The Warlord's Legacy (53 page)

A
S THREE DUSTY TRAVELERS MOUNTED
the broad stone steps, the guards at the door—and there
were
guards at the door, now, accompanying the ubiquitous clerk—moved to block their path. Jassion marched in the lead, poised, arrogant, and without visible trace of the hideous injury he would sport until the end of his days. Behind him trailed two figures clad in the costly but relatively bland garb of servants. One, the woman, held the arm of the elder man, who took small, hesitant steps as though injured or ill.

He was, in fact, gritting his teeth and straining not in pain, but in concentration, trying to keep three separate images affixed firmly in his mind. It would have been easier had he not still suffered lingering aftereffects of Khanda’s attack; had his soul not been wringing its hands inside his body, wracked with fear for Mellorin and Seilloah; had he been at his best.

But only a
little
easier, for all that.

While Jassion spoke in low but commanding tones to the soldiers, Corvis glanced upward, peering intently at the sky through the illusion that masked his features. The uppermost reaches of the Hall of Meeting blended with the overcast skies, dark grey on darker. Only a smattering of windows and, in a few instances, the crows and sparrows
perching along the roof’s edge, made the looming structure visible against the clouds.

“I’m
really
not comfortable with this, Corvis,” Irrial whispered in his ear.

“They can’t see our real faces,” he reminded her.

“And that worked out so well for us last time?”

He shrugged. “We’ve just spent weeks in the saddle. I’m not recovered from one of the top five worst experiences in my life. My head feels like a sack of meal left out in the rain, and my body like there’s a pair of ogres waltzing up and down my spine. You’re lucky I’m lucid; you want
new
ideas, go pester someone else.”

“I suppose that’s fair.” Then, “Only one of the top five?”

“My years have been blessed with an
astonishing
variety of discomfort.”

They didn’t hear what Jassion said to the guards, but eventually he waved them forward. The soldiers stepped aside, and the trio walked with measured tread into the seat of Imphallion’s mercantile government.

“It’s disgraceful!” Jassion hissed as they walked, his tone still vaguely nasal. He kept his voice low despite his clear agitation, lest any of the many scurrying pages and couriers overhear. “War with Cephira, attacks by—ah, ‘Rebaine’—and for all their added security, the guards just took me at my word and let us in!”

“Well, you
are
who you said you were,” Irrial pointed out.

“
They
didn’t know that!”

“We’re pretty far from the front. And it’s not as though they expect You-Know-Who to walk in the front door.”

“It’s disgraceful,” he muttered again. “If a soldier has a job to do, he should
do
it! I’d have these men flogged if they worked for me.”

Corvis, feeling that Jassion’s sense of propriety was perhaps misplaced at the moment—particularly since
they
were the security breach the guards’ negligence permitted—chose not to say anything to get the baron even more riled. He did, however, roll his eyes at Irrial, who rewarded him, oh so briefly, with that amused curl of her lips he’d not seen in far too long.

Through familiar corridors, up familiar stairs—and even, once, past a stain of what was probably familiar blood—they wended their way. It looked much as it had the last time they’d been here, save for the presence of many more guards. Corvis began to have serious doubts about their plan, unsure if they could win free should it go wrong. But as he had no better notions to offer, and as it was already too late even if he had, he kept his misgivings private.

The top floor, and back to that one particular office guarded by half a dozen sentries. Jassion made as if to march right past them, until they steadfastly refused to clear the way. With a full-blown aristocratic glower that Corvis wasn’t certain was feigned, he announced, “The Baron Jassion of Braetlyn, and associates, to see Guildmistress Salia Mavere.
Right now.
”

“Have you an appointment?” the guard asked, just as impressed with this strutting noble as he’d been with all the others he’d thrown out.

“No.”

“Then—”

“Just announce us. She’ll see us.”

The guard didn’t bother to hide his sigh, and Corvis feared he’d have to physically restrain Jassion from bludgeoning the man to death. After a few deep breaths, however, the baron calmed himself, and the soldier indicated the door with a shallow tilt of his head. One of the other men cracked that door open and stepped inside. They could just hear the voices, here in the hall, and while they couldn’t make out a single word, the surprise in one of those voices was more than a little evident.

The guard reappeared, shaking his head in astonishment. “She’ll see them,” he told his commander, now sounding as surprised as Mavere had.

“She—what? But …”

“She said she’ll see them.”

The officer was visibly crestfallen. “All right,” he grumbled. Then, before Jassion took half a step, “but not under arms.”

“My companions are
not
armed,” he replied. “Search them if you like. As for me …” He raised his hand,
slowly
so as not to cause undue alarm, to touch the hilt protruding over his shoulder. “I’ll not be relinquishing
my sword, no. Ask the Guildmistress. I doubt she’ll explain why, but she’ll assure you it’s all right.”

Corvis did his best to look meek, face aimed at the floor so nobody would see him grinding his teeth. Just seeing the blade on Jassion’s back was enough to make him want to …

The guard returned to the office looking even more dubious, and came out looking even more perplexed. “She says it’s all right.”

The officer grunted something impolite and stepped aside. Without so much as a nod of acknowledgment, Jassion strode past, Corvis and Irrial following close behind.

“Baron Jassion?” Salia asked, rising from behind her desk. “I have to admit, I’m a bit concerned to learn you’re here. Why—?”

It all happened at once, between one breath and the next. Irrial firmly shut the door behind her. Jassion bowed low before the Guildmistress, far lower than was his wont. And Corvis, allowing his concentration to lapse and the illusions to drop, sprinted across the room like a starving leopard. His fist closed around Sunder’s hilt, yanking it from the scabbard across Jassion’s back—and gods, had
that
taken long hours of arguing, and many oaths on Jassion’s part, before Irrial convinced him to place the weapon, however briefly, in the baron’s care. In the heartbeats it took him to vault the desk, sending a flurry of parchment in all directions, the Kholben Shiar had shifted once more from Jassion’s two-hander to Corvis’s axe, the blade of which now gently kissed the priestess’s throat. Corvis wasn’t certain whether he, or Salia herself, was more disturbed by the weapon’s eager quiver.

“If you so much as raise your voice above a whisper,” Corvis warned her, “the Blacksmiths’ Guild will be, ah, let’s say, looking for a new head.”

Her glare was sharper than Sunder itself, her face as pallid as those parchments drifting slowly to the floor, her jaw clenched tight enough to bend raw iron—but she nodded shallowly.

“I’d apologize for the discourtesy,” Jassion told her, moving to stand before the desk. The bandage tied across his face, discolored where humors occasionally seeped from his ravaged nose, was now clearly visible. “But in all honesty, I’d prefer to let him kill you.”

“Jassion, what …?” Even at a whisper, her fury and her confusion—and yes, her fear—were palpable.

“I do not,” he said harshly, “appreciate being used, Mavere.”

“I don’t know what you’ve done to him,” she began, eyes flickering to the man at her side, “what spells you’ve cast on him, but—”

“No spells, Salia. No tricks, no sorcery. You said that you had knowledge of magic when we last spoke. Take a good look at him.”

She shrugged, wincing as the movement scraped the skin of her throat across the blade. “Wouldn’t help. Illusions I can detect; they’re visible. If I could sense spells of the mind, I’d have discovered all your puppets in Guild ranks long ago.” Her voice seemed almost wistful at that.

Corvis frowned, but it made sense.

“And I cannot,” she added, “think of anything
other
than the most potent magics that would inspire Lord Jassion to cooperate with you.”

“You should have thought harder then,” Irrial interjected, sliding the latch home on the door and stepping into the center of the room, “before starting all this.”

The Guildmistress looked from one to the other, saw no pity anywhere. Corvis could see in her expression that she was weighing the odds if she called for the guards.

“You’d be dead before your voice reached them,” he warned. Her shoulders slumped.

“Where’s Kaleb?” she demanded.

Jassion smiled shallowly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you—oh. Perhaps you mean
Khanda
?”

So stiffly did Salia tense that Corvis had to yank Sunder back a hair to avoid cutting her. “How did—?”

“What were you
thinking
, you stupid bitch?” Irrial and Corvis exchanged worried glances, concerned that Jassion’s own temper might alert the guards, but so far the baron was managing—albeit barely—to keep his voice low. “How could you use me that way? How could you unleash something like
that creature
on your own people?”

“I assure you, Khanda is completely under control.”

“Not for long,” Corvis told her. Then, at her expression, “You asked
what could inspire Jassion and me to work together? That’d do it, wouldn’t you think?”

“It’s not possible. Jassion, whatever Rebaine’s told you, it’s a lie. He—”

“Is more convincing than you. Especially given what I’ve seen recently.” Then, though it clearly cost him, he forced his voice, his expression, to calm. “Mavere, I only saw the aftermath of the Twins’ rampage through Mecepheum, but
you
were present for all of it. You’ve seen what creatures of such power can do—and you’ve seen how little we can do to stop them. We know some of what Khanda plans, and I assure you, if he succeeds you’ll wish you’d died back then.”

“It’s a lie,” she insisted stubbornly.

“Perhaps you’ll want to ask Nenavar about that?” Corvis suggested. Again, standing so close, he couldn’t possibly miss the tension that ran across Salia’s body like a cold shiver. She knew the name, all right.

“It’s he who assured me that the bonds on the summoning were unbreakable. And I’ve
seen
him put Kaleb—Khanda—in his place. Besides, even if I wanted to, I’ve no means of just calling him here. I’d have to send a messenger, and I doubt you’re willing to sit in this office for the hours it would take for a reply.”

“I can be surprisingly patient,” Corvis told her. “So can Irrial. Jassion might be a problem, I imagine.” He ignored the bandage-wrapped glare. “But that’s all moot, since you’re not sending a messenger. You’re going to take us to him.”

Her laugh was a forced and feeble thing. “And why would I do that?”

“Because even walking through the halls or the streets, we can kill you before any help arrives,” Jassion snarled at her. “And if you won’t help us, there’s no reason not to kill you
right now
for what you’ve done!”

“More to the point,” Corvis said, shaking his head in exasperation, “no matter how certain you think you are that we’re lying to you, you can
see
Jassion and me standing here, working together, telling you the same thing. And you’re worried that we just
might
be telling you the
truth. Tell me, Salia, would Verelian be served by his own priestess unleashing a demon in the mortal world? Are you willing to go down in history as the next Audriss—assuming there even
is
a history after Khanda gets through with us?

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with all of this,” he continued more softly, “though I think I can guess a good chunk of it. But what I’m
certain
of is that all your plans won’t be worth a gnome’s chamber pot if Khanda breaks loose. So you tell us, Salia. Which way do you want it?”

T
HEY’D NEEDED HER COMPLIANCE
, prayed for it, even counted on it—but that didn’t mean they were remotely ready to
trust
it. Throughout the nerve-racking trek through the corridors and stairs of the Hall of Meeting, one or the other of them remained at Mavere’s back, ready to act if she even looked askance at a passing guard, the others equally alert in case any of the passing guards looked askance at
them
. Even after they’d gathered their horses, and hers, they walked the beasts through Mecepheum’s streets, the better to ensure the Guildmistress remained within easy reach. Only once they’d passed through the main gates did they mount up and ride, and even then they took steps to ensure Salia remained in their midst.

The faint but steady autumn breezes and overcast skies had brought a certain chill to the roads. Thus, though she’d claimed that the ride was only a few hours, they’d taken the opportunity—always with careful eyes on Salia, of course—to acquire some traveling cloaks and coats before leaving the city. It was partly for the sake of their own comfort, but mostly as an excuse, under the guise of “friendly assistance” while shopping, for Irrial to search their unwilling guest for concealed weapons. More than once, Corvis sensed the priestess’s gaze upon him and had looked around to see not merely the anger and the fear that he’d anticipated—even, he had to admit, reveled in—but also a peculiar
puzzlement
.