The City of Ravens (26 page)

Quickly Jack hurried to the offices of House Albrath and

there contracted for the services of six sturdy armsmen and a secure coach to await his negotiations with Zandria that evening. The cost was exorbitant—more than two hundred gold crowns—but Embro Albrath himself assured Jack that discretion was his watchword. For the deposit and a mere five percent of the value of the transaction, the mustachioed Albrath would see to it that Lord Jaer Kell Wildhame’s wealth reached a secure location and that Jack was provided with the means to access his gains or convert them into other currencies at his leisure.

By the time Jack concluded his arrangements with the merchant, the sun was setting over the Inner Sea and the shadows ran long in the city streets. The day’s warmth faded rapidly before the onslaught of a cold, damp offshore wind, bringing evening fogs to the city streets and a chilly, cloying mist to those workmen and wayfarers who had not found their suppers yet. Jack wrapped his cloak closer to his body and shivered his way across town again, riding inside his rented coach in the company of the garrulous Embro Albrath while his hired soldiers tramped alongside. He and his procession arrived at the Cracked Tankard an hour after sunset, creating quite a commotion.

“You and your men may wait outside,” Jack told the merchant imperiously. “My business should be concluded swiftly.”

Embro Albrath—a stout man dressed in red, wearing a sea of golden chains around his neck and a gold ring on each finger—shook his head. “I shall accompany you, my lord,” the merchant said. “I have no wish to pass an hour or two in this clammy cold while a friendly fire warms yon taproom.”

Jack began to protest but stopped himself. Albrath’s presence lent an illusion of credibility to the transaction. He might do well with the moneylender at his side.

“Very well, but I must ask you not to interrupt, no matter what transpires. My affairs are complicated and my partners unreliable.”

“I am the very soul of discretion,” the merchant promised.

Jack nodded in appreciation and let himself out of the coach. He glanced once more at the six soldiers standing by vigilantly, then ducked inside. Embro Albrath trailed him by a step. The merchant hesitated half a heartbeat when he noted the location in which Jack intended to do his business, but he smiled broadly beneath his mustache as if he approved of the informal setting and said nothing.

The common room of the Cracked Tankard was filled, which was not at all unusual given the time of day. Jack studied the room carefully and saw no sign of Zandria, nor any agents or thugs who might have been in her employ. He caught the barkeep’s eye and flashed a couple of silver talents, learning that Zandria awaited in a private dining room in the back of the alehouse.

“Excellent,” said Jack. “Let us proceed!”

He bounded up the narrow staircase leading to the private rooms on the upper floor, confident and energetic. Zandria would deal honorably with him; Red Wizards might be prideful and dangerous, but if word got out that a Red Wizard’s word was no good, why, the entire organization would suffer immeasurably! In fact, it would be far wiser for the leaders among the Thayan magocracy to sternly advise their lesser brethren to scrupulously honor the letter and spirit of any agreement struck, so that all people everywhere would know that a Red Wizard’s word was his bond.

“Zandria is arrogant, condescending, and overbearing,” Jack remarked, “but her integrity must be beyond reproach!”

“I beg your pardon?” said Embro Albrath, huffing slightly as he hurried to keep up with-Jack’s nimble ascent.

“Oh, nothing,” Jack replied. “Look, here we are.” He stopped at the indicated door, paused to adjust his fine coat and tug at his cuffs, then boldly entered the room.

Zandria sat at one end of a long table set with a modest meal, the swordsman Brunn standing behind her. The j warrior’s left arm was in a sling, but his face showed ‘ nothing but deadly competence and readiness for action. Six heavy wooden coffers lined up against one wall caught Jack’s eye immediately; he knew a coin chest when he saw one. The Red Wizard and her champion faced a small, dark figure in a blue waistcoat very similar to Jack’s—no, exactly similar to Jack’s—and as Jack entered, all three glanced in his direction. The wizard looked sharply at her dinner companion, back to Jack, and to her companion a third time.

“Now this I was not expecting,” she muttered darkly.

The shadow Jack grinned widely and pointed at Jack, standing in the open door. “And there, Zandria, stands the villainous doppelganger who even now fondles your stone ring and your black dagger in his larcenous pockets. The temerity! The impudence! I beg you, rid me of this accursed copy for the betterment of all mankind!”

Jack stood stock-still in astonishment, gaping at the scene. Behind him Embro Albrath halted in confusion, as Jack now occupied the entirety of the doorway and moved neither forward nor aside to permit the merchant to follow. The gold-chained moneylender craned his head and leaned to the left to peer over Jack’s shoulders.

“What is it? Is there something wrong?”

Jack—the real Jack—found his voice, at least in part. He squeaked, “You can speak!”

“I recommend that you place him under a spell of dominion or holding at once,” the shadow Jack continued

to Zandria. “He is a crafty and cowardly fellow and will flee instantly if you do not restrain him!”

“My lady Zandria,” Jack said quickly, “You have been deceived by that miserable wretch who sits at your table. He is a simulacrum of me, possessed of a spirit so malicious and spiteful that every moment you spend in his presence invites unforeseen disaster!”

“I would, of course, say the very same thing if I were a murderous doppelganger attempting to reverse your rightful suspicions back upon the noble personage I had so insidiously copied,” the shadow Jack purred. “It is the oldest trick in the book when dealing with an identical copy of oneself.”

During this entire exchange Zandria’s expression had darkened from amazement to smoldering anger. Her eyes blazed furiously, and her cheeks burned red. “I don’t know which one of you speaks the truth, and I don’t care,” she said, slowly standing and reaching for the wand at her belt, “but one or the other of you had better produce my ring and my dagger this very instant, or there will be hell to pay.”

“Alas, fair lady, I cannot. My imposter stole them from me, just as he stole my shape,” the shadow said. “Kill the felon and examine his belongings; you’ll find the items you desire, concluding our business, and I’ll take the gold and refrain from troubling you in the future.”

“That’s my gold!” Jack cried indignantly. “Zandria, I must insist that you remove this viper from the premises at once! Our business cannot proceed until he is no more!”

“Better kill them both, Zandria,” Brunn advised in his rumbling voice. “It’s the only way to be sure, and you keep ring, dagger, and gold all.”

The wizardess pointed her wand at the shadow Jack, then at Jack, and then finally at a point more or less in between from which she might menace either one. She glared at each. They were dressed in the exact same manner, both faces were split by the same insincere mouth and framed with the same stripe of thin beard. In the dim lamplight of the dining room, the shadow Jack was fully substantial and vital, grinning with excitement, alert and alive and animated so convincingly that Jack’s own mother would have been hard pressed to tell the difference between the two.

“I think you have the right idea,” Zandria said to j Brunn. She raised the wand and pointed it at Jack.

“Wait!” cried Jack. “I can prove that I am the authentic Jack, and the other one a work of foulest sorcery!”

“The obvious ploy,” the shadow Jack replied. “Do not I fall for his desperate manner, dear lady. He seeks to play upon your tender feminine mercies.”

“At this point, I don’t care which of you is real and which is not,” Zandria remarked. “Somebody has my ring, j I mean to have it, and whichever of you produces it will ; be paid appropriately. After that, the two of you can ! throttle each other to death as far as I’m concerned.”

“Do you have the ring the lady refers to?” asked a very I nervous Embro Albrath from Jack’s left shoulder. “If so, I advise compliance. Continued uncertainty can only result f in poor decisions and hasty acts.”

Jack scowled deeply. He wanted to work out an arrangement that would allow him to keep the ring; he saw all kinds of possibilities in the device. But as long as his nemesis stood before him, he would never be able to negotiate any kind of deal with Zandria. On the other hand, the six chests along the far wall presumably contained close to thirty thousand gold crowns… and that made the prospect of losing his prizes from Sarbreen much less odious. Better the gold at hand, he reasoned, than death at Zandria’s hands.

“I came equipped to execute our arrangement in good faith,” Jack said loudly. He reached into his pocket and

produced the stone ring, then pulled the dagger from his boot, advancing to set them on the table. “Here are the items I recovered from the Guilder’s Vault. If you please, I will inspect the coinage now.”

“As I told you! He had them all along!” the shadow crowed to Zandria. “The ring and the knife are yours, dear lady. In keeping with our bargain, I will take the gold and go.”

“I brought the ring and dagger,” Jack retorted. “Your business, dear Zandria, is with me. Ignore this treacherous cur. He offers you nothing but lies!”

Zandria frowned, but sheathed her wand and stepped forward to scoop the two items from the tabletop. She looked at Jack and said, “You’ve delivered on your end of the bargain; I’ll deliver on mine. Take the gold and go.” Then she turned to the shadow Jack and said, “Whether you’re the authentic Jack Ravenwild or an imitation, your twin produced what I wanted, so I am honoring the deal I made. If you dislike it, take it up with him.”

The ingratiating smile fell from the shadow Jack’s face, and his eyes grew dark and hard. Without another word he vanished, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Brunn swore and stepped out into the center of the room, hand on sword hilt. “Blast! What now?”

“Be careful,” Jack advised. “My clone knows everything I know. He may be gone, or he may have turned invisible.” He moved swiftly to put his back against a wall and scanned the chamber for any hint of a stealthy unseen presence.

“No matter,” Zandria scoffed. “My business here is done. Removing the gold is your concern.” She dropped the ring and the dagger into the pouch at her belt and secured the cover. “Come, Brunn. We are finished here.”

At the wizardess’s hip, her dark and dangerous wand gently slipped up and disappeared. Jack saw it just as the

magical weapon vanished into someone’s invisible grasp. “Zandria!” he gasped in alarm. “Your wand!”

The Red Wizard snatched at the holster on her hip and cursed in Thayan. She whirled, a spell on her lips, but at that moment the shadow Jack appeared with her weapon in his hand and an expression of infernal glee on his face. He pointed her wand right at Zandria and activated the device. Blue flame engulfed Zandria and washed past her to blast a great swath of destruction across the table, the floor, the ceiling, and the far wall. A blast of heat seared the room, and the fiery roar drowned out Jack’s very thoughts. The rogue only avoided Zandria’s fate by throwing himself to the floor; Embro Albrath survived simply because he backpedaled so swiftly that he fell down on his broad bottom in the doorway.

“Help!” the moneylender called. “Magic! Murder! Betrayal!”

Zandria screamed and staggered back, engulfed in flame. The swordsman Brunn drew his blade so swiftly that Jack didn’t even see him do it and struck out at the shadow Jack, but the nimble devil darted back three steps and turned the fiery wand on Zandria’s companion, blasting him as well. The room itself was fairly well alight with the second blast, curtains and exposed beams dancing with sheets of flame.

Jack picked himself up and launched a deadly magical attack of his own, a pair of streaking force globes that hammered into the shadow and detonated with brutal force. The shadow flew back into the wall and hit hard, slumping awkwardly to the ground. Zandria’s wand clattered from his fingers to the floor. Smoke and fire filled the room, and amid the roaring of the blaze Jack could hear cries of consternation and panic from nearby rooms in the Tankard.

This villain is destroying my favorite tavern! he

thought, then he darted forward, drawing his rapier to finish off his foe.

The shadow scrambled to his feet and returned Jack’s spell, blasting Jack off his feet with two hammer blows of magic that caught the rogue at hip and torso. For a moment Jack saw nothing but stars, twisting in agony on the burning floor. Blood ran between his fingers and his entire left leg felt numb. Across the room, the shadow also tried to recover and stand. He levered himself up by the table.

Near Jack, Zandria rose to all fours, hunched in pain. She should have been burned to a crisp, but the blue flames died out swiftly, leaving her scorched but not seriously injured—a spell of protection, Jack guessed. The sorceress straightened up, kneeling, and directed a brilliant bolt of lightning at the other Jack.

“No one steals my wand!” she howled. The thunderclap left Jack’s ears ringing and blew a hole the size of a large man through the dining room wall and into the room beyond.

Unfortunately, it missed the shadow Jack, although the stroke of lightning contributed mightily to the impending demise of the Cracked Tankard. The shadow dodged with a quick roll that brought him close to the wizardess, at which point he kicked her in the jaw as hard as he could. Zandria spun in a half circle and dropped to the floor. The contents of her pouch scattered across the uneven planking, odds and ends of spellcasting, coins and gems, and—most significantly—the stone ring, which rolled almost to Jack’s hand.

Jack snatched the ring and shoved it onto his finger, invoking its powers. The impervious toughness of stone hardened his skin; the cold, remorseless strength of rock flooded his limbs. He stood and recovered his rapier, advancing on his nemesis.