The Brazen Gambit Read Online Free PDF Page A

hide.
    "Our Mighty King's personal necromancer extends her thanks," Metica began, fixing Pavek with a chilling smile.
    "The king's-?" he stammered: "I'm grateful, great one." "The corpse, Regulator! The broke-neck corpse you
found three nights' past."
    "I brought her here, to the civil bureau. It was street crime, our crime. I even marked the roster-"
    "Well, she wound up at the palace and-thanks to your mark in the roster-that black-hearted dead-speaker knew
enough to send her pleasure to me."
    Metica was after his hide, his life, and his eternal essence. The only thing that might appease her was a rounded
heap of gold and silver coins, mostly gold. Pavek felt rich when he had a heap of ceramic bits.
    "Thought you might like to know what she said."
    Pavek lifted his head in time to see the folded parchment Metica scaled his way, but not in time to catch it. He
fished it off the floor without letting his eyes drift away from the half-elf's face. Damned if she wasn't pleased about
something.
    He opened the parchment, scanned the script. The necromancer had gotten the woman's name, her man's, and
the name of their son, Zvain, which Pavek immediately associated with the boy who'd gotten away after punching him
in the groin. The report confirmed that she'd been murdered by her man and that he'd been raving mad when the crime
was committed. Nothing more.
    It was hard to believe Metica was pleased; Pavek certainly wasn't when he returned the parchment to her
worktable.
    "There should've been more," he grumbled, risking Metica's good humor.
    "There was," she confirmed. "What you gave the palace was better than gold. Not that the necromancer told me,
mind you. But she was happy, no doubt of that."
    With a steady expression of disinterest fixed on his face, Pavek wondered how many lies Metica had just told
him, and whether he dared ask her what was better than gold. "I did my duty, great one. Nothing more," he said with
lowered eyes and excruciating deference.
    "In your dreams, Regulator, in your bloody dreams. I don't want to know why you hauled that corpse up here. I
truly don't. You were lucky, not smart, Pavek-"
    He looked up again. Last time Metica called him by his name he was only sixteen. She said he'd scored well on
his bureau exams, said he had rare talent. Then she said she was almost sorry he was dirt-poor and without patrons.
    You'd rise with gold and connections, Pavek. As it is, you'll stay right here for as long as I want to keep you.
"I don't want you pushing luck again," the half-elf continued. "You hear me? You stay smart and keep your
     
    rock-head down in the gutter where it belongs."
    "Yes, great one. I don't know what got into me."
    Metica settled into a sturdy chair. She shuffled scrolls, tablets and marking pens. "I heard there was scarcely a
mark on him-except for that black tongue. Believe that, if you want. But the black tongue was what they called
important, Regulator Pavek: a thread toward Laq. You stay clear of it now, if you're smart. You don't want to be near
that thread when it gets pulled. You understand?"
    "Yes, great one," he replied with absolute sincerity. But it had worked-his simple plan had worked! The days of
mind-bending, magic-resisting ravers were numbered in Urik. That was all he'd wanted. It never paid to think too much
about the middle when the ends were clear. "As far away as I can get," he assured his taskmaster, then started to
stand.
    "You can do something for me, Regulator, since you're so good at tracking things into shadows."
    Pavek's heart sank and so did his body. He barely caught himself before he broke the flimsy tripod. "Anything,
great one."
    "We've had complaints," Metica let that unprecedented notion hang between them. "Complaints about the Ral's
Breath powder our licensed apothecaries are selling. Seems it's not doing the job it's meant to do."
    Pavek shrugged, and nearly lost his balance. "What job? Ral's Breath doesn't do anything. Tell a sick