Straken (13 page)

“Well, it’s not allowed.” He glanced past her into the study room. “Wait here.”

He stepped inside, out of view, then returned a moment later and thrust a Druid robe into her hands. “Here, wear this until you can put on one of your own. The rules are clear.”

She nodded her thanks, slipped off the Gnome cloak, and slipped on the proffered robe. “I’ve been away. I don’t know all the new rules.”

The Druid looked suddenly eager. “Did you come in one of those airships that just landed? Has something else happened?”

She hesitated. Something else? What was he talking about? “The airships brought in a boy,” she said, deciding to measure his reaction.

“Ah, the Ohmsford boy.” The Druid shook his head. “What a lot of bother. They’ve been looking for him for weeks. Nephew to the old Ard Rhys. They think the whole family is at risk, so they’re bringing them here to keep them safe. Found the parents, but they couldn’t find the boy. Until now.”

“So the parents are here?” she tried.

“No, no, that’s what I was talking about. They’re gone. Disappeared with their ship two days ago. Flew off in something of a confrontation, I hear. Hard to say; the Gnomes won’t talk about it with us. But there was a fight of some sort. No one knows. Shadea keeps such things secret from everyone but her closest advisers.” He shrugged. “Typical.”

Khyber took a deep breath. “Do you think she would be awake this late? I need to see her.”

The Druid shook his head. “You don’t know much about what’s going on, do you? She isn’t even here. She went to Arishaig and hasn’t returned.”

“As I said, I’ve been away,” Khyber repeated. “All this is news to
me.” She had learned all she was going to learn and more than she had expected. She had to break this off. “Who would I speak to in her absence?”

The Druid frowned. “I don’t know. Traunt Rowan or Pyson Wence, I suppose. Didn’t you fly in with them? How did you get here?” The disapproving frown was back. “Where did you say you had been?”

But she was already moving away, giving him a perfunctory wave as she did so. She couldn’t believe her luck. She knew now that the ringleader of the conspirators was away, so Pen would not be touched until she returned. That gave her a small measure of time in which to act. She also knew that Pen’s parents were no longer prisoners in the Keep, so that the boy, if she could free him, would be able to go into the Forbidding without fear of reprisal against his captive family. But she had to find Pen quickly if he was to have his chance.

“Wait up! Stay where you are!”

She wheeled about, astonished to find the Druid she had thought left behind chasing after her down the corridor, black robes flying out behind him. One arm came up as if in challenge, a sense of urgency to the motion, his heavy brow furrowed more deeply than ever.

Having no choice but to deal with him, she stood her ground. “Who did you say you were?” he demanded, panting and out of breath as he reached her. “How is it you happen to have been aboard an airship bringing back the Ohmsford boy when …”

Khyber braced her feet, cocked her fist, and hit him so hard she knocked him backwards into the wall. She was on him instantly, hauling him up with one hand while putting a dagger to his throat with the other.

“Not another word,” she hissed at him. “Not unless I tell you to speak. If you yell for help, I’ll cut you chin-to-navel before you finish. Do you understand me?”

She had never seen such fear in another’s eyes as she saw in his. His throat worked as he tried unsuccessfully to speak and finally settled for nodding.

“You don’t know who I am and you don’t want to,” she told him softly, her eyes locking on his, making sure he did not misjudge her determination. “Behave yourself, do what you’re told and you might
stay alive. Now listen carefully. I want you to take me down to the cells where they keep the prisoners. Don’t speak to anyone we pass on the way. Don’t try signaling for help. Am I clear?”

She was only a girl, but the Druid she held pinned against the wall saw her as infinitely more dangerous than he was, and he nodded vigorously. “One thing more,” she said to him. “I have the use of magic, just as you do. I understand its complexities. If you try to use your own, even secretly, I will know.”

He found his voice again. “You’ve come for the Ohmsford boy.”

She put her face inches from his own. “He means a lot to me. So much so that if something bad happens to him now, something much worse will happen to you. What I intend for him is safe passage out of here. If you interfere with me, I will kill you.”

His face was bloodless, his eyes wide. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I won’t if you don’t make me. Now, which way?”

He pointed, his hand shaking. She pulled him away from the wall and marched him back down the cavernous hall, the dagger at his back, her free hand gripping his arm. They moved quickly, following the corridor to its end, turned into another, followed that for a time, then turned into a third. They passed no one on their way. They heard no movements or voices that would indicate the presence of others. What she was doing was madness, an impulsive act that could end badly for her, but at least she was getting to where she wanted to go. Someone would have had to tell her, and it might as well be someone under her control. Her eyes darted left and right as she walked, to every crevice and alcove, to every closed door. She kept waiting for her luck to run out. She kept waiting for things to go bad.

They reached a broad stairwell leading down and her prisoner hesitated.

“Keep moving,” she whispered, nudging him with the tip of the dagger.

They descended carefully, Khyber watching the bend in the wall ahead for shadows cast by torchlight. None appeared. At the bottom of the stairwell, they reached an anteroom that served as a hub for five different corridors leading off like the spokes of a wheel.

A Gnome Hunter sat facing them from behind a table, his wizened face unreadable. Farther down the corridor at his back, torchlight cast the shadow of a second guard against the stone-block wall.

Keeping one hand firmly attached to her reluctant companion, Khyber moved over to the Gnome at the table. “We’ve been sent to speak with the boy,” she said, again using the Callahorn dialect. “Where is he?”

The Gnome Hunter stared at her, clearly surprised by her demand. Then he shook his head. “No one sees him. I have my orders.”

“Orders from Traunt Rowan,” she snapped. “Who do you think sent us here? Now take us to the boy. Or do you want me to drag him down here to tell you for himself?”

The threat cut off whatever reply the Gnome was about to make, and he simply nodded. “Someone should tell me these things. I can’t know them otherwise.” He paused. “You just want to speak with the boy?”

She shrugged dismissively. “He won’t be leaving his cell, if that’s what you are asking.”

He rose doubtfully, reached under the table to produce a ring of keys, and led them down the hallway. Khyber felt the beginnings of some resistance on the part of her reluctant companion and shoved him ahead.

“Don’t,” she whispered, the dagger digging into his back so hard he whimpered.

They passed the second guard on his way back. He glanced at Khyber and her companion without interest and moved on. She fought the urge to look over her shoulder at him when he was out of sight. Instead, she pulled the dagger away from the Druid and close to her body so that it was hidden in her robes, still keeping the fingers of her other hand tightly fastened to her prisoner’s arm. She did not know how much longer she could hold him in check. Sooner or later, he was going to give way to his growing panic or to the temptation to run. If it happened now, while she was still out in the corridor with the Gnome Hunters, she was in trouble. Her plan to free Pen, born of opportunity and chance, was just beginning to take shape. She needed time to flesh it out, to think it through, to find a way to implement it fully. Getting to Pen was just the first step. The ones that followed would be much harder.

They reached the door of the cell, and the Gnome Hunter turned. “Do you want me to wait?”

She scowled. “I want you to go back to doing what you are paid to do and leave me to my work. I’ll call you when I need you.”

“I have to lock you in.”

“Then do so. You are wasting my time.”

The Gnome fiddled with the keys, slipped one clear of the others, inserted it into the lock, and turned it. The lock clicked, and the door opened with a squeal of metal fastenings.

As it did so, Khyber’s prisoner wrenched free of her grip and ran screaming down the hall.

K
hyber didn’t stop to think, didn’t do anything but respond to the disaster that was unfolding. She wheeled on the Gnome nearest, slammed the hilt of her dagger into his temple, and dropped him without a sound. As he collapsed, she turned back toward the fleeing Druid, her hands weaving, conjuring a magic with which she was familiar and on which she had depended before. In response to her summons, a sudden gust of wind exploded down the hallway, caught up her quarry before he had run a dozen yards, snatched him off his feet, and hurled him into the wall like a sack of wheat.

The remaining Gnome Hunter came racing toward her in response to the shouting and tumbling bodies, his weapons drawn. She used her magic again, picking him up off his feet and bearing him aloft as she had once done a simple leaf. Remembering to focus her efforts, she held him suspended in midair, kicking and squirming in a futile effort to break free. No failure of attention, no break in concentration. She was at her best in that moment, her uncle’s attentive student in the way he had always wanted her to be. She reached the Gnome and dropped him to the floor in a ragged heap, kicking him so hard in the head that he did not move again.

Glancing back at the door to the cell, she called out. “Pen! Are you in there? Answer me!”

No response. Returning her attention to the bodies crumpled
about her, she used laces, bindings, and belts to secure them, then dragged them back up the hall and dropped them next to the Gnome with the keys. Peering inside the cell, she saw a bundled form lying at the back of the tiny room, trussed, gagged, and blindfolded.

“Shades!” she hissed under her breath.

She rushed into the room, bent to Pen Ohmsford, and began working to release his bonds. She freed his eyes first, looking to see if he was conscious. He blinked into the uncertain light and stared at her, wide-eyed. She grinned in response, then loosened the gag.

“I guess you didn’t expect to see me again so soon, did you, Penderrin?”

“Khyber! How did you find me?”

The obvious relief mirrored in his boyish features made her smile broaden. “I saw what happened, slipped aboard one of the other airships, and flew into Paranor with you. Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “Just get me free. I’ll tell you everything.”

She did so, using the dagger to cut through his bonds, then told him to wait while she hauled her three captives inside the cell and dumped them in a far corner. None of them moved even once while this was happening. “Let’s see how
they
like being locked away in here,” she muttered. “Come on, Pen.”

“Help me walk, Khyber,” he asked, struggling to rise.

They went out of the cell as quickly as his legs would permit, but his mobility was severely restricted by leg cramps and stiffness. He had been bound up in the airship for much of the flight back, then brought directly to the cell and left as he was. He had lost all the feeling in both legs and feet in that time, and it was slow to return.

“I thought I was finished,” he admitted as he limped down the corridor, leaning heavily on her for support. “They caught me out, Khyber. I told them lies about what I was doing, but they saw through me and took the darkwand away. You saw that I had it, didn’t you? From across the ravine? I took it with me from the tanequil’s lair, kept it from that thing that tracked us from Anatcherae to Stridegate, kept it safe to use as I was instructed by the King of the Silver River, and they took it away!”

He was so distraught that he was practically crying. Khyber gave his shoulders a rough squeeze. “Then we’ll just have to get it back, Pen.”