Lynn Flewelling: Stalking Darkness

"Well done, Urvay. Spare no expense with him. We must infiltrate the Oreska before spring. You understand? It is imperative."

"I do, my lord. Shall I make arrangements for you in Rhiminee?"

"No. Nothing's to be arranged in advance. I'll contact you when I need you. For now, keep an eye on Pelion and his sorceress."

Urvay rose and bowed. "I will, my lord. Farewell."

When he was gone Mardus returned to his interrupted meal, but Vargul Ashnazai found his appetite had fled.

The Oreska, he thought bitterly, fingering the ivory vial that hung from a chain around his thin neck. That's where they'd gone, the thieves who'd stolen the Eye from under his very nose.

Mardus had nearly killed him that night in Wolde. Worse yet, he'd threatened to banish him from their quest. If Mardus had entrusted him with the disks in the first place, of course, it would never have happened, but that was a point not worth arguing. Not if he cared to live longer than his next word.

His standing with Mardus had eroded steadily ever since.

Even with the power of the Eye itself to aid him, he'd been unable to exercise sufficient power over the fugitives to stop them. The Aurenfaie had proven infuriatingly resistant to his magicks and when he'd finally succumbed to the dragorgos attack at the inn, the boy, that wretched boy, had outmaneuvered them, spiriting his partner away before Mardus and his men could reach the place.

Still holding the vial between his fingers, Vargul Ashnazai pictured the precious blood-soaked slivers of wood inside, slivers he'd gouged from the floor of the Mycenian inn where his dragorgos had overtaken them.

The talisman he'd made with their blood was a powerful guide, so powerful that he'd almost caught them at Keston. But then they'd slipped on ahead by sea and another's power was growing around them, occluding his own. He'd recognized the resonance of the magic at once. Oreska magic.

And so Mardus and his men had tracked them by methods thoroughly mundane, while he, a necromancer of the Sanctum, rode along like so much useless baggage.

Mardus had been sanguine. They already knew where the thieves were headed, result once again of Mardus' cold-blooded methods rather than his own. One of the river sailors captured after the destruction of the Darter—this, at least, was Vargul's work—had screamed out with his last breath what they'd needed to know.

To be sitting here now, no more than two days ride from the stronghold of his enemies, was maddening.

So close! he thought, closing his fist around the vial.

Mardus saw, and guessed his thoughts. "Why not scry for them again?"

Vargul Ashnazai shifted uncomfortably. "It's been the same for weeks now."

Mardus glanced over at him, much the way any man might look at another who's said something mildly surprising. But Mardus was not just any man.

As his gaze met Ashnazai's, the necromancer felt a stab of fear. It was not madness he saw in his companion's eyes—never that—but something worse, an obdurate purposefulness steeped with the shadow of their god. Mardus might not have magic, but he had power.

He was touched, chosen.

Held in that remorseless gaze, Ashnazai felt the blood slow in his veins. Clasping the vial more tightly, he placed his other hand over his eyes and summoned the image of the thieves.

For a moment he felt the reassuring pulse of his own considerable power. The inner blackness flowed through him to the vial and beyond, using the essence of the blood to seek its source. Ever since the thieves had reached Rhiminee, however, a veil had dropped over them.

Someone had placed a protective spell over them, and the resistance to his magic was fierce and decisive.

This time was no different. The moment he focused his concentration on their location, he was blinded by a searing vision of fire and huge, leathery wings. The message was clear enough: These people are under the protection of the Oreska. You cannot touch them.

Gasping, Ashnazai let go of the vial and pressed both hands to his face.

"No change?"

Ashnazai could tell without looking up that the bastard was smiling.

"Then Urvay's actor is truly a blessing placed in our path. If these two are still under the protection of the Oreska wizards, where better to seek them?"

"I hope you're right, my lord. When I find them, I'll crush their beating hearts in my hands!"

"Vengeance is a dangerous emotion."

Looking up, Vargul Ashnazai saw a familiar blankness pass across his companion's face, the touch of the god.

"You should be grateful to them for leading us to the completion of our quest," Mardus continued softly, staring into the depths of his cup. "This actor and his sorceress are the seal on that. Patience is the key now. Be patient. Our moment will come."

Sleet-laden winds lashed in off the winter sea, racketing through the dark streets of Rhiminee like a huge, angry child. Loose shingles and roof tiles tore free and clattered down into streets and gardens. Bare trees swayed and clashed their branches like dead bones in the night. In the harbor below the citadel, vessels were tossed from their moorings to founder against the mores. In upper and lower city alike, even the brothel keepers put up their shutters early.

Two cloak-wrapped figures slipped from a shadowed courtyard in Blue Fish Street and hurried east to Sheaf Street.

"I can't believe we're out in this to deliver a damn love token," Alec groused, shaking his wet, fair hair from his eyes.

"We've got the Rhiminee Cat's reputation to maintain," Seregil said, shivering beside the boy. The slender Aurenfaie envied Alec his northern-bred tolerance for the cold. "Lord Phyrien paid for the thing to be on the girl's pillow tonight. I've been wanting a peek into her father's dispatch box anyway. Word is he's maneuvering for the Vicegerent's post."

Seregil grinned to himself. For years, the mysterious thief known only as the Rhiminee Cat had assisted the city's upper class in their endless intrigues; all it took to summon him was gold and a discreet note left in the right hands. None had ever guessed that this faceless spy was virtually one of their own, or that the arrangement was as much to his benefit as theirs.

The wind buffeted at them from all sides as they pressed on toward the Noble Quarter. Reaching the fountain colonnade at the head of Golden Helm Street, Seregil ducked inside for a moment's shelter.

"Are you sure you're up to this? How's your back?" he asked as he stooped to drink from the spring at the center of the colonnade.

Less than two weeks had passed since Alec had pulled Princess Klia from the fiery room below the traitor Kassarie's keep. Valerius' malodorous drysian salves had worked their healing magic, but as they'd dressed tonight he'd noticed that the skin across the boy's shoulders was still tender-looking in places. Not that Alec would admit it and risk being sent back, of course.

"I'm fine," Alec insisted as expected. "It's your teeth I hear chattering, not mine." Shaking out his sodden cloak, he tossed one long end over his shoulder. "Come on. We'll be warmer if we keep moving."

Seregil looked with sudden longing toward the entrance to the Street of Lights across the way. "We'd be a hell of a lot warmer in there!"

It had been months since he'd visited any of the elegant pleasure houses. The thought of so many warm, perfumed beds and warm, perfumed bodies made him feel even colder.

Invisible in the shadows, Alec made no reply, but Seregil heard him shifting uncomfortably. The boy's solitary upbringing had left him uncommonly backward in certain matters, even for a Dalnan. Such reticence was unfathomable to Seregil, though out of respect for their friendship he did his best not to tease the boy.