Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (86 page)

Scavenger’s eyes were wide. He took his hand away from his mouth and frowned just a little, as if he were imagining the death. Alexander’s throat was dry. He had never tried anything like this before. And Scavenger’s silence disturbed him. “If you help me, you’ll be a hero to my people,” Alexander said. He had no idea if he was speaking the truth.

Scavenger slowly turned his face toward Alexander. “With a place of my own? And no more bodies?”

“Yes,” Alexander said.

“And no more Caseo,” Scavenger whispered. “I would get rid of him, too, and I wouldn’t even have to kill him myself.”

“That’s right,” Alexander said. He pushed off the table and stood upright. This was his cue to go. He walked to the door.

“Wait!” Scavenger said. “I need a guarantee. I mean, what if I kill him, and then you kill me?”

Alexander frowned. What an alien thought. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Right,” Scavenger said. “And I’m not sitting in your makeshift jail talking about killing the leader of my people.”

He believed it. He truly believed that Alexander would betray him. “I give you my word.”

“Your word?” Scavenger said. “As what? I don’t even know who you are. Not really. I’ve only guessed so far.”

“My word as King,” Alexander said. The words made him feel light-headed. Fear rising, fear at revealing himself.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’ve never broken my word,” Alexander said.

“Not ever, in all the years of being King?”

“Not ever,” Alexander said.

But Scavenger didn’t look convinced.

Alexander let go of the knob. “Is it common for Fey to go back on their word?”

“It is an art form.”

“Then how can I trust you?”

“I’m not true Fey, remember?” Scavenger said.

“It doesn’t matter. If it is customary to make a promise and then break it among your people, then you will follow custom.”

Scavenger stared at him. “I will do as you ask.”

“And so will I,” Alexander said. “The problem is that now neither of us will trust the other to do as he says.”

“Have you anything of value that you can entrust to me?” Scavenger asked.

“I already have,” Alexander said. “My life.”

“I can’t take your life,” Scavenger said. “There are guards outside.”

Alexander shrugged. “How am I to know that you can’t? Your people have magick. You could have lied to me or failed to discuss the one thing that you possess.”

“I have no magick.”

“And I have only your word on that.” Alexander smiled. “I can trust you. Can you trust me in return?”

Scavenger stared at him for a long time. “My choices seem fairly obvious,” he said. “I guess I will have to trust you.”

SEVENTY-ONE

 
The infant frightened him. Rugar sat on the Meeting Block, the grayness swirling around him. He spent too much time there, staring at the Circle Door, wishing he were anywhere but in Shadowlands. In the distance, voices echoed as the Domestics installed the last water tank. No one was hammering today. Most of the building was done—at least until another group went for wood. None of the inhabitants of Shadowlands wanted to leave until the last of the bodies had been cleaned up near the circle. Only Solanda had left through the Circle Door since morning.

Leaving the baby. As if it frightened her too.

An Islander should not have any magick, and yet it was there, in the baby’s eyes. If he hadn’t had that glint that so few Fey children had at his age, Rugar would have discounted Solanda’s action as the first in a Shape-Shifter deterioration. But she had been right. This child was important to all of them.

The boy doomed them to life on Blue Isle.

Unless Caseo and the others could figure out the spells. Rugar would give Caseo only another week to find a way around the poison, and then Rugar would start making other plans. He wasn’t sure what those plans would be yet. He wanted some time to factor in this problem with magick.

None of the other Islanders evidenced any magick. No other Fey had reported any encounters with Islander magick. He refused to believe that the poison was magick. It was probably something as simple as a sword. The Islanders probably got it from some stream somewhere, and once the Fey found it, they would be able to win any battle they initiated.

But the idea that they had magick they didn’t understand bothered him more than he wanted to admit. The prisoner that Jewel kept, the man Adrian, had told both Jewel and Rugar there was no magick. Yet the baby refuted that claim by his very existence.

When Rugar had been a little boy, he had learned in school of the Co. The Co had inhabited a small region in the Northeastern tip of Galinas, and they had had powers that enabled them to command all the wild beasts to kill Fey. Fey were slaughtered for years before a Spell Warder discovered that the Co’s magic was not a conscious one. If they did not feel threatened or powerless, they couldn’t summon help. So the Fey planned a midnight raid, knowing that the Co would be asleep in their beds. The stealthiest Fey went on the raid—those that could move silently, including the Wisps and Dream Riders, who helped only on special occasions. The Dream Riders kept the Co from waking by giving them good dreams. The Wisps kidnapped all the babies under one year of age—children that could be molded to the Fey way—and the rest of the Fey slaughtered the Co in their sleep. Co magic failed them. Except for a bit of Co blood in the Fey bloodlines, the Co no longer existed at all.

But to hear the stories, it seemed that the Fey suffered some losses of their own before they figured out a way to defeat the Co.

Rugar’s breath caught in his throat. He was always one step behind his father. Rugar had forgotten about the Co until this moment. And he had forgotten about the pattern.

The Black Queen had sent a small contingent of Fey to attack the Co, but she had done so warning them that they would have no assistance. She was testing a new warrior-leader. If he did not find a way to defeat the Co, he would not lead her troops. He had found a way, but it had taken him years. By the time he returned, she was dead, and another led in her place. Another who cared nothing for a warrior who had been trapped in a war that he had nearly lost.

He had learned the story of the Co as a coda to Fey history: one of the few battles that the Fey had nearly lost, led by a renegade warrior who should never have disobeyed his Queen. The warrior’s disgrace was twofold: that he had gone off on his own, and that it had taken him years to win a war that should have ended in months. But the new Black King had taken over the Co’s land and had taken credit for the defeat, even as he discredited the warrior who had finally achieved that defeat.

Rugar rubbed a hand over his mouth. His father was an expert on Fey history. He had more than once told Rugar that a Fey who did not understand history was ignorant not just in the ways of the past but in the ways of the future.

The ways of the future.

Rugar felt cold. His father had heard something about Blue Isle, and then he had goaded Rugar into going, as a sort of rebellion, much like the fight against the Co. If Rugar failed, it would be his fault for disobeying his father. If he succeeded, then he would be his father’s tool, finding the way around the Islanders, and solving what could have been a very serious defeat for a large Fey force.

Rugad the Black King had not lost his urge to fight. He had merely used his excellent talent at treachery against his own son, a son who was worthless to him because he had grandchildren who could carry on the tradition of leadership. Rugar would be old when he became King, and a Black King should be young at first, young enough to shoulder the burdens of command.

“Bastard,” Rugar muttered.

The lights around the Circle Door suddenly began rotating. He leaned forward on the block. The lights weren’t supposed to do that. They either lit outside when it was dark, or they lit inside when someone without magick or the password tried to get in. They never lit inside and
rotated.

Another Fey stopped beside him. A husbander, who usually worked outside the Circle. “What is that?” he whispered.

“Something different,” Rugar said. “Go get Jewel as well as some of the Infantry. We need to be prepared for this. Oh, and that prisoner. Let’s bring him too.”

“Which one, sir?” the man asked.

“The younger one. The one who is supposed to help us. Him.” Rugar stayed next to the block. As far as he could tell, he was too far away to be splashed if Islanders somehow got inside the dirt circle, managed to open the door, and throw poison inside.

The lights flashed brighter, and spun faster, until they became a blur. Heat emanated from the door, melting the mist around it, making the base of Shadowlands look like glass. Rugar thought he could see grass below, but he wasn’t willing to get closer to look.

Voices grew louder behind him. He recognized Jewel’s and Burden’s. He suppressed a flash of irritation, wishing that young, magickless Infantryman would leave her alone. As they got closer, Rugar saw the husbander with them, and the prisoner Adrian, looking confused.

Then the Circle Door opened, and a Black Robe stumbled inside. Rugar gasped. The Black Robe looked around wildly. The approaching Fey stopped. Only Adrian, the prisoner, came forward.

He held out his hands, as if he were to protect them all from the poison. “Religious Sir,” he said, “you are in a dangerous place.”

“I am in a safe place,” the Black Robe snapped. “You are the one who is in danger. Rugar, I need to talk with you.”

Rugar stood very still. The accent and emphasis made the phrasing sound like Quest, but he couldn’t tell—not for sure. Still, he had ordered the Doppelgänger to return if he couldn’t find anything. But that didn’t explain the door.

“The Circle Door had trouble with you,” Rugar said, careful not to use any names. “Is there a reason for that?”

“I don’t know,” the Black Robe said as he grabbed Adrian by the throat and held him aloft without any effort at all. Adrian coughed and kicked, but couldn’t reach the Black Robe. The Black Robe took a knife from his pocket. “Should I decapitate this one and get a real body back?”

“Let him go!” Jewel said.

The Black Robe looked from her to Rugar.

“Let him go! He’s mine, and I promised him protection.”

Adrian’s kicks were getting weaker. His face was turning blue. The Black Robe looked at Rugar. Rugar shrugged. “Let him go. He’s supposed to help us.”

The Black Robe dropped Adrian. He landed with a thud, both hands going to his throat as he coughed and gasped for air.

“Get a Healer,” Jewel said.

“You’re awfully suspicious of a Doppelgänger who has returned home on your orders,” the Black Robe said.

“I have never seen the Circle Door behave that way before,” Rugar said, “and I should have. I’m the one who designed it.”

“I got in, didn’t I? Without the passwords. I couldn’t have those, I’ve been gone for too long.”

Rugar nodded. If it was Quest, then that was true. Quest would not have known the password. But something had disturbed the door. “Take off the robe,” Rugar said, “and all the religious trappings and pass through the door again.”