David Dalglish - A Dance of Shadows

“Damn you, Maynard,” she whispered. “I hope you burn in the deepest pit of Karak’s purifying flames.”

She returned the chrysarium to her closet, then lay on her bed, wanting to at least attempt to fall asleep before the headache could come in force. It was a race she knew she’d lose, but she had to try. When the throbbing in her temples came, she pushed her face into the pillow, let her tears wash it, as she prayed and prayed.

“Thy will,” she whispered. “Thy will, not mine, not mine, thy will, thy will…”

By thy will, the death of her daughter. By the will of the Lion, her household would be made clean.

Haern spent the day in the guise of a commoner named Jamie. As he wandered he kept his smile big, his eyes wide. Just a blabbermouth, that’s all he was, a man eager to hear a good tale or two to tell later that night, and through the telling become a bit more important than he was in reality. And given the excitement of the past few days, he garnered hardly even a raised eyebrow from the target of his inquiries.

“Heard anything about them Bloodcrafts?” Haern asked as he sat before the bar of a tavern, the tenth one he’d visited that day.

“I’ve heard plenty,” said the barkeep, not even bothering to look at him as he talked. His back was to Haern, and he was pouring him a drink of the cheapest alcohol they had. Haern accepted it with a smile on his face. The barkeep remembered what he’d order without asking? How flattering.

“Is that so?” Haern asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

“Indeed,” said the barkeep, a tough-looking man without any hair. “I doubt a word of it’s true though, Jamie. People just like to tell tales.”

“As do I!” said Haern. “But more than anything, I’d like to meet them. Oh, I won’t talk to them or nothing, just want to catch a glimpse. Think they wear red like everyone says? And that they’re all taller than a horse?”

“Red horses in coats would stand out fast,” said a man beside him, laughing into his cup.

“So you have seen them,” Haern said, the dumbest smile he could manage on his face.

“Aye, I seen ’em,” the man said.

“No you haven’t, Turl,” the barkeep said. “Not if you want to keep drinking in my bar, you haven’t.”

Haern raised an eyebrow, but the man next to him shook his head.

“Never mind then,” he said, taking another drink.

“Well,” Haern said, downing half his beer and then tossing a few pieces of copper on the bar. “You hear something, you let Jamie Blue hear about it, right? I might even pay a bit, if it keeps being this hard to catch a glimpse of those bastards before they head back to Mordeina.”

“Right,” said the barkeep, though his tone showed he’d more likely sell a drink to the man in the moon than give information to Haern.

Interesting…

At the door to the place, Haern stopped a moment, leaning with his arms crossed as he thought. Going from tavern to tavern didn’t seem to be as fruitful as he’d hoped. People liked to talk, but the moment the Bloodcrafts came up, they were willing to share only the wildest of rumors. Not that he blamed them. The reputation of the mercenaries was fierce, and no one wanted to cross them. At least not without something to gain.

A boy stepped out of the door, barely older than twelve. He refused to look at Haern, instead walking the opposite way. Yet the second he was beyond sight of the door, he turned back around and beckoned for Haern to follow.

Even more interesting…

Just beside the tavern was the thinnest of gaps between it and a small bakery shop. The boy put his back to the tavern, crossed his arms.

“Make it worth my while,” he said.

Haern didn’t dare ask about what. He pulled out three silver coins and dropped them into the boy’s hands. His eyes widened at the sight of such wealth, and then he quickly pocketed them.

“Behind me,” he said. “Highest window and on the left. My pa would kill me if he knew I told you, so don’t tell anyone.”

“It’s not your pa you have to worry about,” Haern said, and the chill of his voice seemed to convey to the boy the seriousness of his position. Nodding, he turned back around and rushed into the tavern.

Looking up at the window, Haern smiled, only this time it wasn’t part of an act. At last he knew something about the Bloodcrafts.

“I’ve found you,” he whispered as he made his way back to the tower.

Twice now they had been the ambushers, attacking the Eschaton when they were weak or unprepared.

It was time that changed.

Zusa had no measure of time, nothing to go on beyond when they fed her. Twice a small boy adorned in gray robes arrived and gently spooned gruel into her mouth. As for drink, a young girl came bearing water every few hours or so. Every time it was a different girl, and Zusa looked upon them with pity. How many might soon hide their beautiful faces beneath rags and wrappings? She felt herself weakening, felt her muscles tightening and her back aching constantly. So far Vrashka had not returned, Daverik’s promise appearing to have been true. But her time was almost up.

The door creaked open, and she stirred from her daydreams of life and freedom at the Gemcroft mansion. As if to confirm her fears, Daverik stepped inside, and he looked vaguely worried.

“Are you well?” he asked her, crossing the room.

“A cruel question to ask a woman in chains,” Zusa said.

“Perhaps. I have stretched my influence to its limits, Zusa. I can protect you no longer. What is your answer? Will you return to Karak’s bosom? Will you embrace the faith once more?”

Zusa shook her head. “You know I won’t. What is there for me, Daverik?”

In answer, he knelt before her and brushed her face with his hand.

“There’s me,” he said. “There’s a life free of imprisonment and torture. Can that not mean something?”

“The temple’s laws will keep you from me.”

“Temple laws can be changed.”

Zusa laughed. “Is that what you tell yourself?”

He shifted closer, leaning so close that she felt his breath on her neck. His hands brushed her arms, her sides, her breasts. His cheek pressed against hers as he whispered.

“It doesn’t matter. Come back to me, Katherine…”

She knew what he was trying to do. His lips pressed against her neck as he cupped her face. He was trying to reignite a distant flame, a flame that for him had never died. Yet that flame had long died for her, for it’d been nothing more than teenage lust and excitement. Now, as his hands roamed, she felt only disgust. It was one thing for him to touch her in a distant alley, a secret meeting between long-lost lovers… but here? While manacles held her wrists to a wall? While her whole body ached from the imprisonment, and she sat in her own piss and shit?

“Katherine’s dead,” she said, pulling away from him as best she could. “You killed her when you betrayed her to the priests, remember?”

He stood, and she saw the haunting memory in his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “I guess I’m a fool to still believe otherwise.”

Daverik walked toward the door, stopping just beside the strange flow of water falling from ceiling to floor.

“I learned this enchantment while in Mordeina,” he said, observing its flow. “At the time I thought it would be useful should any of my own faceless go rogue. Never once did I think I would use it against you . This stream… it’s a marvelous gift, so thin, so slender, yet wielding such power. In many ways it is like you, Zusa. Only I fear it is you, and not this stream, that will break before the night’s end.”

He left without waiting for a response. Zusa finally allowed herself to relax, and with his departure she damned him for hurting her so, damned him for the tears that started to flow. Hardly a minute later, the door reopened.