Book 2, Chapter 61

I knew how to get through the wall without having to cross the underground lake now. The biggest problem was that a wide street circled the outside of the inner wall, one that was properly maintained and patrolled regularly. I really only needed about thirty seconds to pick my way through the wards without setting them off, but I ended up walking for over an hour without finding a single stretch of the street without people on it.

I could just go through and not worry about the witnesses, but the Wolf Pack had seen me teleport off, and I’d been out of Derro for three weeks. That was plenty of time to let down their guard a bit, and I wanted to keep the element of surprise if possible. I could probably still go through the underground tunnel, but I’d used it already, and the Wolf Pack definitely knew about it now. After I’d stolen all the mana from their traps, they’d probably collapsed the whole thing.

But if I couldn’t find a bit of privacy along this wall, I was going to go down there and find out for myself. I was expecting it to be a waste of time only because, given what I knew they knew, blocking off that tunnel was the smart decision. They didn’t need it to pass through the wall, but I did. I’d already defeated both the guardians and their traps, so there was literally no benefit left to leaving it standing.

I got more than my share of inquisitive looks while I was walking, which made sense. The inner city was for rich people, and the street ringing the wall was where the servants of those rich people went when they needed something from outside their exclusive domains. With very few exceptions, the people traveling this street were well-dressed and about their business in and out of the various stores. No one here was just casually strolling along, unless it was the enforcers, who were still out in groups of three or more.

It was late afternoon when I arrived in Derro. Several hours of walking had seen me do half a lap around the inner-city wall and it was now starting to get dark. That did mean the crowds were thinning out, but it also meant I was becoming even more suspicious to those people who were still left. All my effort hadn’t been for nothing, however.

The enforcers patrolled on a predictable schedule, and I had that timing down. I’d hidden myself on the roof of a shop that seemed to specialize in selling hats. The important part to me was that it was closed for the night, and no one was going to find me unless I did something dumb or flashy.

 I had three minutes before the next group came by. I wanted to time it right between two patrols so that the ones who’d already passed would be less likely to look back and see me, so I started a count to ninety.

Foot traffic was gone, the light was going down, and I had just enough time to climb down, dash over to the wall, and slip through the wards undetected. I finished syncing myself to go through them, cast phantasmal step, and phased through the wall just moments before the next group of enforcers got close enough to notice what I was doing.

Phantasmal step wasn’t really designed to go through a ten-foot-thick wall, but I’d accounted for that ahead of time and used a modified version that drained about three times as much mana and lasted five seconds instead of one. My tiny legs pumped as hard as they could, and I dashed through the wall to come out on a dark street.

It might have taken me a bit longer waiting on an opportunity to go directly through the wall, but it saved me a lot of mana not having to fly over that lake and possibly dig through hundreds of feet of dirt. Now that I was inside, though, I was exposed. The first order of business was to establish my new hideout, a feat easier said than done. Unlike the outer city, I didn’t have my pick of thousands of old, ruined buildings.

I’d done a lot of scrying my first time in here, however, and I knew exactly where I was going. A bit more scrying kept me from running into the much better equipped and trained enforcers on this side of the wall, and shadow cloak let me sneak past the ones I couldn’t dodge around.

The house I’d chosen was relatively small, only two stories and tucked away in a residential district for people who couldn’t afford their own mansions. From what I could tell, it was made up mostly of wealthy merchants and craftsmen. The one whose home I’d picked was an old man, seemingly retired. His workshop was covered in sheets, and he hadn’t stepped into it in years. As long as I kept things quiet, I was sure I could easily hide there. Even that wouldn’t be that hard, since the conversation I’d eavesdropped had revealed the man was quite deaf, and also that his daughter was frustrated with his refusal to move in with her so she could help take care of him.

I unlocked the back door and slipped inside. Everything remained exactly as I remembered it, and other than taking a moment to shove the dust off into a corner, I left it undisturbed. I had nothing against the man whose home I was borrowing and no reason to trash the place.

I wasn’t planning on being in the city much longer, maybe a week or two. With a few wards to keep me safe from prying eyes, this would make an excellent spot to retreat to when I needed to recover. Once I had everything set up, I sat down and sent my magic out to see how Velvet’s castle was doing on replacing the ward stone I’d destroyed.

My newly acquired scrying orb wasn’t quite as good as the mirror I’d left behind with my father, but it was still miles ahead of the little hand mirror I’d constructed specifically as a twin to the larger one. I peered into it as I directed my magic through the halls of Velvet’s castles. Other than a few specific rooms that were individually warded, the castle’s general wards were still down. I easily skimmed across the walls, which were stuffed with extra guards but lacked any defenses against my magic.

I got my first look at Velvet soon after. He was a bit above average height and surprisingly lean for a man of his status. His face didn’t have that hollow, malnourished look I’d come to associate with… well, just about everybody, so I supposed it came from having an active lifestyle and a healthy diet. Unlike his now-dead daughter, his hair was jet black, long and styled into three elaborate braids that hung down his back and draped over his shoulders.

Velvet was sitting in an office on the top floor of his castle, writing in a familiar-looking black journal, though considering how close to the front cover he was, I had the feeling he’d started a new one. Next to him was a book he had open, which he referenced constantly as he wrote.

I hadn’t had a lot of luck deciphering the code in his journals, and I’d had my suspicions as to what I was missing. Using a second book and referencing it was a common enough cipher technique, not unbeatable, but it essentially required that each new section be decoded anew and greatly slowed down progress. If Velvet used the same reference book for all his journals, stealing that would go a long way towards figuring out what his notes were about.

The temptation to teleport in there and execute Velvet now was strong. I could do it, too. I had the mana. Getting back out would require a bit of finesse, but I had no doubt I could escape as long as I didn’t run into any other members of the Wolf Pack. That was the problem, though. I couldn’t guarantee that, and given the dead man’s seals they sometimes wore, there were actually good odds that killing Velvet would summon some of his cabal-mates who otherwise wouldn’t have been around.

It would be far smarter to sneak in, kill Velvet, and teleport out. Even that would be wasteful in the extreme, though. As long as I was careful about managing my mana, I could kill whoever came to investigate Velvet’s death on my way out, too. There were still plenty of mages left. Ash and Echo hadn’t been dealt with and were the ones most likely to come after me. Weaver was unlikely to make an appearance, given his status as the cabal’s crafter. Sibilant was another one I wouldn’t expect to respond to an attack, nor would Keeper or Monarch. That left Hangman, who, if Rouri’s information was good, wouldn’t leave Monarch’s side.

That wasn’t to discount all the lower-ranked mages who weren’t part of the inner circle, but I wasn’t terribly worried about them. I’d seen the quality of mage who filled out the rosters in their enforcers, with the two mages who’d come to Alkerist, and with the handful I’d killed enroute later on. The hardest part of killing them was guessing what, if anything, they had magical defenses against so that I didn’t waste mana.

I was surprised Velvet was still working out of the castle now that its defenses were down. I would prefer not to lose my opportunity to kill him again, and since I couldn’t be sure he’d stay in the castle, that meant I needed to leave soon. The longer I delayed, the better the chances of Velvet moving, and I couldn’t afford to waste the mana keeping a scry locked on him the entire time.

I took one precaution before I left. I placed a teleportation beacon inside my wards. As long as no one else in the city knew how to cast teleport, it’d be safe. If they did know, it would still probably be safe, but there was a chance they’d detect the beacon when they went to teleport. Considering I hadn’t found any beacons placed by anyone other than myself, I considered it to be an acceptable risk.

Then I was off, employing shadow cloak, scrying, and my own wits to keep me undetected until I reached the outer walls of Velvet’s castle. Unlike the inner-city wall, this one was thin enough to bypass with a normal phantasmal step, and since I was able to pick where I wanted to pass through without being overly worried about the guards seeing me in the dark, I chose the side closest to Velvet’s personal suite.

Spider climb would let me scale the walls, but here I had greater concerns about being detected. Shadow cloak worked best when there were shadows to hide me, and though night was falling, I had two full moons and a sliver of a third overhead. There was certainly a risk of being spotted. I briefly considered using the attention-redirecting enchantment the Wolf Pack seemed fond of, but even my version was costly. Even if I only had to deflect ten people from looking at me with it, it would be cheaper to cast invisibility.

The reality of it was that I only needed thirty seconds to climb up to the top floor, and even though it wasn’t a particularly dark night, the guards were mostly focused on looking outside. In the worst-case scenario, someone spotted me, and there was nothing they could do about it. I didn’t have any questions left over to ask Velvet. Once we were in the same room, I’d just kill him.

I reached the base of the wall, cast spider climb, and started scaling the stone to where my victim awaited me.