David Dalglish: A Dance of Ghosts

Picking a tree at random, he put his back against it, wrapped his cloak about himself, and tried to sleep. Sleep didn’t come easily, and it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Instead, he heard his father’s voice echoing in his ear, again and again.

You convince no one but yourself.

… no one but yourself …

… no one …

At last he slept, and his dreams were of Robert Haern, teaching him in the darkness.

Alyssa lay on a padded couch braced against a large oval window that opened out into a garden, not that she could see it. The colors of the petals were but memories now since Stephen Connington took her eyes. Sunlight shone upon her, the warmth comforting. Eyes closed, she did her best to absorb it, to remember brighter times. Before the loss of her sight. Before the dooming of her family line.

The door opened, and she heard footsteps of someone entering.

“Lady Gemcroft?” Victor asked after clearing his throat.

Alyssa held back a sigh as she tilted her face so that her glass eyes would be gazing in his approximate direction. A practiced smile twisted her lips. For a moment, she wondered if Victor had ever seen an honest smile from her. If not, would he ever know the difference? She doubted the glass eyes would ever help, either. Her servants insisted they were expertly crafted, pale blue with hints of veins in the corners, but she knew that whenever she wore them, people always sounded the slightest bit unnerved. Or perhaps that was only due to them not knowing how to appropriately behave in the presence of a blind woman who still wielded incredible influence and power. If she were a beggar on the street, she had a feeling every last one of her guests would know exactly how to treat her.

“Victor,” she said. “Have you come to see me again already? I daresay any spare time of mine I find quickly occupied by your arrival.”

She tried to keep the bite out of her words, but could tell she failed. Part of her had wanted to ask why he bothered coming to her so recently after his last visit. All of them, no matter how kind or earnest he behaved, always came down to the same purpose: he desired her wealth and her mercenaries to use in his ill-conceived scheme to clean up the streets of Veldaren.

“I hope you don’t find the time ill spent,” Victor said, and Alyssa chuckled.

“Ill spent? Of course not.”

Her smile said otherwise.

“Is it all right if I sit?” Victor asked, and at her gesture he sat down in a chair opposite her. He made sure to make plenty of noise so that she might follow him, but she didn’t bother. Instead, she turned back to the window, closing her eyes and placing her face back into the streaming sunlight. The warmth of the sun … if it hit her face just right, she could pretend to see its golden glow through her eyelids.

“Your beauty is radiant today,” Victor said after a lengthy pause.

“So my servants tell me,” she said. “Their word is all I have to go on now, and I must say, it makes the process of their powders and perfumes all the more tiresome.”

“Even if you were to forgo it, you would still steal the breath of any man in this city.”

Alyssa smirked, and her fingers idly tapped against the glass of the window.

“I doubt you’ve come just to flatter me,” she said, refusing to look his way. “It’s the Sun Guild again, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Victor said. “Their rapid expansion cannot be ignored any longer.”

“You and the Ash Guild chased them out, I thought?” she said. She knew the answer, of course, but she felt it prudent to remind him of how he had already failed once in his goals. Maybe with enough attempts, some wisdom might break through that thick skull of his.

“It was only temporary,” Victor said. “Muzien the Darkhand came soon after, and he brought a second wave of guildmembers that Veldaren’s soldiers cannot, or will not, stop from overwhelming the remaining thief guilds.”

“Fascinating,” Alyssa said. “But I’ve ceased caring about what these wretched criminals do to one another.”

“But you must care,” Victor said. “If Muzien succeeds in taking total control of Veldaren’s underworld, I fear even the power of the Trifect will crumble. The Spider Guild hurt you, but this elf is different somehow. The guilds fear him in a way they never feared Thren. Thren was one of them, better than them perhaps, but still one of their own. Muzien … he’s a beast, a ghost, a demon in gray. No one will be safe once he brings his attention to those beyond the poor hovels and back alleys.”

Alyssa turned away from the window, and she leveled her glass eyes at him. Though she kept her face an emotionless mask, beneath her temper began to flare.

“No one will be safe?” she asked. “Do you mean me , Victor?”

“I do,” he said, and she was stunned by his audacity. “Muzien will kill you, your family, your son…”

“Shut your mouth,” she said, interrupting him. Rising to her feet, she took a step toward him, then reached out until her hand brushed his chest. That located, she grabbed his shoulder and used her other hand to clutch at the top of his tunic. Leaning down, she put her glass eyes mere inches from his own. Let him stare into those lifeless orbs, she thought. Let him see all she had endured before his ever coming into her life.

“Do you think I am blind to the world around me?” she asked. “My family, my legacy, teeters above a ravine filled with lions. I fear Nathaniel will never live past his tenth birthday, let alone inherit the fortune that is rightfully his. But you … you would dare come in here and throw that fear in my face, and for what? What is it you want, Victor? Is it money? Soldiers? Validation for your failed crusade? Tell me, so I can deny it and banish you from my life forever.”

Victor stood, and he grabbed each of her wrists and freed himself of her grasp. When he refused to let go, she pulled back, just once, but he held her there. Alyssa’s heart began to pound, and she wondered if she had pushed him too far. Still, she was not alone with Victor. If the man made another move, a single wrong word …

“For once, open your ears and listen,” Victor said. “Do you think I am as callous and cruel as others you’ve known? I see the soldiers positioned at every door, and it’s not your crest they wear on their chest. I can help you, Alyssa, and believe it or not, I’ll do it because I feel it is the right thing to do, not just for you, not just for me, but for this whole damn city. Too many are ready to let it burn so long as they get theirs first, but I want to build something. I want to inspire, to salvage a golden coin lodged deep in the center of a pile of shit. It’s not my fault if you can’t see that!”

Alyssa jerked against his grip, his words infuriating her. He let go as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, and with her hands now free, she raked her nails across his face. Victor stumbled backward, most likely into the couch just behind him.

“I may be blind,” Alyssa said, pointing a finger at him, “but I can see what you can’t. Your attempts at fixing Veldaren are the hopeless, pathetic excuses of a little boy pretending at power. Your parents died in the riots years ago, and now you think you can come in like a god among us and wipe away every crime, every black heart. Gods forgive me, I was even foolish enough to believe for a moment you could do it. But no more. I won’t endure your hollow attempts at flattery. I won’t entertain your madness. You are not welcome in my home; now go.”

“No.”

She tensed when he said it. Ahead of her, she heard the floor groan from him taking a step.

“I said leave,” she repeated.