The Traitor and the Chalice Read online

  Synopsis

  Tevi and Jemeryl, soldier and sorcerer, are sworn to the service of the Protectorate of Lyremouth, the greatest civilization the world has known, and will risk all to ensure its survival. Yet a traitor is working to uncover a long hidden secret that will destroy the Protectorate and threaten the lives of its citizens. The two women are sent to hunt down the traitor and retrieve the chalice that can bestow such dangerous powers.

  Without allies to help them, Tevi and Jemeryl will need to rely totally on each other; something made all the more difficult when the rest of the world seems intent on pulling them apart. Events will force them to re-evaluate their assumptions about society and their places in it. Difficult choices wait them, even as they battle for their lives. New revised edition.

  (Previously issued as Parts Three and Four of Lorimal's Chalice -the Gaylactic Spectrum Award finalist for best novel of 2003)

  The Traitor and the Chalice

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  By the Author

  Wolfsbane Winter

  THE LYREMOUTH CHRONICLES

  The Exile and the Sorceror

  The Traitor and the Chalice

  The Empress and the Acolyte

  The High Priest and the Idol

  THE CELAENO SERIES

  The Walls of Westernfort

  The Temple at Landfall

  Rangers at Roadsend

  Dynasty of Rogues

  Shadow of the Knife

  The Traitor and the Chalice

  © 2006 By Jane Fletcher. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-353-2

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  New Revised Edition, June 2006

  Originally Published as Part Three and Part Four of Lorimal's Chalice, By Fortitude Press, 2002

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: J. Barre Greystone

  Cover Image: Tobias Brenner (http://www.tobiasbrenner.de/)

  Cover Design: Julia Greystone

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks go to everyone at Bold Strokes Books, especially Rad, Stacia and Cindy, for their support, professionalism and for being great people to work with. I would also like to thank Pam and Ads for helping with earlier drafts of this novel.

  Dedication

  For Lizzy—

  the book you browbeat me into writing

  Part One

  The Traitor

  Chapter One—Undercover in Ekranos

  The man might have been six inches taller than the woman had he not been lying curled on the ground. Blood stained the back of his head red—a result of the blow that had floored him. The woman pulled back her foot, about to kick him in the kidneys.

  “You keep your hands off Zak.” Her voice was a shrill howl. Judging by her clothes and build, she was one of the dock porters.

  Tevi hurdled over a row of barrels and cannoned into the woman, shoving her away before her foot made contact with her opponent. Tevi continued to press the angry woman backwards until she was pinned against a wall of crates. The woman struggled, but Tevi was able to restrain her without making too obvious a display of unexpected strength.

  “Let me at him!” the woman screamed in Tevi’s face.

  Tevi thumped her against the crates, hard enough to jolt, but not to cause injury. On the third blow, the woman’s eyes left her victim and focused on Tevi. From her change in demeanour, she finally registered the sword in red and gold, tattooed on the backs of Tevi’s hands—the sign of the Guild of Mercenary Warriors, and also the badge of the port authorities on Tevi’s leather jerkin—her current employer.

  “He was after Zak.” A pleading edge entered the woman’s voice.

  “Who’s Zak?”

  “He’s mine.”

  “Did he threaten to hurt Zak?”

  “Zak don’t want nothing to do with him.”

  The answers were not helping. Tevi looked over her shoulder. Now it was safe, a couple of onlookers had gone to aid the injured man. They had him in a sitting position, clearly dazed, but not seriously hurt.

  To Tevi’s relief, at that moment, two more people arrived. Both were mercenaries and one had a second crossed sword on his tattoos, marking him as a senior guild member, and therefore someone to take charge and work out what was going on. The senior mercenary strode up to Tevi and her captive.

  “What is it this time, Chel?”

  “Tell him to keep away from Zak.” The woman, presumably called Chel, sounded aggrieved.

  “She’s a frigging nutter, that’s what it is.” Chel’s victim had recovered enough to give his own version.

  “Keep your filthy hands off Zak.”

  The senior mercenary cut in before the argument went further. “Right. I get the picture.” He looked at the group around the injured man. “Get him to a healer and check his skull ain’t cracked. And you, Chel”—he turned back to the woman—“are coming with me for a little visit to the lockup.”

  “Zak loves me. I’ll kill that pig if he tries to paw him again.” Despite her defiant words, Chel let herself be led away.

  With the excitement over, the onlookers dispersed, leaving Tevi alone with the other mercenary. Tevi had been working on the docks since her arrival in Ekranos, nine days before, but did not yet know all her colleagues by name, although she recognised this one’s face from meals at the guild house.

  “Have you been warned about Chel?” he asked.

  “No. Does she do this a lot?”

  “Every other month.”

  “And Zak—is that her partner?”

  He gave a yelp of laughter. “Zak’s a two-bit whore. He’s anyone’s for a copper shilling. But Chel thinks they are the great love story. Zak was probably trying to make a little money on the side and got caught out.”

  “Right.”

  Shaking her head, Tevi walked away. Even after a year on the mainland, she was still sometimes left dumbfounded by the ways of the Protectorate. Everything was so different from her childhood on the Western Isles. She stopped on the quayside and looked out over the water, still trying to adjust her thoughts.

  Taking money in return for sex was the least of it. Even on the islands, a woman might try to win a man’s favours with gifts. More unsettling was that nobody had been shocked by a woman assaulting a man. Admittedly, Chel had enjoyed no unfair physical advantage. In fact, had she not caught her victim by surprise, she might not have come out on top. Yet Tevi could not easily ignore the moral voice of her upbringing.

  The situation would have been so different back on the island of Storenseg. Thanks to the legacy of a shipwrecked sorcerer, the women of the Western Isles enjoyed magically enhanced strength—something Tevi had to disguise on her current mission if she wanted to avoid attracting undue attention. On the islands, men were so weak by comparison that any woman striking one would be seen as a bully and coward, and in the warrior culture of the islands, cowardice was the gravest failing.

  Tevi sighed at
the thought. Actually, there were worse traits a woman could possess—such as wanting another woman as a lover—which was something else that nobody in the Protectorate would think twice about. Any more than the onlookers had been surprised that Zak might be an object of desire for both men and women.

  Her preference in lovers was the reason that Tevi had been unofficially exiled. Her grandmother, the Queen of Storenseg, had seen to it, with the fake quest to retrieve the stolen chalice. Nobody knew where the chalice was. Nobody expected her to return. It was just an excuse to get her out of the way. Only Tevi’s close family knew the true reason for her going.

  Tevi continued walking along the quay, thinking about the irony of it all. Swapping Storenseg for the Protectorate had been the best move for her. She had found a place in the Guild of Mercenaries, and she had found a lover, the sorcerer Jemeryl. Even more ironic, the fake quest had turned out to be important—important enough to concern the Guardian.

  Tevi stopped again and raised her eyes to the cliffs west of Ekranos. Perched atop was the School of Herbalism. Jemeryl was at the school, hunting the rogue sorcerer who had stolen the chalice. The artefact still meant nothing to Tevi. She would happily have forgotten all about it. But the Guardian had sent Jemeryl to investigate, and Tevi would not leave her to face danger alone. She only wished she could be closer at hand.

  The work as a customs officer involved checking payment of port taxes and curtailing the smuggling of contraband. It meant long hours in an erratic shift rota, following the tides. Jemeryl’s work at the school was more regular, but no more flexible. However, their free time coincided that afternoon—their first chance to meet since reaching Ekranos. Tevi took a deep breath and tried to let the thought wash away her anxiety.

  *

  The sound of waves beating against the rocks below came softly through the thick glass. Jemeryl stared through the window, scrunching her eyes against the brilliant sunshine. As far as the horizon, the sea was dotted with boats: small fishing craft, trailing nets; and larger cargo ships, laden with merchandise, slicing through the waves. A seagull, rising on the updrafts created by the cliffs, steadied for a moment and then soared away.

  Another headland rose across the bay several miles distant. The rocks around its base formed a jagged fringe in the surf. Its top was crowned with a lighthouse—a thin dark finger pointing at the cloudless morning sky. On the coast between school and lighthouse lay the wide estuary of the river Dhaliki. The nearer bank was lined with the red-tiled roofs and whitewashed walls of Ekranos. A soft smile lifted the corner of Jemeryl’s lips. Tevi was down there.

  “Hey. Stop gawking and give me a hand...or is something happening outside?”

  The voice recalled Jemeryl to her surroundings. She turned and smiled apologetically at the speaker while her eyes adjusted to the subdued light of the hospital ward. Jemeryl’s study partner, Vine, was sitting beside a patient. Her expression of eager curiosity raised a flicker of amusement. Vine was renowned for a love of gossip, in both the gathering and spreading of rumours. Her superiors could only wish she would devote a fraction as much enthusiasm to her work as junior sorcerer.

  “No, you’re not missing anything. My mind was just wandering.”

  Vine’s face fell. She shrugged and held out a bloody bandage. “Oh, well. Throw this away and get some clean water. We need to wash the bite.”

  Somewhat gingerly, Jemeryl took the soiled linen. She dropped it in a bin at the end of the ward, trying to avoid seeing or smelling the other unsavoury contents. The combined aura was definitely best ignored. She rinsed her hands in a stone sink before filling a shallow bowl and returning. A few drops of antiseptic turned the water purple, then Vine dipped a cloth in the solution and began washing the patient’s wound.

  The man moaned in a semiconscious stupor. He was a docker who had been bitten by a rat hiding between sacks of grain on the quay. The wound had become infected, and the docker was carried to the school running a high fever and delirious. Jemeryl’s stomach heaved at the sight of an ugly ring of black scabs, stark against the swollen, bloodless skin. She busied herself by taking another cloth and wiping the patient’s face. Lank hair clung to the sweat on his forehead. His eyes were glassy and unfocused.

  “The bite is clean. No sign of pus,” Vine noted cheerfully.

  Jemeryl clenched her teeth. She hated working in the hospital. Sunshine flooded through the windows, but for Jemeryl, the rooms held a murkiness the light could not pierce. Herbalism and medicine had always been her least favourite magical disciplines, and the addition of genuine patients had not improved her liking. It was unbelievable that any sorcerer willingly chose this work when there were so many other fields to explore, yet many did.

  With hindsight, Jemeryl could see that she had been unwise to take her previous post in the valley, where her main responsibility had been caring for ungifted villagers. She had not meant the common people any harm, but she had confused and frightened them and had been relieved when they stopped pestering her with requests for aid.

  A twinge of guilt hit Jemeryl. Maybe she had gone some way to deserving the reprimand when she was removed from the post and ordered to accompany Tevi. Yet equally, she knew the Coven leaders had been working on a secret agenda, rather than expressing any real anger on behalf of the villagers. And now she was back, caring for unwell citizens, more a servant than a sorcerer.

  Jemeryl tried to take comfort that she had not been sent to the school before, as part of her general training—a fate that had befallen several of her fellow apprentices. At least her present stay in Ekranos need not be a long one. If only she could identify the traitorous sorcerer quickly.

  The docker gave another rasping moan. He seemed to be attempting to swallow. Jemeryl stared into the man’s face.

  “Something’s not right. His aura is more distorted than you’d expect.”

  Vine chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

  “Should we ask Neame to look at him?”

  “It might be an idea.”

  “I’ll find her.” Jemeryl hurried off.

  The hospital was a large collection of buildings laid out between trees and gardens. Searching it all would take a long time. Fortunately Neame was not far away. Jemeryl found her in an adjacent ward, deep in conversation with an elderly witch.

  While waiting politely, Jemeryl studied the senior sorcerer, who was both head of the hospital wing and deputy to the principal. In Jemeryl’s mind, the only good thing about the school was the chance to watch Neame at work. In the days since she had arrived, Jemeryl had acquired a great respect for the woman—even though Neame was one of the main suspects.

  She was listening to her assistant, her forehead puckered in a distracted frown. Neame was a plump woman in her mid-fifties, with peppered grey hair twisted in an untidy braid. Much of it had escaped, and the wispy strands were tucked carelessly behind her ears. Her clothes gave the impression that they were following her around purely out of habit. Her face would have been ordinary were it not marked by intelligence and determination. Her manner would have been brusque were it not underlain by compassion. Jemeryl could not help hoping that Neame was innocent.

  Eventually, the witch nodded and disappeared through a side door.

  Neame pushed the hair back from her eyes “What is it?” she asked, noticing Jemeryl for the first time.

  “Please, ma’am. I wonder if you could take a look at a patient.”

  “Of course.”

  At Neame’s arrival, Vine vacated the stool, allowing the senior sorcerer to take her place. The patient’s condition had not changed. Neame studied him intently, her fingertips just touching his forehead.

  “The rat was diseased. Not surprising. A healthy rat would have run away when it heard the dock workers.” Neame made her diagnosis. She picked up a slate and chalked a note before passing it to Jemeryl. “We need different medication. Go to the dispensary and ask Orrago for this.” She hesitated. “Have you met Orrago yet?”
r />   “No, ma’am.”

  Neame looked at Vine. “You’d better go and introduce them. I’ll take care of things here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The air outside smelt clean. The bushes lining the path were alive with the chirps of insects and the rustle of leaves. Jemeryl took a deep breath and ran both hands through her hair as if to brush away the aura of sickness. She glanced at the other young sorcerer.

  Vine’s expression was untroubled. She was shorter than Jemeryl by half a head, with a mat of straight black hair and a round, good-natured face. A guttural burr of an accent betrayed her origins far outside the Protectorate. Jemeryl had learnt that Vine was a nickname, short for “The Grapevine.” Her real name was never used, mainly because it was both long and impossibly short on vowels.

  “I don’t know how you can be so cheerful in the hospital.” Jemeryl’s tone held more emotion than she had intended.

  “You get used to it. You’ve only been here nine days. I’ve had fourteen years.”

  “You must have been young when you arrived.”

  “I was. I’m from a tiny tribe way down south in the rain forest. I don’t think they’d ever had a sorcerer born there before. My family didn’t know how to deal with me, but they’d heard of the Coven. They got river traders to bring me here. I was dumped in Ekranos, not knowing a word of the language. I caused a bit of commotion on the docks. You know what a seven-year-old sorcerer can be like. Fortunately, no one got seriously hurt. They coaxed me up to the school, and I’ve been here ever since.”

  “You weren’t sent on to Lyremouth?”