Aethersmith (Book 2) (20 page)

“What did you do?” he shouted at Brannis, torn as to whether
he should chastise the general of his armies or just slay him where he stood.

“It was not me.” Brannis turned to face the warlock, clean
of any blood. The warlock came around the side of the bed to see Iridan curled
up on his side, a bloody pillow propped under his head and a blanket over him.
His face was a gory mess.

“Perhaps I ought to reconsider which of them to train as a
warlock,” Rashan commented.

Chapter 12 - Aftermath Examined

The cobblestones were blackened, even melted in places. The
charred remains of buildings stood about the edges of the devastation, but toward
the middle, only buildings with stone foundations showed any signs of having
existed at all. There were signs of recovery, though, for the residents of that
particularly downtrodden neighborhood of Marker’s Point. A few ramshackle
buildings had been put up, while real work was being done to replace others.

“How far across would you say it is, one side to the other?”
Soria asked, her eyes sweeping the scene. She wore her Kheshi persona. In a
place like Marker’s Point, looking as if you invited trouble was paradoxically
the best way to avoid meeting it. It also saved her the trouble of either
hiding or drawing strange looks for her Kheshi accent.

“A hundred paces across, I’d say,” Tanner offered. “Maybe a
hundred and fifty.”

“Hmm, closer to two hundred, I think,” Rakashi ventured.
“You have a long stride, my friend.”

“Well, I’m not measuring with yours. What sort of fool
counts using his guess at someone else’s stride?”

“So, black powder, or aether?” Soria asked. She nodded in
the direction of the helm that Zell was carrying. Zell donned the helm and
looked about the burned streets.

“Aether,” Zell stated. They had concealed the stolen crown
inside the helm, wrapping it in cloth and sewing it to the leather liner that
cushioned the wearer’s head. “It all looks … scratched up. I don’t know how
else to describe it, but it stands out for certain.”

“So … what, then?” Tanner asked. “We have a warlock running
around here, incinerating buildings. I don’t think I care to meet him. If he
knows his stuff, what would he want with a bunch like us? We’d be small timers
to him. If he can’t control his aether and
this
is what happens,” he
gestured to their general vicinity, “I don’t know that it would be safe
traveling with him.”

“I think Tanner’s right, Soria,” Zellisan added, taking the
magical helm off and nodding. “This one is too dangerous. We do well enough for
ourselves that I don’t see the risk being worth it.”

“Really?” Soria asked sardonically. “You are both turning
squirrel on me now that we are getting close to our quarry. Some warriors you
two are. How about you, Rakashi?”

“I think it is time you told us who we are following. You
know something, I think, that we do not,” the clever Rakashi answered.

Soria eyed him steadily, watching for a sign that he would
relent, but he met her glare stoically. “Fine,” she replied. “But not out here
in the open.”

* * * * * * * *

“So, if Rakashi’s right, you have some reason to think this
Kyrus fellow will join us,” Zellisan postulated, taking a swallow of a thick
dark ale.

They had picked out an upper-class tavern for their
discussion,
The Ale Exchange
. It served mainly ship owners, financiers,
traveling noblemen, and the assorted retainers such men brought with them. It
also attracted coinblades of various ilk, so their weapons were not entirely
out of place.

“Speak Kadrin while we are here, just in case,” Soria
instructed in Kadrin. “If anyone looks like they are paying attention to what
we say, we will have to kill or capture them.”

“He’s that important, this person we are looking for?”
Rakashi asked, speaking Kadrin with a Takalish accent. It was not his native
tongue, but he spoke it well.

“Yes. And use no names. A garbled conversation with a proper
name mixed in stands out, if the name is the only familiar word,” Soria said.

“Now you’re just being paranoid. Anyone who knows the name
must be able to understand the rest, wouldn’t you think?” Tanner objected. He
was waiting on the steward to bring up a bottle of Takalish apple liqueur that
Rakashi had suggested. Watching Zellisan and Soria already enjoying their ales
was making him impatient and irritated.

“Fine, then,” Soria relented. “I do know who this Kyrus
Hinterdale is, or at least quite strongly suspect. I got the clue I needed at
Raynesdark, when—”

“Skip it. Tell the story later, just give us a name,” Tanner
cut in, looking around distractedly for the steward.

“You have no sense of drama,” Soria complained. “When I was
at Raynesdark,” she picked up, ignoring Tanner’s complaint, “I saw the Megrenn
sorcerer who stole the Staff of Gehlen. He did not recognize me, but he knew
Brannis by sight. Brannis knew him as well, addressing him as Captain Zayne.”

“Wait, so that pirate is a twinborn Megrenn sorcerer?”
Zellisan asked. “Small wonder he has been so successful.”

“Yes, those were cannons he used at Raynesdark. He taught
the goblins to make ones like those a ship would carry. I saw a few of them
before the warlock had them melted down,” Soria said.

“I see …” Rakashi stated, having surely already skipped
ahead to her conclusion.

“Yes, well, this sorcerer knew Brannis as well, and he
called him Kyrus.” Soria finished her little tale, and Tanner and Zell gaped at
her.

“No wonder you’re so hot to find him,” Zellisan joked. “I
had wondered if you would follow through on the whole wedding arrangement, and
now I see why you did. You are just going to find yourself a new Brannis.”

“Ha-ha,” Tanner said. “I’ve been wanting a chance to cross
swords with this new grand marshal of ours. Can’t exactly march up to him in
Kadris and ask for a sparring match, though.”

“Mind you, he is still the same man we have been tracking.
He is a scribe in Tellurak, not a knight, and I do not think he has known that
he is twinborn for very long at all. Four months ago, it seems, he was playing
with light and telekinesis spells. Three months ago, he needed help to free
himself from a non-aether-proof prison cell, but managed to burn a ship down in
the harbor. A week after that, he destroyed a chunk of Marker’s Point. On the
road to Raynesdark, Brannis had brought along books of magic. Oh, he said they
were to figure out how best to use the sorcerers he was assigned, but Brannis
is too clever by half. He was teaching this Kyrus some proper spells so he
would not have another incident like Marker’s Point.”

“How can you be so sure of all that?” Zell seemed more
curious than skeptical, knowing Soria to be rash and reckless, yes, but she was
far from stupid.

“I know him too well. Most of us had some help in figuring
out how being twinborn worked, and all of us were much younger than
two-and-twenty when we first learned our dreams weren't dreams. Brannis seems
to have puzzled out much of it on his own, or gleaned it from Captain Zayne.
But availability of the libraries in the Tower of Contemplation is too valuable
to pass up. As Sixth Circle, even I was not allowed in most of those, but
because Brannis seems to have found favor with the warlock, he has free run of
the place,” Soria said. “If you discovered magic in Tellurak, and knew of no
one in Veydrus whom you could trust with the twinborn secret, how much better
could you have it than being able to access every book in Kadris at your
leisure?”

“Yeah, but if that was him with Zayne and Zayne is Megrenn
on the other side, how do we know we can trust either of them?” Tanner asked.
“Maybe he plays both sides. You say he’s so clever, maybe he has you fooled,
too.”

Soria frowned, crossed her arms, and leaned back in her
chair. “I bet my life that he will not side against me.”

Rakashi appeared to be about to say something, then paused,
distracted. He sat with his back to the door, but with his patched eye he saw
in the aether. Direction mattered little. “You said that pirate’s name too many
times, I think. Someone just left furtively. I think our pirate quarry has ears
with coins in them.”

Zellisan swore under his breath. Soria threw a backhanded
slap that jarred Tanner’s shoulder. “Paranoid, huh?”

“I lost track of him in the crowds outside. There are too
many people here and he was not so distinctive,” Rakashi said.

“What now?” Tanner asked.

“Nothing,” Soria replied. “At least, nothing we were not
about to do anyway. We know the pirate sailed months ago and his ship has not
returned. Safe to say, we will not meet him in person. Whatever lackeys he paid
to inform on troublemakers dropping his name in public will pose little
threat.”

“Yeah, but who will they be telling about us?” Zellisan
asked. “The pirate might have the kind of coin that could buy a few of the
Tide’s Watchmen. That might get us stranded here.”

“Deal with the problems we know about,” Soria said. “We
aren't the sort to get pushed around, after all. If our little parrot talks to
someone, and gets the pirate’s hired knives to come looking for us, at least it
will be a lead. In the meantime, we ought to split up and spend a lot of coin
with the sort of folk a pirate might deal with. They may not take open bribes
for information on someone as dangerous as the pirate, but we might loosen
tongues if we buy their wares first.”

“Anything in mind?” Zellisan asked. “I don’t go to market
with pirates much. What would they buy that a common man wouldn’t?”

“How should I know? Be creative,” Soria responded.

Zell just rolled his eyes. “Nice to know we’re in good
hands, eh?” Zellisan leaned over to Tanner and spoke loudly enough to ensure
Soria still heard.

“Well, you two will go together,” she told the mock
conspirators, “and Rakashi will come with me.”

“Why do I get saddled with the big oaf?” Tanner complained.
“If we have to run, I’ll have to hold up and wait for him, and that means a lot
more sword work.”

“Well, with how well that helm shows the aether, Zell ought
to be able to walk around with it on and not trip all over stuff you and I
cannot see without light. Rakashi can see both at once, so both pairs can keep
an eye to the aether,” Soria reasoned.

“What good’ll that do us?” Tanner asked. “We aren’t looking
for a bit of magic; we’re looking for a person, if he’s even in the Point
anymore. How would you expect to pick him out when every market has a thousand
folk in it?”

“Tanner, your Source split to the Tellurak side. Mine split
fairly evenly with Juliana’s, maybe a bit in her favor. Zell’s a dim candle in
both worlds, and Rakashi is much stronger in Veydrus. Brannis’s source is like
the glow of a firefly. If this Kyrus is running around laying waste to whole
city districts, you can bet that his Source will stand out like an ogre walking
among the common folk around here.”

“Makes sense,” Zellisan said, though he was a bit sensitive
about the subject of his weak Source and preferred not to discuss it. “And
unless he looks a lot less like Brannis than you would expect, I ought to
recognize him if I take the helm off. He ought to know my face too, just seeing
it … recently …” Zell trailed off, not wanting to remind Soria about Juliana’s wedding,
and the little “incident” afterward.

Soria shot him a glare, but made no comment on the slip. “We
will meet back at the ship an hour before sunset. If there is any night work to
be done, I would rather plan it anew. We might be best hanging together after
dark.”

“Well I’ll be flogged. She
does
have a sense of
self-preservation,” Tanner joked. “Only had to take comin’ to the Point and
having a pirate’s hired ears catch a sniff of her.”

“No,” Soria shot back, “I don’t trust you after dark because
there are more brothels here than inns. If I ever have to identify your dead
body, I would rather it be clothed.”

Tanner could think of no clever response, so they parted
ways in silence, one smug, two amused, and one consternated.

* * * * * * * *

“I don’t want no trouble,” were the first words out of the
shipper’s mouth as Soria and Rakashi approached. He was Janza, by his look:
scraggly grey hair framing a puffy, round face pocked by scars of a pimpled
youth long decades ago. He carried a slate in one gnarled hand and held a chalk
in the other. While all about men bustled with barrows filled with sacks of
wheat flour or carried kegs of cheap ale, the shipping master merely watched
and recorded.

“Excellent. Troubles make business go less smoothly,”
Rakashi replied, smiling broadly at the shipper. “I am Rakashi dar Fandar and
it is business I am seeking today.”

“And who’s the lass?” the shipper asked suspiciously. Soria
still wore her Kheshi persona, complete with tattooed kill markings. It was not
the sort of sight most folk found comforting.

“My bodyguard,” Rakashi answered, smiling serenely. Carrying
his half-spear in a sheath on his back and built like a warrior, Rakashi did
not look like the sort of man to need a bodyguard.

The shipping master eyed Soria warily, but turned his
attention back to Rakashi. “What sort of business? I am a busy man. Nothing
moves through this warehouse without me knowing about it.”

“I am looking for a shipment of cinnamon cherry liqueur,”
Rakashi said. “My employer’s ship was attacked by pirates and the spirits were
plundered.”

“I don’t deal in pirated goods,” the shipper replied
testily. “If that’s all you are concerned with, then I have no business with
you.”

“You misunderstand me. My employer has a very valuable
customer whom he would much like to keep happy. I do not care where I find a
replacement, but I must see that his customer receives the goods he has
purchased. Even if we lose money this time, we wish to keep the customer’s
business for many years to come. So if you know of any such liqueur, whether it
has come through your warehouse or not, I would be willing to pay generously
for such information,” Rakashi said. He reached into his coin purse, pulled out
a thousand-darshi coin and handed it to the shipping master. The darshi was a
small unit of currency, but a thousand of them acting in concert could secure
the services of the best whores in Marker’s Point, or purchase a bottle or two
of the aforementioned liqueur.