Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

Cynead crossed his legs, leaned back further, tapped his chin twice and looked at Rusejenna, laughing again. “You see. I told you this wouldn’t take all that long.” He turned back to Darzaak. “You are correct, we are not in the Citadel for a reason. There are many ears, and here,” he surveyed the Circus Dome, and I looked past him and the Memoridons, to the acrobats in the far distance. “It is only us. Perhaps one of the few places in this teeming city where that is the case.”

The Emperor shifted and faced Braylar. “So then, in the interest of directness, let’s begin with you, shall we, Captain Killcoin? Word on the wind is you have been quite the busy adventurer in Anjuria.”

I expected Braylar, gifted liar that he was, to delay, distract, or downplay, but perhaps following his Commander’s lead, he said, “I have indeed, Your Majesty. All in the name of Empire.”

“Ahh, yes. But of course. The question remains though, whose Empire?”

The captain didn’t falter in gaze or delivery. “Why, Lord Emperor, I do hope it was in the cause of every member of the Empire, great and small.”

Emperor Cynead slapped his thigh. “Yes, see, this is the manner of directness I am more accustomed to. Sly and self-serving. But as much as I enjoy the dance, I will follow your good Commander’s lead and mince no further. You were in Anjuria carrying out Thumaar’s initiatives-” Commander Darzaak started to speak, but Cynead overrode him. “Do not dare interrupt your Emperor, especially only to beg pardon you shall not be granted. They were Thumaar’s, there is no disputing that. At the time, I allowed you to, so they defaulted to mine, and I’m not especially concerned with ownership there, but with what else you were doing in the region.”

Commander Darzaak waited to be sure he wasn’t interrupting, and then said, “Captain Killcoin was there following orders. Which you endorsed.”

“Yes, yes, to be sure.” He looked over his shoulder. “And what else was the leal captain doing in the kingdom, Rusejenna?”

She grinned, vulpine. “Oh, he was trying to do what you were, Your Majesty, only slower and more clumsily.”

Emperor Cynead smiled and nodded. “I suspected as much before. There were a few factions who were searching for the secret to mastering the Memoridons.” He waited for protests or hot denial, but getting none, continued. “Oh, yes, I know of your little excursions to libraries and crypts and other dusty holds. That much has been confirmed. And while I sympathize with your covert efforts to research ways of controlling the Memoridons, obviously guilty of it myself, only more efficient, I am well within my rights to invoke the Fifth Man. You broke fealty by conducting the research without informing me, as it violates one of the most basic tenets, the Memoridon Doctrine, codified almost from our inception.”

Darzaak started to speak but Cynead overrode him. “Yet there is more. Your man there, Commander Darzaak, broke into a tomb and looted a memory weapon out of our mystic past, but did not report it. That same man enlisted the aid of rogue witches in order to cure himself along the way, again in direct violation of the Doctrine. And when I recalled him from Anjuria, instead of opting to obey immediately, he and his little band chose instead to scurry across the kingdom on their own initiative. And it is known the Jackals have endured my reign, but never supported it.”

Cynead nodded. “Yes, I would be well within my rights to invoke the Fifth Man. Other Emperors have done so for far less. The only reason I have not already is that today has been tumultuous. The Towers are surely going to have a rough adjustment to the loss of their Memoridons. I don’t want to make the transition more burdensome by an alarming proclamation of the Fifth. But if it comes to it, it might serve as a good example just now. How we proceed will depend all on you. But thanks to a well-placed informant, I at least know what my tricky Towers have been up to.”

Mulldoos glared at Soffjian. “Told you the bitch would betray us. Betrayed the whole lot of us.”

Soffjian remained still, eyes locked forward, arms folded behind her back, jaw tight, that throbbing lightning bolt vein in her forehead the only telltale sign that she was fazed in the slightest.

Mulldoos laid his hand on his falchion, for all the good it would do, and seemed ready to stalk forward to his doom attempting to cut her down. “Always told him it was just a matter of time. Your kind can’t be trusted further than I can spit, but you, less than that. Plaguing worst kind of horsecunt alive, backstabbing a brother.”

Soffjian kept her gaze level, lightning pulsing, but didn’t say a word.

Skeelana, however, had no such trouble. “You were right about the betrayal, just wrong about the bitch. Soffjian didn’t know anything about it.”

Mulldoos looked ready to spit on the parquet, Commander Darzaak little better, and Braylar was still looking at his sister curiously, as I took a step back, immediately thinking back to the kiss I shared with Skeelana in my room. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “Why?”

I felt everyone’s gaze, but ignored it, focusing on Skeelana who was looking at me with a sad smile. “The Emperor hadn’t seized control of all the Memoridons yet. But still, you betrayed us, the Jackals, that is. Why?”

The Emperor allowed the question to hang there, and if the scrutiny made Skeelana squirm, she didn’t show it. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders. “The Emperor demanded an audience with me a while back. And that’s something you can’t say no to, is it? He made it very clear that things were in motion, and soon every Memoridon would be his. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.” She turned to Cynead. “No offense, Your Majesty.”

“None taken.” He smiled, arrogant, at ease, and delighting in having everything play out as he hoped.

Skeelana looked back to me, then the rest of the Jackal Syldoon. “I thought about telling you directly, Commander. And maybe I should have. But I gambled on the Emperor pulling off what he claimed. It just didn’t make sense to throw my lot in with the losing side. So I investigated as he commanded, and reported back when we returned. Had he been wrong, I would have simply been a traitor to the Jackals. But if he was right, well, I would find a place of prominence among the Leopards and Sun Tower. And as it turned out,” she swept her arm up and around at our little assembly, “it was a pretty smart gamble, as far as gambles go.”

“Yes,” Emperor Cynead said, “your diminutive Memoridon told me all I needed to know about your little treasure hunt. And while that alone doesn’t prove you were plotting to use such knowledge directly against me if you happened to obtain it, it is certainly suggestive. And none of that was altogether surprising on your part, though I must admit, did nothing to warm my heart. That is the Syldoon way, to always be on the hunt for an advantage. After all, that is exactly why I was hoping to unearth such secrets myself.”

The Emperor leaned forward, uncrossed his legs. “But no. What I was enthralled to learn about was that peculiar weapon,” he pointed at Blood-sounder and leaned forward in his chair, eyes lighting up. “Yes, now that was entirely unexpected. I’d heard about such things, but assumed they were either myth to begin with, or if they ever existed, had rusted into oblivion. And yet Skeelana has confirmed that this is truly such a find. Now, a weapon that warns, that is tied into memory magic somehow, that could be of service to the Empire… yes, this is something very much worth exploring. Show me.”

Everyone looked at Braylar, and he twitch-smiled, completely at odds with the murder in his eyes as he stared at Skeelana. Very slowly, the captain pulled Bloodsounder off his belt, held it out, chains draped over one hand, the haft in the other.