Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

The count said, “How soon do you need this and how solid does it have to be?”

“Solid. Sooner is better.”

“I thought so,” the count said. “I’ll make it good enough that unless the real Sterns come here, no one will ever know. Of course, you’re still left with a rather significant problem. You have to train him to be a noble.”

“Oh no I don’t.”

“Of course you …” the count trailed off. He clicked his tongue. “I see.” He adjusted his pince nez and looked at Azoth. “When shall I take him?”

“In a few months, if he lives that long. There are things I need to teach him first.” Durzo looked out the window. “Who’s that?”

“Ah,” Count Drake said. “That’s the young Lord Logan Gyre. A young man who will make a fine duke one day.”

“No, the Sethi.”

“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him before. Looks like an adviser.”

Durzo cursed. He grabbed Azoth’s hand and practically dragged him out the door.

“Are you ready to obey?” Durzo demanded.

Azoth nodded quickly.

“See that boy?”

“You call that a boy?” Azoth asked. The young man the count had called Logan Gyre wore a green cloak with black piping, fine black leather boots polished to a high sheen, a cotton tunic, and a sword. He was twenty paces from the door and was being shown in by a porter. His face looked young, but his frame made him look years older than Azoth. He was huge, already taller than Azoth would probably ever be and thicker and wider than anyone he knew, and he didn’t look fat. Where Azoth felt awkward and clumsy in his clothes, Logan looked comfortable, confident, handsome, lordly. Just looking at him made Azoth feel shabby.

“Start a fight with him. Distract the Sethi until I can get out.”

“Logan!” a girl cried out from upstairs.

“Serah!” Logan called, looking up.

Azoth looked at Master Blint, but he was gone. There was no time to say anything. It didn’t matter whether he understood or not. There were mysteries he wasn’t allowed to understand yet. He could only act or wait, obey or disobey.

The porter opened the door and Azoth stepped back around the corner, out of sight. As Logan stepped inside and looked up the stairs, a smile curving his lips, Azoth stepped around the corner.

They collided and Azoth landed on his back. Logan almost tripped over him as Azoth rolled to the side and caught Logan’s foot in the stomach.

“Oof!”

Logan caught himself on the banister. “I’m so sorry—”

“You fat ape!” Azoth staggered to his feet, holding his stomach. “You clumsy guttershite—” he cut off as he realized all the curses he knew would mark him as coming from the Warrens.

“I didn’t—” Logan said.

“What’s going on?” the girl asked from the top of the stairs. Logan looked up, a guilty look flashing across his face.

Azoth punched him in the nose. Logan’s head rocked back.

“Logan!” the Sethi man shouted.

But Logan’s mild expression was gone. His face was a mask, intense, but not furious. He grabbed Azoth’s cloak and lifted him off the ground.

Azoth panicked; he threw punches blindly, screaming, his fists grazing Logan’s cheeks and chin.

“Logan!”

“Stop it!” Logan shouted in Azoth’s face. “Stop it!” Azoth went crazy, and Logan’s intensity flashed into fury. He shifted his hands and held Azoth off the ground with one, then buried his other fist in Azoth’s stomach once, twice. The wind rushed from Azoth’s lungs. Then a fist the size of a sledge flattened his nose, blinding him with instant tears and pain.

Then, amid distant shouting, he felt himself being spun in a tight circle and—briefly—flying.

Azoth’s head slapped against hardwood and the world flashed bright.

Logan had insisted on going upstairs to help the countess take care of young Kylar Stern. He was mortified, and apparently not solely because he’d lost his temper in front of Count Drake’s pretty daughter. For Solon, it had been an instructive ten seconds.

Count Drake and Solon were left alone. The count led him to his office. “Why don’t you sit down?” the count said, taking his own seat behind his desk. “Where are you from, Master Tofusin?”

It was either courtesy or bait. Solon chuckled. “That’s the first time I’ve been asked that question.” He gestured to himself as if to say, Just look at my skin.

The count said, “I don’t see any clan rings, or any scars where they’ve been removed.”

“Well, not all Sethi wear the rings.”

“I was under the distinct impression that they did,” Count Drake said.

“What is this? What are you after?”

“I’m curious about who you really are, Master Tofusin. Logan Gyre is not only a fine young man whom I regard almost as a son, he’s also suddenly the lord of one of the most powerful houses in the land. I’ve never seen you or heard of you, and suddenly you’re his adviser? That strikes me as peculiar. I don’t care that you’re Sethi—if you are—but I’ve spent some time on Hokkai and Tawgathu, and the only Sethi who don’t pierce their cheeks are the exiles stripped of clan and family. But if you are an exile, you should have scars from your rings being torn out, and you have none.”

“Your knowledge of our culture is admirable, but incomplete. I am of House Tofusin, Windseekers of the Royal House. My father’s appointment was to Sho’cendi.”

“An ambassador to the red mages?”

“Yes. Sho’cendi accepts students from all over the world. As I had no magical talent, I received my education among the merchants and nobles, who are not as tolerant. Not having the rings made life a little easier. There’s more to it than that, but I don’t think the rest of my story is any of your business.”

“Fair enough.”

“What took you to Seth?” Solon asked.

“Slavery,” the count said. “Before I became fully part of the movement that finally ended slavery here seven years ago, I thought a more moderate path might work. I went to Hokkai to see if I could learn ways to make slaves’ lives better.”

From the small size of his house—which was very small for a noble, even one as low as a count—Solon knew that Count Drake hadn’t been one of the slavers who felt guilty about his newfound wealth. He must have been a real crusader all along.

“It’s totally different in Seth,” Solon said. “The Year of Joy changes everything.”

“Yes, I advanced the idea here, even got the law passed, but the Sa’kagé immediately suborned it. Instead of every slave being freed on the seventh year, slaves were to be freed seven years from the beginning of their indenture. The Sa’kagé claimed it was simpler, that it would be ridiculous to buy a slave in the sixth year and own them for only a month or a week. Of course, in practice, the Sa’kagé’s people kept the records, so where in your country, the seventh year is full of celebration as every slave is freed, here the years passed and slaves were never freed. Slaves became slaves for life. They were beaten, scourged, given to the Death Games, their children sent to the baby farms.”

“I’ve heard those became truly awful,” Solon said.

“The Sa’kagé set them up, saying that they would be places where the children of prostitutes might be redeemed. Slaves, true, but redeemed. It sounded good, but it gave us places like the House of Mercy. Sorry, I shouldn’t go on. It was a dark time. Is that boy ever coming down?”

“Maybe we should get started,” Solon said. “I don’t think this will wait, and from the way Logan was looking at your daughter, they might be talking a while.”

The count chuckled. “Are you testing me now?”