Read Online Agents of Artifice: A Planeswalker Novel by Ari Marmell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ari Marmell
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can we?
“But don’t worry. If you’re telling the truth, we’ll get it all sorted out. Won’t take more than, oh, I’d say three or four days. Maybe a week on the outside.”
Everything clicked into place in Kallist’s mind, and he cursed himself for an idiot. The timing on this could be no coincidence. It could only be Semner’s work.
But that meant, just maybe, that the guards could point them toward the ugly bastard himself.
“Go along for now!” he hissed under his breath to Liliana, even as he saw her lips begin to twitch.
She peered at him as though he’d gone mad, but allowed herself to relax.
Two of the guards stepped forward to take the broadsword and crossbow. Grumbling, one of them patted down Kallist, searching for other weapons. The other, with a licentious grin, did the same to Liliana. Kallist recognized the brutal gleam in her eyes, and knew that the guard had better make every effort not to run into her again. Then, hands manacled together, surrounded by the entire squad, they found themselves marched down the streets of Favarial.
“As far as prisons go,” Kallist told Liliana some hours later, “I’ve certainly been in worse.”
She glared at him. “If this is supposed to comfort me, may I suggest that you try some other approach? Perhaps try punching me in the jaw. That would probably work better.”
“I’ve also escaped from far worse,” he protested.
“That’s almost impressive.”
“Well, almost thank you.”
Their current abode was a drab cell, stone-walled on three sides, with a barred gate on the fourth. One of several identical chambers in the watch-house of Favarial, all of which smelled of lingering sweat, fear, and humanoid wastes, it was probably intended to hold no fewer than a dozen prisoners.
That they were alone in the cell only con firmed that the official reason for their arrest was a sham.
Kallist and Liliana sat on stone cots that were bolted thoroughly to the floor, and the cell’s “chamber pot” was nothing more than a tiny hole, far too small for even the thinnest and most desperate prisoner to squeeze through. At the hall’s far end, well beyond reach of anyone within the cells, the only exit was guarded by the biggest viashino Kallist had ever seen. Her scales were a dull tan with a snake-like pattern of red and green rings. She wore a custom-formed breastplate of steel, and leaned on … Kallist wasn’t even sure what to call the ugly weapon: perhaps a morningstar with anger management issues. It was a heavy steel bar as long as a man’s leg, one end wrapped in leather, the rest of its span covered in a chaotic forest of spikes and spines and blades. She watched every one of the cells, constant, unblinking.
The prison was, by all normal measures, perfectly designed to provide neither any means of escape nor even the most crude of improvised weaponry.
“Normal measures,” of course, had no meaning to its present occupants. Oh, it had wards and sigils to prevent wizards from escaping—but the prison’s builders had never thought to contend with mages, with walkers, of Liliana’s power.
Obviously, Semner’s people hadn’t told the squad commander much about whom he was dealing with. If they had, he might have taken more precautions.
If they had, the fact that the mages hadn’t escaped already would have warned him that something was very, very wrong.
Kallist and Liliana sat, continuing on occasion to bicker and silently wondering how long they would have to wait. Finally, as night slowly crept up behind the loitering daylight, cudgel in hand, they heard the heavy oaken door to the prison hallway screech open. They moved as one toward the bars so they could see. The officer who had arrested them stepped past the reptilian guard, grinned broadly at both of them, and strode toward the door of their cell.
“I’m Lieutenant Albin,” he introduced himself. “And you are …?”
“Not,” Kallist answered gruffly.
“Enjoying
“But don’t worry. If you’re telling the truth, we’ll get it all sorted out. Won’t take more than, oh, I’d say three or four days. Maybe a week on the outside.”
Everything clicked into place in Kallist’s mind, and he cursed himself for an idiot. The timing on this could be no coincidence. It could only be Semner’s work.
But that meant, just maybe, that the guards could point them toward the ugly bastard himself.
“Go along for now!” he hissed under his breath to Liliana, even as he saw her lips begin to twitch.
She peered at him as though he’d gone mad, but allowed herself to relax.
Two of the guards stepped forward to take the broadsword and crossbow. Grumbling, one of them patted down Kallist, searching for other weapons. The other, with a licentious grin, did the same to Liliana. Kallist recognized the brutal gleam in her eyes, and knew that the guard had better make every effort not to run into her again. Then, hands manacled together, surrounded by the entire squad, they found themselves marched down the streets of Favarial.
“As far as prisons go,” Kallist told Liliana some hours later, “I’ve certainly been in worse.”
She glared at him. “If this is supposed to comfort me, may I suggest that you try some other approach? Perhaps try punching me in the jaw. That would probably work better.”
“I’ve also escaped from far worse,” he protested.
“That’s almost impressive.”
“Well, almost thank you.”
Their current abode was a drab cell, stone-walled on three sides, with a barred gate on the fourth. One of several identical chambers in the watch-house of Favarial, all of which smelled of lingering sweat, fear, and humanoid wastes, it was probably intended to hold no fewer than a dozen prisoners.
That they were alone in the cell only con firmed that the official reason for their arrest was a sham.
Kallist and Liliana sat on stone cots that were bolted thoroughly to the floor, and the cell’s “chamber pot” was nothing more than a tiny hole, far too small for even the thinnest and most desperate prisoner to squeeze through. At the hall’s far end, well beyond reach of anyone within the cells, the only exit was guarded by the biggest viashino Kallist had ever seen. Her scales were a dull tan with a snake-like pattern of red and green rings. She wore a custom-formed breastplate of steel, and leaned on … Kallist wasn’t even sure what to call the ugly weapon: perhaps a morningstar with anger management issues. It was a heavy steel bar as long as a man’s leg, one end wrapped in leather, the rest of its span covered in a chaotic forest of spikes and spines and blades. She watched every one of the cells, constant, unblinking.
The prison was, by all normal measures, perfectly designed to provide neither any means of escape nor even the most crude of improvised weaponry.
“Normal measures,” of course, had no meaning to its present occupants. Oh, it had wards and sigils to prevent wizards from escaping—but the prison’s builders had never thought to contend with mages, with walkers, of Liliana’s power.
Obviously, Semner’s people hadn’t told the squad commander much about whom he was dealing with. If they had, he might have taken more precautions.
If they had, the fact that the mages hadn’t escaped already would have warned him that something was very, very wrong.
Kallist and Liliana sat, continuing on occasion to bicker and silently wondering how long they would have to wait. Finally, as night slowly crept up behind the loitering daylight, cudgel in hand, they heard the heavy oaken door to the prison hallway screech open. They moved as one toward the bars so they could see. The officer who had arrested them stepped past the reptilian guard, grinned broadly at both of them, and strode toward the door of their cell.
“I’m Lieutenant Albin,” he introduced himself. “And you are …?”
“Not,” Kallist answered gruffly.
“Enjoying
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