Wicked Throne, page 14
“Void, sir.”
Nyrene prompts, “My lady, you said you had news about the thief. . . ?”
“Yes, I did.” She takes another sip and fishes through the turnips for a jelly bun. Nyrene raises an eyebrow, glances at me, then shrugs and leaves us to it.
Trold says, “All squadrons proceed to target. Ground, you are clear for transport.”
“Ground is ready,” Deercat repeats.
“Ground, forward,” Trold says.
Another roar shudders by as Almathea’s entire military might vanishes from the city.
“Ground force at target,” Euri states.
Deercat says, “Section Three, raise hell at the first sign of movement. They will have to bring your prince’s creation to this spot in order to open a seagate under Vorsmad’s wards. Do not let them pass. Section One, Section Two, Section Four, march!”
I can see for myself that the way is clear. Beyond our legions, Scope One, stuck above the ground outside Vorsmad’s gate, shows nothing but mud and thunderheads. No weirghasts.
Too early to know what that means.
I cross my arms. Behind me, Ygraine crunches a parsnip. Cold ripples down my throat. I don’t need this right now. What would Razanhi do? Can he shoo her away? Call his guards? She broke lockdown, damn it. That’s treason.
Would Razanhi care?
I don’t know that he’d care. She isn’t his superior. If anything, she’s another friendly face, someone who could provide insight into what Ivar de Ryeleth’s thinking holed up in Vorsmad. Nab’s bones, I’m at war with myself.
My head’s buzzing. I can’t think.
Should he ask her about me? Bluster about bringing one of her former agents to justice? I haven’t had breakfast. I definitely shouldn’t eat a jelly roll.
The lagoon-side windows light up. Another roar purrs through the wood floor, much smaller than before.
What was that?
“—tunnel ahead,” Deercat is saying.
Razanhi’s private seagate just went off. I stare out the window. Order my elf mage to open a channel to the private Imperial dock. “Report.”
“Beg pardon, sir?” Trold says.
I gesture at the elf to mute my output except for that channel. “Gate? Report.”
Hollow beeping fills my speakers.
“Hello?”
Beeping.
I chew the inside of my left cheek and walk to the windows. From this height, I can’t see anything but gray water. “Mage?”
“Yes, Prince Almathea.” She’s all of about twelve, watching the legions advance like it’s a puppet show, hanging mouth and huge eyes.
“Try the gate tower. Find out what’s happening on the Imperial dock.”
The elf scrambles to make this happen. “It is here, Prince Almathea.” She nudges a voice node into my left hand. Silence fills my ears. The channel’s open, but nobody on the other end’s responding.
That chill worms into my skull. If the tower’s incapacitated, and the dock’s incapacitated, who’s using the seagate? The Shade. My pulse lurches backward. I drop the pad. “War Leader?”
The little elf swipes at her rig, and Trold’s voice breaks in the second time I ask for her. “Sir.”
“Sound alarm. Send a palace war band to my private dock. The tower’s compromised. Expect one or more intruders on foot, heavily armed with magics. One burst provides for maximum thirty-two persons, one sorcerer third tier or above, possibly—”
Ghasts.
Not ghasts.
Would he bring ghasts with him? The cold expands into poison gas, pushing my lungs flat. “Treat as thirty-two hostiles on foot, led by a sorcerer . . . second tier. . . .”
Ygraine’s chair squeaks up beside me. Her wolf eyes fixate on the empty channel pointed at Razanhi’s dock, the other pointed at the guard tower.
Commotion erupts in the Red Council. A male voice calls from somewhere far from the audio pickup, “Sir, if I may, there cannot be an intrusion. Only the tower captain and the Imperial family know what glyphs activate your personal seagate. Unless—”
“Recast a channel to give me a view of that gate,” I tell the little mage. “Summon my personal guard. Tell him to move the princess to safety.”
“Azan,” Deercat says. “What is happening?”
Beurnock says, “Don’t you think you’re acting in too much haste?”
Razanhi is acting in haste. Ivar smells wrongness so pervasive it looms inside me like a black flood.
My elf mage toggles the private alarm and hurries to refocus Scope Five on Razanhi’s private dock where floodlights erupt, baking the wood and gray predawn sea into a murky plain. Mirror-quiet water sleeps beneath granite pillars. The guard tower hangs overhead, well lit but unresponsive.
Nothing. Nobody.
“Scan all spectrums,” I command. She lashes spells at the scope. Nothing.
That’s wrong. I don’t understand. The gate illegally discharged, and neither the tower nor the gatehouse are responding. Every crooked fiber in my soul tells me—“Magic signature?”
Nothing.
The elf mage looks at me, hopeful and confused.
There’s nobody on the dock, or under it. Nobody offshore. From outside, the area looks secure.
Another idea, too terrible to consider, squirms into my brain and sinks in claws. Once I think about it, I can’t shake it loose. The room swims. I put my left hand flat on Razanhi’s desk to stay upright. With my other, I gently, carefully, quietly, switch off my scope’s audio input. “Mage?”
“I am here, Prince Almathea?”
I shake my head. “Is that a question or a statement?” Right now, I need certainty.
“I am here, Prince Almathea.” The elf girl approximates a councilor’s salute.
“Did you see the window light up just now?”
“Yes, Prince Almathea.”
“Not the big one when ground went through. The little one, in the lagoon?”
“Yes, Prince Almathea.”
Then I’m not hallucinating. Or dreaming. Whichever. The seagate activated, but nobody came out. I don’t know whether I ought to be frightened or relieved.
I switch on my pickup. “Report from the gate tower?”
“En route,” snaps Lady Trold.
“What is happening?” Deercat’s muffled voice hisses from halfway across Sangearth. He’s cupping his voice node to keep out Vorsmad’s driving wind. Raindrops splatter on his helmet.
Trold says, “A palace gate made an unauthorized transport.”
“Ivar.”
“No,” I say, “Ivar has the Ash Womb.”
“We are not yet certain.” Lady Trold raises her voice. “Your Highness, Captain Urbald reports the tower’s staff is unconscious.”
“What, all of them?”
“Someone fought through them to use the gate, but he didn’t use the gate to bring anyone through?”
I know why. In an instant, I understand. The poison gas breaks into a current, rattles down my arms, through my heart, turning my knees to slush. I grab for my node. “Recall the invasion. Now.”
Beurnock laughs.
“Sir,” Trold says, “I advise against this plan.”
“He’s out of his mind,” Beurnock says.
“If we leave Vorsmad now, the Ash Womb may be lost,” Trold says.
“Trold!” My voice climbs half an octave. “Recall the fleet. Recall our warriors.”
“Azan?”
My speakers hiss static. Trold bellows orders.
Deercat says, “What about the Ash Womb?”
“Forget it!” I say. “It’s already lost. The battle is here. Now.”
In the Silent place inside my head, where the crack in the world lives, I feel Almathea inhaling. Razanhi’s office contracts. I scrub my hands over my jaw to drag my mind from an abyss. “Deercat? It’s the seagate. No one was coming through. Someone was leaving. There’s nobody on the dock now because someone left. A traitor can send messages from his bedroom, through a mirror—the only reason anyone would bother leaving during a scheduled military deployment would be if they were trying to escape. Not escape: evacuate.”
“But what in God’s name makes you think—?” Beurnock begins.
I fist my hands and snarl, “Why would anyone bother evacuating the city right now? What is suddenly so dire that someone wants to escape Almathea at all cost right now? Through the closest gate? Past Imperial guards? Not a commercial gate? Not where he’d have to buy a ticket and wait in line? Right now? What does he know that we don’t?”
A hellish pause.
“Chieftain,” Trold says. “I believe he is right.”
Deercat’s and Kemdislat’s channels burr with orders half heard across the world. Trold’s voice breaks in, smooth and easy: “Opening a channel to the martial seagate. Enchanters, target lock all fleet and aground personnel.”
She yells a wordless, nameless curse.
“War Leader?” Deercat commands. Trold exhales a cold, soft oath.
“Trold!” Beurnock roars. “Speak! You worthless gold-plated—”
“They’re gone,” Trold says with a halting, muzzy sigh. “The elf wizards working the martial seagate. The control room is empty.”
I grip the desk. “Mage?”
“I am here, Prince Almathea.”
“View Four to the martial gate’s control room, would you please?” All the little details add up somewhere inside my head, and understanding slots into place with a free fall rush. My fingers unglue from Razanhi’s desk. I collapse in his high-backed chair. “Oh.”
I’m a fool.
Trold swears again. “Searching the area.”
I sigh. No, there won’t be any sign of our elf wizards. I suspect they evacuated the city along with the Shade.
The little elf mage refocuses View Four on the control room. No one’s at the crystal displays. Every chair is neatly arranged at its desk. No sign of struggle. A faint shine colors in the air above the desks. The elf girl flaps a hand on my shoulder. “Prince Almathea! Prince Almathea!”
“Yes?”
“That is magic, look. It is residue from a spell for making glamours. The glow, yes?”
Is it? Perhaps for a massive glamour.
“Might be they are not gone,” she says.
Oh. Damn.
Beurnock snaps, “Send a palace war band to the Black Tower. To summon faerie wizards.”
Another giant hum rattles the palace and shakes the scope, Razanhi’s books, and my teeth.
“Azan!” Deercat’s still muffled cry raises the hair on the back of my neck. “Section Three is gone!” The elves guarding Vorsmad’s breach point.
“Attack report!” Trold demands.
“No sighting,” says Kemdislat. “I cannot confirm. But Lord Deercat’s right, the elves are gone.”
My little mage gasps.
A cruel smile sneaks across my face and comes back to chase off the dread elbowing it aside. Of course, they’re gone. Our ‘missing’ elf wizards have just teleported them from Vorsmad back to Almathea, and from Almathea to anywhere else.
The military gate roars again.
“Elegant,” I breathe, and drawl, “Lady Trold? Change of plans.”
“Go ahead.”
“Forget the Black Tower. By the time you get faerie magicians to the control room, you’ll find the gate generators destroyed. Reroute all palace guards to the city streets. Alert the municipal watch. We need to get civilians inside the palace and raise our shields.”
“I am trying to contact Gwynnestri,” Salhy says in the background.
A lull follows this, punctured by erratic breathing from our legions in Vorsmad racing back to the coast, the wind and rain rustling flags and pelting shields. Beurnock and Trold break into a shouting match. Deercat yells at Prince Kemdislat, who’s slow to initiate the fleet’s withdrawal. Smoke rises from the military gate’s generators behind the desks in faint black tongues.
I’m going to be sick.
The elf mage prods my elbow. I look down into big, somber eyes. She says, “Do you think our queen is all right?”
I can’t even put on a fake smile. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’s fine.”
The girl nods.
Footsteps ring on the marble stairs outside Razanhi’s office. Heavy footsteps. Five, six, warriors. Their footfalls sound fluid despite the armor: elves.
I kneel to look my little mage in the face. “Can you do me a big favor?”
“I am here, Prince Almathea.”
I point at Ygraine, who’s set her breakfast on a bookshelf and looks like she regrets ever having heard about food. “I need you to wheel this nice lady to the Red Tower. Do you know where the Red Tower is?”
“No, Prince Almathea.”
“Well, she’ll tell you where to go. Listen to me. You’ll meet some elves in the hall. Tell them your grandmother’s very proud of you and you’re both going to join the queen now. Can you remember that?”
“Good job, boys,” chimes in Ygraine. “I’ll tell them that. Looks like I married an elf, then.”
“At least you married someone,” I say, and my heart stops. But Ygraine either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. The spymaster drops her breakfast back into her lap and snaps at the girl to get going. The little mage pushes her out.
I prompt Trold, “Have you done as I asked?”
“All palace bands are redirected to the city. Sir, should I sound general alarm?”
“Yes. And don’t bother me for a while. I’m about to be assassinated.”
15
THIS IS HOW THE war begins.
The door swings open. I switch off my speaker, cutting off Deercat’s anguished howl. Six elven warriors in the royal guard’s silver gold march in, cloaks fastened all the way down the front—a ceremonial detail that, in this case, makes me suspect they’re wearing expensive anti-magic habrium plate.
Their captain bows his head. “Forgive the intrusion, Your Imperial Highness. Sir.”
“Oh, go ahead and kill me.”
Surprise ripples across his trim daffodil-yellow face.
I say, “I’m sorry. I’m sure it was a very well-rehearsed speech.”
He shrugs. “Not particularly.” He raises a palm. His fingers fan out.
I’m not armed. The only object on my person is Razanhi’s coronet, which won’t exactly scare them off. My Shatter hex and—hell, even the Soul’s Pyre—will splinter into harmless sparks against habrium plate. The door’s eight paces away; if I run, I might make two before they kill me.
The elves advance slowly. Watching me. Razanhi’s a famous sorcerer. He kills monsters as a pastime, hunting down ghouls and fog-webbers and other terrors preying on innocent villages out in the deeper rifts. The real Razanhi could probably wave his hands and turn them into beetles surrounded by untouched habrium, or something.
I stuff my hands into my pockets, cock my head, and squint. “One question. It’s going to sound silly, but trust me, it’s not. Are you secretly, somehow, still friends with Almathea?”
Captain Neck Muscles smiles. “Sure.”
That’s a hard no. I smile and saunter toward them, hands in my pockets. Five paces from the door.
The elves close in.
I put on my best bemused drawl. “Well—you’ve walked into unexpected trouble. I suppose the faeries would thank you. You’ve found out a secret.” I drop my glamour. Six hands drop to six axes as the assassins race to counterattack whatever magic the sorcerers let loose. Six faces slacken with surprise seeing whom I’ve turned into. I pluck the prince’s coronet from my skull.
“Excellency?” says Captain Neck Muscles.
I smash the coronet’s spiky brow into his visor. His anguished howl breaks the spell; I lunge forward, rip the coronet free, and slam the silver band across the next elf’s helmet. She flinches and drops her axe. The other three stumble backward in shock. I collide with the man nearest the door, expecting him to reach for my throat so I can punch him in the mouth, but I catch him off-balance and we crash into the rig. The divination scope bursts, scattering holographic noise and crystal shards. The elf smashes to the floor. I yank the steel rig from Razanhi’s desk and swing it at the assassin’s head as hard as I can.
I turn around, clutching the rig like the world’s most expensive cudgel.
The remaining four elves run away. I tighten my grip on the rig, waiting. They don’t come back.
I reapply my glamour and race downstairs into Nyrene’s rooms. She’s gone. A half-eaten fish cake and scattered cutlery settle the strangled feeling in my chest—Razanhi’s guards escorted her to safety. I cup my face in my hands.
The general alarm screams. Oh, there it is. Little late, folks.
A flash bright as midday blasts through Nyrene’s shielded windows. I wrench my hands down to see blistering orange fire explode through the cliff wall. Rock and dirt billow into the sky. Ocean pours through the hole and punches Almathea’s basin with the force to throw up a huge, mountainous, dark wave. House-size debris plow into the rising peak, tearing foam from the monstrous crest, and smash the waterfront.
The windows blow in.
I conjure a shield as reinforced glass whips past. The air tastes like fire and burns my hands. Another flash and the cliff trembles. Cliffside artillery chug-chug-chugs at the sea above. Footsteps bang through the corridor; I slap together my Razanhi glamour, and it evaporates into white sparks—oh, I’m already wearing it. Razanhi’s guards pelt through the open door.
“Sir, get down!” Captain Hyriath, the man from this morning, throws his body over mine and casts a barricade shield. The giant wave slams into his magic in a green-blue fist and streams up the barricade over the palace. Wood and steel groans.
“Come with me, sir,” he yells in my ear. “We’ve got to get you to higher ground.”
The most important people live at the bottom in Almathea. The threat’s supposed to be from above. Aerial fleets. Not rising water.
“They’re trying to break the basin wall.” Hyriath helps me to my feet, escorts me into the hall. Seven other guards form around us. “They came up too fast for the artillery to hit. From nothing.”
The Ash Womb. Gwynnestri’s got it.
She might have had it from the start.
