“That wasn’t my fault and you know it.” I leaned toward him. “Rache, we were no good for each other; you know that, too. I hurt your pride; you broke my heart. I’d call us even.”
He arched an eyebrow in surprise. “I broke your heart?”
“I cried at least twice.”
“Impressive.”
“Believe it.”
Rache ran his finger idly through the ring his glass had made on the bar. “My client was going to pay me a bonus if I took out the prince within four days.”
“Let the prince live and you’ll get your bonus,” I said.
“From you?”
“An interested party.”
“Interested in what?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Let me decide that.”
“Not a part of the deal.”
Rache shrugged. “Very well. If you can find the bastard, all the better for me. He’s a goblin by the name of Nisral Hesai.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You just don’t run in the right circles.”
“Meaning hired killers.”
“He’s young, not much experience, but by all accounts shows extreme promise.”
“Apparently he’s good enough that Sathrik has hired him to kill his baby brother.”
“He’s not an assassin,” Rache said, “though he does it when the money’s right. Nisral Hesai’s a thief. The best. He’s a decent enough assassin, but you don’t need much skill when you can get close enough to touch your target. Anybody could kill like that.”
I think I might have stopped breathing. “A thief?”
Rache nodded. “The bastard can change back and forth right before your eyes. And if he can study his target for a while, their own mother couldn’t tell the difference. An exact copy even down to the voice and mannerisms. That trick alone makes him the best damned thief in the kingdoms. Better than some of your family even. They don’t call him the Chameleon for nothing.”
The goblin wasn’t stalking Mychael to kill him. He was memorizing Mychael. Sarad Nukpana didn’t send him only to kill Chigaru.
He was here to steal the Saghred.
And glamoured as Paladin Mychael Eiliesor, he could walk in to the citadel and take it.
Chapter 17
I had to warn Mychael.
I had to find that goblin before he became Mychael and stole the Saghred. Or before he killed me, and converted his pencil sketch into a memorial painting.
“From the look on your face, I’d say the Chameleon has his silvery fingers in more than one pie,” Rache noted.
“And on a couple of poison strawberries,” I muttered.
“Pardon?”
“Doesn’t matter; I’m not going to be eating either one.” I looked him in the eye. “I know this probably goes against your professional ethics, but you wouldn’t consider lending a hand to find this Chameleon, would you?”
“Old time’s sake and all that?”
I shrugged. “If that’s what you’d do it for. I was going to give you money, but if you want to—”
Rache’s grin reached his eyes. “What old times?”
“How does goblin gold to catch a goblin work for you?”
“If the gold’s goblin, it works just fine.”
“It would be,” I said.
“Then I would be interested. I take it the prince will be paying?”
“Not if you try to kill him again.”
“I suppose you want assurances of some sort.”
“A plain old promise would work for me.”
I actually got to see surprise on Rache’s face.
“You’d take my word?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I’d take it, but I’d certainly consider it. Do you know where the Chameleon is?”
“Don’t have a clue.”
“Do you think you could get one? Turn that energy of yours from killing a prince to hunting a lizard?”
Rache laughed. “I don’t think he’d like being called that.”
I didn’t laugh. “He can bite me.”
“After what you did yesterday, I don’t think he’d want to try.”
I didn’t move. “What do you know about yesterday?” I didn’t think Rache was involved in setting up Balmorlan’s demonstration of death and destruction, but if he had been, I wanted to know about it. Rache had taken Balmorlan’s money to assassinate Chigaru. Yesterday most definitely qualified as an assassination attempt. Killing hundreds of people to take out one prince was heavy-handed, but . . .
“I know what I heard,” Rache said.
“You weren’t there?”
“I know what you did, if that’s what you mean.”
“Who did you hear it from?”
“People.”
“Was one of those people named Taltek Balmorlan?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“The day you and your paladin chased me into the elven embassy.”
“He didn’t pay you extra to run herd on some firemages?”
“Present company excluded, since when do I associate with magic types?”
“Since pretty much never,” I had to admit.
“Exactly.”
“Does that mean you weren’t involved?”
“That’s exactly what it means,” Rache said. “I’m an assassin; it’s what I do. But I do my work quick and clean. What happened at that hotel yesterday wasn’t either one. I take pride in a job well done, but I don’t get off on it. They did. As far as I’m concerned, what you gave them was everything they deserved.”
I looked at him in something approaching shock. “Thank you. I think.”
Rache shrugged. “A man draws his line somewhere. Even me.”
“Did your people tell you that Taltek Balmorlan arranged it all for some cartel out-of-towners as a demonstration of what the Saghred could do?”
Rache said nothing for a few heartbeats. “He set you up.”
I nodded. “He knew I wouldn’t let all those people die. And now there’s a convenient price on my head. The elven ambassador has already laid claim to me if I’m brought in.”
“The ambassador isn’t in charge over there.”
“I know. Balmorlan is. He sells me to the highest bidder, arranges a demonstration of the goods, and then gets me arrested. You assassinating Chigaru Mal’Salin is simply another part of the same plan. You still want to line your pockets with his gold?”
Rache’s answer was drowned out by raised voices in the tavern common room.
I recognized the loudest one.
Phaelan. A very drunk Phaelan.
I did not need this now. What the hell had happened to Uncle Ryn sitting on him?
My cousin was in the middle of a gaggle of highbred young elves spoiling for a fight, or as they were calling it, a duel. Apparently Phaelan had offended one of them, and for my cousin, being offensive came as naturally as breathing.
Dammit, Phaelan. Not now.
One particularly offended young lord had thrown a glove with a fancy embroidered gauntlet at my cousin’s feet.
Phaelan looked down. “You dropped something,” he slurred.
“I dropped nothing; that was a challenge. My seconds will contact your seconds for terms.”
“Terms for what?”
“A duel at dawn tomorrow—to the death.”
Phaelan staggered to his feet. “No, no. There’s not going to be any of that ‘duel at dawn’ crap. See, I sleep late, so why would I want to get up early to kill you when I could sleep in tomorrow and kill you right now? If you want your seconds to watch, I can wait a few minutes. Now or five minutes—your choice.”
“Now.” The elf lord’s lips twisted in a sneer. “And right here.”
“Fine with me.” Phaelan tossed the gauntlet back to the dandy. “Come on. Let’s get you over with.”
Then things got ugly. Really ugly.
There are three things that a pirate crew won’t let their captain do alone. Plunder, pillage, and brawl are all pirate-sanctioned group activities.
The door shut behind me.
“Good luck, love.” Rache and his voice receded down the hall.
He was running out on me. Again.
Bastard.
Or jak’aprit, as Vegard had so astutely called him.
The fancy elves outnumbered Phaelan and his crew, but most pure-blooded elves learned to fight in a salon. My cousin and his men learned on decks and in streets.