“Who is that?” he asked finally.
“Don’t know his real name. Everyone calls him The Hammer. He rules the basement level of the prisons and those given over to his tender care. He decides who lives and who dies. How he does this is anyone’s guess. No one asks that question. Look at him; you can see his value.”
“You’ve used him before? But not asked me?”
Mallich glanced over. “Not everything I do concerns you and your Red Slash. Some things I do are for other people and different reasons. The Hammer has been useful in a few of those.”
He stopped suddenly when they reached the basement stairs and turned to face Usurient. “Don’t question me further on this or I will let you find someone else to handle it. You’ve done your part, all but the payment. I make the decisions on how we get to Arcannen and how we dispose of him. You stay out of it.”
He turned away and started up the stairs with a dismissive gesture. After a moment’s hesitation, inwardly seething at the other’s treatment of him, Dallen Usurient followed.
SIXTEEN
IT WAS JUST AFTER MIDDAY WHEN ARCANNEN PILOTED HIS Sprint over the last of the coastal landscape separating him from the ruins of Arbrox and made a cautious landing in the sheltered area he had chosen earlier for his craft’s concealment. On the coast, vessels were in constant danger from high winds and sudden storms, but he faced an equally daunting prospect from the risk of discovery. If anyone found his vessel and commandeered it, he would be trapped in his lair. Escape without a flying vessel was out of the question. Between the miles of barren terrain surrounding his hiding place on three sides and the churning maelstrom of the ocean on the fourth, the only way a man could flee with any hope of success was through the air.
So hiding his Sprint was a necessary effort each time he returned. His current choice was a deep depression in the rocks inland from the coast proper about a mile from Arbrox, tucked back in a mass of boulders and broken rock that no one could successfully navigate on foot without knowing how to do so beforehand. Using rock walls and cliff overhangs, he was able to place his airship almost completely out of sight. Finding it on foot would require an extraordinary stroke of luck. A careful air search in the right weather and with sufficient sunlight might reveal it, but the persistent marine layer and frequent rains reduced the chances of that happening considerably.
Besides, he lived in the ruins of a village to which no one came.
Or hadn’t before now. But come they would, and very soon. He had made sure of that–all part of his plan to provide Dallen Usurient with an irresistible opportunity to bring the Red Slash back to the coast to find him. Not that he expected Usurient himself would do so. No, Usurient would take a different approach, one less obvious to those watching for it. He would send someone other than himself, reluctant to make a return trip if it wasn’t necessary, believing that hunting down and killing off Arcannen could be achieved without his personal involvement. He would send men skilled at the sort of undertaking with which he would task them, their orders clear and their destination determined through the rumors and reports with which he had provided them.
And they would journey to their doom.
But that was all part of the game, and Arcannen loved nothing better than contests of wit and machinations and, ultimately, surprises.
He covered the Sprint with a canvas that was the exact same mottled gray–and–brown as the rocks within which it nestled and began the walk back to the remains of the village. All about him, the damp and the gray bore down in a heavy shroud. The wind whipped about him fiercely, constantly changing direction and force, a wild thing that nothing could contain. Ahead, the crashing of waves against the rocks was a steady booming that drowned out the rest of the world’s sounds.
By now, he was thinking, Usurient would have begun the process of choosing the men he would send and providing the equipment and supplies they would need. By now an expedition would have been mounted, and if it had not already been dispatched it soon would be.
He must prepare for them. He must anticipate their arrival and their intentions in ways that would allow him to dispose of them quickly.
The seeds were planted, he assured himself. He had planted them himself. It would be interesting to discover what sort of crop they would yield.
Arcannen was, at heart, a fatalist. He believed that most of what happened was predestined and that his own involvement was preordained. Life offered opportunities, and you made the choices that were demanded of you. To some extent, you influenced the results of what happened–but never completely and not always in the ways you anticipated. You had to accept that much of life was chance and luck, and so you rode that sea of the unexpected and unanticipated from the moment you were born until the moment you died. Sometimes the ride was smooth and easy, but often it was rough. The intangibles always dictated the outcome in ways you could not entirely predict or alter.
So it was that his plans for Usurient and the Red Slash were fluid. He would arrive where he needed to be, but the journey would not go entirely according to his wishes.
He wondered suddenly how things were proceeding with the boy and Lariana. She was clever, that one. She had already won the boy’s heart; he was so in love–even if he did not realize it–that his choices hereafter would begin and end with her. She was every bit as clever and manipulative as Arcannen had believed she would be. He was pleased enough with how she had handled herself that he decided he would give her instruction in the use of magic and perhaps even agree to take her on as his apprentice. He would have given that honor to Leofur had she not spurned him, but that was all water under the bridge now. And Lariana might prove the better choice in any case.
As he closed on the ruins, he saw nothing of the happy couple. Nestled inside, he imagined, perhaps sharing secrets in ways that he had given up on long ago. Young love–such a tender, wonderful thing. Such an attractive nuisance. It stole away your reason; it ensnared your common sense in euphoric dreams. Useful here, however. In the end, it would net him what he needed to fulfill his plans for revenge against his enemies.
When he reached the sealed door and released the locks, there was still no sign of them. Down the hallway and into his quarters he proceeded, listening for the sound of their voices. When he heard them, he slowed automatically to listen. But their words were low and indistinct.
On entering his quarters, he found them sitting at the kitchen table sipping tea and smiling at each other. Good enough, he thought. “Well met, young friends,” he said cheerfully. “Reyn, are you rested and fed?”
The boy nodded, sharing a look with the girl. Oh, rested and fed, indeed, the sorcerer thought.
“Is your business concluded?” Lariana asked. “Did things go well?”
He moved over to stand next to them. “Unfortunately, not all went as well as I had expected. Word has gotten out that I am living in these ruins or somewhere close by. I had hoped that a tighter lock might be kept on loose lips, but it hasn’t worked out that way. I expect I am compromised.”
Lariana gave him a direct look. “What does that mean exactly?”
“If means that Usurient and the Red Slash will soon know–if they don’t already–where I am.”
“They will come here?” the boy demanded.
“Not right away. And not Usurient. He will send someone else.”
“He will send assassins,” Lariana said.
He was pleased at how quickly she caught on. “I imagine so. He will choose a handful of killers to hunt me down, keeping at a distance so that no blame will attach to him. If that fails, then he will come himself.”