Easy Betrayals (10 page)

Kern glanced at Trandon, then nodded. “Yes,” he answered. “We thought we’d come after you as quickly as we could to help you track down Eidola.”

“I should’ve known we’d end up here again,” Trandon remarked.

“Where did you find them, Jacob?” Miltiades asked.

“Yes, where did you find them?” Belgin added. “And what drew you away from the fight with the skull guardians? Those things almost killed us.”

Jacob trotted closer. “What’s the plan, Miltiades? Is this Marks?”

He pointed past Miltiades at the small man bound in the lasso. The paladin turned at his gesture, looking over his shoulder at the prisoner who stood behind him. Jacob’s grin faded and his eyes went dark as cold coals. In the space of a single step his great sword appeared in his hand, almost as if it were a part of him.

Betrayal, Belgin realized. “Look out!” he howled.

As Miltiades wheeled to confront the threat, Jacob struck. Betrayed and deceived, somehow the paladin almost deflected the attack from his flank, flinging out his hammer in a desperate parry. Jacob’s blow smashed the warhammer from Miltiades’s hands and hacked through his shining breastplate. Miltiades grunted and fell spinning to the ground, blood streaming from the horrible rent over his left shoulder. “Jacob!” he cried.

Without thought Belgin leaped to help the stricken paladin, but Kern was too close to him. With the speed of striking snake the smiling red-haired youth reached out with a hand that became a swordlike blade of bone.

“Now, now,” he said, hissing in mockery.

Somehow Belgin twisted out of the stroke, taking a long, jagged cut across his scalp but keeping his head on his shoulders. White spots starred his vision. He stumbled and fell backwards to the rotten boardwalk, blinking. Doppelgangers. Of course.

Aleena began to work some kind of spell, but the Trandon-duplicate turned on her. With one brutal stroke he clubbed the graceful noblewoman to the ground with a forearm that had grown into a spiked mace. Aleena’s half-formed spell burst in a shower of fiery sparks, hissing and sizzling in the dark mire of the street.

Marks howled as an ember struck him, then hopped away, hobbled by the lasso around his torso. Belgin caught the end of the rope and yanked Marks off his feet as he rolled away from Kern’s attack. “Stick around,” he muttered. The Kern-thing smashed its murderous blade down at the bard, but Belgin scrambled back and somehow found his feet.

In the street, Miltiades rose to his knees, groping for his warhammer. “When did you take Jacob?” he rasped. “When?”

“I haven’t been Jacob in a long time, human fool,” the blond-haired fighter replied. He raised his sword for the killing stroke. Miltiades, wounded and unarmed, raised his hand to ward off the blow.

From the darkness behind Jacob a gleam of silver drifted through the air, tumbling slowly before it crashed into the fighter with the shrill ring of metal meeting metal. What now? Belgin wasted a precious moment gaping at the scene in front of him before a flurry of violent slashes and stabs from the Kern-doppelganger sent him scrabbling and squirming backwards, narrowly avoiding an ugly death. “Bastard!” he swore angrily. He finally found the rapier at his belt and drew the blade in time to drive the false Kern back a step or two.

Behind the Kern-doppelganger, Jacob reeled drunkenly and stumbled away from Miltiades. A dwarven fighting axe lodged in the side of the fighter’s head. Amazingly, the creature reached up and wrenched the gory blade from his skull. Then a small, stocky shape barreled into his legs, taking him down.

“Stab me when I’m not looking, will you?” shouted Rings. “Leave me to die in a stinking desert, eh? By Moradin’s beard, I’ll teach you better, you traitorous wretch!” The dwarf found his axe with one hand and set to work, slamming the heavy blade into Jacob over and over again.

Belgin danced back a step as the false Kern slid to one side, warily eyeing the new threat. The Trandon-doppelganger joined him, pressing Belgin with massive blows that split boards and splintered anything in their path.

“Come on! We can still get them!” he hissed to his comrade in arms.

“Not if I cheat,” Belgin said. He raised one hand and spoke an old spell, one of the few he knew that was any good in a fight. From his hand, a green arrowhead of energy streaked out to strike the Trandon-doppelganger in its chest. The bolt of energy slagged at once into a vitriolic patch that seethed and bubbled, eating its way into the creature’s body. Shrieking with inhuman pain, the Trandon-thing staggered back and fell, its heels drumming against the rotten planking.

The Kern-duplicate snarled in anger and struck back, cutting a shallow gash across Belgin’s left arm and another under his ribs. The sharper riposted, running the doppelganger through its midsection with his rapier. The creature hissed and recoiled, then pressed forward again. “Fine,” muttered Belgin. He danced back two steps, steadied his hand, then rammed the point of his rapier into the monster’s left eye. The doppelganger collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Belgin panted and watched his fallen foes for signs of consciousness, his wounds stinging abominably.

No one around him was moving.

Aleena lay dazed on the ground, an ugly purple mark on her forehead. Slowly, Miltiades hauled himself to his feet. With his teeth clenched, he spoke a prayer to Tyr, and the blood coursing from his broken armor slowed to a trickle. Rings stood up as well, his axe dripping with gore. Belgin winced and sheathed his rapier.

“Good timing, Rings,” the sharper said. “What happened to you? Jacob said you were dead.”

The dwarf bared his teeth in a fearsome grin. “Oh, he sure thought I was. We found the portal you marked for us in the desert temple, and then that orc-kissing bastard ran me through without a word. He thought he’d killed me, alright.”

“You don’t look poorly for a mortally wounded dwarf,” Miltiades said with a grimace of pain.

Rings smiled and tugged at a silver band that pierced his eyebrow. “I got better, as they say. Years ago I found this enchanted ring in a mage’s tower. It takes time, but the dweomer repairs any injury that doesn’t kill me instantly. I never needed it as badly as I did a few hours ago, that’s for certain.” He looked down at the creature that had imitated Jacob, sprawled beneath him in a spreading pool of blood. He snorted and kicked the motionless form, hard. “Guess you found out about him.”

Aleena moaned and stirred. Miltiades limped over to the mage and pressed one hand to her forehead, speaking a prayer. The ugly wound faded, leaving a faint mark. The woman’s eyes fluttered open, a little glassy at first. “Doppelgangers,” she groaned. “Watch out—”

“We dealt with them,” Miltiades said. He helped Aleena to her feet. The mage swayed but quickly found her balance, and her eyes seemed to clear and focus. “You’re lucky to be alive. Another inch or two, and the creature would have stove in your skull.”

Aleena took in the site with one sweep of her eyes and returned her attention to Rings. “Who’s he?”

“A friend whom Jacob didn’t kill as thoroughly as he should have,” Belgin said. He frowned, thinking. “You know, Miltiades, Jacob must have been a doppelganger all along. He turned on Rings before we returned to Skullport, so he must have been replaced before we set off in pursuit of Eidola.”

The paladin crouched by the imposter’s body. In death, he still resembled the blond-haired fighter he’d pretended to be; only the great blade of bone that grew from his forearm, a clever mimicry of a sword, marked him as a shapeshifter. “They must have overcome him the first time we were here,” he said quietly. “I never suspected. How did he hide his evil from me? That should be impossible.”

“Greater doppelgangers can do that,” Aleena said quietly. “We had plenty of time to study Eidola. When she wore the Eidola’s shape, she was Eidola Boraskyr. In her mind, in her thoughts, she was a perfect mimicry. If the doppelganger that replaced Jacob was one of her kind, he could defeat virtually any test that might reveal his true nature.”

“He’d have killed me for certain if Rings had not intervened,” Miltiades sighed. He looked up and clapped one hand to the dwarf’s shoulder. “My thanks, Rings. I owe you my life.”

The dwarven pirate scowled. “Don’t thank me, paladin. After what he did to me, I’d have killed him if he was sipping tea with a table full of old maids.” He cleaned his axe on Jacob’s cloak and thrust it through the loop on his belt. “Say, who’s that little rodent?”

Belgin followed his glance, only to find Marks quietly edging into a nearby alleyway. He bounded forward and caught the trailing end of the lasso with one hand. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said with a cold smile. “We’ve got places to go, Marks, and you’re the fellow who’s going to take us there.”

I’m going to need a scorecard soon to keep track of the roster changes, Belgin thought absently as they followed Marks through the streets of Skullport. First there were the seven of us, the Sharkers. Then Belmer, who was actually Entreri, killed Kurthe. Brindra perished, fighting the fiends. Anvil was struck down by the doppelganger masquerading as Jacob—even though we didn’t know that at the time. That pup Noph joined us, and we lost him beneath the mage-king’s palace. Rings and I followed Miltiades and Jacob after Eidola… then we lost Rings and Jacob in the city… then Jacob found us, and left us again, as we found Aleena… and now, finally, Jacob is dead and Rings is here again. He rubbed his eyes, realizing suddenly that he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept.

“I hope Eidola’s having the kind of day I am,” he snorted.

“If Tyr smiles on us, hers will turn out much worse,” Miltiades said. He attempted to smile, but it came out poorly. Haggard with exhaustion, still pained by the wound Jacob had given him, even Miltiades was near the end of his strength. The paladin grimaced and spoke to Marks. “Well, where is it? We must be on top of the Unseen by now.”

The small fence scowled angrily. “We’re here. You want that warehouse.” At Belgin’s doubtful expression, Marks sighed and went on. “We don’t have a headquarters or a fortress, you idiots. We don’t need much more than a few safehouses and meeting places. You’ll want the side door; the front door leads to nothing but an empty storage room.”

“Is Eidola there?” Rings asked.

“There’s a good chance of it,” Marks said. “It’s about the best place for her to go to get out of sight and rest for a time.”

The four interlopers withdrew to the shadows of a dismal alley across the street from the ramshackle structure Marks had indicated. It seemed innocuous enough, one more disused old building in a town full of them. Miltiades frowned, thinking. “Anything else we should expect?”

“There’s a second structure inside the first. In the space between the buildings there are two leucrotta, unchained to roam the building. They’ll attack any who don’t respond with the correct password. The inner door is marked by a very dangerous glyph, and the room beyond is guarded, usually by four or five doppelgangers in human guise.” Marks winced and muttered, trying to resist the rope’s compulsion, but he continued despite his efforts. “If there’s anyone important here, expect more guards.”

“Tell us the password and the name of the glyph,” Aleena said.

” ‘Derzhim haalva,’” Marks replied. “The glyph is cirr.”

The sorceress nodded.”I have no further use for this one, Miltiades.”

Without ceremony, the paladin sapped the villain with a short-hafted swing of his warhammer. Marks groaned and sank to the ground. Belgin released the magical lasso from the small man and coiled it at his belt. “What happens if Eidola isn’t here?” he asked quietly.

“We’ll keep looking,” Miltiades answered. “Come on.” The paladin led them across the street and into the opposite alleyway, pausing at the door Marks had indicated. He glanced back once to make sure everyone was ready and then pulled the door open and stepped inside.

The interior of the warehouse was nearly pitch-black, littered with casks and crates stacked at odd angles. A rank, rotten smell permeated the building. Aleena quietly produced a slender wand from her sleeve and spoke a word that woke it to soft incandescence. The place was a mazelike tangle of bales and boxes, stacked to create a winding labyrinth. “The room we seek must be hidden deeper inside,” she observed.

“Agreed,” said Miltiades. He led the way into the rickety mass, threading between leaning stacks of barrels and kegs. Somewhere off in the darkness, beyond their soft globe of light, something large snorted and moved. “The leucrotta,” whispered the paladin.

From the darkness, a high, piping voice whispered, “What do we see, eh?”

“Humans. Delicious, delectable humans,” answered a second piping voice from the other side of the chamber. “Oh, how fortunate we are today!”

“Now, now, we must first see if we may devour them. They may be friends.”

“Perhaps. But who would know if we didn’t tell, eh? Eh?”

“We shall be punished if we are caught,” admonished the first voice. “No, we must ask to see if they know the password. Do you, delectable humans? Do you know the words?”

“Please, say that you don’t,” said the second voice.

“Derzhim haalva,” snapped Aleena. “Now, leave us be. We have business here.”

Silence greeted them. After a long moment, Belgin whispered, “Did they agree?”

“They’re not attacking us,” Aleena offered.

Keeping a wary eye on the clutter and darkness around them, they picked their way up to a door in the room’s far wall. There Aleena quietly disarmed the glyph Marks had warned them of. With one more nervous glance at the darkness behind them, she said, “We can enter any time you’re ready. Do we have any reason to think there may be friends within?”

“No, not that I know of,” Miltiades said.

“Good.” The mage raised her hand and spoke a soft word. An azure nimbus of light sprang into being around each of them, flickering and leaping.

“Aleena! This spell is intended to make someone easier to strike!” Belgin hissed in alarm. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The mage smiled grimly. “I know, bard. But if we’re going to fight doppelgangers, we’ll be able to tell at a glance who is with us and who isn’t. The doppelgangers can mimic our faces and features to their hearts’ content, but they won’t be able to mimic the aura I’ve just created with this spell. When we step through that door, you can strike at anyone who isn’t glowing.”