A Cast of Stones (15 page)

“If you do not trust me, trust the reaction of the herbwoman. She cannot stand the sight of her.”

Martin glanced at the curled figure in the far cell, his brows knit over his eyes. “What other proof can you offer?” he asked.

“Friend Montari, step forward where Karma can see you.”

Luis stepped from behind Martin to enter the pool of light cast by Morin's torch. A light flared in the woman's eyes at the sight of the reader, a thirst and hunger that showed in the widening of her eyes and the quickness of her breath. A presence of danger filled the cell. Errol counted the number of steps and guards between him and the door.

“Hello, reader.” The woman inhaled deeply with her shoulders back, the suggestion obvious. “I am honored to be in your presence. I assure you that what the abbot says is untrue.” Her eyes shone. “Come, take my hand, and I will show you the truth.”

Errol turned, watched Luis, eyes unreadable, take one faltering step toward the bars. As the reader moved, he caught a glimpse of Captain Balina, his face still hard but etched now with the jealousy of one betrayed.

The abbot turned toward Martin. “You wanted proof ? There, you have it.”

Martin shook his head in denial. “Explain.”

The abbot grabbed Luis by the arm, shook him as evidence. “I never told her he was a reader; we never mentioned it in conversation!”

Errol cast back, tried to remember every word spoken since they'd entered the cell, saw the others doing the same. His sense of foreboding grew. No one had said anything about Luis being a reader. No one had said anything about Luis at all.

He edged away from the woman's cell, bumped into Liam, and stumbled—throwing the two of them off balance and into the shadows.

The motion caught the Merakhi woman's attention. Her eyes widened until the whites shone all around.

Violence erupted in the cell. With a scream of fury and terror, the woman threw herself against the bars arms out, straining to reach them. Cry after cry filled the prison, echoed from the stone, compounded until the screams filled his ears, his mind. And still it went on.

Again and again, Karma threw herself against the iron, oblivious
to the cuts and blood that blossomed on her face. Her arms strained through the bars, and clawed hands stretched toward Errol and Liam. Her insane gaze darted back and forth between them.

Everyone turned to stare at the spot Liam and Errol occupied, the spot the malus tried to reach with all the strength the woman possessed. Morin stood transfixed, but his black eyes glittered with triumph.

A hand knotted the front of Liam's tunic. “Come!” Martin hauled him to the door. Cruk clenched Errol's arm, pulled him after them. As they passed in front of the cell, the screams intensified into shrieks.

“The kingdom of Illustra is doomed! Even now your barrier is weakening. Rodran will have no successor. The three will not save you. You are not the soteregia! There is no savior and king!”

 10 
Dark Flight

H
ANDS—HE WAS UNSURE
of whose or how many—half carried, half dragged him from the prison. Martin, flanked by Cruk, crashed into the abbot, pulled the torch from his hands on his way back up the stairwell. The sounds of labored breathing and muffled screams followed them.

Questions assaulted Errol in the darkness—hit him again and again with the impact of blows. Stunned into immobility, he stopped on the stairs, and the distance between him and his companions grew until he heard the abbot and his men racing from behind to catch up. His thoughts fled from him like minnows darting in the shallows. With a shake of his head, he forced his feet back into motion, made them slap their way up the stone, back to the light.

Luis held the answers. The answers lay with the spherical stone lots the reader rarely let out of his sight. Suspicion grew in Errol's mind, and a thrill of fear rushed through him as he found himself torn between warring emotions. His curiosity gnawed at him like a live thing. Why had Martin and Luis come to Callowford? What would make a priest and a reader leave their
calling behind and live like hermits in a cabin, tucked away in a backwater village?

The questions only led him to other questions. Inevitably, he came back to the same conclusion: Luis, the man who'd laid the compulsion of the church upon him, held the answer.

They burst like a flood into the hallway next to the cathedral. Errol blinked in the light, searched for Luis. He found him, his face turned toward Martin's, whispering as the priest leaned sideways to hear. The reader's gestures, quick, jerky, spoke of his agitation. Martin nodded, curt and short, whether in agreement or acknowledgment, Errol couldn't tell.

For a moment his curiosity faded and the other emotion within Errol gained ascendancy.
Drink.
He needed a drink. He wanted nothing more than to run away and find an alehouse. Events threatened to run away from him, and they were accelerating. He didn't know how to slow them down, but he knew how to dull their impact on his nerves and emotions. He licked his lips, thirsty.

They retraced their steps back to the abbot's dining room. Errol grabbed the half-full bottle of wine still on the table. No one noticed. He took a pull from the bottle. The wine cleared the dust from his throat before it settled in his belly, where it spread warmth and peace outward.

“Idiot.” Cruk grabbed the bottle and threw it with a backhanded flip against the wall, where it shattered, spraying red wine like blood, over the wood. “Listen, boy, we may have to fight our way out of here yet. Since you can't handle a sword, you need to pretend you can. Draw your blade.”

Every man in the room held steel. Why would they fight?

Morin came through the doors flanked by the two members of the watch. They stood, tensed and coiled, eyes darting, swords forward. Martin turned, and for a long moment that Errol measured with the rise and fall of his lungs, the two groups measured each other. A kaleidoscope of emotions chased across the abbot's face before his countenance froze, masking his thoughts.

“You'll forgive me, I hope,” Morin said. At a gesture, his men sheathed their swords. His gaze passed over Errol before coming to rest on Liam. “The malus has never reacted that way to anyone's presence.”

Martin exhaled; the sound loud in the stillness of the dining room. “Yes, as you say, she is quite insane.” He inclined his head for a brief instant. “Peace be with you, Abbot.”

Moments later they rode back across the square. Errol's blood rushed with the need to dig his heels into Horace's flanks and gallop away. His neck itched with the sense of being watched. The slow clop of hooves grated, and he made to turn and look back at the cathedral.

“Don't,” Cruk snapped. He stared ahead, and for a moment Errol was unsure who the former member of the watch addressed, but the man continued, “Give the impression that we think we're out of danger.”

The group rode on. Martin contrived to have Liam surrounded. Luis rode at the front, guiding them back to the inn, where the lots remained hidden. Cruk and Errol flanked Liam on either side, and Martin brought up the rear. Liam said nothing, but Errol could see his eyes flick left and right, and he looked as often at his friends surrounding him as he did the streets ahead.

Unable to resist any longer, Errol twisted in his saddle to listen for the sound of footsteps, hoofbeats, anything that would warn they'd been followed. But nothing came. The noises of the city washed over them without lull or interruption, just as they had on the ride to the cathedral. Errol gave a mental shrug. Maybe their fears were unfounded. Perhaps Morin thought the Merakhi's outburst was nothing more than the demon-driven insanity of a possessed woman. Or if the abbot did believe the malus saw truly, he saw no need to act upon the information.

Maybe.

Errol snorted at his own reasoning. Too much of what he'd seen at the cathedral bothered him: the herbwoman, imprisoned and used as a tool; the possessed Merakhi, seductive, savage,
and insane; and Morin, hungry and calculating at the Merakhi's revelation.

The memory brought Errol up short. “Pater Martin.”

The priest, lost in thought, started, then turned toward him. A crease showed between his eyebrows. “Yes, Errol?”

“The herbwoman told me the abbot was already under the malus's influence.”

“She spoke to you?” He turned to Liam. “Did she speak to you as well?”

Liam nodded. “She said the hand of Deas was upon me.”

Martin looked unsatisfied. “Nothing else?”

Liam shook his head, but the look he gave Errol held doubt.

Errol licked his lips, unsure how to proceed. “I saw something else, Pater. When Karma spoke to Luis, Captain Balina wore the same look Knorl, the smith, gets whenever someone starts making eyes at that pretty wife of his.”

The priest's face grew serious. “Are you sure about this, boy?”

Errol nodded.

Martin looked back at Cruk. “You heard?”

Cruk nodded. “It doesn't change anything. Not unless you were planning on trusting the abbot's word and staying the night at the Dancing Man.”

“No. That would be unwise,” Martin said. He chuckled at his understatement. “I want to be out of the city before nightfall. I don't care if we have to camp out in the open without a fire.” His eyes cut toward Liam. “I don't want to be anywhere Morin or his men can put their hands on us.”

They rounded a corner. The sign depicting a man perched on the toes of one foot with both arms lifted rose before them. At last. They rode around back to the stable, where a stable hand came to take charge of their mounts.

“Water and food,” Cruk said. “Leave the saddles on. We'll be leaving within the hour.” He tossed the man a silver mark. “We'll need a bag of oats too.” He pointed to Horace. “Put it behind the saddle of that one.”

The man nodded and showed a gap-toothed smile. “Miss Hallye will be disappointed you didn't stay for dinner, Pater. She says you look like the sort of man who appreciates good food.”

Martin's face stretched into a smile, and he patted his stomach. “Your Miss Hallye is a shrewd judge of character. Unfortunately, business calls us unexpectedly away.” He turned to address the rest of them. “We should retrieve our things with haste. I suspect our safety depends upon a certain measure of alacrity.”

Luis sped toward the inn, halted, then turned and beckoned Errol after him. “I need your help carrying the lots to the horses.”

Errol felt complimented and shocked at the same time. Luis never brought those lots into the light of day, and he absolutely never, ever, let anyone besides Martin and himself carry them.

“Me?” Errol asked. “What if I drop them?”

“Don't. I've spent the better part of four years making them as perfect as craft and talent can.”

Errol followed him up the wooden staircase to the rooms they had rented but wouldn't be using. Under the bed, in two ordinary-looking crates, lay the stones so precious to the reader.

“Why didn't you leave them with the innkeeper to guard?” Errol asked.

Luis shrugged around the crate cradled to his chest. “There was no need. No one can read the lots except for the one who made them.”

“Or another reader,” Errol said.

Luis gave him a long look. “Yes, of course.” He made for the door. “We should get down to the stable.”

They descended the stairs, each with a padded crate on his back, and found Cruk seated at a table, a fresh tankard of ale sweating in front of him. Martin and Liam sat on either side. None of them appeared to be in a hurry.

“Have a seat,” Cruk said. He gestured with his head toward two chairs across from him. One was empty, the other piled with dark cloaks.

Errol sat down, sandwiched between Luis and Liam.

Cruk took a pull from his tankard as he looked out of the left corner of his eyes. “The inn's being watched. Don't look out the window! Morin's got at least two men out there I can see, which means there's at least another four that I can't see.”

“He didn't waste any time,” Liam said. In the depths of his eyes, Errol saw something in them he'd never seen before; he saw doubt.

Martin leaned toward Cruk. “Could we ride through them to the city gates?”

Cruk shook his head before Martin finished. He glanced at Liam. “Not with any guarantee of keeping everyone safe. A couple of bowmen on the rooftops and they could pick us off at their leisure.”

“Can we sneak our way out?” Luis asked.

“If Morin has any sense, probably not.” He sighed, his massive chest lifted with the effort. “Still, it's the only thing I can think to try.” He gave an inquiring glance at Martin, who nodded.

“We'll have to wait for dark and make our way out the back,” Cruk continued. “We'll leave one at a time. I'll go out first on some pretext and try to draw as many away from the rear as I can. The rest of you follow.” He looked toward Martin. “How do you want to order everyone?”

“I'll follow you. Liam will come behind me. Then Errol and Luis can come.”

“I think I'd like to precede Errol out, just to make sure the way is clear,” Luis said.

He offered nothing further, but Errol sensed the reader would not negotiate on this point.

Martin must have caught the hint of iron in Luis's voice as well. After a momentary silence, he nodded and turned back to Cruk. “How do we get the horses?”

“I'll have the hands take them to the west gate. They'll hold them there until we arrive.” He looked at Luis, his face as close to apologetic as Errol had ever seen it. He pointed at the crates.
“You'll need to send those ahead with the horses, Tremus. I'm sorry.”

Luis's face blanched until it reached the color of boiled fish, but he jerked a nod. “Morin must not get his hands on the lots. Where will we go from here?”

Cruk's lumpy face hardened until it looked like flint. He signaled two men by the door who took the crates out to the stable. Then he reached into his tunic, withdrew a map, and smoothed it out on the table in front of them. One thick forefinger pointed at a large dot. “This is Windridge.” The finger traced a path west. “And here's Haven Mirk. It's two days hard ride from here, but there's grass and water to be found on the way for the horses. If we get separated, we'll meet up there.” He lifted his head, and his stare found Errol. “Whatever you do, make sure you're not followed.”

Errol nodded and tried to swallow past a sudden tightness in his throat.

Apparently satisfied, Cruk turned his attention to the rest of their party. “It'll be dark in two hours. Let's not give Morin's men any suspicions. We'll stay here and eat, as if we planned on staying the night, before setting out.”

Martin gave a grim chuckle. “It looks like I'll have the opportunity to sample Miss Hallye's fare after all.”

Dinner arrived an hour later. The smells drifted across the edges of Errol's thoughts. The meal probably lived up to the stable hand's boast, but worry quenched his hunger, and the few bites he raised to his mouth tasted like ashes. When the serving girl arrived moments later with a pitcher of ale, he perked up.