Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (3 page)

Malpravus, on the other hand, saw it and broke into a broad grin. “Dear boy, if one didn’t know better, one might mistake your actions for a virtue of some sort.”

“That would be unwise,” Terian said shortly, staring at the empty glass again, almost forlornly. “I just take delight in the misery of others, that’s all.”

“Is that it?” Malpravus’s smooth voice belied his amusement, and he cast a little look over his shoulder as Rosalla popped up from behind the bar with a crossbow in hand. She froze, though, as she saw her attacker on his knees, groaning and gasping quietly for air. The subtle, sucking noise the big longshoreman was making had an almost tragic, desperate quality to Terian’s ears.

“Hmm. The Lockjaw plague spell?” Malpravus asked, regarding the scene with a raised eyebrow. “Swells the tongue? Makes it difficult to breathe, yes?”

“It’s one of my favorites,” Terian said, watching the longshoreman, a dark elf big enough to stand favorably against Cyrus Davidon—that giant human—clutching at his throat, unable to move from the floor. “The only downside is that it won’t kill him. He won’t realize that for a few more minutes yet, though.”
A seasoned fighter would know to just keep going; but a dumb longshoreman will flop about like a gutted fish until it wears off.
He clinked the glass idly against the table again, and it sat at a terrible tilt on the uneven planks. “Still, I do so love the misery, especially for this sort.” He glanced down at the flailing man once more and felt a thin, unsatisfied smile break across his lips.

Rosalla stormed out from behind the bar, her white, frizzed hair flaring as she wheeled her head around until it settled on him. The rest of the Brutal Hole’s patrons were clearing now, standing and leaving, shuffling toward the door. It was no stampede, but close, the thudding of leather boots against the wood planks filling the entire bar. “You!” she called as she closed the distance between them. “You did that?” She gestured to the blue-skinned man on the floorboards, clutching at his knees as if he could curl up like a baby.

“I did that,” Terian admitted lightly, as though he were confessing to swatting a fly and with all the concern one might have for doing such a thing. “I could use another ale, by the way, if you’re looking for a way to thank me.”

“Thank you?” Rosalla was flushed, her cheeks dark blue. “You drove away every patron in the place!”

“Nonsense,” Terian said lightly, “I’m still here. And waiting on that ale, by the way.”

Malpravus made a gentle coughing noise. “I would not decline a refreshment either.”

“You don’t count as a patron,” Terian said darkly. “Maybe a patronizer.”

“Who’s going to clean this up?” Rosalla said with a darkness of her own, waving to gesture at her attacker, who was now pounding the floor as though it would clear his throat.

Terian shrugged. “You sent for the man with the corpse cart already, didn’t you?” He held up the empty glass almost like he was saluting. “Problem solved.” He glanced at Malpravus, who nodded sagely. “Don’t you love it when all the pieces sort of intersect together in convenient ways?” Terian paused and frowned. “Never mind.”

“I do love it when that happens,” Malpravus agreed.

“Yeah, but the rest of us don’t, because when your plans come together it almost always involves us getting screwed in an unenjoyable way.” Terian looked up at Rosalla. “I thought you’d be happy. He was planning to—”

“These types always plan to,” Rosalla said, leveling a finger at him. “They always plan to, at least once a week. And every time I disabuse them of the idea, every time I put the pain into them, make them suffer and they change their minds, I don’t lose all my patrons in the process! Now what am I supposed to do?”

Terian surveyed the empty bar, the overturned chairs and tables, the still-struggling lout lying on the floor, and he lifted his glass toward her. “Get me an ale?”

With a noise of sheerest frustration Rosalla left, and Terian watched her step over the longshoreman to return to her place behind the bar. “I’m guessing that ale isn’t going to be just ale,” Terian mused idly while he watched her go.
She has a wonderful walk
.

“Indeed not,” Malpravus said, drawing Terian’s attention back to the Goliath Guildmaster. “May we come back to addressing my proposal?”

“The one where you give me a path?” Terian eyed the empty glass forlornly and sat forward, favoring Malpravus with his full attention. “The problem is that I presume any path you’re likely to give me is going to be one that leads to the edge of a cliff, where a helpful shove will be waiting to aid me in going over.”

“Such unkind thoughts do you no credit, dear boy,” Malpravus said, steepling his long, thin fingers.

“They keep me alive, though,” Terian said, watching for any movement beneath the darkened cowl. The fact that the necromancer’s eyes were not visible was only a little disquieting.

“You could be a great dark knight,” Malpravus said, leaning back as though to hide his eyes further. “I have seen the seeds of the true darkness within you, waiting to take root. You did the pact, your soul sacrifice; I have heard the tale, and it was truly a great one. But you pulled away afterward, threw away all your dark works and left, seeking a … less harried way, perhaps.” The smile became a grin, teeth bared. “Something that required less personal sacrifice?”

Terian blinked only slightly. “I made about the biggest personal sacrifice I was willing to.”

Malpravus took a deep breath in through his nose. “The path I would offer you is one much easier than that which you trod before. It would lead to officership in Goliath, one of the foremost guilds in the land. With your experience, you could step right into our council, help guide our armies in our ever-expanding role in the world. Help lead us to prominence.”

“Easier?” Terian said, and let the doubt creep into his tone. “If your version of easier is anything like—”

“It isn’t,” Malpravus said smoothly. “You’ve done your sacrifice, your bit to cement your knighthood. I can show you ways to grow your power. To bring you money, status, women if you seek them. You need not pace cobbled streets watching for burglars, or drink green ale from kegs that were sealed only yesterday.” Malpravus dismissed the empty glass with a wave. “There are finer things out there. You need not coast along on the margins any longer if you don’t desire to.”

There was an almost smoky feeling around Terian’s eyes, the barest hint of a sting in them. “All I have to do is join Goliath, right? Follow your orders? Help recruit and guide the next generation of your brood as you take another step toward surpassing the big three?”

Malpravus’s grin was unfettered delight now. “Yes. You have it exactly.”

Terian leaned back in his chair. “Why me, Malpravus? There are countless dark knights out there.”

“Yet so few available,” Malpravus said. “And fewer still with your particular set of experiences—”

“We come to it at last,” Terian said, not sadly, but almost. “You mean my officer experience. In Sanctuary.”

“As I recall,” Malpravus said, almost innocently, “you were not just a mere officer, but Elder of the guild. Such a post is undoubtedly one of trust, of leadership. Someone inhabiting such a post in a guild as august as Sanctuary might know things that could be a valuable commodity—”

You bastard
. Terian didn’t say it out loud, but he knew it was writ across his face. “You want me to betray Sanctuary by telling you all about everything I might have learned in the Council Chambers.”

If Malpravus was shocked, he hid it well. “I can’t imagine anything that would be discussed in the Sanctuary Council that I would need to be privy to.” He still wore the wide grin. “Still, I would expect your new loyalties would win out over the old, should the day ever come when it might be necessary to choose between one and the other—”

“Malpravus,” Terian said and felt the light whistle between his front teeth as he said it, “I’m a son of a bitch. I might even be a damned son of a bitch. But I’ll kill myself before I become a damned, traitorous son of a bitch.”

“I couldn’t imagine your mother being all that pleased about your assessment,” Malpravus said, his slitted eyes just barely visible now, a gleam of light shining off of them.

“The ‘son of a bitch’ thing? I was actually talking about my father,” Terian said and rapped the edge of the table with his knuckles. “I’ve left Sanctuary. Parted ways with them. But that doesn’t mean I’ve abrogated all loyalty with their membership.” He let his jaw settle tightly. “My issue is with Alaric; with his sanctimoniousness, with his steadfast refusal to do what’s right when it’s necessary. I will never …” He leaned forward, letting the heat of his emotion seep out, searing the table between the two of them, “… never betray my friends. Count on that.”

The necromancer did not stir. “Dealing in absolutes is infantile.”

“Well,” Terian said, letting the chair legs squawk against the floor as he stood, “compared to you, you old bastard, I’m probably an infant.” He held up three fingers and saluted in rough style. “Go molest a corpse, okay?”

“Such unkindnesses—”

“Are part and parcel of who I am,” Terian said, watching the cloaked necromancer as he backed toward the bar, toward the exit. “I thought you wanted me to join you?” He gave off his best, most infuriating smile and stopped by the bar. Rosalla waited just behind it, her arms folded and her lips puckered as though she’d had the Lockjaw spell cast upon her. Terian pulled his entire coin purse out and dumped the contents on the bar. “Here. My attempt to make amends.”

Rosalla’s jaded eyes were still narrowed, but they flitted back and forth from the pieces of bronze, silver and the one of gold that rested, gleaming, on the old, pitted wood that made the surface of the bar. “That will almost cover it.”

Terian shrugged. “It’s what I’ve got. It’s not like I have a house on the bluffs; I guard warehouses for a mercenary company. You want it or not? Because I’m pretty sure they’ll take it at the Silken Robe if you don’t—”

Rosalla lunged and put a hand over it, but not before Terian’s darted out and snagged one of the knuckle-length pieces of silver. She glared at him as she scraped the rest off the bar’s surface and into the pocket of her apron. “What the hell was that for?”

“I still have to eat and drink between now and my next week’s pay,” Terian said, pocketing it. With a last look at the sullen figure of Malpravus, still sitting at the table, watching him go, Terian made a gesture at the necromancer. “You might want to clean that up.”

“The cart will be along shortly,” Rosalla said, head down, counting the pieces of metal.

“Not the big guy,” Terian said as the handle of the door slid into his grasp, clinking against the metal of his gauntlet. “Well, him too.”

“I thought
you
were waiting for the cart,” Rosalla said, looking up at him warily.

“I guess I’ll be walking,” Terian said with a smile, and lifted up his last silver piece. “Besides,” he gave a last look at the big longshoreman on the floor, coughing and hacking as though her were dying, “I think the cart is going to be full up.”

Chapter 3

A snowfall a few days earlier had blanketed the streets of Reikonos, and the usually dark avenues of the slums were even darker now. The sun shone directly on the filthy streets for only about an hour a day anyway, less in the winter, and Terian had doubts that the snow would be going away anytime before spring. He had seen the freshly scraped and shoveled streets in the commercial district, down by the docks where the warehouses lay. Even the markets were given some attention, snow pushed aside by merchants wielding shovels, trying to draw passersby to their carts by giving them clear lanes. The slums, however, remained a wasteland, with tracks cutting through the stained white blanket of the snow, and dark spots to mark where chamberpots had been emptied and animals had left deposits of their own.

The whole city carried a filthy smell, and Terian wrinkled his nose as the door to the Brutal Hole was shut behind him.
Don’t know how Cyrus lived here for so many years
. He gave it a moment’s reflection.
I suppose Saekaj is no picnic, either, though it’s Sovar that carries the real stench
. Drawing his cloak tighter against a sudden wind, he set himself to walking against the shin-high snow that hindered his way.

He felt the bite of the cold seeping through his armor as he walked, the familiar clank of his boots dampened by the snow covering the cobblestones. He looked over the darkened streets and saw only vague hints of any life. A few scattered souls: some beggars, a merchant cleaning up his cart. There were lamps everywhere, but only every third or fourth one was lit. It was the way of the slums, he knew, that not all of them got oil. That thought caused him to recall the magical fires of Sanctuary, and he suddenly felt a longing to be far from Reikonos, far from the home of the humans, and surrounded by a very different group of humans.

Never going to happen
.

His breath frosted in front of him when he let a sigh of despair cross his lips. The thought of what Malpravus had offered him was fresh in his mind.
I’m not nearly drunk. Not nearly. And giving away almost the last of my money?
He wanted to curse himself for it, but couldn’t find the strength to do so, not huddled as he was against the cold.
There’ll be more along next week. Enough to get by
. He felt his teeth chatter just slightly.
And that’s about all
.

Still better than going with Malpravus
. He inadvertently looked right, toward the Guildhall quarter. The faint sounds of the city echoed—dogs barking in the distance, a rattling down an alley, and voices raised in conversation. The Guildhall quarter was far off, but on a clear night one could hear the revelries within, the sound of an army marching through or to it, or one of the largest guilds returning from the Trials of Purgatory. It was quiet tonight, though, or the noises of the slums were blotting it out.

There is no way he would let me simply be an officer in his guild.
There would have to be a price.
His eyes flicked left and right, as though trouble was bound to dart out at him from behind the dilapidated stall that he turned past on the way back to his boarding house. A cat screeched at him and raced away into the darkness. He shrugged at the sight of its retreating hindquarters; better than rats, he supposed.