Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (29 page)

Last time, he’d been chased through the streets, come face-to-face with a sworn enemy, and forced to escape during one of the worst quakes he’d ever lived through.

There were more important matters to consider, however. Nuuan had been missing for more than six months, for starters. But there was one person beneath Agera—in the necromantic coven of
Catiatum
—who might be able to shed some light on things.

William. There might not be a prophecy that could shed light on this situation, but William was one of the wisest necromancers Mujahid knew. And right now, Mujahid needed wisdom.

But the Catiatum coven held grudges older than Mujahid’s grandfather. What if William had failed at the task Mujahid had given him—to merge his coven with the old Catiatum coven? What if the Catiatum coven had fallen into schism again and sought to depose Mujahid and Nuuan? Mujahid could be walking into a trap.

The dull thud of the gangway striking the pier brought Mujahid out of his thoughts. Deckhands ran this way and that to secure the river boat. One of them trotted up to Mujahid.

“Sir,” the deckhand said. “This is for you.” He flipped through a handful of small cards and gave one to Mujahid. “For your adda.”

Mujahid stared at the card in confusion.

“They won’t let you take it into the city. Some new law or something. But you can turn the card in at the trade office for another.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

The deckhand shrugged. “Something about foreign livestock being cursed. I don’t make the rules.”

“That
livestock
was given to me by the King of Tildem himself, boy.”

The deckhand shrugged. “You want the card or not?”

Mujahid scowled, took the card and turned it over. There was nothing more than a number and a signature on the other side. What could have happened to make Agera restrict the passage of animals?

“This is an outrage!” a man shouted from behind Mujahid.

A brown-turbaned man with thick muttonchops shoved past Mujahid and threw a stack of cards in the deckhand’s face. The man dressed like a Religarian, but his desert robes were dark. Religarians favored white robes to reflect the sun’s oppressive heat. And his accent was muddled, as if he were putting it on.

“Do you have any idea how long they’ve been on this boat?” the man shouted, waving his arms about. “A week! Adda on a boat for a week!”

“The Commerce Office will offer replacements for your—”

“
These
are
my
adda! Do you know what happens to adda when they can’t roam freely? I’ve already paid the caravansary fees!”

Something was odd about the man. He kept slipping out of a Religarian accent into something akin to a western Shandarian drawl.

“What’s the problem here?” the ship’s captain said. Mujahid hadn’t seen him approach.

The Captain’s long, angular goatee was gathered with a tie of some sort, and the end bounced as he spoke.

The turbaned man pointed at the deckhand. “This
festering
—”

“You insult my crew one more time and you’ll find yourself on the pier without the courtesy of a gangway,” the Captain said. “Do I make myself clear?”

The turbaned man nodded.

“Good,” the Captain said. “Now what’s the problem? And I expect your answer to be so pleasant, the Chancellor’s wife herself would want you over for tea.”

The turbaned man’s face had turned crimson, but he obliged.

“Captain,” the turbaned man said. “The length of this trip has pushed my adda to their limits. I have to get them on dry land and tend to them.”

“They’re not staying on the boat, if that’s what you’re worried about. They’ll be taken to the stockyards and held for two weeks. If you’re in a hurry, I suggest you pick up those cards and trade them for a new team.”

“But those are
my
adda!
They
are the ones I must take to Caspardis!”

The Captain shrugged. “Then hang on to those cards and come back in two weeks.”

“They must be delivered within the week! My customer was insistent on that regard.”

“Then you have a
business
problem which is of no concern to me,” the Captain said. “I make the rules on
this boat
, not the festering city of Agera.”

“Captain, please—”

“Take your cards and make a decision. Either way, I’d better not hear you’re causing trouble for my crew.”

The Captain strode back toward the wheelhouse.

“Any idea what this is about?” Mujahid asked the turbaned man.

“I wish I knew.”

“You chose a poor color for Religarian desert garb.”

The man stroked his muttonchops.

“A word of advice,” Mujahid said. “Let your men do the talking. The nomad accent is proving too difficult for you.”

Mujahid faced his cabin, but a hand on his arm stopped him. When he turned back, the muttonchopped man’s expression was inscrutable.

“Not many would speak to me as you do,” the man said. His accent had vanished, and the tenor of his voice had changed to a deep baritone. He stared at Mujahid’s robe for a moment. “Brave, even for these times.”

“
Businessmen
have never worried me much.”

“Not that. Your choice of clothing.”

“My style of dress is a sign of bravery here?”

“Perhaps everywhere. You expect forty years of hatred to vanish by decree?”

The man had a point. Maybe wearing the midnight blue hadn’t been a good decision.

“Vanni Yarwen,” the man said, extending his hand.

Mujahid paused for a moment before taking it.

“Samael,” Mujahid said. He stumbled over the alias he hadn’t used for a while. “I take it those adda of yours are more than meets the eye?”

Vanni shrugged and signaled one of the men traveling with him, who ran over and collected the Commerce Office cards scattered at Vanni’s feet.

There was no mistaking the sign language concealed in Vanni’s hand signal. The Thieves’ Cant of Hiboran, from the west coast of the Shandarian Union, used by a group of people so deadly most feared to name them; the Azure Dawn. The gesture would have been nothing more than a hand wave to anyone else. But Mujahid had spent enough time in the underbelly of the Three Kingdoms to recognize the subtle finger movements.

“Perhaps you could use your priestly influence to sway the Commerce Office in our favor?” Vanni asked.

“You expect forty years of hatred to vanish by decree?”

Vanni pursed his lips. “Any idea where this office is?”

Mujahid glanced toward the dock.

Piles of rubble that once gathered at the base of crumbling buildings had been replaced by hitching posts and water troughs beneath whitewashed walls gleaming in the sunlight. The plaza beyond the pier had changed little since his last visit. It had been rebuilt since the quake, but it looked much as it did before the catastrophe; the stone fountain at the plaza’s center, the buildings enclosing the plaza on three sides.

Agera was alive once more. Dozens of people hurried through the plaza. Some carried boxes and other items onto docked ships, and others sauntered past the buildings circling the docks—window shopping at the stores along the boardwalk.

But it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The Barathosians would see to that.

“There’s great trouble to the south,” Mujahid said.

“Why do you think I travel north?”

“You saw the invasion first hand?”

Vanni shook his head. “Some of my supply lines have vanished. Only something big could cause that. Invasion, you say?”

“Don’t plan any trips to Tildem,” Mujahid said. “These
supply lines
of yours…have they been disrupted anywhere else?”

Vanni stared at him with a blank expression.

Mujahid would have to tread with caution. The Azure Dawn were secretive, and if Vanni were a Dawnmaster, it wouldn’t do to underestimate him.

“I care not for the whereabouts of your suppliers,” Mujahid said. “I’m only interested in saving lives. If you know something, it could help.”

Vanni’s expression never changed.

“War is upon us, Vanni Yarwen,” Mujahid said. “The crossbow bolt that finds you will not question your ideology or business practices. It will not ask if you wear a chain of office or…
sapphire mark
.”

Vanni’s eyes grew wide. Mujahid couldn’t see if Vanni wore the mark, but his reaction told Mujahid everything. By mentioning the mark—the sacred tattoo worn by every member of the Dawn—Mujahid had all but called him out.

“These are the times that will define your character,” Mujahid said. “You might consider putting those talents of yours to good use now.”

“Perhaps later,” Vanni said. “My fate takes me down a different path than yours, priest.”

Mujahid closed his eyes, ignited the symbol of ascension, and released power into the skull symbol. After a moment that spanned seventy years, a skeletal penitent appeared at Mujahid’s side.

“This,” Mujahid said, pointing at the skeleton. “
This
is later. This is the fate of
all
men, be they King or Dawnmaster. When I call you from the grave, Vanni Yarwen, your will shall be mine. Choose the right path
now
, of your own free will, while free will is still yours.”

Vanni smiled and stepped toward Mujahid. “I’m familiar with these.” He tapped the penitent on its bony forehead. “You’re not the first necromancer I’ve encountered. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some adda to tend to.”

Mujahid released the necromantic link and the penitent vanished.

Most men were as brave as Religarian Imperial Guard until they were forced to confront their own mortality. Vanni was…different. If Mujahid didn’t know better, he’d say Vanni was
courting
death.

As Mujahid faced his cabin, he glanced over his shoulder and raised his hand. He moved his fingers in the language of the Hiboranian Thieves’ Cant.

May the shadows favor your passage.

It was the traditional blessing of thieves and smugglers.

Vanni blinked several times, but he soon returned to his old deadpan expression. As Mujahid lowered his hand, Vanni nodded and backed away.

Mujahid hadn’t intended the conversation to go that way. Truth be told, he hadn’t intended to
have
a conversation in the first place. He didn’t expect Vanni to do anything other than forget this happened and return to whatever shady business he was involved in.

But a small part of him hoped.

Mujahid pocketed the ticket given him by the deckhand as he entered the Agera plaza. He didn’t have the patience for bureaucracy just yet.

Dockworkers pushed cargo trolleys onto barges and other vessels while deckhands led livestock toward the stockyards west of the plaza. Passengers lined up along the piers, waiting for the call to board their chosen ships. The boom of a thunderclap made them jump and turn their eyes to the inky belly of an impending storm. Three more booms followed in rapid succession. This was going to be a bad one, and there was no awning to take refuge under.

It was unlikely the Catiatum coven was underground anymore, and the cave entrance would be a long walk beyond the city gate, which itself was a long walk from the dock. It was time for Mujahid to take some calculated risks.

Several Ageran guards from the local militia stood watch at the entrance to a large street. One of them should know something about the coven.

The older guards ignored Mujahid, but the younger ones regarded him as they would a person pulling a crag spider on a leash.

He’d made the decision to wear the midnight blue, and now it was time to pay the price.

“I wonder if you could help me,” Mujahid said to the closest guard.

The guard looked at his compatriot as if uncertain how to answer. He must be the junior of the two, so Mujahid stared at the senior guard to punctuate the need for a quick answer.

“With what?” the senior guard said.

It was a start. At least he’d responded with words and not steel.

“It’s been a while since my last visit here,” Mujahid said. “Given…recent changes in social policy, can you tell me where I might find my fellow priests?”

“Look under any rocks?” a guard said.

“Probably buggering each other at the public bath,” another guard said. The others burst into raucous laughter.

All six guards regarded Mujahid with contempt. Would they obey the decree, or would they try to drag him off into an alley? They’d all be brave…until they weren’t.

“Enough of that, the lot of you!” a guard said from behind the others. “What’s he done to any of you?”

“Who made you Chancellor, Jameson?”

Jameson was a young guard, which surprised Mujahid. He wasn’t in charge, but he had a measure of courage.

“You know what this man does for a living?” Jameson asked. “He helps you sorry lot shuffle off beyond the veil to meet your maker. So a little respect is in order, don’t you think?”

“We’ll outlive him by decades.”

“Think so, do you?” Jameson said. “And what if I told you necromancers can’t die?” He faced Mujahid. “Necromancers don’t die, right sir? You’re already dead, if I know my necromancy! Dead and given life by Zubuxo himself!”