Spinner of Lies

wall almost looked like it had horns …

“You’re no genasi,” she said.

The man sighed and glanced sidelong at something on the door frame; another spider. This one was big, too. It had a black abdomen and a white head.

As if addressing it, he said, “You see? She’s a spy. Now help me silence her-your wall-crawling pets are good for more than watching me, aren’t they?”

Piss on a shingle! You just had to tell him you pierced his disguise, she thought. Did it make you feel smart? ’Cause now …

Pashra sucked in breath so large his chest visibly expanded. Then his body followed suit. He ballooned outward and upward, growing larger and larger, until he was the size of an ogre. It was his true size, she guessed, though his skin color remained unchanged. Coarse black hair was tied in a braid down his back, horns protruded from his forehead, and his mouth was so filled with oversize teeth that it didn’t even properly close. Oh yeah, plus he’d somehow come into possession of a sword that could pass as an oversized meat cleaver.

“What are you?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” She loosed the tie on her Airstepper robe. It fell, revealing her ebony armor and providing easy access to her sword and daggers. She leaped. The air hurled her like a ballista spear across the chamber. If she could stun Pashra, knock him away from the door-

Pashra uttered a mystical word. Vapor swirled from the tip of his cleaver and caught Riltana before she was halfway across the wide office. Cold like the inside of an ice cave painted a frost glaze across her armor and skin.

She fell out of the air. When she hit the central table, two of its four legs buckled. She rolled behind it, putting its sloped face between her and Pashra. The leech-son could cast spells! Her teeth chattered as the shock of Pashra’s magical chill slowly abated. It doesn’t mean he won’t bleed, she thought. Let’s see how he likes daggers. Two small blades, one from each glove, appeared in her palms. All right-

A spider the size of Chant’s pet cat dropped on her. She stabbed it through the abdomen before it could fasten its pincers. It tumbled away and twitched on the floor, legs curling up around the leaking wound. A glance back at the desk showed a swarm of the spider’s siblings emerging from their hollow and scuttling toward her. Most weren’t nearly as large as the one she’d just dispatched, but there were so many she could hear the patter of hundreds of tiny legs.

“Damn web-spitting offal eaters!” she cursed. She flicked the dagger away, replacing it with a mountaineer’s spike from her gloves. Then she jumped straight up and punched the spike into the wooden ceiling and dangled from the attached carabiner. She hoped it would keep her out of reach of the spiders on the floor. At least until they figured out they could climb up the walls and across the ceiling.

And there towered Pashra, horns pointed at her like swords, much closer than before. When he saw her looking at him, he grinned and raised his weapon. What was he? An ogre, yes, but a smart one.

She hurled a dagger with her free hand. Its point plunged into Pashra’s right eye. The creature howled, a terrifying sound halfway between a wolf’s night call and a hunting panther’s roar. The sound rippled through the air, knocking Riltana from her handhold. It roiled the spider swarm and blew out the tiny office window. Rain from the storm outside blew in.

The windsoul managed a half-graceful landing, despite a trickle of blood from her left ear. A residual ring hung in the air-or maybe that was in her head. She worked her jaw and blinked, trying desperately to gain her bearings. There was two of everything …

Where was Pashra? She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them. Her double vision merged back to normal, thank Tymora. She fixed her gaze back on Pashra. He hadn’t advanced, but neither was he down. Instead, the blue-green hulk was carefully working the dagger out of his eye. Red fluid oozed from the socket, but when the blade came free, Riltana watched with horrified amazement as the punctured eye gradually re-inflated, until it was completely whole once more. Pashra swung his rejuvenated gaze on her and said, “I’m an oni mage. And you’re overmatched, little spy.”

Yells of concern filtered through the closed office door. By the sound of it, the workers wondered if Pashra was all right. Apparently they didn’t know his secret identity as a monster. She needed to distract him. So Riltana fished.

“What’s your connection to the arambarium mine?”

The oni’s overlarge features stretched into an expression of surprise. “You know we’re after the arambarium?”

She grinned. “We do now, chump. Thanks for confirming.”

Pashra scowled, then said, “Who exactly is ‘we?’ ”

Riltana carefully straightened. She’d managed to gain a little time with her spontaneous falsehood. Maybe she should try to extract a little more information before she fled. “Let’s just say,” she said, “we’ve had our eyes on you for quite a while now. Your efforts to panic Akanul into a premature strike aren’t going to work. We know you’re trying to stampede the Crown of Majesty into some kind of overt action against Tymanther.”

“Ah. You think that’s what I’m doing?”

“It’s obvious.”

The oni shrugged with lazy insolence and said, “You’ve figured me out. Oh, no.” The last dripped with so much sarcasm that Riltana knew she had missed something.

“I mean,” she said, “it’s obvious that’s your cover story.”

Pashra laughed, and it wasn’t a mirthful, happy sound. He glanced back at the lone spider nearest him and said, “She knows nothing, Chenraya.”

A voice-female, disdainful, and cold-seemed to issue from the tiny arachnid on the door frame. “Take her alive. She obviously knows something or she wouldn’t be here. Then bring her to me in person-this homunculus body is good for scrying and communication, but little else. We’ll drain her mind as easily as pouring out a cup. Then we’ll know.”

Shit! I might be out of my depth, Riltana thought. Despite the oni’s spell and obvious size advantage, she figured she was fairly evenly matched with the thing, assuming she could stay clear of the spiders. But the presence of a talking arachnid, or someone who was apparently using the arachnid to talk remotely, suggested Riltana didn’t really know the score.

Time to get gone. She glanced at the broken window-

And saw a spider the size of a street vendor’s cart bearing down on her.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL

17 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

Rain stung the water in the Bay of Airspur. Ships huddled close to their moorings, gray silhouettes half-visible through the downpour. Demascus strode the boardwalk, collar up and hands jammed in his jacket pockets. He was tired of being soaked to the skin. Unfortunately, winter along the coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars meant regular deluges.

He was looking for a ship to charter. But he’d paced up and down the docks a few times already like a sleepwalker, not really seeing anything as the cold seeped into his bones. Instead, the scene where a former version of him killed a woman named Madri kept cycling past his mind’s eye. Another circumstance created by another him that was now being visited on Demascus. How fair was that?

Madri had been a beauty, no denying it. So like Queen Arathane in height and posture … He shook his head. He couldn’t afford to notice similarities. Madri is your past, he thought. No. Not even your past. She’s got nothing to do with Arathane, for shadow’s sake! For that matter, the queen, while uncommonly approachable in his experience with royalty, had done nothing more than smile and chat with him. She was a monarch! Nothing more. Even if she were interested-