Knight of Shadows, page 22
Rezkin turned with the carafe and goblet in his hands and said, “Your Grace, I am afraid this wine has turned. I will fetch a fresh carafe.”
“Very well,” said Wellinven, “but be quick about it.”
Rezkin exited the room, followed by Seena, and made his way outside where he dumped the poisoned wine on the lawn. Seena sniffed at it then released a very uncatlike screech as she backed away. Rezkin headed toward the wine cellar to procure more wine. As he strode through the corridors, he pondered the attempted poisoning. Pollick had been nervous, but was that due to guilt or because he was in the presence of the dukes? Had someone else poisoned the wine before Pollick brought it to the war room? Pollick did not have the countenance of a hardened assassin, but that did not mean he was not paid or blackmailed into poisoning the dukes. The man warranted additional investigation.
Upon returning to the war room with a fresh carafe of wine, Rezkin found that the dukes had begrudgingly agreed to make official contact with the empire. Rezkin decided to facilitate that contact by providing them with one of the portable mage relay devices. Since he did not have one, he would need to build it, and for that he needed supplies. When the men turned to discussing the particulars of their contact with the empire, Rezkin was dismissed, and the doors were closed.
Rezkin left the war room to go in search of the servant who had served the poisoned wine, assuming he was still in the castle. If he had served poison to four of the most powerful men in the kingdom, he would probably make a quick exit. The first place he checked was the stables. There he found Pollick doing a poor job of saddling a horse. He was obviously not an experienced rider. Rezkin came upon Pollick quickly, cornering him in the horse’s stall. He did not bother with an illusion. For this, he could be himself. Holding Pollick at knifepoint, Rezkin said, “Where did you get the venom?”
Pollick shivered with fright as he chanced a glance at Rezkin’s face. “W-what venom? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Rezkin pressed the knife into Pollick’s neck. “You poisoned the wine. Do not try to deny it. Where did you get the venom?”
Pollick started to shake his head, and Rezkin pressed harder drawing a rivulet of blood. Still shaking, the man said, “Please, they’ll kill me if I talk.”
Rezkin replied, “They’re going to kill you anyway. People like these do not leave loose strings. What did they offer you?”
The man whimpered. “Money. They gave me money. I got half up front, and I’m to get the other half when I meet them by the river.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know, I swear. I didn’t even see his face. He was just a voice under a cloak.”
“When did you meet this man?”
“A-about a week ago. That’s when he gave me the poison. I was to wait until the general arrived then put it in their wine. A-are they dead?”
Rezkin abruptly sheathed the knife up his sleeve then grabbed Pollick and shoved him out of the stall. “Walk,” he ordered.
Pollick stumbled out of the stables, passing a surprised stableboy on the way. Rezkin directed Pollick to take him to the spot where he was to meet his patron. Pollick led Rezkin to the falls where the river cut through the city. Rather than crossing the bridge, he turned and walked up the cobbled road that ran along the cliff drop-off. The rows of homes and businesses gave way to store houses, and finally they reached the mountainside. Pollick stopped beside a small grotto near the waterfall. The recess was partially hidden by a gnarled tree growing from the mountain, and the entire area was in shadow. No one would see a thing unless they were actively searching for it.
Rezkin slid into the grotto, wrapping the shadows about him like a cloak. Pollick anxiously paced beside the tree giving frequent furtive glances in Rezkin’s direction. He searched the shadows to no avail until he finally gave up looking. They waited about an hour before anyone approached the area. When a man eventually appeared, Rezkin immediately recognized the threat. Although the man was dressed as a peasant, he moved with the surety and grace of a trained fighter. His muscular build and the sword at his hip lent further evidence to Rezkin’s appraisal.
The man approached quickly then stopped in the shadow of the mountain when he was a few feet from Pollick. He said, “You’ve done it?”
Pollick anxiously shifted from foot to foot. “Yes, it’s done. I put it in their wine like you said.”
“Well, you failed,” growled the man as he drew his sword and stabbed it through Pollick’s chest in one fluid movement. The man pushed a shocked Pollick off his sword and over the cliff’s edge. Pollick’s body tumbled into the rocky falls below. The man turned and peered into the darkness of the grotto. After a moment, he hustled away.
Rezkin unfurled from his hiding place and followed the man, keeping his distance and shifting his illusion frequently so as not to alert the man to his presence. He had just switched his illusion from that of a male youth to a middle-aged woman when the man ducked into a tavern. Rezkin transitioned again to an older man with a silver beard and followed the man into the establishment. It was late afternoon and the tavern boasted only a few patrons. As Rezkin entered, he noted the swordsman taking a seat at a table in the back corner with another man of equal build wearing a green hood. Rezkin sat down at a table near enough that he could hear much of what they were saying but not so close as to be suspect. Seena curled up by his feet under the table. When the serving girl approached, he ordered ale then directed his attention to the men’s discussion.
“Well, what happened?” said the hooded man.
“That lackwit said he put the venom in the wine, but he obviously lied. If he had, they would be dead now. I took care of him.”
“We’ll need another.”
“I’m inclined to just take care of this myself.”
“We’ve discussed this. If we take them one at a time, they will be on high alert after the first one. We need to do them all together. We’ll try again with the poison.”
“I could do it—go in dressed as a guard.”
“Wellinven knows his guards too well,” said the hooded man.
“Then a guard for one of the others. Atressian doesn’t seem the type to get to know his people.”
“It’s too risky. We’ll pay off another servant, and if that doesn’t work then we’ll move on to plan B.”
“The explosives?’
The hooded man nodded. “I was assured the blast would be enough to take down an entire tower.”
“Let’s skip the poison and implement plan B now.”
After a lengthy pause, the hooded may said, “Very well.”
Both men abruptly stood and strode toward the exit. Rezkin dropped a thump on the table then followed the men out, changing his appearance once again as he exited. Seena scurried ahead, following the men a little closer but not so far from him that he could not maintain the illusion that she was a cat. The men did not acknowledge the cat in their midst. This time, Rezkin followed the men to a storehouse that was only a few streets away from the tavern. The only windows to the storehouse were high up near the roof, and it only had one entrance. If Rezkin used that entrance, he would easily be seen.
Rezkin lifted Seena onto his shoulder, instructing her to hold on tight. He winced as her little talons dug into his flesh. Then he moved to the narrow space between the storehouse and the adjacent building. He leapt, bounding off the wall to the opposite wall and then again in the other direction. He kept at it, leaping back and forth, as he ascended the buildings until finally he could reach the roof and pull himself over. Seena released his shoulder and skittered across the roof flapping her wings as if to take flight.
In a harsh whisper, Rezkin said, “Seena, no. Return to my side.”
Seena lowered her wings slowly and looked at him, crestfallen. She dragged her tail along the roof as she slowly shuffled over to him. He knew she was eager to continue her flying lessons, but it was not the best time.
Rezkin padded across the flat roof toward the side with the high windows with Seena on his heels. There, he hung upside down from the roof to peer into windows smudged with dust. He found the two men inside standing over a crate discussing its contents. No one else was in the storehouse. Rezkin had a conundrum. He had no way of knowing if there were more assassins involved in this plot or if these two were it. If he took out these two now, it would alert any others that he was on to them. If he did not, he could lose them altogether.
Rezkin decided that killing these two now was worth the risk. He moved back to the side of the building he had scaled and descended in similar manner. He allowed Seena to glide down on her own, and when she reached the ground, she danced around happily. She abruptly ceased her celebration and followed him as he let himself into the storehouse through the only door. He had no armor and no sword on him since he had been disguised as a servant, but he had a plethora of knives secreted about his person. He palmed two throwing daggers as he entered the building.
As the door creaked open and Rezkin stepped into the dark interior, both men turned to look. Upon seeing him, they each drew a sword. They closed the distance. Rezkin threw his knives. The swordsman from earlier batted one away with his sword. The other dagger nicked the hooded man across the throat but failed to bring him down. Drawing two more knives, Rezkin dodged the first attacks by the two men.
They attacked in tandem with practiced ease. He ducked a strike and scored a cut across the first man’s wrist. The man maintained his grip on his sword as Rezkin maneuvered to keep both men in front of him, one blocking the other. He dodged another attack and stepped into the man’s guard, slashing his blade across the man’s forearm. The man dropped the sword with a clatter. Rezkin stabbed his other knife into the man’s kidney then pushed him into the second man. The hooded man shoved his comrade back and stepped around him. He came at Rezkin with quick, concise swings. It was not hard for Rezkin to figure out who—or what—these men were. Strikers.
Rezkin ducked, dodged, jumped, and rolled away from the hooded man’s onslaught. The man remained between Rezkin and the dropped sword, while the first man lay on the ground groaning in pain and bleeding all over the floor. Rezkin rolled away from another strike. He came to his feet and stabbed the downed man in the neck. Leaving his knife there, he quickly palmed a throwing dagger. He turned and lobbed it at the hooded man. As the man dodged, Rezkin threw himself at the man’s feet. The two tumbled to the ground. Rezkin slashed his knife across the man’s inner thigh, severing the artery. Then he crawled upward grabbing hold of the man’s sword arm in an iron grip. He stuck his knife at the man’s throat with his other hand.
“What are your names?” asked Rezkin.
The man spit in Rezkin’s face.
“How many more are there?” he asked as he pressed the knife deeper into the man’s flesh.
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m dead anyway.”
Rezkin knew it to be true. The man was bleeding out as they spoke.
“Who are you?” the man asked weakly.
Rezkin pondered that. Who was he now? He said, “They call me many things, but you may call me Death.”
The man barked a pitiful laugh as his eyes became unfocused. He whispered, “You are too late.” A moment later, he lost consciousness. Not long after that, he was dead.
Both men dead, Rezkin searched their bodies and collected his knives. Seena tiptoed around the pooling blood as she joined him. He could smell the smoke from her attempt to produce fire during the bout. Rezkin knew she wanted to join the fight. She always wanted to participate, but she was still too small, and her tiny teeth and talons would not do enough damage. She scurried up his clothing to perch on his shoulder as he peered into the crate.
An assortment of magical items was nestled in hay inside the crate. There were a few rods and pouches filled with rocks. Beneath those were clay jars containing a pungent powder. Rezkin did not know what any of the items were, and he had no way of knowing what enchantments they possessed, but he could guess that these were the explosives the strikers had been discussing. At least, some of them. The man’s final words echoed in his mind. You are too late. Perhaps the explosives were already in place. Or perhaps there was another assassin.
He sealed the crate then hefted it onto a small cart he found in the corner. Disguised as the dead servant Pollick, whose body was unlikely to be found anytime soon, if ever, he began pushing the cart toward the castle keep. When he arrived, he informed the guards that the crate had been sent by an unknown party to the mages. He would let them figure out what was in it.
Once that was finished, Rezkin and Seena set off in the direction of the mages’ ward. As he approached the corner to turn into the ward, he heard raised voices. Two men were arguing over an experiment gone wrong. Rezkin peered around the corner to see an older mage with a bald pate and glasses berating a younger mage with sandy blonde hair. The younger mage was not intimidated by the older mage, and Rezkin wondered what their relative power levels were. The younger mage stormed away turning down the corridor opposite Rezkin, and the older mage turned with a harrumph into a room.
With a bit of concentration, Rezkin transformed his illusion into a facsimile of the younger mage and headed down the corridor. He did not know the mage’s name, but he had heard his voice enough to reproduce it using illusion. He just hoped no one stopped to chat with him. There was one other problem with impersonating a mage, though, and that was vimaral bleed. Most mages bled small amounts of power, especially when using that power, that could be detected by other mages. As Spirétua, Rezkin’s vimaral bleed was not detectable by mages. Since he was disguised as a mage, it would be suspect if he did not have any. Rezkin strode down the corridor wondering if he could reproduce the effect.
From what he had learned from Entris and Wesson, power was a bit like the light spectrum. Vimara was split like light through a crystal into different bands of color. Human mages and most Eihelvanan had varying degrees of those colors, and the levels and combinations determined what kind of mage they were. A Spirétua, on the other hand, was blessed with the entire spectrum, the white light composed of all the colors.
Rezkin ducked into an empty workroom, pausing beside the doorway. He searched inside himself for his vimara. He could feel it pulsating at his core. He entered a light state of eskyeyela where he could visualize the vimara in its purest form. He could see the river of light flowing through him, could hear its melody ringing in his mind. As he did whenever he used his vimara, he drew a small stream from that river. Then he imagined separating that stream into the different colors of vimara. The stream split like a rainbow in his mind, and the melody changed becoming more animated. Rezkin released several of the colors pulling only on the blue for aquian or water, and violet for crystallis or earth. He did not know what the mage’s affinities were, but a typical mage could not tell either. Only readers could see the colors. Rezkin took the blue and violet vimara and pushed them to the surface of his body and then outside it in a small amount. He could not tell for certain, but he was reasonably sure he was expressing vimaral bleed as would a mage.
That done, he withdrew from eskyeyela and turned his attention to the room. He still needed supplies for his portable mage relay, and he did not know where to find them. As he was searching, another mage walking by stuck her head into the room.
“Ferris? What are you doing in here?” she said.
Rezkin turned toward her with a look of chagrin. “I was just catching my breath. I had an argument.”
The woman, a thirty-something brunette with a pleasant smile, looked at him sympathetically. “With Irdo. I know. I heard. I think everybody heard. I know you’re both under stress with the coming war and all, but you shouldn’t let him get to you. Just because he’s older that doesn’t mean he knows best.”
Rezkin wanted the woman to leave, but now he was stuck having a heartfelt conversation with her on Ferris’s behalf. “I know,” he said, “but I don’t think he does.”
She smiled warmly. “Come on. We’ll get some tea and talk it through.”
“I would rather just stay here for a bit if you don’t mind,” he replied.
At this she seemed a little surprised, but she covered it well. “Okay, if that’s what you want. You know where I am if you change your mind.”
Rezkin nodded and thanked her. Then he took a chance and said, “Do you know where I might find some directional alloy?”
She furrowed her brow. “Why would you want that?”
“It’s for a little side project,” he replied.
“I suppose it’s in the supply room if we have any,” she said.
“I couldn’t find it. Would you mind showing me?”
“Of course, I’ll help you look.”
Rezkin walked with the woman to a room three doors down. Seena scampered behind them chasing dust bunnies. The storage space was filled with shelves, crates, and barrels stuffed full to the brim with various magical and mundane supplies. The woman walked to a shelf and lifted a medium-sized trunk. She set it on a table in the center of the room and opened it to find a large chunk of directional alloy. Its silvery surface gleamed in the light of the mage stones on the ceiling.
“How much do you need?” she said eyeing the metallic lump.
“Not much, about the size of my thumb will do.”
The woman pinched off the required amount and rolled into a ball before handing it to him. “Is that all?”
“No, I need a few more things, but I can find them. Thank you.”
“All right, I will see you later.”
“Oh, one more thing,” he said as she was just about to exit. “How is my vimaral bleed?”
She looked at him curiously. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been working on reining it in. Do you feel it?”
“Yes, I’m afraid you haven’t been successful yet. It’s coming through quite clearly.”
Rezkin nodded and thanked her. Once the woman was gone, he began searching the storage room in earnest, stuffing items into a sack he procured from a stack in the corner. Rezkin was able to find everything he needed, although it would have been easier with some of the crystals from the citadel at Cael. Functionally, the only difference between the device he would create and those from the citadel was that only a mage would be able to operate this one. The construction of the relay would not be difficult. Linking it to the relay in Caellurum would be the challenge. Since he was not there to link it directly, he would have to do it based on memory alone. That was one of the advantages of being a scrivener, however. He had perfect memory and recall.
