EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (340 page)

Dante squinted against the modest lantern-light of the hall. After a single day in the room it already felt strange to walk about relatively free—qualified only by Larrimore, the sheathed swords of the guards who followed him, the walls of the keep, the hundreds of soldiers within it, the walls around the keep, and, he supposed, his own need to stay here until Samarand lay dead at his feet. He stumbled and a guard put a hand on his back. He shrugged it away. His heart railed against his ribs. Samarand, face to face. He felt certain he could take her life if he sacrificed his own. Why had all this fallen on him?

They ascended to the entry hall and Larrimore strode straight back to the sets of doors at the far end of the room. A few soldiers and well-dressed men glanced their way. Into a hallway, through another couple doors, a tight spiral staircase. Dante stopped counting steps after a hundred.

Larrimore turned off on a landing a short distance from the top. Dante smiled at the heaving breathing of the others. He was winded, but not badly. All that running away had been good for something after all.

From there they entered a sort of fore hall, thick black rugs on the stone floor, weavings and paintings on the walls, elegant sculpture of the same make he’d seen on the temples within the city. They passed a window of purified glass and Dante stopped short. Below him lay the yard and the walls and the open street, and beyond that, across a yawning gap of empty space, the upthrust steeple of the Cathedral of Ivars soared into the sky. For all their height in the keep, a full two thirds of the church’s spire towered above them. Dante was beginning to understand just how big the world was, but surely Ivars was the tallest thing man had ever built. Behind it, the dead city stretched for miles through swaths of gray and white stone, riverlike streets, black fringes of pines growing frequent between the first and second walls and thickly enough to resemble a forest in the crumbling fringes of the outermost city. To his north he could see the gray waters of the bay, the tree-painted arms of land holding it in place, the silvery line of a river feeding it and coursing off to the southeast. It was earlyish morning, he saw, eight or nine o’clock. He’d spent closer to twenty hours locked up than twelve.

“Enough goggling,” Larrimore said. Dante pulled himself from the window and hurried to catch up. They drew up in front of a solid-looking set of doors and Larrimore rapped his knuckles against the wood.

A woman’s voice filtered through the door and with a distant thrill Dante realized he understood the foreign words: “Come in.”

The room was close, warmed and lit by a hearth at its far end. Samarand was seated in front of it, turned toward the door. She folded up the book on her lap and looked up. Her gaze caught on Dante a moment, then she smiled at Larrimore, who walked forward and bobbed his head. They exchanged a few words and Dante’s comprehension of Gaskan-by-way-of-Narashtovik evaporated. He shifted his feet as their talk wore on. Samarand laughed regularly, pressing her hand to the base of her throat. His eyes settled on the hollow there, the white, fragile skin. He imagined slitting it. Gathering the nether and caving in her face. If he made the room go black first, he could probably do the same to Larrimore and the armsmen before they could stop him. He was more dangerous than they gave him credit.

“Dante Galand,” Samarand said, standing and facing him. Her voice was soft but carried a current of command. Her words were Mallish, but accented with the thick consonants of Gask speech, an influence he hadn’t heard when she’d given her sermon. He met her eyes. “I’m sorry you spent so long in that cell. I was out.”

“My fault,” Larrimore agreed, smiling. She gave him a look and he gathered his men and bowed out through the door.

“It was at least a step more civil than all those times you tried to kill me,” Dante said, managing to keep his voice level.

“I’ve never seen you before today.”

“In the fields. Coming for the book. Did I pass your test?”

“Was I ever out in those fields with you?”

“Whose men were they, then?”

She shook her head, gaze steady. “This isn’t why I brought you here.” She nodded to a chair across from hers. He fell into it, leaning his head against its high back.

“I bet the others were grateful for the chance to prove themselves,” he said. She just smiled. He found it maddening.

“It’s easy to forget,” she said, “when Larrimore tells me of all the things you’ve done, you’re still a child.” He let that go. “The others were angry, too. They didn’t understand at first. But the same drive that brought them to the book gave them the vision for what they could become. Two of them are present members of our council.”

“Is that an offer?”

She laughed again, then touched her fingers to her lips. “You’ve made things difficult for me. I’d like you with us. We need talent now more than ever. But I need that book.”

Dante made himself sigh. “I told Larrimore. The book I gave Nak is the same one I found in that temple.”

“Indeed.” She leaned back in her chair. She could have been discussing the health of a distant relative. He readied himself to reach for the nether.

“I suppose you’ve already made up your mind.”

“Why would I have done that?” She frowned, showing the wrinkles around her mouth. “This isn’t a formality. I wanted to see you for myself.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is Blays safe?”

“Your friend is fine.”

“I want to see him.”

She lifted one gray-flecked brow. “If it turned out I’d killed him, what would you do about it? Try to kill me?”

“That would be suicide,” he said evenly.

“Here and now you and I are in this room,” she said with the same easy power with which she’d given her sermon. “It’s high and isolated. The doors are shut. I have one question: do you want the knowledge I can offer?”

His hands tightened on the chair’s arms. “Yes.”

Her blue eyes skipped between his. “Then give me the book.”

“Look at these,” he said, pointing his finger so close to his eyes he might poke them out, “and know I’m telling the truth when I say I’ve given you everything I have.”

She stared at him the way you’d stare at a scorpion while deciding whether to crush it or leave it be and he felt a flickering around his mind. He jerked his head, then made his mind go as blank as when he sought to channel the nether. Burn in hell, he thought, but he saw no recognition cross her face.

“You’re a snake,” she said, freezing his blood, “but I see no lie in your eyes.”

“Finally. Now maybe I can get back to my lessons.”

“Heavens forbid I infringe on your time. Is that how you aspire to spend it? With grammar and vocabulary?”

“I need to know those things,” Dante frowned. “You all speak more than one language.”

“Yes, we’re wise enough to know the world’s a large place. And good for us. But you didn’t travel all this way in hopes of learning your letters. I’m inclined to agree.”

Dante leaned forward, trying to keep his eyes guarded. “Meaning?”

“If these were ideal circumstances, we’d be in no hurry to rush things along,” she said, lifting the corners of her lips at what she saw in his face. “But they’re not and we do. You’ll continue your lessons with Nak, but we’ve got a lot of work and not enough hands to get it done. Larrimore will make use of you with some tasks more suitable to your skills than copying conjugation tables.”

“What kind of tasks?”

She gave an ironic tilt to her head. “Trust my great wisdom will see they’re matched to your ability and temperament. I’m not interested in wasting either of our time on tests.”

Dante nodded, considering her placid face. He’d have training both formal and experiential. In the employ of her most trusted servant. A chance to at once realize his talents and stay close enough to find the right moment to strike her down. He couldn’t have asked for more. He knew this was no fortunate turn of a die, though. He had made this thing happen. Through wit and will he’d put himself in position to receive this offer. He wouldn’t squander it.

“I accept.”

“Excellent,” she smiled, appearing genuinely pleased. Dante still hadn’t seen the violence and radicalism Cally’d claimed she’d ridden to power. For a brief moment, he wondered if the old man might have been wrong, if the Samarand he’d known years ago had let age temper her ambition with wisdom. People did change, he thought. He wasn’t the boy he’d been three months ago. He’d become potent in a way he’d imagined would take years, had done things he never would have dared on his own. If he could reforge his personality so much in three months, what could Samarand have done in twenty years? Perhaps when she’d gotten the wants of her heart, she’d mellowed, satisfied with her power and her place. “You won’t be seeing much of me, of course,” Samarand went on. “I’ve got a lot to do beyond holding the hands of all those administrators who keep writing me for money and troops.” She nodded at her desk, overflowing with signet-stamped letters. “Larrimore will tell you whatever we need done. Grow strong. We’ll need you soon enough.”

He nodded, dazed. She stood and he did too. He wondered if he was supposed to bow. He offered a kind of deep nod, and when the guards escorted him from her chambers, he knew it wasn’t to control his path, but to protect him.

“Why didn’t you do it then?” Blays asked when they had a moment alone. He had a bruise high on his cheek and a cut across his nose, but he looked to be in one piece.

“We’d have been killed,” Dante said simply. He rubbed his eyes and looked up from a pile of Nak’s notes. “We can’t do this like we’ve done all the rest. We need a plan. A real one.”

“Yeah,” Blays nodded, letting his heels bounce against the side of the desk he was sitting on. “Was she as nice in person as at her sermon?”

“There’s something about her. She’s seductive.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“Not like that,” Dante said, face going red. He shoved Blays.

“Wait, let’s not rule this out,” Blays said, righting himself on the desk. “We can use this. First, you flatter and sweet-talk your way into her confidence. Then, when the moment is right, you use that sharp tongue of yours to—“

“Shut up!” Dante shoved him again. How had they started talking about this? “I mean, she has a way with people. She’s a leader of men. If she’s like Cally said, then she hides it well.”

“Well, I see how little it takes to win you over,” Blays said, eyes lingering on Dante’s neck. Dante touched the cold clasp on his collar, the badge Larrimore had given him after his talk with Samarand: a silver ring around a simple, stylized, seven-branched tree.

“This is how I’m going to keep close to her.”

“Closer than a private audience?”

“This lets us choose the moment when,” Dante said. “That gives us the power.” He moved across the room to their one window. “They told me they’d assign you an instructor from the soldiers. You’ll be with me on our assignments.”

Blays tapped his finger on the desk, then leaned forward, elbows on knees.

“Just what are these errands, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Dante said. “Things they need done.”

They found out soon enough. Larrimore appeared the next afternoon to interrupt Nak’s lesson with a tersely-worded order about a man spotted in the ruins beyond the outer wall. He wanted Dante to bring him in.

“Why?”

“Because I’m telling you to.”

“A time-honored logic.”

“Because,” Larrimore said, tugging his collar forward, “he used to be one of our acolytes.”

“Not fond of those who leave the fold?” Dante said, judging he still had some play to his rope.

“Not fond of those who leave it with their pockets sagging with our property.” Larrimore tapped Dante’s badge. “Nor is it particularly pleasing when they make a point of lurking about and robbing our monks when they’re out on their business. Stealing from men of peace! What is this world come to?”

Dante nodded, mollified. “Should I know anything about him?”

“Dark hair. Queued. Bearded—in fact, a general mess, you’ll know he’s been on the streets a while. Name’s Ryant Briggs.”

“I meant of a less tangible nature.”

Larrimore laughed, met his eyes. “Scared?”

“No,” Dante said. He picked up his sword belt. “Well? What can he do?”

“Minor talents. Nothing you can’t handle.”

“Want him in one piece?”

“Would be nice,” Larrimore shrugged. “But denial of men’s desires is the gods’ way of saying hello.”

Dante nodded, buckling his sword around his waist. “He’ll be yours by nightfall.”

“I hope you’re cognizant of the irony here,” Blays said after Dante’d found him trading blows with one of the soldiers in the yard and explained their job.

“I’m cognizant. Remember why we’re here.”

“You’d do well to do the same.”

Dante shook his head. They crossed the yard to the small door at the other side of the Citadel’s walls, the only other exit from the place, a door far less ostentatious than the main gates but thick as his palm was wide and set in a passage too narrow to swing a sword. The sunlight flashed on the icon on his collar and the door’s guards let them by. They strode east into the city, toward the fringes. Citizens’ eyes lingered on Dante and the silver at his neck as he brushed by. He gazed straight ahead, a faint thrill of rank and recognition tickling his nerves.