Lord of the White Hell book Two lotwh-2 (28 page)

Majdi awaited him out in the spring garden, leaning against a huge bronze planter from which an explosion of rose vines burst up in a tangle of green leaves and gold flowers. He wore his brilliant red Mirogoth coat and rested his foot on a traveler's trunk. He furrowed his brow as Kiram drew closer. "Why are you wearing a servant's clothes?"

"My own are filthy. These are what fit on short notice." Kiram crossed his arms over his chest. "Didyou really come all this way to criticize my wardrobe?"

"I came to see how you were."

"I'm fine."

"Yes, you look it," Majdi replied with a smirk.

"I've had a rough day." Considering everything that had happened he felt that the faded bruises, random scratches, small burns and singed hair he sported weren't all that bad. "In fact, I've had several rough days but I feel as though things might be looking up now."

Majdi gave a slow, knowing nod and it worried Kiram a little. "Mum's been worried sick about you."

Kiram laughed out loud at that. Last he remembered she'd slapped him and thrown him out of the house. "Worried sick about my marriage to Hashiem, you mean?"

"No, I mean she's worried about you." Majdi gave him the same look of aggravation that he often cast upon their more spoiled cousins.

"Majdi, you don't know what she said."

"Not something mean?" Majdi taunted. "Are you telling me that you infuriated Mum and she didn't just hug and kiss you to bits?"

"I'm serious!" Kiram almost cringed at the tone of petulance in his own voice. She called Javiei-"

"Some things are best not repeated." Majdi held up his hand and glanced up to the balcony above. Kiram thought he glimpsed Cadeleonian faces looking down at them. "I know what she said. Half the Haldiim district knows thanks to some fruit vendor. But you know Mum, Kiram. You have to know that she didn't mean it."

"Then why did she say it?"

Majdi rolled his eyes. "Are you really such a child that you can't understand that people say things they don't mean when they're angry? Do you really not know that you behave exactly the same way?"

Instantly the memory of hurling a scrub brush at Javier's face returned to Kiram as did his demand that Javier never speak to him again. Kiram felt his cheeks flushing with guilt.

Majdi nodded as if cementing his conversational victory. Kiram straightened the cuff of his coat to avoid meeting Majdi's gaze. At least he hadn't called Javier an animal or run him through.

"Look." Majdi's tone relaxed and when Kiram looked at him his expression had softened. "I know from personal experience that you don't want to be a little snot about this. You'll just end up feeling like an ungrateful brat later."

"She threw me out and I'm the one who is ungrateful?"

"She assumed you'd go to Uncle Rafie and be perfectly safe," Majdi replied. "But no. Instead we find out that you wandered off into the smoke district and got attacked by Musni and his drunk friends."

Kiram blinked at Majdi for one uncomprehending moment. He'd almost forgotten about his scuffle with Musni. It seemed like such a petty fight compared to what had just occurred with Elezar. "How did you find out about that?"

"Chebli-you remember the Civic Guard Dauhd is courting?"

"Of course I know Chebli. I'm not the one who goes to sea for years at a time."

"Temper," Majdi commented.

"Sorry." The apology came like a reflex after so many years.

"Well,"Majdi went on easily, "Chebli was at the prison and he heard Musni's confession. He ran immediately to our house to make sure that you had made it home safe, which of course you hadn't. When Chebli told Mum that Musni admitted to stabbing you she nearly fainted. A minute later she had half the city out searching the streets and the river for you."

Kiram felt a petty gratification but it died in the face of Majdi's pained expression.

"I've never seen her like that, Kiram. She was out on the street screaming your name and weeping. Her voice gave out from calling for you but she wouldn't stop. If you had seen her…" Majdi's voice caught with emotion and for a moment he simply gazed up at the blue sky above them. "The thought that she'd sent you out to be hurt ripped her up inside."

An aching guilt gripped Kiram. He wanted to shrug it off but just the idea of his mother suffering for his sake tore at him. Despite their argument and her words he still loved her too deeply to remain unmoved by her pain.

"Tell her I'm fine."

"Oh, she knows." Majdi gave a short laugh. "If she hadn't found you, we'd still be hearing her scream your name. She came here a little past midnight last night and Lady Grunito assured her that you were safe and well."

Kiram wondered how that exchange had gone: his frantic, weeping mother and the golden monument that was Lady Grunito. He supposed it explained the curious way Lady Grunito had watched him this morning at breakfast.

"Is Mum all right now?" Kiram asked.

"You gave her a damn good scare but Mum's tough. Once she knew you were alive I think everything she'd been angry about didn't matter so much."

"So why are you here now?" Kiram asked. He couldn't help but glance at the chest and wonder what was in it and whether or not it was intended for him.

"Mum asked me to tell you that you can come home anytime you want and bring whom you want."

All at once the empty ache that had settled into Kiram's chest a day ago left him.

"But that's not what I wanted to tell you," Majdi said.

"What?"

"I've packed up some of your things, some of my old things, and a parcel that came for you from the Sagrada Academy." Majdi nudged the traveling chest towards Kiram with the toe of his boot.

"Why?" Kiram asked. There was something suspicious in Majdi's lazy smile.

"You're finally rebelling," Majdi replied. "You've found something that moves you enough to give you the courage to stand up to Mum. That's not something you should leave for the comfort of home. Because home will always be there for you. That's the promise of family. But what you have with your Cadeleonian is a chance to make the future that you want for yourself and that may never come again."

"Soyou've packed, for me?" Kiram could hardly suppress his wide smile. He never would have thought such a gesture could feel so much like a blessing or touch him so deeply.

"I figured I'd do a better job of it than you would, having lived on my own longer."

"At sea," Kiram teased his brother. "Not at the Sagada Academy."

Majdi waved his objection aside. "Mum and Dad will send you anything you might need for some academy. What I'm talking about are troubles you'll face.like last night's encounter with Musni or if things go bad for you and the duke."

Kiram couldn't imagine facing more hardship than he already had this past week. Meeting Majdi's pale, serious gaze he suddenly knew that out in the world even greater challenges might await him.

"Now, there's one last thing." Majdi shoved the chest the rest of the way across the cobbles till it bumped against Kiram's shin. "I want you to think about this seriously because the offer won't last beyond tomorrow evening. My ship sails tomorrow. If you and Javier come aboard, I won't ask any questions and neither will my crew."

Kiram grinned and knew he looked ridiculous. But Majdi was sailing to Yuan and Kiram had always wanted to go. He imagined himself and Javier leaving everything behind them.

But they couldn't-not just because Javier wouldn't do it but also because the man controlling the shadow curse would pursue them. They wouldn't be escaping trouble, only bringing it onto his brother's ship. Still, the offer moved Kiram and he embraced his brother like he had so many times when he had been just a boy.

Majdi patted him on the back. "The Cadeleonians watching us from the balcony are going to think you're a brother fucker."

Kiram released him. "Don't drown out at sea, all right?"

"No, I plan to die at home in the bathtub." Majdi started across the grounds towards the drive and the iron gates at the front of the house.

"Take care," Kiram called after him.

"You as well." Majdi turned back briefly. "Give him my best. Be good to each other."

Kiram glanced up just as Javier stepped back from the edge of the balcony. Nestor waved down at him.

Up in Javier's room Kiram unpacked the trunk. He found that Majdi had included Kiram's bow as well as a quiver of fine black arrows. Nestor admired them while Javier reclined in a chair near the fire.

Deep in the chest, wrapped in a soft cloth, Kiram discovered Rafie's sealed vial of poison as well as six sheathed knives. Amidst traveling clothes, an adhil pan and a pouch filled with a wild assortment of coins, Kiram found the package that Scholar Blasio had sent to him. Inside it were two thin journals and letter. A jay's bright blue feather fell from one of the journal pages.

T
hat's a rather fetching feather," Nestor commented.

Kiram could hardly acknowledge Nestor's words. He stared in silence. Strange how it gripped him, this single feather from a common bird. A year ago he would have hardly registered more than a brief admiration for its color. Now the sight of it made his heart kick hard at his ribs.

Javier looked up from his contemplation of the hearth and scowled at the bright wing feather in Kiram's hand.

"It came with a package from Scholar Blasio." Kiram felt suddenly afraid to read the letter. Today had already been so hard.

"Odd." Javier studied the feather with a suspicion that mirrored Kiram's own. The firelight cast deep shadows across the angles of his face and made black hollows of his dark eyes.

He didn't need more to worry about. Neither of them did.

"It's not that odd," Nestor said. "There had to be thousands of those birds in the orchards surrounding the academy. Remember? Kiram shot something like sixty of them for our meals in the winter."

"Sixty-eight," Kiram provided. He snapped the feather in half and let it fall, broken, to the floor.

Javier simply nodded and returned his attention to his half- packed saddlebags, which slumped at his feet like a sleeping dog. Out in the hall Kiram heard Morisio and Atreau arguing good humouredly over which liquor they should pack for their impending ride back to the academy.

"Sixty-eight is a lot when you really think about it." Nestor toyed with one of Kiram's arrows and then sighed. "I'm sorry you and the rest of the Hellions are riding back to school at the end of the week." He replaced Kiram's arrow carefully. "I was going to feel left out but then I realized that I'll be on my honeymoon, so it will be all of you feeling left out."

Javier snorted.

"You'll certainly be sleeping more comfortably than we will be," Kiram agreed.

"No sweets or anything in there?" Nestor asked as he peered into the trunk. The assortment of knives inspired a low whistle.

"No, just my brother's old stuff"."

"Can this wait till tomorrow?" Nestor asked. He gave Kiram an anxious look. "It's just the party is about to start and I bragged quite a bit about you. How you can divide almost any number and count cards and all the Haldiim dances you could teach us."

"There's a party?" Kiram supposed that if he hadn't been so distracted and tired he would have known as much from all the noise floating up from downstairs.

"It's the last night I'll be a bachelor," Nestor replied. "There has to be a party!"

"I thought that was last night."

"No, last night was to introduce Riossa to Anacleto society. That was all formal dancing and very serious. Tonight will be charades and party tricks!" Nestor grinned in delight. "We've hired jugglers and acrobats even a troupe of Haldiim musicians."

"Certainly beats brooding in my room all night." Javier pushed himself up from his seat and started for the door. Nestor bounded after him.

Kiram set Scholar Blasio's letter and the two journals aside. They could wait a couple of hours, he supposed.

But he soon discovered that he'd underestimated how very entertaining and deeply relieving a night of wild games, informal dancing, and wine could prove to be. He laughed and threw dice and taught some fifty drunk Cadeleonians the red hands dance. Well past midnight he and Javier stumbled up to their shared room. They lay curled together and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning the sunlight felt bruising against Kiram's eyes and every sound jarred through his head and heaved his stomach. For all the advice his brother and Rafie had offered about surviving his new life, neither of them had mentioned anything about Cadeleonian drinking games. His mouth tasted like old socks and a vague image of Nestor running naked through the gardens lingered in his hazy memory.

Kiram chose to forgo breakfast in favor of a few more hours of sleep, but only a few minutes after Javier left the room a restless unease overcame him. A weird anxiety gnawed at him every time he closed his eyes. As much as he wanted to sleep he knew Scholar Blasio's letter awaited. He clenched his eyes shut and attempted to will himself to sleep as if it were a matter of pure concentration.

The noise of conversation and laughter, barking, and the clattering dishes rose from the floor below. The more Kiram attempted to ignore the sounds, the more jarring they seemed to become. At last Kiram simply threw off his blankets and got up.

He washed, dressed in the traveling clothes that Majdi had packed for him, and picked up Scholar Blasio's letter. His eyes didn't want to focus on the fine script.

The deafening clang of the Grunito chapel bells broke Kiram's concentration entirely. It resounded through his aching head. As the bells continued to sound Kiram realized that they were some cruel announcement of the coming nuptials and more than likely would not cease until the ceremony had begun.

Kiram was almost certain he would be dead before then, because his head seemed about to explode. Either he or the hateful bells had to go. Kiram gathered the journals and the coin purse Majdi had given him and slunk out of the Grunito house using the back stairs.

He walked a ways along the city streets to get clear of the damned ringing bells and at last found a public house among the row of inns that surrounded the vast city stables. As travelers and soldiers came and went, a kindly-looking Cadeleonian woman seated Kiram near an airy window and served him hot Cadeleo- nian malt porridge and some kind of warm milky drink.

Kiram opened Scholar Blasio's letter as he sipped his drink and read through the cursory greeting and brief news of the academy. Not surprisingly, Blasio wrote most extensively of Donamillo's illness and his attempts to care for his brother. Blasio's neat handwriting deteriorated as he described searching through Donamillo's medical texts and journals for anything that might wake his brother from the wasting stupor that had seized him.

Kiram's heart went out to both brothers. Then he turned the page and found only a short, agitated scrawl.

Dear boy, in my search I fear I have discovered something terrible. I pray I am wrong but if I am not then I hope that I have not waited too long to write to you. I do not know what to do but you might. Please read the pages I have marked in both my brother's journal and the one belonging to Yassin Lif-Harun. I pray with all my heart that I am not too late and that you know some way to make this right.

– Blasio

Kiram considered the journals, choosing Yassin's first. As he ate his head cleared and his stomach settled but his anxiety grew.

Among Yassin's many observations of the heavens and his notes about how closely they matched the Bahiim legends were a growing number of references to spells and curses. It soon became clear to Kiram that, as the Mirogoth army had approached, Yassin and Calixto had not only considered opening a shajdi to drive back the invaders but also unleashing a shadow curse by carving away the wards in the trees that held the Old Rage in check.

Kiram stared at the yellowed page of curling Haldiim script in front of him. It was all right there: a step by step guide to creating a shadow curse. Yet even as Yassin wrote the steps out it was clear from his notes that he despised the idea of using such a tactic.

Can there be any more monstrous act than to deprive those tortured souls of their rest and inflict their agony upon the living world?

Apart from his moral hesitance, Yassin noted that he couldn't think of a way to control the shadow curse once it was created.

Directly after that, Yassin's journal turned to the subject of the shajdi. Over the course of seven pages Kiram found the basic instructions for creating a ghost locket.

As he studied the rough diagrams and notes he recognized the Bahiim incantations that had marked the locket Javier had worn. But with Scholar Donamillo in his thoughts he suddenly realized that he'd seen the same symbols etched across the huge iron ribs of one of Scholar Donamillo's mechanical cures.

A rush of dread went through Kiram.

He immediately flipped through Donamillo's journal. The reading was much more difficult. The script, which at a glance looked like Cadeleonian, was in fact phonetic Haldiim spelled out in Cadeleonian letters. Still, Kiram soon discovered the words he dreaded finding.

Scholar Donamillo had solved Yassin's problem of controlling the shadow curse by trapping the tortured souls of the Old Rage in an immense and very refined ghost locket. But more than that he'd figured out that the shadow curse could be fed into a living body. Too much at once and the result would be agonizing nightmares, madness and death. Donamillo had filled several pages with notes detailing the effects of his tests on the Tornesal family. He'd made a record, with a tone of cool pleasure, of the minutiae of each and every death.

But subtle control of the shadow curse had eluded him and, even more insulting to his secret Bahiim heritage, the shajdi had protected the Tornesal heir from even his most direct assault.

Donamillo had wanted the shajdi-the white hell. He'd felt that it was his due and it'd infuriated him that the height of Bahiim achievement had been tied to a Cadeleonian bloodline.

Kiram didn't want to read more. And yet he had to. He tried to push back his revulsion at what Scholar Donamillo had done-at how betrayed he felt-and focus on the information in the journal. He supposed he could take a bitter consolation in the fact that Donamillo had been exact and meticulous in his notes: a repellant human being but scholarly in his monstrosity.

When two students of Tornesal blood came into his grasp Donamillo realized that he could use them against one another. He knew he couldn't directly attack Javier. Not even by placing him directly in one of his mechanical cures could Donamillo get past the power of the shajdi.

But Fedeles was different. He was Javier's heir and close friend. He was the chink in Javier's armor and the route for Donamillo's ambition.

Careful not to kill Fedeles, Donamillo had fed the shadow curse into his body slowly in insidious monthly treatments. Fedeles had adapted as if he were building immunity to a poison. He'd suffered horribly as the curse tortured him and ground away his identity, but he hadn't died.

A nauseous guilt roiled in Kiram's belly. How many assurances had he offered Fedeles while escorting him to those treatments?

Once the shadow curse had suffused Fedeles' blood, flesh and bones, Donamillo had discovered that he could use his mechanical cure to further invade Fedeles' body with his own spirit. Again he'd been patient, infiltrating Fedeles like a cancer while slowly abandoning his own body.

Kiram realized that once Donamillo completely controlled Fedeles he would be positioned to destroy Javier and inherit both the shajdi and all of Rauma. He felt almost nauseated but he kept reading.

According to the journal, even isolated and tortured, Fedeles still fought. He'd managed to tell a groom some of what had happened to him and Donamillo had acted immediately to keep from being exposed. An edge of worry invaded Donamillo's notes. For all his power over Fedeles the young man had resisted his dominion. Fedeles had defied him with fits of wild manic hysteria and successive attempts at suicide.

To overcome Fedeles in one sweeping treatment, Donamillo had needed more power than his hand crank provided, but he'd had no way to generate such sustained energy. And then like a blessing Kiram Kir-Zaki and his steam engine had fallen into Donamillo's hands.

Kiram snapped the journal closed, unable to bear the gleeful pleasure with which Donamillo wrote about bringing Kiram to the academy and gaining his trust.

He felt sick. Really sick.

With shaking hands he stuffed the journals in his coat pocket, tossed down his payment for the meal, and dashed out of the public house. He staggered behind a stable and threw up. After a few minutes his nausea subsided, though his guilt did not.

Kiram found a trough of fresh water and rinsed the sick, sour taste from his mouth. Fedeles had begged Kiram for help. He thought he was so clever, so noble, promising to save him. Instead Kiram had brought ruin. More than that, he'd been brought to the academy specifically for this purpose. Not because of his brilliance, not because Donamillo believed that he could win the Crown Challenge, but simply to serve the other man's desire for a shajdi.

No wonder that Fedeles had attacked his engine. He'd been trying to save not only his own life but Javier's as well.

A seething hate coursed through Kiram as he thought of Scholar Donamillo's cruelty. A shajdi could never-never-be allowed to fall into the hands of a man like him.

Kiram's head pounded. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep calming breath. Far away the bells of the Grunito chapel still rang. The musky, sweet smell of hay drifted over Kiram. Fedeles had always hidden in the stables. Now Kiram thought he could almost hear Fedeles' voice, whispering the names of horses.

An instant later the faint voice grew closer. A long black shadow stretched through the stable door. Then another and another darkened the floor and as Kiram listened he realized that Fedeles really was here in Anacleto.

For just an instant he couldn't understand how that could be, but when he heard Fedeles speak in cold, controlled tones he knew with certainty.

It might be Fedeles' body standing in the stable, but the mind and spirit within belonged to Donamillo. According to all Kiram had read in the journals, Donamillo would have full control of Fedeles' body by now. He would be young and strong and just one trial away from inheriting all of Rauma and achieving his life's goal.

Kiram's stomach lurched. He ducked back into the cover of an empty stall and fought to control his racing heart and flipping stomach. If he was caught now with the journals, Donamillo would surely kill him.

"It is an absolute imperative that the medallion Javier Tornesal wears should be brought to me the moment he is taken." Though the voice was Fedeles' the words and tone so obviously belonged to Scholar Donamillo that Kiram couldn't believe no one else noted it.