Council of Blades (17 page)

Behind the brilliant public rooms there lay the "busi-ness end" of the palace: the stables, kitchens, barracks, and armories that allowed the palace to operate as both a household and a fortress. Here the carriages and rid-ing beasts filled the courts in patient rows as the sounds of merriment swirled past on the summer's air.

Walking through the palace gates there came a lean, strutting hippogriff bearing a silent rider. The hip-pogriff twitched the long equine ears atop its eagle's head, muttering irritably to itself as if resenting the ignominy of an entrance made on foot.

The creature's front limbs were equipped with talons, and its rear legs with hooves. Leaving mismatched prints across the dust, it walked the familiar path to the Mannicci stable stalls.

The Mannicci guards had been quintupled in number for the evening revels; two soldiers supervised each bay of stable stalls. Ugo Svarezi reined in his beast as he approached a sergeant; the man held aloft a short wand and scanned him for offensive magics before sheathing the instrument and allowing Svarezi to dismount.

"Sir? Are there any special instructions for the care of your beast?"

The Colletran passed the soldier his reins.

"No."

A blade shot out of the Blade Captain's sleeve; Svarezi stabbed the soldier in the throat, ripped open his windpipe, and rammed the dripping blade into his victim's heart. The guard fell, clawing at the ground as blood hissed up to splash stinking streams across Svarezi's boots.

Behind him, something heavy thudded to the ground; the hippogriff Shaatra had decapitated the other soldier with her beak, shearing through sinew, flesh and bone with the ease of a machine. The slim mare gave a fas-tidious hiss, sneezed in distaste and shook the blood free from her plumes.

She would have cleaned her feathers then and there if Svarezi hadn't curtly ordered her into the stable stalls. Spitting in spite, the hippogriff left bloody tracks as she strutted out of view. Svarezi rolled the corpses out of sight, unmoved by the simple act of murder. It was a task he had performed at least a dozen times before. In the Blade Kingdoms, assassination was a uniquely personal task. The city-states had been estab-lished by mercenary companies, and the spirit of free enterprise was, sadly, an established undercurrent of everyday life. A wise man trusted no one but himself; potentially, every servant could be bribed; every soldier might be a spy.

A murderer therefore acted best when he acted alone-unless his accomplice had an equal claim to guilt. Svarezi moved out of the darkest shadows of the stable doors, flashed moonlight from the mirror pommel of his knife, and waited while Gilberto Ilego strolled over from the palace colonnades.

Ilego held a large, leathery bat upon one arm. The creature perched and chivied like a prized hunting hawk, stropping at its master's leather gauntlets with its fangs. Without a word exchanged between them, Ilego and Svarezi walked toward the palace's farthest tower.

Within the tower, all the genius of Sumbrian security had been brought to bear. The Sun Gem was a prize of incalculable value; with a sneak-thief on the loose with-in the city walls, every precaution had been taken to assure the safety of the gigantic diamond.

Prince Mannicci maintained a dozen sorcerers in his personal retinue, specialists whose skills were attuned to the arts of war. The prince had nevertheless spared three of his best men to secure the priceless gem.

At the heart of the hollow tower, they sat; an enchanter scanning a crystal ball, a summoner sitting in the center of a thaumaturgic circle, and a battle mage who passed his time reading from a huge, dusty old tome that was substantially larger than the mage himself.

Outside the tower, hippogriff-mounted soldiers sat on the roof scanning the skies; trained umber hulks, hideous burrowing monsters, lay in wait inside tunnels under the floor. Thirty crossbowmen and halberdiers formed a ring of steel about a floor dusted with talcum powder, caltrops, and hidden mines.

The gem itself was held in the hands of a titanic golem made of porcelain, much like the lumpen, living statues made of clay found in other kingdoms, only painted white and bordered with patterns of blue flowers.

The security arrangements were painstakingly com-plete; all things considered, it seemed that Prince Mannicci was in one of his less trusting moods.

Four guards stood outside the tower door-guards augmented by a war priest armed with an array of bat-tle spells. Ilego led the way past the patrol, halting with insolent ease beneath the shadows of a jasmine vine and bidding Ugo Svarezi to huddle at his side.

An arrow slit afforded a view into the crowded tower room. Gilberto Ilego smoothed his mustache, then leaned close to whisper softly into his companion's ear.

"Cappa Mannicci was never renowned for his subtlety of wit." The Sumbrian nobleman cast an eye across the troops, sorcerers, and giant golem just below. "In a few minutes time, a display of something called fireworks, imported from Shou Lung, shall begin-celebrations that I have it on good faith will cause everyone to look sky-ward. The confusion should cover any number of alarms.

"Now, I have here a bag of powder-'dust of dark-ness'-into which I have inserted a small smoke powder charge. When it explodes, it will spread a pall of absolute darkness. The guards will be utterly blind and helpless." Ilego tickled his pet bat beneath the chin. "My little companion here can navigate through the dark more easily than a hawk can fly by day. He will snatch the stone, return it to us here, and you may mount your hippogriff and spirit the Sun Gem onward to the next stage of our mutual project."

Svarezi-squat as a troll, silent and stinking of fresh blood-evaluated the plan with a scowl, then gave a curt nod of agreement. Ilego acknowledged him with a bow, eased himself over to the tiny arrow slit, and adjusted the fuse of his little bomb.

They waited in the darkness for a long minute more, until, suddenly, a peal of trumpets rose from the city park nearby; it was the signal for a glorious new display. A single skyrocket-a sight no one in Sumbria had ever before seen-rose upon a tail of fire and burst above the city walls. No sooner had the last starlets sprinkled to the earth, when the entire skyline erupted into glorious new flames. A thousand rockets screamed and whistled up toward the moon, blasting open into clouds of sparkling fire. Crowds excitedly spilled out of the palace and crowded upper balconies. Grooms deserted the stables and soldiers wandered from their posts to stand in the wide palace forecourt and gape up at the spectacle in awe.

Lighting the fuse of his darkness bomb, Ilego had to shout to make himself heard above the stunning noise of the fire-works. "Fly low across the river once you have the gem-the rockets will pass overhead and cover your escape!"

The fuse sputtered, Ilego's bomb soared out into the middle of the guards, and the tower's ceiling suddenly burst open in a shower of plaster dust.

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

Gilberto Ilego stared in shock as a great silly bird plunged down from the fractured ceiling in a cascade of brilliant plumes. The bird happily alighted in the arms of the porcelain golem, fastened talons about the Sun Gem, then noisily beat its wings and began to rise aloft.

Thirty soldiers, three magicians, and an animated porcelain statue all blinked in shock. They raised weapons, ignited spells, and all disappeared in a puff of inky black-ness as Ilego's bomb silently exploded in their midst.

Tekoriikii gave an odd little look of surprise and then vanished into absolute, impenetrable darkness.

"No!"

As Ilego screamed, bedlam instantly erupted. In the pitch-black chamber, crossbows discharged in a wild storm of arrow fire, while a dozen men screamed war cries in the dark. A lightning bolt speared through the darkness and began to ricochet back and forth from the curving walls. Each flash froze a tableau of struggling men, frantic wings, and halberd blades.

Outside the tower, mere mortal senses were ham-mered numb by the fireworks display. Meanwhile, inside the guard room, light spells blinked on and off like fireflies at a dance party for epileptic insects. The blackness almost instantly swallowed each and every outburst; stabs and flickers illuminated a scene of absolute, outrageous chaos.

Hovering in the air above the embattled sorcerers, the giant thieving bird belabored Ilego's trained bat about the shoulders as the mammal tried to wrest the Sun Gem from its claws. Just below them, the three sor-cerers frantically beat at something with their staves; clearly spells of summoning should never be discharged in the dark. Soldiers wrestled soldiers, nursed arrow wounds, or fled, shrieking, through the windows, while the great golem strode blindly through the throng, bel-lowing in anger as a guard clung to its shoulders and tried to snatch the firebird's tail.

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

The bird knocked the bat aside, bowled over a flurry of crossbowmen, and sped through the doorway and out into the palace yard. Fireworks had half-blinded the archers on the walls. A crossbow bolt shot under the bird's long tail, ricocheted from the gigantic Sun Gem and hissed straight toward Ugo Svarezi and Ilego, mak-ing both men duck in alarm. With his fine velvet cap carried away on an arrow point, Ilego clawed his way up from the dust and bleated in alarm.

"Stop that bird!

"Stop that bird!"

No one heard the cry; upon every roof, every balcony, and every turret in the kingdom, the people waved and cheered the starbursts in the sky. The thieving bird wheeled a somersault of sheer delight and flapped its way toward the palace walls.

Behind Ilego, Ugo Svarezi simply turned and made a cold motion with his hand. A lean black shape whirred up from the stables and screamed a chilling challenge into the nighttime sky.

Miliana paused in the guest corridors and gazed at one of her father's house patrols: four soldiers in bril-liant particolored finery, and an apprentice mage in a ludicrous velvet toga. Miliana dismissed the men with an abstract wave of her hand; magicians irritated her, filling her with a stab of jealousy for the ease with which a man could study. The girl irritably stomped on her way, hardly deigning to spare the troops another glance.

A light shone from under Lorenzo's door. Miliana knocked on the lintel, frowning as a cherry-scented rat scuttled away behind a tapestry in the hall.

"Lorenzo? Lorenzo, I know you're in there-I can smell burning cherry-rat." Miliana's head gave a warn-ing jab of pain, and the girl wondered whether the morning's neutralize poison spell had perhaps been a little rushed. "Lorenzo-aren't you coming to the party? They'll be presenting your painting in ten minutes' time. Come on… there's a display of these smoke pow-der things you'll probably find fascinating out in the …"

The door wrenched open in a trice. Lorenzo stood there before an astonished Miliana; he was bright eyed, bushy tailed, and brimming with delight. Miliana smiled and laughed, letting him take her hand and lead her into a room filled with easels, paints, and hairy brushes by the score.

Now that he had Miliana in his lair, Lorenzo seemed to stumble. The young man flushed and struggled to overcome an embarrassed silence.

"Are you well? I mean, have you recovered?"

Miliana drew herself straight, covering mortal embar-rassment with a veneer of dignity.

"Um… Oh yes yes yes yes yes…" By pretending it had never happened, Miliana prevented herself from suffering over whatever maudlin drivel she had blabbed out to her companions. "I must thank you for taking such care to see me home, and for… for other things." Miliana lifted up her new pearl pendant and gazed down at it with fondness shining in her eyes. "So many other things."

"Oh, we had no trouble getting you back inside. Tekoriikii flew a line up to your room, and we hoisted you through the tower window." Lorenzo seemed moder-ately pleased with the engineering skill involved.

"So you are all right now then? You're sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Wonderful! Excellent!" Lorenzo clapped his hands with a loud, boisterous bang, making Miliana close her eyes and sway with the aftershock. "In which case, I have something to show you. It's something special. It's to do with what you said to me last night."

"Oh?" Miliana felt a worm of ill-ease slither stickily along her spine; she remembered vague impressions of crying her eyes out while slumped against Lorenzo's chest. "Um-there was no need to take any trouble."

"Trouble?" Lorenzo turned his clear, innocent, adoring eyes on Miliana, making her unconsciously reach up to touch the pearl hanging at her breast. "You are my friend; more than that, you are my colleague. I admire and respect you above all others. Nothing I do for you can possibly be any trouble."

He sat Miliana down in a chair and made her carefully fold her thin hands in her lap, just like a child at lessons. With an air of nervous excitement, he scuttled forward and dropped a pile of drawings on Miliana's knee.

"Now-now these are just the preliminary sketches for something which-well, which started as pure research, but ended as the profound inspiration for a work of pure and utter love." Lorenzo wheeled a great blanket-hung canvas over before Miliana. "It is my masterpiece-and I think you will be totally surprised by the insights that it shows.

The young artist whipped back his painting's cover and proudly watched Miliana's face for her reaction.

To his great puzzlement, the girl leaned forward, removed and polished her spectacles, then replaced them on her nose. She stared at the painting with an expression of growing shock, and turned a strange shade of ashen gray.

She turned and regarded Lorenzo through grave, golden eyes.

"Lorenzo Utrelli Da Lomatra-I believe you may need medical help."

Lorenzo whipped his head around the corner of the canvas to see the painting; instead of the expected mas-terpiece, the painting was a "guesswork" sketch of Lady Ulia Mannicci in a swimming costume. The artist jerked in shock and took a second look to assure himself of what he beheld.

"No! This isn't the one!" A painting was missing; Lorenzo checked the back of the canvas to see if the lost artwork was there. "It must be in the other room!"

Miliana calmly followed Lorenzo through the door into his studio. Two easels stood by the door, one empty, and one holding another shrouded canvas. Lorenzo slumped in sudden calm as he saw the full easel; he looked to Miliana in relief, and grabbed at a corner of the cover sheet.

"I'm sorry-it's this one here. Now, just stand there and behold! I call the work simply 'Beauty' "

The blanket flipped back, and Miliana wreathed her face in smiles.

"Why-it's stunning!" Miliana was honestly in awe. "Lorenzo, you're a genius!"

Lorenzo beamed, basking in Miliana's good opinion. He puffed up his chest in pride as the girl strode forward to take his hand. She leaned closer to the canvas to study the careful layers of brush strokes, paint, and glaze.

"It's magical!"

"It is not-it is merely… inspiration." Lorenzo bowed with reverence to his cherished colleague. "You said last night that if you had one wish, it would be to be beauti-ful. Perhaps this small token will show you how I feel. It is, of course, yours-a gift I hope that you will cherish."

Miliana regarded the canvas at arm's length with rapture shining in her eyes.

"Oh, Lorenzo, don't be silly! It has to go on display in ten minutes' time. This is something for the whole world to see."

"Really?" The artist pulled at the collar of his tunic as though it had suddenly grown too tight. "Well that is v-very courageous of you."

"Courageous? It is a celebration of art, of form! It is a thing of the spirit-not merely a painting of the flesh!"

"Exactly!" Thrilled, Lorenzo stepped forward to worshipfully take Miliana's hands. "Yes, that's it exactly!

Oh… oh, Miliana, you understand!"

"Well of course I understand." Miliana Mannicci laid an adoring arm about Lorenzo's waist and gave the man a squeeze. She stood with him to regard a beautiful painting of a sea goddess rising, singing, from the waves, riding the great sea dragon of the deeps. "I never knew just how-how sensitive you were. This panting is utterly wonderful!"

The artist goggled at his painting in shock, and all the color drained from his face.

"This isn't the one…"

"What?"

"This isn't what I was trying to show you…" Lorenzo flung himself wildly about the room, peering behind set-tees, ripping open cupboards and setting a small green furry creature to flight. "Where is it?

Where in the Abyss has it gone?"

"Calm down." Miliana made an easy gesture with one hand, playing the role of the quiet scholar as Lorenzo whirled past in a frenzy of despair. "Tell me what it looks like, and I'll find it for you."

"Well, the working sketches are in there!" Clambering atop a wardrobe, Lorenzo burrowed like a crazed mole through a vast wrack of scorched plaster, old papers, and half-eaten pickled eels. "I put them in your lap in the other room. Those were the drawings for the painting!"

Utterly serene at the eye of the storm, Miliana lifted up her hems and cruised gently on into the other room. Through the open windows, she saw the fireworks demonstration light the sky with stunning starbursts, streaks and blasts. She breathed a sigh of appreciation, frowned at the deafening storm of noise, then spied Lorenzo's drawings lying abandoned on a chair.

Miliana retrieved the pile of drawings, spread the top ones out across a tabletop, then looked down upon them with a ladylike little smile.

She thoughtfully adjusted her spectacles and with an expression of vapid good humor on her face, she turned toward Lorenzo.

Firework flashes lit the room as Lorenzo lunged through the door.

"Did you find the drawings?"

Miliana made a gracious, inquiring little motion over the pile of sketches.

"Lorenzo? I'm… naked."

"Oh, good!" The artist came forward to the table with a relieved little sigh. "Yes, those are the ones…"

"Lorenzo? I'm naked!"

The girl's voice broke in outrage as realization finally struck home. Snatching up a fistful of sketches, she flipped through them in a daze.

"You drew me naked! I don't believe it-you drew me naked!" Every detail had been recorded-every muscle group, every soft, sweet curve-every gossamer float of hair. "You drew me naked!"

Appalled at her reaction, Lorenzo timidly crept for-ward, wringing at his hands.

"B-but I told you I was using you to help me study. You're the one who inspired me into researching anato-my!"

"I didn't mean my anatomy!" The girl held up anoth-er sketch, turned it upside down and blanched quite pale. "Oh, my gods!"

"But it's a celebration!" Lorenzo waved a hand across his drawings in pride. "You thrill me-you fascinate me! You've shown me a type of beauty I've never known before. I just wanted to show the Miliana that no one else has ever seen."

"My mother's bloody midwife never saw me like this!"

The artist began a tactical retreat.

"Uh-you see, I invented a thing called a peri-"

Miliana lashed out at a tower of glass tubes and wild-ly crashed them to the floor. The chemicals instantly ate through the carpet, the floorboards, and into the wine cellar below. "I trusted you! I even… I even- ooooh!" The girl tore her hair in rage at her own weakness and stupidity. "You lecherous, spying little-"

"Now, now, Miliana…" Lorenzo pathetically held up his hands like a thief trying to hold a dragon at bay. "Look, it's all in the name of science-of art! Comparative anatomy-your mother and yourself! I just got more and more interested in you."

The girl answered with an incoherent scream. She ripped off her hat, pulled out a strip of notes, and began frantically memorizing the symbols written on the page.

Lorenzo cautiously retreated behind a padded couch.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to fry you like an egg, you little lump of sputum!"

Sparks raged about Miliana's hand; she whipped back her arm, shrieked in sheer, vengeful release, and flung a lethal dart of magic fire at Lorenzo's eyes.

The artist screamed like a frightened mouse and wildly dove away. The dart punched a hole clean through the furniture, sending burnt feathers blasting up into the air. Cursing like a wildcat, Miliana burst into the adjoining room in hot pursuit of her prey; a pointy-hatted psychopath, she stormed through the shadows and squealed in rage.

"Come out and die like a man, you little ball of pus!"

Something tried to race for the door; Miliana gave a predatory howl, pumping energy into a dart which stabbed like a lightning bolt clean across the room. A chair erupted, stone blew apart-and somehow a black-ened but unharmed Lorenzo sped free and dove beneath a table.

"Miliana! Miliana, we can talk!"

"Go choke on your own bile!"

"Miliana? Miliana, now let's be reasonable!" Lorenzo saw the room light up with another sizzle of sparks and tried to cram himself backward into a flower pot. "N-now I realize, in retrospect, that I may be guilty of having slightly overstepped a hidden social line…"

"You sniveling little wretch! I'll get you for this if it's the last thing I do!" Miliana kicked over a table, pow-ered by a seething, blinding rage; Lorenzo had scuttled off beneath a maze of furniture. "I'm going to make you eat bricks of your own sun-dried urine!"

"Miliana! Miliana, we're supposed to be getting betrothed!" Lorenzo helplessly tried to placate a mon-ster. "I mean-you are the princess? So that means our parents want us to wed! You wouldn't hurt someone your parents want you to marry, would you?"

Distant lab equipment shook with fright; Miliana gave a roar of triumph and hurtled the workbench aside to reveal Lorenzo scuttling like a rat across the floor. The girl shot her firebolt and watched it streak straight at her victim's rear.

Sweat had fogged up her lenses; the firebolt missed Lorenzo, passed through a jug of cherry-flavored fluid, and instantly triggered a titanic blast of power. The chemicals exploded, blowing one whole wall out of the apartments. Blinking with amazement, Miliana and Lorenzo found themselves sailing through the sky and out into the courtyard.

They landed in the fodder pile; artist, sorceress, rub-ble, rats and all. Terra-cotta roof tiles slid down from the walls with a crash like a thousand breaking dinner plates. Miles of paper chains and bunting then cascaded down across the pile, festooning scorched ruins with lit-tle lights and candy swords.

Skyrockets burst and Catherine wheels blurred; over-head, Tekoriikii squealed as a great black hippogriff slammed into him from below. Miliana rose up out of an astounding pile of rubble, dust and ash, dimly reaching out to take her crumpled pointy hat. The dazed girl blinked about herself trying to remember what was wrong.

There was something she had to do…