Dangerous Games by Victor Milan, Clayton Emery Page A

for my beauty, but they love me too. Or pretend to. They all want my secret, but they shan’t have it. But poor Baron Onan. He was disemboweled and strangled with his own guts. Hung from the bedpost. That won’t happen to me! Have you been strip-searched?”
    “Yes,” Candlemas told her again. Ye gods, was every noble in this city insane?
    “Good. You’ll need to be searched each time you enter. I’ll abide no assassins near me, and you can’t trust anyone. They all hate me, and love me. But you’ll need to fashion that scrying glass. There’s a ball tonight at the House of Danett. There’ll be candle matching, and cards, and only the spyglass can help me win. I’ve got my eye on Mika’s stable of race horses.”
    Candlemas nodded absently. Among the histories he’d read, he’d seen the name Polaris once or twice, marking how she’d made fabulous wagers, and often lost. Fifty years ago, she’d lost Castle Delia wagering on a yacht race. It was Castle Bello now, a hunting lodge for some other noble.
    He’d read more facts, none of them pretty. Like Lady Polaris, the empire had declined immeasurably in the past three hundred years. Growing problems had been ignored, had reached the crisis point, then gone beyond.
    While there had always been a huge gap between noble and peasant, lately it had grown insurmountable. A tiny cadre of wealthy and decadent archwizards brutalized the starving poor. Food riots were crushed with clubs. Down on the ground, unchecked blight, excessive taxation, and mismanaged and stolen funds had forced even prosperous folk to abandon farms and wander. In the wake of the blight came famine. Mills and mines crumbled, fields reverted to briars and weeds, and as the human populace suffered, they blamed outsiders. Dwarves, gnomes, and half-elves were persecuted atrociously, or killed outright.
    Yet despite losing the source of their wealth, the Neth had grown even more callous and barbaric. They’d increased the Hunt, slaughtering whole villages and roads full of destitute pilgrims. Any sane voice of reason within the nobility had been silenced by assassination or banishment. The once proud Netherese had only three preoccupations: gambling, garnering status and wealth, and avoiding assassination, which was commonplace and ghastly.
    In short, Lady Polaris was a perfect representation of the Empire of Netheril: self-consumed, bloated, ingrown, oblivious to rampant decay, and fuzzy minded.
    For a while, reading, Candlemas had considered returning to Castle Delia, and his own time—if that were possible. Troubles hadn’t seemed so insurmountable back then. But the castle, his home, though he’d never thought of it that way before, was gone, sold off.
    Another thing disturbed him, too. Nowhere in any book did he find any mention of his name. Which meant he’d never been famous, never amounted to anything. Which meant working for Lady Polaris had netted him exactly nothing.
    Dropping her mirror for more sugared dates, she interrupted his musing. “Well, why are you sitting here? Get busy on that glass!”
    Grunting free of the pillows, Candlemas gained his feet. Bowing, he stated, “My pardon, milady, but that’s not possible. I’m in the employ of Karsus the Great now. I’m his”—not special friend—”confidant, in a matter of great importance. One that will allow him to finish his experiments.”
    “You work for Karsus?” The fat lady’s voice went small as a frightened child’s. She cast about in the dim room. “Karsus? Did he send you? Are you here to assass—Get out! Get out, now, before I have you killed! Get out, get out!”
    She screamed in her raw, raspy voice. Frightened by her insanity, Candlemas fled for the door. As a maid yanked it open, he sailed past and ran down the corridor. Heart pounding, he ran all the way until he stood in the evening street, bent over and wheezing. And weeping, though he didn’t know why.

Chapter 7
    Sunbright dreamt.
    Before dawn, exhausted