d gone to the docks. Maybe he could have found a gambling venue or some legal way of earning money to pay for passage.
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