Bared Blade (38 page)

That’s when Scheroc whispered in my ear again, “Go quickly-quietly. Stone dogs sniffing above.”

Fuck. I really didn’t want to have to summon Qethar. I’m not sure whether that was more because I didn’t trust him, or because calling him would mean another trip along the durathian road. I’d had to rely on him for a rescue twice since I’d started trailing myself like a lure through the Old Mews, and each time I’d come to loathe the passage through the earth that much more. That didn’t keep me from pulling the pebble out of my pouch and slipping it into my mouth, where I tucked it between teeth and my cheek before proceeding. If I needed that pick-up, I’d need it fast.

Just above where it opened into the sewer, I ran into a partial blockage of the old stone pipe. I don’t know what it was, but it felt like several hundred pounds of cheese that had gone bad, and it smelled worse. For once, I found myself profoundly glad that Triss’s unvision didn’t work the same way as my eyes, because I really didn’t want to know any more about the stuff than I learned by dragging myself through it. I dropped the last four feet face first and landed hard when my attempt to roll out of the fall ran into another heap of drain cheese.

The winds tugged at my hair. “Stone dog has stuck his head into the ground above.”

“Thanks, Scheroc.” I spat the stone into my hand. Time to—

Don’t break it, she’s here!

“What?” I said aloud.

“Scheroc doesn’t understand your question.” The qamasiin sounded both sad and confused. “What does Aral want?”

Before I could answer, Triss spoke into my mind,
Tell it to go up and keep an eye on things. A Shade has been through here recently, and I’d like to investigate before we tell the others anything.

I didn’t ask Triss why he wanted me to do it that way, just tucked the pebble back into my pouch and sent Scheroc away. It wasn’t the first time we’d looked for Faran in the sewers, but it was the first time we’d found any trace of her. I didn’t trust any of the others where it came to dealing with our young Blade either. Not even the Dyad. Not with so few of my kind left. The stakes were too high to let anyone but Triss and I handle this.

Is it Ssithra?
I asked once I’d sent the air spirit on its way again.

I think so. I didn’t get a good enough taste of her
—he hissed something in Shade—
at the palace to be absolutely sure, but it tastes much the same. Turn left and hurry. She’s moving down and away from the Old Mews.

The pipe wasn’t big enough to stand in, so I kept low and ran, using Triss’s senses to look out for any obstructions. At least it was dry—like many of the Old Mews sewers its upstream end was still clogged with debris from the fires.

“Stop,” Triss said suddenly as we reached a junction where our pipe met another, larger one. Then, “Ssithra”—before he shifted into a long hissing string of Shade.

A moment later he was answered in kind from off to the left. I looked that way, but if Faran and her companion were there, they remained enshrouded.

Aral, we’ve found them. Step out onto the accessway in the main passage. Do it slowly—they’re both terrified.

“Master Aral?” The voice was low and throaty but feminine, and there was a strong undertone of fear. “Resshath
Triss? Is that you? Have we really found more survivors after all this time?”

Unshroud us, Triss.

“It’s me,” I said as he did so. “And if we’re right in our guesses, you must be Faran?”

“Oh, thank Namara!”

She hit me with something midway between a hug and a tackle, pushing me back into the curved bricks of the wall. I wrapped my arms around her more or less instinctively, and suddenly we were both hugging and crying, and I was making vague reassuring noises. It didn’t matter that we’d had practically nothing to do with each other back at the temple, or that we were of different generations. What mattered was that we shared a past now lost to us, a past that so very few people could ever even hope to understand.

Without my asking him to, Triss drew on my nima to conjure up a very faint magelight, setting the temporary spell in one of the bricks of the wall, so that I could look at Faran with my own eyes. For a long time, all I could see was the top of her head and the tangled and dirty brown hair that spilled down her back, and that was enough. Even the smell from the turgid flow in the central channel couldn’t dent my joy at finding her alive.

“I’m in so much trouble,” she said into my chest after the first storm of tears had passed.

“I know. We’ll fix it. We just need to get the damn ring back to its rightful owner and everything will be all right. I’ll see to it.”

“Really?” She peered up at me and I got my first look at her face. There was hope there. Hope and fear, and lines made by the sort of pain no fifteen-year-old should ever have to bear.

“I promise. First we need to get you out of here, then we can arrange for you to hand over the ring and I’ll take care of everything.”

Her face fell. “Can’t I just give it to you now?”

I was genuinely shocked. “You mean you’ve got it with you?” Judging her path from the outside, she’d looked so
smart for so long, it seemed insane that she’d risk everything now by carrying her only insurance into the heart of enemy territory.

“Of course not. It’s in the everdark, but Ssithra can retrieve it anytime.”

“What!” Triss and I spoke as one. “How?”

“It’s a spell I thought up on my own, based on something Master Siri once said about folding shadows and moving things through the everdark.”

That triggered a memory of Siri doing something impossible with moving from one shadow to another and then trying to explain to me why it was both dangerous and too impractical to use. She’d gone into a whole lot of gabble about advanced magical theory and mathimagics, and the conversation had made my head ache. I hadn’t asked again.

“Wait,” said Faran. “It’ll be easier for me to show you than to tell you about it. I don’t really have the right words. But I’ll need better light. Ssithra?”

For the first time I looked around for Faran’s Shade. I found Ssithra on the curve of the far wall, where a shadow phoenix sniffed noses with Triss’s dragon shape.

Ssithra shifted now to mirror her human companion’s form as Faran stepped away from me, moving a few yards up the accessway. I increased the flow of nima to our temporary light—basically a controlled application of the same sort of low magic used in magefire. The long-lasting kind took a much more elaborate sort of spellwork and a good deal of power to create.

It revealed a badly eroded sewerscape with bricks missing from the walls in many places. The central channel looked more like a dried-up creek bed than a properly kept sewer. Though whether that was because of some blockages upslope in the Old Mews, or due to some failure of the water source they used to keep this part of the system flowing, I didn’t know.

Faran stood up straight, then extended her arms out to the sides. In response, Ssithra relaxed into her partner’s natural shadow, allowing Faran and the bright light to direct
her movements. With my magesight I could see a glow of magic building within Faran as she folded her arms and then squatted down so that her shadow formed a rough ball on the wall across from her. Her inner spell-light slowly brightened, sending out streamers that tied her to the passive Ssithra. As she worked the lights changed color, becoming a rich green gold, like sunlight in the deep forest.

Soon the ball of shadow was threaded all through with spell-light, a dark package tied up with strings of magic invisible to the mageblind eye. Faran stood up then and stepped to one side. I expected to see her shadow mirror her motions again, but it did not, remaining as a ball bound with spell-light. More light flew from Faran, wrapping around the slender tail of shadow that connected her to the dark ball.

Then a bulge appeared in that tail and quickly grew into a second shadow, mirroring Faran’s shape and movements once again, as Ssithra somehow disengaged from the binding Faran had laid upon her while simultaneously leaving something of herself behind. As that happened, the ball slowly shrank, until it was no bigger than a fist.

Now, Faran knelt to one side, reaching out toward the ball of shadow so that Ssithra, still mirroring her, did the same. The shadow of Faran picked up the shadow of a ball and began unfolding it like a paper artist uncreating an elaborate piece of origami. When she finished, a thin sheet of shadow-stuff lay on the shadow-Faran’s hand with lines of spell-light marking the creases where folds of shadow had come undone. In the middle of the sheet sat a ruby ring, which the shadow brought to Faran.

In turn, Faran stepped toward me, extending her hand as she did so. “Here it is, Master Aral, and you have no idea how happy I am to get rid of the thing. It’s nearly killed me a dozen times.”

She lurched leftward suddenly, stumbling toward the open channel for no reason I could see. I lunged forward and grabbed her wrist before she could go over the side, but the Kothmerk fell from her hand in the process, dropping
toward the noisome muck. But Triss was there, diving to catch the ring and close it tight in a fist of shadow.

“I saw that,” he hissed. “Move the floor again, Qethar, and I’ll send this thing back to the everdark in a way that will make it completely irretrievable.”

The wall across the way rippled and flowed aside, forming an alcove where Qethar stood, his arms crossed, a cruelly beautiful smile on his face. He looked calm, but I thought I could sense something almost like panic underlying his expression. He was
really
concerned about the safety of the Kothmerk, if I was any judge. Which, of course, I might not be.

“Don’t be a fool, Shade,” he said. “And don’t think I’m one either. If you destroy the Kothmerk it will mean war between Kodamia and the King of the North. I know you don’t want that, so if you’ll just pass me the Kothmerk, no one has to get hurt and I can finish with this hideous human dance I’ve been dragged into while trying to rescue a sacred trust.”

Faran let out a quiet little eeking sort of noise as she saw Qethar and I put a protective arm around her. Ssithra moved, too, shifting back into phoenix form and putting herself firmly between the Durkoth and her bond-mate.

“It
is
you,” said Faran, and something about her tone prompted me to put my free hand on one of my sword hilts.

“You know Qethar?” asked Triss, his voice low and worried.

“Of course I know him, though this is the first time I’ve heard his name. He’s the Durkoth who led the raiding party that killed all the Dyads back in the forest!” She turned her head to look at me. “You’re not working with him, are you Master Aral?”

I drew my sword and leveled it at Qethar. “Not anymore, no.”

Qethar held out his left hand and made a clenching motion with his right. In apparent response to the latter gesture, the walls of the sewer flexed briefly inward.

“Give me the Kothmerk now and no one else has to die,
Aral. Defy me and I’ll destroy you all. And don’t think killing me will save you either. I’ve asked my sister the earth to collapse this space if I die here.”

“What’s your play, Qethar?” I didn’t have a lot of options, and I needed to buy some time. “There’s no reason to do this, not if you are what you say. Or was your claim to be the King of the North’s chief agent in Tien a lie?”

“Lying to ephemerals is beneath me,” he replied. “I am the right hand of the
true
King of the North in Tien. I just haven’t put him on his throne yet.”

The ugly inhuman thing that lived within Qethar glared out at me again. “I am a high lord of the Durkoth. I was prince consort to the current occupant of the throne for four hundred years before he used some trumped up treason charges to cast me aside in favor of a prettier and more biddable model some twenty years ago. In exchange for handing over the Kothmerk, my new king has promised to restore me to my rightful place at court, if not to the consort’s chair.”

For at least the hundredth time in the last two weeks I wished I had a better grasp of Durkothian politics, this time to help me keep Qethar talking. As it was, I had no idea what question I should ask next. So I decided to go with what I did know, the Tien end of things.

“Why didn’t you hand me over to the Elite when you first brought me down under the palace?”

“Why would I bother?” asked Qethar. “Your petty human squabbles bore me. I want the ring and a return to my rightful place among my people. Once I have them, I will leave the surface forever. Zhan’s king and his creatures were a temporary expedient, just as you were, a means to an end.”

“Looks like you and Thauvik are two of a kind then, after the way he had your people murdered.” I hoped that a reminder of his fallen fellows would jab his conscience.

“He saved me time and effort,” said Qethar. “The local Durkoth are all petty criminals and outcasts, unworthy to share my coming triumph, and the soldiers my rightful king lent me would only have served to dilute the honors that
belong to me. But enough of this, your time is up. Give me the Kothmerk now or die.”

I dropped a few inches and almost fell as the stones underneath my boots tilted me sharply toward the central channel which now flexed, assuming the aspect of a great mouth ready to bite and rend with the jagged bricks of its teeth.

“Aral!” Faran had slipped with me, and she sounded more than a little panicked. “What should I do?”

“Harm them and I destroy the Kothmerk!” shouted Triss.

An incredibly intense burst of blue light slashed across my vision from left to right, striking Qethar and temporarily filling my eyes with burning stars. Somewhere in the blurry darkness beyond my tears, the Durkoth let out a shriek. In response, the whole world lurched and then began to shake erratically like a caras snuffler entering the first throes of withdrawal. I stumbled and went to one knee as the floor leveled itself again, losing contact with Faran as I did so.

“The next one that moves dies!” snarled a new voice.

Aigo,
Triss said into my mind as the earth continued to shake.
He’s come in through a new opening in the roof of the main pipe along with another Elite. There are more Elite above, along with Crown Guards, but I can’t see any stone dogs—maybe hiding in the walls around us.