I tend to forget sometimes how much…detail and nuance you can lose relying solely upon scrying spells and the gramerhain, he thought. I should have paid more attention and not relied so heavily on Court gossip, I suppose. Of course, having to worry about that bastard Brayahs didn’t make it any simpler in this case.
His professional merchant’s expression hid his inner frown as readily as it had hidden his smile, which was just as well. Thoughts of Brayahs Daggeraxe, the son of Borandas’ deceased uncle, tended to have that effect upon him. Having any mage that closely related to one of the Kingdom’s barons would have been bad enough, but Brayahs was considerably more strongly talented than the majority of his fellows. He was not simply a wind-walker and a healer, but (if the rumors were true) had the gift of foresight, as well. And to make Talthar’s unhappiness complete, he was a mind-speaker, to boot, and one who’d come to his mage powers late. That mind-speakery of his made him particularly good at sniffing out any use of wizardry in his vicinity, and the fact that he’d been a man grown before his mage talents awoke meant he’d also been trained as a knight before he became a mage. After which he’d gone on and added the martial arts training of a master mishuk to his repertoire. His weapon (and weaponless) skills would have been more than enough to make him particularly resilient to assassination attempts, and successfully ambushing any wind-walker, even one without those skills, was no easy achievement at the best of times.
All of which meant that while it wouldn’t necessarily be impossible to assassinate him, it would be extraordinarily difficult to do it in any way that didn’t require the obvious use of sorcery or some other less than natural agency which would draw all sorts of unwanted attention. Talthar was perfectly prepared to have Brayahs murdered-indeed, he was looking forward to it-and he was more than willing to use whatever was required to make that happen, but he couldn’t afford any moves in that direction at this point. The last thing he needed was to focus the attention of other magi on the North Riding before he had his hooks firmly into Borandas or his heir.
Time enough for that later, he reminded himself now. Patience and cunning are just as important as-and more reliable than-brute power, especially at a time like this. Once all the pieces are in place he’ll have to go, but let’s not joggle our own elbow just because we find his continued existence inconvenient as hell.
All of which was true enough, although “inconvenient” was a pale description of the situation. The one good thing about Brayahs’ birth and ability was that King Markhos had enlisted him as one of the Crown magi who served as his investigators and agents. That made him even more dangerous, in some ways, but it also meant he’d been called to Sothofalas for the summer session of the Great Council, which would keep him busy for at least a month or two. His talents-and his influence with his cousin-were the real reason Talthar had deferred his first visit to Halthan until he could be certain the mage would be somewhere else. And why it had taken him over six months to prepare the ground properly for this first approach at all.
“Oh, I’m certain the Baron and I could come to a reasonable agreement, Milady,” he said out loud, allowing a very slight flicker of amusement into his eyes in response to Borandas’ smile.
“Why do I have the feeling that your idea of ‘reasonable’ and my own aren’t going to be precisely the same, Master Sheafbearer?” the baron responded, and Talthar permitted himself a chuckle.
“Because you, Milord Baron, are a shrewd, hardheaded bargainer, while I, alas, am an equally shrewd, clutch-fisted trader. Nonetheless, when such a fair lady is involved, it’s likely-well, possible, at any rate-that even such as I may find myself giving at least a modest amount of ground.”
“You, Master Sheafbearer,” Baroness Myacha told him with a smile of her own, “are a very dangerous man. Milord,” she looked at Borandas, “I forbid you to pay this man what this stone is truly worth.”
“A shrewd blow, Milady!” Talthar congratulated her. “Not that I would ever have expected the Baron to willingly part with this gem’s true worth.” He sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, that state of affairs is one any master trader is unhappily accustomed to confronting.” He sighed again, his expression mournful. “In order to make our way in the world at all, we become accustomed to being regularly out-bargained by our customers!”
“I trust you’ll forgive me for asking you this, Master Sheafbearer,” Baron Borandas said a bit tartly, “but would it happen that your mother was particularly well acquainted with Hirahim?”
“ Borandas! ” Myacha laughed and smacked him across the knuckles with her hand-painted fan.
“Actually, Milord Baron,” Talthar allowed with a smile, “when I was a mere lad, my father did remark once or twice upon how little like the rest of the family I looked.”
“I’m not surprised,” Borandas said, then drew a deep breath. “Very well, I already know this is going to hurt. Why don’t you go ahead and name your starting point. And in the meantime, my love,” he looked at Myacha with a warm smile of his own, “would you be so kind as to ring for Trelsan and request beverages. And perhaps a plate of sandwiches, as well.” He looked back at Talthar with a challenging glint in his blue eyes. “I believe we might be here long enough to require the sustenance before we’re done.”
Much later that evening, Talthar Sheafbearer carefully locked the door of his bedchamber on the second floor of The Halthan Arms, the most prestigious-and expensive-inn in Borandas’ capital city, behind him. It was a large, luxuriously furnished chamber, as befitted a merchant of his obvious wealth, but that wasn’t the reason he looked around it for several moments with careful, intent eyes. Then he drew a deep breath and closed those eyes, reaching out with other senses and trained abilities. He extended his feelers delicately, carefully, with all the hair-trigger sensitivity of a nervous cat, searching for the aura he’d learned to associate with Brayahs Daggeraxe. Brayahs wasn’t scheduled to visit his cousin for at least the next couple of weeks, but Phrobus knew schedules were subject to change, and if that accursed mage was anywhere close to Halthan…
After the better part of five minutes, Talthar drew a deep breath and opened his eyes once more, this time with an expression of satisfaction. He crossed briskly to the chamber’s window and carefully closed the drapes before he set the hard-sided leather case in his right hand in the center of the table placed in front of the window. There was nothing particularly remarkable about that case-any gem-trader would have carried something very like it-and he drew a finely wrought key from where it had nestled inside his tunic on a silver chain and used it to unlock the case. He returned the key to its normal place, opened the case, and reached into it for the fist-sized lump of almost clear quartz stowed away at its very bottom. The quartz was no more remarkable than the case itself, aside from the fact that it was an extraordinarily plebeian piece of rock for a gem merchant of Talthar’s obvious wealth to carry about with him.
Except, of course, for the fact that it wasn’t quartz at all.
He laid the gramerhain on the table, then closed the case and set it aside. He wasn’t entirely happy about what he was going to do next, but there were limits in all things. He could have continued to hold the glamour which disguised him while using the gramerhain, but the combination of the glamour and the scrying spell he was about to use would have required him to expend considerably more energy. After all, scrying spells were intended to provide True Sight, so in many ways the two workings would be diametrically opposed to one another. Worse than the drain upon his own powers, however, that opposition would produce a far stronger, brighter signature and make him even more vulnerable to detection by any other wizard-or mage, damn it-in the vicinity. Besides, the glamour was a relatively low-energy construct tied into the diamond stud in his left ear, and artifact-bound spells were not only harder to detect but could be activated (or re activated) very quickly.