The Universal Mirror (28 page)

“Breathe,” Catharine hissed.  “You can’t die, not now.  Breathe.  We haven’t much time.”  Perhaps it was the magic leaving him or the simple shock that she was risking her life to save his, but he gulped in air, stumbling to his feet as she wrapped her arm around his shoulder, the maps clenched in her other hand.  “We’ll have to run.  There isn’t much time.” 

“There never was,” he answered as she dragged him towards the door. 

Together, they ran through the hallway, their steps neither quiet nor slow.  The servants had begun to gather downstairs, called by the sound and smell of the fight.  Catharine screamed at them to move in words that Asahel could not understand.  He understood less when they parted, then began to run in the direction from where they had come.  It was clear that they thought no woman could have been the victor in such a fight, much less one half-carrying a wounded merchant. 

The rest of the journey through the courtyard blurred as she dragged him past fountain and stable until they reached an old wagon with a horse still hitched to it.

“Get inside,” Catharine told him.

“Can you drive a wagon?”  He thought to ask.

“I haven’t tried.”  She shoved him until he crawled into the back, pushing him towards an overhang of wood behind the driver’s seat.  Clambering up besides him, she pulled a bale of hay towards the two of them, covering them both.  “And I don’t intend to start.  Sleep.  They’ll look for us to be escaping on the road.  Here, at least, we’re safe for a few moments.”  Her face had knitted together again, her frown now not angry but concerned.

“What if the merchant comes back?”  Asahel rested his head against the hay, closing his eyes as the straw scratched his cheek.

“That’s what I’m hoping for.  He’ll go to the capital and then…”  She hesitated, curling up into a tight ball beneath the overhang.  Her feet pressed against his. 

“Then what?”  Catharine had never been forthcoming on what they were to do with the maps.  Asahel wondered in his half-conscious state what her plan was and if, in fact, she had more of one than he believed.

“We’ll take them to the execution.”  Her voice was cold.  “And I’ll save my husband or the Council will regret his death.”

“Get in there and no fighting about it.”  The cell door clanged open, knocking Quentin out of his slumber.  His bleary eyes couldn’t determine more than a shape as it sprawled on the floor—the guards had dragged out his fellow prisoner the day before. 

“Thank you for the company,” Quent called out, rubbing his eyes.  The guard laughed and he heard the key rattle in the lock as the doors were again secured.  He pulled himself forward to examine the new man, ignoring the bristle of straw that scratched his legs through the thin clothing he wore.  He was richly dressed, from what Quentin could see, not having been given a change of clothes, with a thin build and arms that appeared accustomed to exercise.  He blinked as the man turned, realizing that he knew who it was.

“Felix?”

“Yes?”  Felix stood, wiping the dirt and straw from his legs.  He looked completely at ease as he always did, not distracted at all by the fact that he was in a dirty cell underneath the streets of Pallo.  Quentin felt his muscles clench as he looked at the man, angry at his nonchalance.  It was you who put me here.  He stepped forward, his hands balled up into fists as he glared.

Felix backed up, his steps careful.

“You betrayed me,” Quentin growled.

“You act as if we had a friendship,” Felix said, still walking backwards as Quentin came towards him.  “We didn’t.”

“What about Asahel?  Did you give him to the Council as well?” 

That sparked Felix out of serenity and he could see it in the way that his dark eyes lit up, as irritated as Quentin had ever seen them.  “No, of course not.  If I had, he would have hung already, although you never considered it.”

“What do you mean, I never considered it?”  Quentin stopped, eying Felix uneasily.

“Why, of all people, did you get Soames involved in your madness?  The rest of us would have had a chance at escaping the worst of the Council’s vengeance when caught.  Not him.”  Felix was the one to close the distance between them.  Not quite of a height with Quentin, he still managed to make it feel as if he was taller. 

“You keep asking that,” he snapped.  “What is it between you?”  Again, he caught Felix unaware and the older man hesitated.

“Nothing.  Especially not now.”  There was a finality in his words that sent a shiver through Quentin’s spine.

“What do you mean by that?”  His shoulders slumped as he realized that he’d heard nothing from his friend and conspirator since he’d been brought to the prisons.  Catharine had said little and even she had stopped coming. 

“He and Catharine were trying to save you,” Felix spat on the ground.  “It’s how I’ve ended up here.  I was meant to distract the Geographer from them, and I failed in doing so.  Or rather, I failed in not being held complicit.  I have too much concern for Soames and his welfare for Tycho to believe I had nothing to do with it.”

“Where are they?”  His heart skipped.

“I don’t know.”  The heat of Quentin’s glare halted Felix as well for a moment before he shook his head.  “Don’t look at me like that.  I honestly don’t know.”  Felix’s shoulders slumped as he stepped to the wall, leaning into it.  Quentin didn’t follow him but remained where he was, still watching the other man.

“It was your wife’s plan,” he continued.  “She’s determined to set you free, although I’ll never know why.”  The words startled Quentin and he found himself smiling in spite of everything else, warmth creeping into his skin through the chill of the stone floor.  Felix quirked an eyebrow, a laugh in his eyes as he saw the other man’s face.  “Love must be blind.  It’s certainly thoughtless.”

Quiet lapsed between them for a moment.  Quentin walked back over to his bed of straw, sitting down on it.  The cell still reeked of sickness and he sighed, burrowing his nose into his sleeve to try and escape the scent.  He missed Catharine and her violets more now that he had been told of her by the other man.  Why did I tell her the truth?  It only seemed to pain her more.  He swallowed, wishing that he was not trapped in a cell with no chance to hear her voice or watch her walk through the hall.

“Cheer up,” Felix told him, settling himself on the floor.  “Perhaps we’ll have a miracle.”

“You need gods for that,” Quentin said.

“That would be a miracle, wouldn’t it?”  He lightly punched Quentin in the shoulder.  “Either way, that’s what we’ll need to see our way through this.” 

As he spoke, the redhead winced, swallowing his doubt long enough to say, “I suppose.  They’ve named the day of my Judgment and likely yours.”

“I know.”  Felix answered, his words not much more than a whisper.  “Tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope for miracles then.”  Quentin closed his eyes.  “It seems as likely as anything else in this place.”

“What beautiful weather for an execution,” Quentin heard Felix mutter as the two men stepped up on the platform.  The chains around their ankles kept them bound gracelessly together as they stumbled towards the block, sunlight glinting in their eyes.  It was a bright and cloudless day, the weather so warm that the crowds gathered around the Gallows were larger than usual.  There were too many people gathered to make out individual faces.  Quentin strained to see his wife’s face despite that, blinking back the sting that came with failure.

His focus returned when he realized that he would not find her.  He allowed himself to examine the stage on which they stood.  Quentin had witnessed a number of Judgments at the Gallows—it was something far different, however, to be awaiting his own punishment.

Thinking of that, he turned to Felix and whispered, “You can’t be sure that they’ll hang us.”

Felix stared out at the crowd before answering.  People were thronged next to the platform, some of them reaching out while others hung back in vivid anticipation.  The Judgments cast were usually those of mutilation.  There hadn’t been an execution in years, and any hint of one fascinated Cercia.

All the same, Felix turned back to Quentin and said with dead-cold finality, “I’m sure.”

His voice pitched low, Quentin murmured, “I thought they’d be here.”

“I thought so too.”

Quentin felt pressure at his back as one of the guards pressed a rod into his soft skin.  He jerked forward, dragging Felix with him.  The crowd cheered.  A second shove propelled the two magicians forward again.  They want us to walk, Quentin thought, recalling Tammas and his Judgment.  They want a show.  It’s never two at once for Judgment, only one.  They mean to make an act of us.

He took one step, then another.  Felix seemed to understand what was happening as well, though he gritted his teeth and said nothing, resisting Quentin’s attempts to walk.  The chain jerked around their ankles, pitching Quentin to the ground as Felix fought his movements.  The crowd roared with laughter as Quentin’s momentum brought Felix crashing on top of him.

“So much for your pride,” Quentin muttered as he shoved himself up.  This time, Felix joined him as he took the walk that the guards wanted.  The two men in unison, their steps slow and steady as they circled the stage so that all onlookers could view the condemned men before the Council came to pronounce sentence.

“I don’t want to die in the dirt,” Felix said.  “And that is what this feels like.”

Quentin was prodded in the back again, this time so hard that it cut off any reply he might have made.  It was then that he noticed the Council ascending the steps, five magicians in black cloaks and raven’s head masks.  The men were less intimidating up close in spite of the situation that he found himself in—from this distance, he could notice the finer details.  One was limping slightly, his left leg shorter than the right.  Another was so broad that he was having difficulty moving—the other men gave way to him as he passed, standing in the center. 

This lack of fear did not extend to his companion.  The chain that bound his ankles to Felix’s was rattling lightly, the other man’s leg quivering.  That was what gave Quentin pause.  Felix knew these men better than he.  If he was afraid, it was only with good reason.

“Felix Carnicus,” the executioner read out, unrolling a piece of parchment.  One of the guards knelt next to the two of them, unlocking their chains.  There was no worry now that they would escape—the crowd was hungry and it showed by the stir as Felix stepped forward.  His walk was slow but not lingering—his back straight even as a woman spat at his feet.  Quentin took a perverse pleasure in the fact that she’d missed, staining the wooden boards with the brown juice that had been in her mouth.  It looked like a bloodstain.

The walk itself only took a moment, but it felt like much longer.  The older man stood in front of the executioner as Quentin watched, his face staring straight ahead.  What is he thinking?  He asked himself as the executioner hesitated, stumbling as he repeated the name.  Of all the people who would have been convicted of Heresy, Felix is not the one I would have expected.  He’s so close to the Council.  It was apparent that every man on the stage concurred from the way that the boards seemed to shift collectively, each of the masks drooping slightly in turn.

“You are convicted of Heresy,” the executioner read, his voice picking up momentum now that he was listing the charges.  “For planning to incite a rebellion and encourage your fellow magicians to leave the island.” 

That wasn’t-- Quentin barely had time to formulate words in his mind before he heard a voice from the crowd.

“You call a false charge, sir.”  The tone was low and familiar, breaking through the front of the crowd.  The gathered watchers went silent, anticipation crackling in the air as a pair of brown-cloaked figures pushed their way to the platform.  The shorter, stockier figure held three rolled papers underneath his arms and Quentin strained to see what they were, blinking as the sun caught his eyes.

He knew who it was under the cloak and yet, when his wife threw back her hood, it was as if he saw her for the first time.  The men next to her drew back, allowing her to pass and walk to the stairs, gracefully taking one at a time.  The executioner did not move to stop her nor the figure who followed.  Instead, he turned to the Council, the eyes behind his mask imploring for assistance with the quickness of their glance.

“On what basis?”  One of the magicians stepped forward.  The glass eyes of the raven’s mask glittered as the black beak lowered, staring Catharine in the face.

“He is guilty of a greater charge.”  The cloaked man behind her stepped up, standing next to her.  His hood dropped, revealing a crop of tangled black hair.  Asahel, Quentin realized and he himself stepped forward, unable to stop himself as he saw the man that he’d thought dead.  The guard gripped his arm, holding him back before he could get close to the trio.  Asahel’s next words stilled his struggle.  “He’s assisted in committing the first Heresy as has Quentin Gredara.  And I ought to be standing with them for Judgment.”

Not a sound could be heard save the scraping of the raven-masked man as he stepped forward, his boots digging into the wood.  The other magicians followed, standing behind him to create a dark wall yet Asahel stood firm, his arms clutching the papers still.