A DISH BEST SERVED COLD
He could not remember whether this was the second or third time he had brought Kennet back. That seemed like a detail he should recall. Probably Kennet knew, but he didn’t feel like asking. In any case, the man was back at his duties within two days of having been murdered.
Lalania was unhappy with the entire affair. “It looks like a trap,” she complained. “As if you had laid out bait.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Christopher objected. In the end, his role had been purely observational.
“Which makes it worse. Like a lion watching its cub maul a rabbit, ready to pounce should the prey risk escape.”
Christopher frowned at her. “He wasn’t a rabbit. He was a murderer looking for victims.” Unstopped, Ser Conner would have undoubtedly slaughtered dozens of peasants for the tael in their heads on his way out of town. Instead his tael was in Christopher’s vial, thanks to the Cardinal’s warning.
“Yet if you had made your presence known, Ser Conner would have stayed his hand and would still be alive today.”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to go out there in the first place.”
“And yet you did. This is a stark reminder that knights are merely a harvest of tael to you. Conner was Green and he still felt driven into the Wild. I will be surprised if we have any knights left by year’s end.” They were sitting in the throne room again. It was the best place to have a private conversation lately, as traffic had been drying up. The nobility had stopped complaining as much, which was worrisome because it meant they were plotting more. The common petitioners had also slowed to a trickle for reasons less clear.
He looked around the empty room. “Where is everybody? Am I becoming less popular?”
She shrugged. “Treywan almost never had commoners at his court. Nobility is normally far too capricious for the small folk. You are achieving your goal of being perceived as ordinary.”
“This . . . can’t go on much longer.”
“On the contrary.” She tilted her head at him. “It can go on forever. So it has always been; so it shall always be. Your rank is enough to hold the throne, as it was for Treywan. Your rifles only make it obvious. It is clear that you will not rest until you have reduced every profession save for the priesthood, and yet there is nothing anyone can do to stop you.”
She pirouetted on the long red carpet that stretched from the throne to the huge double doors, making a show of the emptiness. “It’s been years since we had a ball. If you’re going to be normal, at least we can dance.”
“So . . . no rebellion?”
Cannan wandered over to a chair and sat down. “There are never rebellions. The throne changes hands through duel or assassination. Your civil war was a function of your theology. Just an extended argument between you and the Gold Apostle.”
Lalania spun, still dancing. “Peasants are what wars are fought over, not with.”
“Until now.”
She stopped and stretched. “Half the kingdom thinks your rifles will stop working when you die. No one is going to use peasants against you.”
His efforts to spread the scientific worldview were definitely a work in progress.
“We should not sit here and wait for them to strike.” Cannan sat with his massive sword standing between his knees, point against the ground. Christopher hated when he did that; the blade left gouges in the stone floor. Sometimes Christopher would use magic to repair the stone but only when no one was looking. “Identify your enemies and destroy them first.”
That was the problem. Christopher didn’t know how to find his enemy.
“Without cause? You forget his affiliation.” Lalania’s lecture struck home; Cannan grimaced, acknowledging that preemptive murder was not really the sort of thing Christopher could justify. “And whom would you have him slay? Knighthood already withers; the other churches beg for scraps.”
“I can think of two places to start,” Cannan said. “At least one of which has given me sufficient cause.”
The red knight was obviously referring to the Witch of the Moors and the Wizard of Carrhill. Christopher sighed. He actually liked both of them despite their respective inscrutability and moral flexibility.
“If you can think of two, then two can think of you.” Lalania bowed, ending her performance. “Take a care of what dinner invitations you accept.”
When it came, it was at the hands of a friend.
Christopher was riding down the winding road from the spire of Kingsrock to the plains below. Royal needed regular exercise, and Christopher was always glad to get out of the city. For a day trip like this, he could get away with an escort as small as Cannan and six cavalrymen. He would never be out of sight of the spire; if worst came to worst, he could just fly back to the castle for reinforcements.
There was of course the danger of a magical attack, but he had taken precautions against that a while ago. He wore Lalania’s amulet under his tunic. It was a calculated risk because he would have to take it off before he could cast spells on himself—such as the flight spell. On the other hand, it would stop his instantaneous and immediate destruction by a variety of horrific spells.
It would also keep the Witch and the Wizard from doing anything he would have to kill them for.
Thus, he watched the sparrow approaching him with curiosity. It flew around his horse several times, working up the courage to come closer. It might be a lost pet looking for rescue or a spell-trigger of arcane death. The first possibility stopped him from having it shot, although in retrospect that was a poor decision.
When he held out his hand, it landed on his gauntleted fist and chirped at him.
“It’s carrying something,” he said. He cupped his other gauntlet, and the bird dropped a feather in his palm. Then it took to the air again, circling.
Cannan rode closer and plucked the feather from Christopher’s hand before it blew away on the wind. “D’Kan’s token. He invites you to meet; the bird will guide you. I did not think he could do this trick. His explorations must have been profitable.”
“Should we follow?”
“Of course not,” Cannan snorted. “The boy has outgrown his boots if he thinks he can summon a Saint to his whistle.”
“On the other hand, he might have something to say.” Their last meeting had been impromptu, discreet, and informative.
“Or he just wants to brag. Ignore him and he will come to court, if he has anything of value for you.”
The thought soured Christopher. The last thing he wanted was another surly noble in front of his throne.
“I think we should go,” Christopher said.
Cannan shrugged and tapped his heels to his horse. Royal surged to keep ahead, and the cavalrymen perked up their horses to follow, all of them chasing a sparrow across the fields.
After a mile, the bird flew into a copse of trees. Kingsrock was still visible behind them, and the sun was high and bright in the sky. Christopher and the men dismounted at the edge of the woods, loosening the saddle straps so their horses could rest. They took off their helmets for the same reason. One of the men passed around a skin of wine; Cannan took a swig and handed it to Christopher.
“Well met, my lord.” D’Kan strolled out of the trees to greet them.
Cannan eyed him critically. “For a Ranger you spend an inordinate amount of time in Civilized lands. One might almost think you like it.”
The Ranger smiled superciliously. “I don’t have a mattress strapped to my back. Yet.”
The red knight’s eyes narrowed. Christopher was slightly taken aback and mildly impressed. It was a sophisticated insult, subtly implying that Cannan had become utterly domesticated and soft. D’Kan had grown sharp thorns.
“How was your adventure?” Christopher asked before Cannan could continue the sniping.
“Mildly profitable.” D’Kan turned his smile on Christopher, who discovered he did not like it all. This new version of the young Ranger was not an improvement. “And you? How have your fortunes faired in my absence?”
Christopher had made a handsome profit off Ser Conner’s death, but he didn’t really want to count that as a win. He shrugged.
“You should go adventuring,” D’Kan suggested. “You could put your fire sticks to good purpose. Instead you sit around waiting for old people to die.”
“You forget yourself, Ser,” Cannan said seriously. “Curb your tongue.”
D’Kan shook his head disapprovingly at the red knight. “You should have counseled him to finish the ant queen. That alone would have bought his next rank.”
“I’m not really interested in your opinion of my foreign policy,” Christopher said, starting to get angry himself.
“I know,” the Ranger said. “More’s the pity. Well, I tried.”
Cannan, frowning thunderclouds, stepped forward to chastise the Ranger.
The boy spat in the big man’s face.
Christopher’s heart leapt in his chest. Such an act could only be followed by violence. He was pretty sure the Ranger was about to die. At the same time, alarm bells were booming in the back of his head, belated and hurried as if the monks responsible for the noonday ringing had slept through lunch.
D’Kan flicked his hand and numerous arcane bolts leapt forward, sparkling like bottle rockets. The missiles pierced the cavalryman, killing all of them instantly.
Cannan had not moved, standing as still as a statue.
Christopher did the only thing he could. He cast a spell on himself, a simple blessing, the first and fastest spell he could think of.
His armor sagged at his shoulders as the null-stone triggered. He did not notice because he was watching D’Kan’s face come apart.
Without magic, the disguise was not at all convincing. The mass of tentacles carefully folded and camouflaged was barely identifiable as a human face, let alone as D’Kan. The parts that made up the lips writhed; sound came out, shaped into hissing words.
“I suspected as much. My thanks for delivering the artifact; it is not the sort of thing I care to leave lying around.”
Christopher drew his sword.
The hjerne-spica appeared to laugh. The sight was horrific, a bowl of snakes with the tremors. “I cannot decide whether this is wisdom or madness. While it is true your magic is worth nothing against me, magic was your only possibility of retreat.”
Only a few years ago, Christopher had fought his first duel. A reasonable and peaceful person from a civilized society, it had never occurred to him that he would one day stand before a man who wanted to kill him. He had been terrified, his tongue as heavy as lead and as dry as sand.
Since then he had fought against fanged man-beasts, creatures of rotting flesh, mindless hordes, shadows of darkness, trolls, dragons, and giant ants. All of them had been his enemies, intent on his death and destruction. None of them had gazed at him with such heart-stopping malice. He had forgotten how savagely fear could bite.
And yet. “I’m not . . . retreating.”
“How so? Surely you must understand I am displeased. I set you to a task that any simpleton can see you will never achieve. You take too few risks and offer too many mercies. Your mortal frame will crumble and fail long before you gain the rank you need. Now I must consume you, and regret the time I wasted on your career. A bad bet; a seed that will never flower.”
The creature approached, walking around the paralyzed form of Cannan, its hands spread amicably. “In my defense, you seemed so promising in the beginning. What went wrong?”
“Nothing.” It was hard for Christopher to speak in the face of nightmare. He felt like a child again, accosted by a bully in the skin of a hulking adult. “This was my plan.” He raised his blade high.
The malevolent yellow eyes stared at him, calculating, then dismissive. It had mapped all the possibilities and found them unthreatening. One tentacle lashed out, absurdly long and thin, and struck him across the cheek.
The familiar fire, the poisoned agony. He stood stock-still.
“Failure is always a bad plan,” the hjerne-spica said, and stepped closer, thick tentacles reaching out for his face.
Christopher hit it. His blade sliced into the creature’s face, shedding flopping bits of tentacle.
“The only plan you would not see through,” he grunted, because he wanted it to know he had outsmarted it.
The hjerne-spica sprang back, hissing, drawing D’Kan’s twin swords. Christopher followed, striking down again, only narrowly turned aside by the short blades.
“Clever,” it taunted as they lunged and struck at each other. The sound of steel rang in the air, punctuated by the wet squelch of blades cutting flesh. “At first I assumed you foolishly expected the favor of your patron to spare you paralysis. Of course it cannot reach into the null-sphere, and you would have been laughingly dismayed. Tell me, how did you become immune? Or were you always thus; has the race of man departed from its seed-line so much in all these years?”
Christopher was wholly focused on the fight, so much so he didn’t have the energy to lie. “Ants,” he mumbled, sweeping low. The creature’s block did not reach; Christopher opened up a gash on D’Kan’s calf. The wound splashed blood and then stopped, sealed by tael.
The blades might be mundane, but the combatants were not. They still had the unnatural vitality of their tael, even inside the anti-magic zone. It was an interesting conundrum, one of many Christopher did not have time to consider. Spinning under his last strike, the hjerne-spica passed through his guard and stabbed him under the arm its way past, neatly avoiding his armor. This would have killed a mortal man. It made Christopher take note. The ploy would not work again.
“I should have known,” the creature complained. It almost sounded like a whine. “I should have been informed.” Dimly Christopher noted that he was winning the fight. His armor and vitality seemed to be a match for the light frame of the Ranger. He was slowly pulling ahead on points, and points counted here.
“Maybe,” Christopher said, his mind seeking any opening into its defenses, any thrust that would strike home, “maybe they didn’t want to tell you.”
It pounced in a hissing spray, tentacles and short swords weaving in hypnotic patterns. All of the training Christopher had done in this world paid for itself now. He ignored the threat and leaned into his own blow.
The blades stabbed into his face. One pierced his left eye and stuck. The other skittered across his skull, shaving off hair in its wake. Either blow should have been fatal. Instead he stepped back, drawing his long blade in a cut, and severed the creature from its body at the neck.
It flopped across the ground with startling speed. He sprung after it; to let it outside the range of the null-stone would be fatal. A lucky thrust pinned it to the ground. He reached up with one hand and pulled the shortsword out of his eye, although he still could not see out of it. Kneeling over the squid-like body, he grabbed handfuls of tentacles and sawed at them with the shortsword. The creature flailed and lashed, trying to blind his other eye. He turned his face left and right to avoid the attacks but did not retreat. He did not need to see to finish the job.
Eventually, he realized the thing had stopped moving. It was hard to tell because his hands were on fire where he had touched it. He could barely distinguish his fingers, and his face felt like a frying pan.
Doggedly, he gathered up the remains and cut each tentacle in half again. There did not seem to be anything to the creature other than tentacles. Even the eyes were on the end of suckered, slimy ropes. Both were gray and lifeless now. In the midst of the mess, he found three more eyes, much smaller, like unopened flower buds.
Something grated against the sword, notching it. A gnarled, hollow spike of dull purple metal. It looked organically grown rather than machined or forged. He held it, wondering what its purpose was, afraid he already knew.
The null-field vanished.
His heart paused for a few beats. Behind him a horse whinnied. Royal, for once held in abeyance by fear. Nothing else happened; the hjerne-spica remained in pieces on the ground.
He placed the spike in the middle of the butchered calamari and cast a simple orison. Tael began to collect on top of it. The ball grew and grew and grew. It did not stop until it was the size of a cantaloupe.
He looked up into Cannan’s eyes. The man was still paralyzed, but the message was unmistakable. Christopher sat back and began to shove the tael into his mouth a handful at a time.
After he was finished, he staggered to his feet. The horses shied away from him, frightened by the hjerne-spica’s smell. Christopher realized he dared not touch anything with his poisoned hands.
He had magic again, however. He burned through three healing spells restoring his tael before he realized they weren’t quenching the fire. It was hard to concentrate through the pain. Through sheer force of will, he brought Gregor’s face to mind.
“I’m at the birch-wood south of the city. Send help. Bring a washbasin.”