Oathen (33 page)

The prince nodded again, rolling over onto his
back and clutching the little wooden man in his big hands. Anjoya
began telling him the tale of Geret and the Giant, Glowing Deep One
of Peril, making grand gestures and doing all the voices for him.
Inside, though, her heart wrenched at the poor man’s situation: a
bespelled eight-year-old, trapped in a body that outgrew him long
ago
. I pray Geret can free him. No one should be forced to
suffer for the greed of another!

The door to Addan’s room opened. Anjoya looked
over to see Beret entering with a tray laden with two glasses of
pink liquid. “Oh, beg pardon. I didn’t realize I was interrupting
an epic tale of heroics.”

“We’re just at the dramatic finish; please,
come in.”

She stood, and Addan rolled over and sat up.
“Cherry.”

“Yes, straight from the cherry cows,” Beret
replied, handing one glass to him. “I’d have brought a third if I’d
realized you were here,” he told Anjoya. “Sweet cherry milk was his
favorite as a small boy. It’s our traditional afternoon snack
together.”

“I won’t keep you, then.” She stepped toward
the door.

“Oh, don’t leave on our account. Addan will no
doubt want another story in a moment.” Beret took a deep gulp of
his milk, then gave an exaggerated sigh of satisfaction, smacking
his lips. Addan smiled and took a sip.

Anjoya took a seat nearby. “Do you really
think your two conspirators will just walk into our trap
tonight?”

“Possibly, but that isn’t my goal. I’m just
prodding them to see which way they—” He paused to cough. “Which
way they jump. Once we know whether they’re more likely to lie,
flee or—” He coughed again, more violently.

Anjoya rose, stepping to his side. “My
lord?”

“‘
S fine,” he said, waving her off.
“Bit of a—” Another gagging cough hacked its way out of his throat,
and his face reddened.

Anjoya urged him back into a chair, but he
seemed to resist her. “My lord Beret, you really should sit down—”
She saw that his jaw muscles were taut. His hand clenched the
glass.

He’s having a seizure!

The Magister’s arm flailed wildly, spilling
his pink milk everywhere. “Z’n.”

“My lord? What is it?”

“P’. Z’n.” His eyelids fluttered closed, and
his body began to slump into unconsciousness.

“P…z’n? Poison!”
He spilled it on
purpose!

Anjoya whirled and slapped Addan’s glass from
his hand a moment before he could take a second sip. The prince
cried out, skittering back from her violence.

She turned back to the Magister and checked
his breathing and pulse. He still had both. She ran to the doorway
and screamed for help.

~~~

“Give me your belt. My sleeve isn’t working,”
Geret heard Narjin order. He blinked away the black afterimage
filling his eyes and saw her holding out her hand to
Ruel.

The pirate stripped off his belt and slapped
it into her hand, and she pulled it tight around the stump of
Kemsil’s arm. The Jualan had stopped screaming as the magical white
light had faded, his sounds reduced to mere moans.

“Hold on, Kemsil,” Geret urged the man. “You
may be willing to give your life for me, but I’m not interested in
taking it yet! You hold on!”

Kemsil’s eyes rolled back.
“Death…yes…”

“No! You can’t go until I let you,” Geret
ordered. “You have to stay here, Kemsil.”

Others began to crowd around the pod. Geret
waited for Meena to shove everyone out of the way and heal Kemsil,
but she didn’t come. Scions he didn’t recognize carried Kemsil
away, and he followed after them, finding himself climbing several
sets of stairs in an ancient stone castle of sorts. Dragon motifs
were everywhere: the walls, the handrails, even the floor
mosaics.

They took Kemsil to a room with a bed. There,
Narjin explained to Ruel and Geret that the escape spell had split
them all up, and that she knew where they were meeting up with
everyone else who survived. Behind her, several of the new Scions
were crouching around Kemsil as he thrashed on the bed.

“What are they doing to him?” Geret asked,
unable to concentrate on Narjin’s words.

She turned to look. “Sometimes combining magic
strengths can lead to a higher affinity in a weak area. One of them
has some minimal healing abilities, but he doesn’t feel he can take
on such a huge task alone; the others are lending him support
through magic potential, rather than their specific ability. I hope
it works, for your friend’s sake.”

“So,” Geret said, tearing his eyes away from
the scene behind Narjin, “we’ve come to a different Scion
cell?”

She smiled, reminding Geret of Meena’s grin.
“Yes. Sosta runs this one. She’s the black-haired woman in the
huddle over Kemsil. Very good with manipulating air. This little
castle is their home most of the time, unlike our hideout. It has
plenty of space, and it’s got a pocket of magic down in the
dungeons that they can draw from to power their protective spells.
That’s about all I know, though; keeping separate saves lives. One
cell may be located by the cult, but even if we were captured and
tortured, none of us would have any pertinent information on the
other cells.”

Geret’s eyes widened. “Do you think they took
anyone this time?”

A grim smile came over Narjin’s face. “No; the
destruct spell cleared everything out. No one got out of there
alive. Not us, and not them.”

Geret swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not. The cult functions as a
single unit because they can’t trust each other to work
independently as we do, so any time we take out a lot of them at
once, it’s a victory for our side. Even if it costs us our own
lives.” Narjin’s expression showed only a few threads of grief in a
tapestry of pride.

“Did you have any of your immediate family in
there?” Ruel asked. Geret knew he must be thinking of
Rhona.

“Yes. We’ll have to wait until we meet up at
the Hermit’s cave to be certain who made it out.” She looked down
at her hands for a moment.

Behind her, Kemsil collapsed back onto his
pillow, panting, and groaned. Relieved murmurs spread around
him.

“Looks like your friend will make it after
all,” Narjin said with a small smile.

Unfortunately, that just meant he wanted to
come with them. Sosta’s people moved him to a large bed in a room
on the second floor, where he protested feebly to Geret.

“Kemsil, you’re in no condition to travel!”
the prince replied.

“You said this castle was the closest cell to
the Hermit’s cave,” Kemsil shot back. “Don’t try to tell me I can’t
make it a few hours’ ride!” He struggled to sit up, trying to
balance on one hand.

Alarmed, Geret caught him gingerly by the
shoulders and eased him back down; he was dismayed at how easy it
was to overpower the weakened man. “You’re not healed, Kemsil;
they’ve just got the bleeding stopped. You’re safer here. Even if
you did come, we’d have to guard you all the time.”

Kemsil looked down at the pale blue blanket,
then turned his gaze to the far wall. “I see the way of it. I’m
just a burden now that I have nothing to offer.”

Geret paused, aghast. “I didn’t
mean—”

“Yes, you did. Just go.” Kemsil pulled his
blanket up with one hand and shuffled gingerly onto his side,
turning his back to Geret. “You should have let me die.”

Geret felt a wall rise between them, shutting
him out. He rose to leave, afraid to say anything else to upset
Kemsil. At the doorway, he paused and looked back. “We’ll be back
for you.”

~~~

Minutes later, Kemsil heard four dozen horses
clatter their way across the castle yard and out through the main
gate.

He lay in his room, listening until the hoof
beats faded. His weariness soon overcame him, and out of habit, he
reached for the Circuit, intending to tap the seven-pointed-star
symbol to hold its settings steady while he slept. When his fingers
met only air, he froze for a moment. Then the bitter tears
started.

“
Convince me it wasn’t you who poisoned the milk,”
said Imorlar. He stood against the front edge of his desk with
crossed arms.

Anjoya sat in his office, trying not to stare
at all the paintings that looked down on her.
Maybe I should
have toughed it out in Salience after all,
she thought
. At
least no one there ever accused me of trying to murder the
caliph.

“If I came here to poison the Magister of
Vint, do you really think I’d stay and cry for help
afterward?”

Imorlar merely regarded her in silence. Anjoya
bit back the urge to question why he suspected her now, after
Imorlar had already heard her story from Count Runcan’s own
lips.

Runcan soon stepped into the office, to
Anjoya’s deep relief. He conferred with Imorlar in the far corner
of the room for a few minutes, then the men both approached her.
Runcan nodded to her in encouragement.

“I will release you on the word of Count
Runcan, Miss Meseer,” Imorlar said. “Given your lack of strong
political connections there, it does seem unlikely that you have
any motive for murder. Which leaves me back where I
started.”

Imorlar’s office door burst open behind
Anjoya’s chair. Gerzan, Rentos, Aponden, n’Hara and Thelios strode
in, and the last man closed the door behind them.

“We’ve just heard, Runcan.”

“Is she the one?”

“We need to take control before word of the
Magister’s death gets out. We can’t have chaos in the
court.”

Anjoya opened her mouth to protest, but
Imorlar grasped her arm and hauled her from her chair. “First
things first. Let’s get you down to a holding room.” He shuffled
her out the door, talking over her startled protests. The voices of
the Counts faded behind her.

Down a broad staircase, then another, narrower
one, Imorlar finally loosened his grasp. “My apologies. It seemed
best if they don’t learn that you’re innocent just yet.”

“Or that the Magister still lives?” Anjoya
asked, rubbing her arms as she stood in the chill
sub-level.

“Especially that.” He rubbed a hand over his
face. “We shouldn’t show our hand too soon. Standard procedure in
the event of the Magister’s death is for the Dictat to take control
of the palace’s affairs until the heir can be prepared to reign in
his place.”

“You mean Geret. The one the conspirators
wanted to lead their empire.” Her eyes were wide in the dim
hallway.

“You see why I needed you out of there before
you said anything. I’m not liking where this line of thought is
taking me, but I can’t deny that the conspirators among the Dictat
stand to gain the most by the death of the Magister and his son.
Just the thought of them stooping to murder…it’s
madness.”

“You don’t have murder here?”

“Oh, we do, but it’s rare, even among the
common folk. The last time a death was arranged by one of the
Dictat, well. It’s been centuries.”

Anjoya shook her head, confused. “It’s
certainly very different here than in Hynd. Am I going to have to
remain in a cell until you can prove who did it?”

He gave her a small smile. “I think I know a
place you can stay, without fear of discovery.”

~~~

Sanych blinked in the blackness, smelling the
closeness of rock and suffering an uncomfortable reminder of her
time in the lightless farmhouse pit with Rhona. “Did we make it?”
she whispered.

Meena sniffed. “This air is terrible. How long
has it been since you opened this up?”

Ahm coughed. “That’s not the air. That’s his
cooking.” He thudded on the ceiling several times.

“He is here, isn’t he?” Sanych asked, her
pupils straining ever wider in the blackness.

Meena spoke. “Quit panicking. He’s a hermit,
Sanych. He’s
always
home.”

“What, he couldn’t be out at the garden patch?
Or taking a pee?” she shot back.

Meena’s voice was smug. “No, he can’t be out
doing those things.”

“Why not?”

Meena only hushed her.

“Wake a body up…” came a faint voice from
above. “Can’t you see I’ve…” It trailed off into disgruntled
muttering. The sound of metal scraping across stone echoed through
the ceiling.

“What is he doing?” Ahm muttered. “I’ve half a
mind to break a hole in this ceiling—”

A clunk overhead dropped fine particles of
sand down on their heads, and then a crescent of light appeared,
widening in short bursts. Sanych blinked sand from her eyes and
squinted upward.

More stone grated together, and several hand-
and foot-holds pushed out from narrow recesses in the wall of the
chamber, bumping Ahm in the shoulder. He took the lead, swinging
onto the stone ladder and climbing up. Sanych and Meena followed
him.

When Sanych reached the top, she stepped to
the side and dusted off her hands, turning her attention to her new
surroundings.