The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (22 page)

Eris leapt from the bed and hurried across the room. He found the tiny keys on the floor and in moments the iron and then the gold cuffs rattled to the floor. His eyes rapidly scanned the room for weapons and clothing. He paused as his sweeping gaze caught sight of the pile of chains on the floor. A wicked gleam suddenly brightened his darkly violet eyes. Perhaps it was a foolish waste of time, but just maybe what he was about to do would keep some other poor maid out of the same situation. He gathered up the shackles and walked to the bed.

There was a very slim chance that Raga was right about his deserving what had befallen him, especially as Charra-Tir’s maiden had somehow come to a bad end, but there was still no excuse for the Sultan’s brutality, or for keeping his women chained like animals. They couldn’t escape even if they wanted to.

Eris despised the man lying unconscious on the bed and in a short time had him trussed in a manner befitting his black mood. He took the keys and dropped them out the window and into the thorn bushes below.

He stood at the window looking for any of the landmarks he had committed to memory while standing on the balcony of the inn. He saw none of those. However, he assumed that because of his proximity to a slim tower he thought had seen the night before, and which had been mostly obscured by the glare of the setting sun, that he was a little closer to the rear gardens.

Turning away from the window, Eris spotted the Sultan’s sword lying on top of a glass and metal table. He picked up the weapon and examined it. He found it was a good weapon, though he was not used to wielding curved blades. The grip was comfortable and the quillons were heavily jeweled making it worthy as well as useful.

Yet what was beneath the large and expensive piece of glass brought a bit of a smile to his face and pulled him down to his knees. He hardly knew what to look at first as a large collection of daggers and knives spread across a piece of black velvet. It was an incredible collection displaying the art and craftsmanship of master metal smiths that he was sure dated back two hundred years or more. Carefully, he slid the piece of glass aside and had inspected several pieces before the sound of clattering dishes and shuffling feet moving behind the heavy curtain made him pause. The fingers of his right hand curled around the hilt of a slim, keen-edged dagger.

The clink of the china stopped and he saw quick movements behind the drape as the person searched for the opening in the rich, blue fabric. A jeweled hand appeared through the opening and Eris knew it was one of the eunuchs. The eunuch pulled the drape aside and stepped into the still dimly lit and shadowed room. He placed the serving tray on a table near to the bed and his eyes raised up to awaken his master. A high-pitched gasp of surprise echoed in the room when he saw his master chained and unconscious.

“We are attacked! My lady has been taken!” he wailed and clasped his chubby hands together.

“Stay where you are and you won’t get hurt,” Eris ordered from across the room.

The eunuch barely glanced in his direction. He turned and frantically searched for the opening in the drape, still shouting for the palace guard to come to his aid. He disappeared through the fabric.

“Damn you!” Eris swore and sprang after him. He couldn’t fight the whole palace contingent, much less stark naked.

Eris heard the eunuch fumbling with the latch on the door as he burst through the draperies and tripped as the drape unexpectedly wrapped around his leg. The dagger flew from his hand. Instead of hitting the man in the shoulder as he had intended, it struck him solidly between the shoulder blades, more to the left side. The blade disappeared up to the hilt into the eunuch’s back. Sprawled face down on the floor, Eris watched the half-man sink slowly, terribly slowly with a raspy wheeze to the flagstone. It was a pitiful sight as the defenseless man slumped forward, not breathing, against the door. Bright blood ran in a thin line down the smooth, child-like skin of his back.

Eris muttered a curse under his breath. He hadn’t intended to kill the man, only to stop him from calling the guards. Knowing there was nothing to be done, he got to his knees and crawled toward the body. At least the clothing would give him a disguise. He pulled the dagger from the man’s back and laid it on the floor. Gently, he took a hold of the eunuch’s shoulders and pulled him away from the door.

“The gods be damned! Will the miseries of this place never end?” Eris murmured in a voice filled with regret as he stretched Hofa's lifeless body before him. For a moment, he let his forehead rest against Hofa’s as searing emotion tightened his throat.
Go to your god, my unfortunate brother.
Finally, he sat up and wiped a weary hand across his face. In his mind, he saw Maissa’s weeping face, heard her sobs.

A moment more and Eris was once again the consummate warrior. There was no time for tears or remorse when there was still a battle to win. Quickly, he stripped Hofa of his clothing and jewels. Out of respect for his mother, Eris pulled a sheet from the bed and shrouded Hofa’s body within.

Hofa’s clothes fit him well, except for the shoes, which were painfully tight on his feet. The mass of gold chain necklaces was enough to hide the red jewel that still hung on the tight chain around his neck. The turban was a nuisance, but worth the effort if it got him safely through the halls.

He was sure eunuchs weren’t allowed to wear weapons, but that was a chance he would have to take. He wrapped Hofa’s sash tightly around his waist and knotted the ends together. Into the many folds of fabric he hid as many daggers as was physically possible. Then he found the scabbard for the Sultan’s sword and belted the weapon to his waist.

Eris stepped in front of a long mirror to check his appearance and frowned. He was much too muscular and trim of waist to pass for one of the eunuchs, who tended toward plumpness. He spotted the Sultan’s discarded robe on the floor behind him and picked it up. He draped it over his left arm so that it hung down and hid the sword at his hip. Next, he opened a cedar trunk at the foot of the bed and found an assortment of cloaks and colorful, silken pantaloons. He folded a cloak and put it over one shoulder and two pairs of pants over the other. His image now had the desired effect and hoped it would be convincing. It was still early, so the halls were likely to be empty.

Before leaving the Sultan’s chambers, Eris bolted the door through which Hofa had come. He paused by the side of the bed to see the Sultan quiet and unmoving. A piece of pale pink fabric stuck out from under his back.

Eris considered it for a long moment with a face void of emotion. The garment was torn beyond all hope of repair as the Sultan once again proved to his beautiful Erisa, who was the master and who was to obey. Never in all his life could he have imagined himself treating a woman as he had been treated. Conflicting thoughts of the night boiled beneath the surface of his deadly calm and determined face. Then, he turned from the place of his torment and pushed the memories of the sounds, the emotions, and the sense of touch to places that should never have been touched from his mind. He quietly left the chamber perhaps a little more humble than he went in.

As he had hoped, the halls were deserted for the earliness of the hour. Recalling that he had been brought down the hall from the left the night before, he chose right as the path to follow.

He tried to affect the peculiar mincing way of walking that the eunuchs used when they were on an errand, but the excruciating tightness of Hofa’s boots, and he wondered why the man hadn’t been in his slippers, soon made him give up trying. It was a ridiculous way to walk anyway. Not to mention the bones in his ankles still felt bruised and swollen from their mistreatment, which was an unpleasant discovery. He thought, being in his right form, those sensations and hurts should have faded.

Coming to a corridor crossing his path, Eris warily looked both ways, and decided to stay on his particular course. Nothing to the left or right seemed to lead anywhere but to more chambers. Continuing on, he noticed the walls were becoming less and less ornate and the mosaic glass and gold ornamentation faded away until only plain plaster walls, yellowed with age, remained. The lighting grew dimmer and the space between the doors was less and he knew he was entering the quarters set aside for the servants. The polished silver oil lamps were replaced with ones of roughly shaped and crudely painted clay. More and more short, narrow passages branched off of the main hall he was following. Fortunately, he had only seen a handful of people and those who saw him were otherwise too preoccupied to pay him much notice.

He heard voices coming from behind many of the doors; voices of men grumbling and laughing, the voices of the Sultan’s private army.
Damn it all.
He had just walked into a hornet’s nest. He kept walking toward the bright light growing at the far end of the hall, unhurried, each step a lesson in pain as the boots pinched hard. He focused on the light, which hoped was sunlight coming from the gardens.

A door swung open behind him. He kept walking. His senses tingled with wary apprehension. At the same time, he hoped Raga was honing in on the thoughts he was sending and moving into position. He was sure the time for truly cautious and quiet actions was about to end.

“Ho, eunuch,” a soldier called as he pulled the door closed behind him. Eris stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re not going to find your missing balls and cock here.”

The soldier laughed as he stepped in front of Eris. One of his hands rested lightly on the pommel of his sword and the other was balled against his hip.

“I’m waiting for an answer. What are you doing here?”

“I’m on an errand for his Excellency.” His throat strained to imitate the feminine sounding voice of the other eunuchs.

“His Excellency knows better than to send your type to this end of the palace. He doesn’t appreciate the “sport” we play with your kind,” the soldier said, eyeing Eris’ face and more fit build.

“I was looking for the seamstress to have these things repaired. I must have taken a wrong turn,” Eris suggested, never taking his eyes off of the soldier’s face. “I’ve just arrived with the Sultan’s new bride, Erisa.”

“In that case, we most certainly should give you a formal welcoming, eh, baby face,” the soldier mocked and reached up to pat Eris’ face. The soldier’s eyes narrowed suddenly and his hand firmly grasped the hilt of his sword. “What trickery is this? A eunuch with a cheek full of stubble?”

“It’s your welcome to hell.” Eris’ right hand shot out from under the folds of the Sultan’s robe and drove a long dagger under the man’s ribs straight into his heart.

The soldier, eyes wide and frozen in surprise, fell heavily against Eris. Swiftly, Eris withdrew the weapon and tucked it back into the folds of the sash. He quickly stanched the wound with the fabric from one of the pairs of pantaloons. A bloody trail would only bring a score or more of revenge-crazed soldiers charging after him that much sooner.

He hoisted the corpse over one shoulder and hurried down the first dark, narrow hall he found. He continue on until the voices stopped coming from behind any of the doors. He paused by one and put his ear against the wooden panel to listen. Hearing nothing, he slowly opened the door and peered inside. It was empty except for two cots with wooden trunks at the foot of each.

Eris stepped inside and quietly shut the door. He put the body on one of the cots and pulled back a piece of coarse cloth the soldiers had put over the window for a drape. He squinted for the brightness of the light reflecting off of the white plaster walls. He was closer to the large grassy garden, but not close enough. He also noticed he was much higher off the ground than he thought he was.

A low, rumbling growl pulled his gaze downward. Below, in a fair-sized enclosure, a score or more of lions and lionesses stretched on the dusty ground, or paced along a fence constructed of iron bars that kept them from the green grass beyond.

Now Eris understood the reason for such a large garden, and why he had never seen anyone strolling there from his perch at the inn. He wondered how many more big cats might be penned along the walls, or hidden amongst the thick hedge shrubs. It was a problem he hadn’t anticipated, but one that would likely have to be faced nevertheless.

He let the drape fall back into place and considered his next action. He assumed that the soldiers of this room belonged to the night watch and would be returning soon. He made another attempt to contact Raga through the mind bond. The link blazed as bright as the morning sun, but the sorcerer failed to return an answer.

“What kind of game is that fool playing now,” Eris muttered. He was about to open the door, when voices in the hall stayed his hand.

Damn!
He shrank back against the wall so that he would be behind the back swing of the door. Silently, he pulled the purloined sword from the sheath.

“Hurry up. Get that stuff off so we can eat. I’m starved,” one said to the other as they came into the room.

“I’m trying, but I’ve got everything all tangled up with my helmet. I can’t see what I’m doing,” the other said, kicking the door closed. “I wouldn’t mind a little help.”

“Now who’s this?”

“What? Who? I can’t see a blasted thing through all this mess.”

“Another drunk on my bed. Why do they always end up in our room?” the first soldier said and pulled at the pantaloons that spread across the dead man’s chest and face. The room’s light wasn’t bright enough for him to see more than gray shadows, but the soldier knew the scent of fresh blood. “Drunk! By the Sultan’s sword, this man is dead! Murdered!”

Eris sprang from his hiding place. The sword’s hilt smashed into the back of the soldier’s head and sent him crashing unconscious to the floor.

“Who’s there?” the other shouted as he struggled furiously with his vest.

Eris pivoted. His knee exploded into the other’s groin. He felt his own skin tear open as the wound from the whip followed him back to his normal form. The man gasped, his cry of pain frozen in his throat as he joined his friend on the floor, trembling in agony.