12 – A Surprise Benefactor

  Ward and Haley were given quarters on the fourth floor of the central Assembly Hall tower—the Visionary Tower. Ward had learned that the three enormous marble statues atop the towers represented the three “aspects” of the Vainglory Assembly: the Scholar, the Judge, and the Visionary. When Chancellor Veylan had suggested they’d be housed in quarters meant for visiting dignitaries, Ward had envisioned opulent apartments meant to impress, but the reality was a lot more utilitarian.

  Their apartments, located across the hall from each other, featured a small sitting area, a kitchen equipped with a peculiar, magi-tech copper icebox, a comfortable bed, and a compact bathroom. The accommodations were fine; they just weren’t exactly luxurious. After he’d stowed his gear, again frustrated that he didn’t trust his host to keep his treasures safe, he slung his satchel over his shoulder and went over to Haley’s room.

  He knocked, and she called, “Come in!” He found her hanging her clothing in the wardrobe opposite her bed.

  “Haley!” Grace cried, having been apart from the young woman for all of an hour since leaving the inn.

  “Hey, Grace,” Haley chuckled.

  “What am I? Chopped liver?” Ward asked, affecting a wounded expression. Grace looked at him like he was something very old and gross stuck to the bottom of her shoe, and Haley raised an eyebrow, trying to make sense of the idiom. In an attempt to save some level of coolness, Ward waved aside his rhetorical question. “I haven’t heard anything from the Assembly or that asshole, Veylan, so I’m assuming we can do what we want today. Any plans?”

  Haley looked up from a blouse she was delicately fitting to a broad, wooden hanger. “I’m going to find a Gopah school, and I’d like to check in with Fitz.”

  Ward rubbed his chin, nodding. He was a little surprised by her quick answer and also by the way she phrased her intentions; she’d very clearly said “I” and not some form of “we.” He knew better than to take it personally; those were two things that he didn’t necessarily have an interest in, and she knew it. Gopah was her thing, and, for all he knew, she wanted to be alone with Fitz so she could do a little flirting; their mutual attraction hadn’t been very well hidden during the voyage.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Grace sighed, flopping on Haley’s bed.

  “You’re silly, Grace! And you’ll hurt Ward’s feelings if you keep that up.”

  “Feelings?” Ward snorted. “Who says I have any of those?” Smiling, he stepped a little closer to Haley. “Tell you what, I’ll leave you alone to visit with Fitz without my overbearing presence, but I want you to talk to him about the Garden Gate challenge. I’d like to see what it’s about and if he has the connections to get us an entry. If the Assembly is going to keep us on a leash, we might as well make use of the opportunities available to us here in the city.”

  “I’ll do that! I’m interested, too.” She hung the blouse inside the wardrobe and then looked at him, folding her arms across her chest. “Are you going to find Trent Roy? You should continue your sword practice, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I might do what Lisa and I did back in Westview—find an actual instructor. Roy’s great, but his style is very different from mine.” He sighed heavily, nodding. “All right. I’ll leave you to it. Sorry, Grace, you’re stuck with me.”

  “It’s fine. Are you going to find one of those aetherometers?”

  Ward nodded. “Not a bad idea. I’ll do some shopping around.”

  “See you around dinner time?” Haley asked, walking with him to the door.

  “Sure. We’ll see what they do around here for meals.” He waved, then slipped out, heading for the stairs. His boot heels were noisy on the polished marble, but it didn’t keep his lycan senses from picking up a conversation in the stairwell. He sniffed, recognizing spicy cologne, flowery perfume, and the musky, heady scent of something else. Ward adjusted his sword on his belt, ensuring the hilt was near at hand, then continued.

  He'd reached the end of the corridor and was approaching the wide stair landing when a familiar gray head came into view. Judicator Coral saw him, and his dark eyes opened as he offered a broad smile, “Mr. Dyer. I’ve just come looking for you.” He turned over his shoulder and addressed someone Ward couldn’t see. “This is he, Gwen.”

  Ward continued forward, curious to see whom he was speaking to, and saw a short, mousy-looking woman with dark, curly hair, wearing a drab brown robe over her rather plump figure. Her face was unremarkable, but her eyes were striking—they gleamed with a blue-tinted inner light. “Hello,” he said, shifting his gaze from the woman back to Coral.

  The older man nodded and gestured to a tall rectangular window at the top of the landing. “Come, stand with me in the sun. I’ll introduce you to my sorcerous companion here.” He walked toward the window without awaiting a reply, and Ward followed. As soon as the three of them stood in the wide sunlit section of marble, Coral said, “This is Gwen, and I employ her to work certain magics in my favor. My favorite skill of hers is the ability to hide my most personal conversations from prying eyes, ears, and sorcerous workings. Would you mind if she protected our conversation in such a manner?”

  Ward looked at the woman, and she offered him a shy smile. He was intrigued, to say the least. The idea that she could shield their conversation was one thing, but the judicator’s offhand comment about people spying with “sorcerous workings” had opened his mind to all sorts of new paranoia. It made sense, he supposed. If he could drag secrets out of the past, why wouldn’t there be spells to find secrets in the present? He nodded. “Fine with me.”

  “Go on, Gwen.” Coral’s voice was encouraging, almost like a father speaking to a young child.

  Gwen cleared her throat and closed her eyes, and then a string of words of power drifted out of her mouth—the softest words of power Ward had ever heard; they came out like whispers that slithered and echoed down the hallway, and they didn’t cause him an ounce of discomfort. Even Judicator Coral, who didn’t have any apparent sorcerous leanings, only winced slightly. Despite their innocuous utterance, Ward struggled to grasp even one of the words; they slithered in and out of his ears, a string of meaningless consonants and vowels.

  “We are hidden,” she announced, folding her arms over her bosom and turning to stare out the window.

  “Well, then. Ward—may I call you Ward?”

  Ward looked down at the stoop-backed man. He was broad of shoulder and looked robust and vigorous despite his age. His eyes were clear and sharp—dark, dark brown, like pools of blackstrap molasses. “Sure you can.”

  “In that case, feel free to address me by my given name: Vott.” When Ward nodded, he continued, “I was impressed by your composure during your hearing. Were you aware that several committee members thought to bait you into a rage? There’s a good deal of prejudice against the lycan bloodline in this city.”

  “Ah.” Ward chuckled, shaking his head. “I’m familiar with the workings of bureaucracies. Let’s just say I’ve been inoculated to the frustrations they tend to inflict upon their constituents.”

  “Hah! Well said, well said.” He leaned a little closer and sniffed noisily. “Do you smell that? You’ve met others with lycan blood, haven’t you?”

  Ward narrowed his eyes and inhaled, carefully savoring the plethora of scents that danced through his olfactory organs. He smelled the perfume coming from Gwen and the faint, spicy cologne on the older man. He also smelled eggs, bacon fat, something like grass or hay, and, under it all, that cloying, musky scent that both was and wasn’t body odor. Some sort of pheromone? He nodded, slowly. “I think I smell what you mean, and, no, I haven’t met any others. I only woke up my bloodline when I came to the Vainglory System.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Ah! Truly? Well, that scent you have in your nose is me, my friend. I’ve a bit of lycan blood, as well. Not nearly so much as you! I still have to guard myself during certain times of year—heavy locks on the doors and bars on the window, hah!”

  “Oh?” Ward filed away the little anecdote; it seemed like it might have been the right move to uncover more of his bloodline so quickly. “Less, um, evolved means less control?”

  “With lycan’s aye. The more prominent it is, the more present the beast will be, and the more closely in sync it will be with your human half. When my beast comes upon me, it’s after months of solitude, and it wants out!” The man growled the last word, laughing.

  Ward nodded toward Gwen. “Is that why the secrecy? You don’t want others to know about your blood—”

  “No, no!” Coral waved his hand. “Everyone knows of my so-called curse. No, we’re under Gwen’s protection because you need to understand that there are Assembly members who, even now, plot your demise. Did you not feel the animosity from the chancellor?”

  Ward snorted. “Veylan?”

  “Indeed. That noblewoman he brought up during the hearing—Shelly Ewens? That was his niece.”

  “Ah.” Ward nodded, unsurprised. He’d figured there was something personal going on. “And he has allies, I’m assuming. The people who voted against me?”

  “Yes, among others. He’s a rather influential man. Of the hundred and sixty-seven members of the Assembly, he’s ranked in the top ten, certainly.”

  “There’s a ranking?” Ward arched an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest.

  “Well, in my mind, he’s in the top ten; there’s no official list. I’m not here just to warn you of that, however. Something tells me you’re savvy enough to sense the danger of having powerful people holding a grudge against you. No, I’m here because I’m worried about that cult—I don’t believe it was only in Westview.”

  Ward chuckled and leaned closer to the older man. “Isn’t that why I’m here? Isn’t Veylan going to investigate the possibility?”

  Vott Coral winked and nodded. “Aye, but, in my well-studied opinion, that’s a bit like having a wolf investigate some missing chickens.”

  “Ah! You think, like his niece, the chancellor’s been compromised by the, um, Circle of Thorns?”

  Vott shook his head. “I believe the Circle of Thorns is a menace local to Cinder, but they are part of a wider, much more cancerous infection in the entire Vainglory System. I wouldn’t utter these words without Gwen’s protection, nor would I say them to a near stranger, but Ward, somehow, you’re caught in the web of this mess. Can I rely on you to continue to stand against this threat? This Umbrage? That’s what my allies and I call the group and their sinister influence.”

  Ward sighed and scratched at the rough stubble on his jawline. “I don’t know what you have in mind for me, but, as you said, I’m kind of in the middle of it already. If you’re right about Veylan, I have a feeling my days of peace are numbered. What are my odds of slipping out of the city, getting on a living ship, and disappearing on one of the other worlds?”

  Coral chuckled, shaking his head. “Not good, my friend. Veylan has much influence at the Proving Gate, and you’d need to go through there to board passage off-world.”

  “You have to go through there to leave, too?”

  “Yes, though the process is quite a lot quicker.” Coral reached out to grasp Ward’s shoulder with surprisingly strong fingers. “Can I count on you, then?”

  “You can count on me not to let Veylan kill me, yeah.” Ward sighed and shook his head. “Shit! I think you know that if I can do something to help good people from being hurt by some evil demonic spirits, I will.”

  A smile split Coral’s lips, and he nodded vigorously. “I did get that feeling. Well, I sense a talent in you, that’s for sure—a strength of spirit that doesn’t always go hand in hand with physical or sorcerous capabilities. We must cultivate that. In the battles to come, you must be at your best. Tell me, do you have more than one bloodline?”

  Ward nodded but didn’t elaborate. He might like the old guy, but he wasn’t about to start trusting him with all of his secrets. The grizzled old fellow grinned. “Good. You should be cagey. What do you know of me other than what I’ve told you? Listen, Ward, the fact you’ve got more than one bloodline but still managed to advance your lycan one into prominence—well, that’s quite fortunate. I’m assuming you used bloodline elixirs out of challenges, yes?”

  “Yeah.” Ward didn’t see the harm in that question.

  Coral nodded, stroking his neat gray beard. “To reach the level where you have such control, you must have consumed more than one. The way those elixirs work is known to be rather random. They could have improved any one of your bloodlines. Since you mentioned having more than one, I’ll let you do the math on the likelihood that they all affect your lycan bloodline. What I’m saying is you’re luckier than most; I, myself, have tried to gain greater control of my lycan blood, but I’ve wasted two very rare opportunities by consuming elixirs that marginally improved another of my bloodlines—one I wasn’t eager to enhance.”

  “Are you intending to—”

  “Not at my age. The risk is too great that my less favorable bloodline will gain dominance. It’s already in opposition to my lycan blood, so I deal with that conflict daily.” He grunted and glanced over his shoulder. At first, Ward thought he was looking to see if someone was coming up the stairs, but then he realized the man was indicating the hunch on his shoulders. What bloodline would do that? “In any case,” Coral continued, turning back to look Ward in the eyes, “do you have a decent hemograph or aetherometer?”

  “I have a hemograph. I’m not sure if it’s a good one—”

  “Does it give details on your bloodlines—their integration and your tolerance? It’s critical knowledge if you’re going to stay on top of your advancement.”

  Ward shook his head. “It doesn’t.”

  “Gwen, give him Doctor Croix’s card.” Coral continued while the woman searched her pockets, “He’s an excellent artificer. He’ll have what you need, and if you tell him I sent you, he’ll treat you more than fairly.”

  Gwen held out a square-shaped piece of cardstock, and Ward took it. “Thank you.”

  Coral pressed on with the conversation, “Well? What are your plans? I understand you’re something of an adventurer. Will you attempt the challenges in the city? Best do so quickly before Veylan finds an excuse to arrest your movements.” He held up a hand as though to calm Ward, who hadn’t so much as frowned. “Don’t worry—my allies and I are working to make things difficult for him.”

  Again, Ward folded his arms over his chest. “All right. Well, listen, if you’re really worried about Veylan being in that cult, you'd better keep an eye on that artifact. You heard True’s testimony; you heard mine. If someone with real power, someone like a sorcerer with red-glowing eyes, for instance, were to use that thing, I wouldn’t want to be one of his enemies.”

  To Ward’s surprise, Gwen chuckled softly. Coral glared at her. “Control yourself, Gwen.” Turning to Ward, he added, “She’s amused that you consider Veylan powerful. I’m sure by Cinder standards he is, though here in Ordo Caelus, there are no fewer than a hundred sorcerers of equal or greater power—Gwen, for instance.”

  Ward gave the woman another measured stare, taking in the blue gleam coming around her pale brown irises. He had so many questions, but some instinct in his gut wouldn’t let him just start blurting them out. Some cop instinct told him to act like he knew more than he let on, and he didn’t know if it was just a defense mechanism or if he really shouldn’t trust these two people. He nodded, nonetheless, and said, “My warning stands. Keep an eye on that artifact.”

  “Noted, good sir. It’s well guarded in the catacombs beneath this very building.”

  “As for the challenges, I was interested in that Garden Gate. When I saw the entrance, something about it piqued my curiosity.”

  “Ah, hmm!” Coral rubbed his chin again. “Have you a sponsor?”

  “Um, sort of. My companion is meeting with him today—”

  “She passed a few moments ago,” Gwen interjected.

  Ward whirled to look at the stairs. “She did?”

  Gwen nodded. “My spell makes us…less noticeable. Conversely, it obscures the world from those within it. Naturally, as the caster, I’m immune to the effect.”

  “Gwen,” Coral said, holding up a hand. “Don’t monopolize the conversation.” He turned back to Ward. “As for your sponsor, have him contact me. I have some strings I can pull. We’ll get you into the challenge before the week’s out if we work together, I’m sure.”

  Ward cleared his throat, a little uncomfortable at the unsolicited offer of aid. “You’d do that?”

  “As I said, Ward. We’re in a war for the soul of the Vainglory System. I need to help promising soldiers gain power.” He looked at Gwen again. “On that note, a show of good faith. Gwen?” The woman frowned, an expression that looked almost like a pout, as she reached into her robe and pulled out a folded and wax-sealed piece of parchment. “A gift from Gwen on my behalf—a copy of this spell that allows us to speak so discretely. You’ll need it if you’re going to survive in opposition to powerful people in this city.”

  Surprised but pleased, Ward reached out to take the page, but Gwen didn’t release it immediately. She glared at him with those intense eyes as she said, “Speaking of surviving, be prepared to answer duels. There are those who serve the Umbrage in this city who will seek you out and attempt to end your existence through legal, open means.”

  Coral cleared his throat, reaching over to pull Gwen’s hand away from the spell. “Yes, though they’ll have to match his strength, won’t they? No sapphires like you will trouble him.” He reached out to grasp Ward’s shoulder again. “And that won’t take into account bloodlines. A prominent lycan can stand against many who might otherwise win. Tell me, Ward, have you uncovered all of your beasts?”

  “My beasts? Plural?” Ward asked before he could stop himself—before his paranoia told him to act like he knew what the Assemblyman was talking about.

  The older man grinned and nodded. “Many of us have more than one primal personality lurking in our blood. You’ll learn in time if you do.” He looked at Gwen and jerked his chin toward the stairs. “Come, we’ve two more meetings today. Good luck, Ward. I’ll be in touch. Have your man contact me regarding that challenge!”

  Gwen nodded and waved a hand, and suddenly, a pressure Ward hadn’t realized was there faded. The stairwell seemed to brighten, and he heard the distant hum of conversation and activity. He watched Gwen and the gruff older man descend the stairs, and then he lifted the sealed spell page, turning it this way and that. He was eager to learn the spell, but he was already on his way out. He tucked the page into his leather satchel and then held up the little address card for the artificer, Doctor Croix. “And now I have somewhere to go.”