Phaelan’s grin was wicked. “How thorough is it?”
I looked down, way down. Now my mouth fell open.
I definitely felt different. I mean I was still me, but I now had things dangling where things had never dangled before. I resisted the urge to reach down and touch.
I was horrified. “How the hell do you walk with these things?”
Phaelan’s grin turned wolfish. “Proudly.”
Tanik Ozal was red in the face from laughing so hard.
“Oh, shut up!”
“I’m sorry, girl… Captain… whatever.”
“Okay, so I can do a glamour,” I told them both. “That’s all well and good to get through the front doors, but I can’t just walk out of there with Piaras.”
Tanik’s laughter had subsided to chuckles. He grinned and raised a finger, indicating that I wait. He went to a chest in the corner and started rummaging through it. He pulled out a pendant on the end of a long chain.
“Oh shit,” Phaelan said, saving me the trouble.
A pendant linked to the Saghred was what got me into this entire mess. I was less than enthused about wearing another one.
“My son’s majoring in magical instrument design,” Tanik told us. “This little gadget was his summer school project. And unlike some of his other efforts, this one actually works.” He paused and looked embarrassed. “Well, for about fifteen minutes. It makes the wearer invisible, so you can get in as an embassy guard, free Piaras, have him wear the pendant, and stroll out.”
I just looked at him. “In less than fifteen minutes.”
“You’ll get to find out how good you really are.”
“I’d rather not have to find that out. Can Piaras take it off and then put it right back on for another fifteen minutes?”
Tanik grimaced. “Unfortunately, no. It takes about an hour to recharge after it’s been used. My boy only got a C on this project.”
I blew out my breath and took the pendant. “Then I’ll work with what I have. Okay, have your crew get me an embassy guard. And make him an officer. I don’t want to get stuck cleaning latrines.”
Chapter 22
It took Tanik’s boys nearly two hours to get what I needed, but what they brought me didn’t disappoint. An elf lay trussed and mostly unconscious at my feet. An embassy guard captain. Perfect. High enough of a rank to get respect, low enough not to attract too much attention. Plus he was good-looking. If I had to be a man, at least I got to be a handsome one.
“I need his name,” I told Tanik’s first mate.
The man grinned and pulled a disk and chain out of the guard’s tunic and over his head.
Dog tags. Excellent.
Captain Baran Ratharil. Serial number 847364. My identity for the evening. I hung the tags around my neck. Captain Ratharil was about to take Taltek Balmorlan’s newest prized possession out of the embassy right under his nose.
At least that was the plan. It was my plan, I liked it, and I was going to do everything in my ability and power to make certain that it happened.
I was going into the embassy alone. Phaelan didn’t like that.
“I’ll be waiting across the street,” he said, his expression as dark as his mood.
“With six of my best men,” Tanik added.
“If something goes wrong, there’ll be nothing you can do to help,” I told them both. “You won’t even know I’m in trouble.”
Phaelan almost smiled. “If you and Piaras get into trouble, everyone within a ten-mile radius is going to know about it.”
He was probably right.
“Phaelan, if anything happens to me—”
“Nothing is going to happen to you.” He said it like he personally dared Fate to defy him.
“Okay then, in the unlikely event that a mishap should befall me…”
Phaelan scowled.
“I want you and Tanik to promise me that you’ll do everything you can to keep Balmorlan from taking Piaras off of this island.” I looked from one of them to the other. “And if he does, you will find Piaras, regardless of where he is—or how long it takes. Promise me.”
Phaelan’s dark eyes were solemn. “I swear to you that Piaras will not leave this island without me—and Taltek Balmorlan will not leave this island alive.”
“That’s all I could possibly ask for. Thank you.”
I looked down at the embassy captain. Tanik’s boys had done clean work, but they hadn’t been gentle.
“Captain Ratharil is going to have one hell of a headache when he comes around,” I noted.
Tanik grinned. “By the time that happens, he’ll be blindfolded and kept literally in the dark about where he is. I’m not a coward, but I don’t go around asking for trouble in the cities where I do business. When we’re finished with him, the boys will dump him in an alley, loosen his knots, and run like hell.”
I knelt behind the guard and lifted one of his eyelids. Dark green eyes, a few freckles, strong features, slight stubble on his face. He hadn’t shaved today. I hoped that didn’t violate some kind of embassy guard rule. With my luck, it would.
“Could you stand him up for me?” I asked Tanik’s first mate. “I need to get a look at all of him. Tied up and on the floor doesn’t get it. Plus I need to see how tall he is.”
“Ask and receive,” he said brightly. “Boys, you heard the lady. Stand our guest up.”
They stood him up and held him up. I walked around him twice, and went through the same process that I had with Phaelan. When I looked in the mirror on the salon’s wall, I saw two Captain Baran Ratharils.
I straightened my/his tunic. “Wish me luck, gentlemen.” My new voice was a baritone, commanding and authoritative. I detected a hint of arrogant jerk. Wonderful. Ratharil was probably an asshole, hated by one and all.
Phaelan stepped up and hugged me, man body be damned. “Good hunting, cousin.”
I wore a large cloak until I’d cleared the harbor area, and once I got within a half mile of the embassy, I ditched it and walked briskly the rest of the way. I didn’t go too fast, but Captain Ratharil didn’t seem to be the type to tolerate dawdling, either in himself or anyone else. I combined Mychael’s confident stride with a touch of Phaelan’s swagger. Somehow it felt right for Ratharil.
Something didn’t feel right for me. That something was what put the pride in Phaelan’s stride. There were entirely too many things crowding the front of my trousers. I had to resist the urge to adjust myself every few steps. Whenever I’d seen a man do that before, I thought it was rather disgusting; now I found it absolutely necessary. I ducked down a side street, reached down, and did what a man’s gotta do.
Whoa.
When I came out of that side street, I felt justified putting a little more swagger in Ratharil’s step.
True to his word, Tanik didn’t just tell me about the embassy basements, he had an actual floor plan of the whole building. While I had waited for his boys to bring me a guard to copy, I memorized the plans—especially the fastest ways out of there. If it involved survival, it was amazing what I could memorize. Lucky for me, there were several likely routes.
I was two blocks from the embassy when I saw the Guardians.
They were armed and armored for patrol. I wasn’t sure if Guardians routinely patrolled the city, but that’s what it looked like they were doing now. Even if Mychael knew where Piaras was being held, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. The elven embassy was elven soil, and even though Mychael was an elf, he was also paladin of the Conclave Guardians. He couldn’t enter the embassy in an official capacity, let alone search the place. Taltek Balmorlan, Giles Keril, and the entire embassy staff including the guards, had diplomatic immunity and any crime they committed had to go through the elven legal system.
Mychael had to be looking everywhere for me and Piaras—that is if he’d been able to leave Justinius’s bedside— if the archmagus was still alive. I hoped he was, and not just for Mid’s sake. I liked the old guy. The Guardians coming toward me could also be patrolling the streets looking for me on Acting Archmagus Carnades’s orders.
I wanted to duck into the shadows, but I had to remind myself that I wasn’t me, at least not to these four Guardians. I didn’t know any of them, which was good. I also didn’t know what the relationship was between Guardians and elven embassy guards, and I wasn’t keen to find out. Being a captain—but mostly being male—I decided that direct eye contact was called for. Not confrontational, but not evasive, either. The Guardians went with a give-us-an-excuse-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-you look.
So much for Guardian/embassy guard relations.
As we approached each other on the narrow sidewalk, the Guardians didn’t make room for me to pass. I knew what was coming, so when we passed each other and one of the Guardian’s shoulders rammed into mine, my shoulder met him halfway and just as hard. He grunted with the impact. I didn’t. I also didn’t get a dagger between the shoulder blades once I was past them. I guess according to man rules that meant I’d won.
It was just after midnight, but the elven embassy still looked like it was expecting a full-scale attack at any moment. Taltek Balmorlan must be feeling a little insecure this evening. He had Piaras. No one had me. That had to make the inquisitor just a tad bit nervous. He knew what I was capable of, and he knew how I felt about Piaras. The guards patrolling the battlements looked ready to shoot the first thing that moved wrong. I made sure I was moving as much like Captain Baran Ratharil as I knew how when I crossed the street and approached the embassy gates.
There were a major and two lieutenants on duty in the small guardhouse next to the warded gate. I saluted the major and ignored the lieutenants. It felt like what Ratharil would do. The major responded with a sharp salute, as did the lieutenants after they’d snapped to attention. A disciplined and alert group of guys. Just what I didn’t need.
While I waited for the ward to open to admit me, I tried to clear my mind of me, Piaras, and the desire to strangle Taltek Balmorlan and kick Giles Keril’s bony butt from here to the harbor. I was Captain Baran Ratharil, it had been a long day, it was after midnight, and I was tired.
