Gold Throne in Shadow Read online

  The girls immediately burst into song, lutes and lyres twanging soothingly. Lalania wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck, whispering into his ear. Royal turned in a circle, looking for his master, but they had already spirited Christopher into the wagon.

  Into a long pine box, padded with straw. They stretched him out, made him as comfortable as possible, arranged his limbs as if he was sleeping.

  A beautiful redheaded woman with ivory skin and shockingly green eyes pinched his lips open and fed him three drops of a bitter liquid from a crystal vial. It burned on his lips and tongue.

  “Shhh, my lord,” she whispered soothingly.

  The wagon began to move.

  The lights went out.

  Christopher, sick with rage, brokenhearted at betrayal, incensed to white-hot fury that these people had cooperated with his child-killing assassin, went to sleep.

  17

  CONTINUING EDUCATION

  He did wake in luxury. After he got over the fact that he had woken at all, he noticed the bed was smooth, the blankets warm and soft, the room discreetly lit by stones in shaded sconces. His first conscious act was to reach to his side, groping the mattress next to him.

  His sword was gone.

  Seconds later more facts penetrated. His clothes were gone. Tapestries cloaked the walls in tasteful elegance. The bed was huge, a four-poster absurdity out of a Victorian picture book. A fire burned in the hearth at the other side of the room.

  He added waking up naked in a strange place to the list of things he really, really hated.

  Sitting up, he found a set of silk pajamas on the nightstand. Like everything else in the room, they were finely made. He had not experienced such elegance in his time on this planet.

  But he knew it existed. Lalania’s speech came back to him, about Faren and the Church and the things they chose not to buy. This room was what lords lived like, if they wanted to.

  The door opened, and a woman backed into the room, wearing a sheer gown that would have been completely see-through in any stronger light. As it was, it more than hinted at firm curves and fresh skin. When she turned around, he saw why she had entered the room in such a curious fashion. She was carrying a hot kettle that leaked steam, held carefully away from her body by hands bound together with a silver chain.

  “My lord is awake,” she said, and he looked up at her face. It was the redhead from the night before, the last in a long line of women who kept poisoning him.

  She poured the kettle into a large porcelain tub that rested on silvered feet. Steam billowed up, warm and inviting.

  “Would my lord like to bathe?”

  Of all the luxuries he missed from home, a good hot shower every morning was near the top of the list.

  “Sure. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where I am, first?”

  “Why, at the College of Troubadours, my lord.”

  She began filling the bath with water from a basin next to the wall. Watching her gown shift and drape around her as she worked was enticing.

  As, no doubt, it was supposed to be. Lalania had already tried this and failed. Christopher wasn’t about to sit through it again.

  “That’s enough. You can go.”

  “My lord? Don’t you want me to wash you?”

  “I know how to wash myself, thank you.”

  She stood there with a sponge in her bound hands, looking lost. Hating himself for giving in to his greatest weakness, he sighed.

  “Tell me why you’re wearing chains.”

  The woman cast her gaze demurely to the floor.

  “I wronged you, my lord. It is your right to chastise me, as you see fit.”

  Something in the tilt of her head made him look up to the wall behind him. A collection of riding crops and horsewhips hung above the bed.

  They were laying it on thick.

  “Get Lala,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Do you wish two girls, my lord? Because Pia is my favorite.”

  Very thick indeed.

  “Yes, I wish two girls. One of whom must be Lala. Can you do that?”

  “As you please, my lord.” She curtsied, the gown shimmering next to her skin, and slipped out, the door closing quietly behind her.

  He stared wistfully at the bath, unwilling to walk across the room at the moment, since he had to assume he was being watched. Instead he tried to assess the situation. They hadn’t killed him in his sleep, which was not as comforting as it should be. It only meant they wanted something more valuable than his life.

  Considering that sober fact solved at least one of his problems, and he was just tossing the covers off to get out of bed and into the bath when the door opened again and he had to scuttle back under the blankets.

  Lalania and the woman entered, the blonde with an uncertain smile and the redhead with a sultry pout. Lalania wore a ridiculous green kimono-like wrap that barely contained her. She dropped to one knee and bowed, exposing more cleavage. “You wish me to serve, my lord?”

  “You made a promise.”

  The smile disappeared from her face.

  “I did. But I cannot promise for others.”

  “Not even your College?”

  “No. Especially not them.”

  “Then I am done. Get me my clothes and my sword. I’m leaving.”

  “My lord—” began the redhead, but Christopher cut her off.

  “Shut up. I still have a head full of spells, and I will use them. On you. Now either kill me or let me go. I’m sick of this.”

  “Christopher, I am sorry,” Lalania said. “I misled you. You seem to think my College is a gigantic institution swarming with learned scholars in every field. It is not; it is a handful of women trying to preserve a Kingdom against its own innate stupidity. If we have wronged you, imposed upon you, it is only because we are weak. We do what we have to.”

  She had wasted his time, dragging him across the Kingdom to visit a brothel instead of a research institute. He was not going to find answers about interstellar travel here. But that wasn’t what bothered him the most.

  “Working with child-killing assassins is necessary? Does that excuse work for you?”

  That made her angry. “She is not one of ours. We would kill her as quickly as you would.”

  His face must have betrayed his doubt, because she leaned forward to speak in earnest.

  “You know I dare not lie to you. Destroying the Bloody Mummers gang was always our goal. That they had left the road and taken root was an opportunity. That you were on hand to assist was . . . serendipity.”

  “Then why not just tell me?”

  She looked at him with sympathy, and he realized that even though she might never have lied, she had still deceived him many times.

  “I cannot answer any more of your questions, Christopher. Put them to the Skald. You have come all this way; I beg you, come a few steps further. Put your questions to the Skald, and if she does not answer them to your satisfaction, I will accept whatever retribution you demand.”

  “Give me my damn sword.”

  “Do it,” she ordered the redhead.

  The other woman bowed and slipped out, her face a perfect mask.

  “He’s not an idiot,” Lalania said to the empty room. “He knows you’re watching. Gods, can you not see? You have pushed him to the breaking point, and all he wants to do is escape with his virtue intact.”

  Christopher stared around the room. Of course, he didn’t see anything. “What the hell is going on, Lala?”

  “I am putting my career at risk. For you. Again.”

  He didn’t really feel like thanking her, though. There were a lot of answers he wanted about their definition of serendipity before he was in the mood to thank anybody.

  “It would have been so much easier if you had just slept with me,” she said, trying to smile. “But at least you did not succumb to Uma. For that, my vanity is grateful.”

  The door opened and Uma returned, carrying a bundle that included his sword.
She still hadn’t put any more clothes on, but she was followed by a squad of armed men. Christopher decided to make use of their mistake.

  “Out,” he said.

  The leader of the guards, a middle-aged man who exuded competence despite his ridiculous handlebar mustache, spoke deferentially. “We guard the Skald with our lives, Vicar. If you wish to see her while armed, you must tolerate us.”

  “No, not you, Goodman. You lot.” He pointed at the girls and then at the door. “Let a man get dressed in peace.”

  With the women in retreat he began to relax. The guards were clearly unranked; they neither dressed nor swaggered like knights. More importantly, if they decided to attack him, he knew how to respond. A good clean sword fight might be bloodier than this verbal fencing, but he doubted it would be as painful.

  They had cleaned his clothes. Too bad he hadn’t gotten a chance to take that bath. Once he was dressed, with boots on his feet and his sword at his side, he began to feel more in control of the situation. Of course, if they still had more tricks up their lacy sleeves, that would be exactly what they wanted him to think.

  The guards escorted him from the room, two behind and two in front. Uma fell in beside him, eyes wet.

  “You tricked me, my lord. Now the Loremasters will administer my punishment, and I will not even have you to comfort me afterward.”

  Christopher sighed. “You know what? How about if you just don’t talk right now, okay?”

  The building was laid out more like a boardinghouse than a college. The hallways and rooms they passed through were clean, though faded and plain. The room he had been in was a higher standard of luxury than the rest of the building could sustain.

  Down a flight of stairs, around and through another hall, and they came to a barred door. Another squad of guards waited there, along with four startlingly attractive women.

  “Hello, Loremasters,” he guessed.

  “Greetings, Vicar,” the one in front replied. She had curly black hair and an inviting heart-shaped face, and her friendliness was only slightly compromised by the huge loaded crossbow in her hands. “We apologize for any discomfort we may have put you to. We can only plead foolishness.”

  “You can punish her, if you want,” Uma whispered at his side. “She is as deserving as I.”

  “I thought we weren’t talking,” he whispered back. He wondered how long it would be before they started offering him boys.

  Down more stairs, of a different quality. If he had to guess, he would expect to find stone or earth behind the fine wooden panels on the wall. The temperature changed subtly, and the echoes of footsteps were dampened. They were underground.

  A curved hallway, and at the end of it a small round room, about twenty feet in diameter. Remarkably, real candles burned in holders on the wall, providing real torchlight instead of the magic illusion he had become so accustomed to. The effect was either spooky or romantic, depending on your point of view. A small round wooden table in the center of the room held a large crystal ball, and behind it sat an elderly woman.

  She had been a beauty, once. She was still elegant and handsome, wearing a crisp white gown with sparkly bits on it, and her hair was coiffed in an elaborate style. The effect was difficult for Christopher to reconcile. She looked like a dignified society matron sitting at a gypsy fortune-teller’s booth.

  The woman waited patiently while the first squad of guardsmen filed into the room and took up positions behind her. Then she beckoned for Christopher to approach, leaving the Loremasters and the second squad of guards at his back.

  “No doubt my staff has apologized profusely, yet I also must add my apologies. Forgive a foolish old woman for her superstitious fears, my lord.”

  “Stop apologizing, and start explaining.” Any second now, Uma was going to whisper that he could spank the old lady if he wanted, and then he really was going to smack the little minx.

  “One more apology, my lord,” the woman said sadly, and touched the heavy lead-gray locket hanging from her neck, her lips mouthing the words of a spell.

  Instinctively Christopher’s hands went to his hip. All around him he heard the rasp of steel, as the guards front and back drew their weapons. There were more behind than in front, so he turned, flinching at what he saw, stepping back and whipping out his sword.

  Uma had been transformed, her flawless ivory face turned dull red and stirred like a wax painting partially melted. But the same sharp green eyes stared out at him with accusation. Under the horrible face was Uma’s body, still shapely and appealing.

  “From lust to loathing in an instant, my lord?” Uma’s voice, shorn of seductive pretense, was acidic.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, once he understood. The woman was disfigured, and he was pointing a sword at her.

  Then he realized everyone else in the room was also pointing weapons: swords, crossbows, and in Lalania’s case, a pistol. But not at Uma. At him. They stared at each other for an instant, over a sea of sharp and gleaming steel.

  Lalania sighed, exasperated, and lowered her gun.

  “I told you,” she said to the Skald.

  Christopher was not comforted by her apparent surrender. A fight in these close quarters would be precarious, even without the disadvantage of paralyzing poison. He had not renewed his spells or his tael, both depleted in the last battle. The best magic he had left was the one that made his sword sharper.

  They still weren’t attacking him yet, so he took advantage of their indecision and cast it. Graceless, yes, but he was greatly outnumbered and possibly outclassed. He didn’t know what rank the Skald was, or what her powers were, but he wasn’t fooled by her frail appearance. He’d beaten Black Bart by virtue of sneaking in a spell while the man was blustering, and he aimed to claim the same advantage here.

  Nothing happened. They didn’t attack, and his sword didn’t start glowing.

  “Um.”

  The Skald waved her hand. “Let us be at peace. Lala was right all along.”

  Guards and women lowered their weapons. Christopher decided not to. He’d been fooled too many times by these people.

  Repeating the words of his spell had no effect. That was starting to worry him more than being in a small room with a lot of armed people who might or might not be trying to kill him.

  “You may go. All of you.” The Skald dismissed her entourage.

  “My lady,” protested the handlebarred sergeant automatically.

  The Skald gently shook her head. “We have tried the Vicar’s patience long enough. Now I owe him an explanation, and I would rather not have to filter my words for your ears.”

  Clever old fox. She had hit on the one thing Christopher wanted most. He lowered his sword.

  “Yes, I would like an explanation. I would like a Darkling lot of explanations.”

  “You can go, too, Lala. It will be easier for me to apologize for how we manipulated you if you are not in the room, reminding me of my guilt.”

  “Shall I also leave?” Uma asked. “I do not wish to cause undue discomfort for our noble guest.”

  “You may leave, Uma,” the Skald said, “because you already know everything I am going to tell him.”

  The room slowly emptied. Christopher wished he’d memorized his truth-compelling spell. Thinking about it, he wished he could cast the damn thing permanently. Then he remembered that Lalania had said she had never lied to him. These people had lived with truth-spells, and the threat of them, for their whole lives. If there was a way to fool them, then they would know. He would have to rely on logic instead of magic to wring the truth out of them.

  “Please, my Lord Vicar. Have a seat.” Reaching under the table she produced a bottle of wine and two delicate-stemmed glasses. She set them on the table, next to the crystal ball, and laid out a silver corkscrew. “If you would be so kind. My old hands lack the strength these days.”

  Automatically, he sheathed his sword so he could pick up the bottle in one hand and the corkscrew in the other. Then he
stopped and put the bottle back down, annoyed at having been so easily disarmed. “Questions first. One: why didn’t my spell work?”

  “What I am about to tell you is one of our best kept secrets. So first I must ask you to promise not to reveal the answer to any other.”

  “At this point, I really don’t feel like I owe you anything.”

  “No, you don’t. But you will be bound by your promise, and I will have it. You can strangle me here with your bare hands, and no one can stop you. But you cannot make me destroy my College.”

  This was shaping up to be as aggravating as bandying words with Uma, if in a somewhat different way. Only two minutes ago an armed squad had been threatening him with swords, and already he missed them.

  “Fine.” He pulled out the other chair and sat in it. “I won’t tell anybody your secret, unless I determine that doing so would be in the best interests of the Kingdom. Is that good enough?”

  “Acceptable, my lord.”

  “Stop calling me that. Call me Christopher.”

  “Very well, Christopher. We shall not tread on formality here; you may call me Friea. The locket around my neck is a null-stone. When targeted by a spell, it generates a field that suppresses all magic. You can guess that the range of the effect is the size of this room; indeed, the room was constructed to fit the locket. I apologize for all the preceding theatrics, but this irreplaceable item is of limited charges and we did not wish to use it save for the last resort.”

  It made sense. In a world with so much magic, there would naturally be an anti-magic defense. It also explained Uma’s transformation.

  “So that’s what happened to Uma—you dispelled the magic she used to disguise herself.”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned. The answer seemed somewhat ungenerous. Friea apparently agreed, and volunteered a little more with a concessionary nod.

  “Uma has long ago made her peace with her disfigurement. It causes her no physical hardship, and no psychological harm now that she has magic enough to take whatever face she desires.”

  He almost asked if the Invisible Guild had access to that magic—if so, he could stop trying to fix the serving girl’s face in his memory—but he didn’t want to waste a question, and anyway the answer was pretty much obvious.