TWOLAS - 05 - Grand Conspiracy

  He ducked through the railing rather than trouble to round the staged landing. There, a forlorn figure with the threadbare hem of the blanket trailing, he paused beneath the pillared cupola. The stone underneath the raised dais was far older, laid down in past ages by the great centaur masons. Their work had framed the focus for a power circle neither time nor mortal building could erase.

  Standing in the brittle, cold breeze with the blanket slipped to his shoulders, Sethvir heard the imprinted echoes of their song. The notes twined a descant like spun silver through the actinic static that marked the flow of earth's lane force. He clasped stockinged hands, closed his eyes, and lapsed into what looked like innocuous contemplation.

  Luhaine, nearby, could sense changing resonance thrum through the focus like a sounding board. He judged his moment with fussy precision, and incited two lurking mongrels to chase someone's cat down an alleyway. A twist of false sound made them appear to turn on each other and engage in a snarling fight.

  Shutters clapped open. Outraged citizens cursed the racket and hurled basins of water to quash the yapping disturbance, while the flared pulse of light raised for Sethvir's departure came and went in an eyeblink. Unremarked in the pale swirl of snow, the Warden of Althain tapped the lane-fired energies of a star at the zenith and left Lysaer's royal city of Avenor.

  One by one, the sparrows that had comprised the energies of his ward of concealment blurred and faded from the onionskin roof of the cupola. They vanished away into thin air, leaving no trace and no track behind them.

  Midwinter 5654

  Twins

  While deep winter's blizzards howled in whiteout gusts over the northern passes, the soporific perfume of citrus rode the southland breeze that rustled glossy leaves of the merchant's gardens in the Shandian trade port of Innish. Yet tonight, other scents warred with the fragrance wafted through the cracked window of Fiark's cramped garret office; his twin sister, Feylind, leaned on the sill in her slops. Her presence admitted the distinct bite of ship's tar and a robust, smoky fug carried out of the seedier shoreside taverns.

  "That's a ripe crock o' bilge, and you know it.' Arms folded over her breasts in black temper, Feylind bore into her argument. 'To Sithaer you don't know the names of his contacts, and the place he makes landfall also.'

  Fiark tallied the last line in the ledger and fastidiously blotted his pen nib. Unfazed by rank language and accusations, he laced his hands above his head and stretched the kinks from his back. Clean fingers and unstained lace cuffs gave sharp contrast to his sister's chapped hands and the sweat-stained string of the turk's-head bracelets worn for luck by most blue-water sailors.

  'Whose contacts?' he inquired, his disinterested reference to her nameless subject no less than a jabbing provocation.

  'Well, damn you for a spoon-fed liar!' Feylind sprang off the windowsill, her long, yellow braid wisped silver at the ends from overexposure to strong sunlight. 'For that, I should plow a fist through your jaw 'til your teeth greet the nape of your neck! You never kept secrets before this.'

  'Before this, there weren't sword-bearing fanatics lining up to swear undying service against Darkness.' Fiark regarded her, his hands clasped at the brass-buckled cuffs of his knee breeches, and his eyes tranquil blue in sincerity. 'I see sunwheel talismans sprouting like mushrooms for each galley lost to a clan raid. The knowledge you ask for holds fatal stakes, and Prince Arithon swore his oath for your safety. You can't reward the gift of his care without staying mindful that danger dogs every rumored move that he makes.'

  His sister returned a spectacular, balked scowl, fists cocked on the belt which hung her man-sized cutlass. 'Damn him to slow death on Dharkaron's Black Spear! I was eight years old at the time of that pledge, and besides, his word was given to our mother!'

  'He's still in the right.' Fiark laughed in the irresistible way that made shreds of her need to stay angry. 'You're no whit less wild now that you're grown, and anyway, eighteen's not considered your majority. Not by the tenets of old charter law, which Prince Arithon is charged to uphold by crown obligation.'

  'You talk like a foppish, mealymouthed lawyer. And dress like one, too,' Feylind grumbled. She paced, her agitation intractable as a caged lioness, while the clomp of her seaboots across the bare floor raised a bellowed complaint from the downstairs tenant.

  Fiark closed the boards of the ledger and locked its bronze hasp fastening. 'You know, you're disturbing honest folks' sleep.' When his sister refused to abstain from her racket, he returned her spirited sniping. 'Also, on the subject of clothing, you're nobody's walking example. You'd have trouble courting a draft ox, done up as you are like a sailhand on course for a tavern bash.'

  His sister regarded the toes of her boots, her grin wicked, and her laugh deep and rich with enjoyment. 'I need the brass caps to fend off randy suitors.' For effect and demonstration, she stamped on the floor, which intimidated the disgruntled downstairs tenant back to meek suffering and silence.

  'You won't be excused by changing the subject, forbye.' Feylind cast herself into the battered leather armchair, her boisterous energy riffling the weighted stacks of lading lists piled over her brother's desk. 'Arrange me a cargo for the port where he keeps contact, and let my Evenstar carry the dispatches.'

  'I can't,' Fiark said, apologetic. Before she could embark on another spate of guttersnipe's language, he handed across a scrap of correspondence written in neat, ciphered script. 'His Grace gave the orders. Evenstar's to be nowhere near the party who's sent to make rendezvous. That's for his own safety, as well as yours. He says the Koriani witches watch everything.'

  'But not here?' Feylind snorted her frank disbelief. 'That's an excuse so brainless a baitfish won't buy.' She flicked back the paper, deflated by the fact the handwriting was recognizably genuine. Arithon s'Ffalenn remained the only living spirit she consistently failed to outwit or bully to gain her way.

  'Keep your boots off my desk,' said her brother, aware of her intent in the fractional second as intention took form in her mind. Her time spent at sea had not changed the unspoken understanding between them. They still shared thoughts as though loomed from one thread, which made sustained argument difficult.

  "The warding was Dakar's?' Feylind asked. The capitulation Fiark had waited for, that had nothing to do with uncouth habits or seaboots, arrived with no fuss appended; Feylind twisted in the chair and unhooked the belt which hung her black-handled weapon. She drew a thick packet of letters from a pouch tucked underneath her man's jerkin.

  Fiark accepted the bundle with apology rather than triumph. 'The spellbinder wrought a protection so strong, some days I find just crossing the threshold sets me into a cold sweat.' He settled the packeted documents into a locked drawer, then dealt his twin sister the leveling honesty that kept their inviolate trust. 'There's everything at risk. The Shadow Master all but lost his sanity at Riverton, which is why you'll collect no more unsolicited correspondence in Tysan, and also stop plaguing me with dangerous, prying questions.'

  'I'll do that, perhaps.' Feylind poked her cheek, thoughtful. 'But only if you'll shed your fine airs and fop's clothes and share beer at the Gull and Anchor.'

  'That dive!' Fiark raked exasperated fingers through his neatly trimmed golden hair. 'You have the bar keeper there in your pocket. He'd spike my drink out of gallantry just to weigh the odds in your favor, and anyway, getting me drunk will damned well not loosen my tongue far enough to spill the secret you're craving.'

  'Bet on that?' Feylind's freckled nose crinkled to her wide grin. 'Drink or cards, brother. I'll see you under the table or beggared.'

  'Witch.' Fiark laughed, rising. 'You never could.' Grown unfamiliarly fastidious since their beginnings as mackeral shack urchins in Merior, he tipped his crockery jug of goose quills and fished out a candle snuffer. Gone were the days when he would black his fingers pinching out wicks, or cause a careless spatter of wax on his employer's lading lists.

  'You're coming?' Feylind prodded, and flung him th
e mantle he kept on a hook by the doorway.

  'Oh, I'll share your shore liberty, you ungrateful wench. But not at a den as notorious as the Anchor. We'll sup at the Halfmoon.' Fiark thumbed through his keys for the one that secured the hasp lock on his office. 'That way, I haven't very far to stagger home, and you can pass out where you won't find yourself tucked in some oily galleyman's bed come the morning.'

  'Halfmoon's for milksops who can't hold their liquor,' Feylind retorted, impatiently starting her clumping descent of the stair. 'The landlady there's a damned child's nurse.'

  'Oh? Say that to her face, fat Moirey will fell you.' Fiark caught up and matched her long-strided energy with the effortless grace of old habit. 'Two silvers says you don't dare.' On his way past the second-floor tenant's shut door, he paused, then grinned at the abusive threats the matron yelled from inside. He elbowed his sister before she could retort. 'Don't be a pest. The couple have children. Your thoughtless noise could set them crying into the wee hours of the morning.'

  With a shrug that reflected no shred of shame, Feylind answered his challenge. 'Two silvers is ant's piss, to brangle with Moirey. Do you want dinner, or a front seat to watch me get drubbed with a meat mallet?' They reached the ground-floor landing; Feylind spun with a flourish and showed off her new trick, a neat, chest-high kick that tripped up the bar on the outside doorway. 'I still have a fiends-plagued dent in my leg from the time the trull hit me with her fire iron.'

  'She did that?' Fiark trailed into the narrow, brick-paved alley, rising with pleasure to the lively challenge of an evening in his sister's company. 'What was the offense? You pick a fight with one of her pimps?'

  'Drink or cards?' Feylind persisted, a demented enjoyment setting a whetted edge to her grin. 'Choose one or the other. You want every scrap of my sordid gossip? Then you'll earn the right through a winning stake that proves you're not the mim-faced town dandy you seem by the sissified cut of your clothes.'

  'Let it be cards,' Fiark settled. 'But if I win, the stake that I claim will be your promise, made on his own name, that you solicit no more news on behalf of his contacts. Nor will you try any other sly tricks that will lead to your knowing his business.'

  'I can't give that promise,' Feylind said in a sudden, desperate honesty. 'You've seen for yourself how bad things are turning.' She lowered her voice, lest the echoing sound of their passage carry too well down the alleyway. 'Too many enemies are finding their way to the council tables. The Alliance's cause has been tailor-made to further the townsmen's entrenched hatreds. The hour could all too easily arrive when my role as Evenstar's captain becomes the one cipher that could spare Arithon's life.'

  Plain facts, and a truth that cut with razored pain to the heart; Fiark found himself wordless. 'All right,' he agreed, when at last his dark thoughts loosened enough to let him speak. 'No promise, but your given intent that you honor his Grace's wishes where your personal safety is at stake. He lost Caolle to the dark machinations of the curse. If your careless misadventures ever came to break his personal bond to our mother, I don't want to share in his anguish.'

  Feylind drew breath, and Fiark interrupted in the same vein of brutal sincerity. 'You didn't see the damage wrought by Caolle's death. Nor will you, if the Shadow Master's fate resolves kindly. Wish for nothing else, Feylind. To do less would not be the act of a friend, but an axe blow to further the frightening cause of his Alliance enemies.'

  Late Winter 5654

  Foray

  Parrien s'Brydion, next oldest brother to the Duke of Alestron, paced the decks in bad temper. That morning had brought his family's state galley into the overcrowded port city of Southshire. Across the merle chop of the harbor's pale waters, he could already see that the dockside berths were jammed to the point of insanity.

  The lighterman he swore at dutifully shouted back. 'We've got moorings still available. But only through making the proper application, with the fee paid in full at the harbormaster's.'

  'May Dharkaron's Black Chariot shear a linchpin and drop a wheel foursquare on the heads of the dolts in this city!' Every bit as volatile as his youngest brother Mearn, but built with the shoulders of an axeman, Parrien snarled on in distemper. 'Just what're we expected to do meanwhile? Row in pissing circles while yon simpering, overdressed clutch of officials quibble and suck on their pen nibs?'

  With gauntleted fists hooked on his studded sword belt, he glowered askance, and then raised another ranging bellow, this time addressed to his crewmen. 'Damn you all for a pack of mincing laggards! Quit fiddling with whatever part's itching and sway out this gilt tub's excuse for a shore tender!'

  The war captain and five mercenaries who strapped on their weapons to go ashore watched, resigned, since the shortage of dock space at this time of year was altogether predictable.

  Two months past the solstice, the rag ends of winter still closed off the northshore ports. While howling white blizzards cast snowdrifts like nets over the mountain passes, the wharfside dives on the south coast of Shand enjoyed their peak season of prosperity. What trade moved at all in the months before thaws must pass by the southern sea routes. Since no man could predict when the ice packs would break, or the high peaks shed their mail of slurry and ice as spring rains sluiced open the roadways, the blue-water captains drove their vessels in a cutthroat race to seize profit. Each year, ships vied to complete one last run east or west before the premium price of their cargoes could be undercut by the first overland caravans.

  The month before thaws, every harbor in Shand held a maze of anchored vessels. Having zigzagged an oared course through the crisscrossing traffic of lighters to gain the docks, Parrien clambered onto the sun-bleached boards, steel studs and weapons flashing. Bystanders and longshoremen scattered from his path. With his cadre of mercenaries trailing, he stalked to the sanctum of waterfront authority.

  'Wait here until I come out,' he commanded, adding a flicked signal to his captain. Under a graceful, tiled arch and the puckered bliss of a spouting nymph, Parrien rammed through double doors that led into the stuffy, paneled foyer of the harbormaster's office. There, he made his s'Brydion presence felt in blustering language. The three scurrying stewards strove to placate him, then flushed red to the ears and gave in.

  A servant swiftly ushered him into the main office in vain hope of keeping him quiet.

  Not about to stay mollified, Parrien paced. The sheath of the broadsword he wore at his belt sliced wide arcs that clipped tasseled furnishings. He fumed as he stomped, and disgruntled the robed secretaries by insisting on preferential treatment. When asked to show more seemly decorum, he raised his iron-flecked brows in astonishment. 'Show me why an overdecorated galley from Jaelot should outrank a duke's brother where there's space at the docks to tie up.'

  An elderly official in Southshire's silk livery answered in stiff-lipped reproof. 'That vessel's sworn to the Alliance of Light.'

  'You say!' Parrien jutted his square chin across the propped ledgers arranged like a barrier on the desk. The foghorn bellow he shared with three brothers rattled the walls as he ranted, 'So what if some puffed-up captain from that mayor's prissy galley flies the sunwheel banner? Alestron's in league with that cause as well.

  You won't see a sniping scrap of white cloth on my masthead, just our own family banner. S'Brydion don't claim borrowed loyalty out of need to protect what's ours! Any ignoramus who holds his life cheap can slight our name at his peril. He'll get his head dunted with no cry for help for the Prince of the Light to send in armed might for backing.'

  Rawboned and mean as a fidgety tiger, the duke's oldest sibling crashed his forearm into the ordered papers of officialdom. Reed pens and parchments jumped from the blow. The flask burped up a dollop of black ink, to a trilling squeak from a clerk.

  For a moment the quiet became thick enough to wring running sweat from cowed servants. The balding harbormaster tapped an attenuated finger into a cheek like boiled leather, while two onlooking captains and several wattled ministers peered with
circumspect caution from under their hat brims.

  'Sithaer's biting furies, man!' Parrien stormed. 'You know what's good, you'll see me happy. I've a shipload of my brother's best mercenaries manning the oars belowdecks. Once they've drunk a skinful, they like to make sauce out of unsuspecting lightermen with their fists. I suggest you find me a berth at the docks. Let my men stagger back from their whoring on foot, and maybe your bonesetters can keep their chance of getting an honest night's rest.'

  The harbormaster blinked, bored. 'Banners aside, we have no berths free at the moment.' His enervated shrug made Parrien's high temper seem overdone to absurdity. 'And if there's a bonesetter anywhere in Southshire's sea quarter who gets an uninterrupted night before equinox, I don't know him. One brawler more or less before thaws isn't likely to matter.'

  Which was the plain truth; late winter on the south coast was no place for a man too refined to withstand the roughneck pursuits of a seafaring neighborhood. Even here, overcrowding made way for no nicety. The raw noise and shouts from the thoroughfare beat through the clay walls, interspersed by the croaks from the rooks nesting in the harbormaster's watch turrets. From that high vantage, each day, sharp-eyed tally boys stood counting ships. They matched their numbers against each entry in the register, and made accurate lists for the constables. Those captains who tied to a mooring without paying were systematically accosted and fined.

  The shoreside watch was in fighting trim, with the taverns and brothels packed night and day, and the wharf quarter tuned to the hysterical pitch of a carnival. Street stalls under their sun-faded awnings shook and bulged to capacity crowds. Each morning, men were knifed in hot-tempered arguments. Fights and trade conflicts heated to boiling in minutes, as vendors and landlords elbowed to rake in the easy flow of winter silver.

  'What's the price of your extortion, then?' Parrien grumbled, not beaten, but shrewd enough to know when intimidation became wasted enterprise.