Chapter 22 Eavesdropping
For a moment Rolan’s old instincts roared up. He spun and started to sprint away, but Luc still had him by the collar and he only ended up twisting himself in his own cloak.
By the time he sorted himself out and Luc had released him, he’d remembered he was the Arcanist’s apprentice now, and Hoff couldn’t touch him, and also, was Hoff scrubbing the carpet? He wasn’t wearing his captain uniform either, just a plain one they gave to new recruits.
Rolan’s smile spread wide as he realized that the small mercy of not seeing Hoff was now the fantastically enormous mercy of seeing him after all.
“Well, well, well,” Rolan said, crossing his arms and grinning down at his old nemesis. “What have we here?”
Hoff flushed purple. It was a nice color on him, Rolan had to admit.
“Got yourself demoted, did you?” Rolan asked. “How did that—”
“You.” Hoff’s snarl froze the words on Rolan’s lips as he realized that, even on his hands and knees with a scrub brush in his hand, Hoff could still make Rolan’s pulse falter.
“You little—” Hoff continued, but then his eyes flitted to Luc, and he fell silent.
Without a word, Luc steered Rolan past the former guard captain and down a dimmer, colder hallway. Rolan glanced back and saw Hoff watching them, his eyes burning with hate.
“No apprentice of mine,” Luc said harshly, “will taunt a man who’s been knocked down. It’s dishonorable.”
“Even if he deserves it?” Rolan muttered.
“Even if he deserves it.”
“Right. I forgot that to be an Arcanist is to be grumpy and silent as much as possible. I’ll work on that.”
“Good.”
“Good!”
The Arcanist seemed distracted, worried, even. Maybe it was because this place gave him the jitters, the way it did Rolan. No place had business being so clean and quiet and enormous.
The cold hallway opened to a small storage room where, sure enough, a small pile of supplies was bundled. Luc sorted through the things, taking inventory. There was Evaine’s truth salve and several pots of spices, a book, a whetstone, a coil of rope, a string of beeswax candles.
While Luc sorted, Rolan watched from the corner, trying to find satisfaction in the image of Hoff, humiliated, scrubbing the floor. But the memory was soured now, thanks to Luc.
“How do you reckon Hoff got himself demoted?” Rolan asked.
“I don’t know,” said Luc. “Perhaps he was late to his shift one day too many. Perhaps he was caught with his blade gone dull.” He riffled through a stack of paper, then added in a darker tone, “Perhaps one of his charges was injured by a Cryptic, and he failed to administer truth salve, and this was reported to his superiors by a concerned citizen.”
Rolan stared at the Arcanist, his skin prickling.
“Luc,” he said softly, “did you—”
But he didn’t get to finish his question because the door swept open and Duke Benhald walked in, scowling.
“Brother,” he said. “You’re late.”
They sat at a table across from each other, duke and Arcanist, with Rolan sprawled on a rug nearby, lulled by the warm fire and nearly asleep.
There wasn’t much else to do since Luc and his brother had been in low conversation for some time and Rolan had quickly gotten bored.
They were talking about the dullest topics known to humanity, things like taxes, and drainage systems, and crop yields.
Rolan began to wonder if they’d actually come here on business, or if this was really some elaborate form of punishment Luc had cooked up just for him.
The only interesting part of it all was that it sounded an awful lot like Duke Benhald was asking for Luc’s advice on everything, and Luc was quietly giving it.
He was much more patient with Duke Benhald’s lessons than he was with Rolan’s, Rolan couldn’t help but notice.
Just when he thought he was about to fall asleep or possibly even die of boredom, he heard something that caught his attention. Keeping his eyes lidded, he listened to the two men speak, Luc’s low, rumbling voice and the duke’s lighter one.
“It’s big,” Luc was saying. “Bigger than anything I’ve seen before.”
“And you’re sure it’s headed for Crisanth?”
“It’s already here. It’s circling the city, sniffing around. It’s only a matter of time before it ventures out of the woods.”
The duke leaned back in his chair, frowning. “You can stop it, though. With your Arcana, your traps…”
Hearing silence, Rolan chanced a quick look at the Arcanist and saw Luc’s great shoulders rise and fall in a shrug.
For some reason, that made a tingle of cold run down Rolan’s spine.
He shut his eyes again, fearing if they thought him awake, they’d fall silent.
Adults had a habit of doing that—shutting up just when things were getting interesting, all because a curious kid wandered too close.
“It’s big,” was all the Arcanist said.
Rolan thought back to the rustling of trees in the distance weeks ago, and how it had made the lines in Luc’s face grow deeper than usual. Could it be there was a Cryptic out there, so large it made even the mighty Arcanist nervous?
“I could write to the king,” said the duke. “He could refer our problem to the Arcane Council, and they could send you a few extra hands to help deal with it. It’s no shame to call in backup, and it might be a good idea to have a few more Arcanists at your side when the time comes.”
“It hasn’t come to that, not yet. I need to study it more. Get a good look at the thing. Cryptics can be deceiving in the tracks they leave behind.”
“You don’t have to take it all on yourself, Brother.” The duke waited, but Luc said nothing. After a few tense moments, Benhald added gently, “I know what it is you seek out there in the woods. But are the answers you’re after really worth risking your life?”
“You know that they are,” Luc replied, his voice an ominous rumble.
“What happened to your wife and son was a tragedy. But throwing away your life will not honor them.”
“It would if it brought them justice.”
“How do you even know you will find the secret you’re looking for?”
“Secrets have a way of returning to the ones who hatched them.”
Rolan waited breathlessly for more. The flatness of Luc’s tone scared him a little, but the mention of his lost family pricked his curiosity.
“I found this in the city,” Luc said. Rolan heard the crumple of paper and knew he was taking out the page he’d ripped off the Confessory wall. “Do you know anything about it?”
There was a brief pause, then the duke replied, “It says a Listener has been using donations to fund his gambling habits.”
“It’s a secret,” said Luc.
“So? Probably someone with an axe to grind. The Listeners are a slippery bunch, I’ll grant that much. Nothing I can do about it, of course, not without evidence. Since when were you so concerned about the rumor mill of Crisanth?”
“I care because it’s a secret. The sort you might hatch from a Cryptic relic.”
“You think someone’s going around the city, butchering Cryptics for their secrets?”
“Their secrets… or perhaps something more. It’s against the law for anyone to wield Arcana but an Arcanist.”
The duke blew out a breath. “You’re making monsters out of shadows, man.
There have been no reports of anyone using Arcana in the city.
No one here knows how to even touch Arcana, you know that.
This could be explained a dozen other ways.
Most likely it’s some disgruntled Listener stirring up trouble. ”
“Still. Keep an ear open,” Luc grunted.
“If it makes you feel better,” the duke sighed, “I should think this giant Cryptic would be your bigger problem. And what about this boy? You chose a bad time to take an apprentice, Luc, with a monster like that on the hunt.”
Luc was quiet for so long, Rolan nearly chanced another peek. But then the Arcanist spoke, so low and soft his words were barely audible. “He’s a smart lad, quick with his hands. Quicker with his tongue.”
“He’s trouble,” replied his brother. “There are better boys from better homes, raised with morals and respect. Ones who wouldn’t steal your boots from off your feet.”
“Do you know why Hoff took interest in him?” Luc asked. “Do you know where his father is?”
“How would I know the seedy parentage of some street waif, much less where to find him? As I said, there’s still time to choose some other, more suitable lad. I could make you a list! Any one of them would leap at a chance to follow your footsteps.”
Rolan barely breathed, doing his best impression of a rug.
Luc snorted. “I think you overestimate my popularity, Brother.”
“Still. Why him?”
Him, as if Rolan were a wet rat that had showed up under his dinner table. It took every bit of his willpower to maintain his neutral expression, to keep his breathing even. He’d learned long ago how to expertly feign sleep.
He wanted to hear Luc’s answer.
“You’ve been hounding me to take an apprentice for years,” Luc said dismissively. “Now, what’s this I hear about a delay in shipments from the southern quarry?”
Rolan suppressed a sigh of disappointment.
The two men rambled on about road conditions and the qualities of granite. Their talk was literally as dull as rocks.
After a few minutes, Rolan fell asleep in truth and only woke hours later when the Arcanist was ready to go home.