Red Tide (18 page)

And the Gilgamarians had followed them here? Karmel hadn't spotted anyone when she checked her backtrail, but maybe Lydanto's watchers had guessed her destination and gone a different way.

“You've been looking for us?” Caval said.

“No.”

“Ah, then why are we talking?”

Lydanto collected his thoughts. “For you to understand, I must first be going back a way. You have been hearing what happened on Imerle's flagship on Dragon Day?”

Caval's face gave nothing away. “Rumors only.”

“Then you are doubtless aware that Imerle was inviting certain of her opponents on board to take part in the Dragon Day festivities. Among those opponents was Kalisch Rethell Webb, first speaker of the Gilgamarian Ruling Council, along with his daughter, Agenta. When the Dragon Gate went up, Imerle's mage, Orsan, was unleashing a wave of water-magic upon the
Icewing
in order to cripple it and thus render it—how do you say?—a sitting goose.” He looked at Karmel. “Stop me if you are knowing this already.”

There went Karmel's hope of him not placing her. But even if he recognized her from the
Crest,
he couldn't know the significance of her being on board that day.

“And then?” Caval said, continuing the pretense that this was new to him.

“And then fortunately the kalisch foresaw Imerle's treachery, and had his own ship standing by to rescue the
Icewing.
But not before the kalisch himself was being killed.”

“Yet his daughter survived, I take it.”

Lydanto nodded. “She was braving the dragons to sail back to Olaire in search of the vengeance against Imerle. Along with Iqral here”—he gestured to the male guard by the doorway—“she was in the palace when it was flooded. Alas, they were separated. That is the last time she was being seen alive.”

“Ah, and you think we might know what happened to her?”

“You were in the palace too. Or at least the Chameleons were.”

“Along with half of Olaire. Most of whom were trying to kill us, as I recall.”

“Agenta would have been with a party of soldiers wearing the uniforms like Iqral here.”

Caval's gaze flickered to the guard. “Very dashing.”

Karmel frowned. What was wrong with her brother today? Was he looking for a fight? To Lydanto she said, “Even if we knew what this woman looked like, surely you don't expect us to remember one face among all the others we saw that day.”

A ghost of a smile crossed the ambassador's face. “If you had been seeing the kalischa, you would not be forgetting her.” His smile withered. “I am fortunate to be having some contacts at the palace. They are telling me the commander of Agenta's forces, a man named Warner Sturge, survived Dragon Day, only later to be dying of his injuries.” Something in Lydanto's voice said he had doubts concerning the manner of the man's passing. “But there has been no word of Agenta. Perhaps she died on Dragon Day. Or perhaps, like Warner, she was suffering a wound and is now being treated at the palace.”

“The palace,” Caval repeated. “As in the place we just came from.”

Lydanto regarded him coolly. “You may be assured I will be taking my questions to Mazana Creed in due course. But not before I have been exhausting all other options.”

Karmel's skin prickled. Was that a threat? He'd put just enough emphasis on “all” to make it clear he would not leave without answers.

The ambassador went on, “I am not asking you to be telling me what you were doing in the palace on Dragon Day. I am not asking you to be telling me how Imerle met her end. I am just wanting to know if Agenta is alive. And if not, where her body can be found.”

Caval made to speak, but Karmel got in first. “I'm sorry, there's nothing we can tell you. Before the palace was flooded, the only people we saw were Storm Guards.”

“And after?”

“After,” Caval said, “we were more concerned about steering clear of strangers than introducing ourselves.”

Karmel had to offer Lydanto something, so she said, “When the corridors filled with water, we climbed to the terraces. If Agenta survived the flooding, perhaps she escaped that way too.”

“And left Warner behind, injured? I am thinking not. And if she had been escaping, where is she now? Dragon Day was eleven days ago. It is not as if she could be getting lost for all that time.”

Caval was in again. “It seems you've answered your own question, then. Better than we can, certainly.”

Lydanto took a breath and blew it out. His gaze on Caval was steady, but his hands had a tremble to them. Karmel studied the man, trying to read his thoughts. There was suffering there, she realized. A suffering beyond that of an ambassador inquiring after the fate of his citizen. What had this Agenta been to him? How far was he prepared to go to hunt her down? Something in his expression told Karmel he wanted to believe the Chameleons' story, but how could he be sure of their honesty? Maybe a more … vigorous mode of questioning would get him better answers. Could he afford to pass up this opportunity?

Karmel looked toward the open door, wondering if Lydanto had reinforcements outside. Would he risk a confrontation with the Chameleons on home ground? Would he gamble his soldiers' lives when he had no guarantee Caval and Karmel were holding out on him? More to the point, could he question them more forcefully if he had to? Did he have the steel? The ruthlessness?

He stared down at his hands, perhaps deliberating the same.

Then he replaced the cap on his flask, rose, and crossed to the door. Without a backward look, he walked out.

*   *   *

Floating in spirit-form above the bailey of Dresk's fortress, Amerel looked up at the Great Hall's solitary tower. Where in the Matron's name was Talet? The spy was supposed to be at the second-floor window, ready to signal Noon when the stone-skins arrived. But with the seventh bell fast approaching, the opening remained dark and empty.

She'd been a fool not to make sure of Talet's allegiance at their meeting. Instead of using a nudge of her Will, she should have bludgeoned him with it until he was a mindless husk incapable of independent thought—until he'd forgotten the name of that son of his, along with the name of every friend he had in this godforsaken city. When had she ever settled for half measures before? Why should she start now with the stakes so high?

Never again.
When you took half measures, you only got halfway to where you wanted to go.

Not a breath of wind stirred the rag that passed for a flag on the Great Hall's flagpole. From the distant harbor came laughter and shouting and whistling ashpipes. By contrast the Old Town round the fortress was silent. The sun had set below the western battlements, plunging the bailey into shadow. At the center of the yard, a group of Rubyholters waited to greet the stone-skins. Among them was Galantas, standing a pace ahead of his kinsmen and doing his best to look like his presence conferred an honor on the others in attendance. He wore a sharkskin cape and a necklace of shark's teeth.

Okay, he had a shark thing going on. Amerel got it.

A dozen guards were scattered around the bailey, and another thirty manned the battlements. They might as well have been made of straw for all the use they'd be in a scrap. A group of them sat with their legs dangling into the yard, passing a bottle between them. The next woman to receive it leaned back drunkenly and ended up tipping its contents over her face to a chorus of hoots and giggles. Farther along the wall, a man with a crossbow resting on his shoulder was standing in the exact place Noon's bolt would pass on its way to the engraved flagstone. But what did that matter now that Talet wasn't around to give the Breaker his signal?

She looked up at the tower window.

Nothing.

The seventh bell rang, and as the echoes faded Amerel heard footsteps outside the guardhouse.
The stone-skins.
Right on time, damn them. Looking left through the gates, Amerel saw a group of twenty Augerans approaching, eight of whom carried four huge chests between them. Only twenty warriors? It spoke of the stone-skins' arrogance that they considered twenty a sufficient guard to escort twenty thousand talents through the streets of a pirate city. But who was to say they hadn't started the journey with more men?

Behind them came a hungry-eyed crowd, drawn to the weight of gold as if it exerted its own gravity. A man shouted, “Just one coin, that's all I'm asking!” Another called, “Drinks are on Dresk tonight!” and his words drew a cheer. Somehow Amerel doubted the warlord's generosity extended even that far. He'd have to spend the money soon on
something,
though, that much was clear. When his subjects had spent their lives stealing whatever they wanted from whomever they wanted, they were unlikely to change their ways just because the “whomever” was Dresk himself. And while the warlord had a fortress and guards to keep the rabble at bay, who would protect him from the guards themselves?

The stone-skins entered the bailey, resplendent in their crimson cloaks. One of Dresk's men on the battlements gave a mocking wolf whistle, but the laughter that followed was forced. Even Amerel had to admit she was impressed by the size and build of the Augerans. Yet even more striking was their sense of self-assurance—a sense that, were the entire city to turn against them, they would still expect to win through unscathed. Judging by the quality of the forces arrayed against them, they might be right too.

Amerel recognized the commander, Eremo, from Talet's description. An upright man with a receding hairline, he wore an expression that just failed to disguise the disdain in which he held his hosts. Next to him was the man mountain Amerel had noticed from the brothel's window. His skin was a darker tone than that of his companions, and on his cheeks were golden tattoos in spiral patterns that marked him as one of the elite Augeran warriors referred to in the ancient texts as Syns. Behind him was a handsome man with a whiff of power about him—a power that felt so alien to Amerel he seemed like nothing less than a tear in the fabric of reality.

His was not the most unsettling presence among the group, though. For at the rear came the man with the spiked hair, skipping along like it was the first day of spring. His face was a patchwork of scars, and blood trickled from a cut beneath his left eye, making it seem as if he were weeping red tears. Just looking at him left Amerel feeling like there were bloodroaches crawling over her skin. That sense of being watched was back, too—the sense she'd first experienced when she'd observed the Augerans crossing the market. The urge to withdraw was strong, but what if Talet suddenly appeared in the tower window? Besides, having died a thousand deaths at the hands of the Deliverer, there was nothing in this world that held any fear for Amerel now.

No fear for herself, at least.

Galantas did not move to greet his guests, but instead held his ground so the stone-skins had to come to him. Eremo took in the defenders on the battlements, then went to join him. Walking a step in front of his kinsmen, the commander would have presented a clear target for Noon's crossbow bolt. But there was still no sign of Talet in the window.

Galantas and Eremo shook hands.

What now?
Amerel wondered. All was not yet lost. Dresk and Eremo still had to negotiate the treaty, meaning there was time for Talet to take his position before the stone-skins made their exit. And if he never showed, Amerel could always return to her body when Eremo reemerged from the fortress, and tell Noon to shoot his crossbow blind into the yard. It wouldn't matter if he missed the commander, provided the stone-skins saw the missile and misinterpreted it as a Rubyholt attack.

In the meantime, Amerel would look round the fortress and see if she could find whichever rock Talet had crawled under.

*   *   *

As Galantas watched Eremo scrutinize the guards, a suspicion gripped him that Dresk had been played for a fool. That this talk of gold and treaties had been nothing more than a ruse to get the stone-skins into the fortress so they could mount an assault. Those chests didn't really contain twenty thousand talents. Hells, the black-cloaked warriors who'd carried them from the harbor weren't even out of breath. A couple of Red Cloaks had their swords out, and they seemed in no hurry to sheathe them. But no, he told himself, if the Augerans intended treachery, they would have brought more than twenty warriors.

Then again, being outnumbered hadn't exactly hindered them against Yali's ships.

Eremo looked less than pleased to find Galantas waiting for him. Either he was anticipating a rough ride in the negotiations to come, or he'd heard about the Falcon boy Galantas had rescued. In his party was the warrior Ostari whom he had spoken to on the
Eternal.
The man was trying to catch Galantas's eye now, but Galantas ignored him. He watched the Black Cloaks set down the four chests. They hit the ground with a reassuring clink. Meaning the money was real. Twenty thousand talents! All that gold, and Dresk's plans for it probably extended no further than tipping it across the Great Hall and squatting on it like some dragon of legend. When Galantas replaced his father, he would use it to build a capital worthy of the Isles, to unlock the wealth tied up in the karmight mines to the south, to recruit a force drawn from the best warriors and sailors and bring an end to the years of infighting between the tribes.

Soon now. It would start with the clan leaders' meeting at the Hub the day after tomorrow.

Dresk appeared in the fortress's archway. Judging by the glaze to his eyes, he'd been drinking again. He beckoned Eremo to him, and the commander set off across the yard, flanked by Hex and the warrior with the golden tattoos. The chest bearers lifted the chests and followed, Galantas a pace behind. Dresk stepped aside to let the stone-skins pass, but blocked Galantas with an arm.