Throne of Dragons

None of this made sense.

Unless that was the point. Greave stopped there, standing. He couldn’t give up, when Nerra’s life was on the line. He had to think.

He knew that there was a library. The books had been clear on that, and the House of Scholars alluded to it, even if they would not allow the unworthy entrance. If there were only this joke, it would be common knowledge by now. So this… this had to be more. It had to be some kind of test.

“There’s a trick to this,” Greave said. “There has to be.”

He tried to recall what he’d learned of old languages. The runes on the tower had to be the first step. He stared at them, trying to translate them.

“Greave, don’t torment yourself,” Aurelle said, clearly trying to protect him.

Greave knew there was something to it, though. “‘All is made known in the fullest light of knowledge.’” It sounded like a motto of the House of Scholars, but Greave had not heard it. More than that, why would it be the fullest light? The poet in him insisted that didn’t quite fit. He stared at the model again, at the dividers that spaced out the symbols for knowledge.

The answer eluded him, and he walked around the model, sure that there had to be an answer in there, but unable to see it. Light glinted from the model, making Greave blink, but also making him think about light, and its properties. Was it something to do with reflection, refraction, the different colors of light?

When was the fullest light?

Greave froze again as the possibility of an answer came to him. Could it be that? Truly?

Greave stood there, no longer pacing, just waiting now.

“What are you doing, Greave?” Aurelle asked. She wrapped her arms around him. “Come on, we should go.”

“Trust me,” Greave said. “Please, just trust me.”

He continued to stand there as the sun rose, trying to judge the moment when it reached its zenith. There would be only seconds now.

“What are we waiting for?” Aurelle asked, standing by his side.

“For noon,” Greave said.

Even as he said it, the sun reached the right angle, shining in through the windows that had been so cleverly cut into the model. There had to be some arrangement of mirrors to amplify things just so, and even then the effect was subtle enough that no one would have spotted it, or understood it, if they didn’t know what they were looking for.

The symbol of the House of Scholars shone out in the bright colors of stained glass, striking a spot on the floor of the model city. It seemed to be in the middle of one of the open squares of houses, in one of the green spaces that filled it. There was a stone built arch there, perfect in miniature. Greave had no doubt about what would lie beyond it.

“You did it,” Aurelle said, staring at Greave with surprise, but also respect. “You’ve found the library!”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

When the guards came to drag him to his execution, Renard knew it for what it was.

He’d seen the faces of men who wanted to kill him before, and this was like a cut down version of that, shorn of the anger, but still with the same twist of certainty to it, the same hardness that said that he wouldn’t be able to change their minds with a well-placed word or a coin.

“Well, lads,” he said, as they dragged him from his cell in manacles. “How has Lord Carrick decided to have me killed?”

They looked round at him in surprise, as if they thought he shouldn’t have been able to work out what all this was about.

“You’ll see,” one of them assured him, as they made their way up from the featureless stone and straw of the dungeon.

“Ah, something bad, is it?” Renard asked. Then, without pausing, he elbowed the man in the ribs and ran as fast as his chains would allow him. It wasn’t very fast, but it wasn’t as though he had much to lose at this point, either.

Of course, the problem with trying to run while chained was that it simply didn’t let a fellow move very fast. The same problem applied to trying to fight while chained too, although Renard did at least manage to get his chains around a guard’s neck before one of them slammed the pommel of a knife into his skull, making him see as many stars as there were in all the heavens.

They pretty much carried him up the stairs after that, which seemed only fair to Renard. A man shouldn’t have to walk to his own execution. They took him out into a courtyard, ringed by high walls that even he couldn’t climb in chains. There were peasant folk there, crammed in tight and surrounded by guards to keep them in line. Yselle was there, and Renard had the feeling that having to watch this was part of the lesson that Lord Carrick wanted them to learn. He looked over to her, but did not dare declare what he felt while he did so. That would just have seen her hurt. There was a gallows set up, of course, and on it a burly executioner stood, next to a block, axe in hand.

Lord Carrick stood above it all on a balcony, looking on with apparent indifference as the guards carried Renard up the wood of the gallows’ steps.

“Renard the thief,” he said, as Renard reached the top. “You stand before me having stolen from me. You will pay for that.”

“Beheading, my lord?” Renard shot back. “That’s hardly very original.”

“Eventually beheading,” Lord Carrick replied. “First, my man shall cut away your fingers. Then your hands. Then your feet. He will continue, until you are in sufficiently small pieces for everyone who had gold from you to have a part of you. Then, if you still breathe, you will be beheaded.”

“Ah,” Renard said.

“Do you have anything left to say for yourself?” Lord Carrick asked. “Would you like to beg for clemency? People sometimes do.”

“Does it do them any good?” Renard asked. Lord Carrick’s expression told him the answer. “Then I would simply like to say that while there are many things in my life I suppose I should regret, robbing you blind was not one of them, my lord.”

There, that sounded suitably pithy, and it did a good job of masking the raw terror running inside him too. He had to find a way of getting out of here, had to find a way clear.

Of course, he could have been clear by now if only he’d taken the Hidden up on their offer, but some things were worse even than being carved up like a side of beef. They could do things to a man that would make a horrific death seem pleasant by comparison.

Although Renard had to admit that it seemed more than bad enough right now.

An honorable man would have marched to the block. A hero would have set his hand down on it and dared the executioner to do his worst, giving the common folk something to remember this day, something to inspire them.

Since Renard was neither of those things, he fought the whole way, so that the guards had to tie him to the block with length after length of crude rope while he bit and elbowed and kneed. Eventually though, there wasn’t enough movement left in him to fight longer. There was only the executioner standing over him with that axe.

“Begin,” Lord Carrick commanded.

The executioner raised his axe. It seemed to happen impossibly slowly, and for a moment, Renard wondered if it was some trick of his mind, slowing down these last moments, giving him at least the illusion of time in which to act even if there was none.

After several seconds of it, though, he realized that the man really was moving that slowly. He ground to a halt, then his axe went clattering onto the floor as he froze in place, ringing out in a tumble of metal.

Three hooded figures stepped out from the crowd.

Renard could only watch as Void, Verdant, and Wrath stepped into place in front of Lord Carrick’s balcony. The guards did not move to stop them, although they looked between them and Lord Carrick as if trying to decide who they feared more.

Verdant stepped over to the executioner. She touched him lightly on the lips, and he gasped, seeming to regain the ability to move all in a rush. He scrambled back from her like a mouse from a cat, even though he towered over her.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lord Carrick boomed down from his spot on the balcony.

“My lord,” Void said, that blank mask of his staring up at Lord Carrick. “It is good to see you again, after so long. I trust that our arrangement worked out well for you?”

“Our arrangement…” Lord Carrick stood there staring down at him. For a moment, Renard thought that the man might actually be arrogant enough to try to deny it. “Yes, of course.”

“And that you have not forgotten the boon you said you would owe us,” Void continued.