Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Read online

  Ganness eyed Tennetty, Ahira, and Slovotsky, who tried his best to look quietly threatening. Aeia's right hand didn't stray far from her bag, with its loaded pistol.

  "I see," Ganness said.

  "We don't ask for charity," Adahan went on. "We have a load of wootz to trade for passage. Also, you know there are places where a safe-conduct signed by Ahira or by Walter Slovotsky is of value. But, in return, we need your help. We need to get to Melawei."

  "Not just that." Aeia shook her head. "We need to be snuck into Melawei—there'll probably be a slaver ship guarding the usual channels. Of course, perhaps you're not the seaman Karl used to say you were."

  Ganness chuckled. "Yes, I have charted more of the coast of Melawei than most I know; if anyone can find a tricky route through the offshore islands, it's I. No, I am not enough of a fool to fall for cheap flattery."

  "Captain, Captain," Aeia said, turning up the wattage on her smile, "it may be flattery, but it's not cheap. Or insincere."

  Ganness looked like he was teetering on the edge; Slovotsky forced a laugh.

  "No need to be so nervous, Captain; you're acting like . . ." He paused to snort derisively. "Like we don't have a plan."

  "Ahh . . . right you are." Ganness smiled, and relaxed. "You'd hardly be without a plan. Well . . ."

  "Well?"

  "You have wootz, you say? I could do well in Sciforth with some good Home wootz. How much do you have?"

  "Ahh, now that we know what we all are," Ahira murmured in English, "it's time to haggle over the price." He switched to Erendra. "Step over to our wagon, and let me show you our wares."

  As the two of them walked away, Slovotsky turned to Bren Adahan. "Often? With all the blood on Karl's hands, I can't imagine him often getting bent out of shape over a boat or two."

  "True enough." Adahan grinned. "I'm sure he is upset about it, though; it's just that he didn't mention it."

  "Liar," Aeia said, grinning.

  "Terrible, Bren, terrible. Telling such falsehoods."

  Tennetty muttered a curse under her breath; Aeia turned to her.

  "What is it?"

  "Is there any way we can speed things up? I know you all have a great need to congratulate yourselves on how damn clever you all are, but I'm standing here on the pier with everything hanging out in this slave outfit, and I'm getting pretty tired of it."

  Her hands were shaking; Slovotsky decided that she'd been expecting the confrontation with Ganness to turn into a fight, and her body hadn't yet caught up with the fact that there wasn't going to be one.

  Adahan cocked his head to one side. "And this plan of yours? What is it?"

  "I'll let you know when I think it up."

  Over by the wagon, Avair Ganness had a sword balanced on his palms; he spoke a few words, then passed the weapon to Ahira.

  "Well," Slovotsky said, "if we're up to swearing on swords, it looks like we got a deal; let's get loaded."

  "Hmmm . . . let's get packed, instead," Aeia said, with a girlish giggle.

  * * *

  The water hissed quietly against the hull as they sailed under a dark but cloudless nighttime sky. Between the sky and the stars, faerie lights winked down, pulsing slowly, gently.

  Above Slovotsky's head, a full set of sails snapped and crackled in the light breeze; the deck heeled over more sharply than he would have expected on such a large ship. Fortune's Son was making good time.

  He was getting sleepy, though; best to go down to the cabin and sleep. But it would have been handy if Adahan had taken this opportunity to catch up with him—

  "Alone, Walter Slovotsky?" Bren Adahan said, from behind him causing Walter to start. "Getting old, it seems. The legendary Walter Slovotsky couldn't be snuck up upon, as I recall."

  "I was expecting you," Slovotsky said, smiling. "I've been through this before. Lots of times, going back to my school days."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. This is where you try to persuade me to leave Aeia alone."

  Adahan nodded, his face a little sad. "And are we all so predictable to you, Walter Slovotsky?"

  "Yeah. You remind me a bit of Karl."

  "I thank you."

  "Don't put on airs, man; I said 'a bit.' He once braced me over her mother. On Ganness' ship, as a matter of fact."

  Adahan was similar to Karl, in a lot of ways. Which is why Slovotsky had taken certain precautions, like the loaded pistol at his hip, and the rope tied to the spar halfway up the mast. If necessary, Slovotsky could play Errol Flynn and swing away from the younger man, raising a cry as he did. Not exactly the way Captain Peter Blood would have done it, but it had that same kind of style.

  "You're too damn arrogant, Walter Slovotsky. You assume, because I was raised on This Side, that I'm a simple barbarian without thought or care. Or language." Bren Adahan scratched at himself. "Aiea Bren woman. Walter leave Bren woman alone." Bren Adahan smiled sadly. "It's not like that, although it is simple: I want her badly, Walter Slovotsky, but I want her to be happy, even more. Think about it," he said, resting white knuckles on the rail. "Perhaps we're not so different, after all. —You'd best not hurt her, Walter Slovotsky. You'd best not hurt her."

  You really care for her, don't you? Or you maybe really want everyone to believe that you do, when what you're really after is marrying an emperor's adopted daughter.

  Quite possibly, both. Almost certainly both; if Adahan was simply an opportunist, Ellegon would probably have taken him out of the picture, one way or another. Besides, most people weren't simple.

  He missed Kirah, he decided. She was simple. Not stupid, mind; just simple. The opposite of complex. There was something to be said for simplicity.

  "I wouldn't hurt her," Slovotsky said. "Intentionally."

  "You won't hurt her," Bren Adahan said. "Twice."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:

  Ehvenor

  I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,

  Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows

  Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

  With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:

  There sleeps Titania some time of the night,

  Lulled in these flowers with dances and light,

  And there the snake throws her enameled skin,

  Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

  —William Shakespeare

  Under a dome of stars, mocked by the pulsing faerie lights, Karl Cullinane rode with his three companions down into Ehvenor, his sheathed sword bound across his saddle, his right hand never straying far from the butt of the short-barreled single-shot shotgun in his rifle boot.

  Kethol, the broad-shouldered redheaded warrior riding at Karl's left, worked his pistol loose in its holster. It was just a nervous habit; the shoulder holster didn't need to be primed to release its cargo. "'Ware the crazies," he said quietly. "They're not after a reward, more'n likely. But they're dangerous, just the same."

  "Tell me something I don't know," Pirojil said. He rubbed a blunt finger against his heavy brows. He was a remarkably ugly man, his flat nose splayed to one side from some long-ago fight. Karl could understand why Pirojil hadn't bothered to have the nose taken care of. It wouldn't have helped.

  Pirojil visibly winced every now and then. He'd taken an arrow in the thigh during the ambush outside of Tinkir that had killed Aren and Ferdom, and the scant portion of healing draughts that Kethol had doled out hadn't quite been enough to bring him back to health; a steady regimen of riding and walking hadn't allowed the wound enough time to heal. But Pirojil pushed on, bringing up the rear, he tugged at the ropes of their two packhorses, keeping the animals and the party's supplies close.

  "Movement, off to the left," Durine said. A treetrunk of a man, he rode with his reins held daintily in his hamlike left fist, his massive right hand holding his shotgun easily, as though he didn't notice the weight.

  "Just a rabbit," Pirojil said. "Ta havath, eh?"

  The Cirric glistened in the starlight, small waves lapping the
shore. As the company rode down toward Ehvenor, Karl could see only two large ships docked there, although a wide-bellied sloop seemed to be putting in.

  Between the road and the water, Ehvenor stood, waiting.

  Ehvenor. The sole outpost of Faerie in the Eren regions. Off in the distance, the faerie embassy, woven of light and mist, glimmered in the night, its brightness refusing to dispel the darkness surrounding it. It was almost cylindrical, almost three, four stories high. Almost, almost, almost—always almost; it was hard to look at; the building seemed to change before his eyes, to mold itself into another form ever so slightly different from what had been the moment before, but the change so slight and subtle that Karl couldn't put his finger on just what it was.

  "Want me to go on ahead, sir?" Kethol asked. He was no Walter Slovotsky, but he did a good recon.

  "No. Just keep alert." Best not to go separately; the Ehvenor crazies sometimes ran in packs. And who cared that a warrior could take down a dozen of the filthy creatures before they brought him down? The idea was to avoid the crazies, not to kill them. "And let's keep quiet."

  Kethol nodded, transferred his reins from his right hand to his left so that he could draw his blackened saber, holding it easily in his hand.

  The main road into the city led past a row of ramshackle houses, none of them issuing any light at all. Perfect cover for another ambush, for someone else after the guild reward on Karl's head.

  Karl didn't like the looks of it; he nodded at Kethol, who led them down a side alley.

  The alley twisted and turned through the dark, dung-laden streets, past the hovels of Ehvenor. Occasionally they could see dim faces peering out through windows or shutters, only to disappear instantly when Durine brought his shotgun into line, or at the whisk of Kethol's steel cleaving the cold night air.

  The plan was to go down to the pier and make a rude camp until morning, when—they hoped—passage to Melawei could be procured. They carried with them twenty coins of good Pandathaway gold and ten fine Nehera-made swords, both the gold and steel distributed among the party; leaving it all on the packhorses could leave them in trouble if they were separated from the animals.

  There were also a few surprises in the horse's pouches. This Side wasn't used to explosives yet, and the twenty or so pounds of guncotton on the rear horse might come in very handy.

  Not that it would make much of a difference, not in the long run, Karl thought, wishing that he could take his amulet out of his saddlebags and put it on again.

  But he couldn't. It had to be known that Karl Cullinane—

  With no warning, a dim shape rushed out of the shadows and leaped on Kethol, dragging the warrior down from his saddle before he could begin to bring his sword into play. It clawed at the man, uttering a satisfied, low growl.

  Instantly, Karl was off his own horse, his drawn saber in his hand. Firing a gun at whatever had jumped Kethol was out of the question; he'd be as likely to kill his own man as whatever it was.

  Durine's animal reared, while the huge man looked desperately for a target for his shotgun.

  Karl couldn't exactly make out the form of whatever it was that was clawing at Kethol, but he could find parts that he knew weren't his warrior; Karl stabbed into the dark mass, and felt his blade slice through flesh and cut into bone.

  With a hideous, liquid scream, the form went into a spasm, arms and legs twitching and then falling still as the body went limp, the body voiding itself of its waste in the final reflex of all animals.

  Karl kicked the stinking mass away from Kethol, and then immediately ducked to one side to make himself a bad target for the next attack.

  But there wasn't any.

  Pirojil spoke up. "I don't see anything."

  "Me, neither," Durine put in. "Nothing."

  Kethol got slowly to his feet; he looked okay, if a bit shaken.

  "Light, Pirojil," Karl said.

  As Pirojil pulled a glowsteel from his tunic, horribly bright blue light flared in the alleyway, sending a watching rat scurrying for cover. But there was nothing else there, nothing except the rag-clad, half-starved body of the man Karl had killed.

  As he got painfully to his feet, Kethol used the toe of his boot to turn the crazy over, after stabbing the corpse a couple of times with his own sword, just to be on the safe side.

  That's all it was, just a crazy. It happened in Ehvenor. Spending too much time around faerie was very bad for some humans, turning them violently, self-destructively insane. It didn't affect many—perhaps no more than one in five hundred, perhaps less—but that was enough.

  Above, the faerie lights pulsed more brightly, echoing Karl's pulse.

  Walk this way. Come to me.

  Kethol muttered a startled cry. Durine brought up his shotgun. Pirojil spun his horse around.

  Walk this way. Come to me. The voice was directionless, and quiet.

  Karl started. "Who is it? Pirojil—douse the light."

  Walk this way. Come to me. As Pirojil tucked his glowsteel away, the faerie lights hovered over the alley, pulsing even more intensely, the speed of the pulsations become an urgent staccato. Strangely, though, they didn't make the alley any brighter.

  Walk this way. Come to me.

  Karl retrieved his amulet from his saddlebag and slipped the thong over his head. It should provide some protection from whoever it was that was—

  Walk this way. Come to me. The faerie lights descended to line up over the alley, a path in the air that wound toward the faerie embassy.

  Embassy is such a silly word. "Finger" is better. Walk this way. Come to me.

  "Are you for me or against me?" Not that he could trust an affirmative answer, but perhaps a negative one would make his decision easy.

  No. Walk this way. Come to me.

  He decided not to, and was turning to tell the others that they were moving out when the universe twisted.

  * * *

  When it untwisted again, they were all standing in front of the faerie embassy, squinting at the uncertain shapes.

  "What do we do now, sir?" Kethol asked.

  Durine's beefy face was sweat-sheened in the harsh white light; he raised a flipper of a hand to his forehead to wipe away beading sweat. "I don't want to go inside."

  Distant memories returned to Karl, of himself ordering the others to follow him, and of them following the path of light to the embassy.

  But the memories were flat, emotionless, unconvincing.

  True. I warped things. I can do that in Faerie. I find it convenient.

  "But this isn't Faerie."

  That's a matter of opinion, in Ehvenor. My opinion differs, Karl Cullinane. In Ehvenor, in Faerie, my opinion is what matters. It's my opinion that you and I are—

  The world twisted yet again, and he was alone in the glow. It wasn't exactly a room, he decided. More of a place.

  —in the same place.

  While it didn't look like it, it felt like nothing so much as the room where he'd last encountered Deighton. Or Arta Myrdhyn, or whatever name was really his.

  "Both are, actually," a nearby voice said.

  "Deighton?"

  "Is his name. Oh, you think I'm him? Hardly." The voice took on color and tone. "He is human, of a sort."

  "And you're not?"

  "Good guess, Karl Cullinane."

  "Who are you?"

  "My name? Oh, anything will do." There was a distant chuckle that became distinctly feminine. "Titania might be best, all things considered. If you can do that. Or even if you can't."

  "Queen of the faeries?"

  "Quite."

  He forced himself to speak calmly. "I take it you're not after the guild reward."

  Another chuckle. "You take it correctly."

  She appeared in a blink: an immensely ugly, remarkably fat woman, reclining on a tattered purple couch. She played with a gilt tassel on her shiny red silk vest with one hand, while another reached out to grab the greasy leg of mutton lying on the mist next to the couch. Sh
e took a hefty bite. "Or would you prefer another form? It's not important. I'll change the rule a little for you." The immense fat woman stretched broadly on her side. The leg of mutton disappeared.

  He must have blinked, because he didn't see the change. And while the couch was the same, as she finished her stretch, she was different, and so beautiful that he had trouble swallowing; her high, firm breasts threatened to rupture the mist that barely contained them as it swept down her torso, leaving her long, lovely legs completely bare.

  "Is this better, Karl Cullinane?" she asked in a warm contralto. She propped her chin on the palm of one hand and eyed him levelly. The face said that no worry had ever crossed her mind; it was smooth, the high cheekbones touched with pink. Alien eyes stared at him unblinkingly from beneath long lashes. Ruby lips parted for a momentary grin, revealing sparkling white teeth, and a tongue that momentarily peeked out, then hid.

  "Do you like what you see?" She rose and stood in front of him, the mist clinging to her like something live, swirling about its tight confines.

  She was beautiful, like a combination of all that was supposed to be lovely in a woman, but the effect was chilling. It wasn't real; it was only for display.

  You've got a staple in your navel, lady.

  A real woman's breasts moved and sagged with gravity; when standing, a real woman didn't float above the ground to point the toes of both feet in order to emphasize the curve of her legs. Flesh was soft and real, not a sterile illusion.

  He closed his eyes as longing for Andy cut into him. God, Lady, I miss you.

  "I'm sorry, Karl Cullinane," Titania said. "I don't mean to tease you. I just wanted to meet you and maybe send you on your way. Think of it as an idle impulse." She laughed, her laughter distant silver bells. "I—we? they?—I have many idle impulses. Like this."

  He opened his eyes again, and Andy-Andy stood in front of him, dressed only in a silken robe. She shook her head, sending her hair flying.