Council of Blades (10 page)

"Tekorii-kii-kii!

"Tekorii-kii-kii!"

Miliana peeled another apple, her brows creasing themselves behind her spectacles. "… Tekoriikii."

"So I hear." Lorenzo tried to take measurements of the uncooperative Tekoriikii's skull. "There's quite an exten-sive cranium. Unusual for an avian, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, he's intelligent." Miliana looked over at the bird, which was in danger of getting his head caught inside a flower vase. "Well-sentient, anyway. He does have a language."

"Truly?" Lorenzo inspected the patterns on the bird's tail feathers with his magnifying glass. "How can you tell?"

"You just have to watch him for a while. One picks it up eventually."

The bird stood on one foot, using his other claw to hold a big round cheese; he seemed to be consuming the hard rind and letting the soft center fall in pieces to the carpet. Miliana sighed and wondered how she was ever going to make the room seem clean. A maid would run wailing straight to Ulia; the only thing for it was to sweep up the filth herself, then see about patching the ceiling. Miliana stood to survey the damage, fists on her hips and her pointy hat tilted far back from her brows, while behind her Lorenzo and Tekoriikii deepened their acquaintance.

Using his magnifying glass, Lorenzo inspected Tekoriikii's talons, feet, and eyes; he flipped though pages of his book, thoughtfully holding drawings up against the light, then solemnly shaking his head in disappointment.

With her sleeves rolled up and a broom in hand, Miliana came to peer across the young noble's shoulder and scan his current page.

"Well, have you discovered what he is?"

"Absolutely!" Lorenzo closed his guidebook with a great, satisfied bang. "Master Tekoriikii is a phoenix."

The announcement was met by an unconvinced adjust-ment of Miliana's spectacles. Lorenzo decided that his professional judgment was being belittled, and opened up the pages of his book by way of proof.

"Here-see? Phoenix Nobilus Conflagrata -the sacred, or fiery, phoenix."

Miliana looked down at the picture in Lorenzo's book. It detailed a lean, elegant creature with willowy propor-tions and a haughty air sitting on a nest of crackling flames. The girl pushed her spectacles down her nose, peered across the rims toward the happy-go-lucky Tekoriikii, then swiveled hazel eyes back to Lorenzo's hopeful face.

"I think not."

"But milady, it's the same color. Look, do you see? Orange pinions and highlights of flame red hue."

"He is not a phoenix!" Miliana prevented the bird from swallowing a ball of potpourri. "Phoenixes are big on spontaneous combustion and very big on brains."

"Why does that rule out this specimen?"

Tekoriikii went avidly on about his affairs; Miliana irritably shifted the potpourri out of reach again. "Just call it woman's intuition. I think we can rule out the phoenix thing."

Lorenzo paused, sucking on the wrong end of his pen.

"We could always set fire to him and see."

"Not with my giant bird you don't!" Miliana threw pro-tective arms around Tekoriikii's neck, and the bird blinked in surprise. "Now just search the book. Doesn't it say anything?"

Lorenzo sat cross-legged in the plaster dust and flipped through the pages of his references. Miliana swept the floor all around him; the bird soon came to her assistance and began carrying broken boards and plaster in his beak-usually depositing his loads on the patches of floor Miliana had just finished sweeping.

Unseeing and uncaring, Lorenzo kept on with his studies, calling out possibilities through the legs of the fruit cart.

"Peacock?"

"A peacock?" Miliana's voice pealed loud in shock. "He's two yards long! Twelve if you count the tail."

"Maybe he's a giant peacock. Anyway, his tail's nowhere near ten yards. Maybe as many feet, but…"

Tekoriikii couldn't help a glance at his backside, then something like a shrug.

"Maybe." Miliana began dragging her bathtub over to her balcony. "Keep looking."

Lorenzo flipped a page, oblivious to the girl's surpris-ing display of strength.

"Here's an axe beak. A sort of flightless carnivore. Would you say he's flightless?"

Tekoriikii obligingly extended a short, feathery wing. Lorenzo sighed and went back to his books.

"It would help if we knew where he came from. He can't possibly be native to the Blade Kingdoms. I still feel the red coloring indicates an affinity for fire." A drawing slipped from Lorenzo's volume, a detailed drawing of a falcon's wing. "Ask him if he came from an area of pronounced volcanic activity-like the Smoking Mountains of Unther or the Lake of Steam."

Miliana cocked an eyebrow at the bird, who threw back his head and began to play out a little dance.

"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"

The creature danced a little to the left, danced a little to the right; shook his tail high while bobbing his head down low. Finally he extended one great yellow talon and made a ghastly noise reminiscent of a wet leather trombone.

Miliana turned back to Lorenzo with a sigh.

"He says he doesn't know."

Every other princess in the world managed to win themselves a magical talking horse or a pegasus or even a blink dog as their companion. Instead, Miliana seemed to have just acquired a giant, crazed, orange bird-of-paradise.

Lorenzo closed his books with a helpless shrug. The two young humans sat side by side on Miliana's bed and watched the bird preening the feathers under his wing.

"Will you make him a cage?"

"Certainly not!" Miliana was utterly outraged. "What a wretched suggestion. He's not doing anyone any harm up in the attic."

Lorenzo watched the busy bird with a blossoming sense of awe.

"I'd like to study him some more. Still-maybe we ought to make him feel more at home."

"How?"

"Maybe we could make an enormous seed bell?"

The bird had taken an interest in Miliana's picture books. He stood with his head cranked over to one side staring at a painted fairy tale. Handsome as a cast bronze god, the bird settled itself down and began to happily turn page after page.

Miliana regarded the creature with loving fascina-tion; the expression lit her from within like a pure, new summer's dawn.

"This isn't so bad. I mean, how much trouble can a big orange bird be?" Her face suddenly innocent and eager, Miliana turned bright eyes upon Lorenzo and trapped him in her gaze. "Hey! Have you ever heard any prophe-cies about birds and princesses?"

"No." Lorenzo swayed, trapped by Miliana's brilliant gaze. "No, I can't say that I have. Why?"

"It was just a thought."

Evening was falling. In the palace courtyard, Lady Ulia's voice could be heard as she harassed decorators, servants, cooks and guards. The starlings swirled high above Miliana's balcony heading for their noisy beds.

Lost in peace and quiet, maiden, boy and orange bird all sat to watch the sky stream with tints of rose.

Lorenzo turned to watch the young woman at his side; her whole being seemed to shimmer as she smiled.

"Milady? How are you going to explain the broken ceiling?"

"I'm working on it." Miliana propped her chin on her knees and watched the glorious bright bird. "Let's just take one thing at a time…"

Skies darkened, starlings whirled, while in Miliana's room, Tekoriikii the firebird posed for Lorenzo's sketch-ing charcoal with every appearance of joy.

"No sign, Toporello?"

"No sign, my lord!" Old Toporello slashed at a night-spider's web with his riding crop. "Another necklace stolen last night, right from under the eyes of the patrol. I have men combing every street, and there's not even a footprint to this cat-burglar's name."

"The festival will calm him." Prince Mannicci fell in step beside his oldest friend. "The parties will fill the palaces and give our thief too many eyes to dodge. We have a week in which to think of better plans."

Plans. Toporello sat and rested his weary bones on the edge of a fountain, cracking shoulders stiffened by long, hard years of drill and war.

"Speaking of plans, my lord, have the Lomatrans made any offers for your daughter's hand?"

"The bridegroom has asked to stay in the palace. He must be pressing forward with his suit."

"And what of the girl? Does she find the match worth-while?"

"If it keeps Ilego from the door, it's well worthwhile."

Prince Mannicci had given his daughter his own sharp wits, clear mind, and stubborn will. The only thing he had refused her was his time. Toporello cast a glance toward the princess's little tower and chewed a strand of his own mustache.

"I see a pattern forming. Unless this boy is a better specimen than the last, I fear he shall soon discover the special joys that earwigs can bring."

"Earwigs?"

"Merely a reflection, lord, that clever sparrows can have sharp beaks." Toporello gave a sigh and heaved himself erect. "In any case, my lord, 'tis time for bed. Tomorrow brings the festival-and the dance with Ilego can grow tiring for old bones."

"I intend to see that we both make old bones." Prince Mannicci tightened the fit of his gloves.

"Goodnight, old friend. Guard your back well."

Toporello faded into the evening gloom, leaving his monarch standing alone inside the fountain yard.

Tugging his gloves hard down across his wrists, the prince stood and stared in silence at his daughter's bal-cony before stalking back inside the palace halls.

Lords and ladies alighted: Colletro's gentry come to do duty by the victors of this year's campaign. They were handed down from their carriages by Sumbrian footmen, then met by lines of heralds, torch-bearers and trum-peters. With stiffly formal manners, hosts and guests made bows; then the purely theoretical enemies went together into the great hollow squares of palaces to while away the nighttime hours.

Preparations for the Festival of Blades were gaining momentum day by day; jugglers and puppeteers were installed at every plaza, while children ran about the streets fighting ferocious mock battles with painted wood-en swords. Watching the melee swirl past, Blade Captain Gilberto Ilego leaned idly against a tavern door, breathed in the nocturnal airs, and heaved a contented sigh.

The evenings of late summer always seemed to sizzle with the delicious scent of hot, scorched dust.

Dressed in bonnet and plume, jerkin and tight hose, Blade Captain Ilego savored the night's bouquet as though it were a primrose bloom. He watched the carriages winding inward through the gates, watched the delicate ladies and swaggering gentlemen enter their palaces and tow-ers, and let his face draw into a slow, cool smile.

The city brimmed with guests-creatures of a hundred different races. The festival drew them as moths gath-ered to a candle flame. Slim elves could be seen watching the puppet booths and games, bulb-nosed dwarves from the Great Rift came to trade for surveying instruments, and a gnome illusionist astonished children with clever magic tricks. Most astonishing of all, a nixie damsel-a sharply beautiful water maiden with scales of pink and rose-was borne down the street in a glass-sided sedan chair filled with lake water.

As she slid past, the creature gave a smile and locked with Ilego's eyes.

A shadow fell across the streets; wing feathers beat up a storm of dust as a great black form settled down into the central plaza of Sumbria. Ilego tossed aside his mus-ings as though casting a flower out into the road, and set-tled back to watch Colletro's senior Blade Captain scan-ning Sumbria in scorn.

The man wore the most elemental of costumes: a brig-antine of black velvet lined with silver studs and a barbute helmet covered in wine-dark cloth. His hippogriff-a shrewish, violent mare with elongated claws and a wicked eye-luffed its eagle wings and searched the streets for handy prey. Finding nothing worth killing close at hand, the creature muttered softly to its rider, then sank onto its haunches to let the man slide to the ground.

The Colletran noble had an escort, four of Sumbria's air cavalry all armed with light crossbows. Their prim white mounts shook out their feathers in disapproval of their guest's surly beast, stepping pointedly aside as the creature hungrily eyed their haunches.

Ilego detached himself from the tavern door. The motion caught the Colletran's eye, who turned about to stand posing in the open shadows with one hand upon his blade. Ilego moved himself deliberately out into the open street, placed one foot behind the other and spread his arms open in his courtliest of bows.

"Honored Blade Captain Svarezi. How very good of you to come."

Ugo Svarezi-armored, armed, and squat-glared at the intruder with eyes of watered steel.

"Why am I here?"

"Surely to enjoy the festival." Ilego stood, his dark eyes missing nothing as he drank in the foreigner at a glance. "I have come to meet you. To extend Sumbria's most gra-cious hospitality.

"Pray, let your beast be stabled, and we shall walk the streets a while."

Svarezi flicked a glance at the crowded streets, the rooftops and the shadows, then judged himself to be under little threat of assassination. Ilego, he dismissed as a lighter, less armored man with a blade fit only for tick-ling boys. With a side glance at his host, the Colletran bowed slightly forward in acknowledgment.

"Shaatra. Follow."

The black hippogriff answered with an evil-tempered hiss, gave up her attempts to snatch a piece out of pass-ing pedestrians, and favored her master with a series of beak clicks and caws. The man answered in kind, the hip-pogriff regarded Ilego through seething ice-blue eyes, and then Svarezi took his place at Ilego's side. Followed by a lean and hungry monster, the two nobles moved down a street filled by puppet plays, sausage stalls and dust.

Gilberto Ilego-tall, smooth and suave-tried his level best to begin a conversation.

"Your beast, sir-the hippogriff. I cannot help but notice that it speaks."

"She does." Svarezi's armor clanked stiffly as he walked; no further explanation seemed forthcoming. "I have business in Colletro. I have no time for foolish festi-vals. Why was I invited here?"

"Why?" Ilego led the way into a long, deserted alleyway beside a quiet graveyard. "I suppose because your pres-ence would be a diplomatic nicety. You were, after all, at the famous 'defeat'." Ilego twisted the words home like a nicely sugared knife. "I'm sure the surrender of the Sun Gem will be made all the sweeter by your cowed and con-quered presence."

Svarezi growled, turning on Ilego like a rat baring its fangs. Ilego raised a questioning brow as though caught in innocent surprise.

"What? Were you not part of the defeat, brother? You do, of course, agree that it was a defeat?"

"It was a parlor game! Nothing more!" The Colletran shifted his weight as if preparing for battle-echoed by the venomous hiss of his hippogriff. "Not a soldier was man enough to risk meeting us blade-to-blade."

"Ah." Ilego paused, elegant and sly as he laid another sally neatly at his companion's feet. "Until now, perhaps? Surely you and I could be said to be meeting blade-to-blade." The Sumbrian nobleman came to a bare knoll overlooking the city cemetery. "Ah-and here we are at last! Do please keep your beast sitting nicely at the verge."

The open knoll formed an island in a sea of drab two-story houses, a place surrounded by walls of black and empty windowsills. The cobbled streets emptied out into the dirt like gaping mouths, spilling tongues of dust that glimmered pale against the grass.

It was a place of thistledown and rattling weeds, of hard-packed soil and serpent coils of shadow. A ring of torches lit the hillside with an ebb and flow of light, while silent watchers rimmed the clearing with sharp, unwink-ing eyes.

Two young men fenced at the center of the knoll, rapi-er and dagger against rapier and buckler. Blade Captain Ilego handed off his outer jacket, keeping a critical eye on the combatants as they strove blade against blade.

"What, colleague, is your opinion of the swordplay?"

"Swords should not be things for play." Ugo Svarezi watched the thin rapiers lunge and sweep with undis-guised contempt. "Toy swords for toy soldiers."

"Lethal toys-although it hardly ever comes to death. One or the other usually capitulates before the final cur-tain can be drawn." Ilego draped his jacket casually across a broken tree. "Still, I find honor to be such a deli-cious tool, don't you?"

The fencers seemed to notice the two Blade Captains simultaneously. As one they went stock-still, staring rigidly at the Sumbrian nobleman, then parted and reluc-tantly opened out the space between them.

In the center of a field of grass, a young man waited-a lean, brooding figure clad in scarlet velvets that swirled like flowing blood. He put out his right hand to receive a long silver blade, then his left, taking a metal buckler the size of a dinner plate.

Gilberto Ilego virtually ignored the man. He drew two weapons from his belt: the first a wicked rapier with a long, whip-thin blade, and the second a short, thick swordbreaker notched all down its leading edge like a lethal comb. He passed them to a gray-bearded dignitary, who inspected the steel in the light, sniffing like a blood-hound at the blade. Satisfied, he passed back the weapons; Ilego saw that the old man's breath had cloud-ed up the flawless steel and frowned, polishing the rapi-er against his shirttails until it shone.

Ilego strode out toward his opponent, never even deigning to go on guard. He made a swat at the other man's sword, walked casually around his enemy and let his face droop in a sneer.

The aged umpire had never bothered to signal for the combat to begin. He watched with arms folded and black eyes glittering like beads as the two nobles circled one another with crossed blades.

The young man swept his blade at Ilego's calf and swirled forward hoping to punch his buckler into his enemy's face. Ilego, standing crouched and square with his blades held tight, simply shook his weapons and brought his opponent to a halt. Spitting with contempt, he straightened up and once again began his casual circling, letting his sword droop almost to the ground.

His enemy lunged. Ilego paid no attention to the blade; he whipped his sword across his opponent's forearm, rais-ing the barest cut across the flesh. The blow minutely deflected his opponent's blade, causing the rapier to flick-er past Ilego's ear. The young man leapt wildly back, fear-ing a brutal stab from Ilego's swordbreaker. Yet for his part, the Blade Captain scarcely seemed interested at all.

Gritting his teeth, the youth flickered into the attack. Finally he engaged Ilego's attention. The young man hammered at Ilego's sword with his tiny buckler, jabbed, lunged, and jerked his sword back from Ilego's reach. A second stab was met by a sharp flick of the swordbreaker; the comblike blade rasped against the rapier, nearly trapping it between the tines. Parrying wildly with his shield, the youth forced Ilego's rapier aside, staggered back from a slash of the swordbreaker, blocked a lunge at his bowels and stumbled free.

Ilego pursued him, and the young man could only meet attack after attack. The blades stabbed home time and time again, clashing against one another in a splash of sparks. Hissing evilly, Ilego rammed his opponent far aside, sending the dazed youth staggering back across the grass.

Fighting for breath and whipping sweat back from his eyes, Ilego's opponent drove himself lurching back into the fight. He stabbed low, skipped forward, stabbed and lunged again. With a cry of hate he stamped his foot, then tried to disengage and lunge, his blade moving clumsily aside. Ilego let the young man run clean onto his outstretched blade, ramming it unerringly through his oppo-nent's heart. He whipped free his steel and turned aside to wipe his blade clean on a silken handkerchief, not even deigning to watch the body fall.

Seconds ran forward to the young man's corpse. Ilego walked casually away across the dead, dry grass, made a sardonic salute of his swordbreaker toward the old man in the shadows, and strolled to rejoin his guest. The Sumbrian sheathed his sword without a trace of triumph or satisfaction.

"The Riturba family is such a bore. I foreclose on their loan, and what do they do but cry me up as a cheat?"

The nobleman favored Svarezi with a smile.

"I do find honor to be a fascinating thing. If I had killed him with a dagger in the back, I should surely have hung. Instead, I run him through before two dozen witnesses, and am reckoned to be a gentleman."

Ilego adjusted the set of one glove. "With luck, his brothers will raise chal-lenge, and I can clean out the whole gutless brood within the week."

Ugo Svarezi laid a hand upon his hippogriff's feathery mane.

"Unless they stumble on to your treachery, Sumbrian."

"Stumble on it? Quite unlikely." Ilego gave a smile. "The poison, of course, was merely a soporific, something to slow his reactions and allow a killing blow. I do find it quite untraceable." The noble retrieved his jacket from its tree limb, still not even bothering to spare his dead oppo-nent a glance. "Naturally enough, the venom was impreg-nated into the tails of my shirt."

There followed a pause-a time where both men gazed at each other in the shadows of the killing ground. A cool night wind came to stir Gilberto Ilego's hair.

"You have desires, colleague. Desires thwarted and choked by rules." Framed against the graveyard, Ilego fixed Svarezi with a snake's black, calculating eye. "I can show you how to fashion the rules into your tool, col-league. Our tool."

Ilego drew forth a parchment-the torn lower half of the same letter Svarezi carried against his heart.

The torn pieces were a perfect match.

"You have asked, colleague, why you are here. The answer is simple. I have asked you to come in the inter-est of our mutual advancement. It is high time that we men of potential moved our sights beyond the bounds of a single city's walls."

In the darkness beside them, the black hippogriff gave a sharp hiss of desire. Behind her, the moon rose across the killing grounds and stained the dry grass with lifeless gray.