Reader And Raelynx

CHAPTER 1

DALCEY rode into Ghosenhall late on a bright, cold midwinter morning. He noted with approval the sentries posted at the outer gates, the royal soldiers roaming the city in their formal black-and-gold uniforms. Before seeking out an inn for the night, he guided his horse past the massive grounds of the king’s palace, gawking like any other visitor at the gardens and fountains and architecture visible just behind the walls. The gates to the palace grounds were not watched by ordinary soldiers, but by a handful of King’s Riders, elite and ruthless fighters ready to engage in deadly battle at the slightest provocation.

Dalcey nodded and rode on. King Baryn was well defended; that was good to know. A ruler whose throne was under siege by malcontents could afford to take no chances. He had to make it plain to even the most casual visitor that his streets were patrolled, his doorways watched. There was no way to do him harm.

Ghosenhall was a good-sized city, mostly pretty. Dalcey stuck to the wide avenues and well-tended districts where the wealthy lived and the traders did business. He knew there were dirtier, more dangerous streets a mile or so from the palace, but he did not need to recruit a thief or a murderer for this particular venture. He required no help at all.

Rayson had recommended an inn about a half mile from the palace; it was small and discreet and expensive, and Dalcey found it exactly to his liking. The proprietor was a sharp-eyed middle-aged man who had instantly assessed Dalcey’s attire-the coat was from Arberharst and very fine; the hat was set with a diamond pin. Most people, Dalcey knew, would guess him to be a trader from foreign lands peddling high-quality merchandise.

“A room for the night, then, sir, or would you be staying with us a few days?” the innkeeper asked respectfully.

“I plan on staying two nights at least, but my business may take longer than I anticipate,” Dalcey replied, signing a fictitious name to the register. “Does that cause you any problems?”

“None at all, sir, though I do require payment for the first night’s lodgings up front. And it’s extra for us to stable your horse.”

“Certainly. I already gave the reins to the boy outside. Now, let me ask, do you serve food here or can you direct me to a place where I might buy a decent meal?”

“Daffledon’s next door serves an excellent meal, though it comes with an excellent price tag, as well. One street over, there’s Blackdoor Pub, where the food’s hearty and more reasonably priced.”

“That sounds good.”

The innkeeper handed him a key and a fresh towel, and Dalcey made his way up the wide stairs to the second floor. The room was not particularly spacious, but it was clean, and the furnishings were good-lace for the curtains, down for the bed, marble for the washstand. Good enough to justify the nightly price of the room.

Dalcey was pleased to see his window overlooked the street, and he stood there a long time, watching the patterns of traffic. Carriages, carts, horsemen, pedestrians, all of them hurrying along as if busy on urgent matters. Impossible that everyone in the city could be good-humored and intelligent and tidy, but it seemed that the majority of the people who passed by for Dalcey’s review met those standards. Ghosenhall was an affluent, well-run place, and it showed. In Dalcey’s experience, the personality of an overlord was always reflected in the attitudes of those who served him. A bad master bred vicious men; a weak ruler spawned anxious and opportunistic subjects. A good king, by contrast, created an environment of prosperity, and his people were successful, content, satisfied, and inclined to peace.

Too bad, then, that Baryn had to die.

Dalcey removed his hat and coat, storing them carefully in the rich wood armoire, then set his valise on the bed and began pulling out the more essential contents. The black trousers and silk burgundy waistcoat he would wear for his audience tomorrow. No doubt the proprietor kept someone on hand who could press these items for him, since they had grown sadly wrinkled in transit. His black boots had picked up a little dirt on the road, but these he could polish himself once he returned from dinner.

Next, Dalcey pulled out the heavy square of parchment addressed in a flowing hand. His invitation to visit the palace tomorrow and confer with the king. Beside the invitation, he laid all sorts of official-looking documents-a map of Karyndein, a trade agreement from high-ranking Arberharst officials, lists of Arberharst merchants who were eager to begin commercial ventures with merchants from Gillengaria, a discussion of what a fair rate of exchange might be between the gold coins of Gillengaria and the silver disks minted in Arberharst. King Baryn was very interested in improving trade relations with Arberharst, and many in Arberharst were eager to increase their rate of trade with Gillengaria.

However, the Arberharst envoy who had been selected to present the state plan to King Baryn even now was floating dead somewhere in the waters off Fortunalt. Betrayed by factions in his own government who were more interested in war than commerce.

Betrayed by Rayson Fortunalt, who was far more interested in insurrection than business.

Dalcey had traveled the world a bit-enough to mimic an Arberharst accent that would fool a king who’d rarely sailed outside his own country. Enough to be able to wear foreign clothes with a haughty self-assurance. Enough to convey that faint exotic sense of otherness that would trick or charm Baryn into believing Dalcey was truly a traveler from lands far away, and not a homegrown villain who had committed more than one foul act for Rayson Fortunalt.

Dalcey did not expect to have to sustain the conversation for very long. There would be a moment when his opportunity would come. Then no more conversation. No more pretense at all.

The challenge would not be to kill Baryn. The challenge would be to get out of Ghosenhall alive. From the valise, Dalcey extracted yet another item-a detailed diagram of the royal palace, from the throne room to the kitchens and all the corridors in between. He had studied this so often during the past three weeks that he was fairly certain he could draw the entire schematic from memory. He would run here if soldiers came from there; he would go through the kitchen gardens if there was no clear passage to the main door. The advantage would be his because no one would know exactly what had happened. There would be a commotion in the throne room, perhaps, but the cooks wouldn’t realize that the king was dead. They wouldn’t know why an unfamiliar man was strolling through the pantry, claiming to be lost, looking for an exit. He would have removed his bright waistcoat by then, he would have discarded his accent. He would simply be an unfortunate tradesman who had made a delivery and gotten turned around. He might even flirt with one of the kitchen girls, if she looked friendly. He certainly wouldn’t act like a man running from an act of murder.

How to kill the king-that was something Dalcey would decide as the moment dictated. Quietest, of course, was poison. Dalcey took a small silver box out of his bag and flicked it open to reveal an assortment of colorful fruit-flavored candies, a specialty from Arberharst. Wouldn’t Your Majesty like to try one? My favorite is the lemon-flavored drop, yes, the yellow one, though the red ones taste like raspberries and are very popular. Who wouldn’t take one, if only to be polite? Dalcey would eat one, too, or pretend to-sleight of hand would let him fake putting a confection in his mouth. The poison was fast and extremely effective. Dalcey could leave the room while the king was still breathing, nod to the guards at the front door while the king was gasping pitifully for help, slip out through the massive gates as the king fell to the floor dead. Poison would be his choice, if he had a choice-but Baryn might be too canny to take food from the hand of a stranger.

Dalcey pulled a wrapped bundle from the bag and slowly, lovingly unrolled it. Here was a nice weapon to take with you on a chancy venture! Here was the best of the Arberharst exports, if only the king of Gillengaria knew to trade for it! A small device, essentially a handheld crossbow with a single arrow. The trigger responded to the pull of a finger to launch the metal-tipped dart-very fast, but not very far. Dalcey had practiced and practiced with it; he knew his range, and he knew his accuracy. Using this weapon, he had killed a pig at ten paces. He was fairly certain that even a cautious king would allow a visitor to get that close during the course of a conversation.

Dalcey was not stupid, of course. He knew he would not be allowed to carry visible weapons with him into an audience with the king. He had a fancy dress knife he would wear belted over his waistcoat, and he would hand that over willingly the very first time someone announced in an apologetic voice that he would have to be searched before he could meet with Baryn. He would even go so far as to take off his boots, and to laughingly point at the sheath hidden inside the right one, and remark that he normally carried a spare blade there but he hadn’t wanted to seem to offer any menace to the king.

They would still search him, of course, but they would find only oddments. Dalcey would have disassembled the miniature crossbow. The deadly arrow would look like a child’s toy, and Dalcey was prepared to explain it away as a magnetized compass point that the king could float on a bowl of water. A gift for the king, something small, but he may enjoy it. The other parts of the weapon would be scattered through the rest of Dalcey’s things-the frame would be in with the shipping contracts, as if weighting them down; the trigger mechanism would be bundled up with a few quill pens that Dalcey had brought along. This was something else he had practiced and practiced: putting the pieces back together, locking them in place, and nocking the arrow. He could do it in under two minutes, even when the components were scattered.

He could not imagine he would not have two minutes to cool his heels between the time he was ushered to some waiting room and the time he was summoned to join the king.

If by some chance the crossbow was taken away from him-if the king expressed no interest in poisoned candy-then Dalcey was prepared to commit the murder with his bare hands. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d snapped a man’s neck, though he didn’t much relish the idea, and he considered it the option that gave him the least chance to escape. He had told Rayson that quite frankly.

“I’ll kill him any way I have to do it, but if I’m going to die, then you’re going to have to pay me before I go.”

Rayson had laughed. He was an overweight, red-faced, arrogant nobleman who had been driven blindly by one ambition for the past ten years: toppling Baryn from the throne. “Well, I will, but I don’t know how many dead men have ever had much use for gold.”

“Don’t you worry about that.”

And Rayson had paid him in advance, and Dalcey had hidden the money in his manor house-what passed for a manor house, at any rate, for semi-impoverished Thirteenth House lords who were dependent on their distant relatives for any true wealth or elegance. If he died, his brother and sisters would come swarming over it, fighting over who was to inherit. One of them would search through Dalcey’s closets and find the gold.

It didn’t really matter to Dalcey which sibling was enriched by his death. He just wanted to make sure that Rayson was forced to pay for Dalcey’s final act of loyalty, if indeed it turned out to be his final one. Regicide should not be done for free, not even by a zealot, and Dalcey was by no means one of those. Rayson was, and Halchon Gisseltess, and between them they had fomented this plot to overthrow the king, and they could talk of nothing else, nothing, to the point that a man would go mad if he spent more than an hour with either of them. Dalcey didn’t care if Baryn was on the throne, or his daughter was, or if Halchon Gisseltess seized it after a long and bloody war. He didn’t care if there was a war, he didn’t care if the Twelve Houses were turned upside down by civil conflict. He just wanted to earn his fortune-and this particular deed had been worth a fortune to Rayson-and forever after be seen by the marlords as a man who could be relied on and raised to high estate.

Rewrapping his clever little weapon, Dalcey put away everything except his court clothes. Draping those over his arm, he left the room and locked the door. As he’d expected, the proprietor was happy to promise that the waistcoat and trousers would be pressed for him and returned that evening; and, most certainly, he could order bathwater to be brought to his room first thing in the morning.

“An important appointment, I suppose, sir?” the innkeeper asked.

Yes, I will be going off to kill your king. “Oh, when a man’s in business, every appointment is important,” Dalcey said.

The innkeeper grinned. “And every customer is important, that’s what I say. We certainly appreciate your business, sir.”

Dalcey nodded and went out. Time to walk the city, to determine the best route back from the palace-as well as two alternate courses in case soldiers blocked his way. The walking made him hungry, so he stopped at an anonymous tavern, ate a hearty meal, left an insignificant tip, and headed back toward his room. It was even colder than before, and Dalcey cursed the wind. The weather never got this severe down south in Fortunalt. Dalcey was still shivering as he unlocked his room, and he built up the fire even before he took off his coat. Then he lit a half dozen candles and once again spread the contents of the valise upon his bed.

This was the ritual he always went through: focusing his mind on the great task before him, reviewing all the details of the heist or the assassination. For the hundredth time, he studied his diagram of the palace; for the thousandth, his map of the city. He unwrapped the tiny crossbow again, took it apart, put it together again, aimed it across the room, and imagined that the washstand pitcher was King Baryn’s face. His finger tightened on the firing mechanism, but he did not launch the arrow. He wanted its metal tip perfectly smooth, unmarred by dents and nicks.

He had disassembled the weapon again and laid the parts precisely across the bed when there was a knock at the door. “Your clothes, sir,” said a woman’s voice.

Dalcey tossed his spare shirt over the parts of the weapon and turned the palace diagram facedown before unlocking the door. “Very efficient,” he said as he opened it. “You can tell your master I said so.”

He was confused at the sight of the woman who stepped through, his coat and trousers folded neatly over her arm. She was quite tall, with messy pale hair, and she looked nothing like any serving woman Dalcey had ever seen. “Shall I just lay these on the bed?” she asked, crossing the room before he could answer.

Dalcey stared after her, his hand still on the latch. She was wearing men’s trousers. And a knife at her belt. His own knives were on the other side of the room, closed in the armoire. “Who are you?” he asked stupidly.

She turned and smiled at him, but before she could speak a second figure shouldered into the room. It was a man, huge, dark-haired, dressed all in black, and he had his hands around Dalcey’s throat before Dalcey could think to scream. Dalcey fought, or attempted to; he flailed in the man’s grip, tried to land punches, tried to land kicks, tried to stomp on the floor to draw the attention of the proprietor or his staff. Outlaws! Robbing people here in your very inn! But he couldn’t swing hard enough to make an impression on the big man’s ribs. He couldn’t get a knee near the other man’s groin, couldn’t shout, couldn’t breathe. He felt himself starting to black out. Panic began to replace his first spurt of anger as he realized he was about to die. He clawed at the hard hands clenched around his neck, scratching desperately. No use, no use-

“Don’t kill him, Tayse,” he heard the woman say, and the strangle-hold loosened enough to allow him to suck in air.

Dalcey only had a second to consider mounting a counterattack before the big man spun him around and grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms and bruising his ribs and throat. Gasping for air, he tried to assess the situation. The woman was bending over the bed, tossing through his clothes, his maps, and his disassembled weapon. A third person was standing beside her-someone who must have entered behind the man called Tayse-a slightly built young man with a ragged shock of light brown hair.

“What do you want?” Dalcey wheezed, trying to draw in enough breath to shout for help. It was impossible that brigands could slip so boldly into such a respectable inn! Had they murdered the innkeeper and all of his staff downstairs? “My money is in my coat, on the back of the chair.”

The woman turned to look at him. She was actually laughing. In her hands she held the frame of the crossbow, the arrow, and the detached trigger mechanism. “Money?” she repeated. “I imagine you got paid so much money for this act of treason that you couldn’t possibly have brought it all with you.”

He was astonished. “Act of-act of treason?” What could she possibly know? How could she possibly know?

She held up the parts of the weapon for him to see and then deftly locked them together with a couple of quick twists. Now he was both stupefied and very, very frightened. “Met a man from Arberharst once who carried one of these,” she said. “I would have paid him any amount of money for it, but he wouldn’t sell it. Nastiest thing I’ve ever seen for killing a man at short range.”

They had the weapon, they knew what it was, but they could have no idea what he meant to do with it. “Kill a man,” he blustered. “Why, I wouldn’t-how could you think-who are you people? How dare you come into my room?”

The young man had picked up the various papers littering the bed. “The castle, the city,” he recited. “Oh, and look. Here it is. His card of admittance to see the king tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” said Tayse, and his grip tightened so dramatically that Dalcey felt his ribs splinter inward. The woman watched him coolly as he contorted in Tayse’s arms, seeming to judge exactly how long he could survive without breathing.

“Tayse,” she said at last, and again the big man’s hold loosened.

“What do you want from me?” Dalcey panted.

She seemed to think about it. “Well, first, I want you to not succeed at killing the king,” she said in a mild voice.

“I-wouldn’t! How could you think-”

“And then I want you to tell us who sent you here to try,” she continued. “And then I want you to be thrown into a cell for the rest of your life, although I think Tayse would rather strangle you outright.”

They had no proof. The weapon, the maps, those could all be explained away. He tried for outrage, though he was too afraid to make it really successful. “How could you come here tonight-and accuse me of such heinous intentions! Who are you? Who do you think I am? I am a simple merchant from Arberharst who has been granted the favor of an interview with your monarch-”

The slight young man spoke up again. “You’re a Fortunalt man who has come to Ghosenhall to kill the king,” he said. “I could feel you the minute you started thinking about it. There’s so much violence in you. It came rolling out of you and almost knocked me over.”

Dalcey stared at him in disbelief. The boy was speaking gibberish. “You-what? You felt me-what? Who are you?”

The woman clapped the young man on the shoulder. “He’s Cammon. He’s a mystic. He can read minds.”

“And your mind is a cesspool,” Tayse interjected from over Dalcey’s shoulder.

“I can’t actually read minds,” Cammon said.

Dalcey started struggling again in Tayse’s hold, feeling a sort of relief wash over him. Still no proof, just the crazy made-up ramblings of an idiot mystic boy! “You can’t possibly believe-just because this lunatic says-let me go! I demand to see a magistrate! I demand to see the king! He will be incensed to learn how grievously I have been treated, an envoy from a foreign sovereign nation!”

The woman was laughing. “Cammon is never wrong,” she said cheerfully. “So Tayse and I believe you have come here to murder the king. And Tayse will find a way to make you tell him who sent you. And you may scream your head off, if you like,” she added, as Dalcey drew breath to do just that, “but no one in this inn will interfere with us.”

“With brigands? With outlaws?” Dalcey sputtered. “What kind of city is this where such atrocities are allowed?”

It was as if he had not spoken. “Tayse is a King’s Rider, you see,” she continued. “And his word is law in Ghosenhall.”

Now, finally, Dalcey believed he was truly caught. A King’s Rider! Fifty of them served the crown, fifty of the fiercest fighters of the realm, all of them fanatically devoted to their king. No one would gainsay a Rider-no one would believe a nameless man caught in questionable circumstances no matter how hard he argued his innocence.

He could not be tortured. He could not betray Rayson. It was a point of pride on Dalcey’s part never to leave clues that pointed to the men who had employed him. He would not buy his own skin by sacrificing someone else’s.

The candy. The poison. One piece of that and he would thwart the torturer. Time for meekness. “Where-where are you taking me?” he asked in a quavering voice, pretending that all the fight had gone out of him. “Will you allow me to bring my things? Will you allow me to contact my family?”

“Your family in Arberharst?” she asked with mock politeness. “I’m sure you’d like to get a message off to them.”

“Grab his clothes and let’s go,” Tayse said. “Cammon, check the dresser, see if anything’s there.”

Dalcey stood limp in Tayse’s arms, trying to appear utterly defeated, but he watched closely out of the corner of his eyes as the woman and the young man gathered and repacked his personal items. The maps and the crossbow, of course, were laid aside to be kept as evidence, but they seemed perfectly willing to turn over everything else to him. His gloves were tucked into the pockets of his coat, the newly pressed clothes were crammed back into the bag, and the silver box of candies was dropped in on top of them. Dalcey closed his eyes in unutterable relief. The woman glanced around as if to make sure nothing had been overlooked.

“Wait a minute, Senneth,” Cammon said, and pulled the silver box back out of the valise.

Dalcey felt the chill hands of fear close over his throat more tightly than Tayse’s fingers ever had.

“What’s that?” asked the woman called Senneth, taking the box from him. She flicked it open and sniffed at one of the sugary bits.

“I don’t know, but he wants it.”

Senneth snapped the lid shut and gave Cammon a warm smile. “Then we want it more.” She glanced at Tayse. “What do you think? Poison?”

Tayse grunted and squeezed harder. Again, for a moment, Dalcey couldn’t breathe. “Likely enough.”

“We’ll have it tested.” She turned back to Cammon. “Anything else we should be wary of?”

“That seems to be the thing he’s focused on most.”

Rage suddenly enflamed Dalcey, and he made a furious, insane effort to wrench away from the Rider. “Give it back! Give it back! Give it back!” he started shrieking, meaning the weapon, or the poison, or his freedom, or his life, he couldn’t even have specified. Through the open door, he could hear footsteps approaching and voices muttering, but he was in a berserker fury. “Let go of me! Give it back!”

A hard clout to the head from behind, and Dalcey was on his knees, with his senses spinning and his vision blurring. Tayse kept one hand on Dalcey’s wrists and used the other to yank Dalcey’s head back by the hair. “Be quiet,” the big man said in a threatening voice. His black eyes bored into Dalcey’s; they looked fierce enough to pierce a man’s skull.

Dalcey whimpered and tore his gaze away. He found himself staring straight at the young man, Cammon, the mystic. He wasn’t frightening, not in the rough physical way that Tayse was, but there was something otherworldly about him. His eyes were huge and strangely colored; his face was preternaturally calm. He was watching Dalcey as if the stranger was a wild animal brought over from a foreign shore, a creature both fascinating and repugnant.

“May the Pale Mother strike you dead,” Dalcey whispered, not that he believed in the goddess, not that he believed in curses, but he wanted to express his venom, and everybody knew that mystics feared the Silver Lady.

Cammon didn’t blink or look away or appear frightened in the least, just continued watching him. For a moment, Dalcey had the strangest feeling, as if this boy really could read his mind, scan his heart and retrieve all of his long-held memories, chart the tangled and vicious course of Dalcey’s life. Everything he was, everything he had felt, said, offered, refused, stolen, coveted, or destroyed-all of it-the boy comprehended each piece of Dalcey’s life in a single glance.

And looked away, unimpressed. “Are we done here?” Cammon asked. “Let’s go.”