Fool's Gold (46 page)

If you enjoyed

FOOL'S GOLD,

look out for the next Dragon Lords novel,

FALSE IDOLS

by Jon Hollins

Quirkelle Bal Tehrin dreamed of fire. It kindled in her sleep, licked at the feet of her desires and fears, then rose—wings spreading—to the sky, and tore through her subconscious. It was a roiling ocean of flame. It obliterated everything in its wake. She would come awake in the cot she kept in her garret above the Tamathian University, sheets soaked with sweat, and her palmprints scorched into the sheets.

She had yet to work out if the racing of her heart after these nightly visions was from terror or pleasure.

And yet, despite this, there were some things Quirk was certain of in life. That she knew more about dragons than anyone else alive. That such knowledge made her position at the Tamathian University more secure than a princess's chastity belt. And that the Tamarian Emperor's palace was not quite as impressive as he thought it was.

She sat now at his dinner table, two seats away from the man himself. She was flanked by his wife, the Empress, and by his daughter.

The Emperor himself was a small man, in his late fifties, balding, and with his remaining hair cropped to short gray stubble. He was wreathed entirely in gold. Great swirls of fabric encircled his arms, his torso. A great gold neckpiece—which probably weighed almost as much as his birdlike wife—sheathed his neck. His deeply lined face, emerging from its depths, appeared somewhat inadequate in comparison. Religious iconography dangled from him. A medallion inscribed with the scepter of Lawl, king of the gods, bobbled over the neckpiece. The open palm of Klink, god of commerce, was etched into his broad earrings. The wheat sheaves of Toil, god of fertility and the field, were upon his rings.

He had invited her here, as was now his weekly custom, to dine with his family, several highly esteemed courtiers, and a smattering of visiting dignitaries. At first she had served more as a conversation piece than as a source of conversation. Still, over time she had managed to change that.

At that precise moment, his eminence was attacking a small roast partridge and coming off the worse of the two combatants. Orange grease was smeared over his fingers, rings, face, and fabric. He kept spitting small bones in the direction of his plate and missing badly. More than once he had swallowed and then had to signal at a bodyguard to throw an elbow into his sternum so he could hawk up whatever had lodged in his throat.

On the plus side, he had not yet called for the beheading of the chef. He knew now that Quirk did not like that.

“So,” the Emperor said around a mouthful of gristle, pointing a partridge thigh at her like a miniature rapier. “What is it that you make of this business with the Elven king?”

Quirk felt thirty pairs of eyeballs come to rest on her. Nobles, lords, ladies, the Emperor's cousin, two of his bastard children, three ambassadors, and a visiting dignitary from Verra. They all watched her and they waited.

The truth was, of course, that her knowledge of the world made her woefully inadequate to answer the question. She had for most of her life lived in seclusion, first as the personal weapon of a murderous demigod, and then as a hermitlike academic lost in the warren of tunnels of the Tamathian University. The one time she had ventured out into the world she had witnessed the death of seven dragons and just over ten thousand of the inhabitants of Kondorra. It was not a period in her life she would necessarily describe as successful.

And yet, they all waited. They all wanted to know what the world's leading thaumatobiologist and expert on dragons would say.

She wondered if any of them had actually read her papers. Had attended her lectures. She could not imagine the Chancellor of the Exchequer really coming to grips with the inner workings of
Varanus draconis
's digestive tract. He was having enough trouble getting anything other than alcohol into his own.

On such things,
she thought,
the fate of nations fall.

The specific matter the king was referencing was the death of a white hart at the hands of several of his huntsmen. The hart had wandered from the forests of the Vale—which the Elven Court claimed as their own—and into the path of the several huntsmen looking for boar in the Emperor's abutting forest. Not being the sort of men to question providence when it stood in the way of a full purse, the huntsmen promptly shot the hart, skinned it, and sold the hide for a profit that would make even a city merchant blush. Which was all well and good until the Elven king delivered a message stating that the hart was his sovereign property, that the huntsmen were thieves, and that unless they were handed over to him for execution then the consequences would be dire.

Well… that was if she paraphrased the specifics of the Elven dialect. More directly the message had read: “So-called Emperor of all the round-eared fucks in the shit-stain empire of Tamar, give me the round-ear fucks who stole my fucking hart, or I shall come and fuck you. His highest eminence, master of the bowstring, slayer of the round-ear fucks, commander of the Vale forces, fine-aspected Todger IV.”

“Well,” Quirk said, as delicately as it was possible to do so, “given the tone, and content of the letter, I do not honestly believe that King”—she hesitated—“Todger”—she managed as gracefully as she could—“should be entertained in this manner. And furthermore, I do not believe that he can necessarily follow up on his threat to, erm…” She hesitated over this one. “… to violate you.”

“So fuck him,” said one of the nobles, and brayed with laughter. Several other followed suit. There was much stamping of feet, and pounding of golden goblets on the red velvet tablecloth.

Quirk winced, and not just because she was being reminded of the red velvet tablecloth. Sometime she really did need to speak to the Emperor about that particular detail. She raised a delicate finger to indicate that she was not quite done.

“However,” she said, but no one was listening anymore.

The Emperor coughed loudly. All noise stopped. All attention returned to the richest, most powerful man in the room. He glared around at them, then looked back to Quirk. “You were saying?” he said.

Small he might be, but it was rumored that the Emperor had personally throttled two assassins to death after they had killed the rest of his personal guard.

“However,” Quirk said again, “there doesn't seem to be much point in purposelessly angering”—again she hesitated over the name—“King Todger. While he cannot… violate anyone here, his forces can certainly make things difficult for border patrols, and nobody here wants to actually go to war with the elves.”

“I wouldn't mind,” said one lord, who then seemed to realize people could hear him.

“Truly, Lord El Sharred?” said the Emperor. He had a harsh, nasal voice. “You would like to take your cavalry into thick forest and have arrows rain down upon you while you chase men who disappear like ghosts among the branches?”

Lord El Sharred appear to vacillate momentarily between whether he should capitulate to his lord's greater wisdom or attempt to save face in front of his peers. He chose wrong.

“We should burn the place down around their ears,” he said defiantly.

There was more pounding of goblets. The Emperor rolled his eyes. Quirk smiled at him. A question about fire she could answer.

“Have you ever tried to burn living wood, Lord El Sharred?” she asked. “To be honest, I doubt you've even tried to burn dry wood. You have people to do that for you after all, so why bother?” She smiled sweetly and watched as the insults passed over the man's head. “Living wood does not burn like the fire in your hearth at home. It is slow, and smoky, and reluctant. If you were able to get one tree to burn before the elves turned you and your men into novelty pincushions, I would count you very good at your job.”

Now, finally the Emperor laughed. And when he laughed, everyone laughed. Even Quirk laughed. Lord El Sharred turned very red, and nodded, and managed a quick, “I daresay I am,” before retreating back to his goblet.

“As ever,” said the Emperor, once the general mirth had died down, “you have proven yourself of greater wisdom and experience than many of the men who sit here, Professor Bal Tehrin. I ask again, and pray that you can answer without interruption, what would you advise?”

“Merely to send him ten of our own harts, slain, and ready for roasting so that he may feast at our expense. Lives will be spared, and honor will be satisfied.”

The table held its collective breath as the Emperor considered this. Finally he clicked his fingers. Instantly a servant was at his side, eyes angled obsequiously low.

“Tell the huntsmen to kill ten harts and prepare them for delivery to King Todger along with a message expressing my deepest regrets at the unfortunate situation.”

The servant nodded and backed away. The Emperor picked up the last of his partridges, looked at it distastefully, and cast it over his shoulder. “Let's just get to the fucking dessert, shall we?”

No one disagreed.

If you enjoyed

FOOL'S GOLD,

look out for

THE CITY STAINED RED

Bring Down Heaven: Book 1

by Sam Sykes

STEP UP TO THE GATES

After years in the wilds, Lenk and his companions have come to the city that serves as the world's beating heart.

The great charnel house where men die surer than any wilderness.

They've come to claim payment for creatures slain, blood spilled at the behest of a powerful holy man.

And Lenk has come to lay down his sword for good.

But this is no place to escape demons.

Cier'Djaal

Some crappy little boat

First day of Yonder

You can't lie to a sword.

It's a trait you don't often think of between its more practical applications, but part of the appeal of a blade is that it keeps you honest. No matter how much of a hero you might think you are for picking it up, no matter how many evildoers you claim to have smitten with it, it's hard to pretend that steel you carry is good for much else besides killing.

Conversely, a sword can't lie to you.

If you can't use it, it'll tell you. If you don't want to use it, it'll decide whether you should. And if you look at it, earnestly, and ask if there's no other way besides killing, it'll look right back at you and say, earnestly, that it can't quite think of any.

Every day I wake up, I look in the corner of my squalid little cabin. I stare at my sword. My sword stares back at me. And I tell it the same thing I've told it every day for months.

“Soon, we reach Cier'Djaal. Soon, we reach a place where there are ways to make coin without killing. Soon, I'm getting off this ship and I'm leaving you far behind.”

The sword just laughs.

Granted, this probably sounds a trifle insane, but I'm writing in ink so I can't go back and make it less crazy. But if you're reading this, you're probably anticipating the occasional lapse in sanity.

And if you aren't yet, I highly recommend you start. It'll help.

I've killed a lot of things.

I say “things,” because “people” isn't a broad enough category and “stuff” would lead you to believe I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it.

The list thus far: men, women, demons, monsters, giant serpents, giant vermin, regular vermin, regular giants, cattle, lizards, fish, lizardmen, fishmen, frogmen, Cragsmen, and a goat.

Regular goat, mind; not a poisonous magic goat or anything. But he was kind of an asshole.

When I started killing, it seemed like I had good reasons. Survival, I guess. Money, too. But the more I did it, the better I got. And the better I got, the less reason I needed until killing was just something I did.

Easy as shaking a man's hand.

And when it's as easy as shaking a man's hand, you stop seeing open hands. All you see, then, is an empty spot where a sword should be. And will be, if you don't grab yours first.

I'm tired of it.

I don't live in lamentation of my past deeds. I did what I had to, even if I could have thought of something better. I don't hear voices and I don't have nightmares.

Not anymore, anyway.

I guess I'm just tired. Tired of seeing swords instead of hands, tired of looking for chairs against the wall whenever I go into a room, tired of knowing lists instead of people, tired of talking to my sword.

And I'm going to stop. And even if I can't, I have to try.

So I'm going to. Try, that is.

Just as soon as I get my money.

I suppose there's irony in trading blood for gold. Or hypocrisy.

I don't care and I sincerely doubt my employer does, either. Or maybe he does—holy men are odd that way—but he'll pay, anyway. Blood is gold and I've spilled a lot of the former for a considerable sum of the latter.

Ordinarily, you wouldn't think a priest of Talanas, the Healer, would appreciate that much blood. But Miron Evenhands, Lord Emissary and Member in Good Standing of the House of the Vanquishing Trinity, is no ordinary priest. As the former title implies, he's a man with access to a lot of wealth. And as the latter title is just cryptic enough to suggest, he's got a fair number of demons, cultists, and occult oddities to be eradicated.

And eradicate I have, with gusto.

And he has yet to pay. “Temporary barriers to the financial flow,” he tells me. “Patience, adventurer, patience,” he says. And patient I was. Patient enough to follow him across the sea for months until we came here.

Cier'Djaal, the City of Silk. This is the great charnel house where poor men eat dead rich men and become wealthy themselves. This is the city where fortunes are born, alive and screaming. This is the city that controls the silk, the city that controls the coin, the city that controls the world.

This is civilization.

This is what I want now.

My companions, too.

Or so I'd like to think.

It's not as though anyone chooses to be an adventurer, killing people for little coin and even less respect. We all took up the title, and each other's company, with the intent of leaving it behind someday. Cier'Djaal is as good as any a place to do so, I figure.

Though their opinions on our arrival have been… varied.

That Gariath should be against our entrance into any place where he might be required to wear a shirt, let alone a place crawling with humans, is no surprise.

Far more surprising are Denaos's objections—the man who breathes liquor and uses whores for pillows, I would have thought, would feel right at home among the thieves and scum of civilized society.

Asper and Dreadaeleon, happy to be anywhere that has a temple or a wizard tower, were generally in favor of it. Asper for the opportunity to be among civilized holy men, Dreadaeleon for the opportunity to be away from uncivilized laymen, both for the opportunity to be in a place with toilets.

When I told Kataria, she just sort of stared.

Like she always does.

Which made my decision as to what to do next fairly easy. This will be the last of our time spent together. Once I've got my money, once I can leave my sword behind, I intend to leave them with it.

Their opinions on this have been quiet.

Possibly because I haven't told them yet.

Probably because I won't until I'm far enough away that I can't hear my sword laughing at me anymore.