Amric’s jaw tightened. “I thought you had nothing to do with magic any longer.”
“You may as well resolve to abstain from gravity, swordsman!” Bellimar said with a laugh. “Magic is inherent in this world, and surrounds us at all times. No, you misheard me; I do not manipulate such forces any longer, but I retain my learned skills to observe them. Is that more clear?”
The warrior relaxed somewhat and gave a curt nod. Bellimar leaned forward further yet, his expression intent. Seeming to operate of their own accord, his long fingers began tracing idle patterns on the table between them.
“Which brings us back to you, my friend. Judging from your interactions with others, your ability to draw others to you, the uncommon skill you must have to reach your rank with the Sil’ath, and what I suspect is a very colorful personal history, I would wager you to have a potent aura indeed. And yet I see none at all when I bring up my Sight. You emanate as much visible life energy as the chair you are sitting upon.”
“So I am dead, then?” Amric meant the query in jest, but he fidgeted despite himself. He could not decide which topic he found more disquieting, the thought of pervasive magic surrounding him at all times or the revelation that he had no discernible life force. Anger followed on the heels of discomfort. Why should it bother him, the absence of something of which he had not known until moments ago? He had eschewed interaction with sorcerous forces his entire life, and he should feel relief that he had none inside him.
“No, clearly not,” Bellimar replied with no trace of mirth. “You are a man of uncommon vitality, and so you represent an enigma that I must unravel. Amric, you must let me accompany you for a time, to study this phenomenon. I have knowledge and skills that will prove invaluable to you. I know, for example, that you are seeking a party of Sil’ath that came through Keldrin’s Landing two months ago, and that you have had little luck in determining their whereabouts or their fate. I can help with this. I know this city well, and I know how information flows here. I can gather in hours what would take you weeks to obtain. I know the identity of Vorenius’s benefactor, the man behind the price on your heads, and I might be able to call in favors to ease that vendetta. Even if you leave the city, I am a hardy traveler and will be no burden to you, and I will be a great asset inside or outside the city. What say you?”
The man had a feral, unwavering intensity to his gaze. Amric glanced down to where Bellimar’s fingers moved faster and faster in their patterns on the table. In the old man’s rising fervor, his nails had somehow scored the hard oak and raised long, thin curls of wood behind them. Following Amric’s eyes, Bellimar took in the marred surface of the table, and the hand retreated to his lap. He cleared his throat, and it seemed an effort to pull his equanimity back about himself. When he spoke, however, his eyes still gleamed.
“What say you, swordsman?”
CHAPTER 3
Amric stood before iron gates twice his height and thirty feet in width, painted black and framed by the massive reddish stone wall surrounding the sprawling estate. Huge black lions, regal and forbidding and finely wrought of iron as well, glowered down from the outer bars of the gate. Light rippled across them from the torches set to either side, giving them the illusion of life, of hot breath and fluid muscle. From what Amric had heard, the man inside was as menacing as these, his chosen totems, but he shared none of their nobility of spirit. Halthak stood at his side, both hands curled tight around his knotted staff.
“This is folly,” said Halthak. “We are sheep, come to twist the whiskers of the lion in his own den.”
Amric chuckled. “I am no sheep.”
He looked askance at the healer. In his distress, the Half-Ork’s face was so pinched that he looked like a toothless old crone, and his outthrust lower lip seemed in the midst of swallowing the upper half of his own head. Amric considered jesting about it to lighten his mood, but dismissed the thought. Halthak’s hold on courage was, at the moment, too tenuous for levity.
“You need not be here, healer. It would be safer for you to remain at the inn.”
Halthak snorted. “You tried already to dissuade me. I am going with you. You will need an extra pair of eyes watching your back in there.”
Amric nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. He left unsaid what they both knew anyway: the inn offered scant enough protection from a stealthy blade without Amric and Valkarr present, and the healer had few options to escape the city alone if this all went poorly. His best odds of survival remained with the warriors, even in this venture. Halthak cleared his throat and changed the subject, his voice low as he glanced about him to ensure the street was empty save for them.
“I do not trust this Bellimar fellow,” he said.
“Nor do I,” Amric replied.
“This meeting he arranged could be a ruse, and he a more devious form of assassin meaning to collect the price on our heads.”
“The thought had occurred to me as well.”
Halthak turned toward him. “Then why do we trust him to lead us under the dominion of the man who set that price?”
“There is more to Bellimar than we have yet seen, and I am convinced that he has not been fully forthcoming as to his motives, but I do not believe he is deceiving us in this. He has been as good as his word thus far, and his contacts indicate that the trail of our Sil’ath friends leads here, to this merchant, Morland.”
“And is it coincidence,” Halthak said, “that the trail of your missing party ends at the door of the same wealthy merchant who then put a bounty on our heads?”
Amric adjusted the leather bracer on his forearm, his gaze never wavering from the gates before him. “One of many questions I intend to ask Morland. We have little choice, healer. This is our only lead, and even if it proves false, it might at least bring the merchant within reach to end this vendetta threat at its source.”
Halthak paled and fell silent.
“It may not come to that, healer,” Amric said. “Morland has guaranteed our safety for the duration of this meeting. Is that not true, Bellimar?”
“Quite true,” the old man’s voice came from behind them, and Halthak jumped.
Bellimar drew up beside them, a merry twinkle in his eye as he grinned at Halthak. He took in the iron gates and the black lions, and muttered, “Gaudy. We get a glimpse of the man’s titanic ego.”
“Any further word, Bellimar?” Amric asked.
Bellimar stepped forward and turned to face them. “Even piecing it together from multiple sources, there are gaps in the story. The Sil’ath warriors you seek were in the city only briefly, and during that time they met with Morland. The merchant is evidently a distant relative of Vorenius and has put a price on your heads at his behest. After their meeting, the Sil’ath were known to have departed the city through the eastern gate, according to sources that make it their business to monitor such things. From there, the trail grows uncertain. Their destination was unknown to any of my contacts, as the Sil’ath spoke to no one else after Morland, and they have not returned. They left weeks ago, by all accounts, but there is disagreement upon the exact day of departure.”
Halthak frowned. “So they left here alive, at least, and Morland is not to blame for their disappearance.”
“Let us not rush to conclusions,” Bellimar warned. “Morland is a serpent, and may still have sent them to their deaths. Word is that they were in Morland’s employ when they left.”
Amric shook his head. “They did not come here to sell their blades to the highest bidder, or to run errands for the wealthy.”