Master of restless shado.., p.22
Master of Restless Shadows, page 22
part #1 of Master of Restless Shadows Series
Lord Vediya said nothing and didn’t move.
After a few minutes the masked man rose and set off running after a shadowy figure farther down the street. Lord Vediya relaxed and continued walking and talking as if the interruption never occurred.
“I had assumed,” Lord Vediya said quietly, “that you weren’t so audacious a young fellow that you’d roam a city brimming with thieves, cutthroats and royal bishop’s guardsmen while loaded down with gold and a stone of passage.”
“You are mop my mother.” Narsi repeated the words Lord Vediya had muttered to him while feigning drunkenness. Lord Vediya laughed.
“That I’m mop,” he replied, and then he pushed the door of the Fat Goose open. Firelight and raucous voices poured from the crowded inn. Lord Vediya walked in and Narsi followed him, though not without drawing a few stares from several of the men seated at the bar. One heavyset, red-faced fellow glowered at Narsi with the unfocused gaze of a drunk making his last attempt at any coherent thought. He attempted to stand, but Narsi eluded him by simply taking several steps farther into the inn. The drunkard plopped back into his seat, his head lolling forward as if he’d just dozed off.
The slim man behind the bar watched him with an assessing expression. Narsi thought that he might have been the same fellow he had seen kiss Inissa. Then Narsi remembered that Lord Vediya had pointed the man out to him this morning. The handsome owner of the inn heralded from the Salt Islands and went by the name Spider.
“Yago was looking for you,” Spider called.
Alarm shot through Narsi. Lord Vediya, however, didn’t seem particularly concerned.
“I can’t possibly have ensnared his affections so quickly, could I?” Lord Vediya asked, and he struck a coy pose.
The man behind the bar laughed, as did both women serving drinks to the patrons crowded around the gaming tables. Several men glanced up and snorted at Lord Vediya’s posture.
“I let him have a peek through your pretty room upstairs and I think he must have seen all those love letters that pile up for you there.” Spider grinned and then added dramatically, “he went away in tears.”
“The poor man. No wonder he can’t find Lady Hylanya. He only has eyes for me.”
That inspired roars of laughter from all around the room. Then a hunched, white-haired old man called for new wagers on how much longer it would be before Captain Yago captured his quarry.
“You mean the lady or Atreau’s heart?” demanded the taller of the serving women. She looked near forty but in very good health. Her shoulders seemed remarkably muscular to Narsi’s eye. The men next to her chuckled, but the white-haired old man seemed to ponder the question seriously.
“Doesn’t matter which,” a short serving girl who looked to be in her teens called from near the hearth. “He ain’t ever catching neither of them. I’ll place a copper crown on that.”
“All right then,” the old man proclaimed. “It’s two wagers that I’ll put down in the book . . . though the odds on the second requires a number too long to write out. Still I’m taking all bets now.” He sat back down and, to Narsi’s surprise, a good number of men roused themselves from the bar to place their wagers.
Spider offered Lord Vediya a friendly nod before returning to his wine casks and beer barrels. The rest of the populace appeared far too focused on the cards and dice at their tables to spare either Lord Vediya or Narsi any further attention. As they passed between the crowded tables, Narsi heard a few men gossiping about the changes they expected when Prince Sevanyo took the throne, but most conversed about horses, the weather and popular operas.
Following Lord Vediya, Narsi climbed up a rickety winding staircase to a dim upper floor. Lord Vediya opened a door on the right without even needing a key. Narsi couldn’t make out much of the space except that it appeared to be a chaos of weird shadows. As soon as Lord Vediya lit a small lamp, Narsi realized why the place had looked so odd. The velvet-upholstered chairs had been thrown onto their sides, and a dainty writing table lay completely overturned with its ink bottle leaking a dark pool and papers scattered all around. The mattresses had been pulled off the bed frame and heaps of straw stuffing spilled out from huge gashes. Captain Yago had certainly done more than merely have a peek at the place. Even the curtains seemed to be in tatters.
To Narsi’s surprise, Lord Vediya laughed at the wreck.
Then he pinched out the lamplight, turned around and sauntered down the hall. He stopped about five yards farther and leaned against the hallway wall. For a moment Narsi wondered if he’d lost his strength or been somehow overcome. But then a large expanse of the wall paneling slid aside. Narsi followed him into the secret passage with a feeling of delighted wonder. This was exactly like something from one of his books. Just before the panel fell closed behind them, Lord Vediya reached back and placed his hand in Narsi’s.
“Stay close, the footing’s tricky in the dark,” he said.
The panel snapped shut and gloom swallowed them. Narsi curled his fingers around Lord Vediya’s hand and walked cautiously forward. After only a few steps he noted very faint seams of starlight seeping in through cracks in the wall ahead of them.
“There’s a release hidden here.” Lord Vediya reached out to the wall and Narsi traced his hand down to a notch in the rough wood of the wall.
“Slide it down,” Lord Vediya instructed.
It took a hard push, but a solid click reverberated through Narsi’s fingers and all at once a small circle of the wall in front of him slid upward. Beyond it lay another chasm of complete darkness, though Narsi could smell the faint scents of domesticity: woodsmoke, lamp oil and a hint of rose oil. Lord Vediya crouched down and then crawled through the opening. A moment later a lamp flared on the other side of the thick wall.
Narsi clambered after Lord Vediya, though his greater height and broader shoulders made it a very tight fit. He felt like a snake wriggling into a tiny mouse burrow. But then he pulled himself free and scraped out onto a hard wood floor. Lord Vediya dropped down beside him while Narsi sat up.
“The pull to close the door is here.” Lord Vediya reached out and caught a yellow tassel hanging from a window sash. He pulled the tassel down with both hands and the heavy wood panel slowly descended to reveal a section of a painting depicting wild horses on a rocky cliff in a thunderstorm. The small section snapped back into place behind the large decorative frame, leaving only the presence of great strokes of lightning illuminating an unbowed herd of roan horses.
Narsi straightened and peered out the window, amazed to realize that he now stood in the building behind the Fat Goose. How the second floors of the two buildings adjoined was almost impossible to discern.
No wonder Lord Vediya had been so amused by Captain Yago’s intrusion into the room in the Fat Goose. It was obviously a decoy. Before today the thought of maintaining a decoy room might have struck Narsi as almost laughably paranoid. But he was quickly coming to realize that Lord Vediya’s real life was much more dangerous than that of the mere sensualist adventurer he’d made himself out to be in his books.
“Probably best to pull the curtains,” Lord Vediya commented. Narsi drew them shut quickly. Lord Vediya set his oil lamp on a battered-looking bed table. Then he turned and dropped into one of the wood chairs near the stained writing desk. Just beyond that stood a dresser and bed. Both looked humble for belongings of a nobleman, though taking in the rest of the room, they weren’t much out of place. Paint stains spattered the old rug lying near the small fireplace and the green basin on the wash table in no way matched with the orange pitcher beside it.
“We can speak freely here. Have a seat.” Lord Vediya indicated the larger upholstered chair near the fireplace. Two patches covered the seat cushion and the back seemed a little threadbare, but Narsi found it quite comfortable.
“I take it the lady made it safely to her ship?” Narsi asked quietly.
Lord Vediya nodded. “Now we must simply pray that she and her brother will accept Prince Sevanyo’s apologies for his brother’s behavior.”
“Do you think they will?” Narsi asked. The Bahiim ghost’s words still seemed to flutter through the back of his mind. A battle to come . . . “They wouldn’t fight a war over this incident, would they?”
Lord Vediya shrugged and then said, “It’s hard to know what any common Cadeleonians would fight a war over, much less what Labaran witches like Hylanya and Skellan might feel is necessary.” He stared down at his hands and then glanced to Narsi’s medical satchel. “You still have the stone of passage?”
“Yes. But what is it exactly?” Narsi asked.
“It’s a secret. One you should do your best to simply forget you ever saw.” Meeting Narsi’s curious gaze, Lord Vediya added, “It’s a spell that provides safe passage as well as illuminating a path to whomever made it. In this case it’s passage to Count Radulf’s court.”
“For further negotiations?” Narsi asked.
“Perhaps.” Lord Vediya shrugged again. “If we can’t outmaneuver the royal bishop, then Radulf County may be the only safe haven left. Considering the political environment just now, it’s best if we keep the stone’s existence between the two of us. It can’t be traced back to the duke, you understand.”
“Of course,” Narsi replied automatically.
Lord Vediya looked tired, his expression uncharacteristically grim.
“Tell me about the lights in the sacred grove.” Lord Vediya spoke in a soft tone, but Narsi didn’t miss the fact that he hadn’t bothered to disguise the order with niceties or flirtation. Had it been almost any other man, Narsi might have pointed out that he wasn’t in the man’s employment and expected a bit more curtesy in his conversations.
But there was a kind of exceptional candor in Lord Vediya’s directness that Narsi suspected was rare. He’d only observed Lord Vediya to speak so frankly to Inissa, and then it had been in a lowered voice. But even if this wasn’t a special glimpse of the real man beneath all his flattery and banter, Narsi still owed Lord Vediya a great debt. Even if Lord Vediya didn’t remember Narsi’s promise to repay him, Narsi intended to keep his word.
“When I took the necklace into the sacred grove, I heard a voice—I think it belonged to the spirit of the Bahiim who last cared for the grove. She asked if I’d come to wake Wadi Tel and raise Meztli’s shields again. I’m not sure if she meant the Meztli who was mentioned in the Cadeleonian holy books or not.” Narsi struggled to recollect the actual passages that mentioned Meztli, but it had been years since he’d last paged through a Cadeleonian holy book. “I have no idea where Wadi Tel is. But Tel in Haldiim is a hill or rise, and Wadi is a very archaic word for a guardian. I only know the word because it’s my mother’s name, but no one uses the term in common speech anymore.”
“So she thought you’d come to do something with an obscure religious figure’s shield possibly on some archaic Guardian Hill?”
Narsi nodded.
Lord Vediya stared at the fire with a distant expression. “This Wadi Tel could be Crown Hill. The Savior’s forces rallied there against the demon lords. I don’t know what the place was called during the Battle of the Shard of Heaven, but it was renamed Crown Hill after our first king was anointed there ten days later.” Lord Vediya fell silent, then looked to Narsi. “Go on with your story.”
“Well, I told her I wasn’t who she was expecting. And then she told me that I should run back home because a battle is coming.” All the strangeness of the day seemed unreal now as he put it into mundane words. A dead woman prophesizing war from the body of thirty crows seemed like it merited its own dialect, at least.
“A forthcoming battle.” Lord Vediya’s frown deepened. “I don’t suppose she offered a date or mentioned who exactly would be fighting in this battle?”
“Not as such, no.” Narsi tried to remember the exact words spoken to him. “Some kind of unfinished battle from a long time ago. And she said something about kings being weak and guardians forgetting their duties. Does any of that help?”
“It’s something,” Lord Vediya replied. “Hylanya mentioned the kings weakening as well . . . Though a Bahiim making the same comment worries me.” Lord Vediya looked to Narsi. “As I understand it, they anchor curses and spells across entire groves or even whole forests.”
“That’s right. Trees represent the connection between the living world around us and the realms hidden from us—the underworld realms where their roots grow. But there aren’t any Bahiim kings. Weak or otherwise.”
“We’ve had plenty of Cadeleonian kings. The current one is certainly weak, but I don’t think that’s who she meant. As for an ancient unfinished battle . . .” Lord Vediya sighed but didn’t say anything more.
“Lady Hylanya didn’t indicate anything else?” Narsi asked.
Realization flashed across Lord Vediya’s face for just an instant, but then he scowled.
“She was interested in the Shard of Heaven in the beginning. Perhaps those are the weak kings . . .”
“The Hallowed Kings?” Narsi asked. “You mean they’re real?” The words were out before he considered them.
Fortunately, Lord Vediya merely laughed at his near-heresy.
“I can’t vouch for their existence myself, but considering Hylanya’s interest, I’d guess that the Hallowed Kings are more than myths or symbols. The fact that they might be weakening is troubling.”
“Because they’re supposed to be the guardians of the Cadeleonian nation? Or are you thinking of something more specific?” Narsi thought back on what he remembered about the Hallowed Kings and the Shard of Heaven. The creation of both had been the price of vanquishing ancient demon lords. Only one of those demon lords had woken in Labara just six years ago. “There couldn’t be another . . .” Narsi trailed off as he met Lord Vediya’s gaze.
His tanned face looked ashen and the pupils of his eyes flared to black pits of stark fear. Unlike Narsi, he’d witnessed a demon lord break free of the stone that had bound its body. He’d been there when towers collapsed and a city burned.
“No. That can’t have been it.” Lord Vediya shifted his gaze to the fire. “Hylanya and Skellan may be committed to freeing trolls, giant wyrm and Old Gods, but they wouldn’t release another demon lord.”
The majority of Narsi’s ideas about Count Radulf had come from Lord Vediya’s book. He remembered thinking that the count had sounded uncultured but also strangely egalitarian for a ruler. Though what stood out to him most had been the descriptions of the man striding across exposed city walls in all weather, clothed in little more than a red fur cloak for the sake of protecting his people.
“From what I remember of your book,” Narsi commented, “the Labaran demon lord hadn’t been defeated in the same manner as all the others—”
“That’s right.” Lord Vediya smiled. “God’s tits, how could I forget? Yes, Javier said as much. He had been trapped, but all the others had been killed or driven back to their own realms.”
“So, that can’t be the ancient battle that the Bahiim referred to.”
“No, indeed not.” Lord Vediya’s relief seemed to melt through the muscles of his body. He leaned back and stretched in his seat. His eyes drooped and a moment later he only half stifled a yawn.
Narsi wondered how long it had been since he’d slept.
“An unfinished war . . . it begs the question of when a war truly does end, doesn’t it? How many battles, lost generations past, are raging even now in the hearts of people defeated or wronged.” Lord Vediya closed his eyes.
Narsi contemplated his question but also wondered if he shouldn’t just let the man relax. He was nearly exhausted himself. The heat of the fire seemed to wrap around him like a blanket.
“Your nation calling, Your kingdom falling, Oh, come, young brash and brave, Run with me to an early grave . . .” Lord Vediya hummed under his breath. The light melody seemed at odds with the grim lyrics.
“Is that from an opera?” Narsi asked.
“Maybe someday. Just now it’s something I’m working out.”
“The tune is nice.” Narsi let his eyelids sink closed as he slumped back into his seat. Beside him Lord Vediya continued humming the low melody, almost as if he was singing a lullaby. Narsi’s thoughts seemed to melt away into half-dreamed memories of Mother Kir-Naham’s pharmacy and pots of Labaran roses.
He felt Lord Vediya’s warm hand rest on his knee.
“The bed is better for sleeping in than that chair, I promise you.”
“I couldn’t take your bed,” Narsi protested, and he let his eyes fall closed again.
Lord Vediya laughed.
“Lord, no. I’m not so gallant as to make that sacrifice. But I can certainly share it with you.”
That brought Narsi’s eyes open quickly enough. Lord Vediya already stood, with his back turned. He strode to the simple bed, sat on the edge and quickly stripped off his riding boots, shirt and breeches. His motions were neither graceful nor seductive, and yet somehow Narsi found himself fascinated. Here was the infamous libertine pulling off his undergarments with tired disinterest. He yawned and scratched his chest, utterly bereft of all polish and performance.
In this moment, more than any other, he reminded Narsi of the young man he’d been when they’d first met, more than a decade before: unstudied and sincere, with all his pretenses still years before him. He glanced back and only belatedly seemed to realize that Narsi studied him.
“Have I disappointed?” Lord Vediya asked.
As much as Narsi wished to arouse Lord Vediya’s desire, he appreciated that a different, perhaps greater intimacy belied this moment—perhaps this entire day. While any number of people might inspire lust, it struck Narsi that very few merited Lord Vediya’s trust. Narsi truly wished to number among those few. More than that, he owed it to Lord Vediya to rise above his own desire and prove himself a man worthy of relying upon.
