Liar's Island: A Novel (18 page)

The advisor clucked his tongue. “A nice try, Rodrick. I'm sure such little deceptions work well on oafish country lords out in the provinces, but you must have realized such a switch couldn't work
here
.”

“Of course not.” Rodrick fought to keep his voice level. “I was just … testing you.”

“We will call it a childish prank,” Nagesh said. “Just your funny Inner Sea sense of humor.”

“What?” Hrym said. “I can't see, what's happening?”

“Nagesh noticed our little joke,” Rodrick said levelly. “He turned the sword we disguised to look like you back into an ordinary length of steel.”

“Oh,” Hrym said. “Well. We can't help being hilarious.”

“I'm glad you didn't try it in front of the rajah. He might not have found it amusing. May I?” Nagesh held out his hand, and when Rodrick tried to give him the plain sword in his hand, the advisor
tsked
. “Not that. We must restore Hrym to his proper glory.”

Rodrick drew his friend from the jeweled scabbard, and Nagesh touched him with the ivory rod, too, dispelling the magic and breaking the spell. “Might as well switch scabbards,” Nagesh said, helpfully holding the longsword while Rodrick sheathed Hrym on his back, then handing the other sword back so Rodrick could place it in the scabbard on his hip.

“How did you know?” Rodrick asked. “Really?”

“My boy,” Nagesh said, “You're a terrible liar. I could see it in your face. I know about your little theft in the library, too, but don't worry, I don't care if you want to sell some useless old scroll to a collector. The librarian assures me there was nothing of value in the area you explored.”

I'm a terrible liar, am I? Rodrick thought. The hell I am. Either there's been an invisible djinni hovering above my shoulder since I got to Jalmeray, or this bastard can read minds.

He concentrated.
Nagesh was sired by goats, he stinks worse than Chelish cheeses, and his beard looks like a rat curled up on his face and died.

Nagesh turned his head, scowling, and looked as if he wanted to speak, but didn't.

Boo!
Rodrick thought, and the man sniffed and looked away.

Mind-reading. Marvelous.

They walked in silence through the palace, Rodrick thinking furiously. They had two weeks to work something out before Hrym would be expected to murder this rajah. Rodrick could ask to spend time with his old friend the sword, and they could come up with … with
something
 … He stopped himself before those thoughts went too far. Nagesh wore a faint smile. How did you plot against someone who could read your mind?

You couldn't. You had to act impulsively. Rodrick was good at improvising, but was he
that
good?

Eventually they reached the same inner courtyard where they'd met with the thakur before. The old man was there, writing poetry again beneath a glowing ball of magical light. He lifted his head when they appeared and smiled. “Gentlemen. So pleased to see you. Have you considered my offer?”

Rodrick bowed formally. “We have.”

“I see you have a new sword on your hip,” the thakur said. “May I assume this means you've decided to let Hrym go?”

Rodrick nodded. “Hrym and I have been together for a long time, and he was reluctant to leave me, but I convinced him this was the best course. We each want the other to be happy, after all, and I believe he'll be better off as a treasured companion for your friend the rajah than he would be traipsing around the world with me, earning a living by our wits and our strength of arms. Isn't that right, Hrym?”

Hrym said, “Oh, yes. Can't wait.”

The thakur rose and approached, reaching out to clasp Rodrick's hand. “I appreciate this greatly, Rodrick, and recognize what a sacrifice it is for you. Gold and jewels are no replacement for friendship, I know, but I hope the riches I give you will at least ease the pain of your separation.”

“I'm sure it will,” Rodrick said.

“Nagesh? See that Rodrick is compensated as we discussed. Rodrick, you are welcome to stay in the palace for as long as you wish, or Nagesh can arrange passage for you to any port in the Inner Sea.”

Ha. As if Nagesh would let him go, even if he
had
pulled off the deception. “I will be delighted to accept your hospitality a bit longer. Opportunities to visit Jalmeray are rare and precious.”

“Quite so,” the thakur said. “Hrym, are you ready to go with me?”

No choice but to go along with it for now. Rodrick reached back and put his hand on his old friend's hilt.

Then Hrym giggled, a long, demented trill of laughter that began low but gradually intensified in volume until it echoed throughout the courtyard, an unmistakable outburst of madness.

14

Enemies Abound

Rodrick thought quickly, and what he thought about was survival. When Hrym's demonic taint made him giggle and titter, it was inevitably followed by an outburst of power, with random chaos or a destructive surge of icy magic or both.

True, as long as Rodrick's hand was on Hrym's hilt, he'd be shielded from the effects of any ice magic, but as the guards they'd dropped a load of crates on back in Absalom had learned, there were dangers other than being harmed by the ice directly. Hrym was currently in a scabbard strapped to Rodrick's back, and if he shot out a torrent of ice in that state, the scabbard would shatter, driving shards into Rodrick's body. Escaping this situation would be quite difficult with wooden shrapnel severing his spine. He swiftly drew Hrym free.

The next split-second decision he needed to make was where to point the sword. Aiming Hrym at Nagesh was tempting—let the wicked advisor be buried in ice, it would only make it easier to escape—but the man was standing next to the thakur, and there were at least two reasons Rodrick didn't want to risk killing the ruler of Jalmeray. For one, it was possible he was innocent, and that the plot to murder the visiting rajah was all Nagesh's doing. For another, killing or even injuring a king would inevitably lead to greater problems in the future, like being pursued by an entire vengeful nation.

So Rodrick raised the blade high overhead, pointing skyward. Hrym giggled again, and then a cone of swirling ice shot into the air overhead. There was a long, silent moment, and then fist-sized stones of ice began to rain down.

“Assassin!” Nagesh yelled, and shoved the thakur to the ground, shielding him with his body. A disturbance in the air overhead resolved into a djinni, glaring and armed with scimitars, descending in a fury.

“Rodrick!” Hrym shouted. “We're being attacked!”

There was no time to close his eyes and groan. Hrym had no idea what he'd done—from his point of view, they were just in the midst of a mysterious hailstorm, being set upon by armed guards. Rodrick swung the sword toward the djinni, and Hrym obliged by letting out a rush of icy wind powerful enough to send the djinni spinning away through the air. “Cover our escape!” Rodrick shouted.

A thick, freezing fog precipitated out of the air around them, shrouding everything in icy mist. The fog was wonderful at hiding them, and holding Hrym protected Rodrick from the chilling effects of the cloud and the slipperiness of the ground, but now he had to stumble blindly in what he hoped was the right direction to escape the garden.

“What happened?” Hrym said. “Why did that djinni attack us?”

“I'll explain later,” Rodrick said. “Right now we need to get
away
.” Away, and off the island as soon as possible.

Someone slammed into Rodrick in the mist, knocking him to the ground and nearly sending Hrym spinning from his grasp. Nagesh loomed over him, frost hanging in his beard and in his eyebrows. How had he pursued them? Hrym's fog turned the ground where it touched so slick it was impossible to walk without falling, which should have covered their escape from any foot pursuit. But this was an island of mystics, and anyone with Nagesh's level of authority doubtless had hidden resources. If he could read minds, maybe he could also run nimbly across ice too.

The advisor bent down toward Rodrick, reaching for his throat. Rodrick swung Hrym wildly, the blade sinking into the man's face—

Or, rather, it should have. Instead, the edge
bounced
off, leaving a thin line like a shallow razor cut. Nagesh howled as if he'd received a much more grievous injury, and his features
flickered
again—but this time, instead of returning to normal, they changed utterly.

Where a darkly handsome human head had been a moment before, there was now an immense serpent's head. Nagesh's true face was covered in gleaming dark scales, the eyes black and shining, his mouth a maw that opened to reveal a pair of curving fangs as long as Rodrick's forefingers. When he cried out, it was a discordant hiss of sibilants. He reached for Rodrick again, and something was
wrong
with his hands, the fingers curling the wrong way, the palms where the backs should be.

Rakshasa
! Rodrick swung the sword again, and Nagesh shied away, clearly wary of receiving another cut, however minor. Rodrick had read of such monsters on the voyage to Jalmeray. They were treacherous and vicious, masters of illusion who infiltrated human society in the guise of mortals and sought to sow discord and chaos for their own gain and the love of destruction. In their true forms, they had had the heads of deadly animals, and backward-facing hands, and dreadful claws, and were masters of terrible magics, which apparently included mind-reading and an annoying level of durability. They were nothing Rodrick had any desire to tangle with, but discovering Nagesh was a monster at least made him more confident the thakur wasn't part of the plot to murder the rajah. Maybe if Rodrick could talk to the thakur, tell him the truth—

Nagesh's features blurred and became human again, and Rodrick scrambled to his feet, pointing the blade at the advisor. The rakshasa dove away, the main strength of the icy blast missing him, but it caught his legs, encasing them in ice. At least he wouldn't be chasing them anytime soon. Rodrick ran again, as hard as he could. Being chased by a king's advisor was one thing. When the advisor was a legendary monster, that was another, far worse thing.

“Did that man turn into a
snake
?” Hrym said.

“Not a man. A monster.” Rodrick burst from the garden into a hallway, fortunately deserted. Now what? He still had the jeweled scabbard and the useless longsword at his waist, but the treasure map, and the gold they'd made from Grimschaw, and his wonderful shapeshifting cloak, were all back in his room. Did he dare retrieve them? It
was
probably the last place Nagesh would expect him to go, but if the alarm were raised …

Doing anything was better than standing around mired in indecision, so he ran down the hall toward his room. The only way he knew out of the palace went past there, anyway, and it wouldn't take long to duck inside and grab his bag. He passed a couple of servants on the way, but they didn't try to stop him, just looked startled at his headlong rush. The thakur might be slowed by the fog, and his djinni guard too, but it was only a matter of time before the defenses were roused. Rodrick
might
be able to fight his way out of the palace with Hrym in his hands, but he didn't want to try. Enough fire elementals could overwhelm Hrym's ice magic, and there were no shortage of such creatures here.

He reached his rooms and burst in, snatching up his pack and turning to rush back into the hallway … and only then noticed the toadlike fire elemental squatting beside the door. Waiting, no doubt, to begin his duty keeping Rodrick hostage to ensure Hrym's cooperation. Seeing him with a blade in hand, the elemental rose up, swelling in size, its flames flickering intensely, until it towered almost to the fifteen-foot-ceiling. Horns blossomed from its head, and it became less toadlike and more like some immense devil.

Rodrick swung Hrym at the creature, and a flurry of white ice filled the room, but hissed and turned to steam before it touched the creature. Gouts of fire poured from its mouth and outstretched hands—when had it grown hands?—but a wall of ice formed between Rodrick and the elemental, saving the swordsman from being roasted where he stood. Magical fire met magical ice, and the wall streamed with water. The elemental strode forward, pounding on the ice wall, and it grew over the elemental and formed a dome, enclosing the creature.

“That dome would put out a normal fire,” Hrym said sourly. “Not enough air in there to sustain that kind of burning for long. But elementals burn forever, and it will break out soon.”

Indeed, the dome cracked under one of the elemental's hammerlike blows, and Rodrick stumbled back, pack dangling from his free hand. He shrugged it onto his shoulder and turned toward the balcony. The elemental and the dome of ice thoroughly blocked his preferred exit, so the only way out was into the gardens. He rushed to the rail and looked down. It was only ten feet or so to the ground, and if he aimed right he'd land in a bush, hopefully one without any thorns—

While he was steeling himself to vault over the railing, Hrym sent out a torrent of ice, and a ramp of smooth white coldness stretched from the rail to a point midway through the garden. Rodrick groaned and climbed onto the slide. Walking down the ramp would be slower, so he just tightened his grip on Hrym and let gravity take hold. He slid so rapidly he ended up on his back, watching the starry sky overhead whip by, until he hit the ground with his feet, spinning sideways and falling off the ramp.

“Very dignified,” Hrym said. “Now
run
.”

The palace had finally been roused. There were shouts behind him, and the roar of inhuman voices, bound djinn and efreet and more, all being sent to find him. He ran for the nearest wall, raising Hrym before him. “Make a door,” he said.