The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns (40 page)

Orlanko shook his head and clumped through the corridors, ignoring the passing analysts who scurried out of his way. He was breathing hard by the time he pushed open the door to his office and clambered up behind his desk. Once there, he slammed his hand on one of the little buttons, causing a distant bell to dance and jangle.

Contingencies, contingencies.
Vhalnich wasn’t the only one who held hidden cards.

The door clicked open, and Andreas entered noiselessly, dark coat flaring behind him like a living shadow.

“How the
hell
did Vhalnich get to the Cabinet room without my being informed he was even on the grounds?”

“We’re investigating now, sir. It appears a number of our agents are in his custody.”

“What?”

“His Mierantai guard rounded up our watchers and confined them in his cottage. It was quite a well-planned operation. No word escaped until we sent more men to investigate.”

Orlanko glowered at Andreas, who took it stolidly.

“Of course, sir, it means that our communications have been compromised. He knew precisely who was assigned to him.”

“I know, damn it.” Heads would roll for that. The pasty-faced analysts who lived in the depths of the Cobweb and copied out books of numbers all day long had assured him that their codes were unbreakable.
We’ll see how unbreakable
they
are.
But that would have to wait. “He’s stolen a march on us, and we can’t afford to play catch-up. I want you to call up the Special Branch.”

If there was any emotion under the serene mask, it didn’t show. Andreas bowed. “Of course, sir.”

Orlanko made a face, as though he’d eaten something unpleasant, and stared at his pet killer. He sighed. “All right. Now we’ll do things your way.”

IONKOVO

A single candle flickered on the other side of the room, casting a dim glow across the windowless cell. The bars were outlined on the opposite wall, a striped pattern that danced and shivered on the rough stone surface.

Adam Ionkovo, lying on the scratchy straw-stuffed pallet, stared at the ceiling and let out a sigh.

He’d had high hopes for Captain d’Ivoire. But . . . no. Even a couple of conversations had shown him to be the kind of man whose blind, bulldog loyalty was impervious to reason. Neither bribes nor threats of eternal damnation would pry him loose from Vhalnich, not now. The bond between men who had fought together could tie them closer than lovers.

Did you get anything out of him, Jen?
He was fairly certain his companion was dead. She bore an archdemon, after all. If she was alive, nothing could have stopped her from completing her mission.
But it’s
how
she died that matters. Did Vhalnich find the Thousand Names? What powers has he unearthed?

Oh well.
If d’Ivoire wasn’t going to talk, then it was pointless to remain here any longer. It was past time he was up and about.

The outer door rattled and opened a fraction. His guard, right on time with the evening meal.
Time to go.

Ionkovo rolled off the pallet. Just in front of it was a thick, dark shadow cast by the table the candle was sitting on. The transition between light and darkness wavered as the flame shifted, and Ionkovo reached carefully over it to touch the floor where the shadow was constant.

“God save us,” he muttered in Elysian. “The Penitent Damned.”

The shadow
moved
under his fingers. It grew darker, black as ink, and rippled when he touched it as though his finger had brushed the surface of dark, still water. Ionkovo pushed himself forward just as the guard entered the room, diving into the shadow as easily as a seabird skimming to the ocean.

“The hell?” the guard said. He set the pewter plate bearing Ionkovo’s nightly beans and crust of bread on the table and put a hand on his truncheon. “Ionkovo? Are you playing games with me?”

Ionkovo was always surprised at the reluctance of ordinary people to accept
the evidence of their own eyes. There was nowhere to hide in the cell; ergo, it should be obvious that he was not in it. But the guard only edged forward cautiously, brow furrowed.

The candle threw the man’s shadow on the wall behind him, larger than life. Its surface rippled, silently, and Ionkovo’s arm emerged. His fingers curved into a claw, reaching for the Armsman’s neck.

The man gave a strangled gasp as the grip closed, both hands automatically reaching up to pry the grip away from his throat. Ionkovo yanked hard, and the Armsman stumbled backward a step, then another. Then one more step, through where the wall ought to have been, and he fell into his own rippling shadow. The dark silhouette remained for a moment longer, then faded silently away.

Ionkovo released the guard and let him fall, screaming, into the endless void that was the no-place between the shadows. He pulled himself back out into the real world, out in the corridor, and let out a long breath.

There were no doubt a number of locked doors between him and the outside world. But it was the middle of the night, and most of the lamps were dark. The Guardhouse crawled with shadows.

WINTER

T
he halls under the Vendre were dark and nearly silent. Up above, the courtyard was ablaze with lanterns and torches, as the celebrations which had been put briefly on hold by the daylong rain got back under way. Down here, no one had been relighting the candles as they flickered out, and the roar of humanity outside was reduced to a faint buzz.

All the cells but one were empty. There had been some argument over this—in addition to seditious printers and disloyal merchants, the prison had held plenty of ordinary thieves, housebreakers, smugglers, and other scoundrels. In the end, though, there had been no way to tell them apart, so the newly enlarged council had voted to throw all the doors open.

Winter led the way toward that last cell, marked by the single lantern that hung in front of it. Abby, padding behind her, carried their own lantern, and raised it in greeting to the guard on duty. “Guard,” in this case, was a generous term; it was one of Jane’s Leatherbacks, a pimply girl of fifteen, who went goggle-eyed when she recognized her two visitors.

“Uh . . . ,” she said, looking from Winter to Abby and back again. “Is something going on?”

“Jane wants them,” Winter said, hooking a finger at the cell and trying to look casual.

“Of course!” She blinked. “I mean . . . nobody told me . . .”

Abby leaned closer. “Principa.
I’m
telling you, all right?”

“Right.” The girl swallowed. “Let me get the door open.”

They waited while Principa fumbled with the key and dragged the cell
open with a screech of rusty iron. The cells up here were clean, Winter noticed, and lacked the sludgy pools of standing water of the makeshift pens on the lower level.
I suppose Orlanko believes in keeping a tidy dungeon.

The two men who emerged both wore Armsmen green, though their uniforms were somewhat the worse for wear after the long siege. They stood blinking in the lantern light. Abby raised an eyebrow, glanced at Principa, and beckoned, and the men shuffled silently past her and back toward the stairs.

“Um . . . ,” the guard said, standing in front of the now-empty cell. “What about me?”

“Stay here,” Winter said. “I’ll come and fetch you directly.”

—

“Make sure Jane doesn’t punish her,” Winter said, once they were out of earshot.

“I’d punish her,” said Giforte, “if she were in one of my prisons. Everyone knows you don’t release a prisoner without written authorization, and never without a signature. That way everyone knows who’ll catch hell if someone goes missing.”

Abby laughed and touched her father’s arm. “We’ll have to bring you in to train all our jailers.”

“Is this a prison break, then?” said Captain d’Ivoire. “Or has the council decided something?”

“The council can’t decide what to have for breakfast,” Winter said. “Jane feels you two would be safer elsewhere.”

“She can’t exactly let you walk out into the mob,” Abby said. “They’re ready to throw stones at anything in green.”

Giforte winced. “What about the rest of my men?”

“Most of them have already gone home,” Abby said. “The rest changed out of their uniforms and joined up with the riot.”

“Danton has that effect on people, apparently,” Winter muttered.

“In any event,” Abby said, “it would be better for all concerned if you . . . slipped away. We’ve got a boat waiting down below.”

Giforte frowned but said nothing. They walked in silence for a while, down the spiraling central staircase and past the landing where Winter and Cyte had fought the night before. The light of the lantern showed wide brown splotches on the stones, and Winter’s gorge rose.

When they reached the bottom level, the gentle lap of water at the little dock became audible. Captain d’Ivoire stopped suddenly and caught Winter’s eye.

“I think,” he said, “we should give the two of them a moment alone.”

Winter looked at Abby, who shrugged. She and Giforte continued on a short distance, while Winter and Marcus retreated to the stairwell. There was only one lantern, which faded to an almost invisible glow as soon as the other pair had gone around a corner. Winter put her back to the cold stone wall and waited. The captain was only the vaguest of shadows.

Shit.
She’d known this was a bad idea. He hadn’t recognized her the night of the raid, but since then he’d had plenty of time to think it over.
I should have sent someone else. Stupid, stupid—

“Ihernglass,” Marcus whispered. “It is you, isn’t it?”

And there it was, stark as a skull. She took a deep breath.
What the hell do I do now?

“I knew the colonel sent you on some secret mission,” he continued, “but I hadn’t imagined it would be anything like
this
. I don’t want to blow your cover, so we don’t have long.”

Winter let her breath out and blinked. This was not how she’d imagined this conversation going.
If he tells me that he’s always known I was a girl, I swear to God I’m going to scream.

“I just thought,” Marcus went on, oblivious of Winter’s expression in the darkness, “that this might be a good opportunity. If there’s anything you want to pass along to the colonel, I mean. It can’t be easy to get messages to him.”

There was a long pause. Eventually Winter shook her head, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “No message in particular. Just tell him what happened here, and make sure he knows I’m all right. I’ll be here with Jane if he wants me.”

“Right. I can’t speak for the colonel, but you can take it from me you’re doing a hell of a job.” Marcus sighed. “Better than me, certainly. He sent me to guard a prison and I end up locked inside it. Twice.”

“I think we made the best of a bad situation,” Winter said. “And thank you. Sir.”

Marcus’ shadow nodded. “I know it can’t be easy, even if being with Jane’s lot means you get to wear trousers.”

Winter paused, then ventured, “Sir?”

“Passing for female. Damned convincing. You’d have fooled me for certain, if I hadn’t known better.”

There was another long silence, this time while Winter tried desperately to fight down a spasm of mad laughter that seemed determined to burrow its way
out from her lungs. She’d almost lost the battle when a frustrated shout from down the corridor brought their heads around.

“I think we’ve left them alone for long enough,” Marcus said. “Come on, before they kill one another.”

“Did you know about Abby and the vice captain?” Winter said. She covered her mouth; the laughter had transformed into hiccups. “Her being his daughter, I mean.”

“I hadn’t the faintest,” Marcus said. “But he filled me in while we were in the cell. Apparently they don’t get along.”

“I will
not
.” Abby’s voice came to them at a volume usually reserved for opera sopranos playing to a full house. “Will you get in the damned boat?”

“That may have been understatement on his part,” Marcus said.

As it turned out, no intervention was necessary. Abby stalked past them, lantern in hand, sending wildly swinging shadows up the walls of the corridor. She rounded the corner and, to judge by the light, stayed there. Winter and Marcus glanced at each other and continued on to the dock, where Giforte was already sitting in the little two-man rowboat.

“Let’s get out of here,” the vice captain muttered. He caught Winter’s eye as Marcus carefully stepped from the dock, making the little craft sway alarmingly. “Please try to take care of her?”

“I’ll do my best,” Winter said. “Don’t worry. Jane takes good care of all her people.”

Giforte nodded, reluctantly, and took hold of the oars. Once Marcus had settled himself, Winter undid the line, and the little boat splashed and bumped its way out into the tunnel, bound for the friendlier docks on the North Shore.

Abby was waiting in the corridor, just out of sight of the dock. It was hard to tell in the bad light, but it looked as though she had been crying.

“Are you all right?” Winter said.

“Just furious.” Abby dragged a hand across her face. “He always makes me that way.”

“What did he want?”

“To go back with him, of course.” She waved a hand. “It was all well and good my slumming it for a while—that’s what he says
now
, though at the time he threatened to disown me—but things are getting
dangerous
. So I need to come home and be locked in a tower behind barred windows.”

“I’m not sure I blame him,” Winter said. “If I had a daughter, I don’t think I’d want her out here. Hell, I’m not sure I want to be here myself, sometimes.”

“He’s a thickheaded old fossil,” Abby said. “And I told him so. If anyone should be locked away, it’s him. At his age he should be sitting behind a desk signing papers, not trying to hold a fortress wall against the notorious Mad Jane and her mob—what?”

Winter had started to chuckle, mixed with the occasional hiccup. She shook her head until she got control of herself again.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m in a strange mood, that’s all.”

“Come on,” Abby said. “I need a drink.”

Now,
Winter reflected as they climbed the stairs,
I’m a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl. At least as far as Marcus is concerned.
Just the thought made her giggle. Janus probably planned it this way. She still hadn’t figured out why he’d put her with Jane in the first place, unless it was purely to fulfill the request she’d made to him on the shores of Khandar.
I very much doubt that.
Not that Janus wasn’t the sort of man to keep his promises, but she was certain he would find a way to arrange matters so that he himself derived some benefit.
I suppose I’m just too simple to see it. Though it would help if I knew what he wanted.

On the first floor, they became aware of a new sound. At first Winter thought there had been some new attack, and that a melee was in progress. The crowd that occupied the Vendre courtyard had erupted, all at once, in a single vast roar that seemed to shake the castle to its foundations.

“What the hell is going on now?” Abby said.

“I have no idea,” Winter said. “Let’s find out.”

—

No one ever claimed to have been the one who first delivered the tidings from Ohnlei, as if rumor had broken free of human constraints and flown free on shadowy wings.

Any story repeated so often was bound to be warped and distorted by the time it reached the end of the line, and a thousand lesser rumors swarmed in the wake of the great news. On two things, however, all the stories agreed. King Farus Orboan VIII was dead, and Queen Raesinia Orboan had assumed the crown. And, practically as her first act, she had called for the convocation of the Deputies-General to be held in the Sworn Cathedral.

Beyond that, the stories broke down, depending on whether the teller tended toward manic cheer or black pessimism. That night, there seemed to be no middle ground. No one could agree on what the Last Duke was doing, but everyone was happy to say what they’d heard: Orlanko was dead, killed by Count Torahn in single combat when he’d challenged the queen. Orlanko was
locked in his own cells, where he’d killed himself in shame, or was being tortured with his own implements. He was gone, fled to his country estates, or had left the country entirely, to live like a prince on his ill-gotten gains in Hamvelt or Viadre.

Or he was gone, all right, but only as far as the nearest Royal Army base, to return with troops who would crush the upstart queen and her backers. Worse—they weren’t even Vordanai troops, but an army of Borelgai mercenaries on the northern border and Hamveltai levies in the east, ready to break Vordan between them as they’d done in the War of the Princes. The legions of Murnsk were on the march, the uncounted horde of the holy emperor ready to destroy the Free Church stronghold once and for all.

Winter heard all these versions, and more besides. The queen had agreed to stand for election. The queen would marry Vhalnich, hero of Khandar, and give Vordan a new king. Prince Dominic had spent all the years since Vansfeldt pretending to be dead, but now he had returned to lead his people. The deputies would force the Borelgai profiteers and speculators to give up their villainous ways, and bread would be an eagle a loaf once again.

In the wake of the news came the crowds. The queen’s pronouncement had turned the riot on its head; instead of thieves and murderers, the rioters were heroes who had taken the law into their own hands after sinister interests had tried to exploit the weakness of the dying king. People who hours earlier had been barring their doors and hiding the silver now flooded into the street themselves. Half the population of the South Bank seemed to be out, in spite of the late hour, and so many people tried to join the celebration on the Island that they ended up backed up onto the Grand Span. Before long the bridge was bright with bonfires and packed from edge to edge with shouting, happy people.

The Vendre itself remained under the control of the council, guarded by the Leatherbacks and others Jane thought she could trust not to run off and join the parties. It seemed oddly quiet compared to the roar from outside, like a cemetery in the middle of a bustling city. With her errand completed, Winter did not quite know what to do with herself. In spite of her exhaustion, there was no question of sleep, not until the celebration burned itself out. She went in search of Jane, and found her closeted with the council and some of the students from the Dregs. Winter settled for catching Jane’s eye and giving her a little wave to indicate the prisoners were free, then wandered back downstairs.

The Vendre’s main door was half-open, with a couple of Docksiders
keeping watch. One of the pair recognized her and stood at attention, or at least a reasonable parody thereof. Winter almost burst out laughing again, but she bit it back and snapped a textbook salute before slipping out into the courtyard.

If there had been a carnival atmosphere before, things were now positively ebullient. One reason for this quickly became obvious: Now that the fighting was done, Vordan’s merchants and vendors were taking up the challenge of supplying the crowd with all the food, and more important, all the drink, that it might be require. Bottles were everywhere, passing freely from hand to hand, and as she watched, a man pulling a handcart loaded with wine was mobbed by customers and relieved of his burden in a few minutes. He turned the cart around, pockets jingling with coin, and headed back for another load.