And he rose, went into the nearest bedroom, and closed the door behind him.
In the wake of Arcannen’s departure, Reyn moved over to take the chair he had vacated. The sorcerer’s words still echoed in his mind as he looked up at Lariana, standing across from him. “What do you think?” he asked.
She fixed her green eyes on him. “Why do you ask? What matters is what you think. You are the one he is asking for help. He already has mine.”
“I was just asking your opinion.”
“Well, don’t. It isn’t helpful. I don’t have magic like you do. I can’t tell you what to do. You have to make up your own mind.”
He compressed his lips in a gesture of frustration. “I cannot use this wishsong, as he calls it, to hurt people. I’ve hurt too many already. It does something bad to me each time. It leaves me a little less whole, a little more diminished.”
“Then don’t use it.”
“Is it that easy? He says he isn’t asking me to hurt anyone. He says just the opposite, in fact. But he intends to make an example of the Red Slash. I don’t think for one minute that he doesn’t plan to kill some of them. Maybe the whole bunch. He hates them for what they did to this village. If I agree to help him, what am I risking?”
She said nothing, waiting.
He looked away. “I guess I know the answer.”
“Let’s go to bed,” she said wearily. “I’ll keep you company while you puzzle things through.” When he hesitated, flushing with the heat that rose from his neck to his face, she laughed aloud. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just coming in to sit with you. Maybe talk a bit more, if you want.”
She walked over and pulled him to his feet. Her smile was unsettling. “What’s the matter, Reyn? Are you frightened of me?”
Maybe, he thought.
But he went with her anyway.
FOURTEEN
MIDWAY BETWEEN DUSK AND MIDNIGHT, DALLEN USURIENT DEPARTED his quarters in the Red Slash barracks on the edge of Sterne and walked north along the edges of the city to the Shadow Quarter. It was called so because it was the one place in the city where there were no laws enforced against people who dabbled in questionable trades as either purveyors or customers. It was the part of the city where you went to find entertainment of the sort that would not be allowed anywhere else, but for which there was a strong demand among a certain percentage of the population. If you wished to patronize a pleasure house or gambling parlor or engage in any otherwise forbidden activity, this was where you went. Whatever you desired that was normally outside the restrictions enforced in other parts of the city, you could find here.
Usurient went for the drask fights, where he knew that, on this day of the week, he would find Mallich.
He had changed out of his uniform into ordinary clothing, wrapped himself in a heavy travel cloak, and donned a slouch hat to keep his features shaded. It did not matter much that he might be recognized, but he saw no need to advertise it. As a member of the Federation army—and particularly of the Red Slash—he was not all that popular with those men and women who might once have served under him before going on to things even worse afterward. Nor did he think it expedient or wise to advertise his presence when what he was seeking to accomplish was every bit as illegal and reprehensible as anything those who spied him out might be engaged in.
Usurient was a practical man. He understood that sometimes you had to step outside the boundaries of sanctioned conduct and approved behavioral codes to achieve a righteous end. Sometimes you had to embrace the very thing you sought to put an end to in order to bring it close enough. So it was now. Arcannen had crossed a line by disposing of Desset in such a blatant and confrontational manner. If it had been done quietly and without any attempt to draw attention to it, if it had not been meant as an obvious challenge, he might not have given it a second thought. He had cared nothing for Desset, after all. But it was obvious that the spy’s death was a lure meant to draw him back to Arbrox and into a confrontation with the sorcerer.
It troubled him that Arcannen was being so open about it. The man was fortunate to have escaped him the last time, yet he seemed untroubled by how close he had come to dying along with the rest of the ruined city’s population. He was taunting Usurient, daring him to make a second attempt. His arrogance was startling, even slightly mad. But Usurient could not afford to let it be known that he had failed to respond. He kept command of the Red Slash by ensuring that no challenge to his authority or to the reputation of his Federation command would be allowed to go unanswered. A response was needed. A quick and certain resolution of the matter would have to be implemented—one no one could mistake. He had been given no orders to that effect, but sometimes the situation demanded you act without them.
Yet there was nothing to say all this could not be achieved in a more unexpected and less conventional way than what the sorcerer might be expecting or his authority allowed.
Wrapped in his cloak, he slipped from the barracks and started down the road that would take him to the Shadow Quarter and the arena where the drasks engaged in combat. Mallich participated regularly; his animals were among the most fearsome in the city. He fought them once a week, every week, on this night only, pitting them against whatever challengers were brought in from other cities to vie for the fat purses offered by the organizers to the winners. Few in Sterne gave any thought to challenging Mallich these days. The odds were too great and the outcome too predictable.
And yet outsiders still thought his reputation inflated. They came from all over, from every walk and persuasion of life, professional breeders from as far away as the deep Southland cities and the distant mountainous regions of the Eastland. Some were newcomers, unwilling to believe the stories, convinced they would be the ones to prove them wrong. A man couldn’t always win, they told themselves. No animal was unbeatable.
Except for Mallich’s.
Usurient had no idea what Mallich did to create such monsters, and it seemed better to him to leave it that way.
In any case, it wasn’t his breeding techniques that compelled the Red Slash commander to go searching for him. It was his hunter’s skills, and his unerring ability to seek out prey and corner it, frequently with little more than a hunch and his instincts. Mallich understood fear and anger and frustration better than any man or woman alive. For more than twenty years, he had used that understanding to track down and subdue the enemies of those who hired him. For much of that time he had served the Red Slash. Then, nearly four years ago, he had quit. He had never offered an explanation, but Usurient knew the truth of it.
Likewise he knew a thing or two about the human condition, and he believed that even after you had left there was always a way to bring you back. Quitting was not forever; it was simply until the right impetus or the necessary compulsion changed your mind. All that was needed was to discover the nature of the lure.
In the case of Mallich and the sorcerer, Usurient thought he knew the answer.
When he reached the cavernous building that housed the fighting pits, he found it already packed to overflowing with customers and participants. Large crowds were gathered at all the entry doors, men and women fighting to get inside, yelling and screaming at the doorkeepers, holding up credits and in some instances pieces of gold. One man even thrust out a diapson crystal, his certainty in his betting prowess evidenced by his willingness to part with something far more valuable than anything he could hope to win inside the ring.
Ignoring the clamor and the bodies that pressed close, Usurient worked his way around to the back of the building to where the gates to the walled area reserved for participants stood closed and under guard. But nothing was off limits to him, so he walked up to the guards, identified himself, and was promptly admitted. Only once had he been refused—more than ten years ago now. In retaliation, he had brought two squads of soldiers in the next day, confiscated all the drasks, money, and equipment, and sold it all off in Wayford.