Chapter 25 – Shadows in the Streets
The night passed fitfully for both Zaphyr and Zull, who awoke on several occasions. Their sleep was plagued by horrific nightmares, amalgamations of their confrontation with Choler, their days as captives of Sangue, and that night, which seemed ages ago by now, when Gerok had died in the fire. Several times both bolted awake, drenched in sweat and trembling, before realizing that it was nothing more than a dream and that they were, for the moment, safe with Sir Kyr and the others. It took longer and longer each time to get back to sleep, and the coming of dawn was a welcome relief to both twins, as it allowed them to turn their attention away from the horrors of the past and towards the challenges of the present.
“We’re running low on supplies,” Argus Vyle told them all as they gathered around a tiny fire he had built in the center of the empty barn. “I’m roasting the last of the venison as we speak, our canteens are nearly empty, and we used up more than half our arrows and quarrels fighting off Sangue and Aldus’ pets.”
“Then I will have to head back into town, buy more supplies,” Vard said.
“Can we afford to wait that long?” Sir Kyr asked, before breaking into a fit of coughing which he covered with the back of one hand. After the fit had passed, he continued, “Every day we wait, the Master moves forward with his own plans and the Empress is put in ever greater danger.”
And you grow weaker, the twins thought in unison, though neither they nor anyone else wanted to say what they were all thinking aloud.
“If we don’t, we’ll go hungry for the next two days, until we reach Melkis,” Shaw, one of Vyle’s men, said. “If we get into a fight in Melkis, we’ll want to do it on full stomachs. I think it is in our best interests to wait a few hours, if it means we can eat.”
“Lord Vyle, your men are as wise as you are,” Sir Kyr said with a slight bow directed towards Shaw. “I will add, however, that I think that the twins should go with Vard.”
This surprised everyone, who looked at Sir Kyr with expressions ranging from surprise to amusement to curiosity. Sangue especially seemed intrigued by this, as, eyes narrowed, she studied his face carefully. The twins noted that Sangue looked noticeably unhealthier than she had the night before, her skin having taken on an even paler shade and having become unnaturally clammy, to the point of looking more akin to a corpse than a living person. Her lips had turned a pale blue and had shriveled somewhat, giving her a perpetual leering grin. All of this, combined with her fixation on Sir Kyr, made her look like an ancient hag who had just selected Sir Kyr as her next victim.
“That seems unnecessarily reckless to me, Sir Kyr,” Vard protested. “Doesn’t the Master have their physical description?”
“Yes,” Sir Kyr conceded. “However, he expects them to be guarded by a large, brutish knight: in a word, myself. In the crowd of Veb, without my presence to draw attention, it should be easy for them to blend it, to hide. They should be safe, perhaps even safer than they would be in the countryside.”
“I suppose,” Vard said uneasily. “But why would they need to come along? I am well acquainted with purchasing the necessary supplies for long travels.”
Sir Kyr nodded his head, as if conceding the point. “That is true, Vard, but, there is something you’re overlooking: we will soon be arriving at the capital, and meeting with the Empress herself.” He gestured to the twins, who were wearing the same beige apprenticeship robes they had been wearing since fleeing from Verun. They were torn and worn through in many places and caked with mud and dirt from their journey. To a stranger, the twins would most likely have looked like street urchins, begging for a living. “It would be unacceptable for them to see the ruler of all Waed dressed as such. Leaving aside issues such as honor and respect, do you really think the Empress will agree to meet with someone dressed like beggars? They will at the very least need new clothes from a tailor, to appear presentable.”
“Yelezna was always a stickler about fashion,” Vyle muttered, fidgeting with his mustache as he did so.
“I hadn’t thought such a triviality would be a concern,” Vard said, eyebrow raised in confusion. “Will not Gerok’s letter be enough to help them obtain an audience with the Empress?”
“If she does not assume they stole it, and have them arrested,” Sir Kyr countered.
Vard turned to Vyle. “You’re the one whose plunder is financing all of this. Are you sure you want it spent on such…frivolity?”
Vyle considered, stroking his mustache contemplatively. “I don’t see any reasons against it,” he admitted at last.
Zaphyr, grabbing Vard by the arm, pleaded, “Let us come along, Vard. Getting out and seeing the town will be good for us.”
Zull said nothing, instead studying Sangue and Sir Kyr, who appeared to be silently communing with one another.
“Very well,” Vard said, sighing at last in defeat. “You two can come along. After we have breakfast, we will head into town.”
Vard was good to his word, and once they had all finished eating, he took the twins along with him into the town of Veb, just as the market stalls were beginning to open for the day. Vard had a bag full of golden thrones, given to him by Vyle, which would be more than enough to purchase all the supplies they would need.
After spending several weeks in the wilderness, the return to the relative normality of civilization was like a splash of cold water in the face for both Zaphyr and Zull. The constant hubbub of people all around them was almost distracting, and the overpowering stench of countless humans living near each other, a smell they had lived with their entire lives before leaving Verun, now seemed alien to them. Veb was very different from Verun in other crucial ways, however. The most immediate and obvious difference was in the size: Veb was much smaller than Verun, little more than a hub through which people passed to their true destinations. But there were many more differences than that.
The buildings were tall, thin, and narrow, and many looked as if they had been built centuries previously, and then slowly added onto and modified over time. Clearly, Veb was a far older town than Verun, one with an ancient, complicated history all its own. Merchants and buyers were bustling about them, setting up or inspecting brightly colored stalls with signs hung about them, painted in garish blues, yellows, and reds proudly advertising their products of choice. In all the hubbub and chaos, the twins oddly felt safer than they had since leaving Verun. While Zull tried to withdraw into himself, become as unnoticeable as possible, Zaphyr took the time to wave and smile at some of the passer-byes, including one bland-faced young man who smiled and waved back at her, before they moved on, led by Vard. We’re droplets in the ocean, leaves in the storm, Zaphyr thought. No one could pick us out of a crowd like this.
As they wandered throughout and between the stalls, eying the wares of each in turn, Vard spoke once more, saying idly, “I’m surprised Sir Kyr would care so much about your appearances. It didn’t strike me as the sort of thing he would be concerned about.”
“It was a pretense,” Zull said simply.
Vard stopped, hand hovering above a particularly ripe looking apple in a vendor’s stall, before turning to look at Zull, eyes narrowed in concern. “What do you mean?”
“He wanted to talk with Sangue, without either Zaphyr or I there to listen in to what they would say to each other,” Zull said with a shrug. “That’s why he wanted us away from her, for the morning.”
Vard absorbed this information, biting his nails distractedly as his mind raced. “I see. I wonder what he wanted to discuss with her, exactly.”
Zull frowned thoughtfully. “I have a reasonable guess.” He explained to Vard what he had told Zaphyr the night before, how the blood bindings allowing both Sangue and Sir Kyr to live were slowly failing.
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“So, they’re both going to die,” Vard said flatly. “And they are planning on discussing what they can do to prevent or delay their deaths.”
“Most likely. As it is, they probably only have another couple of days before the blood bindings stop working all together.”
Vard ran his hands through his hair and whistled softly, attracting looks of confusion from several nearby wanderers walking through the maze of market stalls. “Is there any way to prevent it?”
“Only if another hemomancer were to reforge the bond,” Zull said. “And neither Zaphyr nor I have the skill yet to create blood bindings anywhere near that complex. It’s why I’ve been trying to learn from Sangue everything I can, but blood bindings are a technique which take years of practice and study to master, not a single week.”
“And all because Vyle, in a moment of righteous fury, killed Aldus,” Vard said thoughtfully. “Is Vyle aware of this?”
“No,” Zull said emphatically. “And I think we shouldn’t tell him. Knowing that he was indirectly responsible for killing his friend would tear him apart.”
Vard shook his head slowly. “I don’t approve, but I see why you would think so. I will hold my tongue, until you two or Sir Kyr says otherwise.”
“Thank you,” Zaphyr said, hugging Vard to his evident surprise.
“All right, lass, calm down,” Vard said. “Let’s get the rest of the supplies and return to the farmstead. While I’m sure Sir Kyr could take care of himself, and no doubt he is discussing with Sangue ways to protect them both, I trust that poisonous snake pretending to be a human approximately as far as I could throw her – which is to say, not at all.”
Zull and Zaphyr both laughed weakly.
“It wasn’t the best joke,” Vard admitted. He turned back to the vendor, who was smiling blankly at him, still waiting patiently. “How much for the apples?”
As Vard began haggling with the vendor over the price of his tubers, Zull and Zaphyr idly studied the crowd around them, watching the travelers from across the empire, gathering here due to its convenient location. There were gruff-looking sailors, farmers from the northern provinces, and even the famous metalsmiths of Southern Regel, their clothing glinting with the gold and silver woven throughout it, a sign of their extravagant, to the point of encouraging wastefulness, wealth. Zaphyr watched them all, intrigued, while Zull, frowning thoughtfully, focused on one particular individual, standing near an adjacent stall.
“Zull?” Zaphyr asked, noticing him staring. Zull made a gesture with his hand, and she looked to see who he was staring at, and noticed, with a chill, that he was looking directly at them as well. He was noticeably short and squat, and wore the robes of a servant, which hung loosely about him, far too big for his body. He had a cold, calculating expression on his face, as if he was carefully evaluating the twins. Just as they had noticed him staring at them, he had noticed their stares in return. A smirk spread across his features, and he tipped his head in their direction, as if acknowledging their achievements.
Zaphyr grabbed Zull by the arm, inadvertently pinching so tightly that she made him wince with pain. “Who is he, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Zull confessed. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”
At this point, Vard turned back to the twins, sack of potatoes in hand. Noticing the twins’ focus, he said, “What is it? Did you see something?”
“Yes,” Zaphyr said. “He’s…he’s…,” But the man had vanished, melting into the crowd as if he had never been there at all. “Strange. He was right there a second ago.”
Vard rubbed at his forehead with the back of one hand as his eyes swept back and forth across the street. “Who?”
“A man. I didn’t recognize him, but he was staring right at us. Through us, it almost felt like,” Zaphyr said with a shudder.
“I see,” Vard said. “Let’s get the last of the supplies and those clothes quickly, children. I don’t like this.”
Vard and the twins moved throughout the market with a renewed haste after that, stopping at each vendor only long enough to purchase what they needed, without any kind of haggling or bartering. Twisting back and forth between the brightly colored stalls, both Zaphyr and Zull couldn’t resist the urge to glance back on occasion, just to see if their mysterious observer was following them. On several occasions, they thought they spotted him, watching them intently from a nearby alley or from between two stands, but he would disappear in an instant, never remaining still long enough for them to confirm if he was ever there in the first place.
Maybe we’re just being paranoid, Zaphyr told herself. It’s possible he’s just a curious passerby, and that he wants to know what two dirty youths like us are doing, wandering around the market of Veb. But, on the other hand, we can’t ignore the possibility that he could be an agent of the Master.
As they finished up the last of the shopping and left the market behind them, Vard relaxed visibly, as did the twins, as, paradoxically, while they were away from the shield of the crowds it would also be that much easier to see who was following them.
“You are sure he was staring right at you?” Vard asked as they walked across a bridge over one of the many rivers that Veb was built across and around. He had a cloth sack slung over his shoulder, which they carried the supplies they had purchased in. The dull roar of the river helped to hide their conversation from anyone trying to listen in, which was why Vard had waited until this moment to ask them.
“I’m absolutely confident,” Zull said, and Zaphyr nodded her worried agreement. “He was watching us. Whether there was anything more to it than that, I don’t know.”
“Hmm,” Vard said. “It could have been nothing, but we should remain careful all the same.”
“I’m tired of always feeling hunted,” Zaphyr said bitterly, staring off the bridge at the turbulent waters below. “I wish we could strike back at the Master, make him just as afraid of us as we are of him.”
“I would say he is quite afraid of the two of you, Zaphyr, judging by the efforts and lengths he has gone to in order to make sure you don’t reach the Empress,” Vard noted.
Zaphyr scoffed in annoyance. “You know what I meant.”
“To do that, we would have to know who the Master was,” Zull said, chewing at his lip as his eyebrows drew together into a deep frown. “And we aren’t any closer to knowing that then we were the night that Gerok died.”
“Well, why do you think the Master had Gerok killed, if not that he knew who the Master was?” Vard asked.
Zull and Zaphyr looked at each other, then turned their attention to Vard, astonished. “I hadn’t even considered that,” Zull said in a quiet voice. “And yet it makes perfect sense. Of course. Simply informing the Empress of his plans wouldn’t be enough to drive the Master to do all of this if his plans were as far along as they seem to be. No, somehow Gerok deduced his identity, the Master’s one weakness.”
“Well, that does lead to some logical conclusions,” Vard said. “First of all…”
“…the Master was someone Gerok knew, from his days at court,” Zull said slowly, eyes lighting up with realization.
“Indeed,” Vard said. “We already knew that the Master had to be someone close to Empress, with tremendous amounts of power and wealth, to build the organization that he has. He is most likely a hemomancer. Additionally, he seeks to depose the Empress, to claim the throne for himself. Now, based on all this information, who do you think is the most likely suspect?”
As one, Zaphyr and Zull said, “Prince Grevel!”
“Exactly,” Vard said, nodding his head slightly as he did so. “Now, there’s no way of knowing for certain, unless we confront the Master directly or he chooses to reveal himself.”
“It all makes sense,” Zull murmured, mind racing. “How did I not put it together sooner?”
“Sometimes, the most likely solution is the one right in front of our faces, too close for us to see clearly,” Vard said. “It’s only when we take a step back that we understand.”
“But Prince Grevel is a part of the royal family,” Zaphyr protested. “If he is the Master, how could we possibly convince the Empress of that?”
“And that,” Vard said. “Is why Gerok’s letter is of vital importance.”
Instinctively, Zull reached into the dirty sleeve of his robe, simply to check if it was still there, when he felt the comforting feel of the seal and the paper, he sighed with relief.
“We should tell Sir Kyr and Vyle, when we return to camp,” Zull said. “We will need to make a plan, when we reach Melkis, of how to approach the Empress without alerting Prince Grevel.”
“Indeed,” Vard said, tapping his fingers together. “However, for the moment, I think there is a more immediate goal we should focus on: getting you two those clothes, then getting back to the others.”
The twins agreed, and they left the bridge behind, entering the other half of the city, a mixture of ancient homes belonging to merchant families and more traditional businesses and wares, lacking the benefits of the mobility that came with the stalls but the additional protection from the weather that came with a permanent building. Regardless, the colorful signs remained, mounted or hung above the doors. Uniformly, they bragged about the products stored within and their inherent superiority to the competing stores. The twins, who had never seen such a variety of competing merchandise before, were nearly overwhelmed. Vard was merely bemused.
“Here,” Vard said after they had wandered for a few minutes. “This store says it is a tailor, and it doesn’t look particularly expensive.”
“How do you know that?” Zaphyr asked. “The sign looks identical to all the others.”
“It’s a matter of comparison,” Vard explained to her. “You see, the other tailors used words such as ‘exquisite,’ ‘magnificent,’ or ‘outstanding,’ to describe the quality of their wares. This store merely says ‘excellent.’”
Zull and Zaphyr, still processing this line of logic, followed meekly behind Vard as he knocked on the door and, after receiving no response, pushed the door open and made his way inside, the twins immediately behind him. The street outside was quiet for a moment, the city’s various denizens walking about on their own business. Then, a short, squat little man in servant’s robes just a little too large for him walked over to the tailor, reading the sign himself, a smile twitching slightly at the corner of his mouth.
He looked up at a particularly bland-looking young man, peering down at him from a second story window in a builder across from the tailor’s store. The bland young man nodded once. The short servant reached up and knocked on the door, then patiently waited, arms folded across his chest, smirking broadly. When there was, again, no response, he pushed the door open and walked in. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound loud enough to make the street’s other denizens stop and stare for a moment, before returning to their business as if nothing had occurred.