The Palace of Impossible Dreams (20 page)

“What will you do now?” Pollo asked.

Declan glanced along the long string of camels, not really seeing them, or smelling their rank aroma, or noticing the cloud of flies that had followed them down the line.

“Looks like I'm going to Senestra,” he said.

It was raining and bitterly cold as the amphibian-towed barge pulled into the Cycrane docks, for which Stellan was quite grateful. It meant they could remain hidden behind hooded cloaks for a while longer, perhaps even get to the palace without anybody being aware of their approach.

Stellan scratched at his new beard, still unused to his blond hair, the beard or the fact that he was posing as someone else entirely. Having met with Aleki Ponting—Tides, was
anybody
really who he'd thought they were—he had a new identity, two bodyguards named Tenry and Crowe . . .

But not, as Declan had suggested—to Stellan's horror—an eleven-year-old bride.

Nyah smiled up at him nervously as the boat approached the docks. She had a remarkable grasp of the situation, given her age, but Stellan thought Declan's plan far too dangerous to involve an innocent child.

At the outset, nobody agreed with him. It seemed the Cabal of the Tarot was willing to employ anything and anybody who crossed their path, if it looked like they were going to be of use to them. It wasn't until Stellan brought his diplomatic experience to the discussion that anybody was willing to admit the plan was not only fraught with danger, but would more than likely fail, even before it began.

“Don't look so worried, Jareth.”

That was the new name the Cabal had chosen for him. Lord Jareth Dekayn. The real Lord Dekayn was—or had been—a distant cousin of Stellan's, and had died in circumstances that forced the family to cover up not just the manner of his death, but that he had died at all. There was little likelihood of someone who knew the real Jareth Dekayn turning up in the Caelish royal palace and inadvertently betraying him.

He smiled down at the little girl. “Was I looking worried? Who'd have thought?”

Nyah smiled back, sliding her small gloved hand into his. “They'll believe us. I'll
make
them believe you rescued me.”

You'd better
, he replied silently, as Tenry and Crowe helped throw the lines out onto the dock, all too aware that a large part of his fate rested in the hands of this precocious child.

But not all of it, fortunately. After Declan left Maralyce's Mine, Stellan had started to consider his future, something he'd been singularly reluctant to do up to that point. Declan's departure drove home to Stellan that he couldn't simply slink away and hide, just because he didn't want to face the world. The comfort of no longer existing, the release of being thought of as dead, was false security at best. He was only in his mid-thirties. He could hardly sulk for the rest of his life, despite how tempting that idea might have been when he'd first escaped Herino Prison.

Besides, he was a loyal and patriotic Glaeban. He couldn't stand by and let his king's murderer take the crown.

Stellan had managed to talk Aleki out of Declan's original ill-conceived plan, which was to pose as Nyah's husband. To arrive back in Caelum, announcing he was now the husband of the kidnapped crown princess, wouldn't secure anybody's throne. It would, however, more than likely see him killed almost immediately, as the man who'd stolen her away in the first place.

But what Declan didn't seem to grasp, nor Aleki when Stellan first proposed his alternate plan, was that he was still the blood heir to the Glaeban throne. That fact alone would confound Jaxyn's attempts to secure the Glaeban throne for himself. It might even keep Mathu alive a little longer.

“Look,” Nyah said, breaking his train of thought. She was pointing to the buildings along the front of the wharves, most of which were decked out in bedraggled, waterlogged red and gold bunting. “Do you think that's left over from mother's wedding?”

Stellan nodded. “More than likely.”

The wedding of Queen Jilna and Lord Tyrone of Torfail had only happened a couple of days ago. They'd waited for just that event before returning Nyah to her home. Now, unless Lord Tyrone—or Tryan the Devil, as his immortal persona was known—killed the queen and tried to wed Nyah soon after, the little princess was saved from being offered to him as a bride. Ironically, they had Caelish law on their side, for once. Despite not seeming to have any qualms about marrying off their children, they had quite strict laws about incest. Lord Tyrone was now Nyah's stepfather. Even if he murdered the queen tomorrow, Caelish law forbad him marrying his stepdaughter at any time in the future.

Of course, she wasn't entirely safe yet. The royal line continued through Nyah and, as such, she was required to take the throne as soon as she was
married, an event the Caelish preferred to take place sooner rather than later. As soon as she reappeared, the hunt would be on once more for a suitable consort for the princess.

Hopefully, Queen Jilna's recent remarriage and Nyah's unexpected return should confuse things enough to stall any decision about the child's future for quite some time.

There was a lone figure wearing a hooded cape waiting for them at the docks, and behind him an unremarkable carriage with a forlorn-looking gelding waiting patiently in the rain for the command to move on. Hopefully, the man waiting for them was Ricard Li, Caelum's Spymaster. He was the only man in Caelum who knew where Nyah had been. Presumably, that meant Stellan could trust him.

Recent experience, however, had taught him not to trust anyone.

They bumped into the wharf. Tenry and Crowe jumped onto the dock to secure the ropes as one of the boatmen shoved the gangway out onto the dock. Nyah hurried across it and threw herself at the hooded man. He hugged her briefly and then turned to watch Stellan disembark. As he approached, Nyah hurried back to Stellan, grabbed his hand and dragged him forward to meet this stranger she clearly considered a friend.

“Jareth, this is Ricard Li,” she said. “Caelum's Spymaster.”

Messages had been exchanged between Caelum and Glaeba prior to their return, negotiating Nyah's homecoming and advising Ricard Li that she would be accompanied by someone important. Despite his disguise, Li recognised Stellan almost immediately.

The spymaster eyed him up and down and then shook his head. “I see the Glaeban gift for understatement remains undiminished.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“
The princess will be accompanied by someone important
, I believe the message said.” Li smiled thinly. “Still, one good heir deserves another I suppose. Did Hawkes think up this idiotic plan?”

Stellan squeezed Nyah's hand in warning. “Declan Hawkes is dead.”

Nyah said nothing to contradict him, which was something of a relief. Even though Declan had made her swear on her mother's life that she'd say nothing about his survival, or his transformation into an immortal, Stellan still wasn't sure she understood the consequences of letting the secret slip. Stellan, who'd spent most of his life hiding what he was, appreciated the young man's predicament better than most. If Declan wanted to hide his
immortality from his enemies, as well as his friends, knowing nobody would ever look at him the same way again, well . . . Stellan could hardly fault the man for that.

Li studied him curiously for a moment before he spoke. “Despite the rather pointless disguise, you're looking remarkably well, your grace. Considering you're dead.”

Stellan wished he could tell if the man was joking. If he was so inclined, Ricard Li could—with a word—have him arrested and sent straight back to Glaeba.

He chose to assume the best. “The pointless disguise was to facilitate my journey through Glaeba to avoid casual recognition. I look forward to dispensing with it now I'm here in Caelum.”

“You're assuming Queen Jilna is going to welcome you,” Li said, frowning.

“I've returned her daughter to her,” Stellan pointed out. “The daughter stolen away by persons unknown from Caelum, handed to the Glaeban Spymaster and kept prisoner all this time, until I was able to escape from prison, kill the man responsible for her incarceration and return her to the country of her birth.”

Li stared at him for a long moment. Almost every word of Stellan's statement was a blatant lie, and Li knew it, because he was the one who had arranged Nyah's abduction—with her active cooperation—in the first place. The two men stared each other down, each judging the other, trying to work out how much the other knew, and how far they could be trusted.

It was Nyah, however, who, with a child's disregard for artifice, put things into perspective. “It's all right, Ricard. Stell—Jareth knows everything. About how you helped me and how Declan helped me too. He won't betray us. But it's only fair that we help him now, by giving him a sly gum.”

Li glanced down at the princess, clearly not happy with her suggestion. “And to think, I was only just saying to myself this morning,
what will I do with this spare sly gum I just happen to have laying about
 . . .”

Stellan smiled. “I believe she means asylum.”

“Oh, don't worry, I know what she means. But it's a big ask, your grace. You were being tried for murder and treason in your own country, last I heard. And everyone thinks you're dead. At the very least, you're an escaped convict. Your arrival here is going to precipitate some serious trouble, should the queen decide to offer you asylum.”

“Trouble I'm assuming will distract the queen and her new husband and keep them occupied and too busy to focus on other, smaller issues,” he said, glancing down at Nyah, “for some considerable time to come.”

A slow, devious smile crept over Ricard Li's face. “You make a valid point, your grace.”

“There's a reason I was King Enteny's most favoured foreign envoy, Master Li, and I can assure you, it wasn't because of my taste in lovers.” Better to get that sticky little detail cleared up at the outset too. Stellan had no intention of starting this new life he seemed to have acquired as a political agitator by continuing to pretend he was something he wasn't.

Let them take me as I am
, he'd decided.
And to hell with the consequences.

It was a pity Declan Hawkes had yet to learn that lesson.

“We heard about that too,” Li said. “Are the rumours true?”

“Most of them.”

To his immense relief, Ricard Li shrugged dismissively. “Well, that's your business, I suppose. We're not quite so . . . bothered . . . by things like that here in Caelum. Hell, we marry off our children to prop up thrones. Puts your particular . . . preferences . . . into perspective, don't you think?”

Relieved beyond words he'd survived his first few minutes in Caelum, Stellan nodded in agreement. “I believe it does.”

Ricard Li smiled. “So . . . shall we escort her highness to the palace so we can break it to the queen and her new husband that the long-lost Caelish heir is returned and even if Lord Tyrone fathers a child on the queen tomorrow, he's no longer got any claim on the throne?”

Stellan glanced down at Nyah. “Are you ready for this, your highness? It might get a little rough.”

Nyah nodded solemnly. “I'm the crown princess of Caelum, my lord. I will do whatever it takes to save my throne from the immortals.”

Ricard looked at Stellan. “
Immortals
?”

Stellan shook his head and sighed as he realised it was going to fall to him to break the news to the Caelish Spymaster about the true identity of Lord Torfail and his family.

“We have a lot to talk about, Master Li.”

“Apparently we do,” he agreed, staring at them both in confusion for a moment before shaking his head and turning toward the carriage he had waiting to take Nyah home.

“That's the third one this week.”

Arkady glanced up from the narrow bed she was wiping down with lye soap and hot water. Its occupant had died several hours earlier. She was disinfecting it before the next patient arrived. “Have the family come for the body?”

Geriko shrugged, his eyes, as usual, going straight to her bare breasts.
One day
, she thought,
he'll look me in the eye and the shock will kill me.

“Won't make no difference. Doc ordered 'em all burned. 'Sides, who's gonna care about a dead canine?”

Sadly, Geriko was right. The canine who had just died was of no value to anybody any longer. The man who owned him certainly didn't want a dead slave back just to give him a decent burial. That's why he'd brought his slave here to the clinic in the poorer part of the city, rather than pay a physician good money to visit his kennels.

“Well, hopefully that's the last of them.”

Geriko shook his head. “It ain't even the beginning, Kady. If this is swamp fever, like the doc thinks it is, we're all in for a bad time of it.”

It more than likely was the fever Geriko spoke of. The man who owned the dead canine was a jeweller who had recently been north into the wetlands on a trading mission to secure supplies of nacre, and his slave had fallen ill within a day of returning home.

“You've seen swamp fever before?”

Geriko nodded, lifting the corner of the mattress so Arkady could get to the base. She wrung out the rag again and kept cleaning as she talked. On average, the clinic slaves worked from dawn until dusk. If she ever wanted to see dinner or her bed tonight, then she had to finish this before Cydne got back from informing the canine's owner of his fate.

“Had it when I was a young 'un,” he said. “Near killed me, it did. Took more 'n half the slaves in the Medura compound, now I come to think of it. And Lady Medura, herself.”

“Cydne's mother?”