Grudgebearer (26 page)

Yavi followed his arm and saw Port Ammond on the horizon. Even from this distance, three white towers could be seen rising far above the other rooftops: The Citadel of Oaths, the Tower of Elementals, and the Grand Library.

“The buildings in front of the central tower,” said Yavi, “are those the museums?”

Dolvek blinked. He couldn't make them out from here.

As if she had read his mind, Yavi laughed and pointed to her left eye. “We have better eyesight than you. I would've have thought you'd know all about us. Don't you have a big section of the Museum of Natural History devoted to us?”

“We do,” Dolvek answered. “But I . . .”

“I want to see that first.” Her green eyes sparkled at him from above her
samir.

“We have a reception planned,” he started again.

Yavi put her hand against his gauntlet, palm up, knuckles resting against the crystal. “And I'm sure it's a really, really nice reception, probably hours and hours long and I'd be introduced to all the most important Eldrennai, the Master of the Tower of Elementals, and the king, and you'd probably give me something really sweet and magical and probably dead and I'd be oh so grateful, but I'd just have to bury it later, so let's not.”

But the plans for this reception began when the last Conjunction ended successfully one hundred years ago.
That had been what Dolvek intended to say. Instead, all of his attention was focused on her hand. If only he'd worn formal robes instead of his armor! Then her hand would be touching his. Then again, since the Vaelsilyn avoided restraining gestures, she might not have touched his bare hand for fear that he might grab her. Even now, her fingers were near the wrist of his gauntlet; it would be difficult to turn the touch into a grasp. That was exactly what he wanted to do, to hold her close, to enfold her in his arms.

“I think we're going to need a new representative from the Oathbreakers. One capable of speech.” Yavi's dry tone snapped him back to reality.

“No!” Dolvek protested quickly. “Ah . . . I mean, that won't be necessary. I was just thinking on how best to explain this to the head of the reception committee. Do you think you could withstand an hour?”

“Maybe,” Yavi conceded hesitantly. “Why?”

“I could tell them that you are weary from your travels, but that you do not wish to ruin the occasion. You have agreed to stay for the music and the presentation but are too tired to endure all the introductions.”

“I'm still tracking you,” said Yavi.

Dolvek hoped that was a good thing and continued. “Then I could sneak you into the museum after hours and you could see the Vaelsilyn exhibit.”

“And the Aern exhibit,” Yavi added.

How could she know about that?
Still, the Eldrennai prince did not argue. Arguing would, he feared, add more demands, and he doubted he could deny this enchanting creature any request she might deign to make of him.

CHAPTER 24

DEATH IN THE MUSEUM

Prince Dolvek glanced nervously from side to side as he waved four of his most trusted lieutenants forward. Yavi, still clad in the comfortable midriff-baring beaded doeskin top and matching trousers she'd worn to the Oathbreakers' reception, padded barefoot in their midst looking bemused at all the drama.

“He is the prince, right?” she whispered to the guard nearest her. “Is he afraid the king is going to jump out and surprise him?”

The guard, stiffly attired in his dress silks and crystal breastplate, did not answer but moved formally toward the pillared entrance to the Royal Museum of Natural History. Yavi stopped to examine the image of a battling irkanth and giant sea hawk worked in marble which sat in the middle of a pool of water, which, during the day, she imagined would be an impressive fountain.

Dolvek waved frantically for her move on. He did, if Yavi were tracking true with herself and discounting all the arm waving, look at least moderately handsome in his silk dress robes. The front was embroidered with the royal seal repeated and intertwined in a rectangular pattern: three castles in silver thread on blue. She wasn't sure how useful the ceremonial sword he wore at his waist was, though. The ornate hilt, in the shape of a flaming pillar, seemed like it would be painful and awkward to hold for more than the briefest of combats.

“Please, Princess,” he whined.

“Coming.”

*

Two of the guards stepped to either side of the exhibit entrance, eyes toward the main door of the museum as if they expected an invasion of rampaging history fanatics. Dolvek gave what Yavi imagined he thought was a subtle hand sign for the other two guards to follow along but hang back, and proceeded to show Yavi through the museum.

Please, Xalistan
, Yavi prayed,
don't let him try anything stupid enough to make me maim him.
Doing her best to remain pleasantly curious, awed, and attentive, Yavi let her attention be drawn to the architecture. Since Dolvek seemed at a loss for words, she felt obliged to keep up the conversation.

“Wasn't this part of the old military complex?” Yavi prompted with a smile. “The Aern Armory, maybe?” It certainly had been, in all of her dreams about the place. How could she explain to the prince that she'd already explored this museum in her dreams a thousand times or more?
Best keep it to yourself, Yavi.

“No.” Dolvek smiled at the Vael. “While the Armory housed all the armor and the weapons, this museum was originally part of the barracks. It had to be thoroughly redecorated.” He gestured to a series of lifeless tapestries and paintings all focusing on the greatness of the Eldrennai and their Royal Family through the years. She found the portrait of Uled to be in particularly poor taste. “May I show you the Vaelsilyn exhibit?” he offered.

“Why would I want to see that? I am a Vael.”
Was that too harsh? Gah!
“What can you tell me about myself that I don't already know?”
That's better.
“Any of our books and artifacts you have will just be depressing because you will have let them die, right?”
Too much. Now his brain is going to fall out.

“But you said,” Dolvek began.

“What I meant to say was,” she batted her eye petals and looked directly into his brown and white eyes. “May I please see the Aern exhibit first? I'm a little worried having never seen an Aern before, and I,” she leaned in closer, “I thought maybe this way . . .”
I could find out if the armor with the irkanth's head will really talk to me.

“This way,” Dolvek acquiesced immediately. He offered her his arm, and she shook her head, taking a quick step away from him.

“I'm fine. Why don't you just lead the way? You can tell me about the Vael exhibit while we walk.”

Dolvek almost cheerfully did so.

*

Yavi seemed to take everything in with a mixture of excitement and sadness. Perhaps she regretted her decision not to see the Vaelsilyn exhibit? The prince resolved to give her another opportunity after she saw the Aern exhibit. Females did so often change their minds.

“The exhibit isn't open to the public,” Dolvek said as they reached two iron-bound doors. “The new curator and I designed and implemented it as a surprise for my father on his most recent centennial.” He waved his lieutenants up to open the doors. “I suppose he must have liked it, because he decided to keep it sealed. Only the nobility can get in.”

Watching Yavi for every nuance of reaction, the prince felt his pulse quicken as the door opened to reveal the jewel of his collection: a seven-foot-tall stone homunculus, perfect in every detail. It had never been animated. Dolvek assumed this was because Uled had decided he wanted the Aern to be shorter.

Yavi froze, expressionless, eyes wide.

She loves it!
he inwardly crowed. “I came across a brief reference to it during my first year of studies, back when I thought the tedium of the Artificer's path to be a worthwhile pursuit.”

He swept past her. “I spent twenty years tracking it down.” She still wasn't moving. “In the end,” Dolvek turned back toward her.
Is she okay?
“I found it in an old storeroom of alchemical supplies, perfectly preserved.”

Yavi screamed. Babbling in Vaelish, she gestured wildly at the homunculus, but the torrent of words came out too fast, too furiously, for Dolvek to make all of them out. “Trap?” He tried to translate. “Release . . . er . . . spirit something?”

Yavi turned on him, continuing her stream of desperate Vaelish. Dolvek saw the mistake even as his guards made it. The Vael reached for the front of his robes, Dolvek assumed to further convey her urgency. Almost in slow motion, he saw Yavi's hand moving toward his chest. One of Dolvek's guards grasped Yavi's arm, his fingers closing completely around her exquisite wrist, and then everything erupted into chaos.

Ten mystic crystal cases, specially designed to protect the Aernese warsuits from the ravages of time, shattered simultaneously as all ten suits of armor Dolvek had ordered to be so painstakingly displayed stepped forward as one. Another ten cases exploded as the Aernese weapons leapt into the gauntlets of the animated warsuits.

Great Aldo
, Dolvek cursed inwardly.
They really are alive. Why the hells didn't they say so?
Frozen in surprise, Dolvek watched as his lieutenant released Yavi and turned with the other guards to face the new threat.
There will be no living with that bald harpy Wylant now.

Bloodmane leapt past the homunculus on display and landed with a crash in front of Dolvek's two scrambling guards. Marrit, Dolvek's second-in-command, drew his crystal sword only to cry out in sudden fright as the empty armor reached out and crushed the blade with its left gauntlet.

Startled, but not totally unprepared, Marrit raised his arm in what Dolvek was sure would be taken as an attempt to ward off a blow with his forearm. Instead, a blast of elemental ice erupted from the steel foci running from Marrit's wrist to elbow. Bloodmane vanished, encased in a block of whitish-blue ice.

“Cleverly done, Marrit,” Dolvek said.

Marrit smiled, turning to face the other suits of armor. His smile vanished as the ice shattered from within. Its captive stepped easily free of the remaining chunks of ice and buried the long pointed spike of its warpick in the top of Marrit's skull.

Bloodmane's horned lion helm roared as it turned toward the other lieutenant.

Yavi tried to interpose herself, but Dolvek grabbed at her shoulder. “Don't,” he said, “That's Kholster Bloodmane's armor. It'll . . .”

A swift elbow from the young Vael knocked the breath out of him, and Yavi cursed as the ancient armor ripped its weapon from Marrit's skull and struck the other guard dead with the flat hammer-like side of the warpick's head. By then, the other suits of armor had reached them. Dolvek straightened and went for his sword. Even if he died, he would save the Vaelsilyn representative . . .

Crystal eyes inset into each helm glowed bright red, turning his translucent blade a matching shade in their combined light. Yavi yelled a word in Aernese, “Cho!”

Stop
, Dolvek's brain translated automatically. Bloodmane's armor held up its clenched left gauntlet, and the other nine suits of Aernese war armor halted in their tracks, waiting, weapons at the ready.

“I'm not hurt,” Yavi explained as quickly as her limited Aernese vocabulary permitted. “The Oathbreakers brought me here to show me this place because I asked them to. When I saw your . . . when I saw the un . . . the unborn Aern, his spirit still tied to him . . . waiting to be born . . . I . . . just . . . I couldn't . . . I don't know the words. I've never seen a spirit in so much pain before. I wasn't expecting it. The guard was defending his prince . . . I'm sure he wasn't thinking when he grabbed my arm.”

“I speak Vaelish,” Bloodmane said in a whisper.

Dolvek felt sick. Everyone knew about the Vaelsilyn aversion to being restrained, had been endlessly drilled on how to behave. Everything had happened so quickly, they had all just . . . reacted. The warsuits he was facing had acted not to attack his men so much as to protect his guest.

Sheathing his sword, Dolvek took a step back, his feet scattering ice. Blood, ice, and shattered crystal covered the floor, staining both the carpet and his memory.
Aldo, how could this have gone so wrong?
He gritted his teeth and looked at the Vaelsilyn.
If the flower girl hadn't insisted on coming to the museum in the first place—

No. It was not her fault. She was clearly distressed. Kholster Blood­mane's armor had murdered two of Dolvek's Lance—any guilt here lay firmly at the Aern's bloodstained boots. Kholster would have much to answer for when Dolvek finally met him at the Conjunction.

“I understand,” Dolvek said bitterly. “Oh, sheath your swords,” he shouted as his two remaining lieutenants arrived in response to the noise. “No need to lose all four of you. Help me get Marrit and . . . help me get them out of here.”