Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (54 page)

Rondal blinked.  “Looks like you learned a hell of a lot about the Brotherhood!”

“Too much,” the journeyman thief replied.  “Me and my entire House.  Master Hance is not pleased with what he’s discovered.  For example, one of the members of the rebel council is also the Brotherhood’s Pilot, Count Jenerard.  The current Quartermaster is an avaricious old fart named Lord Prudna, he’s the one who has pushed the Rats to get actively back into the slave trade.  And the Navigator’s position is held by the Spider.  He’s their head of intelligence, and the brains behind most of their most recent aggressive moves into politics and slavery,” Atopol said, in a grave voice.

“So he’s the one running this auction,” Tyndal nodded.

“Definitely.  And he’s perhaps the most dangerous of them all.  Few even know his name, no one knows where he lives, and only a handful have seen his face.  He conducts most of his business in secret, through agents . . . some who are not within the Brotherhood.  That’s how he keeps an eye on the rest, and determines who’s getting too strong and who is too weak.”

“And then what happens?”

“They wake up with a Tail in their ear,” Atopol shrugged.  “No grand statement, no bloody scene, just an iron spike driven into your ear and wiggled around a bit.”

Rondal shuddered at the thought.  “Why doesn’t the Brotherhood just seize the stones themselves?”

“It’s already too well-known that they’re for sale – your man Iyugi did an excellent job in ruining that route for them.  Too many powerful people want a chance at them now and know where they came from.  More, such a move would be seen as bad faith by many of those same people.  They might be horrible, evil thugs,” reasoned Atopol, “but even thugs need to be able to do business honestly.  That’s why the Sea Lords venerated the Fair Trader as much as the Shipwrecker or the Maiden.  If the Rats offered protection to your friends and then violated that, no one of consequence would do business with them.”

“Well,” Rondal considered, an idea dawning on him.  “Let’s see if we can’t drive the price up a bit.  You said that the major players had to bring ten thousand ounces, just to get in the door?”

“Well, yes,” the dark-eyed thief nodded.  “Some will bring considerably more.  Not all in coin, mind you, but something of equivalent value.”

“Then it sounds like an
excellent
opportunity for your sister to get her claws wet,” proposed Rondal.  “With all that good loot lying around, barely guarded, if some were to disappear, well… it is said Enultramar is full of thieves,” he said, knowingly.

“You mean have Gat . . .?  Oh, I
like
it!” he said, grinning.  “She will too, I’m certain.  I’ll send word to her at once, and have her head toward Vaxel.  She can pick the place clean while they’re bidding,” he envisioned.  “As the Rats took it as security, they will be obliged to repay the bidders!” 

“Which wouldn’t improve their dispositions one bit, during the actual auction,” agreed Tyndal. 

“You know, I think this just might work!” Rondal smiled.  “Now, let’s finish up dinner.  I want to stretch a little bit before we break up this . . . brothel?”

“Casino,” corrected Tyndal, his mouth full of bread.  “It’s a black market casino under an abandoned pier in Kultanen.”

“That’s right, the casino,” Rondal said, shaking his head.  “Then we hit the big brothel in Ruori, just south of Roen.”

“Just two tonight?” Atopol asked, surprised.

“It’s a really
big
brothel,” Tyndal said, his eyes narrowing.  “Last time we destroyed a brothel, we couldn’t stick around afterward.  To enjoy the congratulations of the emancipated victims,” he said, knowingly.

“Oh.  Well,” the lad said, seeking to change the subject, “When do you think you’ll be back around here?”

“Night after next,” Tyndal said.  “By that time we’ll need a breather.  Iyugi and Gareth need time to set up.  And Kitten needs time to get to Vaxel.”

“Ugh!  I
hate
Vaxel,” Atopol said, sourly.  “Most of Enultramar is pretty sad, but that town is like a gilded pile of shit, and nothing better.  There’s a big lead mine nearby,” he explained.  “Half the town are idiots, because of the lead.  And that’s the region that produces the most powerful poppy gum in the world.  The half of the town that isn’t stupid from lead is stupid from smoking that stuff.  It’s forbidden, most places, but the Count of Caramas is huge devotee, so it’s sold openly on the streets.”

“Probably why the Brotherhood chose the place,” Tyndal observed.

“Yeah, they pretty much run it.  When the fleet comes back in a few weeks, their holds full of chained captives, after they sort out which ones are rich enough to be held for ransom the rest will be sold to estates around the Bay.  Mines, plantations, manufactories.  The mariners will use that money to buy as much gum as they can.  What they don’t use themselves they’ll sell to the smugglers outside of Merwyn for a fat profit.”

“Enterprising,” nodded Tyndal.

“Horrific,” Atopol disagreed.  “The trade is brutal, both ways.  A man can be captured at sea and have the proceeds of his sale into slavery used to enslave his children back home with the drug.  It’s a scourge in the huge cities in the east.”

“Then we should probably destroy that, too,” Tyndal decided.  “While we’re here.”

“I’d hate to make a special trip,” agreed Rondal.  “I think—”

Rondal didn’t get to express what he thought, nor did he recall what thought he had later.  At that moment a man with a short-hafted, large bladed axe burst into the salon and ran at the three of them.

While Rondal didn’t freeze, he reacted the slowest of the three.  Atopol was already in the air, having sprung from the table like a cat discovering a snake behind it.  His shoulder was in motion and the tiny throwing knives he favored were in the air while Rondal sat there.

Tyndal was also rising, tipping over the dainty table they were sitting around and drawing a wand from his belt as the axe descended toward where his shoulder would have been.  While it demolished the chair, it left Tyndal standing proximate to the attacker, a wand in his hand . . . and in a moment the man was thrown across the entirety of the room where he landed in a heap.  He did not move after he landed.

“
Ishi’s tits!
” Tyndal swore, putting the wand away.  “I wasn’t done with dinner, yet!”

“They must be getting desperate, to attack in public like this so blatantly,” Atopol said, shaking his head, looking around for more foes.  “Do you think there’s more than one?”

Rondal was already scrying.  While it was difficult to determine threats in a crowded urban environment, he summoned his baculus and did a quick series of spells.

“I don’t think so,” he concluded, after peering beyond the walls of the inn.  “I don’t know if he was purposefully sent, or he was just being opportunistic, but Cat’s right: they are getting desperate to attack like that.  Which means we’re having an effect,” he said, pleased.

“I should hope so,” snorted Tyndal.  “I doubt they get a penny of tribute from north of Falas, this year, after what we did to them!”

“You have alarmed them, but you have not done more than wound them,” Atopol reminded, as he put his chair aright.  “Next time they will send more than one, and they will strike at you relentlessly.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Rondal nodded.  “We can take it.  The more of their resources they expend trying to stop us, the less they have to notice that you and Gat are taking their shroud measurements.”

“I doubt they have any idea we’re working together,” smirked the shadowmage.  “Oh, the Spider might suspect, but he has a lot of webs to keep up with.  And my House does such a masterful job of disinformation that it would be almost impossible to establish a link.”

“Unless one of you gets caught,” Tyndal pointed out.  Atopol reacted like a challenge.

“Uh, House Salainen doesn’t
get
caught,” he boasted.  “Ever.”

“
Anyone
can get caught,” Tyndal insisted.

“We don’t,” Atopol insisted.  “It’s unprofessional.”

“This Spider sounds like the brains behind a lot of the Brotherhood’s operations,” Rondal said, before the two really started to row. 

“Yes, he’s smarter than Jenerard and the Quartermaster combined,” Atopol said, with one final glare at Tyndal.  “There are other men of intelligence on the council, but he is the one pulling the strings of this web.”

“Then that’s who we want to remove,” Rondal decided.  “The others are thugs.  The Spider is the truly dangerous one to our mission.  That is the condition of our victory.”

“That’s not going to be an easy task.  It’s not even a difficult task.  That is an all-but-impossible task,” Atopol declared.  “You don’t get to be one of the senior members of an international criminal organization without being tough, and the Spider is notoriously elusive on top of that.”

“Then we will have to draw him out of his web,” Rondal insisted.  “And as for impossible . . . we’re knights magi.  Impossible is just another day at work.”

The rampage continued, that evening, as first the casino and then the brothel were targets of the lads’ magical assaults.  Taking great care not to harm civilians, the two of them destroyed the Brotherhood’s enterprises utterly, treating any survivors to the rat-faced mage marks. 

They operated with impunity to local authority.  Only once were they approached by any kind of civil authority, when a corporal of the Ruori Town Watch approached them in the light of the burning brothel and politely asked them to justify their violence.

He was a young man, and clearly afraid of the consequences of a confrontation with two such fearsome warriors, but Rondal admired his devotion to duty.  Approaching two rampaging knights in a vengeful mood demonstrated tremendous bravery, to his mind, and he felt such bravery should be rewarded. 

He indulged the man by taking him aside (while Tyndal distributed the proceeds from the casino raid to the mistreated – and
terribly
grateful – young whores) and explaining that their actions were, indeed, under authority.  To prove it he showed him the parchment with his warrant . . . signed and sealed by the lawful Duke of Alshar, only weeks before.

“So, Corporal Aron,” Rondal explained to the suddenly wide-eyed young watchman as Tyndal was getting thanked by the whores in an alley, “you can approach this matter one of three ways: you can deny the authenticity of the seal and signature, which would be well within your rights but – alas! – not terribly productive, considering forging the Duke’s seal is punishable by death, and I’m just not that enterprising.  You can
accept
the seal but deny the legitimacy of the Duke, for which I would applaud your commitment to your politics, even as I would be forced, as a loyal gentleman of Alshar, to cut you down for your rebellion.”

“And what is the third option, my lord?” the watchmen asked.  He was only a year younger than Rondal, he realized.

“The third option is the best option: you accept the legitimacy of the seal, the legitimacy of the Duke who placed it there and is your rightful, lawful sovereign, and the legitimacy of this golden sandolar I am gifting you for the purpose of toasting good Duke Anguin’s health, as a loyal Alshari man should, while conveniently forgetting that you ever saw this warrant.”  A young corporal of the watch made perhaps six pennies a week for his service, plus livery.  An ounce of gold was more than he would make in years.

“Long live Duke Anguin!”

“I thought you’d see it my way,” Rondal concluded, handing the man a second sandolar to reinforce the sentiment.  “Now, keep folk away from the fire.  And I think that little dark-haired whore is making eyes at you.  Why don’t you go share your new good fortune?”

Despite his profession, Rondal did not consider himself a violent man.  Yet he found himself increasingly looking forward to the nightly assaults, and sharing in his partner’s apparently glee in the destruction, despite himself.  In three nights they hit and destroyed eight of the Brotherhood’s businesses, slew dozens, magemarked hundreds, and left eight craters, piles of rubble, or holes in the ground in their wake.

Part of that anticipation was pure righteous vengeance.  The Brotherhood deserved to be destroyed, not just for Estasia but for the thousands of souls they’d tormented over the centuries.  They were a blight on the economic and social fabric of Alshar, and from his Wilderlands perspective, a cancer on the Alshari society.