Overseer: The Horn, #3

By J. Kathleen Cheney

Those who hold the secrets of the Fortresses can remake the world...

 

A new player has arrived at Horn Keep, and it's up to Amal to decide whether he's the key to keeping her people safe, or the threat they've feared the most. Aulis is, like Dalyan, a version of the same long-dead engineer, a Founder of the Salonen Fortress. That alone should make him worth keeping alive.

 

But he's served the Cince Empire for almost two decades, the very people who want to steal Salonen Fortress. Now Amal is faced with the task of deciding whether he's even capable of telling the truth, whether he can lie to Dalyan. The question is…are they the same man or not?

 

And is buying Aulis' loyalty worth the risk of giving him the one thing he wants more than life itself? It's within Amal's power, but she knows that doing so will forever change her people's world…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dream Palace Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386807612

J. Kathleen Cheney

J. Kathleen Cheney is a former teacher and has taught mathematics ranging from 7th grade to Calculus, with a brief stint as a Gifted and Talented Specialist. She is a member of SFWA, RWA, and Broad Universe. Her works have been published in Jim Baen's Universe, Writers of the Future, and Fantasy Magazine, among others. Her novels, The Golden City, The Seat of Magic, and The Shores of Spain, are published in by Ace/Roc books. Her website can be found at www.jkathleencheney.com

Book preview

1

Dalyan had spent more of his life in captivity than not, and the next few days would determine whether imprisonment—or worse—lay in his future. The very thought of that possibility made his stomach clench.

Anna Lucas sat across the table from him, watching him through narrowed eyes. Despite being dressed like a servant, the little brown bird of a woman could crush him under the heel of her unadorned slipper if she wished. Start at the very beginning, she told him. Leave out nothing.

Anna was one of the senior members of the Daujom, the king’s private investigative body. She and her minions had taken over one of the sitting rooms in Lady Amal’s manor house in the capital city of Noikinos. Anna had given Dalyan the courtesy of interrogating him in Amal’s territory rather than dragging him to the palace every day, or, even worse, putting him under arrest. Anna had the power to do so, even though Dalyan was the Horn Consort, a position that gave him the status of Anvarrid citizen, a legally protected class. So instead of talking in a chilly cell, they sat around a table in a black and white bedecked sitting room on comfortable chairs, warmly clothed, in a room that was neither too hot nor too cold.

He’d been interrogated before—in far worse circumstances—so Dalyan was appreciative of that small grace.

There were two scribes in the room with them, both coolly impersonal. One had the look of Lucas Family, a middle-aged woman with blonde hair worn in multiple braids and a severe black uniform not unlike Dalyan’s own, but with different trim markings. A series of black soutache swirls across her chest identified her as a chaplain, but the design on her left cuff proclaimed that she was, indeed, part of the Daujom as well. She was probably a sensitive, sent here to judge his emotional responses in addition to his words. The other scribe was a handsome young man of mixed blood, perhaps Larossan like Anna, but his height and leanness hinted he was part Anvarrid. Like Anna, he wore Larossan-style garb that suggested he was a servant, a plain tunic and loose black trousers. Neither of the scribes looked at Dalyan.

The very first thing I remember, Dalyan began, casting his mind back eight years, was waking alone in a small room with gray walls and a gray ceiling. No windows. I was restrained, cuffed to the bed. I couldn’t hear anything or anyone, and I didn’t know where I was or who I was.

Were you warm or cold? Anna asked.

Chilly, he said. I was naked and there were no blankets.

The final member of the interrogating team sat in the corner, merely listening. A pretty woman with delicate features, she slumped a bit sideways in her chair, one foot tucked up in an apparent attempt to get comfortable. Her black Family uniform was similar to Dalyan’s own, with the stair-step trim of an engineer crossing her chest. Like Amal’s half-brother, Jan, this woman’s coloration ran somewhere between Family and Anvarrid, with dark hair but fair skin.

Rachel Lucas was a niece of the king and an Oathbreaker, like Amal, privy to the secrets of the Fortresses. She was there to hear what he said about the Cince and the facility in which he’d lived because she was one of the few here in the capital who would truly understand those things. And, like Anna, Rachel had the king’s ear. Anna could arrest him, hold him in prison, but Rachel could tell the king not to listen to the apprehensions about the Horn Family’s plan.

Dalyan wanted Amal’s warnings to the king to be believed, more than he wanted his own freedom. They needed the king on their side, because he was the only one who could release them from the legal constraints the Anvarrid-Family Treaty laid on them.

How did you feel when you woke? Anna asked.

Dalyan glanced back at her. Leave out nothing, she’d said.

I was uncomfortable, he said, flushing. I needed to . . . urinate.

Her head tilted, dark eyes amused. But you knew you shouldn’t pee your bed?

I knew that, he admitted. "I knew information. I knew waking like that wasn’t normal. I knew the restraints weren’t normal. I yelled, and after a few minutes, a man came into the room."

What sort of man?

Eight years had passed since that day, but he could still remember it clearly. Medium height, fair skin, light brown hair, perhaps thirty, slight tilt to his eyes.

So not a Cince? Anna said.

No. I later learned the guards were from a people called the Kostakov—one of the Cince’s subjugated races that serve as their military—but I didn’t know who they were at the time, and I knew nothing of the Cince. The guard never spoke to me. He unstrapped my hands and feet, gave me a robe, and pointed out the chamber pot in the corner of the room. Then he left, locking the door behind him.

Anna’s brows rose at the words chamber pot, but she didn’t pursue that. You were a prisoner?

He’d tried hard not to think of it that way. Later, his masters would tell him he was there to be reeducated, that he’d lost all his memories due to a mysterious plague, but his room had been a cell. He had, for over six years, been a prisoner. Yes.

Did your room have bars? How did he hear you yell?

No bars. A solid door, so I couldn’t see out. I don’t know how he heard me.

What language did you yell in?

Dalyan licked his lips. I honestly don’t know. I have to assume it was Salonen, although . . . I couldn’t seem to speak that when my first instructor came to the room the next day.

Tell me about your first instructor, then.

Dalyan sorted through the sketches he’d made of the twelve instructors who’d taken up six years of his life. He presented her with the correct one, the image of a lean and dark man with angry eyes and narrow lips. This man. He taught me his language, starting with the items of clothing he brought me, the walls, the bed. He never spoke to me in any other language than Anvarrid, and never told me his name. I was Dalyan to him, and he was Instructor to me. I thought that was his name at first but figured out it was a title instead.

Learning language by immersion, she mused. An excellent method.

It went on like that for hours, in painful detail, Anna digging up memories Dalyan wished long forgotten. How many guards, how many instructors, how did he manage to pick the locks of his cell?

At this rate, he would be stuck here in Noikinos for weeks.

Amal ordered the coach to halt by the side of the road before they even reached their second stop. With her brother’s help, she tumbled out and leaned over the edge of the road before casting up her hastily eaten lunch into the ditch among the weeds. When she was done, Jan wiped her chin with a handkerchief and handed her a flask of water. Once she’d cleared the nasty taste from her mouth, he dragged her into a reassuring hug, pushing his desire for her not to worry at her.

Pregnancy rarely made her physically ill. It had happened only a handful of times when she carried her son, Sander, but she was eight years older now . . . and she was worried. About what was happening to Dalyan back at the Noikinos estate, and what awaited them when they reached Horn Keep. Let me just walk for a few minutes, she said. Please.

Jan let her go. He patted her shoulder and then leaned back against the carriage to watch over her from a distance, one hand on his pistol.

Amal walked along the road, gazing out at the fields of rapeseed swaying in the breeze, brilliant yellow flowers just opening. Too cold in Horn Province to grow the stuff, but it survived in the central provinces of Larossa. Horn Province would see some of this come in with the tithes from the other Families in a couple of months, paid to Horn in return for inhabiting the coldest and least fruitful of provinces. And because we’ve kept an eye on the abandoned Fortress of Salonen for centuries, as well as the glacier that damaged it.

She needed to return to those duties. They were pressing the horses and changing out more frequently than normal, in the hope of making an eight-day trip into six. It could be done, especially since the moon was nearly full and the carriages were four passengers lighter. Mikks, Nohr, and Sofie had stayed behind with Dalyan in Noikinos. They meant to watch over Dalyan with the same caution with which they usually guarded her. But they also stayed behind so he wouldn’t be alone.

It had been a simple decision for Eldana and Magnus to return with Amal, though, since Magnus was the First of the twenty-sevens and therefore responsible for the whole yeargroup. Jan and Freja had headed back with her as well. Jan was her primary guard, tasked with keeping her safe, and Freja was an infirmarian, needed back at the Keep to help tend their new arrival.

There were, in fact, two newcomers at Horn Keep, one for Freja to tackle in the infirmary in the Fortress below the Keep, and one for Amal to handle in the Keep above. Grandfather Johan hadn’t been willing to commit much to paper for fear of it being lost or stolen, and Eldana’s brother Bjorn had ridden like a madman all the way to Noikinos, bearing Grandfather’s scant message.

Bjorn had a great deal more to tell them, though. The two newcomers had appeared near the glacier where the Horn had an encampment, and thus were almost immediately picked up by the Horn military personnel stationed there. As if simply appearing on the plain near the glacier hadn’t been proof of their origin, both of them looked enough like Dalyan that there was no mistaking it. They were created by the Cince from the same pattern as Dalyan. The two newcomers had his tall, lean build, his facial features, and even that flat spot on the bridge of his nose. According to Bjorn, though, both were fairer in coloration, with blondish hair and light blue eyes. Dalyan’s coloring had been altered to make him look more Anvarrid, giving him brown hair and dark blue eyes with a hint of violet in them.

And according to Bjorn, the younger of the newcomers had been shot in the gut. He would be Freja’s charge in the infirmary once she got back there. Bjorn thought him close to his own age—nineteen—or even younger. And he was incoherent, not from a fever but because the language he spoke wasn’t Anvarrid. Fever had set in almost immediately, though, before they’d managed to make the partial day’s journey to the Keep. After ascertaining that he had no threatening device implanted under his scalp, the elders had taken the young man down into Horn Fortress for the infirmarians to treat.

The older newcomer had proven the real problem, though. He called himself Aulis, and insisted he needed inside the Fortress. The elders were not amused, Bjorn claimed.

The horses were growing restive, though. Amal knew they needed to keep moving. The more time they lost on the road, the greater chance that these newcomers could cause trouble . . . or summon the Cince.

Freja joined Amal in walking along the side of the road. Freja was the fairest of them. She possessed the pale skin and almost-white hair commonly associated with the Horn Family, but her dark eyes hinted there was Anvarrid blood in there somewhere. Not unusual for the Horn Family, who likely had the most mixed blood of any of the Six Families. How are you holding up? Freja asked, picking a wind-caught thread of hair from her mouth.

Amal took a deep breath, gazed up at the overcast sky, and focused on calming her nerves before glancing down at Freja. I’ll be fine.

Freja smirked. "I don’t know what you mean by fine, but don’t throw up in the carriage."

Freja preferred acerbic humor to coddling. Amal was grateful for that at the moment. She turned and headed back toward the carriage, waving to the second carriage as she went so they would know they were ready to start moving again. Jan helped Amal up into the carriage, and then Freja. He settled with Freja on the rear-facing bench and regarded Amal with characteristic brotherly concern. Jan specialized in concern. You’re not putting yourself at risk, are you? Or the baby?

She’ll be fine, Freja said, laying her small hand over his. Women have been having children for a long time. A little sick won’t stop her.

Jan turned his gaze on his wife, as if unsure whether she was wholly serious. Freja had miscarried when she’d caught a terrible influenza six years past.

This is not the same, Jan, Freja snapped. I throw up all the time when I’m pregnant. You know that. So stop worrying, both of you. You’re making my head ache. Freja was the strongest sensitive of the group, so it was possible that their worry was wearing at her nerves in the tight confines of the carriage.

As the vehicle resumed its clunking down the road, Amal leaned back against the leather bench, closed her eyes, and fought for calm as her now-empty stomach roiled and twisted. She was needed as Lady Horn back at Horn Keep, and as Amal back in Noikinos . . . and would be stuck on the road for days, unable to do anything to help in either place.

She hated being helpless.

2

D id you think it was fair of them to lock you in your quarters? Anna asked him.

It had been three days, and Dalyan had exhausted everything he could about his personal history. Today his questioner had moved on to his emotional reflections on his time in the facility. And that was even worse. He’d managed to bury his feelings about the place in his past and hated unearthing them.

I knew it wasn’t normal, he said, a phrasing he had used a great deal over the past few days. "I think fair is too abstract to apply to everyday life."

The small woman peered at him, lips pursed.

He sighed and tried again. I was told it was for my safety, but I’m not that stupid. I didn’t know the truth, and I had no source to tell me the truth, so I accepted it as the way it was.

Yet you did find a way to escape your room, she noted.

Yes, of course. But I couldn’t find a way out of the facility itself. It seemed endless, and the only entries I saw people come and go through were too heavily guarded. That train of questioning went on for most of the afternoon, variations on why he hadn’t tried to escape.

That was their concern. If he hadn’t tried to escape his masters, why should they believe he didn’t want to serve them? But it had never been that simple. At first, he’d been too confused even to understand where he was. Then he’d realized he didn’t have the knowledge to go out in the world. Without memories, nothing had context. Since they were teaching him, he’d accepted that. He’d been biding his time, trying to figure out that strange place in which he found himself. It had taken four years before he’d truly understood that they wouldn’t let him go, that he was a captive, no matter what they called it. So then he’d settled for learning everything he could about the facility and its denizens, a frustratingly slow process since he only dared leave his room for an hour or two at a time during the night. Try exploring an entire Fortress in only an hour or two a day, he said. "Some parts of the facility I could only reach in that time, not explore."

But when you had the chance to leave their control, you did.

Dalyan sighed. To be clear, I didn’t actually leave. I went to sleep one night in my room. I woke the next morning on the Pedrossa-Larossa border in the company of one of my instructors.

He didn’t know precisely how that had happened, but he had an idea. It wasn’t too different from constructing a human out of tiny parts as the great machines did, only this time the tiny parts were assembled elsewhere. There was a vague concept in the corner of his mind of a machine that could send people away, but actual knowledge of it remained elusive. He began to explain that to Anna, but the Oathbreaker present—Rachel—had made a quick motion, ending that line of questioning before it progressed further. That was Rachel’s function here—to determine when he’d crossed into forbidden territory.

Anyhow, he said, I knew I was out of the facility, but still wasn’t free.

Why not run then? Anna asked, head tilting.

Run where? He shook his head. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know where I was. It had been a frightening time for him, full of sights and sounds and smells he had no ability to recognize. Merely thinking back on it brought on a wave of anxiety.

You’re a smart man, Anna said, oblivious to his distress, you could have figured it out.

He wasn’t sure she meant that compliment. And do what?

You had money, didn’t you? You had gold ingots sewn into the hem of your coat.

And no idea how to trade with them, he admitted. I had no practical knowledge of where to find food, where to purchase supplies, or the value of the ingots themselves, so I stayed with my instructor. I watched him, kept track of what he was paying, where he was going. Once we got to Noikinos, I slipped away, although I suspect he knew where I went.

How would he know? Anna asked.

Dalyan pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to look at Rachel, who nodded. I had a piece of metal in my head, beneath my scalp. He pointed to the scarred spot under his short hair, angling his head so that Anna could see it. Right here. I believe it allowed them to keep track of me.

I’ve heard about that. Anna glanced at Rachel for confirmation, One of the two scribes recording his testimony—the sensitive with chaplain trim on her uniform—coughed into her hand. Anna sat back, mouth twisting. We’ll pick up there tomorrow, she said. You’re dismissed until the morning.

The chaplain had been one of the saving graces of this questioning. The woman—whose name Dalyan still didn’t know—was apparently keeping Anna from questioning Dalyan as relentlessly as she no doubt wished to do. Dalyan suspected that was out of respect for Amal, not him. Either way, whenever he neared the point of mental exhaustion, they stopped and gave him time to collect himself.

It wasn’t the behavior of someone questioning a traitor. They were collecting information.

They were giving him the benefit of the doubt.

So he gratefully rose and left the room, emerging into the warm hallway of Amal’s rustic manor house.

Two others in black Horn Family uniforms sat at a table they’d dragged into the hallway, books spread before them. Mikks and Sofie had used the long days to study their engineering texts—and the Horn language itself, a practice forbidden by the Six Families’ treaty with the Anvarrid. Believing that Dalyan’s arrival heralded change that needed to be addressed, their yeargroup, the twenty-sevens, had chosen to risk expulsion from their own Family. The twenty-sevens were learning both the Horn and Salonen languages—essentially becoming Oathbreakers—so that should an expedition be mounted to open Salonen, they would be prepared. That had given the Horn elders the luxury of being able to address the danger presented by the unguarded Fortress of Salonen, while putting the legal responsibility for breaking the treaty on only one yeargroup.

If the king chose, he could absolve the twenty-sevens of guilt, the main reason Dalyan was cooperating with Anna.

Noting that the door had opened, Mikks jumped to his feet, his worry held tight. His handsome face was lined with stress, his short blond hair rumpled from constant tugging on it. How are you?

I’m tired, Dalyan admitted. They look about as tired as I feel.

Sofie calmly gathered their books, her eyes downcast. Like Amal, Sofie wore her blond hair braided back, neat and out of her way. How much longer do you think this will go on?

We still have about two years to go, Dalyan warned. So . . . days. I’m sorry.

Sofie didn’t like to be apart from her husband for too long. Dalyan hadn’t even realized she had a partner until they’d begun this journey to the capital. From what Sofie said, Valdemar worked nights in the quartermaster’s office, and rarely joined any social activities with the rest of the yeargroup, so Dalyan simply hadn’t met the man.

Sofie gave him a wry smile. Not your fault.

Each night he’d carved out time to play with his puppy and talk to the others who’d stayed behind with him before collapsing into his bed. He hadn’t been able to sustain much more interaction than that. It was important to the Horn, though, this idea of togetherness—having others to belong with and making time for them. That was half the reason they’d stayed behind with him.

Sofie handed the entire pile of books and notebooks to Mikks and then slid her arm through Dalyan’s. The cook left us some sweetmeats. He’s trying to fatten us up, Sofie said cheerily, although I don’t need that. You, on the other hand, could stand to eat his desserts.

Sofie had inherited a short and stocky shape and a rounded, cheery face. She claimed that if she ate a single dessert her uniform would be too tight.

So where is Nohr? Dalyan asked.

Mikks caught up and walked abreast of them now. He’s been off most of the day shopping for things we didn’t have time to order before Amal left the capital. He may not admit it, but he loves doing that. He’ll make a list and hunt down every item on it. That’s one of the reasons Amal wanted him to stay.

The first couple of days, Nohr had been taking care of business with the Horn guards assigned at the manor house and trying to make some friends among the cool and distant Lucas Family guards who’d accompanied Dalyan’s interrogators. He hadn’t gotten far with that second effort since the Lucas guards were part of the Daujom itself, but he had tried.

Mikks and Sofie had been