Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (32 page)

I laughed. “Come now, Talivane!” I stepped forward and clapped his cloaked shoulder. “The dungeons here would hold a hundred Spirits for twice as many years.”

He glared at my hand as he spun away from me. “You dare—”

“Talivane,” I said. “Most of the good people here think as little of magicless folk as the magicless folk think of us. Yet I imagine no one would respect or obey you if they knew how you intend to gain—”

“Stop, Rifkin. I begin to grow very tired of warning you.”

I nodded. “And I grow very tired of being warned. But we must abandon this castle while we can. If you disagree, I’ll speak the truth about you, so each can decide what he will.”

Dovriex said, “It’s silly to fight among ourselves.”

Naiji said, “Perhaps in the morning—”

‘Tonight,“ I said.

Talivane shook his head to demand silence. “I will not be threatened, Rifkin.”

“I don’t threaten, Talivane. I advise.” More gently, I said, “Accept advice from others too. Feschian, could we survive another attack?”

Talivane glanced at her. Feschian met his gaze and said “No. We could not.”

Talivane said, “Komaki doesn’t know that.”

I said, “He knows we couldn’t survive several more attacks. He’s not a fool.”

“This castle is my home,” Talivane said. “It has been the home of my people for fourteen hundred years. I will not leave it.”

“Fine,” I said. “Stay.” 1 hesitated, then said, “I don’t want anyone to ever think I treated you unfairly, Talivane. Permit me two statements before you decide whether to silence me.”

Naiji said warningly, “Rifkin...”

Talivane laughed. “Speak your two statements.”

“This is the first. If I were you, I would not try to silence me.”

He laughed louder. “You are an amusing fellow, Rifkin. And your second?”

“Your people believe you to be a harsh but essentially honorable man. If they decide with no more information than they have, they’ll choose to stay and die here with you. So, if you won’t leave, I must tell things that you would prefer I did not. It’s the only way they may truly decide for themselves.”

He shook his head. “You’re a fool, Rifkin.”

I raised my hand. “I wouldn’t—”

“You think I’ll stand here and let you speak your lies—”

‘Truth,“ I said.

Talivane told Naiji, “He condemns himself.”

She whispered, “Don’t. Please, Talivane, don’t.”

He looked at me. “Your decision, Rifkin. Speak your lies and die. Or apologize and let us all sleep.”

“No, Talivane,” I said wearily. “Your decision.” I breathed deeply, for I was very frightened. I turned to the others, to Dovriex and Fcschian and Sivifal and Avarineo and Fat Cat and the rest whose names I still did not know. I said, “Your lord studies—”

“Farewell, fool,” Talivane said, smiling his satisfaction. His hands flared with lightning, but it did not dart toward me. It burst around Talivane, enclosing him in a sphere of dancing sparks. Within it, he twitched and danced and bumed. When Talivane finally crumpled to the ground, the lightning died with him.

Naiji may have cried too much in the last two days. She only stared and whispered, “Talivane. Talivane.” Her fists were tight at her side.

Feschian turned to me with her unsheathed sword and spoke for the others. “What happened?”

I shrugged, though I wanted to puke.

Dovriex said, “What was this truth for which Talivane died?”

I managed to say, “It doesn’t matter now.” Then I did puke.

Feschian steadied me. I appreciated that, even more than the fact that I had seen her draw her sword the instant before Talivane began his last spell. I suspected that meant Feschian liked me, but since her gesture had come too late, I would never embarrass her by mentioning it.

One of the witches I did not know said to Naiji, “You’re Gromandiel now. What should we do?”

Naiji studied me, and I wondered how much she suspected. After a moment she said softly, “We pack and leave.”

‘To where?“ asked Avarineo.

“Away,” she whispered.

“Away sounds good, mistress. I will go pack for away.”

She looked around. “Am I Lady Gromandiel?”

“Yes,” said several.

“Then why haven’t you begun to pack? We go in twenty minutes.”

Fat Cat said, “But the dead—”

“Would all prefer that we continue to live, I suspect.”

He nodded. “Yes, Lady.” He and most of the others hurried away.

Feschian had rolled Talivane’s body onto a cloak. She asked Naiji, “Pardon, Lady, but where should we take him?”

Naiji looked around the overgrown courtyard. “He wanted to stay here. Our home. Take him...” She looked up at the bell tower and said, “Up there, Captain. He would like that.”

I started to complain, then told myself that Talivane was Naiji’s brother, and she loved him, whatever he had been, and he had loved her, in his way. I could help carry his corpse up too many stairs, if that would help to ease Naiji’s pain.

As I bent to take Talivane’s shoulders, Naiji touched mine and said hoarsely, almost forcing herself to speak, “You warned him, at least. Thank you.” She left before I could find an answer.

Feschian and I carried Talivane to his resting place. The tower’s top was roofed, but its sides were open. The floor was dusty and spattered with bird dung. In the daytime the view encompassed almost all of the valley. “He’ll like it here,” Feschian said. She knelt by Talivane’s head for a moment.

“Perhaps.” I only wanted to leave him as quickly as we could.

“This is yours, I think,” Feschian said. In her hand she held the charred iron pin that I had slipped into Talivane’s cloak when I clapped his shoulder.

I took it from her, then threw it into the night. “If he’d only agreed that we should leave, or even to let me explain—”

Feschian shook her head. “You did what you thought best.”

“That doesn’t make it easier.”

“No.” She gripped my arm for a moment. “Will you explain it to Naiji?”

I nodded. “That won’t be easy either.”

Feschian moved her hand from my arm to my face. “She’s lucky.” Then she let her hand drop and said, “She could use a little luck. Come on. You heard what the lady said. Twenty minutes.”

At the bottom of the stairs, I said, “Two things.”

“Talivane died when you gave him the same warning.”

I managed to smile a little, though Feschian didn’t. I said, “This is safer. Where’re Kivakali’s rooms?”

“Room,” Feschian corrected. “Only three doors past Talivane’s, though he never entered it.”

“And what of Chifeo? Is he still alive?”

Feschian nodded. “In the dungeons. The only occupant now, excepting rats and lice.”

“And the keys?”

“On a peg in the guardroom.”

I thanked her and left. I sought Kivakali first, for something had bothered me since I spoke with Rifkin Spirit. Kivakali was in her room, stuffing too many clothes into a large canvas pack. If that meant she intended to join us, I suspected she would throw away half its contents before we had walked for a day. I only said, “Lady Kivakali?”

She glanced up in surprise. “Yes?”

“When you told the Spirits how to enter this castle, did you know they would try to kill Naiji as well as Talivane?”

Her fear of me choked her voice. “I...”

“If you lie well enough, I won’t say anything of this to anyone.”

“N-no. I didn’t think... that.”

“Could’ve been better,” I said. “But that’ll do. You’re free of him now.”

“Yes,” she whispered, still not trusting me.

I indicated the heap of clothing. “You needn’t pack all that if you plan to return to your father. You could wait for him here.”

She shook her head. “My father never treated me well.”

“Have the witches?”

“Not Talivane. Not most of them. But—” She glanced at me.

“Dovriex is a good fellow,” I said.

She smiled shyly. “Yes.”

“You’ll come with us, then?”

“No. I’ll find a place of my own, I think.”

I nodded. “I can understand that.” I tried to think of something more to say. I pointed at a stack of dresses. ‘Take the red. It’ll go better with your hair than the pink.“

“Do you think so?”

“I don’t know. I’m the fellow who’s been wearing a brown belt with blue and burgundy.”

She took the red, which confirmed my decision to keep the matter of the Spirits a secret.

Chifco was sleeping when I opened his cell. I spoke his name.

He turned and glanced at me. “Kill me, Seaprince. I will not beg.”

I scratched my head. “You amaze me, Chifeo. Two sentences and three stupid ideas. Who were you taking lessons from, Talivane or Avarineo?”

“Huh!” He turned and looked away.

“One,” I said, because I had been counting things that night. “I’m not here to kill you. Two. I’m not Izla. Three. If it’ll help you stay alive, beg desperately. If you die anyway, you haven’t lost anything. And if you live—”

“What do you know of honor?”

“That it can’t be summed up in a sentence or two, Chifeo.”

He squinted. “Why’re you here?”

“To free you.”

“Why?”

“The witches are leaving.”

He looked around. “You try to trick me.”

“No.” I watched him stand and walk to the open door.

He stopped. “I can go?”

“Sure.”

“Where?”

“Home to the Spirits, if you wish. They’ll treat you badly, of course. They aren’t fond of failures, or witches.”

He thought, then said, “No.”

“Or you could come with us.”

He stared. “You trust me?”

“No.”

“But I can still come with you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I am very tired of killing, Chifeo.”

“It’s easy.”

“I know. That’s part of the reason I’m tired of it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Witchhold,” I said.

“It doesn’t exist.”

I shrugged.

“Who else is going?”

“Whoever wants to.”

He nodded. “I’ll come too.”

In the courtyard the witches waited in traveling clothes. Eight adults on foot, bearing packs. Two adults in stretchers that we would carry. Five sleepy children and two babies in the arms of the oldest children. The kitchen hound. The hearth cat.

Kivakali stood away from the others, waiting while Feschian and Livifal opened the gate. Dovriex saw Kivakali’s pack and said, “Will you come with us?”

Kivakali shook her head.

Dovriex took a step forward and said, looking down, “With me, then? For a ways, perhaps?”

She smiled slightly. “For a ways, perhaps.”

The front gates opened. Naiji glanced from Chifeo to me and back again. “I’ll vouch for him,” I said. Naiji nodded. I took her hand, and we set out in search of a myth.

We found it, of course. But that’s another story.

TK scanned and proofed. (v1.0) (html) June 2012