Dark Legion (18 page)

 

We approached a door at the far end of the corridor. Marcus put his ear to the door for a long moment but evidently could not hear anything. He knocked on this door, too, but once again got no response. He took a deep breath as he slowly turned the doorknob and pushed it open.

I screamed.

A large reptile stood in the door, facing us. It stood on two legs and matched me for height. Razor-sharp teeth protruded from its mouth. Marcus drew his blade and stabbed it deep into the creature's chest. When he drew it out, the creature fell but remained rigid. It did not move. It never moved. Marcus crouched beside it and punched at it. A hollow beat resonated from its open mouth. A stuffed reptile? Why?

Loud laughter erupted from around the corner. Marcus stood, readied his blade again, and leapt through the door, dropping into a fighting stance. There was a loud crash, then a curse, and the laughter continued. Marcus looked confused. I walked through the door. An old man lay next to a toppled chair behind a desk. The laughter came from him.

The old man stood up and caught his breath before picking up his chair. He righted it and looked at us as he sat down. He smiled broadly as he gestured for us to join him.

“Gentleman… sit, sit. I have waited a long time to meet you. A very long time.”

 

We sat facing the old man, and he sat smiling, looking from Marcus to me and back again. I felt uneasy in his presence. A cold sensation surged past me like a river. It resembled what I felt when naming was performed, but this… this was something else.

As he moved his head, light reflected from his bizarre spectacles, catching me in the eye. I could not tell if the lenses were as thick as they appeared to be, but they were much smaller than any I had seen. The look of the man struck me as unusual in other ways, too. His long gray hair and beard clashed with his smooth skin.

“Coffee?” he asked. “Should help with the somber mood. I do love the effect that coffee has on social gatherings. It makes things so much more hospitable.” He turned to a side table and retrieved a coffee pot and three cups. He filled the cups, placed one in front of each of us, and smiled with an expectant look on his face. When neither of us touched our cups, he sighed, causing his mustaches to flap about. He leaned back in his chair. “Fine, be difficult, then,” he said.

“Why are we here?” Marcus asked.

“Well… let's see. You broke into my house and destroyed my decor.”

“We knocked. You didn't answer.” Marcus said.

“So you just let yourselves in?” the old man asked. “A bit rude, isn't it? It didn't occur to you that perhaps an old man choosing to live as far away from others as I do might not want company?”

“You said you were expecting us. Why?” I asked.

The man smiled at me. I could not detect any malice; he was clearly finding humor in the exchange. I was not.

“Let me introduce myself. My name is Malakai,” he said, folding his hands. His smile slowly dried up when we did not respond. “This is usually the point in these proceedings where you introduce yourselves. Hi, my name is Saul. Great to meet you, I am Marcus. No, the pleasure is all mine. Crazy weather we've been having. Oh, not as bad as last year. And so on, and so forth.”

I looked at Marcus, who looked as confused as I felt. “You know our names,” Marcus said. “How do you know our names?”

“I know a lot of names. I take great interest in the world around me, though I rarely participate directly.” Malakai said.

“That really does not explain much,” I said.

“Alas, you are right, child. And I regret that I can't tell you much more about myself.”

“Why are we here, then? You can tell us that, right?” Marcus asked again.

“Some of my plans have gotten away from me recently,” Malakai said, drumming his fingers on his desk. “I am hoping that this meeting will nudge things back in the right direction. For one thing, my friend Elijah has been a naughty elf. Blowing up his inn and running for the hills… very naughty!”

“You knew Elijah?” I asked. “How do you know he was responsible?”

“His money troubles have been getting too much for him—he has spoken to me about it. When I first met him, he told me of his plans to burn the inn and fake his death. I offered to help him.”

“You helped him burn the inn?” Marcus asked.

“No, no, child. He needed money. So I gave him some, in exchange for goods and services. I have been conducting some very interesting experiments. Some time back, I acquired a whole lot of empty metal tubes. It occurred to me that if I could find a substance, preferably a liquid, that was combustible, I could engineer a way to make them shoot through the air for great distances. Wild fun!”

“What does this have to do with Elijah?” I asked.

“Well, initially I tried to use lamp oil. That… didn't work at all. It created a big flame and singed my beard, but achieved little else. I needed something more combustible, something with more of a bang. Elijah's father built a large distillery in his cellar decades ago. I offered to modify the still and let him process lamp oil into a more combustible liquid, in exchange for gold coins.”

“Did it work?” I asked.

“No… Not so much. It had more bang—a lot more bang. But exploding metal pipes were not what I was after. I fear Elijah used my liquid to achieve his own bang. An explosive event that has made a shambles of my plans,” Malakai said, frowning. “His selfishness has had repercussions that I am left to mend.”

“And we are here because… “

“Because I need you to help me set things right,” Malakai said.

“And why would we do this?” I asked.

“Because I can help you in turn.”

“With what?”

“With odds and ends. Like helping you with your planned visit to my old chum, Solas.”

I felt my jaw drop. This old man knew too much. That, combined with the cold feeling washing over me, made me very scared of him. I was running through the list of poisons I had applied to the pins stuck in my sleeves, and fidgeted with the pins when the old man spoke again.

“Saul… it saddens me to see what you have come to. I can't say I blame you, but it is a sad thing to see how cheap a life has become for you. Put aside your dark thoughts for now and pay attention. I know this is an odd meeting. And I wish I could be more open with you. You will learn more, in time, but for now I want you to realize that I am offering you a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“Tell us what you want, and let us decide,” I said.

“The Inquisition has its hands on one of my pawns. Neysa, will be put to the question. You know full well that their methods are lethal. You will help me get her out.”

“Neysa is working for you?” I asked.

“No, not yet. But she will. The girl has great potential. She has much to offer the world, and I will not see her die because of the foolishness of an elf.”

“And how do you expect us to get her out of the Inquisition's grasp.” I asked.

“A trivial task,” Malakai said. He stood and made his way through the messy room. Instead of walking around the many things that cluttered the room, he clambered right over them. He climbed over several stacks of books and over a glass enclosure housing some exotic animal I did not recognize. He leapt over a half-finished painting on the floor and ducked between two species of stuffed reptile which were arranged in a sexual position. Finally, he made his way to a dusty cabinet on the far wall. As he opened it, a number of scrolls tumbled out. He left most where they lay, but picked one up, seemingly at random.

“What's with the reptiles?” Marcus asked, gesturing at the stuffed creatures.

“I take great joy in arranging things just so,” he said with the scroll in hand. Taking a different route back to his desk, displaying no less athleticism, he sat down and placed the scroll in front of us.

“Give her this scroll,” Malakai said, nudging it closer.

“But how do we get her out?” I asked.

“Don't worry about it, just give her the scroll,” Malakai said. His brow furrowed in thought. “I don't like taking such direct action, but there is no helping it in this case, I fear.” He smiled again, looking at us both.

“This is ridiculous,” Marcus said, slamming a fist down on the desk. Coffee spilled from his cup, and a trickle ran toward the scroll. Malakai nudged the scroll away from the coffee, then sat back again. “You use some trick to get us to this place in the middle of Gods-damned nowhere; you somehow know our names, and Elijah's and Neysa's, too. Yet you have told us nothing about yourself. You then ask us to do an unusual but risky task for you and offer us nothing in return. How do you expect this to go?”

Malakai looked angry. I got the impression that he was not often refused. “Fine,” he said. “I'll make this easier. Take the scroll and give it to Neysa!”

As he spoke the words, the cold rushing past me became as ice. Marcus and I leapt at the scroll, but he beat me to it.

I stared at the man. “How dare you do that?”

“Like you haven't done it dozens of times to others,” Malakai said. “You left me no choice. Too much hinges on this decision to leave it to free choice. Besides, if you two stopped being stubborn arses for just a moment, you might think long enough to realize that when Neysa speaks, and she will, you two will be in serious trouble.” Malakai leaned forward and sighed, the anger leaving his face. “I know, I know. I ask you to trust me and give you no reason to do so.” He opened a desk drawer and retrieved a piece of paper. It was folded in half and closed with a wax seal. He gave it to me. The black wax was imprinted with the image of a raven. I looked back at Malakai and raised an eyebrow.

“Some answers, but none you will understand until the time is right.”

“Answers to what, exactly?” I asked, trying to contain my anger.

“Your brother,” Malakai said, smiling. I tore the seal without a second thought, and opened the sheet of paper. It showed a stylistic depiction of a large cat, surrounded by symbols, possibly letters in a language I did not recognize. I looked up at Malakai, and I could feel the anger flushing my face.

“I told you, it won't make sense until the time is right. Do this task for me, and if you don't believe that I have sufficiently reciprocated by the next time we meet, then you can walk away.”

I doubted it. He'd used our true names to make us pick up the scroll. Even then, I felt compelled to get the scroll to Neysa. Marcus stood, and I followed his lead. Marcus held the scroll over the desk as if to drop it. He could not. His shoulders slouched in resignation, and we turned and left the mansion without another word. Marcus looked at me as we stepped out the door.

“What just happened?” Marcus asked.

I said nothing and shook my head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A Proposition

 

The journey back to Sagemont was far less arduous than the one that had led us to Malakai's mansion, taking us an hour at most. I looked at the trees as we walked. I could not quite pick the moment when the vegetation changed, but change it did. The forest around the mansion was thick, and it was nigh impossible to veer off the path without taking a blade to the narrow trunks of the tightly spaced trees. But when I looked again, we were following a path through the sparse undergrowth of the forest I'd visited a few days prior, and the canopy formed a ceiling far overhead. There was nothing natural about this transition.

I thought we'd return using the dark passageway to the cellar again, this time without a torch. But we emerged near the bridge we'd originally crossed coming into Sagemont.

 

“I don't much care for Malakai,” I said, slightly out of breath.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “That's understating it just a tad.”

“There is something off about the man,” I said. “Did you see his skin? I have more wrinkles than he does.”

“Something else disturbs me too,” Marcus said. “When he commanded us to take that scroll, I could not do otherwise. Even now, I feel the urge to run to Neysa with it.” He looked at me, concerned. “What did he mean when he said you had done it dozens of times?”

“I have no idea,” I lied. Marcus did not know that I could use true names. And I would not inform him then. If I did, I knew he would ask me if I'd used it on him. I had.

I suspected that it was the only reason he was on this journey with me. Being on the receiving end of such power was a good reminder for me as to why I avoided using it where possible. Being bound in such a manner was akin to being a slave, and I fucking hated slavery.

 

No longer sheltered by forest, the winter sun fell on us, but its warmth failed to reach me. The rapids churned below us, and their icy mist added an extra bite to the wind. My coat was not up to the task of keeping me warm. I decided that we'd need to pay the tailor a visit and see how he was progressing with our new clothes. I was thankful that we hadn't lost a full wardrobe when the inn burned, but we were wearing all the clothes we owned. We needed to be better dressed for the next step in my plan.