“I’ve heard of necromancers animating the dead, but never the living.”
“Me, neither.”
“What made the dra’gorgos come out of her?”
“This.” Seregil held up the bloodied amulet. “I’m just glad it didn’t turn on you.”
“But how could it attack you at all if you were wearing that?”
“Perhaps being in a body protected it up to a point. Now that I think of it, it’s odd the thing didn’t turn on you.”
She raised an elegantly arched brow at him. “If I was a necromancer, wouldn’t Thero have ferreted me out by now? Besides, I could have killed you ten times over before breakfast.”
Seregil chuckled at that. “Unless you had a good reason for keeping me alive.”
At the governor’s palace they had Zella’s body laid out in her chamber under guard, in case the necromancer decided to use her again.
Seregil leaned over her and reached under the collar of the dead woman’s dress. Finding the chain that held the key to the box in the library, he slipped it off over her head.
“Princess Klia’s orders,” he told the guard. “Kordira, I don’t think there’s much more you can do for her. Thank you for all your help.”
She gave him a surprised, almost hurt look, then took her leave.
Seregil felt a pang of guilt as he watched her go; she’d helped him a great deal, and kept her head when others might have jumped screaming from the carriage. Against his better judgment, he was beginning to trust her, but not enough to reveal what he was up to now.
Key in hand, he made his way up to the anteroom of the library, praying the wooden box was still there. It was, with the heavy golden arm ring still in it.
But this was only the beginning of the thread he meant to follow. Asking around among the servants, he learned that the arm ring had been brought to Toneus by a workman named Lemiel, who’d supposedly found it somewhere in the old palace. Thero’s vision in the lower cave and the traces of dripstone still clinging to it said otherwise.
THEIR chance came two days after Mika had come to this plane. Rhazat had kept the boy with her most of the previous day, showing him a few spells and treating him like a little doll, something to be played with for her amusement. She was cordial to Klia, but there was a coldness in those blue eyes when their gazes met that boded ill.
The following morning Klia woke before dawn and gently shook Mika awake. “Let’s see if our hostess has served breakfast yet.”
They pulled on their boots and made sure they weren’t leaving anything behind, then went down to the dining room. Food was laid out, as usual, but there was no sign of Rhazat.
They ate quickly, taking in all their bellies could hold and drinking a pitcher of cider between the two of them. Then, with pockets stuffed with more food, they set off, as she and Phania had a few days earlier. This time the streets were busy with people going about their dreary business, but Klia sometimes felt someone looking at her just a little too long.
“Come on,” she said, taking Mika’s hand and hoping to blend into the crowd of townspeople and traders. They hurried to the gates, which stood open, and no one challenged them as they went through with the crowd. As soon as they were outside they followed the river road upstream. Mika pulled his hand from Klia’s, clearly too old for such indignities out in the open.
There were fewer people here, just farmers, carters, and a few boys driving a small flock of sheep up the road ahead of them. As Klia and Mika overtook them, the boy suddenly ran up to one of the shepherds, a boy about his age. Klia strode after him to see what the distraction was.
“This is my friend!” Mika exclaimed, hugging the dirty, starved-looking boy with his good arm. “He saved me from the man with the cudgel.”
The boy seemed just as happy to see Mika, though he said nothing.
“He can’t talk,” Mika explained. “He’s the one I played with down by the river that day.”
Klia extended her hand, but the boy shyly hung back. “How did you get here?” she asked. “Can you point and show me?”
The boy stared at her, hands at his sides.
“It’s all right, she’s my friend, too,” Mika told him, but the boy still did not respond. One of the older boys came over and pulled the mute one away from Mika, saying something incomprehensible that sounded defensive.
“I wasn’t making fun,” Klia told him. “I just want to know where he came from.”
The other boy said something that sounded angry. He picked up a stone from beside the road and cocked his arm threateningly. Some of the other shepherds had slings and stones ready.
Klia raised her hands and stepped back. “Come on, Mika, they aren’t going to help us. Your friend has to stay with these boys.”
They hurried on, Mika looking sorrowfully over his shoulder. “He was nice to me.”
“I’m sorry, Mika, but we can’t help him. He’s where he belongs.”
“If he came from this plane, then he must be able to get in and out like I can,” Mika pointed out.
Klia looked down at the boy. “Or that’s the first time you went here.”
“But the water was wet when we looked for crayfish,” Mika told her. He thought a moment, brow furrowed. “But after a while, when the man found us, I couldn’t find the road and the sky was like this.”
“Perhaps the separation of the two planes isn’t always so clear-cut.”
They forged on, Mika keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a way out. The grey day dragged on. They stopped only to rest and eat. Both of them were tired and footsore when Mika suddenly pointed across the river. “There, do you see it?”
Klia looked but saw only more drab grassland. “No, what do you see?”
“A sort of hole, right over there, hanging in the air,” Mika exclaimed. “I can see green grass and blue sky. We have to get across!”
Wet or not, however, the river was deep and had a strong current. They were going to have to find a bridge or ford. Eating as they went, they hurried on, weariness forgotten as hope grew.
“Can you still see it?” asked Klia.
Mika looked back. “Yes. I—Oh no! Klia, run!”
She looked back and saw four dra’gorgos bearing down on them, mounted on ghostly horses. She knew it was probably hopeless, but instinctively grabbed Mika’s hand and began to run. In an instant, however, a reeking blackness overcame them and she felt herself swept off her feet into the air, though she couldn’t see a thing. Mika was calling her name, but she no longer had hold of his hand.
“I’m here, Mika!” she shouted back. “Be brave.”
Blinded and chilled to the bone, Klia could still feel that they were moving at a great speed, though she could not tell the direction.
“Klia!”
“I’m still here, Mika.”
Their strange journey was a brief one. The dra’gorgos set her on her feet and disappeared. She was in the cave again, facing the seal, and the dyrmagnos.
“Welcome, Highness. And you, too, child,” Rhazat said.
Mika was a few yards away, and Klia ran to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “Leaving was my idea. He only went with me because I made him go. You don’t need to punish him.”
“Punish him?” Rhazat laughed. “Why would I do that? You know I don’t begrudge you your little walks around my domain. I can always find you when I need you. And I need you now. You know why.”
Klia clutched Mika’s hand harder as a wave of despair rolled over her; it was clear enough what Rhazat’s plan was. Her worst fears were realized when a dra’gorgos suddenly appeared and snatched Mika away, holding him in an inexorable grip as it drifted across the cave to Rhazat. She grasped Mika’s left hand and twisted. Mika’s scream of pain drowned out the sound of barely mending bones snapping.
“No, please!” Klia cried out as the dra’gorgos caught her and kept her from leaping to the boy’s defense.
Rhazat laughed her silvery laugh.
??
?Klia, help!” Mika sobbed, struggling to escape, left arm flopping horribly.
“Illior!” Klia cried in anguish.
“The Four have no hold here,” sneered the dyrmagnos.
“Please, please stop. I—” She caught the words behind her teeth, sick at heart beyond telling.
Es rili … a voice—a woman’s voice—suddenly whispered in Klia’s mind.
Es rili …
“Klia!” Mika cried. “Please, help me!”
“Yes, help him,” Rhazat gave her a soulless smile that contrasted horribly with her sweet voice. “You would die to deny me, and let your unborn child die with you. But can you bear this?”
At a wave of her hand, another dra’gorgos took filmy shape before Mika. Slowly, sinuously, it extended a finger of mist toward Mika’s face and Klia saw a wisp tickle its way into Mika’s nostrils as the child’s cries rose to shrieks of terror.
ES RILI!
“Sakor help us!” Klia screamed.
And suddenly everything went red.
WITH the workmen still on strike against working at Menosi, it was an easy matter to track down Master Lemiel. After some asking around and a coin here and there, Seregil was directed to the White Crow, a decent tavern near one of the refineries frequented by Aurënfaie and ya’shel freedmen. The acrid smell of the refinery smoke hung over the area, but the little cottages that lined the street were neat and well kept.
Dressed in his second-best coat and boots, with a red silk scarf tied rakishly over his head, Seregil charmed the ya’shel serving girl and she blushingly pointed out a paunchy, grizzled ya’shel with a drinker’s nose and once fair hands coarsened by years of hard labor. He and his cronies were drinking and playing bakshi at a table in the back corner of the room. One thing was already apparent: Lemiel couldn’t have fit down the tunnel to the innermost cave, so he was not the one who’d stolen the arm ring. Time to find out who had.
Sauntering up to the table, Seregil looked the game board over, then held up a golden sester. “You don’t mind if I make a little money off your luck, do you?” he asked with a grin.
“We don’t take gold off your kind,” Lemiel’s opponent growled, and several other workmen closed in around Seregil.
“My kind?” Seregil said, a bit baffled. There were enough of them to take him in the shape he was in without his sword, which hadn’t figured into tonight’s performance.
“You’re the one who’s been taking in strays,” Lemiel sneered. “Like we can’t take care of ourselves once we’re not slaves anymore. Sounds to me like those out at Mirror Moon have just traded one master for another—you and your yellow-haired half-breed.”
Seregil knew he was in the soup now, but pressed on. “Well, not every ’faie on the island is as fortunate as you lot, especially those who were in service,” he said with a smile. “And my talímenios and I are no one’s masters. They’re free to do as they like and those who choose to work for me are paid a fair wage.”
“A friend of mine, Anri the weaver, is out there,” a red-haired ya’shel told the others. “He speaks well of the barons, Lemiel. You’ve got no cause to insult him.”
“Please, titles are for Tírfaie,” said Seregil. “I’m just Seregil, a foolish man exiled from his clan.”
“You’re teth’brimash?” one of the others said in disbelief.
“Why do you think I’m in Skala? You’d never take this for a sen’gai, would you?” Seregil asked, pointing out his scarf. “Come now, are you telling me you won’t take gold off a silly man with more money than sense? Really, I can’t resist a wager.”
This admission of his own disgrace had a slight thawing effect on the others, or perhaps it was the gold coin he was still holding. Even Lemiel warmed a bit, though he wasn’t calling Seregil cousin by any means.
With a quick sleight of hand, Seregil held up two golden sesters. “I’ll split my winnings with you, of course.” He flicked his hand again and suddenly there were three coins balanced between his fingers. “I don’t know about you gentlemen, but I could do with a mug of whatever it is you’re drinking.” He waved over the serving girl with his free hand. “A round for the table, my dear.”
Liberal applications of coin and ale thawed the other men’s animosity enough for them to allow him a seat at the table but it was clear that they felt no real solidarity. They’d been slaves when he’d been free, and it grated on them.
Soon all of them were betting with his money even as they liberally cast around slurs on his ancestry. Seregil took it all with vapid, self-deprecating good humor, hoping the money didn’t give out before they did. The hour grew late and the gamblers began to drift away. Lemiel, who was well into his cups, started to go and Seregil pulled a deck of cards from his pocket.
“I haven’t had much luck tonight with bakshi, but I’d love to try my hand at some Blue Goose,” he wheedled. “Do people play that here?”
“Women do,” Lemiel scoffed, taking the cards and riffling them with an expert hand. “Do you know Beggar’s Get?”
“I do, and agree that it is a superior game.”
Despite being drunk, the other man shuffled and dealt skillfully. They looked over their hands, discarded, and placed their bets. Seregil was careful to lose three games in succession, and finally protested an empty purse.
Lemiel grinned as he swept up his winnings. “I guess that finishes you for the night then, doesn’t it?”
“Not quite,” Seregil replied. Shifting seats so that the few remaining patrons in the tavern couldn’t see, he took the golden arm ring from his pocket and placed it on the table between them.
Lemiel’s bloodshot eyes widened at the sight of it. He reached for it but Seregil moved it back out of reach.
“I thought you might recognize it,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“What are you doing with that?” Lemiel asked. “I brought it to the governor and he gave me a reward for turning it in.”
“I’m a very close friend of the new governor and she gave it to me.” He winked and stuck the tip of his tongue out the left corner of his mouth in a crude intimation of just how close he and the new governor were.
“You lie!” Lemiel laughed. “You’re a bum boy if I ever saw one.”
“Looks can be deceiving. Now, shall we discuss where you got this, and if there’s any more where it came from?”
“What makes you think there’s any more?” Lemiel asked, but his gaze slewed away to the left for an instant—a liar’s tell.
“Because you’re a man who knows how to keep something back for himself if I ever saw one.” Seregil winked again. “Why, what do I have in my pocket?” He felt around for a moment. “Well, look at this! I have another purse I forgot all about.” He tossed the leather money bag onto the table next to the arm ring. The coins inside clinked alluringly.
Lemiel eyed it like a dog at a butcher’s booth. “Guess there’s no harm in telling. I inherited it from my brother.”
“I see. And how did he come by it?”
“Can’t rightly say.” Lemiel’s eyes flicked sidelong in the tell again.
“He wouldn’t perhaps have been a workman at the oracle’s cave site?”
The other man pursed his lips, still staring at the money bag. “He was, but he never said where he found those things. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You can’t possibly be blamed. So, there were other items?”
“A few. Just bits and pieces, really.”
Seregil picked up the money bag and rattled the coins. “I’d really like to have a look at those ‘bits and pieces.’ I can make it worth your while.”
“I don’t have them with me.”
Seregil pocketed the money bag and started to rise.
“Hold on now,” Lemiel said. “I never said I wouldn’t show you. I just don’t carry them around. You’ll have to come back to my house.”
Wandering off into the night with a stranger armed with nothing more than his poniard was a risk, but
Seregil figured he could take Lemiel if he needed to, drunk as the man was. His sense was, though, that the promise of more gold was his new friend’s main motivation.
Lemiel’s little cottage was only a few streets away. Taking a key from around his neck, he let Seregil in and struck a light. As the lamp flickered to life Seregil was surprised at how clean and tidy the place was. The ground level was all one room, with a ladder leading up to a loft.
“Very cozy,” Seregil said.
“Governor Toneus gave all his workmen proper homes,” Lemiel replied as he climbed the ladder to the loft. “Sit yourself down at the table there. I’ll only be a moment.”
As ’faie hospitality went, it wasn’t a welcome of any sort, but perhaps the man had never experienced it himself. Seregil took a seat and listened as Lemiel moved something heavy, then climbed back down with a small flannel bag.
Sitting down opposite Seregil, he unwrapped his treasure and showed him a single golden earring shaped like a bumblebee, a clay votive figure of a horse, most likely also from the lower cave, and finally, a hacked, distorted fragment of the gold rosette.
Seregil casually poked at it as if uninterested, then picked up the earring. “This is your great secret? These little things?”
“You’re the one so anxious to see them!”
“I had the impression your collection would be more than this.” He picked up the votive. “This is interesting, I suppose. I’ll give you a silver sester for it.”
“You don’t want the gold?”
“I was hoping for something a bit more impressive.” He picked up the piece of the rosette and looked it over with disappointment. “Now, if this setting was whole I might be interested. What was it?”
“I don’t know. Markis—my brother—had the whole thing, and it was pretty, but all he cared about was the gold. He hacked it up to hawk when he needed a bit extra.”
Seregil turned it over in his fingers. “It looks like something that once held a gem. Did he have that?”
“If he did, he didn’t let on to me about it. But he died right after he st—found these things.”