06 - Rule of Thieves (17 page)

But I didn’t get far in my quest to confront the Praetor’s ward. I was stalking toward her chambers when I encountered a servant in the halls who quietly slipped me a written message.

I’d never know how Fleet managed to bribe so many of the Praetor’s people into doing his stealthy errands for him, but I was grateful for the secrecy it afforded.

Ducking into an alcove, I read his note beneath the glow of one of the flickering torches that illumined the gloomy halls.

The missive was vaguely worded, probably as a precaution lest it fall into the wrong hands. “Have made contact with persons of interest. Await further enlightenment with the gray robe,” I read.

I chewed my lower lip in thought. If this meant what I believed it did, the contingent of magickers from Swiftsfell had arrived in Selbius. And Fleet had hidden them away someplace safe.
Awaiting enlightenment.
Where would you find enlightenment but in a temple? And “the gray robe” was a name the river people had long ago given Hadrian. The choice of words indicated Fleet had stowed the magickers among the priests at the Temple of Light. Or was I misreading?

Rot Fleet and his cryptic messages. Couldn’t he have been a little more specific?

I crumpled the letter and stuffed it into my belt pouch. My confrontation with the Praetor’s ward would have to wait. I suddenly had more pressing matters to attend. Like keeping the presence of a bunch of illegal magickers concealed from Praetor Tarius.

They numbered seven, the magickers from Swiftsfell. It was unexpected that so many would have come in response to my invitation. I had expected two or three. Possibly even a lone ambassador to speak for them all. Seven was surprisingly generous. And dangerous.

As there were too many of us to fit into Hadrian’s cramped private chambers, Hadrian, the seven magickers, and I gathered in the temple’s main library. It was a vast room with soaring ceilings and row after row of books that seemed to stretch on into infinity. I was painfully aware of a couple of temple priests wandering quietly among the shelves but comforted myself that they were out of earshot.

“I am grateful to you all for coming.” I greeted the group, shaking hands with the white-haired old man in charge of their party.

I had met this man, Calder, briefly before, during my recent travels through the Cros province. He was an elder in the community where my grandmother, Myria, had lived. I was mildly surprised the people of Swiftsfell could spare him for this mission.

I said, “It has not been long since I sent out my call for help. May I ask how you arrived so quickly? We had not expected you for weeks yet.”

Hadrian and I exchanged uneasy glances, and I hoped it wasn’t evident to our guests what I was thinking. That we had been caught unprepared.

Calder nodded his snowy head. “On a matter of such importance, we hastened our travel through magical means.”

I winced as his voice echoed across the tiles of the open space. As an outsider, perhaps he had forgotten magic was not a topic openly discussed in this province.

Perhaps he sensed my feeling, because he lowered his voice. “Many in Swiftsfell were unwilling to come to the aid of Ellesus. I am sure you can forgive them that, as we remember your Praetor was responsible for the deaths of so many of our kind. Some inhabitants of our community have escaped this province once before and have no wish to return to it. But the seven of us felt differently. When your message offered a chance for magickers to make peace with the Praetor, we knew we owed it to those of our brothers and sisters still living in this place to buy them that freedom. We do not often use our magic for violence, but we come prepared to do what we must. For too long the magickers remaining in this province have suffered under Praetor Tarius’s laws and have been forced to practice their talents in secret. If we have the opportunity to improve their conditions, we are prepared to deal, even with this evil Praetor, to achieve that.”

I squirmed uncomfortably. “So you have come not to save the province from our enemies but to save the magickers in it from the Praetor’s law.”

“Of course,” he said. “As one of our own, I assumed your hopes would be the same. We can make use of this chance to gain better treatment for the magickers of Ellesus while also defending the province from your Skeltai neighbors.”

I should have guessed at such a motivation. If the Swiftsfell magickers had in their possession a bargaining chip that could buy safety and freedom for all magickers in the province, why should they not use it? Why should they not lift the shadow that had covered Ellesus for over a decade?

To Calder and his companions I said, “I must warn you I have not yet secured any promises from Praetor Tarius, not even for your own immediate safety.”

It was a massive understatement of fact. The truth was the Praetor had originally forbidden me to send for aid from Swiftsfell. If he had any notion these magickers were here in his city, he might well have them arrested. Possibly even killed.

I continued. “Tarius is coming around to the idea, but I need a little more time to negotiate with him. If the Skeltai come in full force, he will have need of you. I think he knows this but is not quite ready to admit it. That’s why I must ask you to lie low here at the temple until I can speak with him.”

Calder and his companions agreed, and I took my leave of them.

On my way out of the temple, Hadrian caught up to me and pulled me aside. “Ilan, you must know I cannot guarantee these magickers the protection you imply.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “You will be making preparations to leave for the Lythnian coast soon.”

He dismissed the suggestion. “That is nothing and can be delayed. But there is a larger problem. Even if I can persuade the temple priests to allow our friends to reside here for a short time—an arrangement which would be highly unusual and bound to excite curiosity—word of their being here will spread quickly. Such unusual strangers in the town will attract notice, if they have not already. I estimate you have a day or two to settle things with the Praetor. Maybe less. After that, matters may be taken from our hands.”

I tried to brush aside the possibility of failure. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll find a way to evacuate the Swiftsfell group quickly. I know the risk I’m taking.”

“Yes, you do,” he answered quietly. “But do they?”

Guilt stirred within me at the mild reproof. When I initially invited these magickers, I had behaved almost as if I had the authority of the Praetor behind me. I had hinted any magickers coming to the aid of the province would be protected. That had not been my promise to make. If it cost them their lives now, their blood would be on my hands.

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Leaving the temple, I wasted no time in going to the Praetor.

At this hour, he was in his audience chamber. I burst into the big room with no care for the supplicants who waited there ahead of me hoping to lay their problems before their lord.

“I must speak with the Praetor on an urgent matter,” I informed the room, striding up to Tarius’s throne-like chair atop its dais.

At my hurried entrance and abrupt manner, a pair of guards stationed nearby moved their hands to their sword hilts and looked to Praetor Tarius.

The Praetor gave a slight inclination of his head, indicating I should be permitted to approach.

I skipped the niceties. “My lord, we’ve spoken before of the possibility of outside help to eliminate the Skeltai threat.”

Tarius looked impatient. And ill. The shadows beneath his eyes were dark, the tense lines around his mouth more pronounced than ever.

“If you refer again to the idea of an alliance formed with magickers, I have already given you an answer,” he said shortly. “That discussion is postponed indefinitely.”

I didn’t argue. If my time in the castle had taught me nothing else, it was that reason and diplomacy could sometimes be as powerful as a battering ram.

Mindful the Praetor would be less tolerant of my usual impudence now we were in the presence of others, I chose my words carefully. “I understand my lord would rather we fought our own battle. But I fear that option may no longer exist. I have been in the darkest depths of the Black Forest and witnessed the strength and numbers of our enemy. More, I have seen the power of their mighty shaman warriors. I am offering more than a guess when I say we do not stand a chance of defeating them on our own ground or any other. Should they throw their full force into an attack on the capital city, we will fall quickly and our casualties will be massive. Even if we summon every fighter in the province, any man or woman capable of wielding a weapon, we will not hold Selbius. And without Selbius, what hope is there for the rest of the province? We cannot keep them back.”

It was a bleak picture I painted but an accurate one.

I expected an angry response from Tarius. He was a proud ruler, especially proud of his Iron Fists and his walled city. And I had just told him his strongest fighters and best defenses were useless.

“This is your estimation then?” he asked, rubbing his temple with one hand, as though it had begun to ache. “You are confident of our destruction?”

“I am.”

His response caught me by surprise. “Then I will grant your request. I will see a representative of these magickers you place so much trust in and discuss what we can do for one another.”

Stunned by his easy agreement, I nonetheless pressed for more. “I can deliver several representatives. But they would bring certain conditions with them. And without definite promise of immunity from the laws relating to magic, I doubt an envoy would set foot in the province.”

“Do you?” At his knowing expression, I was struck with the certain realization he was somehow aware of the group of magickers I had secretly stashed away in the temple. My mind went to the Fist bodyguard who was supposed to stay close to me. The one I hadn’t seen since yesterday. He must have shadowed me to the temple and rushed to report the presence of the magickers to Tarius.

I cursed my carelessness in allowing myself to be followed by so clumsy a spy.

But Praetor Tarius didn’t appear to be in the mood to order any arrests, tortures, or executions today. He merely said, “Tell your contacts they have their immunity. I will consider the rest.”

Before I could respond, there came the sound of a commotion out in the hall. An instant later, the doors of the audience chamber were shoved open. A Fist, bloodstained and drenched in mud and sweat, rushed into the room to fall at the Praetor’s feet.

“My lord,” he announced. “The enemy has attacked.”

____________________

For a frozen moment, I thought the entire city was under attack. Then the Praetor demanded details.

Breathless, as though he had run the whole way here, the Fist gave a hurried account of an ambush on a company of our soldiers.

“Captain Terrac was leading a small patrol near the lake road within sight of the city, when they were set upon by Skeltai,” he concluded. “The enemy was turned back, but few of our men survived the fight.”

At the mention of Terrac, my stomach lurched. “The captain,” I demanded, interrupting the report. “Is he one of the fallen?”

The Fist didn’t know. He could only tell me the survivors had been taken to the healing hall.

I didn’t waste time trying to find out more but dashed straight out of the audience chamber.

I ran all the way to the healing hall, uncertain if I would find Terrac among the survivors. By the time I arrived, my breath was coming in short, hard gasps and my pulse pounded in my ears.

I burst through the carved doors to find a scene of chaos. Everywhere, there were blood-soaked wounded Fists and healers rushing about tending to them.

Grabbing a passing healer, I asked breathlessly where I could find the captain. She pointed me toward a quieter, curtained-off alcove. Here I discovered more healers working over a still form on a red-stained cot. I caught a glimpse of gaping wounds, bared entrails, and impossible quantities of blood.

I froze where I stood, disbelieving what I saw before me, unable to comprehend that my most desperate fears were coming true. I didn’t need to be told the injuries I saw were mortal. I had seen enough of such wounds to know the case was hopeless.

But then one of the healers blocking my view shifted and I caught sight of the rest of the bloodied body. It wasn’t Terrac. The face of the dying man was unfamiliar to me. Just some nameless young Fist.

My heart leapt with relief, even as I caught sight of someone stirring at the edge of the scene. There was Terrac, hovering in the background with a stricken look on his face, his gaze focused on the dying soldier and the healers trying to save him.

There was an ugly cut along his eye, a wicked slash that ran from temple to cheekbone, leaving a stream of crimson flowing freely down his face. I saw no other injuries but didn’t hang back to look for them.

In a flood of relief, I ran to throw my arms around him. Not until I felt him reassuringly solid against me could I be certain he was really here and safe.

“I thought you were dead.” My voice came out muffled against his shoulder.

Briefly, I felt his comforting hand on my hair. But he was distant. Distracted. I didn’t need my magic to sense his pain.

Pulling back from the embrace, I followed his attention to the soldier lying motionless on the cot as the healers swarmed around him, trying to stem the flow of his blood. I could have told them their efforts would come to nothing. Already the Fist had the pale look of a corpse about him.

Terrac must have seen the same. “It should have been me,” he said hollowly. I thought he was speaking more to himself than to me.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, my tone softer than my words. “It shouldn’t have been anybody. Least of all you.”

I touched the drying blood on his cheek. “You should have stitches. Come away now and let the healers look after you.”

He resisted my gentle tugging at him, his haunted gaze never swerving from the bleeding Fist.

“The healers are needed by others. I can wait.” Like his face, his voice lacked emotion.