Ilona Andrews: Fate's Edge

Lady Virai grimaced. “I’m sure. I need to know why you’re going through all this trouble, and I don’t have time to waste.”

The problem with honesty was that it gave your opponent ammunition to use against you. One simply didn’t hand a woman like Nancy Virai a loaded gun. Unless, of course, one had no choice. If he played coy now or tried to lie, she would see through him and order him out of the room. He would continue his rotation of small-time assignments. He had waited two years for this chance. He had to be sincere. “Revenge,” Kaldar said.

She didn’t say anything.

“The Hand took people from me.” He kept his voice casual and light. “My aunts, my uncles, cousins, my younger brother. There were thirty-six adults in the family before the Hand came to our little corner of the Edge. There are fifteen now, and they are raising a crop of orphaned children.”

“Do you want the Hand’s agents dead?”

“No.” Kaldar smiled again. “I want them to fail. I want to see despair in their eyes. I want them to feel helpless.”

“What is driving you? It’s not all hate. People driven by hate alone are hollow. You have some life left in you. Is it fear?”

He nodded. “Most definitely.”

“For yourself?”

In his mind, he was back on that muddy hillside drenched in cold gray rain. Aunt Murid’s body lay broken on the ground, her blood spreading across the brown mud in a brilliant scarlet stain. He was sure that’s not what he actually saw. Back in that moment, he didn’t have time to stand and watch the blood spread. He was too busy cutting into the creature that killed her. This memory was false. It came from his nightmares.

“What are you thinking of?” Lady Virai asked.

“I’m remembering my family dying.”

“How did you feel when they were killed?”

“Helpless.”

There. She had pulled it out of him. It hurt. He didn’t expect it to, but it did.

Lady Virai nodded. “How well can you handle the Broken?”

“I swim through it like a fish through clear water.”

She gave him a flat look.

“The Edge is very long but narrow,” he told her. “The Mire, where my family lived, is boxed on two sides by impassable terrain. There are only two ways out: to the Weird and the Dukedom of Louisiana, or to the Broken and the State of Louisiana. The Dukedom uses the Mire as a dumping ground for its exiles. They murder any Edger who approaches that boundary. So that border is closed, which leaves only one avenue of escape, to the Broken. Most of my family had too much magic to survive that crossing, so it fell to me to procure supplies and other things we needed. I’ve traveled through the Broken since I was a child. I have contacts there, and I’ve taken care to maintain them.”

Lady Virai pondered his face.

Here it comes.

“So happens that I can use you.”

Aha!

“A few hours ago a group of thieves broke into the Pyramid of Ptah in West Egypt.” Lady Virai nodded at the map, where the peninsula that was Florida in the Broken thrust into the ocean. “The thieves stole a device of great military importance to the Egyptians. The Hand likely commissioned this theft. To make matters worse, the thieves were supposed to hand off their merchandise to the Louisianans, and they chose to do it in Adrianglian territory. Their meeting didn’t go as planned, and now Adrianglia is involved, and the Egyptians are threatening to send the Claws of Bast into our lands to retrieve the object.”

Kaldar frowned. The Hand was bad, the Mirror was dangerous, but the Claws of Bast were in a league of their own. There was a reason why their patron goddess was called the Devouring Lady.

“Can you handle a wyvern?” Lady Virai asked.

“Of course, my lady.” Not much difference between an enormous flying reptile and a horse, really.

“Good. You will be issued one, together with funds, equipment, and other things you may require. I want you to use it to fly to the south, find this device, and bring it to me. Find the object, Kaldar. I don’t care if you have to chase it to the moon; I want it in my hands, and I want it yesterday. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes. One question?”

Lady Virai raised her eyebrows a quarter of an inch.

“Why me?”

“Because the West Egyptians tells me the thieves are Edgers,” she said.

“How do they know?”

Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “They didn’t specify. But it’s hardly in their best interests to lie. The Hand hired the Edgers to do their dirty work, and now they have vanished into the Broken. They think they are beyond my reach. Your job is to prove them wrong. You may go now. Erwin will brief you and see to the details.”

Kaldar ducked his head and headed for the door. Fate finally smiled at him.

“Kaldar.”

He turned and looked at her.

“I’m taking a gamble,” she said. “I’m gambling that you are smart as well as pretty, and those smarts will keep you following my orders. Don’t disappoint me, Kaldar. If you fail because of lack of ability, I will simply discard you. But if you betray me, I will retire you. Permanently.”

He grinned at her. “Understood, my lady.”

THE briefing room lay just a short walk from the conference room. Kaldar rapped his knuckles on the door and swung it open. Erwin rose from a chair with a neutral smile.

Lady Virai’s pet flash sniper had a pleasant face, neither handsome nor unattractive. His short hair, halfway between dark blond and light brown, didn’t attract the eye. Of average height, he was trim but not overly muscular. His manner was unassuming; at the same time, he always appeared as if he belonged wherever he was. Never uncomfortable, never nervous, Erwin also never laughed. During meetings, people tended to forget he was in the room. He would blend right into a crowd of strangers, and once you passed him, his flash would take your head clean off. Erwin could hit a coin thrown in the air with a concentrated blast of magic from fifty paces away.

“Master Mar.” Erwin held out his hand.

“Master Erwin.” They shook.

Inconspicuous Erwin. When Kaldar had first met him, he’d taken the time to replicate the look and the mannerisms. The results proved shocking. He’d walked right past the security into the ducal palace twice before he decided to stop tempting Fate.

“Would you care for a drink?” the sniper asked.

“No.”

“Very well. On with the briefing, then.” Erwin turned to the large round table and tapped the console. The surface of the table ignited with pale yellow. The glow surged up and snapped into a three-dimensional image of a large pyramid, with pure white walls topped with a tip of pure gold.

“The Pyramid of Ptah. The Egyptian pyramids started as tombs and slowly progressed into houses of worship and learning. This particular pyramid, the second largest in West Egypt, is devoted to Ptah, God of Architects and Skilled Craftsmen. Of all creation gods of West Egypt, he is particularly venerated because of his intellectual approach. In essence, if Ptah thinks of it, it comes into being.”

“A useful power,” Kaldar said.

“Very. Ptah’s pyramid is the center of research for many magic disciplines. It’s the place where discoveries are made and cutting-edge technology is produced. That’s why Egyptians guard it like the apple of their eye.”

Erwin touched the console, and the walls of the pyramid vanished, revealing its inner structure—a complex maze of passageways.

“This is just what we know about,” Erwin said. “The defenses of the pyramid are constantly evolving. It is seeded with traps, puzzles, impossible doors, and other delightful things designed to separate intruders from the burden of their lives. The Egyptians informed us that the thieves entered here, at two in the morning.” Erwin picked a narrow metal tube and pointed at the passageway shooting off from the main entrance. The hallway lit up with a bright shade of yellow. “It’s a service hallway. It’s typically locked at night, and the lock is considered to be tamperproof.”