Stonewiser (46 page)

“My donnis,” Delis whispered. “Is this what I think it is? A shit hole?”

“The biggest around.”

“Why would the Guild want to collect their shit in this hole?”

“The dung trade. It's quite profitable.”

“The Guild sells their muck to these impoverished townspeople?” the keeper asked.

“By the pound of slush.”

“But, my donnis, don't these people shit on their own?”

Sariah had to chuckle.

“For the crops, isn't it?” the keeper said.

“Aye, to produce the Guild's required yields, the land around here needs the help.”

“You'd think the people should be weary of taking the Guild's crap,” Delis grumbled. “And now you tell me they pay for the Guild's shit too? They deserve the stink.”

“Shit is coin and the Guild likes coin.”

“What is coin but contempt's truest measure?”
Torkel murmured from down the line.

“How come you know so much about this, my donnis?”

“Pledge duty. Privy pipes.”

Sariah had a memory of herself as a child, dangling from a rope strung through the privy seat, scouring the foul walls after a brutal bout with Mistress Ilian.

“Don't even think about stepping away from the rope,” Ilian had said. “The gutter is deadly, that is, if the rats and the roaches don't eat you first.”

She had never forgotten Ilian's sneer as she lowered a terrified Sariah into the stinking pit. She had used those memories to come up with this plan. She hoped she remembered everything.

“I'm glad I'm an executioner,” Delis was saying. “The only time I get to clean shit is when my charge's death spurt drips on my boots.”

The Hounds chuckled. They really appreciated Delis's warped sense of humor. They sobered up quickly. Up ahead, the red glow of Sariah's bracelet illuminated a thick set of bars built into a narrow arch, dividing a rounded chamber from the channel where they stood. It was as she remembered. It wasn't customary, and it wasn't necessary to do the job, but Ilian, the cruel witch, had dropped her all the way down there to frighten her beyond terror. The stinking muck pool trickled fluidly between the bars.

“Now the real work begins,” Sariah said.

“We'll need to pry those bars from the wall,” Delis said.

“This arch sits beneath the powerfully wised keep's walls. Touch the stone that anchors these bars and you'll die.”

“Will you use your bursting stones, my donnis?”

“Rattle the bars and you'll die as well. An explosion in this place will kill us all.”

Torkel fumbled through his pack. “We'll use the goddess's breath.”

“Fire isn't the best of ideas down here,” Sariah said. “The gas here is as combustible as the belch, as prone to explosion as a rot pit. Give the Guild some credit, Torkel. They weren't risking the keep in the least when they conceded to this narrow gutter.”

With his enthusiasm brutally curbed, Torkel had the grace to look chastened and offended at the same time.

The keeper began to ask, “Then how will we—”

“This is a matter for stone.”

Sariah worked quickly, attaching the stones she had brought onto the bars with weaved twine soaked in frog slime. The grill was about two spans wide and consisted of four vertical bars crossed by a dozen or so horizontal bars. She was careful not to touch the stone wall, placing her eight stones at the innermost bars’ crucible, opposite to each other and above the muck line. She worked them two at a time, pressing her palms against the amplifying stones she placed in between, seeking the stones’ primal heat and stoking it with her mind.

She had done this once before, in the Shield's fortress. It had taken her days. Now she was better prepared. Not only had she selected the darkest basalts she had been able to find, but the addition of the amplifying stone served as a speeding catalyst. Within a few moments, the first set of bars began to glow as red as her bracelet. As soon as the bars gave way, Sariah folded the melted metal out of the way with her weaved hands, and moved down to the next pair.

Delis whistled. Even the Hounds were impressed.

She was a bit dizzy when she was done. “Careful now.” She climbed over the lower bars and slid sideways through the narrow opening. She motioned for the others to follow. “Whatever you do, don't rattle the bars.” She breathed again only after the last man passed through.

“Your turn, Jol.” Sariah pointed to the shaft overhead. “It's straight, narrow and slippery.”

“We'll get you up.” The keeper whispered a curt set of orders. Torkel planted himself beneath the shaft. The others surprised Sariah by coiling some rope around her waist and lifting her onto Torkel's well-muscled shoulders.

“All you have to do is keep your balance,” the keeper said.

Balance wouldn't be a problem. She took a peek up the shaft. It was too narrow to allow for a fall. That's why the Guild used children to scrub the walls. Sariah was full grown now. She worried about getting stuck in there. The methodology for going up became clear an instant later.

“I go next.” Delis puffed and grappled.

Beneath Sariah's boots, Torkel's shoulders strained with effort.

Delis tapped her calves. “Shift your feet to my shoulders.”

Sariah rose up the shaft by Delis's full height. The Hounds were building height with their bodies, propelling her upwards by intercalating one man at a time on top of the base man, the only possible point of insertion. She felt sorry for Torkel, bearing the tower's full weight at the bottom of the pile. She was glad for his strength.

The ascent had its moments. They struggled to fit in the narrow shaft, the Hounds and Delis more than Sariah, on account of their larger build. The human lift progressed. Illuminating the way with her bracelet's glow, Sariah kept count of the side shafts as she passed. She was thankful for each unoccupied privy seat.

At last, she arrived to the last side shaft, where the main tunnel ended. A burst of fresh air hit her face. She leaned to one side and saw the dark shape of the round privy seat framing a hint of silver light. Someone had left the privy turret's window open. Now she had to figure out how to climb up the last few paces of the secondary shaft.

The howl startled her into action. It was the night's first signal. Somewhere, a Hound was unwrapping his ward and beginning his run. The side shaft was slippery. Despite Sariah's efforts, she kept on sliding backwards.

“Can you give me a boost somehow?”

A whispered discussion ensued below and quickly thereafter, a count of three. The entire human structure where she stood flexed like a copper spring, launching Sariah a few feet into the side shaft, enough that she could grasp the privy seat's wooden edge with both hands. She hung there for a moment, gathering her strength for the final push.

She hauled herself up through the seat's opening, first the coil of rope, then an arm and a shoulder, then her head, then the other shoulder, until she was finally half-out of the shaft. Crawling up the privy shafts. There had to be an easier way. She had just managed to twist her hips out when a strangulated gasp echoed in the tiny chamber. Her head snapped up. Standing by the open door, a dark-robed stonewiser stared at her, openmouthed.

She read it all in his darkening eyes. Surprise. Disbelief. Had she fallen into the privy? Denial. Suspicion. He opened his mouth to call the alarm. By then Sariah's knee was anchored on the privy seat and her stone was loaded in her whirling sling. Her shot found his temple just in time to mute his cry. He crumbled on the floor like a fallen boulder.

She rushed to drag him into the privy turret and closed the door. She snapped the bolt shut, just in case. Hurry now. Her plan had been three seconds away from being foiled. She tied the knotted rope to the window bars and dropped it down the shaft. Despite the recent fright, she was amused when Delis's head popped out of the privy, followed, one by one, by the keeper, Torkel and a host of full-grown Hounds. Stinking, scraped, but smiling, they huddled in the small turret like mischievous pledges plotting a prank.

“Saba?” Torkel gestured at the man on the floor. “You?”

“Make sure they don't find him for a while.” He would have a bad headache tomorrow.

Now to the second part of her plan. She cracked the door open and scoured the deserted hallway. With the others in tow, she tiptoed down the hall to the first door on the right. She listened. As she expected, no one was in the dressing room. The black stonewiser robes were folded neatly, stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves and organized by sizes. It took them all but a few moments to change. They tucked their dirty weaves at the bottom of the laundry pile.

Sariah was shocked when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Dressed in the black robe, the stonewiser that stared back at her was not really her, but rather her old self, the foolishly naïve lease she had once been. The only thing missing was her stonewiser's brooch.

No, nay, no. She was a different person now. The stonewiser in the mirror was tanned and toned, slightly wider at the waist, wary and alert. The gaudy bracelet was glowing on her wrist. She also sported long bangs and plaited hair. So did some of her companions. That would be a sure giveaway.

“Wear a hooded mantle.” Sariah grabbed one from the shelves. Guild wisers were issued the additional garment during the chill. It was the best concealment that she had been able to think of and it would have to do. She took care to cover her bracelet's glow as well.

If she remembered correctly, they didn't have too far to go. She marched her little party down the hall and up a circular set of stairs. It felt strange to walk these halls. She had once belonged here. Now she was an intruder.

“Where are we?” the keeper asked.

“We're in the Hall of Stones’ living quarters,” Sariah whispered. “This next floor is bound to be more active.”

Indeed, at the top of the stairs, a pair of armed guards blocked their way.

“Halt, stonewisers,” one of the guards said. “What's your business here?”

Sariah managed to keep her voice steady. “We've been summoned to the Prime Hand's quarters.”

“At this hour?”

“The Prime Hand never sleeps.”

The guard's pinched expression relaxed. “You know her well. Go ahead.”

Sariah walked on. She didn't look back when she heard the guards’ muffled grunts. They had been dutiful young men. Now they were dead.

The doors to the Prime Hand's chambers were to her right, flanked by additional guards. Sariah turned left and up a smaller set of stairs to reach a smallish door leading to the darkened gallery. There would be no eager pledges crowding the private gallery this late, no little future stonewisers waiting nervously for the Prime Hand's weekly admonishment. The keeper closed the door behind the last man and bolted it from the inside. There was no turning back.

Protected by the gallery's pitch darkness, Sariah and her companions crawled to the balcony's edge. Her hands were shaking. Her sight was blurred. Her heart was beating too hard. The first time she had stood in this gallery as a child, she had been sent to the box. The last time she had seen Grimly, the Prime Hand had commanded her death. Sariah had a sudden urge to run away from the keep, from the Guild she had renounced, from Grimly. Instead, she braced herself on the rail and looked down into the Prime Hand's private bed chamber.

Thirty-three

 

T
HE
P
RIME
H
AND'S
bedchamber was an expansive, luxurious realm, contrasting in all ways with the average stonewiser's ascetic cell at the keep. A huge bed stood as the chamber's centerpiece, adorned by an exquisitely carved headboard and a heavy set of silk and velvet curtains. A massive table stood at the foot of the bed, directly beneath the gallery. There, sitting on a high-back chair and surrounded by a host of lit and perfumed candles, was Mistress Grimly.

From where she was, Sariah could see the top of the Prime Hand's head, the even crown of bristling white hair bent over the map spread on the table. There were others in the room, but Sariah's eyes were glued to the small white stone that moved of its own accord along the section representing the keep's wall on the map.

“Tell them to set a trap at the south bend,” Mistress Grimly was saying. “She'll be there in moments. We have her now. She'll never know how we knew.”

The mistress was wrong. Sariah had figured out that the tracking stone Horatio had put in her pocket had a matching stone, following her progress along on the mistress's map. It had been a risk, to allow the Prime Hand to track her that closely, but Sariah had wagered that Grimly wouldn't send her guard out of the keep for fear of Arron's Shield. She had been right.

“What's this?” Grimly said. “The stone has stopped. Do we have her? Well?”

A man's voice came from the window. “The fire signals indicate that they're looking. Wait. There's a change. No one's there.”

“What do you mean?” the mistress said. “She was there a moment ago. She has to be there!”

Sariah let out a slow breath. With luck, the Hound running that track had buried the stone he carried and made his getaway.