Crossed Blades (22 page)

“But it’s madness! You don’t even have a real plan beyond traveling to Heaven’s Reach and using the key that Kelos the traitor gave you to sneak in.”

“Not yet, no. Because I have to see the lay of the land. I’ve never been to Heaven’s Reach and I don’t have the goddess to conjure me up a map anymore. Besides, you know as well as I do that all a plan does is give you a starting point. Not once in all the missions the goddess sent me on did the initial plan survive more than about halfway through to the goal. Most of the time it went to hell the minute I actually started encountering the reality on the ground. It’s not having a plan that made me a good Blade, it was being able to revise the plan to suit the conditions as I found them.”

“He’s got a point,” said Triss.

She threw up her hands. “You know, that’s half of why Devin hated you. He used to say that no matter what the plan was, you always fucked it up, and
still
came out on top.”

“That’s because Devin, as much as I once loved him, is an idiot. Success isn’t making a good plan and following it no matter what. Success is understanding that a good plan is step one on a long journey, and then moving on to step two when the time comes.”

“We need you here, Aral. To take Loris’s place.” I raised an eyebrow and Jax blushed angrily. “I mean at the school, not in my bed.”

“I know what you meant,” I said, more gently this time because that’s not what I’d intended to convey. “But you don’t need me. Not the me you’ve got at the moment, at least. I have to do this, Jax. If I don’t, I’m going to crawl into the bottle again. I can feel it.”

She looked away. “The Son of Heaven is a harder target to crack than the King of Zhan. Four Masters have died trying to make him pay for what he did to us at the temple. Four. Not counting the turncoats, that’s more than there are left of us. You’re going to die if you go after him, Aral.”

“I might. But if I don’t at least try, you won’t recognize me in six months. More importantly, I think I can do it.” I pulled out the pair of little silver boxes. “This gives me an edge like nothing any other Blade has ever even dreamed about. It’s not a magic panacea, but I think it’ll get me in close enough.”

“Maybe, but will it get you out again? That’s always the harder part.”

I shrugged. “I’m less concerned about that at the moment, but yes, I hope that it will.”

“Don’t think I’ve given up on this yet,” said Jax. “I’ve still got a week. But assuming you can make this play work, will you come back here to help me with the school afterward?”

“Maybe. I’d like to, if I can beat the bottle. I don’t know if killing the Son of Heaven will be enough to get me back on the right path. What I do know is that not doing it sure as hell won’t.”

“Again, not giving up, but if you have to go, won’t you at least take Roric with you? You’ve got two of those fingers, and having some backup might make all the difference.”

Triss’s “No” beat mine. “I agree that Aral and I have to try this. But I won’t let anyone else risk themselves with us.”

Jax smashed her good hand down on her thigh. “That’s because you don’t believe you’re coming back, isn’t it?”

“I believe we can kill the Son of Heaven,” replied Triss.

“That’s not an answer,” said Jax.

“It is, you know,” said Sshayar. “Just not the one you want.” She sat back on her haunches and gave Triss and me each a small bow. “I wish you success and good hunting. I will pray that you come back to us, but even if you don’t, know that I agree that the target is worth the cost.” Then she collapsed into Jax’s shadow.

“Well, I damn well don’t,” she said.

“Neither do I,” Faran added when I slipped back out into the hall. “But I’ve seen you drinking where Jax hasn’t, and I think I understand you better than she does. If this is what you need to do, I’m not going to fight with you about it.”

“But you’d follow after me if you were well enough, no matter what I said.”

“Of course I would.” There was no heat in her voice, but I could see it burning in her unbandaged eye, and I thought that her not being up to coming with me on this might be the sole good thing to come out of her injury. “You need someone to watch your back.”

“Little monster.”

“Horrible old man.”

After that and my conversation with Jax there wasn’t much more to say but good-bye. I left the castle on foot a few days later, though Jax offered me a horse or a coach. A man afoot is much less obtrusive than a rider, and he can go as fast or faster over longer distances if he’s willing to push and keep pushing day after day. There would be horses later, and boats, but only as necessary.

*   *   *

I
was riding when I finally arrived at the border of Heaven’s Reach. The shortest route took me through the high grasslands of the northern Kvanas, and they’re a horse people. Anything else would have looked suspicious. I’d joined a group of Radewalder pilgrims coming east to see the great temple of Shan and pay tribute to Heaven’s Son. With my new face I blended right in, and I’d learned the accent long ago and well enough that they believed I was a countryman well met in foreign lands.

I had a few tense moments when the border guards looked through our packs. But they didn’t dig deep enough to find the fingers or other bits of magical gear. I’d hidden those in a concealed bladder in a fat water skin that I’d had a Dalridian smuggler make around them. Without my old temple blades, none of my other gear was strange enough to draw any real comment. Not when I’d strapped my swords to my saddle and disassembled the rig that normally held them into its component straps and rings.

Heaven’s Reach, the domain, is small, one long valley running west to east along the border between the Kvanas and Aven. It’s also rich, both in terms of the land, which is very fertile, and the tributes it draws from satellite temples and pilgrims across the eleven kingdoms. Shan is the Emperor of Heaven and all the other churches pay him tribute. We were coming in on the western border, so it took us three days of gentle riding to reach Heaven’s Reach the city.

We took rooms in one of the many overpriced inns the church has built to fleece the pilgrims, and I pleaded a bout of illness when the others went to visit the outer shrines the next morning. It was an obligatory tour for the truly devout, but of no interest to me. While they were gone, I reassembled my rig and trick bag then hid them in the floor of my room. I spent the next three days playing pilgrim with the others as they went through the inner shrines and lesser temples that lay within the sacred boundary of the temple precinct—an enormous and extremely well-guarded stone wall.

I feigned a return of my sickness on the final day when they went to the great temple itself. I would have loved to do a thorough scout around with my newfound friends providing moving cover, but I couldn’t justify the danger it would put them in. The risk of one of my traitorous brethren stumbling on my shadow trail was just too high. I hadn’t run into anyone else’s shadow trail yet, but if the Son of Heaven had any of my former comrades around to help provide him with security, he’d keep them close at hand.

By begging stories of the wonders of the great temple from my “fellow” pilgrims, I was able to assemble a pretty good map of the public parts of the inner complex of buildings. They were quite happy to make corrections to my charcoal sketch, showing off their new knowledge of this holiest of Shan’s temples—but sad that we would be parting ways on the morrow. They were heading back to Radewald as soon as they could, to beat the snows, and I’d long since told them I was going on to Aven for business reasons.

I spent another night and day at the inn, to give my erstwhile companions time to move on. I wanted to give them a good head start so they’d run a lower chance of getting into trouble if I was caught. I spent the bulk of that time wandering the outskirts of the temple precinct, studying my map, and putting together a plan for my initial approach. After I passed beyond the limits of the map I was going to have to improvise, but there was nothing I could do about that. Finally, I paid my bill, hid the bulk of my traveling gear on a rooftop, and strapped on my swords.

It was time for the Son of Heaven to die.

21

Y
ou
can inscribe a lie in letters of gold, but that won’t make it into beautiful truth. The temple complex was supposed to provide a sort of imperfect reflection of the gods’ own Celestial City here in the world of man. It
was
gorgeous, even I had to admit that, but for me it was like the beauty of a will-o’-wisp—a pretty falsehood meant to lead the unwary astray.

According to holy writ, the Celestial City’s streets are paved with ivory and pearl, its walls carved from jade, and its buildings roofed with purest gold. Not even the Son of Heaven could afford to counterfeit that kind of wealth, nor had he or his predecessors tried. To do so, they claimed, would have been blasphemy. No, Heaven’s Reach must only reflect heaven, not strive to imitate it.

So the streets were paved with plain stone, but crushed shells had been sprinkled over them and fixed in place with magic, so that they shone silver and white under sun and moon, and blue and gold by magesight. The walls were faced with pale green marble, and the rooftops covered in terra-cotta tile that was sheathed in silver foil enchanted against tarnishing. A thousand slaves came out at night to polish every surface so that it all shone and sparkled like a ghost of the city it was supposed to reflect.

I could easily have gone in through the gates with the rest of the pilgrims during the day. I chose to go over the wall after the sun went down instead, though it required more initial effort. I had the best reason in the world.

After I’d left the inn and parked my gear I’d conducted a small experiment that I’d been itching to try for the better part of two days. I split my medallion.

Every pilgrim was given a little cast pewter medallion when they made their “voluntary” donative at the gate shrine and was told to wear it openly for their time in the city. Of course, you didn’t get a medal if you didn’t donate, and no one without a medal got to enter the temple precinct. Even the priests wore them, though theirs were cast in silver.

The spells that bound the medallions were very slickly done. Wrapping each one in permanent self-sustaining spells would have been prohibitively costly of magical resources. What they’d done instead was enchant the major gates at the entrance to the precinct and between neighborhoods within it. When a medallion passed through any of these gates, powerful enchantment, built into the very stones of the arch, activated and energized the medallions.

When they placed the medallion around your neck at the gate shrine it looked like nothing but a cheap bit of religious jewelry of the sort any moderately prosperous and devout peasant might be able to afford. Magesight revealed nothing more about it than the regular sort, and it remained apparently ordinary until your group knelt on the threshold of the temple precinct and recited the prayer after the priest. There, each medallion flashed bright blue for a moment, and not just to mages’ eyes.

For the rest of the day, it would flash each time you passed through one of the “holy gates” that divided the sacred city into a series of individually defensible baileys or wards. In between, the medallion was infused with a very faint blue glow visible only to magesight. That remained after you left the temple precinct, but had visibly faded by the next day.

I couldn’t figure it out at first, not until I’d thought to split my medallion open along the casting seam. The medallion was actually two medallions, the outer religious piece, and the inner magical tracking device and key. There were four glyphs inscribed within. Finding, binding, sympathy, and identity.

From back to front, each medallion had a unique signature, each one keyed itself to its wearer, and would sound an alarm if separated from them, each one could be tracked using a simple spell. If you had a medallion, the temple could tell who you were, where you were, and probably where you’d been. If you didn’t, anyone who saw you knew you were an invader. It was a slick system.

Very slick. Roughly fifteen minutes after I broke mine open, a Hand and five Swords were sniffing around the well I’d thrown it down. A few minutes after that, the Hand had said a few words over the well and the broken medallion had flown up out of the depths to land at her feet.

I couldn’t hear what she told her escort from where I was perched on a nearby rooftop and I didn’t think it was worth risking a hearsay, but she didn’t seem too alarmed by the find. I figured I was probably not the first irreverent pilgrim who broke his shiny little toy and then panicked afterward. Triss agreed with me. Still, I was very glad I’d given the gate shrine attendants nothing but lies about my name and my business. Likewise the Radewalders, though I hoped no one would bother to go after them for questioning.

Getting over the outer wall wasn’t all that difficult. It never is. All it took was patience, climbing skills, a shroud, and the judicious application of tried and true magical techniques to the basic security wards. I was just moving from there toward the center of the precinct via one of the curtain walls that divided the baileys when a very unpleasant thought occurred to me.

A smart and paranoid magical architect might well have built the gates to do double duty: charge the medallions
and
scream bloody murder if someone without one passed through, or even over one. Since the mage who’d designed the security for Heaven’s Reach was clearly both paranoid and smart, it gave me more than a moment’s pause. I released Triss from his dream state and brought him up to date on my thinking.

Seems likely, given the circumstances,
he sent back.
What do you want to do about it?

We could go down and head inward at ground level, staying away from the gates, but that’s going to slow us down a lot.

Not to mention the fact that there may be other places besides that gates that have the same spells on them. Probably are, actually.
He made a sort of mental “hmmmming” noise then that I didn’t like.

What is it, Triss?

As much as you or I may find the thought repulsive, the Son of Heaven is the representative of Shan here in the mortal realm.

And?

Do you suppose some of the gate spells are god magic?

As in, invisible to magesight? Oooh, that’s not a happy thought at all. It means that if there are some of them in places other than the gates, we’ll have no way of spotting them.

Exactly. Which brings me back to my original question; what do you want to do about it?

I guess now is the time to see if our secret weapon is going to work.
I pulled out the finger that Kelos had given me—I still didn’t trust mine, though I found the idea that I had a backup reassuring. Looking at it closely I found the glyphs of binding and sympathy inscribed on the bezel, though not the ones for finding or identity.
At least this way, we have a much better chance of running for it if it fails.

We do if it fails in a way that’s visible to us.

Have I ever told you that I find you too much the optimist?

No.

Good.
A faint mental laugh tickled the edges of my mind as I resumed control over my familiar.

Moving very slowly and with the beringed finger well out in front of me I slipped forward along the top of the wall. A few yards shy of the nearer gate pier, the ring’s bezel began to glow very faintly blue in magesight. Reluctantly, I extended my shroud to cover the ring, blocking my own view. It was more important that I not attract the attention of any fortuitously placed guards than that I keep an eye on it. As I got closer still it began to glow with the same sort of worldly light as the medallions had earlier.

The pressure of the light coming off the ring prickled uncomfortably against the shadows that hid it, like a light sunburn late in the day. That amped up to a real burn that had me wishing I could uncover the damn thing as I passed over the central arch—normally Blades go out of the way to avoid carrying lights of any kind inside a shroud. Fortunately, it quickly faded again on the far side.

I could only hope that the lack of a finding glyph on the ring meant that the Signet was an important enough officer of the church that the monitoring system had been designed not to track and inconvenience whoever held the post. I did have an important secondary bit of positive evidence for that idea, if you assumed that Kelos had been keeping the finger close at hand over the few years since he’d changed his allegiance. If not, well, if not, I was probably going to die without ever getting anywhere close to my target.

I tucked the finger back into the divided bag I’d made for it and its mate, and moved on. The temple precinct was shaped a bit like a nautilus shell, spiraling inward through a series of walled baileys, each with its own shrines and temples, toward the central complex. My next check came as I crossed over another curtain wall, this one part of the encircling wall dividing the first of the inner rings from the next one in.

No sooner had I stepped from the transverse wall between two baileys to the larger ring wall, then I felt an intense flare of light from the pouch holding the Signets’ signets. Even through the thick fabric, the light chewed at my shroud and continued to do so as I made my way from there to the next transverse wall. It dimmed, but continued as I moved across to the next loop of the ring wall where it flared again.

At that point, I hopped down to the roof of a lesser temple and squatted in a sort of alcove made by the intersection of the two walls. Facing into the corner, I shifted the shadow away from my face and chest, moving it back and up to create a pocket of darkness before releasing Triss. When I opened the pouch, I could see the ring still glowing, but very dimly—I wouldn’t have been able to see it even by moonlight. Pulling out the finger, I moved it closer to the wall.

In response, and as expected, the glow brightened dramatically. Whatever magic tied the rings and the medallions to the gates was present in all of the major walls here in the depths of the precinct.

I don’t know what we’d do without this ring.
I tapped the signet with my thumb.
If Kelos hadn’t given it to us for the abbey attack, I don’t think we could have gotten even this far.

I don’t either, and I don’t like it. It makes things too easy, and it’s magic that’s not under our direct control. This is tied to Kelos’s life force. If he died or chose to sever the connection while we’re here, we’d be in the shit deep.

That’s why we made one of our own.
I touched my free hand to the pouch at my breast.
In fact, why don’t we check it?

I put the first Signet’s finger away and pulled out the one I’d made, moving it close to the wall. It was slimmer, coming from a woman’s hand, and the ring dimmer—its glow wasn’t even visible initially—and almost as much green as it was blue, but it did light up. The finger felt colder, too. Warm, but not quite blood warm, which might account for the dimness and green tinge.

But then, I wasn’t the mage that Kelos was, and I hadn’t had a slice of unicorn horn handy when I made it, nor a silver nail. I’d had to make do with a wedge of dracodon ivory and a bent sliver of silver, both pried loose from the altar furnishings beneath the stairs at the abbey. Not to mention that I hadn’t been able to harvest it until a few moments after the Signet’s death.

I liked touching it even less than the other one. It was bound to
my
life force, a connection I could feel as sort of a feathery tickle at the back of my mind. Most of the time I could ignore it, but when I actually handled the finger, that feathery feeling grew stronger and extended a line to the point of contact. It felt like a ghostly string running from the finger through my hand and up my arm to the back of my neck where it spiraled around my spine and on into my skull. Very disconcerting. I put it away as quickly as I could after I’d verified that it, too, glowed.

What do you think?
I asked Triss.

It’s certainly connected with the magic of the precinct, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it actually working.

Me neither. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

For that matter, I don’t much like betting my life on the other one either. It’s a shitty choice, really. With yours I trust the man but not the magic. With Kelos’s I have the reverse problem.

Does that mean you want to turn back?

No. I still think we stand a decent chance of killing the Son of Heaven, mostly because of the ring. That’s worth the risk. Go.

I took control and shrouded up again. Between gates and guards and places where I had to double back on myself, it took me almost another two hours to get to the part of the complex that held the great temple and the Son of Heaven’s apartments. It was difficult and dangerous to get that far, but I never really faced anything that shadow and the Signet’s ring couldn’t get me past, and that made me deadly suspicious. It couldn’t possibly be this simple.

Oh, I made up reasons to explain the ease of my passage. The relative absence of the Hand was high on that list. I’d passed at least a dozen guard posts that had obviously been set up with a single watcher in mind, but which currently held three or four or even five of the Sword of Heaven’s soldiers. I couldn’t help but think that they would normally have been staffed by one of the Hand with a Storm hovering close by.

I would have liked to believe that, that weakness in the sorcery department was on account of the nearly three dozen members of the Hand that we had killed at the abbey. It was probably even true to some extent. No ruler, not even one as powerful as the Son of Heaven, could easily cover the loss of that many elite mages. But somehow I was certain that wasn’t all there was to it. Some other need or force was pulling the Hand away from the city and the temple complex, though what, I couldn’t say.

Whatever the reason, I soon found myself looking down on what had to be the several balconies that fronted the apartments of the Son of Heaven. It was the splendor that gave it away, which was one of the fundamental elements that had always made the work of the Blade easier. No matter how security conscious they were, the kinds of targets that drew the attention of my goddess and my brethren couldn’t resist the temptation to make their power manifest in their surroundings. In this case, a huge garden courtyard roofed entirely in spell-hardened glass to keep out both elements and assassins.