Martin Greenberg - If I Were an Evil Overlord

Bowing to the pressure of his council, the duc closed the harbors and sent his own Court Mages in to try and discern the Huntsman’s identity through any trace magics on the quarrels. Despite their best efforts, they failed to discover anything about him. Rumors began to fly that he was protected by a deeper, darker magic than the Court Mages had access to and, for the first time, the word necromancy began to be heard in taverns and alehouses across the city.

His face set in a grim line, Luca sent Piero to obtain components from each corpse, and standing over the three carefully collected squares of organ meat on his table, he threw a handful of dried belladonna over them and shouted out a single word. The accompanying flash of fire told Luca all he needed to know.

“It’s Drey. And he’s blocking me.”

Piero knew better than to ask why.

They received a less than satisfactory answer that afternoon. A grubby child, wearing a simple coercion spell activated by the coin in his fist that had passed through three others before coming to him, brought a message shortly before dinner. Luca read the missive silently, then handed it to Piero, who peered down at it suspiciously.

Dear Father. Negotiations in Cerchicava have become somewhat more complicated than I had anticipated but I expect to be home in time for His Grace’s funeral. Your loving son, Domito. The manservant gave an unimpressed sniff. “He cocked up the duc’s death somehow and now he’s afraid to come home.”

“Possibly.” Retrieving the missive, Luca’s eyes flashed red for an instant and a series of fine, scarlet lines appeared scrawled across the paper before disappearing once again.

It’s nothing, I’ll fix it, he read. “You’re right, something’s happened.” Crossing to the window, he stared out at the sky, watching as the sun slowly disappeared behind the turreted roofline of the ducal palazzo. “Nothing too serious apparently and fixable before Johanni Gagio’s funeral.”

“Word is that may be as soon as three days from now. The five ducs are already on their way.”

“Three days then.” Luca’s eyes narrowed. “He wasn’t identified,” he mused, “or we’d have heard.”

“Every city along the Ardechi would have heard.”

“Yes. The Huntsman’s notorious. Every rumor, every speculation about him, is savored like a midwinter banquet. So he wasn’t identified, and he wasn’t injured-the writing would have revealed that by a darker color and a thicker line-and he wasn’t captured, or he wouldn’t have been able to set a cipher on his message or a coercion on his messenger.”

“Or mark three Riamo merchants,” Piero added.

Luca shot him a flat expression. “One puzzle at a time, if you don’t mind,” he spat.

“Your pardon, sir.”

“He’s in the city,” Luca continued. “But he either can’t or won’t come home.”

“A locate spell on the message itself should reveal where he was when he wrote it.”

“Yes, and I’ll leave that to you presently. He won’t have lingered but it will give us a place to start looking. He’ll know that and may have left another message.”

“So he’s going to lead us on some little treasure hunt?” Piero asked in an indignant tone.

“It seems so, and you can make your displeasure known to him later. For the moment, however, follow his trail of bread crumbs and find out what he cocked up.”

“Excuse me for saying so, sir, but you could just execute a full-out locate and coercion spell on the boy himself,” Piero said carefully.

“I could, and I may, but for now, you will carry out my commands.”

Piero bowed at once. “Yes, Master.”

The locate spell on the missive led to the site of Anthony Spoleto’s murder but no farther. With a dark expression, Luca opened a small iron cask and removed a wax-sealed ceramic jar containing the preserved flesh of a Cerchicavan priest long dead. The priest had been in charge of the Svedali Innocenti Foundling Home where Drey had spent the first six years of his life. Luca had obtained the flesh just after he’d taken the boy in and had used it only once, when he’d given Drey the name Orcicci and taken his oaths as master and father. Under such circumstances, the flesh would serve as the catalyst for a powerful locate and coercion spell that would see the Huntsman forced into Luca’s presence despite all obstacles in his path.

“Unless to do so would be to betray me to an enemy, in which case, the dual pressure would kill him.”

Setting the jar in the middle of the dissecting table, he closed and locked the cask once more.

“He has until the duc’s funeral as requested. In the meantime, find out everything you can about the men he marked and what they might have had in common.”

Standing to one side, Piero bowed but said nothing.

The next three days passed without further incident and Riamo began to breathe a little easier. One by one, the ducs of Montecino, Rocasta, Calegro, Pisario, and Cerchicava arrived. The added security made unobtrusive movement in the city difficult, but Piero still managed to uncover the link between Spoleto, Farnese, and Ascanio. A single name. Dante Corsini.

The morning of Johanni Gagio’s funeral dawned cold and wet; the wind whipping through the tree-lined avenues of the city promised a violent winter to come. Every sconce, lamp, and candelabra in the San Salvadore Cathedral was alight when Luca took his place along the western wall in the pew reserved for foreign nobility. Drey was nowhere to be found and, eyes narrowed, Luca scanned the crowds of people, watching as the prosperous citizens of Riamo began to take their seats, most staring unabashedly at the exotic foreign dignitaries in their midst. For many, this was their first glimpse of a world outside the narrow confines of their shops and counting houses and once again Luca found himself grinding his teeth in contemptuous impatience.

Across the quire, he saw Alesandro take his solitary place in the Albergo family pew, and forcibly schooled his expression. A quiet, soft-spoken young man, Alesandro had accepted his new civic responsibilities with all the prudence and piety expected of a man of his class, but it seemed to be taking a heavy toll on him these last few months. His face was pale and his usually open countenance cloudy. As the Corsini family passed by on the way to their own pew, Dante paused to speak with him and Alesandro started uneasily. Luca’s eyes narrowed.

Drey and Alesandro had been ten-year-old boys when Luca had married Vallenza Albergo, the widow of a successful goldsmith. Despite their vastly divergent upbringings the two new brothers had become inseparable companions and continued to spend time together as adults. Luca was surprised that Alesandro didn’t turn to see if his brother had taken his place beside his stepfather. As the Gagio family took their seats before Johanni’s ornate casket and the signal for the great double doors to be closed was given, Alesandro met Luca’s gaze with a supplicant expression and Luca nodded.

The funeral was a long and dull affair dominated by the bishop who, taking advantage of a captive audience, extolled the virtues of Johanni Gagio and his administration until even the most devout eye was glazed over with boredom. When the congregation was finally released several hours later, they dispersed rapidly, heading for the city’s taverns and alehouses with an obvious air of relief. Directing Piero to wait for him, Luca made his way unhurriedly across the sturdy marble bridge that linked the cathedral grounds to the tidy, well-kept merchant’s cemetery to the west. Standing before the modestly decorated Albergo mausoleum as if taking a moment for a quiet prayer, he stared down at the bronze plaque that bore Vallenza’s name and waited for her son to join him.