Shadow Road

by A. E. Pennymaker

  NaVarre's eyes were serious. Haunted. He seemed about to say something, then frowned and turned away. For several minutes, the only sound in the Council Room was of the timekeep lightly clicking the seconds away on the wall. "Your father was a good man, Miss Warring," NaVarre said, finally, his voice raspy. "You need to understand that. He was one of the bravest, most honorable men I have ever met."

  Arramy drew a dagger, then, sparing me the need to respond as he stepped up behind NaVarre and cut the ropes keeping him in his chair.

  That was the moment the pact began. It wasn't an agreement among friends. More of a Devil's Pact, really, in which we all silently agreed to cooperate against a mutual threat while keeping a suspicious eye on each other. Still, it was a pact, none-the-less.

  NaVarre rubbed his wrists and got to his feet. "May I?" he asked, indicating my father's binder.

  Without a word Arramy stepped aside, giving NaVarre all the room he needed.

  "I wasn't able to go through these at length before," NaVarre mused, peering down at the little collections of papers, each pile grouped the way it had been tied together. "Is this all there was?"

  Arramy nodded. Once.

  "Mm," NaVarre grunted.

  The rush of energy I had been riding began to evaporate, dwindling away until I was once again the exhausted, hollowed out, used up husk I had been when I walked in. My bones felt like they were trying to meld with the seat beneath me. Neither of the men were looking in my direction, both of them engrossed in their study of my father's things. It was entirely too easy to let my eyes close and my head hit the back of the chair.

  25. The First Step

  26th of Uirra, Continued

  I dozed (also known as "drifting into sleep only to jerk awake because a hellish nightmare has come snaking up from the darkness to drag me under") while Arramy and NaVarre mutually picked each-others' brains.

  My memories of the next few hours were warped, with a lot of them run together and hazy, but I gathered enough from the bits and pieces of their conversations to understand that there were three binders like the one in my father's satchel. I had one, NaVarre had another, but apparently my father hid a third, and NaVarre needed that one. Badly.

  There was also a bit about it being one matter to have enough information to trace these shipments, and another to know where they were coming from and where they were going. Without that knowledge, NaVarre would only be "cutting the tail off the starkaelle while leaving the head alive."

  I must have missed the beginning of that metaphor because he started talking about having tails grow back somewhere else, and how cutting off a tail would only alert the head to the fact that someone knew about the tails. Which, in turn, would only make it that much harder to find the head.

  I got lost again in the middle and began dreaming about monsters with lots of long, curling scorpion tails.

  There was one little flicker that I seemed to remember clearly: NaVarre sitting on the end of the table, holding a tumbler of brandy to his forehead as if to ease a headache with the chill of cut-crystal and ice. He looked angry. Or frustrated. Afraid. Sad, even, as he growled, "Blast that man. How am I supposed to find any of this if he's not alive to tell me where to start?"

  I wanted to answer.

  In my dream I did.

  I stood up and faced him. Told him my father couldn't have known the Galvania would sink. That he hadn't died on purpose. That my father might not even be dead, so he could just keep his awful comments to himself.

  NaVarre walked out and I laughed.

  Then there was blood creeping over the floor in mirror-slick puddles, and I was in the galley on the Angpixen. There were severed limbs piling up on the floor, growing and increasing, and the captain was lying there on the table, watching the ship's surgeon saw off his arm while they discussed it like they were going to eat it, and the blood was still gathering, pooling beneath my feet, reaching for everyone around me, and whenever it touched anyone they melted into it, and then I was in it too, swimming, swimming, suffocating, and a man with a blurry face and white hair drifted by, dragged downward by a huge, tangled mass of metal as it sank into a bottomless pit, and I swam after him, following him even when he disappeared in the wreckage.

  Then the blood-sea wasn't blood anymore, it was burning oil, and I couldn't find that man anywhere, even though I was killing myself searching —

  I woke to the sound of my own sobs, and a deep, lilting voice telling me I wasn't on fire, repeating those words over and over as I swatted at my chest and arms and my hair – and anything in the way – clawing at flames that weren't real, my heart pounding, the nightmare still swirling over me.

  "Brenorra! You're safe. Come on, kid. Come back."

  I gasped, dragging in air instead of oily smoke, and with it the subtle scent of a man's soap. That was what broke the stranglehold of my dream and dropped me roughly into the present. Not the words, not the voice, the soap.

  I wasn't caught in the wreckage of the Galvania, choking on hot seawater. I was wrapped in a blanket, my face pressed against a wall covered in the heavy wool of a winter coat. There were arms around me, strong, unrelenting, holding me close even while I struggled against them.

  Those arms were solid ground. I stopped fighting and clung helplessly, shoulders shaking, relief coursing through me like a drug. I wasn't burning. It was just a dream. I breathed in that clean, masculine scent, gladly letting it chase away the memory of singed hair and machine oil with pinewood and fresh sea air. A touch of bergamot and coconut. I inhaled again, the nightmare's grip weakening, giving way to the emptiness of reality. I was safe. And still alone.

  That knowledge sank in deep. I didn't cry. I just went quiet. Then, slowly, I took a shaky breath and opened my eyes.

  Captain Arramy's pewter gaze met mine.

  There were scratches on his cheek. Fresh ones, as though someone had just caught him with their fingernails. Unthinking, I brought my hand up to his jaw, my fingertips not quite touching the narrow welts marring his skin. I had done that.

  He was staring down at me, his breath caught in his chest. The muscles in his cheek flickered. Then his brows lowered ever so slightly, and the spell evaporated. He cleared his throat, releasing me and getting to his feet. He took three swift strides to the table, where he stood with his back to me, apparently studying my father's papers.

  I stared at him, not quite sure what had just happened.

  We were still in the Council Room. I was sitting in the same chair, but the door stood wide, propped open with the metal box that had been on the table.

  NaVarre was very obviously gone.

  I licked dry lips and tasted tears. "How long have I been sleeping?" I asked, wiping at my watery face with my sleeve, then smoothing my hair out of my face.

  "Not long," the captain said. Polite but distant.

  "Oh." I stopped at that, unsure what else to say to fill the awkward gap that followed, in which the captain shuffled a few pages around, ignoring me completely.

  "What happened?" I asked, finally. "To NaVarre, I mean."

  "He's with his men on the Angpixen."

  "Oh."

  "He'll be back shortly."

  I raised my eyebrows, nodding as if he had said a friend was coming over for tea.

  I got to my feet, intending to see if I could help the captain with something, when NaVarre's smooth, "Hark, what fresh, fair flower is't that, newly ris'n, shines so bright?" had me whirling around, startled.

  Only it wasn't the Bloody Red Fox standing in the doorway, quoting Hurran's Indiransk. This version of NaVarre had changed his clothes. He was now wearing an understated black longcoat and an olive brocade vest over a white shirt without a collar or cravat, and seal-grey pants tucked into tall black boots. His dark, curly hair even had exactly the right amount of pomade to give it that effortless tousle that most socialites went crazy for.

  I almost burst out laughing. Almost. I certainly would have under different circumstances. He was d
ressed like he was going to a High Circle soiree somewhere and had stopped by for a chat on the way to the ante party. There couldn't possibly have been better proof that he was actually a member of the Circle of Lords.

  Intrigued, I took in the stark difference between he and the captain. NaVarre fairly crackled with restless energy, filling the room with it. Even standing there leaning on the doorjamb he somehow made Arramy seem big, dull, and cold in all his stern military efficiency.

  Arramy glanced at me, then over his shoulder at NaVarre/Lord Braeton, snorted under his breath, and turned back to Father's papers.

  NaVarre smiled and took an apple from his pocket. He bit into it, then waved the apple at Arramy, chewing as he spoke. "I was just telling the captain that there is another binder."

  It was apparently going to take a while longer for my wariness of Free NaVarre to fade, even though he hadn't threatened to throw anyone overboard recently. I caught myself sidling a little closer to the captain again and stopped. I couldn't exactly trust him either.

  I ground my teeth as NaVarre came all the way into the room, prowling over to lean his backside against the table a few feet away from me.

  "Your father sent one of them to a trusted friend," NaVarre went on, ignoring the fact that I had moved to put space between us. "He wouldn't tell me who or where. All he would say was that he didn't want all of this falling into the wrong hands at once, so he split it up into pieces. The last piece... He was using as leverage to get you to safety. 'The last piece will make all the difference,' he said. It might even hold the way into the Coventry I've been waiting for. And your father said that you," he paused for emphasis, "have the key." He took another bite of apple.

  "The key," I said flatly. There were no keys anywhere in any of Father's belongings. If they needed a key from me, they would be waiting a while.

  NaVarre reached behind him and plucked one of those unaddressed letters off the table, holding it out to me.

  Frowning, I looked at it.

  I hope this finds you well. Write when you have opportunity.

  Sincerely,

  Levig Honeyston

  I could guess whose handwriting that was, now. Something told me that piece of paper had come full circle, but that didn't help much. I was growing tired of all the cloak-and-dagger drama and heaved an annoyed sigh. "What does it mean?" I snapped when he didn't offer any explanation.

  "A safehouse in Lordstown," NaVarre announced. "The names are an intersection, the loop in the signature is the corner the building is on."

  There was indeed a loop in the signature. The last 'n' in Honeyston had a tail that went up and around to the right, then down through itself, forming a sort of 'x.' I hadn't even noticed it before.

  So. There was a safe house for my father and me. Not anyone else.

  "We were going to join up there. Then, when I had you both safely on the way to Aesthscaul, he was going to tell me where the third binder was."

  I had already heard NaVarre say as much to Arramy. Still, it hurt, stumbling over yet another reminder that everything I thought I knew was turning out to be a lie. This pre-arranged meeting was the reason Father hadn't made any plans beyond getting to Lordstown. I frowned, something tugging at my memory. "But we had rooms at the Iron Dragon," I said slowly. "He made the reservations himself. Why would he pay for rooms if we had a safehouse?"

  NaVarre quirked an eyebrow. "Why indeed?" A wide, thoroughly pleased smile beamed across his face.

  I had just given him a clue. Offered it up on a plate like cake at a party. Again. My stomach tightened in on itself. Was I never going to learn?

  ~~~

  So. Conclusion: I opened my mouth one lousy time and changed the entire course of the weird, tilt-a-ball game of riddles that my father created. Within the hour we were sailing for Lordstown, straight into the hands of whoever tried to kill us, in two ships that were supposed to be at the bottom of the bay.

  No matter what I did, I couldn't know for sure whether I had made the right choice until the consequences reached up and slapped me in the face. Should I have stayed quiet? I stayed quiet once. People died. Should I have said something? What if this was all a trap, Arramy and NaVarre turned out to be Coventry men, and I had just wrapped myself in silk for the spider?

  There were too many questions. Head aching, I put down my pen and went to bed.

  ~~~

  Starkaelle: (star . kay . luh): n. A mythical Edonian dragon with five scorpion tails.

  26. The Iron Dragon

  30th of Uirra

  It'll be easy, he said. Walk into the Iron Dragon and start a row in the foyer, he said.

  NaVarre would slip behind the registration desk in the distraction that followed and steal the booking ledger. Then he would keep going through the back room and out the window into the alley behind the Inn while we apologized to everyone and left by the front door.

  In, out.

  Yes. Right.

  "I don't know why you think I can start a convincing fight in public," I muttered as I stepped down from the horseless and into the ankle-deep slush on the road. The familiar smells of Lordstown's lower district slammed into me: compression engine exhaust, old oil, wet wool, mud, brine, and animal feces. Ah, loveliness.

  I caught sight of my reflection in the window of the hothouse across the street and released the breath I was holding. I once had a traveling outfit very much like the one I was wearing, with a midnight-blue taffeta skirt and embroidered bodice, and a matching wool half-cloak. With my hair in a twist beneath that elegant little lilac-purple hat, it was like looking at a ghost that was using my face. I ground my teeth and turned away, refusing to let myself think about the girl in the glass. I was already queasy enough.

  An overloaded oil lorry went rumbling by, and Arramy paused at the curb to let it pass, then placed a hand at my elbow, urging me forward into the early morning traffic that bumped and jostled along St. Camyrre Street. We dodged a line of man-drawn carts, a woolens barrow, a pile of steaming horse droppings, and a large flatbed dray, and then we trotted up the pedestrian access to the boardwalk in front of the Iron Dragon's front entrance.

  Arramy must have seen the attack of stage-fright looming in my eyes as he reached for the door pull. "You've survived worse," he pointed out. Then, helpful soul, he opened the door and held it for me as I stepped past him into the entryway.

  I didn't respond. My stomach was in knots. Performance class had always been the bane of my school career. I used to rehearse for weeks ahead of every seasonal production, and even then, I would get sick just before going on stage. Now, nearly two years later, that same old hint of acid was still crawling up the back of my throat.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my nerves as Arramy came in and closed the door behind us.

  The inside of the Iron Dragon was neat and respectably clean, if a little scuffed and worn along the edges. The entryway opened into a broad lobby with a bar down one side, and a small sitting area in front of a stone round-hearth in the far corner. It hadn't been redecorated since the Pre-War era: blue-washed walls, dark woodwork, lots of gold brocade and tassels and braided-cane furniture. It was pleasantly warm, though, and the scent of the hardwood fire in the grate was reassuring.

  Our target was the clerk standing behind a counter at the back of the lobby, under a sign that read Rooms and Registration. He glanced up when the entryway bell rang, and his gaze followed us to the bar.

  As planned, Arramy took up a strategic position toward the other end of the bar that would require the clerk to come all the way across the room to ask us to leave. If this worked.

  I moved to stand next to the captain, taking quick stock of our surroundings. There was a middle-aged couple sitting a little way down from Arramy and I, and the woman was giving us a thorough sidelong study.

  Because Arramy was old enough to have been married for several years, and I was a little too young to be his wife – but much too old to be his daughter. I looked like a kept woman. Wh
ich was undoubtedly why NaVarre had sent me in with Arramy.

  My ears scorched even hotter than they had been before.

  Appearances aside, I couldn't believe I was about to get myself kicked out of a hotel lobby. On purpose. I wasn't even sure how one did such a thing, and NaVarre's casual, "Oh, I don't know, accuse each other of something," hadn't been at all helpful. I wanted a script. Some sort of plot outline, at least; definitely something more than a rough sketch of events.

  There were too many variables, too many ways this could go wrong. What if we couldn't keep the clerk preoccupied and he caught NaVarre? What if we wound up getting arrested? That would only be the beginning —

  An old man came hobbling in at the heels of a large, boisterous Lodesian family. He was dressed as a Farrengan monk on pilgrimage, with a pointed woven-reed hat on his shaggy head and a bulky grey cloak over a pair of loose leather pants. I didn't think anything of it and almost ignored him, assuming he was going to go straight upstairs with the Lodesians. Then he split from the crowd and shuffled over to browse the Informationals and Locals rack at the end of the registration counter. He picked up one of the red City Attractions and Shops to Visit pamphlets and flapped it all the way open while facing us.

  I swallowed.

  Ready or not, that was our cue. NaVarre had arrived.

  The bartender approached then, and Arramy nodded at him. "Drybone Barleymalt, if you've got it."

  The man poured a pint of malted ale and slid it to Arramy.

  Arramy slid a lyr back. "Keep the change."

  I eyed him askance, suffering a twinge of jealousy. He was doing everything a normal, innocent person would do if they sat down at a bar. I, on the other hand, was ready to jump clean out of my skin. Even the thought of drinking made me queasy.