Tribute (17 page)

For two days and nights, Twiss and I have spent every possible moment training. Philip lets us use the smaller of his two chambers. Sometimes he stands in the doorway, watching as Twiss guides me in and out of Elsewhere until I learn to ignore the urge to let go of everything and fall into its soft, warm nothingness.

‘It's like when squirrels go to sleep for the winter,' Twiss says, wrinkling her nose in an attempt to explain this place which is both inside and outside my own being. ‘Only, if you go all the way you'll never wake up again.'

‘A form of hibernation?' Philip asks from the door. ‘Fascinating theory but impossible to prove. Do you suppose you could teach me, Twiss? I've been attempting to join in but with no success.'

Twiss frowns at him mistrustfully. She's nervous of Philip. His relentless curiosity when faced with a new idea or problem to solve seems almost to annoy her. ‘Only thieves can go to Elsewhere,' she says bluntly.

‘But Zara is not a thief. So your statement is obviously false.' Philip waves a hand impatiently. ‘You must learn to see what exists, Twiss, not what you wish to see.'

‘Zara's a mage. That's different. I can't train you up and I wouldn't even if I could. Elsewhere belongs to us thieves, not to you  …  you
crawler
!'

‘Twiss!' I do my best to hide my grin. ‘Crawler' is what the thieving clan call other kine – the city-dwelling merchants and guildspeople who, in normal times, are their prey.

Philip merely raises his eyebrows. ‘The logical deduction, if you are right, my young friend, is that accessing your “Elsewhere” requires magical ability.'

I jump to my feet. I need to get Twiss out of here before she gives Philip any more hints about Elsewhere. ‘You promised to give me another stick-fighting lesson, Twiss. Let's find a quiet tunnel where you can show me how bad I am.'

‘And you are!' Twiss retorts with a grin. She's on her feet and out the door before Philip can say another word.

I glance at his face as I follow. His bright blue eyes aren't watching me, or anything in the room. He's off in his own Elsewhere, thinking and puzzling. Time take Twiss for giving the game away! Philip has guessed what I now know: thieves are magic users. Their magic is different from any I've experienced as a mage, but it's definitely magic.

I'll have to confront Philip later and swear him to secrecy. If he starts interrogating thieves, asking them to explain how they get to Elsewhere  …  I groan aloud as I trot into the twisting tunnels of the catacombs after Twiss. Floster is right: most of her tribe would violently reject any notion that they are cousin to their hated enemies, the mages.

Twiss lunges at me out of the dark. The fighting stick in her left hand swings with deadly force, aiming for my head. I jerk backwards. The blow misses but I overbalance and the next second I'm sprawling on my back, my own stick flying from my fingers, spinning across the ground out of reach. Before I can scramble to my feet, Twiss kneels on my chest, her bony knees all but knocking the breath out of me. She pokes her stick under my chin, forcing my head up. She's scowling. Something tells me my teacher isn't happy.

‘Ow!' I grunt. ‘Get off! That hurts, Twiss.'

‘It'll do more'n hurt if a Guardian breaks your head open. Which they will do. You're rubbish!'

She rolls off me and jumps to her feet. There's no pleasure in her voice at my incompetence any more, only frustration at the hopelessness of her student. I groan as I stagger upright. We've been training for over an hour without a break, doing the same attack and defence sequences over and over. And I'm no better than I was yesterday. If anything, I'm worse.

‘Look,' I say, rubbing the cluster of bruises on my shoulders. ‘Let's take a break. I'm too tired. I'll just carry on messing up.'

She scowls at me. ‘We ain't got time for resting. We're outta here tomorrow night.'

‘I know.' My heart lurches unpleasantly at the thought, and I slide down onto the damp ground. My mage light illuminates my teacher's unhappy expression. ‘If there's any fighting to be done, I'll have to use magic, Twiss. I'm not used to fighting with my hands. I'll probably always be rubbish at it. I don't like the idea of hitting someone anyway.'

‘Rather peel the skin off 'em?' she snaps. I roll my eyes but ignore it. She's tired too. And worried.

‘You told me they could feel it if you did magic near 'em. So you need to know how to fight without it!'

‘I know,' I say with a sigh. ‘But I won't train up in a few hours, Twiss. Sorry. Just forget it. Let's practise not-seen-not-heard instead. At least I can do that.'

‘Huh.' She snorts in derision. ‘Boney can do it better and he's only five.'

‘He's had more practice. You said yourself I was getting better.'

‘Hmmm.' She nods reluctantly. Then shrugs. ‘Well, maybe you're a little better'n Boney. You can hide all right. It's fighting where you stink. I been thinking. There's someone can help us with that.' She reaches down and tugs me to my feet.

‘Where are we going?'

‘To talk to a friend. I asked her if she could help.'

‘What? You haven't told someone! Twiss, I told you not to tell anyone what we're doing. If Floster finds out –'

‘She won't.' Twiss leads me on into darkness, her voice confidently dismissive. ‘Tabitha won't tell no one.'

Tabitha. I should have known. Bruin's lover. It's only to be expected that she and Twiss would seek each other out. But how can Tabitha help? She might be an expert in hand-to-hand combat but, remembering the gentle nature and delicate grace of the silversmith, I doubt it.

Tabitha's chamber is dark. One stuttering oil lantern battles the gloom and mostly loses. Is oil being rationed in the catacombs now, as well as food? Philip has dozens of lamps and candles burning all day, but he might have first call on supplies, I suppose, because of his work. A silversmith? For the first time, I wonder how the Knowledge Seekers keep themselves occupied and sane.

Not that Tabitha looks completely sane. Her eyes are dark-shadowed. The skin of her face is tight-drawn over her bones, her cheeks deep hollows.

‘Are you ill?' The words burst from my mouth before I can stop them. She looks feverish and half-starved. This room, I think, will kill her. I've been here barely five minutes and feel ill myself. Not because of the damp walls and floor or the stale air – all the catacombs are like that and I barely notice any more – but because of the pain haunting the place like an evil spirit.

‘She don't eat enough. I tell her that.' Twiss takes the silversmith's hand with a gentleness I've never seen in her before, drawing the woman to a chair and pushing her into it. The girl fusses around Tabitha, fetching a woollen shawl and draping it over the silversmith's shoulders. ‘You sit still and warm yourself up a bit. I'll fetch it, shall I?'

Tabitha looks up at Twiss's solemn face with a gentle smile. ‘As you like.'

Twiss darts away into the shadowy part of the room and silversmith turns to face me. Her eyes have a hunted look and I feel a pang when, after the first meeting of our eyes, she blinks and looks away.

Tabitha gazes at her hands, lying like two dead birds in her lap. ‘Twiss told me, I hope you don't mind  …  She told me you are going back to the city. And what you hope to accomplish.'

A flare of alarm. Philip, Marcus, Quint, and now Tabitha. Too many people know my plans. I glare after Twiss. ‘She shouldn't have told you.'

‘No.' The woman's grey eyes, owl-like in her fine-boned face, peer briefly into mine, then turn and stare into emptiness again. ‘But she's had no one else she could talk to. About Bruin. It's hard for the child.'

‘And for you.' This room holds layers of suffering like the papery skin of an onion. Old, stale pain. Pain so raw it bleeds. It's making me ill. I try to block off the part of my mind that feels emotions. Try, for the first time ever, to slide towards the sanctuary that exists in the outskirts of Elsewhere. Immediately the sense of oppression lifts. I nearly gasp with relief.
Thank Time!
I almost don't hear Tabitha reply:

‘ …  are past curing. They must simply be endured. But Death will bring release in the end. Do you believe in the afterlife, Lady?'

‘I-I don't know.'

‘I believe,' she says softly. ‘It must be so. Life is terrible. If there is nothing else, then there are no gods. Or at least, no gods I would wish to pray to.'

I have no answer. I look at her, struggling to find words to comfort this wreck of a woman, and failing. At last Twiss scurries back, holding something before her in outstretched hands. As she enters the circle of light, my spine crawls as though with a hundred ants trailing up and down my back.

‘A sword!'

Twiss kneels beside Tabitha and places the scabbard of oiled leather on the silversmith's lap. For a moment, the woman stares at the weapon as though wondering what it is, and why it has been brought to her.

She grips the scabbard with both hands until her knuckles turn white. Her downcast face grows intent. It's as though she's struggling within herself. Finally, her mouth thins and she nods. With deft, slender fingers, which I imagine in their right work – twisting and beating gleaming silver into objects of beauty – she slides the sword from its scabbard. And holds it before her, turning it so that the blade catches the light.

‘We made it together,' she says. ‘Bruin and I.'

The strength of the man and the grace of the woman. Yes: their making. I see that clearly and, even though the sight of a weapon made with the sole purpose of killing mages fills me with an atavistic fear, I can't help admiring its beauty.

The whole is not three feet long, short enough to be used with ease by someone no larger than Twiss. The hilt is leather-wrapped, the simple cross guard bronze inlaid with silver in a simple, linear design. Tabitha's work, I guess. And the blade  …  I've never seen anything like it. It isn't bronze, nor yet iron. Twisting bands of subtly different colours, silver to dark grey, shimmer over its surface, as though the blade was made of hundreds of thin bands of ore hammered and forged into one. The edge of the blade has a deadly purity of line.

‘It is a masterpiece,' I say, knowing it to be true. ‘But what is the metal? It isn't iron.'

‘But it is!' The silversmith smiles in pride. ‘A new sort of iron, hardened with firerock. Bruin worked for years on this idea. He used thin rods of iron twisted together then hardened in the forge, tempered, beaten. Hardened over and over again. He tried a hundred times to make a perfect blade, and a hundred times he failed. Then, a month before he died, he came to me with this blade and asked me to make a hilt as beautiful as the blade.

‘He was a great man.' Her voice is quiet, calm. Her grey eyes, gold-rayed like the eyes of a bird, stare into mine. This time they do not fall away. They hold a world of sadness and loss. ‘This sword is our child. The only one we will ever have. I give it to you.'

She holds out the sword. ‘Take it. Kill the Archmage. Avenge my love.'

I move through the twisting intestines of the catacombs, crawling up out of the earth into life again. I'm walking the threaded pathways of Time itself. Forward to a future I cannot predict, a dead man's sword strapped to my side, a mad woman's poison bottle around my neck. Backwards to my old self  …  to the mage, Zara.

Swift's voice, muted during my life underground, whispers once more in my ear. But it's Aidan's face I see.

Philip fed us last night, Twiss and me.

‘Funeral meats,' he said, smiling at his own macabre humour as he presented a table spread with a feast. Meat! After weeks living on beans and cabbage. And real bread. I can't imagine where or how he got it. ‘Or perhaps,' he added, glancing slyly at me, ‘a wedding feast. Let us hope for the latter.'

His words cooled my appetite for a moment, until I saw that Twiss was likely to gobble up every scrap. She piled her wooden trencher full to overflowing and gulped food like a starving cat, barely pausing to chew.

‘Slow down, Twiss. Or you'll make yourself ill and I'll be going alone.' I sat beside her and loaded my own trencher. My shrunken stomach couldn't hold much so I ate my fill and looked longingly at the bread and meat left on the table.

A small satchel slung over my shoulder carries the leftovers. We might be gone a day. Or a week. Or forever. I touch the glass bottle at my neck that carries Death, feeling her presence. ‘Worse things,' I whisper. And am rewarded by a hissing reprimand from my tutor. The food has put new life into Twiss. She vibrates with a deadly intent and I remember her vow to Bruin.

Like the shadow of a thought, she flits ahead of me down the tunnels. We travel blind, true thieves, finding our way by touch of earth and smell of air. Soon we reach the stretch of tunnels that lie beneath the palazzo. I can almost feel the cold, heavy weight of it over our heads.

Where is my father? In his library, reading into the night? Asleep in his chamber? Occupying himself with yet another female mage desirous to mate with power? Disappointed in his sole offspring, my father has never lost an opportunity to attempt another. But the gods have not been kind and I know he dislikes me all the more because of his barrenness.

I smile grimly into the darkness and am jerked out of my thoughts by Twiss's hand on my arm. ‘Now,' she whispers. ‘You do what I taught. Go just far enough into Elsewhere so that the mages can't feel you. And don't do no magic!'

I squeeze her hand to show her I understand, loving her in that moment for her predictable bossiness. Suddenly, I'm terrified. Twiss, I wish you weren't here. Time's grace, keep this girl – this annoying, charmless, passionate being – keep her safe this night!

We wind our way out of the catacombs, into the forgotten corners of the palazzo cellars. Twiss and I retrace our footsteps of that long-ago night. My naked feet walk over Aluid's grave and I barely spare him a thought. I feel older, colder than the stones themselves.

I have been transmuted. Earth, water, fire and air. A mage's playthings. We order the elements and use them to kill, but we are not gods. It's the gods who play with us. I am not the same Zara who fought my old tutor. I am reborn into the world and I don't yet know who I am  …  or what. I only know that tonight I must rescue the boy I love. Or kill him.

We travel the outskirts of Elsewhere and move through the physical world at one and the same time. Twiss walks beside me, a small bright flame. I sense her presence and that of our enemies. Close! I freeze, go deeper. Become invisible. Not-seen-not-heard. Wait with a thief's patience until the guards pass. I feel Twiss's approval – her growing confidence – as I slip through the palazzo's corridors, threading between shadows.

Moonlight scours the courtyard, washing it silver-bright. I take a chance and send out a fine, seeking thread of consciousness. It twines round and round the courtyard. And finds a cat. A rat. Lizards. A solitary amorous toad belching his desire to the night. Nothing human hides in the shadows of marble statues and slender cypress trees. But there are at least two guards stationed at the prison entrance.

I look up. Up and up to the window which is the only way to reach Aidan. So near! Emotion flares through me, threatening to jerk me out of Elsewhere. I push thoughts of him out of my mind and turn to Twiss, who crouches in the shadows beside me. I explained yesterday what would happen now. She didn't like it then and it's clear she still doesn't. Thieves, she told me in no uncertain terms, like to touch the earth.

Thank the gods for semi-starvation. Twiss scowls in protest, but after a moment's hesitation she grabs my shoulders and clambers onto my back like a monkey. She weighs surprisingly little. I take a moment to adjust my balance.

I have to come totally out of Elsewhere to do adept's magic – flying takes all my concentration, even without a twelve-year-old thief clinging to my back. I thicken the air beneath my feet, push upwards. We are airborne! Twiss's arms do their best to strangle me; her legs clench my waist and I hear a small, shuddering whimper. Which I ignore. I'm flying. Freedom! It's been so long. My blood sings with joy. This is what I was born to do.

If there's an adept nearby they might feel the magic and investigate, but there's no other way into the prison – the risk has to be taken. A simple roll of the dice. So many lives wagered.

Swoop, balance, press, step. I dance, and air is my partner. I've never felt closer to the gods. Air, earth, water, fire. Life – miraculous and terrifying. I remember what the Hound said on the hilltop:
Life ought to be enough.

It's more than enough for Twiss. The moment I reach the prison roof she slips off my back, crouches on hands and knees and is efficiently and quietly sick. Before I can even begin to worry, she scrambles to her feet, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. She pads to the edge of the roof and lowers herself over the side with an acrobat's grace, swinging from her hands and dropping feet first into the open window. I follow more slowly, manipulating air, remembering the weak floorboards which might support Twiss but certainly won't take my weight.

The room is still whitewashed with bird droppings, luminous in the moonlight; the lock on the door still shattered. I nod to Twiss. She pushes the door open and we step into the empty corridor. And back into Elsewhere. There are adepts near the prison. I feel them. More than one. Have we lost the wager?

Fear slides a chilly finger up and down my spine before the calmness of Elsewhere takes over and I become thief once more. We are flitting shadows, more silent than the cats and rats that chase each other through the city.

The way to Aidan's cell is clear. The atmosphere has calmed; I no longer sense adept magic nearby. But I stay firmly in Elsewhere and, when we reach the door to his room, I let Twiss take out her lock picks and deal with the lock. No more magic. She opens it more quickly than I could have and grins up at me triumphantly. The next moment we are inside with the door closed behind us.

Aidan lies in a beam of moonlight, curled on his side, one hand tucked beneath a cheek shaded with a young man's downy beard. Twiss tiptoes up to him, cocks her head on one side, then turns to wink at me, a thumb held up in approval and a cheeky grin spreading over her face. Even inside Elsewhere, alarm flashes through me: she's having too much fun. It's been easy so far. Too easy? I grasp the sword at my side and the feel of the hilt in my hand gives me comfort.

Benedict is lord here; this is his domain. And I don't think he'll let me walk off with his hostage as easily as all that. Reaching Aidan is one thing; getting a magic-less kine out of this place is going to be much more difficult. Which is why I carry Mistress Quint's poison bottle around my neck. Whatever happens now, at least I will be with Aidan and share his fate.

Joy and terror merge into one thudding, breathless heartbeat as I edge past the outskirts of Elsewhere and bend over him. I place a warning hand over his mouth and whisper into his ear: ‘It's Zara. I've come for you.'

His eyes flare wide and he twists onto his back, hands clenching to fists. Then he sees me and lies still, breathing heavily, staring up at me with half-focused eyes. His breath is warm; his face inches from mine. I lean deeper and kiss him. The first kiss I have ever given.

Aidan's lips grow soft beneath mine. His hands come up and cup my face, one either side, thumbs softly tracing my mage lines. Gentleness tumbles, swift as a diving hawk, into passion. And I fall from the fringes of Elsewhere into the Maker's arms. They encircle me, pull me tight. Too soon, they push me away and hold me at arm's length. Aidan lurches upright.

‘Thank the gods!' The relief in his eyes darkens with pain. ‘I thought they'd killed  …  I thought you were dead! Oh,
gods
!'

He's shivering with emotion. I feel joy, fear, anger – all tumbling together.

Aidan shakes his head. His eyes are wet. ‘I don't want you to be dead, Zara. I want us to live. To  … ' His hands tighten on my arms. His eyes stare into mine then frown as anger flares.

‘Where the
hell
have you been?' He shakes his head. Groans. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I know you came as soon as you could. It's just that I've been so worried. I've dreamed  …  Are you a dream?' He reaches out a finger and touches my mage mark, my lips.

My heart aches because there isn't time. As Twiss reminds me with a sharp jab between my shoulder blades.

‘We gotta go!' she hisses.

‘Who's here?' Aidan lurches backwards on the bed, staring round the room, and I remember that he can't see her.

‘A friend,' I say quickly. ‘We need to leave. Get dressed quickly. There's no time  … '

‘I know there isn't! I couldn't keep putting your father off. I had to mend the clock. He threatened  … ' He shakes his head as though to dismiss a bad memory, rolls out of bed, grabs up his breeches and tugs them on. I'm very aware of Twiss's interested gaze and would like to smack her bottom and turn her to face the wall. But he's dressed in less than a minute and whirls to face me, his eyes alight with excitement.

‘Let me have the sword,' he says. He reaches for the scabbard at my hip.

‘No!' I step out of reach. ‘Not the sword. Here.' I unstrap the knife-belt Twiss supplied me with and hand it over. ‘But don't go looking for a fight, Aidan. You won't win.'

‘Can you even use that thing?' He frowns stubbornly at the sword.

‘The knife or nothing! You're wasting time we don't have.'

He glares, but straps the knife around his waist.

‘Let's go.' I take his hand and pull him towards the door.

‘Wait!' He pulls away. ‘I can't go without the boy.'

‘What?' Twiss whispers in my ear. ‘What boy? We can't take anyone else!'

‘You promised,' Aidan growls. ‘I'm not going without him. He's the only  …  he's what's kept me from going mad. Looking after him.' Battle light kindles in his blue eyes.

‘I'll keep my promise.'

‘We can't take some kid as well!' Twiss hisses. ‘Tell him to shut up and do what he's told!'

‘Shhhh!' I hiss back, watching Aidan's blank amazement as he looks from me to the shadow where Twiss sits in Elsewhere. ‘Where does he sleep?'

‘Here in the prison. Two floors down.'

I lead the way to the door. Twiss brings up the rear. ‘Don't worry if you suddenly can't see me,' I tell Aidan. ‘I'm not leaving you until we're out of here. All of us.' Or we're dead. No need to say it aloud. Aidan knows.

I move sideways in my mind, just to the outskirts of Elsewhere. I hear Aidan gasp but ignore him and place my palm flat on the door, fingers spread, to steady myself as I spin off a cobweb-thin wisp of consciousness and send it through the door to check for enemies. I seem to be able to sit lightly in Elsewhere now and perform basic magic. With practice, I think I will be able to manage the skills of an adept. If the Lord Time allows.

My breath catches in my throat. Maybe, if I hold my breath, I can stop Time. Return to a place of safety. Because it's happening. The nightmare has begun.

There are mages somewhere below us. I sense eight  …  ten  …  far more than normally patrol the prison. I've gambled and lost.

Panic surges and I clench my fist to keep calm. Nearly a dozen mages are gathering in the prison entrance and courtyard, half of them adepts. They're coming for us. And then, with a shock that nearly makes my knees give way, I feel my father's presence. I gasp; whirl around and clutch Aidan's shoulders.

‘Do exactly what I say,' I whisper. ‘Go to the boy's room. Quickly! Don't make any sound or we're dead. We'll be following, even if you can't see us. Go now!'

He's breathing hard. I feel his fear, but he nods and sets off, darting towards the stairs.

‘Lock the door, Twiss, and catch up,' I order. If they think Aidan is still locked in his cell, it might give us a few minutes.
Time's grace, be with us!

I don't stay for Twiss. I'm tailing Aidan, moving with the silent stealth of a thief. I don't dare put a soundproof shell around him: a burst of magic would draw every adept to us, so I'm relieved to see he's light and quiet on his feet. In a moment, he's down the stairs. Twiss is already at my heels, quick as a cat.

Two flights down and, with every moment, I feel my father's presence grow stronger. I retreat a step further into Elsewhere, seeking calmness, because the taste of my father sours my mind with thoughts of blood. And if I can sense him, he might well sense me. He's no empath, but Benedict is one of the most powerful adepts ever born and I don't know the limits of his skill.

Aidan halts outside one of the wooden doors lining this corridor. He jumps when I touch his shoulder. I grab his hand, holding it tightly, as Twiss unlocks the door and pushes it open. I guide Aidan in after her. The room is smaller than his. Bare, cold even in late summer, with only a narrow straw mattress on the floor and a chamber pot in a corner. The barred window has no shutters to stop the wind.