“I found this book, An Account of a Journey to Tian Xia—is it all right if I take it back to my room?”
The librarian looked up from the shelf he was organizing and laughed. “As long as you remember it was written by a fool and is filled with more nonsense than truth, of course. It has a certain humorous value as a historical curiosity, and is certainly readable enough. Hmm. It’s not a particularly valuable item, but I would ask that you not remove it from the palace. Bring it back when you’re done, or leave it in your room when you depart the palace, and a servant will return it to me.”
“Absolutely.” Rodrick smiled and left the library. Those loose, billowing trousers were good for something—he had two scroll cases hidden in his pant legs, shoved partway down in his boots, and he was fairly sure they weren’t noticeable. Possibly the librarian would have let him walk out with those, too, but it was better if no one knew he had them, since they wouldn’t ever make it back to the library.
Back in his room, he took the scrolls from his pants and tossed them on the bed. “Well, Hrym, this is interesting indeed.” He took out the map and spread it on the table, lifting the sword to let him take a look.
Hrym groaned. “A treasure map? Really? Didn’t you have enough of hunting treasure when we were in Brevoy? Delving into dungeons and being attacked by bandits and chased by yetis and menaced by swordsmen? Look, it even says there’s a jungle. Why would we ever want to go into a jungle?”
“I don’t propose to hunt for the treasure, Hrym. This scroll is so old, who knows if there’s even anything hidden away under this obelisk anymore? No, I have a better idea.”
“That idea isn’t ‘sell this to the nice woman as promised,’ then?”
“We could do that. Or.” He took the other scroll case, opened it, and removed the parchment inside. “This appears to be a shipping manifest. ‘Eighty barrels of flour, twenty barrels of smoked pork,’ that sort of thing. I propose we put this parchment in the fancy black scroll case, seal the ends so it looks unopened, and sell that to our collector. I’m sure she’ll be disappointed when the contents aren’t what she’d hoped for, but we’ll make sure to get paid before she has a chance to discover the problem, and even when she does, what can she do? It’s not our fault her information was inaccurate and led her to a worthless bit of nonsense, after all. We did the job we were paid to do. Then, when we’re back in Absalom, or wherever we’re going, we’ll sell the map to some treasure hunter. I’m sure Skiver up in Almas knows some fools who’d pay good money for a reason to come to Jalmeray and poke around in the tiger-filled jungles. Why sell something once when we can sell it twice?”
“That should be the motto on your family crest,” Hrym said. “Hmm. It’s not a terrible plan, at that.”
“That’s high praise coming from you, old friend.”
Rodrick hid the scrolls away, then summoned a servant—there was a rope you pulled to call for help, it was most convenient—and asked for a tray for supper, unless the thakur wanted the pleasure of his company…? No? All right then.
Rodrick sat on the balcony and read from the book on Tian Xia in the fading light, and soon there was a knock on the door. Rodrick opened it, and was surprised to see Nagesh there, holding a covered tray.
“That’s service, to have your meal brought by the thakur’s advisor.”
“I thought I might join you for the meal, if you like?”
“I’d love the company,” Rodrick lied. He took the tray and led Nagesh to the balcony, the advisor pausing to say hello to Hrym before joining Rodrick at the small table. Rodrick put down the tray, took off the covering, and gasped.
The plate held roasted potatoes, a bloody-rare steak so large it overspilled the sides of the plate, fresh rolls of crusty bread, and mushrooms that smelled like they’d been sautéed in the juices of the meat and some wine.
“I heard you were strolling in the foreigners’ quarter today, and thought you might be nostalgic for the food of your homeland. We seldom eat meat here, but I found a nice steak and a cook willing to prepare it.”
Rodrick didn’t let his smile falter. “This is marvelous.” How much did the man know about his activities? “When I was out enjoying the festival, I ran into that conjurer—Kaleb, I think his name is? He wanted to apologize for unleashing that horse on us, and took me on a bit of a walking tour.”
“I fear his neighborhood is not the most beautiful part of the city.”
Rodrick waved that away. “The meanest street of Niswan is a palace compared to some of the places I’ve seen in Absalom and beyond. I did stumble into the wrong sort of tavern when I was looking for a cup of ale, though. I just wanted a cool dark place, and someone directed me down a set of stairs … well, I had to buy drinks for everyone in the place to generate enough goodwill to get out without someone trying to rob me.”
The advisor laughed politely. “Surely, with your sword, no one would dare?”
“Ha. Some of that lot would try to steal Hrym himself from me. I kept him sheathed down there, anyway. I didn’t think the thakur would appreciate me causing a commotion in his city.”
“You are correct in that. The thakur does love order.” The advisor leaned forward and closed his eyes. “I confess, I developed a taste for meat when I was studying abroad. Might I have a bite?”
Rodrick cut him off a generous slice of the steak—honestly, it was too rare for his taste anyway, practically still mooing—and offered it on a fork. Nagesh took a bite, eyes closed to enjoy the flavor, and again, for just an instant when he chewed, his mouth seemed … different. Wider, somehow, his teeth more like fangs. Rodrick suppressed a shiver. Was the man something other than he seemed? A magician as well as an advisor? That wouldn’t be surprising, really. Throw a rock, hit a wizard, as Kaleb said.
Nagesh handed back the fork. “Delicious. Might I inquire, have you considered the thakur’s offer?”
“Hrym and I have discussed it. We’re still weighing our choices. We’re both overawed by the thakur’s generosity, but … we’ve been together a long time, and have gone through a lot together. We have until tomorrow night to decide, don’t we? We’d both like to sleep on it for another night. Well, Hrym doesn’t exactly sleep, but you see what I mean.”
“Of course.” If the lack of commitment bothered Nagesh, he didn’t show it as he rose. “I’ll leave you to your meal in peace. Feel free to walk out and enjoy the city again tomorrow, if you like. I’ll look in on you about this time tomorrow evening—we’ll see the thakur, and perhaps you can dine with me again, more formally.”
“I look forward to it.”
Nagesh departed, and Rodrick shut the door after him, then went to sit on the bed beside Hrym. “There’s something strange about that man. I’d swear, for a moment, he had fangs.”
“You’re probably imagining things,” Hrym said. “Or maybe he’s a vampire.”
“Nagesh and I walked together in the sun, Hrym.”
“Oh. Maybe Vudrani vampires are different.”
“You’re very comforting.”
“I strive to be so.”
“I’m going to go take a bath. I want to think.”
“I thought we’d done all our thinking already? We have a plan—we just have to execute it.”
“Did you have to say ‘execute,’ Hrym?” Rodrick rose. “Enjoy your gold. I’m sticking you on that stand and taking the bed for myself when I get back. We’ve got too many errands to run tomorrow morning, and I need my sleep.”
“Feeble fleshling,” Hrym said, but fondly, so it probably wasn’t the demonic taint talking this time.
* * *
Rodrick woke with a gasp to a room baking with heat, flames flickering in his peripheral vision. “Fire!” he shouted, and tried to rise and flee, but something was holding him down—a long golden rope was wound around his body and the bed itself, pinning him in place. He struggled, and the rope tightened like a serpent’s coils. Some sort of magic was afoot.
Turning his head in panic, he saw a figure sitting on the edge of the bed. The man leaned forward, and was revealed as Nagesh, face flickering in the flames. “Nagesh? What—”
Rodrick turned his head further, trying to find the source of the fire, and discovered the light came from a fiery creature—an elemental?—shaped like an immense toad, crouching in the corner in front of Hrym on his stand. There were sizzles and hisses as Hrym’s icy aura interacted with the elemental’s flames, but they weren’t outright fighting—that would have torn the entire room apart and killed Rodrick and Nagesh both, so fire and ice were behaving themselves, for now. The only reason Hrym would hold back would be for fear Rodrick would be hurt if he didn’t. Rodrick shared that fear.
Once again, Nagesh’s face seemed to shift into contours that were somehow inhuman, but in the darkness and mystical firelight, everything looked unreal and flickering. “I understand you need time to think over the thakur’s proposal,” Nagesh said, patting Rodrick’s cheek with force just short of a slap. “I am here to aid your thought processes. You will accept the thakur’s very generous offer.”
“I am completely persuaded,” Rodrick gasped. “I will tell the thakur we agree at this very moment, if you wish.”
“I’m not finished. There’s a bit more to the arrangement than we discussed earlier. Your friend Hrym will be presented to the visiting rajah, as planned … and at the earliest opportunity, Hrym will kill the fool. Spikes of ice through the eyes, freezing his blood in his veins—the precise method doesn’t matter. The killing should be simple enough—the rajah will never anticipate an attack from a gift given by the thakur’s own hand.”
“How about I put a spike through your eye?” Hrym said.
“Perhaps your magics would be sufficient to kill me, Hrym,” Nagesh said, not taking his eyes off Rodrick. “If that is the price of my service to the thakur, so be it. But my pet elemental will see your friend consumed by fire. You should have never let us know how devoted you were to one another, Rodrick. Weakness is to be exploited. After we give you to the thakur, Hrym, we will keep Rodrick in the palace as an … honored guest. And hostage to your good behavior. If you serve as we require, Rodrick will not be harmed. If you attempt to resist … my elemental can be summoned again. Or a more mundane servant loyal to me—there are so many—could poison Rodrick’s wine, or simply put a knife in his back. But if you are obedient, there is no reason to fear. Once the rajah is dead, you will both be spirited out of the palace and put on a ship sailing away from the island, with all the riches you were promised and your partnership intact. How could our offer be more generous?”
“You could leave out the part about murdering a stranger.” Rodrick winced as the rope around his chest tightened further.
“Do you understand what is required of you?” Nagesh’s voice was pitiless and dry.
“Absolutely,” Rodrick said. “Nothing has ever been more clear.” He smelled something he dearly hoped was not his own hair singeing.
“Do you understand, too, Hrym?”
“I’m not deaf,” Hrym growled from the stand in the corner. “Get this burning toad away from me.”
“Marvelous,” Nagesh said. “You did strike me as reasonable creatures.” He rose and strolled out of the room, his elemental following after him briefly before disappearing in a cloud of roiling smoke.
Moments after the door shut, the rope holding Rodrick loosened and went slithering toward the open balcony doors, vanishing into the night.
Rodrick heaved himself from the bed, gasping, and went to the fountain to splash cool water on his face and hair. He sank down on the floor beside Hrym.
“So,” Rodrick said. “Obviously we’re not going to do that.”
“You mean take part in a plot to murder a rajah of the Impossible Kingdoms? No. I think I’ll pass.”
“Glad we’re in agreement. That simplifies matters. We’ve bought ourselves some time by letting him think we’d cooperate, at least.”
“What good does time do us?”
“Haven’t you heard that old joke? I’ll even adapt it for our present environment. A man was caught sleeping with one of the thakur’s wives. The man was dragged before the thakur, and knew he would surely be sentenced to death. The thakur asked if he had anything to say in his own defense. The man said, ‘I am a very wise man. My death would rob you of a great opportunity. You see, I possess secret knowledge.’ ‘What kind of secret knowledge?’ the thakur asked. ‘I have the power to teach a monkey how to talk,’ the man said. The thakur thought that sounded amazing. He said, ‘How long will it take?’ ‘Oh, I could do it in ten years, Great Thakur,’ the man said. ‘I will give you one year,’ the thakur said. ‘If the monkey has not learned to talk by then, you will be executed.’ ‘I understand, Great Thakur,’ the man said, and was set free. The next night he was in bed with the thakur’s wife again, and she said, ‘Is it true? Can you truly teach a monkey to talk?’ The man said, ‘Of course not, but I just bought myself a year of life. Anything can happen in a year. I could die. The thakur could die. Or the monkey could learn how to talk.’” Rodrick paused. “You aren’t laughing.”
“I’m a talking sword. Do you think a talking monkey would impress me?” They sat in silence for a moment, then Hrym said, “The thakur seemed like a gentleman. Do you really think that nice old man wants to use me as a tool of assassination?”
“I don’t think you get to be the ruler of an entire country by being a nice old man,” Rodrick said. “I think it’s possible he’s involved, but it does seem a little overcomplicated. Surely the thakur could just sink this rajah’s ship and blame it on the Arclords, or something.”
“Not without enlisting other confederates,” Hrym said. “We’re outsiders, and if we agreed to this plot, no one would have to know the plan except for us and Nagesh, which makes it much easier to contain. Even if we said anything, tried to warn someone, who would believe us, as savage strangers from a barbarous land?”
The more Rodrick thought about this, the more of a morass it became. “Right. So they arrange to kill the man, then blame the outlander and his evil sword. The very fact that we’re outsiders makes it plausible. All very neatly done. But it works better if we don’t escape to tell a different tale, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, the offer to let us sail away on a ship full of gold is nonsense,” Hrym said. “It would be a total waste of gold. No, you’ll be executed, and I’ll be tossed into a vault somewhere, surrounded by fire elementals boiling away my ice so I can’t avenge you. That’s true whether this is truly the thakur’s plan or Nagesh’s own plot.”
“We can try to get the thakur alone…” Rodrick said slowly. “Tell him that Nagesh explained the whole murder plan, and we have some follow-up questions. If the thakur isn’t part of the plot, he’ll be glad we warned him, and he can protect us from Nagesh. And if it really is the thakur’s plan … we’ll have to figure out where to go from there. Whether we could find a way to warn this visiting rajah, or something. It would be tricky with Nagesh watching us, as he surely will, but maybe—”
“Rodrick. You’re thinking like, I don’t know what—a paladin, maybe. Why don’t you think like a thief? Are we interested in rooting out corruption in Niswan? Getting into the middle of either an assassination plot or some kind of power struggle between the thakur and one of his chief advisors?”
“Ah. No. Not particularly.”
“What are our goals, then?” Hrym said.
“To get off this island alive, without having to murder anyone in the process, ideally with a lot of gold.”
“So let’s figure out how to do that,” Hrym said.
“We could … just flee. Arrange passage with the smuggler we’re probably meeting tomorrow, and go at the first opportunity.”
“Nagesh will be keeping a close watch on us already, won’t he? Surely he thinks we might run.”
Rodrick nodded. “Yes. That’s true.”
“I think our best hope is to play along,” Hrym said. “And run away when he doesn’t expect us to run away.”
“In that case … I don’t suppose it changes our plans much, really. We were going to pass off an enchanted longsword as you, sell the fake to the thakur, then get our gold and flee. We should just … flee a bit more rapidly, now, before Nagesh has a chance to murder me.” He frowned. “How can this possibly not change our plans? Shouldn’t this change everything?”
“Don’t grow a conscience now, Rodrick. It would be inconvenient. And it does change a few things. For one thing, we’ll definitely have to arrange our own way off the island now. That’s no longer contingency, it’s necessity.”
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever see that chest of gold the thakur promised me, either. We’d have trouble carrying it out of here, anyway, fleeing from assorted armed men and elementals. Nagesh really wants us to sit around, knowing he’s watching us, for almost two weeks while you wait for this rajah to arrive so you can kill him? Even if we didn’t mind being assassins, how dull. I’d never be able to stand it.” Rodrick sighed. “It’s just as well I took that small commission from Grimschaw, isn’t it? And we’ve got that jeweled scabbard. This trip won’t be a total loss.” How could it be so painful to lose a large quantity of gold he hadn’t even received yet? Somehow, it was. “I doubt Nagesh—or the thakur, if he’s involved—will give up his plan to kill this rajah, though, just because we slipped away. They’ll find some other way to see it done.”
“Leave a letter somewhere with a warning for the rajah, if you feel that bad about it,” Hrym said.
“The problem with that is knowing where to leave the letter. How can I possibly know who to trust?”
“That’s easy. I can trust you, and you can trust me, and that’s it.”
“True enough,” Rodrick said, though when he thought of how Hrym pulsed with demonic light sometimes, it did unpleasant things to that trust.