If I Were an Evil Overlord by Martin H. Greenberg & Russell Davis

Author:Martin H. Greenberg & Russell Davis [Greenberg, Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

They received a less than satisfactory answer that afternoon. A grubby child, wearing a simple coercion spell activated by the coin in his fist that had passed through three others before coming to him, brought a message shortly before dinner. Luca read the missive silently, then handed it to Piero, who peered down at it suspiciously.

Dear Father. Negotiations in Cerchicava have become somewhat more complicated than I had anticipated but I expect to be home in time for His Grace’s funeral. Your loving son, Domito. The manservant gave an unimpressed sniff. “He cocked up the duc’s death somehow and now he’s afraid to come home.”

“Possibly.” Retrieving the missive, Luca’s eyes flashed red for an instant and a series of fine, scarlet lines appeared scrawled across the paper before disappearing once again.

It’s nothing, I’ll fix it, he read. “You’re right, something’s happened.” Crossing to the window, he stared out at the sky, watching as the sun slowly disappeared behind the turreted roofline of the ducal palazzo. “Nothing too serious apparently and fixable before Johanni Gagio’s funeral.”

“Word is that may be as soon as three days from now. The five ducs are already on their way.”

“Three days then.” Luca’s eyes narrowed. “He wasn’t identified,” he mused, “or we’d have heard.”

“Every city along the Ardechi would have heard.”

“Yes. The Huntsman’s notorious. Every rumor, every speculation about him, is savored like a midwinter banquet. So he wasn’t identified, and he wasn’t injured-the writing would have revealed that by a darker color and a thicker line-and he wasn’t captured, or he wouldn’t have been able to set a cipher on his message or a coercion on his messenger.”

“Or mark three Riamo merchants,” Piero added.

Luca shot him a flat expression. “One puzzle at a time, if you don’t mind,” he spat.

“Your pardon, sir.”

“He’s in the city,” Luca continued. “But he either can’t or won’t come home.”

“A locate spell on the message itself should reveal where he was when he wrote it.”

“Yes, and I’ll leave that to you presently. He won’t have lingered but it will give us a place to start looking. He’ll know that and may have left another message.”

“So he’s going to lead us on some little treasure hunt?” Piero asked in an indignant tone.

“It seems so, and you can make your displeasure known to him later. For the moment, however, follow his trail of bread crumbs and find out what he cocked up.”

“Excuse me for saying so, sir, but you could just execute a full-out locate and coercion spell on the boy himself,” Piero said carefully.

“I could, and I may, but for now, you will carry out my commands.”

Piero bowed at once. “Yes, Master.”

The locate spell on the missive led to the site of Anthony Spoleto’s murder but no farther. With a dark expression, Luca opened a small iron cask and removed a wax-sealed ceramic jar containing the preserved flesh of a Cerchicavan priest long dead. The priest had been in charge of the Svedali Innocenti Foundling Home where Drey had spent the first six years of his life.

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