Mouradian: An Argentia Dasani Adventure

By C. Justin Romano

Is it a rogue redhead?

Someone is killing the wizards of Teranor, and all the evidence points to Argentia Dasani as the assassin. As the body count rises, Argentia’s friends rally to her defense. Chasing clues from the thieves’ guilds of Telarban to the invisible island of Elsmywr, the companions uncover an insidious plot hatched decades earlier by a madman named Mouradian—one that threatens not only the Order of the Magi but the crowndom itself. Can they unravel the machinations of the Great Maker in time, or will Teranor fall to an unspeakable foe and Argentia be left to face a fate worse than death?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532065798

C. Justin Romano

C. Justin Romano is the author of 8 novels, all following the adventures of Argentia Dasani in the magical realm of Acrevast. When not scribing these tales, Mr. Romano serves as the Director of Special Projects for AEGIS. A native of New Jersey, he dwells there still.

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Copyright © 2019 C. Justin Romano.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-6578-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-6580-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-6579-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019900470

iUniverse rev. date: 02/15/2019

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Part I Body Count

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Part II Argentia and the Island Wizard

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

Interlude: The Great Maker

Part III A Friend in Need

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

Interlude: Two Torments

Part IV The Attack of the Simulcra

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

Interlude: The Bargain

Part V The Siege of Elsmywr

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

Epilogue

For Aslan Romano,

who

also loves dragons…

Acknowledgements

As always, foremost to my family for their infinite patience and unwavering support. To the team at iUniverse for their editorial input and expert assistance in preparing the manuscript. To Zach Turner for once again dispelling the myth that you can’t judge a book by its cover. And to everyone who’s read Argentia’s previous adventures, with apologies for the lengthy hiatus and hopes that the return will prove the wait worthwhile…

Prologue

Kill Beltoran of Argo…

With the swipe of a katana, it was done. The wizard’s headless body remained upright, as if unaware that death had come. Then the blood geyser started: crimson blasting from the stump of his neck, chasing the arc of Beltoran’s head through the air. His knees buckled. His robed form crumpled to the floor. His head landed on a nearby table, toppling glassware and scattering alchemical apparati. It rolled onto its side, eyes staring like accusatory stones.

All too easy, the huntress thought. She had come in the guise of a friend, and that had been sufficient to get her past the house’s formidable wards. Once inside, the foolish spell-tosser’s magic had been no match for the surprise of her attack or the speed of her blade.

Magus?

A servant. The huntress spun, but this time she was too slow. The door opened. Is all well, Magus? I heard—

The huntress didn’t wait. Snapping her blade away—she’d been ordered to kill the wizard, not his slaves—she bolted for the window, bracing her forearms across her face as she crashed through the glass and out into the cold night.

She fell two stories. Landed awkwardly. Something gave in her ankle: a flare of pain all the way up her leg that sent her tumbling hard on the frozen ground. Grimacing, she struggled to her feet and fled, trying her best to run.

In the death room above her, the servant was screaming into an oculyr.

M

The chase was on.

Beltoran’s servant had used the crystal ball to contact Argo’s Watch, but it was just bad luck that put the pursuit after the huntress so quickly. The garrison’s desk sergeant had relayed the message to all patrols in the vicinity. A unit heading for their shift at Argo’s sea dock happened to be less than a block from the wizard’s property and spotted the huntress limping out of the gate.

Had she been uninjured, she would have outran them like a doe flying from hounds, but she knew from the first this was not a race she could win. As the four Watchmen closed the distance, the huntress veered across the manicured lawn of a park and into a copse of white ash. Winter moonlight dropped cold spears through the canopy. The white trees were ghostly. The shadows between them were very dark. The huntress might have crouched in any of those, waiting to strike or to slip away once the Watch passed by.

Instead she went up.

Clambering into the lower branches of an ash, she watched the two Watchmen waving their moonstones about below her. Safely above the illumination of the magical stones, she enjoyed her pursuers’ curses and the frustrated plumes of their frosty breath. When they eventually gave up, she would climb down and head off. Her ankle hurt like hell; she really couldn’t expect to go on much longer without tending it, but she would go on long enough to—

The branch she was standing on broke and she fell.

It was a shorter drop than the one from the wizard’s window, but it took her by surprise and she landed awkwardly again, coming down hard on one knee. Pale light blazed upon her as the Watchmen spun around.

It took them a moment to realize what had happened, where she’d come from. Time enough for her to lurch to her feet. Injured as she was, she couldn’t run. She would have to fight her way out of it.

A Watchman grabbed for her. She snapped an elbow into his chin, fast and hard as a punch. Caught his arm and slung him into the other Watchman. The pair went down in a tangle of limbs. She stumbled past them, hobbling through the dappled darkness and out the far side of the grove.

Where the other two Watchmen were waiting.

Hey! Stop! one of them ordered.

The huntress reached for her katana.

Something slammed like a battering ram into her side. Drove her into endless blackness.

M

Augustus Falkyn shivered, drawing his cloak more closely about his blue magi robes. The night wind off the White Sea was chill and damp with the promise of a nasty season ahead. I can’t believe how cold it is, he grumped. Even my feet are cold.

Kest Eregrin glanced down at the halfling’s bare feet, their tops covered with curly hair that was as thick and wooly as a mountain sheep’s coat, and shook his head. You didn’t complain in Nord, he remarked. It was much colder there.

But in Nord you didn’t drag me out of my warm bed in the middle of the night, Augustus said, trying his best to make his cherubic features frown.

I was sleeping, too, Kest reminded him. He’d been listening to Augustus’ almost constant complaints since they’d met at the garrison and he wasn’t in the best of moods himself. With two deaths on the books already, the prospect of getting back to bed tonight looked dim. Don’t blame me. Blame whoever killed Beltoran.

I do, Augustus huffed. He could see Beltoran’s home beyond the fence. The wizarding community was small. Beltoran had been recognized in it as a talented magus. It wasn’t easy to kill a talented magus, but someone had done so, and then been killed by the Watch while trying to escape.

Neat and tidy… Except Augustus was sure it wouldn’t be neat and tidy at all once they started poking at it. Sensing Kest had heard enough from him, he kept that thought silent as they crossed the hoary grass of Edgewater Park.

Outside a copse of white ash, six Watchmen were waiting beside a cloak-covered corpse. They looked as miserable and cold as Augustus felt, but came to attention quickly when the wizard and the captain approached.

Well, what have we got? Kest asked once the obligatory salutes had been made. Kest was a tall Nhapian with close-cropped black hair, the nut-brown skin typical of the Easterling people, and glasses over quick black eyes. His promotion to captain had been recently made, and he was still adjusting to having men under his command.

A woman, Captain, one of the lieutenants answered.

Kest and Augustus exchanged a glance. Just as long as it’s not another cat-woman, Kest muttered. They’d had some trouble with a pair of rather feline twins several months ago: trouble that had landed them in a chase across half of Acrevast and cost four of their friends their lives.

Sir?

Nothing, Lieutenant. Go on.

Sir, we were heading to the docks for shift change when we got the call about the attack at the wizard’s place. We saw this woman fleeing the property. We ordered her to stop. She didn’t. We pursued and cornered her here. She attacked so Travian shot her.

Kest nodded. Any idea what this is about? Is she Black Fang? he asked. The Fang were the lowliest of Argo’s thieves. Not even a true guild, its members would take any job, from robbing old women in the Market Square to cutting throats in back alleys.

Not that we could tell, Captain. She wasn’t carrying their sigul if she is.

Not likely, then. The Fang were constantly trying to prove their relevance among the guilds of Argo’s Undercity. They never did anything without leaving their mark. Well, let’s have a look. Then I want to talk to—

The words died in Kest’s mouth as he bent and drew aside the cloak covering the body.

Aeton’s bolts. Augustus gasped. He knew what he was seeing, but he didn’t believe it. Kest—what happened? How could— Why would she—

I don’t know. Kest shook his head. I don’t know.

With a trembling hand, he reached out and gently pulled the cloak back over the body of Argentia Dasani.

Part I

Body Count

1

Kill Promitius of Valon….

The command echoed in her mind as she stood in darkness across the street from the wizard’s manse. She had no difficulty with the command itself. It was the fence that was the problem.

Nigh twenty feet tall, it ringed the Promitius’ home with an impregnable array of iron spears and great gargoyles mounted on stone posts. Winged granite nightmares, the gargoyles looked like statues. In truth they were misshapen magical sentinels waiting to swoop down and snare intruders. She knew this because…

Because I know….

She didn’t know how she knew, or why. Had she encountered such things before? It seemed she had, but the memories were vague things, like the clinging webwork of a dream that shreds upon waking.

And why was not important. Not really. It was enough that she knew the gargoyles for what they were: a problem that might hinder her from obeying the command to kill the magus. There was no way around or through or under the fence. There was no way over it. Not unless I can fly….

M

Good of you to come, old friend, Promitius said, squinting as the flash of aether strobed the chamber and Ralak the Red materialized out of the magical gate.

I am here, Ralak said.

You sound less than pleased to have accepted my invitation. Perhaps you believe I have summoned you for some trifle?

Promitius of Valon does not trifle, the Archamagus of Teranor replied. He was shorter than his host, and more slender, dressed in vermillion robes and leaning on the silver Staff of Dimrythain, symbol of his authority over all the crowndom’s magi. Black hair was swept back from his brow, falling neatly to his shoulders, and a short black beard descended sharply from his jaw. He fixed his dark eyes on Promitius like a hawk studying a rabbit in a far-below field. That is precisely why I was loathe to come.

Well, we shall speak of it in more civilized environs, I think. The russet-robed wizard, whose tonsured head gave him more of the appearance of a monk than a magus, gestured and the door of the conjuring chamber opened. The duo proceeded down a corridor hung with tapestries into a brightly lit dining chamber. Ralak took the seat proffered at a polished mahogany table. Wine poured itself from a floating decanter into a crystal goblet. Promitius took his own seat and his own drink. Superb, he said, closing his eyes for a moment to savor the wine. The grapes are from the Palaber vineyards in Rominji. Aged in oak for—

Promitius….

Of course, of course. Always straight to the point with you, isn’t it, Ralak? Very well, then. I fear I have lost something of great value.

What?

A medallion of summoning.

Ralak’s goblet was halfway to his lips. He set it aside with the wine untasted and leaned forward. How long?

Promitius hesitated. I have only now discovered it missing, but it has been gone four months and six days.

A curiously precise determination.

That is the time since I dismissed the wretch who stole the medallion from my care.

Explain, Ralak said.

Pandaros Krite—my former apprentice. He had promise, but he was rash, headstrong, and greedy for power. I hoped that might change, that he might learn patience and respect for the discipline of our art if he was well instructed. For five years he served me and I taught him, until….

Until? Ralak pressed.

We had a falling out over a failed casting. Something I had been working on for months. Pandaros was too hasty in his combining of ingredients at the critical moment. I lost my temper and dismissed him as hopeless. He took what few spell scrolls he had mastered—and my medallion.

A summoning medallion is no conjuror’s toy, Ralak snapped. In the wrong hands—

Spare me the lecture, Archamagus, Promitius said, his eyes flashing. I am steeped as long in the ways of wizarding as you or any other magus. I know the risks of such a token.

Then how could you let it be stolen? Ralak demanded.

Promitius sighed, calming. Pandaros was greedy, but I never thought him deceitful. He knew the medallion was very valuable to me. He must have taken it for spite when he left. I did not think on it until today, when I went to use it and found only the empty box. I was foolish, Ralak. Blind and foolish.

Does this Krite know the extent of the medallion’s powers?

Promitius spread his hands. I cannot— He frowned, his brow furrowing. He looked up sharply. An instant later, shrieking filled the air.

What is it? Ralak asked.

My gargoyles, Promitius said, rising swiftly. Intruders.

2

The stone monster bore the huntress aloft.

A screeching goat-eagle thing with horns and talons and huge wings, it had attacked her as soon as she began scaling the post beneath its perch. The instant the monster sprang to life, the huntress dropped to the ground. The gargoyle dove after her. She leaped high, landing on its back and locking an arm across its stony throat.

The gargoyle bucked and cried in fury, mounting skyward, lifting the huntress over the fence. She released her hold and tumbled off its rough back. The moment her boots hit the lawn between the wizard’s fence and his house she was running.

Two more gargoyles launched themselves from stone pedestals flanking the front door. The third monster was right behind her, its swiping claws almost catching her long red braid. She spared no glance back. Ran harder, right at the two onrushing gargoyles. At the last instant she dove, skidding on the frosty grass, not quite quick enough to escape a stinging hail of shards as the three flying guardians crashed destructively into each other.

On her feet again, she saw that not all the gargoyles had been obliterated in the collision. One stumbled and staggered towards her, its wings broken, one arm a shattered stump, half its goatish face sheared off. She whirled away from it—her weapons were no use against stone—and sprinted the last distance to the doors.

M

Ralak followed Promitius from the dining chamber down the stairs and into the foyer. The perimeter glyphs brayed. What intruders? Ralak asked even as he reached into the aether, opening his mind to the world beyond the walls of the house to catch a sense of the attackers. Who would dare strike at you? One only, and almost to the doors….

Promitius laughed, a touch of paranoia in his brown eyes. We have not all been so blessed as you and your late brother, Ralak the Red, to boast the title of Archamagus and the strength of the Crown to support our work. I have made my fortune as I had to. Not all my dealings were with men of honor.

He extended a hand and his staff flew to his call. It flared with angry blue aetherlight as he caught it. I do not know what enemies come against me this night, but I know they shall end as all the rest!

He pointed and the doors to the manor flew open, crashing against the walls. The bright foyer light fell upon an onrushing figure being chased by a crippled gargoyle. Halt if you would live, wretch. Promitius the Brown commands it!

Ralak, a pace behind Promitius, saw the figure freeze for an instant. The shock of recognition stunned the Archamagus.

The figure unfroze. Snapped a dagger from her belt and flung it at Promitius.

No! Ralak shouted as silver-blue aether forked like lightning from Promitius’ staff, catching the woman before she could dodge, flinging her down. The gargoyle fell upon her. Blunt fingers vised over her face.

No! Ralak shouted again. He shoved past the slumping Promitius. The Staff of Dimrythain blazed forth magic, blasting the gargoyle into dust—an instant too late.

Before the magic struck it, the gargoyle broke the woman’s neck with a single vicious twist.

Ralak stumbled as he went toward her, unable to believe what he had seen. A thousand questions cometed across his mind, but none of them changed the reality that Argentia Dasani now lay dead before him, a single rill of blood, red as her hair, dribbling from her lips to stain the stones.

Rash fool! Ralak cried, wheeling on Promitius.

The other wizard was on his knees in the doorway. A dark stain was spreading around the dagger jutting from his shoulder. I am hurt, he gasped.

Fool! Ralak repeated. What have you done?

3

Ikabod had dreaded this moment all his long life. The butler had prayed it might pass him by, that death would claim him first. That was how it should be: the old died, the young buried them and lived on. It resonated with his sense of propriety and order.

Instead—this.

It was too cruel that it should happen at all, but especially that it should happen now, not even a year after Argentia had defied impossible odds and rescued him from Togril Vloth’s ice pyramid in Nord. Neither the guildmaster’s gauntlet of lethal servants nor even the collapse of his crystal palace into the frozen wastes of the world had been able to stop or stay her.

But her luck had finally run out.

My friend?

Kest Eregrin’s voice drew Ikabod from his grim reverie. The Watch Captain had been among those who had survived to tell the tale of the siege of Vloth’s Frost Palace. Better you had died there a thousand times and Argentia still lived! Ikabod thought bitterly. But what had happened was not Kest’s fault, even though it had been the men of Argo’s Watch that had ended Argentia’s life. It was unfair to cast blame upon him.

The butler ran a hand over his thinning gray hair. Forgive my distraction. This is…difficult.

No, Kest said. It’s difficult for us. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am. She seemed indestructible.

The butler looked away. Kest sighed. The uncomfortable silence that falls only between men who wish to say more but do not know how dropped over the small office in the Watch garrison. Augustus plucked at an eyebrow, a habit when he was nervous or upset.

Ikabod, who knew well what the officers of the Watch required of him, finally summoned the dignity to put an end to the awkwardness. Well, Captain. I imagine there are certain formalities that require my attention?

Kest nodded gratefully. I’m afraid there are. He gestured at a sheaf of papers on his desk. If you can just complete these attestations?

Of course, Captain. Ikabod took the proffered quill and moved it deliberately to the paper. His right eye was covered by a patch, courtesy of Togril Vloth’s feline enforcers, and reading and writing were exercises done more carefully now than when he had learned them so many winters ago. As he handled the hateful sheets he felt suddenly nauseous. The papers gave reality to a thing that had seemed unreal.

All through this dark night and dawn, from the moment the Watch had come pounding on the door and even after he had seen Argentia’s body upon the table and laid his hands upon her cold, lifeless flesh, part of Ikabod had stubbornly persisted that this was all a hideous dream. That Argentia was not even in Argo, but wandering far away and safe.

The nib upon the paper scratched that hope to death.

Dead like her….

At that, Ikabod almost broke. He dropped the quill and jerked up from the table, his long, narrow face contorting as he fought to hold his composure. Kest rose quickly and placed a hand on Ikabod’s shoulder. They were almost of a height, and similar in build, though the Captain had the lean muscularity of thirty winters, and the butler the brittle boniness of seventy. Easy, easy, Kest said.

With remarkable effort born of years in service to a singular duty, Ikabod recovered his self-control. Thank you, Captain. He straightened the lapels of his gray livery. If there is nothing else?

Nothing else, Kest said. I know this is no consolation, but the Argentia we knew was as brave and true as any in Teranor. I don’t know what she was mixed up in or why she murdered Beltoran, but I promise you, we will find out. If some treachery forced her hand, we’ll bring it to justice.

Augustus nodded. You can count on us.

Ikabod just shook his head. It doesn’t matter now.

4

Despite being aware that there was much work to be done, for perhaps the first time in his life Ikabod could not do it. He knew there were funeral arrangements to be made, Argentia’s few friends to notify, the testament to see to, but those things, urgent though they were, seemed beyond him.

The ride up the white-gravel carriageway to the manor atop the hill had been the longest of his long life. The original Dasani manse had stood in this same spot until it was destroyed in an explosion crafted by Argentia’s enemies. She had seen it rebuilt exactly as it had been, but had spent barely three months in her new home before leaving again. Ikabod had never tried to talk her into staying. That was not his place, and staying was not in her nature.

It is now, his overwrought mind corrected. Now she would stay forever, interred beside her parents’ monuments in the rear of the yard behind the manor.

Ikabod looked at the magisterial lion-headed fountain in the center of the turnabout. At the gabled roofs and gray stone and frosted-glass windowed façade of the great house. He could not imagine living out whatever remained of his days here. It was not being alone that worried him—he had been alone far more oft than not these past twenty years—but being in this house without a purpose.

Time enough to settle that later, he told himself as he dismounted slowly from the driving board. Today, at least, he had his last duties to Lady Dasani to perform. He meant to begin them after a short rest. It was nearly noon, and he had been up almost all night.

As he prepared his meager lunch, more out of habit than any true desire to eat, he noticed a bottle of the clear liquor that Argentia had favored standing on the counter. He decided on a small drink to settle his nerves and honor his mistress.

Midnight found him in the same chair he had taken at noon. The only thing that had changed was the level of liquor in the bottle on the table beside him. Mostly full when he sat down, it now stood a swallow or two from empty. Though Ikabod did not drink habitually, he did not think he would find a better day to be drunk if he lived another seven decades.

Perhaps it had helped for a while, but now most of the dulling effects of the liquor had worn off, leaving only a bitter taste in his mouth and a bitter scree on his mind. She’s gone, and this is how you honor her memory?

He grabbed the bottle and hurled it into the fireplace. It exploded against the stone, making the fire he had no recollection of starting blaze up brighter for an instant.

Why? he moaned, clenching his fist in frustration and banging it upon the table. Once. Twice. Thrice. Harder each time: like the knocking in the night that had heralded this disaster.

How he wished he had never opened the door. That he had left the Kest and Augustus and their hideous news to rot there outside the manor.

Pulled by the weight of despair, a tear trickled from Ikabod’s single eye. He missed the other more today than he had on any other day since losing it. Wanted it for its tears. Oh, my Lady—

A flash of light sundered the chamber before him.

5

Ikabod flung an arm up, shrinking back in the chair. His heart was hammering, his pulse ramming in his neck, deafening in his ears, but he was so frightened he barely felt it.

You! Ikabod gasped, recognizing the figure materializing out of the aether. This was not the first time Ralak the Red had appeared to him in such a dramatic fashion.

You told me once the old do not sleep well, the Archamagus said wryly. I am sorry to see it is true.

These are sorry days, Ikabod managed, calming enough to come to his feet. He was unsteady.

Ralak moved to help him. Sorrier than you can imagine, my friend. But sit. He assisted the butler back into the chair. I bear grim tidings, and you would do best to hear what I must speak while seated.

Ikabod turned a curious, bloodshot eye on the wizard. Why have you come, Archamagus?

Ralak bowed his head. Argentia is dead.

I know, Ikabod said.

Of all the many responses Ikabod could have made, this was the last the Archamagus expected. They say ill news travels on swift wings, he murmured. How did you learn?

Last night, from the Watch, Ikabod said. I identified her body at the morgue this morning.

You identified her body at what morgue? Ralak asked carefully, uncertain whether the shock of his news had wrested the butler from his senses.

Argo’s, Ikabod replied, fixing an equally perplexed look on the Archamagus. Where else?

Lady Dasani died in Valon, at the home of Promitius the Brown, Ralak said. I tried to stop it. I failed. Her body remains there still.

I beg your pardon, Ikabod said heatedly. After all that had happened today, it was too much for even one of his self-possession to be trifled with like this by anyone, the Archamagus of Teranor included. Argentia was killed by the Watch in Edgewater Park. They say she murdered a wizard.

Murdered a wizard? Perhaps it would be best if you showed me the body, Ralak said, frowning deeply.

"I think I should know my own mistress—alive