Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) (22 page)

“I met him here, you know.”

At Tarin’s words,
Calder looked around, half-expecting to see some sign of Kipri’s presence in the windswept solitary.

Tarin looked askance
at him. “We just talked. Well… we mostly talked.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Calder asked, trying to say anything but
I thought you liked girls.

His redheaded hexmate shifted her shoulders against the chill wood of the solitary’s half-wall. Her gaze remained on the scudding clouds that drifted ever closer to the gibbous moon on the horizon.
“I need to tell someone. It’s been a secret for so long, and I keep feeling worse and worse for keeping it from everyone. But with the way Bayan and Kiwani and even Eward are acting… ”

“Aye.” Calder
leaned his elbows onto his knees and stared across the valley. “I canna believe he doesna see the obvious. It’s like the Master says: sometimes people canna see the truth because it scares them. I never thought Bayan would turn out to be afraid of truth. Not after last spring. I guess I overestimated him.”

“It’s not your fault. Each of us is different. We canna expect our friends to be exactly like us. And we shouldna, either.”

Calder’s gaze drifted to the smooth floor. “Just canna believe it. It’s my mum all over again. I canna stand this much longer, Tarin. Bayan has no idea what he’s asking of me by keeping my mouth shut about that bloody outlander.”

“Your mum? What does she have to do with Treinfhir?”

“Nothing… not really. It’s the whole situation.”

Tarin gave him a patient, encouraging look.

Calder sighed, shaking his head. “It was years back. I was just a boy. My da was gone. He’d passed the year before. But my mum had his savings, his investment papers. We had a good life, and she could throw pots for a hobby instead of a career. My older sisters went to a good school. Then Dannel came. He seemed ideal. Loyal, caring. He’d just arrived in town with his own business. Something about properties. My mum fell hard, and he soon moved in. We all loved him. Several holidays later, one of the city planning council members took me aside, man of the house that I was, and told me he’d heard some bad whispers about our new friend. Said he was a thief and a liar, with a rage against the world behind his smiles. I dinna believe him. But I went home and I started watching him anyway. Several things stopped adding up.”

Tarin bit her lip
.

“I caught him in a
full lie one day. I challenged him with it. He laughed it away, said I was a child. Not in the nice way, more like he hated me for noticing. That day, I finally realized the councilman had been right all along. After all Dannel’s love and attention, I hated seeing his real self. I raged so hard he dinna have time to concoct a lie, and he ran from the house. I remember crying and screaming like I was having a fit. He tried to tell the people in the street that I was angry about something simple, but I shouted over him. Accusing him with his lie and all the little things I’d never been able to explain. The neighbors tried to catch him, but he slipped out, left town. I thought I was a hero, saving my mum and all. Until a few days later when she went to retrieve a bit of our savings from the hidden strongbox.”

Tarin pulled her hand from her mouth. “It was empty.
”

Calder jerked his chin down. “Every last ducat.
My mum had to sell our house. We moved into a tiny shack in back of her pottery instructor’s house. My sisters had to drop school and move out. Mum never told me what sort of work they did, and now I’m afraid I can guess. And I—I got indentured to the Firedust Guild. All because of one man’s deception. If it hadna been for that council member’s warning—even then, I was too late. But not this time. Not with that Tuathi horse lord all mighty in his tiny castle on the hill. I see him. I know him. Even if Bayan doesna. And I have to protect him. Somehow.”

Tarin laid a hand on his arm
. Her skin warmed his where the wind had chilled him. “You’re a good hexmate, Calder.”

~~~

Kipri hunched over a stack of letters on his desk by the light of a pair of tall yellow candles, staring unseeingly at the pages’ myriad green scribbles.
It can’t be. But it is. I’m staring at it this very moment. It’s so close to perfect, but now that I’m looking closely, I can’t believe I didn’t spot it before now. Whoever he is, he’s good.

He thumbed through his pile until he reached the quill he’d slipped in to mark the change
: the day when the man writing to him ceased to be Philo Sallas, Minister of Information, and became an impostor. Kipri slid out the last letter he knew came from Philo and the first one he’d determined to be a forgery and laid them side by side atop the stack.

Same green ink. Same loopy letters. Same “lad” and “son” everywhere. Even the same cream paper and Philo’s wax stamp on the envelope. This man’s no amateur. He’s a master forger
, which means he’s not working for himself. He’s for hire. I can think of a dozen Kheerzaal factions who would be interested in learning the innermost secrets of Philo’s job—he guards the emperor’s most secret secrets, after all—but I can’t figure why any of those people would want to write to
me.

And the one man who might be able to tell me is the one man I dare not write to.

Kipri had rarely felt so alone. He wished Tarin was free, but she was busy with her studies. Or so she claimed.

“Help me, Philo. What do I do?” A nasty throbbing started behind his eyes.
He was supposed to write regular reports to Philo’s office with every mail packet. If he stopped, Philo would be at his doorstep within days, checking on him. That meant whoever was behind this was either letting Kipri’s letters reach Philo unscathed, or they were making copies for themselves. Either way, they would dare not put up a fuss for fear of exposure if Kipri simply stopped writing.

But
what of Philo’s real replies? Was that what the forger was after? What possible value would he gain from idle chatter from the Duelist Academy?

A chill ran up Kipri’s arms as he studied the two letters. Philo—the real Philo—had commented several times that he adored Kipri’s little campus tidbits, that they helped him put the young duelists and their learning environment in
to better perspective, and added a new dimension of detail to Kheerzaal politics and even far-flung imperial considerations. What if such seemingly mundane information also interested the forger and his employer?

Philo, do you have a rival?

~~~

The room was quiet aside from Kah’s occasional quarks and squawks
. Taban had moved his belongings in that morning with a minimum of fuss. The Dunfarroghan newcomer would spend his first night as an official member of the hex in the bed above Calder, but sleep was still a few hours away as Bayan and his roommates scratched out a final, enormously thorough essay for Instructor de Rood’s Etiquette class. Bayan was adding a summary sentence to his latest point, regarding the benefits of knowing the proper titles for high-ranking clients, when Tala whispered his name.

He jumped at the sight of
her sitting on her bed through a small midair portal. His pen made an unfortunate squiggle on his paper. “Bhattara! You startled me!”

The others looked over in surprise.
“Her again?” Calder asked. “At least I’m dressed this time.”

Taban bolted up out of his new desk chair.
“What in all the sints is that?”

Bayan felt momentarily smug that he knew something the well-connected Taban did not. “That’s Tala, and you can keep her to yourself, if you please.” The last thing he needed was word of her visits spreading through the information network.

“I am not his to keep,” Tala retorted. “I really need to talk to you, Bayan. Do you have a moment? Please?”

Taban and Eward uttered
suggestive whoops and snickered. Calder snorted and crossed his arms. Bayan glared at all of them. “I do. But not here. Can I come through to your side?”

Tala raised her eyebrows. “Of—of course. Please do.”
She hummed, and the glowing oval expanded.

Without another word, Bayan stepped onto his chair, then his desk
. He eased through the portal, careful not to touch its sides in case that was a bad idea, and settled onto Tala’s quilt next to her. He barely had time to wave to his gaping roommates before Tala pressed her hands onto a pair of black crystals and closed the portal.

Bayan cleared his throat and looked around her small room. “Cozy.”

But Tala apparently wasn’t interested in small talk, or being overheard. When she spoke, it was in Bantayan. “Doc Theo is my father.”

She couldn’t have surprised Bayan more if she’d launched a Blue Bolt spell at him.
His brain fumbled for words—any words—in a language he hadn’t used in a year and a half. “Uh… Are you sure?”

“Yes! He told me himself!”

Bayan sat in silent shock.
Doc Theo has a daughter!
The rangy healer fit Bayan’s idea of a father figure, but not an actual father. He always seemed so… free. “Did he know all along?”

“Not according to him. He says my mother never let him know about me. I don’t know whether I believe him or not. What do you think?”

“Me? Uh, well… The Doc Theo I know—the Doc Theo I remember—wasn’t a liar. He was a very open person. When he got sick, he didn’t make any sense, but he didn’t seem to change his personality.”

“I didn’t think so either, after talking to you about him. It’s just… he knew I was his daughter for a long time before he finally told me, and even then it was an accident.
It’s as if he’s suddenly been full of secrets all along. It’s like I don’t even know him!”

“Full of secrets? What else has he kept from you?”

Tala clutched her crystals to her chest in a protective pose. “He made me spy on the First Singer with him. He said it was a training exercise for my singing. The First Singer locked him up when she caught him.”

“She did? Is he all right?”

Her lips made a cute pout, but Bayan decided now wasn’t the time to tell her so. “I’m not speaking to him right now, but he was fine yesterday. No, really. She isn’t hurting him.”

“But
Doc Theo, spying? That doesn’t sound like— Wait…” The night Bayan and his hexmates had found Doc Theo stumbling around campus, he’d been muttering something about finally seeing what that had always been there. A danger hiding in plain sight. Bayan hadn’t thought anything of his ramblings at the time, but in retrospect, he had to wonder if Doc Theo hadn’t recognized the danger in some kind of precursors to the events that had plagued the Academy campus since his departure: Kiwani’s kidnapping, the disasters that befell Taban’s old hex.

Soon after Bayan had heard
Doc Theo’s ramblings, the chanter had been booted from campus. How convenient for whomever Doc Theo suspected! Or was it more than mere convenience? Master witten Oost had essentially promoted himself to the position of headmaster just in time to exile Doc Theo to the Temple. Bayan freely admitted to himself that he disliked the man. But could he accuse a Master Duelist of the crimes that had occurred at the Academy?
Not unless I want to be exiled, too.

Master witten Oost’s lessons blossomed in Bayan’s mind. Researching the opposition, using the political climate in one’s favor, hiding one’s true skills until an opportune moment… Bayan had no proof that Master witten Oost was behind any of the travesties that had befallen his fellow duelists, but suddenly all of the master’s teachings see
med a subtle taunt and an overt brag all in one.

Doc Theo
’s been way ahead of me the whole time. Ay, Bhattara! Was he ever crazy? My missing big picture is bigger than I thought! And now he’s poking around at the Temple. What’s he looking for? How does it connect to the Academy?

Tala gave him a
tearful look. “He’s been acting so strange recently. I mean, he seems normal most of the time, but he has this, this
obsession
with listening in on conversations, following the coterie members, stalking the First Singer down in the Periorion, things like that.”

“The what?”

“A restricted section of the Temple library. Access is limited to trio students and altons. Doc Theo has followed the First Singer to its doorway a handful of times. He’s never been able to figure out what she does in there.”

“Could it be a routine visit?”

“No one works in there.”

“Maybe she’s meeting someone.”

“He’s never seen anyone else down there when she visits.”

“And
Doc Theo thinks her trips to the Periorion are part of whatever is going on?”

She gave her head an annoyed shake. “It’s what he says.”

Bayan pursed his lips in thought and stared blankly at Tala’s wall. It was difficult to gauge Doc Theo’s true frame of mind through Tala’s emotional barriers, but with her current mood, he guessed she wouldn’t make a portal for him to visit Doc Theo directly. He was having no luck solving the numerous questions plaguing his own campus. If Doc Theo had found a connection between the Academy and the Temple, maybe Bayan could trace the link back to his own campus by exploring the Temple’s mystery.