Storm breaking (39 page)

The boy responded with a curse about Melles's sexual preferences, rolled out of the way of another blow, and got his fourth knife into his hands at the same time.

"No matter what you've heard, I don't take any pleasure in that particular pastime," Melles said coldly. By now, his eyes had watered so much that the boy could see again, although his eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Melles was in no mood to take chances, even though he was facing a partially disabled foe, so he watched the young fool warily. The boy did not writhe or take his eyes off Melles, though the pain from his shattered knee must have been excruciating. "I suggest you tell me who hired you, and save yourself a great deal of pain."

The boy inched away, sliding over the slick floor, while Melles moved cautiously toward him. This time the curse was a bit more colorful and less accurate. Melles sighed, and shook his head, as the boy got into a standing position with the help of a chair. What did he expect to accomplish from there? He couldn't walk; his leg wouldn't hold him. And if he couldn't walk, his balance would be off. Didn't he know that? Was he so desperate he'd try anything, or did he really think he had a chance to escape?

Melles backed up, keeping his eyes on the boy at all times, until he reached his desk. Without needing to look to see where it was, he pulled the boy's first knife out of the back of the chair, weighed it in his hand for a moment to get the balance, and threw it.

It hit precisely as he had intended, in the boy's gut with a wet
thud
; the boy dropped to the ground again with a gurgle, unable to twist out of the way in time, as his own knife clattered to the floor. Perhaps the fool had thought he was going to try for the trickier hand shot. That was stupid of him, if he had. A gut wound hurt more and wouldn't kill immediately.

Melles walked over to the boy and stood looking down at him, with the poker held loosely in one hand. The boy had both hands on the hilt of the knife, trying to pull it out, his breath came in harsh pants, and his eyes were glazing with agony. "Who hired you?" he asked again.

The boy looked up, and spat at him.

He sighed. He was going to have to spend more time than he wanted on this, squandering time that could have been better spent on his orders, but there was no help for it. "You're going to tell me sooner or later," he said, without much hope for sense from this arrogant idiot, who still didn't think he was going to die. "You'll be better off with sooner." This time the boy responded with a suggestion for an unpalatable dietary supplement. Melles brought the poker down on his other knee, and proceeded dispassionately to inflict enough pain to extract the information he wanted.

In the end, he managed to get what he wanted without too much of a mess, and the answer made him even more disgusted than he had been at the beginning of the futile exercise.

Duke Jehan. An idiot with just about as little sense as the cretin he'd hired.

And it was not for any great ideological reason, nor because Jehan was avenging Tremane, or trying to put one of the other candidates in the Heir's suite. No, it was because Jehan had somehow gotten the impression that if he managed to assassinate enough candidates,
he
would manage to be put on the throne because he was Charliss' second cousin!

Apparently he'd thought that if he used assassins to do his work for him, no one would connect him with the deaths! Melles had no idea who Jehan thought
would
get the blame if Melles himself was gone, but perhaps this would-be King of Assassins had gotten his order of targets reversed and had gone after the last on the list first.

He finished off the mewling thing on the floor with a single thrust of the boy's own knife, threw the knife down next to the body, and wiped his hands with a napkin, contemplating his next move. It wouldn't be enough to make an example of this boy, or Jehan would think he'd gotten off undiscovered and try some other way of ridding himself of his rivals. Melles had acquired immunity to most of the common poisons, but that didn't mean he wouldn't get sick if someone slipped a dose to him. That would cost still more valuable time, and might incapacitate him long enough for one of his
real
rivals to get in to the Emperor. No, he was going to have to give Jehan a real fright, and make him into an example for anyone else at Court idiotic enough to try something like this.

In the end, it took all of his skill to pull the job off—not to get into Jehan's quarters without arousing anyone, but to get past his own guards. The nurse who was supposed to be watching in Duke Jehan's nursery was easily incapacitated with a needle dipped in a poison that sent one into a deep sleep rather than death. Jehan's oldest son, slightly more than a year old, sat up in his crib and looked with wide eyes at the stranger who came to lift him out and place him on the floor. He didn't do anything more than babble, though, when the stranger gave him several pretty toys to play with.

Melles dropped the body, wrapped in a bloody sheet, into the crib in place of the child, and left the child himself sitting on the floor, happily absorbed in the bladeless daggers that had been intended to kill Melles.

That was a somewhat melodramatic gesture in and of itself, but Melles had the feeling that anything less wouldn't get Jehan's attention. He'd considered leaving the daggers whole rather than snapping the blades off, but if the baby was as stupid as its sire, it would probably have managed to kill itself with one of them. While that would have been no loss for the Court or the world, Jehan would have been so overwrought that the lesson would be completely lost on him. And killing babies, or allowing them to be killed, was bad for one's public image.

Melles slipped back across the palace and into his own rooms again, feeling drained and no less disgusted. He had lost most of the working hours of the night—and this late, although he had easily gotten the blood off the stone floor with the sheet, he'd used up all the hot water in his suite to do so. He'd have to wash himself in cold water; one more mark against Jehan.

He put himself to bed, chilled and angry, but at least he was physically tired enough to sleep.

And hopefully, his little present would prevent Jehan and several others from sleeping for many nights to come. It wasn't much in the way of revenge, for him, but for now it would do.

"Amazing!" Silverfox shook his head and stepped away from the teleson crystal, tossing his long, black hair to one side. "If I had not seen this, I would not believe it was possible."

"I couldn't agree more," Karal said. He had been watching over Silverfox's shoulder as the
kestra'chern
spoke with Treyvan. The round crystal lens mounted on top of the teleson had held a perfect image of the head and shoulders of the fascinated gryphon, and a thin but distinct echo of his voice emerged from the matte-gray metal box that held the crystal cradled in a quarter-moon-shaped depression on its surface. This was even more impressive than the time An'desha had done long-distance scrying on Grand Duke Tremane..

This was a distinct improvement over the original sets. A little fiddling and the addition of the crystals on each set as well as the mirrors—simple polished lenticular lenses that any glassworker could make—had made it possible to have images and the audible voices of the two users. All that had been in the notes that Lyam and Firesong had interpreted, but the crystals had never been installed. Perhaps that was why the sets had been on the workbench.

Karal gazed wistfully at the device, which was now being used by Sejanes and one of the new Mage-Gifted Heralds. "This is quite amazing. I wish you didn't have to have Mindspeech to use it."

"But you don't—" Silverfox began. "Or at least only one of you does."

Karal only sighed, very quietly. Silverfox looked at him askance, with a question in his blue eyes, but it was Sejanes who guessed what lay behind Karal's comment.

"You'd like to use this to speak to that young lady of yours without any of us eavesdropping, wouldn't you, lad?" he said shrewdly. Karal blushed and didn't reply immediately, trying to think of an answer that was noncommittal enough without being an actual lie.

"Well,
you
need to use it to confer with the others back in Haven," he said, nodding in the direction of Sejanes, Firesong, and Master Levy.. "That's important."

"And you aren't. Is that what you're saying?" Sejanes graced him with a skeptical look.

"What you are talking about is important," Karal replied, knowing that any declaration of how unimportant he was would only be met with a counterargument. "Idle chatter with Natoli isn't. It's not as if I really need to hear about what scrapes our friends are getting into, or who's passed to the back room at the Compass Rose."

Sejanes didn't counter that particular response. Instead, he provided a different answer. "We won't be using this device all the time. Personally, if there is a way, I don't see any difficulty with you using it to catch up on news with the young lady." He tilted his head at Firesong, An'desha, and Master Levy in unspoken inquiry. All three of them nodded their heads, completely in agreement with him.

"We all know that you would give it up to one of us if we even looked as if we
thought
we might want to use it, Karal," An'desha told him. "If you could think of a way that you can make it work without an eavesdropper, there's no reason why you can't use it, too. It's not as if you're going to wear the thing out, or use it up."

:Pish. I can Mindspeak. And so can Florian.:
Altra wrapped himself gracefully around Karal's legs and looked up into his face.
:For that matter, so can Need. We certainly wouldn't embarrass you, would we?:

"The Firecat says that he, Need, or the Companion could hold the connection for Karal," Firesong told all of them.

Karal started to protest, then shut his mouth, realizing that he was wrong on all counts and he might as well be quiet. The others wouldn't need to use the teleson all the time, Altra and Florian already shared most of his secret thoughts so why not these, and there could not be any harm in talking a little to Natoli now and then. His cheeks and the back of his neck grew hot. "As long as you don't mind," he said diffidently.

A snort from Firesong was the only reply to that statement, as a Herald in the teleson watched and listened with polite interest.

"
Shall I see if Natoli can be found later
?" the far-off Herald asked. "
If there's no one at the device, one of the Mindspeakers can project to you until Need, the Firecat or the Companion can come hold the connection
."

:I would think that would be quite satisfactory,:
Florian told Karal
:And I think you ought to tell him that, so that he can arrange for Natoli to come as soon as the mages are finished.:

"Ah, Florian thinks that would be a good idea," Karal said, trying to control his blushes. "Thank you."

He hurried away to find something to do before he got himself into any further embarrassing situations.

The most useful thing he could do was to serve in his proper place as a secretary, and right at this very moment the only person who needed the skills of a secretary was Tarrn. The
kyree
was down in the workroom, carefully describing everything before Firesong and An'desha took it all to pieces. Lyam had already made scale drawings of each workbench, and now he was making notes while Tarrn dictated. He gratefully gave up his place to Karal, even though the notes would now be in Valdemaran rather than Kaled'a'in. Tarrn didn't miss a beat, changing his Mindspeech from Lyam to Karal as soon as Karal held the notepad and graphite-stick. Karal rubbed his nose to keep from sneezing; they had stirred up quite a bit of dust just in walking about. It was amazing how much dust found its way down here once the hatchway was open.

"Why are you doing this, sir?" Karal asked, when they completed one bench and moved on to another. "I'm just curious."

:A number of reasons,:
the
kyree
replied pleasantly.
:Later, if we are trying to put together another device, we will know what pieces were laid out on which bench in what order. We will have a historical record of how the workshop looked if we ever wish to reconstruct it. In this way, if for some reason the contents of the workbenches are ever jumbled together, we will know what tool goes with what project. It is not always intuitively obvious.:

Karal nodded, and made another note on the identity of an object. All of that made perfect sense, but it would never have occurred to him to make such detailed drawings, or to measure the distance an object was from the edge of the bench.

:In a case like this, young scribe, records are always important,:
Tarrn said.
:The more, the better. Once anything is moved, it is changed forever; perhaps that might not be important, but at the moment, we can't know that. The thing is to make drawings and notes on everything, and several exact copies of the documents we find:

Karal laughed, which seemed to surprise the
kyree
. "It is a good thing that Urtho was a neat man, or you would be copying foodstains, I think, along with diagrams."

The
kyree
opened his mouth in a wide grin.
:It would not be the first time. I am a mere historian; how am I to know what is a diagram and what was a long ago spill of wine? Perhaps a semicircle of dark brown may not in fact be a ring from the bottom of a mug, but rather a notation of where a teleson lens should go?: