City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) (7 page)

“Your weapon,” Vellexa said.  She held out her hand.

“Like hell,” Dane said politely.

“Are you stupid?” she replied with an equally polite tone.  “Just because you don’t see any Tuscars doesn’t mean this place isn’t heavily guarded.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “And I’m not as defenseless as I might look.”

“Appreciate my position,” he said.  “You haven’t dropped so much as a hint as to what this job is about.  You’ve brought me down here, which I’m guessing isn’t something you do for every hired hand.  You’ve shown me a hell of a lot more than I ever wanted to see.” 

“Are you getting nervous, Azander?” she asked.

He watched her carefully.  “What happens if I decide I don’t want the job?”

“Good question.  I guess you’d better take the job if you don’t want to find out.”

“Enough of this.
”  The voice echoed through the chamber, oddly distorted and metallic.  It was impossible to tell what direction it came from or how far away the speaker was. 
“Let him keep his weapon, Vellexa,”
the voice said. 
“Attend to your business.  Dane…come inside.”

One of the doors cracked open to reveal a room filled with silver mist.  Dane exchanged looks with Vellexa.

“Nice knowing you,” he said with a nervous laugh.  Vellexa just smiled.

Four

The door swung shut behind him with a reverberating crash.  Dane walked into dark air thick with glacial mist, and he had to move slowly across the frost-slicked floor.  He focused his thoughts and found the burning presence of the Veil.  While it was tempting to use magic to keep himself warm Dane knew such an effort would be taxing, so instead he maintained just enough of a hold on the energy to be ready in case of trouble.

Never use a weapon until you have
no other choice
.  It was a lesson he’d learned in the White Dragon Army, but it doubly applied to using magic.  Many more experienced Veilwardens had inadvertently triggered their own deaths by overextending their abilities, and Dane didn’t intend to be counted among them.

The only sounds to be heard were his own labored breaths and the scrape of his boots on the icy stone.  Dane couldn’t discern the depths of the chamber on account of the bone-colored mist, so he kept moving forward, deeper into the fold.

He remembered walking through another mist, in another time.  He’d approached a ring of twisted black trees and watched the trail, and his blood ran cold when he’d found the boy lying there on the scorched path.  It wasn’t the first child whose death he’d been responsible for.

What have I become?

Dane pulled himself back to the present.  There was no sense in going down that road, not now. 

The chamber grew colder the deeper he went.  His face was frozen and his throat was raw.  Dane’s feet ached from the brittle chill.  His weak connection to the Veil was all that kept the blood flowing through his algid hands.

A mirror took shape in the sea of darkness and fog.  The ebon glass was taller than Dane and plainly fashioned in a black iron frame marred by hammer blows and blade marks.  Dane cautiously stepped closer. 

He saw his reflection.  In spite of his height and broad shoulders, Dane looked at least a decade older than his twenty-six years.  His unkempt hair was short and blonde, and stubble had grown over the old scar running down one side of his lean face.  His cheekbones were angular and his lips were fine and small, a woman’s mouth, as his father used to say.  His emerald eyes might as well have been made of glass. 

You aren’t what you used to be.

“Admiring yourself?”
  It was the same hollow and metallic voice Dane had heard in the foyer.  There was still no way to determine where the speaker was. 

“Not exactly,” he called out to the darkness.  “Where are you?”

“Beyond your reach,”
the Count replied.  The face of the mirror shifted, and Dane’s reflection faded.  The mirror transformed into a sort of window.  Dane saw a rounded chamber on the other side filled with jagged implements and black smoke.  The vague silhouette of an enormous male figure wearing field plate stood back-lit by a haze of pale blue light.  The man’s armor had a high collar but no helmet.  Dane couldn’t make out the man’s face, but two dots of crimson light floated where the eyes should have been.  

“I am the Iron Count.”
  Dane’s head filled with the sound of grating steel. 
“I trust you understand the need for me to keep my distance, yes?”

“Whatever you say,” Dane said.

“Good.  Let’s get down to business, then.”

“Let’s,” Dane said sharply.  “I’ve been trying to do that for about two days.”

“Watch your tone,”
the voice warned. 
“I don’t possess a sense of humor, Azander, so it would be in your best interests to curtail your sarcasm.”

Dane tried to focus on the figure in the mirror, but it was difficult.  The darkness pained his eyes, and the longer he looked the more disoriented he felt.  What stood on the other side could have been anywhere – the Count might have been twenty paces away, or he might have been in the middle of the Moon Sea. 

“I need you to find someone for me,”
the Count said. 
“Someone very important.  I want this individual brought to me alive and relatively unharmed.  You have an excellent reputation for carrying out this sort of assignment, doubtless due to the skills you acquired in your service to the Jlantrian Empire.  Do this for me and you’ll be amply rewarded.”
                      

“Who is it?”  Dane asked.

“A half-Allaji woman named Ijanna Taivorkan, better known as the Dream Witch.  Have you heard of her?”

Dane had to think for a moment.  “Yes.”

“What have you heard?”

“She’s a Bloodspeaker who got herself into trouble with Mez’zah Chorg and the Phage.  She’s powerful, and she has prophetic dreams.”

“That she does.  There are many who’d like to get their hands on Ijanna, but so far she’s managed to elude them all.  That’s where you come in.”

Dane cursed to himself.  He was completely out of touch with the flow of information through Ebonmark, so finding reliable leads wouldn’t be easy.  And Ijanna wouldn’t be easy prey: from what he’d heard she didn’t just elude bounty hunters but sent pieces of them back to their employers.

“Where was she last seen?” Dane asked.  He’d have to go digging in the seedier parts of the city.  Vellexa would be of some use, if she didn’t stick a knife in him first.  If he could get enough first-hand information about Ijanna he might be able to track her with the Veil, in which case he wouldn’t need Vellexa’s help at all…but he knew things wouldn’t be that easy.  They never were.

“You know where she was last seen,”
the Count said
.  “Because
you
were the last one who saw her.”

Dane hesitated.  “The Chul…that woman I saved from the Chul.”

“Good to see you’re not a complete simpleton,”
the Count said mockingly
.  “The Chul, Empress Azaean and the Phage are all searching for Ijanna, but I don’t want anyone to get their hands on her before I do.  Time is short.”

“It always is,” Dane said with a bitter laugh.  “So what’s this all about?  Why is this woman on the top of everyone’s wish list?”

For a moment the air was silent.  Dane felt his heart pounding in his chest.

“You disappoint me,”
the Count said at last.
“According to your reputation you don’t ask questions so likely to get you killed.”

“Usually that’s true,” Dane said.  “But I get the sense you
want
to tell me.  Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me to the Cauldron, not when Vellexa or those other two idiots could have told me this back at the Red Witch.  I think you want me to be impressed, maybe even intimidated, but above all I think you want me to know
exactly
why she’s so important to you.”

Dane didn’t bother focusing on the Veil or keeping a hand close to his weapon.  If the Count had wanted to kill him he would’ve done it already.

“You’re smart, Azander,”
the Count said in a slow and calculating tone.
“Maybe too smart for your own good.  You’re correct, of course.  I’m the leader of the Black Guild.  You know of our power, so I don’t need to bother trying to intimidate you.  The facts are simple: you’ll be sufficiently rewarded if you succeed, and most violently disposed of should you fail.”

Dane had dealt with the Guild before, and he knew the cartel was ridiculously powerful and influential in both Empires.  “Why me?” he asked.  “You must have the resources of a city-state at your disposal…what do you need
me
for?”

“The fact that I do should illustrate how desperate I am,”
the Count said.
“I need someone with your special talents.  I cannot broker failure.”

“Go on,” Dane said with a nod.

“Ijanna – the Dream Witch – is much more than she seems.  She’s the rarest sort of Bloodspeaker, born with a near limitless reservoir of the Veil in her blood.  She is most precious.”

Dane had never heard of such a thing, and part of him didn’t even believe it was possible.  Nature was rife with checks and balances.  A Bloodspeaker’s own life force fueled their magic, and every effect they created brought them closer to the grave.  Veilwardens, who drew on the Veil from its source, had fewer restrictions, but they required years of training to produce even moderate magical effects.  The thought of a Bloodspeaker with limitless power chilled his blood. 

“What will you do with her?” Dane asked.

“I’ll sell her to the highest bidder
,” the Count said.
  “I don’t care if that’s the White Dragon, the Chul, or a blacksmith in Tarek Non.  But no one will get their hands on her without the Guild making the sale.”

Dane laughed.  “So it’s about money?”

“Don’t act surprised,”
the Count said.
“Yes, Dawn Knight, it’s about money.  It always is.  The Black Guild is a profitable coalition.  But the Phage has become a problem.  They’ve gobbled up much of what used to be the Galladorian criminal empire.  They’re ruthless cunts, much more resourceful than I’d given them credit for.  Recently they’ve cut into the Guild’s slave and narcotics trade, and that, as they say, is the last straw. 

“The two organizations are at war.  The conflict has been bloody and exhaustive, and it’s taken its toll on both sides.  And it’s not over…far from it.  I recently learned the Phage has arranged to sell the Dream Witch, and the transaction can give them enough magical resources to strengthen their organization to the point where they could crush us.  I won’t let that happen.” 

Dane felt like someone had pushed a knife to his throat. 
So much for this being a simple job. 
“This is a lot to place on one person,” he said.  “What if I can’t find her?”

“You will.  We’ll provide you with everything you need.”

“Why
me
?”  Dane asked again.  “I have trouble believing you have no one in the Guild capable of taking care of this.  Someone you know you can trust.  This seems like a lot of faith to put in a…mercenary.” 

Goddess, I used to be so much more.  What am I doing?

“That’s a good question, Dawn Knight,”
the Count said.

“I’m not a Dawn Knight,” Dane said.  “Not anymore.”

“But you
were. 
And as a Dawn Knight you were taught to use The Veil to track specific individuals, something few other Veilwardens can do.  I need that skill.  No one in my employ can handle this task the way you can.  Our rivals know we’re searching for the Dream Witch.  They’ve targeted my lieutenants, and anyone else who knows of her presence here in Ebonmark.  They even made an attempt on Vellexa’s life last night.”

“That’s why she didn’t meet me…” Dane realized.

“Yes.  And yet you still prevented Ijanna from falling into the hands of the Chul.  Last night when you saw her the Dream Witch was on her way to meet a Drage criminal named Bordrec Kleiderhorn so she could arrange safe passage out of the city.  Vellexa learned of the rendezvous and planned to have you take care of the job there and then, but when the Phage tried to eliminate Vellexa she was forced to retreat to one of our safehouses, leaving you to fend for yourself without any knowledge of what was happening.”

Dane shrugged.  “I get that a lot,” he said.

“It’s no laughing matter,”
the Count continued.
“Both Ijanna and Kleiderhorn have vanished.  Try as I might, I can’t locate them.”

This is getting worse by the minute
, Dane thought.  Hiding from the Black Guild, who possessed agents in every city-state west of Raithe, was all but impossible.  Ijanna was no amateur.

“Ten thousand gold,
” the Count said.
 
“
If I didn’t need you, you wouldn’t be here.  Remember that.  Fate has brought us together.  A former Dawn Knight and my target both arrive in Ebonmark within days of each other…this is how things are
supposed
to be, my friend.  This is why you are here.  No one escapes the Dawn Knights
.”

Dane turned away. 
That’s right.  No one.

“Do we have a deal?”
the Count asked.

Dane breathed deep.  What choice did he have?  There was no chance the Iron Count would let him walk out of the Cauldron alive if he refused. 

Then don’t do it
, he told himself. 
Say no, and die here and now.  Salvage what’s left of your soul, you selfish bastard.  This is your chance to put things right.  That’s more important than helping this lunatic acquire more power, isn’t it?

He looked down at his armor.  It had meant something once.  Now it was covered with filth.  Just like he was.