Aethersmith (Book 2) (38 page)

“My suspicion, naturally, is that Iridan is aboard. What was
his demeanor when last you saw him?” the warlock asked, forgetting to make
clear to whom he spoke.

“A bit nervous. You were about to throw him in a cell,”
Kyrus answered innocently, not willing, in some obstinate portion of his mind,
to realize that Juliana ought to have seen him much later than that.

“Exhausted,” Juliana answered. “I think he took his anger,
and found that fine line between being afraid of me, and trying to …” she
trailed off. She did not turn to look at Kyrus, her eyes losing their focus
aimed off somewhere roughly in the direction of Rashan. She did not blush often
but must have realized she was turning red.

“I find myself realizing that I have no idea what you do to
occupy your days,” Rashan commented, sparing her the awkward silence she had
dropped in their midst. “Whatever is it, go off and see to it.”

Juliana did not have to be told twice. She left quickly, not
looking back at either of them.

They waited in silence for a moment after she left. With a
slight gesture, Rashan pulled the door closed. “It is you she should be ashamed
of, not Iridan,” Rashan commented mildly. Kyrus could not tell if it was
accusation, wistfulness, or resignation; perhaps it was a combination of the
three.

“Well, I mean, that is to say, he is her husband now, after
all,” Kyrus said. “Certain things … were bound to happen, I suppose. I had not
really, I mean I did not—”

“Shut up,” Rashan interrupted. Kyrus ceased his babbling. “I
cannot abide idiocy, and I know you are better than this. If you have something
to say for yourself, then say it.”

“She was always supposed to be mine,” Kyrus said calmly,
collecting himself.

“Your betrothal was terminated. She was promised to Iridan
and wed. It is too late to change that now,” Rashan replied, as if lecturing.

“Wrongly. She was meant to be
mine
! You waited and
waited for Brannis to turn out to be some great sorcerer, for his promised
talent to manifest itself. You were waiting for him to turn into
me
! I
am here now, and your impatience has taken her from me. It was never supposed
to have been Brannis; it was supposed to be me. I do not know what merit Gravis
Archon’s prediction may have had, but I was there, lost in the wrong world. I
was dragon-walking among the tortoises, never seeing my own reflection to tell
the difference between me and them. I belonged here. I belong with
her
.”
Kyrus was out of breath at the end of his rant, and could feel a bit of aether
built up inside him; he had not even realized he was drawing it.

“But you were not here. We—I had no way of knowing you would
come. There is a war to be fought, an emperor to crown, an empire to put to
rights. I had no time to waste. Iridan needs to be fighting to truly be a
warlock. Unprepared as he is, he must leave the nest, and I must throw him out
if needs be; though it looks as if he had taken that step on his own. If there
is to be a wedding, there needs to be an heir. If a warlock goes off to war,
there is some urgency involved in begetting that heir.
If
you must feel
anger, direct it my way; I am used to unjust anger. Neither of them has done
anything wrong in this, excepting what you and Juliana have just done. See that
this was a one-time occurrence, and pray that her first child is not tall as a
tree with brown hair,” Rashan warned. “Then we can put this behind us, and
continue our machinations. I still have great plans for you,
Brannis
.”

“Shador is my size and coloring,” Kyrus muttered under his
breath, knowing full well that Rashan would hear him. He got no response save
for a warning glare.

“Come by my office tonight. I have much to attend to this
day, and no further time for nonsense.” Rashan turned and left the room, with
Kyrus unable to think of a pithy reply to send him off with.

“You would not think it was nonsense if she was yours.”
Yes, that would have done nicely, just a moment ago
, Kyrus thought in the
direction of the closed door.

* * * * * * * *

Kyrus had taken a few meetings with his generals, read some
reports and written others. He had given new orders to the garrisons defending
the border cities of Dolok, Sharefield, Weiselton, and Thinbrooke, in the event
that one of them was the next target of the Megrenn main host. He had taken a
few more books from the Tower of Contemplation libraries to read in the
evening. He had considered seeking out Juliana to smooth things over with
her—he was not upset with her at all—but thought better of it.
Brannis and
Soria can talk it over in the morning
, he reasoned.

Atop his mount, Kyrus was on his way to see about the
preparations on the two remaining airships that had not yet left the harbor,
when he was approached by a messenger. Unlike most of the messengers he
received, this one was neither one of his own men from the army, nor part of
the palace staff. He wore green and blue, chased in gold trim; it was not garb
he recognized, to his chagrin.
I ought to know every one of the houses in
the Empire, both noble and sorcerous. Brannis did not devote enough effort to
studying such things. I should try to do better.

“Marshal Brannis.” The man reined his horse to a stop just
to the side of Kyrus’s path. “A moment, if you would.”

Kyrus took hold of his own horse’s reins, and pulled up
gently.
Cursed thing
, he swore to himself when the animal did not slow
as quickly as he had wished.
Brannis had a much better feel for these
beasts. My thighs will ache from merely riding across town—worse should I have
to stop suddenly again.

“Yes, who are you?” Kyrus demanded, setting the man aback.

Ooh, I guess should have recognized the livery
, he
chided himself.

“Klarmont Dryrock, sir, of House Lurien,” the man informed
him formally. “Sorcerer Dolvaen would like to meet with you.”

Kyrus was more intrigued than worried by the offer. Sorcerer
Dolvaen had been nothing but polite to Brannis, and Kyrus had noticed no
difference when he met the man himself for the first time—as Kyrus, that is.

The sorcerer kept a modest estate in Kadris. His was only
called a “House” at all because of his personal standing. His own blood
descendants were not fit for Rashan’s little book of matchmaking for the
Imperial Circle; it took at least four generations telling true with sorcerous
blood to gain that privilege. Dolvaen had grandchildren at the Imperial Academy,
but it would be
their
children who would win the distinction for “House”
Lurien.

The estate itself was tidy and well cared for. The sorcerer
had great wealth of his own, by virtue of his standing in the Inner Circle,
sufficient to maintain the thirty or so rooms Kyrus judged it to have by the
look it presented to the street. Kyrus—or rather Brannis—had only met the
sorcerer’s wife in passing. She had taken on his name upon their marriage, and
he could not recall what it had been before; certainly it was some lower
family. Chaura Lurien had always seemed pleasant enough, though, and did
nothing to dispel that impression when she greeted Kyrus at the door. She
looked older than the sorcerer, though he suspected that it was just a lesser
talent for life extension that he was noticing. She had the look of a woman in
her late fifties, with hair gone nearly all to grey and a light ashen tone to
her skin. She seemed to make no attempt to disguise her age, unless she was
using some trick Kyrus could not see in his split aether-light vision.

“Marshal Brannis. Thank you for taking this meeting on such
short notice. Please, do come in.” She ushered Kyrus through the white marble
archway and through the foyer. They climbed the open stair to the mezzanine
level, where she brought him to a double door. “My husband is waiting for you
inside. I will send one of the servants along in a bit with some refreshments.”

“Thank you,” Kyrus replied. He had considered asking what
the meeting was about, but then thought better of it. Had Dolvaen wanted him to
know from someone else, he would have left an order to that effect.

Kyrus briefly studied the wards on the doors. They were as
well crafted as any he had seen in Kadrin, which admittedly was a small
sampling, since Brannis had largely seen them as background decoration, and not
taken much note of them. He could not see inside, which was a good sign, since
everyone seemed rather taken with all his raw magical talents; he had no reason
to guess his aether-vision was less than superlative.

“Come in, Brannis. Do not just stand there gawking at my
wards,” came a voice from within. Kyrus smiled sheepishly, and pulled at the
door handle, which obliged him.

The study was large but looked functional. While many
wealthy men kept studies for entertaining or show as much as real work,
Dolvaen’s was ill kept and cluttered. A panoramic vista of the estate’s back
garden was obscured by a chalkboard on a wooden stand, a cloak rack, and
bookshelf that looked to be a late addition to the room’s design. The desk
behind which Dolvaen sat was strewn with papers and books inter-stacked with
each other. Piles of books cluttered nearly every surface of the room, from the
little tables that were meant to display decorative artwork or sculptures, or merely
set a drink upon, to all the chairs and the low chaise. As Kyrus took in the
scene, the stack that rested on one chair nearest the desk rose, and cleared a
spot for Kyrus to seat himself.

“Have a seat, my boy. There is much to discuss and little
enough time,” Dolvaen began crisply, his manner suggestive of a freight master
trying to get a ship loaded before the tide went against him. Kyrus took the
offered seat.

“What is this about? You do not normally have me here for
meetings.” Kyrus left the implied question hanging in the air beyond the actual
one.

“Frankness it is, then. Firstly, if anyone asks, I wanted to
personally report that Iridan stole—no, make that commandeered, since I suppose
he was within his rights—the
Aether Hammer
shortly before dawn this
morning. The ship’s assigned sorcerer, Jaines Hiessens, remained aboard, as did
the crew that had already been picked for it.” Kyrus noted that Dolvaen did not
refer to ships as female, like so many of the nautical sorts were wont to. “We
do not know the destination or intent of Sorcerer Iridan, nor, as near as I can
gather, was he acting under any authority but his own.”

“I can vouch for the latter. Neither I nor Warlock Rashan
gave any such order. The warlock was rather put out this morning in looking for
Iridan, in fact,” Kyrus said.

“I never doubted such. That is just the story that you must
remember should anyone ask you later what we discussed. I wished to speak to
you personally—and privately—due to the sensitive nature of who was involved.
Understood?” Dolvaen asked. He seemed to be in a great hurry for something.

“Thus far, yes. What is it that we will really be
discussing, then?”

“Rashan Solaran’s regency of the Empire,” Dolvaen stated.

Kyrus’s blood ran cold.

Rashan knows he has enemies within the Empire working
against him. Dolvaen must be one of them. No … if he is involved, he must be
leading
them.

“To what end?” Kyrus asked in a forced monotone.

“Brannis, you see him as much as anyone. You know he is
unstable. Can you deny it?” Dolvaen asked, staring down Kyrus in what appeared
to be an attempt to force an affirmative.

“Volatile, perhaps, but predictable. He consistently works
for the best interest of the Empire.” Kyrus found himself defending Rashan,
even though he questioned the warlock’s actions constantly. He could not
understand why he did so reflexively.

“Best interests? He has but one true skill, and he is not
using it at all. Munne has fallen to Megrenn, and he sat in Kadris bartering
favors to get his pick of emperors. In a tenday or less, we will put a crown on
some jumped-up bastard of his favorite emperor from the good old days when he
razed cities for amusement and enraged all of Koriah—by the winds, half of
Veydrus would have declared a holiday had Loramar killed every last one of us.”

“He worries that if he leaves to go fight the war, like he
did in Raynesdark, that the conspiracy will take further control over the
Empire. He already thinks those days he spent fighting off the goblin army and
dealing with the aftermath cost him support, and allowed dissent to solidify
behind his turned back,” Kyrus said. Paranoia was always easier to justify
after the fact, once you had rooted out all the secret plots against you. It
seemed that Rashan was no fool in that regard.

“Do not mistake me. I do not call him a fool. A madman, a
megalomaniac, a liar, and a usurper I will call him—but not a fool,” Dolvaen
replied.

Kyrus was starting to enjoy the exchange; it was falling
into a free-form debate. He was matching wits with one of the best sorcerers in
the Kadrin Empire, and it appeared that the stakes were to be: “I see, you have
convinced me, sir.”

I see it now, why I am defending him. I drew the short
lot. I started out on Rashan’s side by default, since I owe him my position. If
I concede Dolvaen’s points, I concede the argument.

“Whom has he usurped?” Kyrus asked. If he was to lose in the
end, as he now suspected he must, since many of Rashan’s actions were
inexcusable, at least he would play out his side of the debate. “There was no
emperor at the time. As warlock, he was highest rank in the Empire.”

“A warlock who abandoned the Empire for a hundred winters.
He lost all claim to any position of authority when he left Kadrin to our fate.
I admit there was no true emperor, but the Empire had been prospering under our
guidance. Magocracy is so much more stable a system than consolidating power in
one man chosen by birthright, and possessing no qualification beyond the
pedigree of the seed that begot him,” Dolvaen said, having gotten to his feet and
begun pacing as he spoke.