Arc 4: Chapter 22: Myrddin

    I moved through the groves of the Dance estate, filled with scores of great minds and rich personages, like a tall, scarred shadow.

    My powers aren’t meant for subtlety, but there are concessions made for practicality. I’d learned how to move quietly during the brutal war in Karledale, back when I’d been young and eager to prove myself. I’d learned more as a Knight of Seydis, blessed with the magics of the Sidhe. They’d taught me how to mask my presence, how to pull glamour over myself.

    In my time as the Choir’s axeman, I’d learned well the importance of stealth.

    I didn’t use Art. I focused on the inner fire in me, my altered aura. I steadied my breathing, calmed my heart, felt the false forest around me — not so false as it might seem on a casual glance.

    There was life here. The wisps didn’t linger for nothing. The shadows had an awareness in them, all of it drawn to the merriment of the mortals. The ease of the nobles, bred into them by an upbringing in power. The intellectual energy of the creatives, exuded in their devotion to their crafts, their love of beauty shared with the highborn who indulged them.

    Faisa Dance knew some elf lore. I reassessed her, and used the atmosphere she’d provided to my advantage.

    I drank it all in, and became a ghost in it as I let the fire in me dim.

    I didn’t become invisible, not exactly. I simply swam through the world, the same way any elf or irk might glide across the edge of a village during festival time, sharing in the merrymaking without drawing any lingering eyes they did not want.

    It had been thanks to tricks like this that I’d managed to stealth into cities and fortresses across the land as the Choir’s Headsman. I’d used glamour in a very similar way in recent weeks, to blend with the crowds of Garihelm and avoid the attentions of the Inquisition. Though I’d lost some of it since returning to civilization, the od clinging to me from years wandering across the wild edges of realms remained, allowing me to wrap myself into the environment.

    Not infallible. There were some who would be able to see me, if they chose to look or if I drew attention to myself with carelessness.

    So I kept on the move, steady and calm, and I listened. I listened to talk of politics, and of new inventions, and of trade. I listened to philosophical babble, which I’d never had much of a mind for except in my darker moods.

    I listened to talk of Talsyn. No one talked about the warning from Graill, or about the murders which had plagued the city for most of a year.

    And no one spoke of Anselm of Ruon.

    “Well, it’s obvious why Forger wants peace with the Condor,” a huge, heavily bearded lord said to an idling group. “The man’s looking to the future, just as we all are!”

    “Still, treating with heretics?” This came from a young woman with a nervous smile.

    A tired-eyed harridan snorted. “Don’t be droll, dear. The war wasn’t fought for faith. The Houses have been at each other’s throats for generations. That business in the east was just an excuse, a pretense.”

    “God’s archon being murdered by his own knights was a pretense?” The bearded lord scoffed. “Come now.”

    “The elves have been fading a long time,” the old woman said dismissively, sipping wine. “You hear the westerners, see how they live — they think of us as brutes, backwater barbarians only good for praying and swinging steel.”

    “The world’s changing,” the man agreed. “We best all change with it, or we’ll fade too.”

    I moved on, leaving those bitter truths behind me. I skirted around a group of foreign guildsmen telling a pair of young knights — both in casual dress — about the benefits of alchesteel compared to traditional Sidhe craftsmenship. The two listened intently, asking pointed questions while their attendant ladies gossiped.

    I passed a painter capturing a middle-aged woman who’d agreed to pose on the grass. His brush moved with sweeping, almost angry strokes across the canvas, capturing the scene in bright detail.

    In the painting, the woman had ghoul-white eyes and clawed, webbed wings.

    I froze, spinning to look again. Had I found one? A mad artist?

    But no. The image was normal, and somewhat bland. The man had failed to capture the woman’s ironically quirked eyebrow, her impatiently pursed lips. But no wings, no dead white eyes, no skin like cracked ceramic.

    I shook the moment of confusion off, turning away. I froze as I felt eyes on me.

    A man watched me from the near distance. He stood in the midst of half a dozen or so people, none of whom seemed to see him. He had a wild mane of black hair blending with an unkempt beard, and wore a rough-treated hide over ragged clothes.

    His lips spread in a grin when our eyes met, then he turned and vanished into the crowd.

    Tightening my jaw, I strode after him.

    When I reached the group of people I’d spotted the stranger in — all architects and engineers by their conversation — I looked around and saw no sign of the black-haired man in the hide mantle. I paused, focusing on my less physical senses. I still felt that eerie atmosphere of awareness, of something watching me.

    My eyes scanned the groves, and landed on a distant line of green beyond the party. A hedge maze lay beyond the Dance estate’s lawns.

    I saw no sign of the man, but my intuition screamed at me.

    An ambush? Or a private conversation?

    I’d be ready for either. Keeping my hand near the dagger beneath my coat, I started making my way over the long stretch of open grass to the neat-cut rows beyond. Two statues of half-naked knights from some archaic era guarded the entrance to the maze, and more lanterns had been hung here to help guide guests safely. No doubt, this area was intended for lovers who wanted some privacy.

    Just enough privacy to die in, and not be noticed until morning. I paused a while, considering, then steeled myself and went in.

    I navigated the maze for a while. It was an overcast night, but some of the Wil-O’ Wisps had followed me. They twirled around my long gold-brown coat and hair like little fireflies, whispering in half-real voices. They provided some irregular light, while my golden eyes pierced the darkness that remained.

    After perhaps fifteen minutes, I stepped into a square clearing in the maze. It had a stone path encircling rich flowerbeds and a fountain fashioned into the image of a naked warrior spearing some amphibian chimera attempting to devour him. Or, perhaps it was some natural beast long lost to the world.

    I stopped by the fountain, barely breathing, and waited. Night insects buzzed. Greenery rustled in a soft wind. Somewhere in the far distance, people laughed. A firework went off.

    And a voice spoke.

    “Rough, isn’t it? Seeing the world change, leave faded pictures like you behind?”

    The voice had gravel in it, and a rust-flavored humor.

    I cast my eyes around the shadows. “Who are you?” I asked. “Why are you following me?”

    “I could ask why you followed me?” The voice chuckled. “What, were you not enjoying the party?”

    I didn’t reply, trying to pinpoint the presence. Catrin had used the same trick once.

    She’d been better at it.

    The wisps tittered out an alarm, and my arm shot out. It sunk into the darkness, and I grasped something. There was a brief struggle, a grunt, then I slammed the shape I’d caught against the lip of the fountain.

    It was man, the one I’d seen before. He was short, thick-framed, and strong. I was stronger, and when he lashed out at me with a brick-hard fist I caught it and bashed him against the stone. He went still, breathing hard.

    He stank like charred fur and sweat. His lion’s mane of black hair, grown long on his face and receding from his pate, hadn’t been washed in a very long time. He had a bulbous nose, like a man who’d been drinking for decades, and skin covered in angry rashes and old pockmarks. Much of the smell came from a charcoal colored hide he wore over his shoulders like a mantle, over near equally filthy robes beneath.

    “I know you,” I muttered. “You were that monk in the palace.” The one who’d brushed me. He’d said something at the time, which I’d assumed to be an apology.

    “Bastard!” He snarled. “How’d you catch me?”

    “Your glamour isn’t very good.” I tilted my chin toward the flitting lights. “And the wisps don’t like you.”

    They zipped about in agitation, keeping well away from the stranger.

    He began to shake. I realized in a moment he shook with laughter.

    “Ah, I was warned about your lot! You fucking elf knights. I guess it shows me, don’t it?”

    “You know what I am?” I asked him.

    “Course I fucking do.” The stocky man grinned, revealing blocky gray teeth. “I can smell him on you, that old faerie. Like sunlight and meadows. Iron and Pits, you reek of it.”

    He didn’t just stink of unwashed bodies and bad leather. I recognized something else, sickly and bitter.

    “Right.”

    “So, the Priory doesn’t like it. They don’t like foreign influence. That’s half the reason the Vicar embedded himself with them — because he knew they might threaten us too. Even though plenty of people worship the God-Queen’s golden feet over there too, the red robes think it’s all apostasy. So they complain, and they look for reasons to sow discord. They convince the people that the nobles hide demon cultists among their own ranks, and they say products and ideas from the west are bad, bad, bad.”

    He spread his hands as he let me work the rest out.

    I did. I did have a brain. Sometimes, it even worked.

    I got it.

    “Yith is making it true,” I said quietly. “He’s making the renaissance movement look like it’s infested with occultism, so the Priory’s attention is directed towards it. He’s pitting the Inquisition and the nobility against one another.”

    Fermenting fear, sowing distrust, turning all the factions of the city against one another until blood ran in the streets, just like it had the night I’d rescued Laessa Greengood.

    All the while, whatever Yith and his benefactors truly planned continued without interruption or notice. The demon could vanish into the city’s depths at will, leading me and the Inquisition on a wild goose chase, letting us clash with one another while it sat back and laughed.

    Its only mistake had been trying to hide in Kieran’s body and giving me a shot at it. What had its plan been? I’d originally assumed it an act of opportunism, hiding until it could assassinate someone like Rosanna or Lias.

    But it couldn’t have known Kieran would ever be put in that position. It had only known...

    Bleeding Gates and Heaven On Fire. How had I missed it?

    Yith had hidden inside Kieran to get to Laessa. To turn the eyes of Inquisition on her, leaving her surrounded by acts of supernatural violence and horror.

    Jocelyn had practically told me. They all think she called the storm ogre down to kill the priorguard chasing her. They all think she’s a witch.

    And it only took one witch to start a witch hunt.

    “Get it?” Myrddin asked.

    I nodded. “So your people want Yith gone — you know the demon is just a tool for someone else?”

    “We suspected as much.” The devil monk studied me a moment, his expression thoughtful. “You know, you’re more reasonable than I thought you’d be. I expected something a bit more... zealous. No proclamations of banishing my wickedness, no get thee behind me’s?”

    When I said nothing, he leaned forward and fixed me with that leering gray smile again.

    “I think you and I could have something of a rapport, crusader.”

    I glared at him. “Kross already tried to make me sign a contract. Don’t bother.”

    Myrddin snorted. “Let me guess, had you beaten and hopeless at the time, eh? Came to you in your darkest hour? That’s his method. But I don’t need your soul, Alken Hewer. I don’t care about it. What I could use is a contact. I can help you! I know things.”

    “I can’t trust a word out of your mouth,” I told him. “Besides, I have ways of getting information.”

    Even still, I considered having a way to know what the crowfriars were up to might not be a bad idea. Problem was, that went both ways. It wasn’t a risk I felt keen on.

    “What, you mean that Backroad wench? The hemophage?” Myrddin let out a snorting laugh. “Ah, that’s another thing. You shouldn’t trust her.”

    I turned back to the maze’s exit. “We’re done.”

    “Don’t believe me?” Myrddin said at my back. “Think about it, man. I’ve been keeping an eye on you, I know she’s got you cunt struck. But think! Why would a canny bloodsucker whose profession is secrets care so much about a man she’s known a year? A man who’d hunt her to her death in most other circumstances.”

    I kept walking. I’d heard this sort of poison before.

    Myrddin’s voice took on a frustrated edge. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re the Headsman of Seydis, the Choir’s own executioner. My people are beside themselves wondering about your orders and activities. The whole bloody batch of realms in this backwater land talk about you, but no one knows who you really are, or who you really serve. Not many, anyway.”

    I stopped. Taking a breath, I half turned to face him so I could see his eyes. He met my gaze evenly.

    “Catrin of Ergoth is the Keeper of the Backroad’s spy,” the crowfriar said, speaking slow, lingering on each word. “He uses all his whores like that. They’re bedwarmers, aye, and they collect whispers in the dark. Catrin’s his favorite — rare for anyone to have her gift, to be able to get your secrets right out of your blood.”

    A trickle of ice went through my veins, and the half-healed wound on my neck prickled. How did he know that?

    There’d been something on the roof when Cat and I had been together last night. I’d thought it a bird.

    A crow, perhaps.

    Even still, I asked. “How do you know about her?”

    “It’s more that we know the Keeper,” Myrddin said, grinning again. “See, he used to be one of us.”

    I stared into his eyes. He didn’t flinch.

    He wasn’t lying.

    No.

    Catrin had appeared right after my visit to Myrr Arthor, right when I was alone and in a dark place. An odd coincidence, one my already busy mind had overlooked. She’d showed a special interest in what had been bothering me the night before. She’d asked about Fidei, who I hadn’t even spoken of to Rosanna. Only Lias knew the truth there, and the gods.

    She’d been curious about my new orders. She hadn’t asked, so I hadn’t thought about it.

    She didn’t need to ask.

    Something mad and gibbering rose up in me. All my paranoia, my fear, my resentment, my hope — it all boiled up, a screaming pot ready to erupt. I fought it down, took a deep breath, and spoke with only a slight shake in my voice.

    “You’re lying.”

    “Why do you think she’s here in the city, during all this mess?” Myrddin shook his head, looking perplexed at my denial. “Old boy, use your head. I know you can. The Keeper has his girl on you because he wants to know who the Headsman’s next target is. Not only that, but he wants to know the name of the Onsolain who gave you the order.”

    He shrugged and tilted his head to one side. “Of course he wants to know. Secrets are how he escaped the Tribunal, kept himself in this land after the Riven Order was established. We know because it’s what we want to know, too.”

    He took a step forward, licking his cracked lips. “We know you were in the cathedral yesterday, that you spoke with a prime member of the Choir. We felt it. The Keeper certainly did too, and the Onsolain’s more sordid affairs...”

    He tilted his head and smiled cruelly. “There’s no more tempting power than that kind of secret.”

    I drew my dagger and advanced on him. I’d make him say it all again while the aura in my eyes burned a hollow into his skull.

    “Uh oh. Pissed ye off, eh?” Myrddin let out a hoarse cackle as he danced back out of my reach, melting into the shadows. His red eyes blinked at me from the darkness.

    I started to form an Art, one to banish the shadows and hold him. In the far distance, I heard a shout. I froze, distracted by the unexpected noise.

    “Damn.” Myrddin laughed again as his eyes faded to red pinpricks. “Guess we’ll have to put a rain check on this. They got here quicker than I thought.”

    I turned back toward the gala, cursing.

    “Better hurry!” The devil cackled. “Maybe this will teach you not to stretch yourself too thin, crusader.”

    His voice faded along with his presence. He’d fooled me threefold. Not just here to spy on me, or give me information, but also as a distraction.

    Back toward the estate, I heard screams.