Iron and Blood (18 page)

“Sahand simply doesn't have the contacts in Freegate to pull this off alone—­his occupation of the city earned him a permanently bloody reputation, and he'd need assistance from the League to get started. So, you help him. Why? Well, because what he's creating, as I said, is important to all of you. Important enough that one of your number—­Theliara—­has gone so far as to set up shop here in Freegate and
bring along a menagerie of wild animals and a few Artificers
. Am I to believe she would just hand them over to Sahand's agents if there
weren't
some kind of connection between the two of them? Nonsense.”

Tarlyth's massive, marble-­sized knuckles were turning white on the armrests. “You're rambling.”

“All the more reason to not interrupt. Now, all this brings us to your presence here with a pack of Defenders. On the one hand, Myreon and I gave you the perfect excuse to come—­no doubt this might end up looking quite heroic of you if you pull it off—­but you're
also
here because you have questions for Sahand, questions probably along the lines of, ‘Are you really doing what we think you're doing?' These are questions, you feel, probably best asked over the blazing tip of a firepike. Am I right?”

Tarlyth's nostrils were flaring so widely, Tyvian was fairly certain he could stuff his arm up to the elbow inside them. “Sahand can't be trusted. I've said so all along.”

Tyvian nodded. “A wise stratagem, and one no doubt reinforced by your experience as both a League member
and
a Master Defender.”

“Well deduced, Master Reldamar—­I see your reputation for intelligence is not exaggerated. That still doesn't explain what it is I intend to do with you.” Tyvian opened his mouth, but Tarlyth held up a hand. “No, please—­allow me to confess, as you have said enough already. I intend to place you in Astral stasis in this room, where you will remain until it is convenient for one of my colleagues to collect you later, after I and my Defenders have dealt with Sahand and quietly left the city. You, of course, will seem to have managed another miraculous escape from this room—­your reputation for elusiveness has it's drawbacks for you, you see—­so you will be in the League's possession with no one being the wiser. If you were to clear away some of this debris on the floor, you would find the veta already drawn and ready to receive you—­I need only incant the spell. So, as charming as this conversation has been, I see no reason to continue it.”

Tarlyth stood up and spread his arms. His staff materialized in his hand with a snap of his fingers.

Tyvian frowned at him. “I really wouldn't do that, if I were you.”

A cold wind blew in from the window as Tarlyth's staff began to glow. The first syllables of the incantation began to slither past his lips—­ugly, confusing sounds that seemed to bend the mind and hurt the ears. Tyvian stood as well. “Are you familiar with the concept of blackmail, Magus?”

Tarlyth froze in place; the power he was channeling was sucked from the room with an audible pop. “What?”

“An associate of mine—­you remember the fellow in the sleigh with the watchmen from last night, of course—­well, he is a rumormonger of sorts; not only does he know you are here, but I informed him about your collusion with the League before entering this place. I furthermore told him that were I not to return to his office by tomorrow morning, he should send a letter detailing all of this to the Lord Defender in Saldor. I imagine you'll deny it, of course, but I think you'll find Carlo is quite good at acquiring corroborating evidence if it suits his need. He
is
the secret Guildmaster of the Phantoms, after all.”

“You're bluffing.” Tarlyth said, his polite tone slipping, replaced with an almost canine growl.

Tyvian shrugged. “Unlike the rest of the rubes in your organization, I know for a fact that magi—­even
Masters­­
—­have no ability to detect lies. Feel free to call my bluff, if you are so convinced. It would seem to me, however, that you have a great deal more to lose than I do if you wind up being wrong.”

A vein bulged in Tarlyth's forehead. His jaw was clenched so tight, Tyvian was concerned his teeth might crack. “I should kill you right now.”

“No, you really shouldn't. Allow me to inform you, instead, of what we're
going
to do.”

“What?”

Tyvian smiled. “You are going to call a meeting of the Sorcerous League and
I
am going to attend it with you.”

 

A
rtus didn't want to open his eyes. As long as he kept them closed, he could keep on imagining that this was all a nightmare. If he opened them, he knew that he'd start crying, and he didn't want to cry. He had to be strong and clever, like Tyvian. That was, after all, who they thought he was.

His whole body was bruised and battered, but if he didn't move, he felt all right. The only thing that hurt then was his face—­the places where Sahand had cut him burned in the frigid air. He was lying on his back, his arms splayed out to his sides, on a floor so hard and cold that it had to be solid ice. He knew Myreon was in the cell, too, which was another reason he didn't open his eyes—­he didn't think he was ready to see her dead eyes staring at him.

Artus had no concrete idea of how long it had been since his arrival, since he was fairly certain he had passed out at least twice during the whole thing. In any event, it seemed a long time. Though he did his best to keep his breathing slow, his heart was pounding in his chest so loudly that he swore he heard it echo off the walls. Something terrible was about to happen to him. Something more terrible than anything that had ever happened before. He kept imagining what that might be, despite his best efforts not to, and that only made his heart race faster and his stomach churn more fiercely. He wanted to vomit with terror.

The gate to the dungeon or prison or wherever he was rumbled open suddenly, the sound making him jump. His body screamed in protest at the movement and he couldn't help but cry out. From beyond the gate, he heard a man's voice grumble, “Sounds like he's awake.”

The second voice was higher pitched and sharper. “Well then he gets a show, don't he? C'mon, gimme a hand with this one.”

Artus squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want them to see the terror in his face. He didn't want them to talk to him. Instead, he lay very still as he listened to the two Dellorans drag some kind of wheelbarrow or cart closer and closer until, at last, they stopped no more than a few feet away. He then heard the sound of the men grunting and groaning as they maneuvered some kind of large load somewhere, and then one said, “Steady, now—­first nail's the hardest, right?”

A hammer pinged off the end of a metal spike, and a new voice joined the chorus—­a weak, rattling moan that escalated with each strike of the hammer until it became a steady, wailing gasp of agony. “Shut up, you,” one of the men growled. “Or I'll put one through your feet, eh?”

The wailing voice deflated into a low, barely audible sob until another spike was hammered home, and then the wailing intensified again. The Dellorans cursed the wailer with threats and vivid profanity before they went away. When the gate closed again, all Artus could hear was the slow, hiccuping sobs of the newcomer.

Artus swallowed hard and then opened his eyes. He was looking up at vaulted stonework no more than seven feet up at its highest point. Icicles dripped from cracks between the stones, and he could barely see his breath in the flickering white light of a nearly dead illumite shard dangling in the hall beyond his cell. This light was freely admitted, since his cell was caged off from the corridor by a metal grate bolted into the stonework, and in the grate a sliding door was mounted, a heavy iron padlock holding it closed. The corridor beyond was narrow and gradually sloped up towards where the guards had entered and left. Artus knew it was that direction, though he couldn't see the gate, thanks to the curve of the corridor as it wound up and away from him. He noted that it also went down as well—­there were apparently deeper and darker cells than the one he was in.

As Artus sat up with a groan, the thing that grabbed his attention, though, wasn't the hall or the illumite or the existence of deeper cells—­it was the man nailed to the wall of the corridor immediately opposite his cell. A square iron spike had been driven through each of the wretch's wrists, at once crucifying him and displaying the brutal attention his barely clad body had received. His skin was a spiderweb of cuts and scabbed-­over scars, and the spaces between were discolored with deep, ugly bruises. One hand had its fingers broken and bent at terrible angles, while the other had no fingers at all. Blood dripped from his ruined, toothless mouth, and his face was swollen and purple, but he was still alive, and Artus recognized him. The man was Zazlar Hendrieux.

“Saints . . .” Artus gasped.

Hendrieux lifted his chin from his chest slowly, moaning as he did so, and fixed the black slit of one bruised eye at Artus. He hacked out a thin, weak laugh. “S-­Sur . . . surprised?”

Artus rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled to the metal grating. “I thought you was on their side, Hendrieux! What'd they do?”

The corner of Hendrieux's mouth tugged into what might have been a smirk before, but now merely showed off the bloody scabs of his gums. “S-­Sahand was displeased with me. Very dis . . . displeased. Don't act so surprised, you son of a b-­bitch. You . . . you knew. You knew this would happen. Should've killed you . . . when I had the . . .”

Artus felt weak with horror and disgust. He knew why Sahand had ordered Hendrieux nailed there—­it was a promise. It was to show Artus—­whom he probably thought was Tyvian, because of the shrouding spell—­what he could expect for himself. Artus turned away from Hendrieux and his eyes fell on the heap of bloodstained cloth that was Myreon. “Myreon! Myreon, are you alive? Saints save me, I
need
you to be alive. Don't be dead! Don't be dead!”

Artus shook the unconscious Defender, rolling her over on her back. His heart leapt when he heard her groan weakly, but it fell again when he saw the mage's face and the pool of blood she had been lying in. Her lips were blue and her skin was ice cold.

“Kroth,” Artus swore, and wrung his hands. What to do? What to do? He had to stop the bleeding somehow. With his bruised body screaming its protests, he rolled Myreon around until he found the knife wounds in her back. Pulling back the mage's tattered robes, he saw that the wounds had already stopped bleeding, after a fashion, and were now just sticky, black gashes that seemed to swell out of Myreon's back. Looking at them made his own shoulder twinge from the knife wound he'd received there. Though it had only been a few days ago, the injury seemed a lifetime away now.

He did his best dabbing at Myreon's injuries with a shirt he had borrowed from Tyvian. He could practically hear Tyvian's snide remarks about how he was ruining a fine piece of clothing, but he didn't care. He needed Myreon to live. She was the one who could figure all this out. Tyvian's instructions hadn't gone so far as to tell him how to deal with being Sahand's prisoner—­he had no idea what to do now, other than quake in terror, and he knew that wasn't going to help him survive, and he
had
to do that. He couldn't die. He'd promised his ma as much.

“You've ch-­changed, Tyv—­” Hendrieux coughed weakly. “Not like y-­you to b-­be saving some staff.”

Artus looked at the ruined man nailed to the wall, and suddenly knew that the more he acted like Artus, the worse things might get. What would happen if Hendrieux figured out he wasn't really Tyvian? The smuggler had told Artus that the shroud would last until he was either subjected to “concentrated Lumenal energy” or until anyone trained in the High Arts found out it was there and dispelled it. If Sahand knew he was just some kid and not Tyvian Reldamar . . .

“Nothing to s-­say, Tyv . . . not even to an old friend?” Hendrieux said weakly, his ruined body trembling and shaking.

Artus tried to think of something witty, but only came up with, “Shut up, Hendrieux!”

Hendrieux began to undergo some kind of seizure, so he stopped talking, though Artus doubted it was at his behest. He had seen tremors like that before in Ayventry—­withdrawal from ink addiction. It looked like a kind of mental torture, and he couldn't imagine the agony one would feel if
physically
tortured at the same time. A wave of pity welled up in him for Tyvian's ex-­partner, but he quashed it by bringing to mind when Hendrieux tried to have him murdered in an alley.

The gate to the dungeon rumbled open again, and this time there was only one set of boots echoing off the cold flagstones. Artus's stomach leapt into his mouth. He wanted to play dead again but stopped himself.
Tyvian
wouldn't cower, and he had to be Tyvian—­his life depended on it. Using the grate to help himself to his feet, Artus swallowed his fear as best he could and planned to meet the gaze of whoever came around the corner. This meant, a few seconds later, he was staring into the flint-­gray eyes of a man who had to be Banric Sahand himself. Artus couldn't help but blink and step away from the grate.

“Awake, I see,” Sahand remarked. He was dressed in an ankle-­length fur cloak joined with a golden chain at his collar, and wore an ornamental mail shirt that gleamed in the dim light. In the cramped quarters of the dungeon, he looked like a giant.

“I couldn't sleep. The cell here is real uncomfortable,” Artus said, trying to mimic Tyvian's wry grin.

Sahand snorted. “Enjoy it while you can. As Zazlar can tell you, it's all downhill from here. That is, of course, unless you are of some use to me.”

Artus racked his brain for what use Tyvian could possibly be to Sahand. He came up with a stock answer. “I guess you want those secrets of mine, huh?”

“Of the ring, specifically. Provide them, and I'll let you go with just a slap on the wrist,” Sahand said, fixing Artus with his hard eyes, “But I'll know if you're lying.”

Artus's heart was pounding. He dared not look, but he wondered if the shroud he wore mimicked him having the ring, too. Casually as possible, he moved his right hand behind his back—­just in case. “Nobody knows when I'm lying.”

“I wouldn't try to swindle me, Reldamar.” Sahand said, reaching into a pocket sewn into his cape to produce a small glass vial. “Those who do wind up very miserable indeed. Don't they, Zazlar?”

Hendrieux whimpered softly through his parched lips, “Yes, milord.”

“Good answer.” Sahand grinned and clapped a gloved hand on Hendrieux's shoulder, causing the wretch to scream. “I suppose you know why I've brought Zazlar down here to see you.”

“You're trying to intimidate me,” Artus said softly, swallowing hard.

Sahand frowned. “Oh no—­hardly, though I can see how you would think that. Actually, I brought Zaz down here as a bit of a peace offering. We are enemies, Master Reldamar, only because Zazlar here saw fit to betray you. Now, Zaz, what did I say about betraying Master Reldamar?”

Hendrieux's voice was barely audible, “You t-­told me to leave him alone.”

“Yes, I did, didn't I?” Sahand said, patting Hendrieux's cheek, which caused blood to leak out of the man's mouth. “I would have been content if your spirit-­engine operation had simply been called off, but Hendrieux wanted to ruin you. He had some kind of personal score to settle—­he resents you, Reldamar, despite everything you've done for him. He, of course, didn't have the guts to do it on his own, but once he had
my
treasury to exploit, he lost no time in double-­crossing you, didn't you, Zazlar?”

Hendrieux let out a low sob, and Artus again felt his stomach tie in knots. Sahand was about to kill him, and Artus knew he would have to watch. The scariest thing about it was that Sahand thought Tyvian would actually
want
to watch.

“You and I are not so very different, Reldamar.” Sahand said, holding up the small glass vial before the light. Though the glass was clear, whatever was in it was of the purest black. “Both of us,” Sahand continued, “are above the normal rules that apply to the average fool. The primary difference is that, while you merely seek to exploit them, I intend to rule them. I am, at my core, a philanthropist—­I realize that humanity is too stupid to conduct its own affairs, and so I plan on forcing them to do as I say, as is only sensible.”

“I'll tell you what you want to know if you give Myreon medical attention,” Artus blurted.

Sahand gave him a steady, cold look. “You are in no position to negotiate. Since when are you so concerned with the welfare of some staff?”

“She has her uses,” Artus said quickly.

“Not anymore,” Sahand deadpanned. He held the glass vial just beyond Artus's grasp. “Do you know what this is, Reldamar?”

Artus stared at the vial, knowing full well that Tyvian
would
know. “That's a stupid question.”

Sahand scowled. “If I were you, I'd mind my tone. Point taken, however—­stands to reason you'd recognize it. Do you know what they call Black Cloud in Kalsaar? They call it
kabuslar bir seyler
—­‘the stuff of nightmares'—­poetic, yes? It's quite expensive, as you know, so you will appreciate my expenditure of some for your benefit.”

Artus wracked his mind for the term Black Cloud, trying to remember all the conversations he overheard in the slums of Ayventry about dark and illegal things. All he could recall were some ink-­thralls musing on it while numb with Cool Blue, and he hazarded a guess. “Why would you need ink?”

At the word “ink,” Hendrieux's swollen eye opened a crack, and it focused immediately on the vial in Sahand's hand. Impossibly, his beaten, broken body went rigid and he pulled his head back and away from Sahand. He began to emit a steady, high-­pitched whine. “Noooo . . . n-­noooo . . . pleeease noooo . . .”

Sahand grinned. “So you've never seen it used, then? Well, as it is pure Etheric energy, Black Cloud is essentially bottled despair and concentrated terror. Take just a tiny bit, and they say you will have visions and nightmares to keep you awake for months on end. Take too much and, well . . .” Sahand gripped Hendrieux by the chin and wrenched his head around to face him.