Death Comes To All (Book 1) (49 page)

“
I
haven’t been here in a while,” the old man answered. “As
I’m sure you already know, the door isn’t in the same
place it once was.”

“
Stay
here,” he replied. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

That said, the man turned and disappeared down a nearby
alleyway. The old man listened for his footfalls, then smiled. As he
would have expected, he didn’t hear any.

Good thing he didn’t keep up the pretense any
longer,
the old man thought.
It can be so tedious.

After only a few minutes the sloveckii returned. With a
wave he motioned for the old man to follow him. The aged man didn’t
keep him waiting. With a laboring step, leaning heavily on his cane
with each footfall, he followed him into the darkness.

The sloveckii guided him through a maze of alleyways.
The old man noticed that on more than one occasion they passed over
their own trail, but knew better than to question it. Few would know
the way to where they were going. They could not allow themselves to
be followed.

Finally they came to a dead end alley, with brick walls
surrounding them on three sides and no discernible doors or exits.
The old man wasn’t fooled.

The best passages are hidden from view,
he knew.

His sloveckii guide turned back to the entrance to the
alleyway, peering back the way they had come for several minutes.
Finally satisfied that they were not followed, he headed back toward
the back of the dead end alley. He went to the right hand wall,
almost near the end. All the bricks here looked the same, but the old
man guess that one of them held a secret.

Sure enough, the sloveckii pushed in one of the bricks,
which slid in easily. No one, not even the old man, would have been
able to find that hidden trigger without knowing where it would be,
as the sloveckii obviously did. Soundlessly, an entire section of the
brick wall slid back, revealing the opening carefully concealed
there.

Without a single word the sloveckii entered the opening,
and the old man quickly followed. From behind them, a sapphire blur
streaked passed, melting into the darkness. The sloveckii guide
spotted the creature, but chose to ignore it. Instead he turned and
headed forward into the dark passageway.

The hidden door closed quickly behind them, as
soundlessly as it had opened. As it closed they were bathed in pitch
darkness, but it only lasted a moment. From some unseen source above
them, a pale light winked into being. The old man looked back toward
the gateway they had entered. Not so much as a single seam betrayed
its existence.

Inside, a narrow stone staircase spiraled downward for
several stories. It took them deeper and deeper under the city
streets, ending finally at a stout oak door. The guide opened this
door and led the way inside.

In contrast to the dark stairwell, the room they entered
was brightly lit. Colorful murals hung in splendor on cheery,
vibrantly painted walls. These were men and women who lived in the
shadows, who thrived on darkness. These were men who hid who they
were from the world. This was the one place they didn’t have to
hide.

Few men alive knew of its existence. Fewer still were
those that had any hope of finding it. Thankfully no one would be
foolish enough to look for it without an invitation. Uninvited guests
would never leave.

This was the hidden halls of the assassin's guild of
Miani.

The room itself, one of many, was massive, with a
curving domed ceiling that led up to point in the center. In the
center of that point hung a breathtaking crystal chandelier, which
caught the light around it, creating a dazzling display of color
along the walls. A bright dragonling flew out of the dim staircase to
land on a curved outcropping of the wall. It perched there like a
gargoyle, staring down into the room below it, its swirling eyes
opened widely.

A petite blond woman, with two thick muscled bodyguards
on either side of her like a pair of guard dogs, walked briskly in
his direction. She was small, barely five feet tall, but she walked
with the more confidence than the most powerful of men.

“
So,
who might be the old man who carries my father’s totem?”
she asked, coming directly to the point.

She always was a direct one,
he thought.

“
That
would be the person who he gave it to, of course,” he replied
merrily, breaking into an impish grin. “I don’t think he
ever gave his totems to someone who it could be taken from. So how
have you been Loretta?”

“
Garan,
is that you? Where have you been all this time? We all expected you
to come for the funeral when father passed away. You were one of his
best students.”

“
I
would have been here if I could have,” he answered, his jovial
manner gone in an instant. “Is there someplace we can talk?
Someplace a bit more private?”

“
You
know we’re all friends here. There’s nothing you can say
to me that you can’t say openly, not in my house.”

“
I
wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, there are some secrets that
I won’t share with anyone, not even with the guild. The walls
have ears they say, and that’s true anywhere, even here.”

“
We
can use my office then. I have a certain mage under my employment
that I pay an exorbitant amount of money to keep my office private.
No one can listen in on us there.”

“
Why
do you keep such a room if there are no secrets in your house?”
he asked.

She didn’t answer, at least not out loud, however
the look she gave him spoke volumes. Something was not quite right
within the guild, he suspected, and she was taking pains to keep it
from being noticed.

He was at once glad that he insisted on privacy. Had he
spoken openly she might have lost trust in him. He was not the type
of person to broadcast his information, and she would have known that
already. She had been testing him, he realized.

Like
father, like daughter.

She turned and led the way briskly through the next
three spacious rooms, her burly bodyguards keeping perfectly in step
with her, three paces behind. He followed quickly, no longer
bothering with the cane he had been using to appear old and frail. He
wasn’t fooling anyone here, nor did he think he needed to.

With the cane and its pretense gone, the sapphire
dragonling flew down to him, landing lightly on his shoulder. It
wrapped its thick tail around his neck for balance.

Finally she came to a solid, thick door. Reaching into
her tunic, she pulled out a heavy key that she had attached to a
thick cord. The end of that cord disappeared deeper into her her
neckline, off to her left side.

Most
likely it’s tied around her arm,
he
thought approvingly.
Tying it around your neck only gives
possible enemies something convenient to strangle you with.

“
Stay
out here,” she ordered her guards. “I have nothing to
fear from this man. Garan, follow me please.”

He did as he was bid, closing the door behind him as he
entered. As the door closed he heard a strange hiss of air,
surprising him.

This room is completely sealed,
he realized.
Not
even the air can escape here.

A quick glance was all it took to see everything that
the small room had to offer. At the far end was a plain wooden desk,
with a plush, thick cushioned desk chair behind it. On the left hand
wall sat two soft chairs with even more padding then the desk chair
offered. Against the right wall sat a long couch, with cushions that
matched the chairs perfectly.

Only one picture graced the plain white walls, a
portrait of Loretta’s father, Martin, which sat directly behind
the desk, as if he was looking down on everyone standing or sitting
in the room. Raiste suspected that he would probably find a safe
behind that painting, though if there was anything in it he would
have been surprised. It was simply too obvious a place, and therefore
likely to be a decoy.

“
Please,
take a seat Raiste,” Loretta said, surprising him once again.
He hadn’t told her his real name yet. Once again he did as he
was told. As he sat the dragonling hopped off of his shoulder to land
on the back of the chair he was sitting on. After a brief inspection
of the room it curled up into a tight ball, feigning sleep.

“
I
didn’t know that your father told you my secret,” he
replied as he sank into one of the plush cushions. He had to shift
his weight several times to get comfortable. For someone so used to
the hard ground of the outdoors, the soft chair was not much to his
liking. Instead of taking the equally soft chair next to him she
choose instead to sit on the corner of her hard wooden desk.

“
He
didn’t. Unfortunately you can’t walk along the road
between here and Tam without hearing your name at least a dozen
times. When you showed up at my door, who else could you be?”

“
You
always were the clever one.”

“
Not
half as much as you. So, you’re Raiste Goldstone, son of the
great Fallon Goldstone. I should have guessed it was something like
that. My father wouldn’t have taught just anyone, and he always
doted on you. So is it true what they’ve been saying, that
you’re a battle mage?”

“
No,
not me. There is a battle mage now, and he was with me in Port Tam,
but it wasn’t me. So that’s what they think then, that
I’m the battle mage? If that was the case you would have known
long before now.”

“
I
knew all about your magic since I was a kid. Don’t forget, you
were in my house since I was six years old. Anyway, what brings you
to my door? It must be something important for you to come all this
way. I would have expected you a year ago, when we needed you.”

“
I
would have been here before now if I could have,” he replied
vaguely. In truth he would have, but there was nothing he could have
done. By the time word reached him of Martin’s death, the event
was already a month past.

“
I’m
sorry. I didn’t hear about his heart attack until long after
his funeral. There was nothing I could do then. I would have come
before now, but, well, honestly, I didn’t really know what to
say to you. I thought you might have wanted me to take his place, and
that was something I couldn’t do. Now that you know who I am,
I’m sure you understand why.”

“
You
still should have come,” she repeated stubbornly. “We
really needed you.
I
needed
you. I still do, for that matter.”

“
I
can’t take his place as guild leader,” Raiste repeated.
“I have Bloodheart and who knows how many other mages breathing
down my neck. I’d be putting the guild and everyone under this
roof in danger if I stayed here.”

“
I
have no intention of making you guild leader,” she told him. “I
would have thought about it a year ago, but you weren’t here
and someone had to take father’s place. I had no other choice
but to do it myself. Father wanted me to anyway. He said so in his
final will. It surprised me that he didn’t choose you to take
that job. As you said, now that I know who you really are, I can
understand his reasons why.”

“
From
what I’ve been hearing, you’re doing a rather good job of
it,” he pointed out.

“
That’s
not the point. You should have been here. Maybe you could have done
something.”

“
I
loved your father, you know that. It surprised me when I heard that
he had died, but not even I could have done anything about a heart
attack. No one could have expected it, and no one could have done
anything about it. As for you needing me, well, that’s not
possible right now either. I don’t know what Bloodheart might
send after me, and I don’t know how many of the other mages are
involved.”

“
From
what I’ve been hearing, that’s probably all of them. I
don’t know if they are involved yet mind you, not even my spies
are that good, but I can say that quite a few of the mages from the
council have been gearing up for something. They’ve been
mobilizing troops, buying up weapons and armor, and setting up supply
routes all across the board.”

“
What!”
He almost leaped to his feet before catching himself. “When did
this start?”

“
Almost
three months ago,” she answered. “At least that’s
when my spies star
ted taking notice of it.
They’re moving slowly to hide their actions, but they can’t
hide everything.”

“
That’s
impossible! They couldn’t have known about me until a month
ago, and I didn’t even know about the existence of the battle
mage before then! He didn’t even know about himself! How could
they have been mobilizing before they knew!?”

“
Then
maybe they have other reasons. One thing’s for certain though,
the mages are getting ready for a war, and have been doing so for a
while now. If it’s not because of you, then it must be
something else. I’ll have my spies keep an ear to the ground.
I’ll let you know as soon as we have something. You’ll
have to wait until then.”