By the time Corvis forced himself to raise his head, she was gone from the table. And for just an instant, as the tavern disappeared beneath the memory of a flower garden behind a dilapidated old church, he couldn't tell if it was Irrial or Tyannon who was walking away.
Chapter Twenty-two
AS THREE DUSTY TRAVELERS MOUNTED the broad stone steps, the guards at the door-and there were guards at the door, now, accompanying the ubiquitous clerk-moved to block their path. Jassion marched in the lead, poised, arrogant, and without visible trace of the hideous injury he would sport until the end of his days. Behind him trailed two figures clad in the costly but relatively bland garb of servants. One, the woman, held the arm of the elder man, who took small, hesitant steps as though injured or ill.
He was, in fact, gritting his teeth and straining not in pain, but in concentration, trying to keep three separate images affixed firmly in his mind. It would have been easier had he not still suffered lingering aftereffects of Khanda's attack; had his soul not been wringing its hands inside his body, wracked with fear for Mellorin and Seilloah; had he been at his best.
But only a little easier, for all that.
While Jassion spoke in low but commanding tones to the soldiers, Corvis glanced upward, peering intently at the sky through the illusion that masked his features. The uppermost reaches of the Hall of Meeting blended with the overcast skies, dark grey on darker. Only a smattering of windows and, in a few instances, the crows and sparrows perching along the roof's edge, made the looming structure visible against the clouds.
"I'm really not comfortable with this, Corvis," Irrial whispered in his ear.
"They can't see our real faces," he reminded her.
"And that worked out so well for us last time?"
He shrugged. "We've just spent weeks in the saddle. I'm not recovered from one of the top five worst experiences in my life. My head feels like a sack of meal left out in the rain, and my body like there's a pair of ogres waltzing up and down my spine. You're lucky I'm lucid; you want new ideas, go pester someone else."
"I suppose that's fair." Then, "Only one of the top five?"
"My years have been blessed with an astonishing variety of discomfort."
They didn't hear what Jassion said to the guards, but eventually he waved them forward. The soldiers stepped aside, and the trio walked with measured tread into the seat of Imphallion's mercantile government.
"It's disgraceful!" Jassion hissed as they walked, his tone still vaguely nasal. He kept his voice low despite his clear agitation, lest any of the many scurrying pages and couriers overhear. "War with Cephira, attacks by-ah, 'Rebaine'-and for all their added security, the guards just took me at my word and let us in!"
"Well, you are who you said you were," Irrial pointed out.
"They didn't know that!"
"We're pretty far from the front. And it's not as though they expect You-Know-Who to walk in the front door."
"It's disgraceful," he muttered again. "If a soldier has a job to do, he should do it! I'd have these men flogged if they worked for me."
Corvis, feeling that Jassion's sense of propriety was perhaps misplaced at the moment-particularly since they were the security breach the guards' negligence permitted-chose not to say anything to get the baron even more riled. He did, however, roll his eyes at Irrial, who rewarded him, oh so briefly, with that amused curl of her lips he'd not seen in far too long.
Through familiar corridors, up familiar stairs-and even, once, past a stain of what was probably familiar blood-they wended their way. It looked much as it had the last time they'd been here, save for the presence of many more guards. Corvis began to have serious doubts about their plan, unsure if they could win free should it go wrong. But as he had no better notions to offer, and as it was already too late even if he had, he kept his misgivings private.
The top floor, and back to that one particular office guarded by half a dozen sentries. Jassion made as if to march right past them, until they steadfastly refused to clear the way. With a full-blown aristocratic glower that Corvis wasn't certain was feigned, he announced, "The Baron Jassion of Braetlyn, and associates, to see Guildmistress Salia Mavere. Right now."
"Have you an appointment?" the guard asked, just as impressed with this strutting noble as he'd been with all the others he'd thrown out.
"No."
"Then-"
"Just announce us. She'll see us."
The guard didn't bother to hide his sigh, and Corvis feared he'd have to physically restrain Jassion from bludgeoning the man to death. After a few deep breaths, however, the baron calmed himself, and the soldier indicated the door with a shallow tilt of his head. One of the other men cracked that door open and stepped inside. They could just hear the voices, here in the hall, and while they couldn't make out a single word, the surprise in one of those voices was more than a little evident.
The guard reappeared, shaking his head in astonishment. "She'll see them," he told his commander, now sounding as surprised as Mavere had.
"She-what? But…"
"She said she'll see them."
The officer was visibly crestfallen. "All right," he grumbled. Then, before Jassion took half a step, "but not under arms."
"My companions are not armed," he replied. "Search them if you like. As for me…" He raised his hand, slowly so as not to cause undue alarm, to touch the hilt protruding over his shoulder. "I'll not be relinquishing my sword, no. Ask the Guildmistress. I doubt she'll explain why, but she'll assure you it's all right."
Corvis did his best to look meek, face aimed at the floor so nobody would see him grinding his teeth. Just seeing the blade on Jassion's back was enough to make him want to…
The guard returned to the office looking even more dubious, and came out looking even more perplexed. "She says it's all right."
The officer grunted something impolite and stepped aside. Without so much as a nod of acknowledgment, Jassion strode past, Corvis and Irrial following close behind.
"Baron Jassion?" Salia asked, rising from behind her desk. "I have to admit, I'm a bit concerned to learn you're here. Why-?"
It all happened at once, between one breath and the next. Irrial firmly shut the door behind her. Jassion bowed low before the Guildmistress, far lower than was his wont. And Corvis, allowing his concentration to lapse and the illusions to drop, sprinted across the room like a starving leopard. His fist closed around Sunder's hilt, yanking it from the scabbard across Jassion's back-and gods, had that taken long hours of arguing, and many oaths on Jassion's part, before Irrial convinced him to place the weapon, however briefly, in the baron's care. In the heartbeats it took him to vault the desk, sending a flurry of parchment in all directions, the Kholben Shiar had shifted once more from Jassion's two-hander to Corvis's axe, the blade of which now gently kissed the priestess's throat. Corvis wasn't certain whether he, or Salia herself, was more disturbed by the weapon's eager quiver.
"If you so much as raise your voice above a whisper," Corvis warned her, "the Blacksmiths' Guild will be, ah, let's say, looking for a new head."
Her glare was sharper than Sunder itself, her face as pallid as those parchments drifting slowly to the floor, her jaw clenched tight enough to bend raw iron-but she nodded shallowly.
"I'd apologize for the discourtesy," Jassion told her, moving to stand before the desk. The bandage tied across his face, discolored where humors occasionally seeped from his ravaged nose, was now clearly visible. "But in all honesty, I'd prefer to let him kill you."