Read Online Agents of Artifice: A Planeswalker Novel by Ari Marmell - Free Book Online
Authors: Ari Marmell
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spears ready to repulse an attack that would never come, and otherwise did nothing worthwhile. None bothered to check on or question passing travelers, for what was there to check for?
Shuffle. Step. Wait. Step. Wait. Shuffle. The line inched forward, and Kallist cursed every wasted minute, every pause. When Liliana leaned close and said, “It might be tough, but I could try to call something up to eat our way to the front of the line,” he could conjure only a wan smile.
As they neared, the temperature rose, the sun reflecting harshly from the still waters and lingering in an air that showed no interest at all in providing a breeze. It was still preferable to days spent soaking in the mosquito-spawning rain—but not by much. And only as they approached the gate did the din of the inner streets wash over them. Again, not as deafening or oppressive as Kallist had felt in other, larger districts, but after so long in Avaric, it was disconcerting enough.
Hot, loud, bright, and smelly. So self-pityingly miserable was Kallist as he finally passed through the gate, he failed to notice one of the guards staring with abnormal intensity at him and his companion, before the press of the crowd blocked the armored woman from view.
All that said … It looked like home to him, at least more so than Avaric ever had. Ornate carvings adorned the columns and high arches of the monolithic buildings—many of which were sculpted from a strange, aquatic-blue stone that gleamed like the lake below—and pennants hung limply from minarets of stone orcrystal. The people here were dressed in a variety of bright, jovial colors, commonly seen among the middle classes who wanted to show that they could afford such frivolities as rich and cheerful dyes.
And there were so very, very many of those people, probably at least half as many on this street alone as dwelt in Avaric entire.
Kallist turned to Liliana, his mouth open to make some disparaging comment that she would doubtless find less pithy than he did, and felt a thrill of panic run through him. His hand lashed out, viper-quick, dragging her to a halt. Before she could so much as squawk a protest, he was walking, casually but quickly, off toward one side of the avenue.
“What?” she hissed at him, mouth just beside his ear so that he might hear over the noise of the crowd.
“Probably nothing,” he breathed back at her, though he slackened neither his hold nor his pace. “But one of the things I learned in my years with the Consortium was that when a whole gaggle of armed guards starts moving in your direction, you want to make a quick trip elsewhere.”
“Is that so?” Liliana tossed her head, as though clearing her hair from her face, and casually glanced back. “So, um … What do you do when they start pointing at you and yelling, then?”
“That would be
run.”
They ran, shoving and elbowing their way through the crowds, crowds that seemed determined to meander as leisurely as possible, to cluster in every intersection, to gather thickly in the fugitives’ path and to part like a curtain before the pursuing lawmen.
Kallist and Liliana swiftly grew lost in the unfamiliar byways of Favarial. They knew neither where they were going nor how to return to where they’d been. And the guards, who knew every twist and turn, every nook and cranny, gained ground.
They doubled back around blind turns, and the soldiers traced their route. Kallist cloaked them in images of native passersby while sending their own illusory doppelgangers fleeing down distant byways, yet somehow the guards always knew.
So long had it been since Kallist had faced any real danger—Semner and his thugs aside—that his instincts had grown rusty indeed. Otherwise, he might have seen a handful of Semner’s people, scattered across lower rooftops and balconies or hiding within the milling crowd, watching for any sign of deception and signaling to the hunting guards.
A time or two, a thug raised a
Shuffle. Step. Wait. Step. Wait. Shuffle. The line inched forward, and Kallist cursed every wasted minute, every pause. When Liliana leaned close and said, “It might be tough, but I could try to call something up to eat our way to the front of the line,” he could conjure only a wan smile.
As they neared, the temperature rose, the sun reflecting harshly from the still waters and lingering in an air that showed no interest at all in providing a breeze. It was still preferable to days spent soaking in the mosquito-spawning rain—but not by much. And only as they approached the gate did the din of the inner streets wash over them. Again, not as deafening or oppressive as Kallist had felt in other, larger districts, but after so long in Avaric, it was disconcerting enough.
Hot, loud, bright, and smelly. So self-pityingly miserable was Kallist as he finally passed through the gate, he failed to notice one of the guards staring with abnormal intensity at him and his companion, before the press of the crowd blocked the armored woman from view.
All that said … It looked like home to him, at least more so than Avaric ever had. Ornate carvings adorned the columns and high arches of the monolithic buildings—many of which were sculpted from a strange, aquatic-blue stone that gleamed like the lake below—and pennants hung limply from minarets of stone orcrystal. The people here were dressed in a variety of bright, jovial colors, commonly seen among the middle classes who wanted to show that they could afford such frivolities as rich and cheerful dyes.
And there were so very, very many of those people, probably at least half as many on this street alone as dwelt in Avaric entire.
Kallist turned to Liliana, his mouth open to make some disparaging comment that she would doubtless find less pithy than he did, and felt a thrill of panic run through him. His hand lashed out, viper-quick, dragging her to a halt. Before she could so much as squawk a protest, he was walking, casually but quickly, off toward one side of the avenue.
“What?” she hissed at him, mouth just beside his ear so that he might hear over the noise of the crowd.
“Probably nothing,” he breathed back at her, though he slackened neither his hold nor his pace. “But one of the things I learned in my years with the Consortium was that when a whole gaggle of armed guards starts moving in your direction, you want to make a quick trip elsewhere.”
“Is that so?” Liliana tossed her head, as though clearing her hair from her face, and casually glanced back. “So, um … What do you do when they start pointing at you and yelling, then?”
“That would be
run.”
They ran, shoving and elbowing their way through the crowds, crowds that seemed determined to meander as leisurely as possible, to cluster in every intersection, to gather thickly in the fugitives’ path and to part like a curtain before the pursuing lawmen.
Kallist and Liliana swiftly grew lost in the unfamiliar byways of Favarial. They knew neither where they were going nor how to return to where they’d been. And the guards, who knew every twist and turn, every nook and cranny, gained ground.
They doubled back around blind turns, and the soldiers traced their route. Kallist cloaked them in images of native passersby while sending their own illusory doppelgangers fleeing down distant byways, yet somehow the guards always knew.
So long had it been since Kallist had faced any real danger—Semner and his thugs aside—that his instincts had grown rusty indeed. Otherwise, he might have seen a handful of Semner’s people, scattered across lower rooftops and balconies or hiding within the milling crowd, watching for any sign of deception and signaling to the hunting guards.
A time or two, a thug raised a
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