Jim Butcher - Codex Alera 3 - Cursor's Fury

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JIM BUTCHER

CODEX ALERA BOOK THREE

CURSOR'S FURY

PROLOGUE

Men plan.

Fate laughs.

—FROM THE WRITINGS OF GAIUS QUARTUS,

FIRST LORD OF ALERA

Tavi made a steeple of his fingers and stared down at the ludus board. Squares

of black and white lay in eleven rows of eleven, and painted lead figurines, also

of black and white, stood in serried ranks upon them. A second board, five

squares by five, rested on a little metal rod, its center over the lower board's center,

occupied by only a few pieces. Casualties of war sat on the table beside the

board.

Midgame was well under way, and the pieces were approaching the point

where exchanges and sacrifices would have to be made, leading into the

endgame. It was the nature of ludus. Tavi's dark Legions had taken heavier

losses than his opponent's, but he held a stronger position. So long as he kept

the game running in his favor—and provided his opponent wasn't laying some

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kind of fiendish trap Tavi had overlooked—he stood an excellent chance of victory.

He picked up one of his Lords and swept the piece up onto the raised skyboard,

representing the skies above the field of battle, bringing added pressure

onto the beleaguered positions of the hosts of the white foe.

His opponent let out a low, relaxed sound that was like nothing so much as

the growl of some large and sleepy predator. Tavi knew that the sound indicated

the same emotion a mildly amused chuckle might have in a human being—but

never for a second did he forget that his opponent was not human.

The Cane was an enormous creature, and stood better than nine feet tallwhen upright. His fur was dark

and thick, a heavy, stiff coat over the whole of his body, save for upon his paw-hands, and in patches

where heavy scar tissue couldbe seen on the skin beneath his fur. His head was that of an enormous wolf,

though a bit stockier than the beast's, his muzzle tipped with a wide, black nose,

his jaws filled with sharp white teeth. Triangular ears stood erect and forward, focusedon the ludus

board. His broad tail flicked back and forth in restless thought, and he narrowed scarlet-and-golden

eyes. The Cane smelled like nothing else Tavi had ever encountered, musky, musty, dark, and something

like metal andrust, though the Cane's armor and weaponry had been locked away for two years.

Varg hunched down on his haunches across the board from Tavi, disdaining

a chair. Even so, the Cane's eyes were a foot above the young man's. They sat together in a plainly

appointed chamber in theGreyTower , the impregnable, inescapable prison of Alera Imperia.

Tavi permitted himself a small smile. Almost impregnable. Not quite inescapable.

As always, the thoughts of the events of Wintersend two years past filled

Tavi with a familiar surge of pride, humiliation, and sadness. Even after all that

time, his dreams were sometimes visited with howling monsters and streams of

blood.

He forced his thoughts away from painful regrets. "What's so funny?" he

asked the Cane.

"You," Varg said, without looking up from theIndus board. His voice was a

slow, low thing, the words chewed and mangled oddly by the Cane's mouth and

fangs. "Aggressive."

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"That's how to win," Tavi said.

Varg reached out a heavy paw-hand and pushed a white High Lord figure

forward with a long, sharp claw. The move countered Tavi's most recent move to

the skyboard. "There is more to victory than ferocity."

Tavi pushed a legionare figure forward, and judged that he could shortly

open his assault. "How so?"

"It must be tempered with discipline. Ferocity is useless unless employed

in the proper place . . ." Varg reached up and swept a Steadholder figure from

the skyboard, taking the legionare. Then he settled back from the board and

folded his paw-hands. ". . . and the proper time."

Tavi frowned down at the board. He had considered the Cane's move in his

planning, but had deemed it too unorthodox and impractical to worry much

about it. But the subtle maneuvers of the game had altered the balance of

power at that single point on the ludus board.

Tavi regarded his responses, and dismissed the first two counters as futile.

Then, to his dismay, he found his next dozen options unpalatable. Within twenty

moves, they would lead to a series of exchanges that would leave the Cane and

his numerically superior forces in command of the ludus board and allow them

to hunt down and capture Tavi's First Lord at leisure.

"Crows," the boy muttered quietly.

Varg's black lips peeled away from his white teeth, an imitation of an

Aleran smile. Granted, no Aleran would ever look quite so . . . unabashedly carnivorous.

Tavi shook his head, still running down possibilities on the game board.

"I've been playing ludus with you for almost two years, sir. I thought I had your

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tactics down fairly well."

"Some," Varg agreed. "You learn quickly."

"I'm not so sure," Tavi said in a dry tone. "What is it I'm supposed to be

learning?"

"My mind," Varg said.

"Why?"

"Know your enemy. Know yourself. Only then may you seize victory."

Tavi tilted his head at Varg and arched an eyebrow without speaking.

The Cane showed more teeth. "Is it not obvious? We are at war, Aleran," he

said, without any particular rancor beyond his own unsettling inflections. He

rolled a paw-hand at the ludus board. "For now the war is polite. But it is not

simply a game. We match ourselves against one another. Study one another."

Tavi glanced up and frowned at the Cane. "So that we'll know how to kill

one another come the day," he said.

Varg let his silence speak of his agreement.

Tavi liked Varg, in his own way. The former Ambassador had been consistently

honest, at least when dealing with Tavi, and the Cane held to an obscure

but rigid sense of honor. Since their first meeting, Varg had treated Tavi with an

amused respect. In his matches with Varg, Tavi had assumed that getting to

know one another would eventually lead to some kind of friendship.

Varg disagreed.

For Tavi, it was a sobering thought for perhaps five seconds. Then it became

bloody frightening. The Cane was what he was. A killer. If it served his honor

and his purposes to rip Tavi's throat out, he wouldn't hesitate for an instant—

but he was content to show polite tolerance until the time came for the open

war to resume.

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"I've seen skilled players do worse in their first few years in the game," Varg

rumbled. "You may one day be competent."

Assuming, of course Varg and the Canim did not rip him to pieces. Tavi felt

a sudden, uncomfortable urge to deflect the conversation. "How long have you

been playing?"

Varg rose and paced across the room in the restless strides of any caged

predator. "Six hundred years, as your breed reckons it. One hundred years as we

count them."

Tavi's mouth fell open before he could shut it. "I didn't know . . . that."

Varg let out another chuckling growl.

Tavi pushed his mouth closed with one hand and fumbled for something

relevant to say. His eyes went back to the ludus board, and he touched the

square where Varg's gambit had slipped by him. "Urn. How did you manage to

set that up?"

"Discipline," Varg said. "You left your pieces in irregular groups. Spread

them out. It degrades their ability to support one another, compared to adjacent

positioning on the board."

"I'm not sure I understand."

Varg started positioning pieces again, as they were at the confrontation, and

Tavi could see what the Cane meant. His forces stood in neat rows, side by side.

It looked awkward and crowded to Tavi, but the overlapping combat capabilities

more than made up for the difficulty of arranging it, while his own pieces stood

scattered everywhere, each move the result of seeking some single, specific advantage

in order to dominate the board.

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Varg restored the table to its game positioning, flicking his tail in emphasis

with his words. "It is the same principle as when your Legions face our raiding

parties. Their discipline mitigates their physical weakness. No amount of rage

can match discipline. Unwisely employed aggression is more dangerous to oneself

than any enemy, cub."

Tavi frowned at the board and grunted.

"Concede?" Varg asked.

"Game isn't over yet," Tavi said. He couldn't see how to defeat Varg's positioning,

but if he pressed on, he might find an opportunity, or Varg might make

some kind of mistake Tavi could capitalize upon. He pushed a Knight to Varg's

Steadholder, taking the piece and beginning the vicious exchange.

After a dozen moves, Tavi did not find a way to beat the Cane. His defeat

looked inevitable, and he grimaced and lifted a hand to knock his First Lord

onto its side in capitulation.

Someone pounded on the door to the cell—really, Tavi thought, it was more

like a Spartan apartment than a prison, a large suite that included a bed large

enough to suit even the Cane as well as a sitting area and a reading area—and a

guard opened the wooden door outside the prison suite. "Excuse me young

man. A courier from the Citadel is here upon the Crown's business. He wishes

to speak to you."

"Hah," Tavi said, and flashed Varg a smile as he lowered his hand. "Duty

calls. I suppose we'll have to call this one a draw."

Varg let out another amused growl and rose as Tavi stood to face him. The

Cane tilted his head slightly to one side. Tavi mimicked the gesture, though a

little more deeply. "Until next week, then. Please excuse me, sir."

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"Duty neither makes nor needs excuses, cub," Varg said. He flashed his

fangs in another smile at the guard. The man didn't precisely flinch, but it

seemed to Tavi that he had to fight not to do so.

Tavi withdrew to the barred door that faced the cell, never turning his back

on Varg. He slipped through the door after the guard unlocked it, then followed

him down two flights of stairs to a small, private office. It was a very plain affair,

its walls lined with shelves of books, an unadorned table and chairs of gorgeously

polished dark wood, a ledger desk, and a writing desk. A plain white

porcelain pitcher sat on the table, beaded with droplets of water.

A small, stout, and somewhat myopic man sat in one of the chairs. He wore

the red-and-blue-trimmed tunic of a senior functionary in the Citadel. The guard

nodded to the man and withdrew into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.

Tavi frowned, studying the messenger. There was something familiar about

him. Tavi did not recognize his face, but that meant little in the teeming mass of

Alera Imperia's Citadel.

The messenger's head tilted slightly, and he remained silent.

Then Tavi grinned and swept into a formal bow. "Your Majesty."

The messenger let out a bark of a laugh, a pleased sound. As he did, his

form wavered and shifted, sliding into a larger, leaner frame, until Gaius Sextus,

First Lord of Alera and the mightiest of its furycrafters, sat before Tavi.

His hair was thick, well trimmed, and silver-white, though it and the lines at

the corners of his eyes were the only features about the man that made him

look older than a well-preserved forty years or so. There was an aloof, wolfish

quality to the way he held himself, confident in his power, his intelligence and

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experience. Tavi idly noted that the First Lord had evidently altered his clothing

when he changed, as it still fitted him despite Gaius having added six

inches of height.

"How did you know?" Gaius murmured.

Tavi frowned. "The eyes, sire," he said, finally.

"I changed them," Gaius countered.

"Not their shape or color," Tavi explained. "Just . . . your eyes. They were

yours. I'm not sure how I knew."

"Instincts, I suppose," Gaius mused. "Though I wish it weren't. If you had

some kind of innate talent we could define, perhaps we could teach your technique

to the rest of the Cursors. It could prove extremely valuable."

"I'll work on it, sire," Tavi said.

"Very well," Gaius said. "I wanted to speak to you. I read your analysis of

the reports you've been tracking."

Tavi blinked. "Sire? I thought those were for Captain Miles. I'm surprised

they reached you."

"In general, they wouldn't. If I tried to read every paper in the Citadel, I'd

be smothered within a day," Gaius said. "But Miles thought enough of your argument

that he passed it on to me."

Tavi took a deep breath. "Oh."

"You make a convincing case that now is the time for action against the

more ambitious High Lords."

"Sire," Tavi protested. "That wasn't necessarily my position. Miles wanted

me to write in opposition to his preferred strategies. I was just advocating it to

help him find weaknesses in his own planning."

"I'm aware," Gaius said. "But that makes your conclusions no less credible."

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He frowned, eyes on one of the plain bookcases. "I think you're right. It's time

to make the High Lords dance to my tune for a change."

Tavi frowned again. "But . . . sire, it could escalate into a real disaster."

Gaius shook his head. "The escalation is coming regardless of what we do.

Sooner or later, Kalare or Aquitaine will move on me in force. Best to move now,

on my own schedule, rather than waiting for them to prepare."

"Optionally, sire," Tavi pointed out. "It could fall flat, too."

Gaius shook his head, smiling. "It won't."

"How do you know?"

The First Lord bobbed an eyebrow. "Instinct."

Tavi chuckled despite himself. "Aye, sire." He straightened. "What are my

orders?"

"We still need to see to your military training," the First Lord mused, "but

none of the Legions I prefer are due to begin a training cycle until next year."

Gaius drew a leather letter case from within his tunic and tossed it to Tavi.

"You'll need something to fill your time. So you're going on a trip."

Tavi frowned down at the case. "Where?"

"The Vale," Gaius replied. "To the ruins of Appia, to be precise, to study

with Maestro Magnus."

Tavi blinked and stared. "What?"

"You've finished your second term as an academ, and great furies only know

what you might find to amuse yourself if left to your own devices here. I read your

paper on the Romanic Arts. So did Magnus. He needs a research assistant," Gaius

said. "I suggested you, and he jumped at the chance to have you for six months."

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Tavi gaped. "But . . . sire, my duties . . ."

Gaius shook his head and said, "Believe me, I'm not handing you a gift, Tavi.

I may need you in position there, depending on how matters fall out. Unless, of

course, you do not wish to go."

Tavi felt his mouth curve into a slow, disbelieving smile. "No, sire! I mean,

uh, yes, sire! I'd be honored."

"Excellent," Gaius said. "Then pack to leave before dawn. And ask Gaele to

deliver those letters for you."

Tavi drew in a sharp breath. Gaele, a student and classmate of Tavi's,

had never really been Gaele. The true student had been murdered, doubled,

and coldly replaced before Tavi had the chance to get to know the real Gaele. The

spy who had done it, a Kalaran Bloodcrow called Rook, had been Tavi's friend

for two years before he'd discovered her murderous true identity.

Instead of turning her in, though, Gaius had decided to allow her to remain

in her role, in order to use her to feed disinformation to her master. "You think

she'll pass this to Kalare?"

"This? Absolutely," Gaius said.

"May I ask . . . ?" Tavi said.

Gaius smiled. "The envelope contains routine mail and one letter to

Aquitaine, informing him of my intention to adopt him legally and appoint him

my heir."

Tavi's eyebrows shot up. "If Kalare gets wind of that, and believes it, you

think it will push him to act before Aquitaine solidifies his claim to the throne."

"He'll react," Gaius agreed. "But I'm not certain as to the manner of his reaction.

He's slightly mad, and it makes him difficult to predict. Which is why I

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JIMBUTCHER CODEXALERABOOKTHREE CURSOR'SFURY PROLOGUEMenplan.Fatelaughs.—FROMTHEWRITINGSOFGAIUSQUARTUS,FIRSTLORDOFALERATavimadeasteepleofhisfingersandstareddownattheludusboard.Squaresofblackandwhitelayinelevenrowsofeleven,andpaintedleadfigurines,alsoofblackandwhite,stoodinserriedranksuponthem.Asec...

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Jim Butcher - Codex Alera 3 - Cursor's Fury

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