Dragon Coast (19 page)

“An assassin with an expiration date. This took expensive magic. What's Gorov's salary?”

“Not enough to buy gorgon. Which means whoever wants you dead is high up. But I guess that's nothing new for you.”

“They don't want
me
dead. They want the guy I'm pretending to be dead.”

“Okay, that is new.”

“Sounds strange, but I have bigger priorities than not getting assassinated. I'm not sure what I should be doing about this.”

“I have some ideas.”

Moth's ideas turned out to be simple and practical. First, he poured each of them a glass of expensive brandy. Then he went to the phone and dialed zero.

“Send up a maid to Lord Paul's chambers,” he ordered, looking at the assassin's remains. “There's a spill to clean up.”

*   *   *

All through cocktails Daniel felt as if he were walking the edge of a sandstone cliff. It wasn't enough to step carefully when accepting the good wishes of the realm's lords and ladies, government figures, business titans, and osteomancers. He felt he could get everything right, convince everyone he was Paul, and still falter, because Paul walked a more perilous road than Daniel had imagined.

At least he didn't have to pretend to know people's names. They were announced upon each guest's entrance, and then a flurry of gossip would fill him in on the basics of their biographies, scandals included.

“The Countess Helena, High Osteomancer of Sausalito, and Count Lourdes,” honked a crier at the door, and anyone with ears would soon learn of the count's infidelities and the countess's misguided attempt to grow wings, which would explain the voluminous sleeves of her gown.

Paul's own announcement had been followed by at least ten minutes of delicious mutterings, and Daniel overheard seven different reasons for Paul's long absence, including time spent living on the bottom of the sea, as well as in a volcano, as well as a yearlong cleansing that involved fasting and enemas. Nobody mentioned anything about Catalina Island and dragons.

There were murmurs about the afternoon's assassination attempt and the poisoned food at San Simeon. He heard the name Doring dropped more than once.

He also learned that people were careful around him. Those who approached to give their respects did so with stiff caution. This suited Daniel fine.

When Allaster Doring was announced, he entered the room as though he were penetrating it. Snagging a champagne glass from a waiter, he strode toward Daniel, and the party-goers cleared a space around them. They watched with salacious interest, as if they were expecting a bare-knuckle brawl to break out.

The murmurers and titterers fell silent. The string quartet decided to play everything pianissimo before their bows stopped entirely. Ice cubes clinked inside glasses.

Allaster came to a stop before Daniel.

“For crying out loud,” he roared. “We're not going to fight in the middle of cocktail hour. Go back to your prattling.” He made shooing motions with his hand, and the murmuring started up again, and the music resumed, and the clusters of conversation re-formed.

Allaster brushed an invisible speck of lint from his sleeve and sipped champagne. “Bread and circuses are a fine idea, but damned if I'm going to be the circus.”

“Better than being the bread,” Daniel said.

“Good point.” Allaster flashed a winning smile and raised his glass to Daniel. “Just so you know, that assassin wasn't mine.”

“That's lovely to hear, Allaster. Why should I believe you?”

“Have you ever known me to be subtle? About anything?”

Daniel took a drink.

“The whole point of killing you would be to prove I'm the stronger osteomancer. Paying someone else to do it, behind closed doors, out of view…? That would prove nothing.”

“So if it wasn't you, who, then? Your sister, maybe.”

Allaster's face became thoughtful. “We did have one governess who punished Cynara for melting a rather expensive statue in her cauldron. I think it was a Rodin? I don't know, I was only six.”

“And the governess?”

There was some commotion at the door, and Allaster's smile became resplendent. “Here's your chance to ask her yourself.”

The crier announced Cynara's name, and Allaster's sister entered in a black gown that flowed over her like liquid, carrying with her a cloud of potent magical scents. As she approached, Daniel found himself unable to stop staring at her exposed shoulders. He had to force himself to look up from them and acknowledge her eyes. Unfortunately, they were beguiling as well. Her clavicles were beguiling. Even her nostrils were beguiling.

He drank.

“I was just telling Paul about the … conflict … you had with our governess,” Allaster said. “The thing with the Rodin. What happened to that governess, anyway?”

“Same thing as happened to the Rodin. I don't suppose my brother told you the part about him being the one to melt the sculpture and blaming me for it.”

Allaster gazed off in the distance, as if looking into the past. “Is that what happened? It was a long time ago.”

Cynara smiled at him, not without some affection. Then she turned to Daniel. “Who's trying to kill you, Paul?”

She gave him a significant look. The attempts on Ethelinda's life weren't public knowledge, but maybe Cynara wasn't wrong to suspect a connection with the attempts on Paul's.

Daniel made a dismissive gesture. “I have larger concerns.” An absurdly true statement. Or it ought to be. Playing Paul made this the most complicated heist Daniel had ever tried to pull, and though assassination attempts were troubling, every job came with problems: extra guards and alarms you didn't anticipate, or the getaway vehicle springing an inopportune oil leak. It was just stuff to be dealt with. But the fact that Ethelinda had been targeted as well somehow made it more than just stuff.

“Is Ethelinda still at San Simeon?”

“She's here, with her governess,” Cynara said, as if it were something Paul would have known.

“Formidable woman,” Allaster said approvingly. “Unmeltable.”

“Ah, my three musketeers,” came a booming voice. Lord Professor Nathaniel Cormorant shouldered through the crowd, a glass of white wine in each hand. He sipped first from one glass, then the other, and swished the mixture in his mouth before swallowing.

He didn't seem to like what he tasted.

“Problem?” Allaster asked.

“The butler said these were from the same bottle, but he's lying.” He held up the glass in his left hand. “This one was stored higher to the ceiling. I hope you youngsters have been exercising your tongues.”

“I assure you, Professor,” Allaster said, “I give my tongue a regular workout.”

Cynara sighed, and Cormorant shook his head like an indulgent uncle.

“I imagine the party's favorite topic has been the latest attempt on your life, Paul?”

Daniel took a noncommittal sip of champagne.

“You know, it's really not something to take so lightly,” Cormorant said, reproving. “You're the favored candidate for High Grand Osteomancer. Has it occurred to you that whoever's got it in for you is less interested in killing you than in showing you're not able to protect yourself from threats? Nobody wants a weak High Grand Osteomancer.”

“I suppose you could ask the assassin if he finds me weak.”

“Paul turned him to dust,” Allaster said, with an air of confidentiality.

“Little more than a freshman exercise,” Cormorant said, sipping and swishing.

The string quartet ended their piece on an abrupt note and launched into a march. An elderly man made his way through the room, bent under the weight of his outfit: a military dress uniform of pristine white, pinned with medals and ribbons. A circlet of bone crowned the old man's head.

Lord Creighton, the Hierarch's consort, was known in Southern California as the Butcher of Bakersfield. Daniel did not fail to take notice of the scabbarded sword buckled to his belt. It was almost as long as his leg and was said to have separated thousands of soldiers' heads from their necks.

Guests of all ranks bowed deeply as he passed.

When his slow progress finally brought him near, Cormorant and the Dorings bowed almost to the floor, and Daniel joined them.

Creighton took Daniel's forearms and raised him out of his bow, either gently or weakly. “My lord Paul, you look like a wreck.”

“His Lord General is not the first to notice. But I'm sure some time in the Jewel Palace will restore me to my full vigor.”

“I shall see to it,” declared Creighton with the force of conviction one might bring to sealing a military alliance. “We are so pleased to have you home. It feels like the realm has been on hold, ever hopeful for your return. And now that you're back, the wheels of progress spin once more.”

“No one could be more pleased than I, my lord.”

Creighton smiled and nodded heartily. “Indeed. And Her Majesty and I would like to express our regret for the … incident … earlier this afternoon. I have been assured that any reminders of the unpleasantness have been scrubbed from your chambers. But if you should like to be lodged elsewhere, it shall be done.”

“Thank you, Lord General, but I am comfortable where I am.”

“I have looked into the identity of your attacker.”

Daniel wondered what “looked into” meant. He imagined maids and gardeners and houseboys in dark places with apparatus involving ropes and pincers and hot coals.

“From what I have gathered,” Creighton went on, “the assassin was not of our household, but rather of yours. I understand this isn't the first time something of this nature has happened. Will you accept a word of advice from an old hand?”

“I would be grateful, Lord General.”

His advice was unsurprising. “Kill your household. The whole bloody lot of them. Every butler and scullery maid and your head chef and the boy who peels the carrots. Kill the gardeners and your groomsmen and falconer. Kill your chamberlain and your new man, the big one. Build a bonfire in front of your castle and a tank of water and boil them all alive.”

“But if I'm killing them all, who will I get to do the boiling?” Daniel just couldn't resist.

Creighton didn't smile, but there was a gleam in his eye. “I keep experts at this sort of thing on my staff. I'll lend them to you.”

“You're very kind, Lord General. Thank you.”

Dinner was announced soon thereafter, and the meal was mercifully easy to get through. Lord Creighton wasn't present, nor the Hierarch herself, and the chairs were placed around an oversized banquet table so far apart that conversation was physically awkward and easy to avoid. Someone must have decided that the elite of the realm didn't need another opportunity to talk among themselves without their liege present.

After dessert and coffee, Lord Creighton reappeared to personally lead the tour of the Hierarch's treasury.

It was a high, round chamber, paneled in battleship-gray glass. Daniel supposed it was hard as steel, possibly made from the tooth enamel of some monstrous Northern beast. He suppressed the urge to rap his knuckles against the walls.

Massive columns supported a gallery, where archers stood ready at close intervals. The scent of basilisk venom wafted down. A basilisk-laced arrow in the heart would certainly dissuade a thief.

The floor was staffed by a cadre of guards tricked out in helmets, body armor, and machine guns. A little rude for such a classy gathering, maybe, but Daniel couldn't blame the Hierarch. Some thieves needed a lot of dissuasion.

There were other smells—sphinx riddle and nhang locks and Hyakume eyes, and probably more sophisticated things that kept their aromas to themselves.

Glass cases rose in the center of the room like monuments, and they contained marvels: broaches, necklaces, bracelets, rings, tiaras of osteomantic bone.

Creighton dutifully recited the names and histories of these priceless objects, but his interest lay in arms. A breastplate of red and brown dragon scales shimmered on a mannequin at least eight feet tall. There was an entire suit of armor made from serrated megalodon teeth, hippogriff ribs, mammoth tusks, and dragon fangs, rising like horns from the helmet.

“I captured this one myself when I took Oregon,” Creighton confided to Daniel.

But nothing made him prouder than a sword of glossy red, yellow, and orange enamel, like sculpted flame. “Of course, you all know this blade. The Hierarch claimed this as her personal prize in the Battle of Yosemite, right from the hand of the Southern Hierarch.”

“El Serpiente,” Daniel whispered, almost in spite of himself. His father had been the Southern Hierarch's sword smith, and in this beautiful, simple, powerful blade, he saw his father's hand.

“It seems rather a shame, doesn't it?” Lord Creighton said to Daniel. “To keep it locked away in a case. A weapon like this is meant to be wielded.”

“Perhaps, someday, it will be again, Lord General.”

“Indeed, my young lord, indeed.”

Daniel followed along as the tour continued, paying more attention to the treasury itself than the treasure. The flooring alone was worth a king's ransom, with plates of Colombian dragon fused with basilisk hide and hardened steel, with no seams to wedge them apart. Even Daniel's favorite recipe of grootslang and seps venom would take hours to burn through it. And the guard presence was too large and well placed for Daniel to take them out with soporific magic or gorgon blood.

“… but I know none of this is what you were hoping to see,” Creighton was saying. “So, here it is.”

The tour gathered around a case containing a six-foot-long scepter. The rod was crowned by a blue emerald braced in gold and jewels. From the top of the orb thrust a silver dagger, and set in the dagger's base was a black stone, about the size and shape of a guitar pick.