Honor Bound (6 page)

There were none to find. Someone had
trimmed the vines and roses away.

Honor dropped, hoping her metal knee
was equal to the impact. She rolled as soon as her feet touched the
ground, but not before a cold, sharp pain flashed from knee to
hip.

No. Surely Rhendish hadn't replaced
her thigh bone with metal. That couldn't be possible.

But then, how was
any
of it possible? How
could she be flesh and clockwork, elf and machine?

Such thoughts were dangerous
distractions. She thrust them aside and crouched in the deep
shadows near the base of the wall to study her
surroundings.

Dim lamplight pushed at the
darkness. More lamps gleamed in several of the windows in the long,
low stone building where future alchemists learned their trade. A
few of Rhendish's apprentices hurried between storehouses and
workrooms.

There was no way to get through the
courtyard unseen. Her best hope lay in convincing the apprentices
she was someone to avoid.

Gatherers, the far-traveling rogues
who stole and slaughtered to keep the adepts' storerooms supplied,
were frequent visitors to Rhendish Manor. Just last night she'd
watched from her window as a couple of sun-browned men supervised
the unloading of crates from a handcart. One of the apprentices had
dropped a crate, releasing several snakes patterned in red and
yellow and black. When the pandemonium subsided, all of the snakes
were safely crated and two young alchemists lay dead. No one had
questioned the gatherer's priorities.

Honor pulled up the hood of her
cloak, rose to her feet, and strode boldly through the yard, giving
her walk the rolling gait of someone whose boots spent more time on
a ship's deck than city cobblestone.

Some of the apprentices glanced in
her direction, but the deep cowl shielded her face and no one
seemed inclined to take a closer look. Alchemists might consider
gatherers a necessary evil, but all evils seemed more daunting at
midnight.

She walked through the courtyard
without incident and entered the twisting maze of streets leading
down the hill.

The daytime bustle had calmed with
nightfall, but Honor was by no means alone on the streets.
Rhendish's creations required metal, fuel, leather, wire, strong
hempen twine, minerals, oils, and a hundred other things. Many of
the artisans who supplied the alchemist made their homes on Crystal
Mountain. Merchants kept shop here, innkeepers supplied ale and
entertainment.

A trio of youths staggered out of a
tavern, arms draped over each other's shoulders for support. Two of
them sang with drunken enthusiasm and no discernible talent. All of
them wore the long, pale blue tunics of apprentices in the art of
alchemy.

Honor slipped into the narrow alley
separating the tavern from a bakery and hurried down a series of
streets leading to a cooper's shop. Behind it she found a courtyard
paved with large, flat stones and cluttered with
barrels.

A pile of newly cut barrels staves
blocked the stone she wanted. She moved them aside and then picked
a broken copper hoop out of the wreckage of an old
barrel.

The thin metal strip slid easily
into the crevice surrounding the stone, but Honor could not find
the clasp that unlocked the door. She probed the entire perimeter
of the stone with the copper strip, twice, before admitting
defeat.

Delgar had blocked the tunnel
door.

No doubt there were others nearby,
but this was the only one Honor knew. And without it, she had no
way to warn Fox—if indeed he was still on Sevrin.

Honor tossed aside the copper strip
and retraced her steps to the tavern. The windows had been thrown
open to catch the night breeze. She leaned against the wall near
one of these windows and listened for news of the City Fox,
anything that might help her find him.

For good or ill, the tavern's
patrons seemed to talk of little but the thief who'd breached
Muldonny's Stormwall fortress and left the adept dead in the ruins
of his workroom.

"And a dark day that was," said a
man with the thin, querulous voice of someone who had lived long
and approved of little. "Muldonny kept the gate to Sevrin these
twenty years. Where will we be if some southern king or warlord
takes a notion to set an army afloat and come calling?"

"We'll be at the shore to greet them
with sharp steel, that's where," a younger man said. "There's
plenty on these islands who remember what a sword's good for. As
for Muldonny, he wasn't the worst of the lot, but he was none too
good. I say good riddance to him and those metal monsters of
his."

An uneasy murmur followed these
words. "Even a fool remembers which side his bread is buttered on,"
the old man snapped. "I didn't teach you blacksmithing and sell you
my shop to have you lose it all, and your head beside!"

"Have a care what you say, Benjin,"
a woman said in a soft, worried tone. "You know our adept doesn't
lop off heads."

"And if he did," the young smith
said, "he'd be quick to give you a fine new one in your choice of
copper or tin."

No one seemed to know how to respond
to this bitter little jest.

"A generous man, our adept," Benjin
said, a little too loudly. "His health!"

Several voices echoed the toast in a
ragged chorus. After a moment of silence, tankards clattered back
to the table. Someone belched.

"The storyspinners are making a hero
of this City Fox," the blacksmith said. "Might be I agree with
them."

Benjin huffed. "Do you, now? What
about his mother, the herb woman? If the adepts are so bad, what
sort of hero would leave her inside Rhendish's walls?"

Honor leaned closer. This was a
question worth asking, an answer worth knowing. When Rhendish told
her that Fox's mother was alive and in his employ, she'd assumed
mother and son had chosen opposite paths. Humans were known to do
such things. But perhaps there was something more to the
tale.

"Might be she wouldn't leave," the
woman said. "Not that she'd have any
reason
to leave," she added hastily.
"Not because of the adept, least-wise. What sort of woman chooses
sage and mint over her own son, is all I'm saying."

"True enough," Benjin admitted. "Red
Keefin knows her herbs, I won't say she doesn't, but there's
something amiss with her."

"You think so?" the woman said in a
voice heavy with sarcasm.

"They say her wits were addled when
Eldreath died," the young smith said. "They say the sorcerer's web
caught up everyone on the islands who had a bit of magic. They say
that's why so many green witches and shamans and priestesses died
or disappeared. They say those who survived are a little mad and
shouldn't be trusted."

"Might be you should listen to
them," grumbled Benjin.

"Oh, they do a fine job of
explaining why the old ways died so quick, I'll give them credit
for that. A fine job! Why, with such a fine, tidy answer so close
to hand, what fool would bother to look around for the
truth?"

A chair scraped across the floor as
someone pushed away from the table. "I've heard enough nonsense for
one night," Benjin snapped. "Coming, Greet?"

The old man stormed from the tavern,
an equally wizened and hard-faced woman close on his heels. Chairs
rattled and coins clinked against the table as several other
patrons prepared to follow.

Honor leaned toward the window for a
quick peek at this kindred spirit. A young man with broad shoulders
and work-hardened hands sat alone, surrounded by empty chairs and
half-drained tankards. He finished his mead, tossed a few coins on
the table, and rose to leave.

She circled the tavern and met him
at the door. "Excuse me, but might I ask you a
question?"

The smith paused and looked her
over.
"Seems you just did, and with an
accent I've not heard before. Mainlander?"

"Yes."

His gaze sharpened.
"Gatherer?"

"No. I'm a hire-sword." She held out
her sword arm and pushed back the sleeve to reveal the cut that ran
from wrist to elbow. A couple of stitches had torn during her fall
from Rhendish's garden wall, and the arm looked none too
clean.

The smith gave a long, low whistle.
"You won't have a sword arm to sell if you leave that
untended."

"I'm looking for someone who can
clean and stitch it. A poultice probably wouldn't do a bit of harm,
either."

"Then you'll want Keefin, the herb
woman. Don't let her odd ways put you off. She knows her work. She
just doesn't
know
she knows it."

Honor frowned in feigned puzzlement.
"I don't understand."

"You will." He pointed westward. "Go
three streets down, past Howarth the cooper's place, and turn
south. It's two, maybe three houses down. There's no sign on her
cottage, but if you follow your nose you won't go
astray."

She thanked him and retraced her
steps to the cooper shop. The hidden door's location made a bit
more sense, now that she knew Fox's mother lived close. Most likely
there were more portals nearby. Even if Keefin Winterborn was
unaware of them, Honor had seen enough of Delgar's handicraft to
know what the dwarf needed.

The faint scent of herbs reached her
as she turned south past the cooper's shop and led her to the third
house. As the blacksmith promised, there was no mistaking the
complex green scent of gardens and drying shed and still
room.

At first glance, the herbalist's
cottage did not look promising. The tiny building was half-timbered
and finished with wattle-and-daub. A wooden fence surrounded it,
and herbs and shrubs filled every inch of the small yard. There
was, in short, not much for a stoneshifting dwarf to work
with.

Honor pushed back the hood of her
cloak and knocked. After a few moments the door swung open to
reveal a haggard figure.

This
was
the green witch of Glimmergold Vale, whose beauty moved even elfin
bards to poetry?

A few passing years could bring
remarkable changes to a human, but
this
Honor had not expected. The
herbalist had become a shell, a shadow. Nothing remained of the
young woman Honor had met ten years ago but a braid of bright
auburn hair.

"Keefin?" Honor said. "Keefin
Winterborn?"

No memory lit the woman's eyes, nor
did she seem particularly surprised to see an elf on her doorstep.
"May I help you?"

Honor presented her sword arm. "I
fell earlier tonight."

The green witch took Honor's hand
and raised her arm to sniff at the wound. "It might look like a
gutted deer, but it's healing clean. A poultice and new bandages
will set you straight."

She pointed Honor to a chair in the
tiny front room and headed out to the garden. In short order she
returned with a tray laden with a small wash basin, a bowl of
fragrant green ointment, thread and needle, and clean bandages. She
set this down on the small table and took the chair across from her
patient.

While Keefin tended her with swift,
sure hands, Honor tried to find words that would clothe hard truths
in comfortable garb. But diplomacy was her sister's art. Honor knew
how to command. She'd never really been called upon to
explain.

She took a deep breath and gave it a
try. "Are you familiar with binding spells?"

The woman looked up sharply. "I'm no
wizard. This is not magic that I do."

"I'm not one who thinks there's
anything wrong with magic," Honor said. "In the right hands,
binding spells are good and useful things Elves use binding spells
to lengthen a dragon's long slumber, to keep trolls in their
mountain caves. There is such a spell at work here."

Keefin pushed to her feet, her eyes
wild. "I'm no elf, either!"

"I don't think you cast a binding
spell, Keefin," Honor said gently. "I think a binding spell was
cast on you."

"No!" The green witch shook her head
in frantic denial. "No elf has reason to bind me. The forest folk
have shown me nothing but friendship. Hestis taught me. Fillaria
showed me where spicemoss grows.
Ziharah
pulled my boy from the river and brought him safe home."

Honor waited for Keefin to make the
connection, to recognize her as the elf who'd saved ten-year-old
Fox from drowning. But Keefin continued to shake her head and back
slowly away.

"Binding is an elfin spell, but
humans can learn to cast it," Honor said. "I think Rhendish cast it
to hold you to this garden."

Keefin's retreat halted. "Rhendish?
There was a boy by that name in my village. A tall boy? Fair hair,
eyes as green as an elf's in midsummer?"

"I wouldn't call him a boy. He's
lived at least forty winters, probably closer to fifty."

"So old," she mused. "Imagine that.
Well, if anyone from our village could cast such a spell, I suppose
it would be Rhendish. But why would he do such a thing? Why would
he bind me here?"