The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

XXI

Cauldron

In which a strange voice cries out

Lady Nensela studied the men, focusing on the leader. Typically enough, he did the talking while his lackeys did the cowering. Good. She was sure she hadn’t overdone it on the theatrics. Senet always said she had a flare for the dramatic. ’Twas a pity he wasn’t here for this; the havoc they might wreak together! Alas, circumstances obliged them to remain separated for the time being.

“You want revenge,” Gallo said flatly. Regal stance with his hands on his hips. No doubt he meant for his bright white, knee-length tunic to signal his wealth and battle prowess.

She raised an eyebrow. Revenge? Oh, fascinating.

“You think we’re going to give you back your sister or daughter or whatever. Well, it’s not going to happen. We have her somewhere you can’t get her. Not even you can get her back. Kill us if you want, but she stays right where she is. And you—we know how to deal with you.”

“I doubt that,” she said quietly.

Bluffing was his best move, and she didn’t blame him for his attempt. Did he think she was bluffing? Best to teach him otherwise, and fast.

But—why did he not know what she was? The lapis stone in her circlet marked her as a prophet, yet he reacted as if she might be something else. What matter weighed on him so, to cloud his thoughts so utterly?

Gallo’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing. With a practiced eye Nensela studied him. This man led an order of cutthroats, no job for a schoolboy, and yet he now made a schoolboy’s mistake: he made an empty threat to her. Worse, a threat all could see was empty.

Fools did not rise to his position, and he was no exception. Again she wondered: what rattled him? Something must have knocked him off balance before she arrived.

Murena?

Suppressing a shudder, she calmly considered the idea. In fact, if Murena was involved, then she must take care not to rattle Gallo.

For now, she focused on what Gallo said. In his words, she had come to avenge someone’s capture, a woman. Who? And how might Nensela free her? The answer lay in finding out who Gallo believed her to be.

“I didn’t come here to negotiate,” Nensela said at last. Which was true, and if Gallo had truth-seers among his gang, they would sense her sincerity. Pitiless, she added, “I came here to let you know that today is the last day you will have on this side of Erebossa. What you make of that is your own affair.”

There. In her plans, her status as a prophet would have been sufficient cause for terror: if a prophet says you will die, you are done for, no? That the men believed she was something more terrifying than a prophet suited her fine.

Murmurs rippled through the ranks of men. Gallo still glared at her, but she knew he now needed to assert control of his men. He needed to keep their hysteria in check…before someone killed him to appease her.

All she had to do was continue to look unyielding and implacable.

Gallo snapped his fingers. “Kill her. Be quick about it.”

Ah. Not unexpected a gambit. As she hoped, he was giving her an opening to demonstrate his helplessness. Time to make it so.

A man stepped forward. The stout golden-haired man pointed his short sword at her. With a shout, he rushed toward her.

With a flick of her wrist, he vanished from their sight.

The murmuring grew raucous, and the swearing began in earnest. A scarred man fought his way to Gallo. He caught Gallo’s attention, and whispered something to him.

Sitting quietly, Lady Nensela idly wondered when someone would get the nerve to speak to her. She didn’t have long to wait.

“What did you do to him?!”

“I believe you mean to ask, ‘what will I do to you,’ do you not?”

There. Flame struck, all she had to do was wait for them to fan it. Let them burn down their own house.

“What do you want?” another demanded.

Another, but not Gallo, she noted. “Nothing you have.”

Silence. They looked to Gallo, who looked to her. She had said she would not negotiate, and the set of Gallo’s jaw said he now believed her. When he believed himself to be staring at death, what would he do? What would he say?

While the tension grew, Nensela let her senses roam. No sign of Murena. Thank the Seeker. No need to flee, not yet.

But she was not alone.

Not for the first time was she glad for her age. She had stacked the balance in her favor by using a distinctive, strong memory for the façade she’d created. However, in her youth she could not have carried off the feat of keeping the façade even as she Called out, who is there? At least now, when she needed it most, she could call upon her experience as she would a servant.

The answer to her Call came faintly at first. Nensela Called again, reaching out with her mind to seek the voice.

Careful, she warned herself. In her current state, nothing Gallo or his cohort could do would harm her. But she was not invulnerable to other traps. Had not Mother schooled her well? Schooled her via countless stories of seers who had gone Sending, without care to whom—or what—they spoke to while doing so.

Your daughter heeds your wisdom, Mother.

Whatever resided in the depths of the Red Daggers’ headquarters had set Gallo on edge, and that was enough to make her wary as well.

The voice grew more desperate, and in its desperation grew Lady Nensela’s unease.

«Help me.»

It took everything she had not to flee then and there. The clarity of the voice told her one thing for certain.

It was not human.

Calm. Stay calm. True, an inhuman intellect had just petitioned her—but the intellect could easily belong to a benign resident of this world. Salamandra, dryads, naiads, khrestai—Nensela had met all such in her lifetime.

However.

Capturing such beings was no small task; dryads in particular were dangerous prey. If the Red Daggers captured one, it would account for Gallo’s reaction to her, for she was a woman who appeared to have strange powers.

A dryad could explain Gallo’s disregard for her wearing the trappings of a seer. What care would a dryad have for human sumptuary laws, if she troubled herself to know them? Further, fearing the presence of a vengeful dryad would blind him to reason, as he appeared blinded now.

Still, she must proceed with care.

The men were getting restive. Undoubtedly they were weighing the possibility of rushing her en masse. Idle children got into ever so much mischief; had not her sweet sons taught her this? Time to distract them. Since they believed she had moved them to the Cauldron, and had ‘dispensed’ with one of their number with ridiculous ease…

A distinctive roar filled the air, and was joined in short order by another, then another. One of the roars sounded perilously close.

“Feeding time has come,” Nensela said.

The swearing grew in earnest. One man wet himself. Mustering sympathy, Nensela looked away. The poor dear believed dragons were coming to eat him, after all.

Their fear became fevered, and Nensela used the distraction to answer the voice.

«How is it that you need my help?» Out of extreme prudence she did not add, what are you?

The petitioner responded, and at first Nensela had trouble making out the words, but then she caught one fragment.

«…Unholy…»

Nensela warily asked her to repeat herself.

«They bind me with unholy chains. Free me!»

An imperious voice; the owner was used to obedience.

Unholy chains? Nensela paused. Whatever the woman was she wasn’t a Salamandran, for they could be bound by ordinary means. But the dryad hypothesis was looking more and more likely. No ordinary sorcerer could bind a daughter of the Huntress, no god would grant such power.

But an abyssal might.

Well then.

«How do I free you?»

The men were screaming for Gallo to “do something,” and Nensela divided her attention again to deal with them.

“You do not wish to be eaten alive? I shall grant one boon only: that you die on your feet, as men ought to.”

“Wait!” the scarred man next to Gallo cried out.

“Your time is up,” she said mildly. “And you have what mercy I will grant you. Accept it.”

Gallo stood frozen, his eyes unfocused. The man looked so manifestly unprepared that Nensela almost felt sorry for him. But in the end, she could spare no pity for anyone with the hubris to capture the daughter of a god.

How did he justify his endeavor to himself? A wise man would have prepared an escape from the consequences. What was Gallo’s plan?

“This isn’t how—this isn’t the way—we’ll give her back! We’ve done nothing to hurt her, we swear.”

It was the scarred man again.

“You have bound her with unholy chains,” Nensela pointed out.

«Do not bargain with them!»

Ah. So, the captive was aware of events; she was not just responding to Nensela’s Call. Yet, she apparently could not read Nensela’s intentions. Perhaps Nensela was as strange to her as she was to Nensela?

«Do not interfere, or I can’t help you.»

The scarred man started to speak again, but Nensela decided she’d had enough.

“Do not dare to lie to me. To free her, you must cross the will of your master. Is his wrath to be taken lightly? Yet if you summoned such courage—or foolishness—what of the wrath of your captive? A fine trap you have fashioned for yourself, with death at either end. Death itself will be no refuge, only the beginning of your sufferings. In the name of the Destroyer I say to you now: ready yourself.”

“But you always offer…” the scarred man’s voice trailed off.

Ah. Nensela understood now. Traditionally, prophets carried a dual message of punishment, and avoidance of that punishment. If you keep doing this, that will happen to you. Naturally, the way out was to avoid ‘this.’ And, there was usually the option to repent and atone.

Usually.

But when the khrestai appeared, the Scouring began. The prophets gave plenty of warnings, but the sorcerers never set eyes upon the khrestai until the khrestai decided the time for warnings was over.

With that in mind, Nensela suspected the scarred man must have told himself that there was a way of escape for him, because of the ‘rules’ that khrestai, dryads, and prophets appeared to operate by.

She had just cut off that escape.

They were desperate now. Cornered. They would give it their all to fight, because they must.

She allowed them to see her smile.

It is time, she told herself. Enter Edana.

One hour earlier…

The public aerie was abuzz with Star Dragon arcana flitting to and fro, from one squad to the next. Lady Nensela had chosen the aerie for their staging ground, as soon as Ziri and his arcana scried out the Red Dagger fortress. Which turned out to be in a cave near the peak of Mount Adamant, the summit of the Shield Mountains that Kyanopolis was built around.

Timing was everything. Gryphons could fly faster than a horse could run, and the public aerie offered a plentiful supply of gryphons. However, the beasts weren’t battle trained, which told Bessa that Nensela wanted them strictly for transportation.

The Star Dragons commandeered the office of the beast master prime, which was at the top of the tower, directly above the holding pen where the gryphons were kept. Bessa had expected resistance, but Nensela’s status as a Seeker’s Own helped them.

The beast master prime did not even flinch when Lady Nensela ordered him to ensure no one disturbed her. Likely this had something to do with the exorbitant rental fee she offered, which left him smiling as he hastily retreated. As soon as they entered the room, Nensela lay down on the sofa and clasped the keystone ring tightly in her hand.

“Be ready,” she said, before her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

Bessa recoiled, and Edana gasped. They glanced at the Star Dragons, who seemed unfazed by Lady Nensela’s condition.

“So this is a Sending,” Edana whispered. She stationed herself next to the seer, and watched her intently.

Unable to help, Bessa paced the mezzanine overlooking the city. As she brooded she kept an eye on the beast masters walking on the deck below. By their excited chatter she knew her group mystified them.

Could a Red Dagger lackey be lurking amongst the beast masters? If she were commanding the Red Daggers, she would make it her business place spies in the lighthouse, the aerie; all of the high points of the city.

Had Lady Nensela taken this possibility into account? Slaves were often ignored or forgotten, and the last thing they needed was for their mission to be undone by someone hiding in plain sight.

Fresh in her mind was memory of Lady Nensela’s lesson about prophecy traps. To avoid one, Lady Nensela had to be keenly aware of the nature of the people involved in the prophecy, and anticipate their behavior in a given set of circumstances.

For this reason, Bessa sought out the battle scryer, Damya. Several Star Dragons surrounded her, and they conferred together in low voices. They looked up when Bessa joined them.

Bessa asked, “Are you able to tell if an enemy is among us? If there is a Red Dagger among the beast masters or servants in the aerie?”

Damya held up a small glass globe. Unlike the world globes that bore etchings of the empire of Rasena Valentis and the surrounding lands, hers was a map of the city of Kyanopolis and its surroundings. When a scryer activated its power, the water inside the globe turned a deep lapis blue, providing a necessary contrast to the gold lines of the map.

Not only was the water in Damya’s globe blue, but the gold lines were glowing. Two points adjacent to each other glowed especially bright.

Damya glared at her globe. “Indeed.”

Only then did Bessa notice the rings she clasped in her other hand. One she recognized as belonging to the severed hand of ‘Lord One Hand.’ The other rings must belong to the arcani who had accompanied him. Having the rings meant Damya could scry out anyone who had touched them.

One of the bright spots on the globe was the summit of Mount Adamant, which led to the Red Daggers’ fortress.

The other was the aerie.

“Lockdown,” Ziri snapped. “No one comes in or out. This place is closed for the duration. Keep everyone who works here in the open, where we can see them.”

“What do I tell them if they ask why?” a Star Dragon asked, a hand on the hilt of his sword.

“They can take their questions to the Twins,” came Ziri’s cold reply.

The Star Dragons within earshot hurried to obey. Two of them were sorcerers, who openly wore blood vials at their throats. Fair warning they meant business.

“How will you suss out which beast master is the spy?” Bessa asked.

“Once the sorcerers take command, the truthsayers will begin the interrogations,” Ziri said.

Confirmation that the Red Daggers planted an agent in the aerie suggested to Bessa another reason why Lady Nensela chose it for her staging ground: the gryphons might know the way to the headquarters. Various agents could have used the beasts as transport to ‘work,’ and lookouts at the Red Daggers fortress might assume anyone approaching on a gryphon was in their pay. By the time the chaos was sorted, the relevant parties would be dead.

Soon enough, one of the sorcerers, Leo, returned with the informant, depositing him at Ziri’s feet. The slackness of the informant’s face signaled he was under a compulsion; the sorcerer was already removing the spent blood vial from the cord around his neck. He pulled out a full vial from his belt and slid it onto the cord, which he duly tied around his neck.

The Red Daggers had been clever. The informant, a clerk, always reported directly to one person, and only that person, who used an obvious code name. The practice limited exposure of the Red Daggers as a whole.

With a practiced eye, Bessa gave him the once-over. The clerk could not withstand strict scrutiny, she judged. He may have been a freedman or freeborn, but either way, slaves drove down any wages he would have made.

And yet, he wore a sash of muslin. The fabric was a revelation to Bessa, and one she had fast come to appreciate—Edana had given her a chiton to wear that very morning, promising it would help her cope with the heat.

Yet in contrast with Bessa’s white chiton, the clerk’s sash was dyed yellow, which cemented her suspicions. It was unlikely he had lawfully obtained the means to buy anything imported from across the Gold Sea, let alone muslin, let alone muslin dyed with costly saffron. The cost would require a year of his official wages, which she doubted he’d waste on a mere accessory.

The Red Daggers should have chosen someone whose flaunting of unexplainable wealth would not have stood out so starkly.

At Edana’s shout, they rushed back into the office. When they arrived, Edana was kneeling in front of Lady Nensela. A wide-awake Lady Nensela squeezed her hands with the intensity of a drowning woman holding driftwood.

“Stay back,” Damya warned them.

When Lady Nensela calmed, Edana let go of one hand to pick up a jug of wine she had stationed at her own feet for this purpose, the lesson she had learned from Cingetissa. She offered a cup to Lady Nensela, who heartily drank. Lady Nensela’s usual alertness returned, and she fastened her gaze on Ziri.

“There’s a complication,” she said. “Listen to me. The Red Daggers have a captive, possibly a dryad. They keep her bound with ‘unholy chains.’ Do your sorcerers serve the Huntress?”

One of the Star Dragons swore, and Bessa shivered. As a child she had fantasized about meeting dryads, but that was because of the children’s stories Grandmother told her at night. As an adult, she had read the uncensored versions of those stories, and knew enough to have a healthy fear of dryads.

What would an angry dryad do once freed?

The Star Dragons all looked to Leo.

“Change of plans,” Ziri said. “Damya will go with us, and Leo, your sole purpose will be to free the dryad once Damya finds her. No matter what happens in the battle, you are not to deviate from that mission, understand?”

Lady Nensela held up a hand. “If I may—the captive is terrified, and seems unable to read intentions. If she is a dryad, she may trust Leo by default. If she is not, then I had better go with you. I told her my friends were coming, so that should grant you some leeway once she is free.”

Ziri started to protest, but Lady Nensela cut him off. “I do not wish to remind you, again, of what I was doing when your grandfather’s grandfather was in swaddling clothes. I will not get in the way, and if you are concerned, know that I have my own men who are trained for this. You need not spare your own. Let us go.”

Ziri’s jaw snapped shut.

The beast master prime had their gryphons ready for them when they reached the deck below. “One thing,” he said. “Know this: these gryphons are not fit for battle, and are under a geas to never bite, claw, or harm anyone. Attempt to break that geas, and you kill them. Understand?”

“If we wished for battle mounts, we would not be here,” Lady Nensela assured him. “And if I were you, I would go through my records and see which of my gryphons may have been used to facilitate crimes. Your clerk is in the pay of cutthroats. If this gets out, you may have to answer to the authorities. Consider what you must do to prove your innocence. Fly!”

At her command, her gryphon took a running leap off the concrete promontory that jutted into the sky over the city.

Bessa suppressed a smile at the look on the face of the beast master prime. She admired how adroitly Lady Nensela maneuvered him into investigating Red Dagger activity in his aerie.

Sidling up to him she helpfully added, “I would start with anyone whose lifestyle isn’t supported by their pay. Like your clerk, and his muslin sash and fancy shoes.”

The head beast master did a double take. He was better paid than the clerk, of course, and may have even owned the aerie. However, his garments told her he knew or cared little about clothes, aside from if they were itchy or protected him from the elements. His eyes darkened, and she saw the wheels turning.

With a roguish smile she added, “Perhaps you might pay the clerks more, to make them less susceptible to bribes?”

“I will be in my office if you need me,” he snapped.

The other Star Dragons were taking off. Edana was one of the last in line. Bessa walked beside her, and Edana reached out to take her hand. A bag hung at Edana’s side, and Bessa tried not to think about the contents as she concentrated on her best and oldest friend.

“May your Speaker guard and keep you, my heart-sister,” Bessa said.

Edana squeezed her hand. Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I love you, too.”