Wolfblade (13 page)

Was it Wrayan
? she wondered.
What was he doing
?

And now there was the problem of Marla to add to Alija’s woes. Lernen had managed to surprise the Patriot Faction with his sudden move to marry his sister off to the Fardohnyan king. It was unclear who had first suggested the idea, but the notion had caught on quickly and it seemed they were only days away from an agreement.

In some ways, that actually helped their cause. Barnardo had begun to look a lot more attractive to the other Warlords since the alternative might be a Fardohnyan-born High Prince some day. Perhaps they should let this fiasco develop as it would. Kagan might actually be playing right into their hands. Perhaps it had been unnecessary to eliminate Ronan Dell. Maybe Barnardo didn’t need to move against Lernen at this Convocation after all. With the threat of a Fardohnyan ruling them in the future, the Warlords might finally be goaded into doing something about Lernen and actually approach Barnardo to take the crown, instead of the other way around.

But without reliable eyes and ears in Lernen’s camp, Alija was only guessing. Reading minds took time and concentration, and she couldn’t wander around the palace all day, clutching at people while she sifted through every mind surrounding Lernen, trying to figure out what was going on.

Alija needed something a little more reliable. A little more traditional.

She smiled as the solution came to her. Marla was almost sixteen and about to be married. It was obvious she’d not yet been
court’esa
trained. The young princess would need to purchase her own
court’esa
soon to teach her the arts of love, before heading north to Talabar and her new husband. That Lernen would consider sending his sister to Fardohnya without such training was unthinkable.

If Alija worked things right, she could place her own eyes and ears in Marla’s entourage and nobody would ever know. It was perfect.

Barnardo stirred on the bed again. She glanced over at him with a frown.
If only
, she lamented silently,
there was such an easy solution about what to do with you, my dear
.

But Alija could only work magic. Miracles were out of her reach.

B
y mid-afternoon on the day following the ball, Wrayan was beginning to panic and suspected Kagan was, too.

Marla’s condition had not changed. She lay on the bed caught in a frozen moment and showed no inclination to emerge from this state. The compresses had had no effect. The nurse was beside herself. Lirena was demanding the High Prince be told and threatening to do it herself if Kagan didn’t do something to immediately restore her mistress.

In the end, Kagan had sedated Lirena with a powerful soporific, leaving Wrayan to watch over the princess while he settled the old nurse into her bed and a nice long sleep that would hopefully keep her out of the way until Marla recovered.

Wrayan paced the princess’s room anxiously, trying to recall what it was that he had said or done to bring about this disastrous turn of events. He could think of nothing but his own approaching doom if the situation couldn’t be resolved. His thoughts grew ever more morose until he was beginning to wonder if Lernen would demand his life in retribution for this terrible thing when a noise by the window startled him. Wrayan jumped at the sound of an unexpected voice.

“Boy, you’ve really gone and done it this time, haven’t you?”

He turned to find the motley-dressed boy from the wharf sitting on the windowsill, studying him with a smug, supercilious grin.

“How . . . how did you get in here?”

“I’m a god,” the boy reminded him. “I can go anywhere I want.”

Wrayan glanced at the closed window, wondering how the lad had managed to climb through. They were on the third floor and the only thing outside the princess’s window was sheer drop to the water in the harbour below. “Kagan let you in, didn’t he?”

“Kagan? Oh, that fat old fellow with the white hair, the diamond pendant and the really bad poetry?”

“Poetry?” Wrayan asked in confusion.

“What do you call it? Not poetry. Something else . . . something even sillier . . . That’s right! Spells!”

“Spells?” Wrayan repeated blankly.

“You
know
. Those awful verses sorcerers use when they want to call on us to help them.” The boy climbed down from the windowsill and began to walk around the room, picking up objects as he went, like a thief casing the place for a burglary. Wrayan watched him carefully, wincing as the boy upended a priceless crystal vase to check the maker’s mark on the base. “I can’t remember whose idea it was that they had to rhyme, though. Zymelka’s probably.
Calling on all gods divine, make this grape fall off the vine
. . . or something equally ridiculous. He makes all this noise about being the noble God of Poets and how he’s above the petty games of the rest of us, but he’s really just an Incidental God when all is said and done, although as cunning as an outhouse rat when you get to the truth of it. Anyway, I mean it’s not as if we can’t hear humans speaking.”

“Who
are
you?”

The boy carried on inspecting the room as if Wrayan hadn’t spoken. “Still, I suppose it helps sort out the real requests from the idle musings. And it’s not as if Zymelka can get his honouring from many other sources, poor chap. He plays up to Kali when he’s really desperate, trying to get her to make people fall in love, ’cause humans are notorious for spouting bad poetry when they’re lusting for someone. And I suppose it would get a bit mucky if we thought every rhetorical question uttered by a human was a call for assistance, wouldn’t it? You’d have unexplained stuff happening all over the place.”

Wrayan, by now, was completely lost. “What
are
you talking about?”

The boy rolled his eyes. His inspection had taken him around the room until he reached the bed. He glanced down at the unconscious princess laid out on the silken coverlet and then looked at Wrayan with a cheerful grin. “Never mind. Did you want some help fixing your little princess?”

“You know what’s wrong with her?” he gasped.

“Don’t
you
?”

“Well . . . not really . . .”

“You’ve suspended time around her. Anybody can see that.”

“Any
body
?”

“Any god, then,” the boy conceded. “Why did you do it, anyway?”

“I didn’t. Well, not on purpose.”

The boy laughed. “My, my, aren’t you going to have some fun now you’ve stumbled over the source.”

“What source?”

“The source of the gods’ power,” the boy explained. “You don’t think you did that just by waving your arm, do you?”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I did.”

“No, what you did was tap into the source, my friend, the same way the Harshini and the gods do. Not a skill owned by many humans, let me tell you. In fact, can’t think of a single human who can do it. You have some Harshini in you.”

“That’s absurd! At best, I’m an Innate.”

“Innates can only skim the surface of the source. You dipped into it.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Fine,” the boy shrugged. “Bring her back without my help, then.”

Wrayan hesitated for a moment and then sighed. “I can’t.”

The lad smiled. “Then you’ve got a problem, haven’t you?”

Wrayan closed his eyes, beyond confused, almost beyond hope. “Are you really a god?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“I am wounded beyond words you have to ask that, Wrayan Lightfinger.”

“Dacendaran,” Wrayan concluded with a resigned sigh. “The first time we met you said I should go back to Krakandar and be a pickpocket like my pa. Only the God of Thieves would encourage a sorcerer to become a pickpocket.”

“Yes, well, I have a problem with this whole ‘sorcerers should worship all gods equally’ philosophy myself. It’s not really fair. Especially when Zymelka manages to make every sorcerer say a poem any time they want to invoke our power. Nobody objects to
that
. If there had to be some great act to differentiate a spell from a prayer, why couldn’t they steal something and honour me? Or kiss someone and honour Kali?”

“Why not kill someone and honour Zegarnald?” Wrayan suggested.

Dacendaran sat himself down on the edge of the bed, treating Wrayan’s suggestion as if it was serious. “We thought about that once. Forever ago. Zeggie was rather fond of the idea, as you can imagine, but in the end we decided it might get a little messy. And Voden didn’t like the idea much, either. Zegarnald bosses the rest of us around, but even he doesn’t mess with Voden. The God of Green Life is way too strong and has absolutely no sense of humour when it comes to things like that.”

“Can you really bring her back, Divine One?”

“For a price.”

Wrayan sighed. “How much?”

“How
much?”
the god repeated, looking hugely offended. “I’m a god, you fool. What do I care about money?”

“Then what must I do?”

“I want to be honoured.”

“I will build a whole temple in your name, if you want,” Wrayan promised. “Just bring her back.”

“What do I want with a temple?”

“What
do
you want, then?”

Dacendaran smiled mischievously. “I want you to steal something.”

“Fine. What?” For the son of a pickpocket, the request hardly bothered Wrayan. Before he’d left Krakandar and come to Greenharbour to be an apprentice sorcerer, he had honoured Dacendaran plenty of times—often on a daily basis.

“Nothing big. Just a trinket really.”

“Which trinket?”

“Trinkets,”
Dacendaran corrected, emphasising the plural. “You don’t think I’m going to let you get away with just one measly little theft for something as important as restoring the High Prince’s sister, do you?”

“What
trinkets
, then?”

“Anything you want, really. I just want seven of them.”

“That’s all you want me to do? Steal seven trinkets from anybody I like?”

“That’s not what I said. I said I want seven trinkets. I didn’t say you could choose your own marks.”

Gods
, Wrayan thought impatiently.
This is worse than haggling in the markets with a fishmonger
.

“I heard that,” Dacendaran snapped.

“I’m sorry. Who must I steal these seven trinkets from, Divine One?” Wrayan asked, forcibly containing his impatience.

“The seven Warlords of Hythria.”

Wrayan stared at him. “You’re out of your mind!”

“
I’m
out of my mind? I don’t have a princess caught between one moment and the next lying on the bed awaiting discovery, boyo. Just watch who you’re calling insane!”

“But how am I supposed to steal something from each of the Warlords?”

“That’s your problem. If I tell you how to do it, you’re not honouring me. You’d just be cheating.”

“But, even if I could do it . . . it could take months!”

“That’s fine by me. I mean, it’s not as if she’s going anywhere, is she?”

“I need to bring her back now! This minute!”

“Sorry. It doesn’t work like that.”

Wrayan’s mind raced desperately, wondering how he was supposed to bargain with a god. There was nothing he’d ever come across in the vast Harshini library of the Collective that gave any instructions. Were there rules he didn’t know of? Things he couldn’t ask for? Concessions he’d be a fool not to demand?

Then Wrayan remembered one vital fact that gave his negotiations a rather pressing urgency. “But . . . but if I don’t restore her right away, the High Prince will have me put to death and I won’t be able to honour you at all, will I?”

That seemed to give the god pause. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed,” Wrayan agreed, desperately running with the idea, even though he was making it up as he went. “On the other hand, if you were to restore her right away, then . . . then . . . I could devote my time exclusively to honouring you, Divine One, without the awkward inconvenience of my execution getting in the way.”

Dace glared at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”

“Because . . . if I don’t . . . you can have . . . um . . .
me
!”

“What do you mean?”

“If I fail to deliver your seven trinkets in a reasonable time, I’ll come over to you,” Wrayan promised. “I’ll leave the Collective and return to Krakandar. I’ll follow my father into the family business and become the greatest thief in all of Hythria just to honour your name.”

“And what do you call a reasonable time?” the god asked.

“A year,” Wrayan said. “Give me a year, and if I haven’t stolen your seven trinkets by then, I’m all yours.”

Dacendaran thought about it but before he could answer Wrayan, the door opened and Kagan walked in with Alija Eaglespike at his side.

K
agan wasn’t sure what he expected to see when he opened the door to Princess Marla’s bedroom. At best, he hoped she’d merely appear asleep so he could convince Alija that nothing was amiss. He didn’t know how Alija had learned about Marla’s condition. Someone might have told her, although Kagan was reasonably sure she’d not heard about it that way. Wrayan hadn’t left Marla’s side; Nash had been sworn to secrecy. Perhaps Lirena had let something slip while she was fetching the compresses? Slaves gossiped the way other people breathed—unconsciously, regularly and without it, they would probably die. Or it may be that Alija—being an Innate herself—felt the prickle of magic in the early hours of this morning when Wrayan had accidentally worked his will and frozen the princess down on the wharf.