The Telastrian Song (6 page)

More questions. Always more questions, but now there was no one to answer them. Giura swore out loud and looked around.

M
ore Intelligenciers arrived
to remove the injured men and the corpse from the apartment. Giura was already busy going through Nerli’s papers. He looked through the desk he had seen the man sitting at. There were two objects in particular that caught his eye—two well-thumbed notebooks with brown leather covers. He opened the first and flipped through several pages. The text was unintelligible, written in code or some language unknown to him, but with a neat, precise hand. Practitioners often used code when writing their notes, but this was unlike anything Giura had ever seen.

He set it to one side and looked at the second notebook. It felt different. Newer. He opened it and looked at its contents. It was the same gibberish, but with one notable difference. It was written by a different hand. He flipped through a few pages until he reached blank sheets. Everything in it was written in that second hand. A quick comparison between the two showed that the contents of the first notebook were being transcribed into the second.

Giura’s body reacted before his mind had fully processed the significance of this. He rifled through the desk, looking for any papers with handwriting on them. When he had several pieces, he went through them one by one. Each one was written with the same hand, which Giura took to be Nerli’s. It was identical to the second notebook, the one which was only half full. Where did he get the first one? Was that alone the source of all his power?

Giura went through the rest of the papers, looking for names, addresses, anything that might be of use. There was nothing. Giura sighed. His investigation was going to be difficult.

‘
S
even
?’ Amero said.

‘Seven, my Lord,’ Byarsham said.

‘In the whole city, there are only seven?’ Amero looked at the mage with incredulity. There were over two hundred thousand people in Ostenheim. He expected dozens would be useful. Hundreds. Yet Byarsham sat there, a cocksure smile on his pale, hairless face. It irritated Amero to a huge degree, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet at any rate.

‘Only seven worth persevering with,’ Byarsham said. ‘It’s rare to encounter an adult with a useful level of ability. Children can be trained of course. In ten, perhaps fifteen years we could achieve the results you are looking for.’

‘No. I need something I can use sooner than that.’ Amero stood and paced across to the bay window that overlooked the city. The organisation Byarsham represented had assured Amero that this process would be problem free. Guaranteed results, so long as he could keep things quiet and allow the process to continue uninterrupted. The fee he had paid reflected the magnitude of the promises made, and it was money he could ill-afford to squander.

‘Then seven is the number we have to work with,’ Byarsham said. ‘I’ve provided the strongest of them with a novice’s grimoire to work through and copy. He is talented, and I expect him to have completed it in another couple of months. That in itself is a significant step. The others should manage it also, but will take longer. I would rather you left them to their studies until they have completed their adept’s grimoire. They will be of some use to you by then.’

‘How much longer will that take?’ Amero said, returning his gaze to Byarsham’s unsettling appearance.

‘Two years. Possibly three. It is still too early to say for certain. The power you desire them to have will take far longer than that. For those taken into training at an early age, it usually takes the better part of two decades to complete an initiate’s grimoire. I doubt any of these seven will ever manage that, however.’

‘Not good enough,’ Amero said. ‘I need something I can use within the year.’

‘It is good enough, and you will make do,’ Byarsham said. His voice remained even, insipid, as it always was.

Amero swallowed his anger. He was not accustomed to being told what to do, but he knew when it was time to concede defeat and a disagreement with an eastern mage was one of those times. He didn’t like it, but different people needed to be played in different ways.

‘What about your Order? The Twelve. I have the money, why can’t I employ more trained mages like you?’ He didn’t have it, but the mage didn’t know that. With the help of more powerful mages, he’d be able to put the coin together quickly enough.

‘Because there are only eleven other men and women like me, and my being here is already bending the laws to which we are bound in my land. I accepted your invitation out of curiosity and a desire to seek knowledge of a foreign place, in addition to your generous payment of course. There has been so little contact with the west for such a very long time…’

‘I thought there were hundreds like you in the east. Thousands, even.’

Byarsham smiled. ‘No. There are many with a functional and useful ability with the science. Those who have achieved the level of initiate, a level higher than that I expect your seven will achieve, but they are closely supervised by the Twelve and limited in what they can do. Again, a requirement of the law my Order is bound by.’

Amero didn’t care what the mages were capable of in their own lands. He was only concerned with what they could do for him here. He regarded Byarsham curiously. There was something about the smooth and even tone of Byarsham’s voice that Amero found not just condescending, but sinister. Everything about him was sinister when Amero thought about it: his sallow, smooth skin, his completely hairless head, the way he seemed to be able to move in complete silence. It was impossible to tell how old he was. There were moments when Amero regretted seeking out Byarsham and his cabal of mages in the East, but what they could give him was too tempting to ignore.

Amero sighed loudly. ‘Keep pressing on with the training as quickly as you can. I need results before the year is out.’

Byarsham nodded, the smile still firmly fixed to his face. ‘I will do what I can. I advise you not to harbour unachievable expectations. It will only lead to disappointment.’

Amero felt a flash of anger. How dare this freak tell him what to expect. He took a deep breath and stilled himself. ‘That will be all, Magister Byarsham.’

The master mage stood and walked—glided was a more fitting term—out of the room. Amero watched him go. The emerald green robes he wore concealed his legs, and he was undoubtedly walking but the stillness of his body while he moved was unnerving.

‘
Y
ou sure about him
?’ Emeric emerged from an anteroom after Byarsham left. He rarely ventured farther from Amero than his sword could reach.

‘Absolutely,’ Amero said.

‘Reckon the people will ever take to the idea that magic’s back?’

‘They will if it’s revealed at the right time, in the right way.’

‘Got a bad feeling about that fella.’ It was understating the matter, but being completely candid with his thoughts was not something Emeric had ever felt comfortable with.

‘Stop being such an old woman, Emeric. I need what he has to offer. If I can’t scrape the money together for another campaign in the field, I’ll need to come up with something else to keep control. If I don’t attack Auracia soon, they’ll be over the border looking for Ostian blood and there won’t be a thing I can do to stop them. They already think the victory over Ruripathia broke us. That we’ve no stomach for another fight. That we’re ripe for the picking—and they’re right. I need something up my sleeve. Once I have a few mages that can pull off something more impressive than a flash and a bang, I’ll send him packing.’

‘And if he has different ideas about that?’ Emeric wondered how much farther he could push the matter before Amero’s patience wore thin. As Emeric’s concern and distaste at what they were doing grew, so too did Amero’s temper.

‘We’ll send word to his emperor that one of the Twelve is over here stirring things up against him. That will take care of things quickly enough.’

Emeric humphed.

Amero turned in his chair to face him. ‘I’ve made my decision on this. I won’t have any more of your second guessing.’ There was anger in his eyes.

Emeric nodded and left the room, obeisant but not cowed. Or convinced.

S
oren’s
first call was to the King’s Theatre, which the adjutant told him was the finest in the city. Tickets were expensive. Soren hesitated at the price and had to remind himself that he could afford it. He would never truly be able to accept that he was wealthy; that the price of his next meal would never be beyond him.

He reserved a private booth for an operatic performance the following evening, and noted that the tickets covered admission to a buffet and drinks reception after the performance. The hotel could take care of the dining part of his plan.

The dressmaker was next. He paid an eye-watering amount for her to go directly to the hotel to take Alessandra’s measurements and make the dress overnight. He had a smile on his face when he left, wondering what Alessandra’s reaction would be to the finest dressmaker in Voorn turning up at the hotel unannounced. His own requirements were next on the list.

The first thing that struck him about the tailor’s shop was the smell of wood and cloth. An elderly man with a thick white moustache and spectacles looked up from a desk when Soren entered.

‘How may I help you, sir?’

‘I need a suit of clothes.’

‘Well then, you’re in the right place. Did you have anything specific in mind?’ he said, standing and picking up a tape measure from a peg on the wall behind him.

‘Something suitable for the theatre.’

The tailor smiled. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. My name is Reymolt. I’ll take some measurements and we can discuss what it is exactly that you want, colour, fabric and such. If you’d like to come this way.’

He led Soren back to a small, screened off area and began to take measurements. ‘As a Banneret, I assume that you would prefer something of a more martial cut, less ostentatious, flat shoulders.’

‘That sounds fine,’ Soren said. ‘The only thing is, I need it for tomorrow.’

Reymolt paused. ‘It’s not usually possible to produce a full suit on such a tight timeframe.’

‘Cost is no consideration,’ Soren said.

‘Not usually,’ Reymolt said, smiling.

T
he clothes arrived
the next afternoon. Alessandra had been surprised by the arrival of the dressmaker, but more so by the fact that Soren could be so spontaneous and unpredictable. She had chosen a vibrant crimson cloth that contrasted with her hair and skin and Soren found himself completely dumbstruck every time he looked at her. The dress hugged her figure, flaring out from the waist, and Soren was confident that she was by far the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Soren’s suit was of dark blue cloth. He tied a white silk sash around his waist beneath his sword belt. The white was a symbol of the virtue and fidelity of the office of banneret—a laughable concept considering some of the bannerets Soren had encountered over the years. It also marked him out as not being a banneret of colour, the accolade reserved for those who graduated from the collegium, the highest echelon of their academy. A banneret from Ostenheim would be a Banneret of the Blue, while one from Venter would be a Banneret of the Orange; each state had its own colour. All other bannerets, irrespective of nationality, were entitled to a white banner, usually mirrored somewhere in their clothing—such as the sash Soren wore, or the plume in one’s hat—something Soren thought looked ridiculous and always eschewed.

Not completing his education at the collegium was a subject of regret, and as time passed he began to think it ever less likely that he would have the opportunity to correct his mistake. Any academy would do, but he had long dreamed of being called a Banneret of the Blue, and it was immature hubris that had diverted him from that path. Still, things happened the way they did and there was no way to change them. Sometimes one simply had to get on with life.

All in all, he felt he cut as dashing a figure as he could hope, but with Alessandra on his arm no one would be looking at him anyway.

The concierge at the hotel arranged for a carriage to take them the short distance to the theatre, and as they walked down the steps in front of the hotel to get in, Soren felt happier than he ever had in his life. If only every day could have been like that.

E
ach time
the actors exited the stage, Soren perked up in his seat, hopeful that the whole experience was coming to an end. Alessandra seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself, spending most of the performance sitting on the edge of her seat and visibly reacting to what Soren assumed were pivotal parts of the story. He, on the other hand, had not managed to follow the story past the first few minutes. He maintained a perhaps unreasonable hope that there would be stage sword fighting at some point, which would provide him with some point of interest. So far he had been disappointed.

The hope was a remote one, however, considering the production’s title, ‘The Desert Prince’s Lament’. The clerk at the ticket booth had spoken of it in excited tones, which should have been expected considering his job. The exotic was the fashion in Voorn that season, with a particular interest in all things Shandahari—the setting for the story.

Unlike the person who wrote the play, it seemed, Soren had spent some time in Shandahar. The Shandahari did not have princes, for a start. The closest approximation was a khagan, and that was not at all romantic. The khagans that Soren had come in contact with spent the majority of their time guarding themselves against the schemes of their enemies or relaxing in their large, opulent seraglios. Certainly not gallivanting about the desert trying to rescue princesses. They employed others to do that for them, to which Soren’s happy financial circumstances were testimony.

Alessandra had spent time there also, but her unpleasant experience of the place didn’t seem to impact her enjoyment of the play. Admittedly Shandahar was a fascinating place with a beautiful, vibrant culture, but it was also a viper’s den of scheming and plotting where staying alive was far more difficult than Soren liked. He found it difficult to associate any positive thoughts about it.

Each time she looked across at him and squeezed his hand, he forced a smile and pretended to be interested in what was happening on the stage. The respite offered by the intermission was marred by the fact that it only marked the halfway point of the ordeal.

When the actors finally left the stage and did not return, Soren had to force himself not to sigh with relief. Despite the plush seating, his backside was numb and he had memorised the position of every mark on the wall beside him. He realised that he was being an ignorant boor, but the training at the Academy in etiquette and culture had failed to instil in him a sense of value for such things, and he did not think any amount of money or years of living in high society would change that.

Soren hadn’t spoken about the reception to Alessandra, although he was confident that she had seen mention of it herself when they came into the theatre. He harboured the hope that they could leave the theatre as soon as the performance was over for dinner at their hotel. It wasn’t that he was being antisocial—although he had to admit that was in part motivating his desire to avoid the reception—it was that he was not sure of who they would meet or the welcome they would receive.

As the adjutant at the Bannerets’ Hall had made clear, there were a great many Ostian exiles in Venter now. Soren was confident that he was not the only one Amero desired to see dead, so he had no way of knowing how the exiles would react to the new arrival of an unknown Ostian. In addition to that, there was the question of what Amero was doing to deal with those exiles in Venter he wished to see dead. At a social event it was likely there could be spies or assassins, albeit the latter with their focus elsewhere. Nonetheless, he didn’t think it would be wise to draw any unnecessary attention to themselves.

He knew there was an element of paranoia to his thinking, which, while partly justified, was probably excessive. It was unlikely that they would be recognised, and coupled with their assumed names Soren reckoned it would be safe enough to have a quick drink before going back to the hotel if Alessandra pressed the issue. Given the option, he would prefer not to though.

Alessandra took his arm and it seemed there was no question as to whether or not they would call on the drinks reception. Their box, the most expensive that had still been available when he bought the tickets, was right by the stage but high in the theatre—which meant a longer walk than most of the other attendees. The foyer was full of people by the time they got there, the great and good of Ventish society.

‘Are you sure you want to stay? We can go straight to the hotel for dinner if you prefer,’ Soren said, still hoping to avoid it.

‘I’d like to stay for one drink,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to be around people again after so long being isolated, and the whole evening has been perfect.’

Soren smiled and nodded. He didn’t elaborate his reasons for wanting to leave. As far as she was concerned they were under no threat in Voorn, and he was happy to keep it that way. So long as they maintained a low profile he foresaw no problem.