Aethersmith (Book 2) (59 page)

“What is it?” Kyrus said, no energy in his voice.

“Not for talking about out here. Too many ears. Let’s get us
behind those wards of yours,” Varnus replied.

That was my plan. I would have had you out there, too,
though
, Kyrus thought wearily.

A few moments later, the two men were sealed up safely in
Kyrus’s chambers. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he ought to
have a separate office in the palace, apart from his bedchamber. It was growing
unseemly the number of people who saw his soiled clothing and disheveled bed
linens.

“What is it?” Kyrus asked again.

“It is Wendell. He’s acting strange.”

“Strange how? I hardly know him well enough to judge. What
makes you say so?” Kyrus pressed.

“Well, he seems distracted. Not talking much. Usually he’s
looking around too much, talking constantly. He seems … creepy.”

“Could it be something related to his mission for Rashan?”
Kyrus wondered. “Has he given any indications of his progress?”

“Well, we found a boy who speaks Megrenn, and can see
aether. Wendell picked him up at the Pious Grove Sanctuary.”

“Anzik Fehr,” Kyrus said, drawing a surprised look from
Varnus.

“So
that’s
what we’re up to?” Varnus fumed. “We’re
takin’ twinborn boys hostage?”

“Calm yourself. No. We are bargaining with a twinborn
runaway for a stolen staff. Find out what is going on in Megrenn. I do not care
whether Wendell or Faolen wishes to divulge it. Wring it out of him somehow,
preferably—and I mean preferably, not exclusively—without violence. Wendell and
Faolen both seem too comfortable with dissembling. Both work at it
professionally. He cannot keep such crucial information to himself, though. He
should have already told you his plan once the two of you were alone and away
from Rakashi.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on now; Rakashi is one of us.
Anything you say in front of me or Tanner, you can say in front of him. Er, and
a fair portion of what you say to Juliana or Soria, but don’t get carried away
on that count. But what I mean is: you don’t have to go sneaking about behind
Rakashi’s back. He has a knight’s soul in him, and a scholar’s eyes. He can
keep his mouth shut about things that shouldn’t go beyond Tellurak.”

“Maybe one day, I, too, can trust him like you all do, but I
do not know him yet. Tanner I barely know, but he is an officer in my army.
You, I have known for summers, since Brannis was a young man. Rakashi’s twin is
Safschan, which means if he fights, he fights for Megrenn. I cannot let him in
on the key to their undoing. The man would have to be made of stone to sit by
for that.”

“He is.”

“No man is. He has a heart and a conscience. He will decide
using those, like any man would. Perhaps he will make the decision that favors
us, perhaps he will break the bargain you have made for the benefit of his
people.”

“You are a smart fellow, Kyrus. You’ve set it up so Tanner
and I can’t get to Rakashi and Soria doesn’t know any better.”

* * * * * * * *

Kyrus was poring over written petitions from the nobles and
merchants, tasks that had until recently been within Rashan’s domain, when the
knock came. It startled him from his glazed viewing of complaint after
complaint, laying bare the pettiness of Kadrin’s upper class.

Kyrus stood, leaving the papers scattered about his desk,
and released the wards. The door opened by telekinesis, a spell he felt he was
finally growing comfortable with silently.

Celia stood there outside, having dressed for the occasion.
The simple black dress she wore for her official duties had been replaced with
the dress he had first seen her in at Raynesdark. She had let down the tight,
elaborate knots that kept her hair out of her way while she wrote. It fell
loose about the bare skin of her shoulders and back.

“I suddenly feel underdressed,” Kyrus greeted her, smiling
without having to think about it.

“Nonsense. You are the most powerful man in Kadris at the
moment, after the emperor, of course,” Celia said, punctuating the last bit
with a roll of the eye that none outside in the hallways could have seen.

She seemed about to enter when Kyrus waved her away, heading
for the doorway himself. “I have had my fill of this room for a while. We can
dine in the eastern sitting room.”

“Will that be safe enough to talk?”

“Rashan held meetings there. It is warded, after a fashion.
It allows servants in and out, but nothing can pass undetected. So long as we
mind our tongues while our courses are brought, and our wine refilled, we may
speak freely,” Kyrus replied.

The eastern sitting room was cozy by palace standards.
Twenty might have talked over drinks in the space it provided, but the lone
table was set for two. They were surrounded by priceless heirlooms of the
Empire, dating back hundreds of summers, a few possibly thousands. Celia sat in
her chair as if afraid to touch anything beyond the confines of the table
linens.

“Brannis, this is
too
nice. Emperors used to take tea
here with their empresses or concubines. If I broke something here, I could not
replace it with a lifetime’s salary.”

“I suppose that there is an emperor to take offense now,
should we wreck the place,” Kyrus replied. “No more of Rashan’s inspirational
acts of vandalism.”

“How do you know about that?” Celia asked, her face
scrunching up in a frown. Kyrus tried, unsuccessfully, not to find it adorable.
“I thought I was supposed to be briefing
you
on the little background
dealings of the Empire.”

“You must either not be very much of a spy, or you must be
continuing to act so, if you thought that was why we were dining together
tonight,” Kyrus replied.

“Oh, really? Why do
you
think we are having dinner
tonight?” Celia asked, slathering on the sarcasm, lest Kyrus miss it.

“Two reasons. The other is that I need to know a few things
about your dreams,” Kyrus answered.

“‘Other reason,’ huh? Before I go any further with that,
which of you started that annoying little word trick, you or Rashan?”

“I have not kept track. Him, I think.”

“So what was the reason too obvious to name?” Celia
demanded. “Pretend I am too dumb to guess it.”

“You are not stupid. You are witty, beautiful, and
resourceful. I find myself drawn to you for those reasons and more, despite my
obstinate resistance due to having been prodded toward you at every turn. I
dislike being manipulated, and I react poorly to it. I might …
might
…
be able to get past all that, because for all the reasons I should push you
away, none truly matter in the end. What if our meeting was all arranged, our
times together plotted, your dogged pursuit of me according to orders? What of
it, if in the end we would choose each other anyway?”

Celia was speechless for a moment, blushing from forehead to
neckline.

“Just answer me one thing first, truthfully. You
accidentally called me ‘Kyrus’ earlier, when you left Caladris’s office. Where
did you hear that name?”

“I remembered you from my dreams.”

Chapter 32 - Freedom and Adventure

Nestled in the foothills of the Cloud Wall mountain range,
on the eastern side, sat an unusual dwelling. It had a flat wooden roof and
steel walls that echoed as the rain beat against them. The sides were slitted
with narrow windows at regular intervals, too skinny to reach so much as an arm
through. The two doors on each side opened downward into ramps, and lay open as
the inhabitants busied themselves about putting the place in order. On the
whole, it looked large enough to house twenty or more. In the right frame of
mind, one might describe it as shaped like a sailing vessel that was missing
its sails. The name on the side identified it as
Daggerstrike
.

The captain and crew of the
Daggerstrike
had set down
in the rolling high hills of the Cloud Wall for the night after Captain
Juliana’s ill-fated attempts at aerial acrobatics made a shambles of the crew
quarters. There were repairs to be made. It was nothing complicated, but they
were in the wilderness with no shipwright among them, so the work would take
time. Men also needed a good long feel of the ground beneath their feet once
more, after a harrowing flight.

Captain Juliana had won herself few friends among the crew
with her antics in testing out the
Daggerstrike
’s capabilities. Going
off with a pair of crewmen, and killing a mountain goat for their dawn feast
helped a ways toward making amends.

“Captain Juliana, is a fire wise? What if we are spotted by
Megrenn forces?” Lieutenant Trosh Garrist asked. He was the senior member of
the crew assigned to her. He might have been five winters older than Juliana,
six at the most, with blond hair and dark eyes that accused when they looked at
her.

“We should still be far enough south that they won’t see
us,” Juliana replied, the title of “captain” before her name still echoing
oddly in her ears. Owning no sort of military uniform, she was dressed in her
riding leathers with a white tunic, with matching leather gloves and boots. She
wore the harness for her dagger sheaths openly, outside her tunic, the blades
having already been bloodied once in the appropriation of dawn feast. “Besides,
how else would we cook our meat?”

“They might have scouts in the area,” Lieutenant Garrist
persisted, to all appearances unconvinced that his captain knew anything about
what she was doing. Heads nodded along with him.

“Look around. See any roads here?” Juliana asked. A general
grumbling of “No” answered her. “Does this look like easy terrain? If they
manage to spot us, and sneak up for a look, so be it. They won’t catch us off
guard in any numbers. By the time scouts could make any report at all, we will
be airborne again and long gone.”

“Still—”

“Your name is Trosh, right? Look, Trosh, you boys are
soldiers, not sailors, and I am a sorceress, not a ship’s captain. We are all
going to be learning as we go here,” Juliana said to Garrist.

“I am properly addressed as Lieutenant Garrist, Captain.”
Trosh Garrist set his jaw and stared down Juliana, or attempted to. He was met
with a smirk.

“Oh. I see how it is. New girl isn’t good enough for you.
You don’t like being bossed around by a sorceress,” she said, nodding to
herself as she said it.

“You do not have any qualifications to captain a ship or
lead a crew, a platoon, or any other assemblage of soldiers. If you would be so
good as to keep the ship on course, I think it would be best if I took
command,” Lieutenant Garrist replied.

“Fine. I’ll make you all a deal. Line up, any of you who
think you’d rather have someone other than me as captain. I’ll give you each a
shot at me, bare fists, no magic. First one who bests me can decide who gets to
captain the
Daggerstrike
. When everyone who wants a shot has had one, if
I am still captain, everyone who tried to throw me off my own ship can walk
home,” Juliana offered. Though among the tallest of the
Daggerstrike
’s
complement, Juliana gave up at least five gallons to the slimmest of them.

“No magic?” Trosh Garrist asked, skeptical. “How can we be
sure?”

“How would any of you take me seriously if I cheated?”
Juliana drew her daggers, and tossed Freedom and Adventure hilt-deep into a
tree trunk, well out of casual reach.

Lieutenant Garrist removed his sword belt, along with the
dagger sheath it also bore, and removed a concealed boot dagger as well,
tossing it to the ground out of the way.

“I don’t like the idea of hitting a woman, but everyone
heard you ask for it, real clear,” Garrist called out, pointing his finger, and
sweeping it across the crew, making sure everyone heard him. He took up a
brawler’s pose, fists up, forearms framing his head as he tucked his chin low.

Juliana relaxed into a fencer’s posture, one foot leading,
turned sideways, but with her arms hanging loose at her sides. She flexed her
fingers, clenching and stretching them alternately. She locked her gaze on
Garrist’s.

Trosh Garrist took a tentative step in, knowing better than
to rush someone who clearly came prepared to fight. He threw a quick, probing
jab, but provoked no flinch from Juliana. He threw another, long enough to
land, but Juliana turned aside, and Garrist felt his world tilt as his feet did
not follow him as he advanced with the punch.

“Hey, you all saw that,” Garrist said from the ground,
pushing himself to hands and knees, and scrambling to his feet as quick as he
could manage. “She just used magic on me!”

“Haw, Lieutenant, she tripped ya!” someone called out. “You
wasn’t even lookin’ at her feet.”

Juliana shrugged and smiled.

Garrist gritted his teeth, and resumed his fighting stance,
his face reddening. Whether it was anger or embarrassment, Juliana could not
say. He rushed forward, not recklessly, but at least imprudently, pulling up
short of bowling Juliana over to throw a hard overhand right.

A slim hand closed over his wrist, guiding it wide of
Juliana’s face. At the same moment, a delicate knee drove itself into the space
just below the center of his rib cage. Juliana pulled the blow, putting no
aether behind it; she could easily have ruptured his stomach, lungs, or both.
Off balance, and with the wind knocked out of him, Trosh Garrist was in no
position to defend himself when Juliana took her free hand to his shoulder, and
pushed.

It was a hilltop they were fighting on. Though it was far
from a sheer drop, it was a long way before Garrist stopped rolling and sliding
through the underbrush. The crew rushed to the edge of the drop to see what had
become of their lieutenant. Groans and far-off cursing wafted up from below,
prompting jeers and laughter among the men.

“Someone throw down a rope,” Juliana shouted over the
cacophony.

Rope was a wonderful material, impervious to the damaging
effects of being dropped to the ceiling when it and the floor switch places.
There was rope aplenty in the stores, provisioners of ships having yet to grasp
that the
Daggerstrike
had no rigging to repair, and little need for more
than a token amount of the stuff.

Trosh Garrist could not meet Juliana’s eye when he was
finally hauled up from where he had fallen. The blow to his gut obviously still
hurt him as well, keeping him from standing upright.

“What now?” he asked.

“What, indeed,” Juliana replied unhelpfully. “Well, I cannot
take Lieutenant Trosh Garrist back onto my ship. That was part of the deal. The
lieutenant can make his own way back to Kadris, or whatever part of Kadrin he
wishes to settle in.”

There were mutters among the men but no one spoke up.
Juliana walked over, and picked up Garrist’s weapons, giving them an appraising
look as she brought them over to return them. She stopped short, though, doing
a circuit of the lieutenant, giving him an appraising look as well.

“Of course, I do see some potential here. It would be a
shame to waste it. If only you were
not
Lieutenant Trosh Garrist anymore
…” Juliana took Garrist’s dagger, slid it behind the golden lieutenant’s emblem
pinned to his uniform, and gave a flick of her wrist. The emblem fell to the
ground, and disappeared among the weeds.

“In fact, I see a lot of potential in this crew, but I don’t
think this is a job for a bunch of infantrymen and archers, led by a sorceress.
Do you know what our mission is?” Juliana waited as a lot of noncommittal
answers were bandied. “No, our mission is to harry Megrenn supply wagons, to
strike at weak garrisons, to pick off scouting parties. We are not planning to
return to Kadris or any other friendly territory except rarely; we will live
off what we take from Megrenn. Do you know what that makes us?”

She let them go longer at their guesses this time, hearing
things like “thieves” and “soldiers,” her favorite guess being “wolves,” but
that was not what she was looking for, either.

“That makes us
pirates
!” Juliana shouted. “It makes
us privateers,” she clarified, belatedly realizing that the more technically
accurate term was also more confusing. “We have latitude to carry out our
mission as I see fit. So from now until the time I release you from my command,
you are all pirates …
my
pirates. My crew. I can out-fight, out-drink,
and probably out-gamble any of you, and I invite you to prove otherwise. We
will not fight fair, we will not give quarter, and we will not lose. We will
eat like kings on what we can steal, and we will drink like princes from our
enemies’ wine cellars.” She looked over to see eager gleams in the eyes of her
crew. She had gotten their attention.

“Trosh, I will take you back as part of my crew, but the
lieutenant stays here.”

“Aye aye, Captain Solaran,” Trosh replied glumly.

Juliana wrinkled her nose. “Too stuffy, and I am not yet
used to that name. Captain Juliana will do fine,” she said.

“Captain Juliana it is, then,” Trosh replied, managing a
smile.

“Same goes for the rest of you; cut those rank emblems off.
When we start raiding supply wagons, pick out anything you like to wear. Silks,
leathers, furs, whatever strikes your fancy or suits your tastes. If anyone
asks you, you are one of the
Daggerstrike
Corsairs.”

* * * * * * * *

The straps fitted snugly around her waist and upper thighs,
though the holes she used for the buckles were of her own making. Whoever had
done the leatherworking for the
Daggerstrike
had not considered the
possibility of someone so slender taking the helm. Juliana was tethered to a
pair of posts that flanked her at the ship’s wheel. She could not quite
straighten her legs beneath her, allowing her to keep pressure against the deck
even when flying inverted. The leather straps attached to the posts were pulled
taut, keeping her hips from jostling to the sides as the ship banked and
rolled.

The ship’s wheel itself was fixed in place, unable to turn.
Each handle around the wheel was inscribed with rune patterns that activated
the various controls of the ship, from propulsion to steering, gangplank
release to defensive shields. There were also controls for the glass panel that
hung in her field of view, suspended in a steel frame just past the wheel. It
allowed her to see what was hidden by the deck of the ships, mainly what was in
front and below them.

“Well, I don’t know that they trust me yet. Merciful One, if
I have not yet used up all my favors, just see us safely through the insanity
we are about to embark upon,” Juliana said aloud, since she was the only one on
deck. The crew was safely strapped into harnesses of their own, holding them
fast to the walls of the outer hull, in reach of the arrow slits.

Juliana let aether flow into the proper runes on the wheel
of the
Daggerstrike
, and the ship rose from the ground, fighting against
the growing strength of the rainstorm. Higher and faster it rose, the clouds
growing from a vast, theoretical ceiling to the sky into a bank of fog that
they approached, and the scope of that vastness challenged the waking mind to
grasp.

Through the clouds they shot, streaking at arrow speeds, and
into the brilliant daylight. Juliana let out a whoop of delight, and heard it
echoed from the crew below.

* * * * * * * *

The storm that had blown in from the Aliani Sea had dropped
rain across half the continent of Koriah. It had let up around midday, but had
run long enough to fill Iridan’s empty wine barrel with enough water to wash
in. Though he sloshed about in ankle-deep water in his wine-cellar hideaway,
there were enough rat droppings, dirt, and who knew what else in there for him
to dismiss it as possible bathwater.

Iridan shaved as well, thinking that the scant aether it
took would hardly be noticed. He had come to feel like a vagabond, and the
ritual of shaving helped make him feel civilized again. He tried to justify it
to himself as presenting a formidable, intimidating visage to his foes but he
knew it for vanity, and could not swallow his own lies.

It was nearly time for his nightly raid. Though sound
military tactics would have had him vary the times from night to night, he
preferred to get to his grim duties as quickly as the darkness allowed. With
the advance of springtime, the days grew longer. Though he could not have
noticed such tiny variances from day to day, he imagined that he could, and
rankled at the increasing wait each evening.

“Soon,” he told himself. “They are getting weaker by the
day. Those blade-priests were a challenge, but how many more could they have?
Once those run out, I am free to kill at will again.”

“They could have a lot more,” he answered himself. It was a
habit that had begun to worry him. “They might send every priest in Safschan
here for all I know.” He noticed that his hands were shaking. “It’s not
nerves,” he told his hands. “I just need a drink before I go.”