Lhind the Spy

  “Rescue? Hah, that was amusing. He intends to betray his promise to me and obtain you in order to trade you to the Emperor of Sveran Djur. That much I was able to ascertain when I broke the elementary wards around his camp and found his transfer token.” She paused to chuckle softly, and the hairs down my neck and spine stirred. “Prince Geric thought himself so clever, placing a tracer spell on you before I transferred you. I pretended not to see. The surprise will be much more fun when he walks into my trap.”

  She glanced around the room, nodded her heavy chin at my jug, and said, “You will have to earn your meals with cooperation and information, but by all means drink all the water you like. I know how ill one feels recovering from a stone spell.” She brandished a key, turned it in the lock, let herself out, and locked the door again.

  I helped myself to a few more slurps and looked around more closely for means of escape.

  The walls were walls. No indentations promising a secret escape. Solid door. I bent and tried to peer through the lock. It was too complicated for a peephole.

  I turned my back to the door to sweep the room again. High, conical ceiling above the circle of my cell.

  Circle. Tower?

  I looked up at the open window. Good thing? It was not barred. Bad thing? It was out of reach. So the question was, how high a tower? My shoulder throbbed in protest at all this twisting and turning, and I reached back and gently fingered the scab under the loosened bandage that had been roughly tied over my silken tunic.

  I turned my gaze back to the window. A couple of experimental jumps proved ineffective—good as I was at leaping, I needed space to run in order to gain height, and the cell only afforded a couple of paces. My gaze trailed down to the pallet. I dragged it under the window, and with a grunt, folded it in half.

  No help. So I flapped it open and, groaning with effort, did my best to roll it, then upend it.

  Then I pressed myself against the stone wall opposite the window, sucked in a breath, took two light steps, and, flashing hair and tail down to help my spring, leaped. My fingertips scraped the lip of the window. I landed on the rolled pallet, which promptly gave way, sending the jug teetering. I dove at it, catching it with my fingertips after half the water splashed out.

  I froze, my heart pounding.

  No footsteps outside.

  With shaky fingers, I repositioned the pallet and breathed a few times to gather my strength. Not that I had much. I was light-headed, probably from hunger as much as magic residue. But waiting was not going to bring any improvement.

  A deep breath, two steps, leap—and my fingers hooked the window ledge.

  I dug my toes into the stone and worked them up until I got one elbow over the edge, then with a grunt and a lunge hoisted myself sideways through the window slit. There I rested, gasping for breath as my hip dug painfully into the sill, my hands outside, pressing on mossy stone, my feet dangling inside.

  I twisted my neck, lifted my head, and clutched at the stone. Below: a long, long drop. I was not only in a tower, I was in a very tall tower atop a fortress built on the crest of a mountain.

  A high mountain. In the distance around me hazy purple peaks scraped the misty undersides of clouds. Far below, I glimpsed the narrow thread of a river winding around the rocky base of a sheer cliff. Clusters of hardy trees and shrubs grew alongside streams tumbling down the otherwise rocky slope. I twisted my head, gazing down the length of the stone walls, to the mountain beyond. I glimpsed what might be the supports to a bridge.

  In the other direction, more air.

  I rubbed my toes against the stone inside. No sense of magic. Was it possible Prince Geric had not told the magister about my ability to transform? A brief spurt of hilarity, almost gratitude, vanished as I recollected what she’d said.

  Prince Geric was not looking out for my welfare. He wanted to retrieve me for Dhes-Andis. He’d surrendered me to save his skin—and gain time—but he’d clearly told her as little as possible about me. Maybe he expected to find me still under the influence of that stone spell, ready and waiting to be kidnapped again.

  Those two could double-cross each other with my good will. I didn’t intend to be around for either of their nefarious plans.

  I twitched my shoulders again, unsure if I’d be able to transform. I didn’t know enough!

  And there I was, my not-quite-argument with Hlanan flooding back into mind.

  No. I would not argue with him in my head.

  So I pulled my knees up, wriggled until I sat on one haunch, pulled my bent knees through the slit, and fell backward.

  Terror flashed through me, cold and hot at the same time, I whooped for breath—and the heat became light and I soared out on spread wings, one droopy and nearly impossible to manage as my clothing and the bandage tumbled away below.

  I spiraled down after them. My things landed on the banks of a stream far below the variegated cliff below the castle. My right wing hurt too much to help me gain altitude, and without it, I spiraled dizzily.

  Desperate, I gritted my teeth and stiffened my wings. Catching a slow current of air, I straightened out of the twirling drop, and began to drift. There was no chance I could fly and regain height, but at least I could bank and glide. Thus I spiraled around and around until I landed beside the stream. My body itched and tingled—and there I was, in my customary form again, but my right shoulder throbbed anew. A warm trickle warned me that the scab had torn away during either my transformation or my crazy flight.

  I splashed into the stream and crouched into the cold water, which instantly soothed my shoulder. My kind don’t feel cold much, coming (I gathered) from a world with snowy heights, but as the clouds began to thicken and drop, the air chilled. As snowflakes began to fall lazily, I reluctantly climbed out.

  The wound had stopped bleeding. I hunted around for the makeshift bandage and located it hanging from a tree branch. I washed it out, then rewrapped myself as best I could before locating my peach silk drape lying on a flat rock. I shrugged into it, grateful that the Hrethan wear loose clothing to permit our spine hair and tails to be free. Even so, it hurt to move.

  Now, which way would be the best escape?

  Before I could take a step, a distant horn blatted insistently. I peered upward, shading my eyes against the sun, whose light glinted on helms and chain mail as warriors boiled along the castle walls and over the bridge stretching across the chasm to my right.

  Something had happened. Like Prince Geric the Pig Snout walking straight into the mage’s trap?

  “Ha, ha,” I gloated. I hoped her trap started off with sticking his head in a bag.

  Then I remembered what her trap was for.

  “No,” I said to the drifting snowflakes. “No. No. No. No.”

  Whatever happened to Prince Geric was richly deserved.

  Including that kind of death?

  Yes! He’d threatened to kill Hlanan in Fara Bay!

  But he hadn’t. And the trap resulted from my robbing him.

  He was evil.

  Because . . . ?

  I squirmed, loathing myself. I’d thrown the word “evil” around pretty much all my life, meaning “people who were mean to me.” Since I’d met Hlanan and his sister Thianra, I’d been forced to see past my own immediate survival.

  Compared to the sinister Dhes-Andis Prince Geric Lendan was a dangerous irritant, but not. . . .

  I stood there writhing with exasperation and regret, impatience and guilt, until I imagined telling Hlanan about my escape. He’d smile, his face alight with joy . . . until I got to leaving Prince Geric to a horrible fate. And I could see that light dim.

  Not that it was a glow as in magic, but oh, when he smiled he lifted his chin and his brown eyes widened and the light reflected in his steady brown gaze. Or was I being weak to plan my movements as a result of liking his smile? The thought felt like itchwort under the skin.

  Flames of Rue! This was stupid, I thought in disgust as my own gaze ranged over the rocky palisa
de. While I’d been arguing with myself, I’d already spotted a possible way back up. Being mostly under the bridge, I was fairly certain the sentries wouldn’t spot me.

  All right. I’d go and see if Geric was in a trap. Then I’d gloat!

  And following a good long gloat, if he was tied up and I was free, maybe force him to agree to let me alone if I could get him out?

  Yes. Now that made sense. I had to find something to eat anyway. It didn’t look like this rocky, barren land was going to afford me much more than water.

  I bent to cup my hands and drank enough to slosh in my middle. Then I sighed, put my hand to a granite outcropping covered with tiny lichen, tucked my toes into a hole left by some burrowing animal, and began to toil my way back up to the castle.

  I could use only my right arm to steady myself, and it hurt like blazes every time I stretched it upward, but my legs were perfectly fine, and I was a very good climber. Midway up it became a challenge to stay out of sight.

  I spotted a pair of sentries crossing the bridge. I’d expected to find myself weeks of travel away from the safety of Erev-li-Erval, maybe even on another continent. But those sun-faded violet-edged tunics made of undyed brown-wool were immediately familiar. I leaned perilously out, and caught the briefest glimpse of the front of one woman’s tunic: it was embroidered with the many-branched tree of the empire.

  This fortress was one of the empress’s border watches!

  The realization was so dizzying I actually clutched to a gnarled hedge root, my eyes squeezed tight. Mage—blood magic—empress—

  Was everything I’d been told a lie after all?

  No. I steadied myself: Hlanan had never lied to me. He said the Mage Council had that book, and then I recollected Maita’s deep breath of surprise. She had not known about the book’s surrender to the Council, I was convinced of that much.

  I already knew that not all the empire’s nobles were to be trusted. Prince Geric being my prime example.

  I crept sideways along the small bird caves that pockmarked the cliff below the castle walls as the snow steadily thickened. My hands began to tingle from gripping icy rock.

  When I reached a slightly bigger cave, I squeezed in to catch my breath and rest my throbbing hands. My shoulder ached as if it had been stabbed repeatedly.

  Time to move. My fuzz fluffed out beneath my thin layers of silk, keeping me from freezing as I clambered the rest of the way to the base of the castle.

  Here I discovered a narrow ledge impossible to see from below.

  I did not know how long before a patrol would make its way along that narrow path. Trusting to my silvery-blue hair and tail and my pale peach silk to obscure me in the falling snow, I hopped down the path, scanning for a way up.

  Ah. Withered tree roots had worked into cracks in the stone: a ladder for the likes of me. A quick scramble, and I perched low between the battlements of a wall, my toes squidging in thick moss, as I peered down into what had to be a private court, surrounded on three sides by buildings. This court featured four enormous oaks crammed into cracked, broken pots: imperial oaks, which would explain why they hadn’t been uprooted. Two seemed stunted, their root balls foiled by the vast pots, but the two trees nearest the wall had broken through and extended rootlings to work into the stone.

  Voices echoed sharply up the stones. I made out a cluster of figures on the other side of the court, their sand-colored tunics nearly obscured by the falling snow. I already knew from a lifetime of stealing to survive that eavesdropping seldom pays off, but when it does, it’s always worth it.

  I glanced around. Of course. The trees! It was simple for me to hop into the branches, though they afforded no covering foliage. But if I were quiet enough, no one would think to look up.

  I moved cautiously from branch to branch, and as I neared, the confusion of voices resolved into words.

  “. . . But not that.”

  A voice clearer than the rest, “Do you want to register a complaint with her?”

  Silence, except for the soft hush of the snow and the shuffle of feet. A sword clanked as someone looked about furtively, her helmet turning quickly from side to side. The helmed guard next to her made a motion toward his lips with his gloved hand. “Then let’s continue our patrol, as ordered. We don’t know what she’s doing up there.”

  Someone else, an older voice muttered, “And word is bound to get out. I don’t want to be interrogated by the Ravens.”

  Ravens! That, I’d learned, was the nickname for the Imperial Guard, who wore black battle gear and who never talked except to convey orders directly from the empress, as they spoke with her Voice. Everyone gave way before them, even the nobles.

  The crowd of guards dispersed. I turned on my branch and surveyed the massive wall at my right. Windows lit here and there, golden and ruddy, indicating fireplaces and lamps, and blue-white where glow globes had been ignited by magic.

  I lifted my gaze to the tower at the precipice end of the building, squinting past the golden glow from the lower windows that briefly lit snowflakes to tiny geometric patterns of fire before they dimmed again to the dull white of ash as they vanished below.

  The building and the tower had been built of older stone than the end of the castle I had already toiled my way along—unlike these neatly hewn and finished stones, those of the older section appeared misshapen, covered with ancient ivy.

  I craned my neck back, and there above me jutted a window that had not been pulled shut.

  I followed it with my eyes to a tree branch near enough for me to leap to the ledge. A scramble, a swing from branch to branch (ouch!) a grunt of effort, and I crouched on the window ledge.

  I peered around, stood cautiously, felt beyond the inset, and there was the ivy. I tested it. No give.

  I swung myself out and up, favoring my right side. Then, using ivy and ancient rock I climbed up and up. And up.

  Because of the ivy, I couldn’t see very far overhead, and I did not want to look down. My right arm throbbed so badly that I knew a transformation would at best break a crashing fall to the rocks. I hoped.

  It began to seem as if I were going to keep climbing into the clouds when a whispering, a rhythmic scrape, and a cough reached me. The cough sounded familiar.

  I slowed my climb, feeling with my fingertips ahead before the next boost.

  An acrid, rotting coppery scent drifted slowly on the air, causing my spine hair to lift, readying me to flee. One more spurt of effort, and my fingers found a slimy, mossy window ledge.

  My stomach churned in spite of its emptiness, my heart thundering. Wary of causing the ivy to rustle, I eased slowly . . . slowly . . . damping my hair flat against my back, I pulled my chin up to the ledge and peered into a round room, not barren as mine had been.

  Visible first, three tall, unlit candles. Though no flame burned on any of them, the candles glowed faintly with an eerie greenish light that made my skin crawl.

  I knew what that was! A deadly, horrible shren square, not complete. Hlanan had made one for me once, before we’d sorted ourselves out. No magic could get past the square once it was sealed, except that done by the controlling mage, and no one else’s magic could affect anything inside the square.

  Three candles. That meant she had to be putting the magic onto the fourth one at this very moment.

  Impelled by a gut-gnawing fire of urgency, I hauled myself up a little farther, and peered down inside.

  Two long tables had been set in the center of the room, with a small table off to one side, its bare top slanted. To hold a book? Or a blood spell? My spine crawled when I spotted the huge bowl with arcane carvings all around it, set on a shelf below the lectern.

  Two figures lay on tables with arms and legs outstretched, bound by faintly glowing chains.

  On one table, ruddy blond hair spilled over the edge as Prince Geric uselessly ground his wrists back and forth in the shackles.

  And on the other table, lying still and pale?

  “Hlanan?”
I squeaked in disbelief.

  THREE

  Chains rattled as Hlanan started. He struggled to twist his head up and to the side. “Lhind! You’re free!”

  “Yes,” I said, surprised he wouldn’t assume I would do everything I could to escape.

  “Why . . . what are you doing in that window? Is there a tower above us?”

  “No, the one I was in is at the other end of the castle. She wants to experiment with Hrethan blood, and I wasn’t about to stay around for that. As for what I’m doing here, she said she had laid a trap for the Prince of Stinkers over there.” I raised my voice. “So I came to gloat!” No reaction from Geric. “How did you get here?” I asked more normally.

  “I led the search for you, and found Geric a short while after you were taken away. Lhind, you’ve got to flee. Find the search party and tell them what’s happened.”

  He knew I wasn’t about to go tramping into these impossibly high mountains. He wanted me to take wing.

  “I can’t,” I said, glaring at Geric, to discover he wasn’t looking my way. But he lay so still I was sure he was listening. “Or I could, but it would take me a couple of months to walk out of these mountains. Even if I knew which direction Erev-li-Erval lay in.”

  Hlanan twisted even more, his face a grimace of anxious pain. “What happened?”

  “That rat-spawned pebble-wit over there threw a knife at me.”

  Hlanan’s head jerked the other way, causing another unmusical rattling of those chains, which glowed greenish when he moved. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  Prince Geric drawled, “Are we going to chat all day about who did what? I guess we are. Maita can join in when she gets here, any moment now.”

  Hlanan let out a sharp breath, then said, “Lhind. She’s making a shren—”

  “I remember what that is,” I cut in. “Do you know a spell to stop her?”

  “Not like this,” Hlanan said, as he wriggled against the heavy chains. “But . . . ah. Still there. I have your . . . your wallet. Back pocket. I thought, if I found you. . . .” His voice trailed off.