one into the soft tissue beneath his chin and the other through the left side, into the heart.
He heard scrambling behind the door, and pushed it open quickly. Oriv was on his feet behind the wide desk, fumbling with a drawer, his eyes wide with terror. The archbishop raised a strange cylindrical device_ «ricqui212;a metal tube bound to an ornately carved pearl handle-and worked a small lever on it with his free hand.
Rudolfo saw the spark and ducked, feeling the heat from it as it singed the left side of his head. Behind him a heavy form fell, and he heard the sound of bubbling blood and the drumming of soft boot heels on the floor.
Roaring, Rudolfo pounced across the desk, pulling the archbishop to the floor. The weapon fell to the carpet, and the archbishop resorted to his feet, his nails and his teeth. Rudolfo fought back, keeping his grip on the archbishop as well as his knife. Finally, he worked the tip of the knife into the would-be Pope’s ear. He shifted so that his mouth was close to the other ear. “We’ve done this your way,” Rudolfo whispered. “Now we do it mine.”
The others moved into the room, leaving the bodies where they fell and quickly working the locks of the door. “We’ve lost Rylk,” the remaining scout said. “Whatever it was, it put a hole through his torso the size of a child’s head.”
Rudolfo resisted the urge to push his knife farther into Oriv’s ear. “Is anyone else hurt? Lady Tam?”
“Singed but otherwise fine,” she said.
Rudolfo looked around the room. He saw Isaak in the corner. “Isaak, are you well?”
“I am functional, Lord Rudolfo.”
“Good. Ready yourself for travel. We’re leaving.”
“But Lord Rudolfo, I am the property of-”
Rudolfo ignored him. He twisted the knife just a bit. “Release the mechoservitor into my care until this unpleasantness is past.” He felt Oriv’s muscles, tense and he pushed the knife. “You’ll realize soon enough,” Rudolfo said, “that my restraint has limits.”
“Killing me only reinforces your own guilt.” Panic laced the archbishop’s voice, and it pleased Rudolfo greatly.
“And yet,” he said through his smile, “you’d still be dead. Now do as you’re told.”
They stayed long enough to scoop the papers from the cluttered desk into a carrying pouch along with the strange weapon. Two minutes later, with Isaak bringing up the rear and Oriv under knifepoint at the front, they made their way down the stairs.
Soldiers waited at the bottom, swords drawn.
Rudolfo smiled and twisted the blade again, savoring the melody it made. Sweeter than any choir, the archbishop screamed for the Gray Guard to stand down, and they obeyed their so-called Pope.
Neb
It was Neb’s turn to inventory the artifact wagon. Petronus did it himself most of the time, but over the past several days, the old man had become further withdrawn. He’d started trusting Neb with more of his responsibilities, and Neb didn’t mind that at all.
He approached the wagon now, keeping the rolled parchment and pen hidden beneath his robe and out of the rain. They’d rigged a canvas covering with a system of ropes and poles. The wagon waited beneath it, guarded by an uninterested merchant who muttered and moved about to avoid the water that flowed in channels off the makeshift roof.
The merchant looked up as he approached. “How long?”
Neb looked over the side of the wagon at the muddy items stacked inside. He poked at it with his walking stick. “Two hours, I’d say.”
He nodded. “I’ll be back then,” he said, and shambled off to find some hot soup.
Neb pulled himself up into the back of the wagon and picked his way to the front. He spread the parchment out on a dry patch on the seat. Then, sitting amid the day’s collection, he started inventorying each item.
The workers gave a cursory look at anything they found. Initially Sethbert’s man had insisted they bring everything, but they quickly saw that the sheer volume exceeded the capacity of several wagons. Now they left the more mundane scraps they found, and saved only the most important pieces for the daily wagon.
Neb-or Petronus on the days when he did it-was the second pass through the items, giving them one more opportunity to pull out a cup or a blade or some other implement that had found its way in amid the mechanical birds or the copper globes.
The first hour always went fast and the last hour always went the slowest. Some days merited a third or fourth hour, but today the wagon was only a third of the way full. Neb typically went through everything all at once, tossing the unwanted items over the side and into the mud. After that initial pass, he then inventoried what was left.
But then, an hour into his inventory, he saw it in the corner of the wagon.
He was not surprised that he missed this particular artifact on the first pass; it wasn’t very large at all. The fact that anyone had found it was probably a small miracle. Perhaps the light had caught it just right there on the skeletal finger of the man who had worn it.
It was a simple affair-a plain ring made of a strange metal, dark as iron but light as steel. The signet itself was clogged with ash and mud, but Neb knew it before he spit on the corner of his robe and used it to clean the dirt out of it.
He’d seen pictures of this ring all of his life. And he’d seen the stamp of its signet on thousands of documents throughout the Great Library. He’d seen it on the finger of every man whose portrait hung in the Hall of Kings.
It was the signet ring of the Androfrancine Pope.
He looked around, unsure what to do. He knew Petronus wouldn’t want the ring to fall into Sethbert’s hands. It was just a ring, certainly. It had no magicks about it. But it was one of the oldest symbols of the office, something that could not be reproduced. And news was all over the camp that some other Androfrancine-someone keeping quiet but at least known to a few-had a more direct line of succession to the Windwir throne. Of course, Neb was the only one around who knew the truth about Petronus. He certainly hadn’t shared that information, which meant someone else knew. Or perhaps, he thought, it wasn’t Petronus at all that they were referring to. Perhaps it was another archbishop vying for the crippled Order’s highest office.
Still, during the time they’d worked together, Neb had quickly come to think of the kind, strong old man as the true Pope. Though it wasn’t anything he could conceive of proclaiming-regardless of what Brother Hebda told him in his dreams.
In the end, he slipped the ring in his pocket. At the very least, he could keep it from some pretender’s finger. At the very best, if Petronus took back his rightful place the ring would be nearby.
Neb resumed his inventory, feeling the weight of millennia in his pocket and not knowing quite what to do with it.
Jin Li Tam
They rode for a night and a day, only stopping for minutes at a time. Jin Li Tam and Rudolfo galloped their stallions side by side, riding without words.
By morning, she’d felt her senses falling back into their normal place. By early afternoon the last of the magicks had burned out, and she felt the weariness of withdrawal aching in her limbs. Scouts spent years practicing the magicks, learning the rhythms of their bodies and picking up the tricks of the trade that made withdrawal less of an issue. The fact that magicks were only used during time of war-and by only the most elite of soldiers-also made a difference.
Though not officially a scout, she’d spent enough time with the scouts. Still, these she rode with now could stay magicked for days at a time-even weeks-without undue effect. She could barely handle a day of it.
‹«heh n/div›
They were a full squad now, between Rudolfo’s escort and her own, less the man who’d been killed by the archbishop. They kept her and Rudolfo in the middle with Isaak as they rode, and they kept their blades tucked back beneath their arms, ready to bring them forward with a moment’s notice.
When it was well past dark, they stopped to make camp. They rode their horses into a forest of old growth pine a league or better from the muddy track that served as the solitary road this far north.
Rudolfo pulled away with his lead scout while the others set up camp. Jin Li Tam tried to make herself useful,
