Cordimancy (28 page)

Toril nodded. “I agree. I need to speak with Rovin, and with the priest; maybe we can ask your sister to corroborate what we learn from the others, to be sure we get an accurate picture.”

Malena motioned to a stack of vellum on a desk in the corner. “Do you suppose we should write out our messages now, while we wait?”

Toril pursed his lips. “Not sure they’d appreciate that. What if the Voice needs to do the writing herself, because she’s a hand?”

There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, so Malena paced back and forth, composing a message in her head. She was just preparing to break the silence again, after her second mental draft, when the door was flung open.

A smooth-scalped shimsal stood in the doorway, flanked by four guards with swords. Her eyes swept the room, lingered briefly on Toril’s staff, and came to rest on Malena.

“You!” exclaimed Toril.

The shimsal smiled with sinister slowness. “That was my twin in Bakar, not me,” she said. “Although I saw and heard it all.”

Malena's heart began to pound. Her mind raced. If this shimsal knew of the war council, then Gorumim had likely been here when it took place, proxied through this very Voice. They’d hoped to surprise the general by reaching Two Forks first—but he’d been here days ago. What plans had he laid? What friends had he gathered?

Toril stepped in front of her and brought his staff to the ready. "Explain yourselves," he said.

The shimsal snorted. "An explanation is not what you'll be getting from us. Or from General Gorumim, when he arrives." She gestured for the guards to enter the room. They fanned out inside the door and began edging forward.

Malena responded to Toril's hand signal by backing into a corner. He followed, but stopped a pace farther forward, where he could swing the staff freely but the walls had converged enough to limit flanking by attackers.

"I am Kelun's Clan Chief," Toril growled. "Arresting me without charges, without due process, is an insult and a provocation that you'd do well to avoid."

"Is that so? Gorumim put you in a cell once before; who protested? And who would be upset this time—the same army who's ridden at your side through the wilderness? Or the priest that you imagined would be lighting a fire under Rovin?"

Malena watched a small tic ripple along her husband’s jaw.

The shimsal snickered. “I’m afraid he didn’t help your cause much. He called a meeting of the town elders, said you were the only leader of the clan with any integrity. He proposed that the sturdiest men in Sotalio ride out right away to your aid.”

“And?”

“And then three of Rovin’s lieutenants stepped forward, saying they’d seen him whispering with a handful of the yolk suckers at the edge of town at dawn. You can imagine the chaos that caused. I hear they almost lynched him.”

Malena noticed that her hand now held a dagger. She didn’t remember drawing it. It was shaking, but she swallowed and tried to keep her voice steady. "We're just trying to rescue some children. Why should that make us enemies?"

One of the approaching men lunged. Toril's staff swept around his sword tip in a blur and caught him in the shoulder, spinning him and dropping him to his knees. He grunted in pain.

"So. You actually know how to use that thing," the shimsal said.

"Try me.”

“Why not just surrender? You’ll be treated well while we await Gorumim’s arrival.”

Malena heard Toril puff out an indignant breath.

“Don’t imagine you can accomplish anything by fighting,” the shimsal said. She raised a hand and beckoned around the door frame.

A man with a crossbow stepped into view and saluted. His weapon was cocked. At a gesture, he knelt and drew a bead on Toril.

“My instructions are to deliver you both, but in a pinch it doesn’t have to be alive. I assume that means he intends to execute you sooner or later, but on the off chance that he might let you live, I’m giving you the opportunity to surrender, just because I’ll sleep better tonight if I have. Don’t try my patience or my mercy further.”

For a dozen heartbeats, the room was silent. The tension in Toril’s posture did not ease.

Malena looked back and forth between the bowman’s face and the shimsal’s. When she saw a tightening of the woman’s eyes, she stepped forward and touched her husband on the shoulder.

37

a visitor in the dungeon ~ Malena

Malena
huddled on her heels, head down. Toril’s feet continued their steady scuffing. He’d crisscrossed the cell hundreds of times in the past hour, but he hadn’t spoken. The look on his face was equal parts despair and fury. Was he angry with her for caving to the shimsal? Surely they’d had no choice. It had kept them alive a little longer...

Her stomach twisted. The nausea that she’d felt earlier was back in full force.

She wondered what would happen when Gorumim arrived. Would he kill her with magic, as he’d tried to do when she lay on a deathbed in the ruins of Noemi? Maybe she would feel a vile external presence crowding into her body, as she’d sensed during the battle with the wolves. Maybe he would slit her throat and drink the lifeblood. Or maybe he would just kill her as fast as possible, and put her out of her misery.

She wrapped trembling hands around her ankles and rocked.

She had wanted to be dead, not many days ago…

Would he kill Toril as well? Gorumim had tangled with him once before, and chosen to lock him up rather than have him executed—and the general had said it was to give him a chance to cooperate.

She tried to imagine her husband, after she was gone, making peace with Gorumim, retreating with wounded pride and a vow to cooperate. Perhaps he’d find some other young bride who wasn’t damaged beyond all repair, who still had some part of herself to give... He could write off this whole sorry episode as a nightmare best forgotten.

But she knew such thinking was madness. Even if he could swallow the death of the strange woman who’d been his wife in name only, these past few days, Toril would never back down about the children. She remembered the look on his face as he’d buried the little girl on the hillside above Noemi, and again when they’d found the quattroglyph...

No.

She was breathing now because he’d sacrificed his magic to save her life. It made no sense to her, and a part of her still resented it. She’d asked to be left alone. She’d died to him on the floor of the stable, and he’d thought he could bring her back. He still thought he could bring her back!

He was wrong, but he was not about to change his mind now.

No.

He would not make any accommodation with the general.

And the general would not offer, anyway.

Had Shivi and Paka and Oji arrived in town, yet? And if so, had they walked into a trap like the one that captured her?

She wondered what news might she have had of her parents, or of Tupa, if things had turned out differently with the Voice.

Was Tupa among the children that even now approached this town? Did Tupa know that her captors intended her death, as surely as they planned that of her older sister?

Toril stopped.

Malena looked up, using both palms to rub the moisture out of her eyes.

He was standing at the door to their cell, hands against the grate at eye level, staring.

“What is it?” she asked. Her voice sounded hoarse.

“Someone’s coming to see us, I think.”

Malena’s pulse lurched.

She unbent stiff legs and stood. She could hear keys jangling. Toril was stepping back. She raised eyebrows at him; he wrinkled his forehead.

For the second time in as many hours, a door swung in from the outside, revealing the shimsal and some guards. The expression on the bald woman’s face was inscrutable. She did not lock eyes with either of her prisoners, but stepped into the cell with an air of confidence.

“I need a private conference,” she said to the guards. She coughed as she spoke, and her voice sounded raspy. “Wait for us at the end of the hall.”

The guards nodded, withdrew, and closed and locked the door.

As soon as they were out of earshot, the shimsal turned to Malena.

Except it was not the shimsal.

The woman’s features seemed to melt and flicker. One moment she had the beginning of wrinkles above her cheekbones; the next, deep creases and age spots covered her jaw and forehead, and her eyebrows were peppered with gray. Her eyes shifted between a light hazel and deep umber. Iron hair seemed to sprout from her bald pate, then fade, then reassert itself.

At first she appeared almost as tall as Malena, but within a few moments, she stood quite a bit shorter, with rounded, worn shoulders.

The shimsal became Shivi.

She held two fingers to her lips in a gesture for quiet, then swayed slightly. Toril caught her as a knee bent, and she sank into a half-kneeling crouch.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

“Just… tired.”

“How did you...” Malena murmured.

Shivi raised her eyebrows. “Become the Voice? I’ve been weaving spells... into bridal braids for years, making women look their best on wedding nights. Remember the flowers I gave you a few nights back?” She snorted. “‘Course, taking forty years off my bones... was a bit harder than blushing a young woman’s cheeks a bit. Completely wore me out.”

“How did you find us?”

“Whole town’s abuzz. First thing we heard about when we stepped off the ferry.”

“Ferry? We left money with a girl who had a boat,” Toril said.

Shivi sighed. “She must have been the one waiting for us on a rock at the last bend in the road. Took off like a scared rabbit when she saw Oji. It’s just as well—we realized he couldn’t come across with us, which saved some trouble when the ferry got around to picking us up.”

“Everybody here is foaming at the mouth about the half lives,” Toril observed.

“Yes. We left Oji hiding at the edge of the forest, waiting to spy out what happens when Gorumim shows up. Hika’s with him. Those two seem to understand each other in a way that’s almost eerie.”

“Think the general will let people see his osipi escort?”

“As prisoners, maybe. Or else he’ll leave them across the river. Once Oji knows what’s up, he plans to find a boat and sneak across the river after dark, and meet us on the bluff just north of town. We’ll know more, then.”

“I wish we had some way to let him know we’re stuck in this cell,” Malena said.

“Can’t be helped,” said Shivi. “But we can still make the rendezvous, Five willing.”

“You came with a plan?” Toril asked hopefully.

Shivi smiled. “I turn Malena into the shimsal and she walks out. Once she’s gone, we make a ruckus. The guards peek in, realize Malena’s escaped, and rush out to find her. In the chaos, Paka palms the keys and lets us out.”

"You've got Paka waiting out there somewhere?" Toril said.

"Not as hard as it sounds. All the younger men in town are drafted, or riding with the prefect to get new recruits. Just a few graybeards left, and most of them are volunteers with no training and no uniform. A few are in town from the highlands for the muster, so they don’t even know each other all that well. We borrowed a sash and a spear when someone got careless in the market, and Paka just strolled up and announced that he was detailed to help guard you. He must have offered to share his wineskin; his partners looked a bit tipsy when I walked by just now."

“Sounds... possible.”

“It sounds a lot better than sitting in this cell,” Malena corrected. “But can you pull off your part? Can Paka do his?”

“I think so.” Shivi pulled a knife from a pouch at her waist and held it up. “But I need to cut your hair.”

Malena’s forehead wrinkled.

“Not all of it,” the old woman whispered with a smile. She pointed at a thumb-sized patch of bare skin behind her own ear. “Just enough for a symbol. If I’m going to make you bald, a little starter spot will make the work a lot easier.”

Malena bent her head, shivering as steel slid across the nape of her neck. There was a brief painful tug at some roots. Then Shivi discarded a tuft of hair, tucked the knife away again, and reached out with strong, bony fingers to rub Malena’s scalp. She began to hum—a queer, tuneless melody that sounded at once exotic and strangely familiar.

After a few moments, Toril sucked in his breath.

“What?” Malena asked. “What do you see?”

“She’s pushing the baldness out from that one spot. It’s covering your head a little more every time she pushes. Kind of like a baker stretching dough.”

Shivi smiled. Her fingers continued to work. The humming went on.

Gradually, Malena felt a numbness beginning to seep across her temples. The muscles in her cheekbones stretched. Her lips thinned. The curve of her forehead shifted. She could no longer feel hair on her shoulders.

Shivi pushed Malena’s eyes closed and rubbed across the lids. “Now this,” she said, shrugging off the cloak she’d worn as she approached their cell.

Malena removed the woolen cloak that hung heavy with coins from Corim, tossed the new one across her shoulders instead, and stood, monitoring her husband’s face to gauge the extent of her transformation.

“Wow!” he mouthed.

“You’ll pass,” Shivi said, her voice sounding a bit shaky. “But I can’t maintain it for long, so summon the guard now, and leave as soon as they let you out. Duck into a dark corner somewhere so nobody notices when your appearance changes. Then head for the bluff and find a good hiding place there, where you can watch for the rest of us to come.” She touched Malena on the arm. “The less you talk, the better; I saw the shimsal from a distance, and I’ve had a lot of practice weaving spells of appearance. But I’ve never heard the woman speak, so I couldn’t do anything about my voice when I came in. I got away with it by coughing a bit. With luck you can just stay quiet.”

Shivi limped to the back corner of the cell, where a casual glance from the guards might assume she was the younger woman.

Malena felt a thudding in her chest. She walked to the door and tapped on the bars.