Michael A. Stackpole (17 page)

Kit and I eased her up into a sitting position. “How do you feel, Marija?”

“I’ll be f-fine, Locke.” She managed a weak smile. “Please, get me to my feet.”

Kit and I stood, then complied with her wishes. She dutifully rearranged her skirts, then looked over at where my grandmother had been sitting. None of us could see her because of the other people milling about, but Marija immediately dove into the crowd, heading toward where she had last seen Evadne. I started to follow, but Kit held me back. “A moment, Locke.”

“What?”

“You and I had both assumed the killing of the baker and his family was because of the thing I saw in the wilderness, but 1 recall you have said something about a ‘summoning.’ What was that?”

1 frowned and closed my eyes as I tried to remember. “Triona, the apothecary’s wife, said something about a creature from Chaos having been summoned.” i reopened my eyes and looked hard at Kit. “Do you think Fialchar made it into the Empire through that summoning? Could that magick have gone undetected? And if those people had summoned him, why would he kill them?”

Kit shrugged. “What if they were killed as part of the summoning? We have no proof they died
after
any summoning. Concerning the detectability of the magick, that I know nothing about.”

“Then what was it that you were chasing?”

Before Kit could answer my question, Garn Drustorn cut through the crowd and found us. “The Emperor would like to speak with you, Lachlan. You should come, too, Lieutenant. He will value your counsel in this as well.”

We threaded our way through the crowd and made as directly as possible for the thrones and the doors beyond them. Being as small as I am, I had a hard time seeing much more than Kit’s back, though two people with the flowered badge of the Healing Magick discipline did pass right by me as they ran to the musicians’ aid.

When 1 reached the stairs 1 did venture a look back at the dance floor in a vain attempt to see Marija and my grandmother. The confusion on the floor looked so inappropriate. Some people were prostrate, while other folks were kneeling and softly sobbing in the arms of other victims. All of their postures and the way they moved and sounded was appropriate for the sort of catastrophe they had endured, but the gaiety of their clothing mocked them. It made them all look like actors in some grand theatrical presentation of a tragedy.

The sheer misery caused by Fialchar’s intervention underscored how truly dangerous an enemy he was. His arrival and what he had done were almost casual, yet the effects were gross and profound. He had taken people gathered to celebrate one of the most momentous nights of the year and reduced them to a wretched, pain-ridden, crying mob—all for his pleasure.

That casual disregard for the consequences of his actions should not have surprised me, given what I knew of him. Fialchar had long ago sparked a debate within the magickal community about the feasibility of creating a magickal item that encompassed in it the fabric of reality. The sorcerous brotherhood split down the middle on the subject. Fialchar convinced a dozen of his brethren who believed the task could be accomplished to go ahead and do it in secret, just to prove to the others that it could be done.

They did, and proudly displayed their handiwork at a convocation of sorcerers. The Twelve stood by their creation, immeasurably proud of what they had done. Their labor had taken a dozen years, but they had finally succeeded. They had created the Seal of Reality.

Then, at that convocation, Fialchar joined them and shattered the seal. Chaos immediately exploded and washed over the Empire. Sorcerers throughout the Empire immediately erected Ward Walls to hold Chaos at bay, but even after centuries the amount of the original Empire they had recovered from Chaos was tiny.

Fialchar, before or since, never did explain why he had shattered the Seal of Reality. There are those who maintain that doing such was always his plan, hence his instigation of the discussion that resulted in the seal’s creation. While I was willing to accept that explanation, after seeing him in action it struck me that he might have destroyed the seal on a whim.

Another casual gesture with hideous results.

Kit and I followed the Warlord through the doors, and 1 heard them clang shut behind us. Over by a door across the room 1 saw Thetys and recognized his brother Lan from seeing him announced to the gathering. The Emperor hastily returned Kit’s salute, then bade us follow him deeper into the palace. “Forgive me wanting to talk as we go, but we have a problem that is somewhat larger than Fialchar’s being in the Empire.”

My eyes grew wide at that statement. “What could be worse than the sorcerer who destroyed the Seal of Reality being in the Empire?”

Lan answered me while his brother inserted a key in a small hole in a wall mural. “You saw the staff Fialchar had with him? You felt its power?”

“Yes.” 1 nodded.

“That was the Staff of Emeterio, one of the dozen sorcerers who helped create the Seal of Reality in the first place. When Fialchar shattered the seal, the dozen sorcerers he had tricked into creating it were overwhelmed by the flood of Chaos.” Lan grew pensive as he explained. “We had long assumed they were all killed and their tools destroyed at that time, but stories keep cropping up to suggest that one or more of them or their artifacts continued to exist in one form or another after Chaos.”

The Emperor pulled back on the key, and a portion of mural swung away to reveal a dark passage. Lan preceded me into the narrow, rough-stone tunnel and cautioned me about the stairs as we started spiraling down through the palace. Flat discs on the ceiling of the passage supplied us light, but I noticed the illuminated area approximated the half-moon crescent the Lovers’ Moon showed tonight. I kept my balance by letting my fingers touch each wall, and that was by no means difficult. Were 1 given to the fear of enclosed spaces that torments Dalt, I would have gone utterly mad in the dusty dry wormhole.

From behind me 1 heard the Emperor’s voice. “Fialchar knows that we possess the one item powerful enough to destroy and be destroyed by the Staff of Emeterio. That is the Fistfire Sceptre, and we keep it in a vault here in the palace. There are enough magickal wards on the vault to prevent him, I hope, from appearing in it the same way he disturbed the ball.”

We stopped at a wide landing. The tunnel continued on to the right, but Lan didn’t go very far down it. He stopped beneath one of the moon lights, dropped to one knee, and started counting bricks up and over to the left. Once he found the one he wanted he passed a hand over it, and I saw a faint glow outline the brick. Looking up at his brother, he shook his head.

The Emperor smiled uneasily. “Some of my predecessors found having access to the imperial Treasury without the benefit of the Minister of the Exchequer knowing anything about it rather useful. This entrance, my brother has just indicated, has not been disturbed tonight.”

Lan nodded. “Nothing to worry about right now.”

The Warlord frowned. “I know others are going to enter the vault through the main doors, once they get the wards out of the way, but 1 think we should check on the interior before they get to it.”

“1 agree.” I opened my hands. “If Fialchar decides to come back, a little rhyme isn’t going to stop him. if the Fistfire Sceptre would do that, I think having it in hand is a good idea. As he could come back at any moment, the sooner we have it available, the better.”

Thetys nodded. “That’s some of the wiser counsel I’ve had in a while.” The Emperor’s dark eyes narrowed. “The reason I asked for you to come with us here, Lachlan, is because you managed to break Fialchar’s spell, and he seemed displeased to see you—as I hope he will be now. How did you counter his magick?”

I shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. The rhyme I mentioned earlier was one I learned as a child. ‘Fire and silver/beat cold and night,/but try to avoid evil’s sight. When all is lost,/brave heart have you,/and evil’s thrall will then be through!’ It was for banishing night terrors.”

“Let us hope it has lost none of the potency it showed earlier.” The Emperor drew a curved dagger from his belt, and the rest of us armed ourselves with our daggers. “Do you know why Lord Disaster said what he said to you?”

“No, sire.” 1 shook my head and found myself flicking my thumb against the band of the silver ring. I brought my hand up. “Perhaps he recognized this ring, or whatever impressions my father had left on it. Whatever the explanation, I am glad it disturbed him.”

Lan looked to his brother. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Lan pressed his hand to the brick he’d found earlier and mumbled a spell. A portion of the wall faded to black, then evaporated like a shadow doused with light. Chests of golden coins that had been stacked against the wall toppled into the corridor in a flood of ringing metal. Torchlight from the vault’s interior flashed from yet more coins and burned in the jewels encrusting crowns and swords and hundreds of other treasures, in the rectangular room I saw more valuables than i had ever dreamed existed. In any of the smaller chests I knew I’d have found enough gold to keep me comfortable for even an abnormally long life.

In fact, even the smallest chest the thieves were hauling toward the hole in the far wall would have satisfied me for two lifetimes.

The appearance of a dozen human thieves in the Imperial Treasury surprised us as much as our arrival doubtlessly surprised them. The falling chests of gold had buried one man and bowled another over, while most of the rest stopped in the act of lugging loot toward their egress. Dropped chests crashed to the floor, spilling their contents in sparkling circles from the point of impact. Two robbers sprinted for the hole, while the others drew their knives when they saw we were alone.

Kit and Gam Drustorn rushed forward into the fight while I knelt and grabbed up a gold Imperial coin. Clutching it in the curve of my index finger, I brought my right arm back. Keeping my hand parallel to my waist, 1 whipped the coin forward. The Imperial sliced through the dim air and smashed one of the thieves square in the face. His head snapped back, and he lost his footing on the gold carpet. As he went down an ornamental suit of armor toppled over on top of him.

A thief swaddled in dark clothes and reeking of the sewers lunged at me with a hooked dagger. I blocked his strike by parrying his forearm wide with my left hand. Closing my hand on his wrist, I brought his arm up high and, with my dagger blade extending down away from my right thumb, stabbed through his right armpit. Bright arterial blood spurted out as I withdrew the blade and backhanded him across the face.

As he reeled away, I flipped my dagger around so the blade poked out of my fist on the thumb side. The next thief rushed me, seemingly intent on bowling me over. He thrust his right hand forward, trying to stab me in the stomach, but I stepped to the left and let his attack slide past my belly. 1 tangled my left hand in his wet hair and yanked back, then slashed my dagger across his throat.

He gurgled and thrashed as he hit the floor, but 1 did not notice his death throes because of what I saw further in the room. Something moved, something 1 had seen from the first but had dismissed as unreal, or at best as the golden glints from a masterpiece hidden within a shadow. As it split itself off from the darkness where it had been hidden, I recognized the black mane and the tufted tail. The malevolent glow in his eyes touched me, filling me with an arctic chill.

As our eyes met I sensed nothing to indicate he recognized me, but the creature clearly saw he had an audience. He lifted his left hand and brandished a yard-long sceptre made of gold. Rubies and emeralds alternated to form a band around the wrist of the metal hand at the top of the rod. Above, the golden hand clutched an absolutely perfect black pearl as large as an apple.

With his treasure in hand the
Bkarasfiadi
sorcerer bared his gray needle teeth in a soundless challenge, then leaped to the hole and disappeared.

I have heard other fighters describe their feeling when urgency or anxiety or frustration overwhelmed them. They speak of “snapping” as if something inside them breaks and allows them to plunge headfirst into a desperate fight. Often they use that term to describe what must have happened inside the head of a madman before he made a suicidal charge.

For me there was no snapping. I just knew that allowing that Chademon to escape with his prize would be a disaster that no magick could repair. Two thieves stood between me and the hole in the wall; they were obstacles that
had to be
overcome. I didn’t see them as men or fellow citizens of the Empire, but as the sort of foe that, as I grew up, my grandfather had drilled me to deal with in daily exercises.

1 moved through them by reflex, without conscious thought. Their moves and my reactions to them had been pounded into me for so long and so thoroughly that my body took over. 1 did not see the fight as a disinterested observer, but like a general watching the flow of battle, evaluating tactics and anticipating what needed next to be done.

Sliding step forward and twist to the right. Let the thief’s lunge pass between my left arm and my body, then clamp my arm down on his forearm. |am my dagger up through the bottom of his chin. Ignore the feel of his scraggly beard and the blood trickling from his mouth. Swing his body around and use it to block his comrade.

My hand opened, releasing my dagger. The dead man spun away, undercutting his partner at the knees. That man stumbled forward as my right knee came up to flatten his nose. He groaned loudly, then flopped to the ground, all boneless. A quick kick to the temple kept him down, opening the way to the hole in the wall.